Nocturnals

It had been two weeks since Starlight switched Luna's cutie mark with her sister's. And ever since, Luna felt something strange was happening in regards to the dreams the ponies had.

For one, there were more nightmares in general, specifically ones involving Nightmare Moon. But Nightmare Night was just a week away, so a little increase was to be expected. That year was just a little bit more extreme than she was used to. Possibly she overdid it with her show last year.

Another thing was that the amount of times she entered a nightmare just for it to disappear instantly increased too. That did happen from time to time, but not that often. Especially considering that most ponies had forgotten their nightmares by the time she asked them about it. But still, maybe she was just lucky. Less work solving nightmares.

At least she hoped that until she entered a nightmare a little filly in Appleloosa had. In it, the whole town was destroyed by fire. That, however, wasn't the problem. Fears about fires were common after all. What wasn't common was the reason for the fire. For some reason, the filly's nightmare involved Daybreaker. Luna was able to end the nightmare and help the filly with her fears, but it still gave her no rest.

Trying to figure out what exactly troubled Luna caused her some sleepless days. It wasn't the brutality of the dream. Fears can cause severe nightmares, even for foals. She didn't want anypony to worry because of a gut feeling, so she didn't tell anypony about it. And there were more important things to do anyway. The feeling that something's off would probably stay a few days on the edge of her mind and then disappear. Hopefully.

Sunrise, 5 days until Nightmare Night

Finally, the last dream was taken care of for the night. It was nothing unordinary, just somepony with arachnophobia. While she was going to her meal with Celestia, Luna was talking to herself again, "Well, nothing too strange tonight. It was still exhausting... Good thing Tia understands that now! She even started making less... 'extravagant' food for breakfast. It might look fantastic, but if I'm too tired to eat it, it's no use for anypony after all. And the patrol patterns of the guards allow me to get to our dining hall in peace. Did Tia do that on purpose? Maybe I should ask her.

"But I still don't know what concerns me about that Daybreaker dream. It could just be because it was that evil version of Tia. But that's unlikely. I have seen worse dreams involving her. Much worse... I guess it doesn't matter right now, time to eat."

She opened the door to the dinning hall and as expected, a smiling, well rested Celestia—eating something remarkably artistic—was already waiting for her. "Good morning, Luna. How are you today?"

"Tired as always, with all the—are those muffins?"

"Yes, I thought since your duties are so tiring, something easy to eat would be good. The blueberries were the best I could find. I hope you like them."

"Thank you—" Luna ate one of the muffins "—They are really good! Where was I? Right, the nightmares! Honestly, you don't want to know. It's enough that I have to see so many of them."

"Was it that bad tonight?"

"I'll just say one word: Spiders."

What you needed to know about Celestia is that she had incredible composure. Almost nothing could make her lose it. As obviously seen by her coughing and the simultaneously disgusted and terrified look in her eyes by the sheer mention of the eight legged creatures, spiders were one of the few things that could accomplish that.

"You don't want me to go into greater detail, I presume?"

"NO—"she almost shot the food from her fork across the room while gesticulating her unwillingness to talk about spiders"—that won't be necessary!"

Luna smiled. "I must say, Tia, it's nice seeing you like that."

"Full of fear?" Celestia asked annoyed.

"Dear Goodness, no! I meant without your royal mask on! When you're not 'Princess Celestia' but my sister, Tia. I said already that you don't need to be perfect for me. In fact, I would rather have the imperfect sister than the perfect princess."

It would have made for a really adorable scene, but in that moment a scroll appeared in front of Luna. She opened it and began to read.

Dear Princess Luna,

Nightmare Night is just around the corner and everypony in Ponyville is looking forward to your visit!

I‘m writing you in advance because I had a great idea. The old castle in the Everfree is still too dangerous to bring foals to it, so why don’t we use my castle as “Nightmare Moon’s castle” for the night? It’s big enough to spare a few rooms for it and it would add something new to the mix. I already made some plans, but your opinion would be really helpful. But we can discuss the specifics when you are here.

Like last year, a room is prepared for you in the castle.

Best regards,
Twilight Sparkle

"You must have gotten wonderful news, considering how big your smile is."

"Twilight has an idea for the Nightmare Night celebration in Ponyville and asks for my help. I've been looking forward to this night all year, and this time I'm getting a whole castle to spook! I couldn't have received a better letter! I'll need bats, old armors, some wood for timberwolf-statues and—" Luna grinned "—spiders."

This time, Celestia kept herself a little bit better, she just almost choked on her food. "I see you are already in the mood of the festivities, dear sister. I'm happy that you enjoy it, even though I never could find it as enjoyable as you do."

"Maybe because spiders are a part of most of the decorations?"

"It has more to do with the fact that it always reminded me of what happened," Celestia answered calmly.

"Well, I'm back, so why don't you give it another chance?"

Luna and Celestia looked each other in the eyes a few moments. Until Celestia couldn't stand Luna's grin anymore.

"Fine, I'll admit it! I'm still so afraid of spiders that I can't even stand fake ones for a prolonged period of time!"

Luna stopped grinning. "I beg your pardon, I didn't know it was still so bad."

"It's alright—" Celestia sighed "—just keep them away from me."

"I promise to not use spiders anywhere where you might come across them. Or, how Twilight's friend would say: 'Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.' Or muffin in that case."

Both laughed at the ridiculous promise Pinkie Pie came up with.

Ponyville, 3 days until Nightmare Night

Turning the castle into a spookhouse was a lot of work, but thanks to Twilight’s very precise lists, they had enough time to prepare everything. If nothing unexpected happened, the “Nightmare Castle”—as they decided to call it—would be a great success. Luna was so absorbed by the preparations and the anticipation that she stopped worrying about that dream.

Twilight and Luna had prepared the hallway leading to the throne room and were inspecting it one last time. “Do you think that’s enough spiderwebs?” asked Twilight.

“I would say so. Any more would be to much. The old sets of armor are a commendable work as well, Twilight.”

“Thank you!” Twilight paused for a moment. Then she asked Luna, ”I have a question about something I read about dreams, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Luna answered, “what is it?”

“Good. So, I found an old book and at first I didn’t think it was really reliable, since the author is only known as ‘The Wanderer’. It said that you cannot meet somepony you don’t know in a dream, only ponies you already saw. Is that true? I think I often see faces in dreams I never saw before.”

Luna thought about that. “I think it’s true. The faces may be changed in a dream, but one way or another, you had seen them before. Maybe just randomly in a street, but you saw them nonetheless. Or you heard stories and imagined a face while you were awake. But dreams only work with memorie—That’s it!”

“What do you mean?” a very confused Twilight asked.

“Do you promise to not tell anypony what I am about to tell you?”

“I won’t tell anypony. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”

“It really has a certain ring to it, I will give Pinkamena that. Starlight told you about the dream she had when she was in Canterlot? And about Daybreaker?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Well, there were some strange things happening in the dream realm after that for a few weeks. The strangest one didn’t give me rest. I always had that feeling in the back of my head that something was just not right. You probably know that feeling, when it doesn’t feel too urgent or too wrong, but it still bothers you. And you find yourself always thinking about that thing and why it may cause you so much frustration.”

“Why do you think I have that many checklists? But what was the problem now?”

“A filly in Appleloosa had a nightmare involving Daybreaker. Now I know why it troubled me. How was that filly able to dream of her if she had never even heard of her, let alone had seen her?”

“That really is strange… was there anything else?”

“No. Luckily, the anomalies ended one or two days after that. But that still leaves the question why Daybreaker appeared in that nightmare… You said you read about dreams in a book?”

“Yeah. Why? Do you think there will be any useful information in it?”

“I would say it’s at least worth a try. Could you bring me to the book?”

“Of course, the library was the next point on the checklist anyway.”

“Here it is.” Twilight gave Luna an old, red book titled Journal of The Wanderer. “I hope you find something useful in it. I’ll be over there.”

After Twilight had gone around a corner, Luna opened the book and started reading. The handwriting was legible, but clearly not meant for anyone besides the author to read it. Still, the notes and entries where organized after topics. Luna knew that she needed to concentrate if she wanted to find something useful in the journal, and that she always talked to herself when she concentrated, so she created a silence shield around her before continuing.

“‘Timberwolves’? No, that’s not it. ‘Changelings’? Would have been useful in the past… ‘Dreams’! There it is… Only some random things, nothing that could help me. Let’s see what’s on the next page… ‘Nachtmahre (Nightmares)’? That could be interesting.”

The lands beyond Equestria sure have some interesting legends! One that caught my attention was the legend of the Nachtmahre. At first I thought they were talking about nightmares, as in bad dreams, but I soon realized my mistake.

Here, in a land east of Equestira, Nachtmahre are believed to be related to or even the cause nightmares, hence the similarity of the names (Nachtmahr would literally translate to nightmare. I think I will call them Nachtmares in my notes.) There are different legends surrounding them. In some, Nachtmares outright cause nightmares with their presence, in others they create them with the intention to punish wrongdoing.

Yet others say that they are simply attracted to nightmares and feed off the fear the dreamer experiences. A similar legend says that they feed off dreams and that’s the reason the ponies here seldom remember their dreams long, if they remember what they dreamed about at all.

Other legends yet again say that they can invade dreams, turning them into nightmares. But only the most powerful Nachtmares are believed to be able to do that in a controlled manner. They then appear in multiple dreams, often from ponies that never met even once, but somehow all have the same nightmare in a short amount of days.

A common theme between all legends is that Nightmares are real beings, unlike Tantabi, who only consist of magic. Nightmares are supposed to possess the ability to take a physical form, but only in their own realms, hidden deep in forests or caves or mountains, or at night.

But no one was able to give me any real evidence about their existence, so maybe the stories are all just old tales.

End of chapter

Luna closed the book. “That would be an explanation for the things that happened. If it’s correct, that is. I have never heard of Nachtmahre, nor did I see them in the dream realm. But it is a possibility I can’t ignore.

“But if it is true, that means we may have to face Daybreaker again. If she is a Nachtmare. I still have some hope left that it was all just a coincidence. I mean, the strange dreams ended. Maybe it’s all back to normal. But that will all have to wait until Nightmare Night is over.”

She opened the silence shield, put the journal on a nearby table and went to search for Twilight to continue with the preparations.

Nightmare Night

The whole town was decorated, fillies and colts—and Pinkie Pie—went from house to house to collect candy while the adults celebrated in and around town square. The sound of a bell ringing seven times told everypony to gather around the main stage for Mayor Mare’s speech.

Mayor stood behind the podium on stage, the microphone in front of her, “Thank you, everypony, and welcome to the Nightmare Night festival! Now, I can see that all the little ponies were really busy collecting sweets, and so it is now time for our Guest of honor, Princess Luna!”

The whole town started cheering and applauding when Luna flew dramatically over the crowd, even chanting her name when she landed on the stage. Mayor Mare offered Luna her microphone, but Luna declined and faced the crowd directly. With a little move of her hoof, silence quickly befell the crowd. All were waiting for Luna to speak.

“Citizens of Ponyville! I, the Princess of the Night, have arrived to join you all in this merry celebration!” she waited a few moments for the new wave of cheers and chants to end. “This year the annual candy offering will not take place in front of the statue in the forest! Instead, thanks to the Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, we were able to turn the Castle of Friendship into a castle of nightmares! Every colt and every filly that feels prepared may gather there when the bell beats eight times and enter the castle! But be warned, the horrors inside can only be conquered by the bravest of all ponies!”

With that, she vanished in asudden burst of smoke, and somewhere in the crowd a pony was yelling “I told you the smoke bombs of the great and powerful Trixie are good enough for a princess!”

A few minutes later, Pinkie Pie, dressed up as Fili-Second, and Maud, wearing a black and slightly worn down version of her usual frock, entered the town square. “We missed the speech!” Pinkie said, disappointed.

“We still heard it. She has a really loud voice,” Maud replied.

“Well, yeah. Her ‘royal Canterlot voice’ is almost as loud as my megaphone! And at least we got tons of candy! But I really hoped we could see her giving the speech. She can be really scary when she wants to—”

Maud looked around. “There will be thunder in a moment.”

“What?” Pinkie asked confused, “There are no clouds, let alone storm clo—”

There was a sudden clap of thunder, followed by Pinkie Pie screaming and Rainbow Dash laughing from atop a tiny stormcloud. Maud was unaffected by the prank.

Rainbow Dash noticed that and flew down to them. “Why aren’t you scared? That prank normally works on everypony!”

Maud faced Rainbow with her usual expression. “Maud-Sense. When your victim sees the prank coming, it hardly works.”

“Maud-Sense? You want to tell me Pinkie isn’t the only one with a sense?”

“Yes, it runs in our family.”

“She’s right,” Pinkie said, “we all have one, but it works different for each of us. For example, mine is twitching and flopping and itching and aching, and her’s is more about finding things or ponies.”

“Wha—actually, I believe you. Pinkie is a terrible liar. But I will get you, Maud, I promise!” That said, Rainbow took her cloud and flew away, probably searching for another victim.

Maud turned to Pinkie. “Didn’t you tell me that she learned her lesson regarding pranks?”

“She did, but Nightmare Night is an exception. As soon as she wears her Shadowbolt costume, its pranks away. So, what should we do know? We still have some time until the castle opens.”

“Gather round, little ones, for I am your guide,
In this nightmare of a night."

Zecora opened the doors and led the foals and Pinkie down a dark corridor into the castle. Suits of armor stood on both sides and the few lights cast shadows everywhere.

Maud had to leave because of something important, but couldn’t tell Pinkie what it was. Of course it was sad, both that Maud had to leave and that she couldn’t even tell her sister the reason, but Maud said she gave a Pinkie Promise to keep it a secret and if anypony would insist on that, it was Pinkie herself. And the castle was really spooky! But wasn’t the hallway longer than that?

At the end of the hallway, Zecora went through a door to the left and entered a library. When all ponies gathered around her again, she presented them a small, golden key.

"If you use this key,
open the next room will be.
But only if you follow the clock,
will you find the right lock."

“What do you mean? I thought you guide us to Luna,” asked Scootaloo.

“It’s a riddle,” Applebloom said.

“Of course! Twilight planned this thing here, so we need to use our heads,” added Sweetie Belle.

“And who,” a filly asked Zecora, “will take the key?”

“That's your decision, not mine.
But I'm sure all of you will be just fine.”

After saying that, she vanished in a cloud of green smoke, dropping the key. Pinkie stepped forward and took it. “So, I guard the key. Let’s solve the riddle!”

Pipsqueak found a clock on a table, but they didn’t find anything on, around or under the clock or the table that seemed to be helpful.

Applebloom turned to her friends. “Not really spooky here, is it?”

After a few minutes, Applebloom noticed something. “There are twelve bookshelves here, right? Maybe they are part of the riddle… What time was on the clock in the middle again?”

Pinkie bounced around. “Eight o’clock!”

“Thanks, Pinkie,” Applebloom said, “So, we just have to search the one that represents eight and find the next hint!”

“One problem. Where—” Sweetie Bell looked from one to the other”—Is eight on that clock?”

Applebloom thought for a moment. “The books are probably sorted. Where’s ‘A’?”

It took them a few tries, but eventually, they found a lock hidden behind a book. It opened a door to a short hallway. As soon as the last foal left the library, the door closed behind them. Scootaloo tried to open it again, but it was locked. Green mist filled the other end of the corridor, with Zecora standing in the middle.

“Now you have to stay out of sight,
or you will feel the vampire's bite!"

She vanished again before anypony could ask anything. A new door appeared in the wall.

Behind it lay a stone-workshop with a small table in the middle. Shelves were placed all over the room, tools were scattered everywhere. And on the table sat a grey mare with a black frock. Maud.

Pinkie started going to her sister. She still made it!, were her thoughts, Whatever she had to do was over! Now we can both—

The CMC tackled and pinned her down behind one of the shelves. Scootaloo secured her right arm, Applebloom the left one and Sweetie Bell used her magic to keep her from screaming. They still made a sound from falling to the ground.

“HISS!” Maud turned her seat in their direction and showed giant fangs and blood red eyes. She walked a few steps toward it, but couldn’t see anypony. All foals hid behind shelves. So she returned to her table.

Sweetie Belle looked at a mildly confused Pinkie. “She obviously plays a role here, and nopony wants to ruin the game. So we have to stay hidden.”

Pinkie nodded and the three fillies set her free.

It took them all around 10 minutes to get to the other side of the room and through the door.

Pinkie left as the last one and closed the door to the vampire room. Now there were two hallways, one in front of them and one to the right.

Applebloom looked at her friends. “Which way?”

Before anypony could answer, a growl came from the right corridor. Something that looks like an Appletree-Timberwolf sprinted towards them.

“Front!” All three agreed and started running, the others following close behind.

“Is it scary enough now, Applebloom?”

“Don’t ruin it now that it’s starting to get fun, Scoots!”

“Just a few more meters! Then we reach the next door!” Pinkie said, giggling.

“Why should that stop it?” The CMC asked in unison.

“It’s a game, remember? We just have to reach the next checkpoint!”

They stormed through the door and slammed it shut after the last one reached the next room. The sound of somepony running into the door told them that they just barely made it.

And a familiar voice saying “Ow… my head…” told them who played the part of the Timberwolf.

“Whoever made that costume for your sister did a really good work”— Sweetie Belle took deep breaths to recover from the sudden sprint— “but why didn’t you tell us about it?”

“Because I didn’t know!” Applebloom answered. “I thought she was going as a changeling.”

“Congratulations, little ones!” Luna, in full Nightmare Moon costume, stood in front of them. The rest of the room was too dark to be seen. “You made it to me. So, what did you bring me?”

Back at Ponyville town square

Twilight and Luna wandered around, talking about the success of the Nightmare Castle. Every filly and every colt had told them how much fun they had. Many asked if they would prepare something like that in the following year again. But then one of Celestia’s royal guards landed in front of them.

“Princess Luna, I have an urgent message from Canterlot!” He handed her a letter and collapsed.

Out of nowhere, Rainbow Dash landed beside the guard. “He flew past me on his way here. Don’t worry, he’s just exhausted. Probably flew all the way in one go at top speed. I’ll bring him to the hospital to rest.”

After they left the scene, Luna opened the letter. She was shocked by its content. She said with a demanding voice, “Twilight, gather your friends and come to Canterlot. I will leave at once.”

“What happened?” She asked Luna, worried.

“Somepony tried to kill Celestia, and I don’t know if I will be able to hold myself back when I see the assassin.”