Escape from Hell

by Bronyxy

8 The Dream Realm

Luna’s eyes returned to their usual teal colour and she turned to check on the Element Bearers, who other than being startled and shocked, were uninjured.
“I must talk with my Sister” she said, “I am hopeful that whatever has seized her mind will not have considered putting up defences in the dream realm, so that is where I shall attempt to convene with her. Thank you all for your courage. I am sorry you had to witness that, and especially sorry to you, Twilight for the horrors you have endured. But now, I must join her before she reawakens.”

With that, she lay down and entered a trance like state with practised ease as her ethereal presence transcended up into the dream realm. As soon as she entered her privileged domain, she darted from one dream bubble to another seeking out what she knew must be close by and shortly found what she was looking for. With a deft wave of her forehoof she passed through the bubble and into Celestia’s subconscious.

It was dim inside, the lights of love, hope and optimism all but extinguished as the white mare lay among a morass of grey coloured tentacles. As she watched, one of them seemed to sense her and tightened its grip fractionally around Celestia’s neck causing her to start choking. In response, a lilac eye half opened and alighted on the midnight blue mare, not registering as anypony she recognised, but a blur.
“Tia” soothed Luna gently, ”Tia, this is me Lulu.”
A flicker of recognition ran across her face but died under the choking grey morass.
“Tia, I am going to get you out of this.”

Celestia tried to respond, but was clearly unable to acknowledge her sister as she wanted. She wasn’t living, she was existing on a knife edge, at the whim of this grey tentacled predator.

Luna pulled at one of the tentacles and soon found all the others tightening their grip, listening as her sister struggled pitifully for air. No, another approach was needed; this entity, whatever it was, was clearly expecting to have to defend itself, and appeared quite content to kill its host to achieve it.

She backed up and the stranglehold around her sister’s neck slackened. Luna eyed up her adversary and settled down into her meditating position, her eyes once more flashing a brilliant moonstone.
“You are clever” Luna acknowledged psychically, “You can clearly sense me, but can we communicate?”
Not feeling any response or even any recognition at her attempt to parley, she directed her magic through the same psychic channel and gently began to peel one of the grey arms away, but Celestia’s laboured breathing quickly told her that it could still sense the attempt to dislodge it and retaliated as it had before.

Luna probed the organism for a nerve structure, trying to understand its physiology and locate a nervous system that would lead to finding its brain. She probed it and viewed it in as many ways as she could, eventually finding a series of fibrous filaments emanating from the tentacles, each pulsing gently like a root network. She followed these rudimentary nerves and had to fight to suppress the disgust rising within her when she realised that each one extended deep into her sister so that predator and host had become one.

A tear drop fell from her eye as the full horror of her sister’s situation became apparent to her.
“I will protect you, Tia” she whispered softly, “Hold on Sister, be brave.”

Mentally preparing herself for the challenge that lay ahead, Luna focused deeply; this would now be a battle, and the prize was to be her sister’s life!

She shut the door on her emotions as she knew she could not allow herself to become distracted, and set about flipping through all the tomes of knowledge in her mind; everything she had ever read about magic and the arcane arts, searching to devise a strategy to deal with this hideous parasite that was claiming her beloved sister.

Eventually, her horn lit, and a stream of blue light projected forward creating a shimmering bubble of blue energy around her ailing sister, a sealed environment of her magic within which Luna, the Princess of the Night could get to work.