Chapter 2: A Prelude to Greater Nightmares

Chapter 2

A Prelude to Greater Nightmares

“This is like a bad science fiction novel,” said Rainbow Dash, her mouth half full of hay. “I mean, all we know about this Cenasolus... thing... is that it wants to eat the sun, and that's why Celestia is sick? Really?”

“That's about it," said Twilight. "We really don't know what it is or anything about it except that it has a grievous hunger. It has to consume either a world or the life of a being that is tied to that world's life force. Luna and Celestia's parents were stronger than they are because the universe was more primal and violent back then. Luna believes that Celestia will be consumed much more quickly than their father was, and that Cenasolus will come for her, next.”

Twilight still hadn't slept, and the plate of various grains, oats and flowers that sat before her was hardly touched.

“Well, she's doing a mighty fine job of staying calm, then,” said Applejack, gazing out of an open window at the rising moon.

“You don't think she's worried about herself, too, do you?” asked Fluttershy. “She has enough to worry about with Princess Celestia being sick, and then she has to raise the sun and moon both, too, poor thing.”

“I'm standing behind you." It was a regal voice, and obviously perturbed. "And if you ever call me a 'poor thing,' again, I will eat you.”

Five of the six ponies seated in the royal dining chamber pivoted quickly in their seats. Fluttershy alone did not turn to look at Luna. She merely sank down into her chair like a melting ice cube.

“Fluttershy, she's kidding,” said Pinkie Pie, noticing Fluttershy's mortification and panic. “Isn't she?” She looked at Twilight. There was no response. “Aren't you?” She looked at Luna.

“I'm not sure,” said the night-purple alicorn. Luna walked to the head of the table and sat down heavily in the chair there.

It was too large for her.

Everypony watched her intently as she slumped back, leaning lackadaisically against its back and one of its foreleg rests. Sh ran a hoof down that rest, and sighed, her eyes tired and unfocused. The tightening of her jaw and the quiver it elicited were visible, but her eyes did not well, and she made not the slightest sound.

After a few moments, though Luna did not verbally or by any other visible signal call for service, an earth pony cook with a rolling tray trotted gingerly into the room. His expression was even more uneasy than those of the six mares. He stopped near where Luna sat, and removed a covered dish from the tray. Quickly, he sat it in front of her, and uncovered it, revealing something that caused every one of the six mares to recoil.

It was meat, bloody and raw -- a chunk of it big enough that it must have come from something at least as large as a cow or a deer. They were all shocked, but to their credit, only Rarity fainted, an action which was only partially an act. Spike jumped from his seat and ran to her side. The rest of the ponies all waited to see if Luna would eat what had been sat before her.

She did not; She blooded it. She clenched her teeth around it and sucked. It was audible; The ponies could actually hear her drawing the blood from the flesh.

“Fluttershy,” whispered Pinkie, leaning over, “Never call her a 'poor thing,' again.”

Luna pulled her head up from the plate. “It's not from a pony.”

A drop of blood fell off of Luna's chin. Rainbow Dash gagged a little on a mouthful of hay.

“Did you think her fangs were for show?” Nopony dared ask to whom Luna referred. They all knew. “There remain even now certain disadvantages to my... possession... that are not easily overcome. At first, I had to consume the meat, itself. One day, I will find a way to make even... this... unnecessary. For now, however, that is not our concern.”

The cook put the cover back over the meat, now bloodless and pale, and placed it back on the cart.

“You just let us see that," said Rainbow Dash, having managed to swallow her hay by a substantial exercise of willpower. "That happened, just now. You just drank blood, like a vampire or something." She coughed slightly.

“Tell somepony. See what they do about it.” Luna's voice wasn't even smug. She lifted a napkin telekinetically to her mouth, and wiped the blood away.

The cook returned with another tray, this one loaded with ordinary equine food, and began to set it before Luna. The portions were noticeably larger than they had been for the other ponies, but only in proportion with Luna's own greater size. She began to eat, and something about seeing her consume ordinary food made her guests relax, again.

“Celestia hasn't eaten since she fell asleep,” said Luna, magically lifting an ornate cup of wine to her lips to sip. If we don't find a way to wake her soon, the doctor will have to put her on an I.V.”

“That's all you can think about, ain't it?” Applejack's voice was laced with real concern.

She had, predictably, been the least unsettled by the image of Luna extracting blood from the chunk of once-living muscle tissue. Farm life had shown her many ugly things, and she had learned, in time, to think of even the most brutal and disgusting parts of day-to-day existence as no more or less than life playing itself out as it must.

“Reckon I'd be worried the same about my own kin," she continued, "but you oughtta keep your head up. I don't think Celestia's quite ready to throw in towel... or she don't strike me as the type, leastways."

Luna looked at Applejack without speaking, then returned to her meal.

Rarity, still swooning on the floor, began to come to her senses. Spike fanned her with a napkin as she sat up and began to speak.

“Oh, thank goodness. I had the most dreadful dream. We were having dinner at the castle, which would have been lovely except for the circumstances, and they brought a plate of bloody flesh out for Princess Luna, if you can believe it.” She observed her surroundings, and the reality of the situation dawned on her even as Spike was explaining.

“Oh, I believe it,” said the dragon. “It happened. She sucked the blood out of it.”

Rarity was down again, as if she had taken a hammer to the tip of her horn.

“SPIKE!” Twilight mustered just enough energy for a motherly reproach.

“Well, she was gonna hear it from somepony!” he shot back.

“I'll take care of her, Twilight,” said Fluttershy. She rose and walked to Rarity's side, then nuzzled her gently. Rarity stirred slightly, and opened her eyes a bit.

“Up, pretty girl; let's get you to bed,” said the yellow pegasus. As Rarity came slowly to her hooves, Fluttershy hooked a wing over her body and began to walk her towards the door.

“Fluttershy, your mane is absolutely gorgeous, this evening; are you a natural pink?” she asked, seemingly unaware of her surroundings.

“It's like when she's drunk,” chuckled Fluttershy.

Rarity kissed her on the cheek, and Fluttershy winced and huffed through her nose.

“Yep, just like when she's drunk,” she said, as she guided Rarity carefully out of the room.

“So, Luna, how do we stop Cenasolusususus?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“We don't,” said Luna. She continued eating.

“Father himself couldn't stop this force. Celestia will eventually be consumed by it, as, most likely, will I.”

Twilight shook her head slowly, in a daze.

“I can't let that happen, Princess.” She continued to stare at her untouched food.

“Tell me just how you presume to stop it,” said Luna, her tone edged with reproach and irritability.

There was silence.

“That's what I thought," she said, her voice once again calm. "I'm ready for desert.”

The cook left, and quickly returned with another cart.

"What's the point in watching my figure?" asked the alicorn. "I'll be dead soon, anyway. Two; maybe three hundred years at the most."

“Princess, you can't just give up hope!” Rainbow Dash barely managed to keep herself from slamming her hoof down on the table. She had just seen this mare draw the blood out of a chunk of dead something with her mouth. Now was not the time to be haughty.

“There is no hope to give up. We cannot stop Cenasolus. He... She... It... is not a thing that we can even touch, Rainbow Dash. It is beyond our world, somewhere in the vast reaches of the aether, beyond the sun, the moon, and even the stars. Father tried in vain with his every waking moment to find a means by which to reach and destroy this power. He tried that for what must have been hundreds, if not thousands of years. Nothing availed him. Celestia, if she wakes, will slip in and out of these maddening fugues for the rest of her life. She will last for maybe a few centuries more, and then either by Cenasolus' hunger or my own heartbreak, I will follow her to the grave. Your concern as a species should hereafter be learning how to replace us before Celestia and I are gone.”

“So, that’s it?" Twilight’s voice trembled with anger, fear, and sadness as she spoke. "You just... die?”

Luna's eyes were empty, her words almost a whisper. “I don't know; I suppose I've been dead, before.”

“This is so stupid!” Rainbow Dash shouted. Everypony turned towards her.

“Why did we even come here? We can't stop this thing! We can't fight it! It's like a bad dream, only nopony gets to wake up from it. Princess Celestia doesn't deserve this, and Princess Luna, you don't either! I hate this! I hate everything about it!”
"Rainbow Dash," said Applejack, her voice stern and calm, and she laid a hoof on Rainbow Dash's shoulder.

The Pegasus' eyes were welling up, more with rage than sadness, but she would never let herself cry in front of her friends, if she could help it.

“Princess Luna, when was the last time you slept?” Twilight, who hadn't slept in at least as long, if not longer, completely missed the irony of her question.

“Not since Celestia... first became like this.”

“Well, maybe you should just go to bed. Celestia might be able to speak to you the way she did me.” Twilight reached out and touched Luna's hoof.

“Twilight, I am not going in there until I am certain I can bring her out with me.” Luna's tone made clear her resolve. “Beyond that, there is another complication.”

Twilight stared at Luna, fighting sleep, but curious, all the same.

“Nightmare Moon is a goddess of her namesake, and some part of her remains in my being. She is ever in my dreams, and if I enter Celestia's, she will go with me. In my own dreams she can do no real harm, but in my sister's I cannot be sure how she will manifest herself. Nor can I imagine what she will do, though I am positive she will try to do something.”

“Well, if I go back to sleep,” said Twilight, “won't I end up in Celestia's dreams again?”

“It's hard to say.” Luna clicked her tongue. “It's likely, but you may be able to avoid it if you use a simple defensive spell to create a field of magical interference around yourself. When you told me that you had been drawn into Celestia's dreams, I had your brother cast one around the entire castle to keep the population of the city from being affected. Celestia is essentially a living antenna for Cenasolus, right now. I was afraid every unicorn in the city would be afflicted in some way.

Pinkie's mouth hung open for a moment. “Every unicorn in Canterlot!? That's a lot of unicorns!”

“Yes,” said Luna. “You understand my concern. Shining Armor's wards are very strong, however. Since none of the castle staff sleeps here, they should be fine, and the guard barracks are outside of the spell's radius, so the unicorns among the guards won't be affected either, assuming none of them fall asleep at their posts. I doubt they will let that happen, however, as they are, of course, the best in the country, and I have furthermore warned them of the danger.”

“I'll just go stay at my parents' house, then,” Twilight shrugged. "I'll be outside the field there." Her eyes perked up.
"By the way, where is my brother? I haven't seen him since we got here."

Just then, there was the thunder of hoofbeats in the hall, and the sound of a guard yelling.

“Miss, where are you going in such a rush? Slow down; you'll fall!”

Fluttershy burst in, swatting at the air with her wings to curb her momentum. She skidded across the stone floor, a horseshoe kicking up a single, fiery spark as she came to a halt. Twilight shook her head in an effort to focus her sleep-deprived eyes on the frazzled pegasus. Fluttershy laid her hooves on Twilight's shoulders and all but shouted into fer face.

“There's something wrong with Rarity! I can't wake her up!”

Luna's eyes widened so much that they seemed to bulge in their sockets.

“Oh, shit.”

* * *

Luna got there first, her long alicorn legs carrying her ahead of the ponies. What greeted her was worse than she could have imagined. The white unicorn was writhing and convulsing, half-tangled in the silken gold bed linens. A stream of terrible sounds poured out of her mouth. Some of them were screams, some were words and sentences in a language Luna did not understand, and some of them were anguished gasps and retches. Rarity's eyes were half open, but they showed no evidence of consciousness.

Rainbow Dash arrived next, followed by Applejack, then Pinkie and Fluttershy. Twilight got there last. Spike, who was seated on her back, dove to the floor and ran towards Rarity.

“Don't!” Applejack's voice erupted, and her head shot out like a striking viper. Her teeth clenched around the tip of Spike's tail, which caused him to promptly fall on his rear.

“I know you care about her,” said Applejack, releasing her grip, “but she's liable to run her horn into your guts -- or at least put a hoof into your jawbone.”

Fluttershy half-leapt to Luna's side. “It wasn't this bad when I left her! We have to wake her up!” Her voice was cracking in panic, and her eyes were welling up with tears.

“What is she saying!?” Rainbow Dash shouted over Rarity's terrifying ululations. “Twilight, what language is that!?”

“I don't know!” Twilight glanced desperately toward the Princess. “Luna!?”

“That language does not belong to this world.” Luna's voice cut through the commotion by its very calmness. “I have to get her out of here. Now. Meet me across the drawbridge.”

The writhing unicorn glowed with a deep black-violet light, and lifted off of the bed. She still twisted, wretched and screamed incomprehensibly, even as she floated through the air. The arched window near the bed shimmered purple for the briefest moment, then burst into a thousand shards that spewed outwards into the night. In a moment, Luna had leapt through it, Rarity in tow. Rainbow Dash followed immediately, diving gracefully through the opening from a dead start. Fluttershy, after a moment's hesitation, gingerly hopped up onto the window sill, carefully avoiding the broken bits of glass at its edge.

“Why wouldn't she just open it?” she mumbled in frustration. Then, she disappeared into the night, leaving only a pair of yellow feathers sailing slowly towards the floor.

The other ponies stared at the blackness outside the window for a moment. Then, Pinkie broke the silence.

“WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR!?” She turned and headed down the hallway in an all-out sprint, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

The other ponies followed, and caught up to her as she was pushing open one of the massive double doors of the great hall with her head and shoulder. Applejack didn't even slow down, but heaved herself into the air and broadsided the door with her entire body, causing it to swing open. The impact echoed like a sledgehammer in the cavernous hall. Pinkie, suddenly unsupported, fell flat on her face. Applejack recoiled off the door, hitting the floor with her hooves moving. Two bat pony guards wearing armor bearing Luna's crest stood outside the door, and they watched in confusion as two earth ponies and a baby dragon ran past. Twilight, at the rear of the pack, paused briefly, running in place between the two flabbergasted stallions.

“I'msosorryIreallyhopewedidn'tdamageanythingIhavetogo!” With that, she pursued her friends across the drawbridge.

Luna stood over a supine Rarity on the far side of the drawbridge. Fluttershy knelt beside the unicorn, and Rainbow Dash hovered overhead. As the dragon, the two earth ponies, and finally the exhausted unicorn arrived, they were all relieved to see that Rarity was obviously still breathing, though still very clearly unconscious. She was still mumbling things in that bizarre language, but much more quietly, now. More importantly, she had ceased to writhe and convulse, though she still twitched occasionally and seemed to be shivering violently.

“Will she be okay?” Spike asked, his voice fraught with uncertainty.

“No,” said Luna.

* * *

The first thing Rarity noticed as her vision came into focuse was a bookshelf that covered one wall. It was laden with old, well-used textbooks on every subject imaginable. She allowed her eyes to scan the room more thoroughly, and was unsurprised to find it filled with the many trinkets and mementos of a filly's maturation into a mare. After a few seconds, she sat up, and saw what she had expected: Twilight Sparkle lay under a blanket in the floor next to the bed, sound asleep, her head on a throw pillow. There was a full ashtray, an empty wine glass, and two empty cigarette packages laying near her head.

“Twilight?” The purple unicorn stirred a little at the mention of her name, and her eyes opened.

“Oh, thank Celestia you're awake,” she said, looking up at Rarity. “Or thank Luna, really." She sighed, and looked down at the cigarette packages. She lifted one, then the other, and huffed, having found them both empty.

"This is my old bedroom," said Twilight.

"I guessed," said Rarity, nodding at the books.

"Yeah," said Twilight, "Not much of a riddle, was it?"

She dug through the ashtray with the tip of a hoof, and finding one cigarette that she had only smoked half of, lit it, and took a drag.

"I guess I dozed off," she said. "Spike must have covered me up.”

“No, that was me.” Twilight's mother stood in the doorway, and upon seeing her, Twilight quickly removed the cigarette, and levitated it behind her back.
"Spike is asleep on the couch," said the older mare, shaking her head and sighing slightly at Twlight's feeble attempt to maintain her "good little girl" decorum, "and you should go back to sleep, too. It's just now dawn, and you only slept for a few hours.”

“Dawn?” Twilight gave a quick, sharp cough into her foreleg, and cleared her throat. Then, she looked out the window, at the rising sun.

“Rarity, what did you see?” she asked.

Rarity curled into a fetal position, and began to sob. Luna had been right. She was not “okay.”

* * *

“It was a spring day; the most beautiful I could remember in all my life. I was in the town square of Ponyville, and everypony was doing the things they normally do there. My sister Sweetie Belle was there, and so were Applebloom and Scootaloo. I think I was taking them shopping for their first little bit of makeup, or something. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I realized that the world around me was changing. The buildings were growing older, the trees taller, and the ponies were all aging the same way. Sweetie Belle and her friends were growing up right in front of me. Cutie marks even appeared on their rumps, but I don't remember what they were. I was the only thing that did not seem to change.'

“Of course, all this panicked me, and Sweetie Belle noticed. She kept asking me 'Rarity, what's wrong?' Her voice kept changing just a little at a time, as she got taller and older. It kept happening faster and faster, and she just kept asking me 'Rarity, are you okay? Rarity, what's wrong?' She grew into a mare, then grew old and died, still standing on her hooves. Her body rotted away, and left a skeleton standing there. Its jaw just... moved... as if to continue asking me that same questions, 'Rarity, what's wrong?' Soon, all the ponies had become skeletons, and then those crumbled to dust. The buildings all began to fall to pieces, and rotted into nothing around me. The world began to change. The trees grew tall and died, and new trees grew in their place. The streams seemed to twist and change their course, like they were snakes writhing across the ground. Even the ground itself kept sinking and swelling beneath my hooves.'

“That was when I heard a strange voice that seemed to come from the sky. When I looked up to find where it was coming from, I saw that the sun had... swollen. It hadn't stopped, either; it grew very large and red in the sky, and as it did, the voice grew louder, saying things in some language that I couldn't understand. As the sun grew, the trees -- all of them -- began to die away, and the ground became scorched and barren. The water of the streams turned to steam and rose into the sky, and the sky, itself, -- the very blue of it -- was blasted away. All that was left was that great, glowing red ball and the moon and stars, and soon it grew so large that the moon itself was consumed by it. Then, just before it would have swallowed up the whole world, the sun began to shrink, again. All the while the voice continued to speak, and I began to just know what it was saying as if I had always spoken that strange language.'

“As the sun shrank, the voice said many things, like “I am eternity,” and “I endure,” and “I inherit myself.” It just kept saying such things. “I am time. I am entropy. I am the end, and I will be the beginning.” There was no sense of rage or selfishness in it. There was a coldness, though; a lack of feeling that was simply poisonous to the heart.'

“Soon, the sun was like a pinpoint of light in the distance, and not long after that it became a swirling black vortex that pulled the whole world towards itself. Everything was sucked into it, including me, but I didn't die; it didn't even hurt, in fact. But I was surrounded by perfect nothingness, and the sound of the voice had faded, leaving an unbroken, absolute silence. I tried to speak, just to make some kind of sound because the void around me felt so empty and quiet, but I couldn't. As I tried to breath in, I realized there was no air. It was so strange to draw in a breath but to not feel any air move into me or out. I started to panic, thinking I would suffocate, but I realized after a while that I should have passed out by then, and hadn't. So, I tried casting a simple light spell into the darkness, but when I did, my horn ached terribly. And the light, no matter how much I focused it, did not show me anything, as if there was nothing to illuminate for as far as I could cast the beam.'

“After some time, the voice returned. It said, “All is futility. All becomes nothing. Nothing becomes all. All becomes nothing. I am. I am. I am.” I will never forget how empty and hollow and devoid of emotion it was. As it spoke, I began to feel a sense of complete hopelessness; I thought the world had ended. I began to cry. I wanted to sob and scream, but when I tried, nothing came out. It was awful, but just when I thought I would lose my mind, I saw a pinprick of light begin to grow in the darkness.

I watched it grow, unsure of what it might be, until it finally burst into an image of a white alicorn. At first, I thought it was the Princess, but I realized it was a stallion. He had a gold mane and eyes brighter than the sun. He roared like a dragon, and the earth, the sun, the moon, and everything I had seen consumed came pouring out of his mouth. Seeing that, even in such a void, made me realize that he was more enormous than anything I had ever even imagined, before. I floated down onto that new Earth, and after I had landed, I looked upward. The alicorn grew old before my eyes, just as the ponies in Ponyville had, and soon he too had crumbled into nothingness.'

“When I finally looked down from the sky, there was Sweetie Belle – my Sweetie Belle, the right age, the right size, and blank-flanked as she could be. I was back in Ponyville on the very same day. Sweetie Belle asked me once more, 'Rarity, what's wrong?'

“I said 'Nothing,’ and that was when I woke up.”