The Princess of the Night stared out across the peaceful dreamscape, admiring its beauty. The vast expanse of dreams to the eyes of any casual observer would look like a great ocean at night. Pure black and tranquil with hundreds upon thousands of glowing orbs of light resting on its nearly unmoving surface, rippling only on occasion when a small wave would pass by and send their light scattering across the great expanse. Each orb glowed the purest white and seemed to rest just barely above the water, close but never touching. These orbs contained the dreams of all living creatures in their land, from strong hardworking earth pony stallions, to elderly unicorn mares asleep in their cozy cottages. However, each dream was unique, and no two could ever truly look the same.
This was the true realm of the Princess of the Night. While she had the moon and the heavens to watch over; in her mind none of it could compare to the beauty that shone before her here. Night after night, she would watch over the dreams of all in the kingdom, safeguarding them from nightmares and working to give each a peaceful nights rest. She never grew tired of her work, for the sheer beauty of all that surrounded her never ceased to leave her anything short of awestruck.
On this particular night however, as the guardian of the night made her way across the vast sea of light, she saw something that she had truly never seen before. Far below her wings lay not a beautiful shining orb of white, but one of pure black. The princess slowed herself and descended, curious to investigate such an odd site. She hovered herself just above the black orb, and gazed down upon it. The orb was not black in that it simply had no color, but black in that it almost seemed to be drawing light in towards itself, drawing the light of the orbs near it away, and not towards the serene heavens and dark waters around them.
Tentatively, the ruler of the night reached out one of her dark hooves to touch the curious dark orb as she would any other. The orbs always were warm and soft and seemed to mold to fit around her hoof when she touched them. This was the way she would look into and adjust any dreams of one of her subjects, and the action never caused her or the individual any form of discomfort or pain. This orb however did nothing when the princess laid her hoof upon its surface. It did not conform to fit her hoof, or even move in any shape or form. The orb may as well have been a cold piece of solid granite against her hoof.
Curious, but not quite alarmed, the Princess of the Night then attempted to envelop the dark sphere in her magic and see if she could pick up any sort of trace of energy or warmth, but it was as though the very thing simply repulsed her attempt to touch it. Intrigued she tried once more, but again the dark sphere simply didn’t react to her touch with magic. Nothing. Again and again she tried to get the sphere to obey her magic, but each attempt was met with the same level of success as the first.
After a dozen more attempts of equal failure were made the princess finally stopped. There wasn’t much more she could really do now without consulting with her sister on the matter. She could have tried to be a bit more aggressive, but not knowing what possible repercussions breaking the orb might have, she decided it best just to keep a close eye on it for now lest she do any sort of irreversible damage to the orb.
---One Week Later---
Spike gave himself a pinch as he felt his eyes begin to droop once more. The young dragon had barely been able to get any sleep at all since the first night of horrible nightmares, and what little sleep he did manage to get was plagued by the dark king. Every night a new twisted fantasy of the creature awaited him, each worse than the last. The young drake had taken to doing whatever he could to stay awake at night, but it seemed that no matter what he tried the ever beckoning calls of sleep always managed to get to him. The dreams had even begun to take their toll on his work ethic.
These days it took the young dragon more than twice as long as it used to in order to complete the simplest of tasks. Then, even when the drake did manage to complete the task it was barely better than what could have been done by a drunken stallion. His friends had started to notice as well. The drake had heeded the dark kings words and had done his best to hide his lack of sleep from his friends, but try as the dragon might; he couldn’t hide his insomnia from his friends. Every time one would question him about his strange behavior he would just shrug it off, blaming it on staying up late to read comics.
But deep down, he was terrified of these questions. When asked, he felt his blood run cold, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this might be the last time he would speak to them. The last time that they would smile before the dark king would descend upon them, and silence them once and for all. The only solace that the young drake could take from this whole ordeal was that the king had not yet truly harmed one of his friends.
The young drake shook his head as he felt his eyes close once more. He gave a sigh as he resumed his task of organizing the various books around the library. Even closing his eyes at this point produced a small burning sensation as the his wet eyelids met his dry eyes. How long would he be forced to be subject to these horrible nightmares? He desperately wanted the dreams to stop, but he knew not how to do so without seeking assistance from his friends, but he knew not how to do so without risking their lives to the dark wills of the sombre king.
“Spike?” called the lavender unicorn.
The drake blinked himself from his trance and saw that he’d been standing still in the middle of the room holding a small stack of books not moving for an entire minute.
“Yes, Twilight?” he responded, turning to meet her.
“Put the books down we’re going to get you to a doctor, I know you’re trying to pretend to be strong, but it’s clear that you haven’t been sleeping well.”
The young drake felt his mind begin to race. A doctor? Would he find evidence of the dark king interfering with this dreams? What would the king do then? Would he hurt the doctor, Twilight, both? He couldn’t be responsible for some poor pony being killed just for doing their job, and if he then hurt Twilight… he couldn’t allow that to happen.
“N-no, I’m fine Twilight, really.” Spike said doing his to mask the fear in his voice, but to little effect.
“Spike this isn’t a discussion, you’re going to the doctor and that’s final.”
For the next half hour, try as the young drake might; he was unable to dissuade the lavender mare from her decision. No matter how much he begged and pleaded, the mare refused to take no for an answer. In a final act of desperation, the young drake attempted to make a mad dash for the door, but found himself picked up within the mare magical field and levitated onto her back.
As they made their way through town towards the hospital, the drake felt his heart give out.
“Twilight… please… don’t do this… you don’t understand, I can’t go to the doctor…” he could feel his eyes grow watery as tears began to trickle down his face, “it’s not safe… please, just don’t take me there…”
But the unicorn, blissfully unaware of his fears just gave a small chuckle, “Oh Spike, I really don’t know what it is you’re so worried about. You’ve been to the doctor plenty of times before, you know it’s not that big of a deal. The doctor will just take a look at you, and afterwards we can go out to get some ice cream, my treat. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
The drake wanted to scream, let her know what really would happen if the dark king was discovered, but it was a double edged sword. There was nothing he could say to convince her that wouldn’t end with the same result that wasn’t already guaranteed when they went to the doctor. The drake gave a small sob and hugged the mare tight, ingraining the feeling in his mind, knowing that this might be the last time he ever saw her alive.
They arrived at the hospital all too soon and were ushered into an observation room to wait for a doctor to come and take a look at him. The drake had given up on trying to convince his friend, and now just waited for the inevitable. Once Twilight set her mind on doing something, she would follow through with it, and this was no exception. They waited in silence, not saying a word until the doctor finally entered several minutes later.
The cream colored stallion wore a labcoat and had a stethoscope draped across his neck. His light brown mane was pushed back away from his face, and a pair of spectacles rested on his muzzle near his kind blue eyes. He looked friendly enough and seemed hardly tired at all despite the work day almost being over. The stallion smiled at them and began asking Twilight a series of questions, all of which she answered in great detail.
The doctor then proceeded to examine Spike shining a light in his eyes, taking his blood pressure and heartbeat, everything that one would expect on a routine checkup. The doctor would mumble to himself, or give a small frown every now and then. Throughout it all, the young drake sat there in silence, knowing nothing he said at this point would be able to make any real difference. Part of him just felt empty, and dead. He couldn’t pretend to act alright with any of this, how could anypony? Knowing that one or both of the two ponies standing in front of him could be dead within a few short hours, and it would be his fault just seemed to drain the dragon emotionally.
Finally, at long last the doctor gave a sigh and stepped away from the dragon. Frowning, he turned to the lavender mare and informed her that Spike would have to stay overnight for observation since he couldn’t make a definite diagnosis yet without more data. The dragon knew she would not say so, but part of him wished that she would say that such tests were not necessary, and that his reading of comics were to blame for his sleep ailments, but alas she simply nodded and the pair began going over the paperwork. The dragon just watched them feeling as though he was watching a play, not truly a part of what was happening anymore.
He had no real control over what would happen next, so the dragon just sat there keeping to his own thoughts. Eventually, the pair ceased their banter and the doctor lead the pair from the room and down the hall towards the examination room where Spike would be spending the night. As the group made their way through the linoleum halls, the young drake caught a glance out one of the windows at the setting sun whose last golden rays of light were just disappearing behind the tranquil green hills surrounding the land. The drake sighed, it would not be long now.
The doctor opened a door and they entered a rather bland looking bedroom. A simple bed with white sheets sat in the middle of the room surrounded by a wide variety of medical devices and a small nightstand which held a lamp. Aside from this however, the room was bare of any other pieces of furniture. The white linoleum floor complimented the equally gray walls bereft of any decoration except for a small observation window for the doctors.
At the doctors direction, Spike leaned himself back against the table and proceeded to have numerous devices attached across his body. The entire process took over an hour as the doctor took multiple base line readings and checked that all of the machines were functioning properly. Throughout it all though, the dragons friend stayed there, right by his side, never leaving or dropping her smile even for a moment. The drake looked back at her, but everytime he looked into her eyes, all he could see were the dying eyes of his friend as they were killed by the dark king.
Finally, at long last though the doctor said that it was time as he began casting a spell that would put the drake to sleep in a manner that would not affect any of the results.
The lavender mare leaned close to the drake, and placed a hoof delicately on his shoulder, “I’ll be right here when you wake up, and on our way home we can get anything you want, my treat.”
The spell began to take a hold of the drake as his eyelids seemed to force themselves closed almost against his will. He tried to reach out and lay a clawed hand on his friend who he would never see again, but his muscles refused to even budge. The drake sucked in a breath and whispered out,
“I’m sor…”
Before he could finish though, the touch of sleep had taken him, and he drifted off into a slumber.
-----
The shadow entered through the window into the dark library and made its way towards where the sleeping form of the drake would lay. However, the drake was absent, not even the mare was in her bed. The shadow tore across the hollow oak, but no sign of the disgusting little reptile could be found, not even a light was on throughout the entire structure. With an unnatural scream the dark king ejected himself from the building.
The pathetic little thing had betrayed him! His glorious plans… no. They would not fail this time. They would not! Once more the shadow screamed as it flew from building to building like a rabid dog searching for its prey. He would not lose this time. No matter what it took, he would succeed.