Six mares and one baby dragon are sitting round a camp fire in a clearing at the edge of white tip forest, the pink one with a puffy mane and tail is holding multiple sticks with marshmellows speared onto the end over the roaring fire.
"Storytimestorytimestorytime!" She chants while bouncing up and down.
"Yeah! Who wants to tell the first scary story!?" The rainbow maned pegasus asks.
"I have one that you girls might enjoy. Its the legend of nightmare..." the light purple alicorn says but is cut off by rainbow before she can continue.
"That dumb story about a new dragon? Thats the least scary story like, ever!"
"It is not dumb!" Twilight yells in the stories defence
rainbow crosses her hoof while giving a smug smile
twilight beggins the story, everypony and dragon unaware of the beast watching and listening to them.
"... they say he has two blade like object protruding from the sides of his head, his jaw so large that he could swallow a pony whole, teath so sharp they could cut through steal like it was air, his wings can block out the light of day and cause whole towns to enter an artificial night. His body, the deepest shade of black, virtualy invisible at night until he opens his mouth. It is said that he hunts every night in this very wood." Twilight finishes her tale and eats a now molten marshmello.
"Boo!" Rainbow makes everypony jump out of their skin. "Talk about lame stories!"
Everypony quickly recover, well other than fluttershy who is shaking under tent.
As rainbow tells the story of the headless hoarse, spike walks into the treeline, looking for more timber to keep the fire going. Walking around a large oak tree, the baby dragon manages to obtain 17 decent sized sticks and branches and starts making his way back to the campsite. As he aproaches within a few metres of the campsite he hears a low hiss emminating ftom behind him. Turning around he sees a large mass covered in pitcn black scales reflecting the moon light.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" He yells, dropping the pile of sticks and running as fast as his legs would go into the camp.
As soon as spike yelled all 6 ponies at the camp stood and turned to see spike running for his life from an unseen foe. A large patch of trees are suddenly shaken violentyl, as if a very strong wind whips through them, sending branches everywhere.
"SPIKE! Are you allright? " Twilight asks rushing over to him.
"Y-yeah, I think. B, but I saw, him. Nightmare was behing me just a second ago. But where'd he go!?" Spike says, a look of terror on his face.
"Your mind's just plai'n tricks on ya! Relax!... if I knew it would of had this reaction on ya id have told that story!" Rainbow says barely holding back her laughter.
"He was there! Realy!" Spike complains.
"Well something was there. How about we have a look around tomorrow then, spike?" Twilight asks him. In reply spike gives a small smile and nods.
"Oh my dear spikeywikey! You wouldnt mind getting that would for us would you?" Rarity asks, batting her eyelids at him.
"Uh, of coarse! Rarity!" Spike replies looking nervously at where he dropped the bundle of wood, and the darkness beyond.
As spike re-gathers the dropped wood he watches the shadows for any sign of movement. Soon he is on his way back when he hears a twig snap behind him and he runs into the camp again, this time remembering the pile of wood this time. As he makes it to the clearing he can hear the barely audable chuckling of something in the shadows.
That night, while everypony was asleep, spike pokes his nead out of his and twilights tent and allmost yells for the others to wake when he sees a huge black dragon sniffing the remains of the fire where a marshmello on a stick was left. He notices that this dragons head does not look like a dragons. Instead it doesnt seem to have eyes or ears, from the side its head looks like it was cut from a circle. The dragon turns its nead towards spike, revealing how the head is thin for a dragon, but is still large enouch to allow for a jaw large enough to swallow a pony whole. The 2 spikes comming off the sides of is head clearly sharper than anything spikes everseen. The huge beast nods at spike and turns back towards the stick with a marshmellow on it, he opens his mouth and spike gets light headed at the sight of half the head opening up to teveal teath the size of swords linning his mouth, his mouth being a dark red behind the pitch black lips.
"So this is nightmare" spike thought as the dragon slowelly lowers his head towards it, and a long black, snake lime tong wraps around the marshmello and lifts it of the stick. The horrifying mouth closes soon after the the toung returned into it. Turning back to spike the dragon opens his mouth and says in a whisper "good night young drake"
as quickly az he apeared, nightmare silently took flight and dissapears into the night.
Spike soon finding himself waking up, half in half out of the tent, yawns and looks to the now cold campfire and sighs. He piles the last of the sticks onto it then breathes a stream of fire omto them until they lit. Hoping it was just a dream, spike looks at where he had seen nightmare and sees clear signs of a large creature landing there. However he also notices a large bundle of sticks at the edge of the clearing in wich they are camping. The bundle is tied together with vines, on top of the bundle is a fire ruby.
"Spike? Is that ya out there?" Apple jack called out as he exited her tent and headed over to the fire.
"Morning applejack. Did you gather those sticks?" Spike says pointing towards the bundle.
applejack trots over to the large bundle of wood and looks at the fire ruby on top.
"Thats a mighty fine gem up there spike. Want me ta get it fer ya?" She askes.
Spikes eyes light up and he quickly nods and says "yes please!"
"Allrighty then." She says jucking as she climbs the bundle.
"Catch sugercube!" Apple jacks says as she throws the fire ruby towards spike, who barely catches it.
As spike stares at the ruby in his grip he notices something scratched into it.
'Sorry for scaring you last night. Maybe we could meet on better sircumstances next time, without those elements there. '
Spike gulps as he read that last part and doesnt notice everypony gather around him, until pinkie shouts "who gave you the ruby spikey!?"
spike almost has a heart attack as he launches the fire ruby high into the air. As it plummets towards the ground its caught in a light purple glow and is hovered infront of twilight. She gasps after she read it and looks exited.
"Whats wrong twi?" Spike says before she starts bouncing up and down on the spot.
She squeals and says "if this id true then the story I told last night could be true! Nightmare could actualy exist! And he wants to meet you, spike!"
Spikes facd pales. "N, N, Nightmare, wants to meet me?" He says cowering slightly
"Why, who else better to choose then my brave little spikey wikey of caurse!" Rarity says, smilling reasuringly at spike.
"But, what if I dont want to? What if I never return!?" Spike asks panicked.
"Not go! This is a once in a life time opotunity to meet a mythical dragon! You cant not go!" Twilight basicaly yells in his ear.
"Okay, okay. Ill go meet him. But if I dont return then you have yourselves to blame"
