The two doors were immense. Each was carved from a single block of wood taller even than the redwoods of Califoalnia. In spite of that, the viewer could clearly make out even the topmost detail in the many elaborate carvings that seemed to capture every great endeavor of ponykind, every gleam of polish that had been lovingly applied. They were a pair of titanic works of art, but the center of each was unmarked, unvarnished, unfinished.

Behind them came a trio of voices, the words indistinct but the tones clearly displeased. Zealous fervor, quiet patience, and aged wisdom argued back and forth. From the sound of it, they would be at it until the stars went out.

Just outside the doors was a single filly, laughably small compared to them. Judging by the hopeless way she gazed at them, her ears and bow drooping, she felt as insignificant as they made her seem.

"Impressive."

"Yeah," said the filly, not moving her head. "A lot more than me."

"I don't know about that. I didn't come for them."

Apple Bloom blinked and turned to look at the speaker. Her eyes widened as she bolted to her hooves. "Princess Luna?"

Luna smiled. "Indeed. Well met by moonlight, Apple Bloom."

The filly looked around. There wasn't much to see. Aside from the double doors, the surroundings were a vague, misty void. She looked up. More of the colorless haze. "If you say so. This is a dream, right?"

"Does it matter?" asked Luna.

Apple Bloom turned to her, still frowning. "It does to me."

Luna nodded. "Then it matters. You are dreaming, yes. The state of our surroundings reflects the state of your thoughts." She looked to the doors. "I well understand the roots of it. There are few fears like that of the unknown, for you do not even know what or why to fear. And yet, your heart still quails in terror."

Apple Bloom pouted and kicked at the indistinct ground. "It ain't that bad."

"I wasn't lying when I called this edifice impressive," said Luna. "In all my time, I doubt I have ever seen a construct of such sheer magnitude." She turned back to Apple Bloom, sat beside her, and spread a wing over her. "As I see it, you have three options here."

"Yeah?" Apple Bloom squirmed a little under the feathers. "What are they?"

Luna retracted her wing. "Well, first of all, you could walk away."

Apple Bloom looked behind them. "Where to?"

"The symbolism would be more important than any destination," said Luna. "You would be saying that whatever lies beyond isn't truly important to you."

"Of course it's important!" cried Apple Bloom. "I can't just walk away from my family! Especially not when they're all riled up over something! If it's my fault and I try and put it off, that'll just make it worse when I gotta face the music!"

Luna nodded. "Indeed. I should not be surprised that Honesty's sister can see the truth so clearly, or that she refuses to lie to herself about something so important. In that case, another option is to go in here and now."

Apple Bloom turned to the doors. Her head trailed up as she took in their whole height. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"They seem insurmountable, yes," said Luna, "but a seeming is all they are. You should be able to open them with the lightest push."

Apple Bloom stood and approached the doors. She raised a shaking hoof, but a sudden shout from the other side sent her scurrying back. From behind Luna, she asked, "I don't suppose you could do it for me?"

The princess rose and extended a leg. When her hoof came within a few inches of the wood, a field of yellow light appeared between the two. Luna pressed against it, throwing all her weight against the barrier, but she could not press through it. "As I suspected," she huffed. "Whatever lies on the other side is meant for you and you alone."

"But you're the dream princess! Can't you just knock them down?"

"Not without doing grievous harm to your mind, Apple Bloom." Luna held her horn against the barrier for a few seconds. "And unless I miss my guess, even if I were to tear the moon and stars down from the heavens and lay siege with them, this portal would still hold."

Apple Bloom gulped. "So, uh, what's my third option?"

"Sit here for the rest of time, lacking the courage to move forward or move on." Luna shrugged her wings as she watched Apple Bloom scowl. "I only said you had options. I didn't say they were all good ones."

Apple Bloom sat, tracing fleeting patterns into the mist with a forehoof. After some time, she looked back up and said, "Can't I just wake up?"

Luna tilted her head. "Tell me, how would that be different from walking away?"

"Well, the way I see it, this is a lot like Hoof-Horn-Wing. You got three choices, but you can also just say you ain't playing the game." Apple Bloom dropped her face into her frogs. "You can also cheat, waggle your ears like crazy, and say you picked 'alicorn,' but I don't think that'd work here."

Luna nodded. "Indeed it would not. It is true, you can wake up, choose not to choose. I could even rouse you now."

"You can?" Apple Bloom perked up. "Great! Go ahead and—"

"But," Luna said, raising a hoof, "that will not be the end of it. Do not think this is some idle fancy of your slumbering mind, child. This dream demands a decision, and if you do not give it one, it will come again and again, night after night, until you give it one. No other dream will come to you, and even if I could supply one, I would not, for the consequences here are far greater than—"

"Alright, alright, I get it! For Celestia's sake." Apple Bloom gasped and covered her mouth. "Er, begging your pardon, Luna. Ma'am. Your Highness."

Luna just smiled. "Think nothing of it. I am long used to ponies swearing by my sister. But the point stands; you will have to choose eventually."

Apple Bloom gulped and brought herself to her hooves. Once more, she approached the door. The sounds of her family redoubled in volume, if not in clarity. She looked over her withers at the drifting mists behind her. She looked to Luna. "I don't suppose you got any more advice?"

Luna shook her head. "I fear I may have said too much already. The choice must be yours."

Apple Bloom sighed. "Figures." She shut her eyes and thrust out a foreleg.

The right door opened with much creaking and groaning, though its motion was smooth. Apple Bloom winced with every protest of the hinges. As the last echoes died down, the three voices were silent. Beyond the door was a pitch-black expanse, but the door could still be seen clearly.

Apple Bloom took it in and tilted her head in thought. "Okay, how's that work?"

"It would seem," said Luna, "that rather than there being no light by which to see, there is nothing to be lit or seen."

"Well, that ain't creepy at all." Apple Bloom and probed at the darkness. Some surface supported her hoof. "At least it ain't gonna be one of them falling dreams." She turned to Luna. "Thank you, Princess."

"No thanks necessary, Apple Bloom. It is my pleasure and my duty to aid dreamers in need." Despite that, Luna's smile had definitely grown.

The filly cracked her neck. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, Apple Bloom. May you have no need of it."

Apple Bloom took a deep breath, then took a step across the threshold. No horror pounced on her. No family shouted at her. She took another, more confident step, then another, and then began to walk in earnest. As she passed the door, it silently swung shut behind her. Once the latch clicked closed, wood began to vanish from the centers of both doors as the carvings began to complete themselves.

Luna was left alone in the misty antechamber. She lit her horn. The yellow energy flared again, covering the doors until she ceased her spell. "It won't let me follow her," she said. "Again, impressive." With that, she left the dream.

---

Luna awoke in one of the many chambers in Castle Canterlot, a niche hidden behind more than a dozen defensive layers of matter and magic both.

Fantasia, the bat-winged captain of the Dreamguard, saluted her. "How did it go, Mistress?"

"I do not know." Luna rose and considered the centerpiece of the chamber. They were useful for storing more than her physical form, and this one held a painted canvas. "Do you think Celestia knows the number of fell treasures we hide beneath her muzzle?"

"I cannot say for certain, Mistress," said Fantasia. "In your absence, she asked us to go where the sun could not shine. We serve that purpose still."

Luna nodded. "Well, I suppose even if she does know, she has no right to complain. Keeping Discord in the garden like some trophy, honestly..."

Fantasia cleared her throat. "Mistress?"

Luna nodded. "Yes, of course. Forgive an old mare her dithering." She took in the painting for what felt like the thousandth time.

By mortal reckoning, it had been old even at the advent of the Nightmare, but her own magic had preserved it over the centuries. On the right edge were beauty and peace, tranquil fields and calm clouds. On the left were ruin and devastation, fire and lightning. Between them, bearing with them that havoc, were three mares: one horned, one winged, and one neither. The unicorn was wreathed in ribbons of bilious magic that poured from her horn and eyes, her phantasms obscuring her cutie mark. The pegasus left the trail of storm clouds that bedeviled the countryside in their wake, bolts coruscating over her body. And then there was the earth mare, leading their charge, wearing strange armor and bristling with stranger weapons. The three mares' colors were all too familiar to Luna, as they would be to any Ponyvillian who saw the painting. Their coats and manes marked them as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, full-grown and laying waste to all of Equestria.

In one corner, signed in a blackish brown that had once been red, there was a single word, artist and title both: "Eschaton."

"Painted from a true dream even as it was being dreamt," said Luna. "But ever have the foretellings of mortal dreamseers been maddeningly vague. What makes those fillies into these monsters? Am I fighting or fostering this prophecy?"

"Could it be coincidence?" asked Fantasia.

Luna shook her head. "I had hoped it was so when I first saw them, but now I know it is not. No normal filly could bar my way, or pursue me untrained through the realms of sleep, or throw off its yoke and toss me out on my ear. These three are the ones Eschaton saw, so mighty that their dreams of destruction reverberated through time. I dare not leave them to their own devices, and yet it could be my intervention that makes them into wha we see here. When I helped Scootaloo face her fears, did I gentle the terror that would become hatred, or did I inspire the courage she will twist into tyranny? When I showed Sweetie Belle—"

Fantastia nudged Luna's side. "Mistress, you're rambling."

Luna gave a single soft laugh. "I suppose I am. What do you think, fair Fantasia? Am I delivering us from this threat or dooming us to it?"

This got a shrug. "It is not for me to say, Mistress."

Luna snorted. "And what of our eyes in Ponyville? What do they say.

"I admit, their reports are disturbingly similarity to the chaos shown in the painting," said Fantasia. "Still, perhaps this is the prophecy. Perhaps it is only foals' play and the dreams of an entire town that inspired Eschaton."

Luna sneered. "We should be so lucky."

Fantasia shrugged her wings. "We can only wait and see, Mistress."

"Perhaps," said Luna, focusing on the earth pony, still unable to suss out the mare's state of mind from her painted eyes. What was she thinking? What had brought her to this point? "Perhaps."