The darkness turned into a strange, slow freefall, warm summer winds rushing around him. Sombra attempted to balance himself and keep his hooves disentangled, but the motions did little other than give the impression of treading in deep water. Confused and mildly alarmed, he moved faster and yet continued his fall in the same manner, his efforts making no change. Looking below, a faint glow emanated beneath him just as a soft, rhythmic rushing sound filled his ears. He drifted further and further down towards the glow, until he slowed almost to a halt, a dark object floating to rest beneath him. With surreal delicacy, his hooves touched down on wooden planks that rocked gently under his weight.
Soft laughter echoed around him and rippled outward. Sombra pricked his ears forward, trying to discern from the sound where Princess Luna was. But he only saw soft, tiny lights glittered like a shower of stars, raining down around the boat he stood in. With a start, he recalled Luna’s earlier remark about often considering the dreamscape as a vast river, and wondered if it was manifesting for him this way in response to the princess’s thoughts.
Or was it due to the force of her will it manifested so?
It seems I still continue to underestimate you, he thought, gaze following the ebbing waters of the luminescent river in awe.
“Your honesty is refreshing. While I normally dislike being underestimated, I believe I shall take that as a compliment.”
A shiver raced along the length of his spine as he turned and saw her gliding alongside the vessel, the tiny starlights shimmering in the folds of her wings.
“I—” he faltered, stunned.
“Apologies, Sombra,” she said with a sincere nod, “but I hear most every thought somepony has in the dreamscape.”
That explained her initial remark. He nearly responded, but her confirmation of where they were prompted him to turn his attention once more to the winding path before them. In the distance, he thought he saw vague shapes of many other boats carrying ponies, just visible in the glow of the dream river.
“You amaze me; I never should have doubted your knowledge of this place,” he remarked. Squinting at the vague silhouettes, he asked, “Am I seeing your subjects?”
“Yes,” Luna replied, “and no. They are sleeping, and they are dreaming. You are seeing the shadows of their dreams around them. This is why they appear faded, just out of view.”
The current of the dream river did not appear to flow any faster, but Sombra had the impression it somehow was, for they drew closer to the other boats and the glow of the river danced and rippled around them. The nearest gondola carried a young unicorn mare with a gleaming white coat and a carefully styled mane. Ghostly images flickered about her vessel, and Sombra caught glimpses of bolts of fabric, elegant clothing, and other ponies praising and admiring her work. Glancing away he caught sight of another boat nearby, carrying a unicorn filly with dreams of adventures with two close friends, the scenery changing all around them as they played.
As he studied them, a thought occurred to the unicorn king. “Surely I won’t disturb them as we pass?”
“No, they are unaware of our presence among them,” Luna answered in a cautious voice, looking away from him to stare at nothing in particular. He thought there was something in the way she spoke, something that was off, but his attention became caught by more shapes ahead of them. They were encountering more and more of the small gondolas, and the ghostly shapes of many dreams were filling the air like so many shadows trying to be seen.
Cakes and baked goods, sweets of every kind imaginable. Winning contests, being in a spotlight. Time spent with close companions, friends, warm and happy moments with lovers. The changing of seasons and what unique joy each different pony felt about those seasons. For the way the entire kingdom of Equestria was settling down and resting in the warm embrace of sleep and the nighttime, somehow it still managed to be so painfully bright to look upon.
Sombra recoiled, abruptly aware of how apart from it all he was. A sudden desire to wrap himself in several shadows and take an incorporeal form was overwhelming. Why was he here? Why was she showing him this? Any of this?! He had no place among those things. He never had… hadn’t he?
“Sombra?” Luna’s voice sounded distant, muffled. The ghost-silhouettes of the dreams blurred in his vision and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe deep and steady himself.
“Why are you showing me this?” he whispered, his own voice sounding faint in his ears. “Why did you bring me here?”
It was too bright, too happy, too peaceful. The gentle laughter of dreamers mocked him, mocked him in a way he couldn’t explain, and he shut his eyes even tighter, flattening his ears against his skull.
Stop, just stop.
“Sombra,” Luna murmured coaxingly. “Open your eyes. Please, open them.”
Hesitantly he shook his head—or tried to, for the next moment he felt the wooden berth of the boat shiver and ripple beneath his hooves. Gasping, eyes flying open, he looked down in time to see the gondola vanish and a path of shimmering golden dust materialize before him. Luna was already walking down the path ahead, but she paused and looked back over her shoulder, beckoning him to follow. Dazed, he started walking after her even before he realized he was doing so. The shapes around him seemed to slowly fade into existence, their forms like trees, and briefly he recalled mentioning something about the dreamscape being a dark, shadowed forest in all his imagining.
Was the dreamscape fluid? Did it change based on what somepony dreamed? The idea made the temporary panic flee his mind, but it was already starting to creep back in on him. He tried to push it back, trying to focus on what was changing around him when the thundering of galloping hooves behind him sounded in his ears. A chill wind brushed his sides, frost crackling up his armor, and a powerful sense of alarm seized hold of him.
“Sombra?” Luna’s voice was worried, frightened, but she was nowhere to be seen and the thundering hooves grew louder and louder.
He broke into a gallop. The path of golden dust kicked up around his legs as he ran…but no, it wasn’t dust. He ran through a trail of dead leaves, and every step crushed and crunched as he raced away from the pounding hoofbeats that gave chase.
Faster, faster!
The path changed again and turned silvery-white, glimmering defiantly against the growing stretch of shadows that followed the unicorn king with every stride. He had no time to wonder why, for his legs gave way and betrayed him. He fell and slid on the ice, unable to catch his breath as he was pulled down a steep incline.
“Sombra!”
Control. He had to fight for control. Desperately he tried to shift his legs, to slow the descent—
—and found he could not move them. He was sliding at dangerous speeds, unable to move or control his body, and he was without Luna to aid him. He glanced downward to the end of the path, hoping he would see some sign of her.
There was something waiting for him, patiently watching his helplessness and growing terror, but it wasn’t the Princess of the Night. A gigantic spectre, robed in a tattered death-cloak, stared from a face unseen in the darkness of its cowl as the ice bore Sombra to it.
Fear clutched at his chest with icy talons, yet almost instantly a burning spike of anger shot through him. Anger at his fear, anger that he should be made to feel fear, anger that he couldn’t fully understand all the reasons he felt it. But there was no time to think or act as the death-spectre’s cowl loomed larger and larger, ready to swallow him whole.
“Wake up, Sombra!”
He slid and slid, and the shadows raced to his side as oblivion yawned before him in hungry anticipation.
Waves and lightning.
Something jolted his ribcage and his eyes flew open, a ragged gasp tearing free of his mouth as he woke. Shock still had a hold on him, and his senses slowly filtered back in, delaying his ability to process anything.
The waking world was still dark, but he couldn’t see starlight anywhere. Water bubbled and trickled somewhere nearby, reflecting a light that wasn’t the moon. The soft blue glow of Luna’s magic was the only illumination he could immediately see, casting a gentle light about her worried face.
“Sombra?” she prompted warily, a skeptical frown coming over her face.
After a few seconds his mind cleared, and he remembered the stroll through the palace grounds and gardens, the secret path she had shown him, and seeing the spring she called the origin point of the dream river. She had bespelled him to sleep, to show him something, but the dream was slipping away from him rapidly, and what fragments he was able to hold onto left him confused. What had she been trying to show him?
“How often do you have bad dreams?”
“Dreams?” he asked. “Surely you would have surmised by now I dream rarely, if ever in this hollow existence I have. Why?” He moved to stand, and met resistance at his sides. Puzzled, he looked about to see what was surrounding him, and the light from Luna’s horn danced off enormous, jagged black crystals that towered above them both. Sombra’s mouth fell open as he eased himself up, edging out of the nest of crystals that had arisen around him.
“Because,” Luna replied solemnly, “I believe you just had a very bad one.”
Sombra could only stare and feel the crystal formation give off a low, angry buzz. In spite of his previous statement he was inclined to agree, and as he thought that, another tiny shiver of fear ran down his spine. Instantly a second revelation hit him, and he turned to look the mare in the eye.
“Hold on,” he said slowly. “Princess, your words just now… Do you mean you could not see my dream?”