“Princess?”
“What is it, Sky?”
“Is there… is there a chance that the sun won’t rise in the morning?” Sky Gazer asked tentatively.
Nightmare Moon whirled around to look at the teenage colt beside her. “Whatever doth thou meanest?” she nearly spat, her eyes narrowing down at him.
“I was putting Dawn to bed earlier, and she… well, she said that she had a nightmare the night before. She dreamt that the sun didn’t come up when it was supposed to, and when she looked for me in the house I was nowhere to be seen. I told her that it was just a nightmare, that I would never leave her alone. But something told me that I needed to be sure… that won’t happen, right?”
Nightmare Moon visibly relaxed, a smile returning to her face. “Sky, we already told thee. We do not wish to bring eternal night upon the ponies of Equestria. We only wish for ponies to enjoy and appreciate our nights.”
Sky nodded as he seemed to relax, yet there was an air of uneasiness around him.
“Now, as we were saying before getting distracted, we will begin to teach thee about dreams. One of the reasons ponies seem to be afraid of our nights was due to some ponies having nightmares and such. We shall teach thee how to control thy dreams, then move on to helping others from not having nightmares. Thou art a unicorn, so thou shan’t have much trouble learning the basics of dream controls,” Nightmare Moon said as she paced around in Sky’s dream. “Thou hath mastered everything thou needest to know about the night sky, which is why we hath made this decision. Again, this is a skill that will be required of you once we return from our banishment, so we expect thee to learn this skill just like thou hast done with knowledge on our night skies.”
Sky Gazer nodded. He then asked, “So how does it work, princess? Controlling my dreams?”
Nightmare Moon smirked. “Thou already knowest how to control thy dreams. Thou are just unaware of it.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Thou art aware that we are in thy dreams, no?” Sky nodded. “That is half of getting to control oneself’s dreams. Once thou art aware, thou can will thy mind to create whatever contents within the dream, whether it be a certain place thou wish to see, or a certain ability thou want to possess. For instance, as of now, we are standing in a dark plain under the night sky. Try changing it to wherever thou wish to be.”
Sky nodded, then hesitated. “Uh… how do I change where we are in my dreams, princess?”
“Just picture the place thou wish to be in thy head. The scenery shall change accordingly,” Nightmare Moon explained.
Sky nodded once more, then closed his eyes as he pictured the place he wanted to be. When he opened his eyes, however, he found them in the same spot as before.
Nightmare Moon chuckled as she patted the young colt’s back. “Don’t be too disappointed, our student. ‘Tis a very rare occurrence when one gets it right in his first try. Try focusing on the emotions thou feel while imagining the place thou want to be. We find that helps with controlling both our own and others’ dreams.”
Sky nodded once more, and with a resolute expression, closed his eyes once more. He took in a deep breath, then let it out as he cleared his mind. He pictured the place he wanted to be, concentrating on the emotions that flowed inside of him. His eyebrows furrowed as he pulled up the memory from the depths of his mind, letting his feelings flow through his mind once more. After a few moments, he finally gasped out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in as his eyelids flew open.
A wide beach lay in front of his eyes, the white sands stretching so far and so wide it was impossible to see the ends. The evening sun was slowly setting on the distant horizon, washing the beach and the two ponies in pleasant golden-orange light. The waves silently crashed onto the shore, the sounds of each wave shattering into droplets delivering a soothing feeling to the mind.
Sky slowly walked over to the beach where the water barely lapped at his hooves and sat down. He stared away into the horizon, directly looking at the setting sun. Nightmare Moon followed, sitting down on the beach next to him.
“This is the beach mom and I used to visit before she died,” Sky whispered. “We would frequently visit here and splash water onto each other and watch the sun setting to the west… the last time we visited, mom was pregnant with Dawn. I remember lying on the beach with her, where I leaned against her belly and felt my younger sister kicking. It was a surreal feeling, to feel that life was growing in my mom’s stomach.” Two ponies appeared on the beach a few feet away from them as Sky continued, one a yellow pegasus that Nightmare Moon had seen years ago in one of Sky’s dreams and the other a younger Sky Gazer leaning against his mother’s belly. The illusion soon ended, however, and the two ponies vanished.
Sky took in a deep breath. “Sometimes I… I just miss her a lot. For six years I’ve been trying my best to look after Dawn, and everyone says that I’ve been doing a good job, that I raised Dawn into a good filly. She’ll be attending school starting next month, and whenever I think of her going to school I keep thinking that mom would’ve been so happy to see her. And that’s when that yearning, that longing to see her one more time comes back.”
Nightmare Moon stretched a wing and pulled Sky in towards her. He leaned his head against her side, letting out a sigh and a sniffle. “It just gets hard at times…,” he murmured as he buried his face into her barrel.
“‘Tis certainly hard, Sky. We hath experienced that numerous times, and yet every time was just as painful as the first. ‘Tis a pain that never gets any easier to endure,” Nightmare said, sorrow and bitterness bleeding from her voice.
Sky only nodded and kept quiet as he stayed in her embrace. They stayed like that for some time, Nightmare holding Sky close to her and Sky not making any movements save for an occasional shudder or a sniffle.
When Sky finally left her embrace, the sun had completely disappeared beneath the horizon, stars filling the skies once more. A cool breeze blew through the beach, rippling through their coat and cooling their bodies.
“Doth thou feel better now?” Nightmare Moon asked.
Sky nodded. “Yeah, I think I do. Thank you, princess.”
“‘Tis our pleasure to help, Sky. Now, shall we return to our practice?”
Sky nodded, then began to concentrate once more. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His brows wrinkled slightly as he focused on the emotions once again, then he opened his eyes.
He was in the middle of a dense wood, tall trees covering every direction except for directly above him where the treetops parted to reveal a small window to the night sky. Moonlight shined brightly through the gap, lighting up the small clearing he was sitting in. He looked around, and Nightmare Moon was nowhere to be seen.
“Huh?” he murmured as he stood up and looked around again. Dense shadows filled every direction, limiting his vision to a few feet before it gave way to pitch-black darkness. He could barely make out silhouettes within the shadows, and even those were too vague for him to tell which shadow belonged to which object.
“Princess?” Sky called out, tentatively taking a step forward. Then another step, and another step.
Sky slowly walked into the shadows shrouding the woods, the eerie silence and the utter darkness threatening to overwhelm his senses. Bushes and fallen branches scraped along his legs, every contact and every sound causing him to twitch in surprise.
Sky’s breathing slowly quickened as he continued to venture into the woods, the absence of Nightmare Moon starting to cause his mind to panic. “Princess?” he called out once again, swirling around to see if he could see her anywhere.
Then he realized that he had strayed too far from the small clearing he had started from. He frantically searched about, trying to find the small patch of grass brightly lit by moonlight. It was nowhere to be seen, however, and Sky slowly backed into a tree as he began to hyperventilate.
Except that it wasn’t a tree.
“BOO!”
“Gahhhh!” Sky yelped as he moved away on instinct, trying to turn around and scramble to safety at the same time. He crashed into the ground instead, his legs sprawled on the ground as he lay on his back.
Nightmare Moon burst into laughter as she walked over to him. She picked him up with her magic and put him on his hooves before dusting the dirt off of his back, cackling madly the whole time.
“That was just mean!” Sky pouted as he dusted off some of the dirt himself.
“But… but ‘twas… ‘twas so funny to surprise thee like that!” retorted Nightmare Moon, gasping out the words between her chuckles.
“And here I was, fearing something had gone wrong when I tried to recreate the night we met…,” Sky grumbled.
“Nay, thou hath recreated thy dream quite perfectly. Everything was quite identical, we would say,” Nightmare Moon assured him.
“No, no, that’s not what I mean. I meant that something had gone wrong with you. You weren’t there when I changed the scenery, and for a second I thought something had happened to you.”
Nightmare Moon smirked, then burst into laughter once more.
“What’s so funny about it?” Sky asked, sounding annoyed in earnest.
“Sky, didst thou forget who we are? We are the Night Queen, the Queen of the Dream Realm. We could do anything we wanted in this realm and fear no repercussions or consequences of it. Thou shalt not worry about us; nothing can block our way here.”
“Well I wasn’t thinking very clearly about that,” Sky grumbled again.
Nightmare Moon chuckled, then said, “Come. Let’s return to thy clearing.”
They walked through the woods, trudging through bushes and leaves piled up on the ground. Shadows and shapes still loomed from the darkness, but they didn’t feel so intimidating to Sky now.
They soon reached the clearing, a small patch of moonlight surrounded by darkness. They walked into the clearing and sat down. Nightmare’s face suddenly lit up as she sat down, however, and she turned to Sky.
“Lie down on thy back, Sky. We have something to show thee,” she said as she lit her horn.
Sky did as he was told and turned onto his back, looking up at the night sky visible between the trees. Suddenly, the night sky widened as the canopy moved away from each other, opening up the clearing and providing a much clearer view of the stars above.
Sky turned to look at Nightmare Moon, who was concentrating on the widening opening with her horn lit. When he turned his eyes back to the night sky, he noticed that the moon was shifting, lowering itself beneath the treetops and lowering the opening into darkness. After a few more moments, she finally let out the breath she had been holding.
“There! Now lie on thy back, and enjoy the show,” Nightmare Moon told him as she flopped onto her back herself.
Sky lay back down on the ground, looking up at the sky with curiosity and wondering what she was trying to do.
Just then, a flash of light streaked across the sky, shining brightly for a split second before fading into the darkness.
“Woah! Was that a shooting star?” Sky exclaimed excitedly.
Nightmare nodded. “Mhm. But there shall be more.”
Soon, another shooting star flashed across the sky. Then another, and another. Soon the sky was filled with falling meteorites, each and every one of them lighting up the sky like fireworks as they burned up in the atmosphere.
Nightmare glanced over to the colt next to her, who was enraptured by the light show happening above him. She noticed her forehooves were gathered together in front of his chest, the colt silently raising prayers and wishes as he watched.
The shooting stars continued to rain down from the sky, occasionally a bright fireball lighting up the sky like it was broad daylight. Then it was over, the shooting stars no longer leaving their iconic tails of flames in the sky.
Sky turned to look at Nightmare Moon and smiled. Gratitude shone in his eyes, the magic of the cosmic light show remaining as flames inside his memories. “Thank you, princess. Thank you for showing me this.”
Nightmare smiled back at him. “Do not mention it, Sky. ‘Tis our reward to thee for being such a good student. Now, shall we resume with our practice?”
Sky nodded and took in a deep breath as he closed his eyes once more.