A cold winter’s night found Ponyville in slumber, silent and tranquil. Wisps of wind blew in a backdrop of snowflakes upon the peaceful town, not a blizzard nor a storm but a speckled fog. Each tiny drop of crystalline ice fluttered gently to the ground in slow motion, as if Time itself had, in a rare display of kindness, slowed down to give these ill-fated travelers a chance to take in their beautiful surroundings before they inevitably conjoined with their brethren and formed a blanket of pure white upon the peaceful buildings of Ponyville.
With collective breaths its inhabitants slept on through the uneventful night, resting happily under the caring glow of the moon, whose beautiful aura sparkled against the unbroken fields of snow. The ponies’ sleep was unperturbed and innocent; their dreams were filled with happy memories of their happy lives, and happy visions of their happy futures. Children dreamt of brave adventures in faraway lands, their parents reminisced on their hopes and dreams fulfilled long ago, and nearly all were satisfied.
Only one would suffer that night.
The innocent snowflakes fluttering softly through the air looked in through her windows, watching with mild interest as she thrashed to and fro, her mouth wide open and her eyes sealed shut. Laying in her bed this pony shifted and shuffled, tossed and turned, trying in sheer desperation to break the iron grip of her torturer. She moaned and screamed, calling out into the dark winter’s night for help.
The night was deaf to her cries; the watchful gaze of the moon passed over her, but to the ignorant moon she was just another cloud in the storm, just another snowflake in the haze of white.
Frightening visions flashed before her restless eyelids, each vision more disturbing than the next. The first of these visions was comparable to a surrealist painting of the midnight sky, twisted beyond the plausibility of anything but a nightmare. The sky was a thick fabric woven from threads of dark blues and indigoes, thrown against the sphere of the sky as if sheltering it, keeping it warm as any blanket protects its user. By far the most beautiful aspect of its appearance, however, was the glowing moon that had been woven into the blanket’s center, a delicate mix of whites and grays that exuded an aura of brilliance, dazzling to behold even though it was captured on such a simplistic work of art. From out of the nothingness the blanket covered, a tiny silhouette appeared, impossible to make out under the restful darkness of night. Its form was constantly shifting as it flew up to the blanket, parting the air as if it was nothing. The nightmare’s victim watched on as the cloud of shadow drew a bloodred scythe; in a blur of crimson it slashed the protective blanket of the sky into so many shreds of blue cloth, exposing the silent landscape to the horrors outside of its protective covers. Shadows and monsters and demons beyond the powers of an innocent mind to comprehend rushed upon the landscape, corrupting the realm that the sky-blanket had tried so hard to protect. Up above the world, the silhouette of a lone stallion stood watching…
As this pony rolled over, another nightmare forced itself into her dreamscape—another twisted story she must bear witness to, another riddle she must solve. She was running for her life, sprinting as countless vines and trees passed her by on each side, naught but blurs of green and brown and gray under the moonless sky. Her breath echoed, deafening and shallow in her ears; her heart hammered restlessly against her skull like a pounding drum. The hoofsteps clattering against the road behind her drew closer and closer, forcing her heart to beat harder and harder as she pushed her muscles to their limits. A cliff rapidly approached in the center of her vision; looking up to gauge its height, she saw a faceless unicorn standing tall upon its peak, deep in concentration—as if he was trying to raise the moon yet lacked the power…
Suddenly the mare awoke; her eyes snapped open instantly. Looking down around her, she took in everything—her bedroom was the same as it always was, and a slow fog of snowflakes fluttered outside her windowsill, watching with mild interest as she took a moment to breathe. Was this the dreamscape’s end? Was the cycle of nightmares broken?
From the corner of her eye, one tiny detail caught her attention. The photo on her wall of her standing alongside her friends, laughing and smiling, was empty. She was alone, still confined in the sadistic asylum of nightmares. Yet this one somehow felt…different from the others. Less planned-out. As she experimentally swung her hooves from side to side she could tell that she was in control of her actions.
Though still, despite her nearly realistic sense of self-awareness, the air itself undulated at her motion, waving back and forth as though she had disturbed a heavy curtain. This dream was as delicately woven as the rest. Looking to the side, she noticed another peculiarity not shared by the realm of reality: the mirror was missing. For some odd reason, the pony did not want her to see her own reflection...this morbidly intriguing line of thought remained in Twilight's consciousness for naught but half a moment before she let it fall into the void of nonexistence.
After she had checked to make sure her hooves were, in fact, still hooves, she stepped through the black door frame, down the stairs and out the door, to investigate the cause of this dream’s difference in nature with the others.
A violent gust of wind howled through the empty landscape, chilling her to the bone. Puffs of mist burst from her nostrils, spreading into the air and disappearing into the merciless cold. Like a frozen shroud the snow descended over the land, holding it hostage in an icy grip, sucking the heat and life from the air.
One thing had caught her eye, and she trotted steadily toward it despite the icy chill that was determined to halt her approach. Directly in front of her house, standing tall above the middle of the road, was a single golden-framed mirror. Its height, though impressive, was not its strangest defining characteristic—the oddest aspect of this mirror was its reflection.
The world in the mirror, consumed by the frozen winter, was replaced by a grassy field that waved gently in the cool night breeze. Each blade of grass was very much alive, emerald green instead of ashen beige, yet seemed...off. Even in looking at them Twilight could see that something was wrong, something was missing. The essential spark of life was absent from these blades of grass, cut away by the razor-sharp scythe of Time. Through preservation in a realm beyond Time, the grass had lost every unique characteristic and individuality that could be considered Alive. It had chosen death by immortality.
The feature of the realm in the mirror that most caught her attention was her reflection. Instead of a beautiful unicorn mare in the prime of life, her soul filled with magic and her eyes with passion, she stood staring at the very same figure that had followed her through her dreams and nightmares. There in the corner of her eyes, and then gone like a wisp in the wind, this stallion had never before revealed himself to her in full until now.
He had…nothing. The gray-coated stallion staring her in the face had nothing but a slit of a mouth cut into his face, stuck in the same emotionless expression. The mouth opened and a single question rang out, in a monotonous voice, echoing out from the other side of the mirror:
“Knowest thou thyself?”
She frowned. Knowest thou…what? Nopony spoke like that anymore, not for centuries. The only pony who had ever spoken like that recently was Princess Luna-
Suddenly the air around her shimmered, sending out waves across the fabric of reality like ripples in a pond as its seamless surface was broken by any pebble which chose to shatter its serenity. Even thinking the name "Princess Luna" had affected the landscape—no, dreamscape—around her, setting into motion the end of the nightmares. Somehow, she knew that after this vision she would awaken, and remember only one thing—the single name that had ended the cycle of visions. That name was a key to unlocking something, and now all she had to do was find out what. The message was clear; the cycle of nightmares had served their purpose. It was time to break the cycle.
Taking a deep breath, she reached out beyond her senses and ended the dream.
With one final beat of her heart, the illusion broke. A tidal wave of mental willpower obliterated the dreamscape, and all of its settings and characters stood motionless in acceptance of their fate...save one gray silhouette fleeing the realm, whose form disappeared through a small tear in the fabric of space and time within the landscape. His work here was done.