The Origins of the Nightmare
Chapter 1
Her white, tender legs were tangled in the coils of her linen bed sheets. It was stuffy and uncomfortable. Small amounts of sweat from her sleek fur coat soaked into and stained the sheets, trapping more heat within the fabrics.
This was the hundredth time that the sun-flanked alicorn had tossed and turned tonight, hoping to relieve the unbearable heat which imprisoned her in her fort of sleeping arrangements. The heat made her feel like a sweaty lunatic in a straightjacket. Finally, in one angry, distressed swipe, she ripped the overlays from the tucks in the mattress and threw them to the floor.
She was silent in her actions, although her lowered, angled eyebrows against her slightly shrunken pupils spoke a thousand words. The fuchsia-eyed pony peered over to the clockwork mechanism to her right, known as an alarm clock.
’2:00am’
Through her gritted teeth she scowled at the air, then threw herself back against the memory foam mattress. She stretched her front legs and back legs across the entirety of the remains of the bed with her stomach facing the roof, trying to lose heat and cool down quicker. In peace, she looked upwards.
The ceiling, hanging quite a few metres above her, was finished with intricate artex swirls. The design, along with the ceiling itself, was ancient, created hundreds of years ago; it looked odd, but was never questioned and never changed. Celestia never liked it, but it was a traditional technique in the castle, and changing it in one room would look odd.
Hanging from the ceiling was a glass chandelier that speckled with thousands of pieces of crystals; it was lined with gold leaf to a bewildering standard of perfection. The candles were barely ever lit, as the wax was a nightmare; it rained onto the floor and bed, solidifying into pieces which split further when attacked with a chisel. There, the only light it reflected was from the large skylight.
Luna persuaded her sister into installing it in the middle her room so that she could watch the night sky if she was awake. Not sleeping was the last thing on the solar sister’s mind now however, but at least it provided some cooling light. The blue light that broke through the glass seemed to carry the cold of the night air with it.
With no covers over her sleek white figure, the cool midnight air brushing passed her fur coat tickled her stomach like thousands of fingertips made of even more miniature tornadoes. It was a relieving contrast from the sweaty, unfiltered air that was trapped between the alicorn and her overlays a few minutes ago.
She looked over to her right and noticed the dark purple drapes overlooking the window quivering partially compared to the other windows. In a sudden action, they began shimmering more violently, and the wind whistled into the room for a brief moment. ‘Ah, that’s why,’ she said to herself. ‘The window’s open.’
She rolled to the right hand side of the mattress, which was topped with a reddish-pink cashmere cover. One steady hoof after another, she stepped from off of the bed and onto the natural fibre carpet. “First the front two . . . Now the other two.” With heavy weights over her eyelids and still feeling tired, her stepping was very slow. Normally the princess would call for one of her royal guards to aid her, but she didn’t have the strength to shout right now. Besides, it was late at night. She didn’t need to wake anyone else.
Celestia pushed the drapes to the side, and inspected the window. It wasn’t open, but a large crack was existent within the molten sand material. There was also a series of small particles of glass in the window sill, glimmering in the immediate moonlight of the lunar monument. An aura encased her horn and the glass simultaneously and within seconds the hole was patched up. “Perfect.”
The light-coated goddess didn’t feel like going back to sleep just yet, and so decided it would be easier to take a stroll. She closed the drapes again, and proceeded walking to the entrance of her chambers. As Celestia came up to the sheets she’d thrown to the floor previously, she scooped them up and threw them back onto the mattress. “The maids can deal with that later.”
She strolled to the large doors that guarded her room from the rest of Equestria. The actual door was at least twice height of the largest pony in the land, with arch after arch surrounding it in layers. Every arch had its own intricate design, ranging from diagonals and crossovers to actual third-dimensional sculpting. The best part was that it could only be unlocked by her or Luna.
Celestia’s inane magical ability allowed her to shift the seemingly lead-footed doors easily, and as she did, light pierced through the ever-growing opening between the two doors. The princess’s room was on a separate mountain in contrast to the rest of the castle, and required a long bridge between the two parts, and even longer supports on the bridge to keep it to the ground. As such, the corridor was basking in the grandeur of intricate decoration for a large amount of length. A red velvet carpet flowed across the entirety of the smooth stone floor of the corridor, lined with gold on either side. In the walls lived a series of stained glass windows, which were centuries-old monuments of her accomplishments and victories in various time periods. Some featured Discord. Some featured Twilight and her friends. Some were portraits of her raising the solar monument on the festival of the summer solstice. Every few metres, a marble pillar rested, with an artefact on show. They were mainly ancient relics such as vases and jewelleries from other royalty all over the world.
As the white alicorn approached the end of the bridge, she stopped strolling and looked at the stone pillar to her right. On the pillar, her mother’s amulet and tiara sat. It glistened an indescribable colour, and an aura seemed to glow from it. Celestia bowed her head for moments, paying tribute to her mother’s memory. She did it every time she came to the pillar. Her mother’s the reason for Celestia’s privilege, her power, and her responsibilities. It hurt the solar goddess knowing that her mother was gone.
She exited the room and strolled into the main castle. Everything’s quieter at night time. The privacy of the castle in the day time meant it was always quiet, but now it was silent. Completely quiet. Not even the wind dared to whistle in here, and the sound of blood rushing through her head was infinitely louder than the nothingness that flowed through the atmosphere. No guards were present at the moment, which worried Celestia slightly. Normally there would be a few on duty just to keep her safe, especially with many protests against the new farming laws she issued happening. But it was nothing to worry about. Only two ponies’ magic abilities unsteadied the princess, and they were her sister and her own student. Celestia carried on strolling through the complex maze of structures and corridors that only inhabitants of the castle could easily navigate.
Soon, she found herself outside at the entrance of the castle. The wind had died down to an almost complete standstill. Celestia’s hair wasn’t shimmering artificially like it normally does, since she’s not as strong without the sun beaming down on her white body. She looked up into the night sky and observed what was going on. The moon was at its fullest in a month, and the stars sparkled especially brighter with energy fuelled by the moon.
An idea suddenly popped into Celestia’s head. ‘I’m barely ever awake at night . . . Luna would like this. I should share this moment with her.’ She proceeded back into the castle, only this time she could hear a faint vibration coming from somewhere. Celestia tried to ignore it, only that every step closer she came to Luna’s room, the louder it came. And the less of a vibration it became, and the more of a sound it became.
Soon enough, she could tell that someone was crying. Celestia picked up her pace, not galloping, but still quite fast. When she finally go to the doors to her sister’s chambers, her fuchsia eyes noticed two Lunar Royal Guards standing outside, desperately trying to gain access inside. They heard the princess’s hoofsteps echo through the corridors, and turned around. Noticing their ruler, they quickly bowed before her before addressing her. “Madame Celestia, your sister is weeping and will not allow us access!” Their address to the sun-flanked alicorn seemed impolite to her, but they weren’t her guards and probably didn’t know how to address her properly. Celestia let it slip, since she needed to see her sister more importantly than anything else.
“Rise, guards- and move someplace else. Take yourself a hundred feet at least from this area.” The guards instinctively responded quickly and moved aside, then trotted away. With her magic, Celestia opened the other of the only two doors that only she and her sister could open. Muffled crying came from inside of the room, which was completely pitch-black. She stepped inside, shut the door behind herself, and lit up the room with the aura of her sharp white horn.
Luna knew that her sister was the only one who could have opened that door, and was staring right at Celestia when she entered the room. The dark mere’s pupils were huge and beautiful in her even larger eyes, but were ruined by the wells of tears that rested inside of them. Celestia could tell she had been crying for a considerable amount of time now. However, the moon pony seemed reluctant to want to see her sister. Celestia knew that her sister wouldn’t expect here, awake at night, and if she wanted her elder sister here she would’ve called for her.
“Leave us, sister! We don’t want you here in our time of weep!” Her tone was a mix of angry and upset, and it also angered and upset Celestia. Why didn’t she want her sister here in her time of need? However, the lighter-coated sister showed no change in emotion, and trotted to her. Luna was showing that common mix of telling you to leave on the outside but begging you to stay on the inside.
Celestia stood beside her, which was when Luna buried her face back inside her blanket and the muffled crying continued. “Luna, dear, I’m here to comfort you.” The dark mere kept her head buried.
“Tell me, what’s the matter?” Still, however, she didn’t respond, still weeping with her face down against the blanket. The elder sister stepped onto the bed and held a hoof around her neck, and at the moment, after an uneasy and sudden sharp draw of breath, she stopped crying. The warmth from Celestia’s hoof fell through her younger sister’s cold body and calmed her. “Luna, you can tell me anything. If something’s hurting you, I’ll sort it out. Just share with me.” Celestia brushed her hoof along the back of her sister’s neck, and slowly she raised her distraught eyes from the wet blanket.
“We-W-W . . . We h-had a bad d-dream sister.”
“A bad dream, Luna? Come on, thought you were all grown up now!” Celestia responded with a complimentary chuckle, trying to add some comic relief to the situation. She wouldn’t buy it, however.
“I-It was more than th-that.”
“More?” Tia asked with a more serious tone. Luna stared right at her with unsteady eyes, and then her head fell to her sister’s white shoulders and she set off crying again. Celestia stroked her back between her resting wings with a warm touch, trying to settle her again. After moments of this, she sat back up, facing the fuchsia eyes again.
“It . . . It was someone… c-controlling us. They-the-th-th-“ Luna couldn’t continue, and stopped speaking before she reduced to tears again.
Celestia understandingly smiled – much more than understandingly. It seemed to understand everyone and everything about them, and calm them even more so. Luna instinctively smiled back out of her control, like her face had been taken over by her sister’s. “Luna, we can speak of this over hot chocolate at the end of the night. I’ll wake up early for you. Duty calls, and I cannot sacrifice too much sleep too often- we both know that- but your nightmares won’t affect you when you’re awake. Visit someone’s pleasant dream to cheer you up tonight.”
“Alright, ‘Tia,” Luna replied with a finally steady voice. “Goodnight, ‘Tia.” She threw the wet blanket away to the other side of the room, and watched her older sister leave.
“And no more napping between shifts, Luna!” Celestia said with a pleasant tone, smiling whilst leaving through the double doors. Luna nodded, and stood to continue her usual nightly duties.
