Night's Own Nightmares

by Tempestuous Wildfire

Chapter 1

Night’s Own Nightmares
By TheLemonTempest

Introduction

Night. The one time she ever felt safe, she had control over it and darkness was a part of who she was. She wrapped and shrouded herself in it when she was scared or upset.

Though right now she didn’t feel safe at all, she felt naked and exposed to all the evil in the world. At this moment the night gave her more anxiety then it did comfort. She still had control over it though, and she could feel all that happened in it, though this did not comfort her. She wasn’t alone...

“Who goes there?” Luna shouted in her most commanding voice, certain that whatever dwelled in her domain wouldn’t remain knowing that she; the Princess of the Night, accompanied them.

No response gave Luna shivers, not a single response, it was as if whoever was there was suddenly gone from existence. Luna began to shake with fear; the night seemed to be enveloping her into nothingness. She commanded the shadow to withdraw, but with no luck. Luna felt a terror she had never experienced before, only now did she finally take notice of her surroundings.

She was in the middle of nowhere, absolutely anywhere. She could see maybe twenty yards, after that, it was fog. The ground was grey and barren, the world around her dead and dry. A cold wind blew around her without making the slightest noise.

Luna began walking, her hooves making clopping noises that seemed loud relative to the dead silence. She saw nothing, nor sensed anything with the darkness around her. She began to feel as if the world around her was shrinking, the night was becoming smaller. Luna turned to see a wall of utter blackness coming towards her, darkness beyond her comprehension.

Luna ran for her life, she didn’t care at the moment what was happening so long as she was away from it. She felt the darkness shrinking, stealing her power, her identity. She ran harder, her legs ached and burned, her lungs filled with dust from the grey Earth beneath her.

The blue Alicorn wheezed and coughed, she felt as though she would die if the walls kept coming. “Wait, walls?” Luna turned to see two walls closing in on her, eating the planet beneath her.

Luna felt the ground leave from beneath her and she was suddenly in free-fall. Her eyes widened as brightness then darkness rushed past her in violent sweeps. Her eyes began to water, she tried to spread her wings but it was as if she was falling through a vacuum.

She fell and fell through the eternal abyss, all of her worst memories flying through her mind, all of her friends and ones she loved were dead. She fell further through the abyss. She heard a roar and saw white, foggy, glowing eyes and white teeth rushing towards her. She felt burning pain through her body and the world around her went black with a burning ache in her gut.

Luna bolted up in her bed with a scream, startling her sister outside on the porch. She was covered in sweat and her blood was pulsing with adrenaline. Her eyes wet and her breathing fast.

Celestia jumped up at the sound of her sister’s scream. She had been writing a letter to her student Twilight Sparkle. Celestia ran in the room to see Luna with her head between her hooves, her breath was shallow and shaky. Celestia knew about Luna’s trouble sleeping, ever since she had been transformed from Nightmare Moon into her beloved sister, she had not slept well.

“Nightmares again?” Celestia said with extreme concern in her voice. She had never been this worried about anything, and it was starting to take its toll on her.

Luna could do nothing but look up at her sister’s concerned eyes. Luna just sat there without a word to speak. Luna’s stress and anxiety over these nightmares had all but killed her spirits, she had tried to be fun and kind to the inhabitants of the city of Canterlot, but every time she did, it always seemed to end badly. Luna closed her eyes and lost herself in memory.

“We cannot believe thee!” Luna said down to the weather pony. She had been asking to help with the weather for several minutes now.

“Well,” the green pegasus began, “You really don’t have any experience or qualification to help control the weather. And, we don’t really except volunteers.” The pink-maned Pegasus was becoming nervous in the Princess of the Night’s presence, and her insistence on helping with the weather didn’t help, Luna continued to persist.

“We am the co-ruler of equestrian and we command thee to allow us to help with why weather work.” Luna commanded.

Luna saw Tropical Storm let down her guard let her stance loosen. Without asking, Luna walked by the pink-pegasus and into the weather control headquarters. She walked up to the cyan-colored pony at the front desk and cleared her throat.

Sprinkle Medley looked up casually. Then looked down at the newspaper she had been reading. She tapped her hoof on the desk firmly. The blue-green pony poked her head out.

“I am volunteering for the weather patrol today.” Luna said confidently. The pony behind the desk fumbled for a pass-card before giving it to Luna. Luna smiled the best she could and waited for more information.

“Fifth door, on the left, down the hall.” Sprinkle Medley responded while pointing a hoof to Luna’s right.

Luna turned and walked down the isle. Leaving the desk-mare alone once again.

“This time, I won’t mess up, I’m going to do my best and for that become friends with the ponies of this Cloudsdale.” Luna thought confidently. As she walked down the hall she counted the doors on her left. One, two, three, four, five. Luna looked at the fifth door with an irrational sense of sudden dread. She walked into the room, relieved to find a locker room, there were spare uniforms handing on the back wall, her sense of dread diminished. She found a uniform for her size, and put it on. She walked out of the office to find ponies lined up at the far end of the hall.

“Alright team, today we have a light rain scheduled for Ponyville and the surrounding areas!” A high pitch voice called. Luna immediatly recognized it as being Rainbow Dash's. Luna quickly made her way down the isle to the crowd.

“Here we go,” Luna said hopefully as she too soured out into the open sky.

Most of the pegasi were already working at moving cloud around over Ponyville. They made very good time and were quite agile from Luna’s standpoint. Luna saw a cloud drifting near her. She grabbed on to it a started to slowly drag it down to the others.

Luna stared down at the clouds beneath her, she could tell them apart by shape but not by name.

“Think of how easy it would be to use magic right now.” A voice from in her head said to her. It wasn’t her thoughts though. She whipped her head around expecting to see somepony else, but nopony was there. The voice repeated itself, over and over again. Becoming louder with each repeat.

“Who is this?!” Luna scream-whispered to herself. Her frame began to list sideways as her wings were unable to get clear signals from her mind. Luna gave in; she summoned magic to cause a light storm around the town.

Shadows began to fall over the town as a large grey cloud took shape, much larger then what she had planned as a “light shower”. It grew larger and larger. The town began to plunge deeper into darkness. Luna panicked, she wasn’t the only one though, the pegasi who had previously been below her was now trying to disperse the forming storm.

“Oh no.” Luna said allowed. The voice that had been tormenting her had gone and her mind was now clear. She looked around her for something she could use. “I’m flying, there are no objects that just float.” Luna found herself pondering her catalog of spells she had stored in her mind. She remembered a “clear weather” spell she had learned from her sister more than a thousand years before. She hadn’t cast since then and she was uncertain of how well it would work.

Luna’s horn began to glow and a bright orb grew around it as she cast the spell. It became more and more charged with magic, humming and pulsing with energy. Luna discharged it and let loose a gust of wind that stunned her as well as everypony else flying in the area. Luna opened her eyes to see that the massive storm cloud was gone. Luna began to rejoice in her act to stop to storm. She then took notice of all that had happened around her.

The sky was empty, not a single cloud could be seen anywhere. The sun beat down on her, as there was no longer any shade from clouds. Ponyville had probably never seen anything like this before, and probably never would.

The rest of the weather ponies were I shock and disbelief, not completely at a loss for words but just purely amazed. Luna saw that what she had done probably hadn’t been “good”.

“Not again, please not again.” Luna hopelessly pled to fate that what had just happened wasn’t real, but it was, and that was that. She discarded her uniform and began to slowly fly back to Canterlot.

Luna opened her eyes again to see her elder sister still there, though she was now lying down beside her, her wing wrapped tightly around Luna. Luna’s eyes had completely lost their deep-teal hue and were now grey and empty. Her mane too had lost its glittering shine and flowing movement since she had returned from being banished to the moon.

“Luna,” Celestia began, “I’m becoming very worried about you; ponies don’t just have nightmares every night for no reason, especially the princess of dreams.” Luna just hung her head and leaned into her sister.

“If you want to continue to be the co-ruler of Equestria we are going to have to find a way to stop these, nightmares of yours.” Celestia stood up and began to walk to the other side of the room towards one of many bookshelves.

Luna finally spoke; “I do want these nightmares to end. But the only spell that has ever seemed to work for these is the one we have forbidden from use.

“But there doesn’t seem to be any other way dear sister. We have tried all we can over these past seven weeks, and from what we have learned, this problem is deep seeded and involved with your time as Nightmare Moon.”

Luna’s mind filled with memories of when she returned as Nightmare Moon. The memories seemed to defy reality, but they were real. Luna’s entire body gave a shake.

“I know you don’t want to do this Luna. But before we do, you have to let me see what it is you are dreaming.” Celestia said to her sister.

“The dream reading spell.” Luna thought. She was very nervous about her sister seeing in her dreams. Also, being the princess of dreams they had no idea of what the effects could be.

Luna’s mind panicked, it was an unreasonable fear, why would she be afraid of some petty spell? Luna kept going on and on in her mind of all the things that could go wrong. What if the spell gave her a mental disorder? What if the dreams somehow transferred into her sister? The question went on and on into many things she dare not consider.

Luna forced herself to make a decision she had been avoiding for weeks. “Fine!! I’ll let you cast the dream reading spell on me!!” Luna cried in self-conflict and anguish, several voice cracks were scattered across her

Celestia nodded and lowered her head, her horn began to give off it’s golden glow. Celestia gently tapped her sister’s forehead with her horn. The world went black and Luna lost awareness.

“So, this is your decision?” A voice called from the darkness. Luna was standing in a grey rock-laden landscape, though, unlike before, it was not flat. The world seemed to bubble upwards around her as she moved, like she was walking in a hamster ball.

Luna felt her magic waning and the darkness around her closing. Though, her sight remained. Through the fog she could see the dark silhouette. Orange eyes and white teeth were it’s only features; its voice sounded like a beehive.

“You choose to fight me? You know you can’t win, I have won this fight before.” Luna’s ears rang on every syllable the creature made. Luna could see the creature when she didn’t look at it directly, though out of the corner of her eye it was still a hazy shadow.

Luna wanted to run, run for her life. Her hooves seemed to be glued to the rocky earth beneath her. Luna panicked, her eyes widened as the creature began to advance on her, bringing with it all the shadow and fog around it. Luna’s hooves finally freed and she burst into a sprint. Her wings flapped trying to find some lift. She couldn’t fly, nor could she run forever. She heard the sound of air rushing behind her. It was the world cascading into an abyss behind her. Holes began opening in the ground around her.

Luna ran and ran. Holes began opening closer to her as there was little room to run. She couldn’t think of anything else other than to run, her ears rang and her mind became hazy. She could feel the creature behind her; somehow, it was keeping up, and gaining on her. She could practically smell its breath over her shoulder; it reeked of blood and mold. It’s eyes shown so bright she could see nearly twice as far as she could before. She dared not look back. She suddenly felt as though she was falling, though not into the abyss, just onto the ground.

Her body lurched forwards and she skidded across the ground. Her coat had been drenched in sweat and the dirt around her was clinging to her coat. She now felt no more movement of her aching limbs.

Luna opened her eyes only to be greeted by a shadow with white teeth, though they were close enough now to notice that they weren’t completely white; they were stained heavily with blood. The, thing’s breath blew hard against her face and nearly caused her to gag. It began moving closer to her, taking small steps, she could see that it had two hooves; its back hooves were all but shrouded. Her stomach did a flip. Luna could only watch as the creature came closer, Luna wanted to move but she couldn’t. He legs seemed immobilized, they stung with burning pain.

The creature suddenly pounced on Luna, burying its teeth deep with her back; Luna felt her rip cage crack and an unimaginable amount of pain course through her entire body. The creature began thrashing her around, she could feel life slipping out of her body. Her vision became red and blurry; she felt blood running across her entire. She felt her wing break and she screamed aloud. Her attacker threw her like a ragdoll, shattering several more bones in her body. Luna lay there as life slipped from her body.

Luna awoke with a yell. She was covered in sweat and her entire body ached. She closed her eyes for several moments, holding back sobs of terror. She opened her eyes slowly. She saw her sister staring and her like she had seen a ghost. Her eyes were bloodshot and wet.

Luna only gave a look of guilt. Celestia walked over too her sister and lie down next to her. She wrapped her wing around her again, embracing her younger sister. Though it likely wouldn’t last forever, it definitely gave her a taste of how much she loved her sister.

Luna could only look at her sister with guilt for letting her witness those things. Luna tried to imagine watching her sister be mauled while she could only watch in horror. She closed her eyes again, trying to think of a time before these nightmares, or better yet, before she was Nightmare Moon.

Through all of her memories there was only one where she could actually recall details. She remembered her sister telling her that someday they would be leaders of Equestria. Celestia they patted her sister on the head and they walked through the ruins of their castle. Luna smiled at the memory for it was one of the few good ones she had.

“You know as well as I that the mind delve spell is forbidden.” Luna responded, disregarding her sister’s previous statement.

“Forbidden, but only without the consent of royalty.”

Luna’s eyes widened; she had been trying to hard to make excuses not to use the spell. Her sister was insistent, she had confronted Luna on this matter many times over the past week. Luna hung her head and reluctantly nodded.

Luna dreaded the idea of going into the strange realm within her mind. But what scared her most was being alone in the dimension.

Celestia lifted her head and Luna nodded in acceptance of her sister’s offer. Celestia held out her hoof. Luna grabbed hold and stood up; they two alicorns began to walk towards to door.

Being royalty they had to keep a professional attitude at nearly all times. They put on straight faces and proceeded out the door. The long marble corridor echoed with each of the hoofsteps. Celestia walked to a royal guard and said to not expect to see them for several hours. The guard asked why but Celestia told him it was confidential.

The two mares walked in complete silence. The corridors stretched on with intersections and archways here and there. They made a turn into the Canterlot Library. They continued down the long hallways, the walls stacked with books. They reached a metal gate that had a sign above it that read “RESTRICTED”. Celestia unlocked the gate with her magic and they walked through. They met yet another gate, tucked away between two dusty bookshelves. The sign above read “FORBIDDEN”. They were about to enter a room with the most dangerous and powerful tomes in Equestria. Celestia unlocked the gate. It made a crunching noise as it opened fallowed by screeching of metal.

Luna began to feel more comfortable, the darkness surrounding her made her feel livelier. Luna finally broke the long silence; “When was the tome last used? And what were its effects?” Luna inquired to her sister. The walls rumbled slightly and books shifted in their places. Celestia brought her hoof to Luna mouth.

“Do not dare speak her unless you are quiet about it.” Celestia whispered. The two mares glanced around the hall nervously, “Nor use any magic, the tomes in this room are reading them selves practically, the slightest use of magic will be absorbed into the scrolls.”

They came across a shelf with less books on it. Celestia blew off the dust on the tomes and grabbed a book of the shelf with her mouth. She beckoned her sister to follow her back.

They reached the gate and Celestia locked it, she dropped the book gently and let out a sigh of relief.

“You could have told me before we ventured into there of what we should and should not do.” Luna rasped.

Celestia picked up the book with her magic and the two continued all the way back to their room without another word. When they arrived, the sun had begun to set. Had they been down their for so long? It felt as though it was no more then twenty minutes, though it had been nearly the entire day.

Luna took a look at the sun setting, in sync with her sister, they moved their part of the sky: Celestia lowered the sun and Luna raised the moon. Luna was filled once more with energy. They sat down on the carpet and opened the book. The first words echoed in her mind:

“Help does not come without punishment from this book.”

Sound in the room seemed to seize once the book was opened. As Celestia flipped through Luna saw spells she never could have imagine. Most were completely incomprehensible to her as they were to Celestia. Many of them had warnings of use.

“Here it is.” Celestia said, she stopped flipping through the pages of the book, the page was labeled “Mind Delve”. There were several sub-categories for things like, fears, obsessions, and addictions. One of them was labeled “Nightmares”. It has two sub-categories; “Recent” and “Deep Seeded”, or at least that’s how it seemed to translate into modern words.

Celestia flipped to the page assigned to it, the book was massive and the pages were unreasonably thin. If not handled with care, the entire book would fall apart if one page were torn out.

Celestia lifted the book and began to read the tome silently. When she was done she carefully closed the book and set it aside. Her sister stood up and asked her if she was ready, Luna nodded. Celestia’s horn began to glow gold, it seemed to warp the area around it like a magnifying glass. Celestia released the spell and a torrent of magicka struck Luna. Luna lost awareness and the room turned to dust.

Author's Note:

This is the first of hopefully 9 chapters. I am currently half way done with Chapter 2 and have hit writers block, I will be sure to give you all updates!!

~Tempest~

Comments

[Legioner8]

Still no comments? Well let's change that
Ok, before I forget.

Luna looked around at where she was; she was in the dining hall. She dimmed her lamp so she could see better

Luna began to panic as she realized she had forgotten the lantern when she was tackled but Flash Sent

Luna set down the lantern allowing herself to relax.

What with this lantern? It keeps fading in and out of reality. (If I just missed something, than sorry, it's quite late at night)
And this

Luna tried to imagine watching he sister be mauled

Her*

Luna’s horn began to glow and a bright orb grew around it as she cat the spell.

Cast*

Ok, now that it dealt with, I'd like proceed to my ranting (not really, just want to set some things straight)
First of all - does this is the same universe that was in original SP? And when does this takes place?
It's just that in original SP Mind Delve was not forbidden, Vincent created it not so long ago, Celestia casted it on Twi in "Studying the Mind Delve" and suggested to show it during her magical exam.
Also, it works as gateway to hell only in Ponyville, in Canterlot it worked perfectly fine. In semi-canon "Silence of Ponyville" it is said that any kind of mind spell is dangerous in Ponyville cause of something that wasn't explained that well.

Luna tried to recall what had just happened but with no remembrance to the past few hours.

I really think that this chapter should've been divided in two. That was a major change, this usually comes with new chapter (heh, I always say to wright bigger chapters to another Silent Ponyville writher, and look at my now). As one chapter it fells strange, kills a little bit of suspense.
Argh! It is hard to tell what I want, English isn't my native language.
Ok, just look. Celestia casts spell, Luna wakes up thinking that she just fell asleep in the library, raise the Moon, goes to solarium but runs to the dead end, she questions what is going on, and here you end the first chapter. And you go back to her in the room, going though her stuff in the next chapter. I think this would be better pacing.
As for Luna, she is written good, you made her alive, not a robot on tracks. Only one thing seemed steerage
-Hm, there is something strange is going on here, and this stage guard didn't answer to me... Oh well, I'll just trot away.
Come on, in this situation she should be at full alert and ready to fight! Though I understand that you needed to injure her wing, and the surprise attack is the best way to do so.
But over all - like and fave.

[Tempestuous Wildfire]

I know, I kept on feeling the need to reenter the lantern into the story. I know it seems out of place but her only using her magic seemed a bit overpowered. I will try to deal with that in the next chapter brain trauma would be a good way to keep her from using magic. Thanks for the input. I've been waiting for someone to give their thoughts. I will try to address the things you pointed out through either minor editing or in the next chapter. P.S. Try to look for a hidden YouTube Easter Egg in the next chapter.