• Published 7th Dec 2012
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Luna's Dreamscape Journey - ugugg93



A boring night at the castle turns into an adventure Luna will never forget.

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Chapter 14: Party Pooper

Flying in the early pre-dawn morning, the wind against Luna's wings sent tickling sensations though her entire body. This was a sure sign that a few of her feathers were out of place, and were in desperate need of a preening. Normally, she would've landed for a moment, and fixed the rogue feathers that were causing herself so much issue. However, she couldn't stop. Not now at least. She had to get back to Canterlot before she was supposed to lower her moon—the idea of her sister finding out about what she did tonight as opposed to sitting at the Lunar Court not very high on her list of desires.

Thankfully, that was quite unlikely to pass, for before Luna's eyes, the great city of Canterlot stood tall against the mountainside. Indeed, the ancient city had been built on the side of Mount Celestia, which to Luna sounded like a logistical nightmare. Sure, in today's day and age there were many ways for the ponies of Canterlot to skip the constant switchbacks that went up the mountain. However, back before the advent of magical elevators, it must have been nearly impossible for ponies to deal with. Add in the fact that the nearest farmland was a the base of the mountain—a trip of at least sixty miles—and Luna wondered about what insane pony had decided to pick this as the spot of the capital city.

Of course, considering the name of the mountain it was on, she assumed it was her sister.

Up ahead, Luna spied the distinctive landmark of Canterlot Castle—its pearly white marble walls unmistakable for anything else. Beating her wings harder now, she fought for altitude as she rose higher and higher into the sky. She began to take on a spiraling flight path to make sure she wouldn't slam into the walls of the castle. It was a simple process really, though it was a somewhat lengthy one considering the amount of altitude required. Two or three minutes of climbing into the sky later, and she finally found her target—the Eventide Balcony.

Breaking out of her spiraling motions, she carefully began to make her way to the landing. While the platform itself wasn't all that small, the cross-breeze that cut against Luna was making the landing that much more frustrating than it should have been. However, it wasn't anything that she couldn't handle, and a moment later, she found her hooves touching down lightly against the marble floor in a near-perfect landing. As soon as she landed, Luna's eyes fell onto the the sun emblazoned curtains that covered the doorway in front of her—the breeze catching them in a way so that they covered both the door and the moon covered curtains ever so slightly.

Luna sighed heavily as she began to make her way inside. “Welcome home.”

As soon as her body moved through the doorway, the muffled taps of her slipper-adorned hooves transitioned into echoing clops against the marble floor of the castle hallway. While she wanted nothing more than to try and keep her return a secret for now, there really wasn't much she could do—other than something crazy like trying to fly through the halls. Resigning to herself that if anypony was within earshot they would know she was there, she began to make her way back to the throne room.

However, as she walked, it became quite apparent that it was still much too early in the morning to have any of the usual servants wandering the halls. That wasn't even mentioning the guests that would normally be roaming the more public areas of the castle during the day. In fact, not only did she not see either of the two parties, but she couldn't hear any other hooves in the hallway other than her own.

Luna furrowed her brow. “I must inform my guard to patrol the halls more diligently, or else I—”

She stopped talking mid-sentence, and slowly shifted her eyes so that she was looking to her left now, and at the sun adorned door that was next to her. Slowly, she closed her mouth, and allowed the many possibilities flow through her mind like water. At the same time, while she thought of such things, she thought of the many consequences of the particular action.

On one hoof, the possible consequences of doing what she was thinking of doing were so numerous, she wasn't sure she could even think of them all. For starters, she was breaking her own sister's privacy in her own room. Luna knew that if Celestia started to snoop around in her room, she would have the mare's head. That wasn't even mentioning how much looking into Celestia's dream would be breaking her privacy. Sure, Luna had invaded other ponies' dreams a lot tonight, but those were kinda different, at least in the sense that while the others were merely her subjects, this was the goddess of the sun!

Then there was the issue on if Luna was caught. Granted Luna was caught near the beginning with the red stallion several hours back, but these two situations were as different as... well... night and day. Would Celestia understand that Luna was merely doing these sort of things out of jest, and was not acting with malicious intent? Even if so, would she care? Would Celestia try to throw her back into the moon with all the fury and anger that would be deserving of such a situation? Luna couldn't help but to shiver at that last prospect.

Finally, what would happen when she did enter Celestia's head? Would it work the same way that every other subject that she had entered would, or would something terrible happen? Sure, there was evidence that the first was the case, especially since every pony race, zebras, minotaurs, dragons, and even alligators were suitable subjects to the modified spell. However, alicorns were on a completely different level to all the other races. Also, their minds are so different, that it might cause some kind of feedback overload that would leave both of them vegetables for the rest of their lives.

However, on the other hoof, she would be able to see into Celestia's dream.

“I am certain that Princess Cadence would be more than capable of leading Equestria in our stead if something horrific happens,” Luna muttered to herself as she summoned her magic into her horn.

With only the slightest bit of effort, Luna shifted herself into a mist, and gently worked her way to the crack under the door. There was a slight amount of hesitation in her movements as she approached the door as she inspected the door and floor around the gap. It only took a few seconds to do her inspection, and when she was done, Luna continued through the passage, and entered the dimmed room on the other side. Quickly, she reformed herself back into her natural body, and took a few steps forward.

A smile on her face, Luna continued walking. “Not a single defensive arcane rune? Sister, you are too trusting.”

Luna had only been in Celestia's room a few times, but every single time she was too busy conversing with the sun alicorn to really get a good look of the area. Surprisingly enough, every one of the walls was colored a dark shade of violet—nearly the same color as her own coat. Further, designs of a cloudy sky adored every single every single inch of her sister's wall space. To Luna's right, there was a currently lit fireplace that nearly filled half of the wall, allowing a soft warmth to fill the otherwise chilled room. To the left of the fireplace, the strangest looking tapestry hung against the wall. It was easy to tell what it was—a shooting star against the night sky—but what it was supposed to represent was more of a mystery. Was it just a nice little design to liven up the space, or was it maybe supposed to represent Luna's banishment to the moon?

Whether for malicious or benign reasons, that second idea caused a shiver to travel along Luna's spine.

In the center of all of this, lay the target of her soon-to-be-cast spell. Celestia lay next to the fireplace, her bed less of an actual bed and more of an oversized cushion carefully placed on the floor. The cushion—while blatantly showing its worth via its gold embroidered lace and extravagant purple viciña fabric—was not anything that Luna had not seen before. Instead, it was the way Celestia was so peacefully sleeping on the cushion, with the slow rise and fall of her chest signaling that the dream she inhabited was a calm one, or at least not entirely unpleasant.

Speechlessly, Luna approached the sleeping princess before her. Without a single other thought, the night princess lit up her horn, and with a stony face, bent down, and touched the tip of her horn to Celestia's forehead.


When Luna first entered the dream, she made several discoveries all at once. The first—and most obvious of these—was that Cadence would not need to take over as the ruler of Equestria, for it was quite apparent that neither she nor Celestia perished in a spectacularly explosive way, or any way at all. Luna couldn't help but to feel a slight tinge of disappointment at that fact, for she always wanted to see how Cadence would do when placed in a seat of power. Sure, Luna was satisfied that she didn't turn into some sort of comatose vegetable, but there really was no way she'd ever be able to see Princess Cadence ever be ruler of any kingdom or empire. It wasn't like they just appeared out of nowhere.

The second thing that Luna realized was that she was able to modulate to the correct frequency quite easily compared to any of the others tonight. As for the reason why this was the case, she had no idea. Maybe it was because this was the first specimen that was the same species as herself, so it gave her a natural affinity towards the endeavor. A second hypothesis that she came up with was she was possibly much more experienced now, and so was surprising even herself with her ability now. This was unlikely, for while she had gotten better throughout the night, she had never surprised herself really with her capabilities yet. The final possibility, and the one that Luna hoped the most for, was that she was just that much better than her sister.

Regardless of any of these, the final thing Luna realized was that that she was currently floating above a massive party, with what looked like upwards of two or three hundred ponies in attendance. The room itself was unmistakeably the main ballroom in Canterlot Castle, but there were a few blatant differences between this room, and the one in the real world. Most of these came from the fact that the entire décor of the room was so vastly different from what it was normally. Instead of the familiar checkerboard tile, statues of famous ponies, and the dark violet walls, the place was much livelier and colorful. The walls were a much brighter white with a gold trim, the statues were almost nonexistent, and floors were a dark brown and gold carpeting. However, many of the windows still bore the familiar scenes in stained glass, but many more showed scenes that Luna instantly tore her eyes from.

She couldn't help it really—she had no desire to watch her own downfall painted in glass.

Regaining her composure, Luna looked back at the party before her, and quickly realized that this party below was completely different from anything she had seen take place in here before. While the parties Luna had seen occur in this room were normally boring affairs—one of many reasons she never tried to go to them—but this one was completely different. Instead of a party like the last gala, this one was much more similar to some kind of circus carnival. All around, various pieces of evidence of this fact stood before her—a long table filled with half eaten pies, several dart games, and even two jumping castles.

In the center of it all, the regal Princess Celestia stood in the center of a large group of ponies—her face completely covered in blueberry pie filling.

Luna began to make her way closer to where her dear sister was standing, but even from here, could make out what Celestia was saying. “—and then we told the old diamond dog ambassador, 'If thou would want ponies to take thee more seriously, then please refrain from sniffing our ponies' hindquarters!'”

Jubilant laughter pierced through any and all other noise in the room as the many ponies around Celestia reveled in delight. Chuckling herself, Celestia continued. “Of course, he wanted to retort about how untrue that stigma was, but the fact that one of his guards was sniffing the waiter's flank made things a little troublesome for him!”

Again, the crowd went up in laughter. While this went on, Celestia took the moment of distraction to bring a napkin to her face, and wipe off the ridiculous amount of pie filling she still wore on her face from whatever activities she had been partaking in before. However, as soon as she took the napkin away, there were still a decent amount of purple stains on her facial hairs. Sure, it looked ridiculous, but considering that none of the ponies around even tried to say anything about it, Luna suspected that there wasn't anything terribly unusual about the situation.

Suddenly, on one edge of the crowd, there was some sort of commotion. Luna got closer, and she began to be able to make out the sounds of a mare quietly whispering “excuse me” repeatedly entered Luna's ears—the mare the most likely cause. Her sister didn't appear to notice what was going on at all, though at the rate that the mare was coming towards her, she would quickly realize what was going on.

A moment, later, and the mare finally broke through the innermost wall of the crowd, and with a heaving chest, shouted, “Principem Celestia, Solis Dea!”

Turning her head, Celestia looked down at the mare before her. “Please, Praeses Caritativa, calling us merely Celestia would be sufficient for tonight.”

Nodding, Praeses took a few seconds to catch her breath. The mare was very curiously dressed, and considering her name—as well as the name she called Celestia—this event must have taken place long ago in the past. Adorning the buttery yellow mare was a bright robe that wrapped around her chest and midsection several times. However, the robe did not come entirely down to cover her flank. Instead, it appeared to purposefully leave the area that her olive branch cutie mark was placed exposed. Other than that, the brown maned unicorn appeared to be somewhat averagely built for all intents and purposes.

Finally catching her breath, Praeses smiled. “Of course, Celestia. By the way, congratulations on two hundred years of peace for the Equestrian Monarchy!”

Celebrating my banishment with this amount of gluttony? I am not surprised.

Celestia closed her eyes, and nodded. “We thank thee, but please. We cannot take all of the credit. Thou hath done so much to make this feat possible.”

Praeses turned around, and with a wag of her head, motioned back towards where she came. “Yes yes, but now we have something important to take care of! I need to show you something. Something important!”

With another light giggle, the alicorn began to follow. “Well then, by all means, lead on!”

As Luna continued to scowl to herself, Celestia followed Praeses onward to whatever the mare wanted to show Celestia. While Praeses had a problem getting to Celestia in the first place, getting away from where Celestia was appeared to not have been a single issue in the slightest. Further, Celestia herself didn't seem to have much of an issue getting through the crowd, though it more appeared that the crowd itself appeared to follow her rather than actually part in any way. Therefore, it didn’t take much time for the two ponies to get to the opposite side of the room.

As to where Celestia was now, she was currently standing in front of... well... Luna wasn't sure what she was standing in front of. It was a large glass-encased box-like... box, that was filled with water to about the three-quarter point. To the right, there was a big target that appeared to be attached to the box itself—with a large yellow tarp set up just behind the target in case of stray shots. Finally, inside of the box itself, there was a diving board-like device that a particularly well dressed and very dry red stallion was sitting on.

Celestia cocked her head in confusion. “Legatus Impetuosa? What art thou doing in there?”

Legatus waved. “Why, waiting of course!”

“Waiting?” Celestia cocked her head further. “Waiting for what?”

As soon as the question escaped the princess' mouth, a bright green ball floated over in front of Celestia's face via a deep blue magical aura. Looking behind her, the sun princess noticed that Praeses was standing there with a smile on her face, and her horn ignited.

“Come on!” the mare shouted as she nearly hopped in place. “We've been waiting for you to have the first shot!”

Even though Celestia took the ball in her magical grasp, her eyes still bore a questioning look. “Us?”

“Yes!”

“But... we shan't!”

A overly boisterous laughter emanated from inside the dunk tank, and Legatus had to hold onto the board he was sitting on to not fall over. “Come now, Principem Celestia, Solis Dea. Don't you dare try and tell me that through every single one of our thousands of arguments we have had—why, at least a hundred this year alone—that you haven't wanted to get me back in any way? Hmm? Come oooon! This is your chance!”

Celestia shook her head, and took a step back from the tank. “We apologize, but it would not be right for us to partake in this.”

Oh sister. Always taking the elevated road I see.

There was a soft groan from the crowd as Celestia tried to pass the ball back to Praeses. However, before the unicorn mare could take the ball back, Legatus shouted once again. “Oh come on Celestia! Oh! I know a way to get you to try it! Ahem...”

A nasty scowl formed across Legatus' face as his voice shifted to a much deeper and darker timbre. “Principem Celestia, it is we! The evil Somnum Exterreri Solebat Luna! We want eternal darkness over the land and to rule over Equestria with an iron hoof! Woe is the day that we take over the world, for we will gobble up every single filly and colt that we can find to fuel our dark powers! Not only that, but we hate our sister so much, we would—”

The ball slammed into the target so hard, it tore the paint off.

Instantly after the ball nearly destroyed the target, Legatus was sent tumbling into the drink—a startled gurgling noise heard from the depths of the water. It took a few seconds for the stallion to regain his senses, but after a small amount of time, he quickly reoriented himself, and pulled himself back to the surface. It was obvious that he had swallowed an unhealthy amount of water in his tumble, for as he broke the surface, hacking coughs escaped his lungs as he gasped for air.

All the while, Celestia stood there with her legs planted firmly on the ground, wings spread wide instinctively, and haggard gasps escaping her lips as she fought for air.

It was then that everyone in the entire room began cheering. Indeed, the noise in the previously mild ballroom turning into something akin to one of those laser bars that Luna did her best to shun. Not only cheers were heard, but claps, stomps, and hoots of exuberance echoed through the marble adorned chamber. Even if it appeared that Celestia didn't notice any of this, the rest of the ponies didn’t appear to notice her anger-filled body—trembling with the amount of stress that her tense muscles were putting on her body.

Suddenly, Praeses pranced over to where Celestia was planted, and slung her foreleg around Celestia's withers haphazardly. The touch initially caused Celestia to flinch from the contact, but it also caused her to snap out of the reverie that she was previously in. Blinking a few times, Celestia slowly let a nervous smile spread across her face, and let her wings slowly retract back to her sides. The two mares began to talk to one another about something, but the words were lost in the conundrum of exuberant hysteria. However, from the way their facial features, Praeses was very excited about the current situation, and Celestia either was excited, or hiding behind that thrice-accursed mask of hers very well again.

It was about a minute or two before the clamoring of the various ponies began to settle down, and Luna was able to make out what some of the ponies were saying. The moment that she could, she listened intently on what Celestia was saying. “We thank everypony for all the enjoyment tonight. Sadly, we art feeling especially tired tonight. We believe we shall retire early for the evening.”

There was a general groan that went out through the crowd of ponies, but that was quickly silenced by a way of Celestia's hoof. “Now now, we need my beauty sleep to make sure Legatus doth not trot all over us tomorrow during the proceedings. Until then, goodnight, our little ponies.”

A few hushed giggles of humor went through the crowd as they began to say goodbye to the sun goddess. In fact, each pony—including the soaking wet Legatus—took their time in saying their individual goodbyes to the regal mare. With each taking at least ten to fifteen seconds to say goodbye, it must have lasted nearly an hour before Celestia finally said goodnight to the last pony. Making sure that she did not fall into the trap of getting stuck saying goodbye once again, Celestia slipped out from the center of the room, and made her way through the various back halls of the castle.

All the while, Luna followed, and scowled.

It wasn't long until Celestia was in front of the door to her room—the doorway emblazoned with the sun like it was in the normal world. With a gleeful smile, she opened the door in front of her, and stepped inside of the room—a fire casting a warm glow over the mare. Quickly, she closed the door behind her, and cast some sort of spell on the precipice that she had just passed. Immediately, the dull thump of the music in the ballroom silenced itself, revealing the spell to be the same one that Luna cast earlier this very evening onto Scootaloo's room.

“Oh Legatus, you always were one for theatrics. 'I want eternal darkness!'” Celestia said as she did her best to imitate the stallion's voice. All the while, she allowed her hushed giggles to transform into boisterous laughter.

How... how dare... how dare she mock us in this way! We were trapped, abandoned for a millennium! There is nothing amusing about such a travesty! We were never even allowed to have a final word to explain ourselves! There is nothing, nothing that is amusing about what we were put though for those centuries!

Celestia obviously could not hear Luna's protests, and so instead of ceasing the her laughter, it only increased in volume—the princess' wings flaring wide as her flight muscles tightened. Continuing to mock Legatus' voice, she boasted, “'I'm going to rule over all of Equestria!'”

Everything that happened was because of thee, and thee alone! Yes, we were the one that pulled the trigger, but thou art the one that loaded the crossbow! All the atrocities we performed were done because of a hundred slights thee did against us! We only fought thee because we had no other choice. Everypony despised us, and we only wanted to be loved!

So hard she was laughing now, that Celestia had to stop walking, or risk losing her balance. Tears streaming down her eyes now, she was only able to get her composure together enough to babble, “'I am gong to take over the entire world!'”

And when we came to thee, what did thee do? Nothing! No, worse, thou did worse than nothing. Thou simply told us that we were imagining everything, and that we should stop being so sensitive. Sensitive! Doth thou hath any idea what it feels like to have nopony to talk to!? Huh? How about... thee...

Luna stopped talking to herself, because though the sounds of the uncontrollable laughter, there were bouts of... sobbing? Still, Celestia continued to speak in the mock tones that she had been talking in the entire time. “'I'm going to gobble up all the little colts and fillies!'”

As soon as those words spilled out of her mouth, the edges of her smile turned downward into the deepest frown physically possible. The laughter still remained, but now it was interrupted with more and more sobs as Celestia cried. It was the strangest sight that Luna had ever seen, and was even more confusing because of the reason.

What... what is going on... why are you...

With tears and snot running down Celestia's face—her forehooves completely ineffectual against the flowing liquids—she struggled to speak. However, as she spoke, her mocking tone of voice was completely gone. “I... I hate... I hate my sis... sis...”

She never finished the sentence, for it was right at that moment that a long series of haggard sobs escaped Celestia's being. For as regal as the formerly perfect mare typically was, the sight of her now—shattered emotionally—was something that Luna could never imagine. What Celestia was doing was beyond crying. Instead, she was a complete mess as she released all of the tension out of her body in the most unpleasant way possible. Tears ran down her eyes. Snot poured out of her nose. Her eyes slowly began to grow red and puffy. Even those perfectly white wings of hers were spread wide—twitching violently which each heave of her chest.

But... but... you...

“Oh dearest sister,” Celestia started as she looked up, and looked through one of the many windows in her room. This one in particular was perfectly situated so that she could gaze out and to the moon—the tell-tale shape of an alicorn's head curving along its right side. “We're celebrating the wonderful achievement of two hundred years of peace in Equestria. Praeses is right: it is thanks to me that we've had those years of peace. Indeed, for if it wasn't for me, we'd be celebrating our seven hundredth soon.”

Celestia took a second to sniff violently a few times, before she continued. “Luna, I regret never realizing the pain and turmoil that you were going through, and only stopping to notice until it was oh so too late.

“After I did notice, I regret...” the regal mare attempted to wipe her face, but was only moderately successful, “...regret sitting idly by as you—alone and in the dark—fell.

“And when... when you did fall, I regret taking up the Elements, doing such a... a... criminal act against you, and never stopping to see if there was another way.”

Celestia closed her eyes, and shouted with every ounce of her being, “I regret everything!”

The sudden explosion of sound sent a shock wave through the room, and just a moment later, impacted the walls around her. Every single window in the room—from the stain glass artwork to the smallest mirrors—shattered as the sound blew the fragile objects away, and scattered the tiny remains all over. The fire that had been previously lit in the fireplace spectacularly blew out, leaving the room shrouded in darkness. So powerful the shock wave was in fact, that several pieces of furniture, from dressers to racks for Celestia's regalia, shattered under the force, turning the once priceless works of craftponyship into nothing more than kindling.

Her entire being spent from the destructive yell, Celestia simply collapsed under her own weight, and with both of her wings splayed out on either side of her, cried even harder. Seconds turned into minutes, and for just the briefest of moments, Luna realized that her sister's sound-negating spell was probably the only thing that kept the entire party in the ballroom from bursting into the room from the commotion. However, Luna almost wished that somepony had heard, for she wasn't sure she wanted to be the only witness to this anymore.

But... this is not how you are supposed to be. You are supposed to be—

“Oh Luna, my precious Luna,” Celestia interrupted as she lifted her head up, and looked to the now completely unobstructed view of the moon. “If I could, I would take back the awful decision I made. If I could, I'd... I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat, and willingly finish the unforgivable punishment I threw onto you. If I could, I'd trade away any and all power over my beloved sun to bring you back...

“Because... because...” Celestia trailed off as she lowered her head and closed her eyes, “I just want my beloved sister back...”

Wordlessly, the regal mare lay on the ground surrounded by all of the destruction in the room, and with a heaving chest, continued to cry.


Luna yanked her horn out from touching Celestia's forehead so hard, that she was sent stumbling backwards. Barely not smashing into the dresser behind her, Luna planted her hooves into the floor, and continued to watch her sister sleep. She watched as her sister's eyes were now pouring with tears—the mare's chest rising and falling in much more sporadic ways. She watched as her sister's wings splayed out limply against the floor, and twitched every second or two.

Wordlessly, Luna slowly turned around, and with the slowest of steps, began to make her towards the door she came from a few minutes prior. As she got near, she lit up her horn, and with a small flash of magic, shifted into a mist, and quickly moved to the ground. Seeping through the cracks of the door, it took almost no time at all, and after only a second or two, she was reformed on the other side of the doorway, with no evidence of her previous escapades within her sister's room. Still, she was left frozen, unable to come up with a suitable reaction to anything that she just did or saw.

Luna blinked, and then her eyes misted over slightly.

With that, the Lunar Princess turned to her left, and began to run through the halls of the castle—destination unknown, yet irrelevant. As she ran, if one were to look every so carefully, one could see a trail of sparkling lights falling from her eyes.

Author's Note:

Only the epilogue to go!