//------------------------------// // Blood Fog (VI) // Story: Dusk Falls // by NorrisThePony //------------------------------// i Dearest sister, Enclosed in this parcel is a copy of The Beasts and Monsters of Eastern Coastal Equestria, an encyclopedia/bestiary under public domain and written by some of the most recognized Equestrian zooligists and explorers of the past several decades.  As you can see, the entirety of the fifth chapter has apparently been removed from the copy that I have sent you, seemingly purposefully given the near-perfect nature of its non-existence. For reasons we have discussed in person, I will not disclose any details in this letter as to the specifics of my seemingly odd request, but I assure you I will have answers for you when you arrive in fourteen day’s time. This being said, I must ask that when you do arrive in Dusk Falls, you bring with you a copy of this exact same book which can undoubtedly be found in the Royal Library. I will not discuss this any further for the sake of security, but I assure you it is of utmost importance that you do not forget to bring this book. Thank you very much, Luna, and I greatly look forward to seeing you. Bye for now, Celly. I signed my name proper underneath the childish yet centuries old nickname, and sent the entire two-inch thick parcel and envelope away in a considerable torrent of crystallized dragon fire. In a flurry of green flame the whole affair vanished, in its place a small pile of ash which I teleported outside in a brief flare of my magic. If Luna had received my letter, I was given no early indication, not even as the week carried on with no further response from her. It was not until I checked our journal for the first time since the day in the café that I realized Luna had responded, although at what point in the four day span I could not have known from the journal. Like before, her response was kept to a single, choppy sentence, although it wasn’t quite as brief as her “Not natural” response. Instead, she had written in the center of a blank page: “About Chapter Five; trust me, you’ll love what I’ve found.”   There was nothing else there, just the cryptic sentence which sent a tingle of excitement down my spine. Luna’s ambiguity was irksome, yet understandable. I figured that it would certainly make waiting for her to arrive with the book in ten day’s time more difficult with the knowledge that it would come with information that according to Luna, I would find intensely fascinating. However, despite my excitement, the remaining ten days of the month instead passed in relatively swift succession, even if they were weeks in which I did little more than sit about by the beach, watching and waiting for things to change in Dusk Falls. To the average visiting tourist, and even to the residents of the town, my watching would seem quite odd and insane, for to any casual observer more focused on the neon lights than the ponies operating them there was nothing at all to change in Dusk Falls. Perhaps a new travelling band came to replace the old one, or perhaps a large ship with magnificently tall and bright ivory-coloured sails catching the summer wind docked in the pier. Certainly, there was nothing that would warrant the suspicious and scrutinous gaze I was now viewing the entire town under. The tabloids were quite busy making wild claims of my secrecy and seclusion, as well as of the increase of distance between Luna and I. It was in those weeks when things slowed down slightly that I first noticed them, although they must have been going on for some time. With mild amusement I remember one ‘article’ stooping as low as to claim that a civil war was inbound between Luna’s bat pony guards and my own. Most often, the ridiculous statements of the papers were not taken seriously at all by the public, but I do recall the occasional pony expressing concern regarding Luna and my political accordance. Several times I had been asked if I could be interviewed for various papers across Equestria, but every time I denied them. I figured I could just let the ponies have their fun with gossip and rumours, as long as it did not escalate into anything more then I truly did not care. Instead, I did my best to avoid them, which was quite simple so long as I did not venture too far from Pink Sunset, although I had been seeing my beach house less and less in those days. I had Deepsy placed on near-permanent guard duty for Morning Glory even after facing backlash from the two of them, and had asked Indigo to continue searching for the missing colt who I had come to decide with certainty was not a specific target but instead a victim of something quite larger. I knew that I would probably be more knowledgeable and competent when it came to extracting information from ponies, but I also knew that subtlety was a large reason why I had not been seeing anything quite strange with my own eyes. Any malevolent being would know in a moment when I was present and any progress in discovering the truth would grind to a halt almost instantly. While my guards were busy with the tasks I assigned them, I could do little more than wait for some sort of development to be made. I kept a close eye on the state of Dusk Falls and became more of a presence in the public, even if as I have stated it was a disconnected presence with little actual interaction with my subjects. My intention was to convey a sense of assurance amongst the permanent residents of Dusk Falls, the ones who perhaps shared my silent suspicion but were too nervous to have anything done about it. To my surprise, my increase in public presence resulted in three ponies approaching me on entirely separate occasions, each with stories eerily familiar to what I had heard from Morning Glory. They approached me with barely disguised terror, and were frequently looking behind themselves nervously and starting at nearly every sound from the boardwalk around us. I chose not to comment on it with the first two ponies, but when the pattern cycled a third time I decided it would only help me to press the matter. “You’re nervous,” I’d said, interrupting the stallion’s description of the weather surrounding the approximate time he returned home to find his wife missing without a trace. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but can you please tell me what it is you’re nervous of?” As expected, by pointing out his agitation he only became further agitated, but with little more than a warm smile on my part he swiftly calmed down. When next he spoke, his voice was a barely audible whisper I had to strain to hear properly. “There’s...I dunno. Ever since I moved last year, I’ve always had the impression that I don’t...don’t belong.” “As in the locals aren’t hospitable to you?” “I...I’m not sure. I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I don’t really know for sure what it is about them.” “Would it surprise you if I said that one of my guards shares your sentiment exactly?” I said, remembering Deepsy and Indigo’s brief bickering on my porch which seemed like so long ago. He had begun by saying that they were hospitable but behind it was something more sinister. I hadn’t seen it myself at the time, but then again at that time I rarely ventured beyond the walls or porch of Pink Sunset. I had no reason to. But now I was beginning to see the inklings of what he had been hinting at. I saw it most prominently with Mayor Kleos, and how I always felt as though I was being presented with slightly modified information which disguised a less presentable truth. I saw it in the smiles of the residents, or in the well established divide between them and the tourists. It was so subtle that I was slightly wary that what I was seeing was not the workings of my own imagination, desperately thirsting for something which was not actually there. Three days before Luna was due to arrive in Dusk Falls, another major change took place, although it was not necessarily a development for my cause. I was once again at home alone while the rain fell, a heavy torrent tumbling down from the cloudy and near-black early evening sky. In my magic floated an ancient article about the ship-wreckage which had washed up on the Dusk Falls shore many years ago. Also floating in my telekinetic grip was a small glass of cognac from a sizable bottle that had been gifted to me decades ago but I had forgotten about. While I by no means consider myself one to commonly indulge in alcohol, it did not take long for me to grow sick of tea at the end of every single day and yearn for something stronger. Despite the disturbing nature of the subject matter I was reading, my mood was quite calm, and so it was with a small start that I heard a loud knock on my door. I rose and trotted over, opening it to the sight of my two guards standing on my porch, coats and manes drenched and with rainwater turning their golden armour into two sets of polished and reflective mirrors. My initial thought was that it had been quite a long time since I had seen Indigo in her armour, she had taken to not donning it as her role in Dusk Falls moved to demand she look more discrete and welcoming and less separated from the residents. I imagine she wasn’t actually supposed to shun it while on duty, but I was the one who had told her not to worry about it in the first place. Either way I can’t imagine it would have made much of a difference in the end, the golden armour worn by my Royal Guard was not designed to be aesthetically threatening, but rather as a means of reflecting the warmth and comfort I hoped my sun radiated. Of course, it was also enchanted and very well adapted to combat. It was designed to deflect magic blasts instead of absorbing them, although the enchantment’s success was largely skewed in favour of protection against unicorns, and not beings of other magical prowess, but even so it would still be greatly beneficial regardless. “Good evening, you two,” I greeted. “How are things?” “Not so good, Your Majesty,” Deepsy said somberly, scratching a nervously dropped ear. “It’s Morning Glory, Princess. She’s...I don’t want to say hysterical, but it seems like the most fitting word.” I rose an eyebrow, prompting him to elaborate. “It just sort of happened. She’s packing all her things now, as if she’s going somewhere. I heard your name a few times, Princess, but I couldn’t tell you what the context of it was.” “She was almost borderline violent,” Indigo said. “Which is why we came to get you.” “She is simply frightened,” I shook my head. Leaving my crown and regalia behind but quickly slipping into my hoofguards, I crossed on to the porch to join my guards. “It’s been almost a month and we haven’t come any closer to any sort of solution. If she is frustrated then she only has me to blame, and rightfully so.” I spread my wings and took off into the rain without any further explanation. Whether or not my guards followed me, I did not know nor care, although I was flying at a significantly swift speed and it would have been difficult for them to match it anyways. Several times during my short flight I heard the roll of thunder in the distance, as another storm swelled in from the ocean. We had been getting them in spades throughout the month; a more severe tropical cyclonic storm had been hitting the south, and Manehattan and Dusk Falls were receiving the tail end of its effects. It had been one of the few weather reports Luna had forwarded to me, detailing the efforts the pegasi were making to drive it back towards the ocean. Luna had instated a temporary conscription in the area on pegasi to assist with the efforts, and her actions were met with unanimous success, minimal property damage and no injuries. Her actual political decision, however, had been met with controversy and even outrage, which saddened and distressed me. How Luna felt of it I did not discover, for she did not mention it in any of her letters and I did not prompt her to. Morning Glory resided in one of the small houses in the single neighborhood of Dusk Falls in which long-term residents lived. Like Pink Sunset, its tiny size was actually more beneficial to its design, giving it a very homely feel. Unlike Pink Sunset, however, the house was not very tall, and its white trim was paired with a dark blue roof instead of a hot pink. I quite liked the colour matched with the ivory white, if I could have controlled what colour the painters had decided when they first constructed my home, I would have chosen the same. I walked slowly towards the blue door. I heard the sound of creaking wood behind me, and I promptly turned around to see Indigo starting up the steps behind me with Deepsy right behind her. “No. You two stay outside, please,” I said. The door looked as though it had been slammed harder than what it was intended to endure, for the top hinge had been damaged enough for the door to be impossible to close completely. As a result, I was able to push it open, which I did without knocking. “Morning Glory? Are you in here?” I called instead. The damaged door was pushed open further by the growing wind of the incoming storm, but I hesitated in the entranceway instead of venturing any further into the house. “She must be gone already,” Indigo said behind me, more to Deepsy than me. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Princess, you took off before we could fully explain. When we left to get you, she practically kicked us out. She said that she was sick of this town and the memories, and that she didn’t feel safe anyways.” “From the looks of things, she was in quite the hurry to leave,” I observed, leaning my head into the now abandoned house. It had been left in a state of chaos and disarray, but with all of her possessions still present and left for dead. “So much so, that she seems to have set out on foot. I’m going to find her. Deepsy, the chariot I flew into Dusk Falls in...is it still in this town?” “Yeah. It’s in storage at the town hall. Why?” “I’m going to look for her. If she wishes to leave I cannot stop her, but I do not want her travelling alone to wherever it is she deems safe. That’s why I’m asking you two to take her and a select amount of her possessions in the chariot to Manehattan. That’s a flight of about six hours, yes?” “Perhaps only five, but yes,” he said. The traces of irritation were visible in his voice, even if he was quite adept at concealing it. “Are you positive this is a necessary course of action? We would have to stop in Manehattan before flying back, and we might be gone for days…” “By all means,” I grinned, “Take as much time as you need. Manehattan is a beautiful city with plenty of sights to behold. I wouldn’t have you rush it, anyways.”   “Princess, permission to speak freely?” “When do you ever not, Deepsy?” I said lightheartedly. “Go ahead.” “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you’re deliberately trying to be rid of us.” “Oh I am,” I replied in joking sarcasm. “I dreadfully despise you all with a passion. Come on, Deepsy, why would I do that? I am not trying to be rid of you, I simply need you elsewhere.” Perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to have told them that with Luna arriving so soon, I wouldn’t need them at all, but I knew better than to needlessly be rude and offensive. My brief explanation seemed to suffice anyways, and coupled with my joking dismissal it looked as though the two were satisfied. I found Morning Glory some ways down the road leading from Dusk Falls, stumbling along despite being evidently being weighed down by the bustling saddlebags on her sides. I flew above her and spiralled downwards, landing on the muddy path a short distance ahead of her and shaking my wings clear of rain before folding them against my sides. With the rumbling of thunder and sound of rain beating aggressively on the dirt road, and with her eyes locked on her hooves instead of the path ahead, it was with very little surprise that I noticed she had not seen or heard me land. The moment I took my first step and my hooves made a loud sloshing noise in the mud, however, she looked up and her eyes widened in surprise. It might perhaps have been rain, but I was quite certain she had been crying. “Princess Celestia…?” she stared at me, saying nothing further. “I understand you wanting to leave this town,” I said after a brief pause did not elicit any further response beyond the uttering of my name.  “I am sorry I have been unsuccesful in easing your fears and helping with your troubles. You have nopony else but me to blame for the sorrow you must be experiencing. But please...my guards are preparing a chariot with some of your possessions. If you must flee, I would greatly appreciate the comfort that you are in the hooves of ponies that I trust.” “A...a chariot?” “Yes indeed. My chariot, actually. Pine wood, white trim. Quite nice.” “I...I don’t know what to...I mean, thank you, but—” her sentence was cut short by a loud clap of thunder directly overhead, and she flinched at the sound. When she had composed herself, she nodded frantically, swiftly reversing her unexpressed decision to deny my help. ii The storm was still raging overhead by time I finally got home, and the dark and cloudy sky was darker still with night now overtaking the day. I’d lowered the sun as I flew, although none would have been able to bear witness to it through the thick cover of clouds. Not long after I’d arrived home, I felt an uneasy compulsion to sleep, not because I was particularly tired but simply because I wished for the next dawn to arrive a little swifter. Or perhaps it was for another reason entirely. To be honest, I was and am not quite sure. Without quite knowing for sure what I was doing, I extinguished the torches I had just lit and made my way into my bedroom. Even if I was not tired, and even through the angry storm, my mind wandered into dreamless sleep quite swiftly. I awoke in my bed again as if my eyes had been shut for mere moments, but the sound of birds chirping outside to the tune of a light rain in place of a torrential storm quickly gave me the impression that I had at least slept away several hours. It was still the dead of night and much too far for me to arise, but my throat felt parched and dry and I realized I had not even eaten dinner the night prior, let alone dranken any amount of water. And so, with a great yawn, I travelled back into my living room with a glass of water I had taken from my nightstand in my magical grasp. It did not remain in my grasp for long though, because the moment I was outside it fell from my grasp and hit the ground, somehow not shattering on the hardwood floor even though it really should have. Outside of my house lay the night sky sprawled as a curtain of stars, which would have been natural, if not for the fact that the night sky was all that was outside my house. The beach nor ocean was there, it looked like my house was simply floating in a void of nothing but the night sky. The door to my porch was open wide and the curtains were flying wildly even though I could feel no wind blowing them. What wind could there have been, anyways? It was in this direction that I cautiously walked, until I was no longer inside and instead was looking down into more stars where I had grown accustomed to the high tides being. “Beautiful sight, inside it, Princess?” A voice ominously called behind me. I whipped around with bitter words on my lips, but instantly ceased when I saw who it was who had spoken. Even shrouded in the darkness of my unlit house, I recognized her silhouette immediately. “Hey, Celly.” “Luna! I’m sorry...you startled me!” “Yes, I’m sorry, too. A sleeping mind is more prompt to confusion and disorientation, as well as shock and fear,” she grinned devilishly, “I’d be lying if I said I never took advantage of it to have a bit of fun.” “I’m dreaming?!” “Well, yes. Obviously. Did you think the rest of our known reality simply decided to rise without you this morning?” I scratched my bedraggled mane and ignored her comment, instead focusing on the more important question. “What are you doing in my dreams, Luna? I thought you’d told me you did not interfere with non-nightmares.” “Oh, but you are in a nightmare, Celly. In your waking mind. Nightmares aren’t always confined to the Dreamscape.” “Very ominous. What are you getting at, Luna?” “You’d be surprised how useful the Dreamscape can be, Celestia. I aim to show you, but I need you to focus,” she walked out onto the porch. The starlight, dim as it was, gave her form beyond that of a silhouette, all the while seeming to lend their light into her waving mane which looked as though it were growing in luminosity. “I’m going to collapse your dream,” she said, “...but I need you to try your best to stay asleep. Can you do that?” “But...how does one stay asleep when their dreams are collapsing?” “It isn’t something there exists a particular strategy for. You just need to stay focused on something. An idea or an object or a ponies face. It can be anything.” “Such as yourself?” Luna shrugged. “Depending on the dreamer, how I appear to them can fluctuate. Most of the time it works but it can be volatile. Sometimes I’m dreamt up as a luna moth or a small bat, which can be annoying and degrading. It helps to think of something smaller. Focus on that one thing and keep thinking about it, and try not to pay any attention to the reality I’ll be forcibly destroying around you.” “Why are we doing this, Luna?” “You’ll see. Have you an object to focus upon?” I hadn’t, but I thought of one swiftly. It was not Luna or myself or anything of particular importance. Instead of something significant to me, I focused on the blue housecoat I was wearing. I did not own a blue housecoat, it must have been something my dreaming mind had conjured up, but regardless its simplicity seemed sufficient enough to keep me focused for however long Luna’s dream-collapsing  procedure would take. A loud cracking sound ripped out from above me, and I squeezed my eyes shut while filling my mind’s eye with the image of the housecoat I’d been wearing. It felt silly, doing my best to stay focused on such a meaningless thing, while the sounds of utter destruction tore out from beyond my eyelids, but if Luna had seen it as important then I did too. I felt not unlike a little child, doing as my younger sister ordered me and too clueless to protest otherwise. No matter what anypony tells you, I don't believe there is a feeling worse than being patronizingly treated like a fool. It was for this reason that I made an attempt not to elevate myself above my subjects. Every foe I'd ever faced took great pleasure in proclaiming their superiority over me; Discord, Sombra, to them I was always a fool, a bore, an adversary of laughable meekness. I did not care so much if they said it, but the same attitude coming from my sister was a bit more concerning. Granted, she was not nearly as deliberate as they had been, and I don't believe anypony else beyond  myself would have known. “Celestia, you can open your eyes anytime, but try not to be frightened when you do so. It is only with intense focus that you can stay dreaming. Think of your object if you believe your mind is growing too confused or otherwise busy.” Gradually, my eyes fluttered open. The starry sky was still there, but there was nothing else, not even any ground beneath my hooves. Instead, there were more stars far beneath me, with some unseeable surface dividing them from me. “Blue housecoat, blue housecoat, blue housecoat,” my mind chanted as I adjusted to the odd lack of spacial depth and visible reality. Despite the oddness, it was more the shock of seeing it all that I imagined Luna was wary about. Once my surroundings had sunken in, despite their surreal nature I was quite calm and collected in the face of them. "Are you alright?" Luna asked. "Your coat..." I mumbled. "It looks darker here." "Well nopony dreams with exact precision," her answer was defensive and evidently practiced. "What is all this?" I motioned to the stars around us. At least, I thought they were stars, the distance between them and the rather small amount bade me think twice about what I was seeing. "Shouldn't an empty Dreamscape be...empty?" "It is. Hence the blackness." "Then what of all the stars?" "Hmm, interesting. You see them as stars? I always saw doors myself. Give me a moment and I'll change my perspective to accompany yours." "Luna!" I pleaded. By that point I'd had enough of her ambiguity. "Please, explain yourself!" "Very well. The stars you see, presumably all around you?" she waved a hoof at the sky and our hooves, leading me to believe she now saw the Dreamscape as I did. "They are not stars at all. You are seeing every single dreaming mind in Dusk Falls at this moment." Luna must have seen the surprise in my eyes, because she quickly perked her ears and took on a grave expression. "Deep breaths. Stay calm. Think of your object if need be. This is the longest anypony has remained with me in raw Dreamscape, but presently you are very apt to waking suddenly." "I'm fine, Luna," I said. "So every star I see is...?" "A pony, yes. I dare not risk entering a dream with you presently, but I do not have to in order to demonstrate why we are here. Do you see it?" I turned my gaze back to the spacious sky above. What I had noticed before had not changed; still the night sky was unnaturally void of many stars, although knowing that they were all the minds of ponies in Dusk Falls made their dwindling number a little more reasonable. I swept my eyes across them all, seeking some sort of constellation or otherwise pattern in their design. Luna had seemingly noticed it in mere moments, which meant it couldn't be anything too complex. While no constellations formed from the stars, one spot of the sky above seemed quite different from the rest. While every other area had the stars spaced out at reasonable distances from each other, with only the occasional cluster, this specific area contained a perplexingly condensed grouping of them, perhaps a hundred stars all in the same vicinity. Each single star was considerably dimmer than the other ones, but so many in one place meant that the cluster could even be mistaken for a singular bright light if a pony were to cross their eyes or look to it in their peripheral. "There?" I ventured. With no spatial reference points, I had to take to pointing at it with a hoof instead. "Bingo." Luna said with genuine playful energy I'd longed to see from her as of late. "All dreaming minds spaced equally across the Dreamscape of Dusk Falls. All but there. Why?" "Dozens of minds...all in immediate proximity. Does this mean their spatial proximity in the land of the waking is the same?" "Yes, actually, it does. If what you are seeing is the same as myself, then you are looking at...perhaps a good comparison would be an aerial map, but showing nothing but the locations of dreaming ponies," Luna rubbed her eyes and next spoke through a yawn, "But, it's a spherical aerial map. The principle is the same." It was mind-achingly baffling and Luna's explanation did little to assist, but I did my best not to focus on it out of fear of collapsing into wakefulness as Luna had warned would happen. The reason of why we were there was still no less clear to me, but as if sensing my curiosity, Luna's theory was quick to come. "An impossible amount of ponies in one concentrated place could mean two things: a town meeting at the stroke of midnight, all asleep perhaps due to the pedantic nature of this town's insipid mayor," Luna did not so much as grin despite her joke, instead shifting into further somberness "...Or a grouping of unconscious ponies who have gone missing over the years." "Yes, perhaps," Though admittedly far-fetched, her logic did not seem incorrect. The population of Dusk Falls did not seem large enough to accommodate both the perhaps thousand stars in the sky, and the hundreds in this isolated cluster. "I believe something is using ponies, Celestia. As a power source. Perhaps draining their magic, I don't know. I can't think of why else they would be in such sickening proximity and negligible cognitive states." "The stars are dimmer than the rest," I observed. "Does this mean the dreams are less intense?" "Yes it does. Too dim for a single one to actually be entered," Luna said. We both realized it in synchronization, but Luna said it first with her ears perking upwards and her eyes widening in realization. "Like Dawn Shores." "Dune Shores." "Yes, yes, whatever. Like him." "Luna, our subjects identities are not 'whatever.'" "I can't really find it in me to care, sister. Can we stay focused on the task at hoof please?" "Which is?" I said sharply, stomping a hoof on the unseen ground which made no sound upon being struck. "Your needless lust for ambiguity has left me unable to tell what you actually hope to accomplish." "Just because you don't understand doesn't make it needless," her reply came with venom. As our irritation with each other grew, I could have sworn I'd seen the tapestry of stars waver and blur as if losing resolve. Luna evidently noticed, too. "...But enough of this!" she cried. "Are we honestly bickering like school-fillies here, of all places?" "Yes, you are right," I conceded. "I am sorry, Luna. What's next?" "We awaken, I suppose. Can you not think of anything else from the realm of dreams you wish to explore? I was hoping you'd be more creative with this opportunity." I do not recall actually thinking of what came next, nor having any thoughts beyond indignation towards Luna's unnecessary words of derision. But regardless of what my conscious mind was focused on, it seemed that within my dreams my subconscious still had the greater control. Whatever the reasoning, I would later leave it to my sister to figure out, it was her area of expertise anyways. What I do remember clearly is the same sense of perverse and bone-chilling unease, but not full horror because I did not quite understand what it was that I should have been frightened of. Instead, it was both the taunting familiarity and the similar feeling of confusion that billowed within my mind and bade the finer hairs on my neck stand on end. "Ah, see, this is fascinating," Luna's voice cut through my confused thoughts, not a fragment of uncertainty or anxiety to be detected in its uninterested sounding drone. "Blood fog! A familiar sight, Tia?" It rose at our eye level even with an unlimited amount of unsullied space above, below, and around us. Its resemblance to the stuff I had seen weeks ago was uncanny, I was in part surprised my subconscious had remembered it in such detail so as to offer up such a perfect depiction once again. The thought had not even occurred to me that it was not my subconscious which had conjured it up at all. "Yes, it is familiar. I saw this fog rise in Harmony Bay. I attributed it to a brief yet vivid dream." "And you didn't tell me? So much for outright honesty between us." "Luna, this is not the time nor place for your judgement! Explain what it is we are seeing!" "How in Tartarus should I know? You saw it!" her wings flared up in her frustration. "Give me a moment, I'll isolate the dream back to the three of us." "Three of us?" "You, me, and whatever that is! Now shut up and let me focus!" She had not actually told me what the process of 'isolating the dream' entailed, so I once again closed my eyes and did the best I could not to focus on the loud groaning and creaking sounds around us, and Luna's magic humming or occasionally spiking in pitch to a sharp whine. Accompanied by her strained magic, Luna's breathing was now heavy and frantic, as if she had just finished sprinting a great distance. I wanted dearly to call out and ask whether or not she was alright, but I could not imagine she would have taken well to any interruptions even if their intentions were good. As suddenly as the loud surrounding noises commenced, they seemed to vanish just as swiftly. Luna's inconsistent magic flow ceased to be replaced by silence, and her breathing calmed to the quiet nature of a mare at rest. "Sweet Mother Epona," she gasped once the process had seemingly been completed. My eyes fluttered open and I saw that she had descended to a sitting position on the non-visible ground, this time strictly immaculate and free of even the small interruptions of the stars. Instead we were in a complete black void, featureless with the deliberate exception of the red fog still hanging eerily motionless at our eye level. There was really nothing else visible to explain Luna's quiet exclamation, and I decided she must have reacted to something she'd felt as opposed to something she had seen. My suspicions were quickly proven incorrect, however, when she next spoke. “Celestia look! It’s still here!” “The fog?” “Yes! Blood fog!” “You keep saying that, but it has no actual meaning, Luna,” I grumbled. “T...this isn’t the place to explain. The point is, I whittled the dream down to just the three of us, and this formless presence still exists.” “Presence? Implying it is...alive?” “Yes! An apparently unconscious entity other than a pony, one we inadvertently picked up when I extended your dream to view all the minds of the other dreaming ponies,” she explained. “When I isolated it back to just the two of us, I thought it was a mere projection of your unconscious and would disappear. I did not think it was actually a physical entity.” “What is it? Can you tell?” “No, I cannot,” she sighed, “Like with the dreams of ponies, represented as doors or stars, it is impossible for me to know what being it is until I actually enter the dream.” The fog continued hanging motionlessly, its inactivity an almost deliberate mocking of the confusion and intrigue it caused the two of us. It did not seem content to form into anything more than a shapeless mass of red vapor. Looking at it filled me with the same uneasy feeling even though I had grown quite accustomed to its appearance at that point. I had the impression it was not its sight but a more unexplained knowledge of its power. Fully coming to terms with the fact that Luna might have a snide and patronizing response, I expressed my thoughts aloud. “It seems to be very powerful. I feel it just by being in its presence.” “I’m inclined to agree,” she thankfully concurred, “Shall I attempt to give it form? This will more than likely cause you to collapse into wakefulness, but what the hell. It’s worth a shot.” I wasn’t about to close my eyes and focus on my blue housecoat this time, instead I took a firm stance beside Luna as her horn hummed to life and a tiny tendril of white magic stretched out and slowly began moving toward the fog. The tendril moved gently, at a soothingly slow pace, and it looked as soft as a woolen thread, but nevertheless the moment it came in contact with the red fog, the vapor began to writhe in apparent pain. It was difficult to fully understand what I was seeing, let alone translate that sight to words, but simply put the red fog’s insistence on immobility was quite obviously broken as Luna’s magic collided. In some places it whirled wildly, in others it dissipated into nothingness, and in yet others it seemed like thunderstorms as tiny as a teacup but with no reduction of violence, which blinded the eyes and cast aside the red colour once so characteristic of the fog. This was the last I saw of the blood fog. There were no theatrical flashes of light or magic to follow, instead I simply bolted into wakefulness back in my comfortable bed in Pink Sunset. If I would have crossed over into my living room and looked out the window to see the red fog in Harmony Bay, I don’t believe the state of my mind I was presently in would have allowed me to even be surprised by the sight. I was, however, surprised by the sight of Luna rummaging through one of my kitchen drawers the moment I left my bedroom. She heard me enter, but did not actually acknowledge me beyond a quick backward glance. “No ice-cream, Celly? Seriously?” she grumbled, slamming the magically enchanted ice-filled cupboard shut. “Well? Thoughts on what you saw?” “I’m sorry I could not stay awake long enough for you to—” “Oh, you have no need to apologize for that,” she interrupted me with a raise of her hoof, “I’m impressed you made it into a shared dream at all. Not many ponies other than me can do that.” “So...blood fog?” I asked. “Neat, wasn’t it? Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve seen something similar?” “It would. So then you know what it was?” “Yes. I can even show you,” Luna seemed overjoyed with the apparent condemned knowledge she possessed and I was clueless about. It was not often she had the opportunity to teach the twisted magic she found fascinating, for it was hardly commonly practiced in Equestria at all. “Would you like me to show you?” “Very much so, yes,” I nodded. “Excellent. Outside, though. I presume you value these floors.” Luna led the way outside, grabbing a random book off my bookshelf in her telekinesis and sliding the glass door to my porch open. On my porch was an ashtray which had not seen any use beyond a cigar the Mayor had once gifted me, and I felt too bad about the faux enthusiasm I had expressed to simply let it sit. Luna placed the book within and placed it on the porch, wasting no time in switching her telekinesis spell into a different spell entirely. Her normal magic aura changed colour to a sickly green, but she showed no reaction to her shift into dark magic nor to the lines of green light dancing in the corners of her eyes. “What are you doing?” I warily asked, slightly disturbed by her nonchalant use of such execrated magic. “Enchanting.” her reply was no more than a single word. True to her word, the book began swirling with the same green light, but it did not take long for me to realize that whatever enchantment Luna was giving the book, it was too much for the actual pathetic bundle of paper to contain. The edges of the paper began to burn, and then the thicker cover began to smolder, too. Soon the book was aflame, although the flames were green instead of orange. It burned like any other book, swiftly becoming mere ash in the tray whose purpose I now knew Luna had foreseen. “Okay. Now watch,” Luna whispered excitedly. From the ashes of the book there seemed to be some sort of formation of mist or fog. Fog coloured red. Blood fog. There wasn’t nearly as much as I had seen in Harmony Bay or in the Dreamscape, but it was the same substance nonetheless. It quickly vanished into the dark midnight sky, leaving me with more confusion and one less poetry book. “What you just saw,” came her much appreciated explanation, “Was the enchantment leaving the book. Waste. By-product. Like a soul with no body to reside in, vanishing into the air in one final ethereal dance, to be lost forever.” “In context of what you saw over Harmony Bay,” she continued, “A much larger amount of by-product magic waste. Much more than burned books. When I said I suspected something was using the magic of ponies for malicious purposes...that was no baseless assumption, and my belief in what was once a far-fetched theory has increased greatly.” “Why was it in my Dreamscape?” I asked. “You’re all questions tonight, Tia,” she smiled, “And unfortunately, I am not all answers. What we saw was another creature of, as we agreed, considerable power. One whose existence we know of, but whose form remains a mystery. To you, and by extension me, its form is only one of what little we have seen of its existence.” Even if the reveal was less than pleasant, I couldn’t help but be pleased by its mere presence. It was quite safe to say that more progress had been made in Luna’s brief, random early appearance in Dusk Falls than in the months of research between Indigo and myself. We had confirmed quite firmly that ponies were going missing for some twisted yet sensical purpose, and at the claws or hooves or hands of something very much not a pony. Little did I know, Luna was far from finished that evening. With a smug, self-satisfied grin, she nodded once as the pleasure of the knowledge I had gained seeped into my face by way of a barely visible smile. “If you thought that was interesting, Celly,” she said, “Wait till you see Chapter Five of ‘The Beasts and Monsters of Eastern Coastal Equestria.”’