I don’t quite remember what I did over the next week. I seemed to phase in and out of thought, unable to fully comprehend the dream or what was going on in it. My own name, Lucas, had been revealed to me and yet I couldn’t even understand it. I had seen my own mother address me by name and sing me a lullaby as an infant, but the memories remained hazy. Worst of all was the scene that followed after; I couldn’t see a thing of whatever had been on the other side of the door, but the piercing cries of my mother shouting in pain rang out every single night whether or not in my dreams, followed by the cries of a young boy unable to stand the pain that he endured every night in that household.
Revenant Wings stopped by the library, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he said to me even when he was shouting and shaking me when trying to get me to listen. Pinkie Pie came by with some cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner and offered me some, but when I ate it I registered nothing despite the fact that the cupcakes tasted as good as ever. Rarity came over to ask about how the outfits she made me were and I could only respond with “They fit”; Twilight had to reassure her and tell her I loved them but was reliving some traumatic memory that had returned to me and I was, at the moment, desensitized.
I spent late evenings on the hill outside of town and returned late, often to the point I would see Twilight and Spike getting ready to leave the library to come and find me. Almost immediately afterwards Twilight would be ordering Spike to get me a cup of hot chocolate and prepared a fire to receive my shaking body; it was cold on the hills, but they were the only place I could find peace from the shaking, a peace found in the whispers on the wind that sometimes passed through on moonlit nights. I could make neither heads nor tails of what I heard, but it was comforting all the same; the way the wind make the leaves rustle gently and passed over them to create a gentle whistle, the way the breezes would wrap around me and tousle my hair and my clothes, turning warm for just a moment as it passed through my clothes. The moon was fuller than ever those days, and while I half attributed it to the cycle reaching its peak, there was something unnaturally bright and soft about the glow that came from it.
Eventually, there was one night where I stayed out on the hill longer than usual. I was looking straight at the moon, hardly registering even when I blinked, when I saw Twilight coming up the hill. I didn’t acknowledge her presence; I knew she was there, but I was just too lost in thought. The alicorn sat down next to me and placed a wing around me, shielding me from the cold night air.
“What happened?” Twilight said. “What did you see in the dream?”
It took a moment for the question to process. “Why do you care?”
“Dreams are more important in Equestria than they are on Earth,” Twilight said. “If there is a dream that has plagued a pony, there are those who can look into dreams and attempt to understand the occurrences within them. Especially with unicorns, whose dreams can manifest themselves into prophecies.”
I considered not telling her, but then I looked over to Twilight. She wore a look of concern on her face, worried not just for the sake of her Princess, but for my own. “Please… please tell me. Maybe… maybe there’s something I could do.”
I sighed. “I saw her… my mother. But… then Nightmare Moon arrived.”
The look of shock on Twilight’s face was quite evident and her wings stiffened a moment as though every feather was standing up on its end before she settled down again.
“Nightmare Moon began prowling my memories and changed the scene. I was a young boy, hiding behind a closed door. I could hear my mother on the other side of the door, shouting in pain and hurt. Someone was hurting her, someone who might have used broken glass as a weapon. I could do nothing but cry, which only made the hits become harder.”
“Then… Nightmare Moon chased me. She chased me into your library and attacked me. I fought back, but it was hopeless; she eventually threw me into a pit of darkness, where I saw an alicorn about your size but covered in light blue fur. She as nice, but scared because she thought that I was going to hurt her, but she calmed down when I didn’t and became friendly, even affectionate. When I asked her name, she began to change into darker fur, and told me her name was Luna.”
Twilight nodded, taking in the information. “You didn’t just see Luna, you saw her personality. The side she hides from those who she doesn’t trust. Perhaps… perhaps Nightmare Moon represents the darker side of her she wants to get past, but has yet to find the strength to recover from. The appearance of Nightmare Moon both a thousand years ago and four years ago has brought many ponies trouble, caused them to become afraid.”
“I don’t blame them,” I told her. “Both times I’ve seen Nightmare Moon, she trapped me in the dream and made it impossible to wake up. She tried to kill me by attacking me in my dreams. Both times I managed to escape, it was from outside forces, one of which I couldn’t understand what was going on out of delirium and the other was when Luna changed into her present form. I never beat the nightmare on my own.”
Twilight nodded again. After a long while of us just sitting there, I saw what looked like a spark of an idea in her eye and she went from concerned to excited. “I have an idea. Ne—uh, Lucas, we’ll be going for a little hike tomorrow night. Come on; let’s go back home. Tomorrow evening, we’ll be heading off for a little journey so we’ll need to make sure we have everything for tomorrow.”
I watched as Twilight started heading down the hill and looked back up at the moon as though expecting it to say something, but as watchful as it was it never said anything to me. When Twilight started to call back for me, I got up and followed her down the hill and back to Ponyville.
* * *
The next evening after dinner, Twilight told me to get a coat. Once I had gotten it and returned down to the main library, Twilight gave instructions to Spike to stay back and keep the library under control. Afterwards I followed Twilight out of the library and into the cool evening. The sun was casting a series of orange and gold and purple hues across the sky as Twilight led me through Ponyville in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.
But we didn’t stop at the farm. Twilight kept going down the dirt road until we had passed the farm and the orchards and started walking across a large grassy area that stood between the farm and a large, dark forest. By the time we reached the forest the sky only had traces of the purple hues in the distance and most of the sky had turned to a starry night sky, the moon shining brightly overhead.
“So… what is this place?” I asked Twilight.
“This is the Everfree Forest,” Twilight replied.
The sun peeked back over the horizon and the moon shone a little brighter than normal.
“Brilliant,” I said, “but what’s in here?”
“Well, it’s a little different from the rest of Equestria,” Twilight said. “Nopony likes coming in here because it’s so different. We’re so used to having everything controlled by ponies, from the sun and moon to the weather and even the seasons, the mere fact that the Everfree Forest acts with everything living and sustaining itself without pony intervention kind of scares us.”
“…that’s it?”
“Well, there’s all sorts of monsters in here,” Twilight admitted, “but with my magic we shouldn’t have too much of a problem.”
“What about your wings?”
“…I can’t fly. I’m currently too inexperienced to carry my own weight for very long and would need to lose some weight before I could fly for long periods.”
I said nothing, following Twilight as she entered the forest, a soft-glowing but powerful light coming from the top of her horn. From the looks of the place the Everfree Forest was more like a jungle; the trees were so tall and grew so close together that they blocked out the sky, and all of those trees were covered with vines that snaked around and sometimes stuck out in the path that you had to look down every few seconds to make sure you didn’t trip. The ground itself was filled with all sorts of bushes and ferns that broke only every once in a while, also the path we were on was clear. It also appeared to be the only available route through the forest itself.
“I’m going to tell you something, Lucas,” Twilight said. “When I first came to Ponyville, I didn’t know Luna like I do now. Back then, she was still known as Nightmare Moon, and I had come to Ponyville because of a prophecy that said she would return on the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration one thousand years after her imprisonment. When she returned, it was up to me and my friends, then five ponies I simply knew from preparations for the festival, to find the Elements of Harmony hidden away in the ruins of an ancient castle hidden deep within this forest.”
“What happened?”
“Well, we were constantly followed by Nightmare Moon, wanting to either make sure we didn’t make it there or were killed in the process. Six times she impeded our process, but in the end we made it through, found the Elements of Harmony, and used their power to defeat Nightmare Moon. We never expected to see what we did when we defeated her, though…”
Twilight stopped for a minute. “The dream you had the other night… when you first saw Luna as a younger alicorn with the lighter blue fur… that was the first time I saw Luna without being tainted by Nightmare Moon’s influence. She was in there the whole time, trapped by the darkness that used her to try and conquer Equestria.”
I didn’t say anything but was absolutely shocked to hear Twilight’s story. So that had been Luna herself that I had seen in my dream… but why was her attitude so different than it had been every time I found myself with her awake?
We eventually came to a place where we were below a large cliff face. The cliff stretched far above our heads and, from the looks of it, eventually ended in a small plateau. Towards the top of the cliff was a ledge that looked like it had a large chunk that had fallen out of it; at the base of the cliff were a bunch of scattered rocks of the same type as the cliff face.
“This was our first test,” Twilight said, “and the sight of the first battle that Luna herself had with Nightmare Moon.”
“They… fought?”
“Mentally. We were on the ledges you see up there and were walking down the cliff using them when Nightmare Moon came along. Nightmare Moon wanted to go into the cliff face above us and have the rocks come smashing down on our heads, an attack that would have instantly killed us. But Luna changed Nightmare Moon’s idea and made it where she went to the cliff face below us on the ledge; Applejack’s strength as an earth pony, as well as the flying ability of the pegasi Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, were used to keep us from falling down the cliff because we had a chance to react.”
I merely stared at the cliff face until Twilight continued walking forwards. I continued to follow her as we went deeper into the darkness of the Everfree Forest.
“I told you earlier that monsters dwell in the Everfree Forest,” Twilight said. “On our quest, we had to face a monster. Now, there are plenty of monsters that can attack a pony in these woods. Ponies constantly live in fear of Timberwolves, wolves made out of wood that can reform themselves if the wood is not completely destroyed by burning it. There are other dangers here, too, such as multi-headed Hydras, giant spiders at least twice as large as the largest alicorn, venomous snakes with two heads that can cause either hallucinations or paralysis depending on which side bites you, and chicken-and-reptile hybrids called cockatrices that can turn you to stone if you look at them for too long.”
“Nightmare Moon gave us our second challenge by taking the form of a sharp thorn and pricking the paw of a lion and scorpion hybrid called a manticore,” Twilight continued. “But… why do you suppose a manticore was the choice when there are plenty of creatures here, often more dangerous, that we couldn’t stand a chance in a fight against?”
I had my suspicions, but… “I haven’t a clue,” I told her.
“It was Luna’s decision. Of all the creatures in the forest, the manticore is the closest thing to a normal animal. In fact, a manticore can even be tamed. Fluttershy, an animal specialist whose cutie mark came from her ability to communicate with animals, was able to approach the manticore to calm it and eventually removed the thorn from its paw and it let us pass.”
We passed through the area where the manticore had been and went into a large grove that seemed darker than the rest of the forest and the trees seemed to grow closer together. The trees here were more gnarled.
“I could explain this one, but it’d be a little difficult,” Twilight said.
“You’ve explained the rest so far, so give it a go.”
“Well… if you really think about it, a nightmare itself is no more than an illusion; it isn’t really happening, it just takes the surroundings and makes them seem darker and scarier than they would if you were to see them by light. Here, Nightmare Moon wanted the trees to come to live, but Luna convinced her to make it simply be an illusion. With Pinkie’s help, we were able to laugh off the illusion and continue on.”
Twilight sighed fondly. “I think that was the first time I realized these ponies were my friends. Not to the extent I realized later, but perhaps then something was growing inside me that made me realize it later.”
I shrugged as we exited the grove out to a clearing and a large, calmly-flowing river that ran through the forest. A bridge had been built over the river, which Twilight led me across.
“Back when I first came through here, there was no bridge. A large river serpent lived here at that time and he was thrashing as though in pain when we arrived, making it impossible to cross. Turns out Nightmare Moon would have caused him pain, but Luna only made her attack his mustache. That was… kind of odd, but Rarity cut off her tail and gave it to the serpent to regrow his mustache, which calmed him down enough to let us pass.”
I didn’t know how long we had been walking through the forest. After the bridge, Twilight was silent for a longer time than usual though kept up her steady pace. My legs were getting weak and I eventually had to stop to take a rest and catch my breath, calling to Twilight to wait up for me to have a break.
“We’re nearly there,” Twilight told me.
“And I’m outta breath,” I responded. “Just give me a second.”
We stayed there for a few minutes until my breathing was back to normal before continuing. A few minutes later we emerged at the ruins of a large castle separated from the rest of the forest by a large chasm. Twilight led me over the bridge, instructing me to take hold of the ropes at either side and don’t look down. I followed orders until we had crossed the bridge, and only then did Twilight speak.
“The chasm is deep and dark,” she said, panting herself now. “Luna pushed Nightmare Moon passed the first part of the bridge and only cut the ropes holding the bridge on this side. If she hadn’t done that, I don’t know if Rainbow Dash would have been able to find the bridge among the darkness and the fog.”
While the forest itself had been dark and gloomy, there was something about the castle that struck me as sacred. We could now finally see the moon again, and it cast a pale, oddly reverent glow over the remains of the castle. Hardly any of the castle had roofs to cover its rooms anymore and the walls were crumbling, but everywhere you could see faint traces of the former glory that it once was; ruined states of famous ponies, torn and faded banners displaying the crest of the alicorns of the sun and moon, giant walls and broken windows that stretched higher than any other building I had seen yet.
Twilight was silent as we walked through the castle until we came to a set of rooms that formed a sort of T-shape; one was a large room that held two thrones that had been weathered away to barely two stumps with a vague outline of the back and the arms that they once had, while another was off to one side and filled with emblems of the sun. Another room on the other side of the hall was filled with emblems of the moon.
“And here is where I fought Nightmare Moon,” Twilight said. “But she didn’t kill me, even though I was Celestia’s student and eventually revealed as the bearer of the Element of Magic. She attacked me, but never with intent to kill; just to prevent me from activating the Elements of Harmony. That again was Luna’s doing, because Luna would never kill anyone who her sister loved so dearly.”
“You see, Lucas,” Twilight continued, “I took you on this walk to show you that even in the midst of a hatred that had consumed her whole being, Luna was able to stand up to Nightmare Moon and protect us from being harmed or inconvenienced worse than we were. Perhaps… perhaps the significance of the dream you had was because Luna feels remorse for the way she treated you but hasn’t found a way to tell you yet.”
“She’s the Alicorn of night and dreams, isn’t she?”
“Yet every time you’ve seen her and remembered the dream, she’s been only there at the tail end of the dream due to the work of Nightmare Moon.”
I walked out into the center of the moon room, Twilight sitting calmly at the base of the thrones in the hall outside and doing nothing to stop me. There was something about this place, something that struck me as sacred and respected. I looked at the moon overhead and noted it shining overhead as though expecting something, but I turned away and looked back at the throne room around me. I began to mumble something that even I couldn’t tell what I was saying, but my voice rose and soon I could hear myself singing a familiar tune…
Words of life words of hope,
Give us strength, help us cope.
In this world, wherever we roam,
Ancient words will guide us home.
Ancient words, ever true,
Changing me and changing you.
We have come with open hearts,
Oh, let the ancient words impart.*
“That was beautiful, Lucas,” I heard Twilight say.
I blushed. “I’ve never been much of a singer.”
“I wasn’t talking about your voice,” Twilight said playfully. “I meant the lyrics.”
I nodded. “They’re from a song that was sung in sacred places at home. It was a call to higher powers, letting them know we were ready to accept the teachings that they had passed down through their messengers.”
I turned around to see Twilight looking at me questioningly. “Why did you sing it?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never been in a place that made me feel so strongly and emotional as this place. The history, the majesty… something about this place struck me as sacred.”
Twilight smiled as though she knew something. “I find that interesting considering you said it specifically while in Luna’s chambers in the castle, as though that was where it hit you.”
Overhead, the moon’s glow went soft, but it wasn’t pale and eerie as before. I looked up at the moon and found it more calming and soothing than it had ever been. For once, as I looked up at the sky, I could see the Princess of the Night smiling at me with the symbol of both her power and her wonder, her fearfulness and her protectiveness, her old grudges… and her approval with me by finally giving her the respect she long deserved.