Night Terrors

Magic flickering to life, Misty prepared the spell that would allow her to exit her dreams. As the spell gathered strength, she glanced back. Dreams were unpredictable things, and nightmares did not discriminate between dreamer and dreamwalker. She half-expected her nightmare to be standing behind her again. But her suspicions were hollow. He was not there. He would return some other night, in some other form, Misty was sure. But not this night, not in her dreams.

She put all that out of her mind and focused instead on her departure. The air before her shimmered, flecks of light twinkling like hundreds of tiny fireflies. Misty walked through the invisible curtain. Cold energy crackled through her as she crossed the Veil into the world of dreams. When she looked back, she saw only a shining dome of dream magic. Without its dreamer to sustain it, the bubble of imagination sank into the earth and collapsed silently upon itself.

Ahead and all around Misty, the Never spread in an ever-changing mosaic. More dreams encased by the Never’s magic expanded in every direction. The worlds each dreamer had created for the night were indistinct from this side of the barriers, but Misty could discern faint patterns of trees or sky, mountains or cityscapes. The undulating silhouette of a sea filled one dream, with shadowy creatures of the deep navigating its currents. Another dream seemed to contain the ruins of pyramids all but swallowed by a jungle. Fractured echoes of voices and sounds issued, muffled, from behind the shining curtains whenever Misty drew close, but she ignored them and anything else she glimpsed of others’ dreams. Only the presence of a nightmare would have allowed her to interfere. Anything less was an invasion of the dreamer’s privacy and forbidden by the laws of dreamwalkers.

Misty willed a path of grass to grow underhoof as she wandered the quiet narrows between dreams. The ground around her path was constantly shifting, reflecting the whims of nearby dreamers. Swampy marshlands encroached from one side briefly, but then they were replaced by desert sands, the ferns and shrubs of forest undergrowth, the white sand and lapping waves of a shoreline. On her other side, the rocky slope of a mountain rose, then a flat plain, the frozen face of a glacier, a blasted wasteland. The Never could have maintained a single environment if it wished, but it had always chosen to let dreamers control its land, or so Misty had read. But the sky remained the same out here—a starry night with a full moon. The Never allowed its dreamers to imagine their own skies, of course, but they were regulated to those dreams. Outside, in the Never itself, the sky was unchanging, had been ever since the very first dreamwalkers’ time, if the ancient scholars were to be believed.

A shadow glided across the land, drawing Misty’s gaze skyward. A familiar silhouette hovered before the moon. Princess Luna waited only a moment, backlit by the moonlight, and then she flew into the distance, to where a mountain was rising from the earth. It pierced the night, jagged and lonely, taller than any of the surrounding dreams.

Misty closed her eyes, fixing the mountain in her mind, and willed herself there. Wind and magic tugged at her. Frigid shocks of energy blasted through her as she passed into and out of the dreams in her path. The roar in her ears blocked all other sounds. Then solid rock formed under her hooves, and the whirl of motion stilled. Misty opened her eyes again. She now stood upon an outcrop near the peak of the mountain. The whole of the Never seemed to be laid before her—a patchwork, forever shifting. At the base of the mountain, a vast, dense forest was still in the process of forming. Visualizations on such a large scale always took more time to be fully realized than smaller constructs.

As she stepped away from the edge—the immense drop was starting to make her dizzy and to conjure more than a small tremble in her legs—Misty searched the sky. Princess Luna could have willed herself to the mountain just as Misty had, but she seemed to favor flying this night. Misty did not have long to wait, though. Soon, Princess Luna soared into view and spiraled gently toward the outcrop. She alighted with only a soft whisper of feathers. In the hoary glow of the moon, her deep blue coat and flowing, starry hair were lent an ethereal sheen quite becoming of the regal alicorn. Her onyx and silver regalia all but sparkled in the night.

Misty bowed as Princess Luna approached. “Princess,” she said, straightening, “something strange happened in my dreams. My nightmare knew I was a dreamwalker, and so did another pony in the dream. And the moon—”

Princess Luna held up a fore hoof. She did not speak, but neither did she give any hint of emotion besides her usual serenity and decorum. It was always so difficult to read Princess Luna, and Misty had trouble reading normal ponies. To Misty, Princess Luna was an enigma, one Misty was confident she would never solve. But the Princess was a good teacher, and Misty was eternally thankful for the night she had accidentally stumbled into Princess Luna’s dreams—the first time Misty had ever dreamwalked. If not for that, it was quite doubtful Princess Luna would have offered Misty a place among her students, or so Misty felt. So, when her mentor and sovereign requested silence, Misty respectfully closed her mouth.

She’s the greatest dreamwalker alive, thought Misty. She probably already knows what happened in my dreams.

After an interminable interval, Princess Luna shifted her cool stare away from Misty, turning instead to the landscape beyond the mountain and forest she had created. “Why did you surrender to the nightmare, Misty Moonrise?” asked Princess Luna at last. There was no judgment in her voice. It was simply a question, with no apparent strings attached. Of course, not all strings were easy to see.

“I don’t…” Misty hesitated. Brumbies did not make excuses—that bit of Brumbyburg mantra, at least, was a valid tenet. “I lost control, Princess,” she admitted, lowering her gaze to her hooves.

“Why was that?”

Misty started to respond, but then frowned. Why had she lost control? She was usually so careful to maintain a strong influence while she slept, to keep her dreams from running away with her. If Misty had ever given in to a dream, it had been because she chose to do so. This time, however…

When the silence began to stretch, Princess Luna said, “To lose oneself in a good dream is one thing, but to lose oneself in a nightmare is not only foolish, ’tis unacceptable for dreamwalkers. We must be the masters of dreams and nightmares, and that begins with the mastery of our own dreams and nightmares. The Never is too treacherous a realm for us to neglect the foundations of our order.”

“It won’t happen again, Princess,” said Misty. She shuffled her hooves on the granite, ears drooping.

Princess Luna glanced back at her. “Forgive me,” she said, some of her frosty exterior warming. “’Twas not mine intention to lecture you so, Misty Moonrise.”

“I disappointed you, Princess. A lecture is the least I deserve.”

“Disappoint me?” Princess Luna shook her head and offered Misty a soft smile. “Nay. No sincere student could truly disappoint her teacher.”

Misty looked up at that, the tightness in her breast easing somewhat.

“However, mistakes are tools that should not be wasted. Your mistake this night has shown me that I have neglected a crucial, if distasteful, element of your studies.”

“But what about my nightmare? The moon turned red, and—”

The corners of Princess Luna’s mouth fell, and she flicked her ears back. “Nightmares are the focus of this unscheduled lesson, Misty Moonrise. If you had permitted me to finish speaking, you would have discovered this for yourself. May I continue?”

Though her questions still itched for answers, Misty bit her tongue. It was not her place to interrupt the Princess of the Night.

With a quiet rustle of her wings, Princess Luna went on, “As you know, nightmares, like all dreams, are the product of a dreamer’s imagination. However, in order for the Never to manifest a nightmare, it must draw upon dark magic. Within the dreams of dreamers, nightmares are harmless; the dark magic binding them together is of little consequence. But dreamwalkers are not dreamers. When we sleep, we walk a tenuous thread, and anything we create walks that same thread. Should we lose control and succumb to a nightmare, our belief brings the nightmare to life, as well as the dark magic the Never used to conjure it. Fortunately, the Never sends us signs to remind us when we misstep, mainly through changes in the sky. ’Tis our choice whether or not to heed these warnings.”

A shiver Misty could not quite subdue crawled down her spine. She had read of dreamwalkers who had ignored the Never’s messages. They had never woken up.

“But there are other means by which we dreamwalkers may defend ourselves, without relying on the Never. We may learn how to sense the aura of dark magic ere the nightmare amasses enough strength to overwhelm us. To accomplish this, we must ourselves embrace dark magic.”

What?! Misty’s eyes widened, and she had to stifle a gasp. Surely Princess Luna was not being serious. It was madness! Dark magic was the harbinger of nightmares for a reason. It was terror and darkness, death and horror compressed into a terrible power that, once tasted, beckoned its conjuror to wield it again and again, until there was no escape. It had claimed even the greatest of heroes and kings, not just those with wickedness in their hearts. It had claimed Princess Luna once. And she wanted Misty to summon it?

Princess Luna watched Misty in silence for a few moments. What did she see in Misty? Her gaze seemed to pierce every layer, every forgotten façade. Then Princess Luna’s features softened, and she said, “’Tis not a lesson I enjoy teaching. There is ever the chance that those I instruct will be lost to the malign lure of dark magic. Such is why I forestall the inevitable until the very last. Only when one of my students loses control to a lethal nightmare do I resort to these means. But I assure you, Misty Moonrise, ’tis for the best.”

“Isn’t there another way?” asked Misty. “I won’t lose control again, Princess, I promise.”

“’Tis unwise to make such a promise. After a time, nightmares can become too strong to escape. If you can learn to recognize dark magic when ’tis weakest, you can disband the nightmare ere its strength waxes too great. Even then, you cannot swear truly to nevermore lose control.”

“But—”

Princess Luna flared her wings, brow creasing. “You are a dreamwalker, Misty Moonrise. You are one of the few fate has gifted with such an ability. However, there is much you still have to learn, and you will never progress if you refuse to learn the skills you must know in order to survive in the Never.” She sighed, moderating her tone, though her ears remained tilted back. “If there were a better means by which to do this than by exposing you to dark magic, I would welcome it gladly, but there simply is not.”

Misty averted her gaze. The memory of the smoke creature—of the creature behind the smoke—ebbed out of the shadows of her mind. Dark magic had taken him, too. Misty looked up and, in a small voice, said, “I know what dark magic looks like when somepony’s using it, Princess. Isn’t that enough?”

Features hardening, Princess Luna shook her head once. “Your eyes are too easily deceived. You must be able to feel its effect ere it can take root. Now,” she said, forgoing further argument, “each reacts differently to dark magic: a sense of dread, physical illness, extreme anxiety, depression, even pain in this or that part of the body. Those who react well to dark magic—or those who do not react at all—are soon lost and must be… dealt with.” She paused, eyes glazing over for a moment. What was she seeing? Remembering? Then Princess Luna blinked and continued, as if the distraction had never happened, “However you react, Misty Moonrise, rest assured that the first onslaught will not be overwhelming. Prolonged exposure to and use of dark magic over the course of many years can worsen the effects, but you should not need to conjure it more than a few times this night to learn how to sense it.”

Misty hesitated, biting her lip. Then she exhaled quietly and asked, “How do I conjure dark magic?” Just naming it left a foul taste in her mouth. Stars above… I can’t believe I’m doing this.

“The same way you conjure your natural magic,” answered Princess Luna. The iron edge to her voice seemed to soften, the tension leaving her shoulders. “Look inside.”

“But that means…” Misty did not even want to think about it, but she pushed on. Her words came out in little more than a whisper. “That means everyone has dark magic. How is that possible? How can we still be sane with… that… inside us?”

“We have a choice.”

Misty squeezed her eyes shut against a dizzy spell that had nothing to do with how high up they were. Once it passed, she opened her eyes again and asked, “But if there’s dark magic inside us, Princess, we might as well be lost already.”

“Am I lost?” The steel had returned to Princess Luna’s voice.

Misty’s eyes widened. “N-no, Princess! I didn’t mean—!”

Princess Luna raised a fore hoof, silencing her. “There is always a choice, Misty Moonrise. From the moment we first draw breath to the moment we breathe our last, we have a choice. Sometimes the choice is difficult and sometimes ’tis simple, but ’tis a choice nonetheless, and it must be made. Now, choose. Choose to prepare yourself and make yourself stronger, or choose to leave yourself defenseless and risk losing yourself to a nightmare from which you may never wake.”

Half-formed retaliations turned to dust on Misty’s tongue. She stared at the granite beneath her hooves. Wind whispered through her mane and tail, the only sound in the otherwise still Never night. Then Misty closed her eyes and looked inside.

Magic glimmered in the void. It was a steady river, warm and bright. Willing. It was ready for her, as patient as a mountain waiting for time to weather it to nothing. But Misty turned away from it, reaching into the darkness she had never before known nor had cause to search. Magic lurked there, too, but this was a polluted river. Tainted. It languished in the crevices and canyons of the void, a predator driven mad by unfulfilled desires. It hungered to be free, and it knew she was reaching for it. It surged, railing against its banks. Thirsting. Yearning.

Misty’s eyes snapped open, sweat trickling down her face. She smothered the terrible magic, ignored it, banished it. She denied it was even there—it did not exist, not inside her, not inside anypony. Anything was better than drowning in those awful rapids. “I can’t,” she breathed, quivering.

Princess Luna scowled. “You must. Try again.”

Misty shook her head, taking a step back. “I can’t…”

“Let not your fear best you, Misty Moonrise,” Princess Luna pressed, voice resonating across the mountain. “Try again!”

“I won’t!”

Without warning, a midnight aura ensnared Princess Luna’s horn. Sickly shadows streamed from her eyes. Darkness encircled her in oily waves, wrapping around and around Princess Luna until nothing more could be seen of her. When the gloom receded, a black alicorn in cobalt armor stood in place of the Moon Princess. The waxing crescent moon that had nestled in the black splash on her flank was replaced by a waning crescent amid roiling purple clouds. Her once-kind eyes were now cold and cruel, and her mane and tail had become wild cascades of unbound power.

Misty ducked her head, pupils shrinking to pinpoints. Cringing, she retreated until one hind hoof slipped off the edge of the outcrop. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Misty knew this was only an illusion cast by Princess Luna, but that neither thawed her frozen blood nor stilled her racing heart.

“Nightmares have always been,” declared Nightmare Moon, fangs gleaming in the moonlight, “but they are paltry echoes beside me. When the tyrant Sombra enslaved the crystal ponies, not even the great Sun Princess could withstand his darkness—but I could, for I am darkness. When the Lord of Chaos thought to make sport of ponies’ lives, I was the bane of his stone slumber. When the ungrateful foals dishonored and ignored the wonders of my night, I taught them the error of their ways. Celestia may have banished me to the moon, but the Nightmare remained in the twilight of every little pony’s dreams. Throughout the ages, I survived!”

Then a soft blue light washed over Nightmare Moon. Pieces of her melted away, pooling on the rock beneath her hooves. Her armor dissolved into wisps of smoke. The drudge underhoof grew translucent, wavering like a mirage. As the last vestiges of the illusion faded, Princess Luna approached her pupil and smoothed Misty’s snowy mane out of her eyes.

“I did not realize the monster I was becoming,” she said gently, “and it frightens me still how easily I fell. ’Twas mine own impatience and anger which blinded me to the dark magic cast upon me in the battle against Sombra. I wish no such blindness upon you, Misty Moonrise. Now, try again.”

Though not quite able to quell the slight tremble that remained in her limbs, Misty straightened. She could not bring herself to meet Princess Luna’s gaze this time, not even here in the Never. Princess Luna had never told her how the seed of Nightmare Moon had been spawned. To confide such a secret was no light decision, but, more than that, to live with the truth of it, to face one’s innermost demons and the pain they had wrought every waking—and likely sleeping—hour… Misty could not imagine what all Princess Luna had been through, what she was still going through, but she would not insult her teacher with further refusal.

Closing her eyes, Misty once more sought out the dark magic slumbering within her. It responded just as it had before, churning and raging. She balked, heart squirming. Everything inside Misty screamed for her stop, to bury the dark magic so deep within that it would never be found again. Gritting her teeth, Misty shoved past the fear and plunged into the abyss.

It was nothing like her natural magic. That came as naturally to her as dreamwalking or breathing. It filled her with light and life, illuminating her from within. This dark magic, however, was suffocating and vile. It oozed through the fissures of her mind. Misty felt the ugly aura seeping from her horn contort and grow the deeper she immersed herself in the dread waves. Cold sweat iced her brow. Nausea sickened her stomach; she tasted bile. She could feel the smoky shadows begin to curl from the corners of her burning eyes.

A sudden roar shattered Misty’s concentration. The dark magic evaporated, slithering beyond her reach, back to the recesses of the void. Misty released a relieved breath once it had gone, shivering and feeling startlingly weak, as if she had neither slept nor eaten for days. But the weakness soon passed. Rubbing the lingering dregs of shadow from her eyes, Misty searched for the source of the disturbance.

Her heart stopped. For a moment, she was certain that the smoke creature from her nightmare had returned, larger than the mountain upon which Misty and Princess Luna stood. Then, however, she realized this monster was wreathed in black smoke. No hidden form bled through these opaque vapors, but from their depths glared an enormous pair of eyes leaking purple shadow. The pupils were reptilian slits, the irises as red as garnets, and what should have been white sclera glowed a ghastly shade of green.

Misty had never seen this monster before; it was not of her dreams. Not of anypony’s dreams, as far as she knew, though Misty did not visit the nightmares of every single dreamer. She and the handful of other dreamwalkers studying under Princess Luna generally dealt with the more minor nightmares. Princess Luna handled the greater, more dangerous ones. Was that what this monster was—a nightmare of such magnitude that, under normal circumstances, only Princess Luna would rise to dispel it? How could one pony, even an alicorn, face such a horror by herself?

But Princess Luna was not alone now. Pinning her ears, Misty seized her magic—her real magic—in a flare of sapphire sparks and assembled an oscillating sphere of silver and blue. Before she had a chance to launch it, however, Princess Luna leapt between Misty and the monster, horn afire and wings flared wide. The monster’s eyes narrowed, and it rushed forth in a tidal surge of shadow and smoke. A half-dome of glittering cobalt blazed into existence around Princess Luna and Misty, humming and flashing when the monster struck it. The monster reeled back with a guttural growl, and then shot like an arrow straight for the shield.

This time, when the monster hit the shield, it did not recoil. It kept pushing, driving against the light. Princess Luna’s face contorted, teeth gritted and upper lip curled in a silent snarl. Her hooves scraped the outcrop’s surface as the sheer force of the monster slid the magic hemisphere backward a few inches. Sweat glistening on her forehead, Princess Luna took a defiant step forward. The magic whirling around her horn began to shine even brighter, casting off stray globs of blue flame. She blinked, and her eyes were suddenly gleaming and white with power. With a roar not unlike the monster’s own, Princess Luna reared upon her hind legs, magic crackling. The shield expanded in a torrential blur of light and motion, igniting the monster’s smoke and searing it to ashes. The monster’s agonized howl rent the night as the flames ate at every wisp of its colossal body.

The eyes were the last to be devoured by the magic fire. Fixed on Princess Luna, they smoldered with an inferno of their own. It was deeper than mere hatred, purer and more volatile than loathing or vengeance. Even when that wicked glare was but flakes of ash, the untempered heat of it lingered like the afterimage burned into the retinas by fireworks.