In my dreams I carry the moon up an endless hill. Its glow lights my path upward, forever.

The moon is alive. It is full of the dreams of ponies, swimming around unconsciously, ethereally, colliding, merging, splitting. Cell mitosis. An embryo of living creativity. Hope meets fear and passion meets fate and love meets war and memory meets surreality.

Every night, without fail, I falter under its weight and collapse. The weight of all those dreams crushes me flat. I feel every cell shattering.

Then I wake up.

---

I rise up from my bed in an earthly pallor and drift through the winding hallways. One thing I appreciate about Canterlot Castle is, its upper levels are laid out exactly like the castle of Everfree. The lower levels are all new and confounding, but up here things are familiar.

I float my way around a series of blind corners to a kitchenette built exclusively to serve breakfast and brunch.

The kitchen, taking up exactly half the room and staffed by two unspeaking servants, contains two plates, two sets of silverware, two comically tiny egg pans, two wide flat crepe pans, and two sets of additional cutlery necessary to make two simultaneous meals at once.

The servants bow respectfully. Two eggs are nestled in their tiny pans. They sing in butter, warbly in the mids and crispy around the edges. Two crepes solidify beside them. English muffins darken in a dual toaster beside the stovetop.

A smile comes across my face. I have a hunch they’re making my favorite breakfast sandwich.

On the other side of the kitchen, unseparated from the kitchen, my sister sits at a small square table. She sips a cup of coffee and reads a newspaper.

There’s a jar of syrup and mareygold butter on the table. My smile grows wider. They definitely are making my favorite breakfast sandwich.

“Good morning,” my sister says as I slip into the seat across from her. “How did you sleep?”

I think about a billion feathers stuffed into a single massive pillowcase, the weight of all that weightlessness.

“Well,” I say, and breakfast arrives. Two english muffins, one a receptacle for jam and the other for toast. On top of that goes one runny egg, a dash of salt, then the crepe. Then a dash of maple syrup. I top it with the spare english muffin, and the beast is complete.

I wolf it down in a few seconds, noting the chefs’ approving nods out of the corner of my eye.

I will not eat again until dinner. And who knows what dinner will be?

“I have resumed my duties,” I say to my sister after I have finished chewing. “As of last night.”

“Really? So soon?”

I know she means no harm by that. “It gives me purpose,” I reply. “To feel that connection after so long is sublime.”

Once again, my thoughts turn to connection--specifically, my face connecting with the earth as it squishes me flat.

“Has it changed?” My sister lifts the sandwich to her lips and takes a delicate nibble. I think she’s curious. How wonderful, to have someone who shares my fascination with this realm.

“The hill is the same. The grass waves like it’s underwater, and it looks blue in the light.” I return the kindness, asking, “And yours?”

“Barren,” my sister says with a sigh. “I long to trade places for even one moment.”

“Tell me. When I was up in the moon and you carried their dreams, did you ever see my realm?”

“If only. I carried their dreams, but I carried it across my usual wastes.”

“Fascinating. And the sun--does it crush you?”

“Every evening, without fail.”

I let out a low hmm.

“Does it hurt?” my sister asks.

“Why would it?”

“I don’t know. It was a silly question.”

I shake my head. “It used to hurt. But I find it no longer carries that weight. I am the master of dreams, yet for so long I let my dreams control me.” I shake my head. “Now, the weight signals wake. I die, and I wake, and I get to see you and eat my sandwiches.”

My sister smiled.

And I smiled back.