It was a truly a magnificent sky. The moon loomed over the world, a perfect pearl that cast a pale light into the dim darkness of night. A sea of stars filled the black void with twinkling shards of diamond. Its beauty seemed to surpass what was naturally possible, as if an ingenuous artist had utilized the night sky as a canvas, painting the vast celestial bodies unto its surface with purpose and clarity.
In more ways than one this was truth, for this night’s sky was of Princess Luna’s making. The Princess of the Night stood atop a hillock in vast and verdant field far beyond the sight of Canterlot. This isolated locale was a favorite of hers, as it’s only nearby inhabitants were ponies who farmed the land or lived in a few small villages. She did not scorn Canterlot and its citizenry, for she loved all her subjects equally, but the light the great city cast from its maze of streets and great towers often obscured a clear view of the night sky.
But here, in the rolling hills west of the mountain city, there was little to no artificial light. Just the warm light emitted from the hearths of far-off farm houses. In this place Luna could focus entirely into painting the sky into a dazzling picture of her design.
She had just finished adding a trace of aurora to the very fringe of the northern horizon when she sensed something was amiss. Luna was not only the Princess of the Night, but the defender of dreams. The horn atop her equine head glowed the same silvery white as her moon, indicating a disturbance in the dream world. She laid herself down on the cool grass and with a single thought she formed the spell to transfer her conscious mind into the realm of the unconscious.
The unconscious reality was shadowy world of mist and darkness perforated with gleaming starlight. Luna shone like a beacon in the dark, navigating the currents of unconscious thoughts and emotions like a bird gliding upon gusts of wind. All about her were shimmering, bubble-like portals leading to the dreams of ponies who were fast asleep. Luna peered into their contents as she passed between them. Most were serene and peaceful fantasies, some were recollections of fond memories, and few were absurd, but un-disturbing, scenarios.
Her horn glowed brighter as she neared a more sinister dream. This portal did not consist of swirling soft white light like the others, but instead was a black and foreboding hole. Its appearance alone was already disconcerting to Luna, as even with the bleakest of nightmares she could still peer into them. This was something new, something alien. To Luna, a centuries old Alicorn with countless nights of dreamwalking experience, something entirely new was disturbing.
Nevertheless, she doubtlessly sensed the terror and distress of a helpless pony within. Luna would not allow fear of the unknown to impede her from helping one of her subjects. Undaunted, she passed through the barrier. From the fear and despair she sensed earlier she was expecting the dream to consist of some twisted hellscape. To her surprise she found herself in a typical, unassuming and nonthreatening rural farmstead at mid-day.
She looked around nervously, finding nothing out of place besides the absence of the dreamer. This was as new an experience as the sight of the shadowy dream portal, and just as concerning. “Hello?” Luna called out. “Please, do not be afraid my little pony. It is I, Princess Luna. I wish only to alieve you of this nightmare.”
There was no response from anypony. She noticed that an unnatural stillness hanged in the air. While this dream represented a sunny day on a country farm, everything was suspended in silence. There were no gusts of wind, or even a faint breeze. No whispering of grass or rustling of foliage. Not even the cheerful chirps of a songbird. Luna slowly approached the front door of the farmhouse. Her horn glowed as she utilized her magic to pull on the door handle. As she stepped inside she immediately spotted a colt with a pitch black coat standing with his back to her.
Luna sighed in relief, “Ah, there you are my little pony. You had me worried for a moment…” Her words trailed off when she realized the colt had made no response to either her entrance or her words. The same stillness of the dream world was affecting its dreamer.
Cautiously she began to step towards his side. “H-hello? Are you alrigh—“This time her sentence came to an abrupt end as a gasp issued from her muzzle. The pony’s face was featureless. No, that wasn’t the correct description. The colt’s face was as black and featureless as the rest of his body. He did not have a coat of black fur, but rather a dreadfully black film clinging everywhere across his form.
Much to Luna’s horror, something was forming where the colt’s eyes should be. A pure white emptiness began to grow and overtake the black film. Luna stepped back in equal amounts of awe and dread as the white blob on the pony’s face formed a single huge eye with a blood-red iris in its center. Meeting her horrified eyes with an expressionless gaze of its own.
Luna struggled to maintain a sense of composure as she slowly backed away from the hideous aberration in pony form that stood as still as a statue before her. The only thing indicating life was its relentless, unblinking gaze. The Princess found her own eyes transfixed on the unnatural white orb and the bloody iris at its center. Within her chest, her heart was beating like a frenzied drum. Her breathing grew short and panicked, her teeth clenched tight.
As she walked backwards from the creature her flank bumped into a potted plant on a short table, sending it crashing to the floor. The sickening silence was shattered along with it, along with the stillness of the creature. It surged forwards, not on hooves, but by levitating through the air.
At the critical moment, the Princess of the Night’s long decades of experience and training overcame her bout of terror. Her brow knitted itself into an expression of focus and her horn glowed a brilliant blue aura.
“Begone, fiend!” She cried as a lance of magical energy was fired from the tip of her horn at the charging monstrosity. The beam impacted the creature squarely in the chest, reversing its flight and sending it crashing through the farm house wall, splitting timber into splinters and scattering decorations and paintings about the floor. Luna detected an audible thump as her target fell into a field of corn just outside the farmstead.
Using her magic, Luna tossed any debris out of her path and walked out of the new entrance she had created. The field was thick with a full crop of tall corn plants, obscuring her view into it. As she cautiously approached the edge of the cornfield an unearthly shriek sounded from within, stopping the princess in her tracks and chilling her blood once more. Without having set eyes upon the horrible approximation of a pony, a black mass screamed towards her at incredible speed. Before Luna could summon another spell the creature’s forelegs smashed into her, sending her careening into a wooden cart filled with produce. The cart buckled under the impact of the Alicorn and split in two, spilling its cargo of produce onto the princess.
Luna had the breath knocked out of her lungs; the blow that struck her was far more powerful than the strongest of bucks a mortal earth pony could muster. Gasping for air, the Princess shakily picked herself up from the wreckage, cabbage leaves, and carrots sticking in her mane. The dark creature was hovering just in front of her and did not give her reprieve to recover. Black tendrils shot out from its form and entangled the Princess, lifting her towards it. The same incomprehensible gaze watched with indifference as she struggled against him.
Try as she might, Luna could not break free utilizing her physical strength alone. When she attempted to form a magic barrier another tendril extended from the monster and grasped her horn. Luna then noticed that the tendrils were not only binding her but pouring into her. Much to her increasing horror, Luna saw that her dark blue coat was being plastered in the same pure black film covering her attacker. Wherever the black void went on her body she immediately felt that part of her become frigidly cold.
No not cold…numb.
With her magic suppressed and her physical body feeling more numbed and sapped of strength, Luna began to think the unthinkable. This was her end. The Princess of the Night, Warden of Dreams, would be consumed by an unfathomable dark force she did not even understand. As the cold began to feel all-consuming, she thought of her beloved sister.
Oh, dearest sister…Luna thought to herself, having lost the capacity for speech. To have been reunited after all those long years of isolation…only to be torn away so soon after…please…protect Equestria from this…this…Even her own thoughts grew unclear, unfeeling. Replaced with a cold and all-consuming void swallowing everything she was and would be.
A flash of blazing white light split the hungering darkness in twain. Luna vaguely felt her body fall to the ground, the feeling in her limbs beginning to return. She blinked open her blurry eyes to a strange sight. The creature was screaming in agony, its severed tendrils retreating back into its black form. Standing in front of her was a small, spherical creature. While her sight was still dim and her sense of reality was dizzy, she could tell this new shape was shrouded in a cloak, armored with shining steel, and brandishing a golden sword.
The black pony swooped down to attack this new combatant. The spherical warrior evaded the attack and struck a blow with its sword as the possessed pony passed. The warrior had struck true, as the creature crashed into the dirt and tumbled end over end. The sphere-shaped swordsman did not relent; his small feet carried him to the enemy with surprising swiftness. Far faster were the slashes of his glimmering blade. Each time the warrior struck gobs of the black film were sprayed across the farmyard.
Luna watched the spectacle as her body recuperated and her mind reclaimed clarity. She then remembered she was in a dream, along with her duty to protect the pony dreaming it. The spheroid soldier raised his glowing short-sword in preparation for the killing blow. “Wait! Halt!” Luna cried, stumbling as she dashed forwards to intervene. “There is a pony somewhere in that darkness!”
The warrior turned to regard the Princess, who now realized that what she believed to be armor was instead a silver mask obscuring the swordsman’s face. A pair of gleaming yellow eyes peered back at the princess from within the mask’s visor.
There was another horrific shriek from the creature. The black film covering its victim suddenly sprang into the air forming a dark orb. Another singular eye took shape in the mass of bubbling black energy and gazed down at the sphere-shaped-warrior. It then separated into two forms, one with the hellish eye, while the other took the shape of the foreboding dream portal Luna had first encountered.
The disembodied black eye passed through the portal, which began to rapidly decrease in dimension. Without a word, the spherical swordsman leaped through the portal. Luna extended her wings and leaped into the air, but stopped herself short of following in pursuit. The portal was already too small for her to pass through it, and its size was still decreasing. She watched as the gateway shrunk into a speck of darkness and then faded out of existence.
Princess Luna flapped her wings and landed gently on the ground, a look of astonishment affixed to her face. So much had happened so fast, with no answers in sight. Her ear twitched as she heard the sound of soft sobbing. She turned around and beheld the sight of a young colt with a simple coat of brown fur lying on the ground curled in upon himself. Wracked with fits of shaking, unintelligible muttering, and weeping a flood of tears.
The Princess sighed, extending a wing over the terrified pony as she knelt down beside him. Holding him tight in a warm, consoling, and understanding embrace.
