Beyond the Veil of Sleep

by Starscribe

Chapter 20

Mira reached the sleeping display, where flowers were arranged against the bed of the Wakeless Mare. Shame about ruining all this—but she had eaten them when she first woke. Maybe the worshiper’s offerings would amount to something after all.

Mira shoved it all onto the floor, clearing the table down to the cloth. She spread the diagram there on the table, unrolling it beside the charcoal and starting to sketch.

“Did you have to ruin the whole thing? I don’t remember how it was arranged…”

Mira looked back, eyes narrowing. “I can have a pretty memorial, or magic that actually does something.”

She didn’t wait for a response, that was probably a question she didn’t want. Night would probably be happiest with a wax doll to lay in her place instead of a pony.

“What are you even doing?” the mare asked, staring over her shoulder at the diagram. “I’ve known plenty of bats in the order, and never seen any magic like this.”

Mira tried to explain—then realized she didn’t have the words. She couldn’t fully articulate exactly what she was doing or why, only that it would help her mastery of the Dreaming grow. Mastery she would need if she ever hoped to rescue the princess.

“It sends me to a specific place in the Dreamlands,” she said. “And it… affects time, I think. Somehow.”

She finished drawing, then crawled up onto the slab, careful not to smudge the diagram as she did so. “Don’t let anypony kill me while I’m asleep. I don’t know how long this will take.”

Despite her worries that she would need some drug to help put herself to sleep, the reality was far simpler—once invoked, the magic she'd created took her almost instantly. Drowsiness washed over her, she yawned once, then curled over sideways.

Seconds later, she was... back in Understory? She stood just outside the monastery, where mushrooms grew over carefully composted waste. Before they promised false miracles, they had to make do with what offerings they had—often just a little rotten fruit for the garden, doomed never to grow in the lightless twilight.

For a few seconds she was entirely enraptured by the dream, taking a basket from nowhere in particular and starting to harvest. She filled it about halfway, enough for a meal for herself and the Reverend Mother. She had to be conservative, or else risk the supplies running out by winter.

Though maybe she shouldn't have worried, considering how overflowing these particular mushrooms had grown. Apparently those donations had picked up as well. There was a little light streaming in from the city above, much more than on most nights. Maybe some of the upper neighbors had moved their homes, giving paths for moonlight to reach the monastery.

Then she stepped inside, and found the sanctuary transformed. Instead of facing the moon-window, the chairs were arranged around a glass case. Dried and shriveled flowers were all packed in around the case, all gone the same shade of rotting brown. And there in the center...

A batpony corpse, shriveled and mummified. A metal plate affixed to the bottom proclaimed what she was looking at. "The Wakeless Mare, journeys eternally in Dreaming."

"Me," she whispered, to nopony in particular. "How did I die?"

"I heard they stabbed you," said a familiar voice from one of the pews. "Gossip is sketchy out of Bravery. Everypony there likes to take more credit than they're due."

Mira turned slowly in place. She tensed as she did so, spreading both wings in case she had to fly away in a hurry. "Kallisto," she whispered. "Are you really here, or am I just—"

"Dreaming?" This wasn't the shriveled old mare who couldn't move from her bed without help anymore, but spoke with ancient wisdom. Instead, she was a pony not much older than she was. She wore a loose cloak over her whole body, with layers and layers of white wrapping underneath. Like mummy wraps, except unwound from her head. Tiny black letters scrawled over each one, glowing faintly with moonlight. "Of course you're dreaming, young Mira. That doesn't mean we aren't together."

Mira eyed the dark metal object on the bench beside her, a long tube with straps along its length, and a mechanism about hoof-sized near one end. "You going to kill me again? Every time I go to sleep?"

Kallisto sighed. "I don't blame you for your anger. I know you'll think of it as a betrayal, but I only wanted to keep you safe."

Mira grunted unhappily, slumping onto her haunches beside her own rotting corpse. "I've managed to stay alive in the waking world for all these years. I expected the Dreaming to be easier. I don't think I lasted a week."

Kallisto shrugged, flipping the hood off her face. Her mane was shorn close now, military fashion. She wore little bits of metal jewelry on her ears too, and more that clinked when she moved. "Every student dies when they're starting out. That's what makes the Dreaming ours. When the native creatures die, sometimes a spirit like them is reborn from sleepers' dreams. When we die, we return again the next night, unchanged."

Mira glared over her shoulder at the body, and the dark monastery. She didn't want to be in the gloom anymore. With a slight effort of will, their surroundings changed. The pews remained, but everything else was replaced by jungle, wild and untamed under the silvery moonlight. "You wouldn't believe what they're doing to the monastery after your passing, Kallisto. Superstition and false miracles—everything the moon hates. Luna's chosen can't turn their lies on each other!"

Just like that, Kallisto was standing beside her. She had her hood up now, and both wings emerging from her cloak. The strange metal object Mira took for a weapon now hung from her back, rattling as it moved. "That is no accident, Mira dear. The Sun Tyrant always meant to destroy our faith. Transforming the monasteries into base superstition strips bats everywhere of their birthright.

"Nopony would give me their fillies and colts to train, after what happened to the other priests. You were my only student, and your time was far too invested in survival. The chain is broken, and soon all who live to remember our magic will take it with them into the Dreaming."

She turned away, spreading her wings as though she were going to take off. "I'm glad you're back with the living. Without my potion, your exploration will be much safer. Here in your own dream space, you are as a princess yourself. When you master it, perhaps I'll see you venture beyond it one day."

She wiped away tears, replacing her mask. "When you die too, maybe you'll join me here. A vagabond instead of a queen, sheltering by feeble fires in the forgotten realms of sleep."

Mira could let her go—it would be easy enough, just wait a few seconds, let her old teacher fly away. But what other allies would she find waiting in the rest of the Dreaming? A stallion she thought she could trust put a knife into her back.

"Do you know why they killed me?" Mira asked. She didn't wait for a response. "I succeeded, Kallisto. I spoke with the Moon Princess."

Kallisto's wings snapped closed, and she spun. "You made it to the moon that quickly? A month at most, less perhaps. You couldn't have."

She shook her head. "She noticed me from Bravery, after a storm. She..." The last pony Mira had shared this with had killed her. But if anypony in Equestria could be trusted for loyalty to the moon, it was Kallisto. "She can't save her tribe, not without help. She spent every drop of power she had left to give me guidance, and entrusted me with the mission of freeing her."

Those words hung in the air, leaving a silence broken only by the occasional croak of jungle frogs, and the gentle trickling of distant water. Wind whistled through the leaves, but Mira knew there would be no dangers appearing from the darkness here. Her dream space was her home.

No danger except for Kallisto, who appeared inches away from her. She didn't put a knife to her throat, instead resting one leg on her shoulder, holding her close. "I know you wouldn't try to lie to me. What did she say? How can we free her?"

Mira met her eyes without looking away. Let her teacher feel her confidence. Maybe she would feel a little guilt for trying to kill her after that first sunrise. "She didn't have time to tell me. The Sun Tyrant noticed what she was doing, and silenced her communication. But before that happened, she gave me what she knew. I don't know how much exactly. I know it's in my head, because that's how I got in here again. But I don't know how much is there, or how to access it."

"I think I inherited some of it too," said another voice, so small she almost missed it over the other jungle sounds. The kitten hopped up onto a log beside her, stretching out in the moonlight. "I was in your bag. I see pictures now. Shapes and symbols, whispering words. Places I've never been. Memories that aren't mine."

Kallisto glanced between them, eyes sharp. "You have a familiar?" she asked. Apparently that was almost as interesting as what the familiar said. "I knew you were a talented and promising student Mira, but this?"

"Call it talent, call it unfair responsibility," Mira said. "I'd introduce you, but the cat hasn't given me her name yet."

Kallisto flicked her hood down again, exasperated. "Cats don't use names for themselves, they already know who they are. But if you give her a name, that's something to connect you. A way for one voice to find its way through dreams to others. Another thread means you can find each other more easily. Naming something gives that thing a little piece of you in return."

The kitten yawned, then started licking her paws. "I was going to let her figure that out. The pony might be big, but her experience is very small. Other cats with their ponies always sound so frustrated with bats who do not listen to them. But Mira doesn't have any other choice. Where else can she go for answers?"

"I'll call you... Pixie," she said. "I've been thinking of it for a long time, almost since we met. You always looked like a Pixie to me."

The cat huffed, but said nothing. That was apparently the closest to approval she would get from the creature.

"I wonder if you could help me with something else, Kallisto," she went on. "I know that's all a lot to take in... before I try to solve it, there's a creature I need to help. Their name is Sandy, and they trusted me enough to leave Hope. If you found me here, could they find me too?"

"Yes." Her teacher paced around her, shoving aside overgrown jungle foliage as she walked. "Any dream creature responds to their nature. A moth from Hope, well you need a hopeful dream. Along with some connection to them. You can't create that now, it has to already exist."

"I think we're friends," Mira said. "You said I need a hopeful dream?"

Mira scratched her chin, considering what might make her feel hope. Then she willed it—a new Understory, overflowing onto the jungle surface instead of hidden away underground. She saw thousands of bats, walkways through the trees, and huge orchards of fruit. There in the center of town was the monastery, where study of the night's secrets was enshrined in daily worship.

Most importantly, there wasn't a solar guard in sight. In fact, unicorn scholars had come here to study, fascinated and impressed by the cultural richness, dwarfing anything they could find in their homeland.

She stepped onto a walkway, and gestured to a vendor offering frozen mango treats, accepting one in her hoof without the need for money. It was her hopeful future, she didn't need anypony's permission for how to make it work. "I think if Sandy was going to find me, this is where they'd be," she said, taking a single, delicious bite.

Pixie followed her along the wooden railing, walking along a bridge between two tree-structures. The bats didn't need it, but in this future the other tribes didn't hate her. They visited her the same way creatures who wanted to learn about magic went to Canterlot. "Not bad. You've thought about this before."

"It's what the night princess will make for us," she whispered. "Maybe even better."

"Maybe," Sandy said. They snatched Mira's frozen treat from her hoof, taking a dramatic bite. "I thought you scary bats only ate bugs."

Mira flung both hooves around their chest, tears streaming down her face. "You're alive!"

"Only one of us got stabbed, Mira. Of course I'm alive."

Comments

[redmar]

I'm curious to see where this will go next. I wonder if Mira will learn the truth about Nightmare Moon and if she'll be able to accept it.

[MasterNotWriter6626]

11737656
Adding to that, I wonder if she'll push forwards anyways, or alternatively, come up with a new plan to save the bats. I doubt she would just give up. This is Starscribe we're talking about.