Light of the moon

“And, furthermore, the moon should be delayed by four minutes for us to get sufficient….”

Luna stopped paying attention, and closed her eyes. Every night, these nobles came into her throne room, telling her how to best move the moon to benefit everypony. The princess raised a hoof. She was getting tired of this.

“Lord Seed, if you have not noticed, we control the moon. We have controlled the moon for much longer than you were born, and we know how to benefit everypony without fail. For you to stroll in here and demand that the moon should be moved by your whim alone is either amazingly brave, or impossibly stupid. So far, it seems like you are being impossibly stupid. If you really expected us to believe that you are doing this to benefit others, then it is clear that—“

The silence was too great. Even for the Princess verbally beating down a noble, it was too quiet. Her headache had been replaced by a serious sense of dread. She opened her eyes and looked around. This was decidedly not her throne room. She was alone in a forest, except this forest was unfamiliar to her. The Sun hung low over the western sky, and shrouded the area in grim shadows. Looking up, Luna saw a moon, but this was not her moon. This moon was rough, and jagged, and it seemed to be smiling down at her with homicidal delight. As she watched it for a few seconds, it suddenly got larger. No… It didn’t get larger, it got closer! This moon was headed straight for this land! But… where was this forest in the first place?

“There it is! Get it! Stop that monster!”

The Princess looked around at the sound of the rough, grating voice and saw a large group of ponies stampeding toward her. These ponies seemed to be cruel mockeries of themselves, cutie marks exaggerated beyond all proportion as their eyes dripped a yellow liquid. With each drop that fell, another, smaller clone would form to join the horde charging through the area.

Sudden, untraceable fear shot through the Princess. Was this a memory of Nightmare Moon? If it was… Oh, those poor ponies. They wouldn’t be able to run fast enough. At that moment, Luna realized she was the one running. Strange, she did not remember being a coward. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop running. Looking down, she saw white legs running underneath her. Suddenly, she knew what was happening.

She had been pulled into a pony’s nightmare. That never happened willingly, unless the nightmare was so terrifying that she had no choice. But, whose nightmare was this? With a great effort, she began to create a form to represent her in this dream. She had to find out what these madponies were screaming about, and who was so terrified as to actually attract the attention of the Princess of the Night.

She finished forming to see a red tail dart into a house that had inexplicably appeared in the woods. The architecture was unmistakably from Canterlot, but it was not a house she recognized. Attempting to catch the terrified pony, she stepped into a nightmare far worse than the one she had left.

Before her on the ground was a terrified Pegasus stallion, probably no more than 15 years old. He was the one who had been running, but something had grabbed his leg. Following the limb, Luna saw two dying ponies slowly clawing their way across the dirt floor toward the fallen stallion. The ponies had deep gashes across their flanks, and were missing a lot more flesh than they still had. Blood made the floor slick, and they began to slide faster toward Luna and the owner of these nightmares.

The stallion screamed in horror and attempted to fly away, only to be blocked by the roof. Luna raised an eyebrow. This pony needed help, quickly. Luna quickly willed away these nightmares.

Nothing happened. They didn't even pause. That was impossible. This was her realm, and she had absolute power. This boy must have amazing willpower if he could innately block her control in his dreams. Taking a deep breath, Luna prepared to use her Royal Canterlot Voice.

“BACK, MONSTERS OF THE SHADOW! THIS IS OUR DOMAIN, AND YOU SHALL NOT HARM OUR SUBJECT! If you proceed in this course, there will never be another place in both this realm and any other for you to hide, and you shall DIE!”

Everything froze. Blood droplets hung in midair, feathers halted their fall, and the two nightmarish bodies halted their movement.

Luna looked toward the stallion, but he was frozen too. The slight quivering showed him to be only frozen in fear, rather than by the power of her voice. Something drew her attention to the pegasus’s flank. She stared hard at the unbroken white across his side, wondering what it could be.

Suddenly, everything clicked in her mind. The exaggerated cutie marks earlier, the unmarred side of the pony before her. He did not have a cutie mark!

Following her eyes, the Pegasus realized what she was staring at, and immediately jumped away, running out the door to take off into the night.

“Wait! We wish to speak to you! We do not… I didn’t mean...”

Luna sighed as she lost track of the pony. While she could always teleport to wherever he went, she decided against it. She had intruded in on a nightmare, and fixed it, but ended up embarrassing the stallion anyways. If only this pony was more like Scootaloo or Twilight, with simple fears that actually made sense. Well, she had to make things right, and the firs—

Luna jolted awake to find herself completely wrapped in the golden glow of Celestia’s magic. Blinking in surprise, she noticed that the throne room was still missing. Instead, a steady beeping and clean, bleached smell filled the air. Where was she?

“LUNA!”

Her sister yelled, running forward to hold her. “We were so worried. When you collapsed in the middle of open court, one of the guards ran to me immediately. What happened?”

What did happen? Ordinary ponies do not have the power to drag a Princess into their dreams, especially when they aren’t even a unicorn. Who in the world of Equestria was that boy?

“Tia, I need your help. I need you to look for someone. I don’t know his name, but he has more strength than I expected. Find him, and bring him here. We need to have a chat with him.”