It was getting late, and Regal Shadow was losing it fast. He was reading a book, but he was too tired and too nervous to concentrate properly. It was a detective about some mailmare, some doctor, a baby dragon, Celestia and a plot he just couldn't follow: maybe someone was dead or maybe she wasn't. Regal Shadow took a sip of tea, but it had gone cold, and he was trying to decide whether to see if there was any left n the pot, or just forget it and go to bed, when somepony knocked at the door.

"Honey Heart?" he said after he opened the door.

"Hi, Regal. I saw your light was on, so I figured you wouldn't mind if I came by." she took a moment to gather her thoughts and spoke: "Y'see, I was going over the description of your show in my head, trying to figure it out what it must have been like there, out on that island, when I sort of thought ..."

Regal Shadow turned away burying his face in his hoof, while looking tired, sad and in pain at the same time.

"Don't look at me like that, Regal, I know, you're thinking, "Why doesn't she wait till rehearsals tomorrow?" Well --"

"Honest, you might as well be the first to know. I won't be at the rehearsal tomorrow.", he paused, "I'm pulling out."

"You what? But it's your show. You wrote it. Even the dumb songs in the third act. And you're the main character. And --"

"Uh Uh. Look. Bag packed. Regal Shadow go-bye-bye-leave-town, not come back."

Honest Heart swallowed, "You're serious, aren't you. Why?"

He tried starting a few sentences, but never came further than a few words. He thought for a little bit and said: "I'm leaving because I'm scared. Okay?"

"But it's your show. We open next week. I mean, it's off-Canterlot. But it's not as if it's off-off. or even off-off-off." she said.

"Honey, I don't want to talk now . I've written a letter that'll be read to everypony at the rehearsal tomorrow, telling them what I've done and why."

"What is it you're afraid of?" she said, with a disgusted look on her face, "Failing? Or succeeding?"

"Goodnight, Honey Heart."

"Goodbye, Regal Shadow."

Regal shadow gave up on reading the book, and went to go sleep on his couch. Eventually he got to sleep. Eventually.

Some dreams are different. Most dream are a tangle of things: foreground and background, subject and object. Regal once had a dream in which he was chasing a cockatrice around ponyvillle, which was where he had been born. And after a while Regal was the cockatrice they were chasing.

This dream was one of the different ones. It was in real time, and Regal was climbing up a rock face. The sky was red and he could not see anything around him. He looked down, his blue eyes immediately became terrified and he put his flank and hooves as tightly as possible on the rock face. Regal Shadow had never done any climbing in real life, not even trees when he was a kid. He currently lived on the first floor in Manehattan, which costs more and means there's no view to speak of, but he didn't care. Regal doesn't like heights.

But here he is in his dream, climbing like he was born to it. Hunting down forehoofholds and hindhoofholds, wedging my hands and feet into rock crevices and slowly, inch by inch, pushing himself up. And finally he gets to the top. And he starts to realize how far up he is. And how far down everything else is.

And then he realizes that he's not alone.

He's greeted by a raven and a pale alicorn with a black mane, but the most intruiging part of the alicorn are his eyes. Or better to say, the places where his eyes should be. His eyes are like black holes and somewhere, far into it, you can see a small star glowing.

"It is a long way down."

the alicorn said, nodding.

"I can believe I climbed up here. I hate heights. I really do. I've hated the since I was a kid. You see..." he was slowly climbing up the platform where the alicorn was standing, "Hey, I don't want to bore you. Are you interested in dreams?"

the alicorn said while he was sitting down.

"That's good. Most people are bored to death by other people's dreams." he shifted his weight, while he wasn't on top yet, he was quite stable here. "You see, for me it all goes back to this one dream I had when I was a little foal:

I remember I was trapped in this house full of manticores. And I couldn't get out.
And finally I got to the top of the house, and I climbed out onto the roof, and suddenly, slowly, it tilted and threw me off." he paused,
"I could see the ground coming up below me. And I knew that if I hit the ground I'd die. I knew that.
It didn't matter if it was a dream or not. I'd still be killed, just as hard as if it were real life. Worse, maybe.
I remember the panic. The sheer gut fear as I tumbled down towards the ground and couldn't do anything to stop it.
So I ...
I made it stop
I ...".
He had buried his face in the ground and was crying now, "I didn't wake myself up. But I just pulled out of the dream. And I was just trapped inside a sleeping body.
I didn't dare go back to the dream: I'd die. But I didn't know how to wake myself up. I tried to scream, hoping that maybe I could wake somepony up, who'd come and wake me up. I tried to trash about.
It was the longest, scariest time I've ever spent, trapped in my head, in the dark.".
He looked up into the holes of the alicorn, "And eventually, somehow, I did manage to open my eyes, I was soaked in sweat, and I started crying, partly because I was alive.
Ever since then, I've been ... A little scared of high places."

And then the Raven landed in front of Regal Shadow and spoke to him. And he thought, birds can't talk. And he thought, maybe they can, in dreams. That was when he knew he was dreaming.

"You're running away, aren't you?"

He shifted his view to the bird,"I'm not running away. It's just ... I don't know.
It's all getting too much for me.
I feel I'm scared. I'm scared I'm going to do something stupid."

He rested the side of his head against the wall and made a face as if he was going to say something embarrasing, "Aren't you scared of falling?"

The alicorn nodded at the raven,

He tried to climb up top again, "What are you saying? That I should go back to the show? Not walk out? Is that what you're saying?
You're just a dream. Listen I've made up my mind."

The alicorn looked at him kindly,

The bird landed on his back, he tilted his view towards the bird, looking not at it, but far beyond, as if he was deeply thinking about his words,

He looked at Regal Shadow again,

"And that is? ", but the unicorn was alone on the top of the mountain now, there was no sign of the alicorn and his raven. One moment they were there, and the other they were just gone: no smoke, no slowly vanishing, but they were just gone. Regal Shadow looked at hi hooves. He was alone, thinking about what the alicorn had said to him.
Suddenly a lighting strike landed between his hooves, which was very odd, as there were no clouds, but then again, it was a dream. A terrified look came to his face:, "No. Please no."
And he was falling.
When it's really happening, it's not like the stories There's no cyan colored pegasus to catch you.
Regal Shadow thought, "I'm just going to hit the hard rock from a great height and that will be that."
And Regal was bout to try to wake himself up, when ...

And Regal stayed with it. And he didn't wake up. And he didn't die.

"Hi, everypony. Look, guys, there's something I have to tell you. It's about Regal..." Honey Heart said.

"What about Regal, Honey?" an brown maned earth pony said.

"Yes, Honey. What about Regal? Regal Shadow said, walking up on the stage.

"Regal, I thought..."

"Can we talk about it later?
Okay, now, everypony! There's a major script change from act 3 scene 7 onwards. I want everypony to get the new script from this pile here.
We will practice scene 7 in 30 minutes, can everypony in that scene practice their lines?"

"You seem different today, Regal"

"I met somepony who changed my mind about a lot of things."

"I'd like to meet her."

"It's a he. And I don't even thinks he exists. He's just a little voice in the back of my mind, saying ..."

"Yes?"

"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
And that, Honey, is exactly what we're going to do with and in this show. The unicorn gets to fly."

Author's note: "The story was HEAVILY based on the graphic novel series "The Sandman" in particular this book "Fables & Reflections" and this chapter "FEAR OF FALLING" Holy rip off, right? I agree. I'm not taking credit for the dialogues, scenery, etc. I just hope to have inspired you to go out there, and read "The Sandman" by Neil Gaiman. Or look into it. It's really amazing. But this is no place for advertising other people's stuff. I hope you enjoyed the story, if you want me to ponify another chapter or something, please tell me. If you think I'm a cheap guy, getting views for a story that's not my own, please tell me too. I have put out this chapter for one reason, actually can Neil Gaiman's "Dream" be placed in Equestria, and I believe he can. So expect some more original stories from me, but they will feature the Endless, or references to them. (If you want who they are, go read the series) This author's note is coming to an end: I just would like to thank 2 people for inpiring me to do this: Ravenwood11, his "I AM DEATH" triggered me to read the series again (antromorphic (actually that term is incorrect, as antro means man/human) Death, is in both series). And Neil Gaiman, for writing the Sandman. He's not going to read this ever, so this is probably wasted. There you go. That was it. Oh and without the author’s note, this story is 1582 words. And I didn’t count the words of the alicorn (they are images).