Night Terrors

This was a dream.

The town sprawling upon the mountainside was real enough, laden with snow—a white bed beneath a midnight sky. Icicles clung to the eaves of quiet buildings and the barren boughs of trees. Powder dusted front doorsteps and lintels. The glass casements atop the lampposts were fogged by the heat of the flames they contained. The cobblestones were slick with ice, cold and solid under the grey unicorn’s hooves. A frigid breeze ruffled her trailing mane and tail, chilling her through her fur and stinging her sapphire eyes. Each breath misted in front of her. Winter usually descended heavily upon this part of the Unicorn Range. Brumbyburg always had a white Hearth’s Warming.

But this was not Brumbyburg, not truly. It was just a dream, constructed from Misty Moonrise’s memories. Except for the cloudless, starry dome above, the stage was set just as it had been the night her life had changed. There were few ponies on the streets, but carriages drawn by impeccably dressed chauffeurs rattled up the thoroughfare every now and then. The ponies seated in those carriages were all young mares and stallions, each draped in glittering finery fit for a ball. The Premier Gala was the town’s highlight of the year, the party for all the “eligible youth of Brumbyburg” to be introduced to one another. Some called it the Matchmaker’s Masquerade, but only behind closed doors and in nothing louder than conspiratorial whispers. Misty found the latter name far more fitting. Brumbyburg was the city of masks, of pretense and pretending, of following tradition simply because that was how it had always been done. It was just the way things were.

How many times had she herself recited that mantra? How many times had she leaned on the crutch Brumbyburg had conditioned her to use? Even now, almost two years after leaving her hometown, Misty could not completely shake off the mask she had been taught to wear. She still caught herself pretending sometimes, though it was not nearly as often these days. The Brumby in her remained, but Misty could never really bring herself to let it go. It was a part of who she was; she had accepted that.

Her hoof struck a patch of ice. Misty toppled headfirst, cracking her jaw against the cobblestones. She bit her tongue on a curse as the initial flare of pain began to spread throughout the rest of her jowl. Subduing a groan, Misty raised her head and lifted a fore hoof to her aching cheek. To say that it stung would be a gross understatement. At least she was asleep. Had she been physically in the dream world and not in her own dreams, she would have awoken with one ugly bruise on half of her face. With a thought, Misty erased both the imaginary bruise and the pain.

“Are you okay?”

Misty looked up to find a pegasus foal standing before her. His flank was bare, and he still needed to grow into his ears. His sepia hair helped with that a little, but not much. His coat was the same mahogany she knew, though, as were his leaf-green eyes. Her old foalhood friend Steel Shield may be a foal in this dream, but that did not make him any less her Steel.

“I’ll be fine,” Misty replied. Standing, she shed the snow from her fur and hair with a tendril of magic. “What are you doing out this late?”

Steel grinned, and an impish glint flashed in his eye. “I’m tracking a monster. It tried to scare me by hiding under the bed, but I chased it off. You wanna help me find it again?”

One of the streetlamps flickered out farther down the road. Somepony must not have shuttered it properly. Misty stepped around the ice patch and lightly tapped the tip of Steel’s muzzle with a fore hoof. His nose was beginning to turn red from the cold. “I think you should go inside where it’s warm.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Steel pleaded. He hopped into flight, tiny wings buzzing as he hovered in front of her. “Just imagine us some scarves and hats, and it won’t matter that it’s cold. Please?”

Misty took a small step back, quirking an eyebrow. Dreamwalkers could manipulate the Never—as they called the dream world—with their thoughts, it was true, but a figment of her unconscious should not know that. “How do you…?”

“Or are ya too chicken?”

Perhaps it was just a fluke, thought Misty. Strange things happened in dreams after all. “That isn’t going to work this time, Steel,” she said, continuing her stroll up the thoroughfare. It was a little dimmer than before; another streetlamp must have gone out. “You should get home before your parents start to worry.”

Steel snorted and darted into her path again. “When did you get so boring, Misty? C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

“Since when did wandering the town at night, in winter, while tracking down a monster become ‘fun’?”

“If we don’t catch the monster, it’ll try to scare somepony else.”

Misty rolled her eyes. “I doubt that. The monsters under the bed and in the closet are just old pony’s tales meant to frighten mischievous foals like you into behaving. It’s not as if they’re real. Now, go home, Steel, and get out of the cold. I have things to do tonight and—” She paused, halting. The swift buzz of Steel’s wings had stopped. She turned.

Steel Shield was gone.

“Steel?” Misty called, searching the empty thoroughfare. A few more streetlamps had lost their flames, creating more patches of pitch-black. “Steel, where—?” she began, but then gasped at the sound of her voice—a child’s voice. She looked down at herself and discovered she had shrunk to the size of a small foal. Her veiled moon cutie mark had disappeared. She was a filly.

Laughter echoed from nearby. A foal’s laughter. Misty whirled, trying to place its origin. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. “S-Steel, this isn’t funny!” she stammered. “W-where are you?”

A streetlamp two posts away went dark.

Little filly told a lie,

But what else could she do?

The stars will all fade and die

Now lies are all that’s true.

It was Steel’s voice, eerily singsong as he recited the old nursery rhyme. But where was he? More streetlamps were going out up and down the thoroughfare, one by one. Misty edged into the nearest pool of light, ears folded, heart pounding. Steel’s laughter rang through the street again, making the fur along Misty’s spine stand on end.

“This isn’t real,” Misty whispered to herself. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real…”

“What’s the matter?” Steel asked, closer now. “Scared?”

“N-no…” The streetlamp across the way from her darkened. Misty’s lamppost was the only one still alight.

“Liar!” Steel shouted. “Liar, liar, mane on fire!” Then his voice began to drop, morphing into a low, basso rumble—no longer the voice of a foal. No longer Steel.

Little filly, scared inside,

But where now can she go?

Wherever she tries to hide,

Her lies always follow.

Misty’s streetlamp flickered out. The black rushed in, devouring everything. Misty clenched her teeth against a cry and reached for her magic. But she was just a filly. She could only manage a spark, which leapt from the tip of her horn and fell, sputtering, to the ground. She tried again, but the results were no better. Her breathing sharpened, shallow and quick. It was too dark. Monsters hid in the dark. Monsters that liked the taste of foals.

No, I’m not a filly… I’m not a filly!

Magic burst from her horn. Sapphire light chased away the gloom in a small bubble around Misty Moonrise. She was herself once more, a fully grown mare with her cutie mark and her magic. Asleep. “It’s just a dream,” she sighed. “It isn’t real.”

“Liar…” came the disembodied croon. It was even closer than last time.

Misty stiffened. Her heart skipped a few beats, and then raced all the harder. She drew upon more magic, widening the perimeter of her circle of light. The cobblestones and familiar structures of Brumbyburg had been replaced by the polished tile and majestic architecture of the Canterlot Royal Palace. Her magic illumined silken banners of white bearing a blazing sun, others of blue embroidered with a silver crescent. Marble statues and busts of long-dead heroes glared upon the world from shadowed sockets. Draping curtains of velvet framed towering windows, beyond which the city slept beneath a full moon.

Something shifted off to one side. The same rumbling voice from before grated out of the shadows. “Oh, how bright you shine… like a star in winter. But every star burns out in the end.”

Misty backpedaled. “What—?” She had to swallow before her voice would work. “What do you mean?”

“Hmm, your magic… it sings so sweetly. You could have hidden in the dark, but you cling to your light like the frightened filly you are.”

“I’m not—!”

“But you are! You’re terrified. A poor little filly so far from home…”

Misty retreated several more steps despite herself. Stars above, where was the creature? It had fallen silent. Had it left? The only noise now was that of Misty’s unsteady breathing. Her heart drummed in her breast, a hammer beating upon an anvil. A chill seeped into Misty, slowly clawing its way up her body from her hooves. Each exhale created puffs of silvery vapor. The back of her neck began to prickle, as if somepony were watching her.

Hot breath gusted through her mane from behind her. Misty froze.

“Little filly, run away,” the creature murmured in her ear. “This is where the monsters play.”

She did not think—she just dug in her hooves and ran. Misty kept her horn glowing as she galloped down the corridor. Shadows twisted and tangled at the edges of her vision. Was it a trick of the light, or were they yet more monsters like the one she had left behind? Was that creature still following her? She could hear nothing past the thunder in her ears. Was that her heart or her hooves? She could not tell. There was only the invasive cold freezing the very marrow of her bones. She needed to get away, to hide.

“I will find you, Misty,” the creature taunted, its oily voice echoing through the castle hall. “You can’t run forever…”

The corridor abruptly ended. An impassable wall cloaked in a tapestry depicting a rampant Nightmare Moon blocked Misty’s path. She skidded to a stop just short of colliding, eyes darting all around for an escape. There were two doors, one to either side, identical but for their knockers. One was in the shape of a lion’s head, and the other was in that of a gargoyle. The lion’s head had been cast in bronze, buffed until it gleamed, and it had a pair of diamonds for eyes. The gargoyle knocker was weathered wrought iron, and its eyes were two blood-red rubies.

“Your magic smells so… delicious,” said the creature. “And I’m so hungry…”

Misty dashed to the door with the lion knocker, twisting the knob with a hurried wisp of magic.

The door would not open.

Ears drooping, she cast a spell to unlock the door. When that did not work, Misty threw her shoulder against it, but the door held fast.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”

It was so close. She could hear it lumbering after her, enormous hooves ringing against the tile. Misty abandoned the lion knocker and instead bolted for the gargoyle. She shoved all her weight against the door, frantically jangling the knob. However, her attempts yielded no better results. Neither door would open, and there was nowhere to hide. She was trapped.

Misty pressed herself against the wall, cringing. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still hear the creature coming. It was almost upon her! There was nowhere to run, but she had to run. She had to escape!

Her magic flared, crackling. A whirlwind suddenly filled the passage, tearing at the tapestry, whipping Misty’s mane and tail into a frenzy. She opened her eyes; stardust swirled all around her. Power hummed in the air. A flash of radiance, a flurry of silver flecks—and Misty teleported out of the dead-end corridor. She reappeared on a tower balcony high above the sleeping Canterlot. But there was something wrong with the sky. There was not a single star to be seen anywhere. The night was empty. Empty but for the moon.

Without warning, a cord of shadow snagged her hind leg. Misty screamed, wheeling around as more and more black cords ensnared her. Behind her loomed a gigantic creature wreathed in grey smoke. Its shape was murky, indistinct, but there was something decidedly wrong about it. It was somehow disfigured, not in appearance, but in being. It was as if it should not even exist. There was something hidden in those depths, tall and muscular in build, with four cloven hooves and twin infernos for eyes. Every cord of shadow binding Misty was tethered to the center of the smoke creature, where a black light pulsed in time with some terrible heart.

Misty grasped her magic, unleashing spinning spheres of sapphire. The attacks splashed against the smoke creature and began to dissolve, harmless and ineffective. By the Princesses, it was absorbing her magic! Misty’s heart leapt into her throat. Her blood turned to ice in her veins. She strained against her bonds, but her strength was failing—no, her magic was failing, withering away. The smoke creature was sucking her dry, draining her of her magic. Without her magic, Misty would be only a vacant shell, powerless, vulnerable. Her magic was her link to the dream world. Dreamwalkers were nothing without their magic. She was nothing without her magic.

The smoke creature chuckled. “Little filly, say goodbye,” it growled. “Now it is your turn to die.”

Every motion became increasingly sluggish. Misty tried to fight the fatigue, but her thoughts were growing muddled. The black cords binding her began to glow, and the smoke creature laughed. Misty watched as her magic rushed in gleaming rivers from her to the smoke creature along the cords. Her cutie mark grew hazy and vanished. Then her entire body paled, fading to nothing. She fell, limp, to the cold balcony floor. One of her forelegs lay in her field of vision—the whole limb was nearly transparent. Breathing was a struggle, one that she was losing. Misty rolled her eyes skyward. The stars were still gone, but at least she could see the moon.

For the barest instant, the moon flashed deep scarlet. Then Misty blinked, and the moon was the same ghostly white it had always been. No, not quite the same. There was a face there now, a phantom face. A familiar face. The face of Princess Luna.

This was a dream.

Latching on to that, Misty shoved aside the emptiness and the cold. She pushed herself up, ears pinned and teeth gritted. Color began to ebb back into her body. Her cutie mark returned in a shower of sparks. Life flooded her veins. Misty reached for her stolen magic—and seized it. Every fiber of her being burned with power. Stardust erupted from the cords of shadow, shooting into the air and encircling both Misty and the smoke creature.

The smoke creature balked. Some of its vapors were shredded by the vicious storm, revealing glimpses of its previously concealed form. “What is this?” it snarled.

Starlight coalesced around Misty’s horn as the last vestiges of the nightmare’s cloak were ripped away. She could finally see the face of her nightmare. Some part of her had known who it was all along, but she had buried it so deep within herself that she could pretend she had forgotten.

Misty scowled, not at her nightmare, but at herself. She was still pretending. Even in her dreams, she wore the mask she thought she had left behind.

Her nightmare chuckled. “What’s wrong, little filly? Finish it!”

Misty met his gaze. In the real world, that was something she could almost never bring herself to do. But this was the Never, the dreamscape. This was home. She could do anything here.

His eyebrows rose, and a smile twisted his lips. “You enjoy this, don’t you? The power over dream and nightmare, confronting the monsters in the dark—you thirst for it.”

“You’re wrong,” Misty snapped.

“Am I?” Her nightmare threw back his head in a thunderous laugh. “We are not so different as you’d like to believe, dreamwalker.”

Misty blinked. It was just like before, with Steel. How had Steel known her by that name, and how did this nightmare know? She was asleep! This was just a dream! If Misty had been dreamwalking, it would be a different matter entirely, but these were her dreams. They should not be able to tell she was anything but another character in their play.

“Ah, she sees…” He chuckled again, his smokescreen gathering. His eyes smoldered like embers through the fog. “But you’re still just a filly inside.” He charged, flinging forth more cords of shadow.

Misty clenched her jaw and raised a shield of sapphire light. The shield flashed upon her nightmare’s impact, and he recoiled with a snarl. Whenever one of his magic-sapping cords touched her, it melted into puddles of bubbling oil. Misty clawed her nightmare’s smoke aside with a thought.

“I am a dreamwalker,” she whispered, “and you—you are nothing but a bad dream.”

“I am your greatest fears!” he raged.

“You are not real.”

He sneered. “Deny me, and you deny yourself.”

Misty’s scowl deepened. She released her magic. But the storm of stardust remained, held together by her will. “You are nothing.”

The nightmare unraveled. The creature hiding behind his smoke, the balcony, all of Canterlot—everything warped and skewed in a blur of color. Soft grass appeared under Misty’s hooves, speckled with wildflowers. A mountain range painted blue by distance resolved out of the horizon, while rolling hills swept the land. Stars glittered in the night sky above, and the full moon hovered among them. The ephemeral face of Princess Luna still gazed upon Misty’s dreams from the white orb.

A sigh slipped past Misty’s lips. It was over. Finally.

“Misty Moonrise,” said the phantom image of Princess Luna, “come.” And then she was gone.