The thing hiding behind Silver Mist's door curled its claws around the wood, its hissing breaths growing louder as it crept slowly toward the sleeping filly. Silver Mist stirred and cracked open her eyes. When she saw the shadowy figure she screamed, and it flew back behind the door.
Hurried hoofsteps approached, and just as the creature disappeared, Lyra's aqua coat filled the doorway. "What's wrong, Silver? Did you have a bad dream?" The filly shook her head and pointed a hoof toward the door. Lyra turned and checked behind it, finding nothing, just as she expected."See? There's nothing there." She went over and sat on the bed.
"But it keeps showing up!"
"Silver, I've looked behind the door, under your bed, in the closet. I've checked fifteen times, and there are never any monsters. It's okay, honey; Princess Luna will keep you safe." She hugged her daughter and returned to the door. "Night, sweetie," she smiled.
"It wasn't a bad dream!" Silver Mist squeaked. After a few moments of silence, she pulled the covers close to her chin
Lyra returned to her room. "That filly's so excitable sometimes," she yawned as she crawled into the bed she shared with Bon Bon.
"What was it this time?" Bon Bon asked.
"Something behind the door again," she replied as she laid her head on the pillow.
Bon Bon laid back down beside her. "That thing's getting persistent lately."
Lyra rolled her eyes and let out an amused chuckle. "You know they're not real."
Bon Bon sat up again and stared at the aqua mare. "Lyra, you and I both know that monsters are real. I've lost count of how many times Ponyville was almost flattened by one."
"Well yeah, they are, but there aren't any in this house." Lyra turned over and poked Bon Bon's cream-colored flank. "You'd be the first to know, and take care of it before anypony else does." The couple laughed.
"MOM!" Silver Mist suddenly screamed from her bedroom down the hall.
Lyra rolled her eyes as she started to peel the covers back, but Bon Bon stopped her. "I'm Mom. You're Mama, remember?" She got up and kissed Lyra's forehead. "You sleep. I got this." Then she turned away.
"You always do, babe," Lyra smiled as she watched Bon Bon's hips sway back and forth.
When Bon Bon entered Silver Mist's room, she didn't see anything except a little periwinkle horn poking out from under a trembling lump in the bedsheets. She went up and poked it. Instantly the little filly jumped from her sheets and embraced Bon Bon, frightened tears streaming down her cheeks. Bon Bon hugged her daughter back. "You're safe now, sweetie. I'm here."
Between sobs, Silver Mist said. "The monster under my bed came back. It reached up and grabbed my sheets with its paws." Bon Bon kept consoling the filly until she calmed down. Finally, she asked, "Mom, why doesn't Princess Luna come when the monsters are here?"
She'd been expecting something like this. "You know, when I was a filly, monsters used to visit me at night, too." Silver Mist looked at her, confused. Bon Bon chuckled. "Yes, really. Only we didn't have Princess Luna protecting our dreams back then."
"When she was the Mare in the Moon?"
"That's right, sweetie. I learned which creatures were from my dreams, and which ones were the real spooks. And I taught myself how to fight them off."
The filly's eyes widened. "You did?"
Bon Bon nodded. "And now that there are monsters scaring you, I think I should start teaching you how to fight them." She sat her daughter next to her on the bed and sang:
"Tell the monster that lives 'neath your bed
To find somewhere else instead,
Or you'll buck him in the head."
Bon Bon kicks under the bed, her shoe making contact with something.
"Tell the creature that lurks behind the door
If he knows what is good he won't come here no more
Cause you'll kick in his butt at the count of four."
She looks intensely at the door and taps four times loudly on the floor. She turns back to tuck her daughter back into bed.
"Goodnight, demonslayer, goodnight.
Now it's time to close your tired eyes.
There are devils to slay and dragons to ride;
If they see you coming, well, they better hide!
Goodnight, my little slayer, goodnight."
Silver Mist giggled. "What if there's a monster that eats foals?"
"Tell him that you taste horrible, and you'll cut him open if he eats you. All it takes is a little self-confidence, a little practice, and the monsters start to disappear for good. Soon, you'll be the scariest creature around!"
Silver Mist smiled as she laid her head on her pillow. Then she opened her eyes again and asked, "Mom, how do I tell the difference between the dream monsters and the real ones?"
"It's hard at first, but it gets easier the longer you fight them. I won't say there's nothing hiding under your bed, and I definitely won't tell you that you're making it all up. I always found that the monsters in my dreams always had a fuzzy outline. But that didn't always help; sometimes I saw smoke monsters." She ruffled Silver Mist's silver mane.
"This world of ours is not as it seems,
The monsters are real, but they're not in your dreams.
Learn what you can from the beasts you defeat,
You'll need it for some of the ponies you'll meet.
"Goodnight, demonslayer, goodnight.
Now it's time to close your tired eyes.
There are devils to slay and dragons to ride;
If they see you coming, well, they better hide!
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,
Goodnight, my little slayer, goodnight."
Silver Mist falls asleep to the odd lullaby and Bon Bon kisses her goodnight. As she exited the room smiling, she saw Lyra leaning against the wall. The aqua mare nudged her and she chuckled. "What?"
"You knew her monsters were real this whole time?"
"Not exactly," Bon Bon replied. "When I was a filly, I had monsters, too. Some were --"
"Some were real, some weren't. Yeah, I overheard." Lyra and Bon Bon returned to their bed. After a few minutes of silence, Lyra asked, "She's had these nightmares for almost a year, Bon Bon. Why did you wait until now?"
"I - I don't know. Maybe tonight she was more distressed, maybe I needed to be sure that she wasn't imagining them, or maybe I couldn't think of how to tell her what she needed to know," Bon Bon sighed. "Either way, now she can start fighting when we're not around."
"You mean when you're not around, Special Agent."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Shortly before Princess Luna lowered the moon and her sister raised the sun, the monster beneath Silver Mist's bed met up with the creature behind her door deep in the dark shadows.
"I recognized that mare's voice," the monster said as he rubbed his bruised temple. "She was the filly named Sweetie Drops."
"Sweetie Drops? The Canterlot special operations agent?" The monster nodded.
The monster and the creature never frightened Silver Mist again.