• Published 16th Jul 2016
  • 1,225 Views, 30 Comments

Brave Nocturne - Eruantalon



Young Luna has plans for her new dreamwalking. She wants to play with her big sister, and she wants to even help Princess Twilight - but Headmaster Spike has other ideas, like friendship.

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Partially Awake

Author's Note:

Thank you, everyone who favorited this story - I'd thank you individually if I had a better way than spamming your userpages. And thanks again to my betas, BrokenImage321, OkemosBrony, and AShadowOfCygnus

MLP is still owned by Hasbro.

Headmaster Spikendar stared at me for almost a full minute, not even blinking his great reptilian eyes, before he laid a forepaw on his desk, almost enveloping it entirely. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "The Princess has lived with her sorrow for nigh on a millennium, and many ponies..." He paused with a puff of smoke, seeming to be choking back a word. "...have tried and failed to comfort her." Another puff of smoke. "What makes you think you can succeed?"

I stamped my hoof. "I don't know, but I'll try!" I frantically rifled through my mind, trying to find something to back up my sudden claim. "The minds of alicorns are very different from regular ponies, right? So no dreamwalker's been able to find Princess Twilight's dreams, so if I can, I might be able to help her!"

Spikendar slowly, reluctantly, nodded. "What you say is true, and seeing you in her dreams would at least be a surprise to her..."

"And won't she be happy when she finds somepony has actually learned from her play?"

A great rumbling sounded in Spikendar's throat, like rocks were shaking. The dragon was actually laughing. "Yes, Luna, that would make Twilight happy. At least for a while."

I flipped back through my notebook for a minute, waiting for Spikendar to recover from his laughter. "So..." I finally prompted.

"So." He nodded in agreement. "Very well, then. If that is your goal, I shall not attempt to stymie you." He paused. "And while you are here, perhaps we should look at your course selection for the next semester?"

My ears went up in surprise. "That's all you're going to say? You aren't going to help me? I thought you and Twilight were friends!"

He nodded, blowing out more smoke. If it wasn't for the air-freshening spells, I would probably have been coughing by now. "Yes, Luna, we were friends." I thought I could see a tear in his eye, before he blinked it away.

"Anyways," he continued, "regarding your course selection. Your history teacher reports that, despite your knowledge of some facts, you have been most inattentive and poorly-behaved in class."

"Well, if she'd actually read something interesting -" I protested.

The dragon's raised claw silenced me. "Therefore, I am forced to recommend you stay with your classmates for the next course in the Introduction to History sequence."

My heart plummeted. Another semester of pastel picturebooks.

Spikendar looked at me, seemingly impassive. There were a lot of dragon emotions I still couldn't read. "And though your performance in Mathematics is very acceptable..."

"But what about dreamwalking?" I burst out.

Spikendar blew a small puff of smoke.

"Aren't you at least going to give me some suggestions, like you did before? How to get better? Don't you want me to be able to help Princess Twilight?"

The dragon's claws clenched shut on the edge of his desk. The wood cracked beneath them. He growled, "Perhaps your classmates can teach you the next lesson better than I can."

The bell rang.

Spikendar gestured emphatically for the door.

Giving my instincts free rein, I galloped away from the angry dragon.


I tried to sit with my classmates at lunch. I really tried. But, Babs Seed laughed at me as soon as I sat down, with some incomprehensible joke about the salad Celly had packed for me. Somehow, all the other fillies and colts around seemed to get the joke... and I seized my salad in my magic and trotted away. Whatever puzzle Spikendar had set for me, it couldn't have been this.

Still, after what he'd said, I couldn't let myself just eat by myself in front of a book again. In the end, I walked over to where Celly was sitting with three of her friends... two of them not quite the same ponies as in last night's dream, but it was the same spot. "May I?" I mumbled, salad-bowl in front of me.

"Of course!" Celly flashed me her sunniest smile and nudged the colt next to her - Sunburst - to move over.

He did, and I sat down, chomping on salad greens to cover my silence as the conversation started up again. Apparently, from what I heard, Celly had promised this morning to help clear the clouds away for a hurdles race Sunburst was running in tomorrow. Her friends started chattering excitedly about the races; I grunted and took another mouthful of salad.

"And how did your morning go, Lulu?" Celly bent down to nuzzle my mane.

I took the excuse to swallow before answering. "Spikendar said I'd need to stay with my history class for another semester."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

Another pegasus mare, whose name I didn't remember, tossed back her head. "Maybe you should try actually making friends with your classmates?"

I shook my head. "What in all Equestria would I talk to them about?"

"It might not be so bad once you get your cutie mark too -"

Celestia and I both shook our heads emphatically. Celly's sunny disposition hadn't changed since she got her sun cutie mark, neither had Lightning Dust's speed since getting her lightning bolt; why would anything change for me when I got mine?

After a brief pause, Sunburst said, "I'm sure there's somepony there who would want to be your friend. I know my friend's brother Party Favor is excited about magic..."

I snorted. "That colt who disrupts the whole class with his antics every week?"

Sunburst shrugged. "Well, he does like studying magic."

"For his pranks, maybe."

Celly interrupted. "Did you get a chance to ask Spikendar about your project?"

I hung my head. "He won't help me any more."

"What?" Everypony gasped.

"Celly's been telling us -" Sunburst started.

"He says I need to talk to my classmates," I snapped. "Not to him."


"... and even if it wouldn't help with this problem, it'd help with you."

"Please, Celestia!" Between my dejection and Celly's attempts to be helpful, the walk home from school had never seemed so long.

"All right, Lulu." She enveloped me for a moment in her wings. "I just want to help you. And I don't want to see you so glum."

I knew that - she was always the best friend around. It didn't help.

We continued in silence for a bit as I continued turning things over in my mind. Ever since I'd said it off the top of my head, the idea of walking into Princess Twilight's dreams had actually been sounding better and better to me. It was more exciting than just vague ideas of research with the Princess's Research Mages, and I could at least try to do it a lot sooner. Maybe, if I taught myself to dreamwalk with all sorts of ponies and other animals, I'd be able to find my way into an alicorn's dreams even without studying alicorns specifically? It probably wouldn't work... but I'd need to do it anyway, to improve my dreamwalking. That meant a lot more studying.

Celly interrupted my thoughts. "Don't forget, you get to tell Mother and Father you can dreamwalk!"

I made a face. "Not tonight, Celly."

"Why not?" She looked at me with concern.

I pawed at a pebble on the path. "I just don't have time for them now."

"I know they can be difficult, but they're our parents. And they do love us, even if -"

" - even if they want to drive me into all sorts of social games."

"They want you to have friends. In their own way, at least."

I snorted. "They sure don't sound like that's what they mean. But anyway, I need to be studying tonight, especially if Spikendar's randomly decided I need to shelve my project and start making friends instead."

We walked on a few steps before Celly answered. "I think... you could think of it as another project. There're many classes in a school, many things that go into making up an educated pony. And Spikendar's concerned with all of them."

"And friendship?"

"It helps you..." She flicked her tail. "It's a good thing. It's good for you, just like eating carrots."

I cocked my head. "You mean eating alfalfa?"

"No, carrots."

"But carrots taste good!"

"Yes!" Celestia beamed. "And having friends is fun! And it's good for you too - it helps you fit into the world, and check your plans with others, and keep your mind and magic healthy. Of course Spikendar wants you to make friends - it's even more important than learning math! He cares about you!"

I peered at this weird framework in my mind's eye. I couldn't dismiss it at once, except for the part about the Headmaster himself. "I... I think he's really upset with me."

Celly stopped dead still. "What happened, Lulu?"

"I... I asked him about Princess Twilight. And I said I wanted to help her after her brother was banished. And..." I hung my head, but if I could tell anypony, it was Celly. "... and I asked if he cared about anypony helping her."

"Oh, Lulu!" She nuzzled me. For once, I didn't mind at all. "I'm sure he does care about her, but I'm also sure he knows what's best for her. They were almost brother and sister, once."

I leaned against Celly's neck. He hadn't told me that part, but I should've guessed something like it after I'd found a reference to Princess Twilight's monograph on dragon eggs. "And then he got really upset and growled at me to get back to class."

"Don't worry, Lulu; he's a good dragon. I'm sure he'll be over it tomorrow, or at least next week."
I closed my eyes, as if to lose myself in Celly’s coat. "I don't think so. You haven't worked with him as much as I have."


Mother and Father came home all excited about breaking news from the Princess's Research Mages: they'd discovered a new medicinal use for zap apples. The Princess was sponsoring lectures about it throughout Equestria, and they were invited to one tomorrow night. Celly gave me a meaningful look at that point, but I shrugged it off and went back to Minds and Magic. The friendship project - if it was really an important project - could wait for later. Now that Spikendar wasn't talking to me, this book was my best bet.

It wasn't a very good one, though. By the time I cast the alarm-spell on myself in my bed that night, I had little better hopes than the previous night. Though, still, that had been a breakthrough...

Some time later - one can't very well tell time in dreams - the crystal cavern I was lying in (which looked suspiciously like the Headmaster's office) broke into shards, leaving the fields of dreaming open to me. I looked up from the Headmaster's desk at a few clouds floating above me, shining with otherwise-nonexistent sunlight, and the vague outline of a few grassy paths against the mist. According to Twilight's play, nearly everything I saw here would be metaphorical. The sunlit clouds would almost certainly lead me to Celly's dream. The grassy paths might be almost anypony else; I'd need to go down them to see.

I picked a path at random and trotted down it. The mist settled around me, about three yards away, and Celly's clouds kept pace above me. Unfortunately, my horn started aching again... and I still hadn't found any actual dream. Reluctantly, I turned back.

On the second path, I saw a boxing glove before my horn made me turn back. I didn't know who that was; probably one of my classmates. (It wouldn't be another neighbor; Twilight had also taken pains to point out that personal familiarity was at least as important as distance from the dreamer.) On the third path, I found my father's monocle hanging in the mist. I sat on my haunches, wondering whether I even wanted to enter his dream. I could probably pass unnoticed, if I wanted to see it; it'd taken a while for Celly to recognize it was the real me...

My growing hornache decided things. I pranced up in the air (it was a dream, after all) toward Celly's clouds, determined to end the night with at least one success.



Celly was lounging on a cloud tonight, with nothing but pure blue between the sun on her flank and the sun in the sky. But next to her was Sunburst.

"Hello, Celly!" I waved as I jumped onto the cloud.

Celly and Sunburst both started as she saw me. "What're you doing -" Celly checked herself, glanced at Sunburst's bare forelocks, and smiled. "Ah, this's a dream. I should've noticed Sunburst didn't have a cloudwalking bracelet this time."

"This time?" I shied. "You've done this before?"

She flung one wing over me and the other over Dream-Sunburst. "Of course. I could fly you up tomorrow after school if you want."

"But the hurdles race," I reminded her.

"I could have you on my back anyway?"

I shook my head as the pain throbbed in it. "I'd just slow you down. Anyway... my head's starting to hurt again, and I'd rather end this myself than have it throw me out of here again. Good morning."


Father peered over his monocle at me when I came into the library again. "This makes almost a week you've been studying, Luna. I'm starting to get concerned about you."

"Oh?" I made my best "Face of Perfect Innocence," as Celly'd termed it some years back when I was still trying to sneak into the cookies.

"Studying magic theory is entirely commendable, but your mother and I have higher hopes for you than to be a scholarly recluse."

It was a familiar refrain. I tried a new protest this time. "But the Princess studies just as much -"

"The Princess has her many cares," Father interrupted, holding a pen high in his magic as if to stab home the point. "But you do not need to bear all Equestria on your back. You can enjoy the advantages of Spikendar's Institute, and establish connections which will be most important -"

"But I am enjoying them! I'm connecting with all the books in the library! And Spikendar himself -"

"I was speaking of other ponies, scions of notable families throughout Equestria, whom it will be very advantageous for you to know." His pen punctuated that last line like a conductor's baton.

I hung my head. I couldn't reply now without getting into dreamwalking, and that would lead to a very embarrassing conversation I really didn't want to have now. "I think I'll help Celly with breakfast," I mumbled.

Celly smiled at me when I walked in and offered to help. "Of course. If you could beat these eggs? I've got a nice fruit salad for lunch, but I'm still making some pancakes for breakfast..."

After some nice repetitious egg-beating, she asked, "Did your studying get you down again?"

I shook my head. "Father."

"Oh." She plunked down the mixing-bowl on the counter to give me a quick hug.

A few minutes of silent work later, I ventured, "What's with you and Sunburst?"

Her white cheeks flushed almost as pink as her mane. "We're really good friends!"

"Friends?" I asked, grinning. "Didn't you say that's a good thing?"

"Well, yes, and..." She turned back to beat the batter furiously.


History class moved on from the two known alicorns to various myths and legends about other alicorns who might've existed in the shadowy Pre-Discordian era. Father had mentioned once that the Princess frowned on teaching legends in history class, but Headmaster Spikendar insisted it'd be beneficial. Myself, I didn't mind one way or another - both were presented far too childishly for me to get any benefit from at all. And even if these hypothetical Pre-Discordian alicorns had been real, none of them had left any useful notes on how alicorn minds worked (or notes on anything else, for that matter.)


My other classes were better than that, as usual. Party Favor set off a gale of confetti in physics class, causing the teacher to set us all to cleaning it up while she instantly changed the lesson plan to use it as an object lesson in Brownian motion and, hence, the randomness of microphysics. To their credit, Party Favor and several other classmates of mine actually seemed interested... but when I approached him in the hall afterwards to ask if he wanted to talk about Brownian motion some more, he pulled a whistle from somewhere and blew it as he shook his head, while Lightning Dust laughed in the background.

After that, I didn't even bother to approach Headmaster Spikendar. Even if Celly had been right... how in all Equestria would it help me to be friends with ponies like these?

Celly herself was waiting for me outside my last class when school got out. "Do you want to go flying with me?"

The hurdles race was in just an hour. I shook my head. "Go clear the sky for your friends."

"But I can do it with you on my back? Please come with me?"

I paused. "Sure, I'll be on the ground. I might as well bring my books out there."



The race was no more boring than usual, but also no more interesting. Some ponies were galloping around the oval track while jumping over some obstacles. I hadn't the least idea why everypony else was cheering so much. An Earth Pony named Emerald Rich won, with Sunburst a narrow second; they proceeded to the front of the stands amid more cheering for a teacher to put medals around their necks, while I tried to flip through a book from the school library that was looking like it'd be even more useless than Minds and Magic.

Then Celly dove down from the air right next to Sunburst... and he reached out his muzzle and kissed her on the lips.

And she kissed him back.