Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Luna just looked at her. Twilight began to pick out a form to go with the eyes and stellar mane, a deeper dark against the unlit room. The dark Alicorn Major walked around her desk to stand before Twilight; still in shadow though the lamplight fell full upon her. The younger Alicorn Minor felt like fidgeting but resisted.
“What didst my message say?”
“What? Oh!” Twilight concentrated. Why did Luna seem so stern? “It said, ‘Twilight, we have found thy human friend John. If thou still wishes to see him again, come to the Palace as swiftly as you may’.” She finished and looked at Luna. The Night Princess looked expectant. “That’s everything – I think?”
“Indeed,” Luna said, even that single word managing to be intimidating. She turned and began to walk away towards a secondary chamber half shrouded by turned back curtains. “I have found him…”
“Is he alright? Has he come back?” Twilight hurried to walk alongside the Princess. “I, I wanted so much to talk with him after everything, to learn about his world.”
“Didst thou not learn about the human world in your two visits where Sunset Shimmer fled?”
“Huh?” Twilight blinked and frowned. “I, I did, but they left me with almost as many questions. The humans there were so much like ponies, and none of them were the same tribe as John or Thorn. John told me they were going to try flying to his world’s moon, but in Sunset’s they already had years ago. And…” She closed her mouth, wondering how she could even say it.
“Huh? John the Balladeer? Rowley Thorne?” Sunset blinked at her, confused. “Twi, you couldn’t have met them, either of them!”
“What? Why not?” Twilight and Sunset were in the Canterlot High library, to try and ask the questions she’d been unable to last time. “John helped save us from Thorn and the Sunny Town ponies. I wish I could have told you and the others to get his help here, he probably could have helped against that magical music of the Sirens…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the increasingly confused look on Sunset’s face.
“Twi, I – Look.” Sunset walked over to the shelves, ran her fingers along a section titled ‘Science Fiction and Fantasy’, pulled down two thin paper-bound books and held them up to Twilight. “When I first came here and tried to learn about magic, I even tried reading some of these fantasy books. It took me a little while, but I figured out they were all just stories. Like Daring Do.”
“Actually? We met her too. And Auitzotl.”
“Uh, yeah, right.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “Look, just look at the titles, okay?”
Twilight did. And her eyes went wide.
The first cover showed John, just as she'd known him for those three days, silver-strung guitar and all, surprised at his campfire by a thing like a human version of a Sunny Town pony. "’Who Fears the Devil – the Complete Tales of Silver John’?"
The second showed a human she'd never seen before, dressed like a human Manehattanite and armed with a silver bell and sword cane, facing down Thorn in in some city setting. "And... ‘The Third Cry of Legba – the Complete Stories of John Thunstone’? By... Manly Wade Wellman?"
She looked up from the books to Sunset, her hair frizzling just like her mane had done in Equestria.
“Yeah, one of the teachers here must have been a real fan of this stuff, they have a whole couple of shelves full of books by him and Bloch and Kuttner and Moore.” Sunset carefully returned the book to the shelf. She returned to the table and said, “Twi, they used real-life occult books and people as research material for their stories, but none of it was real. Thorne was just based on some con artist who believed his own con, and John was a lot of heroes from folk stories where the author lived all mixed together. I spent almost a year hunting for those books before I realized that real magic didn’t exist here. Until recently.”
Twilight knew she must have looked as stunned as she felt. Sunset gently set her hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “None of them were real.”
“But – I met them!”
“And thou didst meet them,” Luna said when Twilight explained. “As did thy friends, and my sister.” She turned and set her gaze on a small orrery nearby. Unlike the normal ones, this one showed worlds and not stars. Her horn glowed and she set it to spinning.
“There is more than one human world, as there is more than one Equestria. Some wondrous as Paradise Valley, some terrible as what Tirek would have made of our land, some as mundane as our own. The one through that portal echoes ours, as ours may echo others.” Luna looked up at one of the walls; Twilight followed her gaze to a painting hanging on the wall – an old, old painting of a white alicorn with dark red mane and tail and a quill-and-inkwell cutie mark.
The Moon Princess spread her wings, ruffled them, and folded them again. “’Twas why I took on the search for thy friend. There are many worlds, but only one Dream-realm. And to judge from what you said of him, his words of prophetic dreams, his presence in it must be strong. I needed but a trace to find him, and beside his words from the songs thou spoke of, you gave it to me.”
“That’s right, he did,” Twilight said. She shook her head. “Wait, what trace?”
“Why, this.” Luna said with a smile. Her horn glowed with moonlight, and something coiled and shiny floated from one of the tables, the same color as Luna’s magic aura. Twilight took a moment to recognize it.
“One of his guitar strings?”
“What better?” Luna set it aside. “Searching through dreams is not like searching in the real world. One does better to look for, for associations rather than locales. I searched long just to find what I felt to be his world.” She sighed. “I felt no small dismay to realize it was more familiar than I guessed. In my time as the Nightmare, I once journeyed there.”
“YOU DID WHAT?????”
Twilight's outcry echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the walls and unseen ceiling above to splash down against them. Voices sounded at the doors along with hurried knocking. Luna, proud owner of the Royal Canterlot Voice, winced and scowled at Twilight. The young mare flinched.
“Sorry,” she said, giving a nervous smile. She waited for Luna to go to her door and reassure the startled Night Guards that some monster hadn’t suddenly burst in, just a startled past her manners Alicorn Minor. Only when the doors closed again did she ask, “How did you, I mean Nightmare Moon, ever get there?”
“You can say, ‘How did I’, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna looked down before raising her head again. “The tales some tell in misguided kindness are untrue. I was myself the whole time, though drowned under hate and envy. But those emotions so controlled me and made me enough like a Windigo that I, I was summoned as they are summoned.” Twilight felt a thousand questions go through her mind. Luna must have guessed. She frowned and shook her head, tossing that starry mane.
“Nay. Much I no longer remember. There were humans, one named Dee who didst summon me, and another called Kelly, I think. More humans later as I sought to find something to use ‘gainst my sister – a deluded king, a cruel and arrogant noble-mare named Bathory who I remember with disfavor; frauds and fakes pretending to magic, and one with no need to pretend named Loewe. Old and bearded as Star Swirl and with a great giant made of earth, invincible and unstoppable, that I sought to use.” She shook herself. “At the end one more, a tall lean man in black with a hard face and a staff bearing a cat’s head. He wounded me and drove me back into my own realm. More I remember not.”
“But it was enough to guide you to John’s world?” Twi dared hope. To finally have those questions answered!
“It was enough,” Luna said. She headed for the curtain off to the side. Almost skipping, Twilight followed. Past that curtain she found another room, and inside, objects and tools that dimly reminded her of ones she’d worked with when the resources of Celestia’s own magical lab were open to her. Astrolabes, telescopes, heavy-laden bookshelves, focusing matrices/containment circles set into the floor, and tables heaped with crystal scrying spheres, smoking braziers, spellbooks, and horn-drawn magical/astronomical diagrams.
Moonfire played along Luna’s horn and the room grew brighter as over the central table, a sphere of light appeared. A softly glowing blue mist drifted within it, with brighter sparks flaring up before they dimmed again.
Twilight walked closer to get a better look as Luna busied herself by another table. She stared into it and gasped.
Pinkie Pie giving a party so amazing that even Sombra and Tirek gave up being evil to become good…
Rainbow Dash flying so fast she outraced the setting sun, defeating an army of enemies, and becoming more famous than even Firefly the First...
Rarity granting her dresses as gifts to all her friends, with a flickering image beside her, first of a handsome pony-prince, and then of an older and well-dressed Spike…
“Look not too deeply into the dreams of others, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. “What is seen may not be entirely flattering, and some dreams are best forgotten.”
“But what could be so bad about a dream?” Twilight said as something else rose to the surface, something an angry crimson shot through with streaks of the deepest black and the most poisonous green. She looked at it. “Huh, what’s this one?”
“Twilight, NO!”
Twilight tried to pull herself away but found herself falling, falling…
Tirek roared laughter above her as she struggled to rise from the blasted earth. Her friends, Discord, even the Princesses, all lay about her. She’d tried everything, but none of it was any good. He’d consumed her magic along with everypony else’s and now he was going to take all the magic in Equestria, even the life that expressed that magic, until all was a dead wasteland of dry bones and withered dead trees on a plain of sterile white ash and only Tirek remained, bloated like a massive gorged spider forever and ever and –
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
The world around Twilight fell into shreds. The hard dead earth below her softened back into Saddle Arabian carpeting, and Tirek’s reek returned to the soft incense Luna favored. She reached out with her unicorn’s sense and sighed relief to feel magic working through her again.
“That was a dream?”
“The dreams of Tirek,” Luna scowled at the nasty little black and green and blood-red ball in her magic grip. She hurled it back into the depths of the sphere. “May it bring him what little joy such a monster can know.” Twilight watched and saw it sink back out of sight. “Be careful, Twilight Sparkle. In the Dream Realm there are enemies even I hardly dare to face.”
“I’ll be careful,” Twilight said, fighting down a shiver. “But John?”
Luna looked at what seemed to be the outer fringes of the sphere. “I have done exploring of my own, such as I have not done since long before my fall, and pushed my Dream-Map outwards in all directions. And finally, shortly before Tirek’s attack, I found thy friend.” She pointed her horn at one slightly brighter than most light, silver streaked with gold and light blue, at the edge of the sphere. “Here.”
“Okay,” Twilight said, looking close at it. It just looked like a pretty light to her. There was little to remind her of John’s knowledge and bravery and decency. She tried looking closer with her magic and got the feeling like she stood on the threshold of a great library. Or better still a conservatory, one that somehow felt akin to Applejack’s farm.
Thinking of that reminded her.
“Shouldn’t we get my friends as well? They’d like to meet John as well, and say hello again.”
“Nay.” Luna shook her head. She returned once more to the table, setting various plants including something like black and gray lotus blossoms into an old stone mortar that Twilight would have expected to see in Zecora’s very traditional hut. Her horn glowed and a pestle rose to begin slowly grinding the contents. Over that soft slow noise, Luna said. “This realm is yet strange to me. I have only gone close enough to be sure that John exists within it. He does, but,” she frowned, “a danger I do not know does so as well.”
“What! John’s in danger?”
“Perhaps,” Luna set the pestle aside, poured the mortar’s contents into a bowl of carved ivory. “I sense that nightmares plague him, strong ones.” She looked at Twilight. “Didst he tell thee of wars that he fought?”
“Huh? Oh yes, he said a little about it, told us he saw ‘a thousand fall at his right hand, and ten thousand at his left’.” Twilight tried to remember. “He said something about being a soldier. A – rifleman? In a place called Cor-e-ya?”
“I thought so. His dreams are akin to those of ponies that have fought, but darker and bloodier.” Luna looked into the bowl and seemed satisfied with what she saw. “As though something made them worse, be it sickness or age or an enemy.” She set the bowl before Twilight. The smell reminded her of warm milk with a sweet undercurrent. “Take this and drink, that we may be on our way.”
“How could an enemy make dreams worse?” Twilight lifted the bowl with her own magic and drank it down.
“It is possible, when more than one will works together to wield dark magic,” Luna shrugged. “However, this will be tricky enough with but one pony along. If I took you and your friends, I would not be able to defend everyone. And in a dream of war and strife, you could be wounded or even slain.” She looked thoughtful. “So far from dreams I know, even I run risk, if but a small one. Remember this if we are separated, Twilight Sparkle.” She caught Twilight’s eyes with her own and they blazed. “The dreams of others are worlds unto themselves. I can shield us from whatever we find in them unless directly attacked, but the dreamer can set the rules as they desire unless an outer will or collection of wills forces their own changes on it.”
“Alright,” Twilight slurred the words. “W-wait, what’s wrong? I feel,” she yawned, “Sleepy.” The floor beneath her suddenly felt comfortable. Twilight laid down on it and fought to stay awake and listen to Luna. Don’t show bad manners, think how horrified Rarity would be.
“Doubtless,” Luna’s voice bubbled with amusement. Her voice seemed to come from an ever-increasing distance. “Tis a potion I learned the making of long before my banishment. It brings one into the Dream Realm swiftly.”
“Like this.”
Twilight started. “Huh? I just felt sleepy, but now I’m wide awake.”
“Art thou?” Luna said. She pointed behind Twilight. “Best not turn and see, then.”
“See what?” Twilight asked even as she turned. And gasped.
She laid there on the floor, a pillow under her head. A silvery string or cord came from her body to her. She didn’t see where or how it connected, but when she tugged on it she felt it inside her, somehow.
“That will help thee to return to thy living body, if we are separated.” Luna turned and walked to the doors of her chambers. Twilight followed. They swung open silently before her and she gasped.
Outside was a realm like no other. Similar to the wherever-it-was Celestia had taken her when she transformed into an alicorn, but different. A sort of pale mist expanded as far as she could see; silvery bubbles drifted through it, and in them Twilight caught glimpses of ponies and other beings – dragons and griffons and other things she couldn’t begin to identify. Some of them glowed more brightly than others, shot through with various colors, red and blue and purple, green and yellow and more.
“Those are dreams?” Twilight approached one. It showed a dragon, a great wyrm, surrounded by a world of gold and gems. He rolled in it, laughing deep thunderous dragon laughs as he twined necks with his dragoness. Smaller versions of them both, the hatchlings, flew all about them. “And this is the Dream Realm?”
“It is.”
“This is amazing!” Twilight wheeled on Luna, a notebook and quill appearing somehow beside her. “Do you see into everypony’s dreams? Err, you don’t watch them all, do you?” She blushed. “I’ve had some that…”
Luna silenced her with a hoof on her lips.
“I am no voyeur, Twilight,” she smiled. “I have seen much in dreams that I politely forget.” She frowned as another bubble, this one seeming somehow rancid and streaked with a mixture of brown and red and green, floated closer. “Others I destroy as I can.” Magic arced from her horn and it burst. For an instant Twilight saw an image of what could have been Pinkie Pie wearing a multi-hued cape decorated with cutie marks, then it was gone as if it had never been.
“Now we must go from here,” Luna flew off as she spoke. Twilight spread her wings and followed. Below them what seemed like an endless sea of worlds rippled and roiled. Something about it seemed comforting at first, but then it began turning cold. Then colder. Twilight shivered in a chill such as she’d only ever felt in the Frozen North, on her first trip to the Crystal Empire. Too, the ‘sky’ changed, going from something like a gorgeous aurora to a dull red.
Twilight was about to ask where they were when she twitched her ears. Yes, she heard it, and again. An endless rumbling off in the distance. Like a thunderstorm, but this one seemed to be continuous. A smell like fireworks. Noises like the sounding of hunting horns or bugles, a harsh metallic braying. And under it a surging roar like the sea, but filled with anger and fear. The sun overhead looked small and red, giving a fitful light as though even it didn’t want to see what lay below it.
Luna stilled her wings and glided down to the ground below, Twilight following. A wasteland like the dead Equestria in Tirek’s dream, rust-red, dry and cracked and opening into crevasses like the lips of thirsty ponies. About them lay piles of wreckage, metal mountains rising high, higher than Canterlot’s Mount Epona, so high she wondered how she ever flew over them. Then their hooves touched down; the earth felt different, not natural, like Thorn’s grimoire when John and her had buried it in Whitetail Woods almost three years ago.
“Princess?” Twilight shied away from the wreckage. Nothing about this place reassured her. Even the fireworks smell, metallic on her tongue, made her want to leave. The chill in the air felt worse. She tried casting a simple spell against winter cold, but it did nothing. The chill bit right through like Windigos rode it. “How can John have anything to do with this? I remember what he said about his mountains, they reminded me of Equestria’s, not…” She waved her hoof. “Not this wasteland.”
“I have seen this place before,” Luna simply responded. She looked around, picked a direction that seemed no different from any other to Twilight, and started walking. “In the dreams of ponies, though thankfully not for an age. Aye, and griffons and Diamond Dogs and even dragons. It is the Red Lands.”
“The Red Lands?” Twilight raised her voice as she spoke. That nonstop rumbling was getting louder as they walked, even as the cold grew worse. “What are they?”
“They are a realm within Dream,” Luna answered her, her own voice rising. The rolling thunder was now loud enough to be painful, slamming into her body as well as her eardrums. “All those who remember great violence and death in their nightmares touch upon this place.”
“Must we go through here?” Twilight found herself yelling. She looked down and saw snow whirling around her hooves, growing deeper at every pace. When she spoke again her breath steamed. “Even if we find John, we won’t be able to speak to him in this racket!”
“We must go through here to find thy friend, that we may draw him into more peaceful realms to speak,” Luna yelled back herself. “Remember what I said of dreams! His nightmares have given us a doorway into his ‘self’ to use. This is a place of great danger. Stay by me always!”
The snow lay deep enough now that Twilight had to walk on top of it. Luna did so as well. They seemed to be ascending a slope, with piled dark rocks before them blocking the view beyond. The rolling thunder made Twilight flatten her ears, the concussions slamming her body like Applejack’s hooves against a tree. Like the climax of a fireworks display close-up, the booming of Tirek’s magic blasts, of her Library home blasted to flaming splinters around her, except this just went on and on. What kind of storms did John’s world have anyway? She felt slight annoyance to see Luna coolly ignoring it. Pity she didn’t know a spell against noise!
“Isn’t there anything we can do about that thunder?”
Luna just looked at her. Compassionately, and Twilight felt, a little sadly.
“It is not thunder, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna walked to the top of the ridge and looked down the other side. Twilight joined her and gasped as the last of the broken Red Lands around them slipped away to show a land of rocky ridges and deep snow, a half-frozen lake, a sunless gray sky, howling wind and cold that could make even a Windigo shiver.
“’Tis war. Such as Equestria has not known since the days of King Sombra.”
And Twilight Sparkle looked down into Tartarus itself.
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Well, my curiosity has officially been whetted. Now I play the waiting game...
8759586
Thanks. It'll be a day or three right now; I want to stretch this out a bit.
An interesting beginning, and - now that I'm thinking of it - a very plausible route to bring John and the ponies back in touch; I'm eagerly awaiting what comes next!
I'm guessing each of the sorcerers who summoned Nightmare Moon are from real history? I recognize Bathory and Dee, but not the others?
8760421
Ed Kelly was Dee's assistant in Dee's attempts at conjuring angels. Hree's his entry on Wikipedia. In real life he was a fraud who conned Dee, at least IMHO, but in this world Dee actually worked a real summoning which scared the daylights out of Kelly!
'Loewe' is the legendary version of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, who supposedly the Golem of Prague (which is where Nightmare Moon was summoned too). I did wonder about the idea of the Nightmare Forces being something like demons or evil ghosts, and what use they could have made of the soulless and invulnerable body of the Golem, but I doubt I'll get to that story.
And as for the man with the cat-headed staff?
Thanks for commenting!
I like the contrast between the young, impatient Twilight Sparkle and the ancient, immortal Luna, who is only in a hurry when she really wants to be.
This is a good concept of resonant parallel worlds, including the idea that some worlds may be real in themselves and yet fictional in the opinion of other worlds. This justifies whatever crossovers one desires to write. Heinlein used the notion well in Number of the Beast; I wish he had lived long enough to make more extensive employment of it.
Good use of the Fausticorn!
This allows a mechanismfor such crossovers, and also partly explains why a real other world might figure in the fiction of another real other world. Its dream-imprint would spark the imaginations of artists, poets and writers.
Though I explicitly use the demonic-possession theory of how Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, it makes less difference than one might think, because I also assume that Luna in jealousy and hatred invited the Night Shadow into herself in order to gain power over Celestia. This is why my Luna also feels extreme guilt and shame for the sins she committed as Nightmare Moon.
Vanilla canon supports the idea that Luna actually did something seriously wrong of her own free will, else why would she feel the need to atone for her prior actions -- as she very obviously does, in the Season One Premiere and in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep." Luna isn't stupid: if she had merely been manipulated like a puppet by some wholly external force, she would have felt bad that she had been used in this fashion to harm other Ponies, but she wouldn't so deeply blame herself.
Indeed, in my stories even when Luna is actively possessed by the Night Shadow, it is only able to retain full control of her when it allows her to give vent to her darker desires. When Luna actively resists the Night Shadow, their common body freezes indecisively, which is my explanation for why Twilight and her friends were able to defeat her. A notion which I originally got from Pinkie's comment in My Little Balladeer -- Luna actually didn't want to kill them, and was fighting the impulse, whether it came from her own dark side or from a Night Shadow, to do so.
Good references to John Dee and Ned Kelly, the bloody Countess Bathory, Rabbi Lowe of Prague (and his Golem), and Solomon Kane. Who, though, is the "deluded king?"
8854547
First of all, thanks for commenting here! I'm always glad to read what you have to say.
I like the contrast between the young, impatient Twilight Sparkle and the ancient, immortal Luna, who is only in a hurry when she really wants to be.
I figure Alicorn Twilight will be like that too in another few centuries.
This is a good concept of resonant parallel worlds, including the idea that some worlds may be real in themselves and yet fictional in the opinion of other worlds. This justifies whatever crossovers one desires to write. Heinlein used the notion well in Number of the Beast; I wish he had lived long enough to make more extensive employment of it.
Hmm, I read part of NotB years ago but I missed or forgot that part. I was mostly just working off of the many fiction and nonfiction books (with the latter being the really weird ones) on parallel worlds.
This allows a mechanism for such crossovers, and also partly explains why a real other world might figure in the fiction of another real other world. Its dream-imprint would spark the imaginations of artists, poets and writers.
Again, mostly going off of several books I've read that had/suggested that the Dream realm can brush up against most if not all words that have beings that can dream in them. I imagine this version of Luna has met other-dimensional beings before in Dream, though so many of them were dangerous and as such best kept far away from Equestria.
8854576
Though I explicitly use the demonic-possession theory of how Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, it makes less difference than one might think, because I also assume that Luna in jealousy and hatred invited the Night Shadow into herself in order to gain power over Celestia. This is why my Luna also feels extreme guilt and shame for the sins she committed as Nightmare Moon.
Vanilla canon supports the idea that Luna actually did something seriously wrong of her own free will, else why would she feel the need to atone for her prior actions -- as she very obviously does, in the Season One Premiere and in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep." Luna isn't stupid: if she had merely been manipulated like a puppet by some wholly external force, she would have felt bad that she had been used in this fashion to harm other Ponies, but she wouldn't so deeply blame herself.
I agree, and sorry if I failed to get that across. Luna feels deeply ashamed of giving in to her envy and need for attention the way she did; whatever it was that turned her into Nightmare Moon, it only did so because she accepted what it offered. Se feels even more ashamed and grateful she was beaten when she thinks that if she did what seemed so logical at the time and create Eternal Night she would have killed all life on Equestria. Thus part of her reason for creating the Tantibus in the show: everypony else may have forgiven her, but she can't.
At the same time she wants to regard the Nightmare as something she could just cut away, and she's been pushing a lot of her anger and hubris 'into' the Tantibus. I think she's had more than one dream where she destroys the Nightmare and some where it consumed her entirely.
Indeed, in my stories even when Luna is actively possessed by the Night Shadow, it is only able to retain full control of her when it allows her to give vent to her darker desires. When Luna actively resists the Night Shadow, their common body freezes indecisively, which is my explanation for why Twilight and her friends were able to defeat her. A notion which I originally got from Pinkie's comment in My Little Balladeer -- Luna actually didn't want to kill them, and was fighting the impulse, whether it came from her own dark side or from a Night Shadow, to do so.
Yes, and thanks for letting me know I influenced your own work every slightly. Luna was fighting from inside; even when consumed by her own darkness her conscience wouldn't let her just destroy everyone who defied her.
Good references to John Dee and Ned Kelly, the bloody Countess Bathory, Rabbi Lowe of Prague (and his Golem), and Solomon Kane. Who, though, is the "deluded king?"
The latter would be Emperor Rudolf of the Holy Roman Empire, the supposed 'divine king' of the 16th century Rosicrucians. At least according to Frances Yates. In background he tried commanding the Nightmare on the grounds that he was the Emperor and she owed him submission. Nightmare Moon was not amused. He lived, but for a long time he wished he hadn't. Not that the Nightmare hurt him physically. She just played around in his dreams and mind to teach him some manners.
I also got the idea of all those people other than Kane being at Rudolf's court from a historical fantasy book I read years ago; I very much doubt some of them ever were there in real life. Bathory probably never visited Prague; and she might have been a little creepy even for Nightmare Moon. Hell, I think monsters like Chrysalis or Sombra would have found her revolting.
8854547
I also hope you will have something to say about the chapter where Twilight and Luna see John's Korea, as well as her introduction to the Red Lands here. According to what my editor has told me, it's something from the real world. Whatever that may mean with dreams, anyway. it's something seen in dreams and nightmares by a LOT of veterans who saw battle.
I like the glimpses of Mane Six dreams, especially
and, aside from the Mane Six
It says a lot about Tirek that this is his fond hope! When I first read it, I thought it was someone else's fear.
The notion of such a map, and what it would contain, is fascinating.
The classic "silver cord" for astral travel.
This has occurred to me as well. Luna would have to be fairly professional about her attitude toward erotic dreams, or she would spend all her time embarrassing others and being embarrassed in return. I had her say something of the sort to Rarity in Post-Traumatic.
Likewise, all other sorts of vivid and extreme dreams. For instance, it would be very hard for a surrealist artist to impress her, unless he was something very special.
8859093
It says a lot about Tirek that this is his fond hope! When I first read it, I thought it was someone else's fear.
Given what we saw of him in the show, that feels like what he'd want. I imagine the dreams of the other villains would be equally grim.
And yeah, I can see the possibilities in Luna's dream map. I suppose that simply keeping up with the dreams of Equestria's ponies keeps her very busy, else she would have done even more exploring. She's also careful; she knows there are dangerous beings out there in the dream realm (she was one herself for centuries) and she does not want to lead any of them back to Equestria's corner of Dream.
Or she has made up her mind on her fantasy of being swept off her hooves by a handsome prince, and is finally starting to see Spike as that prince.
This has occurred to me as well. Luna would have to be fairly professional about her attitude toward erotic dreams, or she would spend all her time embarrassing others and being embarrassed in return. I had her say something of the sort to Rarity in Post-Traumatic.
Likewise, all other sorts of vivid and extreme dreams. For instance, it would be very hard for a surrealist artist to impress her, unless he was something very special.
I strongly suspect Luna's pretty blase by now about what she sees in dreams. I imagine she found some horrid fantasies of revenge by, say, the CMC and other foals against Diamond Tiara until her redemption. And they'd be far from the worst. Twilight and other ponies might be shocked at what some of their friends have done in dreams without even being aware of it. I.e., 'bad men do what good men only dream of'. I imagine Luna has insight into pony and other sapient minds beyond that of almost any mundane psychiatrist.
And concerning erotic dreams, heh, yeah. If Luna were lustier she could have experienced some intense things in dreams she's seen.
8859093
By the way, what do you think of something another friend of mine told me, that Sunset Shimmer can count herself lucky the world mirror didn't send her to a world like Silver John's? I myself doubt she would have done at all well (o maybe done too well) as an apprentice to someone like Rowley Thorne or any of the evil sorcerers from Wellman's stories.
I like this concept, of all severe wars being similar enough that their dream-projections are a class.
I was recently reading that the Tolkien Estate is coming out with J. R. R. Tolkien's Gondolin, which he actually first conceived and started writing around the time of the Battle of the Somme (1916) -- obviously, not when he was actually engaged, but during rest periods and his convalescence after being wounded. And what I find interesting about this is that the Fall of Gondolin as related in the Silmarillion includes some absolutely nightmarish battle-sequences, almost certainly inspired by Tolkien's military experience.
So Tolkien's dreams of Middle-Earth in part grew from his nightmares of the Great War.
Twilight Sparkle is no stranger to epic-scale violence, particularly after her battle with Tirek. But she is a stranger to really large-scale and protracted epic-scale violence, such as is offered both by real mass battles and even more so by their dream-echoes (which can be even worse than the reality, since they aren't as limited by logistics or morale).
GREAT concluding line for the chapter.
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Thanks for yet more comments! I always appreciate what you have to say.
I like this concept, of all severe wars being similar enough that their dream-projections are a class.
My editor told me about this, how apparently there is a commonality to the dreams many war veterans have: a desert of red sand and rust, filled with shattered vehicles and corpses.
I was recently reading that the Tolkien Estate is coming out with J. R. R. Tolkien's Gondolin, which he actually first conceived and started writing around the time of the Battle of the Somme (1916) -- obviously, not when he was actually engaged, but during rest periods and his convalescence after being wounded. And what I find interesting about this is that the Fall of Gondolin as related in the Silmarillion includes some absolutely nightmarish battle-sequences, almost certainly inspired by Tolkien's military experience.
So Tolkien's dreams of Middle-Earth in part grew from his nightmares of the Great War.
Yes; I remember a book some years ago that was part Tolkien biography and part description of the Battle of the Somme; we Americans tend to think of WW2 and Vietnam as being the 'worst ever', but the descriptions of what men saw in the Somme in 1916 (or Korea in 1950) are every bit as nightmarish. The Somme might have been worse if only because it was all so new then, the mechanization of war, and even more terrifying.
Twilight Sparkle is no stranger to epic-scale violence, particularly after her battle with Tirek. But she is a stranger to really large-scale and protracted epic-scale violence, such as is offered both by real mass battles and even more so by their dream-echoes (which can be even worse than the reality, since they aren't as limited by logistics or morale).
The sort of mass death Twi is about to see is probably beyond the imagining of any creature from Equestria, with the possible exceptions of the Princesses and Discord, and maybe some elder dragons like Torch who can remember when Erebor-scale city sackings were still possible for a dragon. And even the fighting that seems to have happened when the Princesses defeated Sombra, while terrible enough then and even more so to ponies who are fortunate enough to live in a prolonged peace, wasn't on this scale.
It being a dream will make it more nightmarish, but at the same time there will be a layer of unreality that will help protect her sanity.
GREAT concluding line for the chapter.
Thanks, I'm glad that line impressed you. I got it partly from one uncle of mine who handled a landing ship on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He always said that the man who said war was hell must not have known any worse cuss words that that.
It is a bit strange that the Silver John books are present in Equestria Girls but Equestria has encountered much stranger things and in G1 there was actually a door to the realm of fiction with types such as Alladin and Robin Hood. I'm curious as to what could be interfering with John's dreams.
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Just keep reading and you'll get answers to most of those questions.
And thanks for commenting.