Star charts and scrolls littered the floor of his apartment. He kept glancing back and forth between his project and the constellations.

"You are looking well-rested, nephew," the princess commented as she walked into his room.

He didn't bother to even look at her. "Thanks," he mumbled to be polite.

Blueblood the Elder tentatively stepped over the papers as she made her way to his bed.

"How did you do on the exam that your teacher let you take home?"

He frowned as he scribbled down information on his assignment.

"70%. It was the highest grade I could score any way."

"It's better than a zero," she commented before sinking into his bed. "What are you doing?"

"Astronomy."

The princess rolled her eyes. "I never would have guessed," she responded sarcastically.

Blueblood the Younger sat back on his haunches and rubbed his tired eyes. "It's a project that's supposed to calculate the trajectory of planets on any given date in the future."

His aunt strained her neck forward and squinted at his paper. A century ago, she would have been able to actually see it.

"The Summer Sun Celebration in twenty years?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"What else?" he answered with a shrug. "I know that we were only supposed to study the first three planets that orbit our sun, but I did all six,* plus several stars. Do you think I did it right?' the prince asked as he levitated his project to her.

The princess scanned his work. It was sloppy, full of ink splotches, and scribbles from things he had to eliminate, but otherwise it seemed accurate. The planets were all lined up in a straight line, and what few stars he included also seemed on the same plane.

Blueblood shuddered. What her nephew had just plotted was clearly a rare cosmic anomaly of immense power. She hoped that no other god would draw power from the event, particularly a certain chaos entity.**

"Excellent work," she nodded in approval, setting down the rough draft.

"I thought about asking some real astronomers to see how many stars actually line up with our planetary orbit, but..."

"Please don't," his aunt insisted.

"I figured as much," the colt sighed. "Did you find out if Nightmare Moon's seal was weakening, princess?"

"It is not," she assured her nephew. "I consulted several astronomers, mages, and astromages, and the only way that a spell of such calibre could be broken is through very intensive magnetic and gravitational distress. We are close to reaching the breaking point, but we are not yet there."

Blueblood the Younger looked down at his hooves, not looking all too relieved.

She studied him with a quirked brow, confused by his response.

"Nephew."

He looked at her.

"Did you not hear me? Nightmare Moon is staying on the moon for another twenty years."

"I understand, princess. Thank you for researching that for me." And then he began collecting his scrolls and star charts.

Blueblood the Elder looked down at his project to keep from looking at him. If she were a normal pony, she would have asked him what was wrong. But Blueblood was a Blueblood, and Bluebloods were never normal. Instead, she wracked her brain for a possible reason why her successor seemed upset. Unable to find a cause, she decided to investigate further.

"Tell me about your nightmares," she stated.

He stopped his cleanup to look at her in confusion. "Uh, why?"

"Just speak to me, boy," she snapped with impatience.

Prince Blueblood sat back on his haunches and formulated his response.

"It usually starts in Night Eternal with me running," he finally began. "I'm running as fast as I can and Nightmare Moon is behind me, chasing me through shadows and darkness. She insults me, teases me, brags about her pretty her night is. Everything's usually dead or dying...

"Usually all I see is ice on the plants and rocks and stuff, but sometimes she shows me the Aquastrian sea and how it's boiling under the sun. I think I saw seaponies jumping in and out of the ocean once. But anyways, when Nightmare Moon's done playing with me, she catches up to me. Usually she just— no she always kills me, but sometimes, even after I die..."

The princess closed her eyes to prevent herself from grimacing. Boys his age shouldn't have such nightmares, and yet here he was.

"Do you fight her?" she pressed.

"Ugh, that's the worst part of it!" he snapped in frustration.

"What is?"

"No matter how much I try and try and try, all I can ever do is run! I try lighting up my horn, I try casting all the spells I know, but I just can't do anything! No wait, I'm sorry," he corrected himself sarcastically, "when I finally do cast a spell, I literally cast a spell, causing me to wake up and my guards to barge in, wondering if I'm being kidnapped or something!"

And something in Princess Blueblood's mind clicked. "So you're worried that when you do finally face Nightmare Moon, you won't be able to fight her?"

"I, I don't know, I guess?" the colt answered, clearly uncertain himself. "It's just that... I don't know," he repeated. "If I can't even fight Nightmare Moon— no, not even the real Nightmare Moon, just the one my brain made up— in my own dreams, then what could I possibly do when I finally meet her?"

The princess scrutinized the prince, mind deep in thought.

"What?" he snapped in a defensive tone. "Aren't you going to criticize me or something?" he demanded.

She did not take the bait. Instead, she merely got out of his bed, bid him a good night and left.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Prince Blueblood looked on in pure horror as Celestia drew her last breaths.

"Your majesty," he whimpered in despair, watching Nightmare Moon rear up in triumph.

"From this moment forward, the night will last forever!" she laughed. "But first," she said to herself, boring her cruel eyes into him, "I think there's something I need to do before I am officially queen. Why don't you make my task just a bit easier, King Blueblood, and..." she took one step towards him. He took a step back.

"just..."

She took another step towards him. He once again took a step back.

"DIE!"

He bolted. Nightmare Moon melted into the shadows in pursuit.

King Blueblood galloped through Castle Canterlot with Princess Platinum's cloak billowing out behind him.

The world grew colder, and frost and ice began to cover everything. Even the arcane magic etched in his cloak could do nothing to protect him against her enchantment.

His hoof snagged on a traitorous root and he fell on the freezing ground. No longer able to run, King Blueblood tried to force a spell to come out of his utterly worthless horn.

The shadows melded together and Nightmare Moon appeared, grinning voraciously at him. "There can be only one ruler in Equestria, and that ruler will be—"

"The sister whom ponies actually like," a mare's nonchalant voice cut in.

Both tyrant and king were caught off guard by the sudden interloper. She appeared out of nowhere, trotting between the two in a relaxed manner.

"That or (gods forbidding) him," she looked down at her king and shuddered, utterly repulsed by the idea that she had to call him as such.

The mare was beautiful. She stood in the moonlight with her white coat gleaming in an ethereal glow. Her silky mane seemed to be made of gold, and shone with a single platinum streak down the middle. Her eyes were breath-taking: long, luscious lashes accented her ultramarine irises. She was a work of art come to life.

"And just who are you?" Nightmare Moon demanded, utterly unimpressed by the mare's looks.

The mare ignored her however and began to do some strange, but graceful prancing movement around the courtyard.

King Blueblood stood up as the mare glided past him.

"No matter," Nightmare Moon hissed, regaining her composure. "I will squash you, foal!" And she lunged at the interloper.

But to Blueblood's utter amazement, the mare dodged the attack with minimal effort.

"Foal?" she repeated. "Ha! Don't make me laugh! I outgrew my tantrums the moment my nanny (oh, Lord Grogar keep thee safe, my darling Clarabelle) could trust me without diapers."

Nightmare Moon snarled in rage and made another clumsy dive at her.

The mare stopped her prancing and tutted with a smug smirk. "My, my, my, how utterly unsurprising: Celestia's poor baby sister is just toddling along, trying to figure out how to walk."

Nightmare Moon seemed to shrink. "You dare insult me—?!" she demanded, her voice at an abnormally high pitch.

"It's a wonder that Tia even had to bother with the Elements at all," the mare commented as she resumed prancing.

"Silence!" the alicorn commanded, her voice growing higher still.

"Then again, she probably just wanted to send you to time-out until you learned to behave."

A smaller Nightmare Moon shot a bolt of lightning at the mare.

The interloper dodged it effortlessly.

"I suppose we'll have to send you back to time-out, won't we?" she asked Blueblood with a wink.

"I am the nightmare of the moon!" the alicorn cried, tears of indignation streaming down her cheeks. "I don't want time-out!"

The mare skipped over to Blueblood and lit her horn. He lit his without any strain, and together they put a squalling, fussy Nightmare Moon back to her time-out on the moon.

The colt looked at her in wonder.

She smirked back at him. And then she began to giggle. And laugh. And finally guffaw in the manner of a deranged lunatic...

...who happened to be lying in his bed with him.

Prince Blueblood yelped and scrambled away from the princess, watching in fear as she howled in mad delight.

"Philomena!" he called, not daring to keep his eyes away from his aunt.

Philomena hopped off the footboard and waddled over to him, unease in her golden eyes as she watched Blueblood the Elder cackle.

"Philomena, I'm scared," he admitted without shame as he hugged her to his barrel.

"Raw?" she replied, as baffled about the situation as he was.

"Should I call for help?" he asked.

"Raw."

"Yep, I think so too. Gu—mmph!"

Princess Blueblood's horn tip glowed in the darkness, just only slightly brighter than Philomena's feathers.

She gave them an unsettling grin, and the colt couldn't even make room for anger over the zipped lips spell she had cast on him.

"I still got it!" she informed them as her giggles subsided.

"Mmm," he nodded vigorously, willing to go along with whatever she delusion wanted.

Her light flickered out, but she still smiled at him.

"Blueblood, my dear, I think I know what your problem is."

"Raw/Uh...?" the phoenix and colt said in unison.

"You need to learn how to duel!" she proclaimed.

"Okay?"

"And I will teach you."

"Raw," Philomena deadpanned.

"I'm with her," the prince concurred. "Princess, you're 138 years old—"

"Don't be silly, nephew—"

"You're always complaining about your arthritis!"

"I think we also need to discuss Warrior's Code and Ethics— no, wait, Nightmare Moon won't be ethical."

"Princess!" he snapped.

"Oh, pardon me," she giggled. "How was I in your nightmare?"

"What?" he demanded.

"Were my quips on point? I don't think that they were, but I'm a bit rusty. I certainly need to get better before I teach you how to quip, though you certainly are a natural. My dueling was definitely excellent, if I do say so myself—"

"RAW!" Philomena snapped, having lost patience with Blueblood the Elder.

"Now, now Philomena-dear: no need to get so snappish," she chastised her.

The prince put the pieces together. "Princess?"

"Hmm?" she smiled back at him.

"Were you... in my dream?"

"Indeed," she nodded with pride.

"But how?" he asked in shock. "Are you... a dreamwalker?"

The unsettling grin was answer enough.

"So that mare who kept prancing and insulting Nightmare Moon, that was you?"

"My dearest king, what you saw in that dream was not prancing or insults, but dueling and quipping. There is a great difference between them, and I think that it is time you learned."

"I thought only Nightmare Moon could dreamwalk!"

The princess tutted. "Nay, nephew. Dreamwalking has been around since the beginning of the unicorns. Nopony can ever truly master dreamwalking the same way that she can, but every so often, a moon unicorn, like myself, will have the ability... though I am unsure if twilight unicorns can dreamwalk. But nevermind that. Tomorrow, I am hiring a dueling instructor for you. For now, go back to bed."

"Are you going to dreamwalk again?"

"Absolutely!" she assured him with a cheerful declaration. "Every single time you enter REM sleep, I'll be there until my mana runs out."

"No," he whimpered.

Philomena nuzzled him in a comforting manner, unsure of what else to do.

He was going to miss the nights when Nightmare Moon just psychologically tortured him.

Author's Note

Please point out any typos.

*Yes, the other planets in the Equus solar system orbit the sun. They get dragged along by the sun's gravitational pull. I have no idea if this is even possible, but in my uneducated opinion, it makes a bit more sense that the other planets are heliocentric. I can't imagine the ancient unicorns, Discord, Luna, and/or Celestia having the patience to keep the other planets in proper revolution around Equus.

**Twenty years later, the Autobots and (most) Decepticons on Earth were both shocked and dismayed that some obscure prophecy foretelling the rise of their evil god was indeed true. If she could have, Blueblood CVIII would have sent her condolences and empathy to them.