Equestria's Dreamscape

by Blackdrag-rose

2. Arrangements

Obtaining the thorn and its ooze was the easy part, getting them out of the dream world proved to be a difficult challenge that Luna hadn't been expecting. The crazy magic that had twisted the entire forest into a nightmarish realm was making it harder for her to tear the items out of the corrupted zone. The good news was that she was able to cut the corruption out of the area it had been in and transplant it somewhere where it couldn't grow any larger.

Her magic alone was not enough to break through the barriers that made it so difficult for her to remove the thorn and the ooze. The best thing she could think of was seeing if her sister could aid her in tearing a small hole in the barrier to retrieve what she needed. As another thought she could always ask Twilight to aid her, seeing how she was already thinking of hoofing over the items anyway she could always get a doorway opened.

As Luna faced the strange black barrier she wondered if bringing Twilight directly the corruption was the best idea at the moment. She could easily bring herself into the Forest of Thorns, but to traverse the forest again, to search for the pillars, would likely result in failure. There was some form of magic in the air that made it so she couldn't remember the exact pathway she had taken when she had entered, a spell that had erased the path from her memory.

There weren't many beings, alicorn or not, who could use such a spell without it turning on them and destroying their minds. Discord's mind was already blown to Tartarus, Chrysalis was more interested in taking over Equestria than bothering to corrupt dreams, Sombra could have attempted it at one point and that could have explained how he became evil, and her fellow alicorns would almost never attempt such a spell. Which meant that there was only one being who could have cast such a spell without fear of it turning on him and erasing his mind for all eternity.

"Tia," Luna called out to the surrounding area, her voice traveling all the way to where her sister was dreaming, "I need to talk to you sister."

~Celestia's Dream~

Celestia, Ruler of the Day and the Sun, was enjoying a much relaxing day on the beach, soaking in the sunlight as she watched her student and her friends swimming in the water. In her dreams Celestia had always seen her student as a unicorn, but now that she had ascended she was having a hard time changing the dream version of her student. She felt that it reminded her of the past, but at times the real her would spill over and everything would move on as if the wings had never bugged her.

She opened her eyes and looked to her right, spying the piece of cherry cake she had put there a while before she had closed her eyes. In the dream she could keep the cake slice as fresh as she wanted without fear of the flavor dying or going sour, which is why she always enjoyed eating dream cake. The flavor was whatever she wanted, but for her she had always taken to changing the actual features of the cake into what she envisioned the actual cake would look like. It gave her a way of teaching her chefs new recipes that they would never dream of creating, until they tasted her perfection and took to dreaming up their own creations.

Tia. She heard her sister call, I need to talk to you sister.

It was always odd when her sister called a meeting in the dream world; only the pony Luna wanted to conference with could hear her voice and respond to the summons. Usually when Luna called on her she would close her dream and allow the magic to pull her across the dream world until she was where her sister was standing. It was an endless process and they would discuss whatever Luna felt like talking about, which was usually Twilight's dreams and the potential threats from the old villains.

Celestia sighed and allowed her dream to fade away before disappearing in a puff of dark blue smoke, the sign that signaled somepony was going to conference with Luna. When she appeared next to her sister she was shocked to see a gigantic black barrier standing directly in front of her, behind which stood a forest consisted of huge thorny trees.

"I'm so glad you could make it here quickly Tia," Luna said, welcoming her sister to the strangest place in the dream world, "I see you have noticed the reason why I have called you here and I..."

"The REASON you called me here?" Celestia nearly shouted, turning on her sister, "What I see is that something has taken root deep in this dream zone and has corrupted it to the breaking point. What I do not understand is why you have not cast it into pieces and scattered the pieces into the other realms."

"I cannot simply destroy dream zones on a whim," Luna complained, "besides, I took some samples of the thorns on the trees and the ooze that comes out of them when they are broken in any way. I tried to remove them from the Forest of Thorns..."

"The Forest of Thorns?" Celestia asked, curious as to the choice of the name.

"Yes, the Forest of Thorns," Luna snapped, annoyed by the interruption, "Anyway, I tried to remove the samples and this barrier came out out of nowhere. It is a magical barrier that is preventing me from removing my samples and it erased my memory of a route I took to the dead center of the forest. A center that has five stone pillars and a pure amethyst orb sitting in a clearing."

Celestia was silent, thinking over the facts as she tried to determine if there was anypony else that could have caused such corruption. Discord was a perfect candidate, but the whole new spell that erased the path from Luna's mind was something she had only read about in the notes of the stallion who had created the spell. If the clearing was what she thought it could be then things were in a lot more trouble than Luna could possibly imagine.

"I take it you were thinking of using Twilight to research the origin of the thorn and its ooze?" Celestia asked, receiving a nod, "I am in agreement, but we cannot have her go any deeper into the forest other than to retrieve the samples. What we will do is have her open a small gateway into the corrupted zone, one designed to allow us access and to prevent anything from escaping, have her go in and get the samples, and then get out before anything appears. Then we'll run some tests and see if this is the work of a certain stallion we both thought we would be rid of long ago."

"So I'm not the only one thinking about Midnig..." Luna began, only to have her mouth shut by her sister's magic.

"Do not speak his name," Celestia hissed, watching the thorn trees hum with activity thanks to the near mention of the stallion's name, "Yes, I am thinking about him. If anything is to go by it seems that the area will respond to his name as if they're awaiting a command. We need to figure out what's going on. If the seals are weakening then we need to reapply them before he escapes."

"I agree," Luna replied, tossing the magic off of her mouth, "but we need Twilight's help to determine what this stuff truly is and what it is not. Can you write her a letter and invite her to a meeting in the afternoon? And maybe Cadence as well? We'll need their help to breach this mystery and quickly, before this barrier falls and the corruption spills into the other areas. We need to stop this before he manages to break through the seals and appears in Canterlot.

Remember; if he escapes then everything is going to start falling apart in rapid succession."

"I will write a letter to Twilight when i wake up," Celestia answered, shaking her head, "but we need to get in there and scout out his progress. If worst comes to worst then we might have to seal him in an even deeper prison than last time. Otherwise we might not survive his onslaught."

Comments

[Sonata Blaze]

Celestia, be quiet and let Luna talk. I want to know what she's trying to tell us.

[Razzy]

I wonder if Midnight was sealed 'cause the sisters couldn't stand the thought of a male Alicorn.