//------------------------------// // Luna Has A Bad Dream // Story: Cynical Pone Parody // by Nonagon //------------------------------// CHAPTER THE FIRST ONE "LUNA HAS A BAD DREAM" or "IF THE PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT IS SCARED OF IT THEN IT MUST BE IMPORTANT" There was darkness. And within that darkness, there was more darkness. A kind of double-darkness, if you will. This double-darkness didn't exactly do anything. But it was extremely ominous. And very terrifying to look at. Not that you could look at it, because it was too dark - "it" being the initial darkness within which the second darkness dwelled, which was already so dark that it was impossible to see anything within it, but if one could force their gaze to somehow penetrate through this blackness that was like a thousand clouded nights rolled into one, they would find that this second darkness was, as well, too dark to make out clearly. There was a whole lot of darkness going on in that general area, is what I'm getting at. And within that darkness, something laughed. --- Princess Luna gasped herself awake. She jolted upright, something which would be a difficult feat for a bipedal creature and was doubly impressive for one whose spine naturally bent in the opposite direction, and hurled herself from her bed, wings already extended. Terror gripped her heart; her breath was shallow, and sweat dripped across her mane. What she had seen in her dream was no dream at all - it was a vision, of terrible and particularly dark things to come. Worse, the presence she had sensed within those multiple layers of particularly dark darkness was one that she recognized - one that she had hoped she would never feel ever again. Worse still - it wanted her to know that it was coming. It was in a blind panic that she charged out of her bedroom, knocking aside the royal guards who asked her what was wrong. With no time to apologize, she threw herself out of the nearest window, flying outside in a haze of broken glass and making a beeline for her sister's room. She landed on the balcony of the Solar Tower and dashed to Celestia's door in record time, throwing it open hard enough to dent the wall. "Sister!" she yelled, barging inside. "I have had a terrible vision of..." Celestia froze. She was spread out on her bed, the covers thrown wide, midway through licking frosting off the flank of an equally stunned royal guard. Luna gaped, trying and failing to come to her senses as the second horrifying sight of the night seared itself into her. "I... I shall come back later," she stammered, then hastily backed out and closed the door. Ten minutes later, Luna threw open Celestia's door again. "Sister!" she yelled, barging inside. "I have had a terrible vision of evil descending upon us!" Celestia gasped, breaking out of a very convincing sleep. "What do you mean?" she asked, drawing her covers around herself. "Has something happened?" "Not yet," Luna replied with a shiver. "But I fear that something will, and soon. I believe that..." Her voice dropped into the darkest, most meaningful pitch that she could produce. "He has returned." Celestia blinked. "He?" "Yes." Luna stalked into the room, a gust of wind blowing around her dramatically. "The darkness that dwells within the forgotten darkness." There was a lengthy pause. Luna waited for the expected gasp of recognition, but Celestia only stared back at her in silence. "You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that, Lulu." "You know!" Luna strode forward, trying to keep the dramatic gust going. "Our long-lost half-brother whom we banished to the furthest wastes!" "...Well, that narrows it down a little, but-" "The ancient evil who once tried to shroud Equestria in eternal darkness!" "Luna, even you tried that once." Luna stomped in frustration. "The one with the red and black colour scheme!" Silence fell and even the wind died, leaving the two princess staring awkwardly at one another. "...I'll go get the scrapbook," Celestia said, slipping out of bed. --- "Okay, so we've ruled out Eclipse, the other Eclipse, the third Eclipse, Prince Eclipse, King Eclipse, Lord Eclipse, Duke Eclipse, Dark Master Eclipse, and Ekklipz-Dawg." Celestia listed them off, flipping through page after page of nearly-identical photographs. Alicorn after alicorn filled the book of memories, a large number of them standing in profile and leering off to the left. "Is there anything else that you remember, Luna?" "Just his presence." Despite the warmth of her sister close by her side, Luna shivered. They had lit a fire and were snuggled together in front of it beneath a warm blanket, but the deep chill of the dream still clung to her. "It was such an evil as I had hoped never to feel again. If we are not prepared, the power that he wields could-" "Yes, yes," Celestia muttered, continuing to turn over pages. She paused upon reaching a new section. "You are certain that the being that you felt was our half-brother? It could not have been our half-sister?" "Yes, I am certain," Luna confirmed. "That eases our search, then," Celestia said, turning over exactly one page. "Let me know if any of these stand out to you." They continued reading for some minutes, looking over seemingly unending patterns of black and red. "Why do so many of our family turn to evil?" Luna asked in a small voice. "None can say," Celestia replied in a serene tone. "Some believe that it was always a matter of numbers. You and I were always meant to rule together, as a pair. The others could have found places of their own, but chose to see themselves as anomalies, unable to believe that their destinies could be anything but those of ours. The more their numbers grew, the greater this unbalance became. Eventually, madness took every last one from us. For a while, it even threatened to claim you, my sister." There was a somber silence as the pair reflected on this. Then, from Luna: "Mom and Dad got around a lot, huh?" "Luna!" Celestia snapped. "We do not speak of them that way." A pause. "But yes. Yes they did." "It is strange," Luna sighed, "to think that so much evil might have been halted with the simple application of... wait," she instructed, halting Celestia's hoof as the older sister prepared to turn another page. She leaned close, feeling an uncontrollable terror returning to her heart. "Him," she confirmed, pointing a trembling hoof at the page. "He is the one I saw." Celestia leaned close. A fiery alicorn, taller than even herself, smirked up at her from the page. Even in the still picture, fire seemed to crawl across his coat like a living aura, and a deep black radiated inwards from the tips of his extended wings. Scars covered his face and neck, one even extending directly across his deep, colourless eyes. Most terrifying, however, was his mouth, curled up into a smile that radiated malice, insanity, and an evil that could never be tamed. He stood in a castle that appeared to be made from clashing stone, cloud and gold, mortared together with a deep red that dripped thickly from between the bricks. Hovering behind his head was a symbol that the eye could not focus on, seemingly written into the very fabric of reality, one that a mortal mind would not dare view or comprehend - lest it drive them mad. "Paradox!?" Celestia scoffed, drawing back and laughing. "You got me out of bed for Paradox? You almost had me worried for a minute there, sister. Give me a minute to write to Princess Twilight, and-" "N-no, sister," Luna said, tapping her hoof on the photograph directly above Paradox. "This one." Celestia leaned forward again. The photo that Luna now gestured to was a standard one, a traditional profile portrait. It was easy to see how her eye had slipped over it, as the pony upon it looked virtually identical to Paradox. In fact, he looked virtually identical to every stallion they had looked over that evening; although he was covered in distinguishing characteristics, not one of them stood out. His colours were flat, his evil smile tame by comparison, his dark surroundings blandly generic. Despite this, all the mirth drained from Celestia's face. "Oh," she said, softly. "Celestia?" Luna whispered, matching her sister's volume. "Who is he?" Celestia stood, and spoke her answer in a quiet voice. "Paradigm." At that moment, absolutely nothing dramatic happened. Luna waited for something, a crackle of distant thunder at the least, but found herself disappointed. "But... but I do not understand," she eventually said, looking back to the picture. "I know his face, and I have felt his presence in my dream. Why do I remember so little of him now?" "I am not surprised that you do not recall him," Celestia answered, crossing the room. "After all... there is nothing unique about him at all." Sighing contemplatively, the older princess opened a drawer beside her bed and drew out a thin, pale envelope. "Lord Paradigm is the master of unconsciously repeated patterns," she explained, testing the seal on the paper. "It has been said that every story that exists has already been told, dozens, maybe hundreds of times, with nothing changed but the names. Once these stories have taken root, Paradigm gains power over them. He feeds on their repetition, growing stronger with each retelling. And now, it seems that he has returned to bring one of these stories to life." She shuddered. "Let us hope that the one that he has chosen is benign." Luna stood sharply. "Then we must stop him," she said sharply, "before this narrative contagion spreads. We must summon the Elements of..." She paused. "Do we still call them that? They do not possess the Elements any more, but 'Princess Twilight and her friends' flows much less easily from the tongue." "Honestly, I lost track a year ago," Celestia answered with a shrug. "But it does not matter. Paradigm feeds on repeating patterns; doing exactly the same thing that we always do will simply be playing into his hooves. If we want to have any chance of defeating him, we must rely on someone we would never turn to under any other circumstances." "But who?" Luna pressed. "Who could have such power?" "Only one," Celestia said with a sigh. "I'm afraid we must rely upon..." She shuddered, and then sighed again, much more deeply, before concluding. "An original character."