//------------------------------//
// 96 - Stalking Shadows 
// Story: Putting on a Silver Robe and Wizard Hat 
// by David Silver 
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Silver sank down into the soft bedding, one leg around Night, holding her close even as his mind whirred with the task ahead. Despite it, he forced his eyes closed and listened to the soft breathing of his mate. It gently relaxed him, and soon he faded from the world in their shared embrace.

He awoke, but it wasn't waking. He was dreaming. He hopped off his old human bed and looked up. "You ready?" The slime on his head jiggled a little and he nodded, pushing open the door to the greater world outside. He had a very large and powerful pony to hunt.

Elsewhere, Luna emerged from a dream with a faint smile, only to find a familiar, if mildly unwanted at the time, pony just down the hallway of doors, looking around. He spotted her quickly and began to run at her. She raised a hoof. "You don't belong here." He was banished instantly, and she returned to her work.

One nightmare later, she emerged into the hallway, with a soft sigh.

"Hello."

Luna looked down. He had returned and gazed up at her with a large smile. She frowned at him in kind. "This is not your world."

"Technically, nowhere is but the place I can't go to."

Rather than argue it, Luna banished him, and his impression on the dreamworld faded away, leaving her to peace.

He was waiting for her at the door of each dream she emerged from, and she casually flicked him away. "Stubborn colt," she grumbled to herself, rolling her eyes as she continued her journey from door to door.

She had seen to the most turbulent and pressing of dreams she had to see that night, so she retired to her own dream, where she wouldn't be harassed. But she was. It wasn't by him, but by her own failings, made manifest. She was Nightmare Moon, exacting terrible revenge on Twilight Sparkle for daring to defy her, even as Luna was locked inside, wailing at the very idea.

Silver came again, blundering right onto the stage of her dream. The little brown unicorn looked out of place in the Castle of the Two Sisters.

As Nightmare Moon, she scowled down at him. "Have you come to grovel at my hooves?"

Silver tilted his head up at her. "If it would make you happier."

She recoiled half a step. That was not the reply she expected. "Your tone is far too casual. Do you not know to whom you speak?! I am Nightmare Moon!" She bared her deadly sharp teeth. "Ruler of Nightmares, bringer of the night, and soon to be ruler of all of Equestria."

Silver nodded softly. "And you'll still want a friend." It was a dream, and he knew it. He wouldn't be swept along in the currents of the nightmare. Glancing around Nightmare Moon, he saw an odd sparkling ball behind her. He wondered what it was, but he had no way of determining that. "Wouldn't a friend be nice?"

"Who sent you?" Nightmare Moon strode forward, Luna locked within. "Are you an agent of my 'dear' sister, sent to distract me? It won't work!"

But it already had worked. Twilight and her friends rallied while the conversation was going on and came at her with rainbow power. The sparkling thing beside Nightmare Moon empowered her, rejecting the power of it even as Nightmare Moon cackled with evil glee. "Wretched little fools. There's no hope for any of you." She made a flick of a wing that sent them all crashing to the ground, bruised and beaten in a fit of dream logic.

Silver felt the intense pressure to be knocked back with them and slid along the ground, trying to resist the compulsion. Luna's dreams were her personal domain, however, and he felt a foreleg snap from the struggle. He fell, pain flaring wildly. "Just a dream, just a dream," he repeated to himself even as he collapsed under the broken limb.

"Oh, this is no dream." Nightmare Moon approached Silver's fallen form. "This is a nightmare..."

She cackled with evil triumph, and the dream suddenly ended.

Silver was thrown clear of the dream and slammed into the ground of the hallway of dreams, and everything else exploded. Being roughly ejected as a prince of dreams had been hard and painful, but as a unicorn, it made it seem like nothing. He screamed in agony. It felt like his very soul was coming apart at the seams, and he screamed. He didn't want to, but he knew nothing else but the pain that was everywhere all at once at a magnitude he had not experienced before. 

Death was easier to face.

He curled into a ball, too blown apart to even consider using his magic. His slime was still there, but what use was it in that state? He screamed, his throat somehow becoming sore despite it being a dream.

Silver lost all track of time. Was it a few moments, hours, days? What did time even mean in the dreamworld? He didn't know, but he felt a hoof come down on his shoulder. His pain abated in a sudden intense wave of cool relief, and he went limp on the ground.

"Dear Silver..." Luna was standing over him. "I told you there is nothing for you in this world. To walk dreams is no leisurely stroll."

Silver rolled to his belly and looked up at her, heaving for breath he knew he wasn't really taking. "There is something here for me."

"What would that be?"

Silver raised a hoof and pointed at Luna. "You."

Luna flushed in her cheeks even as her wings flared out. "Stupid stallion! What would your wife say to know you chase me in this way?"

Silver smiled with rebuilding confidence. "She would be proud of me." He sat up slowly. "She sent me to be a warrior, and I will be. Luna, I won't give up."

Luna scowled at him. "Why? What do you pursue? You can't even dream of harming me."

"Why would I?" Silver tilted his head. "Luna, I am not your enemy."

"Then stay away!" She banished him and he landed on his bed back in his room.

Silver hopped down from his bed. Being banished didn't bring the pain of being ejected from a dream. It was more aggravating than anything else, but he wouldn't be scared off so easily. With a vigorous shake, he nudged the door open and emerged into the hallway of dreams. His eyes wandered upwards to his slime. "Some help you were..."

The slime undulated. Was it an apology? Silver couldn't know and shook his head even as he played the song that encouraged it. The lingering aches and faintly stabbing pains ebbed away as he was restored by the glowing slime.

He was suddenly forced to the ground under a heavy bulk.

"Face your own nightmares," challenged Luna, and they were gone from the hallway.

He was back in his room. It was a dream, of course. He still knew that with a certainty, but he felt an urge to use his computer. He didn't want to use his computer. He had an alicorn to hunt, but the urge built and built until he approached the computer. It came on for him without his fiddling with the monitor. Oh, it was his game back on Earth in all its text glory!

How was he online in a dream? It was far from the first time. He used his magic and typed 'WHO' to see who was online in the dream. No one...

His game, once thriving and full of people had become empty without him there to tend to it. When he left the world, his things died a miserable and quiet death. He felt a soft tightness in his chest, but he turned away from it. "Stupid dream..." There wasn't anything he could do about his old life, just see to his new one, and he meant to do that. He hopped down from his chair and trotted purposefully for the door, but it kept drawing away from him, which was impossible, he knew. His room was small enough to hop from one end to the other in one bound if one wanted to. Another nightmare effect?

Silver's horn played magic as he vanished and appeared beside the door. He threw it open to find another copy of his room waiting for him on the other side. "Luna! Cut it out."

"We shan't."

Silver clopped a hoof on the tiled ground. Knowing it was a dream was only so much defense with Luna on the direct offensive. "Luna, please. I just want to talk."

"We aren't listening."

Silver sat in place. "Yes you are."

"No we aren't," sang Luna.

Silver trailed over the ground slowly. "Luna, the things I saw, most of them were from you. I lived your nightmares, peeked at your dreams... You've been through this at least once." He lifted an ear. "Your soul was spread before me. We've seen one another, and I don't think either of us are entirely repelled by what we saw."

"Liar." Luna's voice seemed to move through the two rooms with no body attached. "You have, at best, some unhealthy fascination. There is nothing here for you. You're hurting yourself and your wife by insisting on this chase. Face your own fears and leave me to mine!"

The dream plunged into darkness.

Silver quaked with fear. His father would come home. He would see his report card and be so angry with him. There would likely be hitting involved.

But it was all a dream... Silver sat up and shook himself free of the nightmare's grip on his emotions. His father had no power over him, certainly not as a pony. "Besides, I have a new father now." With a gesture, Rough Draft emerged from the bathroom. "And a new mother." Trixie poked her head free from what had been his human father's room.

Silver stood up, and the nightmare ended, he was seated on his bed back in his room. "Luna?"

It was silent.

Silver hopped down and tried the door, and it allowed him out into the hallway of doors, but there was no sign of Luna. His quarry had escaped for the moment. "I'll find you." Feeling more determined than ever, Silver began stalking along the hallway, looking for any hints as to the dream princess' whereabouts.