Twilight Sparkle wandered the vast Canterlot library with a frown. her mane was tattered and frizzed, which was telling about her current state of mind. She hadn't been sleeping well lately. She'd been plagued by a terrible nightmare for the past month, ever since she'd collected a moonstone sample from a nearby mountain glade.
In her nightmare she walked through a dark town filled with glowing eyes that watched her dash through the streets in a panic. Everypony except for five were little more than shadows and eyes.
Eventually she reached a dead end where a strange tall pony, with weirdly elongated forelegs awaited her. He was very pale, and his eyes were dark and lined with circles. He was also grinning a wide yellow grin. He wore a strange fleshy necklace, and bone earring. He was thin and stretched for stallion, and this strangeness was emphasized by how he stood on his hind-legs. He towered over her, and Twilight found that she was suddenly unable to move. the other ponies were holding her down. all she saw of them were their smiling teeth.
The stretched out stallion moved over to her on two legs, clutching a long rectangular wicker case clutched to his chest.
"You aren't here! this is just a dream! You aren't real!" she shrieked, her voice not the commanding thing she'd tried for.
The pony only continued to grin at her, deadly silent as he moved to unlatch to wicker case. Twilight's eyes were drawn to the thing, and she was suddenly very sure she didn't want to know what was inside the case. The case, which, she suddenly realized, was not one conman to a traveling salespony like she had first thought. the more the looked at it, the more certain she became that the wicker case was a coffin. A coffin for newborn foals.
There was a soft, nonthreatening click, and the pony swung the lid of the coffin-case open and pushed a hoof into its contents. He stirred them up and grinned. The things inside gave a musical clicking, like wind-chimes, both wood and glass. The cracks and clatters from inside made her want to claw out her eardrums. The very sound made her ears hurt, though there was nothing abnormal about the sounds.
The stretched stallion extended his foreleg, and offered her a hooffull of glittering things, intermixed with narrow, bleached rib bones. some were cracked, and with them there were small pieces of a ponies spine. Twilight could feel her legs trembling, and her eyes watering. her heart was thundering so fast in her chest she thought it might explode.
Want it?
The stallion seemed to be asking her this as over and over again he presented her with his macabre treasures. She could only cry until he finished stirring the tiny wicker coffin and slid the latch closed again. The white stallion pointed to her as he left, on two legs once more, and she awoke to his haunted sleepy eyes and grin.
But not really. it was a shadow.
Now the purple mare was in the library, praying for a book that would tell her how to rid herself of her nightmares. She was somehow certain that the stallion in her dreams was Death. She was being stalked and haunted in her nightmares. Her number was up.
No! She would not allow her rational mind to be clouded by superstition and sleep deprivation!
She shook her head tiredly and galloped through rare beams of moon light, pulling relevant books from shelves as she went. Twilight sat at a table, and opened a book on dreams, only to shove it away in disgust when she realized it was on interpretation.
As if she couldn't tell already that she was dreaming of death!
as the hours passed, and the sky began to lighten with the dawn, Twilight continued her research. She found nothing to cure her nightmares that she hadn't already tried. Her brother and their friend, Cadence were both worried about her. They'd given her most of the remedial advice they knew two weeks ago. Apparently even the Canterlot library had no better.
"Maybe I've managed to offend Nightmare Moon and she's dream walking," she huffed, knowing as she spoke that she was being ridiculous.
Even so, she couldn't allow this to go on! She had her studies, and these dreams were starting to impact them!
Twilight started pacing, back and forth. Her head hurt, and her stomach growled at her. She ignored both until she saw something tall and white out of the corner of her eye. She shrieked and spun around, catapulting a heavier tome at the Stallion watching her from the book shelves.
Shining Armor ducked, and stopped the book with his horn, eyes wide and concerned.
"Twilee?"
Huffing and puffing, Twilight stared at her brother. She flinched violently when he made to step closer, and he stopped, large eyes concerned.
"Mom and Dad told me that you ran out of the house this morning... whats going on?"
Twilight felt her lower lips start to tremble. Her throat felt suddenly tight, and her eyes were burning more than they already were.
"I... I..." and then she burst into huge braying sobs, not even caring as the librarian scuttled out from the shadow, enraged by the noise.
"Get her out of here!" she commanded.
Shining Armor nodded and dashed over to his broke down LSBFF. He supported her as she cried, and led her back to her large planetarium like bedroom, listening as she choked out bits and pieces of the nightmares still bothering her.
Twilight jerked awake in the darkness with moonlight pouring through her windows, nearly sending herself tumbling onto the floor. How could she have let herself fall asleep? She didn't remember sleeping! or even feeling tired! She paced the floor of her bedroom, gnawing at her lip until blood began to drip. she was unaware, and continued to move.
Must not fall asleep, must not fall asleep, must not fall asleep. she chanted in her head. But the rhythm of the words grew all to comfortable, and soon she found her hoof beats slowing, and her head drooping. It would be so nice just to law down. Her back was sore, and her neck protested at holding up her head.
She did as her body commanded, still chanting, though her words were slowing back down. The world around her seemed to be deeper than it was, almost as if she were seeing it with an extra dimension. Her mind buzzed like a hive of bees. She rested her head of her hooves, staring into the darkness under her bed, unable to move her eyes. she just felt so comfortable. So tired, but so very comfortable.
But that wasn't right. she was on her floor. Her cold, stone floor. But even the chill of her flesh felt welcome. Her head slipped further and turned to the side away from her bed. Just as her eyes began to slip completely shut, she noticed something odd.
She could she dull, worn hooves standing near her door.
There were only two hooves resting on the stone by her door. Hind hooves. Her gaze was drawn upwards, over the long forelegs, passed the terrible wicker coffin case and into its owners exhausted blue eyes.
Were his eyes blue before? she wondered distantly as her exhausted body began to tense once more, winding itself up like a broken clockwork toy. Her heart thrummed in her chest as she locked eyes with the stallion. He was so still though. He didn't even appear t be breathing.
She watched him as she slowly got to her hooves. His eyes never left her own.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
Her heart beat on, but oh, what a terrible sound it was in the silence of that stallion's stare!
She levitated a moonstone sample from where it rested on her desk, and jerked back when the stretched pony stuttered to life, a toy even more broken and mutilated than she. he twitched across the floor with incredible speed and snapped at her horn.
She dropped the rock and dodged passed the pony as he reached for her. The wicker coffin case fell to the floor with a crash, spilling bones and jewelry across her bedroom floor. Twilight leaped through her door and down the stairs, gasping and sobbing in terror. The stretched pony suddenly fell in front of her from the ceiling, or so it seemed. The part of her brain that was still rational insisted that it -he - had simply jumped from the banister. her had the higher ground, it would be easy since he was so tall.
Twilight streaked into her kitchen, ready to crash through the window should she need to when she suddenly skidded to a stop. She could fight this thing.
She could keep Death out of her dreams for the rest of her life!
The purple mare braced her legs and waited, body low along the ground as her horn flared with light.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.
It was Death's heart beating now. though her own was probably just as loud, synchronizing.Her eyes fixated on the collection of knifes her mother kept attached to a magnetic strip of metal. Their deadly points glimmered lustfully in the moonlight.
THUMP TH-THUM-THUMP THUMP
Death slowly walked into the kitchen, looking lost, and almost foal-like, Apparently he missed his goody bag.
"You want something, take this!"
The stallion shrieked once, its first sound. The shriek was high and reedy, like broken glass in a garbage disposal. It only made that one sound before turning almost hypnotically for the set of knifes.
"Need it?" she hissed, in terror as much as rage.
The stallion attacked the knives, and swiftly became red. Blood pooled on the shiny checkered tile of the kitchen, and twilight felt sick, only watched as the stallion continued to impale itself on rack. Knifes fell with each impact until it battered itself against the magnets, bruising his bloody, deformed body.
It was then that Twilight noticed something... odd. What she'd though had been a brown mane was actually blue.
She shrugged this aside and levitated the now unconscious stallion into the broom closet, which would have been a tight fit for a normally sized stallion, but this one was so twiggy it would be easy to fit him inside.
Or so she thought. It took much arranging before the stallion fir amongst the fruit preserves, but she managed. Soon she was moping up the kitchen floor, and polishing the dirtied knives, whistling as she worked.
She'd just finished cleaning when the bell rang. She had a passing worry for her parents before remembering that they had left for Las Pegasus earlier in the day - after she'd returned with her brother from the library.
Two stallions of the royal guard were on her door step. She smiled at them, recognizing them as her brothers friends before inviting them inside.
"Your neighbor reported hearing quite a ruckus in here earlier, Ms. Sparkle. Though something might have happened."
"Oh that was just me," she insisted with a happy giggle. "I've been having terrible nightmares lately. To be honest I'm surprised this is the first call you've gotten."
The guards looked st each other before looking down at her. She smiled back sweetly, so happy to have rid herself of her stalker that she invited them into the kitchen for hot chocolate.
THUMP.
The first sound of a heart beat made her ears twitch and her hoof shake so hard it nearly tore the top right off the box of coco powder.
"You okay, Ms.Sparkle?"
"Oh I'm fine," she said with a laugh a might more hysterical than it should have been. Her face was rather pale, but the guards mostly thought it was only normal considering that she had nightmares bad enough to make her scream out in the night.
THUM THUMP.
She twitched and put on an even bigger smile for the guards as she served them hot coco.They chatted, while she listened to Death's heart start beating again.
Oh Celestia he's still alive. He's in that cupboard. He's in there just smiling and waiting and watching me through the slats.
She fancied she could even hear Death breathing, almost a laughing breath! while the guards drank their chocolate and discussed the new cloud formation the pegasi were trying for the Summer Sun Celebration in two months time.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
"Don't you hear that?" she whimpered. The guards didn't seem to hear her plea however, and only continued to chat her up with happy smiles. So innocent, and unsuspecting of the monster in her closet. She had to cover her mouth at that thought, before hysterical snorting laughter poured out of her.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
TWIIILEEEE
She did laugh then, so suddenly that one of the guards jerked back and spilled hot chocolate all over his coat. Twilight ignored him and levitated a chair over her head as she charged at the cupboard in a panic and rage.
"HERE HE IS!" she screamed. "THE MONSTER! DEATH! DEATH! HE'LL KILL US!"
And from the cupboard, stumbled Shining Armor, one eyes drifting, face squashed and looking just barely wrong enough to send someone screaming from the room.That was the fault of his violent crashing into the rack of knifes. even now, so injured as he was, her brother limped for the rack of knifes so recently cleaned.
Twilight Sparkle screamed.
Princess Celestia Looked down on her sleeping pupil and the heavily bandaged head of the castle guard where they lay in their hospital beds. The both breathed easily, no horror now in their dreams. Celestia sighed and touched her horn to both of theirs, drawing out the horrific memories much as she had for the other witnesses and trotted silently toward Twilight Sparkle's home. The Moon Stone that had caused this lunacy had to be confiscated and destroyed.
Who knew that nearly a year later, a run in with a dragon equis would stir up an echo of the spell in her faithful students head?
