The Best She Can, or, The Rising of a New Dawn

by King of Kings

Into The Mind

It had taken most of the rest of the day to explain her son’s dilemma to the pink pony and Princess Luna who had decided to show her gratitude to her and her son by going back to Ponyville with them, and Sunset had noticed something interesting with the pink pony as time went on. At first, her hair had been abnormally poofy, but after hearing about how Celestia had been using her as a weapon to get her sister back and had never actually loved her, her hair had gone abnormally straight, only to go back to being abnormally poofy when Sunset talked about how she had unofficially adopted her son, and saved him from his magical flares on several occasions.

At that point, she asked the two ponies about possibilities for why his magic could be turning him into a living bomb, and, furthermore, why he seemed able to control how those who got hit by it reacted. When she got questioning stares from them, she related the night in the alley all those years ago. When Pinkie’s eyes lit up and she dashed off, Sunset turned a serious gaze to Princess Luna. “

“So,” she began. “You’re the princess of the night and everything in the night, including dreams, right?”

“Verily?” Luna replied, questioningly.

“Good. Any second now…” Sunset said, trailing off as her adopted son came into the room.

“Mommy,” he said, slowly trotting up to her. “I couldn’t sleep. Is it alright if I sleep in here with you?” he asked, positioning himself at her feet and looking up at her.

“Sure, sparkie.” She said, having explained to both Princess Luna and Pinkie Pie that he had got that nickname after she saw how quickly he had taken to Pyromancy.

After saying this, she looked at Princess Luna and said, “This is the fourth time this week that he’s not been able to sleep without me physically being there. Granted, I enjoy these times, but even with me being here like this, I can tell that he’s under duress most of the time. So, if you’re…huh. That’s odd.”

“What troubles thou so, fair Sunset?” Princess Luna inquired.

“Usually he’s kicking by now. Oh well. Would you please…” Sunset began to ask, before being interrupted.

“Go into your son’s mind and try to find out what’s wrong with him?” Princess Luna finished for her.

“If that’s not too much trouble” Sunset said, hopefully.

What Princess Luna encountered in the colt’s mind was completely unexpected. It was a scene of idyllic happiness containing him, his adopted mother, herself, and her sister off in the distance. There was also a door with the words “No touching – This means you, LUNA, Seriously, this is my last act here, please don’t let it turn out like the moon thing AGAIN. Signed, N.M.” Curious, Luna turned the door invisible for a second.

What she saw behind the door shocked her, and she quickly undid the spell. Not quick enough, though, it appeared, as the dream figures surrounded the dream representation of the colt in a protective manner and were staring at her in an accusing manner. “She told you to leave well enough alone, Luna” said the dream representation of herself. “Just like she told you to make the ponies desire the night because of the dreams that they would have more than the day when they couldn’t dream. Have you learned nothing from getting yourself trapped up there for 1000 years?” her dream representation snarled at her “How about the way that decision has twisted Celestia into a manipulative shell of her former loving self, or robbed Inner Light’s mother…”

“This isn’t about my real self!” Sunset’s dream representation voice could be heard shouting. “She almost let the memories loose again out of curiosity! I Told Her What Those Did To My Son, And Then, When She Gets In Here, She Risks Letting Them Loose Because She’s Curious About Them!”

“P…Please stop fighting…” came the voice of Inner Light’s dream representation.

“We’re sorry sister, it’s just we went to so much trouble to commemorate her last act on Equestria before this colt’s heroic act saved not only my immortal self from being on the moon for a thousand years, but his mother from dying.”

“So was it also her that came up with the defenses for the door” Luna questioned, as the dream representation of her knew far too much to just be a figment of another pony’s imagination.

“No, that was all us.” The dream representation of herself said. “You see, when Nightmare Moon was blown apart, she was in the colt’s mind, so she left impressions about all of us in his mind.”

“And he naturally formed his own impressions of his wise, all-knowing mommy” At this, Sunset’s dream representation scoffed “something that my mortal self has lost count of the number of times she’s tried to dissuade him from thinking of her as such.”

“And, of course,” came the voice of Inner Light’s dream representation “mommy says that I am the most important thing in her life, but, mommy is the most important thing in my life, so we ordinarily share the responsibility of being the center of the circle, with grandma Celestia and you forming the outsides of the circle, and normally, we just have a picnic, and talk about the exciting adventures we had on our respective days! It’s what I like to think our days would be like, if mommy and grandma Celestia weren’t likely to attack one another.”

Author's Note:

So, Celestia's plan's a flop. Unfortunately. Anyways, if anyone's interested in helping out with the other path, that would also be extremely appreciated.