There was a brief moment of silence between the time that anything that was able to fled the clearing bordering the swamp and the arrival of the Nightmare. As the Nightmare entered the clearing, its face wore an equine look of killing rage. Her fiery red eyes scanned the clearing to see if anythin had dared not leave. After seeing that there was nothing around, her face slipped from rage to a look that could be described as almost melancholy. She let out a very un-Nightmarish sigh as she carefully approached the swampy water. Moving into various positions alongside the water, she examined her sides and flanks which resulted in another sigh.
Her reflection in the water showed large purple splotches on both sides of her body. There was even some streaked along her tail. Normally a Nightmare's body will absorb all light. Not only does it give them an even more fearsome appearance when they choose to be seen, but it also gives them the closest thing to invisibility possible in the night if they choose not to be seen. Something as dark as blueberry juice shouldn't have been anywhere near visible, yet there it was for the whole world to see. The whole world and her sisters who would be gathering back at the stable after having done their rounds of scaring the tar out of those foolish enough to sleep. The sun had been up for close to an hour and if she didn't hurry, she would be missed. Questions would be asked. Her stains, which looked surprisingly like smeared bear paws, if they were crossed with a hand-print, would be noticed and commented on in the most unflattering manner. It might not have been so bad if this wasn't her first week, but everyone would be watching her to see how she was doing in her new role.
She stared at the water again. It was clear at the surface, but she was certain that just below the surface was mud, goop, and water that was probably a very vivid shade of green. She wasn't even sure if thrashing in the water would be enough to get the stains out. If she came out all green, her coat would take care of that, but there wasn't any guarantee that she could wash the blueberry stains out. She knew that there was a swimming hole nearby with a sandy shore and bottom that she could use to clean herself with. The sand might help scrape the goop off, but it was a swimming hole that was used by them and one of them in particular. She stuck a hoof in the swamp water and winced at how cold it was. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers and in this case she was definitely a beggar. She started to ease forward when she heard the crash of foliage from outside the clearing.
The noise ended as a pure white unicorn came galloping into the clearing. It came to a skidding halt as it caught sight of the Nightmare and whinnied a call of challenge. Unicorns and Nightmares were two things that absolutely did not get along. Normally the unicorn's challenge would have sent the Nightmare hurtling headlong towards it and the clearing would have thundered with the sound of equine battle. In this case, the Nightmare flicked an ear, as though dismissing the challenge, and stood staring at the pure white unicorn. The stare was for the fact that the pure white unicorn wasn't really pure white. "What in the six levels of the netherworld happened to you?" the Nightmare asked in a voice just above a whisper.
Unicorns can't blush, at least not so it's possible for anyone to tell, but it was obvious from the unicorn's sudden discomfiture and her movements that she was doing something extremely close to it. "I could ask you the same question," the unicorn snapped, noticing the Nightmare's purple additions."
"Yeah, you could," the Nightmare said, still examining the unicorn's coat, "but what happened to me doesn't even come close to what happened to you." The unicorn's coat had its own purple splotches, also bear paw/hand-shaped, but in the unicorn's case it covered more than half her body and was in both mane and tail. On the lower part of her barrel, it looked as though someone had attempted to print a '38' in purple juice.
The unicorn didn't deign to respond, but stomped over to the swamp and looked at her own reflection. "Oh Mother Mare," she breathed as she saw the additions to her coat. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to skewer him and throw him off the tallest cliff on the Island and will race down the mountain so fast that when he finally lands it will be atop my horn once more so I can carry him to the Pit of Doom and throw him in there."
The Nightmare smirked. "Let me guess. Chubby kid, bear pelt, mouth full of blueberries and hands, face and pelt covered with them as well?"
The unicorn's eyes came close to blazing red as the Nightmare's. "You know this... this... thing?" It looked as though the mere memory of the kid was causing the unicorn to have some sort of breakdown as far as the ability to speak went.
"Of course I do," the Nightmare said, giving a significant look to her own pelt. "You don't think this was some sort of hair dye treatment, do you?"
"How should I know? You Nightmares don't exactly do things that normals would do."
Any other time, the Nightmare would have taken offense, but she was more curious about how the unicorn had arrived at such a state so she could compare it with her own. She looked around, and satisfying herself that they were the only two in the clearing, and gave a sigh. "I'll tell you what happened, but you have to promise not to let this knowledge go beyond yourself."
The unicorn looked as though she was ready to object, but finally gave her own sigh. She lowered her horn to the top of the Nightmare's head, making sure not to move too quickly. "I promise," she said. There was a chime of magic being done as the 'corn's horn briefly touched the Nightmare's head.
"Very well. Last night I was assigned to bring a Nightmare to this Cubby kid. He's a Lost Boy and apparently someone, somewhere paid quite a lot of coin to make sure he'd be terrified before the night was over. It shouldn't have been too hard. To begin with, he's just a kid. To make things even easier, he's terrified of everything, including his own shadow. Not only that but he has more self-doubt within him then the sea has treasure."
The unicorn's ears perked up. "Really? How much sea does the treasure have? Do you know where it's at?"
The Nightmare gave the 'corn a flat look. "That's a little bit beyond the scope of this discussion, isn't it?" The unicorn did the blushing without actually blushing thing and closed her mouth. "As I was saying, this should have been easy. So I go to where the kid should be sleeping, but he's not there. Normally I should have known that, but for some reason I didn't. So then I have to track him. I end up going through half the forest before I come upon a grove of blueberries." There was an inhale of breath from the unicorn, but she didn't say anything. The Nightmare paused for a moment, but continued when it became obvious the unicorn wasn't going to say anything else. "So not only is the kid not asleep, but apparently he's hungry and is out for a midnight snack. He's standing in the blueberry grove chowing on blueberries. He has quite the appetite that one. Anyway, there's nothing I can do as far as the delivery goes, because the kid's still awake and you can't deliver a nightmare to a kid that's not asleep. Not unless you get a waiver and I don't have one. So I figure that maybe I can scare him and he'll run back to where he should be and then he might fall asleep. The night's still young and all that stuff."
The unicorn looked as though she was entranced by the story. "That makes sense, although I don't believe it's appropriate to give wee ones nightmares." She realized who they were talking about. "At least I don't believe it's appropriate for most of them. What happened after that?"
"I go running towards the kid and as I predicted he totally freaks out. He starts galloping away, screaming at the top of his lungs that his shadow is after him. He... Hmmm... his shadow is after him. Hang on a second." The Nightmare stood and quickly sketched out how she could develop a nightmare using someone's shadow rising up against them. "There. Anyway, the kid starts running and I start chasing him. We haven't gotten five feet beyond the blueberry patch when he trips. Now I ain't being paid to gallop him down, so I dodge the place where he's fallen. Only he hasn't fallen, somehow he manages to land on a bush which springs him back upright. He flails around and gets his grubby hands all over my side managing to get blueberry stains all over my coat."
"That's only one side," the 'corn says hesitantly. "You've got it on both sides."
"Exactly. If you'll give me a moment." The Nightmare lets out a humph. "So I'm trying to get away from this clumsy Lost Boy and what's he do, but grabs my tail. Now I'm an expert at maneuvering out of tight corners, spaces, places and the like. I'm a Nightmare and make deliveries to all sorts of different things. What I'm not an expert at is trying to corner when there's a huge deadweight attached to my tail." The Nightmare rolled her eyes and spoke more quietly as afraid someone might overhear. "I ran straight into a tree, so hard that I bounced back. The kid let go of my tail, but tried to use my side to keep from falling. He was still screaming bloody murder about his shadow attacking him, only this time he was also screaming about having to reattach it or Peter would hang him upside down from the ceiling. He ended up on my other side and between attempts at trying to keep from falling, he'd grab me and tried to put his feet on my side. I have no clue what that was about, but I had had enough. I tore off through the woods, the last thing I heard was this kid yelling that his shadow was running away. I came here to see what had happened and maybe clean my coat."
The 'corn stood there, a stern expression on her face. "I might have known one of your type would be involved in this whole debacle. Such events do not happen of their own accord."
The Nightmare gave a small grin, being careful not to let the unicorn see it. "Believe me, I planned none of this. I wish I'd never seen the little terror, truth be told. Still, I don't see how what I did could have had any effect on what happened to you. The whole thing was just a coincidence."
"In that case, you must allow me to enlighten you as to what occurred after your meeting with it. I was walking along the bottoms of Reynard Chasm, looking for nightshade. That area is a particularly bountiful one for it." The Nightmare briefly considered that information. She didn't know what a unicorn could possibly want with nightshade or even how the 'corn planned on gathering it. She was certain it didn't bode well for someone and she filed the information away.
"That's all well and good, but..."
"As I was reconnoitering the chasm, I heard a wailing sound from above. At first I believe it to be one of you creatures but the wailing grew in intensity and I felt certain it was a banshee. If only such had been the case. I began galloping through the chasm and was at the point where the bridge crossed it overhead."
"Bridge," the Nightmare said with a snort. "All it is, is a fallen tree over the gorge."
"Just so, but it is used as a bridge by unicorns and all manner of creatures."
"Yes, yes, I know that. Get on with it."
"Then stop interrupting me so I can. As I was saying, I was nearing where the bridge crossed overhead when I heard the wailing right above me. Deducing the safest place would be directly under the bridge where the banshee couldn't see me, I came to a halt directly underneath it. I didn't notice until it was too late to do anything that the wailing was becoming closer and louder. As I started to move, it landed on my back, almost breaking it. It grabbed my mane and then both my sides before I was able to buck it off, only to have it grab my tail."
"'It' being the bear kid?"
"'It' being a very big demon. It wouldn't let go of my tail until I ran through a briar patch. That caused some screeching, I'll have you know," she added with a smug tone to her voice.
The Nightmare looked at the unicorn in disbelief. "You did know it was a kid, right?"
"That was no kid, that was a hellion. Sure it may have looked like a very tubby boy and perhaps actually was one, but I take no guilt in what I did. If I'd known what was going to happen, I'd have made sure it landed on my horn when it dived from the bridge. That would have been proper payback."
"Payback?" the Nightmare yelled. "Payback for what? Falling off a bridge as he ran terrified through the night? It's not as though he did it on purpose. It was an accident. Lighten up."
"I'm not the one requiring 'lightening up'," the 'corn retorted in a haughty manner. "It was his fault the whole chain of events occurred. According to you, it should have been asleep in a den somewhere but instead was doing something it shouldn't have been doing..."
"I didn't say he shouldn't have been doing it. I said it just surprised me that he wasn't where he should be."
"Exactly," the unicorn trumpeted in triumphant measure. "If something isn't where it should be, then it's doing something it shouldn't be doing. It's disrupting the natural order of things and when such disorder occurs, there are consequences that must be answered for."
The Nightmare decided that she knew why unicorns had pointed ears. The strange words and logic were something she'd expect from an elf. "So you think that just punishment for a kid who was simply eating blueberries, got scared and accidentally fell on you from a slippery log is to drag him through a bramble patch and possibly skewer him with your horn just for good measure if you're able to? That's barbaric."
"Barbaric? Barbaric? You have the nerve to call me barbaric? You, who visit those slumbering with the most insidious types of poisoning of the mind through chaotic and horrific visions?" At this point the Nightmare was certain she was talking to a reincarnated elf. "Distressing innocent victims through the bringing of dreams from which their sleeping minds cannot defend against is barbaric."
"At least they don't kill them like you're ready to do." The Nightmare wasn't really sure why she was still arguing about something that was so silly. She didn't need to justify her actions or those of her herd to anyone, much less this hay-eating, self-important, excuse of an elf.
"Oh no? How many of those visions you bring have caused ones like it to walk off the land into the sea and never return? How many wake terrified and expire with a scream in their throats? How many wake not at all?"
"It doesn't work that way you elf, and I refuse to spend anymore time discussing it with you. I have important things to do. You're lucky we are under a truce of sorts or only one of us would be leaving this place on four hooves." The Nightmare still had no clear reason why she was so upset. Suffering was something that was part of the cycle of things. It's why she'd been going to visit a nightmare on the clumsiest Lost Boy and why she herself was grudgingly suffering this conversation with a pudding-head. Before the unicorn could comment, she turned tail and trotted out of the clearing, both her head and tail held high. Once clear of the swamp, she stopped to think about how she could explain the blueberry juice that still stained her coat. Having it out with a unicorn would be a plus even if it was in words rather than teeth and hooves. Still, she was new and didn't need to start out with everyone knowing a Lost Boy had managed to lay a paw on her, even if it was dumb luck.
As she continued to stand there and ponder, she heard a shriek of momentous proportions come from the swamp, followed by cursing, sobbing, and several threats of annihilation for one bear-pelted Lost Boy. Curiosity got the better of her, and she moved as only a Nightmare can until she was at the edge of the clearing. Standing in front of the swamp water was the unicorn. She must have decided that the water would help wash the stains off, but had miscalculated in a major way. Not only were the blueberry stains smeared worse than ever, but the swamp water had dyed the parts of the unicorn that had still been white, a very unwholesome sickly green. Even her horn was green and purple now. The Nightmare let out a low whistle to herself. Unicorn coats weren't supposed to be able to be stained, dyed or anything else without the unicorn's consent. Intuitively she knew it had to have somehow been caused by the Lost Boy just as much as she knew that it wasn't something he'd have done purposely or maliciously. Her grin was huge as she carefully retraced her steps away from the swamp.