The black of night draws 'cross the skies.
The darkness grows as daylight dies.
She'll save your soul from dream's demise
Thus doth your lunar princess RISE!
- Verse of unknown origin.

Sunday evening, 6PM

Luna sighs as she listens to the recorded report from the coroner in Trotston, a port city known for exporting two things; lingerie in the form of red lace socks, and beans. 'Beantown' was its more kind nickname, the other being 'that Celestia-forsaken maze of roads.' Tears roll down her muzzle as she reads the paperwork that accompanies the recording. The pictures of the colt match with her recollections of the 'false alarm' from three nights ago, complete with the cutie mark of a barnacle being chiseled off of a ship's hull. "Mother, forgive me for being so careless with this one. Watch over him in your dreams."

"Luna, I can forgive this as easily as our little ponies breathe, but his soul has not rejoined the herd. It is missing."

To say that the response is a shock to Luna would be an understatement akin to saying that Discord is a little unpredictable. Responses from the spirit of their mother in the form of words rather than vague images were warnings to be taken to heart immediately. Ponies die in their sleep all the time from things like old age or injuries too severe for magic to heal...but their souls never just vanish! Even in the old days when nightmares were drastically more frequent, no pony that died was truly lost. She looks up and gathers the papers and photos to take to Celestia.

The Royal Dining Room, fifteen minutes later.

"Luna, while I know it has taken some time for you to truly settle back into your old duties of guarding dreamers from the dark side of sleep I think this is a bit of an extreme leap of logic." Celestia's voice is tinged with sadness as she looks through the documentation on the colt's autopsy. Thank goodness for advances in magic that had made it possible to do them without cutting the corpse open. "Souls don't just vanish, so maybe he's still with his mother? It has been a few years since the last time a soul refused to move on on its own, but you and I both know that it happens more often with foals than adults."

"Mother specifically said he was missing, 'Tia. If he were simply staying by his mother's side in a misguided effort to lessen her grief; mother would be able to at least see him. No, this can only be the work of the nightmare forces somehow figuring out a way to sequester a soul in the dreamscape after killing it. This is the first time in a long time that they have killed intentionally. Foalnapping Rarity should have been a sign that they were growing desperate for a release of some kind that I am simply unwilling to give them."

Celestia simply sighs and shakes her head before returning her attention to her dinner. "Luna, unless you can find definitive proof of some outside force actually taking the souls of dreamers that die, which means allowing dreamers to die to begin with, I simply cannot do anything to help you. Mother has lost track of souls before without anything malicious happening."

"Sister, I know you recall what happened the last time you decided that I was just being a silly filly about a problem involving the dreamscape. I ended up possessed by the fears of a thousand foals and began seeing you as competition, culminating in a paranoid bid for complete power in Equestria as the corrupt ascended form known only as Nightmare Moon. Do try not to dismiss my concerns over the death of a foal so frivolously."

Celestia blinks and shakes her head as if she had just been slapped across her muzzle with a rolled up newspaper like a misbehaving animal. She takes a few seconds to replay the last minute of the conversation in her head before groaning as she realizes just how that sounded. "Alright, I suppose I deserved that for dismissing your concerns, but I do not think that there's anything we can do about one missing soul. How would you even go about trying to find it when the dreamscape is as infinite as the sky?"

"Simple solutions tend to be the best to complicated problems. The first step would be to re-form a specific portion of the Night Guard that I have neglected until now."

"Meaning you will want to put out an advertisement in all newspapers on a national scale for ponies with talents related to sleep or dreaming so that you can see if they are suitable for recruitment into the newly reinstated Dream Guard?" Celestia says this while already starting to conjure up a few dozen copies of such an ad.

"If you make any 'dream job' puns in this ad, 'Tia, I will give the cooks a recipe to a certain tasteless sauce involving poison joke, liquid rainbow, and ghost pepper flakes and tell them it is an old favorite of ours. You will not know when this happens until your throne bursts into flames from the first 'solar flare' of the day."

Celestia's expression doesn't change as every scroll vanishes in a flame so hot that not even ashes remain. Fresh copies are made in only a couple seconds, with a bit of rewording. "How many suitable recruits are you going to hire?"

"Eventually I hope to have at least a dozen for better coverage all day on rotating shifts. I expect to get less than a third of that number in the first group of responders. The worst part will be training them since that will take time to get enough for a suitable class."

Celestia nods and makes a few quick notations before sending all of them off to local and global outlets. "I hope you can cope for a few days without any responses. Should we make an effort to send educational information to schools regarding nightmare recognition and how to manipulate your own dreams when necessary?"

"Celestia, do you mean to tell me that we have free schools for foals and a basic education system in place that doesn't include basic dream theory in the standard curriculum? This despite the fact that nightmares are dangerous!"

"Luna, have you even tried summoning the most recent textbook regarding the dangers of bad dreams?"

"No, why?"

"There's a reason it hasn't been taught in almost a thousand years, dear sister. You are the one that wrote the book on the subject."

Luna's eyes shoot open wide at this and she quickly performs the relatively simple summoning spell. A thick tome covered in dust lands in front of her. "No...This is a bad joke. NOPONY HAS DONE RESEARCH ON THIS SUBJECT IN A MILLENNIUM?"

There, on the floor, was a book with which Luna was intimately familiar. The title was written in a familiar, though ancient, style.

Nytemairs:
Beeing a Studie of Dreems Horrible
and the Konsikuuenses Thereof by
Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna Noctus

"Let me guess...you don't have a spell handy that can transcribe this into modern spelling and grammar, do you?"

"Nope. Not one that doesn't require reading the book yourself, out loud. There is one that can make any number of copies at once though."

"How could you let this happen?"

"Luna, the most knowledgeable pony in this field of study was you. I couldn't exactly ask you questions or anything for a long time, and neither could anypony else. It shouldn't be a shock that it has fallen behind."

"I suppose that is a valid point. Very well, I know one thing I'll be doing while awaiting responses other than monitoring dreams: correcting spelling errors older than Canterlot."

"Luna, to be fair, they weren't errors at the time."

"Not helping, 'Tia!"

||||

"Now, Sweetie Belle, according to your chart here...your sister is bringing you in for a checkup because your voice keeps cracking and you're having trouble singing?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me about? Bad dreams? Weird dreams? Unexplained fever? Tickling in your throat? Coughing? Mucous buildup?"

"Doesn't everypony get bad dreams?"

"Well, yes, but combined with the other symptoms they could be a sign of a larger problem like influenza. Since you say you have no other signs that something is wrong, I'm going to have to call in our voice specialist for a consultation."

"I have to see another doctor?"

"No, he's here in the building. I just have to page him and he'll be here in a few minutes. I have to warn you that he might seem a bit odd at first, but he's the best speech specialist in Minos."

"Minos? Is he a minotaur?"

"Good guess, now relax and wait. He'll be here soon."

Sweetie nods and makes herself comfortable as Doctor Fragment steps out. The examination bench isn't uncomfortable, but she fusses about since the padding isn't like the furniture at home. Somewhere around ten minutes passes and she grows sick of trying to count all the black dots on the ceiling tiles when the door opens and a tall being steps through.

"Sweetie Belle, I presume? I'm Sliver Tongue, voice and speech specialist. Bone Fragment tells me you're having trouble singing and your voice is breaking, but nothing else is wrong, right?"

Sweetie simply nods as she looks at the new doctor. Red fur with patches of bare skin, no horns, very short muzzle. His voice is deep and raspy, but strong enough that it's easy to tell that he isn't sick himself. He's thin, almost a twig compared to the pictures she'd seen of minotaurs before. He's wearing a white coat though, so he must be the right being.

"I'm going to need you to open your mouth and give me a good long sustained note, dear. I have to hear your voice if I'm going to make a diagnosis." He gives her a smile, one that is overtly kind and caring enough to get Sweetie smiling in response before she clears her throat.

She inhales and opens her mouth, then lets out a bright and clear tone for all of two seconds before her tongue begins to swell up and extend from her mouth. "Laaaaaa-AAAAAAHHHHH! Whups happeming po my pongue?" One foot, then three feet, suddenly she's tasting the floor as she begins to hyperventilate.

"Oh dear, I was afraid it was going to be something like this." Doctor Tongue grins as he reaches over to grab the massively overgrown muscle with one hand while the other reaches for a drawer. "I'm afraid the only option is to operate immediately, and I happen to have just the tool." He smiles again, this time it's not reassuring as his face begins to melt and the superficial similarities to a minotaur are quickly lost. The muzzle vanishes completely except for a hooked protrusion of a nose over his mouth. The red fur hisses as it burns away and becomes exposed muscle and veins while the bared patches of skin crinkle and form burned scar tissue. His other hand comes out of the drawer with a glove on it made of leather, like Rarity sometimes uses at the request of special clients, but this one has four long knives attached to the fingers to form artifical talons.

Sweetie finds herself trapped in place simply by the weight of her tongue. Her legs are straining against the cushion, but her body can't budge as the not-minotaur thing removes its ungloved hand from her tongue and begins to stroke her back in false reassurance as those wicked blades are brought in front of her eyes. "NO! NO! MOMMY! MOMMY!"

Out of nowhere, three ghostly fillies show up in the room behind the 'doctor' playing jump rope and chanting an eerie song.

One, Two, Freddy's coming for you.
Three, Four, better lock your door.
Five, Six, grab your crucifix.
Seven, Eight, better stay up late.
Nine, Ten, never sleep again.

Sweetie feels the hand on her back move further towards her rear before touching inside of her with his fingers like the special girls-only unicorn doctors do with their magic, but this feels wrong and hurts. She begins crying and squirming to try and get away from those fingers so much that she doesn't even notice the first cut on her tongue until she starts tasting blood. She stops moving and looks down, and sees the massive tongue hanging uselessly out of her mouth cut into five sections lengthwise, leaving it hanging in bloody tatters on the floor as blood begins to pool on the tiles. Four blades, four cuts at once, then the pain hits her and she begins to scream even louder...

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long. Having lots of issues in general but I wanted to get an update out for Nightmare Night.

The verse at the top is a modification of the 'Black Lantern Corp Oath' that preserves only the rhyme and meter, turning it from a chilling threat into something more like an actual motto.