Sweet Dreams

I was walking along the corridors on my daily Twilight Rounds before I'd sleep off a day of training new recruits and parading through the streets. I didn't mind the job of being the Lieutenant to the Royal Guard, in fact I'd relish in it had I not been working side by side Captain Steel.

I could officially say to myself after nearly a year under his command that he was the World's most annoying and pathetic pony ever. He constantly though I was out for his job and made it his mission to try and sabotage everything I did by mostly sending farmers who didn't really want to be Guards for me to train and then running to Celestia about how they would be a terrible addition to the Guard.

However I was always ahead of him and I actually trained them all well enough to pass the bare minimum for being a guard which made the Captain insanely mad and attempt to do everything to stop me succeeding short of throwing me from the battlements of the castle.

I had however been succeeding in quite a number of tasks recently including the saving of everypony trapped inside the throne room whilst a fire burnt freely and Celestia was nowhere to been being in the Griffon Territories for an annual meeting with the birds/lions.

Smelling the fire and finding that every rich ass was blocking the doorway because each pony was trying to escape at the exact same time I charged into the fray and knocked them all aside so that traffic cold get flowing again.

For my efforts I was awarded with angry Captain Steel who had fired me then and there but upon Celestia's return I was re-instated and honoured for my quick thinking despite the number of ponies that complained I was being uncouth when I saved their lives.

I walked up the tall winding steps of the castle's observation castle where I often liked to gaze at the sky as dawn turned into night in Twilight. It was a good way to end a shift and it always seemed to calm me down. I had been a guard for a little over a year now and experience had so far taught me that there was generally nothing to the job except Parades, a little paperwork, looking solemn every time somepony's kid pointed at you and sometimes helping to solve the usual small catastrophes like who spiked the soup or broke the Royal Throne.

So I stood and gazed over the Twilight despite how brief it was and suddenly something caught my eyes. The stars that were emerging seemed different and looking close I saw a shooting star arch across the sky. They said you should make a wish when that happened so I just wished what I usually wished for.

However the shooting star looked a little too close for comfort and it was arching to me at a very fast rate and suddenly it wasn't a star it was a shining orb of light. I dove for cover despite the fact I would probably be incinerated.

I crunched up and covered my face waiting for the next few seconds to become a fiery explosion. However it never came and I slowly cracked an eye open in question as to why I was not dead yet. The shining orb flickered a moment and then it began to morph and change colour.

This was obviously some kind of magical related attack from some unknown enemy and I quickly drew my sword and faced off the morphing white light. I sliced at it but it was like cutting through butter and when I withdrew my sword it melted into a million stars.

"The hay" I whispered as I stumbled back from the tower towards the steps leading down to the keep and some magicians who might be able to do a better job than me of defending the castle against magical white light blobs.

"Wait Backwater" shouted the name. I turned around, I'd hear that voice before quite recently actually and looking round I saw a flicker pony that was made of magic entirely limping towards me. She was nearly the height of Celestia and a bit taller than me with hair that flowed like Celestia's rainbow mane except hers was a deep blue. The rest of her body was a little light shade of blue and she seemed to have a cutie mark of the moon.

I could only stand there mouth slightly agape as the mare's image flickered and in some place disappeared. This was powerful magic indeed and yet I couldn't move, in fact it was like I was transfixed. "Backwater is your name, Captain Backwater, this dream is how you became Captain of the Royal Guard" she said suddenly.

I was confused for a few moments when my brain tried to comprehend what she was saying. Then suddenly something terribly obvious clicked in. "I'm asleep whilst that mare is out there" I gasped aloud my younger voice sounding a little higher that my much older and worn throat which had received plenty of alcohol in its time.

"Yes you are asleep and please don't refer to me as a prisoner" she said as she sat down, finding the effort to stand too great. I looked over at this strange mare whom after more careful examination was actually an a Alicorn except her wings and horn kept distorting.

"You're Clearwater?" I asked pointing at what I thought was either the rebirth of my long dead imagination or indeed Clearwater using some kind of magic to get in my head. "No I'm neither, Backwater you need to listen because I can't keep this state up for long that's how weak I am and dissolving your blade whether it fictional or not was difficult enough for me but I must tell you now that Equestria, the whole world actually is in terrible danger" she coughed out.

"I don't understand why would a prisoner come into my head and make up some big sob story about Equestria" I asked angrily, taking a menacing step towards her. "You were a Captain in the Royal Guard you are a protector of the Royals and the Kingdom and Empire you must make sure that the form I am trapped inside in the real world makes it safely to the Northern Mountains of The Bad Lands" she said quickly as if she was about to disappear (which I supposed she was).

"But I" I began to interrupt but she gasped in pain and continued quickly saying "My form in reality although deceiving is the work of evil magic performed by the real Clearwater who killed Starswirl and then used forbidden magic to take all my power and form whilst leaving me in her powerless shell".

The magical image flickered greatly now and began to dissipate but not before saying "I am Princess Luna and I was framed and left to rot without the comfort of anypony or anything for a thousand years" she gasped as she dissipated and murmured "awake".

I shot up as straight as an arrow shaft from my most unusual and complicated experience (which hopefully was just a dream) ever. It felt like I wasn't dreaming yet somehow knew I was. Clearwater began waking up right next to me.

She groaned a little in a voice slightly similar to the one from the dream which made me suspicious but then confused as I recalled her rapid speech about how she was an ancient moon Princess who had been stripped of power, framed and left to rot in prison for a thousand years.

It was a pretty desperate way for a villain to beg you to free them but then again she had over a thousand years to conjure up plans even if it was true that she had weak magic. I was actually convinced almost by the more logical side of my brain that she was indeed powerless and couldn't use magic due to her incarceration but I wasn't convinced that she was Princess Luna, no not at all.

"Sister please don't leave us" mumbled Clearwater as she began to properly wake up. Despite all her trickery I couldn't help but feel bad for the mare, she had after all been alone for a thousand years which was as I'd said in the prison a Punishment worse than death.

She slowly began to flicker her eyes open, reaching up weakly with a hoof to rub them. She looked around her surroundings and up at me. I noted that waking up to an intimidating pony must be scary even for a slightly deranged killer but I didn't have time to care.

The more a prisoner got into the mind of the captor the more the captor would trust and had the potential to pity the prisoner which was something I didn't want so in a gruff voice I asked "can you walk"? She blinked a few moments and weakly responded "We don't think we can".

I leaned down and put her over my back again; keeping hooves away from any potential weapons or pointy objects she could use to gut me. "Do not attempt to escape and do not attempt to kill me, if you can act sensibly and reasonably then we can get to Manehatten without you being caught" I told her as I began to walk out of the castle.

She tried to struggle but I could tell by her movements that even if she did get off my back she wouldn't be able to stand or do anything but get captured by me again. "Thou can't do…" she began but she was too weak to finish her sentence so I finished it for her.

"What I can't take you to Manehatten, you are not a free mare on the contrary you are a very dangerous mare who although might have been through hell during your eternal imprisonment is not going to get any free rides to some northern mountains" I said sternly.

She gave up struggling and now put all of her energy into speaking to me. "But…Thou are the Captain of the Guard, a Protector of the Realm we command thou and furthermore implore thou to help us" she seemed to be begging and I was pretty sure weeping slightly.

I stopped and set her down on the floor and began to rummage through my saddle bag. "Listen I can't hope to imagine what you've been through in that prison and although you might have simply had an evil thought and killed Starswirl in the moment maybe you didn't mean it but I had a deal with this mare to get you back to Manehatten, I'm no Guard anymore and certainly not a felon or a hero, I'm also sorry because I don't like doing this" I said as I pulled out some cloth and tied it around Clearwater's mouth.

She didn't struggle or complain (not that she really had the strength to) but her eyes looked up at min with a disappointing look which asked me "why"? I put her back on my back and this time noticed her struggling had reduced to nothing and I hope that this would be the last time I had to put up with her trickery which I was determined would not get to me.

I exited the chambers and walked through the ruins of the old castle. Through the gaps in the roof and saw it was indeed now deep night meaning that I couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours which meant I was way ahead of schedule.

All I had to do was traverse the Everfree once more, board the train to Manehatten and finally take the girl to the tower and I'd get my wife back and disappear, maybe go live somewhere like Ponyville where nopony could ever find or bother me ever again.

I walked briskly, trying to ignore the cold feeling I was getting and ignoring the fact that the moon was looking at me in a menacing way which made me want to get out of this castle as soon as possible. However when I was passing the Ruin of the Royal Throne Room I was temporarily blinded by a flash of blue light from the doorway.

I stumbled over and against the wall beside the door and quickly dropped Clearwater, drawing my sword and checking to see if she was doing something. She wasn't even awake, as unconscious as I had been last Winter Wrap up Free Cider Festival.

I checked to see if she was performing some kind of mental magic but no usual magical aurora was shimmering over her horn like it did with all Unicorns and even Celestia. I looked back into the throne room where I saw the most bizarre thing ever.

Twilight Sparkle seemed to be facing off some kind of mare which looked almost exactly like the one from my dream and more to the point the nightmare of young foals Nightmare Moon. Suddenly Clearwater woke up and began thrashing about frantically trying to get out of her bonds and shouting into her gag.

I signalled for her to be quite and un-gagged her since I was sure she didn't want to meet Luna any more than me and she whispered "We can sense her, Clearwater you must believe us she is in the other room can thou not feel the dark energy all across her form"?

I looked back and it was true that this nightmarish pony did seem to be one of the most evil creatures I'd ever seen. She was suddenly all over the room charging at Twilight who teleported across to some rock which she then seemed to zap with her magic before Nightmare moon went over again and almost got zapped but then destroyed them and I was having trouble following what craziness was going on.

"What did you do?" I whispered but Clearwater said nothing, simply saying "Nothing we tell you we're Princess Luna and that is Clearwater, thou know this to be true look at my cutie mark!" she whispered urgently. I looked for the first time at Clearwater's Cutie Mark and gasped, it was a picture of the moon despite the scars all over it.

"You could have simply used magic or painted it on" I implied but Clearwater (or Luna I was having doubts now) shook her head and stated "It would take powerful magic or a spell which would in time wear out, we don't have the magic to perform it anymore, check the cutie mark on Clearwater" she instructed.

"So I looked over at Nightmare Moon/Luna/Clearwater (yeah it was getting confusing) and saw that her cutie mark did look a little off, almost like it had been painted on. "Think about it Captain, if we wanted to kill you we would have already" she reasoned.

I thought about this and although it seemed like she was telling the truth I was still unconvinced despite the evidence and claims she made. I looked back through the doorway and must have missed a lot because there were another five ponies of all the three races there and they were all listening to Twilight saying something about magic, friendship and such.

I recognised the orange mare from somewhere but couldn't quite put my finger on it. The white one was a unicorn, the pink one an Earth pony like the orange mare, the yellow and rainbow one were both Pegasi and they all seemed to begin glowing as one by one some of the small rocks that Nightmare moon had broken began circling.

I studied Nightmare Moon intently. She seemed to be humouring herself with these ponies and even when Twilight seemed to flash brightly as with all of them and shot a freaking rainbow at her I saw a slight smirk before she put on her best defeated voice.

"Noooooooooo!" seemed to be all it took to convince everyone that something was going their way when behind the rainbow I could see Nightmare Moon disappear and her armour fall off. First off the fact a rainbow was used in defeating the bane of foals was confusing but when a small and defenceless older filly emerged I was even more surprised.

I was even more surprised when the after rainbow residue blew across the room and landed in my mouth (let's just say I definitely could taste the rainbow) and I had to do everything in my power to keep from choking and making noise.

Suddenly the sun began to rise and all of a sudden Celestia appeared making me question what in Equestria was really going on here. Celestia seemed pleased and as always didn't look any older than the first time I'd seen her. I watched as she went over to Luna and I actually slipped into the room and hid behind a pillar to hear what she was saying.

"Will you accept my friendship?" asked Celestia to the defenceless filly now who smiled but quickly disguised it with a sorrowful look. "I'm so sorry, I missed you so much big sister" she said, leaping up and nuzzling her head against Celestia's. "I missed you too" said Celestia with true tears in her eyes.

I looked at supposedly the real Clearwater crying and at that moment her eye caught mine and I saw so much held back anger in there waiting to spring at destroy everypony. However she also saw me and in keeping with her role gasped and said "who is that pony"?

Everypony turned to gape at me behind the pillar and Celestia even questioned "Captain Backwater what are you doing here"? The six other ponies with the rainbow necklaces were staring at me and Twilight's horn began to shimmer purple in case there was trouble which I supposed there would be.

However with everypony's attention on me their backs were to Clearwater and she looked at me with a twisted and evil grin and her horn discharged some silent magic and I felt my lips and body moved al on their own. "I'm here to kill Princess Luna" my mouth said all on its own as if being fed a script and my hoof raised my crossbow and I fired a bolt right at Luna.

Celestia jumped in the way and it hit her in the neck spouting a small fountain of blood which stained her white coat red. Everypony gasped, especially me but I did not expect Celestia's eyes to glow bright white and suddenly a wall of heat was heading towards me.

I dodged behind the pillar as stone turned to molten lava and the pillar began to collapse. I dived into the doorway and scooped up the real Luna as the doorway collapsed. "What…what's happening?" she asked weakly.

I breathed heavy as I ran through the corridors of the ruined castle. I took a detour, heading for the back of the castle and explained "You were right Princess, you aren't Clearwater but they don't know that and now I think I have shot the most powerful pony in Equestria in the neck".