//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Twilight's Fear 
// by Lux 
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Chapter 4

Twilight awoke as the shades of night still plunged her room in darkness, breathing heavily as if having run away from something terrible. The Alicorn realized that she was not on her comfortable bed but the hard stone floor of her bedroom, wrapped in a bundle of sheets that she took down with her after falling off the bed. After regaining her senses the mare quickly shimmied out from the fabric and looked about the room. It was just as she left it before she fell asleep, albeit reduced to shadows with the lack of light. Absent was the menacing flickering light that indicated that the town was ablaze, but the Princess needed more proof than that. She stepped towards the window, half stumbling in her confusion from her dream and the lack of sleep, praying that she wasn’t still in the dream unaware. To her relief she could see the outline of Ponyville below in the moonlit sky, all of the buildings dark as the ponies slept soundly.

“It was the same dream again,” Twilight said as she pounded the floor in frustration, “and this one was worse! That poor stallion, died in my arms! But what does it mean? I’ve never had a dream that repeats itself, especially not one that’s so… real.”

The Alicorn shuddered as the still fresh memories came flooding back. She paced back and forth as she pondered her next move. The fog of sleep began to overtake her, begging her to rest again, but she couldn’t sleep with the fear of that nightmare looming over her yet again. There had to be some way that she could remove the dream from her mind and grant her a restful night’s sleep again. 

“I could talk to Princess Luna. She would know what to do with this dream I’ve been having. But before I do maybe I could do a little research. Maybe I can figure this out on my own, something simple that I’m just not seeing right now that can help me crack this nightmare. It’s not like I can sleep with this dream I keep having.” 

With a flicker of her horn, Twilight teleported from her room so as not to alert the guards. The last thing she wanted to do was to alert them to any trouble, especially since the trouble was in her own mind until she could find a reason behind her dreams. In a matter of seconds she found herself in the middle of the darkened library. There were two libraries within her castle, one which was a library open to the public that the Princess included after the Golden Oaks Library was destroyed. The last thing she wanted to do was deprive the ponies of Ponyville a place to learn. The other library was her own personal collection, typically containing magical books of a dangerous or complex nature that she dare not release to the public lest they fall into the wrong hooves. It was her routine to go to the public library first, and what better time than to go when none were around, leaving her to study alone. 

The library was eerily quiet, save for the echoing of her hooves hitting the crystalline floor. With a glow of her horn, she produced a ball of light that floated above her and illuminated a circle around her, giving form as well to the shadows nearby. She passed the main desk of the library where she would always see the main librarian busy checking in or out books and answering questions and the large reading area dotted by circular tables and rings of chairs. She then turned and disappeared into the maze-like stacks. She navigated the stacks quickly, turning here and there with the efficiency of a pony who had visited this place many times before. Finally she came to a stop at a section marked by a metal plaque etched with the words: Magic and Magical Studies. Half of the books here were for magical theory and the history of magic while the other half contained books of actually spell casting, ranging from general spells to more specific like love magic or crystal magic. None of these books contained very advanced magic, but hopefully there would be something she could learn here. Searching through the sea of titled made the Princess feel nostalgic as she remembered how she was a filly under Celestia’s tutelage and navigating the shelves of the library to learn about magic. In that time the world was still new to her, waiting to be discovered. But as she now searched for something she did not know the irony of her not running out of things to learn wasn’t lost on the Alicorn.   

“Now where are the books on dreams?” Twilight said as she looked at the titles, “Let’s see… books on hauntings… books on magical creatures… ah here we are! Books on dreams!” 

Normally she would keep her excitement down to a minimum in a library, but there was no one that required the silence. Her eyes scanned the titles with the aid of her magical light until she stopped at a book that read: “Dreams and their Interpretations” by Princess Luna. Even though Twilight knew that the Princesses had written several books, many of them relating to the history, culture, or magic or Equestria, it still surprised her to find a book written by Luna when she pondered speaking with her. 

“It’s by the Princess and yet it looks like a fairly new book,” Twilight said picking it off the shelf with her magic “Must be a reprint that Princess Luna requested or a new edition.” 

With her book floating along with her, Twilight found the nearest seat, tucked away in the back of the library and buried deep within the stacks. It was a perfect spot, one that the Princess when all possible would seek out where she could lose herself in a book. She sat down and turning on the magical light on the desk she opened the book and looked at the table of contents. Her eyes centered on an intriguing chapter: Dreams and Omens. Flipping hastily to the chapter as her heart raced with the promise of her problem so close to being solved, the Princess of Friendship began to read:

“As explained in the beginning of this book, dreams often reflect the inner desires or fears of the dreamer. These dreams or nightmares manifest themselves by our subconscious as a way to bring to light things that might otherwise be buried deep within our minds by the business of our daily lives. In the previous chapter I also explained a special type of dream known as lucid dreaming in which a pony, typically gifted in magic, can manipulate the dream thus either perpetuating a desire or, in the case of a nightmare, to banish it and conquer one’s fears. 

Now I will reveal a third type of dream that some ponies might encounter which is perhaps the most vivid and unsettling of visions: the prophetic dream or nightmare.  Unlike the other dreams that manifest themselves from a pony’s subconscious, this type of dream manifests itself from an outside source. This can be likened to one pony whispering a secret to another, only that you don’t know this pony. It is unclear where such prophetic dreams manifest from, although my theory is that it is from the primal nature of magic in the world that sends such messages to a pony’s mind when the balance of harmony or magic is threatened. For this reason about the gravity of such dreams, there are many cases where dreams are projected into the minds of important ponies such as royalty, although there are some not in positions of power that have such dreams...”

“So that’s why I might be having this dream,” Twilight said as she momentarily looked up from the book, “I’m the Princess of Friendship and as such I’m sworn to protect ponies from danger.”

The Alicorn read further as Princess Luna explained several cases of prophetic dreams that certain ponies had been known to have. There was the tale of a griffon king that was about to visit Equestria but upon visiting a dream that his kingdom would come under attack by a dragon he stayed and helped defeat the creature and save his kingdom. Another was of a wealthy pony who owned a house by the sea and had a dream of his house being carried away by the sea. He ignored it and after a terrible storm the angry ocean destroyed his house. The more she read the more nervous Twilight became as she read to the next part.

“There are key features that a prophetic dream differentiates from a normal dream. One is the surreal nature of the dream to the point that the pony might not, for a time, recognize what is real and what is a dream. The other factor is even after the dream the memory of it lingers on unlike dreams which are not remembered unless documented. These memories are often triggered by seeing a location or pony from the dream. Lastly is the factor of the recurring dream where like a story the dream progresses, becoming direr each time.”

“Well it’s official, I’m having a prophetic dream,” Twilight said as she read on, “but still what does it mean?”

“It is unclear how many nights a dream may last as it varies by the complexity of the prophecy. It can be assumed that unless the dream is solved by the dreamer it will continue through the end of the sequence and perhaps begin again. The only way for a prophetic dream to be put to rest is for a pony to understand its meaning.”

“The dream won’t stop?” Twilight said loudly in frustration, “I have to solve the dream myself? I thought that surely Princess Luna would give me an answer in her book, something to stop these dreams, but I guess even it eludes the Guardian of Dreams. I can’t just wait until each night for another painful dream to come along that robs me of my sleep and makes me not be able to function or walk by familiar ponies and places without thinking about that nightmare. I have to keep researching, even if it takes all night. Maybe somepony will find a better way.”

The Princess then returned to the stacks, hoping to find an answer in the books there.