The Dreamer and the Moon

by Starkeeper_Ponyfic

3 Ponies, Puns, and Portals

The ponies enjoyed their tea with the king and Undyne. Fluttershy discussed various gardening techniques with the king before Luna began a conversation about history and the topics he seemed interested in when they met. Starlight sat with Undyne kind of awkwardly until she brought up Undyne’s spear which led into a frenzied discussion on the differences in combat magic and magic in general. Starlight for one was pretty surprised at how differently combat magic worked in this world, and how complicated it was. She was, however, glad to illustrate telekinesis for Undyne who predictably banged the table in excitement. Starlight wasn’t great at a lot when it came to social interaction but reading personalities was definitely a strong suit she was proud of. Undyne, for her part, was attempting to ensure these ponies posed no threat to her king but after observing Luna she was satisfied that they were friendly. Eventually Undyne had to leave for patrol duty and the ponies decided to head back home.

After bidding farewell to the king and promising to return soon, Starlight teleported herself, Luna, and Fluttershy to the edge of Snowdin, figuring the best place to open the portal home would be where it had already been. Luna agreed and began the spell. Fluttershy and Starlight redonned Discord’s winter gear when Luna informed them that it would take a while to stabilize and execute such a powerful spell. Starlight began writing down all she’d learned from her conversation with Undyne and from hearing Luna and Asgore’s conversation. Fluttershy flew around to admire the snowy landscape and marvel at how it could snow underground when she saw something. A white fluffy face... a dog monster?

She approached it cautiously. Definitely a dog monster, probably in the Royal Guard due to the similarities to Undyne’s armor, and extremely pettable. The dog cocked its head as Fluttershy approached, looking around before spotting her. She waved with a bright smile. It walked over, drawing a sword, and began to sniff. Sniffing... sniffing... sniffing... its tail wagged more with every sniff. Fluttershy giggled and reached up a friendly hoof. An excited look filled its eyes and it straightened up. She touched its fur and gave a stroke. The neck lengthened. Fluttershy was bewildered but the dog didn’t seem to mind. Another pet. Stretch. Fluttershy couldn’t resist. She started petting furiously, the dog’s neck reaching high up. Eventually it got so high she had to fly to reach its happy panting head. Then it came down... down... Fluttershy’s hooves rested against solid ground. Perhaps ponykind was not meant to pet this much. When the dog’s head reached the ground again she finally forced herself to stop. "I’m so very sorry but I don’t want to hurt you or cause you to get hurt," she explained to the sad dog monster. Its head snapped back and it gave her a reassuring lick before scampering off.

"that dog’s pretty pawsome, eh?" Sans chuckled as he walked up. "he’s pretty furrtunate to be so pettable."

She coughed out a suppressed laugh at the puns.

"ice to see someone as pawsionnate about puns as i am," Sans winked.

"Those puns are really quite humerus," Fluttershy agreed.

Starlight called her. "Luna's done with the portal, Fluttershy!"

"Do we have to go?" Fluttershy sighed. "Alright then."

Starlight laughed. "We promised to come back soon, right? You'll be able to pun off again soon."

Fluttershy nodded, waving goodbye to Sans, and trotted with Starlight and Luna into the portal, which opened into the throne room where Celestia and Twilight were waiting. The Princess of Friendship immediately teleported to Starlight in a burst of magenta light and started asking questions.

"Where’s Discord?"

"Wherever he goes when he poofs away."

"Where’d you go? Did you find the kingdom?"

"Yep, and it was... big? The interesting thing was that there were very distinct regions right next to each other. Snowdin, a snowy forest town- don’t ask how that’d work underground because I don’t know- Waterfall, a marshland filled with, well, waterfalls, Hotland, a really big underground magma chamber, the CORE, the technological heart of the kingdom, and the capital, New Home."

"Okay, so what’s their magic like?" Twilight asked as she led Starlight away while furiously taking notes, much to the amusement of Fluttershy and the Royal Sisters.

"Well, they’re masters of combat magic, like Luna said earlier. It’s a lot different from pony magic. They don’t really have any sort of spells, and while a few can do elemental magic it’s rare, and usually their magic is expressed in bullets of some form. A couple can also summon some sort of physical weapon. Uh…Let me think... Undyne, the captain of the guard, can summon bright cyan spears and the king can summon a trident to fight... I didn’t ask much else. What they don’t have in magic compared to ponies they make up for in leaps and bounds in their technology. Seriously, the CORE alone surpasses every one of Equestria’s technological advancements combined and pretty much anything we have, they have as good or better."

"Okay, okay, ‘really... good... technology...’ So, what are they like?"

"They seem friendly enough," Starlight shrugged. "Only actually met four of them so it wouldn’t be fair to form an actual opinion based on that first impression. I mean Fluttershy loves it there, but there are dog monsters so her opinion is biased."

Twilight laughed and teleported the two of them off to her castle so she could get it written down better.

A similar conversation had sparked in the throne room. Fluttershy bubbled with excitement over how nice Asgore was and the dog monster and the tea conversation and the dog monster and did she mention the dog monster?

Celestia had to hold Fluttershy’s mouth together with magic to calm her down, though Celestia was laughing herself. Luna smiled. "She is not wrong, King Asgore is a very lovely monster. The Underground itself might be a fantastic trade partner with their frankly astounding technological advances."

Fluttershy noted the position of the sun and said her goodbyes to the princesses so she could go feed her animals. Luna continued to speak with Celestia about the Underground’s history and such.

-Ponyville, an hour later-

"I wanna meet that Sands guy!" Pinkie giggled, bouncing.

"It’s Sans," Fluttershy gently corrected.

"Aweeeeeesommmmmmmmmme!" Rainbow squealed at hearing about Undyne.

"She was really cool," Starlight agreed.

"Marshland, huh? Might be a good place ta start an apple orchard- nice and fertile, and plenty of water," Applejack pondered.

"Only you’d think about apple orchards when learning about something like this," Twilight chuckled, rolling her eyes.

"When are you going back? I’d like to join you, perhaps?" Rarity gazed at Fluttershy, who thought for a moment.

"Well, we only said ‘soon,’ which could honestly be any time in the next week or two. Maybe the day after tomorrow? I’m not sure, I’ll have to talk to Luna about it."

"The day after tomorrow sounds wonderful," the blue alicorn said with a smile as she landed in.

Fluttershy squeaked. "Where’d you come from? How long have you been listening?"

"Behind Twilight’s castle," Luna giggled. "Since you started talking about Sans and Papyrus."

"Well, in two days... That’s a Sunday, so I don’t have anything planned then," Rarity confirmed after checking a small book.

"Ah’m sure Big Mac an’ Apple Bloom can handle the farm for a few hours," Applejack nodded.

"That would normally be my recipe-creation day but I kinda feel like this is more important," Pinkie shrugged.

"I’ll have to check with Spitfire but I’m pretty sure we don’t have practice Sunday," Rainbow said after a minute.

"Screw book organization! This is ten times more interesting!" Twilight exclaimed with a nerdy look on her face.

"I probably won’t be able to make it," Starlight admitted. "I had plans with Trixie then, but, well, I’m sure you’ll be more than capable of handling it!"

Luna nodded. "Twilight’s got enough nerd for the both of you," she joked.

"I DO NOT!" Twilight protested.

"Twilight, darling, you reorganize your whole library every time you get a new book for fun. I don’t believe you can argue against this," Rarity said.

Twilight muttered something and her muzzle scrunched up.

---

-Canterlot, two days later-

---

Twilight paced at the train station, waiting for her friends to arrive from Ponyville so they could join her and Luna to go to the Underground. "What time is it?" she asked the ticket pony.

"11:58, Princess. Only a minute later than the last time you asked."

"Sorry," she apologized, blushing. She heard the "puff, puff" of the train and teleported to the edge of the platform to greet her friends. The doors open and Pinkie bounced off, confetti fluttering out of her saddlebags. Rarity walked out as she put the last touches on some piece of pretty embroidery, quickly sticking it into her bag of sewing supplies. Rainbow made sure her Wonderbolt outfit was safe as she flew out, while Fluttershy gently closed the flap over some sticks and other dog toys. Applejack had some of the harvest’s best apples to share with the monsters.

"Everypony ready?" Twilight asked her friends. A noise of agreement arose and she teleported them to the Canterlot caves, where Luna was waiting for them.

"Ain’t these the caves ya found Cadence in before the Changeling invasion?" Applejack asked.

Twilight nodded. "Luna and I thought it’d be a good place to keep the portal since it’s both private and relatively unknown. We’re gonna make the portal more permanent so it doesn’t drain so much power every use. Keeping it here serves a dual purpose- we can go through at any time, and it’s not a major security risk since almost nobody knows it’s here assuming Pinkie doesn’t blab."

Pinkie looked hurt. "Twilight, I know this is a special secret. I’m not telling anypony, I promise."

Twilight winced. "That was mean of me. I’m sorry, Pinkie."

The earth pony smiled. "It’s alright, Twilight. I forgive you."

"Thanks, Pinkie. Anyway, the portal will be one-way, so we’ll have to reactivate it to get back, but if we need to we can duplicate this on the other side later."

"Let’s go!" Fluttershy exclaimed with a twirl.

"Well, you heard her, Luna!" Twilight laughed. "Let’s fire it up!"

The horns of the alicorns blazed with light, forming an opening in the crystal. The Delta Rune shone briefly before the portal spell completed. The ponies trotted through, entering the golden hall before the throne room. Fluttershy flew over to the throne room to check for the king while the others recovered from the trip. The king wasn’t in there, but one flower stuck out to her as odd. She walked over for a better look. She heard... a voice? Was the flower talking?

"H... hello? Is anyone in here?" she asked.

The flower turned around with a start. "Don’t SCARE me like that!"

"A... talking flower? Were you always here?" Fluttershy asked.

"What’s it to you? What even are you?" it asked rudely.

She took it in stride. "I’m a pegasus pony and my name’s Fluttershy. What’s yours?"

The flower, thrown off by her unfazed nature, shook its... bud? petals? whatever counted as its head and gave her a childlike grin. "Sorry about being so rude, you just startled me." He- Fluttershy decided the flower’s voice was male- cleared his throat and said "Anyway, I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower! Nice to meet ya, Fluttershy!"

"Nice to meet you too," Fluttershy giggled. "Um, you don’t happen to know where King Asgore is, do you?"

"Oh! He went to Waterfall to do something for the school over there, I think."

"Thank you, Mr. Flowey. See you around?" Fluttershy asked with a smile.

"Sure! See ya!" the flower replied with a chuckle. After Fluttershy disappeared around a corner and a pattering of hoofsteps faded, Flowey began chuckling, which grew into real laughter.

"Well, this timeline just got interesting. You know, I think I can give that smiley trashbag a li’l peace of mind for a while. No sense in wasting this!" Flowey decided before ducking into the ground, heading to Waterfall to watch these ponies.

Author's Note:

Alright, so I might have lied about the exact amount of dog in this chapter because I thought there'd be more, but Flowey was just a natural ending.
Hope you're all enjoying my lil crossfic!