The filly is eightteen. She's not crying. She's not soft, no romantic, to give in to her feelings, to her fears. She waits in the darkness, listening for an hooffall, for a sound. She lies awake in the darkness. Not crying.

Applepeace was walking towards the library, it was a beatiful day and still morning. She had a bag with her. When she knocked at the door, the eye hole opened and Spike's eye was visible.

"Hey Applepeace, have you come here to borrow a book?"

"Mrs. Sparkle asked for me."

"Well, it will be alright then. She rarely wants visitors around these days. How are you and your mother?"

"We are fine, mom finally got over the death over her aunt."

"And your grandmother? "

"Applebloom is not doing so well, her memory is fading."

"That's to be expected of old ponies."

"Yes, what are you doing these days?"

"Tending to the library. It's good your mother recovered. Twilight is not herself these days, the last decade has been hard on her. She often wakes up at night, asking me to read her a story."

"It has been hard on us all. But miss Sparkle got the hardest blows, they were her friends after all."

"SPIKE! Just let the young lady in already, please." Twilight yelled.

Applepeace walked up the stairs in the big tree. "Miss Sparkle? I'm here!"

"About time! Have you brought the groceries I asked for? And don't call me miss Sparkle, today I'm Dawn" Twilight Sparkle looked like she had cried all night.

"Are you alright? You don't look to well."

"I'll be fine, I'll be fine. Now let me tell you what we're going to do today. Hold on." She gathered up her breath and yelled: "SPIKE!"

Spike came running up the stairs, and asked "What is it?"

"Can you get five quils and some ink? We're almost running out."

"Sure, Twi!" and he ran off.

"First we take some soap, and smear it on our faces and body. And then we wait, we have about an hour before Spike returns, we need to be gone by then."

After a small while, Twilight said, "There, it should be dry by now. Then we sprinkle on a bit of vinegar."

"Why are we doing this?"

"The soap blisters - and to any pagger-by, your skin appears to burned and ulcerated."

"Cool! Are you ready, Miss?"

"Dawn. Please remember we are beggars together, friend Applepeace."

"Peace. If you are Dawn, I'm Peace. And beggars have never been renowned for their fragrance.

"Mm. My apologies. Peace."

Dawn put some straps over her cutiemark, charged up a spell and said "Let's see what the Canterlot market has in store for us."

And they were gone.

They appeared at the outskirts Canterlot and started walking towards the market. They came by a statue of the Elements of Harmony.

"That's a lovely statue, Dawn"

"That? As Rarity once said, they got my mane wrong. How old are you, Peace?"

"Twenty-two, miss. uh, Dawn."

"Ah, you would not remember Equestria as it was, when I was younger. I am almost eighty now. The princesses have given me long life... We worked for that statue, peace. As we worked for so much of Equestria. And others followed our example."
She stood still for a moment, gathering her thoughts.
"We found it in terror, and we left it in harmony.

They walked on, "I have some apples in the bag, Dawn, if you're hungry."

"I have eaten some dry hay and water. That will satisfy me, until this evening. I seldom eat much."

They were closing in on the market now.

"Really? Gosh, I thought that, well, having such good contacts with the princesses, you would eat all kinds of fancy stuff. I would if I were Celestia's prized student."

"But you are not Celestia's prized student, are you, Peace? And until Celestia's sun sets tonight, neither am I.

They arrived at the market. It was still rather empty. They layed down a cloth to sit on, put down a bowl, did some bits in it.

"Put in a bit, and others will follow it.", Twilight said.

"I don't like lying."

"Neither do I, I don't like acting and actors. It's a profession based on lies and disrespect. Pretending to be what you are not."

"But you've been in a play before, haven't you?"

"Yes, but that was only because Celestia asked us to do it."

"Well let's hope we're better actors than Trixie."

"How do you know Trixie?"

"My granny talked about her."

"Oh"

The market was getting really crowded now. All kind of wares were sold there: food, paintings, clothing.

"Dawn?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Hmm? Oh, I had a dream."

"I once had a dream, that a hidden treasure was buried on the oldest tree in Sweet Apple Acres. And I dug for a day, but found nothing."

"Ah,. Many dreams come throught the gates of stone, Peace, and they lie. A few dreams come through the gate of marmer, and they speak to us truly. Every spring I have terrible dreams-- Evil, dark dreams-- But they are lies. They are not true dreams.
But there are true dreams. My life was saved, once, by a dream. Once the great Maker appeared to me in a dream. And then ... And then there was the dream that send me here. If dream it was ...

"Once I dreamed that Nightmare moon herself appeared when I was doing a rodeo. Nightmare Moon, the embodiement of darkness itself, can you believe it?"

"She's no more."

"Well, of course. You defeated her.

"She was not all evil. She still had a spark of Princess Luna in her. Celestia offered Luna her friendship after we defeated Nightmare Moon."

The filly is twelve. She was flipping over an exam when she came in. the filly had never talked to her in person, but there is no mistaking her. It was Celestia, her hero, her goddess.

"Her eyes, that's what was the main difference between Nightmare Moon and Luna."

"Family, it must be nice to have a proper family. My parents were kind of ripped away of me, when I went to the school of gifted unicorns. I missed them a lot in the first months, but then I just forgot them. Until I got the notice of their burial."

"Is it possible? Can you forget your family?"

"I don't believe it was an accident. I've did some research on memory-forgetting spells. And they require much control and power. The only possible unicorn who could have done it was me -"

"Or the Princesses."

"Yes, but I think I did that spell on myself to not feel hurt anymore. I also forgot that I had casted that spell."

A young couple walked by, they were looking like upper class nobility.

"Aren't you going to give them something, Regal?" the mare said.

"Why, Honey? If the princesses will that they cannot work, then let the princesses protect them and give them bits." the stallion said.

"He'd probably wet himself if he knew who you really were."

"Undoubtedly. But he had a point. We cannot defy the princesses."

"I had three duties, Peace. I was the libarian of Ponyville. I was the student of Celestia. And I was an Element Bearer, which meant that I was supposed to help in disasters."

"I sometimes doubt the princesses care about us. I mean, ponies still suffer."

"No: the princesses do care about us. I have seen them care. Ask your granny about Princess Luna, she will remember. But there are others, who stand next to the princesses, beings like Discord and the Maker and others. There are also those who stand behind them. I'm talking on a spectral level now. Are you following?"

"Yes, kinda."

"Those who stand behind the princesses, those whom even the Celestia must own her superiors."

"Eh? Who could be greater than Celestia, the most powerful being in Equestria?"

"hm. Firstly, the Maker, he has defined the boundaries. Celestia must bow to him; boundaries are the most important of things, Peace. And secondly... But I do not know who they are.
They are wispered of in the inner mysteries: The seven, who are not prayed to, who are not gods, who are not ponies."

"Celestia is a goddess, I wonder what it's like being a goddess. I will be a demi-god, when I die, Peace. Already they have begun to weave stories about us, presaging us into divinity."

"And is it true?"

"No, of course not. Because we represented the Elements of Harmony, we had the power to defeat an evil godess, doesn't mean we're gods too. the Elements were just a tool, left behind by the Maker."

"When I was younger, I prayed to Celestia, to get me a cutiemark faster."

"You are a lot like your grandmother. Always was she looking for her cutiemark. Oh, I sitll can remember her face when she finally got it. She was shining brighter then Celestia's sun.
Oh, it will be good to be dead -- to be a demi-god."

"Why?"

"All my mistakes will be forgotten. All my crimes will be forgiven. Do you know how many ponies I've killed?"

"You killed somepony?"

"Not just one, when they took Rainbow Dash, I killed everyone of them. Never will the diamond dogs return. It took a lot of persuasion of Celestia to keep it quiet. My friends had to calm me down, or I had razed the entire everfree forest with them."

"Oh"

"I have done many evil things. But they were all to preserve Equestria. And we will be demi-gods."

"What is the diffence between that, and what you've got now? I mean, everypony loves you. Well maybe not everypony, but most of them. You blessed all of Equestria with peace. You ask something, and it's immediately done. You're practically a demi-god already."

"When I am a demi-god, I will be with my friends, and I will no longer be scared."

The old mare wakes in the night, sweating and cold. She listens to the silence, for one moment afraid that she has fallen back in time. She is once more a eight-teen year old mare ...
In the darkness she fears that the whole of her life has been nothing more than a fever's dream. She shouts for her assistant. Her assistant is always there for her.
The old mare sleeps alone, but solitude scares her. The Gaudy tales of brass ponies and dragons'teeth comfort her, and, a young filly again, she sleeps.

"Where did they all go?" Applepeace asked.

They've gone indoors. Celestia's sun is on her highest now. Only dogs, pegasi, and beggars stay out in this heat. How much have we made so far?"

"five bits and forty-five cents. It's a good thing that we aren't doing it for the money, then. Why are we doing it?"

"Later, do you some water in your bag?"

Twilight put up a hat, Applepeace recognized the hat as a gift from Rarity.

"As I said, the first time I spoke to her was at my exam for the gifted school for unicorns. I saw her every week for lessons about control. When I was eighteen, she asked me to visit her on the equestrian embassy in ... Oh, this is embarrasing, I can't remember the name of the land of the Gryphons anymore. Anyway, she sent for me. I was so excited.

In hindsight, the journey must have been a nightmare. But at the time was an adventure, I was still convalescing from illness...
It was a chapter of disasters: first we were shipwrecked, then we were forced to walk all over the country, just to be with her.

She was my mentor, you see. She was the greatest pony in the wold. She was my hero. And she was Celestia. I spent some time with her, in the gryphon country. I went back to Canterlot, to wait for her, but she didn't come for another month."

"You must have hated her for that."

"No, I loved her so much, I thought I wasn't good enough, so I studied even harder."

Applepeace thought about this for a while, and asked:"What was it like, during Discord?"

"It was chaos, only to be restored by us. The worst part was that princess Luna was nowhere to be found. Who knows what Discord has done to her?"

"They named a month after you, though."

"And they named one after Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, and Fluttershy. But it will not last, as soon as there's a new danger, the months will be renamed after those bearers."

"That could be centuries away."

"We write our names in the sand; And then the waves roll in and wash them away. But we can leave things behind us. I'm leaving a library."

"Why aren't you called courtmagician?"

"Names ... Names. They offered Celestia the crown once she had banished Nightmare Moon, and she refused it. That's reason enough. We ponies are a proud people, we would not permit ourselves to be ruled by a queen. So I call myself a librarian, but they follow me, as if I were their court magician.
Ponies fascinate me, Peace. It is within my power to give them a republic. I almost did, when I was scared and stressed.
Ponykind, they follow leaders-queen or princesses, magician or librarians. We tell them what to do, and they do it.
We know just a little bit more than they, but still, instead of discovering the real truths, they follow us, blindly, as ponies lost in the everfree forest would follow a baby carrying a flaming torch."

"And what do you follow then, librarian, to make us follow you, and obey you?"

"We follow our dreams."

A stallion walked up to them.

"Here you go, lasses, two bits.

"Thank you sir,"Twilight replied, "that is very generous of you."

"Once I was a beggar but I saved a lot. I took my savings and became a publisher. Celestia has smiled upon me, and now I own three houses and have four assistants. We know not what tomorrow brings; and but for the whim of the princesses I myself might be sitting in the market place, begging for bits. No pony know the future. It behooves us all to walk with care."

The stallion walked away.

"You know, Peace, I know the future. or some of it."

"From dreams?"

"... No. From books. When I gained access to the ancient crypts I read all the books about prophecies. Then I burned two-thousand of them. The ones I left I edited and made magic copies of them ... The prophecies were obscure, but not that obscure. There are two futures, you see. Two ways it can go. In one future, the element of magic kills Celestia and it is unknown what will happen next. In the other future Celestia becomes a nightmare and razes Equestria. The prophecies were quite clear on that. They were clear on what I had to do."

"So let me get this straight. There are two futures, and you picked one of them. From the prophecies. and destroyed the others."

"Yes. Yes I did. Celestia knows.
Late at night, she would talk to me, in the gryphon country. Tell me about her dreams. She's a wise ruler. And her dreams for Equestria are big. Are you scared of me?"

"Scared of you? Miss.."

"Don't call me that! When I first wrote you, told you what I needed today; that I would be spending a day disguised as a beggar, that you would be by my side ... Weren't you scared?"

"No ... Dawn."

"I'm an old mare. But you should fear me." A rat ran past the beggars. "Not because I'm fast." She put her hoof on the rat, which prevented him from running off. "And I am fast. And not because I'm powerful." The rat was quickly transmuting in different small animals and colors. Something what required a lot of power, control and imagination to do so. "And I am powerful. But Because if I gave the word tonight, you would disappear and no one would even remember that you ever existed. And no one would dare to complain, cause the alternative to the Princesses is chaos."

"All right. I'm scared of you. But I still want to know. Why are you begging at the market?"

"Because... Because I had a dream.

Late one night I woke, as I have woken in the night many times in the past.
And I called for Spike, instead of spike, an alicorn walked in, it did not strike me as odd, as I was dreaming. The alicorn was pale, more pale than Celestia herself. He was carrying a big red ruby around his neck, just a ruby, nothing else. And his eyes... His eyes were like black holes with somewhere, far in there, a star. And I told him: Tell me a story.

I yelled "NO!" , as I didn't want to be reminded of what happened. "How dare you! Who are you?"

"You are a god." I exclaimed. A raven entered the room, but from where I do not know. The alicorn continued,

"A ...Favor?" I did not know how to react to this.

"This is a dream!" and then ... The raven spoke,

"Of course it's a dream, Twilight."

"Who are you?"

"When I was a pony, I was Star Swirl The Bearded. But that was two thousand years ago."

"...The writer, who became the Maker's raven?" I quickly made a conclusion, "Then you are the Maker? I pray to you."

And while the raven landed on his back, he said:

Surprised by this, I said: "What will you... What do you want with me, lord?"

"My dilemma?"


"Celestia?"


"Do they know, then? The gods?" Even though I knew it was a dream, I was utterly scared.

"...Yes." I was unsure where he would go with this.

"What? But... How?"

And he nodded to his raven to lift off. The raven flew at me, his dark wing coming closer. So close I could only see blackness.
And then ... And then I awoke."

Celestia's sun was almost gone now.

Applepeace said: "I don't understand. Somepony in your dreams told you to come and beg in the market place, because ... Celestia can't see you thinking here?"

"I believe that was what he was telling me, yes."

"And you've been with me here today, what, to think?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand. Why are you so afraid of Celestia?"

"Celestia, all my life I have spend following the path she laid out for me. She groomed me for this ..." Twilight stood up, "She knows the prophecies. She knows what she could become: and she told me, step by step, what I had to do. How I could prevent whatever happened to her." Applepeace stood up too now, she grabbed the cloth and the bowl. "Look around you, Peace: harmony, prosperity, peace stable government. Enough food to fill every belly in Equestria. I have done everything she ever wanted. I have done everything."

"So what have you decided, then?"

"It's a matter of boundaries. observer: the harmony is based on caring, my harmony is based on love."

"So?"

"I destroyed the prophecies in which the Element of Magic kills Celestia. I love her, what else could I do?" Twilight teleported both of them to an outskirt of Sweet Apple Acres and cleaned them with magic, "Now listen, Applepeace, you may never speak of this day, or of our talk. Keep the bits."

"Goodbye, miss Sparkle."

"Goodbye" Twilight watched the young mare walk away, and, after she ripped the rips of cloth over her cutiemark away, she walked home.

Arrived at the library, Spike opened the door before she could knock on it, "Where have you been today? I was deadly worried about you!"

"Oh Spike, I have defeated Discord, Nightmare Moon, an Ursa Minor, don't you think I can handle everything life throws at me?"

"Yes, but I can't!"

"Silly dragon, well for your information, I've been out, I watched Applepeace do a rodeo, and we talked."

"Oh, I watched that girl, she's amazing!"

"Yes, she is. Spike I'm going to bed, get a book ready."

"Sure."

And when Twilight was alone in her room, she said to herself: "Today I was the actor, or perhaps today ... I did not have to act.", She put a blanket over herself and went to sleep.

The mare is eighteen. She sleeps in her own room. She is tired; and she is ill.
Her mentor comes to her room. Her mentor is a great ruler.
The mare is harrased, there in the night. Her mentor is pleased with her.
"Do what I say, and you will become the greatest magician known to ponykind. Do what I say, and you will safe the world."
The mare does what she is told.
She lies awake in the darkness, night after night, waiting for her mentor; waiting for the pain.
And never crying.

From the memoirs of Applepeace:
I am old, now and I don't fear anything life could hold for me. I fear nothing save , Death, the great inevitable, and my death is not far distant.
I spend a day with Twilight Sparkle at the market in the month that still bears her name. I passed her in the market, two years later, to the day. And I tossed her a few bits. She smiled at me. she was not with somepony else. I am an old mare now, and Twilight Sparkle has been dead for almost fifty years now. But since that day I have wondered, turning the question over and over in my mind: What could she have been so afraid of? And what was she trying to do?
Perhaps I understand what she was trying to tell me better now, in the dim light of hindsight.
For every year after her death, a new book was found at the library in Canterlot, all under the name of Dawn, they stopped coming after thirty years. They were books about the greatness of Celestia. It was then reinforced that Celestia became queen, together with Luna. There have been no elements since then, but I hope that one of my descendants, will be a bearer. Twilight left no children, but she left Spike, who will live for long until Twilight is forgotten. But perhaps she never will truly die, as long as somepony remembers her.
Perhaps she achieved her goal, perhaps not.
But I still persist in wondering. What was "Dawn" so afraid of? Why did she wake in the night, screaming...?
Why was she angry, why was she scared?
I do not know her secret, and Twilight has taken it with her.
To the grave.
Or to her books.

PHEEWWWW, that was a hellevuja story to write. I'm not sure about having included Molestia in this tale (yes, this sentence doesn't make sense). If you have further questions about the story, please leave them in the comments. Do you see any spelling errors, post them in the comments! I do not care about ratings, I do care about comments, though.
Anyway, this story is part of a series called The Sandpony, you can find them in the archive under that name. This is the second story, but I'm sure more will follow!
Final notes: I did not come up with the idea of the Dream alicorn, I owe my inspiration to Neil Gaiman, for creating such an awesome charater, that I was able to ponify. That's all.