Forest, hill, snow, bridge, castle, pit, creature, pain, wake up.

Forest, hill, snow, bridge, castle, pit, creature, pain, wake up.

Forest, hill, snow, bridge, castle, pit, creature, pain, wake up.

So it kept happening to Nightmare Moon. Either she would have a dreamless night, or she would find herself in that same place. Some times she would be there two or three nights in a row, others there would be that many in between. So it happened for nearly a month. One of the nights she was there, she woke up to find she had literally kicked Chocolate Cherry out of bed (and hard enough to leave a bruise).

She had tried to change it of course. The dream realm was supposed to be malleable. If a pony knew they were dreaming, then they could easily alter the dream around them. Unfortunately, something about the area refused to let it change. The forest was always a forest, the hill was always a hill, and the castle was always there.

At the same time, because it was a dream it had no need to follow any sort of rules. Nightmare Moon tried to fly away, but found herself only flying toward the castle from the other direction. She tried to stay in one spot, but the ground just moved under her to take her toward the hill. No matter where Nightmare Moon entered the castle, she always wound up back in the throne room. Any attempt to avoid falling into the pit failed. Even simply flying over the spot did not work. No matter what happened, she always wound up sucked into that same dark, black pit with that... thing.

There was where things were the worst for Nightmare Moon, especially as time progressed. At first, the creature would ask questions of Nightmare Moon: what was she, how did she get there, why was she there. Nightmare Moon would refuse to answer, spitting and snarling as she shouted at the creature. The creature would then use its powers on her. At first, it seemed to just cause her pain and make her wake up. As the dreams progressed, it was less about inflicting pain and more about discovering something. Nightmare could feel the sickly dark magic dig into her brain, see the images and memories being pulled out.

At some point, the creature stopped asking questions. Instead it would simply grab a hold of Nightmare Moon and use its magic to dig into her mind. It would bore deeper and deeper, causing more and more pain, until she finally woke up. Her head would throb and ache when she did, far worse than when she had been hungover. It actually help Nightmare Moon learn a new word: migraine.

The worst of it was that she hated what it was doing to her. Whenever she was awaken from one of those dreams, she was afraid. Afraid to go back to sleep because she might wind up there again. So she would wind up wide awake in the middle of the night. After the accident with Cherry, the two of them had not been staying the night together (even though Cherry was not too upset over what happened), so there was no pony for her to cuddle and talk to. She had tried going to the club, but the noise made her head all the worse. Plus it was hard to dance when about ready to fall asleep. Nightmare had tried to read and research, but even that was difficult. Some times the words would be blurry and hard to read, other times she would simply be unable to remember what it was she had just read.

This time, Nightmare Moon decided that she could not take it anymore. As much as she hated the idea of asking for help, she knew she could not take many more nights of that place. Neither physically, nor emotionally. She had to do something, and loath as she was to admit, she could not do it alone.

After rubbing at her head to try and ward off some of the pain, she tossed her sheets aside (noting that they were still dry this time), and got up. She made her way through the darkened castle with ease, not bothering to turn on any lights or carry one with her. She could see fine with the ambient light as it was anyways.

Reaching the door to the room she was looking for, Nightmare Moon stopped. Lifting a hoof, she gave a firm knock. Ears perked, she listened intently, counting off the seconds. With nothing happening after reaching twenty-five, she tried it again. This time, her knock was even firmer.

After two more failed attempts, Nightmare Moon turned around and gave the door three hard kicks, getting a booming echo of a knock as a result.

"For crying out loud!" a voice shouted from the other side. "It's the middle of the night. I'm trying to sleep here!"

"And now you are awake," Nightmare called back. "I have need of your assistance, Spike, and it cannot wait until morning."

There was a moment of silence as Nightmare stood there, staring at the door. Soon there was a faint sound of claws on stone that slowly got louder.

Spike opened the door to his room and poked his head out, looking at Nightmare Moon through half closed eyes.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"'I have need of your assistance,'" Nightmare repeated, "' and it cannot wait until morning.'"

"No," Spike said. "I mean... you called me Spike."

"Yes. That is your given name, is it not?"

"Yeah... but you have never called me by name before. Normally you either call me 'dragon' or refer to me as Twilight's 'servant.' I didn't even think you knew my name."

"Now you know I do," Nightmare stated. "Back to the matter at hoof. I need to send a message to Luna as quick as possible, which means you."

Spike looked at Nightmare, his face scrunched up in annoyance. With a sigh he pushed the door open and stepped aside.

"Come on," Spike huffed as he turned back to his room. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get back to sleep."

Nightmare Moon bit her lip, trying to keep her response in check. After all, she had just said that she needed Spike's help. It would be counterproductive to tease him about having pubescent dreams involving himself and Rarity, even if it would be amusing (especially if true). At the very least, the time wasted with teasing and the defensiveness would make it take longer to get the message written and sent. At worst, Spike may decide that the matter was not urgent enough to require him to send a message in the middle of the night. Should that happen, Nightmare Moon's choices would be: try to convince him all the same; involve Twilight Sparkle, explaining it to her and having her talk Spike into it; or resort to sending a letter through the traditional Equestrian mail system, which could take days if at all (Nightmare did not trust the look of the mare she saw doing the mail rounds). None of those really appealed to her. The sooner she could get this dealt with, the better.

Pulling out a quill and scroll, Spike hopped up onto the bed.

"Alright," he said. "Whenever you're ready."

Nightmare Moon tilted her head, raising an eyebrow.

"Am I to understand," she said slowly, "that you happen to keep a parchment, quill, and ink in your bedside stand?"

"What? You don't think Twilight has ever suddenly had the need to have me write something in the middle of the night?" He pointed the quill at Nightmare. "Well she has. So I started keeping a quill and scroll nearby at all times. Figure it's a good idea to keep it up just the same." He let out a grin. "And you did just prove me right about the matter."

Nightmare let out a snort and rolled her eyes. Still, she could not actually argue with the thinking behind it. Especially since he was right that she had proven his point by asking him to write a letter to Princess Luna in the middle of the night.

"Luna," Nightmare started. "Wait. I suppose that if I'm going to be asking for her help, I should be more formal, shouldn't I? Which means I should refer to her by her title as well. Princess Luna. Start with Princess Luna."

Closing her eyes, Nightmare Moon took a deep breath and tried to better organize her thoughts.

"'Princess Luna,'" she stated, "'I have discovered something extremely odd in the dream realm. Also something that could be extremely dangerous.'"

"Wait," Spike cut in. "Exactly how dangerous?"

Nightmare Moon looked at him a long moment, considering the question. With a sigh, she let her head drop.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't even know what it is. If it were able to escape its imprisonment and actually affect the dream world..." She tapped her hoof, thinking about it.

"Yeah?" Spike asked, looking up at her.

"There's a story about a stallion that was afraid to go to sleep. He didn't simply have nightmares, but night terrors. Imagine if every time you went to sleep, your dreams were similar to experiencing King Sombra's fear spell."

She paused, letting Spike shiver at the thought.

"Except for one major difference. Instead of merely something that frightens you, there is something that is hunting you, stalking, making you feel like a rabbit being chased by a hungry wolf. Now imagine if you had dreams like that every night. Every time you fell asleep.

"That is what the stallion went through. Until one day, he decided to try and do the only thing he could think of to stop it: he stopped going to sleep. He did anything and everything he could to stay awake. Magic, alchemy, even things that are supposed to be illegal in Equestria. Whatever he could get a hold of that he thought could help keep him awake.

"One day, his family could not take what he was doing to himself any longer. After all, ponies need sleep. What he was doing was unhealthy, and they could all see it taking its toll. So they insisted he get some sleep. He stipulated that he would only do so if his family agreed to wake him the instant anything seemed to be wrong. They agreed, naturally, wanting him to rest and not wishing to see him continue to fall apart from sleep deprivation. As soon as he fell asleep, they put him in his bedroom and left him there. Alone.

"Shortly, they heard the stallion screaming. The family went to check on him. From what they could tell, although he was screaming and thrashing, the stallion was still asleep. They tried to wake him up, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, despite the family's efforts the stallion died, terrified but without waking."

Spike stared at Nightmare Moon, eyes wide as the quill in one claw shook.

"After having dreams off and on of this...thing for nearly a month," Nightmare stated, "I am worried that -- should it somehow manage to escape its imprisonment -- this creature will be able to attack the dreams of many ponies. At best, they will be tired and weak. At worst, they will not wake up."

"Well I'm not getting any more sleep tonight," Spike grumbled as he rubbed at his face.

"Nor can I," Nightmare replied. "So I am certain you can understand why I wish to send this message as immediately and quickly as possible."