Beyond the Veil of Sleep

by Starscribe

Chapter 38

Mira woke in a strange land, surrounded by the lights of an impossible place. Stars swirled in the sky above, melting between discordant forms, then joining together. Constellations morphed and changed as she watched, familiar shapes from all over the sky. Kallisto had taught her all of them once—enough to read the seasons by them, or navigate a ship.

Or just to appreciate the glory of Princess Luna's night. No one who did not know the night could love the night. No one who didn't love the night could master its powers.

As thought returned, she gradually realized the impossibility of what she saw. The stars didn't move that fast—not since Luna had reigned, and cared over the night sky with the same love that Princess Celestia organized the day. In her own era, it was endlessly repetitive, each star returning in its season.

Which meant she wasn't in the waking world.

The reality of Mira's situation came crashing down in a single moment—the memory of her village, fled into the Dreaming rather than leave its bats to be slaughtered.

There was an army following us. Obviously they hadn't followed her into the Dreaming. Somepony had made sure her body was inside, severing the connection.

She sat up, already knowing what to expect. The green grass of a stolen, rewritten dream, hammered into a new form by a different version of Mira. A version who still remembered all the secrets of Nightmare Moon. But trying to reach for that now, she found only a painful fuzz against her subconscious, an open wound in the soul.

It would heal eventually, but what she sacrificed wouldn't come back. There was a void that would never fill, not until she learned all of it afresh.

Maybe not all of it. There were plenty of facts about the Dreaming that caught her mind—like how to open a gate. She'd repeated that same task so many times that she could still form the right shapes with her mind, or draw the right runes into the waking world. They were muscle memory now.

"The dreamer recovers," said a voice from nearby, startling her. She rose to a standing position, legs shaking under her as she did. Not the worst pain, she'd certainly been hurt before. But usually when she dreamed, the pain of her waking body was silent. "A pony wonders if she knows what she has wrought."

The speaker was an old stallion, though still spry and youthful compared to many she had known. There was some old secret about the unicorns there, something she no longer quite remembered. If they had enough magic, maybe they could avoid the worst consequences of age? Surely this one knew more about magic than almost all of their kind. Otherwise, he couldn't have built a prison for a princess.

"I know much less than I did," she admitted. "And I didn't know very much to start with. Like... how you're able to be here, having a conversation with me. Have you really been alive since the Lunar Rebellion? But the dream wouldn't be dead..."

She trailed off, noticing all the other sights stretching out before her. Mira had woken in a field of grass by night, which meant one of the more active parts of each day for a bat. There were hundreds of them now, exploring the city she had built, the dream she had stolen from this unicorn. Few lingered beside her, leaving her to rest here in the field next to a spell burned into the ground.

Except for this strange, ancient unicorn, standing vigil over her body. And maybe others too—she saw shapes approaching from the beach, a tight group centered around a set of huge moth wings, and bats wearing strange blue uniforms. Uniforms she knew, because she had sailed on that ship for many weeks.

"I am not the question you should worry about answering," the unicorn said flatly. From the way his tail flicked and he backed away from her, Mira knew she'd struck a nerve. Despite all his knowledge of magic, this pony didn't know how he could be here either.

He's right. I can figure this out later. "You mean about saving the princess from your spell? I know that will take time. Even after seeing your vision of the spell. But thanks to my village not being massacred, I can bring in a load of other experts to help."

"Not... exactly what I meant," the stallion said. "Though it is related. You've brought hundreds, maybe thousands of them here. Do you even know what you've created? What you've become, at least for the moment?"

"Safe," she answered reflexively. "This island has a physical anchor, one I made sure Equestria won't find. It should last for thousands of years, maybe longer. Would be longer if I could sneak out every now and then to clean things up."

The stallion's horn flashed, and he shoved her into a sitting position. "You brought all these into the Dreaming in body. You are not dreamers anymore—you are morpheans."

You know more about the Dreaming than most unicorns, she thought. He spoke with confidence, as one who knew he told the truth. "What does that mean?"

He opened his mouth to speak—but someone else reached her first.

Kallisto glided down from above, smacking into her side and tackling her to the floor. She squealed in surprise, trying to shove her off. But she was still worn, while this bat was rested. She had no chance of success.

"Mira! Mira, what the buck were you thinking?" Her teacher rose onto her hooves a few seconds later, brushing off the grass. "You brought Understory into the Dreaming?"

Mira struggled to her hooves. "Wasn't my first choice. But it was either that or let the Solar Army burn them alive. Would that be better?"

Her teacher said nothing for a time. At first Mira thought she might be overflowing with unexpressed anger—but then she saw where that suspicion was directed. Not at Mira at all, but the watching unicorn. "We should say no more while Equestria's own archmage watches. Even a dream of him might be powerful enough to send some message into the waking world."

"Equestria's own..." Mira hesitated. "I don't know what that title means. I didn't have the time to study Equestrian politics when survival was already so hard."

The unicorn inclined his head to her, polite. "My name is Starswirl. You may've heard of me. But you have no need to worry that I might smuggle information back to the princess, thestral. I will not."

"Why?" Kallisto demanded. She paced around him, flicking her wing at the huge tree-buildings that made up the new town. Bats within laughed and played, celebrating their survival. If they even knew what it meant to be alive in the Dreaming instead of the waking world, it didn't seem to bother them very much. "Why wouldn't you? Your princess is waging a war of extermination against our kind."

"That is precisely why I will not signal to the waking world. Even if I could, which is not as much a forgone conclusion as you seem to believe."

He followed the mare's eyes, looking up into the city. "I will not be party to genocide. Princess Celestia is wrong." The stallion said it so simply, so confidently—that even Mira believed him.

"Even though I told you what I want to do?"

"Perhaps especially. I take no joy from the fate of the moon princess. Luna did not deserve to suffer as she has. She reached beyond her magic, and Equestria suffered for it. I would not leave her there for eternal punishment."

Sandy appeared over the hill, trailed by Meridian, and a few members of the Diaspora's crew. The bug fluttered over to her for a hug. Meridian was a little less direct about it, but he still shook her hoof politely. Like Starswirl, his attention seemed mostly for the now-populated town.

"So many morpheans," he said. "Do you realize the danger you've put them in, bringing them here?"

"No. But if I hadn't, they would be dead. Whatever the Dreaming throws at us can't be as bad as extermination."

Meridian looked to Kallisto. "Strange times we are party to, Kallisto. To be living in such an age, where this is the path we must take to survive..."

"For now," Kallisto said. "They may not be ponies as you understand the term for much longer, Mira. Morpheans are... a rare, and dangerous creation. Living creatures are not meant to bring their bodies into this place."

Mira shrugged, touching one hoof against her teacher. "I don't feel any more solid than you. Seems like it's working fine."

Her teacher sighed. "You've done an amazing thing by saving so many... I cannot even imagine how to power such a portal. I don't mean to disqualify your accomplishment. Understory is... safe. For some definitions of the word. The Dreaming is a hostile place, but at least the Solar Army will not be able to come in force. I believe... it will take some time before Princess Celestia can prepare another spell to enter. We will have time to arm for her invasion, if she can even find this place in the Astral Sea."

"I don't believe she'll try," Starswirl said. "Princess Celestia believes that thestrals are a... dangerous hybrid race. You reach beyond Equestria's borders, and might bring night horrors back with you into the world. You already have, in fact."

"You can get to the Dreaming too," Mira snapped. As they spoke, her presence was rousing other creatures from the little town. Bats lifted out of the trees, flying with lanterns in their mouths. All seemed intent on reaching her. "Unicorn magic can do almost anything. Even if she kills all of us..."

"Not the Dreaming," Meridian whispered. His words were so sudden and unexpected that everypony turned towards him. The cartographer was quiet now, ears pressed flat. "Beyond it." He nodded towards the two uniformed bats. "Bats were once... not bats. These, our ancestors, traveled here from a far country. Princess Luna helped us make ourselves into a part of this place—but we still passed down a sliver of the Outside with us. Our souls are not confined to Equestria. We might leave it again, or hold open the gate to allow other things to pass through."

"But we wouldn't." Abe straightened, adjusting his new hat. Despite what he had said at first, he now wore Yi's hat proudly. "Virtue recoils at the corruption. I cannot comprehend how Princess Luna of all people would..."

"It is a long story," Starswirl whispered. "Every bit as dark and hopeless as you imagine. The story of numerous failures from the ponies closest to her. Those who should have protected her and walked beside her—before you were born, I fear. I cannot say how many years have passed. Enough that her elder sister grew tired of compassion and elected to murder those she spared from the death of their world."

"Will these bats... get hurt?" Mira finally asked. "That morphean thing you mentioned, that we are right now. Do I need to get everypony out? I'm not sure I could if I wanted to right now."

"Need..." Kallisto repeated. "An interesting word. They are not dead, nor are they dying. But every meal they eat, every second they spend here, replaces their substance with the strange ephemera of the Dreaming. In time, they will be unable to return to the waking world for long. It may take centuries, but the process is... quite irreversible."

"It's why we made the Dreaming our afterlife," said Abe. "We could've stayed here forever, bound to Equestria's dreamscape with a few silver threads. But in time, it would mean giving up the physical world. It would mean no children. And subjecting ourselves to the dangers of the Dreaming... like the dead." He glanced back at the ocean, removing his cap with one hoof. "To be lost forever to entropy, as our first world was lost. To live is better."

"I can't return them," Mira declared. "You all ought to know now as much as anypony—I spent the power Princess Luna gave me. It's how I saved Understory. Whatever comes next, we won't have the princess's magic to help us. We're on our own."

“Then we must free her from her captivity,” Starswirl declared. “That was… why you hunted for me, was it not? For the wisdom its creator carried with him? It will not be easy—even for one as resourceful as you. It may take much time. But together, I believe we could see it done. I only pray the sisters can forgive each other when the time comes.”

Comments

[redmar]

Being stuck in the Dreaming forever doesn't really sound appealing. Maybe they will be able to make smaller portals to at least delay the problem.

[Just_Me123]

Physically entering the dream realm, now that's an interesting idea that I've never seen before though I am sure others have used it somewhere. Good idea!

[bkam]

I'm glad to see that even Starswirl is siding against Celestia.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

11843027
And what he hunts says that NMM maybe have been a justified respo se to something

[FanOfMostEverything]

Starswirl being in Limbo creates a bizarre edge case in the usual duality of life and death, one that is happy to atone for all the failures that led to the Nightmare. I’m glad to see it. Still, a community in the Dreaming carries heavy consequences. Hopefully they can get this all sorted out before the worst comes due.

Also, Earth is gone for good? Yikes. (And, per Starscribe tradition, Celestia does not deal well with the risks represented by beings from other worlds. Silly Sunbutt.)