It's the middle of the night. I had another nightmare, which I'll describe next... but it will be hard to write about. You know, journal, I have to wonder if it's even possible for a pony to get used to horrifying experiences, no matter what you do. I suspect that even if you've seen it all, even if you're already mad beyond all words and reason, there might always remain the tiniest, horriblest, something more out there: something that will rip yet another piece of your sanity you didn't even imagine you could have possibly still possessed right off of the raw edge of your fractured mind, like a hunk of crust jerked clean from a fresh, hot loaf of bread. I don't think it matters, though, because the supposition is unfalsifiable. As I learned early in my youth, some things simply cannot be known; and paradoxes of knowledge such as these are, for good or ill, common as grass.

I guess that sounded kind of dark. It's okay, though. Writing this out is helping me keep things together at the moment, and that's a good thing. I'm an optimist, and I always will be. Every problem, every obstacle, is just another puzzle waiting to be solved; and no matter what may occur, hope always survives. I learned that lesson after our first confrontation with Discord, and I believe I've learned it well.

Okay. I think I'm ready to tell my story.

In my nightmare, I was galloping through a landscape, dodging pitch-black shadows that came at me from all angles. They looked like long, featureless spikes, or horns, or hooves. Near breathless, I managed to take flight and escape from them, but everything became blurry. The next thing I recall, I was lying supine in the crystal caves beneath Canterlot Castle, and all of my closest friends surrounded me: Spike, my Ponyville friends, my parents, Princess Luna, my brother and sister-in-law, the Cutie Mark Crusaders... and some of the family members of my friends, as well. The only pony I was surprised not to see was Princess Celestia. Regardless, I felt a great relief wash over me to be among so many of my dearest friends, even if it was a bit awkward to see them above me while lying on my back on the dirty cavern floor.

Then, it began. Everypony around me was happy and smiling when the darkness came out of their bodies. It came from their horns and their wings, from their arms and their legs, and from other places I didn't really see. These long, hoof-like spikes thrusted outwards toward me. I tried to move, or use magic, but as the attack began I was paralyzed by something, maybe just the fear or the shock or the disbelief, and I lay there on the ground with my wings unfurled as dozens of these, these things just abruptly shoved their way painfully up under my pelt and into my arms and legs and wings, pinning me there against the rough cavern floor. There were no punctures or blood or anything gory, but my skin shifted and buckled, writhing with the otherness inside me. I couldn't believe I was dreaming: the pain was far too real. Even writing about this now I can feel it, and it makes me shiver.

Oddly enough, it didn't hurt very badly at first, but of course I pulled away as best I could; and the harder I fought against the invaders to my pony, the more it hurt. What started as perhaps a minor soreness quickly became sheer agony unlike anything I have ever experienced or imagined. I shook violently against the ground as I fought harder and harder to pull free, the pain still intensifying. And the faces of all my friends, smiling, laughing, watching me! Somehow they were making the violation as embarrassing as it was painful, as though it was somehow my fault this was happening. They spoke to me, each of them saying something different, as though they were cheering me on at a competition; but instead of helpful advice like "choke up on the bat" or an encouraging "you can do it", the voices of my friends and family told me to relax and ignore the pain, to stop being such a delicate flower, to just give up already. In my deranged mind, the words they spoke made me feel as though everything, all of the pain and torture, had been my fault from the very beginning.

And then, the worst possible thing happened. I felt my horn itself betray me, bending and twisting atop my head. At first I thought it was simply going to snap in two (which would have made sense for a nightmare, given recent events), but it didn't. Instead, it lengthened and twisted painfully into another, even larger hoof-shaped darkness, pulling downward hard enough to force my head at an impossible angle until it pointed almost directly at my chest. I started to scream, apparently my lungs the only part of my body I yet controlled, as my own horn, or whatever it had become, in this grand, awful crescendo of screaming and darkness and pain, lunged directly into my ribcage and penetrated straight into my heart.

Blessings to Princess Luna, just as I reached the end of all comprehension, everything stopped. I lay there on the cave floor, moaning and crying softly as I curled into a fetal position, barely holding my sanity in check. As I write this, of course I know it was just a dream, and even now, the crispness fades slowly from my mind and I'm certain my mental faculties will be just fine in the morning. But as I lay there within the nightmare, nothing made any sense. As I struggled to regain a normal breathing pattern, the pain was still within me, and it persisted until my muscles finally relaxed. Slowly, I staggered to my feet. Even though things were remarkably vivid, I began to suspect I was dreaming (finally). That was the moment when I heard her voice.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle. I come bearing good tidings," spoke Princess Luna's voice as it echoed around the crystal caverns. I looked around and could not immediately see her, but eventually I saw her reflection up above, across a chasm. It was dark in the area where she stood, so I could not make out any of her features, but her voice had its usual formality with carefully guarded kindness.

"Luna?" I gasped. "Oh, thank goodness," I said, panting weakly.

"Yes, it is I," said Luna, not deigning to leave from where she positioned herself in the distance. "I am sorry about your nightmare, but happy to have saved you from it. I wish I could have been able to prevent this stress from reaching you in the first place, and I apologize for my part in it."

"Your... part?" I asked, feeling a bit dizzy. I dusted my body off with telekinesis, noting my magic worked here just as it does in the real world, probably owing to the lucidity offered by Luna's proximity.

"Yes. I fear I have misled you, but not intentionally," she said. "I have had time to investigate Princess Cadance's problem in more detail, and I believe though her dreams have been highly disturbing of late, the cause is something mundane. You can rest assured that your sister-in-law is in no danger, Princess Twilight Sparkle."

I paused for a moment. "But, that doesn't—"

"I wish you a fond evening free of such unpleasant dreams," she interrupted, and turned to walk completely out of sight.

I reacted quickly. I trusted Luna with my life, but I had to know. From the stories I had heard, her dream magic did not appear to emanate from her horn, and I was not about to miss my only opportunity to reassure myself that Princess Luna remained untouched by this conundrum. Despite the fact that my legs were shaking and my emotions a shambles, I targeted the spot she was headed and crossed my horn that the spell would work. Teleportation is a difficult spell. Only experts who specialize at magic can even attempt it out of line of sight. Teleporting to a location you've never seen before is nigh-impossible, and to top it off I was in a dream, and one that wasn't even under my control.

Fortunately for me, my name is Twilight Sparkle.

I appeared on the ground, well... pure darkness, actually, immediately in front of Princess Luna (I guess she, or perhaps my mind, hadn't bothered to make anything past that point). I stared up at her in a flash, my face a focused laser-beam of pure, unbridled attention. She locked eyes with me, totally surprised (yeah, I was pretty awesome), and in half a heartbeat I was fully awake.

Have you ever had a dream where you felt like you were falling, and then there was this sudden jerking sensation as you instantly woke up, like you had crashed into the ground? This was much worse. I screamed, but clamped my hoof over my mouth almost immediately so it was more of a yelp. Pinkie Pie and Spike were roused by it, but I told them I was okay and they went back to sleep.

It took a moment after I stepped out of bed for the epiphany to register. Being yanked out of the dream realm was so forceful, I very well could have forgotten the detail I'd been looking for. But I was safe, if only because the bragging rights of the amazing magical feat I'd accomplished kept it fresh in my mind: I could remember Luna's face.

Oh, thank friendship! Princess Luna's horn remains completely intact. It set atop her forehead, long and glorious and beautiful and majestic as it had ever been since her last transcendance, and without a single visible spot or blemish to mar it.

However, there is, unfortunately, a minor oddity. Luna's horn had something very unusual resting upon it, down near the base. It was a ring, of sorts, and of a kind I have neither seen nor read about. If it were an earring or some other piece of jewelry, I wouldn't have given it another thought. But rings are almost never worn on horns. In part, this is because in certain cases they can accidentally affect (or be affected by) magic, but the primary reason is that, well, it's just kind of rude. Putting a ring around it is just not something anypony would do in public, and that was as true one-thousand years ago as it is today. Nothing is as "personal" as a pony's horn, for crying out loud. It might even be more personal than your genitals, to be honest. You don't touch it, you definitely don't touch other horns on other ponies, and you don't decorate it (unless, perhaps, you're really, really drunk). It simply is not done. In fact, the only time I've ever seen an actual ring designed for a horn is at a unicorn wedding (such as Princess Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding). We do it for weddings alone, because that's how special it is.

Oh, wow. I didn't even think about this before, probably because I'm still just a bit on the socially dense side. That's what's been bothering me so much about the cap thing. Despite how crazy it is to highlight a broken horn, or even to block it from growing back... It's a horn decoration, which is just obscene. Anypony else in our group might dismiss it as merely odd, but Rarity (who apparently suggested it)? Princess Cadance? My brother? For that matter, Luna, if she's seen it in Cadance's dream projection? None of those ponies would abide by this. This is going to have to come out at dinner tomorrow, there's just no avoiding it.

Anyway, back to the ring while I can still remember the details. It looked like cold-wrought iron, made with a triple helical-twist into a toroid shape. I'm certain I recognised the ancient runes on it, so it's either very, very old, or what Rarity would probably call "ultra-retro". There is a decent chance that Princess Luna just happened to be wearing a personal piece of jewelry and didn't want me to see it, because let's be honest, an ancient horn ring is kinda gross. But I have a sinking feeling it's much more than that. I'm tempted to hit up the castle library, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow and go to the main branch to be less conspicuous about it. I need to know if that ring means something important. I just can't afford to leave a stone unturned anymore.

I've taken the time to write this all down, but I need more time to think, and it's still a little annoying to fall asleep with the earrings in (you need a special tool to remove them, and it's with Rarity). I'm going to to take a walk out in the hallway and try to clear my head, then maybe I'll write some more before going back to sleep.