The Hunt of the Nightmare

The moon rose high in the air and the night began once more. The bright light of the Sun slowly diming for the gentle glow of the moon and the stars to illuminate the darkening sky of Equestria. A kingdom inhabitated by ponies, there were four races with unique traits that made each one of them a valuable citizen, for example: Earth ponies are stronger and more resilient than the other races due to the magic that was stored within their bodies. Unicorns were easily distiguishable by the horn protruding from their heads and hability to use magic actively in a great number of awespiring feats. The pegasi have the ability to fly and manipulate clouds and, to some extent, the wind using their wings. Lastly, but definitely not the less important, the alicorns; there are only four, all of them share the traits of the other races combined and are very powerful in magic, strength, and political position, for they are the princesses and they make the necessary decisions in order to keep the kingdom up and running.

Talking about the princesses, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia were together in a balcony where they manipulated the moon and the sun, marking the beginning of a new night and the start of night court for Princess Luna to mediate the problems of the townsfolk and nobles of Canterlot, capital of Equestria. Lately the night court was getting less and less busy, giving the moon princess more time for her to guard the dreams of her little ponies, even if she liked this part of her job, she couldn't help but wonder if her subjects were still afraid of her becoming Nightmare Moon and subsequent banishment to the moon for a thousand years, then coming back two years ago and being blasted to with the Elements of Harmony. During her brief recolection of toughts she barely noticed her sister talking to her, clearly showing concern on her normally stoic demeanor.

"We- I'm sorry sister, what were you talking about?" She asked, this time paying attention to what Celestia had to say.

"I asked you if you were thinking about the lack of visits during night court", Celestia replied, after hearing no response, she added "Lulu, please tell me what's wrong"

"Nothing's wrong dear sister, it's just..." she let out a sigh "Does it ever gets easier? I mean, there must be a way for our subjects to stop fearing me, every night is the same thing, waiting for a few hours with nopony to talk to except for the janitor that ocasionally sweeps the throne room." She loked down at her hooves. Then she felt the warm embrace of her older sister's wing drapping around her barrel, smiling ever so slightly, she raised her head so she could see the reassuring smile Celestia was giving her.

"Don't worry about it, perhaps our ponies are not used to you, maybe beacuse they think you're a little outdated with more recent proccedures to deal with an affair, but we know better. How about this, I know how much you like to dream walk and I could take care of the court tonight so-" After hearing this, Luna's ears perked up and faster than one could say 'moon cake' she tackled Celestia, she staggered a little before righting herself and returning the unexpected, but welcomed hug.

"Thank you so much 'Tia, I will take my leave and start tonight's round" Before Celestia could reply, she was already heading back to her cuarters were she could start her Dream Walking spell, one that she has perfected over the centuries and only her and her sister were able to perform with a little more than a thought and a bit of magic, or at least a bit by her standards.

Once inside her room, she unceremoniously flopped on the bed and made herself comfortable, there were times were she would wake up to a sore neck due to sleeping in a wrong position. Then she lit up her horn as a blue aura started to surround her body and her mind started to wander trough the dreamscape quickly finding herself floating ina an endless space filled as far as she could see with little stars, each one of them representing a dream of a ponythat slept peacefully in the cosiness of their beds, knowing that they were safe under the glow of the moon.

She knew very well that the color of a star would tell her the state of the dream, the gentle white glow meant that it was a good dream, the dim yellow ones were memories of the same day or even a few decades, be it good or bad, a memory should never be bothered unless it was getting out of control. Pink colored stars were those of fantasies of lovers, she had learned by the hard way to never tamper with Princess Cadance's territory. Blue ones stood for sad dreams, worries and stress surfacing to disturb a dream. Purple ones were nightmares, she cringed at the mention of that name, some of them were silly, others were downright frightening, so it was her task to dive in the purple stars in hope to change them into pleasant dreams that could be remembered with fondness instead of fear. Lastly, the rarest and most favourite of all the stars she could find in the Dreamscape: Golden stars, not only beacuse of the unusual color, it was the brightness that washed over the dreams surrounding it, making her job easier.

She discovered long ago that those golden dreams were of those of foals that just recieved their cutie mark, not only they were impressive, they also served as beacons of hope instantly making every dream that was lucky enough to be near them one of the happiest dreams a pony could have.

What most ponies in Equestria didn't know, was that she took inspiration on the dreams and hopes of every sleeping creature to make her starry night an unparalled show which could last forever, of course, sans daytime. It was beacuse of this that she took pride on fulfilling her duty with the very thing she valued the most in the world, besides her sister.

A funny thing about the Dreamscape, time seemed to work almost at her will, she could spend days inside it and then she just would wake up only a few minutes before the dawn, but the only thing she couldn't do was to go back. So she exploited this advantage to its limit. Fortunately there little to no purple stars, so she spent the night doing one of her favorite activities, playing with the foals in their dreams, they seemed to have an endless well of ideas to create fantasies so awespiring, breathtaking or just filled with silly funwhich can only be originated by an 8 year old filly.

"A castle made out of cake, I have to keep that a secret from 'Tia" She chuckled at the mental picture of her sister diving and diggin her way trough chocolate flavored walls just to get to the throne room, or any room for that matter. Then she saw something that stopped her train of thought, a small, odd colored stray star that looked alone, so she decided to take a closer look.

What she disovered upon closer inspection made her feel uneasy, first of all, this was clearly not a star, not even a dream. This was somekind of lantern emmiting a dim white light with a bluish hue, it was suspended by a frail curved wooden stick and filled the surrounding area with a brand new kind of magic, very similar to her dream walking spell, but it felt... wrong. Not only it was the first material object found in the Dreamscape that didn't belonged to it. Unsure of what to do, she decided to touch it, nothing happened, feeling a little bolder, she lit up her horn and waited for some sort of signature which could show her who it belonged to.

...
...
...

"Nothing" She whispered to herself, "this is weird, very weird indeed" inspecting the strange item from ever angle. "How did I miss this?, this shouldn't even be here in the first place". And so she spent a few minutes, or were hours? trying to figure out how and who could have done this, let alone in her domain, her personal haven where she could just shut down the plane of reality.

All of sudden, the stars began to wink out of existence, actually they were just turning off, simbolizing the time for her subjects to wake up and reminded her of her duty with the moon. "Oh no, I'm late!" she exclaimed, but no one could hear her. Just as she was channeling energy into her horn, a strong light invaded her peripheral vision, interrupting her focus. She turned to see where the light was coming from and gasped, the lamp was lighting up, the soft glow quickly becoming a blinding light, the floor underneath the lamp started to bubble and she almost shrieked at the sight of small, pale and frail creatures with facial features that seemed sick and twisted beyond recognition. But what caught her attention was the dust, a cloud of thick, shining, shite dust flowed out of the light and condensed to create a silhouette of a bipedal creature. She was so enraptured with the whole show that she didn't noticed a tugging sensation.

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Princess Celestia was not a happy princess, today she had to to raise the sun and lower the moon alone beacuse her sister didn't showed up , she wasn't angry with Luna, far from it, it was more concerned by last night conversation and today abscense.
She knocked on her sister's room door, after hearing no response she walked in where she found her sister asleep, emmiting a faint magical aura linking her to the Dreamscape. With no other option than interrupting the magic flowing from Luna's horn, she started to charge a counterspell allowing her to safely awake her sister and get to know why she didn't lower the moon this morning.

After a few seconds of concentration, Luna awoke with a gasp so hard a certain pink pony would be proud of it.

"Good morning dear sister, can you please tell me what kept you stuck in bed?" Celestia asked while Luna stretched her forehooves and yawned in an unladylike manner.

"Ugh... wuzzat?..." A few seconds passed before the mental cobwebs were cleared off of her thoughts "Good morning 'Tia, I'm afraid something dire has happened in the Dreamscape" She said in an alarmed tone.

"What are you talking about sister?" After all, only they knew how to access that realm "What happened last night?"

"I found a strange lantern far away from the dreams of our subjects, I've never seen something like that before" After a short pause, she continued, "but that is not the worst thing, apparently it was used by some sort of unknown creature of a species I haven't seen in my life."

The mention of the creature caught Celestia's attention "And what manner of creature are we talking about?"

"I don't know, it seemed like a minotaur but way less bulky and didn't have any horns or fur, the only features I could make of was some kind of saw with an odd handle in its right claw or paw or wathever it used to hold thing with. And it used a lot of black clothing of some thick fabric." She explained Besides I could have gotten more information if you wouldn't wake me up so rudely She tought. "But whatever creature I found in the Dreamscape, it is still there."

"It seems like it, Luna, I need you to go back there and find a way to know what kind of creature is and what does it wants with the Dreamscape, in the meantime I will task Princess Twilight to gather information to find something that matches with the description of this creature" Celestia turned back and started to walk to the door, after a few steps she stopped and turned her head back to her sister "One more thing, please, be careful and don't run unnecesary risks Lulu"

"Worry not sister, you can count on me"

With nothing else to say, Princess Luna fell back to bed and began her search of the unknown intruder.