That night, was the first night since the whole Midnight Sparkle fiasco, that Twilight didn't have one nightmare, she thought.
As soon as she woke up, the purple haired girl put on her glasses and checked her friend's book, but there wasn't a reply yet.
Sighing, Twilight put it back to where it belonged and got dressed.
Through out the day, at every chance she got, Twilight went back to her tent to check if her other self had replied.
It was getting close to dinner, and still there wasn't anything new written in there.
"Sunset?" Twilight asked as they came around the fire "Does time go differently from where you're from?"
"I don't think so, maybe... Why?" Sunset asked having an idea but wanting Twilight to say it.
"No reason..." Twilight said sighing as she and her friend took their meals and took a seat with the other girls and Spike.
After dinner and some scary stories around the camp fire, everyone went to bed, and waiting for Twilight and Sunset, was a glowing, buzzing, vibrating book.
Smiling Twilight quickly grabbed for it and flipped to the newest entry the book had.
'Dear Twilight,
I did what you asked, and asked Princess Luna about her nightmares and dreams after she was turned back to good, but she wasn't quite clear on it herself.
You see, Our Princess Luna is the Princess of the Night over here, which includes dreams and nightmares.
And to punish herself for what she did as Nightmare Moon she created something she called 'The Tantabus' to keep giving her the same nightmare every night, of when she was first changed into her darker self.'
Twilight looked worried at this news, but kept reading the letter.
'She says it took a while to create something such as The Tantabus, but that, yes... Yes she did have nightmares of her other self before she had perfected the creature.'
'A few months ago however The Tantabus, having grown on Luna's guilt and need to punish herself for what she did had grown too powerful and began to invade my own and my pony friends dreams, and because of a slight mistake caused by Pinkie Pie, all of Ponyville...
Anyway... After fighting it for a bit, to stop it trying to get into the real world, and working out it was Luna's guilt that gave it it's power, my friends and I were able to get Luna to see that what she had done as Nightmare Moon was in the past (1000 years in the past to be precise) and that everybody now loved her with the same if not slightly more amount of love as her sister Princess Celestia.
Once she realized that and forgave herself The Tantabus was defeated, and she says that she's had all good dreams since then.
So to sum it up, Twilight...
The way to get rid of nightmares like this, is to have good friends who you know would forgive you for anything you may have done while you were Midnight Sparkle (Your Pinkie told me the name)
And always remember that it's in the past, and although the Past can hurt, you can either run from it alone and keep everything hidden and bottled up inside until on day your feelings/control become close to breaking point and you loose it again.
OR
You can learn from it, making sure you have good friends who will listen to you, to fall back to, and talk to for advice and leadership and guidance on such things like this and hopefully you'll be able to prevent your darker side from resurfacing.
There will still be a slight chance she'll still be in the very very back of your mind, but if you follow this advice, and keep control over your feelings and show you're not afraid over what happened, I am sure you'll be able to keep her contained.
Love Princess Twilight of Equestria.
(The Princess of Friendship)
Not really feeling any comfort or pleasure that this had been sorted out, Twilight closed the book, gave it to Sunset and said she wanted to look out at the stars a little longer and left, Spike close behind her.
Opening the book, Sunset read the letter and the reply both Twilight's had written to each other and went around gathering her friends, deciding to follow the Princess' orders and make sure they were there for their friend.
At the campfire, which was now embers and ashes, Twilight was petting her dog thinking the letter over again.
Specifically the last part about how the past can hurt.
Spike, on hearing the others come over, wriggled out of his mistress' arms and ran over to them, to be greeted by Fluttershy lifting him into her arms.
"Hey Twi, you alright?" Rainbow asked as they all sat next to and around their friend.
"Yeah I'm fine," Twilight said nodding and smiling a not too convincing smile.
"You know you're not all that good at lying, right Sugarcube?" Applejack asked gently.
"Twilight," Sunset said reaching out to her friend "I read what was written for you in my book, and what you had wrote too. And I want you to know and remember, that I went through basically the same thing you did. And to show you what the last part meant..."
With that Sunset quickly picked up a stick and whacked Twilight around the back of the head with it, despite the cries from the other girls.
"Ow gees! What was that for?!" Twilight said rubbing the spot in question.
"It doesn't matter... It's in the past..." Sunset said smiling, the stick still in her hand.
"I'm sure that still would have hurt darling," Rarity said speaking the others thoughts.
"Well yeah it and the past can hurt," Sunset said comforting Twilight slightly "But as Princess Twilight said - You can either run from it, or learn from it..." suddenly Sunset swung the stick around aiming for everyone's heads but they all ducked to avoid it. "See?"
"Oh.... I get it..." Pinkie Pie says grinning and giggling a little "Because we knew what you were going to do, we knew to duck when you swung the stick."
"Correct," Sunset said smiling throwing the stick onto the fire "And you lot be happy it was a stick and not a blast of Ice Magic. Now that could really hurt..."
"I'm still not getting how this connects to Twilight, Sunset," Rainbow confessed.
"It's teaching her, not to make the same mistakes to end up with the same consequences..." Sunset said calmly.
"Still hitting her was not a nice thing to do, and you didn't say you would do that," Fluttershy said speaking up, checking on Twilight's head for her.
"Would you have let me, if I did say I would do it?" Sunset said calming looking up at the stars.
"Ok that's that part explained," Twilight said calming down and feeling a little happier "Still not sure about the fact that my darker self might still be in here though," she said hugging her legs.
"She'll only be in there, and grow more powerful the more you feed her your guilt and worry on hurting others again," Sunset said calmly "You are not Midnight Sparkle, Twilight, and Midnight Sparkle is not you. Midnight Sparkle was some one who wanted power, it was all that she desired, but all that grew inside her was a darkness that she acquired. The past doesn't define who you are Twilight, and your past is not today, so how about we all just head back to bed?"
With that and some more smiles they all get up and head back to their tents all grateful that they could put this to rest, and that they could all get a good night's rest.