Peach Blossom lied unconscious in her bed, a thick bead of sweat breaking over her forehead. Mumbling something in a panicked fashion in her sleep, she pulled and tugged at the many-colored quilt that lied draped over her in a way that expressed abject terror. Finally, with a shrill squeak, the filly sat up, fully awake.

She swallowed several deep breaths of air and was soon calm. Pushing the tangled hair back from her face, she fell hard back onto her pillow with a loud wumf. With her senses fully back to reality, she knew it was nothing more than a nightmare that she had just suffered through.

A shallow creak sounded out through the room all of a sudden, and Peach Blossom shot her head in the direction where the noise came from, seeing that her door had been opened, and the faint yellow glow of the hallway light shone from it, illuminating a shadowy shape standing in the doorway. It started toward the bed in a slow walk, and it remained concealed by a silhouette until it was close enough that Peach Blossom could make out the figure's face through the darkness. The first thing Peach Blossom noticed about the being was a pale, wicked scar was marked over its left eye. Seeing this, the filly knew right off who was approaching her.

"Oh, it's just you, Mom," she sighed. Yawning after the mare was standing over the bed, she gave her mother a lazy, tired look. "You're back."

"Having trouble sleeping again?" Persica asked, brushing a hoof through her daughter's hair while looking at her with her good eye in a motion of care. "I could hear you from just outside the door."

"It was a bad dream," Peach Blossom responded in a low voice. "Just a bad dream."

"A bad dream?" Persica repeated inquisitively. "What was it about?"

Peach Blossom tugged her covers closer to her snout as she thought back. "I felt like I was... falling," she started. "There was nothing around me but the dark sky, and it didn't look like there was any kind of stopping that was going to happen."

Persica playfully winced back. "Ooh... I hate dreams like those," she spoke tenderly. "I got them a lot when I was your age. As a matter of fact I still do, some nights..."

"Are they still as scary when you're an adult as when you were as old as me?" Peach Blossom asked.

"At times, they can be," Persica said. "But once you realize it's just a dream, you lose that fear."

"I wish I had that much courage," Peach Blossom mumbled enviously. "You're really brave, Mom."

"And so are you," she replied, nuzzling her snout against her daughter's cheek, earning a small chuckle of delight. "And remember, even if you find yourself afraid of anything, I'll always be here to protect you, my little Blossom. I'll always be here, and never forget that." Her words appeared to provide a good deal of comfort for the filly, who closed her eyes and grinned contently.

As she watched her daughter's head become comfy on her white pillow, Persica began to hum a small song; one she had sung to her daughter on the day she was born. She hummed the charming, soft tune, filled with nothing but love behind her voice, until she knew Peach Blossom was sound asleep a few minutes later. Soon, the only sound to fill the room was that of Peach Blossom's heavy, happy breathing. Smiling, Persica bent down and kissed her on the forehead before making sure her covers were set nicely, and turning to silently leave the room.

After closing the door behind her with a barely-audible click of the knob, Persica began to walk down the short hallway that would eventually lead to her room. Passing by the edge of the stairs and the guest bedroom, she found herself in front of the door she was looking for and entered it after turning the hallway lights off.

Upon entering the room, she couldn't help but catch sight of one of the picture frames sitting on a tall drawer. In the picture was a young mare of her coloring, and a stallion with light blue fur, bright green eyes, and a blackish mane with a white streak going through it. It was a photo of both her and her husband, Chantilly Cream, on their wedding day. There was her younger self, eyes closed and smiling with the greatest of joy, clad in a white, shimmering wedding gown, while Chantilly himself was dressed in a fine tuxedo as black as pitch, and expressing a similar ecstatic emotion as he held her close by the waist in a tight, loving embrace.

That was before she had Peach Blossom. Before she lost Chantilly. Before she got the scar.

Exhaling a deep breath she didn't realized she had been holding, Persica rubbed a hoof over her blind eye and the mark of pale, disfigured flesh that ran across it. She remembered the day she received the wound as vividly as yesterday. Pulling her face from the photo, she began to pace toward her bed, fruitlessly attempting to remove the painful thought from her mind in the process.

As she crawled into it, Persica finally found a new thought to occupy her mind. The changeling. The changeling she met on the road the night before. The one she sent screaming off of the path it was traveling on. She inspected the spot where she was sure it had fallen this night, yet found nothing but damaged underbrush, and it made her feel at peace knowing it most likely fled far from here, away from her daughter and herself.

Out of all creatures that inhabited this planet, the ones she despised most were the dirty, wretched, love-stealing, thrice-damned changelings. Sure, the one she met seemed rather queer and quirky compared to the malevolent mannerisms of the rest of his kind she met in the past, but there was little doubt that this one had been truly any different.

And so, with the memory of ridding herself of the threat filling her mind, only to promptly dull into nothingness, did the mare with the scar covering her blind eye finally fall asleep.

Habeas Brittle found his slumber restless as well. He tossed and turned his chitinous frame upon the bed of hay he slept upon, dreaming a terrible nightmare of re-encountering the dreaded knight that left him in such a sorry condition. Only, it was much worse than before. He felt as though the knight was standing directly over his helpless, hapless, broken frame, the tip of its barbed spear pointed at his throat, pressing it forward and then-

His teal, monochromatic eyes shot open as he felt a sharp, grinding sting of pain coming from his broken leg. With a grouchy gurgle, just a few seconds after his abrupt awakening did he realize that he had rolled over it. Sitting himself up, the changeling examined his damaged limb, and found nothing major had gone awry in his unconscious clumsiness. The leg showed no sign of healing yet, and most likely wouldn't for some time.

Grunting, he began to get to his other three, usable legs. The idea that he needed to clear his head was what ultimately won out in his mind, and to help this plan along he began to pace around the small environment he was confined in, in a limp. Glaring through the darkness and what specks of moonlight shown through the window, Habeas could discern the shapes of many tools scattered throughout the barn. Hoes, rakes, pitchforks, and other assorted gardenware hung from racks upon the wooden wall, some covered in rust that signified their age, and others coated only in a thin layer of dust, muddling his prediction of the time it must have been since their last use. He even spotted a medium-sized plow suspended from the ceiling by ropes of an exceeding thickness, right next to the barn's attic.

After a few more minutes of repeating the same action, Habeas eventually lost interest in the inanimate objects and returned to the stall where he sat himself down once more. He still couldn't believe his luck in being found by a pony who understood him, and didn't seem too fearful of what he was, even without the need of shifting onto the guise of another pony.

The only thing to worry Habeas at the moment, besides the memory of that fearsome knight, was the thought of what would happen if Peach Blossom's mother discovered him. He shuddered at the very image of such an encounter. For all he knew, she'd chase him out into the wild where he was sure to be devoured by some manticore, chimera, bear or other beast of that type in his current condition, assuming she wouldn't just flat-up beat him.

The changeling quickly removed these thoughts, knowing they weren't helping in the slightest. Shaking his head and the chipped, curved horn that poked out from it, he fixed the handkerchief wrapped around his throat, lied down, and closed his eyes, intending to use the remaining darkness of this night to sleep and regain his energy.