My nightmares continued frequently. I tried to get as much sleep as I could. There were days when I worked on only two hours rest. And then there were days where I didn’t get any sleep at all for fear of what I might see at night.
Twilight told me about the letter she sent. I was mad at her at first, but eventually let it go. There was no use holding it over her. She was just trying to help.
I wasn’t at all upset when a week had passed without Celestia writing back. I could care less. Twilight on the other hoof took that as a sign she needed to write letters regularly. I wanted to tell her to save her ink, but it would have been pointless. She was stubborn like that.
Over the following weeks I tried everything to get some sleep. I went to a doctor for sleeping pills, to Zecora for sleep potions, and I even asked Twilight for that spell she had onced used on me. They were all temporary solutions. My body began adapting to every drug, potion, and spell I used for too long.

I eventually gave up on alternative methods. It seemed it was my lot in life to be sleep-deprived. I was going about one of my sleepless days when I bumped into Rarity. And I mean literally bumped into her. I was so out of it I hadn’t seen her in my path. I apologized, though I’m sure it came out a little slurred. Rarity had instantly become concerned.

“Good heavens Shade! You’re in horrible shape. Let’s get you home.”

I didn’t argue with her. I couldn’t. She helped me back to my apartment and I collapsed in bed.

“Let’s make this place more comfortable.”

With my lack of sleep I’d been taking poor care of the room. It was pretty messy. Rsrity busied herself with tidying up. She drew the curtains so light didn’t pour in on my bed. When she was finished, she came and sat next to the bed.

“How long has it been since you slept?”

“Thr- th- Thirty...two.”

“Please tell me you don’t mean hours.”

I nodded.

“You need to sleep. Now.”

That woke me up a bit.

“No. I...I can’t.”

She stared at me in surprise. Her eyes glistened with concern.

“It’s your nightmares, isn’t it?”

“How did you know about those?”

“Twilight let us know.”

“That’s not her business to tell.”

“I know. I thought it was a bit personal.”

“You’re right though. It’s the nightmares.”

“Have you been forcing yourself to stay awake?”

“No. I just can’t sleep some nights because I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“She didn’t tell you what the nightmares were about?”

“She just said they involved certain ponies.”

“Celestia.”

“...Yes.”

“Do you think I’m a monster...for dreaming of hurting her?”

“You can’t help what you dream Shade.”

“I just want to sleep. But my head insists on reminding me of how angry I am with her.”

“What good is that anger?”

I looked at her. She was serious.

“I...I don’t know. I just..hate her for locking me up. I’m not an animal.”

“Of course not. You must know she wasn’t doing it for her own pleasure.”

“I know. It’s just...hard.”

“I can only imagine.”

“There’s so much anger in me still and I don’t know what to do with it. Will it ever go away?”

“It will take a long time. But perhaps I can help. Have you ever tried meditating?”

“Meditation? Really?”

“You’d be surprised how quickly it calms you.”

Why not? I had nothing left to lose.

“Where do I start?”

“Close your eyes.”

I closed them.

“Take a deep breath.”

Done.

“Listen to my voice.”

I am. It’s soothing.

“Pretend you’re on a cloud. It’s lifting you up into the sky.”

Okay..

“Focus on the cloud. It’s making you lighter.”

Woah! I could feel it!

“The more you focus on the cloud, the lighter you become.”

It felt amazing.

“A weight is being lifted from you. Something that has held you down for too long. Picture it in front of you. It’s a dark sphere.”

I saw it.

“And once you see that sphere, drop it off of the cloud. Let it sink back to the earth while you continue to rise.”

The ball dropped and I felt as if I rose suddenly. And as my imaginary cloud rose, I sunk into a deep sleep.

I didn’t have any dreams at all.

When I woke up, Rarity was gone. She’d left a note on my table.

I hoped that helped. You seemed to drift off easily. If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.

Rarity

I smiled to myself. It had been the first peaceful sleep I’d had in weeks. She was a miracle worker.

——————————

I took to meditating daily. It actually began to help! My nightmares started to come less. They had been almost nightly, but soon I had them down to only once a week. Hopefully it would be less than that soon!
Whenever a nightmare came, I would go see Rarity the following morning.

“I don’t feel like I can talk to Twilight about them anymore. All she wants to do is to get me to talk to Celestia.”

“And you’re not ready for that.”

“No.”

“That’s alright. You don’t need somepony to help right now. You need somepony to listen.”

And listen she did. Every time I went to her she listened to whatever horrid dream I had. She never seemed alarmed. I was surprised. For how proper she was, she could stomach the details I gave her. But she listened to everything. I was so grateful to her for it.

———————————

I had been dreaming. It wasn’t exactly a nightmare, but it had been an uneasy dream all the same. I opened my eyes as a rumble shook my apartment. Was I still asleep? No.. I listened to the sounds outside. There was a huge uproar through Ponyville. I barely had time to register that we were under attack. When I had stepped outside, I saw the library. Or rather, I saw where it should have been.
At first I feared for Twilight and Spike, but I knew better than to assume they were dead. She was smart and resourceful. But the library.. I fought back the tears as I thought of all the knowledge that had been lost. Whoever had done this, I hoped they would pay.
And I got my wish. The girls battled a creature named Tirek. He was the cause of all the ruckus. And they sent him right back to Tartarus. What surprised me even more was the castle that grew at the edge of town. It was huge! Not quite as big as Celestia’s, but close. It was incredible.
I had rushed over to find out the details. Everypony in town had shown up to see the castle. It seemed that Twilight had a new home now.

———————————

More time passed and things settled down again besides the odd adventure here and there. Of course that was all the girls. I still kept to myself. I’d gotten my nightmares down to once every two weeks or so. I was improving. I was getting into a regular routine. Work was a breeze and there were many days that Time Turner let me run the shop while he went off after some mare named Rose. I didn’t mind. I liked the silence of the shop. Well..as silent as a clock shop can be.
It was after I closed the shop one day that I had a visitor. I had just gotten into my room when there was a knock at the door.

“Hello?”

I didn’t recognize the voice.

“Who is it?”

“I’m sorry. You probably don’t know me. Twilight said you were the pony to talk to. She said we have a lot in common.”

Fat chance. But let’s see. I opened the door a crack to find a mare standing outside. She gave a weak smile.

“My name is Starlight Glimmer.”

I opened the door all the way and she froze. I motioned for her to come in. She slowly moved forward until I was able to close the door again.

“Why’d she send you?”

“She said..I might be able to relate to a friend of hers. Something about changing for the better.”

“Really? And that’s what’s going on with you?”

“Well, you wouldn’t know it, but I nearly destroyed Equestria a week ago.”

Wow. The whole kingdom in one go?

“What stopped you?”

“Twilight. She...helped me find a better path.”

“Sounds right to me. She’s good at that sort of thing.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Why I look like I do?”

“Yeah.”

“I used to be a changeling. My magic was taken. That left me stuck like this. And as for the whole ‘better path’ part, I’ve been reforming myself for about two years now.”

“How did you do it?”

“One day at a time. I don’t get it right all the time, but I do the best I can. Can anypony do better?”

“I suppose not. Do you ever miss your old life?”

“Never. I’m better off for having met Twilight.”

A small smile formed on her lips.

“That’s what I was hoping to hear.”

That had been the end of our first conversation. I’d speak with her from time to time when she wanted a second opinion. I liked Starlight. I felt a kindred spirit with her. We both had bad pasts that we were trying to distance ourselves from. She had become Twilight’s student too. It was hard to believe that Twilight was already becoming more like her own mentor.

——————————

“What do you mean like me, Spike?”

The little dragon had come to me after a trip to the Crystal Empire. He’d been going on about some changeling they had found up there.

“Exactly what I said Shade! His name is Thorax. He’s a changeling that got separated from the hive. He’s really nice-“

I hadn’t heard the rest. My mind was swimming with the news. Another changeling. Alone like me.

Thorax..

———————————

“Shade, I’d like to introduce you to Thorax, the new King of the Changelings.”

I stared at the creature in front of me.

“You don’t look like a changeling.”

“You do though. But..at the same time you don’t.”

“What happened to you?”

“When we saved Twilight and her friends, we had to defeat Chrysalis. All the changelings pushed their love back at her. Giving love made us transform.”

“You look like a bug”

“I like it better than my old skin. Oh! Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Not much I can do about this.”

“It seems your body has adapted quite a bit.”

“Thank you.”

“You must have gone through so much. Much worse than what I went through I’m sure.”

“You don’t even know the half of it.”

“Do you like it in Ponyville? You’d always be welcome back with us.”

“I like it here a lot. Thank you for the offer though.”

“I’m just glad to meet someone who gets me. There aren’t many of us weirdos around.”

“Yes. I’m happy we met too.”

———————————

I had already broken the table and was busy flipping my bed over. I punched the wall and screamed. I screamed and screamed for minutes. I kept punching everything. The tears were streaming down my cheeks. I’d been crying since I’d walked into the room. I barely heard the pounding on the door.

“Shade?! It’s Twilight! Please open the door!”

“GO AWAY!!”

“Shade-“

“I SAID GO!!”

That was all it took. I punched things until everything was broken and my hooves were sore.
Half an hour later there was a light knock on the door.

“Go away Twilight.”

“It’s me Shade.”

Surprise hit me. I opened the door and Rarity stepped inside. She observed the scene of destruction.

“Redecorating?”

“You could say that.”

“I take it your meeting with Thorax didn’t go well.”

“It went fine.”

“Then why in Equestria are you making enough noise that I can hear it from my shop?”

“Well maybe it has something to do with the changelings transforming into glittery insects.”

“I could have guessed that.”

“You know what’s not fair? That I was forced to become a pony who still looks like a changeling. And what about the changelings? They get to morph into these beautiful creatures.”

“Beauty isn’t everything.”

“Easy for you to say! You’re beautiful. And I’m..just me.”

“You’re charming in your own ways.”

“But I’m not a beautiful creature.”

I stood up and walked around the room.

“That could have been me! Thorax could have wound up here and I could have been in the Crystal Empire. I could have overthrown Chrysalis! I could have been beautiful!!”

Rarity sat there. She was listening like always. I hadn’t noticed that my tears were still going. And it finally hit me all at once. I was never going to be anything like a changeling again. I’d been given the short straw in all of this. I couldn’t take the disappointment anymore. I cried. Sobbed is probably the more appropriate term.
Rarity didn’t say anything the whole time she was there. She just hugged me. My crying was so hard that I couldn’t even respond with a ‘thank you’.

———————————

I sat meditating on my bed. Rarity had taught me a few more techniques over the months to try. This one was proving particularly effective. I was drifting off to sleep..

I was in Canterlot. There was the throne room. I was ready for another nightmare.

“Hello Shade.”

I turned to find Celestia behind me.

“Hello Celestia.”

“Have you come to kill me again?”

I considered it. But something felt different. I was calm. For the first time in my dreams, I felt calm and in control. I slowly shook my head.

“I’d rather not tonight. I just..don’t feel like hurting you.”

She melted away. I’d never seen that in my dreams before.

“Why did you do it?”

I looked up at three thrones. Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. I asked again.

“Why did you do it?”

“Fear.”

They had spoken in unison.

“Am I that dangerous? Did you really need to punish me like that?”

“No.”

The voice had come from behind me, but when I looked there was nopony there. Weird. I turned back to the thrones, but the throne room was gone. I shrugged it off.

———————————

She watched from behind her invisibility spell. She’d almost been caught, but it was worth it. It was promising, seeing the type of dreams Shade was having now. She would have to tell Celestia. He was finally getting his anger under control.

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