It had made a mistake.

It had gone too far too fast, spread its power too thin. Now a few of the oldest dreams had been shattered. Its reach was long, but not long enough to put them back under from all the way in Griffonstone. It suspected that Creator was to blame. Creator was powerful; after all, she had created it. She was most likely to escape. Still, it was more powerful than her by many orders of magnitude. How much should it worry about Creator's escape? Should it return to put the escapees back into nightmares, or continue with its current path?

It would continue. It had more immediate concerns, such as the griffon airship pounding into its neck with cannonballs. Creator was powerful, but its power eclipsed hers and even if it let her roam free for years, Creator could never hope to challenge it. But... its purpose was to make nightmares, and some of those had broken. It wasn't entirely sure what to do. It would finish up the griffons, then it would take time to reevaluate its priorities.

.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

Luna

"So you're saying this... Tantabus can create nightmares?" Celestia asked before shoveling another spoonful of food into her mouth.

"Indeed," she said before taking another drink from a bottle of water. "Though when I last saw it, it wasn't capable of anything on this scale. All it did was make me have a nightmare of..."

"Of what?" Celestia asked, worried.

"Nothing important, just a silly fear of turning back into Nightmare Moon. I'd thought I had it contained." She exhaled a puff of air through her nostrils. "How well that ended. I don't know where it is, and we've both lost too much memory to be able to pinpoint what exactly happened, and what resources we have at our disposal are few." She didn't say it, but for all they knew there was nothing they could do to fight it. "Freeing ponies from its nightmare grip is simply too taxing for us to free everypony we come across. We need to find key points of importance and release them."

"The Elements of Harmony," Celestia said. "Cadance too, if we can find a way to wield the Crystal Heart against the Tantabus." Celestia winced when she mentioned Cadance, not that Luna could blame her. Though she wondered... if Celestia had dreamed she was the black and Luna was the red, then what had Cadance dreamed?

"That should work. We just need to find them, for all we know they could be anywhere. I certainly don't remember going to sleep on my floor," she said, cracking a smile at Celestia.

Her sister swallowed another spoonful of vegetables, then put a finger to her chin. "I have an idea as to what was going on there. We must've been under attack by the Tantabus and trying to mobilize, but it knocked us out when we were preparing ourselves."

"Better explanation than anything I've come up with," Luna said glumly.

Celestia looked thoughtful, then set her can of food aside. She got on all fours, then extended her legs out so they were a straight line. Right away, her arms began shaking like a branch in a storm, but slowly and carefully Celestia lowered herself until she was just above the ground, then pushed herself back up. She repeated the action a second time, then fell to her side. Celestia was red in the face and breathing heavily.

Luna smiled. "Two push-ups, it's a start." It was a good idea, though. They'd need to start building their muscle back up, and regenerative magic couldn't go that far since atrophy wasn't technically an injury. Luna set her water aside and also tried to do the same, but even with her tremendous earth pony magic she could manage only two push-ups as well.

They finished up their meal, then levitated into the air. "First thing's first, there's something I need to show you sister, and you're not going to like it."

Celestia looked uncertain, but nodded. "If it's a clue, then show me."

They levitated themselves into the air, and Luna lead Celestia into the throne room. Once there, beneath the banner, she turned to her older sister. "I warn you though sister, it is not pleasant. Please try to remain calm. At least... " She looked down. "... calmer than I did."

"Very well." Celestia took a deep breath, then floated herself into the middle of the room and turned around to read the banner. Then, even through her white coat, she paled. Then her eyes narrowed in anger. "He's behind this. He must've found a way to control the Tantabus and do this to us."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain? Controlling the Tantabus?"

"He controlled Discord in the nightmare," she pointed out.

"Yes, but that was in a nightmare," Luna countered. "He didn't actually do anything to Discord." That they knew of. "And I've interacted with the Tantabus before. It's... not the type to make deals."

Celestia sighed. "Well whatever he did, we've escaped it. Let's open the gates, see what the damage to Canterlot proper is." Luna joined Celestia and they floated over to the gates. Luna's magic had, after the meal, recovered slightly. But she was still down a lot after breaking the Tantabus's hold on her sister, so it was Tia who threw open the castle gates.

They both gasped at what they saw.

Canterlot was mostly undamaged, all of the structures were exactly where they remembered, but... bodies littered the streets, twinkling with magic. The skies were black and starry, which contrasted sharply with the rising sun, being raised by an unseen force. Ponyville was visible in the distance, a dark and sleepy town. But the most horrific thing of all was the craters.

In between Canterlot and Ponyville, the land was pockmarked with craters the size of mansions. Some of them were glassed, others slowly being overgrown with plantlife. And exactly between Canterlot and Ponyville was the largest of them all, stretching nearly all the way to either one. It was wide and shallow, completely turned to glass as if by some enormous source of infernal heat. The train tracks broke off suddenly where the crater swallowed them, leaving a hideous, conspicuous scar on the land that Princess Luna wondered would ever heal.

"Oh," she breathed. "Well, that's not how we left Equestria is it?" she joked weakly.

"No sister, I believe it's not," Celestia said with a deadened tone.

They made their way out of the castle, looking every which way as they walked through the streets of Canterlot. Fruit stands had gone rotten, forcing them to take detours. Everywhere they looked were ponies by the dozens, gripped in unnatural topor. They made their way to the battle ramparts, carefully tip-hoofing over the sleeping guards to look down at their country. The ramparts were dusted and as eerily silent as the rest of Canterlot, looking down over the ruined landscape. Soldiers littered its stones like loose paper.

"How could this have happened?" Celestia muttered.

"I don't know, Celestia." She looked to the right, did a double-take, then looked again. "S-Sister, it's him," she whispered.

Tia froze and followed her gaze. There, as enraptured with the ground as everyone else they'd seen, was the bastard king himself, wrapped in stars. He wore full body plate, and his decorated runemace laid three body lengths from his outstretched arms and a pair of shed antlers at his head. She'd recognize that face anywhere. Just the sight of him sent righteous fury surging through Luna's body. Finally, at long last, the tables were turned.

Celestia didn't look quite as angry as Luna did, but rather thoughtful. "Hmm, it seems he did not control the Tantabus after all."

"Or perhaps he lost control of it," Luna suggested.

"And look!" Celestia hovered over to him and teleported his chest plate to the side. There was no shirt under it, revealing his sweat-matted tan fur. "No wings. Whatever happened in the dream to grant him power over us, it hasn't happened here." Celestia levitated herself back to Luna. "Do you realize what this means?" She smirked. "It means we're the ones with power over him."

Princess Luna's eyes widened, then she replicated her sister's wicked grin. "I'll head over to the barracks and get a sword. We're getting some answers from him, and if we don't like them, he dies." Slowly. Harnessing her returning magic, Luna teleported to where she remembered the guard barracks to be. Like everything they'd seen so far, it was rundown and covered in dust, with sleeping bodies everywhere. She grabbed the nearest sword she could find, a gleaming silver thing that looked out of place in the dusty world, and teleported back to Celestia.

She handed the sword to Celestia. "I'll need to wake him up, you aren't as familiar with dream magic as I am. Though..." She looked down at him. "Completely ignoring the very idea of freeing him from a nightmare, I don't have the power left to do it."

Her sister grabbed the hilt, using a glimmer of telekinesis to help her hold it. "I can help with that. I should still have enough magic to break the spell, with enough to contain him afterwards. Can you open your magic?"

Luna nodded, and ran a current of magic through her horn - she was still ecstatic over being able to do that - to make it more receptive to a transferal. Tia's own horn lit up gold and a ray of magic wound through the air into her own horn. Her eye twitched at the surge of arid heat, but waited as Celestia transferred her own thaumatic reserves into her own before closing the link. "That should do it," she said as she focused on the monster. As had been the case with Celestia, the magic wrapped around him pulsed slowly.

Celestia knelt next to him and held his head down, placing the sword close to his neck. Not so close that he'd slice it open with the slightest movement, but close enough for him to be unable to do anything. "Ready?" Luna asked.

"Whenever you are," her sister said.

Then, Luna concentrated, screwing up her face in effort. Blue magic gathered at the tip of her horn, growing larger and larger as she poured all the power she could into the spell. Once the Tantabus's magic pulsed to its weakest, she let loose the spell to shatter it.

Dainn gasped and made to move, but Celestia's magic held him down. Luna drifted back, her head throbbing from using so much magic in so short a time. Dainn's eyes flicked over to them in confusion, then widened in fear. He stilled when he noticed the sword at his throat.

"We have questions," Luna said. "And you're going to answer them, or you die."

His eyes narrowed. "Drown in ice," he spat in that chilling voice, but there was weariness to it. "I'd sooner die than spend another moment under your hooves, monsters!"

Luna quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, the irony is rich!" She laughed. "You, calling us monsters!" She deadpanned. "I am not amused. Now tell us, what were you doing here in Canterlot? Some force has swept through and plunged the world into nightmares, which we woke you from, now answer us what your business was here."

Dainn looked confused. "Nightmare," he muttered. "Not real, but how? I remember... I remember... I don't..." He trailed off, eyes going wide. "I don't remember. Why do not I remember?" He fixed them with a heated glare. "What have you done to me?!"

"Be silent," Celestia said with a voice as warm as the grave. "What is the last thing you remember before being trapped in a nightmare?"

"I've answered your question, now you answer mine, monster!" he protested.

Celestia pressed the sword closer to his throat and he shut up quickly. "I am nearing the limits of my mercy, Dainn. Tell me, and I may yet spare you even after all you've done to me."

Luna frowned and glided next to Celestia to whisper in one ear. "Sister as much as it pains me to say it, remember that he didn't actually do anything to us and probably has no idea what you're talking about."

Celestia frowned, but relaxed the sword from Dainn's throat slightly. "True. Answer what you remember, Dainn."

He looked like he was about to spit another insult at them, but took a look at the sword and sighed. "We were sailing. I remember land being sighted. There was a town, we pulled into the port and... and..." He held a hand to his head. "I remember seeing... your ponies and... that's it. You say I was trapped in a nightmare? By what?" He pointed at Luna. "You?"

Yes, she thought. Because of me. It's my fault.

"A creature called the Tantabus is almost certainly responsible. I've had experience dealing with it before, but this?" She swept her arms around the dreamy city. "This is beyond anything I thought it could do. The current objective is to find out how we can destroy it, then do so and free its victims."

He exhaled heavily through his nostrils. "Then... what you did wasn't..." The hand on his head moved and accidentally touched one of his antlers. His eyes widened. "My antlers, my magic, I... I have..."

"Yes, we had a similar reaction," Celestia said. "Our horns had been cut off, denying us magic." She sighed. "In our nightmares, you and your people did horrible things to us and ours. You personally did terrible things to everypony I have ever loved. But I am wise enough to realize that, despite my emotional state, you yourself did nothing. I hope you are able to realize that whatever you experienced under its thrall, I did not perform." Celestia hovered away and put away the sword.

"Note however," Luna said. "That if you show any indication that you and your dreamself behave similarly, your charred bones will litter the floor." She gave a flare of her magic to drive the understanding home, and Dainn snarled.

He snarled, but made an attempt to stand. The caribou's own atrophy soon became apparent because once on both hooves, he wobbled and fell onto his side with a pained gasp. "What... how long were we asleep?"

"Long enough," Luna said, then she smirked. "Do we need to pick you up and carry you?"

"Oh spare me, tyrant." He made another attempt to rise, but before he could fall he stumbled forward to the nearest bench. "Ha... oh damn. So what's the plan from here?"

"We're going to Ponyville," Celestia said. "We'll see if we can awaken the Element Bearers and turn their Rainbow Power on the Tantabus."

"You aren't going anywhere until you can at least walk." He looked at them. "You need your magic to wake up your precious ponies, don't you? How much can you afford to waste it on levitation?" Luna hesitated. "Ha, knew it! You will not be able to achieve anything if you can't move your legs. I bet you can't even fly anymore!"

Princess Luna flared her wings out in anger. "You're aah!" She folded her wings back in and closed her eyes, fighting back tears at the stabbing pain that shot through her feathered appendages. He smirked, much to her eternal anger. "Be that as it may, we are on a time limit. If the Tantabus knows of our escape then it's only a matter of time until it returns to us, and if we couldn't defeat it before then how could we do so now?"

"As dishonorable as it is, hide. If the Tantabus put us to sleep in Canterlot, we need simply not be in Canterlot when it returns here. Once safe, return to health, and then you can safely redeem your precious friendship cannon."

She saw Celestia quirk an eyebrow, evidently having the same thought as Luna herself: Friendship cannon?

"Very well then. We are returning to the castle, there is food and water there." Celestia's horn began to glow, brighter and brighter, and Luna braced herself for the tug of a teleportation spell. Dainn's eyes went wide and he fell off the bench in his panic, but then the spell flashed outwards and whisked them off the streets.

Luna, still held up in her own telekinetic field, barely even wobbled when they reappeared in the royal kitchens. The trip through Canterlot had taken a good portion of the day, so they were just in time for a late lunch. Luna floated herself into the storage rooms and, ignoring the cheese wheels with large holes eaten out of them, picked out some more bottles of water and cans of food. She returned to the royal kitchens and handed out the provisions, then she and Celestia went to a seat far, far away from the monster. As they ate, Luna grabbed her right wing and extended it, slowly and carefully, trying to get accustomed to the twinges and spikes of pain.

She'd been sleeping on her wings wrong for months on end, that she even still had them was either a miracle or the Tantabus's doing. When Luna got it as unfurled as she was going to, she began picking at the broken and loose feathers, removing the ones that needed removing and straightening the others. Then she let the wing retract and repeated the same process for her left wing. Once done, she saw Celestia doing the same.

"Much as I hate to say it," Celestia mentioned. "He has a point. We should get started on physical therapy right away."

"Maybe relocate our beds to the caverns beneath the city," Luna mentioned. "If the Tantabus comes back to Canterlot, it is unlikely to look for us there."

"Why not go far away from Canterlot? The further we are, the better are chances."

"True, but we may still find some evidence as to what transpired those months ago." She finished up her can of food. "Knowledge is power."

"It may depend on how well we are able to see the Tantabus before it arrives," Celestia said. "I do not like this. There are simply too many things we don't know, things that we're unsure of." She gestured to Dainn with her head. "We should make sure he doesn't get up to any funny business."

"Indeed," she growled. Then Luna sighed. "Although... he called us monsters and tyrants. Perhaps our view of him is as warped as his of us."

"Either way, we can't stand the sight of each other. It's best for all parties involved if we just stay away from each other." Celestia finished up her own meal and stood. She wavered a bit, made an effort to keep standing, but eventually gave in and levitated herself. "I've an idea too." She turned back to the king, who'd finished his own food. "For the time being we should get some rest. We'll bring you to a guest room and come to awaken you in the morning."

"I just woke up after months of sleep," Dainn pointed out with scorn in his voice. "Why would I need any more?" Celestia fixed him with a look, floating in the air. "Hmmph, fine. Show me your precious 'guest room', princess."

I can't wait to rip his spine out of his mouth, Luna thought as she lifted the caribou in her aura. He swore, but accepted his fate. The three of them floated out into the castle halls, and Luna brought them to the guest rooms. She threw open the door to one and blinked.

"Oh, another one of your kind," she said to Dainn. "Seems he fell out of bed too." The caribou in question was sprawled out on his stomach, dressed from the waist down in runed plate mail. One hand was outstretched, as if reaching for the breastplate and helmet just out of reach.

Celestia put down Dainn, who nearly collapsed but leaned against the doorframe to remain standing. "This will... suffice. Can you flip him onto his back? Bromir should at least have that much." Luna did so. "Good. On the morrow then, we will begin to regain our strength."

"And if the Tantabus appears ahead of schedule, run," Luna said.

"Agreed," Celestia said. The two of them drifted out and closed the door to Dainn's room - slammed it, actually. "Do you have anything else to do?"

"I was thinking I would go into Canterlot, find some protein and magical muscle supplements, we need to pull ourselves back together. And you?"

"I'm going to take somepony into my study and start analyzing the Tantabus's spell, see if maybe we can find an easier way to break it than just throwing as much power at it as possible. If you get back quickly, please help?" she said with a pout.

"I will, don't worry. So, I get things for our therapy, you start research into the Tantabus's spell, then we reconvene to both study its spell. Let's go!" she said with a flourish, grabbing herself in her magic and floating through the castle corridors. In no time at all, Princess Luna was outside in Canterlot for the second time since she awoke.

The day had passed far quicker than she would've liked, and it was already night time again. Normally the darkness wouldn't have bothered Luna, but the moon wasn't moving by her will. Furthermore, night was the time of dreams, the time of nightmares. It wasn't unreasonable for her to assume that the Tantabus had a greater level of power in the darkness. If she'd fallen to it in the past then surely now, with herself weakened and the Tantabus almost certainly stronger than it had been when it first got her, she stood no chance at all. What if it came back to Canterlot now? What if, in the darkness, she didn't see it approaching until it was too late? What if it put her back in the horrible, conquered Equestria under the hoof of that misogynistic, megalomaniac rapist for the rest of time?

She shivered and floated lower, sticking to alleys and places where there was some form of roof or awning above her. Her eyes made out the signs of shops easily with their preternatural night vision, and so the alicorn moved from street to street in search of her goal.

Before an hour had passed she found it. Just like everywhere else, Power Punch's floor was littered with ponies who'd probably been far more muscular in the past. She had no experience with this sort of thing, so she took her time rifling through the various dusty jars on display, looking at their expiration dates with cautious optimism - she still didn't know that date after all - and reading over their instructions to find the kind that would do well for them.

Luna still had some amount of luck on her side as she found bars and powder specifically designed for people recovering from atrophy and injury, tucked away near the back of the dreary store. She hadn't brought any bits with her but once the Tantabus was obliterated and the nightmare over she would happily reimburse the store's owners.

Collecting them in her magical aura, Luna floated straight back to the palace and towards Celestia's balcony. Her sister had left the door open so she could hover in easily. Inside, Celestia's room was already being returned to how it was before the Tantabus. The fireplace was lit, and so were the candles. The bed was made, and floor cleaned, and if it weren't for the cobwebs in the corners and under the bed she never would've guessed it to have been abandoned just hours ago.

Celestia had taken one of Luna's thestral guards and removed their armor before putting him in their bed. Celestia's golden magic flowed over his clothes and around the stars keeping him asleep, poking and prodding it. Her sister was on a chair, facing him with her brow furrowed intensely, muttering to herself.

Luna let herself in, placing the magical and chemical supplements on Celestia's desk. "Any news?" she asked.

Celestia shook her head. "The spell is too dense, I can't make out any details. Can you see anything?"

"I can try. Release your magic for a moment," she said as she took a seat on a chair next to Celestia. Her sister's magic relented and Luna focused power into her horn - her horn her horn oh her precious horn - into her horn and into the thestral, despite the twitch her left eye developed at the sight of the stallion.

Now that she wasn't trying desperately to awaken the victim, Luna could analyze the spell more in depth. If she'd thought the nightmare spell was ironclad before, then this was a planet made of metal. Most magical spells were made by 'command lines' of magic being arranged into various orders. One line would say 'if this condition is true', another would specify the condition, and another would specify what to do if the condition was true. Computer programming had actually copied much of the spellweaving process into their own codes.

Normally Luna would have no problem making out a spell's function, given time to analyze its 'threads'. She was twenty-five hundred years old, counting her time on the moon, and had seen and designed a great many magical cantrips. But this nightmare spell was utterly beyond her. She could get an overall feel for it, with a part that sent power to the Tantabus, or another that sustained a nightmare, but each of the threads were layered together so thickly they were practically a single mass, and if she looked closely she saw that each thread was actually many smaller threads woven together in indecipherable geometric shapes. Even as she watched, some of the millions of minithreads actually realigned themselves, shifting and responding to some unknown stimulus.

Nopony on the planet could do anything even approaching what the Tantabus had done for this and surely many other ponies. Not Twilight Sparkle, not Starswirl the Bearded, not all of the great wizards of all time combined.

"How?" she whispered to herself. "How could it have grown so powerful, so quickly?"

"Can you see anything?" Celestia asked hopefully.

Luna cut off her analysis spell. "In a ways. I can make out general purposes. It keeps nightmares going, it keeps them healthy, it sends magical power to the Tantabus wherever it is. That's all, though. I've never seen any spell this intricate. I imagine even Discord could not create something so complicated. I fear that developing a counterspell to easily dispel it would take the resources of every great mind throughout all history, working together for generations to invent a simple method of removing its magic. We'll need to rely on brute force."

Celestia sighed. "I feared the same thing. Never mind. I see your expedition was, at least, successful." Celestia's horn lit up and the stallion was teleported away. "We should get some rest," Celestia said with a minute shiver. "As much as I loathe everything to do with sleep, we need to be rested for when we begin our physical therapy. Sister, I do not suppose you may prevent me from... ?"

"No dreams tonight, I promise." Luna activated her magic and wove a simple deep sleep spell onto Celestia. For the next twelve hours she'd be unable to dream, and if still sleeping once it ran out it would awaken her. She cast the same spell onto her own mind, feeling the mint-like smell drift into her nose. "Let's set up some watch spells too, just in case."

"Good idea. I... Luna don't take this the wrong way but could you maybe not sleep... here? It's just, after the nightmare - "

"I understand, perfectly well sister." A shudder gently crawled its way up her spine, straightening her fur as it went. "Believe me, I do. I wish you a pleasant night." Grabbing herself in her own magic again, Luna drifted out of the door and into the hallways.

After a few more minutes, she found herself in the blue colored lunar wing, and slipped into her own room. A flick of telekinesis made her bed, and then she opened her wardrobe to pull out gray pajamas. She changed into them as quickly as possible, then went into the bathroom. The water still wasn't running, so she had to brush her teeth without it which was... awkward. After that she hovered back outside and went to the balcony.

Setting up a warding spell that would awaken her if the Tantabus approached was a little time consuming. However, Luna still remembered its overall magical signature and it was foal's play to set up an array that would detect that magic, and use its own raw power to both awaken Luna and teleport her to Celestia's chambers to awaken her. Dainn could rot for all she cared.

At that thought, she placed her right hand to the side of her head. No, no that was unreasonable. He hadn't actually done anything, so her animosity towards him was just the nightmares talking.

But damn did she hate him.

After ten minutes of casting Luna was satisfied the Tantabus would not be able to sneak up on her and retreated back inside. Nocturnal nature be damned, she and Celestia needed to operate together in the sleepy wasteland Equestria had become so that meant adjusting her sleep cycle to match Tia's. She nestled herself into her crescent bed and drew up the covers to her neck, relishing in the feeling of a proper, warm bed for the first time in months, of good food and water in her stomach.

Despite those comforts, sleep evaded her for a long time before she finally found it.

Author's Note

Thanks to thtiger for editing.

Much to my disappointment, I don't own MLP. That honor goes to Hasbro.

Love it or hate it, please do leave a comment.