Journey Through Nightmares and Dreams

Chapters

Facing Fears
Dreams of Yesterday
Daylight Nightmares

Facing Fears

"We're here to see Celerity Bellweather," Bon Bon told the pony at the reception desk. Lyra stood slightly behind her, expression apparently calm and collected. She knew better.

"Celerity... Celerity..."

"She's a unicorn with a light green coat, light blue mane." Lyra offered quietly, speaking as much to the floor as to the receptionist.

"Ah, yes. Thank you. I do recall seeing her now." She flipped several pages in her clipboard, "I'm sorry... She's not to be seen by any but family." She looked between the two mares, "Are you family?"

Bon Bon glanced back at Lyra, whose ears had gone flat and had started shaking.

"Lyra is her daughter, and I'm Lyra's wife."

"Alright then." She turned from her station to some of the younger mares and stallions standing about behind the reception desk. She pointed a hoof at a younger unicorn mare with a light pink coat, gold mane with slight red highlights, and a honeycomb cutie mark.

"Honey Cure," she called to one of the mares, "can you show these two mares to room 203?"

"Of course! Follow me, please." Honey pranced around the desk wearing a friendly smile and beckoned them to follow with a slight toss of her head.

"I'm here for you," Bon Bon whispered to Lyra , walking side by side with her. "This won't be like your parents. I'll always be there for you."

"I know," she murmured back, blinking rapidly. "I know," she repeated, quieter.

Bon Bon sidestepped to press herself against her wife's side, offering her warmth and love as a solid presence. She dropped her head to lift Lyra's when her wife leaned back.

"Chin up. You wouldn't want Celerity to see you sad."

Lyra looked up at her and smiled, though it was a fragile smile and faded swiftly. She did lift her head though and take a deep breath, looking steadier for the close support.

"That's my Lyra." She rubbed cheeks with her wife.

Lyra's parents had died in a hospital when she was just a filly, victim of an illness that hadn't been as well understood back then that they had caught from their daughter. Any hospital visit for her was a hard experience, more so when she was visiting somepony whom she loved as much as she had her actual parents. A mare who had raised her in the absence of love from the distant relatives who put a roof over her head.

"You two are so lucky," the young mare said ahead of them, looking back sheepishly. Neither Lyra nor Bon Bon answered at first, but looked at each other briefly. Lyra blushed and ducked her head.

Bon Bon just smiled and replied, "Thank you... Honey Cure, was it?"

"Yes ma'am. I haven't worked here long, but it seems like visiting sick relatives always brings out the best and worst in some ponies. I know it's just worry, but..." She shook her head. "You wouldn't believe some of the silly arguments I've heard in these halls. It's refreshing to see a couple as close as you two."

"We do have our silly arguments," Bon Bon said gently, not wishing the younger mare to get the wrong idea. "All couples do. How boring would it be if we agreed with each other on everything? But when my wife needs me, I will put aside my worries for hers. She does the same for me."

"Aw, that's so wonderful! If only I could get my colt friend to see it that way."

"It's not something you can just force somepony to do," Lyra said in a quiet voice, just the barest hint of a quaver noticeable to Bon Bon. "It's something that you both need to agree to do, and it's something that he will need to learn and come to understand why it's important. You'll need to grow with him as well, learn the same lessons and come to the same understanding."

If she hadn't been listening for it, she wouldn't have noticed the shakiness of Lyra's voice, and that she was so on edge already had her worried. Still, the tenacity with which her wife dealt with her phobia made Bon Bon's heart swell with pride.

Lyra fell silent for a moment as they passed several open rooms where doctors or nurses were working with patients, helping them with meals and getting settled in bed. Lyra carefully did not look inside any of the rooms.

"It's compromise," she continued as they came up to another reception area, "and it's not something that just happens. You have to work at it and grow together, otherwise..."

She paused to nuzzle her wife's neck gently. "Well, for example Bon Bon didn't understand my fear of hospitals for the longest time. That was the fuel for a few of our earliest fights."

Bon Bon was surprised that Lyra would talk about her phobia so openly in the place that she had a phobia of, but maybe talking about a thing made it less immediate, like it was already done and gone.

When Lyra paused, seeming uncertain how to continue or if she would continue, Bon Bon picked up the story.

"That's true," she said, returning the nuzzle, "and I didn't know then why she wouldn't come with me when I went with my sister for her routine checkups."

Honey Cure looked back at her, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

"I know that's not a huge thing for most ponies," Bon Bon admitted, rolling her eyes and waving a hoof dismissively, "but Lyra had just become part of my family, and I wanted her to be a part of everything, with the new foal on the way, to show her what our family was like. I thought she didn't like my sister, and that got my tail twisted in a knot, let me tell you."

Lyra picked up the story again, "I was too afraid to bring up the memories, to face my fears back then, and I didn't want to sour the mood every step along the way. I wanted to be there, I did but-" She sighed and looked away as they passed another open hospital room.

Bon Bon kissed her neck gently and picked up the story again.

"But when I needed her to be there when my sister was having her foal, she was there. I could tell it was draining on her to even just sit in the waiting room with me, and I didn't understand it. I remember being in a funk until the foal came because I didn't understand why she disliked my sister and her husband so much.

"It was harder still for her to be in the room with my sister and her new foal. But she was there, and I could see that she didn't hate my sister or her husband. She was genuinely happy for them, I could just see it in her. But I still didn't understand why she was so uptight. In retrospect, I realize it was because she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown the entire time, but she held it together for me and my," she corrected herself, "our family because she knew how important it was for me. I realized later that the face she wore was a mask. Something she put on so that her grief and fear wouldn't ruin the joy of bringing a new foal into the world."

"I told her that night. Why I hated going to the hospital so much. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to tell someone. It felt like I was telling her that I was defective, that I was..." Lyra trailed off and looked down again for only a moment, then lifted her head and pressed her muzzle up under Bon Bon's chin. Her voice grew ragged as she tried to hold back the fears and the tears. "I'm so lucky to have her."

"And I am lucky to have you," Bon Bon whispered and turned her head to lay her cheek against Lyra's. "Celerity will be just fine. You'll see."

Honey Cure sighed and shot them a fluttery smile, seeming close to tears herself. She sucked in a deep breath, though, and continued walking.

"Room 203," she said finally, coming to the door. A mare in a white lab coat and blue hoof boots was outside, writing on the clipboard stuck to the doorframe.

"Honey Cure," the doctor said, tone pitched low,” you know there aren't supposed to be anypony but family in this wing."

"But this is Celerity's daughter," she protested, waving a hoof at Lyra, then at Bon Bon "and this is her, erm, Lyra's wife."

"Oh?" The doctor raised an eyebrow and flipped through the paperwork on the clipboard. "I don't see any family or next of kin listed here."

Lyra choked and hid her face in Bon Bon's mane.

"Let me explain," Bon Bon started, lifting a hoof to forestall argument, "Lyra is-"

"My daughter in every way that counts," a loud, strong mare's voice called from inside the room before the door handle was surrounded by an azure haze and yanked open.

"Now Ms. Bellweather," the doctor said, looking between Bon Bon and the mare resting in the bed inside, "I thought I said no spells. Not until-"

"Until you try to keep my daughter and her wife from seeing me," Celerity finished for her, then gentled her tone before continuing. "I know you mean well Dr. Dazzle, but it would do my heart, that you're so worried about, a great deal of good to have them with me."

Dr. Dazzle's eye twitched and she put the clipboard back in place more forcefully than necessary. "As you wish, Ms. Bellweather."

She started to stalk away, her hooves striking the hard wood loudly even through the insulating hoof boots.

"Wait, please," Lyra called after her, regaining some of her composure after it became clear that Celerity was actually doing okay, if not perfectly. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Dr. Dazzle stopped and lowered her head, "I'm afraid not. You're not, strictly speaking, family and I cannot disclose medical information unless it is to duly authorized and notarized parties or to close family that the patient has agreed to disclose information with." The speech had the feel of a rote explanation, something she repeated a dozen times a day. She looked back at them, her face a carefully blank mask. "Honey Cure, come with me. We need to talk."

"Yes ma'am," she said glumly, then stopped and tapped Lyra on the flank. "Thank you, Lyra. For the advice and sharing your experience with me." She looked to Bon Bon as well, "Both of you."

"You're welcome, Honey," Lyra said.

Celerity's hospital room was much more modern than what Lyra had recalled from... before. Dark feelings and fearful images tried to surface and cover what she saw with a filter of the past. For a short moment she saw the beds, little more than cots, where her parents lay unmoving. and it felt as though her heart had stopped.

Bon Bon's presence at her side, a gentle nudge and a sure smile, snapped her out of the past again. She pushed the thoughts back to the back of her mind as best as she was able and forced herself to look at Celerity in the present.

"I'm glad you came, though I wish it hadn't had to be this way," Celerity said tenderly, waving them both over with a hoof. Lyra's heart flopped when she saw the band around the ankle, and the IV line tucked into her upper foreleg. "Come in, both of you. It's been too long since I've seen you."

She felt as though lead weights were cuffed about her hooves as she forced herself to take a step, then another, into the room and she stumbled over the threshold and almost fell, but Bon Bon was there to steady her with a gentle hoof under her chest and a swift nuzzle against her cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered gently.

"Of course."

Lyra sat on the floor next to the bed and rested her chin on the covers.

Celerity stroked Lyra's cheek gently with a hoof, "It's been too long, Lyra. I've missed you this last year, and for that I'm sorry."

"I'm just glad you're back." She paused to push back against the gentle stroke on her cheek. Her fears settled for the moment, she languished in the relief and let the fears jibber mindlessly in the back of her mind. They weren't important.

"I'm glad I'm back too. And I have some things to discuss, but not here."

Bon Bon joined her at the bedside and leaned lightly against her, providing a warm reminder that she was still there.

"It's good to see you again too, Bon Bon. How is my," she laughed softly, "daughter in law doing?"

"I'm doing very well. But I have to ask..." she trailed off and brushed her cheek lightly against Lyra's. "How are you doing?"

How are you doing? Lyra asked herself the same question. Fears that she had pushed aside with relief came rushing back, and snippets of conversation that she had barely paid attention to when dealing with the hospital in general came back to her.

...My heart that you're so worried about...

...heart...so worried about...

...heart... Attack? Her chest felt tight suddenly and her breath started coming shorter. Celerity had a heart attack? How bad? Was she dying?

Bon Bon and Celerity kept on talking, not seeming to notice Lyra starting to hyperventilate.

"I'm doing okay. Just had a little fall is all. That pretty little nurse, Redheart I think her name is, and her new coltfriend Gizmo, insisted that I come to the hospital out of an abundance of caution."

"Gizmo and Redheart have been seeing each other for nearly half a year," Bon Bon said with a laugh,.

"Well, good for them. 'Bout-"

"You fell?" Lyra interrupted Bon Bon and sat up straighter. "You don't get admitted to the hospital for just a fall! And what was that joke about your heart earlier?" Lyra's voice shot up an octave as the pieces began to come together, panic granting a false clarity of purpose. "Did you have a heart attack? Wh-" The room began to spin as she breathed harder and harder, trying to control the rising fear of loss that swelled up in her. Why was it so hot? Celerity needed to be cool! Where was the window?

She was vaguely aware of Bon Bon startling backwards in alarm and Celerity reaching for her with a hoof.

"Wha-" She tried to continue, to ask a question that slipped from her mind before she could speak it, but she was too short of breathe. Her chest felt tighter, like there was a too tight saddlebag cinch around her. She started gasping for air and pushed away from the bed, half collapsing as the panic began to overwhelm her.

Her vision was fading and spots flashed and sparkled against the darkening room. Her lungs felt empty and she needed more air.

"Lyra!" Distantly she heard Bon Bon's voice, followed by a sharp tug at her ear.

Why wasn't she getting enough air? Why was everything so dark?

The floor rushed up to meet her.

Everything went black.

Dreams of Yesterday

Bon Bon felt like she had entered a nightmare. Her wife was lost to a panic attack and would have been screaming at her and Celerity if she hadn't started hyperventilating almost immediately. It seemed as though something had caused her to snap and lose control of her fear.

It was almost a relief when Lyra collapsed, short lived as it was. She was no longer panicky, an infectious state of mind, but the hollow smack of her head hitting the hardwood floor breathed fresh life to the terror in Bon Bon.

"I need a nurse in here!" She yelled at the door, then threw herself down next to Lyra and slipped a leg under her neck and pulled her wife's head up against her chest with her other hoof.

"Is she..." Celerity asked too quietly from the bed.

Bon Bon touched her nose to her wife's neck, feeling for her pulse and watching her chest rise and fall. She was still breathing, slower and more evenly than just second before and while her pulse felt erratic, it felt strong and was slowing.

"She's alive." Bon Bon almost laughed, manic and wild but she choked back the laughter and forced herself to calm. "But it sounded like she hit her head hard coming down."

She gently lifted Lyra's head and tried to see if she was bleeding, but couldn't. There was too much mane in the way and she was afraid to shift her more.

"Nurse!" Bon Bon cried out again. From without, she could barely hear anything. Was the door too thick for them to hear her? Was there no one out there to hear her?

Panic rose again as she looked between Lyra and the door. Could she leave her lying there? Should she? Lyra needed help. But... She clutched Lyra closer to her, torn by the conflicting needs to help Lyra and stay with her.

A rustle and thump announced Celerity getting out of bed.

"What are you doing?" Bon Bon snapped at her, "You can't be out of bed! You're-" She cut off the words that wanted to come out, snapping her teeth together with a dangerous sounding click. She settled for glaring at the older mare, seething rage threatening to overflow her better judgement.

If it hadn't been for you, Lyra... She quashed the thought. If it hadn't been for Celerity, Lyra might not have survived out of her filly-hood.

"I love her no less than you, Bon Bon," Celerity said gently, "and I'm scared too. I need to do what I can for her, not just lay in bed."

Bon Bon struggled to listen to her, to consider what she was saying and not just lash out. She shook her head, trying to shake her feelings of anger towards a mare who'd done nothing wrong. But they just wouldn't go away.

"I feel bad enough already. I didn't choose to come here, didn't want her to greet me like this. But because I am here and Lyra needs it, I will get her some help. You should stay with her." She jerked out the IV line and winced, rubbing at the spot of blood on her leg.

Bon Bon glared at her harder, but kept her mouth closed around the words that rested on the tip of her tongue.

"Remember also, Lyra is an adult. She chose to come here, knowing her own fears better than you or I ever could."

"She came because she loves you," Bon Bon growled, shocked at the venom in her own voice.

"She does," Celerity said gently, her ears drooping, and looked suddenly older. Gone was the vital old mare who'd yanked open the door and demanded of her doctor so strongly. In her place was a mare thrice the age of Bon Bon, and showing every year of it. "She probably did come only because it was me. You're not wrong about that."

Her anger evaporated. She had wanted to hurt Celerity, wanted her to feel the pain she was feeling. She'd gotten her wish, it seemed. She choked, her throat burning as she began to shake as she struggled for air around the wracking silent sobs that she held back still.

She was the parent that Lyra introduced her to on their first date, the parent whom Bon Bon had asked to bless their vows when Lyra had no others. Shame finally broke the wall holding her emotions in check and she sank lower, burying her muzzle in Lyra's mane and gritting her teeth to fight back the tears even as her breath came in ragged gasps.

She needed to be strong for Lyra.

A gentle touch startled her and she looked up at Celerity.

"I'm sorry," she said, voice breaking, "I didn't..." Except that she did. She meant every word of it. She leaned into the gentle touch and found her cheek resting on Celerity's chest, held gently in place by a hoof on her neck. She let herself go, let go of the need to fight back the tears and just let them come.

"That's it, Bon Bon," Celerity said. "It's okay to cry." She used a small spell to take a cloth from the sink and dabbed gently at Bon Bon's tears. "I know this has you scared. It scares me too. Just let it out, you can do that here. You're safe here." Her quiet prattle and the gentle touch of the cloth helped settle the fears and worries and made her feel actually safe.

"I'm sorry," Bon Bon said softly a little later, feeling better, almost cathartic, in the wake of her outburst and crying into Celerity's coat, now stained a darker blue for the tears shed into it.

"Pain of the heart makes us speak the truth," she replied, "no matter how onerous."

"But it-"

"Is the truth," Celerity said, cutting her off and finishing her statement. She laid the cloth lightly over Bon Bon's muzzle and smiled, letting her go. "If circumstances had been different, if my heart weren't so old."

"You did have a heart attack, then?"

"Small one."

Bon Bon stared hard at her.

"Honest truth," She lifted a hoof to cover an eye. "I'm fit as a fiddle. Well... An old, creaky one."

Bon Bon couldn't help it. She smiled.

Celerity smiled back and stepped away to open the door. She poked her head out briefly to look for a nearby nurse and then opened it all the way, letting out a small curse that Bon Bon didn't catch.

"Where are you going?" Bon Bon asked her, quieter and calmer. She checked Lyra's pulse and breathing again, reassured to find them still strong and growing steadier.

"To find a nurse. They should have some kind of calmative brew or something." Celerity looked back inside, "You stay with her now, and get calm. She's going to need you to be calm when she wakes up."

"I can do that," she promised, pulling Lyra's head gently against her chest.

"Good girl." She closed the door gently behind her. Through door she could hear Celerity raising Luna's own rage, demanding that one of the "lazy lay about" runners at the station just outside to go get a nurse or a doctor.

Lyra was a young filly again, everything huge and terrifying and sterile white. Sound echoed weirdly, distorted and too loud for her young ears. None of it made sense.

All around her there were nurse ponies and doctor ponies rushing back and forth. Doors yawned open to every side, sick ponies laying still or mostly still in beds. Doctors yelled at each other across the halls, nurses almost galloped back and forth, pushing carts and beds and carrying trays full of unknown items to and fro.

Everypony was too busy to bother with a single little filly who tried to stay out of their way, scared by the fear she heard in voices but too young to understand why they were afraid.

She wasn't there to bother anypony, she was only there to come to a specific room. It was the room she'd come by day after day to visit her mom and dad after they got so sick. Everypony told her that they would be alright, that it would be okay in the end. She was too young to recognize the worry in their eyes, the uncertainty of what they said.

Her older self did, and as she watched through younger eyes, she railed and screamed at herself to leave, to forget, to go home... just wait. Her younger self, of course, couldn't hear her. This was a memory, a nightmare, the core of her fear.

The long hallway came to an end, and she sat outside the door she always came to. Usually, it sat open and in her nightmares that's how it stayed. But in her memory, the door was closed. It had never been closed before. The summer breeze always swept from the room's single window into the hallway, carrying away the ever-present smell of antiseptic.

Today, there was just the cloying, sharp smell of antiseptic. It was too clean, to sharp. It put her on edge.

There was somepony inside, she could see the shadow shifting back and forth as somepony moved in front of the light and out of it. She couldn't open the door herself, she was too short to reach the handle, so she lay down and waited, pressing herself against the far wall, out of the way of the occasional nurse or doctor pushing a bed or a cart down the hallway.

Finally, the door started to open. She stood up.

Her older self, still watching, jabbering at the back of her mind, noiseless and unheeded, screamed at her to look away. But it was only a memory, she couldn't look away.

Beyond the nurse who stepped out, she saw the kindly doctor whom had lifted her to lay with her mom or dad when they were stronger. Why did he look so sad?

The nurse left the door open and wandered away, writing on a clipboard and not seeming to notice Lyra standing there.

Why weren't mom and dad looking at her? She was standing right there. Why was the window closed? They loved the smell of summer. Why were they so still? Even sick, they had been so lively. Why was the doctor covering their faces? They wouldn't be able to breathe.

Understanding came with a sudden shock. A void opened in her heart, threatening to consume all of her. A voice whispered out of nowhere, from the past or future... the memory started to break apart as the view of the room from her younger eyes clouded and turned watery.

Close the door.

"I can't, she whimpered. "I can't."

Close the door.

The memory popped like a bubble and another crashed over her, dragging her back into the past to confront another fear, another terrible day.

It was summer, a time of beauty and warmth. Birds sung beautifully in the trees all about and clouds drifted about on a strong breeze. It was the kind of day her parents would have taken her out to fly kites and eat ice cream and run and play and revel in the beauty of the summer sun.

Lyra sat alone between two fresh mounds of dirt. The memorial service was over and the well-wishers had left, leaving her to her grief. Her friends were with their parents, grieving for the loss of their friend's parents. They had one and all offered to have her come with them, but for Lyra the pain was too fresh, the loss too great, she just wanted to be left alone, and nopony argued against it, not that day.

How did a young filly deal with the loss of her parents? How did she accept the loss? How could she? The void in her heart remained, unchanged. It was the only thing that hadn't changed since her parents died.

Even her toys had been taken away to be burned. Memories of playing with her dolls, with the clothes and dresses that she and her mother had made together... mostly her mother. The small, cute little house her father had built for her to put her dolls in went too, as did most of her clothes and her parents clothes.

She didn't understand why, and the explanations, of flu and sickness, made no sense. Dolls couldn't get sick. Only ponies got sick. Her memories, it felt, had been taken from her.

She had been shuffled from her home and given to an orphanage for a time before the funeral. The matron was caring and understanding and many of the other colts and fillies there had also lost parents. Together they had shared a bond that would have made them brothers and sisters in loss.

They were something to latch onto, a new sort of family that she could have accepted. Then, a distant relative had sent word that they would care for her, and she had lost the bond she had shared ever so briefly with the other foals at the orphanage. Now nopony was there with her.

The gravestones were plainly carved with the names of her parents, obscured in the memory by wreaths and garlands of flowers. She mostly remembered them as mom and dad, anyway. But now they were gone. She didn't understand why.

She cried into the grass between the mounds of fresh dirt, crying out for her parents to come back until her voice turned hoarse and all she could do was embrace the emptiness inside. It was all she had left, it seemed.

One of her distant relatives, a cousin of two or three removes, eventually came up to her and led her away from the twin beds of fresh dirt.

Like the first, this memory too popped. Another came in with the whisper of wind and the quiet crackle of a distant fire. Tendrils of cold curled their way around her heart, surrounding the void she still carried within, her constant companion for the last several months.

A blizzard howled outside and her distant cousins played raucous indoor games downstairs with their parents while Lyra sat up in the room she shared with them, alone and forgotten. Tears stained the bedspread she had wrapped around her as she looked up into the blowing snow from her bedside perch.

Thoughts of happier times both warmed and teased young Lyra. Memories of games played with her parents, Hearth's Warming celebrations spent riding around on her parent's backs so she could see the wonder all around, warm nights spent snuggled in front of the hearth while a blizzard just like this one raged outside.

Nopony came to check on her that night. They'd just about forgotten about her while playing their games. She dashed away the tears angrily. That was fine with her. She didn't need anypony else, she decided.

Her adult self lamented the decision and railed at the grief fueled anger of a young filly. She would need other ponies. Without them, her life would be empty and meaningless. Just wait, she wanted to say, just hold out a little longer.

Of course, her younger self couldn't hear her. It was just a memory.

It too popped and left her hanging in the dark void, unable to act, unable to feel. Another memory came, warmer and bringing with it the promise of brighter days. The icy tendrils around the void weakened, but did not shatter.

It was spring, and it seemed that the skies cried as much as she did, filling the schoolyard with puddles of tears. But her tears, unlike that of the sky's, were private. Shed when nopony else was about. They were a weakness, and she didn't understand why she was still sad.

Because you need other ponies! her older self yelled in the back of her mind, unheard.

She stayed by herself as much as she could, so that others wouldn't see she still cried over the loss of her parents and the sudden change of life that had come with their loss.

Her new parents didn't understand her self-imposed isolation and tried to break her out of it, but never too forcefully. Whether they were scared of hurting a filly who'd lost her parents or whether they just didn't care enough to try harder or were too busy with their own foals, she didn't care.

It was just more proof to the young filly that she was better off on her own. If they'd cared, they would have tried harder.

Her adult self cursed her younger self's logic, railing against the remembered isolation, ashamed of her actions and intent. But she wasn't there, she was only watching. Reliving moments and days of her life in the past that had shaped who she would become.

She watched herself over the blurred fragments of distant memory. Days came and went, school started again, and she had to fight to keep her isolation, so that other ponies wouldn't see her cry. They would just bully her. They bullied other ponies for lesser reasons.

For almost a year since her parent's deaths, she had tried actively to stay alone, to keep her tears secret. She wanted her grief to herself, the memories of her parents and of her loss to be her own. They were the only constant in her life, it seemed, an island of stability that wouldn't change, and she didn’t want them taken away too.

Change is not always bad, she whispered, unheard, to her younger self. Change can be wonderful.

A stronger fragment of a memory loomed in her mind, bringing her back to a very important day.

Rain clouds loomed overhead, having just in the last hour stopped their downpour to let the foals out to play in the mud and puddles it left behind.

Lyra wandered as far from the playground as she could go before the inevitable teacher came to bring her back. Long trial and error had found a place partially obscured by bushes where she could be alone. Most days, she brought a notebook, her only other companion, where she wrote almost daily, something her mother had taught her to do.

Today, though, it was too wet to risk letting her friend get ruined in a mud puddle.

"Hey there, little filly," said a voice from behind her. In her memory, influenced by time and fond recollection, that voice carried with it all the warmth of the summer sun and the gentleness of the spring breeze.

"Me?" her younger self whimpered, snuffling and scrubbing away the tears before turning around. She tried to control her voice, to make herself sound strong. The voice belonged to an older mare, of an age with... with her mother. Her brilliant blue coat and golden mane reminded her of the summer sky, vibrant and lovely.

"Of course you, sweetie." She looked around as if to search for other foals. "I don't see anypony else out here. Why are you crying out here all alone?"

"I'm not crying," she pouted, snuffling and looking away as she spoke the lie. "Just leave me alone."

"Ah, my mistake then. It must just be rain," The older mare said, ignoring her plea. She stomped a hoof in a nearby puddle.

Against the pain of loss and the anger she felt at being interrupted, she laughed.

"No filly like me could cry that much." The void trembled, and beyond the now fragile emptiness, she felt something, even in her memory.

"But you feel like you could, don't you?"

She hesitated, holding onto the emptiness, wanting to let it go finally, but afraid to step away from the familiar pain that had been her only companion, the only constant in a young life filled with upheaval.

"There's no reason not to, you know. Sometimes crying helps us let go of the things that hurt us the most." She held up a hoof, inviting young Lyra to come to her. "I'm Celerity, one of the new teachers here. You're Lyra, aren't you?"

The unexpected laughter, the simple offer, and the genuine warmth she heard in the older mare's voice shattered the void, letting free all of the grief and fear that a young filly had been holding in for nearly a year.

Celerity's image blurred as the tears came back, and she rushed to the offered embrace, wailing into her chest the muffled cries of a young filly overwhelmed by loss.

"That's a good filly," Celerity cooed, wrapping her foreleg over Lyra's back and holding her close. She was happy to stay there, embraced by what felt like the first kindness she had felt in a long time.

No... Not the first, her old self reminded her, unheard and unheeded still, but the first to break through your shell. She would later recall the other kindnesses offered and rejected by a Lyra lashing out at a world that had taken everything from her. It just felt that Celerity was the first to give something back, something that she had thought lost. Laughter.

Just to have someone to hold onto, a kind word and a companionable presence... It was all she needed to begin letting go.

Memory glided by, gentler this time and not rupturing like the others had, as another memory pushed itself to the fore of Lyra's mind.

"It's difficult, I know, Lyra," Celerity said gently, using her magic and a clean rag to clean away the latest of Lyra's tears, "but you need to learn to hold onto the best of your memories while letting go of the worst. It will help you control the fear and help you be happier."

It was night time, and Lyra was spending the weekend again at Celerity's simple home, away from the hustle and bustle of her distant relative's larger home.

She knew they cared about her now. She knew what to look for now that she wasn't holding onto the grief and anger at the world. They had grown tired of trying to reach her, only to be rebuffed when their energy was also needed to care for their foals. That someone else had reached her and was helping her seemed to make them happy.

"I'll try, Celerity." She took the rag from Celerity and snuffled into it before using her magic to drop it into a pile sitting in a basket. The pile seemed a testimony to the intensity of the session.

Around them also lay various and sundry of instruments. They had gone through them one by one, borrowed from the school's music department before the end of the week for this purpose.

"We'll try the lyre again."

"But..." she trailed off with a sigh. That had been one of the first instruments they had tried. It was, after all, the obvious choice.

"But?" Celerity lifted the instrument and settled it on the table next to them. She touched a hoof to a string to test it again. The note made Lyra's spine tingle and a thrill of something indefinable filled her. Something had changed.

"Never mind."

She closed her eyes again and pushed past the pain, easier now, to focus her thoughts on her parents, starting from the earliest ones, as she'd been taught, and moving through them slowly, savoring every moment of happiness and joy that they brought to her.

They gave her the strength to move on, to accept that the past had happened and was a part of her, and that she could let that past strengthen her or let it destroy her. The happy memories of warm sunny days with her parents joined with the newer memories of time with Celerity, learning to laugh again and find joy in the simple things again.

But the farther that she got, the harder it got to keep a hold of those memories. They turned more somber as her parents again fell sick, through the hospital visits and the brave faces that her parents put on, seeming to know that they would be leaving soon.

Now that she was older and had started to put the past behind her, it was easier to see that her parents had known, or at least suspected. They hadn't wanted their daughter to cry, and wouldn't have wanted her to live her life alone.

But in the memories, she was just a little filly, and the pain, fear and anguish there were still fresh to that younger self. When she travelled the memories, it was hard to separate the younger self from her present self.

"Remember the door," Celerity whispered. "You can change the memory. Close the door on that memory."

Celerity helped her, though. Her voice and the music she tried to play were all helping her to cope with the past. But there was one memory, the moment of realization, when her whole world had seemed to collapse into one terrifying reality,

The white door in the long hallway, the one holding back the terrible moment of realization, when her world was shattered. She could accept the reality now, but that one moment of realization still had power over her. She was beginning to accept that she might never escape its hold. Moments like that were like scars, deep wounds that would never completely heal, but would hurt less and less with time.

"Keep the door shut. Do not look inside," Celerity whispered to her and began to play the lyre, Lyra's own namesake. A wonderful thing happened then, as Celerity played the lyre by hoof instead of by magic. Something about the way the hoof touched the strings, about the suddenly lively and responsive touch. Something that would change Lyra forever.

The music gave her a focus, a bit of present reality in the memory, something that none of her shouting and pleading with herself had never done.

The soft, simple melody let her ground herself in the present and keep the door closed, as much as her memories wanted it to open. She was able to keep the memory perpetually frozen in the moment before the door swung open, just the right side of realization.

It was a kind of magic. The music was not magical, but nonetheless felt powerful and something that she knew, with the power of hindsight, would be the meaning behind her cutie mark and the reason she played the lyre whether for herself or for others. It was a way to help herself and others stay in the moment, to live the happy moments and forget, even if just momentarily, the past pains of life.

"Good girl," she heard, causing a tick in her concentration. The door cracked. The music did not falter, and she forced it closed again by renewing her concentration on the music, listening to the simple melody. "Keep concentrating. Stay in front of the door for a little longer."

She did, and while the music played, the door stayed closed. Triumph and elation filled her. She could still feel the pain of loss, but distant and unfocused. She missed her parents, terribly, but they wouldn't want her life to be nothing but tears. She could do this. For them, for herself.

Then the music stopped. For a moment, she remained grounded, still hearing the melody echo through her mind. But when the echoes vanished and the creaks of Celerity's house at night began to filter in, the door crashed open.

Once again, she confronted the sight that had plagued her nightmares for the long year since their deaths. But it felt a little less terrible, a little less all consuming. What was more important, was that she could control it. She wept for the possibility, for joy and for the new love she had found in the wonderful teacher who'd stepped into her life.

"Good girl," Celerity repeated again, drawing her close and letting her cry as much as she needed to. "Let it out. I'm here for you."

Close the door, Lyra, close the door.

I will.

Daylight Nightmares

Earlier that day, Canterlot.

The smell struck her first: thick, hot and choking. Around her, the grasslands began to crisp and char under the unbearable heat of the sun. She felt her coat crisp and curl, and her feathers singing in the sudden blast of heat.

“Celestia!” She cried, “What are you doing, sister? Do you not remember what happened to me?”

Nightmare Celestia laughed, harsh and wild as the sun grew hotter and hotter. The forests burst into flame and the grass all around turned to ash. Everywhere, survivors huddled under the paltry shade of unicorn magic and scurried into caves, trying to escape from the terrifying sun; not bright and beautiful anymore but menacing and deadly hot.

She found the elements all around her, looking as they had all those centuries ago.

“Celestia! Do not make me…” Banish you.

Awareness came in an instant.

Luna snapped awake.

It was a dream, a nightmare of what her sister must have gone through. Except more terrifying and deadlier by far. Her endless night would have been calm compared to Nightmare Celestia’s molten rampage.

The smell of burning grass, singing hair and feathers lingered in the air, still vivid and rasping her throat. She could almost feel the heat still upon her coat and checked, just to make sure, that she wasn't singed. It had been so real.

"A dream," she mumbled and snorted to clear the rancid smell out of her nose. Of course it did no good; the smell was a memory, not a real thing.

The past month had been day after day of interrupted sleep and worry. Had she left behind all of the envy and hatred that had attracted the nightmare to her? Was the nightmare trying to come after her again?

It certainly didn't feel like it had the first time. Then, the nightmares had been dreams, promises, whispers of promised glory and venomous whispers of adoration stolen by her sister.

Not these terrifying visions of a land where she and Celestia traded places. She wasn't sure if she could have done the necessary thing her sister had done.

The nightmares had interrupted her ever since the last Summer Sun celebration. They were getting gradually worse, always leading towards the same point in time. She was losing sleep, but tried her best not to let it show lest she worry her sister and her guards.

"What is happening to me?" She asked aloud, speaking to the only other occupant of the room, "I’ve never had such dark nightmares."

She scrubbed at her muzzle with the edge of her hoof, but couldn't get the smell out of her nose still. The smell of smoke mixed with the feelings of terror and helplessness brought back too many dark memories; of Discord, Sombra, and the fight with her sister. Not memories that she wished to hang on to.

But they were memories she would hold onto for a lifetime. They were, each of them, a lesson that she and her sister had paid a high price to learn and she would hold tight to those memories, even if only to remind herself of the lesson she learned.

Moments later, as the adrenaline from waking to such a nightmare wore off, all thought of lessons learned and the past were swept away by a wave of nauseous exhaustion. She lay her head back down, trying to put her thoughts in order but all she could think about was the lost sleep she had suffered from in the last few weeks.

Fatigue and accumulated stress weighted down her mind and lent a sluggishness to her thoughts that she tried to throw off. Not that she tried terribly hard. There was something to be said about laying in a comfortable bed, just resting. All the lost hours of sleep agreed.

She tried to push the memory of the dream out of her mind, but could not and instead lay there in a delirium, pondering the stitching on a pillow.

She shuffled about and stretched her wings and her legs out to cover almost all of the spacious bed. A conclusion that she had been putting off began to filter back in through the sluggish thoughts until she couldn’t deny it any longer.

"Not going back to sleep today... Might as well get up." She ought to at least look after the correspondence her sister was sure to have left her.

Stay a while, the bed whispered to her. See, there's even a bit of warm sunlight to keep you company.

Her conviction wavered and sleep beckoned again, weighting her eyelids and forcing a muzzy blanket over her thoughts again.

The bed certainly was soft, and it made a convincing argument. Maybe just another hour? She let herself drift off again, the warm sliver of sunlight lulling her back to sleep.

Nightmare Celestia was there, waiting for her.

She snapped awake again, more alert this time. How long had she been asleep this time? A check of the sliver of sunlight suggested at least an hour, maybe two. At least it was something.

"Pathetic," she said again to the only other occupant of the spacious bed, a doll. "I should not be having this much trouble with my own dreams. Am I not the Guardian of Dreams?" But who was there to guard her own dreams?

She had tried, more than once, to look in on her own dreams, only to find that she had to be asleep and dreaming to do so, when she couldn't readily enter the dream world with all of her powers.

"What use is it being the Guardian of Dreams," she complained to Celestia after on a night just a brief time after her return as Luna, "if I cannot protect my own dreams from nightmares?"

"If you watched over your own dreams, whenever would you find the time to enjoy them? Nightmares too are a part of what we must face, Luna. We learn from them just as we take comfort in our dreams," was the answer.

She supposed her sister had been right, but even so it irked her that nightmares could trouble her. Hadn’t she endured plenty of nightmares? None of them, however, had ever been so persistently disturbing before. She supposed she could learn something from them. They did bring up more insecurities about her past after all.

What could be learned from them?

What if their roles had been reversed? Could she have done what Celestia had done? Could she have ruled so well and peacefully for the last thousand years?

Could she have stayed sane?

Pondering the past and possibilities isn't going to do anything for you, she thought, get your mind off the nightmare and try to get to sleep a little later.

"Yes. That will work," she grunted. Another stretch of time passed, marked by the slow advance of the sliver of light across the bed, before she sighed and finally slipped out of bed.

In the crumpled mess of pillows, sheets and blankets lay the most prized gift her sister had ever given her. A thousand years had passed since she'd been given the doll and it still looked as new as the day it had been given. That it had been an attempt to appease and calm an increasingly volatile Luna hadn't diminished its value.

"Tia," she cooed, nudging the doll lightly. "Come on, wake up."

The white silk doll with the rainbow mane and tail so resembled her sister that sometimes she found herself talking to it as she would the real pony. Not just in appearance, but also in mannerisms and action. It wasn't just a doll with floppy cloth legs that sat around and did nothing more than look pretty.

Tia was a magical doll, granted a pseudo-life and personality that matched her sister almost exactly, or at least the sister that had been a thousand years ago. Celestia now was more demure, less prone to random acts of weirdness.

That it took after her sister was not terribly surprising. The doll had been enchanted by both Starswirl and Celestia together, a joint spell that had lasted the ages. Perhaps it had a bit of Starswirl's odd self in it as well. Sometimes she could almost hear the old mage laughing when the doll squeaked its high pitched laughter.

"Come on, sleepyhead," she cooed at it again before climbing out of bed and stretching.

It stretched with her and yawned, its cloth mouth surprisingly realistic, even down to the tiny white wooden teeth. It didn't make any move, however, to get out of bed, seeming perfectly content to lay there basking in a tiny sliver of sunshine.

“Show off,” she chided, but let it lay there anyway. At least somepony would get some sleep, even if that somepony was a doll.

She wandered through the clutter and oddly arranged furniture to another window and pulled back the curtains to let the warm, gentle sunlight wash over. Her sister sure knew how to make the sunlight warm and inviting, even in the midst of a summer swelter.

Outside, the castle grounds were bustling with activity. Merchants, nobles, commoners and guards all wandered more or less freely about the courtyard, conducting their business or waiting for an audience with her sister.

She knew all too well just how hectic today was going to be for Celestia. That many callers in the courtyard meant far too many ponies with problems for her sister to solve. Still, it was fascinating to watch them go about their business.

The bustling of the ponies down below occupied her attention for some time. The lives of her subjects were still something of a mystery to her and it was endlessly fascinating for her to imagine what kinds of things they were talking about.

Sleep called to her again as she rested her muzzle on the window sill. She shook it off and let the curtain fall closed again and stumbled backwards to her feet. Spots swam in her vision from the sudden lack light.

The room vanished into darkness and dim shapes loomed everywhere she looked. Fighting back the urge to panic, she stepped back from the window and crashed into an armoire that her panicked mind swore wasn't there a second ago.

"Keep a hold of your wits," she whispered to herself.

The darkness did not bother her most any night or day, but suddenly it felt like the nooks and crannies created by the various and sundry of gifts hid menaces and dangers of an entirely un-imaginary sort. She forced back the fears and steadied her breathing.

Several deep breaths later, she called up a bright azure light to scatter the shadows and splintered the spell, sending its magic into the lanterns scattered about the chamber. The shadows obediently retreated, leaving her room bathed in a soothing blue.

"Am I going crazy?" she asked of Tia and the room's shadows few remaining shadows.

When Tia only looked at her, tilting its head as though it hadn't understood the question, she sighed. "What a question... I talk to you, don't I?" She wasn't sure if that meant she was crazy or not.

Tia only looked at her. A smile creased the doll's mouth and it chirped once, then stood up and pranced around in a circle before sitting back down, still looking at her.

"Very reassuring."

For some reason, the scent of burning fur and feathers wouldn't leave her, even though she was certain that she had left the dream. Maybe she was going crazy... Just to be sure, though, she checked a mirror and looked all around, but found no trace of singed fur or even so much as a feather out of place or even any candles that might have burned down to the last bit of wick.

"Maybe I am," she commented finally. "Is this how you go crazy? Bit by bit like this? It didn't feel that way before. Back when-" she cut herself off and sighed. Back before Nightmare Moon.

"I might as well get to it," she continued. "The business of the night won’t take care of itself.”

She sat at her desk and began to read through the scrolls, signing or re-addressing them as appropriate and trying to keep the smell of burning fur out of her mind as much as possible.

On the bed, Tia began to bounce around, squeaking and chattering her teeth at her. It wasn’t until the doll made a stand atop a small mound of pillows, pointed a padded hoof her way and went off on a long, squeaky tirade that Luna finally put down the scroll she had been staring at and glared at the doll.

“Tia! Stop that, I’m trying to work.”

Try being the operative word, she thought.

The scroll she put down was a long, well organized letter from Twilight Sparkle on the nature of comets. It was well documented, cited several well-known sources and probably would have been accepted by any astronomer as a wonderful treatise on the nature of the celestial bodies. It was very informative. And utterly dry.

The doll didn’t seem to care and only chattered more forcefully.

“Fine, be that way.”

She pulled the doll off the bed with a spell. It squeaked and grabbed at a pillow, then another, flailing about and trying to hang onto the bed.

"Oh hush," she chided. She lifted it over and set it down next to the velvet covered crystal globe that she used by night to wander the dreams of others. "Just sit there and keep me company, please Tia?"

She rubbed at her nose with a hoof and sneezed.

That smell was really starting to bother her, and it seemed to get only stronger, not weaker, the longer she was awake. She supposed she could ask the guard outside if he smelled it too, but she knew it would be reported eventually to the real Celestia and she didn't want her sister to worry about her.

After having spent a day handling all of Celestia's affairs, she had firsthand knowledge that her sister didn't need any more headaches.

Just like the headache that the miniature version of her sister was being. It had gotten a hold of a tassel on the cloth covering the crystal globe she used to view dreams and enter the dream world and was worrying it back and forth like a dog.

"'Seriously? You-" what she would have said next died on her tongue as the doll tore off the velvet cover.

The crystal of the sphere, normally clouded with white and grey smoke obscuring barely seen images from other ponies dreams, was now a deep red, nearly black and seemed to ooze and pulse with vile intent. The red glow intensified a hundredfold for less than a heartbeat before vanishing, leaving behind only a faint afterimage in her eye as a reminder that it had ever been there.

"Tia, did you see that? Tell me I'm not going crazy!"

The doll was cowering under the cloth that had fallen atop it, tented about its wings and horn. Only Tia's muzzle showed under the edge. She could almost feel the doll's fear, if dolls could be said to have fear.

"It was there, I know it was. I'm not going crazy," she declared, then covered her face with her foreleg, feeling absurd for having said that to a doll. "Shut up," she told it.

The crystal's surface clouded again suddenly and pulsed red, for just a moment so brief that Luna almost missed it and would have if she hadn't been staring intently into its surface.

The brief blink, for Luna could think of no other word to describe it, felt like it was the act of some other force watching her.

"Watch over things here," she told Tia, feeling absurd once again talking to a doll, but she didn't have any time to waste.

She called up her magic and wove together the spell that would send her mind into the dream world through the sphere.

On the other side of the veil of dreams, Luna found herself adrift in a star field awash in blood and speckled with black spots. The dreamscape pulsed and throbbed around her, pressing in against her mind with all the intensity of her nightmare. Images of Nightmare Celestia percolated through her waking mind.

“Begone!”

She pushed back at the images, aware now that they were not her own nightmares but those imposed upon her by a dangerously sneaky foe. She let her rage banish the fatigue, embracing the red hot core of determination and fury borne of the knowledge that her realm had been so cruelly and systematically violated.

Focusing her magic, she formed and cast a spell to impose seldom seen order upon the dreams of those few ponies who slept during the day. Her azure power scoured away the clinging inky red filth that clung to the pathways she carved into the dream.

The red hue wavered as her power flooded the dream-world and each dream floated in to settle at the end of a spiral pathway, orderly and easy to follow. The red glow faded across the entirety of the void, diminishing until it stood out as only a single mote settled squarely in the middle of the pathways through the garden of dreams she created.

She let the rage seethe and boil, calming herself as she walked the pathways towards the dream that even now quivered and struggled to break free of the bonds that held it.

Each dream she passed offered up a little bit of information about itself and its owner as she came near, and each calmed as her power steadied. The pleasant dreams she passed helped to calm her further. She would need a clear head to face a foe that had hid its face successfully from her for a month. She kept the worry at bay, held back by the bits of her fury that had solidified into cold, hard knots.

The dream shrouded by the nightmare told her its owner was a mother without a child and a sister without a sibling. That would have intrigued Luna and enticed her to ponder the meaning of the identity any other time, but there was little enough of that and she couldn’t spend it mulling over the sometimes strange ways that her subjects saw themselves.

Who are you, Luna thought, pondering the dark dream and the message of fear that underlay its owners identity, and why is this nightmare so interested in you?

This close to the nightmare, she could feel the influence it still had on the mare it held in its thrall. Grief and fear and an unreasoning terror gripped her. Luna could only imagine what the nightmare was doing to her.

She was about to dive into the nightmare and free the mare of it when it reacted to her presence.

Luna felt a phantom pain hit her in the chest and the dream in front of her wavered, dimming. Realization and horror struck her. The nightmare was trying to kill her subject. There was no time for subtlety.

"Enough!"

Luna dove into the dream in a blaze of azure power, sundering the darkness and scattering the nightmare into shreds as she tore apart the vile shroud and found herself standing in Ponyville. All around her, the nightmare fled rather than face her. Little pieces of it flared and died as she turned her rage upon them, unleashing bolt after bolt of dark blue lightning upon them.

In the fading moments of the dream, as its owner woke, she caught a glimpse of what must have been the dreamer, a unicorn with a light green coat and blue mane, staring at her with her hooves as she stood above the lifeless body of another unicorn mare that Luna could have sworn she had seen somewhere before.

Then the dream burst like a bubble as the unknown dreamer, the mother without a foal, woke.

Miles away, Celerity Bellweather opened her eyes to the concerned faces of Gizmo and Nurse Redheart, a throbbing pain fading away in her chest. The nightmare was gone, banished between one heartbeat and the next by the Princess of the Night in a terrifying, and welcome, display of power.

The nightmare still burned in her mind, haunting her. She had been forced to kill her own daughter, and she hadn't been able to tell it wasn’t real. Worse, everypony cheered her onward as she did it.

She focused on the fact that it was a dream as Redheart shouted for a cart, burying the image of her daughter, still and lifeless and hers the hooves that stood upon her neck.

It was just a nightmare, she told herself. In the middle of the day while standing around wide awake and waiting for my luggage. Tales of darkness creeping from a well of eternal shadow didn’t sound quite so far-fetched anymore. She needed to look into her sister's diary more closely. Maybe Lyra could help.