//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 Things Long Left Forgotten 
// Story: A Change Of Heart: Luna’s Gaze 
// by The Royal Equestrian 
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Douny stirred awake, hearing knocking coming from his door. He was half tempted to tell whoever it was to go away until he heard the voice beyond the door. A voice he was sure he would never hear again.

"Douny, breakfast is ready. That friend of yours stopped by, he was wondering if you'd want to head to the park later." A feminine voice said from beyond the door. A voice he knew all too well.

"M…mom?" Douny shakely said, it was then he noticed his voice was out of pitch. Looking around the room, he no longer saw the room Luna had brought him to all those months ago, instead, it was an older one.

The floor was a rich dark brown oak, with that same wood going halfway up the wall, with the other half being a nice shade of off white. Looking over to his right the sun was coming in through a window, giving the room a warm feel to it. It was at this moment the door opened revealing his mother, she walked into the room with concern on her face.

Her skin was slightly tanned, her hair was a hint of red, and her eyes shined like emeralds, just like Douny's. Her outfit was fairly traditional, it was a maroon red dress almost like something you would see in the 60s or 70s, she had a cooking apron on, with what looked to be small splotches of pancake batter on it.

"Douny, are you alright?" She asked, a soothing tone in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alright, I guess I just had a bad dream. What did you make?" Douny asked, pushing himself out of bed. Getting out of bed he noticed that he wasn't quite as tall as he used to be, he was only about as tall as his mom, which from what he could remember, was 5.8.

"Alright, I'll be downstairs, make sure you get ready for school." She said, giving Douny a caring smile before she walked out of the room. Douny just sat there for a few minutes, completely lost in thought at everything that just happened. Eventually, he did stand up and looked through drawers for a pair of paints and clean underwear before moving on to the closet for a shirt and belt.

After gathering his clothes, he opened his door and made his way to the shower. He noticed that the halls looked very similar to his room's walls, the main difference being that the dark oak didn't go up the walls but did have a bump lining the edge of the floor and walls. Going off of memory, Douny moved down the right side of the hall until he came to the first door to his left, he opened it turning on the lights and confirming that it was the bathroom.

Looking around the bathroom, everything was just as Douny remembered it. The roof was a nice sky blue, with white tiles going from the mid section of the shower wall down to the floor which had rougher, and smaller tiles. The rest of the room was the same as the roof's color and texture, which seemed to just be drywall. The floor was the same as the showers, probably to prevent slipping.

Sitting down on the closed toilet set Douny took a deep breath to try to calm down a bit. Nothing seemed to make sense, where was the castle, where was his gear, and where was Luna? Starting to be on the verge of a panic attack Douny's vision began to blur, his mind racing a million miles a minute, and his breathing was completely out of control it became increasingly hard to hold on to any thoughts, though, he was able to lock on to one thought, and had let that be his anchor.

"Come on ye young rebels, come list while I sing. For the love of one's country, is a beautiful thing. It banishes fear like, the speed of a flame. And it makes us all part of, the Patriots game." He shakily sang, calming down bit by bit as he did so.

"Are you alright I'm there?" His mother asked, on the other side of the door, having heard Douny from downstairs.

"Yeah, i…i it's nothing, I guess I'm just a bit paranoid right now." Douny answered, being a bit taken aback by his mother being outside the door without him so much as hearing footsteps. Having completely calmed down, Douny continued to get ready to take a shower. Today was going to be a long day.

🌙

After taking his shower, Douny left the bathroom, relying on memory again, he went down the way he came eventually finding a staircase leading down to the living room. Going down the stairs, Douny made a left going to the dining room, seeing his mom already there he took a seat in front of her. Looking at her, he saw a kind smile on her face as she looked back at him from her newspaper.

"Good morning Douny, how did you sleep last night?" She asked, putting her newspaper down for the time being to focus on her son. She still held a smile but this time it was laced with concern for her boy.

"I slept fine, just had a weird dream." Douny said. "How have you been?" Douny then asked, smiling back up at his mother who could see right through his attempt to dodge the conversation.

"Look, I'm not going to push you, but I know you're not fine. I heard the song you sang, and I remember I taught you it to help you calm down when you were stressed. So please, what's going on honey?" She asked, giving her son a heartbreaking look, making Douny cringe with guilt at the sight of it.

"I'm sorry, but I just can't tell you, it's not a big deal anyways." Douny said, looking away as he did so.

"Alright, just, please come to me if you change your mind, you don't have to go to school today either, just take some time to yourself." She said, keeping that same look she had from before. Getting up from her seat she walked around to the other side of the table next to her son, hugging him before she left, and went to another part of the house.

After she left, Douny put his head on the table, getting caught back in a deep thought of what was happening. He still couldn't make heads or tails of it, and by now he had given up trying to make sense of it. For now what he needed to do was find something to get his mind off things, just for a bit, but that was going to be much harder said than done.

Getting up, Douny made his way to the front door, heading back to the living room, to the right, Douny opened it revealing the small town they lived in. There was one major road leading in, and out of town with businesses on either side of the main street. Branching off from there were the fairly old houses, having been built back in the 80's, and surrounding their town was fairly open woods. All around a nice spot that was relaxing and nice to live in.

After taking a deep breath Douny walked outside, and went around to the back side of his house, when he made it back there he found a shed. Walking over to it he opened the door, but before he made his way in he felt an odd feeling, almost like someone was watching him, shrugging it off he went and grabbed the tools he was looking for. The tools in question were a handful of screwdrivers of different sizes, a handsaw, a power drill, and a hammer with a few bags of nails.

Taking the tools he grabbed he went to a workbench against the wall of the house, lucky for him it had a wooden awning above it, giving Douny some shade as he worked. He really didn't have anything planned out, he just wanted to build something to keep himself busy. Trying to decide what to make Douny came up with something fairly quickly, he would make furniture, hell if he did it well enough he might even be able to make some money off the side.

There was just one problem, he didn't have any wood to work with, going back to the shed he found a hatchet. Picking it up he went back outside and started heading down a path that went into the woods. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to go too far into them, but he was fine if it came to that, the woods have never been too dangerous, aside from the rare coyote, plus even if that feeling from before was right, he had an axe so he was more than capable of defending himself.

Making his way back to the shed, he picked up a wood cutting axe, and a bill hook to grab any branches that were out of his reach. The walk to the path was fairly uneventful, and for the most part, walking down the path in the woods was the same, minus a few deer and other woodland animals going about their business. A decent ways in he spotted a few trees that looked good and brought his bill hook up to pull at one of the branches, but just as he was about to do so he got that weird feeling in his gut again. Dropping his bill hook to the ground, bringing up his axe only to be met with a shadowy figure.

"Hey, who are you and why are you following me?" Douny asked, keeping his axe in a low ready position, however, there was no response other than a step forward from the strange figure.

"Do you have some kind of death wish? I asked you a question, now back off and answer it." Douny demanded, raising his axe onto his shoulder for an easy downward swing. Still, no response was given other than the creature continuing to approach.

Douny was about to charge at it until he saw more figures appearing from behind the trees around him putting fear into his soul, though he held his stance. If he was going to die, he was going to die on his feet fighting. Just as he was about to take a swing at the creature in front of him, a popping sound came from behind him, and before he could react to it a blue beam smited the first creature down in an instant. It didn't take long for a similar fate to fall the rest of them meanwhile Douny hit the deck keeping his hands over his head to protect it, after a few seconds there was silence, a long with… hoof steps, confused Douny looked over to his right where he heard them only to spot Princess Luna.

"Art thou alright Douny, by the makers why didn't thee tell us thee had these vermin in your dreams?" Luna said with concern in her voice, and worry in her eyes.

"It's fine Luna, just another nightmare to throw onto the growing pile." Douny stated patting himself off, noticing that he was back in his normal body.

"These creatures art attracted to nightmares, friend, they shouldn't be treated lightly." Luna said, putting a hoof on my chest.

"So what were they then, I just thought they were just part of my nightmares, not anything more?" Douny asked, looking over the woods.

"Not here, we'd wish to speak of these in our  observatory, if that won't be a problem?" She asked.

"Yeah sure, I'll meet you there." Douny said, as he did he felt himself being woken up, most likely by Luna's magic, and before he knew it everything faded as he came back to the waking world.

🌙

When Douny woke up he realized he was sleeping at his desk still in full kit minus the helmet and chainmail on his head. Getting the sleep out of his eyes, he made his way to the other side of his room where he kept a cup of coffee, which if he remembered correctly he got before he went and conk out on his desk. With a shrug he down the cup of coffee and made his way out of his room and to where Luna wanted to speak with him.

As he walked down the halls of the palace, he noticed it was still night out, and from where the moon was sitting it was midnight, he hadn't been sleeping more than an hour. With a grumble, he kept moving on waving to any Night Guardponys as he did so. It didn't take him long to reach the observatory, and when he did he knocked on the door, hearing Luna on the other side asking who it was, when he told her it was him she opened the doors and greeted Douny with a smile.

"Friend Douny, please have a seat, we had just ordered coffee for both of us." Luna said, walking over to the couch that she had in the middle of the observatory, to which he followed her and sat down on it.

"Why are thou still in thy kit?" Luna asked, with a tilt of her head.

"I guess when I left to head back to my room, I slept before I could get my paperwork done, and conked out on my desk." He answered, taking a sip of the coffee that Luna had ordered, which tasted heavenly.

With a suppressed giggle Luna then spoke. "Well we hate to ruin the mood, but we think thee deserves an explanation on what those vermin were in thy dreams, tis isn't a thing thee would be able to read on." Luna said, with a slightly dark and cold tone, which didn't go unnoticed by Douny.

"And why's that?" Douny asked, taking another sip of his coffee.

"We shall explain, when we were the Nightmare, or as everypony else would say, Nightmare Moon, we had fought our sister for dominance over the heavens, we had lost that fight however, but we had a failsafe in mind so to speak." Luna explained, her face turned into one of disgust and a hint of self hatred, in response Douny put a hand on her weathers to help comfort her, even though it was through a chainmail and leather glove. The attempt didn't go unnoticed by the midnight blue alicorn as she smiled at the attempt.

"And that's what is plaguing thy dreams, a creature we made out of our pure hate if we couldn't have the heavens and the ponies' love and attention, they would suffer for it, it's little wonder why they are so scared of us, it's no less than what we deserve for our transgressions." She said coldly, more towards herself than anyone else.

"Hey none of that, you're not like that, I'm not even sure I believe you and Nightmare Moon are even the same, from what I've read she seemed to be more of a foreign entity snaking its way into your mind." Douny said, looking Luna in her blue eyes.

"If it were true dear friend, if it were true, but tie not, though yes The Nightmare wasn't us, we have equal blame, for we allowed her to take over because of our hate and jealousy." She responded, trying to avert her days from the man in front of her.

"Look, I more than anyone know how hate works, trust me I am all too aware, but unlike you, I wasn't being manipulated, 90% of the time the only one making those choices was me, so please, try to forgive yourself, if not for your sake, than for me and you're sisters, I really don't want to see you like this." Douny said, moving his head around to where he would be locking eyes with Luna again,

With tears in her eyes, Luna's breaths started to hitch in her throat. "Thank thee friend Douny, thou hast no idea how much your words mean to us, we art truly proud to have somepony like thee as a friend." She said, lightly sobbing into Douny's brigandine turning that spot of it a deeper blue from her tears.

"Hey it's alright Luna, I'm here." Douny said softly, holding her against his chest, wishing he had been wearing something more comfortable for Luna's sake.

"We art sorry Douny, you truly are a kind stallion, anyways, we should get back to our duties we'd also wish for thee to stay here while thy sleeps so we can help thee if thy gets ambushed by those beasts again." Luna asked, as she got up from her seat.

"I guess so, I don't see the harm in it, let me just get into something a bit more comfortable, and I'll be back." With that, Douny got up again walking back to his room.

Luna was happy that he agreed, yes should could protect him from those nightmare creatures here, but she would still rather him stay close in case the worst happened. Not that she thought anything would, but you can never be too careful with these creatures. With that she smiled, happy that she could protect her friend both in the dream realm and if those beasts appeared in the physical realm as well.