With the end of the Running of The Leaves, Winter is one step closer to embracing Equestria. But before the snows can fall and the ponds turn to ice, there is one more event to be celebrated. Amid the streets of Ponyville, fake spiderwebs are stuck to the sides of homes, jack-o-lanterns rest in front of doors, and fillies and colts rush frantically to acquire their costumes in preparation for Nightmare Night. And for the first time in a thousand years, the pony the holiday was inspired by shall be in attendance…

Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes as consciousness returned to her. She was standing in a field of grass that stretched on seemingly forever. The sky was dark, illuminated only by countless tiny sparks of light that were the stars. A breeze rolled over her and the field, making her unbound mane drift over her shoulders and the grass tickle her hooves.

Sure enough, as Rainbow mentally counted down, the moon began to phase into existence overhead, going from a thin crescent to a full, brightly glowing circle. As soon as it was full, the silhouette of Luna appeared against it, her wings outstretched and her mane billowing dramatically in an unseen wind.

Then, with practiced ease and grace, the lunar alicorn glided down through the air until she came to a landing directly in front of Rainbow Dash. Tucking back her wings, she smiled down at her niece before leaning down to give her an affectionate nuzzle. “Rainbow Dash. How has your sleep been, so far?”

Rainbow returned the nuzzle gratefully. Once she pulled back, she shrugged her shoulders. “Meh. No nightmares so far, so I can’t really complain too much.”

Luna, satisfied with that response, merely nodded before turning to gaze out at the fields around them. “That is good, it means there is less to distract us. Are you ready to begin?” she asked, her horn lighting up with blue magic.

Rainbow’s smile faltered, fading away into a nervous frown. This would be their first official Dream Therapy session, and she had no idea what to expect. It was a little nerve-rattling. But despite her trepidation, she nodded her head all the same. “Yeah, I’m as ready as I’m gonna be. But first, are you and mom coming down for Nightmare Night tomorrow?”

Luna frowned. “I am, yes. However, my sister has come to the reluctant decision to remain in Canterlot. With as many traditions as there are in the city for this holiday, and without Cadance or I to oversee and direct them, she decided it would be best to stay behind and take care of those matters herself.”

Rainbow sighed quietly and looked down. “Meh, shoulda known…” she grumbled before perking up and giving Luna a nod and smile. “Oh, well. I still get to spend some time with you, huh?”

Luna shot her a warm smile before the light on her horn grew brighter. “Indeed you do. Now, then! Let us get started,” she declared before the dream around them began to bend and distort. The field of flowers dissolved into dust, leaving them standing in mid-air in an endless abyss of stars and faint blue light. “Before we can begin to formulate a means of treating your disorder, we must first come to understand the cause.”

Rainbow’s smile disappeared entirely, and her ears drooped. “Ah… that means talking about it, doesn’t it?” she asked, a slight tremor in her voice.

Luna nodded. “Yes, it does. So, to begin with…” she turned around to face Rainbow directly, her expression neutral and the glow on her horn fading away. “I would like for you to explain what it is you experience when you have one of your Flashbacks, in detail.”

Rainbow frowned and tilted her head to one side, confused. “Oh...kay? I mean, I kinda told you what it’s like already, didn’t I? I have these really vivid flashbacks any time magic is used on me.”

Luna nodded along. “This much is known to me, yes. However, it would be good to have finer details. Anything and everything you can recall about the sensations will help us focus our efforts.”

Rainbow grimaced, then nodded. “Okay, uh… well, the best way I can describe it is… uh… it’s like I’m going right back to the day it happened,” she began, sitting on her haunches and gesturing her hooves in front of her in an abstract motion. “Like, all of my life after the thing I’m flashing back to just… doesn’t exist, anymore. I’m right back there, in the moment, as vivid and intense as it was the first time. That’s why it still made me cry like a little foal whenever I had them in the past. I legit felt like a scared and traumatized little foal, every time.”

Luna nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing in thought. “I see… and these flashbacks were of the day your parents died, correct?”

“Yeah. They used to be about that. But… well…” her frown devolved into an anxious grimace, the memory of her last flashback sending a chill down her spine. “...After the fight with Chrysalis, it… changed.”

“To her torturing you before we arrived to help you, correct?” Luna ventured, and Rainbow slowly nodded her head. With a quiet hum, the alicorn lit her horn up once more, and the dreamscape began to shift and morph. A series of smooth crystal streets began to materialize around them in the same shape as a snowflake fractal, while jagged buildings of red and blue crystals rose up from new materialized soil.

In a matter of moments, a perfect replica of the Crystal Empire, as Luna and Rainbow remembered it, had sprung up around them. That done, she allowed the light to fade from her horn and turned to face Rainbow directly. “Very well, then. Please, walk me through exactly what you saw the last time you had one of your reactions. This is your dream, don’t forget, so you can make visual aids if it will help.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, her heart beating just a little faster in her chest. “Wha- wait a sec. Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, you saw how badly it freaked me out last time I saw it.”

“Yes, but if what you have said is true, then your mind also regresses to the flashback you are experiencing,” Luna countered in a soothing voice. “But that is not the case, here. You would be creating the image of your own free will, not because you were being forced to relive it. And again, you may create a visual aid, but if you do not wish to, I will not force you.”

Rainbow was quiet for a second, her face falling in thought. After a moment, she nodded and closed her eyes. With a deep breath, she focused on the memory of her fight with the changeling queen. She grimaced and tensed up involuntarily, her ribs tingling softly in a reminder of their once shattered status. When she opened her eyes, her breath hitched in her throat, and her wings sprang open in a fight or flight response.

She saw a motionless recreation of the moment she had been pinned to the street. She saw her past self laying flat on her back, spread eagle and abjectly terrified. Her eyes were wide open and her pupils dilated, while her mouth stretched wide open to let out a now silent scream. Bruises and scrapes covered her entire body, the fur on her bitten hoof was stained red, and putrid green magic had all four of her hooves encased and held down.

And, of course, standing over the brutalized pegasus was Queen Chrysalis. Her eyes were wide open and unfocused, a pink stream of energy drifting from Rainbow’s chest to flow down her throat. The worst part was that burning in those reptilian eyes was a manic and sadistic glee that made Rainbow shudder and look away.

She felt Luna’s hoof draping itself over her, and she finally managed to return her gaze to the terrible scene in front of her. As she did so, the alicorn leaned down to speak to her in a hushed voice. “I see… I saw your injuries when we arrived, yes, but I did not realize it had happened like this.”

“I-it was awful,” Rainbow mumbled, her voice shaking anxiously. Even just the sight of the queen, despite the fact she had been trapped in a tree for the rest of her life, was enough to make the pegasus want to flee for her life. “I thought I was going to die.”

“So you told us before,” Luna hummed before releasing Rainbow and slowly trotting over to examine the scene more closely. “You mentioned that she had been toying with you at the time, yes?”

Rainbow nodded, slowly following after her adoptive aunt. “Y-yeah, she was. When I first flew out there to hold her off, it actually felt like I was holding my own. I was getting in some good hits and wasn’t getting too badly hurt myself…” her eyes fell on the queen’s crooked horn, and her blood ran cold. “But… then she started using magic. I was powerless after that… I was like a toy.”

Luna hummed quietly, leaning down to study Chrysalis' frozen face up close. She couldn’t help but scowl at the changeling before turning away from her and examining the surrounding cityscape. “Hmmm… I do not believe this is where we found you when we arrived. Additionally, Twilight Sparkle was with you, I remember. Where was she at this moment?”

Rainbow paused and glanced over at Luna in confusion. The way she had said Twilight’s name… there had been an edge of bitterness that she knew she did not imagine this time. She forced herself to ignore it for the moment and answered the question. “She was supposed to be up in the palace with Starlight Glimmer, helping to keep the barrier up. But when she heard me screaming, she came running down to help me.”

Luna’s ears drooped, and she slowly nodded in understanding. “I see. So she came to your rescue and helped you fight her off until we found you where we did, is that right?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Rainbow answered while trotting up to the memory. The longer it stayed still, the less it bothered her, she found. “Between her magic and my wings, we were able to fend her off for a little while longer. Although… she was playing right into Chrysalis’ hooves.”

Luna raised an eyebrow and turned to face Rainbow directly. “What do you mean?”

Rainbow sighed and stepped around the frozen image of Chrysalis until the scar on her cheek came into view. She reached up and traced a hoof over it, shuddering in disgust when she found that the changeling had a physical presence to her. “This right here. This wasn’t the first time we threw down with her, you know. The first time was back in Canterlot, when we were trying to rescue you, mom, and Cadance. In that fight, Twi blasted her in the face with magic and gave her this scar. I think Chrysalis took it personally.”

Luna’s ears perked up, and her eyes narrowed at Chrysalis in ever-growing revulsion. “I see. So she was using you to draw her out.”

The terrain flickered, and suddenly they were standing in a different part of the Empire. A fire was raging not far away, and the image of Rainbow was leaning with her back against a home, her forelegs swollen just below the elbows. Twilight, still as a unicorn, stood next to her, both of them staring off towards a long shadow cast by the flames. The image was joined by the distant, ghostly voice of Queen Chrysalis, singing.

“This day is going to be perfect,
The kind of day of which I’ve dreamed since I was small.
Twilight Sparkle will soon lay dead,
The last princess will drown in dread.
Who says a girl can’t really have it all?”

The image flickered again, and suddenly Chrysalis was standing between them. Behind her, Rainbow was clutched in her magic, curled into a terrified, sobbing ball. Twilight was held in front of her, her eyes glued onto Rainbow and her hooves reaching out for her.

Rainbow gazed at the memory for several moments, then looked away, her ears drooping. “She got us. When I broke my hooves in a bad landing, we were stuck. Chrysalis came in, picked us up, and tortured both of us. Me just by holding me in her magic, and Twilight by making her watch…”

When the princess offered no response, Rainbow kept going. “I was so scared… I’ve never felt more terrified of anything, I don’t think. There was nothing I could do, and neither could Twilight. If we had died there, then…” her eyes drifted off towards the palace, her ears lowering. “...Everypony in that palace would have been done for. Without Twi and I, the elements would be useless, and nothing could have stopped her. Everything we were trying so hard to protect would be lost…”

Luna was silent for several seconds, her eyes also resting on the palace. “...I see. So, you would say that you were afraid because you felt powerless?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah… just like…” her head drooped, and the world around them flickered again. Suddenly, they were standing in the middle of a street in Baltimare. It was night, the faintest hints of the sun’s light just barely visible on the distant horizon. The pavement of the road had been torn asunder by falling debris. Several ponies in the uniform of local law enforcement could be seen standing around, taking notes and photos and interviewing witnesses.

All of that was blurred out and became borderline intangible when compared to the center of it all. On the ground, Rainbow Dash’s birth parents lay on their backs, eyes closed and bodies caked in dust. Meanwhile, held in a blue magical aura and being pulled away from them was a filly Rainbow Dash, her eyes spilling tears and her hooves outstretched.

Her words of the time echoed faintly in the air around them, desperate and hoarse and barely discernable through her frantic cries.

Luna’s eyes widened as she took in the sudden change in scenery. Rainbow barely looked at her, instead choosing to focus on the sight of her long-dead parents. “...When my parents died.”

In a moment, Luna was by her side, draping a wing and foreleg over her for warmth and comfort in the sudden cold. “You didn’t need to show me this,” she whispered, giving her a firm squeeze. “I’ve heard the stories of what happened here…”

“...I’ve never felt so useless,” Rainbow went on, almost oblivious to Luna’s voice. “I couldn’t do anything at all. I just… all I could do was watch it happen. When it was all over, and they were gone, I… I couldn’t make them wake up… and I couldn’t even stay with them.”

Suddenly, the vision of Baltimare vanished, melting away as if it were a block of ice in a desert. In its place, an endless field of clouds in a gorgeous night sky had formed. The full moon hung overhead, and the chill in the air went from choking to soothing in a heartbeat.

Rainbow blinked, her focus coming back to her. Slowly, she looked up at Luna to see that the princess was gazing back down at her with no small amount of surprise and concern. “Rainbow Dash…”

Rainbow looked away, her wings ruffling anxiously on her sides. “Sorry… I got caught up in the memory. It’s…” she sniffled and wiped a hoof over her eyes. “It hurt more to look at it like that than I thought it would.”

“I understand…” Luna assured her with a firm squeeze before finally releasing her from the embrace. “To feel so powerless at such a young age… It is no wonder you react the way you do to magic.”

Rainbow perked up and glanced at Luna, curiosity slowly starting to wipe away her other, less savory emotions. “Yeah?”

Luna nodded. “Yes. While I may be wrong, as there is yet much to explore in your psyche, I believe that a part of why you react as you do to magic is because you are terrified of being powerless. When things happen to you beyond your control, it is almost never good, and from what I have just witnessed, nothing represents that to you more than the touch of magic upon your skin. The first time you felt it, it pulled you away from your family in a moment where you were already unable to do anything, preventing you from even holding onto them. And you were so young…”

“And so that is where we should start,” Luna declared before lowering herself onto her haunches. The clouds directly in front of her suddenly parted and fell away, revealing a breathtaking landscape below them. Mountains and valleys, oceans and rivers, forests and canyons. It all stretched on and on for eternity, untouched by the constructs of civilization.

Rainbow’s eyes flew wide open, and her jaw dropped at the sight. “Woah… now that is an awesome view!” she proclaimed, shooting up into the air with a flap of her wings to get a better look.

Luna smiled back at Rainbow, flattered by the compliment, and patted the clouds next to her. “Come, sit,” she called up to her before looking ahead at the terrain.

Rainbow did as she had been told, coming in for a smooth landing and settling down onto her haunches next to her aunt. Once she was comfortable, she looked up at her in curiosity. “Okay, so, what’s with the view? How does this help with my therapy?”

“It will give your eyes something to do while you talk,” The alicorn replied with a simple nod. “And it will give you the assurance that whatever you tell me, no matter what it is, will stay between us. After all, trees do not reveal our secrets.”

Rainbow looked down, her mind starting to wander. “So… I’m supposed to talk about how I feel about the things I’ve been through, and my PTSD and all that?”

“Precisely. I will listen to everything you have to say, and ask questions where I need to. Hopefully, in time, we can help you overcome your condition.”

Rainbow nodded, her eyes wandering up to look at the distant horizon. “Okay… where do I start?”

“Wherever you want to,” Luna encouraged her. “I will interject only as I feel is needed. Take as long as you need. We have all the time in the world in this space.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Rainbow took a deep breath, her eyes following a constellation of stars in the night sky. She let the breath out and began to speak.

Rainbow wasn’t sure how long she was talking for. It felt like hours and, to be fair, with time skewed within her subconscious, it probably was hours. Most of it felt meaningless to her at the time. She was just rambling on and on, sometimes going on completely unrelated tangents that had nothing to do with her condition. Sometimes she fell quiet for long periods, not knowing what to say. One time she even had to get up and fly around the world below for a while just to get her head together.

And all the while, Luna was patient with her, and only spoke very rarely. As she said, it was mostly to ask questions, or occasionally get the conversation back on track if it got really off topic. Aside from that, she looked around at the world as Rainbow talked, paying very close attention to seemingly tiny details. It didn’t make much sense to Rainbow, but she decided not to question it outright. She wasn’t the therapist or expert on dreams, here.

Patient… a pony who was broken, who needed the help of somepony else to get better.

“Pretty much sums me up, doesn’t it?” Rainbow thought bitterly to herself, feeling no small amount of resentment over that comparison.

“You have been quiet for a while now,” Luna noted after a time, glancing down at Rainbow with a curious frown on her muzzle. “Have you nothing left to say, tonight?”

She puffed out a breath between her lips, then shook her head. “Nah, not tonight. I’m tapped. I’ve been rambling at you for hours and I got nothing left to say.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure you do,” Luna countered, her eyes falling on a thick, dense jungle far below. “But it will not do you any good to have it pried out of you if you are not ready to say it.”

“Yeah, I guess… but, question,” Rainbow shifted on her haunches to face Luna directly. “How does me rambling at you for hours and hours help me with my PTSD?”

Luna gave her a tender smile. “This is not going to be a short process, Rainbow Dash. As I said, I must understand you on a deeply fundamental level if I am to help you. And the best way to understand somepony is to let them speak their thoughts, free of filters or judgment. I can assure you, that from all you have said, I have come to understand a great deal more about you.”

“Really?” Rainbow tilted her head, bewildered. “Care to share with the rest of the class?”

“The first thing I noticed is your mind,” Luna began, looking off into the distance. “And I am not referring to just the landscape surrounding us. There is a lot going on in that head of yours, my niece, more than even I anticipated.”

Luna chuckled at that, her smile returning with amusement. “I suppose that is one way to take it, yes.”

“Okay, I’m smart. Calling it now,” Rainbow proclaimed, flashing Luna a big, cocky grin. That grin soon faltered and faded, though, replaced with a frown. “...Meh. Who am I kidding? I’m nothing compared to Twilight.”

Luna’s smile faded away as well, replaced with an irritated scowl. “Twilight Sparkle is many things, Rainbow Dash… but, much like with everypony, not all of it is pleasant.”

There it was again. The bitterness. Rainbow’s face twisted into one of frustration and confusion. She rose to her hooves and backed away a few paces, drawing a confused glance from Luna. “Aunt Luna… do you have a problem with Twilight or something?”

Luna’s eyes widened in surprise before she quickly looked away. After a moment, her shoulders slumped and she heaved a relenting sigh. “I was that obvious, was I? Forgive me, Rainbow Dash. I know it is unfair of me, given her own condition, but… in short, yes, I do have problems with the newest alicorn.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped for a moment, and she sat back down on her haunches. “Why?” was all she said.

Luna shook her head in dismissal. “It hardly matters. I am not here to share my grievances with you, I am here to-”

“Luna,” Rainbow cut her off with a firm look. “Don’t even try and dodge this. Just spill it and come clean with me. I’ve been open with you, haven’t I?”

Luna was silent for several moments. She looked down at the terrain rolling by, then closed her eyes. “Very well. If you insist,” she resigned herself before standing up and turning around. “I do not think I need to ask if you remember the incident with Starlight aboard the Friendship Express, do I?”

Rainbow wilted under the question, her ears drooping. “No… no, you don’t,” she replied with a slow, regretful nod of her head. “It was only the biggest mistake I ever made…”

Luna frowned and turned away. “Perhaps it was… but it was an event that hurt you far more than it should have.”

“It was natural for you to feel guilt over that incident, and to carry the responsibility of it on your shoulders so heavily,” Luna went on, her voice slow and careful. “You did do wrong, and so that pain was to be expected. However…” she turned to face Rainbow, her eyes narrowing. “Twilight Sparkle’s treatment of you following that disaster led to deep scars that I still see in you, all these months later.”

“Wha… but, she had every right to be upset with me,” Rainbow replied slowly, standing up and making her way towards Luna. “I screwed up big time. I attacked Starlight. Everypony had every right to be mad at me. That’s not her fault.”

“You’re not wrong,” Luna nodded her head, though the bitterness remained. “Your friends did have every right to be disappointed in you. But Twilight’s anger towards you was far greater than it should have been. You had nightmares about her, your dearest friend, the mare you had fallen in love with, because of how she had started treating you.”

“Don’t say it,” Luna snapped, suddenly stepping right up to Rainbow and looming over her. “Don’t you dare say you deserved it. All but overnight, you went from a scared pegasus just looking for some closure to a broken and emotionally devastated wreck that couldn’t go without questioning her every move and decision. Who blamed herself so much that she dreamt of running away to freeze to death in the mountains. All because Twilight failed to recognize that she was hurting you. And even when she did…”

Luna turned away, her eyes narrowing with discontent. “...She waited to do anything about it. She hesitated out of her own fears and doubts, leaving you to suffer and drown in your own self-loathing. Nopony, absolutely nopony deserves to feel that pain.”

The alicorn took a deep breath, then let it out in a heavy, full-bodied sigh. “...In the end, my niece, what I dread… what I fear, is that when you truly need her the most, she won’t be there for you. Just like after the train.”

Rainbow blinked, then shook herself. She set her jaw and leveled a hard look at her aunt. “Luna, you do remember that she learned her lesson from all of that, right? She took it pretty hard, too. I remember that she tried to blame herself for all of that when we were in the Empire. She got better, and she didn’t hesitate to be there when it counted. She…” she looked down and shuddered, the memory of Twilight’s lifeless body in her hooves coming into her mind. “...She gave up her own life to save mine.”

Luna looked down and nodded, her ears drooping. “I am aware, Rainbow Dash. Had she survived the blast, or had she retained her memories, then these feelings I hold would be little more than a foalish grudge…” she turned to look at Rainbow again, her eyes shimmering with an apology. “...But she does not remember. All of her life experiences have fled her, and the bond that you two once shared is proving slow to reform.”

Luna continued. “Without those memories, without that bond, then even with the wings and power she now carries, she is less than she was before. I do not mean that as an insult, I mean that as a mere fact. She has lost ground, lost herself. Lessons learned, bonds formed, friendships made, and loves found…” she spelled out slowly, her eyes affixed to Rainbow’s. “...Without those, I can only fear that the weaknesses she had in the past have returned to her. And so I fear that she will not be there when you need her.”

As Luna finished speaking, off in the distance, the faint golden glow of the morning sun began to spill across the world from the horizon. Neither Luna or Dash turned to look, though, instead focusing on each other. Rainbow locked her lips and nodded her head. “Alright… fair enough, I guess. Just… don’t let it ruin things when you come down for Nightmare Night tonight, alright?”

Luna managed to smile at that. “I will do my best. As much as I resent the mistakes she made, I know full well that she cannot be held fully responsible for them now.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded before jumping up into the air and hovering there with her wings. “And I’m willing to bet good bits that she’ll prove you wrong! Amnesia or not, she’s still Twilight Sparkle, and I know I can count on her.”

“Do you care to attach a number to that wager,” Luna shot back with a challenging smile appearing on her face. “I might be inclined to take that bet, if so. I have been quite curious about how gambles of the modern era work.”

“Yeah, mom told me a few of the horror stories from when you were teenagers,” Rainbow quipped with a taunting eyebrow wiggle.

“Twenty mugs of cider a night? You have got to give me lessons one of these days,” Rainbow jeered unrepentantly, casually folding her hooves behind her head and kicking back.

Luna’s face was beginning to turn a brilliantly contrasting shade of red. “Sister… I shall have my revenge,” she whispered before shaking her head and chuckling to herself. “Alas, the sun is rising, and I need to prepare for my visit. It is time for you to awaken, my niece.”

The princess looked up at Rainbow even as her horn glowed, and the dream began to dissolve. “Yes, Rainbow Dash?”

The pegasus princess gave a small, tender smile. “Thanks for this. Even if it doesn’t end up helping my PTSD, it’s nice to talk to you.”

Luna’s smile widened. “Of course, Rainbow Dash. It is the least I can do.”

Rainbow Dash came to and opened her eyes just as the glow of the morning sun streamed in through the window of the Golden Oaks Library’s bedroom. Somewhere in the distance, probably at Applejack’s farm, a rooster gave its customary morning call. Stifling a yawn, Rainbow sat up in her bed and looked around until her eyes settled on the bed next to hers.

Twilight was there, sleeping peacefully on her side, facing away from Rainbow Dash. Her barrel steadily rose and fell with every deep, rhythmic breath she took, and every so often, one of her ears would flick.

Rainbow took the chance to stare and appreciate the view, her heart fluttering in her chest. A small, dreamy smile spread on her lips, and she found herself becoming entranced. They really had stuff they needed to do today, but…

“It’s early, and we’ve got plenty of time. Stuff can wait,” Rainbow eventually decided, laying back down on her side and smiling as the light of the sun filled the home with its warmth.

Little Memories

by Skijarama

Dream Therapy