//------------------------------//
// I quit, Lulu! 
// Story: Little loony Luna and crazy caffeinated Celestia's life in Canterlot 
// by Vidhwansak 
//------------------------------//


I quit, Lulu!




Like walking into a dream, so unlike what you've seen...

Cautiously, Luna moved around in Rainbow Dash's nightmare, attempting to find the source of her terror to put it down for good. Contrary to popular belief of what she did when she dream-walked, she did not actually give ponies their dreams, but rather eradicated their nightmares so that they could possibly get some sleep, and perhaps dream afterwards. She never bothered to correct anypony, as there was simply no need to, and she liked the idea of being able to create dreams; it gave her a sense of power that she enjoyed. Right now, though, this particular nightmare was being too stubborn for her to fix, as she could not find the source of the nightmare that was causing Rainbow Dash's torment. Who knew the pegasus was so afraid of heights? It explained why she liked crashing into the ground so often.

Right...Eliminating the tower that she is afraid to jump off of and placing her back on the ground doesn't help...Every time I turn my back, I hear Rainbow Dash screaming for me to stay again, and the tower is right back where it was, with her on top of it. Hmm... Truthfully, Luna did not know what to do in events like this; she knew very little of how a pony's mind worked, and even less of dreams and nightmares, even though this was in her domain of work. Often times she merely wandered around, adjusting various things in a pony's mind to try and 'fix' them, which usually worked. It was always the little things that changed something.

A familiar voice behind Luna called out, with an exasperated tone of voice. "You're not going to be able to fix Rainbow Dash's nightmare, Lulu. Trust me, I tried, and nothing seems to work."

"Hi Moonie." Turning around, Luna met Nightmare Moon's gaze, and frowned at Nightmare Moon's disheveled appearance. "Ow. Someone has been through the blender. How long have you been in here? You sound and look really tired."

Wearily, Nightmare Moon waved her right hoof carelessly around as she tried to remember how long she had stayed in Rainbow Dash's repetitive nightmare. "The blender sucks. I've been here for...About an hour? I can't keep track of time in here. You would be tired, too, if you tried to do everything I did. I swear, this pony is hopeless."

Luna leapt up to Rainbow Dash's defense reluctantly, feeling silly about what she was going to say. "Well, I wouldn't exactly say that Rainbow Dash is hopeless..."

Nightmare Moon waved her right hood over at Rainbow Dash, who was screaming like a little filly at the top of a three foot tower made out of cardboard. "A pegasus. One that can perform the Sonic Rainboom. Scared. Of. Heights. Oh, she also screams like a little filly, kind like you whenever you lose a game."

"That's not true!"

"Is too. Remember when I won all those tic-tac-toe games last night?"

You're never going to let me forget about that, are you? So what if I lost seventy times in a row, I was just warming up! "Look, as much as you like to bring up bad moments in history that are better off being lost, forever, can we just concentrate on eliminating Rainbow Dash's nightmare?! As silly and dumb as it is, we still need to do our job and move onto the next pony!"

Muttering an insult under her breath, Nightmare Moon clapped her hooves together, and a notepad appeared right in front of her. She passed it onto Luna, then sat down on her rump, eager to pass on her work over to Luna as she took a moment to rest. "In addition to my notes of the situation, Rainbow Dash happens to want me to carry her down the tower, and changing the height of the tower does nothing; obviously, the tower seems to be unable to be moved in any way, shape or form, and changing the material of the tower does not seem to work. I've placed trampolines at the bottom, gave Rainbow Dash a parachute, and tried slapping her awake, among other things too numerous to list that you can read for yourself on the notepad. Nothing seems to work."

The notes that Nightmare Moon gave Luna were very neat and to the point, which Luna appreciated as she saw that Rainbow Dash's nightmare might be a lot easier to solve than she thought it was going to be. Oh, Moonie...You're a very practical pony, and I respect that, but you clearly have no imagination when it comes to this sort of thing! There's a reason why ponies dream, and it's not about setting fire to their workplace or wishing school was out forever! ...Okay, maybe those examples are pushing it since many ponies do wish that would happen, but nevertheless, you have no creativity when it comes to this! Ponies dream the most unimaginable things with their imagination, and you can't really get rid of their nightmares practically! It's just not possible! 

"Are...You okay, Luna? You're spacing out. Luna. Luna. Lulu. LULU, ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?" 

"Huh? Oh...Yeah, I'm fine." Luna tossed the notepad that Nightmare gave her behind her back, and upon landing on the ground, it exploded into confetti, which slowly rose up into the air, and after about five seconds, the confetti turned into butterflies and flew away. "I've read through your notes, an-"

Nightmare Moon spoke up over Luna, with a smile on her face. "So you agree with me that Rainbow Dash's nightmare is impossible to fix, and that we should probably just leave her alone for tonight while we find some other ponies to help?"

While I would like to simply move on, Rainbow Dash's nightmare should be relatively easy to fix and requires virtually no effort. Heck, I don't think it'll take more than a snap of my hooves! Honestly, I'm surprised you've been here for an entire hour, Moonie. "No, Moonie, I think tha-"

"We should take the night off, grab some snacks from the kitchens, and watch random movies for seven hours straight so when Celestia finds us, we'll be trashed and unable to do any work?"

For the love of...Well, actually, that does sound appealing, but darn it, Moonie, stop speaking over me! Irritated at being interrupted again, Luna shook her head, and shot a glare at Nightmare Moon. "If you interrupt me again, so help me Faust, I'm going to punch you in the face and then stick a needle in your rump. It's not going to be a small needle either."

"Whatever, you don't scare me." So quickly that Luna almost missed it, Nightmare Moon looked behind her, making sure that no abnormally large needle was nearby to make its way into her rump.

Okay...Maybe I can actually talk now. First things first, I'll insult you! "Alright...Now, what I'm thinking is that you have been doing everything wrong and have absolutely no imagination at all."

Indignantly, and rather predictably, Nightmare Moon stood up, angry at what Luna said. "What?! I have plenty of imagination, thank you very much, little miss Moon butt!"

Moon butt?! "Why have you only tried to fix Rainbow Dash's nightmare with practical ways of thinking, then?! You also have a moon on your butt as well, so you're a Moon butt too!"

"Uh, I used practical ways to try and fix Rainbow Dash's nightmare because it's logical to fix problems while thinking practically? Most things aren't fixed with imagination, and, well, at least my butt isn't as big as the moon, like yours!"

Luna flailed her hooves about, trying to get her point across to Nightmare Moon. "This is a pony's mind! Imagination runs rampant! There's no need to think logically at all!"

"Excuuuuuuuuse me, princess, I'm new to the job! I give ponies nightmares, which is really, really easy! I don't go around trying to erase them! We have two similar, but not really the same jobs!"

"That's no excuse, now shut up, Tia wanted you to see if you could help me with my work on certain nights, not that I need your help at all! We all had to start somewhere, and probably not with the good working conditions you started training in! I don't like having to share my domain, but it's necessary to make things easier for the both of us; I have yet to create nightmares, and I have no doubt you'll be eager to teach me all about them. Anyway...From what I see from your notes, you haven't tried changing the scene, Moonie."

Good conditions? Bah, you smacked my rump around with a two by four made of bread while I was trying to figure out how to fix Tia's 'nightmare' in that practice run last week! I will never look at bread the same way again. Also...Admittedly, yes, I do suppose I'll find teaching you the finer points about nightmares to be very interesting. I have to say, changing the...Scene? Huh? What exactly are you talking about? Nightmare Moon didn't comprehend the general idea of what Luna said she should try, so she made the most intelligent reply that she possibly could in this given situation. "What."

"...You simply change the scene, Moonie. You need some creativity for this, which is why I'm not surprised that you've been here for so long. You're such a silly, Moonie."

With a glare, Nightmare Moon stepped up into Luna's personal space, growling softly as she uttered a threat. "I take offense to that. A lot of offense. So much offense that you better believe I'm going to take the offense and put you on the defense with my superior offense, which will shatter your inferior defense into so many little pieces." Nightmare Moon then stepped back, and waved a hoof over at Rainbow Dash. "Anyway, what do you mean by changing the scene?"

...I may be in for quite the fight. Nice going, Lulu! "...Well, in some cases, some ponies have too hard a grip on their nightmares to truly respond to any treatment I may provide for them. However, if I change the scene around them into something a little more pleasant, it changes how they might react. For example...Would you rather sleep in a nice, warm, cozy bed, or would you rather sleep outside in the rain?"

"...I see your point, Lulu, but what exactly are you going to change the scene to?"

"Something simple and sweet, Moonie; it'll be very relaxing for her, hopefully." Turning around to face Rainbow Dash, Luna took a look around the general area, and smiled before lighting up her horn. Slowly, the featureless surrounding area around Rainbow Dash turned into a pool, and the little cardboard tower that Rainbow Dash was scared of off of was exchanged with a diving board. To make the scene a little more convincing, she added the rest of the Elements of Harmony into the pool, based entirely on what Rainbow Dash thought of them.

"Hey, Dashie!" Pinkie Pie waved her hoof up at her, and was currently splashing some water onto Applejack, who laughed as she splashed her aggressor back. "Come in! The water is great!"

"Huh?! O-Oh...Okay, Pinkie, here I come!" As suspected, Rainbow Dash didn't want to appear scared to her friends, and so, taking the bait, Rainbow Dash dived into the pool, creating quite the splash. Luna's feeling of satisfaction over triumphing where Nightmare Moon could not was promptly replaced by confusion as another Pinkie Pie appeared, tut-tutting at the scene.

"I do not sound like that! Dashie has my voice just a smidgen too high! It needs to be a smidgen lower!" With that said, Pinkie Pie disappeared just as quickly as she left, leaving behind two very confused alicorns.

After a moment of attempting to process the fact that an earth pony had just entered a very sacred realm, Nightmare Moon looked over to her friend, and groaned inwardly, knowing that any answer she was likely to receive was most likely going to be an answer she didn't want. "Hey...Lulu?"

"Yes, Moonie?" Luna snapped out of her trance to look over at Nightmare Moon, still trying to process the thought that Pinkie Pie just showed up. 

"Was...That...You know...Pinkie Pie?"

Are you blind? She was just there! Nodding slowly, Luna confirmed Nightmare Moon's question with the motion and her following words. "...Yeah, that was Pinkie Pie. Why?"

Promptly, Nightmare Moon spun around, and began walking away. "I quit, Lulu! I can't deal with this anymore! Let's just...I don't know, go eat a tub of ice cream, I've had enough dream-walking for tonight!"

Although she knew very well that joining Nightmare Moon would lead to a head-ache, Luna felt like she deserved one for what she just saw. "...Alright. Okay, that sounds like...Something I need after seeing that."