And now I lay me down to sleep
Pray Luna my soul to keep
And if I should die before I wake
Pray Luna my soul to take.
-Ancient Equestrian Prayer

Thursday night into Friday

Dreams have flavors. This is not something that has become common knowledge over time due to the rarity of somnolent magic as a special talent. Luna could tell a calm dream from a nightmare from an erotic adventure just by the way the dream tastes as she approaches. Erotic dreams taste like habaneros and old stained clothes, and she avoids these out of habit and respect for a pony's privacy. One only needs to walk into a dream which features oneself in a compromising position with the dreamer once to know to avoid them in the future. Nightmares taste, surprisingly, like chocolate mousse. This makes them both easy and desirable for Luna to find for elimination.

Tonight is light duty as far as dream guarding goes. Two nightmares have been vanquished, one of which was ended in a spray of phantom candy from a hydra turned into a piñata, and only two more currently exist in the dreamscape. The first one she chooses to visit looks like a false alarm. A foal is playing with bath toys while his mother watches. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary here. The water is normal, the foal is normal, the tub is normal, and even the bath toys are entirely mundane. The little colt is the dreamer, so even his mother appears perfectly normal. The only thing that seems even remotely odd is a green and red snake balloon that is wrapped around the faucet and tied in place, but even that makes sense as a precaution to cushion the impact if the child were to hit his head on the fixture.

Luna chalks this one up to having just missed the scary dream. Dreams of foals are notoriously fluid and subject to random shifts in tone, so it's no surprise to her that a dreamer this young managed to escape unscathed. A brief glow from her horn animates the pink octopus the foal is playing with briefly before Luna turns to exit and go to that last chocolatey intrusion in her nightly rounds. Thus she misses the squeal of plastic on metal as the inflatable snake unties itself and slips into the bath...

The next nightmare she visits is more true to form than the last, and one that has her immediately cringe as the scene comes into proper focus. An intensive care unit at Ponyville hospital with two off-white unicorns shouting at each other while a filly is all-but covered in bloody bandages on the bed next to them with her horn snapped in half and leaking green sparks. Rarity and her mother, Althaea, arguing while Sweetie Belle is apparently critically injured. Luna's eyes light up as she scans the scene intently to identify the constructs and dreamer. Ah, a mother's worries.

"Gosh darn it, Rarity, you can't even keep your little sister safe for one week while your father and I take a trip to meet with the Oranges in Manehatten to renegotiate the bulk supply discount on oranges for the natural flavors in my sore throat remedy! I get back and poor Sweetie is in a coma with a shattered horn and all you can tell me is that you don't know what she was doing?!"

"She doesn't give me an itinerary of what crusades she has planned with the others, mother. I honestly expected you to put your hoof down about the outlandish things she does with her friends sometimes before this happened. This is your fault and you know it!"

Luna scowls as the family argument becomes even more heated, and blows become more and more likely. Her own history with her sister that ended in her thousand years of banishment combined with the potential for injuries sustained in the nightmare state to translate to the physical body forces her hoof. "Enough of this foolishness!" She steps through the border and fully inserts herself in the dream while glaring at both of the grown mares. Her attention turns to Althaea in full. "The only one you are hurting is yourself in this scenario, my little pony. Your concern for the safety of your younger daughter is admirable, but your blame is misplaced." She closes her eyes for a moment and sighs before allowing herself to smile. Her tone loses the harsh edge of rebuke in order to become softer and caring as she continues."Furthermore, little Sweetie is safe at home in her bed right now. Home, not in a hospital with a broken horn."

"Princess Luna? I...I'm sorry, but are you really here?" Althaea is understandably shaken by the sudden appearance of royalty in the ICU complete with the royal shout to announce her entrance. A look around quickly reveals that Rarity has vanished into thin air, and the walls of the hallway look slightly tilted. "Wait...you just appeared there, walking through the wall, and now my Rarity's up and vanished faster than my husband's dinner. I-I'm dreaming, right?"

"Indeed you are. A nightmare about your little Sweetie being injured severely in an accident with her friends. You and I both know that this means you need to talk to her about what she's doing that so frightens you." Luna takes another quick look around before tapping her hoof against the floor three times. The hospital fades and is quickly replaced by a meadow.

A picnic fades in with an uninjured Sweetie chasing a butterfly while her father, Popped Cork, lounges next to a platter of sandwiches. "There's my Marshmallow!" His expression changes from happy to see his wife to excited as he notices the Princess next to her. "Did you finally get that commendation for your sore throat remedy? You've been working on perfecting it for so long!"

Althaea looks aside at Luna and simply nods. "Thank you for your help, your majesty. I think I can take it from here."

"Tis only what I should be doing. Be sure to give your daughters my regards if you see them before I do in the waking world." With that said, she steps back through the barrier between the individual dreamer and the dreamscape. She's done well in helping out so far tonight, it is time to take a break from guarding dreams to do some late-night paperwork. She will give herself an hour before checking back in to see if more nightmares have cropped up.

Sunday morning, 11 AM

"Coroner Grim Facts recording audio log of findings on tan and brown pegasus foal: male. Subject appears to be in perfect health other than being dead. No signs of trauma, bruising, long-term abuse, or any known visible defects that could have caused this. I'd be ruling it as SIDS - asphyxiation if it weren't for the fact that he has his mark. It's impossible for the mother or sister to have done this intentionally, and an uncontrolled magic surge from the sister would have left traces. Hay, any magic would have left traces. If the colt choked on his blanket there'd at least be fibers in his throat. It's like his lungs just shut down and refused to breathe. Death was accidental, mother is fit to keep the sister. I need a drink. Sometimes its harder telling them they did nothing wrong. Forwarding this conclusion and all documentation to the princesses as is protocol for any suspicious and unexplainable deaths of children."

Author's Note

The quote at the top of this chapter is so old it should need no explanation other than why it is relevant to this story. It is recited by the heroine of the original Nightmare on Elm Street movie just before the climax.