A few minutes later, Luna excused herself, and sought out the physician in charge of Swift Bark's case.
"Doctor Apple Day?" she said quietly. "When you have the time, I need to speak with you in your office. I would discuss a difficult case."
"No time like the present," the cinnamon-colored stallion said. He led her into his office, where she closed the door.
Day bowed to her. "Princess Luna. How good of you to help us with the Swift Bark case. I'm so glad to have it cleared up."
The Princess said softly, "That is the question. IS it cleared up?"
"Last I checked," Doctor Day said, "the patient appeared to be recovering."
"Yes," Luna said. "The colt who was found in a remote location, with two different poisons in his system. One of them very difficult to recognize."
The doctor sucked air between his teeth. "When you put it that way...are you telling me you suspect suicide? Or perhaps foul play?"
"At this point," Luna said, "I am reluctant to rule out anything. When I walked into Swift Bark's dream, he did not want to talk about what had happened to him. He found it too painful to think about. I carefully drew him out, and he eventually told me a story."
"A story?"
"A story about a colt, colt's name not stated. The colt in the story had taken heartsleep for a perfectly good reason, as a desperate gamble to try to slow down his death from manticore venom, after a manticore surprised him."
"You're not sure you believe him."
Luna shrugged. "At this point I don't know what to believe. Maybe he really did get stung by accident, and used the heartsleep to try to buy time.
"Or maybe he felt he had a compelling reason to take two deadly poisons. Maybe whoever found him, found a suicide note next to him. Maybe they had a motive to hide the note, or destroy it.
"Or maybe the colt was poisoned by somepony else, with motives we don't know enough to even guess at. Yet. And for some reason the colt doesn't want to talk about it.
"Or maybe," Luna continued, "he just felt too embarrassed to talk about how he'd gotten into so much trouble in the forest on his own. That happens, sometimes. Or maybe when he was under the influence of heavy sleep and two different poisons, he simply had a harder time talking to me rationally. That can happen too."
Doctor Day said, "It sounds like you think we've barely begun on this case."
"I don't even know. If it were my case, I think my next step would be to call in a psychologist. A forensic psychologist if you can get one. And hope the consulting can find something where you and I have failed. At some point I HOPE to check in on the colt's dreams again, but as you know, I am a very busy pony, what with half of Equestria needing my attention. Whatever half happens to be asleep, that is."
Day nodded. "At least I know what my next step is. Thank you very much, Princess Luna."
Luna said, "Thank you too, Doctor Day. Dreamwalking can be a very lonely job. A dreamwalker usually has no backup available, and often has only nightmares for company. It's nice knowing I don't have to handle this one on my own."
Doctor Day bowed again. "I'm glad that in this case, you have help. Do you have anything else you want to discuss? Or should I go get started on requesting a psychologist?"
Luna returned the bow. "You may." She opened the door and trotted back through the hospital, on her way to catch up with Twilight.
The Night Princess looked forward to joking about cake, and pretending for a little while that the world's worst problem was overdue library books.