I'd Only Dream Of You

by Silent Whisper

Moonrise

I awoke the next evening to a strange, eerie silence.

“Captain?” I called out immediately, fumbling for Doctor’s hoof. I could have sworn he’d fallen asleep right next to… no, no, if I’d fallen asleep, he was probably making it back to me.

The sheets felt different. Tighter, somehow, wrapped around my hooves. I kicked at them, but they stubbornly refused to unwind. “Captain Ferros?” I yelled again, struggling against them. Why was it so dark? Had I slept past sunset? I never slept that late, but it had been quite the wonderful night.

There was no reason to panic, I told myself. None whatsoever.

… but Captain Ferros was always there.

“HELP!” I shrieked, flinging myself upwards, beating my wings. They felt wrong, far too heavy. Had a blanket caught on them? I felt my sheets R-I-I-I-P loudly, falling away into shreds, but they felt so far away. Everything felt too far away, and too high up.

I bolted for the door, missing the frame by a few inches that shouldn’t have been inches at all and raced down the stairs.

The dining room was empty. That most certainly was not right. Where was the food? Where was the kitchen staff? Had something happened to them? I found myself wishing that I had learned their names.

“CAPTAIN?” I raced for the throne room. Perhaps my sister had called him away for something important. Was he hurt? Did the Doctor ask for his assistance? The Doctor wasn’t still him, was he?

I burst into the throne room, my hoofsteps echoing louder than I’d expected. I stumbled, blinking into the gentle light shining from the window. It was my moon, of course, and it was beautiful.

Standing in that light was my Captain. He wasn’t looking at me, nor was he moving. He simply stood, one hoof on the dais, staring up at the night sky. He did not appear to be alarmed, which calmed my racing heart somewhat. It was going to be okay, I thought. He would have the answers, and a reasonable explanation.

“Highness,” he said quietly, but there was an edge to his voice that I did not recognize.

I felt only relief. “Oh, Captain, I have been looking for you everywhere. Where is everypony? Did something-”

He turned around to look at me, and his eyes widened slightly. I’d seen him give me many looks underneath that helmet, but fear had never been one of them. Neither, I noted with no shortage of alarm, had anger.

“Have you ever considered what happens to the ponies that your precious Doctor borrows when they awaken the next morning? Most of them don’t have the luxury of guessing what happened during the strange gap in their memory.” He straightened, head tilting up to meet mine, and I idly wondered if he’d gotten shorter. “I almost wish that I were among them, Highness. Ignorance would have been far better.”

I felt lost in a way that I hadn’t felt since I first ascended to the throne. “You returned to your home, just as the others do, did you not?”

“I did. I woke up in my bed smelling of you, Highness.” He took a slow, measured breath out. “My husband noticed, and I wish I could have honestly told him that I had no idea what happened, and why your scent was where it was.”

“Oh.” I was unsure about how best to respond to that. An apology, perhaps, but he of all ponies knew that my Doctor couldn’t help who he became. I could have waited, in retrospect, for somepony else to have taken his place, but he’d never mentioned hearing about such troubles before, and I hadn’t thought about it until then.

“But you could explain it,” I said, and there was a renewed hope in my heart. “And you know that he cannot help it. His actions, yes, and we will be more careful in the future.” I couldn’t stop the relieved laugh that came with my realization. “Is that why everypony is missing? You let me oversleep, and now everypony has already gone to bed. Captain, I understand your frustration, but-”

“I’m not your Captain,” Ferros shouted, stomping a hoof down in front of my throne. “I resigned my post the moment we realized the moon never set. I thought I could reason with you, show you how you were hurting ponies, but-”

“Hurting ponies?” That was too far. “I’ve done nothing of the sort! They avoid me, Ferros, or they treat me like I either know everything or nothing! These past years I’ve been happier than I have ever been in my life, and yet-”

“And yet you’ve missed how your carelessness has hurt others! Look at tonight!” He gestured out the window at my beautiful moon, then at me. “Look at yourself! Your ignorance has made a monster of you, Luna, and you can’t even see what you’ve become.”

I felt a tingling in my horn, and my head buzzed with anger. “I deserve to be happy,” I said slowly, and my voice sounded far away, and loud, and I did not care. “I found the one pony that loves me for who I am, somepony who hasn’t set me aside, and you will not take that away from me.”

“Your Highness…” he said, and there was real fear in his voice now. Good. He called me a monster for wanting something, somepony for myself. “I’m certain he doesn’t mean it, but you’re both hurting ponies, other relationships, by being together. Surely you can see how dangerous-”

“DO NOT TOUCH HIM!” I snarled, and launched myself towards my former captain, vision blurring then sharpening all at once. He barely dodged to the side in time, and my hooves cracked the stone at the foot of my throne. “HE ISN’T DANGEROUS, AND I AM HAPPY FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!”

Panting, Ferros held up an armored hoof. One of his other hoofguards had fallen off, and his mane was in disarray. “Highness, I’m not saying his existence is dangerous,” he said quickly, and I could have sworn that he was trembling. “You both need to reconsider how you are affecting other ponies.” He gave me a smile that was halfway to a grimace, and his eyes pleaded with me.

“You could begin by lowering the moon.”

I wheeled around to the familiar voice. So my sister had come to lecture me too, then? “Why should I?” I snapped, and the tingling in my horn burned against the groves. My magic had never felt like that before. It had never felt so… alive. “Why can’t my happiness last without somepony ruining it?”

“It’s not about you, nor your happiness,” Celestia said coldly, in a tone I’d only ever heard when she was rebuking a noble. She was talking down at me, still? How dare she?

I laughed, my magic humming in my ears, growing to a dull roar. “Why can’t it be? Why can I not have ONE THING for myself without somepony taking it away? You can’t take this from me, Celestia. Nopony can.”

If I never lowered the moon, I’d never have to sleep again. My Doctor could always be with me.

My night, I thought as power that I never knew I’d had surging through my veins, could last forever.

“Don’t make me stop you,” I thought I heard my sister whisper. Ferros, my Captain, took a deliberate hoofstep towards her. To be at my sister’s side.

That traitor. I trusted him, I trusted him with everything, and he chose her.

Instead of me.

I screamed, my horn lighting with the raw force of my anger, and a beam of brilliant light sliced through the moonlit dust.

I would crush them all. I deserved to be happy, we deserved to be together, my Doctor and I, and nopony would stand in our way. It didn’t have to end. None of this had to end.

My sister’s mouth moved as she watched Ferros sail past her, but I couldn’t hear anything. The pony I thought was almost my friend hit the wall, and I watched passively as he crumpled to the ground. His resistance was useless, for there was nothing worth resisting. There was only my night, and those who tried to put a stop to it would fall.

Ferros would come around, or he wouldn’t, but my sister… she had turned back to me, her mouth moving in helpless rage that the pulse of my magic drowned out. I used to be afraid of the very sight of her anger, but now I only felt a grim determination. She’d always stood in the way of my happiness. She had no difficulty being respected. She was never alone. I wouldn’t let her take my only source of joy, the only pony who loved me and chose me-

My Doctor. I blinked, and the moon shone brighter. Where was he? Had he appeared far away? Was he on his way? I couldn’t wait to show him that we could be together for as long as he wanted, finally, and he’d never have to wake up as somepony else again.

Celestia struck me in my moment of distraction, and I skidded across the floor, the sound of my perfect night the only noise I made.

“You think you can stop me?” I scoffed, my own voice as loud as thunder.

I saw her lips form the word “No,” and then some other words. A plea for mercy? A surrender? It didn’t matter. I didn’t trust her. I couldn’t. Not when she stood in my way.

My energy surged as I flapped my wings, rising with my back to the moon, my shadow overtaking my sister. She looked so small, even as she pulled something from her bags, and I knew in that moment I’d never need to fear her again.

The nameless spell erupted from my horn just as the items she’d brought with her lit up like the sun’s agonizing light, and for a moment, I could hear something.

It was the sound of my sister, crying.

I felt an eternal moment of agony, as though I were being torn out of myself, and then there was silence once more.