Compatī

Cleansing the Nightmare

I knew I should have returned to Canterlot at first light of the next day. Fate, however, decided I should entertain my hopes for Sunset’s change of heart.

I remained at Twilight’s castle another day, making myself useful by assisting Spike with his chores and spending my free time among the vanilla smell of old tomes. ’Twas oddly relaxing, such a task as tedious as reordering books, but the repetition had an effect on my nerves, and it kept my mind occupied enough that it could afford no room to wander.

’Twas as I finished sorting the Mystery section that fate paid its due in the form of a knock at the library door.

I could not for the life of me name a single pony who bothered knocking on the door of a public facility before entry, but I found myself wondering such thoughts regardless, until a voice called out:

“Twilight?”

I jolted to my hooves. That was… Sunset’s voice. In all the years between and those yet to come, I could never forget that voice.

I eyed the aisleway leading toward the entrance, and my heart raced at the prospect. Had she changed her mind after Twilight’s counsel?

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I needed to be strong in order to weather this storm. Weakness had no place here.

Momentarily, Sunset stepped into my corner of the library. She recognized me immediately and took a defensive step back toward the main reading area. Only one, however, and there she held her ground as if facing down a dragon.

Despite the tension, I could not help but trace the outline of her face. It had been years since I laid eyes on this mare in equine form. I had forgotten just how strikingly beautiful she was, and I was loath to remember how I twisted that truth to my own ends.

“Greetings, Sunset Shimmer,” I said. I did well to watch the level of my voice. I did not want to startle her, nor overcompensate and appear condescending.

The hardness of her face did not waver in the slightest. She took a slow breath as if preparing herself for battle.

“Hey,” she said. “I… I talked to Twilight.” Her eyes danced back and forth between mine. It seemed as though she were searching for a reason not to follow through on what had brought her here.

“That is…” I cleared my throat. “That is go—”

Sunset threw up a hoof to stop me. “Shut the fuck up. I trust Twilight. Not you. Is she around?”

It pained me to hear such callous words, but I swallowed my pride. This was not a time for bickering. To do so would risk losing this one chance she was willing to give.

“I believe she had business to attend to in town,” I said. “She should be back shortly. In the meanwhile, you are welcome to assist me with reordering the library, or Starlight Glimmer is somewhere in the castle, if you wish to seek her out.”

She perked up at Starlight’s mention. “Starlight’s here?”

I flicked my ears back and forth. “She seems to hang about the upper floors of the castle whilst I am present. I believe she yet harbors reservations of the… friendship lesson she tended to between Sister and myself.”

Sunset appeared confused by my wanton statement, but no less interested in Starlight. She spun about for the exit and made it to the threshold ere I found my voice:

“Sunset,” I said.

She turned to me with all the fire of Tartarus in her eyes.

“I do not expect you to believe me, but I am sorry. For all the pain I have caused you."

She pinned her ears back a moment. The look in her eyes wavered, but a crease in her brow belied the war of thoughts within her head, and she brought her ears back around.

“Fuck off,” she said.

She left me to my thoughts and the hum of my magic about the stack of books beside me. ’Twas only then I realized I still held them in my magic, my mind absorbed so by her.

I recalled the calculated interactions whilst under the influence of Nightmare Moon. The pain I caused and the strings I pulled to see my machinations brought to life. Her words were rapier sharp, but they were the least of what I deserved.

I set back to finishing my task. Sunset needed saving, and if I were to see her to that end, I could not afford to drown in my own misery.

A quarter hour passed without incident, save a missing book from Twilight’s ledger. I double-checked the shelf to ensure I had not missed it, but it appeared the book had never been returned.

As if on cue, Twilight stepped into the library. She wore a smile that rivaled Sister’s whenever she and I shared breakfast in the morning.

“How’s the book reordering coming along?” Twilight asked.

“Flawlessly, save one missing The Curse of the Shackled Mare.”

She frowned. “I’m sure it’ll turn up. Would you like to take a break for lunch? You’ve clearly been hard at work for the past few hours.”

I let my eyes scan up the bookshelf. “I do not believe now is a good time for lunch, Twilight. Sunset Shimmer arrived not long ago seeking an audience with you. I believe she went in search of Starlight.”

Twilight snapped toward me, hope in her eyes. “You mean Sunset decided to let us help her?”

“I believe so.” All signs pointed toward such hopes, but I was not yet willing to allow my heart that jubilation. I had seen my hopes dashed before, and that was not a risk I was willing to take.

“That’s great to hear! Meet me in the portal room in ten minutes. I’ll go find them. We can get started right away.”

She trotted off ere I could voice my concerns. I knew not whether to believe in her optimism.

That cold yet familiar churning that I knew to be the Tantabus awakening from its slumber chilled the blood in my veins. It knew as well as I the narrow cliffside path that lay before me. One misplaced hoof, and all I worked for would be dashed upon the jagged rocks below.

No. The wallowing and self-flagellation ended here. I would walk through whatever fire the future held in store. I headed for the portal room and awaited their arrival.

Twilight knew her timing better than she probably assumed. ’Twas almost five minutes on the nose that she, Starlight, and Sunset stepped through the door. They wore on their faces an array of emotions, from unbridled optimism to skepticism to pronounced reservation, respectively.

Behind them towed Spike, carrying a bundle of pillows and blankets far taller than himself. Were it not for our situation, I would have smiled at the absurdity of the sight.

“Right!” Twilight said. “So, all we need to do is have you two fall asleep next to each other, do… whatever it is that you need to do, and then wake up. Uh, right?” She glanced at me.

“In a simplified manner, yes. Sunset.” I turned to her. “Are you… are you sure you are willing to do this? I know you do not trust me, and I will not be offended should you change your mind now. Verily, my thoughts on the matter should not weigh the slightest in that decision.”

Sunset threw her eyes and her melancholic ponderings to the floor. “Twilight told me about the Tantabus. Can you really make the nightmares go away?”

She raised her eyes to me, and in them, beyond the guarded fears, the faintest glimmer of hope gazed back at me.

“As sure as the stars in the sky,” I said.

My words appeared to find purchase in her heart. Her face softened all but a hair, and the deep-dwelling glimmer rose that much closer to the surface.

She turned to the pillows and blankets Spike laid out for us. A quick test of them with her hooves, and she lay down.

Twilight stepped up beside her and shared words I could not hear. No doubt reassurances, for how Sunset’s ears lay back against her head.

“We’ll be right here when you wake up,” was all I heard of Twilight before they shared a hug.

I laid myself down beside her, ensuring ample space between us, so as to act as a buffer should she feel uncomfortable yet not so much that I lose the strength of our proximity. The closer I was to the pony whose dream I entered, the stronger our connection and in turn my influence over the dream itself. A small advantage, given my unfettered purview of the collective Equestrian subconscious, but I was not one to turn down every ounce of every advantage I could afford.

Sunset closed her eyes and relaxed her head onto her pillow. With a bit of magic on my part, she drifted off as easily as a ship to sea on fairest waters.

I took a moment to watch her slumber, take in her innocent beauty. Again, it pained me to know I had once twisted that fact to play to her emotions.

No more. I was no longer that monster. I would right my wrongs and see her to the paradise she so righteously deserved. I closed my eyes and wound a thread of silver magic from my horn to hers.

When I opened my eyes, I stood in a featureless plane of dark orange. ’Twas natural for dreams to begin amorphous, colored by the waking emotions the dreamer last experienced. Dark orange was a foreboding color, one of hope yet of presaged violence. Blood would be spilt by dream’s end.

Around me, the world drew itself to life as if beneath the pen of a master artist. I stood in the foyer of a school amidst its many pennants and trophy cases. A presence materialized behind me, and I felt Sunset Shimmer’s tether pull taut ere I turned.

She stood in human form, face blank as her soul took seat within her dream body. She blinked and looked around.

“Where am I?” she said.

I wanted more than anything to emerge from beyond the Veil and assuage her coming fears. But I knew the Nightmare prowled among the shadows. If I were to best it, I would need every advantage I could muster. So I waited, invisible, for it to reveal itself.

It did not take long. The room darkened as if a blanket of clouds hid away the moon, and a guttural laugh rolled in from the hallway opposite me.

Sunset Shimmer staggered away. She raised her hands in front of herself, eyes up and into the high ceilings that towered out of sight.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

My heart hammered in my chest. Like ice water down my spine, I felt the ghostly chill of the Nightmare’s presence long before I saw it. I stared hard into that darkened hallway, and there I just made out the first tendrils of its ghastly form slithering toward us.

They lashed out like whips to snare Sunset by the ankles. She fell backward screaming and kicking at them, unable to stop them from coiling about her legs and pinning her to the floor. Try as she might, she could not pull herself free, and despite the darkness that bathed the foyer in midnight, a shadow was cast over her.

I saw in her eyes the primal fear of a cornered animal, and I felt the tingling in my skin like the charge before a lightning strike as we bore witness to the Nightmare emerging from the hallway.

It had changed since last night, had shed the image of Nightmare Moon in favor of the things that lurk in the darkest corners of one’s mind—less a creature of meat and sinew than a mass of corded shadows resembling a four-legged animal twice my size. Its shoulder blades peaked and troughed with every step, like those of a panther stalking its prey.

A pair of scythe-like malformations that I could not rightly call wings dragged at its sides. Where there should have been flesh and feathers instead stretched a pair of bony, dragon-like projections more befitting the things one would expect to find hiding under the bed. They pulled taut between them their own miasmic aura—immaterial, but tattered all the same. Where they touched the floor, they left two thin trails of lightless balefire.

Its outline perpetually shifted with every little movement, as if I were watching a series of afterimages overlaid upon one another. Its only definite feature was its eyes—white and empty as the light that welcomed the dying into the great beyond.

It set its heavy jaw square with Sunset, and a jagged gash of a mouth split open to roll out a long, ichorous tongue.

I had seen only a fraction of the horrors this beast had wrought upon Sunset’s dreams, and I refused to suffer another moment of its injustice. Before it could take another step, I lit my horn to cast aside the Veil. This time, it obeyed my command, and as the atmosphere of the dream washed over me, I raised my head high and let my voice boom off wall and ceiling.

“By the will of Sun and Moon, release her, demon! You have violated the sanctity of Sunset Shimmer’s dreams long enough. I will see you burn.”

It regarded me in passing, naught but a sidelong glance my way ere turning back to Sunset. It would learn the mistake of such disrespect.

I fired a blast of magic that tore through the tendrils holding Sunset captive, their severed ends flailing as they unraveled into smoke. I stepped forward and spread my wings wide to disperse the shadows at my hooves.

“I am Princess Luna of Equestria, Keeper of the Untamed Forest, Wielder of the Elements, Daughter of the Seven Tribes of Harmony, and Regent of the Heavens.” I narrowed my eyes. “You will not harm her.”

With the slow steadfastness of a statue, it turned its massive head to grant me the audience I sought. A moment’s consideration passed ere I swore I heard the gravelly crunching and popping of its jawbone as it forced the mockery of a smile onto its face. The flash of teeth was the only warning I had before it was upon me.

But I was no stranger to war. I have felled dragons in my days, and this beast, likewise, would fall.

I leapt aside as its jaws clamped shut where I stood but a moment ago, its massive frame overcommitting to the strike and leaving me with a clear shot of its backside. Silver magic snarled up the spiral of my horn before I let it fly, striking the Nightmare between the shoulder blades in a resounding clap of thunder.

Such a blow would have crippled most, but I would be a fool to assume it bested so easily. I craned my head backward in time to avoid a back swipe of its paw, and through the transparent afterimages of its movement I witnessed the unholy vengeance in its eyes.

It followed through with a second swipe, and that with a snap of its jaws mere inches from my throat. All the while I danced backward on light hooves, making use of my wings to stay just out of reach.

The little trails of balefire from its wingtips sketched our path about the foyer, illuminating it in a strangely hollow white that leeched the color from all it touched. The unnatural glow served to amplify its trailing afterimages.

Across its body gathered the winding, wending shadows that carpeted the floor. They curled about its frame, reaching out with every strike like ocean waves leaping to their master’s call. It made every attack hard to read and that much more dangerous.

But I was always one step ahead.

Wherever it struck, I met it in turn. Parrying and striking became one and the same. Claw was met with lightning was met with fang was met with fire in a ceaseless dance of violence. Our fatal courtship reached a crescendo in the form of a blow best described as an ultimatum.

It gathered to itself every scrap of shadow and rose formless above me like a tidal wave. I had but a moment to leap aside ere it came crashing down to rock the very foundations of the dream. The blow left my ears ringing, deaf to all but my beating heart.

I countered in kind, teleporting behind the Nightmare and summoning up a gavel of arcane energy, bright as the moon and cold as the reaches of space. I brought justice down squarely upon its back to the deafening cymbal crash of all my might, and finally the slightest buckling of its legs belied its indomitability.

A retaliatory flash of fangs drove me back a pace, but the Nightmare did not immediately pursue. Somewhere within its skull, that feral intelligence regarded me as a force to be reckoned with, and it decided it had taken enough punishment.

It slunk backward, down into the blanket of shadows like a monster into its swamp, and I was left standing amidst a profound silence.

Instinct bid that I take flight and put space between myself and the floor, where it may well rise from anywhere to strike. And so I took to the rafters, my horn alight for the faintest hint of movement.

The shadows about the floor churned like a stormy sea, and from its depths the Nightmare emerged beside Sunset to tower over her. It then bowed its head low so as to level its gaze with hers and cow her into submission with a demonic growl that vibrated in my heart.

Sunset punched it in the face.

The blow was by no means devastating. Verily, she would have fared better striking concrete, as the rapid-fire series of sickening cracks left me to wonder how many little bones she had sacrificed in the name of spite. Her defiant display did little more than anger the beast, yet it bought me the split second I needed, and from my place on high I spread my wings and dove like a smiting bolt unleashed from the heavens.

But the Nightmare was a quick learner. It melded back into the floor, ere I came crashing down to purge the nearby shadows in cleansing fire.

All fell silent again, and as the shadows rolled back in to lick at our ankles, Sunset took up a fighting stance back to back with me, holding her right arm close to her chest. For as helpless as she might have been in human form, she compensated with fearlessness and a surge of adrenaline taking charge of the situation.

The Nightmare did not give her the opportunity to make good on such heroism, however. Before I could react, it pounced upon her from the side as if from a warren at her feet and pinned her to the floor. It snarled at me in defiance, dove into her like a pony through a portal, and was gone.

Sunset flailed her arms, her face panic-stricken as she clawed at her breast, trying to tear away something that was not there. Her fingernails dug long, bloody gashes into her skin, and she let out a scream as she began writhing on the floor.

I stepped forward on instinct, but when the realization dawned on me, I staggered back in horror.

It… joined with her?

This was unheard of. I had seen dreams corrupted by nightmares, subconscious landscapes twisted into depictions of hell and the eldritch alike. But I had never seen a nightmare conjoin with the dreamer themself. If it could twist a dream so wholly, I feared to imagine what it could do to her.

I had to separate them somehow.

Sunset had rolled onto her knees, doubled over. Her breathing came in labored bursts.

Lingering traces of the Nightmare encircled her like some unholy aura. Still clutching her hands to her chest, she raised her head to look at me through the matted tangles of her hair. Eyes bloodshot, she reached out a trembling hand.

“Luna…” Her voice barely registered over my thundering heart.

I rushed to meet her. “Sunset! What has it—”

She grasped me about my foreleg, and her hands were like fire.

I cried out and pushed her away. Where she had touched me, her hand left a mark that already blistered and wept, and as if in response, the dream shifted. Canterlot High crumbled away to leave us in an empty plane of darkness.

Sunset curled in on herself and began to cry. The encircling shadows gathered strength, and this lightless place became cold as a tomb.

“Please…” she said. “It hurts.”

“Hold fast, Sunset. I will wrest this demon from thee.”

“You said you’d help me.” She raised her head just enough to stare absently through my hooves. Her eyes were disturbingly dilated, and tears ran down her cheeks. “You said you’d make me the greatest unicorn in history. You said you would love me the way She never could.”

I paused. There was a disconnect in her train of thought. She spoke of the now and yet not. The Nightmare must have been speaking through her, or she through it.

“I said many things in the past, Sunset. Many things meant to hurt you, that pressed you to make choices you wished had never come to pass. That was the evil that held me prisoner, as it now holds you.

“But that was the past,” I continued. “You have overcome your failings as I have. You are stronger than your former self.” I fanned my wings and stood tall, but the dream shifted yet again, nigh imperceptibly. The darkness around us did not change, but it felt as if we fell deeper into it all the same.

Her tears became like tar, and I realized then that the shift had far worse implications. Color had faded to black and white. The dream itself was dying, and with this Nightmare fragment still joined with her, she may well die with it. I had only so much time.

“I gave you my magic,” she said through the tears. “I gave you my heart. I gave… Y-you… took…” Her face twisted in terror, and she clutched the sides of her head as her breathing crescendoed into a scream.

“Sunset Shimmer, please! Do not let this beast consume you! I know that what I did can never be undone. The lies that I fed you, the heart that I broke. What I…” I clenched my eyes shut, but I could not stop the tears running down my cheeks nor did I want to. “What I did to you…”

I shook my head and gazed upon her with all the desperation in my heart. “But the past does not control you. What I did does not control you. You outshone the darkness that I could not. You are more than this—more than I will ever be, I have seen it! But you must fight back!”

I trembled with the fears lacing my heart, looking on with a desperation I have not felt this age. But despite any shred of hope I dared hold close, her screams shriveled into nothingness, and she went still. That same desperation bid I step forward, but I felt something I had not expected.

The Tantabus stirred within me. Like the nosing open of a door, I felt its gentle insistence within the heart of hearts we shared. It reached out to her, like the opposite pole of a magnet, and I knew what it wanted, what I had to do.

There was a saying: the eyes are the portal to the soul. What little wisdom life had deigned to offer me affirmed this truth, but there was more to it. Where the eyes were the portal to the soul, so too were the lips to the heart.

“Sunset,” I said. “I cannot take back what I did to you. But I can take that which still ails you.”

I draped my magic over her like a fleece blanket, raised her up to meet my gaze, and wrapped my hooves about her. Despite my skin cracking and blistering where hers touched mine, I pulled her close. When our bosoms touched, our hearts beat as one, and I kissed her.

I connected my heart to hers, and I subsumed that fire. I drank in the pain and the countless years spent in darkness.

Sunset placed trembling hands on my chest. Fingers curled inward, she dragged her knuckles down my chest before relaxing to release all that plagued her.

I knew the touch of doubt, the taste of hope, the hunger of ambition. My blood boiled with hatred for authority, the emptiness of love unrequited—every last ounce of misery I had inflicted upon her.

The Tantabus flared to life. It craned its stellar head toward the firmament of my being, and it rose to face the maelstrom. It clashed with the Nightmare in a fury of stardust and lightning, and every blow they dealt wracked through me as if I were betwixt them.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and the pain bid I hold Sunset with all the strength I could gather. Tears streamed down my face, and I buried myself in her chest. I knew not if she regained herself in those moments. I knew nothing of the world around me, only the pain within and the warmth that was Sunset, whom I clung to like a rock amidst a cataract. But as the seconds wore into minutes, I felt my grasp slipping.

With every clash, every roaring wind, every crack of lightning, I felt the Tantabus losing ground. The Nightmare was too much, and within my heart of hearts, the Tantabus cried out to me. Were I to abide, the Nightmare would consume it and know power unbridled.

I had no recourse. I gathered the Tantabus’s essence to the deepest reaches of my lungs, and with another kiss I breathed it into Sunset.

It felt as if a part of me died that instant, as if my soul had been torn in two, one half whisked away in the torrent while the other reached with outstretched hoof. I knew unspeakable pain, the very same I experienced when Sister bathed me in the cleansing fire of the Elements so long ago.

The last wisp gone from my lungs, I pushed away to separate myself from her, and alone with the Nightmare inside me, I drifted backward in a sudden absence of gravity.

Sunset and I shared a moment of weightlessness, our eyes wide, the only connection between us now. In her eyes shone fear—not for herself, but for me.

Before the burning within became too much to keep my senses, I wrapped my wings about my chest and fell upward through the Veil of her consciousness.

Faintly, as if from across the span of the universe:

“Luna!”

• • •

“Luna!” I cried. I lurched up to my haunches and reached out a hoof to the fading image of hers outstretched toward me, the night air like ice on my sweat-soaked coat. The image faded completely, and Twilight sat just inches from my hoof, wings fanned, startled shitless by my outburst.

“Sunset?” she said. “Sunset!” She hugged me before I could squeak in surprise, and the warmth banished the whirl of thoughts in my head.

It was all I could do to melt in her hooves and breathe a sigh of relief. But that didn’t last long, as the memories rushed back in. I gasped and pushed Twilight away.

“Luna!” I shouted.

She lay next to me on the pillows. Her face tensed, and she sucked in a breath, still dreaming.

“Sunset,” Twilight said. “What happened?”

I kept staring, and I felt my hoof reach out of its own accord. An inch from her face, I pulled it back before I touched her.

“I, I… She took the Nightmare away.”

“What? What do you mean she took it?”

I looked up at Twilight. I couldn’t tell what was running through her head, but she looked ready to throttle me for answers. It would have probably worked better than me fumbling for words. I felt numb enough as it was.

“I mean… she took it from me, she, she… sucked it right out of me and… and now…”

“Now it’s infected her,” came Starlight’s voice behind me. She stared at Luna, lost in her own torrent of thoughts. Her eyes snapped to Twilight and me, dancing between us with an unsurety that got the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.

I shook my head, but my brain told me to stop doing that with a sharp twinge somewhere behind my frontal lobe. I winced and put a hoof to my head to rub away the last of this jumbled mess of memories.

“But…” I said. “Why would she…?”

Luna was supposed to destroy this Nightmare thing, not take it from me and suffer in my place. Why did she have to do that? What right did she have to do that?

I was safe. I was strong. I could handle the Nightmare and whatever stupid dreams it threw at me. Call it suffering, it was tolerable. I was fine. Nobody else had to suffer.

But this… Now someone else was hurting because of me, because of what she did to me.

No. She was hurting because of what she did to me. And you know what? That was fine. Actually, that was better than fine. About damn time she got what was coming to her.

She deserved this.

I stood up and headed for the portal.

“Sunset?”

It was Twilight. The shock rang clear in her voice. I didn’t need to turn around to see it, but I could picture it in her eyes.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home,” I said.

“Home?” Starlight said. “Just like that?”

I took a breath. The words about to come out of my mouth tasted a lot worse than they sounded in my head, but no less right.

“She took my nightmare away, just like she wanted,” I said. “It's her problem now.”

Twilight took a few steps toward me, but her hoofsteps fell short. “So, you’re just going to walk away? That’s… that’s not like you.”

I stopped just before the portal. The hurt in her voice cut through me like broken glass, but the fire in my heart, this feeling of just desserts, drew a scowl on my face.

“Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,” I said. Before she could reply, I stepped through the portal and into the silent courtyard of Canterlot High.

It was cloudy, and a chilly wind already tried creeping up the back of my hoodie. I zipped up and headed home.

I didn’t know what time it was, but with all the studying and that fight with the Nightmare, I was exhausted beyond anything I had felt all semester. I didn’t care if there were ten Nightmares waiting for me, I just wanted to collapse into bed and never wake up.

I stomped my way through the piles of leaves lining the devil strips leading home. The satisfying crunch was enough to keep my head empty of thoughts all the way to my doorstep.

I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to hear that little voice in my head. It already tried pounding the words into my brain and—just, no.

I needed sleep. I needed to get my head around this whole damn thing that just turned my life upside down all over again.

The front door opened on creaky hinges, and I stepped inside. Keys in the fishbowl, jacket on the hook, I trudged upstairs.

I faceplanted into my mattress without even taking off my boots. The coolness of the comforter welcomed me like an old friend.

Yeah. This felt nice. I kicked off my boots and crawled under the covers. I liked my room pitch black, and I was happy I didn’t have the mind to open the blackout curtains earlier that morning.

I took a deep breath. I should never have agreed to this. I should have just stayed here in the human world. Nothing bad would have happened. Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be safe.

Why did everything have to go so wrong?

Thankfully, sleep hit me harder than I expected, and I was out before the intrusive thoughts could creep in.