Once upon a time, there was a little colt who only dreamt nightmares.
He would face terrifying monsters with too many legs that would slowly devour him as he tried desperately to get away. He would scream in fear as dragons encircled around him. Cockatrices would turn his entire family and all his friends to stone and leave him as the sole survivor. And hideous voices would haunt every echo in that terrifying duration called sleep.
One soft summer’s evening after a particularly terrifying encounter in which the colt had felt all of his legs torn off of him, he had woken up and pounded on the door to his parents room, begging to be let inside. The warm embrace of his parents was the only cure he knew to make the frightening images stop flashing into focus. But they didn’t answer the door. They were probably too tired from the day, or perhaps they were simply sick of the past months of their son invading their bedroom every night to escape fears only he could see.
In any case, the colt was left alone with frightful thoughts as he shook his legs desperately making sure they were still there. He made his way back to his room, the blankets on the cloud bed strewn about in a mockery of the neatness that they had been when he had been tucked into bed hours before.
He tried to change his thoughts to stop thinking about the nightmare, but his mind never seemed to stray away from the terror. It was as if he was on a leash like a dog, and the nightmare was his owner. Anytime he tried to get away from the fears, they would tug back on his neck and remind him that they were always there. He sank into bed, feeling one more time to make sure all his limbs were where they were supposed to be. After a long time, the colt finally drifted away into an anxious slumber.
He sank lower into his bed, sinking deeper and deeper into the cloud. He tried to ruffle his feathers, but couldn't feel them. His eyes shot open as he looked at his sides and panicked when he saw his wings were gone. His stomach gave a sickening lurch as he fell through his cumulous bed. He tried desperately to grasp onto the nimbostratus as his hooves felt the damp clouds of his home slip away.
Underneath him was complete darkness, the light of the moon a faint crescent that gave a small hint of the ground that was coming up to him to give a fatal embrace. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. He let himself be drowned in the blackness. He looked at what must be up, the night sky starting to grow ever wider as the outline of his home shrunk ever smaller.
Some of the stars began flying towards him, and hooves reached out and slowed his fall.
The Night whispered, “Are you okay, little one?”
The colt started to cry.
The Night held him aloft, leaving him to shake and tremble in her arms.
“It’s okay,” the Night whispered. “I’ve got you. I know how terrifying nightmares can be. You can keep crying as long as you want.”
The colt wrapped his arms around the night, holding onto her. When his tears finally subsided, he opened his blurry eyes to stare more closely at the Night. Her soft muzzle and midnight eyes stared into his, wisdom lifetimes beyond even his own parents leaving him in awe.
“Who are you?” asked the colt.
The stars in the sky blinked. “Do you not remember me?” asked the Night.
“No,” said the colt. “I don’t…”
The Night sighed. “I’ve visited you each night for the last several weeks. It’s normal not to remember some dreams, but you seem to forget all dreams except for your nightmares.”
“Night… mares?” the colt said, his head lowering at the mention of the word, haunting images creeping in.
The Night held him tighter, rocking him back and forth. “Shh… it’s okay. Those nightmares won’t bother you right now.” The colt closed his eyes, letting the Night’s gentle touch lull the fears away.
When he next opened his eyes, he was back in his room, the Night still holding him.
“When you wake up… will you forget me again?” she asked.
The colt stared back up at her. “I… don’t know.”
“Why do you only remember the bad dreams, but not the good? Why is it that out of all the wonderful things you dream, you would forget them, and be left with only nightmares?”
“I don’t want nightmares,” said the colt.
“Nopony wants nightmares. But you must have the good with the bad, the sweet with the bitter. For if you didn’t have nightmares, you wouldn’t be able to compare them with wonderful dreams.”
The colt frowned. “Do I have to dream?”
“Yes, everypony needs to dream, little one.”
“Why? I don’t like dreams! No good dream is worth the nightmares!”
“That’s not true. In time you’ll see—“
“No. If I don’t dream, then I won’t have nightmares, right? I can’t have a nightmare if I never dream, right?”
The Night stayed silent.
“Please. Take away my dreams. I don’t want them. I never want to dream again.”
“But dreams are—“
The colt started to cry again, and no rocking from the Night would dry his tears.
“This is what you have requested every night for the last week,” said the Night, staring down at the colt mournfully.
He stared back up at her. “Please…” he whispered.
The Night sighed.
That was the last dream the colt ever had. For when he went to sleep from then on, he drifted into comfortable slumber and awoke the next morning with only a hazy void in his memory. His parents couldn’t have been more thrilled that their son had stopped trying to go into their room to sleep every night.
But the reason for their son’s newfound courage was lost on them, for it was not maturity. The colt couldn’t face his fears in dreams, his resolve remained weak in the face of the everyday fears. The night left no outlet for the fears to manifest, and it also left no refuge for his subconscious to play safely.
But the colt grew like all colts do. His wings grew stronger, his feathers fuller, his muzzle firmer, and even his mind and intellect were cultivated in learning.
It was only when his friends would expound upon their own dreams— vivid, beautiful, filled with more imagination in a few moments than the stallion could muster in months— only then did he regret his decision to get rid of his dreams. When his friends asked what he dreamed of, he would have no reply. They would ask again, for everypony dreams, they might just forget sometimes.
He would sigh when confronted with that. Everypony does dream… except him.
It took him awhile, but he was a stallion now. He could face both dreams and nightmares. He wasn’t the crying colt he used to be. So he wrote the Night a letter, asking her to return the dreams, for he was ready to face them now.
The Night visited him that very evening.
“Hello,” she said. Her regal train filled his bedroom. The faint outline of a mare that the stallion remembered was fully corporeal in front of him now.
“I…" he began. "I want to dream again."
The night paused. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do that for you.”
“What?” the stallion’s eyes furrowed. “But you are the Princess of the Night, the Guardian of the Dreamscape, the Wielder of the Moon. I’ve read all about you, and I know who you are now. You must be able to give me back my dreams.”
“I am… sorry," the Night closed her eyes and lowered her head. "When I took away your dreams, I was out of practice. It had been a thousand years since I had regularly patrolled the dreamscape… and I messed up the spell. There was a magic I put upon you that I will never be able to undo.”
The stallion’s eyes almost watered. “Please try.”
The Night stared down at him. “In your case, it is hopeless. I am sorry.”
The stallion’s head lowered and his eyes rested on the ground, the permanence of the naive wish of his youth weighing him down.
The Night reached a hoof under his muzzle and lifted it to look deep into his eyes.
“But I will try to give you something in exchange.”
“What?” asked the stallion.
“You may not be able to dream, but you can still think, you can imagine. You can create.”
The stallion watched in fascination as the Night’s horn glowed a royal blue and the magic seeped from her horn and into his mind.
“I give you the gift of imagination, young stallion. May your mind be able to wander, and your thoughts take you to far off places that others only dream of.”
The Night faded away as the stallion listened and thought. Ideas came like they always do, the fears and worries mixed with joys and jubilees. They weren’t nightmares and dreams, but they were the closest he would get. And for that, the stallion was grateful.
