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// Prologue: Nightmare Within A Dream 
// Story: Dawn Of The Silver Sun 
// by Nameless Narrator 
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Mist swirled around the top of a mountain overlooking large stretches of flat land below it. A casual observer might have noticed suspicious lack of birds who would usually be circling or nesting on the landmark like this. The same observer, if knowledgeable enough, could understand that the blurriness of the mountain's surroundings was not caused by the lack of oxygen in their lungs, but by the fact that this place was not entirely real. There were no casual observers though. This place was reserved for those invited by its owner or those who found the way through means specifically designed for such visits. So, while it was possible to get here without the permission of the owner, simply wandering here by accident was not.

Not that it mattered. There was no pony, griffon, or any other species at this time and the mountain was calm.

Out of nowhere, the serenity was disturbed by a female scream, a very female scream, a scream made in such voice that would make a statue blush and zombie take a cold shower. While the message in the sound was the one of terror, the harmonics of the voice brought with it the images of sweat, steaming bodies, and pure, undiluted lust.

The shriek came from a cave near the mountaintop, the entrance to which was a sheet of inky blackness rather than a passage happily obeying the laws of physics. Behind it lay a rather unsurprising sight - piles of skulls neatly stacked at random spots, just like anyone would see in the cave of a dragon with hardcore OCD besieged by adventurous treasure hunters. What WAS surprising were the clean, gold-embroidered red carpets all over the cavern floor. What was positively shocking was the realization that the skull piles served as sofas, fainting couches, tables, beds, and other household accessories and behaved as such, which could be seen from a skull bed upon which two ponies rested - a male and a female. The mare breathing heavily with eyes wide open, while the stallion held her in his front legs and patted her mane. 

On the closer look the two ponies proved to be alicorns, fine examples of a demigod race closely tied to the natural forces of the real world. Larger and stronger than ponies, bearing both horn and wings, these beings possessed the finest traits of all three major pony races in addition to their unaging nature and control over magic and divine power.

Disregarding all that, one of them was terrified.

The alicorn stallion knew his mate far too well to simply ask if she had a bad dream. Besides, tact would be his middle name if he had one and he knew the problem would be shared with him as soon as the main shock was over. Unfortunately for this saying, as alicorns aged, they usually assumed only one name at least partially bound to their aspect. This demigod's name was Void and his charcoal black coat, purplish-black mane and tail, a black hole cutie mark on his flank barely visible against his fur, and yellow eyes glowing with immense amounts of divine power clearly stated that his fate had never been to be the alicorn of something nice, like flowers of summer breeze. Void was the alicorn of Death, Order, and Peace, and contrary to the post mortem decorations of this place this was not his home.

The mountain pocket dimension belonged to the alicorn mare who was struggling to stop her trembling and while Void's embrace was helping, it clearly wasn't enough. Contrary to her partner's color scheme, hers was much brighter and contrary to his somber aspect, hers... hers made everyone who knew about them wonder how they had ended up together. Sadly, at the time that had happened there had been only alicorns and other Old Gods' experiments around so these days there was almost no one besides the duo themselves to remember. The mare was called Scream which, coupled with her dream dimension, might make one think of horror and night terrors, but in reality the name had been shortened from Ecstatic Scream, the alicorn of Lust, Desire, and Deceit, the patron and protector of changelings.

Those who got to know the two alicorns made the mistake of believing Void to be the evil one with Scream bringing sanity into their timeless relationship, but reality was the exact opposite. Well, if there ever would be someone capable of thinking while in Scream's maddening presence. The bringer of wet dreams and devourer of released sexual energy was proud of her golden coat and white mane flowing more like quicksilver rather than obeying guidelines of existence. Thus, it was understandable that her current state of being drenched in sweat from both her rude awakening and the 'activities' that had exhausted her in the first place irritated her greatly. Unfortunately, the dream had been worse so she decided against a shower and just relaxed in her lover's embrace and kept thinking.

Alicorns with immense divine power were usually rather inept in matters of magic as the subtle manipulation of existence was too difficult while keeping the boiling mass of a much stronger power under control. Those alicorns were usually tied to some natural force or flow and no amount of knowledge about the workings of magic would allow them to use it effectively. Void was one of those. The others Scream knew about were the elemental alicorns of Wind and Fire, Zephyr and Celestia. The only exception was, of course, the new alicorn of Magic herself.

The other kind were alicorns tied to mental forces such as Love, Lust, or Insight. Those were the ones capable of the greatest feats of magic, more thanks to having time to study and experiment for eons rather than natural talent outclassing unicorns. From the three Scream could contact she was the oldest and most powerful mage and her skill had allowed her to create this dimension, which amplified it and achieved the forbidden dream of seeing the future, something no one aside from the alicorn of Time had ever been able to. The ability had its crippling limits but it came in handy from time to time.

What spoke volumes about her dream was that even here, side by side with the most dangerous alicorn ever in her own seat of power, she did not feel safe anymore.

Scream took a deep breath.

"We got it all wrong."