The other guardian of the night.
Wanna Dualize?
I had a busy first day back, what with being freed from my envy-infused dark form, meeting up with my sister in the first time in a millennia, having to deal with the entire nobility protesting that I existed and Celestia not telling anypony, and finally Celestia wanted to stay up late, so I had to stay with her. I missed her terribly as well, and it was bliss being able to be with my sister again... but...
I had work to do. Work that Tia didn't understand. That nopony really understands. But it's possibly the most important work anypony has ever done.
I protect the dreams of the ponies of Equestria.
While other species have to fear going to sleep, or go with reluctance, fearing what's inside, my Ponies can go to sleep peacefully every night, knowing nothing will harm them as they rest.
It is the sacred duty of the Princess of the Night to dispel nightmares and help troubled ponies with their dreams after all. However... over my thousand year banishment to the moon, I was cut off from the dreams of my ponies, and in that time... their dreams were like the dreams of the other races, unprotected from their fears, from the nightmares in their minds. How unhappy it must have made them.
Well, the ones in Ponyville seemed happy and enthusiastic enough. They looked like they had when I was still protecting their dreams.
"Tia.. did you have nightmares while I was gone?" I asked before she went off to bed.
Tia visibly winced at the word 'nightmare'. "...At first, almost constantly. I actually assumed it was you-er, Nightmare Moon, cursing me from the moon. But it stopped eventually, why?"
"You know my special power."
"Looking into the dreams of ponies?"
"Entering the dreams of ponies. To protect them from bad dreams." I sighed. "Nopony was protecting them while I was gone, I feared the worst, but apparently it wasn't that bad..."
Celestia stopped to think a moment. "You know, Luna. I think I remember that a lot of ponies mentioned having bad dreams, from all over Equestria, even. But it has gotten better since then. Maybe we built up... Well I don't know, a natural resistance to nightmares?" Celestia watched my expression for a few seconds before shaking her head. "Oh well, I don't know how dreams work.." She gave a warm smile. "Is that why you want to sleep so desperately?"
I nodded and returned the smile. "I have my duty after all. Even if I haven't raised the moon for millenia."
"Alright, I'll let you get to it... and Luna?"
"Yes Tia?"
"I love you... I... I'm just so happy you're back."
We had a long hug before we made our way back to our respective beds. I made myself comfortable and slid the mask over my eyes. I felt as my body relaxed and my mind began to shut down. That was when I turned on the spell, and I felt my subconscious slipping away, leaving my mind free to move about in it. I 'flew' the familiar path in my mind and came to the white gate of the dreamworld.
It was a huge emerald plain, a never ending grassland. It would always be different, every single time. But I was always able to navigate it. In the grassland there were stairways that led down to different dreams. There were millions of them, for all the sleeping ponies in Equestria actually.
I noticed one in particular, a special drawing feeling. I flew down to it and saw the golden and marble staircase. I smiled at Tia's sense of pride, and I walked down the steps. The steps faded away as the dream became clear, it was a castle, not one that I remembered. Likely Tia's subconscious fantasizing her own perfect castle or something like that. A young Tia and a younger me frolicked down the halls for hours. They didn't say anything, they just jumped and ran around and looked at each other in the halls of the mysterious castle. It was beautiful, and it always touched me when I saw Tia dreaming about me. I considered going over and talking to her, or them, as it was now, but I didn't feel like interrupting their fun.
I left her dream and came back to the field, which was now and ocean with a million little bubbles that contained every pony's dream. Like I said, it changes each time.
I thought that I should do my actual job, and go look for a troubled pony. It didn't take long. The tiny storm clouds that collected on the surface of the bubbles were always a clear sign.
But I watched in surprise as they cleared up, all by themselves. I flew to the mouth of the bubble and entered it, finding myself in the center of a hurricane.
In the ancient times ponies called me the goddess of the night. But in reality, I was no goddess in the real world. But here... Here I was unstoppable.
Was.
The storm threw me left and right, I reached out to calm it, but my magic was almost useless. Was this something else, or was I just out of practice?
"Whoah there!" A charming voice resounded, clear above the winds of the storm. I opened my eyes and looked into it's eyes. They were blue, draconic, if they weren't so clear and innocent they'd look fearsome. But that's only the beginning of it... it's forelegs ended in strange paws, it was wearing strange garb, it had a large red jewel in it's chest, and it's head wasn't attached to it's body. Not only that, it had one of the strangest strangest hats I had ever seen. And it had no nose.
"Wh-what are you?" I asked, I wasn't unfamiliar with the strange creatures dreams produced, but this one... something about the clarity of it's eyes... I knew it wasn't a simple fragment of a pony's imagination.
It gave a smile and flew around me, riding the wind like it knew the air like the back of it's hoof. "I'm NiGHTS." ...'Nights' watched as I desperately fought the wind. "You know," it began. "it's a lot more fun without wings."
I stopped struggling and stared at the creature. I shook my head, it was the mumbling of a dream. Dreams were chaotic by nature, changing drastically according to the whim of the user, but without any control. I was out of practice. I could once hold conversations with fragments of imagination that could have made Discord himself scratch his head in confusion.
"Let me show you!" It said suddenly. It grabbed my forehooves with it's... I don't know, claws? Paws? Paws like a monkey... and swung me into the wind even faster. I couldn't maneuver, I couldn't change direction, I just had to follow the path of the wind. It blew me around with no sense of where it was going or how it was turning.
And as soon as I just let it push me...
It became fun.
I flew around in the chaos with Nights, and before I knew it, we were joined by a small pegasus filly as well. Like my sister's dream, we were aimless, just moving with the flow and having a fine time. But eventually Nights stopped. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"This has been great, but I need to get going." It apologized, giving a short bow before spiralling upwards.
I saw the purple figure floating up to the top of the sky, and heading for the gate I came through. I was suddenly gripped with fear. "Wait! You're just a fragment of her imagination, you can't leave!" I gestured to the filly.
"Watch me!" it said gleefully, spinning like a ballerina and shooting upward through the gate. I flew after it as fast as I could, and left the dream into a huge forest covered in curving waterfall bridges.
"NIGHTS!" I yelled.
"Over here!" It called, waving to me and reclining in the air over a doorway growing out of the tree. It was also covered in storm clouds. A troubled pony was having a Nightmare inside.
"Nights, how were you able to escape her dream?!"
The figure gave a nice grin and shrugged, floating upside down. "I saw the gate, and simply passed through it. I do it all the time."
I stared incredulously at the... I didn't know what it was any more.
"Now then, you must excuse me, I have business to attend to." Nights said, opening the door. "I'll find you later though... um, what's your name?"
"Uh... Princess Luna."
"I'll see you later Princess Luna!" Nights said cheerfully, waving to me as it entered the door and caused the dream scape to shift. It became a huge ocean of soap, but strangely the gates were all now giant towers. I had never actually seen what happened to the dreamscape after I entered a gate.. but then again, before now, nopony but me could enter gates.
But the strangest thing happened next. The clouds that showed that there were nightmares in a dream...
They were disappearing.
I think I know what had been protecting the dreams of ponies while I slept.
