Four years ago, most of the living creatures regained their ability to dream.
It remained lost to them for a millennium.
It was the dawning of a new era.
In an early age of enchantment, in the realm of equines...
Where suffering was manageable.
Three ponies cut through the rich-black darkness and climbed the stage at its heart. It was a spacious cavern with walls covered by a glassy surface, and the wind howled through it, lamenting in eerie and distant, rising and fading voices.
The dark around them breathed at its own pace. It was warm and alive.
"Be wary," urged Luna. "There is an odd air about this place. Something is amiss."
Her striking step against the rock left barely any noise. She ventured gingerly, while smaller ponies stood watch at the entrance. Both were disciplined but still mere fledgelings, an honor guard whose main responsibility was to pull a chariot across the star-burdened sky.
Luna's reflection went across the crystal, waving and trembling like a mirage, becoming gaunt and gorging itself on a succulent shadow in the scant light of glowing stalagmites. The reflection was drawing Luna, and so she stopped, moving her head and watching how it transformed in the translucent depths.
"Care—" began one of the night ponies nervously.
"Quiet." Luna flared her wing.
She made another pass, examining the glimmer of the stars in her mane. It seemed off. She froze up, and when everything halted except their shining, Luna saw with a sobering jolt that it wasn't a true reflection but an imitation—like the light of an angler fish.
Luna tried not to show her surprise, but failed. The green eye watched her. Unknown magic began to emerge beneath the darkness to defy the Princess of the Night. An intricate web of cracks covered the crystal.
The creature on the other side lunged, and the crystal wall broke into a shower of a thousand jagged pieces. The shards sliced her shoulders and sides, and the imitator slammed her back into the ground. Luna yelled, covering her muzzle, and saw through her forehooves the ghastly, victorious grin of an almost perfect doppleganger.
Bright green flared from above, but the imitator was wide open. Luna blindly whipped her wing, enchanting the tips of its feathers into sharp steel. It went deeply, and a deafening shriek cut throughout the cavern. Luna bucked the assailant away and ungracefully upturned herself from the ground.
The assailant staggered back, wreathed in bleak flames and fumes. Its appearance contorted for the final time; it clutched the wound bleeding crimson, and raised the enraged eyes beneath a seaweed of unkempt hair.
More magic surged across the room. Smaller, similar creatures emerged from the cavern's shadows, outnumbering the alicorn and her companions—but not surrounding them.
"To the entrance!" Luna barked an order, the nightlings broke into a messy gallop back into the tunnel, and the alicorn followed them close. With their leader spearheading the chase, the shapeshifters poured after them by the dozens.
The last of them disappeared in the narrow passage.
There was a beat of silence when everything stilled. Somewhere, an echo of water dripped, and the howling wind rose again.
The mountain above shuddered with an anguished moan, then rumbled with the ferocity of a wounded beast. Rocks and stone dust fell from the ceiling. The shapeshifting creatures began to come back, colliding with one another in a panic-fueled stampede, and when the biggest one pushed through, Luna came like a vengeful vortex of freezing mist.
The creatures tried to lay down a barrage of spells, chipping away at Luna's immaterial form. Her assailant grabbed several of its own with a bright green aura and launched them like projectiles, only leaving splats on the ceiling. Luna whirled in the air, gaining substance and sucking up the light, and then came crushing down.
The mountain shuddered once more. Luna came from the frost snarling and exhaling vapor. Remaining between half-frozen and grievously wounded, her chief assailant still moved and tried to flee into one of several passages on the far side, but the alicorn swatted the shapeshifter with an almost lazy strike of a lightning bolt. Tossed to the ground, it continued to crawl away.
Blood trailed from Luna's neck beneath a mark of deep bite. Coming after the defeated opponent, she regarded them with a furious, silent glare.
The deranged creature laughed like a madmare. It tried to cling to the wall and stand up, but Luna brought it down with a timely delivered backhoof.
"A second-rate, worthless waste of space!" the creature growled hysterically, dragging herself up again.
"You are Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen, I take it? Some bog witch. A pretender." Luna raised her head.
Chrysalis froze in place and moved her neck stiffly, baring fangs like a feral dog. "And I know who you are. So what now? Am I to tremble in awe in your presence? Am I to worship you? Am I to surrender all that I am and cease existing? What, you want to blink me away like I am some afterthought, to deny me my strife?"
"Where is the girl?" demanded Luna.
With her grin reduced to an ominous smile, Chrysalis tapped at her chin. "Ah-hah… So it's all about that little whelp I've plucked from the village. Oh, yes, now I know exactly why you've come. It would be such a shame if she wouldn't see the light of day…"
"Too long vagabonds akin to thou have roamed the dark unchallenged, and due to thine ignorance, thee art in dire need of a reminder of who is the true ruler of the night. You thought I would let your atrocity slide? No, the consequences have come for you like a tide rising that cannot retreat from the shore." Luna's eyes flashed white. "I have sent my nightkin to Canterlot. Sister and I will be judging thou. Concede."
"You'll be judging me?" Chrysalis repeated, as if not believing her own ears. She pulled herself from the ground, standing on shaky legs. "You? Oh, but I've done so many deeds, why confine ourselves to a single one? Would you even be satiated by it?… Doubt it. I know I won't." She grinned. "Believe me, this can be a tale for the ages."
Luna regarded her with new-found suspicion. "You have captured not only the girl, but her parents as well," she said, appalled. "Cease thy palaver and show me."
"What is that, a command? Aren't you a royal little blackbird?" Chrysalis hissed, splaying her ears.
"You are in no position to argue, witch," Luna replied quietly. "Ai, I am asking thou politely, and it is already too much of an indulgence. Now, hoof it."
The labyrinth of caves was like a fox's den with many exits, and should Luna lose sight of Chrysalis, she was sure she'd escaped. Battered after their battle, the two entered another chamber with a faint moonlight peeking from above.
Luna's attention wasn't drawn to the possible directions to retreat. Her eyes swept to and fro across the cave. Her heart sank to her bowels, and she uttered in a long hiss, "By Erebus..."
In the middle of the chamber were a half-dozen of her night ponies, encased in a slime-like green substance. A missing patrol from their underground domain, perhaps? They struggled against their confines with muffled screams, alarmed by her presence.
Behind them, in a cocoon, was Ginger Lime—the girl whose nightmares brought the Princess to this wretched place. The thin and shriveled husks of her parents were embracing the contently sleeping filly in a mocking and grotesque display.
"Why have you done this, you mongrel?" Luna asked, turning to Chrysalis. She could hardly contain her anger. "Why? Whatever you wanted to achieve with this cruelty?"
"What can be more beautiful than witnessing your enemy in pain?" Chrysalis replied, unfazed.
Luna exhaled, exasperated. "…Thou art on a path that is leading to nothing but your own destruction, witch."
"Speaking from experience?" Chrysalis pulled another smile.
Luna wasn't answering.
"Don't you have more to say?…" Chrysalis prompted, and then laughed. "Fine, savor your air. You will sing for me yet, blackbird... You will sing."
Luna's eyes flared white. A shade of confusion ran over Chrysalis' expression, and after a delay, she drunkenly paced the ground as if trying to throw off the alicorn's power, but then her body surrendered. She fell down and relaxed, shutting off.
Luna had no interest in whatever vile slumber she had sent Chrysalis off to. She spared her a long glance and returned to the bound nightlings, who fervently tried to draw her attention.
Her brows moved into a deep, puzzled frown when she recognized one of them. "Onyx Star," she called. Her horn shone deep blue, undoing the gagged mouth. "You only recently were by my side, did you not? How didst thou—"
"Night Mother—" Onyx Star hacked and wheezed, vomiting green liquid. His voice was too weak, and Luna stepped closer. "I was caught moons ago, Night Mother, you must get out! Flee!"
Instantly, a wave of green flame surged, stripping from illusion what she perceived to be unassuming rocks around the cavern. The Princess lowered her horn, ready to protect the others, but it was too late.