"Tell me what her dreams are made of?"

Cadance asks me this one afternoon, whilst we are alone with Flurry Heart in the Crystal Castle's nursery. She strokes her daughter's mane tenderly, her face drawn from one lost night after another. Yet fatigue dulls not her smile. It shines – she shines – with the youthful exuberance of a young mother, in love with her young family.

I've seen that look on the face of every young mother who's called on me with that question. If I make that sound like a common occurrence, it's because I mean to; it happens with surprising regularity. Young mothers will visit the castle, seeking me out, or spot me on those rare occasions where I venture into Canterlot proper alone. Clutching their babes to their barrels, they pluck courage enough to approach me where their husbands or lovers will not, and ask me what dreams fill their colts' and fillies' slumber.

They all want the same answer. They expect the same answer. The truth is, I couldn't tell them what their baby, specifically, dreams of, because I've learned not to investigate the dreams of babies. They dream of shapes, and of colors, and of sounds. Their minds are blank canvases, unspoiled by the material world; they lack context for anything more complex than what their senses immediately perceive. Babies are uncomplicated. Their dreams are no less so; they've no need for me

Mothers don't want to hear that. Every mother want to hear the same thing: that their baby dreams of their mother's smile. So, I tell them that they want to hear, and they leave, satisfied by my lie.

My sister's niece is no different. Despite my misgivings upon first meeting her, I've grown fond of this earnest young alicorn, yet between you and I... she, too, is uncomplicated. Predictable. By no means is this a criticism; I don't imply that she has the wit of an infant. Merely, she is Love, as I am the Night, and I understand her better than she could hope to understand me.

So, when she asks me to tell her what her daughter's dreams are made of, I know what she expects of me. It is no different from any of the other innumerable times I've been asked this tired question.

Except, in this instance, my canned response is not a lie.

Once, on the occasion of her birth, I slipped inside of Flurry's dreams. It was equal parts boredom and curiosity – a whim I chose to act upon. I wanted to know what the first natural-born alicorn since time immemorial must dream of. I don't recall what I expected; only that I hoped to see something more than the same shapes, and colors, and sounds that fill all infants' dreams.

And I did. And I've not been able to chase the memory from my mind since.

Flurry Heart dreams of the end. Of icy winds, and sandswept ruins, an expanse of ash and salt and sand stretching into the horizon, where a six-pointed star and a blazing sun shriveled in the cold, blue light of a sickly crescent moon. 

One tower, cut from crystal, caught the dying light and drew my eye. Flurry Heart, in marehood's bloom, sat upon its balcony. A pony curled at Flurry's hooves: a sallow bag of brittle pink skin, stretched taut across sharp bones and clad in oversized, rusted regalia. It wore a rictus – an eternal grin of rotten teeth.

Flurry's face was expressionless as she stroked what remained of her mother's mane, gazing across the picked-over carcass of Equestria.

"Auntie Luna?" Cadance prompts me, no less sweetly.

I tell my sister's niece what she wants to hear. 

"Why, her mother's smile, of course."

Cadance grins. Her teeth are pearly white.

My own smile is thin and brittle, like dry skin over dry bones. I'm careful not to let it reach my eyes. A shiver catches me, then, and I fluff my wings for warmth.

I look away from Cadance, toward her offspring. This slumbering miracle who knows not her own importance, who burbles into the saliva-soaked fabric of a cloth snail whilst filling a canvas with dreams of the end. I wonder at her.

I wonder whence that vision came. I wonder if she knows I wonder what else she sees, what else is sealed away within her mind.

I wonder if I'll ever have the courage to look again.