//------------------------------// // Something Familiar // Story: Do Not Go Gentle // by ShinigamiDad //------------------------------// Slowly the ruins of the castle coalesced around Reaper and Luna, as she struggled to stifle her cries and regain her composure. “Well,” Reaper said, “a variation on a theme, but the same result: the impenetrable darkness descends too rapidly for me to sense its source.” He poked at a shard of stained glass in front of his left hoof. “How long has this been going on, do you suppose?” Luna asked, wiping tears away. Reaper glared at the glittering glass fragment: “I don’t know--a very long time, I suspect. Likely all the way back to when you were first Nightmare Moon, I would think. It seems to have provided the killer the perfect cover: sudden darkness beyond the darkness of a typical nightmare, but by the time the victim notices, it’s too late.” Luna shifted uncomfortably. “I am not unfamiliar with that darkness.” Reaper looked up sharply and caught her eye: “What do you mean?” “That darkness that almost feels, well, alive? It has occurred sporadically over the centuries,” Luna said, softly. “How “sporadically?”” wondered Reaper, standing now and walking toward Luna. “More often than just these fatal nightmares, and more frequently over the last century, or so.” Reaper chewed his lip and continued to look intently at Luna. “Can you recall the first time you detected it?” he asked. She furrowed her brow: “I will have to ponder that for a time. There are so many dreams over so many centuries, and so many of them blur together.” Reaper sighed and dropped his head slightly. “Alright. I tell you what: I need to go back to the real world and debrief Twilight for a bit. You sit here and gather your thoughts. We both need you to keep it together the next time we get into one of these terminal nightmares. I can’t perceive through the dense shadow stuff that the killer throws in at the last moment, but I strongly suspect you can!” Luna took a deep breath. “Yes, fine. You may leave me here to sort through my memories,” she said softly. Reaper stood; his horn began to glow as he prepared to leave the dreamscape. “But,” Luna said a little more loudly, “please don’t take too long.” Reaper nodded, then faded out. The shadows deepened. Luna’s eyes shone with pain: “Don’t leave me here with my memories…” Twilight was looking intently at Reaper’s cutie mark when she noticed that he had become more “real” again. “S-so what did you learn this time?” she stammered, glancing away. Reaper smiled: “You still haven’t quite gotten used to being this close, have you?” Twilight shook her head and swallowed. “No,” she said, “but it get a little easier each time.” Reaper chuckled: “Good kid!” Twilight smiled gamely and shifted her position so she could look Reaper in the eyes. Reaper leaned close and locked his gaze on Twilight’s shimmering eyes: “Here we go…” Twilight’s lip quivered and she gasped loudly and tried to look away. Reaper’s eyes held her locked tight, searing her memory with the images of Haymaker’s last moments. Twilight choked back a cry: “Snow Sprite! Oh!” Reaper closed his eyes, breaking the link. “Yeah,” he said, “sure seemed real, didn’t it? That was a speciality of Nightmare Moon’s: perfectly-constructed moments of sheer horror. They would last only a moment, but would seem to stretch on for minutes.” Twilight wobbled slightly and fought the urge to retch. “Is Luna OK? How did she react this time?” Twilight asked. “Well,” Reaper replied, “at least she didn’t dash off in the opposite direction, this time…” Twilight’s ears pricked up: “That’s good, isn’t it?” Reaper scowled a little: “Yeah, though it would have been nice if she hadn’t just plopped down 50 feet away and stared at the dirt.” “Oh,” Twilight said, quietly. “I guess it’s all just too much for her, to see the pain she caused over and over. Kind of like the Tantabus.” “Kind of,” Reaper agreed, “though if I heard the story right, that was the same engineered, self-inflicted dream night after night. These are the nightmares of other ponies, inflicted entirely against their will, ushering them to their deaths.” Twilight shook her head: “No--but she didn’t know that!” she objected. Reaper sucked air through his teeth and turned away: “I’m not so sure…” Twilight blinked sharply. “What are you saying? That she knew these would be death dreams?!” “Or at least suspected it,” Reaper replied. “She mentioned having recollections of this--how did she put it--”darkness that felt alive,” off and on throughout the centuries. I don’t think even she really knows what that means. I told her to try to work back as far as she could, to her earliest memory of this unusual manifestation.” Reaper repositioned himself on his cushion and began to settle back into his trance-like state. “I guess it’s time to head back and see what she’s discovered,” he said. “Wait!” Twilight blurted out, pointing at his flank. “Before you go--what is your cutie mark? I mean it is a cutie mark, right? You have it on the back of your cloak, too, so I wasn’t sure.” He glanced down at the 死 emblazoned below his hip. “That,” he said, “is the symbol for the word “death” in another culture on another world, in another reality. I like it because it’s so simple and to-the-point. It’s also kind of a long story, so it'll have to wait 'til later.” He closed his eyes and faded a bit, as though he were made of cloudy, dust-covered glass.