My Little Nightmare: Sleep is Tragic

Chapters

1. No Light Without Darkness
2 The Monster and the Moon
3 Moonlit Night

1. No Light Without Darkness

The opening act of the universe begins with creation, different religions and scientific ideas might conflict over the how and when but creation nonetheless. Few like to think about what there was before, or rather what there wasn't. Is it strange to assume that the reality of the existence was something unreal of inexistence. In the very beginning there consisted of nothing but an endless void, no matter, no law, no time. All that there was not consisted of absolute nothing.

However within this nothing, a something emerged. The first somethings there had ever been. First was energy, pure and raw energy of an amount untold. Where did it come from? That is a mystery even to those who came from this first something. Perhaps a deity began to paint their canvas? Perhaps some anomaly in the void brought it in on it's own? Regardless of how it came to be it changes little of what happened after.

Like moths to a flame the first consciousness awoke, barely aware of it's existence in the void. Then one by one more woke and rose from nothing. Brought forth from the darkness like a moth to a flame, they bathed in the energy and became the first true somebodies. Primordial beings, yes that was a name one could call them, there since all existence and all life began. Some embraced the flame of energy others either chafed at this flame of energy or were too far away to embrace it even if they had wanted to. All absorbed some of it's energy whether willing or not, some embraced it fully and became beings of light, others were involuntarily implanted with or only had to work with a scrap of light and thus the nothing filled their souls, causing unimaginable pain and hunger.

After all these immortal children of the first light had accepted their 'gift' from the first flame, it dispersed. A release of energy unparalleled exploding outwards seemingly endlessly with a force that bathed the void of nothing in the energy of something real for the first time. The void became merely the lack of energy where it had once been the finality that nothing could violate. Laws of space and time were created in that first snap second of ultimate creation as energy travelled for what could have been a few days to trillions of years. There wasn't exactly a good way to keep track of the passage of time when there was nothing but an endless expanse of energy shaping into a universe.

The primordial beings watched in either awe or disgust as over this indistinguishable amount of time the universe took shape in stars and proto planetoids, true matter formed up and with it so too did life. The primordials of the flame, as we shall call the ones of light who praised creation reverently, soon created languages, names for themselves, they quarreled or made friends but all set off to claim planets of their own to bring life to. They took the form of something remembered, perhaps from a dying universe they had been a part of or perhaps it had been implanted there. Some made up new forms, some never took them at all and remained "pure". These beings of light created the first living things beyond themselves, with the immense energy of the first flame forged into their very forms they could expend it and terraform the rocks and stars that dotted the galaxy like playthings.

They created hospitable planets of immense beauty to their own eyes, eventually loneliness or curiosity overtook many of them and they created the first mortal organisms. First, came the basics, bacteria and other micro organisms followed by plants. Following this the primordials of the flame created small creatures to get a pattern down. Then it was all experimenting, abominations or immortal spawns of failure that would go on to be cryptids in the future civilizations of these worlds. Finally they created sentient life, whether purposefully or accidental, through instant creation or abandoned projects developing on their own accord. Yes, life was born and it flourished beautifully in this new universe.

However, not all are as thankful for the gifts the first flame had bestowed upon them. Some shied away, some couldn't reach it. These primordial beings got the leftovers of what could have been. They were tortured by an endless contradiction of form, they were something yet also made from nothing. They took in the void, or perhaps the void took them in is more accurate, and now they were beings living nor dead but filled with anger and spite. They hungered endlessly, the nothingness in them begging them to consume what was. The energy they had consumed, no matter how small, allowed them properties of the physical and material like the other primordials. These however, were no followers of the flame, these were the primordials of the void.

Like the others they too had thoughts from dead universes, timelines fractured apart or slowed to heat death or whole worlds disintegrated. Their very nature however caused them pain, caused them to suffer with a vast hunger to devour all that the first flame had created. They hated the light and the energy with a passion, they loathed it for bringing them into confusion and pain. In this period where they could not come to terms with their pain the most rash of them all struck out violently with intent to erase the little stars and planets the ones of the light had created.

The others of these first primordials of the void did not go however, they remained hidden, too torn between their conflicting nature and in too much sheer agony to truly think of fighting. The being who struck out to destroy took the form of a giant serpent, his only goal was to snuff out the light of the universe and end his pain by bringing everything back into the void. He had many names given to him, Ouroboros, Veles, Nidhogg, Apophis . These were just a few of the names the mortals protected by those of the flame came up with for him. Most of the primordials of the flame themselves simply called him The Great Serpent or The One Who Devours.

He was the mightiest of those original spawn of the void, he fought ferociously with tail and fangs and flames and as much venom as he could muster. His very presence seemed to absorb the light that touched him into his all black scales. The primordials of the flame banded together to fight him and struck as viscously as they could. Almost all of them joined in to the fight however he drained the energy of the flame from the cocky primordials one by one as they joined the fight, the Serpent growing larger and larger and stronger and stronger during a battle that raged across the known universe as he tore primordials to shreds and swallowed stars. Eventually despite all the weakness he had inflicted upon those of the light, the draining of the very essence of existence itself, the slaughtering of their brethren and destruction of their creations, the Serpent was struck down in the end. The Serpent fell far and long deep into the shadow of the universe. His pitch, thick tar like blood stained the cosmos as he croaked and slithered in agony, slowly fading into nothingness.

As the Serpent lay writhing and dying he cursed the light for burning him and leaving him in agony, he cursed the existence that had stolen the peace of non-existence from him and the Serpent cursed his brothers and sisters of the void for not aiding him in eradicating the light. His curse rang out and with whatever power he had left, his last dying wish and spiteful fang-bearing snarl he spat like his venom a truly dark curse. He inflicted all all the primordials, both light and dark, with a hunger that would never fade over their endless lives. While this hunger would not be as severe as when the dark ones first emerged, it would be impossible to ignore nonetheless. Eventually every primordial would fade away into nothingness unless they fed on the universe and slowly drained it dry over the eons. A mockery to those of the light who defended their precious universe and one last hiss to his siblings in the dark for not helping him. The Serpent smiled his crooked fanged smile and with a silent laugh heard by none who lived he passed back into the void as he had always wished to do.

The primordials of the void, forever starving, were now in constant threat of fading away like their deceased sibling and dispersed across the universe, taking root into planets to feed on the inhabitants through the different aspects they had power over. Most of the primordials of the flame simply slept to prevent their hunger from growing, waiting for the day they would be needed to defend existence again. Some of the more fearful refused to sleep fell to being starved and tried to sate their hunger endlessly so they would not fade, becoming perverse gods demanding sacrifices of the ones they used to protect. They could not feed like the ones of the void however, and despite sating themselves they too eventually slept to save themselves from being forced to fade. Finally, some chose to guide their civilizations with their remaining time and accept their inevitable demise, no matter how slow or how painful it would be.

One such primordial was Faust, the creator of Equus and it's various species, though she favored the ones she built in her own image, the ponies. Faust was one of the earliest to join against the Serpent, therefor she had been drained nearly the most of them all. She came back to Equus weakened and running on fumes, she was still leagues above most creatures on her planet but no longer could she bend the earth and stars to her will, she knew she was slowing down day by day.

She knew her time was coming soon, even if she slept it wouldn't be long after she woke that she would fall victim to the curse of the Serpent. So she chose to live out her days as a Goddess among her people, however things do not always go as planned. Faust soon slept, however unlike her siblings she slept eternally, the curse finally catching up with her. Without their Goddess the ponies broke into discourse and divided because of their differences.

This is where a new force arrived on Equus. That force was a being of the dream realm, the void primordial of the dream realm to be exact. Dreams were simply what filled the realm of the unconscious, nightmares were what consumed them. They were what lay off the beaten path for dream walkers, a pitch black void of suffering. Without Faust nightmares seeped into the minds of all species on Equus, they took form and shape, creatures made of darkness and bound by the energy consumed from the light.

The primordials were unknown to the ponies, Faust had never revealed anything to them about her origins or her siblings and for all they knew the Serpent that they had once seen was slain by Faust alone. As their Goddess faded into myth and religion the void crept in. With the ponies unaware of what was about to come into their world and their minds a malevolent force crept silently into the dreams of others. The primordial responsible for terrorizing ponies in their sleep, for directing all the terrors of the dream realm was fittingly named Nightmare

Nightmare was certainly not originally from this new universe, oh no. He had once been a being of his own in another universe, though how he was like only he will know. Unlike others of the void he wasn't filled with rage and spite or blinded with fury. Nightmare was very simply, cold and sadistic. Unlike his siblings he didn't want to destroy the universe, after all it had become too much fun to toy with it. Unlike them he wanted to dominate and manipulate the pathetic mortals he preyed upon rather than destroy them.
Nightmare would survive and thrive in this new world and he would devour any who stood in his way .

The form Nightmare took was one he remembered that used to inspire terror in some in his old world. A machine, a machine of night terror and inked in a black visage. His body seemed to be almost made of smoke and darkness itself, it was nearly transparent before light in the open. Razor sharp metal fangs covered his mouth, or mouths as he has one sewn into his stomach, closed but always hungry. He ordained himself with a golden bowtie and a top hat to boot, his claws of metal were long and shaped like a dart or a bullet, fine down to the very points. Of course the only thing anyone ever saw of Nightmare was his most striking feature, his pair of burning crimson eyes. For some they were their greatest fear and for others they were the last thing they ever saw.

Nightmare sat cloaked in the natural shadow projected throughout the dreamscape, his entire form concealed into the darkness except for those hellish, piercing red eyes that always watched and always knew. He gazed out over the dreamscape at first, little bubbles containing individual dreams dotting an endless expanse all connected by pathways and gates that strung the whole realm together for dreamwalkers. He watched and waited, he played the predator's game, even if the prey were so easy and so delicious.

Finally the dark one plucked up the nearest bubble like it was a snow globe, holding it up in a closed palm. He sneered in at the pleasant dream that the little filly within was having, a dream of her supersized stuffed animals having a tea party with her. Nightmare almost growled as he witnessed the fearless life of this species, then he smiled cruelly, he would have to change that, wouldn't he? He clenched his fingers in on the orb, his claws digging into the glass like fiber that made up the bubble and the globe cracked at his fingertips, dark mist flooding in in through the cracks as the happy dream turned into a terrifying nightmare.

The dreamers of Equus were simple sheep to Nightmare and he was the greatest wolf in all the wild. As the darkness and fear overtook the dream and the filly squirmed in terror, her once faithful plush friends becoming twisted nightmare animatronics. Their eyes burned with flames of malice and insanity, each with rows of razor sharp teeth, twisted decaying color pallets and pointed metal claws much like his own. The little one shivered and flinched as they growled and twitched seemingly at random before all freezing and turning on her at once. The twisted ones advanced slowly as the filly began stumbling back

The little fillies eyes filled with tears as she backed up against the wall and the nightmares closed in. The harsh breathing and heavy footfalls of the demons filled her ears as she squeezed her eyes shut. Nightmare couldn't help but let out a deep, mirthless laugh that echoed hauntingly across the endless plain of the dreamscape as one of the nightmares leapt jaws open at the filly ready to bite down on it's prey, the silence that followed the dark one's laugh only broken by an innocent's scream.

Author's Note

Hello there dear reader.
So this is my first time writing on here and as such any criticism or listed improvements that can be made are appreciated!
I hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

2 The Monster and the Moon

Day after day passed in the infinite expanse of the dream realm, it seemed like time barely moved at all. However, for one and his spawn things were always changing. New dreamers entered, the ones that had been fed upon exited in an almost perfect rhythm. It was meant to be that way, too.

Nightmare had thousands of years to hone his craft, to use his eyes and ears in the material realm to discern when which species of prey would sleep. The Dark One had learned much in his time, he had not always been the ultimate terror of the night. He not so fondly remembered when he was a novice, no more than a simple demon to few and a whisper to others. He had to learn how to command the dreamscape and harder still to command the dreams of others. When he took control, when the darkness swallowed the light, is when a dream became a nightmare.

Nightmare remembered, whatever remained of his human mind had been in disarray when his brother fell, he had been confused and anguished at his very existence. Imagine the thought of knowing something for so long, of understanding what it was like to be physical as if no other option existed only to find yourself a disembodied collection of feelings and thoughts. The experience was confusing, he felt so cold and then there was the fire which burned him. As soon as light was brought into the world he remembered the unimaginable feeling of hunger. A mind with no body and a hunger without a stomach.

Nightmare had found his way to Equus soon after the fall of the Serpent and he had far greater fortune than many of his brothers and sisters. While they were often either nascent beings incapable of feeding even as the starvation set in or forced to feed on the mortals tethered to a body in their realm, he had been lucky enough to gain the power to travel into the dream realm, though not exactly move back and forth. He found the dream realm was not like the normal one at all, in fact Nightmare assumed it was closer to those first fleeting moments in the void before something came to be.

Why did Nightmare believe this? Quite simple, no real laws existed outside of the little pockets of something and more intriguing still every dream was like that first flame so long ago. Instead of the dream realm being bound in laws and woven in a tight fabric of reality it was rather abstract. The whole thing was like paint without a canvas, except the paint was infinitely flowing from an unseen brush. Each dreamer who ventured into the realm when unconscious seemingly pulled energy from nowhere, creating something from nothing. Each little mind was like that little flame, their unconscious thoughts made into vivid realities by the energy they put off.

When Nightmare had first arrived the dream realm was nothing but a massive swirling cloud of this energy as ponies drifted unconscious, letting their thoughts flow into a greater collective of energy. For Nightmare this meant easy feeding, when he had first arrived he had simply leeched off the energy that seemed all too generously provided. It was boring, admittedly, all there was to do was watch whatever chaotic mess resulted from the collective thoughts of the unconscious creatures and perhaps flick their sleeping forms around like pinballs for fun if he was feeling dreadfully uninterested in said thoughts. Then she arrived. A little Princess, a small filly with a deceptively warm presence.

He had seen these kinds of creatures before mind you, ones that could traverse the chaotic expanse of energy when they slept instead of being swept into it's immense wind. However those creatures, dreamwalkers as he had so cleverly dubbed them, could only observe and even then it was like they were holding a candle in a pitch black cave, they could only glean so much of the dream realm. She, she was different. She was a dreamwalker like them, unlike them she could see everything, including him. She could bend the energy to her will, control it like nobody else could. She gave him an idea, watching her experiment with the energy she shaped it into paths she could use. He tried the same when she was gone, over and over he tried like her until he too could shape the energy like her.

From then on he and the little filly stayed away from each other for the most part. It was then and there he decided to take the form he would stay with, prior he had chosen whatever he felt like in the moment or stayed as a formless ball of energy much like his supply of food. The terrifying black visage was meant to intimidate the filly and any future dreamwalkers and to camouflage with the void outside the dream expanse. Nightmare continued to feed when he could, slinking silently into the clouds of energy whenever the little one wasn't around. That was until he noticed day by day he would sense less and less ready for him to take. He thought little of it, after all there was plenty left regardless, more than enough to fill.

However night by night the energy grew smaller and smaller more compact and inedible. The little princess' grew into a young mare and she continued to shape the realm to her liking. Instead of a chaotic mass of energy the light in the darkness of the dream realm formed into paths and gates, the little princess' way of traversing the increasingly dim realm. She organized everything, brought some small semblance of order and pattern to a formerly chaotic existence. What Nightmare cared about was that the energy she had molded into a new skeleton of the realm was now unconsumable. Instead of dreamers floating endlessly submerged in collective thoughts they could now anchor themselves to this pathway, creating a connection that channeled their thoughts back onto them instead of into the void like before.

With this the first individualized dreams came to be, and Nightmare grew hungrier and hungrier. Why was the little princess robbing him of his meals? Why did she insist on bringing order to a place that needed none? He never truly found out the answer to that. Soon he grew hungry again, this time however the only place he could go for food was to those little beings who projected that energy from nothing. He tried to take the energy again like he had done so many times before, but this time the sheep had a shepherd to protect them.

The little princess attacked him, it didn't hurt, but he recoiled non-the-less. Who was she to attack him? Did the mortal think she had a chance to actually harm him? He tried again to the same effect. She struck again, chattering in her little language he could not understand. The mare of dark blue, purple and black hurt him that time, the first time he had been hurt in this form actually, and that scared him back into the void. Some might call it cowardice, but think about it. If your whole life everything has broken, splintered or shattered to ribbons against your skin even the smallest cut seems shocking to you. This is when Nightmare became both afraid and angry. He had to kill the little princess, there was no room for two in this dreamscape anymore, especially if she would be trying to starve him.

He had no idea how many nights he had simply probed at the dreams of others, trying to snatch the little mortal flames away from the princess so he could devour their produced energies. Occasionally one would sleep in late or go to rest early and he would take them. Of course you can't make on omelet without breaking a few eggs and he overestimated the durability of the little flames, he snuffed out the first few entirely, but found their energy too meager to warrant full consumption. After a few more were tasted and he had learned just how much to take from them he found the little princess again. This time he fought back when she tried to strike him, swinging his mighty claws and trying to bite into her and swallow her whole. He learned how to grow and enhance his abilities but the little one used her energies, magic, to fight him. She was faster than he expected, nimbly evading every swipe and gnash , diving around, swooping in and out and blasting away at his vulnerable places like a little insect.

Once again he was driven away. Once again he dent to fear, how did she know so much more than he when she was so young? He was never able to take anymore while she was around, except the early evening crowd and the late risers he greedily snatched away. As time went on she became stronger and attended the realm earlier in the evening and later in the morning, Nightmare became frustrated. For the first time in thousands of years he found himself starving, not only that but starving because of a little mortal?! It could not be allowed to continue, so he tried something new with his next meal. he implanted a little dark seed, a tumor of his essence, inside the mind of a few different subjects and species. It turns out he was very... persuasive. His little seeds enflamed whatever they latched on to, tore his prey apart from the inside. He found out that by building this fear, tormenting them and enflaming their emotions, they would give off more energy as they slept.

It seemed that the magnitude of emotion dictated the output of the energy the dreamer gave off. Nightmare understood negative emotions were easier to solicit, to cause to burn up inside them and make them smolder, that way he could milk them for all they were worth. Yet again however the princess countered him, she began to visit her troubled subjects and help them ease their fears and clean their wounds. With the source of rooting gone the seeds died, clearly he hadn't done enough yet. If the princess would simply be every where he was then he would make it so she had to be in too many places to fix. Nightmare, having experience with breaking himself off to create things already, started to use his essence to create creatures much like himself except more... animalistic. These nightmares took many many forms and faces, they would spread rapidly across the dreams of these sheep and implant his seeds wherever they could. Cunningly he also made them use their presence to incite the desired negative emotional responses while they were there, dropping off seeds and making their rounds causing stressful situations to whoever they could.

Originally the small nightmares would deliver all the energy they collected back to him and rejoin with him after every night, however he wanted to make things hell for the little princess while he could. So he instead reprogrammed them, instead of joining back with him they would transmit a portion of their energy to him and grow like rats carrying disease. They would spread their deadly plague of fear across the dreamscape, dwelling on the edges of dreams and turning them into nightmares, eating up greedily what they could and implanting their seeds. They would then grow independently despite belonging to the greater Nightmare hive mind, changing adapting and evolving and procreating through advanced metaphysical mitosis.

With this he has played his trump card, however even with this the little princess fought and adapted. She killed nightmares wherever she fund them and used her control of the skeletal energy to encase all dreamers in shield like bubbles to encase their dreams and protect them from the demons outside. These shields were nothing to Nightmare, he could annihilator them with ease, but his offspring could not. In order to cover as much ground as he did in an ever growing population of mortals he had to spread his nightmares thin and weak, with these bubbles they became incapable of spreading fear, implanting his dark seeds or harvesting. To solve this Nightmare created different "castes" of nightmares.

These began with Nightmare Imp, the original small design resembling a winged, scaled imp whose only purpose is to swarm the plain and spread small amounts of fear while planting seeds along the way. This is with the intention becoming a general nuisance to the princess and keeping her occupied while exploiting vulnerable dreamers with their small size and immense speed. Nightmare Imps were the second caste, one step up and evolved from the Imps. These are larger Nnghtmares, standing about as high as an adult alicorn with a broad wingspan and thick, magic resistant hide. They are capable of learning and using basic magic from the mortal world as well as minor strategy and tactics and leadership ability in command over the Imps. The Draconians were designed to protect the Imps as well as destroy the bubbles that protected their food from harvest. Draconians were significantly more powerful than their predecessors and were intended as a way to circumvent the princess' bubble defense, which in that they succeed. Finally, there is the Nightmare Reapers. Reapers are a combat oriented breed of nightmare, standing twice the height of a full grown Alicorn and holding identic memory of everything other Nightmare Reapers have learned. . Reapers are capable of forming weapons of pure energy hones down to the finest points and have a natural affinity for magic and grow exponentially more powerful and intelligent with every weapon they register and every spell they see used. They learn from every mistake without fail and arguably have the processing power of a super computer, to say Nightmare outdid himself is an understatement.

Reapers, despite being few in number, were a significant problem for the little princess. While the first few were a relatively simple fight for her the more that Nightmare made the worse she fared as each one learned from the last. Eventually he started sending them after her in pairs and triples and that's when Nightmare finally took the upper hand. Despite how energy taxing they were to create these reapers could tie down the princess for a whole night, they learned the absolute perfect way to fight her and while she was busy the Imps and Draconians would shatter the defenses protecting their prey unopposed and collect their energy and implant their seeds. The princess had no response to this tactic and the energy Nightmare was pulling in was in surplus, she was fighting a losing fight.

It was at this point Nightmare had spare time to develop new tactics, now that he wasn't constantly starving that is. He used a new type of rooting seed to see the waking world through the eyes and minds of the different species of Equus. Much like his Reapers, Nightmare was an attentive learner. Before the season was up he had learnt three different languages and learned two different alphabets, with many more work in progress. He learned about many different cultures and species. He discovered how to wield the little princess' magic on his own, he watched and listened for everything he could take in. Most importantly he learned more about the mindsets of the different prey he would be catching.

The ponies had once been divided and scattered into three different groups, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies. Apparently there had come a period when a devastating winter threatened to wipe out this divided group and two sisters had stepped up to bring the three tribes together. Another pony subspecies that was seemingly ostracized by the rest were Thestrals, commonly known by outsiders as bat ponies. Nightmare couldn't exactly tell if it was a slur or term of endearment. These Alicorns, a fusion on steroids of the greatest traits of the three main tribes, inheriting the immense magic of the unicorns, the flight capabilities and nimbleness of the pegasi and the sheer strength of the earth ponies. The first of these Alicorn sisters was Celestia, a kind and benevolent if not slightly flashy and arrogant ruler. The other was a more hotheaded and fiery, albeit shyer, princess. However, if what he had learned from the eyes of the Thestrals was true she had good intentions that were overshadowed by her sister's grandstanding and regalia. One thing that was most interesting however was that one of these two Alicorn sisters was the little princess, it turned out to be the second sister, big shocker there. This little princess now had a name to put to her face; Luna.

Nightmare had also heard mention of another Alicorn, one long gone that came before these two. Her image was familiar, he were sure she was one of those of the flame. Yes, one of the ones who slew brother, one of the ones who bathed the universe in the serpents dark blood. Did he miss brother? Perhaps. Nightmare sometimes wondered if the others of the void would have stayed together if brother hadn't left. Would they have scattered like they had? Would they have fought one another or gotten along? He didn't know and didn't tend to care, what he did care about was if these Alicorns were primordials as well. Judging by either gossip or official news it was indeed widely accepted these Alicorn sisters had a mother, but they were apparently born thousands of years after this elder Alicorn had died, so they couldn't be either primordials or the children of them. Perhaps a reincarnation of the old one divided into two? Maybe they had inherited her power from an artifact or even her corpse. Either way it explained how Luna was able to harm him so.

Perhaps he should try talking to this "Luna" now that he could understand her? He had the upper hand in their little conflict after all and now that he was finally learning to control his powers correctly she stood no chance. This gave him leverage over her, maybe he could strike a deal with her? Surely this princess would understand diplomacy if she was a ruler, or at least he thought that's what rulers were supposed to do. His human memories had long since faded into obscurity in the back of his mind so he was really having to relearn everything earthly but basic concepts again.

Nightmare smiled wickedly as his vessel crumpled up the morning newspaper and threw it into the hearth as he sipped inky black coffee that burned like the fire he fueled. He couldn't help but chuckle as he watched the image of Princess Luna burn up in the flames through another's eyes. He would talk to her indeed, what could go wrong for him anyway? The worst case scenario he still learned something about his adversary after all. Luna had been the one to start this little game, and he had gotten it so the ball was always in his court! He would be victorious no matter what she did.

Princess Luna could scarcely keep track of her life anymore. The Alicorn of the night had been through so much in her life and she was starting to feel it weigh down on her. She had barely been a young mare when she became an Alicorn through Faust's blessings, she hadn't been many years older when she was invited by Star Swirl the Bearded and his colleagues to rule a new land. Thus she was crowned a co-princess of Equestria with her sister, Celestia, at an age where few could scarcely dream of even being a mayor. Then she learned to raise and lower the moon, which was surprisingly quite a simple task. Following this was a long series of events that Luna was convinced was driving her insane.

First, there was Lord Tirek. Tirek and Scorpan had been her and Celestia's first true crisis with which they needed todevote their full attention. Scorpan's betrayal of his brother and their warning had defeated Tirek's element of surprise but only when they came up against the centaur did Luna realize just how little their raw power as Alicorns actually meant. Tirek had proved equal in raw magic force to a singular Alicorn and well over their physical strength, together however they should have easily been able to stop Tirek. This was not the case. Tirek was the far more practiced fighter and had an extreme endurance, while she and her sister had triumphed in the end and sent the crooked invader off to Tartarus it made them realize that being an Alicorn didn't mean much if you weren't smart about it.

Starswirl the Bearded, their aging and longtime friend used whatever time he could spare outside of his research to teach Celestia and herself how to apply his vast stores of spell craft knowledge. Celestia had taken to it like a fish does to the water or a bird does to the sky, a fanciful way of saying her sister excelled. Luna on the other hand had a much more difficult time with the incredibly complex theory of magic. Don't get her wrong, Luna still passed with flying colors, but that was only after she burnt herself out studying at every time and all the time.

Spending years simply learning how to correctly cast certain spells and spending months more practicing them in varying environments. Luna was much more of a free spirit than her sister, so needless to say the princess didn't take it very well. Luna still felt a deep embarrassment about the many incinerated scrolls and broken tablets. It was even worse having the maid staff walk in on you in the middle of a tantrum. Can you believe that? A ruling monarch of a powerful kingdom caught throwing a tantrum over some school work. Thankfully her staff were understanding, otherwise the press would have had a field day and a half.

However, at least Luna still had her friends and family in this trying time. Celestia, ever the gentle and caring older sister who always looked out for Luna. She made sure Luna was safe, helped pick her up and push her forward, never letting themselves grow too far apart. Outside of her duties Celestia always made time for her sister, whether that had been simple talking to whatever activity the two could dream up to pass the time, Celestia was always there. Luna could only smile as she thought of it, those were better times. Almost like the two of them were fillies again.

Then there was Star Swirl, wise old Starswirl. The gruff old stallion was a bit rough around the edges, highly intelligent, extraordinarily stubborn and perhaps a little bit too much self righteousness, but he had the purest of intentions and was fiercely loyal to the very end. He was their mentor, their teacher, their friend and above all else, their family. Celestia and Luna had been friends with Star Swirl since they were young, he had always been a mentor to them both, though as they matured they took it in different directions. Celestia treated him as a friend, a respected colleague in the scientific field and a royal advisor and researcher. Celestia saw him as one might see any close friend or even an informal brother. Luna saw it very differently. She had always seen Star Swirl as much more of a grandfather figure, the one who was there to give wisdom and experience in the absence of parents. In a way Luna saw Star Swirl like that, a paternal figure, someone who always seemed to know what to say in every situation. He cared for and taught both of them and Luna for the life of herself could not find one time he had been dishonest with them, he never mislead them but somehow always managed to keep them both in high spirits even when delivering grim news.

Then all of it came crashing down around her bit by bit. Star Swirl went off with the other pillars of Equestria, gathered by a unicorn master strategist, Stygian, to banish the villainous sirens to some far off realm. Then Stygian betrayed the pillars by trying to hoard their power, was banished to the outlying lands and soon after they set out to confront him for his uses of dark magic in said lands they all vanished without a trace alongside the newly christened 'Pony of Shadows'. Star Swirl's disappearance and presumable death hit both of the royal sisters hard. Celestia bottled it up, deep down, She didn't let it tear away at her and though she mourned, tried her best to move on. Luna on the other hand, she wept and locked herself away for days on end. Weeks went by and the only person she would see was her sister when she would check on Luna or convince her to eat. Luna just couldn't believe he was gone, the stallion who had always been there faithfully at every turn, every trial and tribulation simply gone in an instant.

This wasn't the end of her troubles, after the mad fiend Discord attempted to annihilate the very concept of 'order' across Equus Luna and her sister awakened the elements to imprison him in a stone prison, hopefully to never return. This wasn't what hit her hard though, it was what had happened afterwards. For you see, Equestria hadn't always encompassed all ponies under one banner. While it had certainly been the largest pony state in existence, being a merger of the three most powerful, expansive and populous pony states, many outlying pony nations still existed with their own rulers, laws and customs. However, Discord brought more than simple chaos, he brought devastation to the lands he ruled. With these smaller nations in suffering and need of rebuilding Equestria stepped in and offered to assist them if they joined the nascent kingdom. The population nearly doubled in the expanse of the year and with the old governmental system devastated, a relief effort underway and the integration of many new lands into the crown Luna's beloved sister no longer had the time to spare for her anymore.

Celestia sometimes went weeks without so much as acknowledging Luna's existence, she was overworked and exhausted dealing with all the many issues the country faced on a daily basis. Luna understood and tried to give her sister the time she needed to do her work, this dragged on for far longer than expected however. Celestia promised at first it would only be a month or two, then a month turned into half a year, one year, 2 years, 6 years. Celestia used whatever spare time she could to see her sister but this was nowhere near enough to sate Luna's need for comfort. Luna buried her problems deep down because she knew her sister didn't mean to ignore her, right? She just needed to keep waiting and things could go back to the way they used to be.

This increasingly seemed more like a dream never to come true with each passing day day. Absorbing the lands of former nations meant not only did they absorb the commoner population, but the vast hordes of local nobility as well. These nobles had been granted a voice in the court in exchange for their co-operation in integrating into Equestria. Of course in Luna's humble opinion they should have all been grateful to keep their noble status at all. Luna had always despised nobles, sure there were a few good eggs in the proverbial basket of the royal court who worked for the betterment of the country but from her experience the majority were egocentric, self serving and arrogant beyond belief. Celestia had insisted that the nobles were vital to the country, and Luna knew why that was. it was really quite simple, Celestia needed stability after the anarchy of Discord and didn't have the strength to crack the bad eggs.

This is where the resentment started set in. How dare her sister, after everything, after losing Star Swirl, who was practically their family, after all the time their bond had held after all that Luna was going through could Celestia ignore her and for what? To spend her time playing mediator to a bunch of inept, corrupt, pretentious overgrown foals!? Luna still bottled it up, she always did, Star Swirl had told her after all that she had to control her emotions and think it out instead of rushing in all the time like she was prone to do. Luna listened, as she always had, she knew her sister wouldn't do this on purpose. She loved Luna, they valued each other more than anyone or anything else and nothing would come between them in the end.

As her people suffered in the fallout of Discord Luna decided to try her hand at helping them for a change, to take her mind off of her sisters absence. Luna worked her hardest to craft the perfect painting, the ultimate work of art. Luna spent many sleepless nights trying to weave her rather dull night sky into a beautiful tapestry of dancing lights. Luna also began to delve into different aspects of her existence. Aspects she wished she hadn't opened the door to, in hindsight.

Ever since she had received her cutie mark, when she first lowered the moon, she hadn't slept normally. She would dream of a seemingly endless expanse of energy, a chaotic realm of unconscious ponies and a massive swirling vortex of seemingly random thoughts. She consulted Star Swirl and soon discovered this was the dream realm, and that she had the rare gift of dreamwalking. Luna delved into it a little, the basic ideas of how dream walking worked and what exactly the dream realm was, what she would need to know to work her way around. She didn't like the seemingly endless expanse of dreams though, not to say the dreams themselves unsettled her, oh no, it was the lingering feeling something that didn't want her there was always watching her just out of her peripheral vision. A dark blur here, a flash of red there and the constant bone chilling feeling of someone breathing down her neck if she stayed too long.

Luna delved back into it after Discord was defeated, delved deep into the recorded history of the dream realm and the science of dreamwalking. The knowledge on the subject was frighteningly scarce, but that was to be expected when dealing with a different dimension which was only every accessed by ponies incapable of doing more than observing. Luna knew she had the power for much more than mere observing though, she was an Alicorn and if she had learnt anything from her prior magical experimentation, as limited as it was, it was that Alicorn magic had a tendency to defy convention. So with all the knowledge she could gather she set to her task.

From her understanding when non-dreamwalkers traversed the dream realm they remained unconscious, feeling the collective thoughts of all others currently occupying the realm of dreams, both positive and negative. She also deduced that mind and matter had a tendency to mix in the dream realm in a much more expansive way than any previously thought. The reason thoughts were made manifest by dreamers and not dreamwalkers before her was that magic was traditionally harnessed from within and focused onto something without. Essentially the natural instinct for beings able to harness magic was to pull from their own reserve as in the normal realm it was their only possibility.

In the dream realm however, the only way one could manifest the energy that they exuded was by drawing from outside of their form. Every individual in the dream realm effectively functioned like a blazing fire with an infinitely recovering fuel source, the unconscious let go of their prior conceptions of magic or reality and simply let their thoughts flow, grabbing onto the sparks that their flame produced and tethering their thoughts to them. This allowed one to use the energy they produced to turn simple thoughts into dreams, thoughts made manifest. Of course because nopony could control what they were thinking or how they thought it these sparks simply drifted among thousands of others to create a large, interconnected mass of dreams without any control, pure chaos.

Luna learned something else in her experimentation as well. She learned that, through suspension of disbelief and embracing of feeling, it was possible to control what thoughts were projected as well as how and when. Luna quickly hit a bump in the road though, while she had the power in flame to project her thoughts she had nowhere near enough for her loosely defined 'project'. That's when she discovered another handy fact about dreamwalking, dreamwalkers could imprint their flames permanently onto the fabric of the dream realm as well as being able to grab onto and modify the sparks, or dreams, of others. With this check of feasibility out of the way she could move on to setting her plan in motion.

What was Luna's plan exactly? Quite simple in theory, quite complex in actuality. She wanted to transform the dream realm into a more orderly place. She wanted to cut down on the chaos, break up the big flame and reduce each flame to it's own space. This, she imagined, would allow her subjects to more effectively make use of their thoughts as once they weren't submerged in the thoughts of others. While controlling their own dreams were out of the reach of the average pony, Luna could allow them to experience them. She reasoned that allowing ponies to experience the positive dreams would help reduce the stress that came with the terrible realities life had to offer. She also decided that she could make use of her time, assisting ponies with negative dreams in working through their problems and becoming better fit for their challenges. So Luna began terraforming the dream scape, unaware of what she provoked in doing so.

When she finally had it done and everything was going to plan she would notice that every so often she would find ponies, griffons, yaks, dragons, anyone and everything, drained of their vitality. It shocked Luna to her core. She hadn't done this had she? No, no no no no she knew she hadn't, her reorganization of the dream realm had been seamless, something else did this. Luna pressed forward every night, finding some dead, others near vegetables recovering from being drained directly from the soul. The once brilliant flames these creatures had been smothered into little cinders. Eventually, she did find the culprit and she would not soon forget them.

She had no idea what she laid eyes on at first, she was paralyzed by fear. Large, metallic teeth jutting like large spikes from twisted, leathery black skin that seemed to meld with the shadows just outside the reaches of the light that was provided. Sickeningly sharp and pointed metal claws Luna could imagine skewering her alive, crushing her bones as they went. The worst thing though were those eyes. Those Faust damned eyes. Burning red in a combination of Tartarus fire and blood, smoldering with the intensity of a red sun yet chilling to the bone like the ice of a distant comet. She couldn't make out much else, but she didn't need to. She knew as soon as she saw it, this THING, this creature- no this monster was the one draining the life of her precious ponies.

She confronted it, she remembered how it went. How could she ever forget? It all happened so fast, one second she was fuming, the next debating between fight or flight. She confronted it over a middle aged stallion it was trying to drain. She drew up all the courage she could, her eyes hardening into steel as she put out the best Royal Canterlot voice she could.

"Halt foul beast! Remove thy claws from our subject this instant or though shalt face the consequences!" Luna shouted while flaring her wings and stomping down on her hooves, shockwaves of energy scattering across the floor of the dream realm as Luna have her best glare at the creature, trying to not show any fear.

The creature flinched, which gave Luna much greater confidence, and turned towards her. That confidence quickly shrunk back into the corner from whence it came. It's malicious red eyes narrowed in on her. She only then realized how massive it was, she estimated it's head alone had to be 10 times her size at the very minimum. A silence set in before it tried again to reach for the stallion, undoubtedly for harm and Luna decided she needed to back up her words.

"If thy shalt not listen to our commands perhaps thou will listen to our magic!" Without another thought Luna struck at the nearest claw with a simple blast of pure magic, it wasn't very powerful and was merely meant to gauge strength as well serve as a warning shot. The creature recoiled and Luna's confidence returned, perhaps she had no reason to be afraid.
"Is that all thou can take, a paltry flicker of our horn's might and thou is already on thy knees?"

The creature let out a mix between a low growl and the sound of grinding stone, Luna tensed up again and released a second warning shot, the creature again snarling a bit and backing off some.

Luna, now juiced on confidence and a feeling of obvious superiority let out a final war cry and blasted at the spawn of the pits of the world with a hearty blast, putting a good chunk of her power behind it.
"Thou shalt not harm our little ponies, in the name of Faust and by the power of our night begone back to the shadows from whence thou came, foul demon!"
A large swathe of the visible dreamscape was engulfed in a bright burst of dancing colors and illuminated over Luna's new dream realm. Luna smirked and out more power into her attack as azure fire burst forth wildly and smashed into the creature's face, exploding on impact as the creature let out a sharp cry of surprise and pain. Luna stomped forward and continued to let off jets of her flame that grew darker and darker purple and blue as she poured more energy into the blast, it seared away at the creature's leathery skin and illuminated it's horrifying visage.
"To Tartarus with thou, this is our realm!"

Suddenly her eyes widened, the creature vanished, her flames dispersed off into the void, burning in the darkness before being snuffed out of view by the pitch black void. Luna breathed heavily before letting out a sight of relief, clearly she would have to keep an eye on her new domain. Luna took one last look at the stallion who was under peril, dreaming as happily as could be about luscious forests and beautiful water surrounding him and the mare of his dreams. Luna smiled as she moved on, if that was what she had to deal with to make her ponies happy, then so be it.

All of Luna's goodwill, from reshaping the night sky to making the sleep of all ponies more enjoyable to her numerous newly founded charities, were spat upon by the ponies of Equestria. Luna could scarcely believe it, why didn't they care? She had worked so hard to make them happier, to make them be better off, to help those that needed helping and to make things easier for all her little ponies. So why did they not care? Why did they not thank her, why did they not sing her praise as they did her sister's?

Celestia. of course that would be why, her sister did things with a certain glamour about them. Celestia had always been the presentable one of the two, she was more of a people person than shy but emotional Luna. Of course their subjects paid attention to her sister's achievements. Luna could barely keep her composure the morning after she woke up from battling a demon to find all the press could report on was Celestia's new crown funded library. luna strained an almost insane smile, eye twitching and teeth gnashing. She loved her sister but-

WHAT THE HELL WAS A LIBRARY TO HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS!?!?!?!?

Had Celestia rearranged the heavens just so the average pony could take more comfort in her night!? Had Celestia done what no pony had ever thought of doing and conquered the dream realm so ponies could sleep soundly for once?! Had Celestia donated most of her royal allowance to the impoverished suffering because of the very nobles Celestia shamelessly pandered to?!? Luna had done so much in such a short period of time. Where was the love and affection she deserved? Her sister had already abandoned her, ignored her, put her down and now her people were too!? Luna spent the entire day, no, the entire week in a sour mood, always flying into rages whenever someone mentioned Celestia's damn pretty book collection, after all she had done why would nobody notice her?

Never the less she continued her duties, she raised and lowered the moon every day, she put on smiles for the rare occasion when she was actually invited. She listened to what few nobles were actually competent enough (or had enough balls) to actually want to propose policy or discuss with her. Luna's schedule got busier as she spent sleepless nights protecting the dream realm from that demon and his apparent spawn, or maybe kin, she just knew they were alike. She spent her days and nights always the same. She showed up for night court, listened to the miniscule amounts of nobles and petitioners she got, looked over the stacks of paperwork she had to deal with and did what she could before she went hunting for the creatures who terrorized her ponies, which was an increasingly difficult task, and in the end; got credit for none of it.

Luna spent most of her free time reading novels or trying to form new strategies to fight the creatures that attacked the dreams of others. She would always find a solution but it seemed those creatures were always able to flawlessly counter her attempts at fighting them after she fought the Dark One, as she called it, for the second time. Ever since she fought that beast for the second time she was always paranoid to see it again. She had been able to outmaneuver the demon but her attacks did little and she could tell if the creature grew more skilled it may defeat her, so she tried to avoid drawing too much attention to herself.

First was her dream shield idea, encasing every dream in globe like constructs to defend the inhabitants from attacks by the smaller and weaker creatures, the ones that snatched what they could and poisoned the mind of the dreamer. She hated those the most, they were the most annoying of them all and the biggest nuisance to start with. Apparently they started getting clever as they developed stronger creatures to break her shields, she could hunt and dispatch all of them without issue on a good night though. Then came the strongest creatures. At first they weren't too bad but she soon understood that these creatures had some knowledge of those that came before them. Every fight she would lose a little more ground, nothing close to dying but it was enough to keep Luna on her hooves all night. They could predict her moves and strike at her weaknesses without fail, she could only innovate new fighting techniques to counter their knowledge so much and there seemed to be an increasing number she couldn't handle.

Now all her nights were spent hunting those Faust forsaken creatures, trying to smite as many as she could before her time was up. Luna was increasingly taxed, she slept longer and longer every night yet got no rest, no satisfaction, only knowing her ponies were suffering day in and day out, being harvested like apples fresh from the tree while she fought helplessly to try and protect them, to no avail. It was now she was preparing herself for another such night, she would think of something eventually, she had to persevere, she had to for their sake.

As Luna laid down for a familiar sleep and prepared to enter the dream realm once more her thoughts drifted to her sister. Did she still love Luna? Did Luna still love her? Of course they did, all these politics and hard times wouldn't tear them apart, she knew despite all that was going on everything would be alright in the end. She closed her eyes, a gentle smile on her face, opening them expecting to see the pitch black void of the ceiling that made up her dream realm as always. She did stare into the darkness as expected, what she did not expect in the slightest was that it would be staring back in a hauntingly familiar shade of demonic red.

"Hello, little princess."

Author's Note

Hey, anyone who is reading this I have some confessions to make.
This chapter was originally going to be much more dialogue heavy and have much more character interaction but it ended up being an exposition dump, to my frustration. For those of you seeking a more solid bit of writing don't worry I will have something for you next chapter!
Feel free to point out any mistakes in writing as I finished this early in the morning and am not confident in it's correctness.

3 Moonlit Night

One seldom recognizes that there is a difference between terror and horror, two words so often synonyms yet facing a key difference.

Terror is the fear of possibility of something dreadful, an apprehension for what could possibly be a looming disaster, a threat not yet imminent but certainly close to it, just out of reach. This is what Luna felt the first time she had seen those eyes of malice, they had first simmered and hummed with that infernal red, almost melded with the shadow, she hadn't seen an imminent threat, she had seen something that might become a threat.

Now she felt horror, the fear of what was imminent, the shock and dread that came from not just staring at the signs of danger, but feeling it in your heart, understanding what was in front of you could be your very end, could tear you apart. That is what the Princess of the Night felt as she stared into eyes that no longer simmered, they burned. Staring into these orbs was nearly entirely different, before it felt like the air was thick and heavy, her breath caught in her throat; now it was entirely absent. It felt like those eyes were a flame and the very life in her was the oxygen, she couldn't think straight, she wasn't entirely sure she was conscious sitting there for what seemed like an eternity.

That voice didn't just sting to hear, a sting was something you could shake off, painful but ignorable, temporary, this was like a blade was being put clean through her head, she could feel it's direction towards her penetrate her essence without repose. She had to get up, her mind screamed at her to get up, to create distance, the flight or fight instincts in her welling up even as she was paralyzed for what seemed like a millennia, but had only been a few seconds.

Finally she snapped out of it, she felt her body once again respond to her own commands and the years of a warrior's instinct told her she was too vulnerable to do much of anything, she pushed off the ground with her rear hooves, wings sprawling to carry her momentum as she tilted them and pulled her body weight up and forward, swinging the momentum downward with an elegant curve as she created perceived safe distance, landing on all fours horn alight with the cerulean blue intensity so many feared.

Only when she looked for a perceived target, looked for her tormentor, she found nothing but the inky blackness that encompassed her, until she heard that voice again, before it came from all directions, now it came from behind her, right behind her.

"Leaving so soon, little one?"

She spun again, letting loose the condensed energy in a heartbeat towards the source of the sound, she knew it was there!

Only her blast hit nothing, her energy soared into the abyss and the darkness was all that met her gaze, how could she perceive wrong!? She was an Alicorn for Faust's sake, she knew what she heard and where she heard it, Luna's frustration was only matched by the jolts of fear that came with the fact she couldn't even see what was tormenting her, but she knew from those eyes alone it was the same thing she had seen before.

"Are you truly royalty? I was under the impression you royal types had some-"

Red filled her vision briefly as she jumped back, nearly letting out a yelp as the eyes of this... demon filled her vision.

"-manners"

Luna choked on her own fear for just a second before she readied a blast again, she felt the energy beginning to channel again, the power she knew she had being drawn up from her seemingly infinite well of power, here in the dream world was where she was strongest.

She was at her strongest here, but certainly not THE strongest here.

Just as the sensation built up and her own gleaming blue filled the edges of her vision she felt it snuffed out in almost an instant, all the energy she had prepared died like a fire doused with a veritable ocean of water, or perhaps suffocated by the worlds biggest blanket would better describe the feeling. Luna cast her shock aside and tried again, only this time she couldn't even build it up, the energy that came so natural to her, that was so fluently easy to command for her many years, was forced back by a sensation she couldn't understand, a force incomprehensible.

Then she heard it again, and now she shuddered when she heard it.

"Come now Princess, is that any way to treat your host?"

As much as the fear overwhelmed her, frustration was still there, perhaps out of both the mistress of dreams grit her teeth as she backed away from the eyes of that demonic complexion, both of which had rapidly shifted to be even larger than her whole body. They no longer hummed or terrified as before, they outright rang with energy and overwhelmed her senses, if she stared too long she feared a migraine would be her reward. Never the less she had to reply some how even as she backed up more and more trying to create space.

"W-What dost thou want de-"

"You can drop this silly dialect, I am not one of your meager subjects, Luna"

Luna could feel the shock welling up inside her, spreading through her brain, since when did this creature know her name? Luna wasn't deterred by this however, she was never one to back down, especially to disrespect.

"How dareth thou-"

However, her 'host' had other plans, and no sooner had Luna tried to rebuke the Dark One than she was nearly floored by what seemed like a planetary sized load of bricks weighing down on her as gravity intensified and she nearly slipped and crashed into whatever could be called the floor, it was indistinguishable from the air after all. Luna struggling and tried desperately to regain her stance to little avail, while the princess had dabbled in dream magic she had no idea of how to truly use it, clearly it was more natural for one of them than the other.

"What did I say, little princess? Has your sister not taught you to be polite when in the company of another?"

Now the voice was no longer penetrating, it didn't sheer her soul or wrack her brain with a headache induced by fear, now it was like those words were a laugh in and of themselves. There was a tonal difference, but not quite one she understood as being Equish, or even vocal, Luna realized as she struggled against this binding gravity that the feelings she was getting weren't the voice itself, rather a side effect, mind magic. Luna was beyond frustrated, she was angry, however she had to give up on plans of fight for now, clearly an alternative was needed.

Luna gathered her knowledge of dream magic, her kind melding with the space around her, projecting and weaving, influencing as much as she could, eyes closed in focus as her body steadied until they shot open, the thread she wrought tightening like a knot in the fabric of dreams as the royal Canterlot voice that she was so fond of boomed throughout the emptiness.

"ENOUGH!"

With that a burst of energy sprang from her like a furious storm, blowing away the gravity that weighed her down as the Lunar princess gasped for air, she hadn't known it would take so much out of her simply to undo the power of the Dark one, she clenched her teeth and with an indignant frown she gazed upon those orbs once more. Luna was stubborn, she was often headstrong and reckless and she was never one to back down from a challenge, but one thing she was not, despite what she was sure some might think, was an idiot. She closed her eyes, brought a hoof to her head and sighed, breathing in deeply and letting them open up, head clear, her gaze transfixed back onto the being in front of her.

"Alright, Demon, we shall play it your way, what do you want with me?"

This time she knew it wasn't just a feeling, she knew she heard a laugh, a low chuckle building to a crescendo of amusement , something that echoed with no space to reflect it, the eyes seemed to burn with amusement until it crisply dried up and the sound that was once tormenting suddenly became smooth, the voice bearable, comprehensible, she supposed it could be compared to hearing the Royal Canterlot Voice compared to her normal speech.

"Good, little one, very good. Now let us talk, shall we, mistress of dreams?"

Nightmare had expected, he had anticipated every move, initially he thought maybe she was concealing her dream magic in every fight with his Reapers, playing mind games. He was still new to all of this, Luna had been at the game of war and politics since she was but a youthful filly, yet he, an ancient and primordial being, had so little time to learn. Yet he seemed to have bested her, her attacks were feeble, had he really let her get the best of him before?

It didn't matter now, what mattered is that any kind of adversity that came from the Princess was long since gone, he held all the power over her, his dream magic drastically overpowered hers, at least he assumed that's what his powers were according to scrolls his puppets had collected.

He was honestly disappointed, life had been so boring and now that he knew of the outside world he hungered for something more than he had in a long time, he craved to know this universe. His other siblings were destroyers, poisoners, the darkest ones who wanted to sow death over the fields and salt the earth. This is what set him apart, as he stared down at the princess he had just made his toy, Nightmare felt glee, he chuckled, and then that became a laugh as his dominance prevailed.

Where the others craved destruction, he yearned for manipulation.

"Good, little one, very good. Now, let us talk, shall we, so called 'mistress of dreams'?"

The little one seemed to have shaken the emotions off, not to mention she finally caught on to the unintentional side effects caused by his voice. While he could disable the mind altering effects his presence and his tone had on another, he saw little to no reason to, it only granted him an edge. He supposed that was the downside to being an ancient one of nothing like he; nothing being perceived by something wasn't exactly the most pleasant affair, so conversation was difficult for anything less than a demigod without having your mind obliterated, not like he cared anyway, the thoughts of the lower life forms were inconsequential.

Then the little princess spoke again, she was on edge, but clearly composed. But Nightmare could tell she was afraid, he could feel it, smell it in her aura, the energy she gave off subtle and faint, but it was there.

"I don't suppose I could glean your name, Dark One? As you already seem to know I am Luna, Diarch of Equestria, Princess of the Moon, Sealer of Discord and Sovereign of the Night."

Nightmare was impressed, to recover so quickly from a stressful situation and rebound with such strength and elegance? Perhaps he had underestimated the little princess, but that didn't stop him from looking down on her both figuratively and very, VERY literally.

"Very well, Princess Luna, I shall grant your request. I am called Nightmare, Primordial of the Void, Reject of the First Flame and Overlord of the Dream Realm."

Luna didn't seemed fazed, but she paused, and she thought, eyes darting back and forth across the red eyes that were the only thing she could see of his form.

"Quite an interesting name, Nightmare? Pray tell, who said you were the Overlord of the Dream Realm?"

Nightmare had a deep chuckle once more, he could feel the twitch of anger behind that, he understood all too well what she was implying, what a foolish child.

"What, to say you are the mistress of this plane? I was here long before you, young one, I was here long before the one who you inherited that power from, and I guarantee you I will be here far longer than you will be."

The void around them, formerly pure black, slowly filled with stars, distant or close, it didn't matter, the emptiness of the universe was being filled with the light of energy. In a way, the two being standing across from one another served as a microcosm for the conflict that persisted in the fabric of the very concept of existence since the beginning. Luna was not one to take something for no response, however.

"if you are truly of that age, you would know that age does not foment superiority, Nightmare. If you are indeed ruler of this realm, then I must call you a tyrant, draining and tormenting your subjects for your own pleasure? Is this how you believe a ruler should act?"

Luna stomped her hoof, dream magic imbued sent a small platform of pour light outwards in a perfect circle, the light trying to jettison outwards but being beaten back by the dark. Nightmare was angry now, it welled up inside him like fuel to a coming flame, the impudence of this one!

"You are naïve, Princess Luna. I do not drain the energies of your subjects for my own pleasure, but to satiate myself, it is the only way of gathering energy from this realm ever since YOU broke the natural order of it and reshaped it to your bidding."

"You... then you devour the energy of their dreams? Is such a thing even possible?"

Luna seemed to be stunned briefly, did she really have so little knowledge of the very magic she claimed to lord over? She really was nothing but a filly.

"What changed between now and then, why must you harm our subjects to survive if you didn't have to before? We did nothing wrong by allowing our subjects to dream for themselves."

"Do you know so little of the realm you claim as your own? To create the phenomena known as individual dreams you had to destroy the collective subconscious, a massive expanse of energy made up of all the energy created by the unconscious, my main food source. Before eating a little from everyone, something so abstract, wouldn't harm any, but you and your precious harmony came along and ruined the food chain."

Luna seemed confused, but she also definitely did not trust the Dark One whatsoever.

"So what, I am supposed to believe this without any shred of evidence, demon? I could feel it when I first came here, my subjects were confused and in pain, your fault or not. Even if I believe your words, what I have done has brought them happiness. What kind of order is it that makes others suffer so you can thrive?"

This time, a loud growl... hiss? Growl-Hiss? Echoed from all sides of the darkness as the stars that were burning bright are all snuffed out in an instant by the dark fury brought forth in another burst of rage. Luna herself feels the energy all around her like the very tips of needles on every pore of her skin.

"Who are you to say what is wrong and what is right, Alicorn? All you have done is shape something against what was natural to this realm because your precious morals would not allow it."

"All you have done is take advantage of the helpless for your own benefit, have you ever thought to try something else to satiate yourself?"

Nightmare had tried led her on to little success, omitted some details, he could choose another food source, but what fun would that be? Despite that what he was doing technically was better for the universe, as this energy was infinitely produced.

"What you treat with disgust I know is nature, the predator does not ask for the consent of his prey, otherwise he shall starve. Your perfect harmony and foreign morals have no place in this world of dreams, Princess Luna. They are flawed and worthless to me!"

A vile wind swept against the Princess, lashing at her with the gusts seeming likes razor blades against her skin despite no cuts ever forming. Luna, for her part, stood her ground adamantly, the fear of before receding more and more as the light beneath her hooves grew and grew in diameter as she pushed back.

"You will not continue tormenting our subjects, Nightmare! There has to be a solution to your hunger, there isn't always just one way!"

"Says the one chastising me for not following their rules, is this really all you have for me, princess? Words of disgust backed with disbelief and some mantra that would see me starving and DEAD?"

The winds grew stronger, a deep and menacing howling ringing out as Nightmare's laughter filled the void once more.

"I did not call you here to have an idle chat, princess, I called you here to tell you to either dispel your hold over this world and let it return to it's natural state, or if you do not to stay out of my way."

Luna pushed with her dream magic, her Alicorn strength and her normal magic as hard as she could, carving a path through the winds slashing against her barrier of light slowly but surely, step by step towards the eyes.

"And leave our subjects at your mercy? You ask me to trust your words yet you do not trust me? You have shown me nothing but why not to trust you!"

Now the wind stopped and Luna could see the full figure in the glow of her light for the first time, metal, black, hard skin or fur, she couldn't tell which, shrunken to about the height of discord, those razor teeth and jagged claws, a stomach of much the same fangs, everything she could take in at once before the Darkness recloaked the figure, again the eyes the only thing visible. Luna gasped for air as she continued to hold her position, panting and shaking, had she really used up that much of her strength?

"Are you in a position to bargain? I have you brought to hoof with a simple gust of wind, I could obliterate you with the slightest effort, you say you cannot trust me? I have let you live, I could have destroyed you and taken this realm for my own at any time, yet I spare you. But you, who upended the natural order of MY home, have the delusion to speak of me being untrustworthy?"

Flanking the eyes of red came pinpricks of white on either side, two sets of eyes hummed electrically alongside the now distant sound of a chuckle, Luna jumped back, her barrier of light strengthening as she recognized the eyes to either side, she had seen them many times before.

"If you will not remove yourself willingly, there is always the option to force you to relinquish your claim, princess Luna. Do you wish to make an enemy of the void itself?"

Luna, knew what was being matched against her, she understood she couldn't fight this and win, she knew she had to get stronger, much stronger, she needed to escape. She had to find a way out.

"Surely we do not have to fight, Nightmare, we could reach an agreeme-"

"No agreements, princess. As I told you before, there is no conditions to my offer, you surrender unconditionally, or you shall be destroyed, here and now. Make your choice."

Luna weighed her options here, surrender was out of the question, their conversation had been all over the place, far from conclusive, she had no trust for this entity, she knew what she felt when she had first arrived to this realm, she knew it wasn't happy for anyone involved in this collective dream, the only one who would benefit was Nightmare.

Luna could fight, and she would lose, the creatures flanking either side of this Nightmare could give her enough trouble one on one on her best nights, even then taking all night to defeat, and she was already drained, she wouldn't last 20 minutes with all her effort against two in her current state, not to mention that wasn't even accounting the Dark One himself. To fight was to die, or at least to lose, which she couldn't allow.

Finally and the one she had almost already selected was to retreat, dishonorable it may have been, but it was the best option for her and her ponies, no, for all species that dreamed, to escape and devise a plan of action with the assistance of her sister. She would need to create an opening to conjure the spell to breach the worlds, if she could hold them off for just long enough she would be able to create a portal and escape to reality, where she was sure they could not follow, she had known they couldn't interact with the portals from past fights.

As the Lunar princess weighed her options nightmare awaited her response, she knew she would have to give one soon, she couldn't stall and think forever, but her heart was pounding and her mind racing at every possible way to instigate, to escape, to do anything and everything she could to make it out alive. She didn't intend on dying anytime soon, capture wouldn't be a good situation either. She didn't even want to know what uses the Dark one could find for a dreamwalker, perhaps he has encountered one before? It could explain the deaths of Dreamwalkers she had read about in the past, that was for later thoughts however.

"I-I will surrender, just please don't hurt me."

Luna could see Nightmare's eyes narrow, and she knew immediately he hadn't been fooled by her attempted falsified answer. Fuck. Not one spec of emotion remained in those fiery orbs but pure, unadulterated malice that seared into her soul with a gaze of striking hate. In what almost sounded like a sigh, she could here a brief pause, like the words were caught in the demon's throat as he seemed... regretful?

"So you have made your choice? Unfortunate, you have given me the grace of conversing with another, and for that I thank you. Now, however, it is time to say goodbye. Farwell, Princess Luna, your attempt was admirable, even if ultimately feeble."

Luna had already started the spellwork when he began speaking, but that timeframe was little of a condolence for her as she was forced to jump back, still channeling the combination of dream and alicorn magic needed to create a breach to transport her energy, her consciousness, back to her body. As his brief string of word's ended, Nightmare's minions lurched forward, the familial horrors that had made her nights so painful.

The Nightmare Reapers.

Luna continued to caste even as the tall and slender creatures lunged at her, scythes poised to slice her in two as she closed her eyes for a second, opening them equipped with her full set of midnight blue, cobalt armor embroidered with symbols of stars, constellations and the moon itself. Luna's helmet armor could be described much like the royal guards of Equestria, except it lacked the flamboyant mane and was much thinner with spikes on either side from the ears back, the enchanted cobalt being many times stronger than the gold used for the guardsmen. Her back piece was interlocked with a rib and stomach fitting piece that formed a full wrap cover around her midsection with another section that curved around her front, much like the helmet more thin and form fitting than a simple guardsmen. Along her legs and neck were platemale of cobalt, it was however kept to a minimum as Luna valued flexibility and movement over bulkiness and defense. Her hooves covered in a somewhat thick shoe of cobalt much like her Sister's casual gold wear, only these were fined down to sharp points and edges to slice and with force to crush. Then her wings came, covered in cobalt as well, wingblades, flexible and sharp, fined down to the thinnest edge and used for both midair combat and sideswiping ground strikes. Finally, instead of the usual star in the front of the armor Luna's was crested with a moon made entirely of Crystal, a gem cut finely and imbued with as many enchantments as Luna could research and stuff with to enhance all of her capabilities and focus her magic. This fully suited princess Luna, even in the state she was in now with her exhaustion, could trounce most creatures in the current world one on one.

But Nightmare was not most creatures, and neither were those reapers.

Luna was immediately on the defensive as she summoned up double shortswords using her dream magic, the cobalt swords hummed with magic as she brought them to either side of her body just in time to stop the first two scythe swings, which hit sequentially and pushed her back, she counted in her head as she continued her spell work.

She leapt over one scythe, driving the momentum of her flip into her blades, smashing against the other scythe driven clean at her in her somersault, preventing her from being cut in half but sending her flying.

Luna continued leaping back, narrowly avoiding another slash that barely grazed across her front facing platemale, she twisted herself to hear the ear grating sounds of metal on metal just narrowly as the second scythe clipped her left side's armor, sending sparks and small shavings of cobalt and whatever metal those scythes were made of go flying.

Luna swung hard, landing her hooves on the handle of one scythe, narrowly avoiding a claw strike from it's owner, and she pivoted around the handle, swinging her rear hooves into the other reaper, which blocked the attack with the scythe blade as she got a backhand from the one she grabbed, sending her flying again and disarming her as she used her wings to narrowly avoid another incoming slice from the one she struck.

Luna could feel the adrenaline burning hard in her veins, energy crackling from her horn as she continued to prepare her spell, not a moment of respite for her however as another scythe blade tried to sweep her legs, she put one hoof on the flat of the blade and leapt off it gracefully swing overhead of the reaper and avoiding two consecutive swipes from it, one with claw and another with blade as she tilted erratically mid air.

Luna narrowly dodged a downward swing of the scythe blade by the second reaper by rolling out of the way and pushing off the ground, trying again and colliding her back hooves with the top of the scythe handle, the reaper precisely blocking her blow as she slashed with her wing blades trying to create more space, all blocked.

Luna dodged an upward strike, the scythe cleaving through the air as she noticed a red light begin to build silently out of her peripheral vision, her focus returning just in time to dodge the first reaper's long side swinging slash, ducking under, narrowly and pushing off again, only this time she was met with the claws of the first reaper in a punch to the muzzle, predicting her movement and sending her back to the ground, yet she continued to cast, despite the pain she knew she would die if she messed up now.

The light in the edge of Luna's vision grew, she didn't care, she rolled again, blocking the first reaper's incoming downward strike by catching it between her wingblades and diverting it to the ground next to her head, leaping up just in time for the second reaper to swing high at her, and so she dove downwards, trying to get under and around the second reaper, but was met with the base of the scythe staff as she swooped in to the side.

She tumbled again, putting everything into maintaining her focus, the pain didn't matter, the spell mattered, the reapers mattered. She dodged the first reaper sending a careening flame projected from the firs reaper's blade that singed her feathers as it passed by her left wing, she leapt and tried to fly again only to be met with a slashing blast of ice magic to her underside as she leapt, courtesy of the first reaper, that sent her crashing down, yet even as she struggled to get up, the reapers closing in fast, the light in the edge of her vision that burned maliciously growing brighter and the blood pooling in her mouth, her lungs hit by the sheer concussive force of the blast as she had no magical shielding, she smiled.

She smiled because she knew she had won, as the portal open up below her, she felt herself begin to black out, catching what the light had been, a devastating blood red blast of magical lightning that scream overhead as she sunk into the portal, annihilating the air where she had just been.

She smiled as she felt her body, bruised but not broken, in her own bed.

She did it, she survived.

Nightmare watched as his blast that could have annihilated Luna even if she were at full strength drift off into the void, dissipating in the cold darkness. His reapers no longer having a target, freezing up and staring at where the Lunar Princess had last been. She escaped, Nightmare knew the second she left the dream realm.

One might assume he would be appalled, enraged, absolutely berserk at the fact his prey had escaped. But Nightmare, Nightmare laughed, he laughed because while yes, he was annoyed that she had escaped in his overconfidence, he knew she wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. She stood no chance against him in her current state, she wasn't even a threat together with her sister.

As his mental commands were sent to his minions once more, his reapers rapidly flew to his side as loyal sentries, completely unphased by their battle with the princess. Nightmare shifted his gaze, with a wave of his hand the visuals around them changed from the emptiness that he was born from so long ago to the swarm of bubbles laid our across the dream realm, dreams unprotected, his for the taking.

As his mental commands reverberated and hoards of his children flew out to harvest like never before, he could only think of new Nightmares he could create, something with more strings attached.

He laughed again, some words came from the deepest recesses of his memory as his spawn tore away at the innocent without opposition.

"Nightmares will come pouring out of Hell when the Devil gets desperate."

Author's Note

Ahhhhhhh Sorry Guys, I am Back!
This is probably the chapter I am most insecure about so far, I wrote this early in the morning and I think the dialogue is probably pretty stale, but I tried my best.
If anyone wonders "Why the long hiatus?"
Well that was because of lots of personal issues that involved therapy taking up a good amount of my time, you should be able to expect regular updates from now on though!
Have a wonderful day, whoever you are!