Long before the rise of Discord, the Alicorns were a race like anyother of the tribes, and they ruled all of Ponykind from the Alicorn consule, made up from the most powerful Alicorns of the time, and it was headed by the King and Queen.

One day two Alicorn brothers came before the consule, and pleaded their cases, the eldest brother stated that the time of sleep should be used to give ponies an escape from the harshness of the world to give them happiness. The younger brother beleived that sleep should be used to teach and warn ponies of what they should be fearful of so that they would be safe, and coutious and not put themselves in dangerous sitouatoins. So the Alicorn king charged each brother to bring what would come to be known as dreams and nightmares to everypony in the kingdom, and other time as the populatoin grew the brothers needed help; the elder sort the help of other alicorns whereas the younger sort the help of anypony who would and eventually they formed the Dream Casters and the Nightmare Knights.

But the brother of nightmares had a problem, the size of the pony populatoin far outnumbered that of his knights and since his ponies were not only Alicorns but also Pegasi, Earth and Unicorn ponies, he needed to find a way for them to travel over Equestria in moments, so he created the vale a relm that the Nightmare Knights could use to travel over Equestria in the blink of an eye. This action however would in future bring Equestria to the brink of destruction.