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.