//------------------------------// // Prologue- Night of the Summer Sun Celebration // Story: I am the King of Slumberland; Little Nemo // by Flutters Is Shy //------------------------------// I watched as the mind that had been trapped behind a curtain of sorrow, regret and jealousy finally arrived within my realm unfettered. I had watched from afar, unable to reach her even with my vast resources and power. And that should mean a lot. I'm not the King of Slumberland for nothing. Within my lands, physical traits mean nothing to those able to affect the dreamscape. Ones will determines the shape of the land, and the land is ever changing. I have to assume this is what the inside of Discords head looks like. I wouldn't know, every time he ends up dreaming he's completely lucid. Annoying as hell. I wouldn't be much of a king if I wasn't in charge of a kingdom. And what a kingdom Slumberland is. Through my power I started by constructing a castle. I know, you wake up in a dream land, able to make literally anything, and the only thing I made was a castle. A sand castle at that. I ended up improving it till the point it was the size of a city in itself. I didn't realize it yet at that point, but time in my realm moved much slower than that of the 'real world'. What a laugh. This world was my 'real' world. Not like I could ever leave it. Anyway, from a simple structure of sand one day gave birth to a booming metropolis, where within lived inhabitants of every size and shape, every possible race and minutia. How could anyone 'live' in a dream, you might ask. I wondered myself for years if I wasn't perhaps making up people to spend time with, to ease my lonely rule. It was only after three years on the waking side -I have long given up on comparing a Slumberland variant of time to the waking worlds, while it does seem to be faster their ever fluxing state of dreams makes it impossible to judge- Then I made a monumentous discovery. The world I was in wasn't simply an empty world of my own dream. It was EVERYONES dream. I was CONNECTED to some place else. Through careful manipulation and ever increasing subtlety of my own dream walking abilities, I was finally able to poke my way into the bubble of a dream in motion. It was violent, pulsing, writhing like a dieing snake. I stuck the edge of my consciousness through and cut into the dream like a knife. I slid through, and found myself running through a forest. I was shocked, and with good reason. For the first time in seemingly years I felt the burn of muscles in legs, the sharp whipping pain of branches smacking me in the face with my passing. I felt an unnatural fear, and I knew something was behind me, chasing me. I knew it wanted to hurt me, and if I slowed down for even a second I was going to die. A creature ran beside me, his breath ragged and his gait frantic. My head snapped over to view him upon my discovery, my initial thought one of fear. Did it manage to catch up with me? How? Inspecting him further quelled such fears, he was just as afraid of whatever was chasing us as I was. He was... like nothing I had ever seen before. The closest analogue I could compare him to was a character from My Little Pony. He had a teal coat, with a yellow mane and tail. I would have initially assumed he was nothing more than an oddly colored horse, were it not for his frightened cries of panic. It suddenly hit me that this was indeed a dream. I still felt the overwhelming fear, but I now knew that it wasn't mine. It was his. I stopped, skidding to a halt. I turned and looked behind me, trying to face whatever horror thought it could best me. This was MY realm. But there was nothing there, nothing but empty shadows. Looking back towards the fleeing horse, I saw that his strides hadn't taken him any farther away from me than when I stopped. No matter how fast he ran, he never made any headway. I felt it even now, the unconscious fear that drove him to continue running from something that wasn't there. Running from the shadows. "Why do you run?" I asked, my voice coming out that of a childs. I didn't really expect an answer, but he surprised me by yelping out in a strained squeal. "It's going to get me!" he yelled out, tears streaming from his face. I realized at this point that this was a living, breathing, thinking individual. Not simply a dumb animal like I had assumed. His reply stunned and saddened me. Was there nothing I could do to ease his pain? "What is it?" I asked. "I don't know! It killed momma when she was out getting food, if I stop it's gonna kill me too!" he replied, tripping and tumbling to come right back up and continue running. "There's nothing there, young one," I tried to reassure him, "this is a dream, I don't presume to know the pain you felt when you lost your mother, but there is nothing there. And right now you are running in place. This is a dream." His steps didn't slow, but I could see him shaking his head in confusion. He turned and looked back at me, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw that his running didn't take him any farther away from me. He slowed, finally stopping as he looked off into the empty forest. "It's scary, isn't it?" he started at my voice, flinching as he returned his attention to me. "It's true, the shadows and darkness seem like they could hide any number of monsters, don't they?" His eyes grew in fright, darting back and forth, "But have you ever given any thought that you could be one of those monsters too?" His eyes fixed on me, his head tilted in confusion. "If it's really dark, I bet you could hide in the shadows too, make the monsters unable to see you. Make them afraid of what they couldn't see in the dark too," I said playfully, booping him on the nose. "Monsters don't get scared," he claimed, and I could hear the fear in his voice had ebbed. "Sure they do. Everyone gets scared once in a while," I said, noticing as the dreamscape brightened. "The trick is, you can't let yourself get overtaken by that fear. Don't ignore it, but don't let it overwhelm you either." I raised a hand, and waved it in a horizontal chop. The forest fell, dissolving into dust as it scattered. We were left in a wide clearing, the starry sky bright above us. The little horse looked up in wonder, finally looking back at me after a few minutes. "What are you?" he asked in awe. "I... I am the King of Slumberland," I claimed. "And what are you, little one?" "I'm not little!" he huffed, "Imma big stallion! As tall as a mountain!" While he said that, a towering range sprouted from the ground, it's massive peaks scraping the heavens. And coming up to juuuuuuuuuuuuuust under the bottom of his barrel. "You see?" he said proudly, ignoring the fact that he had just altered the state of the dreamscape. As I watched, his eyes drooped shut, and his dream dissolved entirely. I was shunted out back into the main of what I eventually named Slumberland, drifting in the aethos. After that, I went from dream to dream helping as I could. Over the next year (Again, relative.In fact from now on, just take any measure of time I say with a grain of salt), I learned much, and my powers grew exponentially. I was trapped in a dreamworld, connected to a land called Equestria. The main inhabitants were a species similar to ponies, and in fact were called as such. Even if they were only slightly similar to the creature I knew of by the same name. There were all sorts of others as well. Lamias, Minotaurs, Gryphons, Naga... Although there did seem to be a heavily slanted number of equine races. Camels, Goats, Donkeys, Zebras, even Cows turned out to be intelligent beings. No humans, though. All of these races provided me with companionship in quite a unique way, however. The larger my imaginary city grew, the more I noticed it had been inhabited by... others. For lack of a better word, people that knew they were part of the dream, yet were not the...people dreaming. They were attached to those that slept, but they were not them. They were lingering imaginary friends they had grown out of, alternate personalities that never came to the forefront of the mind, and even some tulpae that had been willingly created, set free till the moment their hosts woke up. They were the best thing I could have ever hoped for. Companions to pass the time, keep me sane. Keep me grounded, remind me of my moral center. I chose to view them as my responsibility, my reason for being. Turns out there had been protector before me though, another who watched after the dreams of the asleep. From what I could gather, a terrible fate had become of her. The nightmares she had fought tirelessly had eventually overcome her, poisoning her mind and body. She had been taken with darkness and jealousy, influencing her to try to supplant her sister as the sole ruler of Equestria. And throw the land into eternal darkness, I guess that was an important point as well. I resolved not to take same risks my predecessor had. I constructed a cage, a hole in the deepest part of the dream I could find. I made it with the key I had bought from the strange man at the con, it's strange properties being just what I needed to keep it stable. Over the years, I locked every manner of nightmare I could find in there, doing my best to protect those I had come to call my own. They asked for my name, and saw my deeds and the sprawling kingdom that lasted the ages. They found my title from the mouth of the first I had helped. They called me by the Moniker; Little Nemo, King of Slumberland. And so it was. Until tonight. On the longest night, of the longest day, the stars did come to align. With their assistance, the protector was freed. But all was not well. The nightmare had persisted, if not slightly weakened. In the Waking world, she sought her previous goal to shroud the world in eternal night. She was stopped. Six mares with powerful artifacts that echoed throughout all of creation. They gathered together, and used their power to equalize the protector. The nightmares were stripped from her, and cast back into my realm. Those that weren't still bound to a physical object. Felt like shards of metal, at least as far as I could tell. I arrested their movement, and tossed them in with the other nightmares. Where they belonged, where they could no longer harm anyone. I fretted and worried in the coming day, anxious as to what the returning protector would think. She had watched over my people for thousands of years before I had even arrived, would she seek to take back what was once hers? Would she find fault in my ministrations? Would she hate me for making myself a kingdom in what used to be her own stomping grounds? I made a room, in which we would not be disturbed. I felt her enter sleep, her own natural abilities giving her control the likes of which i had never in my years even seen. It was all I could do to drag her into isolation with myself. She appeared within the room in a ball of twilit shadows, her azure mane rippling in an unseen wind. "Whoso dares to so despoil the dreams of mine! Speak now, and the Princess of the Night might deign to forgive such impertinence!" I kept the shadows hardened around me, watching her reactions. She tried to keep up her bluster, but after a few minutes her magic failed her. Her form reverted to that of a filly, her light blue hair drooping around her ears. Her gaze become fearful, flitting about to and fro. I chose this moment to reveal myself. I had never changed my appearance from the start, that of a young boy. Something about the appearance of a foal filled most with a sense of ease. I was wearing the same single piece pajamas I had been wearing all those centuries before, my scepter slung over my back as it had been the very day I walked through the doors of the con. As to what she saw... She saw me as I was, sitting on top of a four poster bed. "Care to join me, Princess?" I asked, patting the bed next to me.