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Dreamscape: Worlds Apart

Prologue

-o-O-o-

Six Months Later...

-o-O-o-

The beauty of dreams is that they are practically boundless, limited only by the constraints of the mind and imagination of the dreamer. Push yourself to imagine and there's no limit to what you might achieve. A world of fantasy, properly sculpted, so readily becomes a paradise - though some definitions may vary. For Graeme, paradise was proving to be the time he shared with Luna, partaking in her experiences and knowledge of her world and the magic it had to offer, and him giving her the same view into his in kind. Sharing such detail through the lenses of their own memories and recollections fostered a strong bond between the pair - an emotional connection that spanned realities - which Graeme had quickly grown to cherish.

The nightmares that had drawn the two together in the first place were little more than a distant memory, gladly left to rot, buried in the past, their time shared together in the Dreamscape having already taught and changed him so much. Luna had gifted him with the knowledge required to manipulate the dream as its architect rather than merely experience it as a passive observer. She'd revealed to him the secrets to changing anything about the world around him, and even his own physical form.

And they'd sure used it to have fun!

Luna had made no secret of the fact she felt Graeme seemed to possess an innate talent for dream sculpting. Most likely a career spent rendering his thoughts into physical form (either artistically, or via the written word) had nurtured his creativity and given him just enough mental discipline to get him started. The results had been rough at first, and would need a lot of work and polish to develop into anything of any true remark. But Luna knew the potential was definitely there.

And so the great alicorn of dreams had taken on the role of mentor rather than teacher proper, guiding where needed rather than intently instructing, but trusting Graeme's ability to intuit and develop his own skills from there. Dreams being as closely tied to emotion as they were seemed to better suit the more passive approach.

Sure, Luna had taken a more structured attitude towards a few finer, somewhat unrelated points, least of which was teaching the human how to read and write in Equestrian Standard. She'd insisted he do the same and teach her his native tongue - though through some quirk the languages appeared aurally indistinguishable, the same couldn't be said for their respective alphabet. But teaching each other to read and write had been pleasantly easy, especially when they could exchange thoughts so much more directly than most.

Another benefit of sharing the Dreamscape.

And it had also given Luna some minor cultural context for some of the things she'd learned from the human.

There were other things that had caught Luna's eye in their explorations together, too. As the Dreamscape had grown to become more sophisticated, Graeme had displayed a tendency to populate their shared world with machinery and contraptions from his own reality, in much the same way she did by bringing her magic. It had startled her at first to learn that magic in Graeme's world was so incredibly limited, perhaps even non-existent. Nature, it turned out, regulated itself without the guidance of a conscious mind. The moon rose and the sun set of their own volition, no alicorn magic required. Just the basic fundamental forces and constants of the universe.

Her concerns had been alleviated when Graeme had revealed it all seemed to work just fine.

Indeed, in place of a pony's magic, the human race had seemingly instead mastered its technology, and developed it to levels Luna had struggled at first to comprehend. The benefit of context from Graeme himself had aided her greatly in her learning. The magic, it seemed, lie entirely within the power of the human imagination, and their capacity for rendering their dreams to manifest through their tools and machines.

And oh, how much of it had thrilled her!

There was so much she wanted to know, to try, to sample from his world; computers, phones, planes, television, the internet - the sum total of human knowledge and experience, she'd been led to believe - and then the one thing above all else that had captured her imagination; the automobile.

How she'd relish learning to use that particular tool in some form of actual reality. In the Dreamscape, in something Graeme had called a "sports convertible", with hundreds upon hundreds of horsepower (the phrasing alone had made her chuckle) she had sought thrills she had never been able to imagine. Sure, it lacked the freedom of flying, or the majesty of state carriage or chariot. But oh, the white-knuckle thrills that could be had in human form, piloting the vehicle across the terrain at high speed, beneath a bright midnight sky, knowing that you and you alone were in control, that the vehicle was like an extension of your body and will..

And that was only if one could retain control. Not always an easy task, pushing things to the edge.

She'd adored Graeme for granting her such an experience.

And there was still so much yet for them to share. So much she wanted to learn from him; so much she wanted to teach him. It stoked an eagerness within her that she found refreshing and invigorating; the opportunity to learn something which, most likely, no other pony could or would even have the opportunity to. For an immortal alicorn princess, the "new" was often difficult to come by. "Been there, done that" could all too easily become the norm if one didn't seek out the opportunities.

So Luna planned to seize it with both hooves and discover all that she could.

Together, exploring their world and each other, the pair continued to dream.

At least, for a short while.

Until the fates stepped in.

-o-O-o-

Dreamscape: Worlds Apart