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Dreamscape: Worlds Apart

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Chapter I: Midnight Torn Asunder

"I dream a dream of midnight lore, And lose the wonders sought before."

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The ambient sounds of the Dreamscape amounted to little more than the mellifluous song of the breeze as it danced amongst the long-grass, lengthy fronds each swaying in turn as the warm winds imparted their playful touch, rippling vast waves across the open meadow. The serenity, the almost unperturbed stillness, was a deliberate reflection of Graeme's mind as he relaxed amidst the soft earth and flora, the inner peace he felt reflected in the comforting environs he engendered.

It was dark, a deep pitch as always found well beyond the chimes of midnight, the sun a long-forgotten memory. But no night time chill dared to touch him. How could it?

The night was always a welcome companion here. It brought him comfort. All he need do was wait for the reason he relished the time between eventide and the dawn to manifest.

The princess of the night herself.

All he had to do was think of her, and she would appear, as she always did. Graeme had never been sure of the specifics. But somehow, it always seemed to work.

This time, however, something was very different. It wasn't Luna that appeared before him, at least not completely. There was a visible and familiar flash of black light, one Graeme had come to associate with the manifestation of Luna's magic, and then a mere apparition appeared.

It was unmistakably his princess. But she wasn't solid, almost as if she were merely a projection, or some kind of hologram. "Luna?" Graeme asked, uncertainty adding a dour pallor to his tone. Something was definitely amiss. Was this the real Luna, or was his mind manifesting a haunting spectral image of her in lieu of the real thing?

"Graeme? You can see Us?" she seemed fairly uncertain herself, and more than a little surprised that he'd noticed her.

"Yes." He started slowly, "But you're barely here..."

It was like watching a TV that wasn't quite tuned in to the channel.

"We are... Having some difficulty." Graeme could hear the undertone of tension in her voice. She was either stressed or concentrating intently on something. She wasn't normally so vague in her explanations. Not without good reason.

Graeme moved forwards a half pace, reaching out instinctively to see if he could actually touch the midnight alicorn, hoping she wasn't as ethereal as her translucent visage implied. When his fingertips reached what should have been the short, soft fur that he'd come to expect, his hands simply passed straight through Luna's form. There was a tingly heat, but no substance.

Graeme raised his hand to his face for closer inspection. The warmth lingered in his palm for only a moment before fading entirely, "What's happening?"

"The connection is weak." Luna explained evenly, "We are trying to strengthen it, but We are struggling to maintain Our usual link through the barrier between this world and the Dreamscape."

Her voice faltered only once, held in check through gritted teeth. Graeme could see the exertion, and he knew her latent magical strength. If this was proving such a challenge for Luna, then something very serious must have been going on. But precisely what that could be lay well outside of Graeme's area of expertise.

"I don't understand."

Luna's cyan gaze met and held his own, imbuing a sense of import. Graeme recognised it as her teaching mode; a sign he'd learned quite quickly meant he should just shut up and listen.

"Dreams are like bubbles. The membrane between them and reality is relatively thin." Luna analogised, using what she could of her magic to project an image into the air between Graeme and herself. A pair of large bubbles took form, suspended in mid-air, surfaces rippling and dancing with saponaceous rainbows of refracted light, "When one pushes through the membrane between realities, or reality and a dream, it distends and fluctuates." Luna pressed into the nearest bubble with the tip of her horn, demonstrating the point as it flowed and warped, "Too much stress, and the bubble ruptures," she forced her horn all the way through with an audible pop, "and the dream ends."

A moment of silence fell as Graeme tried to process precisely what that meant for their "bubble". What would happen to the Dreamscape?

"What happens after that?"

"Usually?" Luna seemed to shrug almost casually, "The pony wakes up."

That didn't fully allay Graeme's concerns, however, "So what about us?"

"We do not know." Luna had to admit that she was stumped. Well, not completely. She was certain that Graeme would simply wake up, as would she - there was nothing at all to suggest otherwise, as far as she was concerned - but the part that gave rise to the anxious uncertainty rising from the pit of her stomach was that she had no idea what it would do to their connection. "Our bubble doesn't just exist within one reality. It exists across two, and we must overcome it from both sides in order to reach the Dreamscape. Doing so creates a lot of stress; We believe it is close to breaking point. If the membrane pops, We do not know precisely what will happen."

Luna could feel the distortions propagating across and through the Dreamscape's membrane, and it was growing increasingly difficult for her to maintain her connection without actually causing it to rupture. She knew all sorts of little tricks and spells that were supposed to maintain the integrity of a dream. But the Dreamscape was different to most, and proving exceedingly unwilling to cooperate. It existed in a place between realities, giving it no natural connection to one world or the other. Unlike a pony's dream, rooted into her own reality by the dreamer themself, this place positively sapped the energy from her because she simply had no solid foundation to fall back on. The feedback trying to maintain the bubble was imbuing an ever growing fatigue on the lunar princess, and only served to remind her how uncooperative the bastardised dream world was being, and how powerless she was to do anything about it. Maybe with Graeme's help she could have done more. However, she had yet to introduce him to such subtle yet complex dream magic.

So the burden all fell squarely on her shoulders.

"Does this mean...?" Graeme's mind promptly leapt straight to the worst-case scenario. What if it meant he couldn't see Luna? What if it permanently severed the link he shared with her? He could barely bring himself to think of it for long, much less put it into actual words.

"I don't know." The look Luna held in her eyes said it all. Her thoughts had ventured down precisely the same route Graeme's had, and he could see the barely supressed distress in her gaze. Her typically reserved, controlled mien wavered momentarily before she could fully reign it in. To make Luna struggle to keep a hold on things... It must have been serious.

Graeme felt a rising sense of dread and panic catch in his throat. His rational mind offered no riposte to his fears, and that meant they began to quickly get the better of him. The world of the Dreamscape around them began to ripple and fluctuate as if it were a mere reflection on the surface of a pond, seemingly solid objects beginning to waver and distort as Graeme's thoughts took a turn for the worst.

"Graeme!" Luna's voice cut urgently into his thoughts. She was paying very close attention to everything that was going on around them, and she shared the human's dread at what she was seeing, "Graeme, you have to keep calm!"

"But... I... We..." Graeme's words fell dry at his lips. His mind was racing, unable to focus on any one thing.

"Graeme, you are about to burst the bubble!" Luna warned sharply, her own panic rising to the surface. It was hard enough maintaining the link she had to the Dreamscape as things stood without the added tumult Graeme's state of distress threw into the mix. She was forced to intensify her magic significantly just to maintain her projection. She felt the strain as it all weighed down on her, the effort giving rise to physical pain as her features contorted into an aggrieved grimace.

The entire reality of the dream was now dependent upon her own magic, Graeme's mind subconsciously losing all control over it. Luna knew she couldn't hold it for long. She needed Graeme to hold his composure and regain control, and fast! Graeme tried to hold on to it all, but it was a fight he was obviously losing. "No, no, no!"

This couldn't happen! It just couldn't!

He reached out for Luna again, desperately, the princess proving still completely intangible. Worse, the warmth he'd felt from her magic earlier was no longer present. She was slipping away from him. And he could feel it all on the verge of overwhelming him.

Graeme lost all control.

The bubble popped. He heard Luna shout his name.

There was a white flash.

And then, nothing.

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Chapter I: Midnight Torn Asunder