A Nightmare in Ponyville
A/N: This story is horror themed, and gets a little bit darker than most of the Side Projects.
~~*~~
Sunflower was standing on the doorstep, looking up at her with concern etched on her face. “You sure you’ll be alright, Rainbow?"
“Yeah, of course!” Rainbow Dash said with a laugh as she hovered in the air outside of her friend’s cottage. The laugh sounded a little squeaky, so she cleared her throat and slapped on her best cocky grin. “Those movies weren't so bad.”
“Really?” Sunflower tilted her head and gave her a look that, frankly, got on Rainbow’s nerves just a little. “You seemed a little freaked out a couple of times, there.”
“What?” Dash recoiled at the thought, then rolled her eyes and waved a hoof. “Pfft! Nah. Nah! I wasn’t freaked out. Not at all. That was kid’s stuff.”
“Okay, Rainbow. I believe you.” Though her tone said that maybe she didn’t, not really. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you were, though. Those movies made it nearly impossible for me to fall asleep for almost a month.”
“Ha, you’re a laugh riot, Sunflower.” Rainbow ruffled her friend’s mane, mussing it up right behind the horn. “I wanted you to show me something scary, remember? Besides, it takes a lot more than that to scare me!”
“Alright, I got it,” the sort-of alicorn said, grinning and rolling her eyes. “I’ll try to find something scarier for next time.”
“You do that,” Rainbow said. Then her jaw cracked in a yawn. “Ugh, I gotta get home and go to bed. Early day tomorrow; morning showers scheduled just after sunup.”
“Okay, Dash. Thanks for hanging out with me tonight!”
“You bet! And thanks for the movies!”
Dash waved a hoof at her friend and flew off into the night. She kept her speed down and tried to look casual. There was no need for her to rush, not with Sunflower watching. She didn't want to make her friend feel bad about her lack of flying skill, after all. No need to rub it in.
Once the cottage was out of sight, though, Rainbow picked up the pace. Not because it was pitch dark out, but because there was just no reason to stay outside any longer than needed. After all, she was tired and wanted to get to bed. It had nothing to do with the darkness pressing in all around her.
She beat her wings a little faster. Just because she was in a hurry to get to bed, that’s all.
And the relieved sigh she heaved once she closed the door to her cloud house behind her was just because she was happy to be home so she could finally get some sleep. Not because she was scared, or anything. Definitely not.
What was there to be scared of? Nothing, that’s what! Definitely not some stupid movies!
Oh, and leaving the hall light on when she got into bed was just an accident. Really. She’d just forgotten to turn it off. She was too tired to get up and do it now. It’s not like it was bothering her as she snuggled down into her bed. And if she got up in the middle of the night to pee or something, having the light on would stop her from bumping into stuff.
Yeah, lots of reasons to leave the light on, none of which had anything to do with the stupid movies.
In fact, she was so not scared, that she tossed and turned in bed for almost another hour reminding herself just how not scary it was.
“It’s impossible, for one,” Rainbow said to her pillow. “Stuff like that doesn’t happen. And the special effects were... okay, better than any Equestrian movie, I’ll give ‘em that, but I’ve seen better just in Sunflower’s collection. And what kind of a stupid name is Freddy Krueger, anyway?”
Feeling much better—though honestly, she never actually felt bad in the first place—Rainbow drifted off to sleep.
And to dreams.
~~*~~
“Alright, you squeakers! I want twenty laps out of each of you!”
The assembled pegasus colts and fillies started moaning, prompting Coach Rightwing to bellow, “And no whining about it, or it’s thirty!”
Grumbling, the young pegasi started making their laps around the field, which was a large oval area made entirely of clouds. Rainbow Dash was hit by a wave of nostalgia as she looked around. She hadn’t been back to Sunrise Elementary in Cloudsdale for years. School itself hadn't been fun, but she had loved physical education, and she had loved this cloud field. It was where she got to show what she was made of, after all. Not like the rest of the school, where the teachers had a hard time recognizing her awesomeness.
She wandered around the center of the oval, which was still marked off for a hoofball game. The young pegasi were bobbing uncertainly around the track, with a couple of them having reached their wing's limit and having to walk. There wasn't a cloud in the sky that wasn't supposed to be there, the sun was warm and cheery, and the cool breeze kept it from getting too hot to exercise comfortably.
Now, if only she could remember why she'd come back here. Was it for an award, or something? Some sort of "You're so awesome and we're glad you went to our school" type thing? She couldn't remember, but she had a feeling that it was important.
“Dash!” Coach Rightwing shouted, making her jump. “Get your prismatic behind in gear, or I swear I’ll—”
“But coach,” Rainbow protested, “I graduated years ago!”
“It didn’t count!” the grizzled brown pegasus roared.
Dash was outraged. That wasn’t fair! “Why not?!”
“Because you’re out of uniform! Where’s your jersey, filly?”
“We never had to wear jerseys!” Dash said, stomping a hoof.
“New rule! And you never wore one, so your graduation doesn't count!”
Dash wanted to protest, but a horrid realization started creeping up on her. She really didn’t have her jersey on! Rightwing was... well, right! She looked up into the coach’s eyes and froze at what she saw.
There was a mean glint in his gaze that she had never seen before. Rightwing had been loud, he’d been stern, but he’d never been cruel. Right then, though, he looked like a stallion that wanted to hurt her. She took an involuntary step back from him, and then a second when his muzzle split into a tooth-filled grin that seemed just a little too sharp to belong to a pony.
“You gonna go and get your gear, filly?” he grated. “Or am I gonna have to..?”
He trailed off, and Dash’s imagination began filling in the things he might do to ‘motivate’ her.
“I’m going!” Dash yelped, backing even further away. “Wait, where am I going?”
“You know where,” he said. A wing jutted out and pointed at something behind her. Dash turned just as the sun went behind some clouds, casting the entire field into shadow.
Ahead of her, set into the cloud wall itself, was a dark hallway leading down. For a second, Dash was confused. She was pretty sure that hadn’t been there a minute ago. And she really didn’t like the look of it. It looked a little too much like the throat of a dragon for her tastes.
A group of foals zipped between her and the tunnel, and Dash realized they were all chanting something that she couldn’t quite make out. She shook her head, trying to shake the sense of growing unease that she was feeling.
“Are you sure it’s in there?” Dash asked the coach. He didn’t answer. She turned to look at him just as a stray beam of light broke through the clouds and struck his eyes, turning them into burning red embers for just a second.
“Yes,” he grated. “You don’t want to be a bad filly... do you, Rainbow Dash?”
“N-no,” Dash said, walking backwards away from him. “No, I don’t. I’ll get it.” She no longer remembered what “it” was. She just knew that she had to get away from this pegasus.
She turned and fled towards the tunnel. As she approached, another group of foals passed in front of her. These were moving slowly, almost drifting, and their forms were blurry and indistinct. Dash caught just shreds of what they were chanting.
“One, two... coming for you...”
A horrifyingly familiar laugh sounded from behind her, and Rainbow Dash ran for all she was worth. It wasn’t until she stumbled and slid down at a sharp angle that she realized that she was in that tunnel.
A feeling like ice washed over her as she looked around. Bricks. What were red bricks doing in Sunrise Elementary? Cloudsdale didn’t use bricks to build things!
Her train of thought was interrupted by a loud, deep thrumming coming from down the slope of the tunnel. She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat and looked back the way she’d come, just in time to see a pair of rusted iron doors slamming shut, blocking out the sunlight.
She yelped and jumped in shock as the loud clang of the doors echoed down the dark tunnel, folding her ears down tightly against her skull. A certainty overcame her at that point: she wasn’t going to get back out that way. The only way was forward.
Forward, and downward.
“Be like Daring Do,” Rainbow whispered to herself as she walked into the gloom. “What would she do?” She considered the question seriously for a few seconds, then snorted. “She’d get stuck in a trap or something.”
Rainbow eyed the brickwork around her, her situation sinking in. “But she’d get out of it again,” she said resolutely. “And I can too.”
Shoring up her courage, Rainbow Dash headed onwards into the uncertain depths below.
There wasn’t much light. What little there was seemed to be coming from the air itself. But as she got lower, the nature of the light changed, becoming tinged with red and shadow, the color of drying blood. The air changed, too. It was getting hotter, more humid. Sweat prickled her coat as she descended further down.
The deep bass thrum she’d heard earlier was getting louder, pulsing like a heartbeat. When she finally reached the bottom of the hallway, it was so loud it was almost hurting her. The hallway opened up into a room, veiled in swirls of darkness and areas of glowing red. She recognized it in a flash of icy terror.
A boiler room. Cloudsdale didn’t have boiler rooms, at least none that looked like this. Not made of metal, fire and darkness. She took a step back, unwilling to step forward into the room below.
The thrumming stopped with a suddenness that stole the breath from her in a loud gasp. A few seconds passed with Rainbow straining her ears, rotating them around and trying to hear something, anything. It was too quiet, it was getting on her nerves.
And then she heard something. The squeal of metal on metal. Her heart jumped into her throat.
The sound had come from behind her. From the hallway.
And it was coming closer.
For the second time, Rainbow Dash ran forward in a panic. The thrumming started again, though not as loudly. It was faster now, too, matching her heartbeat.
And then the laughter started. Laughter with an edge to it. A mean sound, the sound of a creature that enjoyed the fear that it was causing.
Behind her. It was behind her. She ran faster, dodging chains and pipes, her hooves slipping on the damp metal floor. Whatever it was, she was Rainbow Dash, and there was no way it could be faster than her. She could outrun anyone. Or anything, for that matter. It was only a matter of—
Dash ran into something in the semi-darkness, the impact knocking the breath out of her. A figure moved in front of her, a shape made of shadow and fear. She yelped, scrambling backwards as the figure in the shadows moved forward.
“Are you quite well, Rainbow Dash?” the figure asked.
Dash gaped at the familiar voice as the form in front of her resolved into a familiar pony.
“Princess Luna?!” she blurted out, feeling both massive confusion and relief.
“Indeed,” the Princess said. She looked around her with a frown. “‘Tis a most interesting dreamscape that you have woven, Miss Dash. Wherever did you gain the inspiration?”
“It... movies. Sunflower. She... It's from a movie series,” Rainbow said, feeling lame. She got back to her hooves and looked around her frantically. “There’s something else here, Princess. Something dangerous. It came out of that series, somehow. It’s going to kill me!”
“Calm yourself, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said gently. “Nothing shall harm you here, you have our word.”
Rainbow took a deep, shuddering breath, held it, and then blew it out. “If you say so, Princess Luna.”
She already felt better. Luna smiled at her, a serene smile that assured her that nothing bad could ever happen. Rainbow believed it, too. She started to relax. And then a spear of jagged metal burst out of the front of Luna’s chest, just under her breastplate, spattering the front of Rainbow’s face with gore.
A raspy chuckle sounded from behind the stricken Princess, who was looking at the rusted metal jutting from her chest with what looked like mild curiosity. Rainbow’s jaw worked in mute horror, her brain unable to process what it was that had just happened. Her hooves were rooted to the ground, almost as if they were welded to the metal underneath her.
A figure stepped out from behind the Princess, a figure wearing a ragged black and red striped sweater and a battered brown fedora above his horribly scarred face. His mouth was stretched in a sadistic grin, his eyes glittering with malice as he stepped around Luna, his movements graceful and sure, almost as if he were dancing.
“How sad,” Freddy said, affecting a look of sympathy as he moved to stand in front of the impaled Princess. “You thought you were saved.” The false sympathy fell away, replaced by a feral grin as he waggled the knife-tipped fingers of his gloved hand. “Nothing will save you, filly. Your Princess is dead. You’re mine now.”
He moved towards her, raising the leather glove with its cruel knives. Dash couldn’t move, paralyzed by the demonic human’s eyes like a mouse frozen by a snake. Freddy chuckled and moved closer.
“That is not accurate,” a calm voice said from behind him. “In fact, that is quite wrong on both counts.”
Freddy froze, the grin draining from his features like water from a bath. Behind him, Princess Luna stepped forward. She was whole and healthy, no sign of the injury that Dash had been sure had killed her. Freddy spun towards her.
“That’s not possible,” he spat, sounding angry. “If you die in a dream, you die!”
“Another falsehood,” Luna said. Rainbow would have traded a year’s wages to feel half as calm as the Princess sounded right then. “A pony dies when they die. Dreams have nothing to do with it.”
The knife-handed demon roared in outrage, charging the Princess and slashing at her. Red, gaping wounds formed that, though horrific, closed instantly.
“Rainbow Dash, are you going to continue allowing this?” Luna asked her, ignoring the shrieking beast that was attacking her.
“P-princess? I don’t... Allow?”
“This is your dream, Rainbow Dash. Everything that happens here, happens in your mind.” Luna looked down at Freddy, a small frown on her face. The nightmare creature was plunging his knives repeatedly into her neck at that moment. “Stop that.”
“Rrragh!” he screamed, moving to stab at her shoulder.
“But.. this... Isn’t this real?” Rainbow gestured with a hoof, taking in the boiler room, the chains, the ranting maniac with the cutlery attached to his fingers. “I didn’t make this up!”
“No?” Luna asked. “Then, pray tell me, where did you first see it?”
“A movie,” Dash said weakly, confused by the current events. “My friend Sunflower... Erin... she had these movies. I told her I could handle it. I should have listened to her when she said it might be too much! And now it’s all coming true!”
“Yes, that’s right!” Freddy shrieked.
“You are telling me that this is real... because you saw it in one of those moving pictures?” Luna asked, and just like that Rainbow Dash felt a twinge of uncertainty. “Was the moving picture real? Was it based in any way upon real events?”
“No,” Dash whispered, looking around in confusion. She’d already known this place couldn’t exist in Cloudsdale, and now the absurdity of the situation was becoming clear to her.
“Shut up!” Freddy roared, slashing even more furiously at the Princess. “I’ll tear your tongue out and choke you with it!”
Luna knocked him away with a casual clip from her wing and he went sprawling, his knives sparking across the floor.
“This is Rainbow Dash?” Luna asked, arching a delicate eyebrow. “This is the Rainbow Dash who faced countless dangers to save Equestria from the very real threats of Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis and Discord? This same Rainbow Dash who fears a phantom drawn up by her own mind?”
Rainbow’s cheeks burned with shame and embarrassment. “No.” She cleared her throat, then said it more firmly. “No!”
“Does Rainbow Dash run from danger?” Luna asked. “Does she fear creatures that only exist in her own dreams?”
“No!” Rainbow shouted, stomping the ground with a hoof. A groan sounded to her left, and her head snapped around, eyes narrowing as she saw the burned and evil creature that was pulling himself upright.
The scream that exploded from Rainbow Dash at that point came from somewhere so deep inside of her, and it burst out so powerfully and so primally, that she was almost sure that she’d ruptured something. She launched herself at the figure, wings spread wide, hitting him square in the chest with both forehooves just as he staggered to his feet.
Freddy went flying, hitting the side of one of the boilers and denting it inwards before sliding to the ground with a ragged gasp of pain. He started pushing himself upwards once again, but Dash was already there.
Rainbow spun in mid air and kicked, sending the dream monster flying once again. But she could fly, too, and she was after him in a flash, hitting him brutally in a downward motion with her front hooves, smashing him down into the ground.
Her momentum carried her past his prone form and she flipped in midair. Her back hooves hit a wall and she kicked herself away, launching herself back the way she’d come, her scream of anger and defiance hitting him just before she did.
Her tackle sent the two of them tumbling head over tail until they rolled to a stop by Luna’s hooves. Rainbow, who’d come out on top, shrieked in fury and began pummeling the creature, calling him every name she could think of.
“Rainbow Dash,” Luna said calmly. “While all of this is impressive, I believe you are missing the point.”
Rainbow stopped hitting the creature below her and blinked in confusion up at the Princess. “What?”
“What is it you believe that you are striking?” Luna asked her.
“Freddy Krueger!” she shot back. “He’s a murderer! He kills people in their dreams!”
“Once, a very long time ago, there were things that would hunt and kill ponies in their dreams. But no longer, Rainbow Dash. They are gone. The last of them that did so died a long, long time ago.”
“But... he...” Rainbow gestured vaguely at the form on the floor under her.
“He is not real,” Luna pointed out. “You are having a nightmare. You may as well be venting your fury on the air itself.”
“Oh.” Rainbow looked down at the figure underneath her. It was no longer recognizable as the same creature from the movie. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she could have sworn it was crying.
Luna placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Let it go, Rainbow Dash. The sooner you do, the sooner you may return to a peaceful sleep.”
Rainbow stood up, her legs shaking. The creature underneath her was dwindling into darkness. She blinked once, and it was merely a shadow the size of a foal. She blinked again, and it was gone.
Around her, the boiler room began dissolving like a painting in the rain. Rainbow looked around in confusion. Soon enough, all that was left of the bad dream was a featureless grey landscape containing only Luna and herself.
“It’s over?” she asked.
“Indeed, it is.” Luna smiled at her. “You did well, my little pony.”
“Thank you,” Rainbow said, hugging the Princess. “I was so scared... “ She cleared her throat and pushed herself away from Luna, rubbing a fetlock across her eyes to wipe away the tears. “Not that you need to tell Sunflower about that, you know.”
“Of course not,” Luna assured her. “What happens in a pony’s dreams is the concern of no one else.”
“Thanks.” Rainbow said. Then a thought occurred to her. “Um, Princess?”
“Yes, Rainbow Dash?”
“You said that there used to be things that hunted ponies in their dreams. What happened to them?”
“They encountered me,” Luna said simply.
“Oh. Well, that’s pretty cool,” Rainbow said, impressed. “Uh, can ponies actually die in their dreams?”
Luna chuckled. “If you are asking if a pony can dream that they die, the answer is yes. It happens quite often.”
“What happens when they do?” Rainbow asked nervously.
“Typically, they tend to lie there dreaming thoughts such as, ‘Now that I am dead, whatever shall I do?’ Then, eventually, they wake up.”
Rainbow stared at her for a few seconds before snorting with laughter. “That’s it?”
“That is it,” Luna confirmed, nodding. “Ponies are not quite so easily convinced to simply die, dream or no.”
“Well. That’s a relief. I’ll try to remember that, if I ever have this dream again.”
“I do not believe you shall have this particular dream again, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said. “Fare you well for the rest of your slumber.”
“Thanks, Luna. And, hey, you have a good night, too!”
Luna smiled happily. “Why, thank you! I believe I shall.”
~~*~~
Not even the real gardens of Canterlot were as beautiful as they were in this dream, though they came close. The sky was a perfect shade of blue, the grass was as a green deeper than naturally possible, and the refreshing breeze rustled the leaves and branches of the trees and bushes just enough to be peaceful without being disruptive.
Princess Luna sat at a small table in the garden, watching birds flit from tree to tree as she sipped daintily on an excellent tea. She smiled at the birds’ antics, a feeling of pure bliss flowing through her.
Shadows formed behind her as her attention was focused on the birds. Out of the darkness stepped a bipedal creature, radiating hatred and menace. It wore a ragged sweater, a rumpled hat and a glove designed for causing pain and death. The creature stepped forward silently until it was right behind her wings. It raised the glove, preparing to strike at the base of the Princess’ neck.
“Do you believe that to be wise?” Luna asked calmly, setting her teacup down. The figure behind her froze, then slowly lowered the gloved hand to its side. Luna stood and turned to face it. “Take off that silly mask and face me properly.”
The creature shimmered and collapsed in on itself, resolving into a ball of shadow roughly the size of a pony’s head, tentacles formed of darkness winding out of it and undulating in the air. Where the tentacles passed, they left an oily residue on the dreamscape, a smear of filth hanging in midair.
Luna regarded the smudges with distaste.
“It has been quite some time, Morogheth,” she said to the creature.
“It has, Luna,” Morogheth said, its voice bubbling and rippling like a drowned thing.
“May I ask what you were doing in the dream of one of my subjects?” Luna asked in a tone of voice that those unfamiliar with her might have taken for merely conversational, assuming they missed the icy threads of anger that ran through it.
“I believed you were gone,” the dream-eater said.
“For some time, yes. But I have returned.” Luna narrowed her eyes at the creature before her. “And you have trespassed tonight.”
It retreated, flailing its tentacles. “Peace! Peace, Luna! I thought you were gone... and I was hungry. So very hungry.”
“Hungry? Do you expect me to believe that you held to the Treaty all this time? I doubt that you have gone hungry.” Luna didn’t bother hiding the scorn from her voice.
“Your sister has some influence. And Equestria doesn’t know fear like it used to,” Morogheth replied mournfully. “I have had to subsist on anxieties and uncertainties. But then... Such fear! I couldn’t resist it. And such a perfect way in! It was a perfect form for me to take, a monster that hunts in dreams. Who could imagine such a thing?”
“Perhaps only someone who quite enjoys feeling fear,” Luna said dryly. Her features hardened. “And then you attempted to kill me. Multiple times.”
“It... it was the form I took, Princess! It influenced my mind, made me vicious.”
The dream-eater hovered in the air before her, quivering and shuddering like a worm exposed to sunlight. She studied the creature and considered her course of action carefully. Then, her resolve firming, she drew herself up onto her hind legs. Midnight blue wings spread wide as she drew her power into her. Her eyes glowed with it, flooding the dream garden with a bright, silvery light. When she spoke, her voice reverberated through the dreamscape, causing the entire thing to tremble as if in an earthquake.
“You have violated the Treaty, Morogheth. This shall not happen again.”
The dream-eater’s tentacles shrunk in on itself as it quivered in mortal terror.
“No! No, it won’t! I swear it!” Morogheth whimpered. “Stay your anger, Lady of Dreams! The Treaty of the Dreamrealms remains! I swear, I will not violate it again!” The beast shuddered, then. “And I would not face the Rainbow Dash again. That one frightens me!”
The air hummed, and Luna remained poised to strike. Then, with a sigh, she released her power and dropped back to four hooves once again.
“She is a feisty one. She will fear you no longer.” Luna regarded the filthy thing before her with obvious distaste before waving a dismissive hoof at it. “Do not make me regret my mercy, Morogheth. There will be no further warnings. Go.”
It went, dissolving like smoke on a clear day, and yet managing to leave behind a haze of filth hanging in the air itself. Luna sighed and conjured up a cleansing spell, scouring the residue of the dream-eater’s presence away from her dreamscape. Then she turned back to the garden, sat down and went back to enjoying her tea.
~~*~~
Rainbow Dash lay on her back, sprawled across her bed and deeply asleep. Her breathing was steady and her face serene and composed, with just a hint of a self-satisfied smirk. And, whatever it was she was dreaming about, it certainly wasn’t anything bad.
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Badass Luna is badass.
I wonder how the natives of Equestria will react to all the horrors human´s imagination can give birth (Lovecraft, Clive Barker Stephen King, etc...).
It has been a while since I commented on this story.
When two stories update at the same time, I tend to have second thoughts about leaving a comment. The fact that another story updated by the time I read the previous chapter of this one amplified that.
I'm not sure what to think of this chapter. My thoughts are somewhat unorganized about this one. I do wonder if Morogheth will appear in the official sequel of Sunflower's story though.
Man if Wes Craven movies rile her that bad, hate to see what happens if she reads Stephen King.
AJ must never see/read Cujo.
And Shy the same with Pet Cemetary.
And Pinkie with It.
And Twi with Carrie.
Although, personally, I never had nightmares based on fiction. Only real life.
2981166
Imagine how the humans will react to learning that some of the horrors their imagination gave birth to are effectively real in Equestria
I wonder if the silly idiots will try to wander down over to the human city in the Zebra lands and try to feed on them.
And what the eventual results might be.
nice chapter but i think you should had waited until october
also the first time of the Freddy vs luna i have ever seen i dont know why there is not more
Interesting chapter. There are some existing horror movies that I'd definitely not show to any pony, even Luna herself, if they were real.
2981166
They'll be bored since it's so closely based on real life?
2981275 No kidding
2981275
Actually it isn't the first time someone has thought of that. Someone made a comic on it http://horsepower.emeraldcoastcomics.net/39 if you wanna take a look.
2981275 2981418 Someone has also made a story about it too.
So monsters powered by fear exist in Equestria, and Earth has fiction that terrifies. That sounds like a bad combination.
Nice chapter!
That was a fun read.
Very interesting. Keep up the great work
I was hoping Luna would be able to beat that nightmare, instead of it being real. Hey, this Morogheth character wouldn't happen to be in any way related to the Nightmare forces that turned Luna into Nightmare Moon, as seen in the official comics, issues 5 through 8? (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to read those comics now.)
I didn't like this. :(
Write something else.
2981266
Luna would eventually find out and most likely kick all sorts of flank. Then again, does this dream treaty cover everyone or just ponies?
And these things feed on fear, using your own nightmares against you. Humans have every creature in Equestria beat by a mile for the most terrifying nightmares. The best we could do is use a dreamcatcher and pray for the best while people keep dying in their sleep.
Someone needs to show Luna the Neil Gaiman Sandman comics. She'd probably love them.
This was the best Nightmare on Elm Street/My Little Pony crossover I've ever read. And the only such crossover I've ever read. Still the best, though!
2982277
Or, if I'm reading this right, they can feed without killing (note its comments about anxiety and uncertainty), then Humanity could end up as the cheap buffet bar for them. Lord knows we have plenty of fear and uncertainty in our lives, and our media provides even more.
The treaty might end up having to be re-written to include humans on Equestria.
I doubt the little boogers could get loose on Earth (no magical field) but what about Harmony? If it's settled by a mix of ponies and humans, the most logical step for Equestria is for it to build its own Gate for direct access to the new colony. And the boogers could get there from Equestria without the need to "change trains" on Earth...
298137
I highly doubt they have c'thulu to worry about... Most of their monsters are rather, tame, compared to our imagination.
I love it when Luna gets to be badass.
Great work.
Heh, so happy to see an update to this fic so soon after last one. Though I did not see the movie in question being used to scare Rainbow Dash coming, it does fit nicely. But yeah, it may not be too long before there will need to be some sort of buffer/limitations of some kind between human and pony culture, if only to ease the ponies into our insane imaginations and other stuff.
*BEEP* *BEEP*
*BEEP*
My lie detector is going NUTS!
2977467 2959118 yes, horses CAN eat meat. However, they are not omnivores nor do they "hunt."
I'm dubious about "CuChullaine O'Reilly" and at the moment I don't find him a credible source.
2981166 And that's why I used this gif when I read that passage during editing:
images.wikia.com/thefanfictionwikiofgtfandphazon/images/9/9d/Luna's_Wrath.gif
2981166
I've never found lovecraft all that scary. Perhaps it's the delivery, but his works always bored me. I even read mountains of madness, and it just kind of stretched on and on with pages upon pages of explicit, worthless detail. It didn't add to the atmosphere, it damn well destroyed it! Bluh.
Though, to be fair, I think Lovecraft could have been scary... if he'd been less detail oriented.
Damn this works perfectly as a one-shot. Well done.
Is Morogheth a relative of Slenderman?
Heh, came out same day. Appropriate.
[youtube=nkYMrG0fDp8]
As somepony would say: This chapter was.....awesoooome!
I am so glad to see you begin working on Sunflower story again, seeing those recent updates made my day, can't wait to read about her exploits as a kinda, sorta alicorn.
Well, this was fun, I am personally immune to horrors, they are quite silly to me, in fact. besides I like to read and watch brutal, dark, gory and scary stories, (You can say I am craxy, but gory elements excite me instead of scaring. )
And I haven't a nightmare for more than 13 years (now I am 18)Maybe Princess Luna is guarding me this whole time (I always thought that she is the best pony. so maybe thats why)
I'm...sorry I don't know who Freddy cougar is...I don't know the movie and I'm only 14...
What if he gets the idea to hitch a ride across the portals, to Earth? Lots of fear there, and no treaty... would the lack of ambient magic on Earth be enough to prevent him from moving to greener pastures? Yer makin' me nervous, man!
Not as dark as I was expecting given the warning. And this bit right here:
was just hilarious. Rainbow Dash is not a complicated pony.
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Personally, I enjoy Lovecraft's imagination, but I agree, he's not very scary to modern-day readers. His horror is primarily centered around how huge and uncaring the universe is and, if you were born after 1960 or so, you probably learned those facts in elementary school.
The only one of his stories that got even close to getting under my skin was "The Rats in the Walls". (Warning for the easily-offended: The story was written in the 1920's, so the main character's cat has a racist name. Get past that, and it's a good story.)
Nevertheless, the idea that the universe is cold and uncaring when you find yourself separated from the benevolent protection of the Princesses would be something to terrify a pony with, I think.
Oh, and this was a good chapter.
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Oh no, the ideas and imagination are both terrifying, it's the presentation that's lacking. I maintain the most terrifying stories I've ever read are the Raven and the Pit and the Pendulum, which while not as explicit as some of Lovecraft's works in terms of content, are about that same kind of existential fear. He's just... very bland in terms of style.
Interesting idea you have there in Morogheth. I'd really like to see what other nasty baddies you might be able to come up with
"Hay dash so i herd you like daring do will i got something like it its called call of cthulhu im sure you would love it"
At least it didn't involve cupcakes.
Was the you know what any inspiration for this Hoopy? Cause if it was, that would be soooo awesome.
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I'd say make it a double header night, but honestly both movies are too absurd to see in sequence. Somepony would end up in the hospital. Probably Twilight.
wpc.556e.edgecastcdn.net/80556E/img.site/PHvf6lEANnmQyD_3_m.jpg
I imagine Pinkie and Dash would think it's amazing, and the rest would be on that wonderful four-cornered intersection of thrill, hysterics, morbid stupefaction, and "what the pony hell did I just watch?!".
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Yeah it happens. Seen it. They can't digest it hardly at all (rumens don't do well with that), but they do it.
Maybe it's just horse-jonesing. I dunno. "Hey, I wanna eat that bird." "DO IT FILLY"
3006665
What?
This chapter made me laugh so hard...
Freddie: Stab. Stab. Slash. Kill. Stab.
Luna: Nope. Nope. No. Not happening. Nope.
I got a kick out of that one, that's for sure.
What about a good old Norwegian horror to ease the fear?
3007145 But horses aren't ruminants. They only have a single-chambered stomach. Their enlarged cecum is where bacteria act upon cellulosic material, but even then digestion of plant cell walls is incomplete. That's why horse manure has so many viable weed seeds in it.
2984286 They make me enraged. Usually to the point where I rip open the dimensional barriers and slay every evil thing in that universe.
For I am... the Deux Ex Insert!
2986842 Is the universe truly uncaring? Or is the universe merely observing the various parts of life and consciousness it split itself apart into to understand itself?
notentirelystable.com/screenshots/B5%20Season%204/lucifer.PNG
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Derp. You're right.
It wasn't too scary but it was pretty good as a normal story.
It was the fact the reader knew it was a dream from step one and luna a came back a bit too quickly. A bit of a trope but luna 1 could have been a dream also perhaps?
Aahh no, is this gonna be some sort of trauma over Malachite? Ooh, this could be dark :S
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Nope, Rainbow just got introduced to horror movies.