Author's Notes:

This will be a short story. It will be dark, disturbing, and unpleasant. It will have themes that are bound to be disliked, painful to read, and even hated. But it is a story that is stuck in my head and must be told. This is more or less to satisfy my own itch to tell a story, and I didn't write this for anyone other than myself... but I did decide to share it.

I wrote this out of a wishful desire for justice in the world.

Disturbed. Princess Luna felt disturbed. Unable to sleep, Princess Luna stalked the hallways of Canterlot Castle, her eyes red and bleary. With each step her shoes struck sparks upon the marble tile floor. Unable to sleep, Luna prowled about in a terrible mood.

It was the dream again. The same horrible dream again.

Halting mid step, Princess Luna’s whole body tensed as she shuddered and closed her eyes, trying to make the memory of her nightmare go away. When she opened her eyes again, the memory was still there, and along with it, the confusing jumble of emotions.

Was it even a dream?

Princess Luna did not know. It all felt so real. Each of these dreams felt too real. And in these dreams, Luna had no power to make them stop, no control over them, no means to wake herself up. Luna did not know what was more terrifying; the content of the dream or the feeling of being powerless, having to go along and endure the dream as it happened.

Coming around a corner, Princess Luna saw a familiar sight. A painting of her and her sister, a piece of art just finished not long ago. She had seen it seven times previous and this was the eighth. Eight trips around the castle. Eight laps around the outer expanses, through the many twisting hallways.

Dropping her head, Princess Luna came to a halt, took a deep breath, and then let it out in a pained sigh. She felt exhausted. It was more mental than physical. Everything between her ears ached. Standing before the painting, Princess Luna tried to make her mind stop thinking.

Are you really a pony princess?

It had been such a strange question, so full of innocence and curiousity, asked during a moment of what had to be horror. Feeling cold, Luna shivered, closed her eyes, and tried to make the lump in her throat go away.

When I feel him climbing on top of me, I let myself drift off and I float away.

The thought made her stomach churn and her heart ache. Princess Luna tasted bile in the back of her throat as she thought about her dreams of a little human girl that dreamed of a pony princess to escape her own nightmare.

It was a dream, or at least Luna hoped it was. It was too real, too raw, and too painful to think about. If what Luna was experiencing was reality, Luna wasn’t certain she wanted to deal with reality anymore.

Looking up at the painting, Luna saw her sister looking back at her. Celestia’s eyes were merry and Celestia had her tongue sticking out. It was a painting that very few ponies saw, the public seldom had access to these particular corridors. Luna had stuck her own tongue out for the painting and the artist had captured the silliness of the moment, preserving it on canvas.

This time, staring at the painting helped. Feeling a little better, her heart not so heavy, Princess Luna returned to her aerie with the hope of slumber on her mind.

“He came into my room again.”

Drifting among the stars, there was nothing that Princess Luna could do. She was a prisoner here in this place, a spectator, her only action was to watch. She looked at the small human girl drifting through the stars with her, a creature from beyond the mirror. Princess Luna felt a growing sadness as she looked at the small helpless looking little girl with red hair, pale white skin, green eyes and more freckles on her face than there were stars in the sky.

“I felt him pushing me down and then he was on top of me. He pushed my face down into my bed and then he started hurting my bottom again. Why does he keep doing this?”

Blinking, Luna did not know what to say. Inside of her, her rage came to a low simmer.

“You seem quiet.”

“You must forgive me, I do not know what to say.”

“I like these dreams. When I am here, I can’t feel him hurting me. My daddy says he loves me over and over in my ear but he keeps hurting me as he’s saying it.”

This was the worst sort dream. It had enough realism to be painful, enough truth to cause agonising pain, and enough horror to bring about the worst sort of fear. Luna felt her jaw muscles clench and she worried that her teeth might shatter from the sudden force placed upon them. She suffered a worrisome mental image of it happening and felt a cold rush of terror stab through her bowels.

“There are no talking ponies where I live. Just regular ponies and horsies. This is how I know I’m dreaming, there is a talking pony princess that keeps me company after I drift away.”

This felt like madness. Luna was dreaming of a little human girl that was dreaming of Luna. “Maeve, I am a princess. I am Princess Luna of the land of Equestria—”

“And it’s full of talking ponies. I wish I could go there. Anywhere is better than here.”

Heaving a sigh, Princess Luna realised that neither dreamer fully believed in the other. The thought was troubling, it weighed heavy in her mind, and something about this realisation disturbed her.

“Maeve, tell me more about yourself,” Princess Luna said in a low voice, after she had made a decision to explore this madness to its depths.

“My name is Maeve Rosethicket and I live on the island town of Pemberton. I just had my eleventh birthday and I go to Chapelwood Elementary School. Six months ago, my mother died and my daddy says he gets real lonesome without her and I look just like her and it makes him hurt down in his pants when he looks at me.”

“Have you tried telling anyone what is happening?” Luna asked.

“Daddy says I have to keep this a secret. If told someone about how he hurts my bottom, he said that mean people would take me away just to hurt him and then he’d die from being lonesome,” Maeve replied.

“You have told me.”

“You’re not real. You’re just a dream, a figment of my imagination. You’re a talking pony princess.”

“Do you have any friends?”

“I am a redheaded girl with too many freckles. I don’t have any friends.”

The girl’s reply caused an overwhelming sensation of confusion for Luna and Luna shook her head in reaction. “Why would red hair matter?”

“Try being a red haired little girl instead of a pony princess.” Maeve tented her fingers together as she drifted through the starry void with Princess Luna.

The stars dimmed and Luna felt a peculiar pulling sensation on her body. She did not want this dream to end. If the girl was real, Luna did not want the girl to wake up. At least here, in this dream, the girl was safe from harm.

“I think I’m waking up. Goodbye, Princess Luna.” Maeve waved her hand at Luna. “I’m sorry, but I have to make you disappear for a while. I’ll dream about you again soon!”

There was a dull thudding between Luna’s ears. The sun, still high in the sky, burned her eyes. Following her sister’s advice, Luna was now spending some time in the royal gardens, hoping that the time spent among the greenery would bring some serenity. Sitting among the flowers and the buzzing bees, Luna considered two possibilities.

The dream was real.

Or…

The dream was not real.

Either option presented troubling issues. If the dream was real, Princess Luna was witnessing the suffering of a little red haired eleven year old girl from a place called Pemberton, and the dream was a refuge for the girl’s mind while the girl’s body endured unspeakable abuse from one who should know better.

Fathers had a sacred obligation to protect their daughters from all harm.

To make matters worse, real or not, the dream presented a problem; Princess Luna had no control over the dream. She was powerless. She had no authority. She had no means to wake herself, no means of asserting her will, there was nothing that Luna could do. Dreams were her dominion. In dreams, Luna was the supreme authority. She made dreams for others. She was the source of all dreams.

All of them it seemed, except for this one.

For a moment, Luna wondered if perhaps she really was the figment of imagination in an eleven year old human girl’s mind. She watched a bumblebee go buzzing past and wondered for a moment what was real.

Princess Luna was a talking pony princess from the land of Equestria. It seemed like a reasonable thing to be. Maeve Rosethicket was a human girl from the land beyond the mirror, a land with little to no magic. Twilight Sparkle had found a strange magic beyond the mirror, but Twilight Sparkle was magic. There was no way that a human girl could or would have any magic, any means of reaching Luna, and with this logic in mind, it was safe to assume that the girl could not be real and these dreams were just troubling dreams.

In which Luna found herself powerless and unable to escape.

Which led Luna back to the beginning of her conundrum. The dream had a troubling amount of realism and a number of problematic elements that had to be addressed. Shuddering, Luna was not certain she could face these troubling thoughts on her own. There seemed to be no way to deal with this problem but to endure it, and Luna’s endurance seemed to be slipping.

Rising up off of her haunches, Luna departed the gardens and went in search of her sister.

The larger sister looked at the smaller and felt pity. Celestia could see that Luna looked terrible. With heaviness in her heart, Celestia wondered what could be done about this situation. Luna had poured out her heart, her thoughts, and there were several times that Celestia had been forced to make Luna stop babbling.

“How long has this been going on?” Celestia asked, trying to fill in the gaps of information that she did not know.

“About three weeks,” Luna replied in a dull voice. “It started off infrequently, but quickly grew into a regular occurrence. Now it seems to happen every time I go to sleep.”

Pursing her lips together, Celestia wickered, making an equine sound of worry as she continued to study her sister, Luna. Her sister looked tired, her eyes were red, and there was enough baggage under poor Luna’s eyes to take a trip to the fabled city of Oasis in the San Palomino desert.

“This is becoming a bigger crisis than you realise sister,” Luna said in a flat monotone.

“Why is that?” Celestia asked in a low voice that was filled with concern. She watched her sister’s every movement. Every eye blink, every muscle spasm, every ear twitch, Celestia watched everything almost as if the answer was right here in front of her and she just wasn't looking hard enough to find it.

“When I have these dreams, all of my consciousness exists within the dream. All of me. None of me exists anywhere else, I have no awareness of other dreams around me. This is keeping me from my duties and pulling me out of the dreamscape. How can I safeguard our subjects if I am trapped within a nightmare of my own making?”

“Or trapped in the dream of an eleven year old girl.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she spoke, she hated saying the words that had just come out of her mouth, but she had to acknowledge all possibilities. “This has become a serious matter. I too, am at a loss for what to do.”

“I have considered the possibility that something is attacking us… some unknown foe, some devious threat that is pulling me into a dream that I cannot escape so that they may infiltrate unnoticed into our midst.”

“Sister, that thought frightens me.” Princess Celestia looked into Luna’s bloodshot teal eyes. “Luna, I would like for you to visit Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps Twilight could study you as you sleep. See if there is some strange magic. Some unknown force. Perhaps she can unravel this mystery.”

“Then I shall leave to see Twilight Sparkle as soon as possible. I am in need of rest.”