The Dark-Dream Pony

by thesilentpony

Chapter 2

A snap in my head awoke me making me get up. I went over to Onyx shaking him awake and then Night Jasper, shaking him awake as well to not wake up most of the rest of the guard which was sleeping.

We all got up taking a shower and changing back into our armor, we all went to Princess Luna’s room and the guards looked at us tired.

“You are relieved.” They nodded leaving. Onyx and Night Jasper went to the right and left of the door. I knocked on the door.

“Come in!” Princess Luna said with a commanding voice. I walked into the room and she looked at me just barely awake, she was even more breath taking with an unbrushed mane. She had a soft glow about her.

“Good afternoon Princess Luna. We will have to adjust things around here for you, we were not told of your coming, but I’m sure the chefs will be ready and warm the royal bath for you when you’re ready.”

“I will first brush my hair and raise the moon.” I paused floating a brush.

“Excuse me, did I hear you say you will raise the moon?”

“Yes.”

“I see, then shall we go to the celestial chamber first?” She nodded. I went over to her and she moved forward. I started to brush her hair and she smiled. I had always wanted to do this to a princess, but being the night guard that job was left to the maids thanks to Shining Armor and his annoying ways.

“Ah that was pleasant.” She said as her hair started flowing again.

“Now shall we depart?”

“Very well.” I went out the door.

“Have a bath warmed and dinner.” I said quickly. She followed me as we went to the celestial chamber. Princess Celestia was waiting in the center of the room. Large windows showed all the positions of the sun and the moon, as well as all their courses. Wonderful painting adorned the walls of other stars.

“Sister.” Princess Luna said smiling, they embraced each other.

“I am glad you have come, I almost raised the moon again this day.”

“That will be my job, thank you for doing it for me, I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”

“I know my sweet sister.” I looked out the window and the sun set to the west, I looked to the east and the moon started to appear over the horizon bring out a wonderful night glow about the land in a wonderful blue glow.

“I will protect the night, please rest my dearest sister.” She nodded getting up and going over to me.

“Hello Shadow, please take care of my sister.” I bowed.

“Of course Princess Celestia.” She left and I looked at Princess Luna basking in the moon light glowing with magical energy.

“It has been too long since I have seen the night.”

“Shall we depart for the bath? It should be ready.”

“Very well.” She followed me to the royal bath and Onyx and Night Jasper were waiting by the door. I walked pass them going over to the bath. The royal bath, I had only seen it a few times, but never with water, it was the size of a large pond, able to fit a hundred ponies comfortably. It had a slight mist to it and a large hot tub sat in the center of the bath.

I put my hoof into the water, it was perfect temperature, hot enough that it would feel great, but not so hot that it would boil. She came next to me and put her hoof in smiling as she went down the stairs into the thigh high water.

“A warm bath, wondrous.” She moved to the hot tub and sat down in it smiling.

“Is there anything you require?”

“No, this is wonderful.” She moaned with pleasure. I walked over to a cabinet and opened it pausing seeing a frightened mare hiding.

“What in the world are you doing in there?”

“Nightmare moon is right there.” She pointed and I paused. I had only heard tales of her, nothing complete, just that she was the mare of the moon, and was the dream seer, she also was responsible for the change of the moon. It was told about it as a filly, but it only ever amounted to a scary story.

“That is Princess Luna, Princess Celestia’s sister, you will respect that. Now if you fear her leave, I will not have you troubling the princess.” I growled and she shook in terror of me, I was one of the most feared warriors ever to exist and all that lived in castle knew this.

I had earned the title, the Shadow Knight from many a night battle. I had even bested Shining armor in battle, cracking his mighty shield and causing him to cough up blood for a week. Princess Celestia had quickly stopped the battle when she saw I intended to kill him, and that was without my magic. It was the same day I had lost to him the title caption of the guard because he proposed to Princess Cadance. I had never been more furious.

“Yes-yes sir.” She ran out of the royal bathroom and I picked up a few towels putting them on my back. I walked across the water to her.

“Whom was that?”

“A fearful maid.”

“Fearful of what?”

“Of me.” I put the towels on a rack. “I have never had patience for others, that has earned me fear sadly.”

“We are the same.” She said in a sad tone, while all her tones were quite powerful and commanding, this one had a soft sad tone to it.

“Princess she was only a filly, do not let a silly filly get you down.” She smiled a little. “I promise it will be fine once ponies get to know you.” She smiled.

“This pleases us!” I nodded turning to leave. “Ah, wait.”

“Yes?” I asked.

“Don’t leave, we were lonely far away, we do not wish to be alone, again.”

“I will stand here for as long as you like, and keep you company.” She smiled and my heart leapt. No matter how I looked at her she was wonderful. Truly and without a doubt the Mare of the Moon, a beautiful gem of the night.

She finished and I used the towels to dry her off, hesitating for only a moment before cleaning her whole body. While a decency barrier covered her body, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to sense the feeling of drying that part of her.

“To the dining hall?”

“We need to go to the mare room, and then we may go to the dining hall.” We walked and I made an invisible bridge allowing her to walk across the main part of the pool to the hallway and I went to the front and Onyx and Night Jasper went behind her to the right and left. I went into the restroom looking around for a moment before coming out.

“Please.” She went inside and I looked around.

“Enjoying the job?” Night Jasper asked with a plain expression.

“I can see why Shining Armor hired so many maids.” Both of them chuckled. I now understood why Shining Armor hired to many maids, he didn’t want to become a maid himself to Princess Celestia, which I had never thought of as having needs.

“Not as glorious as you thought?” Onyx asked.

“I didn’t think I would be her maid, so no. Also remember to ready the dream chamber, I have a feeling we may go to it.”

“Dream chamber?” Night Jasper asked.

“Yes, that one dark moon which only lights up at night, do you remember it? It was dusty the last time we went there.”

“I'll alert the maids.” Onyx said running. He came back as she came out, and we went to the dining hall.

Like every room this one was large, with a massive table, painting and art donned the walls, only four doors were in the room, one on each side and two which lead into the kitchen that swung to open. Food was already resting on plates ready. I pulled out a large chair and she sat down, I moved it forward. I made a dark orb over the food and scanned it for a moment heating it. “It is safe Princess Luna.”

She started to eat and I looked at Night Jasper and Onyx, they were at both doors, quite far from each other. While we had never done this more than a few times, we were still very adept at it.

We were the only colts which had seen full battle on distant battle lines, it was also the reason we were the night guard. We had protected Princess Celestia from more attacks than I dare count without any pony knowing about it, well except for Princess Celestia which always awoke worried about us.

“We are done.” She said finishing the food.

“Then would you like to head to the dream chamber?” She looked at me as I pulled her chair out.

“We would.” She got off and I stomped my hoof making a bell ring in the kitchen. She followed me as Onyx came over to us.

“Sir,” Onyx said. “We have a delay with the dream chamber, it would seem a column collapsed from age, it will take an hour for a replacement to be moved into place. They have to gather several unicorns to lift the heavy piece. It is clean, but till the column is put into place it might not be safe.”

“Our dream chamber is broken?!” Princess Luna said with annoyance in her voice.

“I’m sorry my princess.” He said bowing.

“It is not thou’st fault.”

“Take me to the column, Night Jasper, please take the long way and show the princess the painting room while I take care of this please.”

“Right this way Princess Luna.” She followed him out of the room and I followed Onyx out of the room going to the court yard summoning area. Magic letters were carved into the stone, we took most things by mass teleport, and it normally require seven unicorns or one alicorn.

“Sir?!” One of two unicorns said bowing.

“What is the delay?”

“We are waiting for the others sir, it will take some time and they will have to be awoken form their sleep.”

“Move into position we summon it now!” I growled. They moved into position and Onyx stepped back being a dark blue earth pony.

While unicorns could use magic they often didn’t have the physical strength of an earth pony, and while pegasus could fly, their bones could break like twigs, so having one of each kind as guards helped us greatly, but that limited any single roll to only one of us at a time. I walked over the head summoner position and the two looked at me.

“But sir there are only three of us.”

“I will take stand, now start.” I all three of us shot a bolt into the center combining our magical powers and creating a small portal, their horns were already sparking from the power they were using. “And you call yourselves summoners.” I pushed more into it and the portal expanded easily opening over the entire area.

A large black marble column floated through landing softly on the ground being around twenty feet high. They closed the portal and looked at me, they were breathing hard but I hadn’t even began to sweat.

“Sir, please give us a minute to rest.”

“I have no need of you.” My horn lit black and the column lifted into the air turning flat making them back up. “Now you can go back to bed.” They looked completely unnerved by the fact I was doing several pony jobs at once.

Onyx made sure everyone was out of the way as we went to the dream chamber. I went through two large dark stained doors walking inside. The column barely fit the corner as I entered the room.

The room was quite wonderful. It had painting on the walls of all kinds of dreams, from those of horror, to beauty, and even those of love, but many turned dark after a point, only showing nightmares of true horror.

I went over to a missing column slot and moved it into place merging the black marble to the ceiling and the floor. I stepped back wiping sweat from my brow. While I was powerful I wasn’t immortal or limitless, and each time I used strong magic rather it was dark or not, it would either physically harm me or shorten my life span, which Princess Celestia had more than once had to extend for me, or I risk letting me pass on, and she didn’t want that yet as she warned me against using too much magic.

“Our dream room!” Princess Luna sang running into the room looking around. “Such good memories here.” Her smile faded. “And such dark ones.” Her horn lit with blue fire burn away the dark paintings instantly and replacing them with blank white spots.

“Such calm.” She said smiling.

“Would you like us to stay?” I asked.

“You do not posses such talent as we do, we will enter dream, but we must do this alone as to not scare the subjects.”

“I understand, we will be outside if your require us, oh and so I know, how long does this normally last?”

“Very well, we do this till moon sets and the sun rises.” She closed her eyes and her horn lit a soft blue fire. I went outside and they closed the doors behind me. I sat down and so did they.

“We’ll be here till sun rise.” They stared at me for a few seconds.

“Really?” Night Jasper asked.

“Yeah, I know, I don’t care if you two rest, I'll keep watch and wake you if I need you, or she needs us.”

“Guard!” Princess Luna said and I rushed back inside looking around.

“Yes?”

“S-stay here with us. Dreams do not hush the silence.”

“I will, you two, keep look out.” They nodded closing the doors. I walked over to her and she looked at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t know if I could be here while you do this.”

“I, WE, do not mind you here.” I nodded sitting down. She closed her eyes and her horn grew brighter. I would look around the room once in a while but always turn back to her, she looked peaceful, at rest, but oddly not asleep.

Boredom can be a dangerous thing, and cause you to do stupid things. After a few hours I had subconsciously moved close to Princess Luna being only a few inches from her beautiful face staring at her. I held a low breath feeling her breath on my mane just barely. He breath smell of something sweet and bitter.

Yes in any world this would be considered stalking, Princess Luna had simply stricken me hard, had I not been her guard and she not been a princess I would have much less like a gentle-colt toward her. She was without a pause beautiful. I even questioned rather Princess Celestia was more so, though I never dared think perverted thoughts.

She started to open her eyes and I teleported without a sound, noise or anything suggesting I had moved from my spot hours earlier. She looked at me with a slight confused expression.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“We thought, oh never mind, we are done for the night, the sun is nearly upon us, we must return to the celestial chamber so that the moon may set, and that the sun may rise yet again, and you should wake the guards.”

“I will.” I walked out first and kicked both of them lightly. “Wake up you two, we are going back to the celestial chamber.” They got up and we went to the celestial chamber. It was normal for us to stand for long periods of time, but we normally had something to do, such as writing or drawing to help pass the time, as well as patrolling in my case.

We got to the celestial chamber and Princess Celestia was waiting basking in the moonlight. Princess Luna went over to her hugging each other.

“Good morning sister.” Luna said as the moon disappeared and the sunlight broke over the horizon lighting up the room in light.

“That it is, I hope the night went well.”

“I helped so many ponies. I see that my job will always be needed.” Princess Celestia smiled hugging her.

“I will protect the day, for it is your time to slumber.” Princess Luna nodded and we took her to her bed chamber. I walked into the room checking real fast before she came into the room closing the door behind her before I could leave.

“What.” She pointed her hoof at me stopping me.

“We know what you did in the dream chamber, why were you so close that we could smell you.”

“I’m your guard, being close to you is my job.”

“You stared at we, why?”

“My job.” I said slightly nervously, but I showed no hint of it, she narrowed her eyes, but not even the best truth magic users could break me.

“Very well, get out of the royal chambers.”

“I am sorry if I offended you with any odor, I assure you I bathe daily.”

“I didn’t say you smelled bad.” She paused. “I mean WE, OUT!” She shouted and I rushed out the door closing it behind me. I let out a breath and they looked at me a little shocked, I had never shown any emotion but anger, and annoyance. So them seeing me a little startled was shocking, and rather scary.

“Are you alright?” Night Jasper asked.

“I am fine.” I shouldn’t have been so close to her, it wasn’t proper and I certainly was not someone of high enough status to even think close to the thoughts of that. “I am just getting used to this, I wasn’t Princess Celestia’s personal guard for more than a few days before Shining armor took the position.”

“Right.” Onyx said. We waited a while and a snap in my head marked her going to sleep, I looked at the day guard.

“You are relieved.” One of them said to me and I nodded as we switched. I sighed going toward the barracks, falling asleep.

Days turned to weeks doing basically the same thing day out and night in. I made sure to keep out of her personal space or personal aura giving no hints to my personally growing attraction and obsession. This was becoming my dream job, not literally, I still had black as night dreams, but I enjoyed every second even if it was watching her sit most of the time.

Though the others could do without the night contact lenses which helped see in the dark, I often chuckled at them not knowing how to do it with magic. Though Night Jasper never could really get the feel of bat wings. In fact of now eight at my command, none of them could, especially the fact they all had to dye their coats darker, just the three of us were fine as is, which was funny on its own.