“I am really sorry for breaking your nose. I still do not know what came over me.” Luna whispered. “What you said bothered me on some deep level. I suppose I took it personally. Celestia says it is hormones.”

Rookwood squirmed in the infirmary bed.

“You shouldn’t consider your self such a failure.” Luna stated, her voice now hard. “I saw what happened in your dream. Many ponies would have broke under that sort of mental strain. You proved to be quite resilient. Nightmare Moon is having to take what she wants by force. You should feel at least a little pride.”

Rookwood took a deep shuddering breath.

“Look, I said I was sorry about breaking your nose. Please say something.” Luna pleaded.

“Something.” Rookwood replied.

Luna scowled.

“What do I say?” Rookwood said. “Do I lecture your royal worshipfulness, oh ye of the high and mighty plotcrack about how awful you are for breaking my nose?”

“Well, yes!” Luna said, real emotion flooding into her voice. She squirmed in her chair, shifting from side to side, her hind legs twitching.

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.” Rookwood uttered, his voice dripping with contempt.

For a brief moment, Luna’s face contorted with actual pain.

“So will I ever be able to sleep again?” Rookwood asked.

“That is actually a very good question.” Luna said. “Sadly, I do not have an answer. But I do have some concerns.”

“Like what?” Rookwood replied.

“Like Nightmare Moon dragging you from the waking world into the her own private dreamscape. She’s fed off of you. She has some real power now. She is no longer a lurking shadow there to scare ponies. She’s roaming the dreamscape and feeding off of my other subjects now. The lunar pegasi are going to be very busy.” Luna’s voice was cracking from emotion with each word she spoke. “And I will be busy as well. Helping others, helping you, I need to figure out how to deal with this. And we need to start with our lessons. I will be your instructor.”

“Great. School all over. I get to have wet dreams about my teacher.” Rookwood said.

Luna flushed, turning a dark violet.

“You should get some sleep. I know that sounds scary, but you really do need the rest. I will put you under. I will also try a few wards to make sure she can’t reach you. I will have several guards posted close by to sense if something is wrong. But you need to sleep. A restful sleep.” Luna looked at him imploringly.

Rookwood opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late. He felt himself slipping, falling away from the waking world. He also felt something else. Something different.Something warm enveloped his body. There was a feeling of security and peace.

Rest now Rookwood. I have bound you within my will. Perhaps this will keep you safe.

Rookwood felt and heard Luna’s voice inside of his head as he tumbled out of physical reality.

Rookwood knew he was dreaming. He was becoming all too aware of the signs. He trotted through a stone fortress. There were suits of armor along the passageway. His hooves made no sound as he walked. He felt warm and secure.

He came to a large library and paused, looking around at all of the books. There was a massive fireplace along one wall. An enormous log burned in the grate. A charcoal grey male alicorn that he did not recognise snored in a large wing backed chair. His wing feathers had dark dull purple tips. He was large too, larger than Celestia.

He snored like a dragon, drowning out the loud cracks and pops of the log in the fire.

Above the fireplace, there was a painting. There was a dark orange alicorn mare and on each side of her sat an alicorn foal. One dark blue, the other as white as snow. Both of them looked very familiar. The snow white filly had a pink mane. The dark blue filly had a soft powder blue mane. Both were smiling and leaning against the dark orange mare. There was a placard under the painting.

“Aurora Diluculo.” It stated in a flourished engraved script.

Rookwood had no idea what it meant.

The snoring charcoal grey alicorn snorted loudly, and for a brief moment, Rookwood worried that he might wake. Rookwood then remembered, he was dreaming. And more importantly, he felt safe. There was no sense of danger here, no sense of malice or dread. The only thing remotely spooky here were the cobwebs in the corner.

Rookwood pressed through a door in the back of the library and found himself in another long hall. There were many doors on each side of the hallway. Some were open, others were closed. Adorning the walls in between the doors were paintings of alicorns. White ones. Black ones. Alicorns of every colour and description, many of them in regal noble poses.

Rookwood gasped seeing the paintings. How many alicorns had there been? And why were they gone? He checked the paintings again, looking for both wings and horns.

Yes, he thought. These were most certainly alicorns, and they were all gone now.

As he walked carefully down the hall, he thought he heard sobbing. A faint cry. He heard hoofsteps. Faint soft hoofsteps off in the distance. He ducked behind a statue, peering out into the hall. He saw a small alicorn filly. She was white. Her pink mane bobbed with each step, and her tail swished from side to side.

She looked frightened.

Dread began to fill Rookwood. He desperately tried to determine if he felt safe, and he could no longer tell. He gnawed on his lip in nervous agitation. Had he been suckered into a sense of false security by Nightmare Moon?

Perhaps.

He did not discount the notion. The white filly disappeared through a door, and, when she did, Rookwood followed. He poked his head through the door and saw a short passageway leading to a small chamber, and in the chamber were three doors. The white filly went through the one on the left.

His hooves made no sound as he pressed forward. The sobs grew steadily louder. His blood ran cold, nearly frozen, icy tingles running up and down his spine, like freezing rain on his pelt. He felt so cold that his balls began to retract and prickle.

“Luna, what have you done?” The voice was nearly sobbing, full of fear and pain. And then he heard it, a second set of sobs added to the first.

Rookwood pushed his head through the door, his ears perked, listening.

In front of him he saw two fillies, one white, the other blue. There was no mistaking who they were, he could see their cutie marks. Luna was on the floor, sobbing, writing in pain, her backside covered in blood, jagged slashes in her pelt, wide bloody gashes around one of her cutie marks.

“Luna, why would you do this?” Celestia cried. “Why? Why would you try and cut off your mark? Don’t you want to raise the moon?”

The smaller blue filly continued to sob, blood pooling on the floor. Celestia pulled a blanket from the bed and pressed it down upon Luna’s bloody backside, her own sobs wracking her small barrel. The room had a few carved wooden toys on the floor, several little dolls, including one dragon doll. The ceiling was painted with stars.

“Luna, I don’t understand.” Celestia bawled. “What is so bad about the moon?”

“I’m not worried about the moon!” Luna shrieked. “Look around the moon! Back there!”

Celestia lifted the now bloody blanket, looking Luna’s backside. “Just a black patch Luna, filled with a few stars.” Celestia said, now sniffling, trying to become calm for her sister’s sake.

“The dark!” Luna squealed. “The dark Tia! I am SCARED of the dark! I don’t want my destiny to be the dark. I am so afraid Tia, please I don’t want to face the darkness, I’ve seen what’s in it!” Luna began to shriek and scream wordlessly as Celestia tried to console her.

“It hurts!” Luna cried. “I couldn’t carve it away. I tried to carve it away and I couldn’t.”

“Luna you just got your cutie mark just this night.” Celestia said in a hoarse voice.

“I don’t want it!” Luna screamed. “Make it go away Tia, please make it go away!”

The little blue filly was almost hyperventilating now.

“I can’t!” Celestia shouted.

“I don’t want the dark to get me!” Luna pled. “My destiny is the dark and I don’t want it!”

“I will not allow the darkness to have you!” Celestia said. He voice seemed more familiar now. Not quite so squeaky like other fillies. “I will bring light Luna. I will not let the darkness take you!”

“Do you promise?” Luna cried, sniffling, wiping her nose with her tiny foreleg.

“I promise Luna, I will keep you from the darkness.” Celestia said.

“Luna!” Rookwood gasped, unable to be silent any longer.

Celestia whirled on him. “You!” She spat. “What are you doing here? This is private!” The filly Celestia spoke with the adult Celestia’s voice now.

“GET OUT!” She shouted. “OUT!” Her horn flashed and Rookwood’s brain recoiled. He wondered how much more psychic trauma he could endure.

Rookwood awoke in a bed, next to a large body. A very large body.

Celestia’s body in fact. He squirmed and kicked, trying to get away, moaning in terror, his broken nose throbbing. He was having trouble breathing.

Celestia’s hind knee rammed him sharply in the balls and then a follow up kick to his stomach launched him out of bed. He fell to the floor with a thud and a high pitched keening wail of anguish, his balls feeling crushed and broken. He heard a scream and couldn’t tell if it was his own or not. It might have been.

“Rookwood?” Celestia cried, her voice filled with concern and fear.

He felt himself being lifted. Tears began to flow.

“Rookwood I am sorry. How are you here?” Celestia said as the doors opened and a flood of guards entered the room.

“Stay back!” Celestia commanded. “I am fine.”

There were dozens of guards around her bed now. Rookwood felt himself being pulled close, and then suddenly, his word was white. He felt a leg around him. He felt comforted. Safe.

“Oh Rookwood, I am sorry. But when I realised you were in my bed, I panicked. I’ve seen what you’ve done to my sister. Please forgive me.” Celestia pulled him even closer.

“Leave us.” She commanded, her voice no longer smooth nor commanding. It sounded weak and fragile. “How much did you see?’ She whispered. The guards silently began to exit, their armor clanking, their hooffalls heavy.

Rookwood felt crushed. His body was pressed tight against Celestia’s, his face buried in her neck. He tried several times to say something, and couldn’t.

After crying for several minutes, he finally muttered: “Everything.”

“I couldn’t keep my promise.” Celestia said, her voice catching and cracking several times. “The darkness came and I lost Luna to it.”

Rookwood’s balls had their own heartbeat now. They thudded and throbbed painfully. They hurt even more than his nose.

“Are you alright?” Celestia asked.

“No.” Rookwood squeaked.

The door slammed open and Luna entered. “Is he safe?” She demanded.

“Scared.” Celestia said, her voice shaky.

“He did he get in here?” Luna questioned.

“No idea. I think he came here physically in a dream.” Celestia said.

“Celestia kicked me in my colt bits.” Rookwood squeaked in a high pitched voice.

“Why?” Luna said. “Why would you do that sister?”

“He wakes up with explosive ejaculation usually!” Celestia said, her voice still wavering. “I didn’t want it on me. And I was scared. I woke up frightened. I was having a bad dream.”

“That seems understandable.” Luna agreed. “Which dream Celestia?”

Celestia said nothing.

Luna fell silent.

“I saw everything.” Rookwood said, his voice like a hoof being dragged down a chalkboard. “I’m not telling anypony. I wouldn’t dare.”

“Thank you.” Luna said.

Rookwood felt Celestia pulling him even closer, and kissing the top of his head. When she did so, something ignited in Rookwood’s fevered brain. It blazed brightly, right behind his eyes, right behind his horn. His body tensed and he trembled.

“Does it still scare you?” Rookwood said, his voice a squeaky whisper.

“The fear has never gone away.” Luna said.

“You weren’t just alone in the night.” Rookwood said. “You were scared and alone in the dark. And nopony wanted to be with you. It makes a lot more sense now.”

Luna went and sat down in a chair.

Rookwood squirmed free of Celestia’s grasp. He sat up and slid from the bed. He crossed the room in a bow legged gait, his testicles throbbing painfully. He cautiously approached Luna, his head low.

“We have a better chance of beating her if we face her together.” Rookwood said, nearly screeching. “It broke my heart seeing you like that.”

Luna said nothing but began to cry.

Author's Notes:

Aurora Diluculo means the breaking of dawn.

More or less.