Black Feathers:
Chapter 1: Guarding dreams:
The night in Equestria was calm and tranquil. Princess Luna had just turned towards her royal duties to guard the dreams of all ponies in her kingdom. Princess Luna often faced terrible nightmares and horrific creatures to help ponies sleep better and sometimes gave them some advice to solve their problems, if the situation so desired.
When she flew over the picturesque town of Ponyville, she felt a disturbance in her night-magic. Somepony was having a bad dream and she was having great trouble with. "We must investigate this at once!" the black alicorn princess said, " As a royal princess, we cannot allow this kind of suffering to continue". Guided by her own magic she arrived at the house of the ponies Lyra and Bonbon. Princess Luna noticed that it was Lyra who was having the bad dream and she quickly turned her attention to the azure pony.
Luna magically transported herself inside the bedroom of the green pony and stood right next to her bed. The room was a bit messy though. It seemed that Lyra didn't clean her room as often as she should. Luna could for example see some pants lying around on the left side of Lyra's bed right next to a life-size mirror. What she needed those for was a question to which the alicorn princess couldn't fathom a logical explanation. Also there were some bag of potato chips lying around the place. It seems Lyra liked this kind of snack. At least the green carpet on the right side of her bed was devoid of any stuff that was lying around at the room. This made it very easy for Luna to stand on when she would use her magic to help the pony who suffered from a nightmare.
Luna noticed that Lyra had her lyre on her bedside table. She thought for a brief moment that she would like to hear somepony play music for it had been a while since she could relax while somepony played something for her. But she digressed. She had to help this pony from her bad dreams. She prepared a magical spell which would allow her to enter Lyra's dream. When casting the spell , the horn of the alicorn princess shone with a blue aura, this aura spread towards her entire body, engulfing herself with her magic and transporting her essence into the dream of Lyra.
This kind of transportation was a very difficult feat to accomplish for most unicorns , who were profane with the usage of magic. It differs from regular transportation because to enter somepony's dream you had to leave your physical body behind and transfer your conscience in a dream. This kind of magic was difficult to accomplish, even for an alicorn, and it could put a strain on a magical user who wasn't adjusted to this kind of spells. Princess Luna however had already mastered these spells for she used them very often to protect her royal subjects. She entered Lyra's dream through a white magical rift, which she would need to enter again before Lyra wakes up.
Lyra's dream didn't seem to have much trouble with them at all. The dreamscape she found herself in was a beautiful spot in some forest. She noticed that Lyra was practicing her lyre in an open spot in the forest. The sun was up in Lyra's dream and it shone brightly above her, shining a ray of radiance above Lyra's mane. This made Lyra look rather angelic. Everything just seemed peaceful in this dream, but perhaps this was too good to be true.
"This cannot be, this must be some kind of mistake. But how?", the alicorn princess thought to herself, " I felt that this pony had a terrible nightmare, but there's nothing to worry about here."
Suddenly, a black formless cloud formed close towards Lyra. This cloud was more like a formless mass that originated from the ground, but for the lack of a better word you could call it like that. A cloud whose form was constantly shifting and changing but ever growing in size. The area around the cloud began to deteriorate until the point that all the plants around there started to wither and die and the soil turned to ash. Lyra stopped playing immediately and screamed: "No stay away, don't show me those horrible images again, please !"
The black cloud ignored the screams of the pony and started to creep towards her. A pair of ice-cold blue eyes formed inside this formless darkness and looked straight to the frightened pony.
A frantic Lyra dropped her instrument out of fear, but the eyes continued to look at the pony, and got ever closer to her trying to engulf her neck, possibly to choke her. The cloud also sprouted a few black feathers on what seemed random locations.
Luna immediately jumped towards the cloud trying to separate this "monster" from the green pony. "Back away, you cur , or feel the wrath of the princess of the Night", she warned the monster. The cloud backed away and seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"Don't worry small pony" , the princess said calmly, "I'll protect you.". Lyra was still in shock and couldn't answer because of that, but she nodded her head. Luna turned her attention back fully on her opponent, the formless monster-cloud that had threatened this pony. The blue eyes of the cloud were full of rage and it leapt towards the princess. The princess then summoned forth a bleu ball of energy which she hurled towards the monster. It was able to evade this ball of energy and got suddenly very close to the princess. It then tried to grab her , but Luna could summon a force-field and prevent the cloud from touching her. This feat of magic was able to throw the bleu-eyed monster away and send it crashing towards a tree.
This seemed to hurt the monster quite a bit because he kept his distance after this. Luna thought that she could easily disperse of the monster now and activated her magical horn to finish the job. She concentrated a great amount of magical energy so that the monster wouldn't have a way to escape from her. Before she could attack however the cloud shed one of his black feathers and hurled it towards the alicorn princess. The feather flew through the air as fast as a thrown knife and the feather connected with her right front leg. The base of the feather went punctured her skin like syringe. This feather caused her some minor pain but she didn't let her guard down and released the magical energy towards het enemy. The monster couldn't escape this blast and evaporated into nothingness when the energy collided with him.
When it was gone the air started to brighten and everything inside Lyra's dreamscape started to become beautiful and tranquil again. Lyra looked at the princess who had saved her.
"Ehm, thank you, Princess, ehm..for your help", Lyra said still a bit in shock. "Are you alright? You look wounded".
"Don't worry" the alicorn said with the black feather still inserted in her leg, "We shall heal promptly when we leave your dream, this wound can't effect the real world". "You should go to rest now, there's still some time till my sister will raise the sun".
Princess Luna walked towards the white rift she had created to enter into Lyra's dream. She could now use it as a portal to get her essence back into her own body. She didn't bother to pull out the black feather from her right leg because it didn't hurt and would disappear instantly when she left this dream.
She leapt through the rift and her essence was again transported but this time back into her own body. She stood again in Lyra's room and saw that the pony was now sleeping soundly. Her leg was also healed as she expected. Luna put on a kind smile, said goodbye softly and began to depart. She noticed however something very peculiar. On the ground right next to Lyra's bed was something that wasn't there before. On the carpet right next to Lyra's bed was something that shouldn't, no couldn't be there. It was the same black feather that Luna was struck with in Lyra's dream. Luna looked quite shocked at the strange object. At first sight it did look like a normal feather but she knew that something must be wrong. This was no ordinary nightmare.
"I must report this at once", princess Luna said as she picked up the feather with her magic and departed as fast as she could to Canterlot. Lyra quickly woke up and gasped for some air. This seemed to cause some commotion because Bon-bon, her house-mate, came to her room to check up on her.
"What is it" said Bon-bon, "Is something wrong, Lyra?"
"Uhm, no I guess", said the lime-green pony," just a really bad dream."
I'm sorry for waking you up like this Bon-bon.
Well as long as you are all right, the pony spoke with some relief. Do you want to talk about it, about your dream I mean.
Well, Lyra said, you know what's the strange part I can hardly imagine what it was about. But I still feel a bit frightened. Bonbon would you like to sleep with me tonight?
Bon-bon was a bit flustered at this proposal. L-, Lyra how old are you actually?
Please!, Lyra pouted and a single tear dripped down her cheek.
Fine Lyra, the confectionery pony admitted, but we'll be sleeping in my bed. I don't want to sleep in this mess and you have to promise to clean it up first thing in the morning.
Lyra promised to do this and the 2 friends went to bed to get a good night rest. There were no further incidents in their house that night.