I was walking through a costume shop with my best friend, looking for costumes for the both of us for Halloween.

"Oh, this is a cute one," she exclaimed, pointing to a rack on our left.

I turned to look at where she was pointing only to find a turkey suit for sale; mostly made from a leotard with large fabric feathers stuck to it to create a mockery of the feathered body, wings, and tail. A pair of tights, shoecovers, and a mask were included.

"Do you think they need to sell overstock from Thanksgiving?" I asked in reply. "I couldn't see either of us dressed up like a turkey. Let's continue on."

"Psh, you're in a fowl mood today," Light complained, taking a sip of her Sprite.

"Careful or I'll let the store owner know you're drinking soda in here," I grumbled. "You could've bought a bottle instead of a can; you can close the lid on those."

"Bah, the can was cheaper. How about this pony outfit for you?" she wondered, motioning to a display on our right.

I turned to face the display and looked over the outfit; it was a light blue full body pony suit which would cover both arms and legs.

It featured an expressive mask with big jade green eyes set under a red mane, which also showed in the tail attached to the rear of the suit.

A unicorn horn peeked out from the mask's forehead, covered in the same light blue fur as the body.

"It would be perfect for you," Light pressed. "Why don't you try it on?"

I turned to her to suggest she should be the one to try such a pony outfit if she liked it so much, only to lose balance and fall forward onto my hooves as I did.

I shook my head at the vertigo from falling down in that fashion, noting the red mane flicking about and the blue horn sweeping through the air as it stuck out from my forehead.

A quick glance back revealed I was now wearing the pony suit I had looked at only moments ago.

No, I realized with horror as my tail flicked behind me; I was the pony suit!

"See? You look amazing like that," Light... no, Spritelight commented, and as I turned my attention back to face her I saw the familiar silver-grey unicorn with her light blue mane and yellow eyes stand opposite me on her own four hooves.

"Oh, we're going to get so much candy this coming Nightmare Night. There's no way that Nightmare Moon will gobble us up now," the other pony giggled merrily.

"I... what," I started, looking down as I felt liquid rising up around my hooves.

"Let's go show our parents! I'm sure they'll be thrilled as well," Spritelight suggested unabated, turning tail and running out of the aisle to disappear to the right.

I tried to set myself in motion to follow behind, but the liquid rising around my ankles sucked onto my hooves as if they were embedded in quick-hardening rubber cement.

"Spritelight? Hey, what's going on? Don't leave me here?!" I called out, even as the costumes around me started to shift and come to life.

Their fake faces grinned down upon me while their eyes started to glow, various characters extending their hands or claws toward me as they approached.

"ENOUGH!" a booming female voice called out, and the costumes around me shuddered in place, looking frightened.

A tall blue Alicorn walked into view from an aisle to my left, her blue mane dancing around her head as if wind was blowing through it and her tail doing much the same.

I watched as this unfamiliar pony stepped closer, her long horn glowing in the same tone of blue as her mane, her blue eyes aflame with a fury I had never seen before.

"This nightmare ends now!" she demanded, her voice ringing out through the aisle we were both in.

I involuntarily flattened my ears against my head from the sound of her voice.

The wetness around my legs pulled away while the costumes on either side returned to their former inanimate state.

I looked around me as the store's lights increased in intensity, intensifying the colors around me as if a blacklight shone upon them.

The blue alicorn took another few steps closer to me, the fire in her eyes pulling away at the same time as her horn stopped glowing.

Now she was standing closer to me I could see specks of light in her mane, which was still moving as if wind passed through it.

It almost looked like a starry night's sky...

"Are you okay April dear?" the horse asked, in a surprisingly gentle motherly tone.

I peered up at her taller stature with great confusion. "How do you know my name? What... what is going on?"

"You are asleep, April. You were having a nightmare, perhaps spurred on by the events of the past day?" she explained. "I am Luna, and it is my task to care for every pony in their dreams. You can call upon me any time you have a nightmare."

Luna. That name was familiar to me. It was mentioned before, by Spritelight and Josey...

"Oh!" I realised with some shock. "The Equestrian princess from... Canterlot, was it?"

Luna smiled down at me and gave a slow nod. "Yes, you are correct. I am the princess of the night and reside in Canterlot with my sister Celestia, who herself rules the day."

"Spritelight and Josey mentioned you both, but... how are you here?" I wondered, looking around myself a moment after. "For what that's worth; where -is- here?"

Luna spread her wings out and pointed them up behind her like I had seen Josey do before.

"I rule over the night, April," she explained once again. "I am tasked with caring for everypony in their dreams. I am there when you have good dreams, and I am there to fight off nightmares. This obviously counted as the latter."

I nodded slowly as her words finally reached me proper, then looked back at myself. "I'm... still a pony."

"Yes," Luna agreed.

"I wasn't one when the dream started," I pointed out, looking back up at her.

"You fell asleep as a pony," she countered.

I frowned. "Yes, but... I was a human again for a brief spell..."

Luna slowly shook her head at me, leaning her head down to my level. "Please accept I don't intend to cause you grief, but you were not. The human appearance you had when the dream started was as much a costume as those hanging around us right now."

I swallowed strongly as the princess denied me even that small thing.

"But... I never wanted to be a pony," I threw back while tears welled up in my eyes. "I never chose this."

Luna looked at me with a surprising amount of sympathy in her eyes. "You can shape your dream to appear human again if you really wish, but you know as well as I; you are not human right now."

"...how do you know that? Why can't I be?" I protested, warm tears starting to leak down my fuzzy cheeks.

"Because if you were a human, I would not have been able to enter your dreams," the princess of the night explained calmly. "I am a pony princess and may only rule over other ponies. And I am here for you, for as long as you are a pony."

Her horn glowed blue again and a paper tissue floated through the air toward me.

I sort of automatically tried to grab hold of it with my left hand, but stopped it in mid-air as I noticed the hoof reaching up instead.

The reality hit me and I sank through all four of my hooves, pulling my forelegs up to cover my eyes as I started to bawl in earnest.

Luna sat down in front of me in the costume shop aisle while I cried my eyes out, close enough by that I could feel her presence even without opening my eyes, but far enough away that she was not touching me or intruded upon my personal space.

I cried over having lost my humanity, the way everybody else was just whisked away to safety while I was left behind to deal with the four ponies which had descended upon the school.

The obvious endtimes playing out, the weird radio message, the headmistress opting to do the unthinkable.

I cried until I could not cry anymore, and slowly became aware of a soothing melody being hummed as I did.

With my emotions calming down, I felt my ears perk up from their flattened position and the humming instantly became more profound even if it was soft and gentle.

I rubbed at my eyes with my ankles, opening my eyes to Luna calmly watching me, waiting until I had regained control of myself.

She was the source of the humming, the melody simple but foreign, soothing but unfamiliar.

She smiled warmly at me as I looked up at her in mild confusion, feeling so vulnerable before her.

Here she was, one of those alicorns like Josey, a princess of Equestria, inside my dream.

While she was calm and caring right now, she had come in with a fury I had not witnessed before; forcing the nightmarish scene I found myself in out of the way.

She was as powerful as Josey, if not more so. Yet here she was, simply humming a melody to me in a clear effort to comfort me.

I sniffled a bit to clear my airways. "Why... why do you care?" I had to ask.

Luna raised an eyebrow, stopping her humming. "I told you twice before; I am the princess of the night. I am tasked with caring for everypony in their dreams. To aid them when they have a nightmare."

I started to get the idea now, simple as it seemed. "So, because I'm a pony now... you automatically care for me?"

"You are not mistaken," Luna chuckled weakly. "Then again, I have been more worried about you former humans coming to terms with being ponies now than I have with those in Equestria who were already born as such."

My turn to raise an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Some of your peers aren't taking it half as well as you," the alicorn revealed. "You at least are calm enough to start asking questions."

"Others have not been for days after," she continued with a sad expression. "It has been a gargantuan task to help them find peace with the current situation."

I rubbed my left hoof at my left cheek a bit in an effort to get the wetness out of my fur. "I wonder why..."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you," the princess remarked. "I have been assured Spritelight had her reasons, however misguided, to turn you all into ponies the way she did. I had nothing to do with that. I simply try to help those ponies in my care to the best of my abilities."

I put my forehooves on the ground and pushed up to a sitting position so I could look at Luna at the same level as her while she was still lying down.

"Where do you even begin?" I asked, shaking my head. "The end of days have come and our humanity was stolen from us. Being able to do magic now barely makes up for it."

Luna sighed and nodded at my words. "You are right, but I am not the one responsible. I am here to help you with your nightmares and to listen to your grief. There's little I can do to change your situation; it was done with a forbidden magic I don't have access to."

I tried to recall what it was that Spritelight was talking about as I was falling asleep. "Spritelight talked about how... regular magic uses the energy we store inside ourselves. Energy drawn from the world around us."

"Yes," the alicorn agreed. "The latent energy of the world we live in pulls into us as we walk upon it. This is a natural thing true for all forms of life. We breathe it in, and release it back into the world again just the same if we don't use it."

I paid more attention as she was saying similar things Josey and Spritelight had mentioned about our magic.

"Unicorns and alicorns like myself can tap into this constant ebb and flow and focus the energy into our horns, as you well know," Luna continued as her horn started to glow blue again.

I looked up at the tip of my own horn and then at hers. "She mentioned something about blood magic using the other's energy, not our own? If I heard it right, that is; I was almost asleep at that point."

The princess looked thoughtful at that, but then slowly nodded. "Yes, that would make it a forbidden magic. Even as I am here now, in your dream, it is my own energy I use."

She shook her head with some amount of disgust flashing over her features. "To use another's energy without their permission, it is an intrusion upon them which even I won't entertain."

"Not even in my darkest of nights have I considered usurping the power of another like that," Luna continued, her face darkening.

There was more to that story than she was telling me. A sadness, a deep regret.

If even the supposed gods of Equestria were dealing with problems, then how small were mine in comparison?