Succession And The Dream Encounter
Princess Luna had, recently, found herself in quite the predicament. Well, ever since her sister had explained to her the true purpose of Twilight Sparkle, and the role that the young unicorn would play in the future. It had been about three weeks after the young unicorn and her friends had returned Discord to a state of stone after his original imprisonment had been broken, leading to the Lord of Chaos once again attempting to reign destruction upon Equestria. It was a conversation which Luna remembered well.
She had just finished lowering the moon as her sister raised the sun, and she was ready to clock in to sleep for herself, exhausted from her work the night before, traveling through the dream realm to help ponies through their nightmares. It was exhausting work, but she had found true satisfaction in doing it. The deep personal connections she was able to form when she was doing so vanquishing any lingering jealousy she may have had from when she was Nightmare Moon.
With the sun raised and the moon lowered, her physical realm duties effectively complete, she turned and began to walk back towards her bedroom when she felt a hoof on her shoulder. Turning to see Celestia, she gave her a quizzed look.
“What is it, sister?” she asked, worried for a small moment that something might be the matter.
“Walk with me a moment?” Celestia told her as a means to reply. While not technically an answer, it wasn’t really a question either. If nothing else, it helped to bring calm back to Luna, as she knew that Celestia wouldn’t do this if something was wrong.
As much as the prospect of sleep pulled at her, (even if her tantabus-induced repetition of her transformation didn’t exactly allow her to get a whole lot of rest), she didn’t believe it wise to ignore her sister’s request.
“Of course, Celestia,” she agreed.
Celestia gave her a small smile and set off down the long corridors of their shared castle at a pace no faster than a leisurely stroll that someone might take through the park on a nice summer’s day. Luna easily kept the same pace, waiting for her sister to elaborate on whatever was on her mind. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done this sort of thing before, especially since her reformation from being Nightmare Moon, but this somehow felt different to Luna.
“I’m sure you understand that some of the things that have happened since your return were,” Celestia paused, seeming to choose her next words very carefully, “controlled on my part to test Twilight Sparkle.”
“Including some parts of my return as well,” Luna reminded her.
Celestia nodded, “Yes, quite. I believe it is time you knew why I am even putting these tests on her, and what that will one day mean for me, and for you as well, should you so choose.”
Luna’s head cocked to one side; she wasn’t necessarily expecting this to be the conversation that Celestia wanted to have. That didn’t really make a difference to her, it only served to pique her interest in whatever reason her sister had for giving her student these tests, and what in Equestria that would mean for either of them.
After a few brief moments of silence, Celestia continued, “One day, far in the future, for she still has much to learn before she could ever reach that point; I will retire and Twilight Sparkle will replace me,” she briefly paused again, “and you as well, should you also retire.”
Luna’s jaw dropped ever so slightly, clamping shut again as she regained bits of her composure as she tried to fathom what exactly Celestia had just said to her. She had never imagined that her sister would retire. Though, she couldn’t imagine that ruling Equestria for a thousand years by herself while Luna had been imprisoned on the moon was an easy task, and she could see why her sister might consider wanting a break.
“Retirement? You?” she stammered.
Celestia gave a small chuckle, “Well, I can’t say I expected you to react like that.”
“Not necessarily my point, sister,” Luna replied, “I’m just wondering why in the name of Starswirl the Bearded you would consider that right now. Or why you would think I’d want to retire.”
“I ruled Equestria alone for a thousand years, Luna, there’s only so long a pony can do that before she loses her soul. I want to finally get to live again, like before we became the rulers of Equestria,” Celestia sighed, “Don’t you want to have that too?”
Luna thought for a moment, taking a moment to seriously consider the idea. She would be lying if she said the idea hadn’t come up in her mind before, at least since her return. While she valued the connections she made with the ponies in their dreams almost as much as she valued her sister, she couldn’t help but be skeptical of the idea.
“What of Twilight Sparkle, then? She certainly isn’t ready to replace both of us yet. And even if she were; I have my doubts that any singular pony could fully replace both of us. With you ruling Equestria by day and my work in the dream realm, there’d be no time for her to sleep, never mind getting more than a minute to herself or with her friends, it’d be enough to drive any pony mad.”
Celestia laughed again, “Of course she isn’t ready yet, I’m just as aware of that as you are.”
She pondered for a few brief moments before continuing again, “While I must admit my original plan was for Twilight to replace us both, perhaps you are right in suggesting that it would be impractical for her to take both of our roles. It may just be too much to ask of one pony.”
Luna breathed a small sigh of relief, glad that her sister had realized that the idea of giving Twilight the responsibility of both of them would simply be downright cruel to her. While that was certainly more for Twilight’s sake than her own, Luna simply couldn’t get behind the idea of passing both of their roles onto a singular pony, that just didn’t feel fair or reasonable to her. Had she known the idea her sister would suggest next, she may have been willing to go along with it.
“Well then, that leaves but one option,” Celestia smiled, clearly having another brilliant spark, “It only makes sense that you get a pupil as well.”
Luna blinked several times as she had to consciously force herself to not drop her jaw again, “I beg your pardon?” was all that she could force out.
Celestia smirked slightly, “You said it yourself, forcing one pony into both of our roles would not be right of me, thus, it only makes sense that you need to teach somepony else how to follow in your hoofsteps.”
Luna sighed. She didn’t enjoy admitting to when her sister was right. However, there was simply no way the logical part of her brain would deny that Celestia’s idea not only made sense, but was, at least in concept, a good one. And seeing the cheeky, almost devious look on her sister’s face, Luna was fully aware that her sister could tell what she was thinking. She rolled her eyes, she had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.
It was this predicament Luna found herself in as she scoured through the dream realm one night. Now having to find a pupil, she had decided to scour this place for one, along with her normal duties of monitoring everypony's dreams. While she had a feeling Celestia did not agree with this method, her sister had chosen to stay out of this for now, evidently thinking it was a matter for Luna to resolve for herself. Luna appreciated Celestia’s laissez-faire approach to this, knowing that her sister, even if only trying to help, would likely be more a hindrance than an annoyance in this matter.
Though maybe she could use the help, as much as she didn’t want to admit it. So far, her search had turned up completely and utterly fruitless. She hadn’t found a single pony with the magical power or the discipline to manipulate the dream realm in such a way to watch over it. Though, perhaps powerful unicorns were in shorter supply than she had previously thought.
Going through the dreams of various ponies and helping them through their nightmares was not necessarily a difficult task, it was merely tedious. So, as she felt one last dream call out for her help, she hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d get a small period of time off and to herself before she either got called to another one, or had to wake up to lower the moon so her sister could bring in the day.
It was as she was entering the dream that she immediately felt something was very wrong. She hadn’t ever before gotten a feeling of, “I’m not allowed to be here,” when entering a dream. At least, not in the way she was feeling it now. It was almost as if the dream was trying to push her out of it, to keep her away, to prevent her from entering and assisting whatever pony needed help within it.
Whatever magical force it was that was doing that, however, wasn’t strong enough to prevent Luna from entering the dream, upon which she found herself in a completely empty white space except for four massive equal signs on what would normally be walls, if their was one there, and a small gray-toned pink unicorn mare in the middle of them. A second more of processing, and Luna heard a slightly muffled, sweet-sounding voice that sounded as if it was coming out of a loudspeaker.
“In sameness, there is peace. Exceptionalism is a lie. Free yourself from your cutie mark. Choose equality as your special talent. Difference is frustration. To excel is to fail. Be your best by never being your best. Conformity will set you free. Accept your limitations, and happiness will follow. You're no better than your friends.”
Luna, making a mental note of all of this, swooped down to the unicorn, landing on the non-existent ground beside her.
The unicorn turned to her, a mixture of confusion and worry on her face, “Who are, who are you?” she stammered.
Using her magic to change the pony’s dream to being an open summer’s meadow, Luna answered. The unicorn looked around wildly, a look of pure surprise and joy on her face. It was almost as if she hadn’t had a dream away from those equal signs in a long time.
“I am Princess Luna, I help ponies work through their nightmares, and yours called out to me. Now, my little pony, whatever was your dream about?”
The unicorn gulped, “It’s the same one I have every night. And every pony in my village has it too. It’s meant to be a reminder of how awful our lives with our cutie marks are, and why we should never want to go back to them.”
“Your entire village doesn’t have cutie marks?” Luna asked, a sense of wrongness building up in her chest and threatening to block the airways to her lungs. She had a horrible feeling that this went far, far deeper than she may have initially thought.
“Of course not,” the unicorn pointed to her flank, where Luna was horrified to see the same equal signs that had been overbearing in the unicorn's dream earlier, “It’s how we achieve true friendship and harmony in our town. No one has special talents, so we don’t flaunt them, don’t get jealous, and we all live happily.”
Luna tried to think about what magic could have done this, removing a pony’s cutie mark was something she had never heard of. Maybe she’d have to ask Celestia tomorrow morning, and then go to this village and get to the bottom of this all. There was something very, very wrong with this village, and something there had forcibly taken away the ponies that lived there’s cutie marks.
Before Luna could ask her next question, she heard a faint popping sound, and turning, she found herself face-to-face with a considerably more vibrant (at least in comparison to the grayish-pink mare whose dream they were in) lilac unicorn mare, who Luna immediately noticed also had a equal sign cutie mark, and the same voice that had been on the imaginary loudspeakers from earlier on.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” the lilac unicorn smiled, “whatever have we here?”
The grayish-pink mare nearly jumped in surprise, “Oh, Starlight! I was just, uh…” she trailed off, evidently unable to come up with an excuse on the fly.
“Talking with strangers are we?” the lilac unicorn, apparently called Starlight, accused, “And telling them about how much we miss our cutie marks.”
“I never said anything of the sort!” the grayish-pink mare shot back, looking desperate and terrified of Starlight’s mere presence.
Luna’s horn glowed as she attempted to use her own magical abilities to remove Starlight from the dream, just as she would do to any other thing that was simply part of a nightmare, when, to her surprise and slight horror, nothing happened. She thought for a second. If Starlight was truly a part of the dream, and not here the way Luna herself was or something similar, then she would have been removed from it with no trouble. Luna gulped as the full realization dawned on her:
Starlight was here, just like she was, in a dream that wasn’t her own.
Starlight continued to walk towards the pair, a wicked smile growing on her face as she did so. Her horn began to glow as she got closer, while the grayish-pink unicorn backed up and hid behind Luna. Knowing what could be the dire consequences if she didn’t act fast enough, Luna prepared the spell she needed to banish Starlight from this poor mare’s dream. However, the lilac unicorn had beaten her to the punch.
“As for you,” she hissed, “don’t ever come back to one of my pony’s dreams again.”
With that, a cyan blast erupted from Starlight’s horn and hit Luna square in the chest. Caught off guard by the unicorn’s sudden attack, Luna didn’t have the time to raise a shield in her own defense to block the spell. It was only as she felt a jerk from the center of her spine that pulled her out of the dream at ever increasing speeds that she realized she had been kicked out of the grayish-pink mare’s dream.
Awaking with a start, Luna ran as fast as she dared to her sister’s room and pounded on the door. She heard several sounds of movement as her sister awoke from her own slumber and stumbled to the door. As it flung open, Celestia looked exhausted, but determined. Before she even got the chance to ask what was going on, Luna already spoke.
“I have to leave, right now. There are ponies that need my help.”