//------------------------------// // (you have)... MY LITTLE PONY // Story: Nightmares: They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To // by darf //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle woke up. "Am I really the ruler of all of Equestria?" she asked out loud, to nopony in particular. Where was she? Throne room. Bed? Nah. Sleeping? Your guess. "What about mortality and irreconcilable differences and the integrity of the universal plot?" The universe shrugged. What universe? it said. This was getting bad. Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn, and she knew some things. She had powers and she could accomplish her goal. She had frozen ponies in place and travelled through time. She'd grown a mustache once. "If this is a dream, I can just close my eyes to wake up," Twilight said matter-of-factly. She did just that. She tried to remember a piece of advice she'd once heard, about looking at a clock, and then looking at it again. The hands would move, she told herself. Nopony could fabricate the hands on a clock accurately... Oh. Or you just put them wherever they went when it might have been a certain time. Hell, you could take them off, if you wanted. Twilight's clock had five hands, and all of them were pointing at 'One'. "This is neither convenient nor particularly metaphorically useful," Twilight said, exasperated. She looked around the room to collect a sense of her bearings and resulting scenery. War-room. Did Equestria have a war-room? It had a room with a big mapped table in front and little pins stuck into it and a bunch of empty chairs sat around that looked like they could have been occupied by the head of nations in a pinch or just some dolls or stick-figure drawings Twilight had done up that happened to be there now. The paper-doll for the kingdom of Griffonstone was drooping slightly. More hot glue? "You can't make me think things have happened that haven't happened yet," Twilight said, her voice steady. "If something goes wrong, friendship will always help us find a way through." A rolodex of cliches wheeled past. What if they're gone? What if they pass away? What if there are secrets and lies and hidden agendas and at the end of the day nothing can be compatible except power and the desire to use it? "This is a really bad philosophical argument so far," Twilight said, exasperated. "It's like you haven't even taken an intro course in socratic reasoning." This is supposed to be a nightmare, it said. The fabric of reality isn't going to get in the way of terrifying you. "I'd argue that any actual reality is ten times more terrifying than whatever it is you've cooked up now. Rules are a lot scarier than no rules, in my opinion." Twilight 'hmmphed' and looked down the general atmosphere of the dreamscape she was in with contempt. The dreamscape rippled slightly, sending waves through the furniture and surrounding walls. You're going to have to wake up eventually, it said. Then you'll regret this. You'll regret everything you did. You'll regret all the kingdoms you didn't build, research that was never finished. You haven't learned to play that pipe organ and it's been sitting there for five seasons. You'll come back and let us know what you did wrong... "Please go away," Twilight Sparkle said. "I'm trying to get my beauty sleep." As you wish.