• Published 1st Dec 2017
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The Folly Of Princesses - Steel Resolve



After more centuries than either cares to admit, the Royal Sisters have found love once more. Neither quite know what to do about it.

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Chapter 8: Figments

Sleep was an old friend to Celestia, and she enjoyed it whenever possible. In recent years she’d been able to enjoy more of it, as her sister took up at least some of the day to day governance, and of course, she’d been getting even more while recuperating from the massive magic expenditure required to cure Rarity of her magically induced affliction.

Dreams, on the other hoof, were not. After banishing her sister, the one duty she’d been utterly unable to take on in her sister’s stead had been that of Defender of Dreams. Even moving the moon had proven less difficult. Not only could she not act in Luna’s stead, but Celestia herself had found that to dream was to open herself to nightmares without end. For over a millenia she’d protected herself with powerful magicks, unable to face the wrath of her sister’s realm in her absence.

Even now, she felt a trace of the old fears as she disabled charms meant to shield her mind as she slumbered. She trusted Luna, but experiencing the ravages of the Dream Realm as she had in the wake of Luna’s banishment was something she did not wish on anypony. A lesser pony would have gone quite mad.

“It’s a good thing you are not a lesser pony.” her own personal madness said, staring at her from the opposite side of the bed.

Celestia blinked.

“I thought you might like a gradual transition before jumping haunch-deep into dreams,” Astra said with a wink.

“Must you look like me?” Celestia asked eventually.

“To be honest, I’m not much to look at. This was the form you gave me when you sought me in your dreams, and...” Astra paused, smiling apologetically. “Well, when you tried to murder me.”

Celestia frowned, uncertain how she was meant to respond.

“I’m not blaming you, Celestia,” Astra said quickly. “But as I told you that day; I have no form other than the one you yourself give me.”

“You chose your own name,” Celestia replied. “Is a new form so difficult?”

“I...” Astra paused, tapping a hoof to her chin. “To be honest, I’ve never thought about it that way. When not in your dreams I have no need of one. Let me try something.”

The tall white alicorn stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes. Her form blurred and shrunk in on itself, taking on different but still familiar proportions. The long multihued mane became shorter, and overwhelmingly pink. The overall body became smaller, plumper, and younger.

“Is this better?” the fillyish pony asked as she opened her wide glistening eyes and spoke with the voice that Celestia had come to associate with Astra.

Celestia stared down, reflecting on just how adorable she’d apparently been as a filly. “That... that will do.”

Astra stood up, stumbling slightly as she tried to get her legs under her. “I... I think I like this body. It’s lighter, and...” she paused feeling the give of the bed under her hooves, and gave an experimental hop. “Oh my...” she hopped again. “Oh! That is fun!

Celestia just watched for a time, reasoning that since she was dreaming, time was very much not of the essence. After what she judged to be several minutes, she finally asked: “Have you had enough for now?”

Astra, still bouncing with a look of intense pleasure, replied: “You’re just jealous that you couldn’t do this without breaking the bed.”

“I...” Celestia trailed off, uncertain how to respond, because it was somewhat true. “Are you saying I’m fat?” she eventually asked.

Astra halted herself mid-bounce, giving Celestia a serious look that came off looking very silly from the body she had assumed. “I’m saying you’re large, Celestia. We both know you have proportions other ponies aspire to have, most never realizing it takes special physiology to attain.”

“You’re not answering my question...” Celestia said with a frown.

Astra rolled her eyes. “If you’re expecting me to tell you that you might want to skip a serving or two of cake, I think you’ve misunderstood what I am. You’ll have to dig a little deeper into your mind if you want somepony to encourage you to have self-control.”

Celestia’s frown deepened, and she let out a little huff of annoyance.

Astra hopped down off the bed, saying: “Actually, now that we're talking about it, lets go downstairs and have some cake.”

“I'm dreaming, what would be the point?" Celestia demanded.

Astra blinked, then smiled. In the next moment, a multi-layered, multi-flavored cake hovered between them both. "Good point. We don't even have to leave the bed!"

"No, I mean... you can't really eat in a dream..." Celestia managed to say while watching Astra take a large chunk out of one side.

"I can't eat at all,” Astra countered. “But I know cake tastes good from your memories, and that's enough to enjoy the act of eating it.”

"But—"

"Besides, here you can eat without worrying about getting 'larger.'" Astra said, sticking out her tongue to lap at the dollop of frosting on her nose.

Celestia stared at the cake. It was a thing of decadence, covered in multihued frosting, adorned with fresh fruit and donut sprinkles, and topped with what appeared to be chocolate-covered pretzels. It was everything she normally tried to avoid at silly dinner parties thrown by nobles, clearly the work of a madpony. Under no circumstances would she have ever allowed herself within a dozen yards of such a thing while in public.

Her eyes briefly shifted to Astra, who was standing next to the thing with a big smile, seemingly very pleased with herself. It was the simple joy in that smile that made Celestia reconsider just ignoring the monstrosity. It couldn’t hurt to try it, after all. She got down off of the bed and trotted towards the floating confection.

Celestia took an experimental bite, and as the first flood of flavor hit her tongue her eyes opened wide.

“Do you like it?” Astra asked, hopping up and down as she watched Celestia chew. “I had only your memories to go on, but the instances of cake could fill volumes in real pages. I decided this one should taste like every other cake you’ve ever eaten.”

“That... should be disgusting...” Celestia said after finishing the bite in her mouth.

“Yes, well, cake should never taste bad, so I simply imagined all of the flavors meshing together in perfect harmony,” Astra said with a grin and a wink. “Being a thing of pure thought is quite useful in dreams. So, what do you think?”

“You may have ruined cake for me.” Celestia said.

“Let’s not be silly,” Astra said, sticking her tongue out and blowing a raspberry at Celestia.

“I am being serious,” Celestia replied. “I don’t think mortal hooves could ever achieve this.”

“Nor should they try, or they would go mad in the attempt!” Astra said with a cackle. “But let us be honest with each other. You enjoy simplicity in your cakes far more than complexity. Thank you for indulging me.”

“I’m going to have to ask the kitchen staff to get creative the next time I have them make me a snack,” Celestia replied. She looked regretfully at the cake. Calling it a unique experience was not quite right, as she had literally tasted every type of cake that this amalgam was composed of, yet they were obviously not intended to be enjoyed in quite this way. The mere concept of such a thing was alarming, and only the fact that it did not truly exist helped her cope.

Astra pouted, then banished the cake from existence. “Fine, we’ll get down to business. It’s more fun when you actually eat things, anyway. It makes for new memories.”

Celestia nodded gratefully. “For what it’s worth, that was very interesting, and it’s helped make me feel like being a bit more adventurous with my pastries might be interesting.”

Astra frowned at her, muttering something about hoping to inspire adventurous behavior elsewhere, but after a moment she was smiling again. “I suppose if you pull off this little behind-the-scenes helper routine more interesting things should follow. Let’s go see Luna, then!”

Celestia nodded, then with a brief burst of thought she ‘teleported’ outside of the library. Astra followed suit after a moment.

“So, what did you have in mind to contact her?” Astra asked after a moment.

“I thought I might go to her,” Celestia replied.

“Oh? And how did you plan to get there?”

This question gave Celestia pause. Her first thought had been Canterlot, and the one that followed had been simple flight. She supposed she could fly faster than normal, perhaps even add some acceleration spells. But the idea of her current environs not being real, despite appearances, gave her another idea.

Light form was not something she used often, or indeed at all of late history. Converting one’s entire form into energy and moving at something that started at the speed of light was not something you needed to do to get to the donut shop, after all. True, she’d used it on occasion to visit the outer edges of her little solar system while she waited for more interesting things to begin to happen on her world, but she hadn’t felt the need to venture past into the vast field of stars that were more her sister’s domain.

As a rule, if one needed to get to a place quickly, one teleported. If you weren’t needed there instantaneously, there was always carriage or, in her case, flight.

All in all, this form had more drawbacks than advantages, not the least of which being that there was a nonzero chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, and a very high likelihood of alarming thousands of easily alarmed little ponies. That being said, there was something to be said for its uses in a space that was not defined by pesky things like physics.

Astra flew beside her, looking at her curiously. Her eyes widened as Celestia’s inner light encapsulated all of her form, then her physical form dissolved, and in the next instant, Celestia was just outside the window of her own court.

Behind her was a trail of fire and budding thunderstorms rolling out from her wake that surely would have impressed the few who were not convinced it heralded their doom. Air, like water, did not like being displaced so quickly, and tended to collapse back together with a lot of noise. Celestia was confronted with Astra directly in front of her clapping her forehooves together and whistling.

“Bravo! Encore! Encore!” Astra said with a huge, unrepentant grin. “When on earth did you learn to do that?”

“Nevermind,” Celestia replied with a smile that was just a little smug. “If you really want to know, you’ll have to dig quite far into the past.”

Astra nodded, and peered into the window with interest. “Do you think Luna will be in there?”

“Not until later. Given that she is likely keeping different hours while I am in Ponyville, I would expect her to be asleep at these hours. Which should mean she is in her bedroom.” Celestia said as she flew upwards towards the only tower as tall as her own.

It was a foreboding spire, and had been planned by its occupant to be one. If Luna had gotten her way, it would have been crafted of ebony and emblazoned with diamonds. ‘Let all our citizens behold the glory of the night sky at all hours!’

It was only when Celestia pointed out that a pitch black structure would be somewhat prone to being crashed into for anyone out for a nighttime flight that Luna had reconsidered, though Celestia had let Luna run with her interior designs to her heart’s content.

Despite keeping the color scheme of the rest of castle, it was still as tall as her own, and Luna had gotten the one other design choice she’d made; it was topped with a roof shaped like a wizard’s hat, meant to evoke that of one of their favorite tutors.

It also boasted the most comprehensive magic defense matrix of any location in the castle. Luna had done the work herself, having utilized every type of protection, detection, and repulsion magicks she’d learned or created in her centuries of studying magic alongside her sister. Some of the spells used were entirely unheard of, having been developed by Luna herself during her long imprisonment, their structures based on the very arcane locks that had kept her banished.

Celestia knew of their existence, though had never studied them, having never needed to. The balcony was not the primary entrance to Luna’s room, after all. Assuming Celestia could not simply see Luna at breakfast, if she’d needed to speak with Luna she would have normally just gone to her chamber door and knocked.

These were not normal circumstances, however. She reasoned this was enough justification to use the balcony instead. However, her first attempt met a violent repulsion, sending her back with a brief but intense gale force wind.

Celestia, after recovering from her skybound tumble, hovered in place and cast mage sight to look over the obstacle. No matter how complex it all was, every lock had a key, and as Celestia flew in front of the truly dizzying spell matrix, she found the equivalent of a hollow rock on the outer edges of it. For anypony else, it would have appeared as another pattern in the mix, but for Celestia, it might as well have read “Welcome, come inside.” It was not a spell, but a passphrase, meant only for those who could recognize it.

“The night time is the right time,” Celestia said with all the gravity she could muster while sporting such a large grin. Even after returning to her having suffered one thousand years of imprisonment, Luna still enjoyed making little digs at their age-old rivalry.

Astra flew beside her, cocking her head to one side, “For what, exactly?”

“Oh, all sorts of things,” Celestia responded airily. She landed on the balcony, passing through the spells like air, and opened the doors to her sister’s chambers.

It was like blasting open the entrance to a cave in. The light went in only so far and stopped abruptly, as if it feared to intrude further. Beyond the edges was what could only be described as magically produced gloom. It was a darkness that seemed alive. Less an absence of light and more a hunger for it. The sort of dark one encountered in places where light might only come from glowing fungus or bioluminescent fish.

Deep inside the shadowed environs, she could see Luna’s personal bed. It was an interesting conceit, sleeping inside the cradle of the crescent moon. In truth, Celestia was a little jealous, as the sun was not something that lent itself to the ideas of rest.

Inside the bed, snuggled deep inside the covers, was Luna. Between her and Luna was another set of wards, and this one did not have a convenient key phrase embedded into the design.

Celestia frowned, uncertain about how to proceed. She’d intended to shake her sister awake, hoping that by interacting with her sister’s representation in this dream reality, she might alert the actual Luna to her presence. Unfortunately, Celestia’s subconscious seemed keenly aware that Luna would not have left her unconscious form open to attack. Luna’s wards had held off entire squadrons of changelings, after all. She had been so secure as to not have even noticed an invasion was happening to begin with.

“Is something wrong?” Astra asked.

Celestia let out a loud sigh as she sat down heavily. “Yes. I can’t get to my sister,” she said, looking away from Luna for the moment. “I had planned to attempt to wake her.”

Astra looked at Luna in consternation. “Okay? I mean, she’s not actually there, this is your dream, not hers. But let’s ignore that and focus on why you think you can’t get to her.”

“My sister uses very complex wards. I was able to get past the ones on the balcony—”

“Your sister does, yes, but why would that matter?” Astra demanded. “This is your dream.”

“I—” Celestia stopped as she answered, considering. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just know that I can’t break these, and I can’t bypass them.”

Astra’s jaw opened and hung agape. “You... you’re thinking of this all wrong, Celestia. This is not reality.”

“Yes, I know that, but—”

Astra held up a hoof, then summoned a pair of shears from the aether. She opened and closed them in her magic, smiling at Celestia. “Just cut the ribbon, Celestia.”

“It’s not that simple—”

“Of course it is. A dream is as simple or complex as you make it,” Astra said dismissively. “You dreamed all of this, and in the doing you made a barrier you can’t pass. So unmake it.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tower there, Miss!” A voice called out from outside.

Astra spun around to face the new voice, but was greeted only with a flinty, misshapen grin adorning a similarly misshapen body. “Who—”

“Well, not a who so much as a what, at the moment. And as I was saying, Celestia’s a bit too much of a goody-two shoes to break the rules. Most of the time, anyway.”

Celestia’s expression darkened. “No—”
“Hello, ladies. Are we feeling our oats a little? Perhaps sowing some wild ones?” The statue tapped a clawed hand to his chin. “No, I suppose not. So repressed that your own psyche developed a crack. Hello there, nice to meet you, Schism.”

“My name is Astra, thank you very much,” Astra replied testily. “And you should be down in the garden posing, shouldn’t you?”

Discord smiled, his gray, mismatched teeth baring widely. “Oh my, yes. But this is Celestia’s dream, and she knows that actions have consequences. Don’t you, my dear Princess?”

“You’re still a statue,” Celestia replied carefully. “You were imprisoned by the elements. By ponies with stronger convictions than even my own.”

“Yes, yes. You’re quite correct. Still a statue,” Discord knocked on his head with the knuckle of his paw, making a dull thud sound. “And very much so outside of this little realm as well, but in dreams, statues can talk and do all sorts of nonsensical things. Things like tear holes in the sky to let the monsters in to play. Shall I, Celestia?” He looked behind him, letting out a dark chuckle. “Oh, my. I suppose I don’t have to. You tore the sky open yourself.”

Celestia rushed to the balcony, and saw a rift in the sunlit sky, past which a swirling morass of darkness could be seen. And from that darkness, creatures of nightmare were flying through, or dropping in some cases. They became armies of former foes long slain, current foes thought bested, and the more nebulous possible foes always on the horizon for a mare who had lived for generations upon generations and expected to continue doing so.

The sound of two stone-clad appendages clapping could be heard just to her side. “You know, I always knew you had it in you, Celestia.”

Celestia bowed her head, allowing herself a moment to weep in frustration. She’d seen this once before.

Her sister had taught her that dreams were a place of infinite possibility. And during their long centuries together, Celestia’s dreams had ever been beautiful, and peaceful. Within was a world as she hoped it would one day be, without conflict, happy.

After her sister’s banishment, however... her dreams had darkened. Then... the Nightmares had come.

They had accosted her endlessly, making her every night a fight for survival, until she’d been afraid to sleep. The final night she had ever dreamed naturally had seemed like an eternity of endless battle, and while she could envision success in most cases, she was a realist at heart. Even in her dreams.

Her dreams could be whatever she imagined, and she could imagine her own defeat easily enough. Rather than face that, she’d simply stopped sleeping, until she’d managed to cobble the wards and charms necessary to stop her from dreaming again.

“Celestia?” Astra said from her side.

Celestia let out a snarl of defiance, and summoned forth her armor and blades from the aether. If her Nightmares were here to face her again, so be it.

“Celestia, wait!” Astra screamed after her as she dove off the balcony and opened her wings to take to the sky.

Celestia readied combat magicks she’d not used for centuries. Most of her spells were best suited for fighting armies, and the last time she’d had to use them was some centuries ago against Griffonstone’s forces. It left her at a slight disadvantage when facing single opponents, which was where the armor and blade came into play.

They were not forged so much as held to shape by powerful spells, being formed of the metals that swirled deep inside the heart of her sun. Superheated well beyond what even the hottest forges or spells could produce, the armor did not block blows so much as melt anything (or being) that touched it to slag and ashes.

Not the sort of thing you kept around on an armor stand to collect dust.

The sword’s point and edge were sharpened to an edge so fine it could not be properly perceived without extreme magnification. It did not so much cut as pass through what she swung at, leaving two finely cut and cauterized edges behind.

She’d had to agree never to use it again as part of a peace treaty with the dragons, who had, in turn, gifted her with the knowledge of dragonfire as a means of sending missives to continue communications between the nations, and with a small purple spotted egg as a gesture of goodwill.

She’d normally never dream of breaking such an agreement, but she supposed she was dreaming of doing just that now. She imagined old Torch would forgive her under the circumstances.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Discord said, lazily lounging on a cotton candy cloud. “He’s there amongst the other dragons thirsting for your blood. Ooo, is that Yinglong I spy?” He pulled out a spyglass, chortling as he adjusted it. “My goodness! It’s a veritable who’s who of would-be world dominators down there, and up there, and over to the left and right too!”

“Can you be serious for one moment?” Celestia demanded as she weaved another layer of protection magic into her armor.

“I’m hurt, Celestia. Or, I would be, if I wasn’t made of stone. You’ve cut me to the quick,” He held out a knife and thrust it at his chest, only to have the tip snap off. He tossed the broken knife away, where it stabbed into another cloud which promptly let out a loud scream. “Of course I can be serious. I simply choose not to be. Somepony has to help balance you out, and your little friend is clearly not enough.”

“I’m doing my best, I’ll have you know!” Astra shouted at him as she swooped up to join them both. “It’s not exactly easy to get her to cooperate!” She turned to Celestia, putting both forehooves on her hips. “And you! You’re going along with this? This is your dream, Celestia. You can control it.”

Discord chortled heartily. “Poor little Schism. It’s easy to be calm when you don’t exist as others do. I would know, after all. I’m a bit of a figment myself. A physical body is just a means of interaction for us, its destruction an inconvenience at best. But for her, this is all nearly as real as when she’s awake. Her pulse quickens, her adrenaline surges, she breaks out in a sweat. There’s a reason Luna tries to protect ponies from their own nightmares, and it’s not just because of a guilty conscience. Enough fear can kill, and hers have been waiting around for centuries to have another chance at her.”

Even as they watched, more horrors dropped from the tear in the skyline. Sombra’s armies appeared on the horizon, the Hordes of Minos, and from the center rose a figure of sheer menace, his visage agape in mismatched and bloodied teeth. His eyes glowing red, his face a mask of rage. From his fingertips, thousands of strings made an army of grey ponies dance a dirge played by the wailing sound of a marching band of accordions, none of which seemed to be in tune.

“Why, of all the—” Discord let out a disgruntled huff. “Is that meant to be me?”

Celestia turned to him and nodded, looking paler than usual.

“I am not some ravening beast, Celestia!” Discord protested.

“You are in my worst nightmares,” Celestia replied with a weak chuckle. “If it makes you feel better, I know you’re capable of much worse than this.”

Discord frowned, then nodded. “Well, so long as you’re aware.”

Astra frowned down at the massing horde. The potential for violence was permeating the very air, but so far, the armies were not attacking. It was as if they were waiting for a response.

“All right,” Astra said after a moment. “What do we do?”

“I cannot run,” Celestia answered. “I tried that once, and only awoke hours later feeling utterly exhausted. I must face them.”

Astra nodded, a smile growing on her face. Her form shimmered, and coalesced into the same filly form clad in golden armor, a blade floating beside her. “And what about you?” she said, turning to Discord. “Plan to just watch?”

The stone form of Discord placed a claw tip to his chin, tapping thoughtfully. “Honestly? I hadn’t given it much thought. It has been greatly amusing watching Celestia be her own worst enemy. Much more so than seeing the pigeons squabble.”

“Would you like to join in?” Astra asked. “Could be a lot of chaos involved in a battle with this many foes.”

“Well, threaten me with a good time!” Discord replied with a grey toothy grin. “But, just so we’re clear, I’m doing this because it amuses me, so don’t get any weird ideas.”

Celestia shook her head, wondering which of the monsters was worse. Then she bared her teeth, aiming for the center of the armies, flanked by the pint-size fury that was Astra and the odd figure of Discord poised as if surfing on the cloud he was standing on. Seeing her glance his way, he put on a dark park of sunglasses and pointed two of his clawed fingers in her direction, making pew pew noises she could somehow hear over the deafening wind of her own descent.


Luna saw the world from multiple perspectives as her selves searched the Dream Realm for disturbances in the dream bubbles of her people.

Feeling guilty for indulging herself in an actual honest-to-goodness dream with Fleur and Fancy, she’d been working herself extra hard after dismissing them both to their own respective dreams. In such a state, with information flying back and forth to her from the many, many instances of Luna, it was a bit difficult to keep track of time.

Fortunately, a newly forged but still tenuous connection to the sun, and the solid, tried and true connection to the moon gave her a vague sense if she paid attention to it. She had been up very briefly, just before sunrise, and had made her way out of Fleur’s bed with a minimum of fuss and two fond kisses for her still-sleeping bedmates. Since then she’d brought the sun out of its slumber, and had gone to work for those whose day had yet to begin.

While it was true that many ponies still lived their lives by the sun, with the advent of a thing called ‘electricity’ some now kept later and later hours, which naturally meant they were later risers. Luna could be near-omnipresent in her realm, but try as she might, she could not manage to patrol the Realm during all of the hours ponies now slept, leaving her with the unfortunate decision of who to help. She hoped to remedy this disparity just a bit by exploring the dreams of those late risers who often still slept while the sun hit its very zenith. A little reward for ponies who, while not truly nocturnal, very much appreciated the serenity of darkness after all others sought out their beds.

Her other selves had found many such needy ponies; those whose dreams were disturbed by the morning sounds of life around them. Such rarely needed more than a small change in the environment of their dreams to sleep peacefully.

There were fewer and fewer dreams as the day wore on, dwindling down to a mere ten thousand or so as the sun neared the height of its climb. Had she not been searching so hard, she might have missed the lone dream in a place she’d normally not expect to find one at such a late hour.

Ponyville was not a town full of late risers by any stretch of the imagination. Even Twilight Sparkle never quite approached noon, no matter how many candles she’d burned low the previous evening. But there was a lone dream reported by one of her other selves, and worse, it was attracting negative energy from the Dreamscape. Its exterior was the kind of black that only existed in a realm that saw no true sunlight, its surface traumatic like a stormy sea.

Were it some other small town, she might have allowed the dream clone of herself to go within, but Ponyville was special for many reasons, and certain inhabitants more special still. It was also a place of disproportionate danger, like some sort of magnet for strange occurrences. Luna could not hazard a guess as to why, but knew it to be so.

And so she transversed the Dreamscape in her own body, entering the dream through a large gaping hole breached in the dark surface.

Within, she found horror. It was the smell that assaulted her first. One never truly forgets the smell of battle. It had a pointed wrongness to it. Ponies were not, by nature, a violent species. Yes, there were battles of dominance, and in some cases battles over territory, but such rarely led to bloodshed if confined within the species. Even the clashes of old before the races had gotten over their differences for the sake of their own survival had rarely caused real casualties.

But in this dream, she was assaulted with the smell of blood, and burning flesh, even the smells of scorched earth. As the smoke cleared for a moment, she saw why.

Two bright points of light streaked across the battlefield, leaving ashes in their wake.

The smaller of the two resolved itself first, revealed to be a remarkably younger-looking Celestia clad in full battle regalia and wielding a golden lance, which Luna found confusing. But the larger was even more so, as it was very clearly Celestia herself wearing The Sun’s Glory and swinging The Sun’s Fury with what could only be described as reckless abandon. Celestia had not resorted to using them in more centuries than Luna could immediately count, largely because their very existence had been declared a war crime amongst the races civilized enough to sign treaties with Equestria.

All in all, seeing a statue of Discord grappling with another Discord that seemed even more insidiously evil than the one she remembered seemed rather normal afterwards.

Just being in this space both frightened and invigorated her, and for a long moment she struggled with herself, wanting to join in the fray, not even certain which side it would be on. She could feel the energy of the Nightmare resonating in the darkness, and resisted the temptation with furious anger. Instead, she flew high, and bellowed forth a single word.

“Halt!”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d done it right. Night Blossom had shown her that time itself was within her influence, but she’d never had occasion to wish to exert that sort of control over somepony else’s dreams.

But then, she’d also never seen her sister fending off armies from the four corners of the globe simultaneously.

Two points of light continued to flit about in the smoke and ash, seemingly confused at the sudden lack of opposition.

After a brief moment, a pink cloud rose from the mass of bodies below, a grey figure perched atop it, chortling mightily. “Well, how do you do to you too, Princess of Dreams! Did you come to join the party? There’s just scads of fun to be had!”

Luna eyed the statue of her old foe coldly. Even for her, it was disconcerting to see it move and speak so. She resolved to go and check on the statue later in the day, to reassure herself it hadn’t changed. “Figment, know your place.”

The statue looked surprised, but cast his eyes downward in deference. “But of course, Your Highness! I meant no disrespect.”

“Tell me what has transpired here,” Luna said brusquely.

“Oh, just a little bit of night terror in the middle of the day, Princess. How very like your sister to be having it during these hours, eh?” The statue looked up at her waggled its flinty eyebrows comically. “She seems to have been repressing her nightmares for some time, maybe you could give her a lesson on what happens if you do such a thing for too long.”

“Enough of this farce,” Luna’s horn flashed, and in the statue’s place, a small spark remained.

“Awww, I was really getting into the spirit of being the essence of chaos,” a small voice said with a hint of resentment.

“I set you with the task of guarding my sister if she chose to dream, Figment. Yet here I find her in a warzone.”

“I tried, Highness. But she attracts a lot of attention. I was watching her from the garden when I saw havoc approaching from all directions. I thought it might at least be of use to warn her of what was coming.”

“You would have done better to fetch me immediately,” Luna said. “Still, you did well to aid her in what way you could.”

The spark flashed, its voice sounding pleased. “Oh, thank you, Princess!”

“You can thank me by never using his voice or visage again,” Luna said with a shudder.

“Awww, but Princess Celestia seemed very fond of it,” Figment replied in protest.

Luna regarded the spark with a single raised eyebrow.

“Well... she didn’t... hate it?” Figment offered pitifully.

“She’ll be fond of other things when she dreams again. Pick something else,” Luna replied firmly.

Figment flashed in a rather muted way, its voice heavy with disappointment. “Yes, Princess...”

Luna smiled gently. “We are not wroth with thee, faithful one. Thou didst well, indeed, more than well. Now, hy thee hence from here, Our sister approaches.”

“Yes, Princess!” it replied, sounding much happier. Figment momentarily blinded Luna as it transformed into a cute little nimbus cloud and drifted away apace, where it held its position in defiance of the direction and speed of the wind.