With the advancement of technology, magic is waning in Equestria and ponies are beginning to earn their cutie marks later and later, sometimes reaching adulthood with a blank flank. In an effort to help ponies know their calling, Princess Twilight Sparkle founds an organization known as the Cutie Mark Bureau as a temporary solution while she searches for a true answer for the phenomenon. The Cutie Mark Bureau, informally known as the CMB, finds a way to inject magic into a pony to create a temporary magical surge large enough to allow a cutie mark to manifest.

The bureau has stood as a shining light in a time of worry, eventually becoming a normal fixture in Equestrian life after standing for nearly a century. However, their latest patient has suspicions that not everything is as bright as everypony else believes it to be.

This story is a sequel to When the Stars Sleep

Due to the part they played in removing it, Twilight and Fluttershy have been tasked by Princess Luna to help her investigate the origin of the Nukelavee's appearance. During their exploration of an entirely empty School for Gifted Unicorns, they find a journal belonging to a student carefully hidden away. Though dirty and beat up, the simple journal answers many of their burning questions, but raises just as many new ones.

Fluttershy didn't think accepting a date from Twilight so soon after going on one with Rarity would lead to anything serious. She merely didn't want to hurt her friends by saying no. What she didn't expect was genuinely falling for both of them. After a month of careful planning and stressing over every detail, her worst nightmare starts to unfold in front of her eyes and there's nothing she can do about it.

Though sometimes, nightmares can simply be a mask for what turns out to be a wonderful dream.

A seemingly wealthy pony by the name of Scarlet Rose decides Ponyville seems like the perfect place to settle down. She appears warm and welcoming enough and quickly begins to blend in with the rest of the ponies around her, even if her choice of home sticks out like a sore hoof on the edge of the simple farming town.

A few days after her mansion is built and she settles in, a hoofful of ponies begin to seem a little sick and have trouble with so much as getting out of bed. Surely it's just a coincidence, right?

A normal evening in Ponyville steadily falls into a mystery. The sun has set just like any other day, but the moon never rose to take its place. Even the stars refuse to shine in the sky. With no word from the princesses and most of her friends too busy working to help keep Ponyville functioning, Twilight Sparkle takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of the mystery with a reluctant Fluttershy in tow.

What is causing this phenomenon? And why can't she shake the feeling of being watched?

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Cover Image by BBsArtBoutique.