10 Days, 3 Adventures - Part 1 - "In Dreams They Came"

by TP Night

Chapter 6 - History Lesson

“What do you mean, ‘I made them’”? Applejack said with a somewhat
skeptical look on her face.

Luna looked at them all with a calm but serious expression.
“I mean exactly that. I am the one who made these objects.
Like I said, They are called Dream Stones. That name is only partially true
though. Allow me to guess... All of you who touched them had trouble
sleeping this night, did you not?”

“Yeah...” Applejack started.

“Yes, we all did.” Twilight continued. “Is that connected to the Dream
stones somehow?”

“It is one of their main functions, actually.” Luna responded.
“Let me give you all a history lesson. One that you will not find
in any of the history books.”

Twilights eyes widened at the idea of knowledge.

Luna sat down, with the others in a half-circle in front of her.

“First of all, I need to tell you a bit about Nightmare Moon.
Everypony in here knows that I was Nightmare. Or rather,
that Nightmare had infected and taken over my body.
The physical transformation happened almost instantly,
just like how I transformed during Nightmare Night.”

“I see...” Twilight said.

“However, the mental transformation was slower. She gradually
infected my head, piece by piece. Planting ideas, thoughts,
slowly corrupting my mind. Among other things was the jealousy
over my sister, and the fact that ponies were awake during her days,
but slept during my nights. This was the reason for my attempt to
keep the moon in the sky forever. But there was another plan before
that one. It involved these Dream Stones.”

“So technically, Nightmare Moon made them, not you.” Applejack said.

“Well, that is partly true. These were made by me, but under her influence,
during the period when she was still corrupting me but was not yet strong
enough to take my entire body. This was meant to be a first step,
before the eternal night. Basically, these stones are sensitive to
moon energy. When the moon is up, they awaken. When the sun is up,
they lay dormant and waiting.”

“And they cause bad sleep?” Spike asked. “Why?”

“Simply put... If you can’t sleep at night, you’d get tired and sleep
during the day, and your entire daily routine would gradually get turned
around until you sleep all day and stay awake all night.”

“Oh, now I understand!” Twilight burst out.
“You wanted ponies awake at night, so you made it harder to sleep
at night. Simple but effective...”

“That was the intent, yes. And when ponies did sleep during nights,
these stones would make sure the sleep was restless and filled with
nightmares rather than pleasant dreams.”

“I’m assuming something went wrong...?” Applejack said.

“Yes... Something went very wrong. You see, in order to turn dreams
into nightmares, one must use dark magic. Magic I was not skilled enough
to fully control at that time, but the Nightmare Parasite was impatient and
did not want to wait. So it - we - unleashed ‘them’.

The three fillies looked at Luna with curious eyes.
“What’s ‘them’?” Scootaloo asked.

“The Nightlings.” Luna responded.

* * *

“Nightlings?” Scootaloo asked. “Are they like those.. changelings,
or whatever they were called?”

“Well...” Luna started. “Both yes and no, I suppose. First of all,
the Nightlings are non-corporeal.”

“Non-copro.. corky... korra-sami... non-koll...what did you say again?”
Sweetie Belle said, trying to understand the word.

“Non-corporeal. Cor-po-re-al.” Twilight said. “It means they have no solid
physical form.”

“You mean... Like ghosts?” Applebloom said with an unsure look.

“Similar to ghosts, yes.” Luna said. “You see, the Nightlings only exist
within the dream realm, they cannot take physical form and exist here,
in the physical realm.”

“But within the dream realm, they would be able to change the dreams,
is that correct?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, exactly. Their purpose is to change a dream and turn it to a nightmare.
A changeling is able to transform into what they see, like copying ponies
and other creatures. A Nightling on the other hand exists within the mind.
It can ‘see’ your fears and worries, and take the form of that.”

“How do you mean?” Applejack said.

“Let me make an example. Let us say... A pony might have arachnophobia.”

“Ara-what-nophob...” Sweetie Belle tried to copy the word again.

“Fear of... Spiders, I think?” Applejack responded.

“Correct, Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and spider-like creatures.”
Twilight said.

“As I was saying” Luna continued. “Let us say, a pony is afraid of spiders.
In such case, the Nightling would fill the dream with spiders.
Or, if the pony is afraid of heights, the dream might turn into a situation
where the pony stands on the edge of a tall cliff. A pony afraid of drowning
might find themselves in the middle of an ocean. Now do you understand?”

“I think so...” Scootaloo said. “The Nightling shows something you’re
scared of.”

“Exactly.” Luna said with a smile. “Thus, evey single dream would be a
nightmare, and you would wake up without rest. And since the stones
only work at night, you would get good sleep with pleasent dreams during
the days. Gradually, ponies would have realized this and switched their
sleep cycles. They would all have become nocturnal. Once that was
accomplished, I was going to raise the eternal moon and stop my sister
from ever raising the sun again. I was not planning to kill her though.
I was planning to fight her to weaken her, and then imprison her.
The prison would also shield her magic, rendering her unable to raise the
sun, and leaving my moon in the sky forever.”

“You said something went wrong though?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Well, yes. What I just told you, was how it was supposed to have worked.
That is, if I had been skilled and strong enough in the black arts to control
the Nightlings. But like I said, the Nightmare parasite was impatient,
and did not wait for me to gain full control before ‘she’ released the
Nightlings into the dream realm. And thus, we were only able to maintain
control for a few weeks. But as a last effort of sanity before the parasite
took over, I managed to capture and trap the Nightlings inside the
dream stones and bury them. They were never used. And after that,
Celestia banished ‘me’ and the parasite to the moon for a thousand years,
after which I returned, and you know the rest. The stones were never
found, and during my exile I had almost forgotten about them.
Celestia also knew about them, because I wrote everything down
while creating them, and after banishing me she found my research
and read everything. When I came back, she told me everything.
We thought the stones were lost forever. Until you found two of them.”

“So what now? Do we keep them, do we destroy them?” Twilight asked.

“Can we destroy them?” Applejack added.

“Well, first of all we should locate the remaining three.
After that I can determine what to do with them.” Luna said.

“Okay, so how do we locate the others?” Spike said after sitting silently
until now. “I mean, is there some special spell or something?”

“It is going to be relatively easy to find them. I can ‘sense’ them.”
Luna explained. “However, I can only sense the approximate area,
I can not pinpoint the exact location.”

“What kind of radius are we talking here?” Applejack asked.

“Within around twenty meters, fifteen if we are lucky.” Luna said.
“I am afraid that is the best I can do.”

“Twenty meters is better then ‘entire Ponyville’.” Spike said,
with a sly smile.

“True.” Luna smiled. “In any case, this should be done as soon as
possible. If you are all ready, we should in fact take care of it right now.”

“Well, I’m ready.” Applejack said.

Twilight nodded. “Same here.”

The three fillies all looked at each other for a brief moment,
then all three exclaimed, “Cutiemark Crusaders Dream Stone Finders!
Ready for duty!”

“Aaand, I’m ready too.” Spike added.

“Good. Then I will begin the ‘scanning’.. You might want to take
a tea break or something, this will take some time.”

Lunas horn started glowing, and the two stones started glowing as well.
They flew up from the table and started flying around Luna in a tight circle,
around her neck. She closed her eyes, her breath slowed down to deep,
slow inhales and even slower exhales. The others sat down around the
kitchen table, watching as Luna stood there.

“Well.. anypony want some tea while we wait?” Spike asked.

They all wanted some, so Spike boiled some water.
They sat in silence, sipping their tea while Luna stood like a statue.
At this point, her breath was so slow, she could have been mistaken for
a statue, and her horn shone so bright, it lit up the room in it’s blue light.

A few more minutes passed.

The stones slowed down and fell to the ground.

The light from the horn slowly dimmed, and Lunas breathing started to
become noticeable again. After another minute her eyes opened,
and she spoke. “I have located all three stones, within a twenty meter
radius of each. I suggest we split up into three groups and retrieve all
of them as fast as we can.”

“Okay, so how should we divide the groups?” Applejack asked.

“Spike, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. You three take the first stone.
Applejack and Applebloom, you two take the second.
Myself and Twilight will take the third.” Luna said after a moments thought.
“Unless somepony has a better idea?”

They all agreed, and after Luna had told them all where to find their
stones, they all set out to go and search for them, and bring them
back to the library.

Author's Note:

Fun Fact:
This chapter contains a small reference to the ending of "The Legend of Korra".
If you have seen that show, you'll probably be able to find it.