Dreams.  Dreams are such magnificent things, wouldn’t you agree?  Dreaming is such a beautiful action, taken when it is least likely to be remembered.  In the realm of dreams, anything is possible, and reality is what you make of it.  You can be a rich nobleman swimming in gold, or a knight beyond equal, or even a beautiful princess whom your subjects adore.

But not all dreams are good.  The realm of dreams can be quite dangerous, to some ponies more than others.  Nightmares, created by personal fears and follies, constantly threaten to swallow beautiful dream worlds with razor-sharp teeth.  And for some ponies, those nightmares pose true threats, more so than any physical harm.  The darker the past and deeper the doubts, the stronger a nightmare becomes.

Of course, nightmares never pose any real threat to anypony, not since the return of the Princess of the Night, who watches over the citizens of Equestria as they sleep.  Princess Luna, the once-banished younger sister to the Princess of the Day, protects her subjects from the evils that lurk in the night, even within their own minds.  If ever a nightmare becomes too gruesome, Luna steps forward to guide the victim away from the dangers of their own mind.

At one time, the younger princess felt contempt for her sister, who ruled the day and remained in the public eye.  That contempt led her to make regretful decisions, and in the end, it had cost her everything.  Now that she’s returned, she does her duty with pride, accepting of her obscure status as the guardian of ponies’ dreams.  It is this accepting attitude that allows her to save a pony from their own nightmares, as she had battled her own inner demons and won.

Though she tries her best to ensure a peaceful sleep for the citizens of her kingdom, the Princess of the Night can only do so much with what she’s given.  The power of a princess only goes so far, as she has learned time and time again.  Between her own inner demons, and countless other threats to the land of Equestria, a single pony’s power only counts for so much.

Her older sister couldn’t escape that inevitability, nor could the Elements of Harmony, or even the almost-omnipotent Master of Chaos.  No, a single individual has only so much power, and more often than not it isn’t enough to combat a great evil.

Princess Luna protects the night to the best of her ability, but what should she do if her abilities just aren’t enough to save somepony from their nightmares?  What could she do?

What will she do?

Princess Luna stood on the balcony at the top of one of Canterlot Castle’s many watchtowers, staring out over the city she called home.  A light mist fell steadily, the sound of the water droplets acting as a lullaby for the ponies sleeping down below.  The golden roofs of the more noble buildings reflected the light of the moon beautifully through a thin veil of clouds, sending comfortable warmth through her mind.  On most nights, she would catch herself staring up at it, a spherical orb of peaceful light that beamed down at the world each night.  Though she had once called it a prison, it now reminded her of the importance of her job, how she watched over the night and protected her kingdom.

She sometimes imagined herself standing there on that radiant orb, her dark blue coat shining in the light, her wings spread wide in excitement.  Excitement for what, she never really considered, but she imagined herself as excited nonetheless.  Each night she would imagine another piece to the puzzle:  a castle here, a forest there, each resting on some other piece of the moon’s surface.  Like a map leading to unimaginable treasures, she dotted it with imaginary landmarks.  Above all else, she was herself on that cold rock.

But of course her imaginations were only temporary, as she would quickly recall the reality of her imprisonment there.  There were no forests or castles.  Neither were there subjects to give her existence meaning, nopony to talk to or play with.

Beyond anything else, her time trapped on that rock left her without her sister, the one pony she wanted the company of the most.  As the dawn drew closer, she would wash away her fantasies and recount the reality of her banishment.  She would whisper prayers to that prison that she would never lose control of her inner darkness, all in the hopes that she would never face the barren loneliness again.

And when she would meet her sister the following morning, the worries in her heart would wash away in the presence of her beloved sibling, the warm rays of the sun casting away the shadows of doubt and pain.

On that particular night, however, she never had a chance to look up to the moon with child-like wonder.  Ponies all across the land, from Appleloosa to Manehattan, found themselves squirming in their sleep, dark demons and nasty memories running through their heads.  And with each nightmare, Princess Luna would soar to their aid in their dreaming worlds, guiding them back to the safety of their more pleasant memories and aspirations.

More and more nightmares continued to surface, each more gruesome than the last.  As she aided her subjects, the night carried on, slowly inching closer toward the dawn.  When at last her sister awoke to do her duty and raise the sun, the nightmares ended and the ponies awoke.  The thin clouds that had kissed the land with drizzle moved away with the moon, almost following it like a pet.

Nopony would have ever assumed that such a trivial night could be the precursor to a much more sinister turn of events…

“Good morning everypony!” Princess Celestia called as she landed ever so gracefully on the balcony outside of her royal chambers.  The sun rested high in the sky, her job finished for the moment.  With a bright smile, she trotted back into the castle.

Princess Luna landed outside of her own room, having finished the final nightmare for the night.  Without a second glance at the sky, she hurried to the dining hall.

The princess passed by several of the castle’s staff as she made her way downstairs, each holding themselves in odd manners.  Rather than standing at attention as they always do, many of the guards were hunched over, leaning against walls or weapons for support, as if they were on the verge of passing out.

Even the maids looked exhausted, their feather dusters hovering lazily over certain unimportant pieces of furniture.  The further downstairs she got, the more ponies she saw, each groggy and otherwise zoned out.  An alarm ringed in her head, though she didn’t quite hear it at the time.

As she trotted into the dining hall, she was greeted by the cheerful voice of her older sister, “Good morning, Luna!  I trust all was well last night?”  With a golden glow of magic, Celestia pulled the seat closest to her out, offering it to her sibling.

Passing several more abnormal guards on her way to join her sister, Luna hesitantly replied, “Nothing too far out of the ordinary happened, I suppose.  There was an awful amount of nightmares popping up, but it was otherwise average.”  She cocked an eyebrow as one of the castle chefs lazily dropped a platter of vegetables in front of them.  He had dark bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“Perhaps that’s why everypony seems so out of it, then?” Celestia inquired, nodding gratefully toward the chef and preparing to bite into a particularly crisp leaf of lettuce.

Luna giggled, “So you’ve noticed then?”

“How could I not?” Celestia admitted with an almost-conspiratorial tone.  “It looks as if nopony has slept in ages.  I passed by one of the guard posts on my way down, and one of the guards was trying to wear a boot on his head!”  Though her tone rang with annoyance, she carried a happy smile on her muzzle.

“And what of you, sister?  How are your dreams treating you?”

“We both know that you know exactly how my dreams are.”  The older sister was gnawing away at her plate of veggies with less grace than to be expected from royalty.

A sly grin graced Luna’s face as she whispered, “You only eat like that when you’re tired, sis.”

Celestia’s eyes opened wide, her cheeks adopting a red color, a carrot protruding slightly from between her teeth.  Finishing her bite, she snapped, “So I haven’t slept much lately, it is nothing to be concerned with.”

“Is that so…” the suspicious princess muttered under her breath, turning away from her sister.  A knot of dread tightened in her gut, replacing her appetite outright.

The sound of clanking armor filled the room as the guards on night duty came to eat before returning to the castle’s barracks.  Just as Celestia had said, one of the guards had a boot hanging on his horn.  Several others were barely wearing their armor at all, with a few missing critical straps and buckles.

And each one of them looked absolutely exhausted, more than usual for the night guard.  Those soldiers were trained to go periods without sleep, and had never once left their posts with such worn expressions in all the days Luna had seen them come to breakfast.  She cocked an eyebrow and stood from her seat, preparing to leave the room altogether.

As she turned to trot away, Celestia asked, “Aren’t you going to eat, sister?”

With a blunt “No,” she trotted off with a slow enough speed to not raise suspicion.

Princess Luna scoured the entirety of the castle, top to bottom, looking for somepony who didn’t look as if they were about to fall into a coma.  And, to her disappointment, each and every resident was on the edge of consciousness, some so far gone that they didn’t even respond when she would nudge them out of the way of a door or two.  The guards were keeled over in their posts.  The maids were toppled onto dressers and bedposts.  The chefs had fallen into piles of their own ingredients.

Eventually she took to the streets of Canterlot, hoping somepony somewhere was in their right mind.  To her dismay, every last pony she crossed paths with was toppled over on something.  They weren’t asleep, but they certainly weren’t awake.  Just when she was on the verge of exploding in frustrated anger, mere seconds away from busting out the Royal Canterlot Voice, an amused chuckle filled the air.

The chuckle was all too familiar, and it sent a surge of annoyance through her body.  She physically flinched as a flash of yellow light revealed a disturbing misshapen beast.

She greeted the beast with a tone of absolute intolerance, “Good morning, Discord.”

The draconequus laughed in response, “A fine how do you do to you too, Lu!”  Taking a second to land in front of her, he added, “I see you’ve noticed the nice little change in pace around here as well!”  He smiled with his weird muzzle, his single long fang sparkling for no apparent reason.

“Are you the one doing this?!” Luna snapped immediately.  Whenever something bizarre happens in Equestria, the first instinct anypony has is to blame Discord, the Master of Chaos.  Sometimes, they’re right.

The beast fell over in a melodramatic manner, claw on his chest, eyes shut tightly.  He let out a deep sigh of disappointment and reassured her, “Oh heavens no, dear Luna!  Why on earth would I do that?”  With a snap of his fingers, he was upright again, a cup of steaming tea in his paw.  “I’m not responsible for this, but I most certainly am feeling the effects.”

“You…are?” Luna questioned, the draconequus looking just as energetic as usual.

“Humph!  And here I thought we were friends.”  He leaned down closer to the princess and pointed at his antler.  “It goes soft when I’m dreadfully tired!  Quite a big deal, really.  At any rate…”

“Why are you here?”

“To tell you a secret, of course!  You see, I’m afraid that Ponyville has come down with a serious case of the sleepies.”  He jumped back a few feet and manifested a model of the small town in midair.

“…’sleepies?’”

“That’s right!  I did some looking around this morning, and it seems not a single pony woke up after sunrise.”  Several dolls of important ponies landed in the streets of the model, each one with exes for eyes and tongues sticking out of their mouths.  “What’s more, a thick fog has swallowed the town.”  As he said it, the model showed it.

Luna’s eyes opened wide, realizing that the two happenings had to be connected.  “Tell me about the fog!” she demanded, stamping a hoof.

Even she could see that her reaction was entirely unnecessary and perhaps a bit exaggerated, but the entire course of the last several hours had been bizarre and foreboding.  There had been too many nightmares the previous night, coupled with the fact that everypony—even the ones that didn’t usually sleep—looked absolutely fatigued, couldn’t have just been coincidence.  Now news of a strange fog and an entire town of sleeping ponies had reached her…

Discord chuckled dismissively, “Calm down, calm down.  It was only fog, after all!  Dark, thick, almost like it had stormed…”  His dismissive chuckle faded away real fast as he suddenly remembered the last time he had seen a thick fog like that.  “On second thought, perhaps we ought to panic.”

“P-Panic?  Why should we panic?”  The princess hastily looked around, wondering why Discord of all people would choose such a harsh word.  “What is it?”

“Tell me, Luna,” he began slowly, adopting a serious tone for the first time she’d ever seen, “are we scheduled for rain again today?”

“Why?”

The draconequus pointed upwards, and the princess’s eyes followed the silent sign without hesitation.  There, in the skies that had been sunny and clear mere moments ago, a massive sheet of clouds stretched as far as the eye could see.  Dark, purple, and dangerously close to the ground, the clouds emitted an indescribable scent that sent burning pains through Luna’s nostrils.  Drops of liquid fell from the clouds, thicker and hotter than normal rain.  In a single flash of lightning the downpour began; the droplets of liquid fell heavier and hotter, stinging the princess’s coat like acid.

As she turned to instruct any ponies nearby to seek refuge in their homes, a bizarre sight met her gaze, and a simple gasp of air was her only reaction.

It’s all she could muster up. Next Chapter: The Dreamweaver's Entrance Estimated time remaining: 37 Minutes