Interlude: Nightmare
Light.
It was the first thing she noticed as she opened her eyes, and it brought a smile to her face. Bright sunshine streamed through the windows, the golden rays lighting the small dust motes into specks of shimmering gold. They danced around in the still air, a mirage of fantasies long past. Twilight’s eyes slid shut as she rubbed her cheek against the cool and silky wood of her desk. The polished birch wood was blackened in the spots where her magic had rebelled against her, and she couldn’t help but feel like it was an old friend.
Music.
She could hear the soft strings of violin coming from a room nearby. She briefly wondered who the musician was as the notes drifted clear and beautiful to her ears, the notes both nostalgic and somehow haunting. A chill drifted down her back for a split-second, but by the time she had blinked, the errant thought was gone, and she could only smile as the classroom door was gently pushed open with a wing and Celestia stepped through. Her regalia had been abandoned for the casual and wonderful times that were their personal classes.
Laughter.
Celestia’s voice echoed out merrily as the small filly ran to her side and was swept under a warm wing, pulled close to her mentor’s side. The two shared a nuzzle and another giggle before Twilight darted back to her seat, and the regal mare turned her attention to the blank blackboard in front of them. It lit up gently with the soft gold glow of the Princess’s magic, and old runes began to show pale against the dark enchanted wood. A lesson on magic began, and although Celestia’s words seemed distant and far off, Twilight watched with a smile from where she had sat. Everything was perfect.
Rain.
Pale lilac ears perked up as the golden light that brightened and colored the room so, dimmed, leaving everything a shade more monochrome. The hissing pattering of rain could soon be heard, and as she turned her head to look at the windows once more, she could see the water running down in small crystalline rivers down the glass. Celestia didn’t even seem to notice, and the chalk continued to make its gentle drumming against the board as more runes were inscribed out to be learned.
Thunder.
It rolled out, strangely loud among the whispering peace of her surroundings. It drowned out Celestia’s voice, the gentle scraping and clicks of the chalk, and even the laughter she could hear far off in the halls. The violin music didn’t halt under the rolling murmur of the storm, instead almost distorting and becoming something less familiar. Twilight blinked, hard. Something was wrong, although she couldn’t seem to understand what.
Lightning.
It flashed brilliantly bright, hurting her eyes and leaving Twilight feeling dazed as thunder filled the air once again. Her ears rang under the sound, and a twinge of terror spread through her veins as she realized she could no longer hear Celestia. She forced her eyes open again, trying to make some sort of sense out of what was going on. The room had gone completely monochrome in the wake of the lightning, leaving not a drop of colour anywhere. The only thing that truly worried Twilight, however, was the fact that Celestia had vanished from her spot at the blackboard, leaving not a feather behind. Twilight hastily scrambled out of her seat, her eyes searching everywhere for where her mentor could have gone.
Run.
The classroom door was pushed hastily open, and Twilight darted into the hall outside, her panicked eyes searching for hide or hair of the alicorn she loved. The path under her hooves felt cold as she galloped down the hallway, stopping only to peek into the various rooms as she went. Her only light was filtered moonlight that drifted through the windows, strange shadows cast around her by the tracks of the thick raindrops that were still falling fast and hard against the glass. At the very end of the hall, at the very last door, she finally found Celestia. The white alicorn was standing at the spectacularly large blackboard, staring at the ancient runes that were scrawled along it in a messy hoof-writing that left it incomprehensible to the unicorn. Blinking back relieved tears, Twilight speedily made her way down the many steps that led down to where Celestia was. In just a moment more, she’d be safe once again under her beloved teacher’s wing.
Fire.
Twilight’s hooves skidded across the smooth marble as she struggled to come to an abrupt stop. She had only blinked, clearing the last of the tears from her vision, the world flickering out of sight for barely a heart-beat… And now the whole room was alight in green flames that were rising higher and higher. The unicorn mare staggered back from the flames, lifting a foreleg to protect her eyes against the spitting sparks. Her voice, hoarse from the smoke, called over to the alicorn standing just a few feet away. The Princess would fix everything, as she always had, she was sure of it, and as Celestia slowly turned to look at her student, Twilight couldn’t help but smile. The Princess was perfect, proud and strong, never asking for nor needing help, and Twilight could only hope to become as great as her idol.
Darkness.
The world dimmed, the flames freezing in time as Twilight’s eyes met Celestia’s. As black as an abyss, unseeing and unknowing, her mentor matched her horrified gaze. Unable to look away, Twilight choked on the thick taste of bile as every step her oldest friend took towards her rotted the alicorn’s body a little more. By the time what had been Celestia had reached where the flames had separated them, her body was little more than a blood-caked skeleton. Raising a hoof to sweep away the now dissolving flames, Twilight could only shake her head in silent and desperate disbelief. What was left of Celestia reached a cracking and rotted hoof towards her, as if in desperation, and with Twilight’s terrified step back, broke apart and clattered to the floor as plain white and ancient bones.
Everything distorted.
The whole world seemed to screech.
Footing and sanity broke apart as it all shattered inward onto the unicorn mare.
Fear.
It filled her. Consumed her. It only took a heart-beat for that all-consuming feeling to rise up and crush her completely. It wiped away reason, trust, love- Even logic held no power against it. Hope lasted but a split-second longer, willpower alone holding its fragile flame aloft- But then it was gone. Gone, leaving worse than a void. A vacuum seemed to open within her, sucking away everything that made her a pony, and left her a sobbing shell, trying to grasp for straws that had already burned.
Scream.
It was all she could do, her hooves like weights, holding her down, preventing her from moving. She could barely breath, but she could scream, and tears slid down her muzzle, harshly cold and biting. The world seemed to tear under the sound, becoming even more grotesque. The black chalkboard chipped away, falling and crumbling into dust, shadows leaking like black magma from the cracks. The rain against the windows turned blood red, splattering thick against the glass, destroying the last rays of light that had once reached her.
Blood.
It was everywhere. Running like rivers from the cracked joints of the skeleton before her and soaking into her coat and tail, staining her hooves and filling the air with its putrid smell. She couldn’t breathe anymore. She was suffocating under the copper, the fear turning like acid and burning her lungs as she struggled to gasp air into herself, to find the oxygen to flee with her lead and bloodied hooves. She couldn’t. She couldn’t. She was helpless. Helpless to do anything but watch, as something as soft as a feather, but as heavy as an anchor, wrapped around her throat. It wound around, and around, pulling her towards it, and she couldn’t even turn to see what it was. She wouldn’t mind facing her death. It would at least give her reason to look away. Away from this.
Pain.
It tightened, and she would have screamed again if she only had the air. Everything hurt. Her heart had been torn to pieces, and her body felt as if it was following, the blood mixing with the shadows and turning to acid around her. Bound, strangled, helpless- Twilight couldn’t move. Could barely respond as the skeleton, the monstrosity before her lifted its skull, and looked at her. Looked at her with fiery eyes that were still so gentle, so sad, so very scared itself.
And then it spoke.
And it said the words that had frightened her the most, the words that she had feared ever hearing since the day she had become old enough to understand their weight.
“Why couldn’t you save me?"
Twilight screamed, eyes flaring open to see nothing but the fading images of her nightmare. Her mind stuttered, panicked, reason still suffocated by the chain of fear that even now strangled her. It locked onto a thought as panic choked her even tighter.
I can’t move I can’t move I can’t move- Trapped, I’m trapped-LET ME GO!
A deafening ripping noise shattered the silence of the night, much as her scream had a minute earlier. This noise however, held sanity, and as a scrap of fabric drifted by her nose- and after scrambling to a stop across the room- Twilight focused on it.
Fear broke down slightly as an old habit struck up, strong and fierce. Analyze. Understand. List. The sound of tearing fabric. That was what it was. She knew it well, having often heard it while visiting Rarity at her boutique. The fabric was fleece, the same material as her blankets back at the castle. The blankets at the castle were white, violet, and blue. This piece looked a pale grey, which in the darkness, was blue’s relative correspondent. To make sure however, she would need light.
In reaching for her lumination spell, Twilight noted that she held traces of stinging magic in her horn. She had ill-cast a spell recently, most likely out of panic. A thread of magic came into being, and as she pulled on it, her room became alight in her soft magenta aura. In the time it took for her eyes to adjust, she had lit the candles and lamps scattered around her room. Looking about it, she quietly noted that the floor was covered in shreds of fabric. Shreds of fabric in white, violet, and blue. Her gaze slid up to her bed. Her sheets were dishevelled, and lilac feathers were stuck through the bottom cover in some spots. Her blankets were missing.
I shredded my blankets. Perhaps it was odd that such a thought as this calmed her down, but it did. It was a fact, a nice, logical, fact. They must have tangled around me in my sleep, Twilight reasoned, her breath slowing even further as she traced the words to her new fact in her mouth. Her mouth was terribly dry, now that she thought about it. I shredded my blankets out of panic, because they tangled around me in my sleep, and I couldn’t move, She tried this one out as well, but it was missing something. I needed to move. This addition moved her closer, but she still hadn’t caught it quite yet. I needed to move… Because of the nightmare.
That was it. The last piece. Her breath halted, then stuttered, and she gasped quite audibly as she struggled to gain control of herself again. The fear was back. If, that is, it had ever truly left. She had never had a dream as vivid as that. It still stuck in her mind, like a gory branding, waiting for her the second she closed her eyes. She could still remember it perfectly, and her fur ruffled as she remembered every sensation as well. She hadn’t been aware you could feel pain in dreams, but she had. It felt muted in her mind now, like it had faded away into something like an old bruise, but it had still undeniably been there.
Twilight began to repeatedly fold and unfold her wings, just to give her mind something else to do. Her feathers refused to sit flat, and for once she was grateful for being so unused to her wings. Letting her wings rest unfolded for a moment, she pulled the curtains away from her balcony, and pushed the doors open.
Starlight streamed down into her room, and she followed it out onto the white marble to look up at the constellations that decorated the heavens above. Her breath was fogging in the air, strangely bright against the black sky. They must have had a frost overnight. Twilight hoped it was because of some wacky weather management, and not because another Ice Shifter had gotten in somehow.
She could breathe now. It almost felt easy, in the brisk air among the stars. She could almost let go. A breeze blew by, bringing the thick scent of rain along with its nipping chill. It was going to storm soon. No, Twilight corrected herself, as she finally noted how unusually cold the marble underneath her hooves was. It already has.
That would explain why her guards hadn’t come barging into her room during her panic attack. The ones by her door probably had their hooves full with a terrified Fluttershy down the hall, and so they most likely simply hadn’t heard Twilight’s scream. Which was, really, a good thing, if she thought about it. As much as she would like to think otherwise, in her blind panic, she might have lashed out at one of them with her magic in a convoluted sense of self-defense. The current state of her blankets was proof enough of that.
Reason was back. She felt it come back with each breath that she watched fog in the quiet night. It was all just a nightmare, Reason said, prim and proper. It still hurts, Twilight replied, her voice like a foal’s in comparison. It was a bad dream, and it can’t hurt you, Reason stated, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Twilight blinked, letting her eyes clear of tears, unsure and uncaring where they had come from. The stars above her were so very bright, even though she could feel dawn just a few hours off. A gentle knock rang out from far off behind her, her bedroom door opening a minute later.
“Your Highness?”
Silver Shield, one of Luna’s old guards- She’d know his voice from anywhere.
“Are you alright?”
Twilight looked down, eyelashes blocking out the stars above as her eyes tried to slide shut. She wouldn’t let them. As she thought over Silver’s gentle question, Reason’s simple statement came to mind once more.
It was a bad dream, and it can’t hurt you.
Too late, Twilight thought bitterly, and she somehow found it in herself to shake her head; To not be as proud and strong as her mentor had.
The gentle click of horseshoes against wood came forward as Silver Shield walked to her side, the soft scent of mint tea following him in. A dark grey wing found a way to pull her into a hug, and Twilight found herself very glad somewhere deep down that Celestia had always been so informal.
Silence hung in the air for a few long minutes, the stars just twinkling gently in their indescribable canopy above. Finally, Silver Shield broke the silence again, his voice as every bit as soft as it has been before.
“Do you want to come sit with us until dawn?”
“Yes please.”
“Some of that mint tea would be nice too.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
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2659364
...
Someone needs to write that.
Oh snap!
It updated again!
I wonder... Will we see what Chrysalis is up to? Or Discord, for that matter?
~Skeeter The Lurker
I enjoyed this chapter and the way you have written it immensely. The entire nightmare sequence was like watching a train wreck; you knew it was going to be bad, but not on what scale. The singular titles you had for each shift held excruciating anticipation for what came after. The transition was seamless. Her reactions predictable, yet already a foregone conclusion. The events immutable; lucid. I would be petrified of that kind of nightmare.
I do nitpick one detail. She should be thoroughly drenched in her own sweat after something that traumatic.
I do love the exchange between her and Silver. Short; sweet.
Dangit! I already thumbed this up...very well written dream sequence, scary images are SCARY! Even sitting in my well-lit room. Congratulations, have
and an internet!
Think you mean runes
2659369
I'm getting a 3 stooges vibe myself.
2659544
I thought of that too, to be honest, but then I wasn't sure how that would work with fur...
2660518
If you're referring to Black magic, then it is certainly not without a "terrible amount of difficulty"
The only reason Chrysalis had been able to pull it off is because of the MASSIVE amount of magic she had gathered from Shining. Pretty much the only other sentient creatures capable of just having the massive amount of raw power and talent to pull off any kind of curse (and even then a deadly one may be out of their range) are the alicorns and the draqonequi.
And I do believe Discord has too much honor to stoop that low.
Just some interesting backstory for my universe :3
I'm not sure if it's a formatting error or something, but at the very bottom of this chapter the margins for the text changed.
This isn't the first time I noticed this either. A couple of times in the last chapter the spacing in the text shifted a little. It's a little wonky, but altogether not too distracting.
Now that that's out of the way, nice little fluff chapter.
2661293
It's probably a formatting error, I've been having issues with the coding lately- it isn't cooperating, and if it isn't a glaring error I usually let it slide rather than fight with it for another hour.
Oh man. That nightmare sounds really bad, I don't even want to experience something like that.
However, I had this one dream where I got shot in the chest by a gun. Now mind you, I didn't die, so I must have been wearing some sort of bullet proof piece of clothing in the dream. But what was really scary and weird about it was that I could feel a little bit of soreness in the spot where I got hit in the chest in the nightmare once I woke up. It scared the crap out of me.
Oh, and the part between Twilight and Silver Shield was really sweet. Loved it!
~ Super-Brony12
2662713
The human mind is a powerful thing. It can make you feel things that aren't there and make you not feel things that really are. Studies have shown that simply because a person believes they are getting medicine when really they are receiving a placebo their body can still undergo changes as if they were really being affected by the drug. This includes substances used for small simple things such as cold medicine or viagra, or even medications that do more complicated things such as birth control or even chemotherapy. The Matrix was not very wrong when they said the body cannot survive without the mind.
Well, that was cute and all; but it barely sated my thirst. I demand more. Soon.
2663284 I am afraid you are quite incorrect in assuming the body cannot live without the higher functions of the cortical brain regions.
I have seen people with only a brain stem, midbrain, and a few vestiges of cortex still functioning kept alive for decades.
So long as the physiological regulatory centers still function, the body still lives. It cannot feed itself, nor do anything other than maintain cardiorespiratory rhythms and the main aspects of endocrine and metabolic regulation, but it does not simply die if the conscious mind is destroyed.
You mistakenly assume the ability of the mind to induce regulatory changes in the body through the release of certain neurochemical factors initiating various physiological effects for the inability of the body to function without such control. If that were true, how could simple organisms with tiny brains capable of only instinct and very basic learning survive?
The last two lines are a bit screwed up there.
Ok, I'm not sure how I forgot about this fic or why I didn't add it to my favourites so I could follow it when I first read it. Because it's good, and I found it interesting. The only reason I found it again was because someone replied to a comment I made a long while back. Like, chapter 7/8 back xD But that mistake has been fixed. Now I am tracking it and will know when it updates.
2661293
I actually thought it had been on purpose xD
2664115
Again, someone needs to write that.
2664100
They're not screwed up, I did that deliberately.
Because I can. And I like it like that.
2666746, Okay interesting. Logical argument is very sound there.
I'm trying to com up with a well articulated critique of this chapter, but it just keeps degenerating into "very well done".
I am reasonably certain (by which I mean only slightly) that most vertebrates, including ponies, have iron-based blood
A couple things here: first, you don't capitalize after a semicolon (except proper nouns), and second, it should be a comma here, not a semicolon
2666746 Are... Are you joking? I can't tell (this is why we need a sarcasm font!)
2668125
*facepalms*
Have you ever smelled blood?
Especially when it's slightly off?
It reeks of old copper. It's a scent and taste that just congeals in your throat and on your tongue.
And the last two lines that are arranged on the right side of the page are done so deliberately.
And for the fifth time, you're supposed to PM me those.
2668411
But from what I'm seeing here, they're each word-wrapping to the next line, thereby ruining the effect I think you're going for.
Apparently, you just hit space until it looked right. Is there an align right option anywhere in the editing area?
2670481
There is not.
Every word document out there has one, but this site does not, it seems.
Edit: I only realized now what you meant by word-wrapping, and suddenly I'm all "Oh. So that's why people were saying it's screwed up." It looks right on my screen, and no-one had elaborated so I never realized that there was something actually amiss. I'll shift them a bit to the left, and hopefully that'll correct it.
2668411 Damnit! Sorry I keep forgetting
can't wait this is one of my fave stories
give me more
2661129
If you've ever seen a horse after a long hard run on a hot and humid summer day, you'll have a pretty good idea.
That was so awesome I am about cry.
. I will give it three yays, three mustaches, and three hearts, oh and one Angel: 
