That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Canterlot

Reggie groaned as he woke up from the gentle shaking.

“Reggie, it’s time to get up. That is, if you want to,” Fluttershy whispered to him.

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks,” he said, yawning as he pulled himself out from underneath the covers.

“How are you feeling?”

“Could still use some aspirins,” he replied, rubbing the back of his head. “But I’m better rested. That nap really helped!”

“That’s good!” she said.

He reached first for his trousers where he had laid them, then his jacket and medallion, and finally his shoes and socks.

“How are you able to dress so quickly?” Fluttershy then asked after he finished.

“I don’t really need to see in order to know where I put my clothes,” Reggie laughed as she guided him toward the door.

“Have you ever done this dreamwalking before with Luna?” Reggie asked as they walked the corridor. “I’m wondering what it’s going to be like.”

“Of course. Many times,” Flutteshy replied. “I—well—I have lots of nightmares, as you might imagine.”

“I’ve no idea why,” Reggie said, shrugging. “Your nightmares wouldn’t be because she’s going into your mind, would they? I could well imagine the fact that someone’s going to be poking around my brain at night is going to give me nightmares for years to come!”

“Oh! Good heavens, no!” she instantly protested. She was silent as they walked for a while. Then she spoke again. “Princess Luna would never do such a thing to anypony!”

“I-I, to be honest, I h-have a lot of—concerns,” she hesitantly told him. “Lots of things make me nervous and give me nightmares. Princess Luna has often helped me by banishing my fears and helping me through the night.”

“Good afternoon, Princess Celestia!” Fluttershy suddenly called out.

“Good afternoon, Fluttershy,” Celestia greeted in return. “And good afternoon to you, too, Reggie. Doctor Splint tells me that your injuries continue to heal as well as can be expected.”

“Hmm? I don’t remember seeing him,” Reggie told her.

“You were asleep when he went to see you a few hours ago,” Celestia explained. “You slept through his examinations.”

“Wow! I’m usually a pretty light sleeper,” Reggie said.

“You must have been very tired,” Celestia said in a conciliatory tone. “Also, the magic he used to examine you should not have needed to wake you.”

“Magic?” Reggie asked, astonished.

“Is there a problem?” Celestia asked.

“Other than magic doesn’t exist, I don’t see one,” he replied.

Suddenly, he felt a tingling all over his body and there was the sensation of weightlessness as the feeling of the floor left his feet. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’s happening?” he exclaimed.

“Don’t be concerned,” he heard Celestia tell him with an amused voice. “You won’t be harmed.”

“Now, hold your hand above your head,” he heard her say; her voice coming from somewhere far below him. Hesitantly, he complied and felt a wall, or perhaps the ceiling there, just above his head. “Now keep your hand there,” she said. Then he could feel the wall (or ceiling) moving along his fingertips—and he had to remind himself that it was him moving, not the wal—ceiling!

A few moments later, he felt another wall—and this time, it was a wall—intersect the ceiling, and he was slid down it. Only, there was some odd texture to it. Instead of feeling like stone, it felt more like glass, and moreover, the pattern felt much like one would expect for stained glass windows common in churches and cathedrals. And his descent went a looong time! Eventually, his touch told him he had reached the bottom of the window and there was a small window sill, then more wall, stone this time. Until his feet reached the floor. And then he felt his feet dragging along the ground away from the wall before he was released and he collapsed. There, he felt a familiar mix of fur and feathers.

“It’s okay,” he heard Fluttershy tell him as he fearfully grabed her shoulders. “You don’t have to worry. Princess Celestia isn’t going to hurt you. She was just using a levitation spell on you.”

“I—I—see,” Reggie stammered. Okay! If they have telekinesis and a few other psionic abilities and want to call them all ‘magic’, it’s certainly fine with me! Who am I to argue?

“I hope you were not frightened, Reggie,” Celestia said as he could hear her approach. “I just figured a demonstration would be easier to convince you than an explanation.”

“Well, there’s a phrase in my world, ‘seeing is believing,’” he replied, grinning. “Even if I’m blind, I can still see. After a fashion,” he finished, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers.

“Indeed,” Celestia replied with a giggle. “Indeed, you apparently do! Please, come. Let us get some dinner. Luna will join us shortly and she can fill you in on what she will do during the dreamwalking.”

Luna was evidently waiting there for them. The four of them had an entertaining conversation over the food, where Celestia spent the most time updating her sister about Reggie’s progress. Luna apologized to him for lacking the foresight that he had needed rest. And Fluttershy gave him a not-so-subtle reminder that he owed Celestia an apology, too, for the things he had said earlier in the day.

“If anything, it is we who owe the apology, Reggie,” Celestia told him after he did so. “You are a guest in our country, one here not as a result of your own actions or desires. As such, you had no opportunity for preparing to meet anypony in our court.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Reggie admitted. “But there’s also the fact I’m not the sort of person who would normally find themselves addressing royalty, either on my world or yours. I’ll try to keep my—colorful metaphors to a minimum.”

“To be honest, Luna and I do find your speech to be refreshing, although we’re certainly aware the manner of how you address us is sure to make everypony uncomfortable,” Celestia told him.

Luna then spent the rest of their time together explaining to Reggie what would be involved with dreamwalking. He listened very attentively, and while it still gave him an uneasy feeling, he found himself still objecting only as a result of a gut reaction or irrational fear. Logically, there was nothing to be concerned about.

After all, he finally concluded, it’s not like these horses are going to go about Granville anytime soon and tell everyone my secrets, or anything. At worse, they’d probably look at the rave or anything else I’ve ever done in the same way we’d look at a flock of penguins all dancing about looking for their mates.

After their dinner and conversation, Celestia and Fluttershy left them while Luna guided him into another room, where Ralf and Sam soon joined them.

“Thou shouldst be able to make thyself comfortable here,” Luna told him when she led him to what felt just a shapeless bag sitting on the floor.

“A beanbag chair?” Reggie asked, chuckling as he sat down in it.

“Thee hath such in thy world?” Luna cheerfully asked.

“Yeah. My parents still have a few of those things from their youth,” Reggie replied settling deep down into it. “It was all the rage back in the 1970’s.”

“We, too, find them fun to lie on,” Luna said as he heard her settle into another beanbag chair. “We find them to be infinitely versatile. Now, if thee art ready?”

“Of course,” Reggie replied. He had been instructed to simply go to sleep and she would do all the work once he began dreaming.

His eyes snapped open with the nudging and hearing his name, but of course it took him a few moments to realize that there was nothing to see anymore.

“Oh! Are we finished already?” he asked.

“It—was—quite a surprising—experience,” Luna stammered. “Thy mind is—quite—the alien environment.”

“So, it worked?” Reggie asked. There was several moments of silence.

“Dost thou not remember our conversations?” Luna finally asked, evidently puzzled about something.

“Umm—no?”

“’Tis as Celie relayed to us,” Luna then muttered. “Thy mind dost not retain the memory of the dreamwalking if thee awaken outside this ‘REM sleep’, ast thou calls it.”

“Did something bad happen?” Reggie asked.

“No—nothing bad, as we couldst say,” Luna carefully stated. “But it was a most peculiar experience, to be sure. Thy dreamscape is like nothing we hast ever before encountered.”

“What happened?” Reggie asked, quite confused as to what the problem evidently was.

“Let’s just say—We wert not exactly ourselves whilst dreamwalking thy mind,” she chuckled. “If thou dost not mind, we would like to try again. This time, we shall endeavor to wake thee whilst thee art still in a dreaming state. And if thee dost not object, we wouldst like to invite my sister and the Element of Kindness to join us.”

“Sure. No problems,” Reggie said, shrugging, quite puzzled by what was wrong.

Reggie strode through the barn in his family’s farm, looking about with fondness. The sunny daylight filtered through many gaps in the crude cut lumber that had been used to build the structure to illuminate an infinite number of dust motes in their beams.

“Well! This art much an improvement over the last time!” he heard a familiar voice behind him.

He turned to look and beheld a dark blue/black horse fluttering its wings to fold along its sides. Wait! Not a horse! A pegasus…but with a horn…

“Luna?” he inquired.

“Indeed,” she said. “At least, we art this time! Dost thou remember the last time we spoke?”

“Uh—no, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the first time I saw you.”

“True—at least to some extent,” she muttered. “This indeed is the first time thee seest us as we art.”

“I—don’t understand,” Reggie said.

“Perhaps thou will when you speeketh with my sister,” Luna said, giggling. “Here she art now.”

Reggie turned back around and was astonished to see two huge creatures that were quite reminiscent of the Xenomorph queen from the Aliens movie, sans egg-laying uterus for the both of them. Only the creatures were improved models over the movie’s monster. For one, in addition to the insect-like limbs of the original movie monster, they both had three long tentacles jutting out from each of their sides, looking much like the serrated, segmented tails they sported. Also, they both had feathered wings, but the feathers looked to be made of the same chitin substance of their bodies. Plus, one of the creatures was canary yellow and the other a brilliant white. And the white one had a horn on her head.

Before Reggie could react, the canary yellow monster took one look at its companion and promptly screamed, running past Reggie to hide and cower behind the dark blue horned pegasus. Reggie blinked and was astonished, not sure how to respond to that behavior.

“My! My! Aren’t I the cuddly one?” the white monster spoke with an amused voice that sounded a bit more than suspiciously like Celestia’s.

“Thy art, indeed, sister,” Luna chuckled. “But we art afraid thy appearance art having an adverse effect to the sanity of Kindness just now. Canst thou address thy form whilst I assist with our pegasus friend?”

“Uh—can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Reggie asked.

“This is how thy dreams hath changed us,” Luna told him as the ruler’s horn glowed with a pale blue light and a like aura enveloped the monster cowering beneath Luna’s tail. “The first meeting in thy dreamscape, we were changed to such as this, too! It was quite an unnerving experience to not being what we art until we could counter thy magic upon us.”

As she finished speaking, the canary yellow monster was now a canary yellow pegasus with a pink mane and tail and sporting an odd brand on her flanks. But she was still trembling and keeping her eyes shut as she cowered on the ground. It was only then that Reggie noticed that Luna had a crescent moon on her own dark rump.

“That was a most unusual experience,” Celestia said. When Reggie looked at her again, the creature had morphed into a taller, white furred version of Luna. Alicorn, as he recalled the word Fluttershy had used to describe the princesses.

“It is okay, Element of Kindness,” Luna gently said to the pegasus. “Thy nightmare form is nothing to worry about. This hast merely been part of Reggie’s nightmare.”

“I don’t feel this is a nightmare,” Reggie muttered. “This just feels like a weird dream.”

“Be that as it may—” Luna began.

“—‘tis perhaps time thou art awoken,” she finished and Reggie snapped his head up in utter darkness.

“Whoa! That was a weird one!” he exclaimed.

“What dost thou remember?” Luna asked.

“A blue and black pegasus, but with a horn and a white crescent moon somehow branded on her rump,” Reggie recounted. “And there were a couple monsters that came straight out of Ridley Scott’s head that changed into horses. I mean—a horny white pegasus and another yellow pegasus but without a horn.”

“The dark alicorn thou met art our actual appearance,” Luna told him, stressing the word “alicorn”. “The white alicorn wert my sister, Celestia. The other pegasus in thy dream wert the Element of Kindness, the one thou knowest as Fluttershy.”

“She’s yellow,” Reggie recalled. “Canary yellow in fur and wings, but with a pink mane and tail. And some sort of odd brand or tattoo on her rear.”

“Those art butterflies, as befitting her name,” Luna explained. “’Tis called a cutie mark.”

“That’s what you guys really look like?” Reggie asked, excited.

“Aye, ‘tis indeed,” Luna replied.

“Wow! So strange! Not like horses at all! And yet so real!” he whispered. “Thank you! Thank you for letting me see you guys!”

“’Tis our pleasure,” Luna responded. “Although, we must take our leave from thee momentarily. The experience, we art afraid, hast no doubt upset the Element of Kindness. We shall return.”

The rest of the night continued in much the same manner when Luna returned about an hour later. Reggie was introduced to the two guards he had met in the hallway, and then later introduced to what Luna described as the other Elements of Harmony.

But in the morning, like he had warned, Reggie had great difficulty remembering specifics about the ponies he met in his dreamscape. What he could recall were mostly just impressions about Fluttershy’s friends. Pinkie Pie was friendly, albeit scarily so, for some reason. The one called Rarity seemed nice enough, but her effort to display an artificially cultured attitude was off putting. Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Princess Twilight Sparkle were all quite intelligent, but each displaying different aspects to their intellect. Applejack’s was based deeply on common sense with a quit wit and a very practical outlook, greatly reminding him of the girls from around his home town. Rainbow Dash was also a personality that displayed common sense but was tempered with a sly cunning and feisty attitude that greatly appealed to him. The third alicorn, on the other hand, was powerfully book smart, analytical and a very sharp mind which was good at ferreting out details from the littlest of clues.

And when Celestia joined them, Reggie was completely worn out and was ready to forgo anything to eat so that he could retire. He had never remembered a night where he had dreamt so much, but the constant waking in the middle of his dreams meant that he never quite got rested. However, both Celestia and Luna insisted that he eat before being allowed to return to his room, citing how much healing he still had to do.

When he was able to return to his room, he noticed how foul his underarms had gotten, but he didn’t care. Stripping down to his underwear, he went straight to bed, groaning as he pulled the covers over his head.