daydream part 1

part 1 out of 2 for the sleepy family time
read about them here first and foremost!: www.deviantart.com/mylittlegam…
thanks to @bobshmit13

1) Daydream...sleeps. A lot. A bit too much, even for a 7ish year old. But while she sleeps, she gets to do things that she can't while she's awake, such as hanging out with both her parents and manifesting wings to fly, enjoying anything that she wants in a realm of her creation... It's a wonderful feeling as opposed to the heavy toll that waking reality takes on her. She can only either see Shining Armor during the day while he's on duty, or her mother at night while she's on duty. If she's lucky they'll both be on a night patrol together, but she's supposed to be in bed at that time. They're both royals with lots of duties. So even if she was awake, it's not like she would be able to spend much time with them. If she spent time with Celestia's kids, well...they didn't understand her very well. And she could never keep up with them because they were either too old or too young. She could hang out with Suave. But usually Suave would just phase into her dreams, and they'd have much more fun there. It was just so much fun being asleep! So much better...calmer...sweeter...


2) And one day, she wouldn't wake up. In fact, she had been asleep for a few days, and no one had even noticed because they assumed she was sick as always. Her energy never lasted very long after all; it was a miracle if you caught her up and walking. There wasn't even anything physically wrong with her... The doctors would call it narcolepsy and chronic fatigue syndrome, but neither of those things meant that she shouldn't ever wake up or be completely unresponsive for days on end. Her parents had been so absorbed in their work that it was only until a royal  guard noticed her completely limp on her bed that they began to worry and fret. News spread fast. Initially, they thought she was dead since they couldn't find her pulse. It didn't take long to reach the royals, and no one took the news worse than Shining Armor.

3) Celestia knew once she heard what was up that she had to find Shining Armor. It was her top priority. Over even her sister because she knew that Luna was going to go to the dream realm to try and contact Daydream. For now, Celestia had to hold back the utterly indescribable grief and fear that was going through Shining's head. She was right on the money about how distressed he was when she saw him running down the hall frantically to try and get to his daughter's room.

Terror didn't begin to describe what Shining was feeling. It was as if a cold knife had slit open his heart and bled all of the warmth away and replaced it with a gaping hole of dread. His life practically flashed before his eyes when he heard those words: "We think your daughter might be dead". He saw everything. He saw his little sister being kidnapped, being unable to save her from whoever took her away when he was a child. He saw his sheer inadequacy, his inability to be a father. He saw he hadn't tried hard enough, that surely he could have prevented this. He saw how worthless his duty was, how he should've known better than to just let Daydream sleep in some more because she might've been ill. He saw his other sister, Twilight, somewhere in Equestria defenseless without him, susceptible to sudden death. He saw his whole family being torn apart by the sick game of chance! The dice of death rolling and taking the things he loved away from him. He knew his kidnapped sister was probably dead at this point, since they had never been able to find her. But he couldn't stand to lose his daughter too. He couldn't. He just couldn't. He didn't even realize Celestia was holding him back as all these thoughts raced through his mind, and as he watched the group of ponies ahead crowd around the entrance of Daydream's room. All he could do was scream and cry and beg the sick twisted gods who had taken away his sister to be merciful enough to spare his daughter.

4) Luna, on the other hand, knew it wasn't possible that Daydream was dead. She would have sensed it since she was the overseer of darkness and nighttime. She has a conection to the spirit realm and such by association to dreams. So she was indeed flying around the dream realm, and into her daughter's vast mind of perfect clouds and weather to find her...Where she would find her sweet daughter solemn and curled on a cotton candy cloud.

"Daydream?...What are you doing in here? Why aren't you waking up? I can tell you're not physically ill. This seems to be magic inflicted....Whatever is wrong?"

Daydream couldn't meet her eyes. She didn't want to. And Luna could hardly believe what she heard next.

"Mama...I don't want to wake up. Never again."

Before Luna could interject, her child continued.

"I'm tired of being awake...It's so much better here, and I have you, Daddy, and Suave to play with me forever... I used my magic so that I can just stay asleep. It's what I want. It wasn't that hard. I won't die even if I don't eat and stuff, so you don't have to worry about that. But...I'm never going out there again. I can barely walk, I can't keep my eyes open. I can't do anything! I've heard even the guards make fun of me and say I'll never be a good princess if I can't even keep myself from bumping into walls... Out there, nobody knows me because I can't even talk to them without falling asleep. They think I'm rude. They think I'm dumb, and...I'm tired of it. I'm tired of everything. So I'm going to sleep forever."

Luna could only stand there, shocked into silence. She too had been that way on the moon, trying to sleep the days away. There wasn't much to do up there, so it was all she could do to sleep and try and project herself back down to Equestria and haunt people's nightmares. But she never thought her daughter would do something so similar...Maybe they hadn't looked hard enough for a solution, or maybe it was just a phase for when she was a child. But the spell had already been cast. To uncast it would take incredible magic, and hurt Daydream since she was just a child. The fact that she was able to cast it in the first place was incredible, and she probably used up all her energy to do it...Even if they did bring her out of the spell's sleeping state, who knew what ramifications it would have on her body...?

Luna didn't know what she was going to do, or how she was going to do it. But for now...she put a comforting wing around Daydream and nuzzled her forehead softly.

"We'll get through this," she whispered.

Art (c) mylittlegami


part 2: www.deviantart.com/mylittlegam…