//------------------------------//
// Metis 
// Story: The Long Eventide 
// by SilverNotes 
//------------------------------//

"I'm so sorry, Chancellor. I--"

"Twilight, we've been over this. You can just call me Penny."

Two mares walked through the torch-lit halls. One had her horn lit in a minor light spell, partially blocked by the slices of cucumber speared on it. The other shed crumbles of feta cheese with each hoofstep, and a piece of tomato lazily parted itself from the gold and black mane to strike the stone. Chancellor Penumbra somehow managed to still look composed, her wings open at her sides as they shed the contents of the rogue salad bowl in a wide trail that would allow anypony in the tower to easily trace her steps.

"I..." Twilight stumbled in the dark, and then gave a sharp shake of her head. The cucumber remained unimpressed with her efforts to dislodge it, and she resisted the urge to paw at her horn with a hoof. While the obstacle did nothing to affect her casting, having something covering their horn was the kind of thing a unicorn could only tolerate for so long. "I'm really sorry about that, about all of that. Especially everypony joining in after Rainbow--"

One of the spread wings motioned in the air to hush her. "Everypony includes my secretaries. And the princess, who I recall looking delighted and cheering something about new royal traditions." She looked at Twilight out of the corner of her eye, a wry smile finding its way onto her muzzle.  "If I may be blunt, I'm a public figure representing a pariah of a city-state. Having things thrown at me is something of a occupational hazard." A soft chuckle left her throat as another chunk of tomato and a few small pieces of onion vacated her mane. "My predecessor once took an apple pie to the face during the Grand Equestrian Pony Summit."

Twilight could only stare at Penumbra in horror. "But--"

"I can tell the difference between play and malice, Twilight," the chancellor said with a soft, smooth voice that reminded her of the all-too-recent time when Princess Celestia had reassured her that the Smarty Pants Incident wouldn't result in being sent back to Magic Kindergarten. "Everything's fine." She stopped walking, right before Twilight nearly went muzzle-first into the door in front of her. Penumbra nodded toward it. "You go in and get cleaned up, and I'll see you later."

Twilight turned her head and watched Penumbra follow the trail of shed salad fixings back the way she'd come. There was no sign that she had any trouble of her own in the dark, and Twilight found her eyes trailing to retreating flanks. The gold made for enough of a contrast that she could still see the mark on that side in the dark, and she found the fur on her back pricking with unease. The kind words couldn't soothe her, not when everything about the barely-a-mare seemed too composed, too unflappable, too... everything. All it did was leave Twilight waiting for the metaphorical clang of a dropping shoe.

For now, however, she was safe, and she turned back to the door, took a breath, and pushed her way in. Conversation that had been buzzing inside of the room died out as her friends turned to look at her, and Rainbow, wearing what looked like the contents of an entire blueberry pie, was the first to speak. "Hey! Where've you been? The servants here said they'd be starting a bath and we thought you were gonna miss it."

She could feel her teeth grinding, though it still wasn't as prominent a sensation as the cucumber slices refusing to vacate her horn. "Oh nowhere important," she growled as she advanced on a pegasus who she was reasonably certain had wings too gunked-up to fly away and escape. "Just apologising to the chancellor for you acting like a foal!"

The last few words were a shout, and the sudden escalation in volume had Rainbow hopping back, the instinctive flare of her wings showering Fluttershy and Applejack in pie crumbs. "Hey, Pinkie started it! She hit me with an alfalfa roll!"

Pinkie Pie, the sheer amount of food items trapped in her curly mane impossible to itemize, frowned at Rainbow's accusing jab of her hoof. "I didn't mean to hit anypony, Dashie. I was just showing Dusty how I could catch them in my mouth and I missed."

"Dusty?" Rainbow repeated, turning toward Pinkie and seeming to forget the furious unicorn right in front of her. "What, you're on a cutesy nickname basis with them all already?"

"That's what Blackbird calls her, and she didn't seem to mind."

"It's still way too friendly. You--Hey!" Rainbow hopped back again as Twilight was suddenly in her face.

"Even if Pinkie hit you with a roll, you didn't have to yell 'FOOD FIGHT' and throw a salad at the chancellor."

"I wasn't aiming for Chancellor Creepy. I was aiming for Princess Luna."

"That doesn't make it better."

"But it was really funny when it hit her." Seemingly obviously to Twilight's fraying mane--perhaps she mistook it for simply mussed up from the aftermath of the upturned cucumber platter--she started to laugh. "Did you see how the tomatoes got in her hair?"

Before Twilight could shout again, a tut-tutting came from Rarity, whose pearly coat was now splattered with olive oil. "Really, darling, that's terrible. It's clear that Chancellor Penumbra put a lot of work into making herself presentable to meet us. And she's being gracious enough to let us use her bathing facilities to clean up."

"But you threw a whole bowl of rice at--"

"An' laundry services," Applejack added with a huff, cutting off Rainbow's protests. "You got soup on my hat." The hat in question was pressed between her forelegs with an impressive orange-red splash pattern across it.

"Hey, no, wait a second, I didn't throw any soup! I don't know who did that."

"...That was me."

Applejack turned with look at Fluttershy with a raised eyebrow, and she shrunk beneath her mane with the weight of guilt. "You threw soup at me?"

"It was an accident. I was talking to Brandywine and the yell startled me. My wing hit it. I'm sorry."

Applejack shook her head with a small smile. "S'alright. Accidents happen, an' I'm real good at gettin' tomato stains out o' things."

"Just... just..." Twilight finally gave into the urge and started pawing at her horn, knocking the offending pieces of vegetable to the floor. Finally freed from the constant irritant, she looked around at her food-covered friends and let out a sigh that felt one-part frustration and one-part resignation. "Look, the big celebration is the day after tomorrow, on the Winter Moon. Can you all please please please behave yourselves until after it? We don't want a repeat of the Grand Galloping Gala."

A wave of cringes went through the entire room. "Geez, Twilight," Rainbow groused. "Unfair kick."

"I won't do anything to wreck the party. That's a Pinkie Promise." Pinkie reared onto her hind legs, making the appropriate series of motions to seal the words into a proper ironclad promise. She then grinned as she landed back on all fours. "In fact, I'll make sure it's the best Welcome-Back-From-Your-Thousand-Year-Banishment Party ever."

Rarity sniffed slightly, examining her hoof. "I fail to see where anything that went wrong during the Gala was my fault."

"Me neither," Applejack chimed in with a snort.

"But you have my word that I will neither try to court, nor violently splatter cake onto, any of our hosts, if it makes you feel better about the whole affair, Twilight."

"An' I won't try t' take over the caterin' this time without bein' hired for it."

"I'll... I'll behave..."

With the final squeak of agreement, Twilight stared at Rainbow, who drew back away again from her with a groan. "Uuuugh, fine, Promise I won't do anything to bring the tower down or whatever." She gestured with her wings, blueberry filling forming elaborate drip-patterns on the floor. "I'll even be polite to the obviously evil ponies and sit through boring meals with them without livening them up."

Close enough. "Thank you, Rainbow," Twilight said evenly, then looked at all her friends again, feeling her tension relax slightly. "Now let's go take that bath."





Penumbra was the last to enter the hall, and the stained glass window of the princess stared down on all four of them as she took in the disgusted look on Diamond Dust's face, Brandywine's near-perpetual frown, and Blackbird Song grinning like she'd had an all-expenses paid vacation in Las Pegasus. Rice surrounded Diamond like the droplets left behind after a rain, Brandy's mane had gained the extra volume of a platter of mashed potatoes, and Blackbird suddenly gave a full-body shake, pelting everypony around her with chickpeas. The assault had Brandywine's kittens huddling even closer, having hidden beneath her not long after the chaos had started and so had gotten through the ordeal unscathed.

"Well that went well!" Blackbird chirped, before planting her rump on the stone floor.

Both of her other two secretaries turned to stare at the chipper pegasus, and Brandy was the one to raise a brow and say what both seemed to be thinking. "Anyone ever tell you that it's really hard to tell when you're being sarcastic?"

"All the time," she responded, and Penumbra found herself nodding in agreement. Blackbird then shook her head. "But, no, I mean it. I can see why the princess likes them. They seem like nice ponies."

Diamond huffed a bit as the green glow of her horn went about plucking the stray chickpeas and casting them to the floor with the rice. "I agree, for the most part, but I suspect that Lady Rainbow Dash is trying to provoke us."

Brandy snorted and rolled her eyes. "Y'think? She chucked a Minoan salad at Penny. Unless outsiders have gotten extra weird, I don't think that was saying 'let's be friends.'"

"We expected there to be some amount of suspicion and hostility," Penumbra said with a roll of her shoulders, trying to ignore how much having cheese in her flight feathers made her want to incessantly twitch. "As close as they are to the princess, they also grew up in her sister's light. And we have a reputation." She gave a faint chuckle, even as one of her front hooves started to rhythmically tap. "We're lucky it's such petty hostility, really. Like a foal stirring up trouble because they resent where their parents have brought them. It's a far cry from an assassination attempt."

Play and malice. She hadn't lied when she'd spoken to Lady Twilight Sparkle. She did know the difference, as Moonshadow had laid out such with stories and scars alike until the young pegasus who was to be her successor knew and knew well what standing vigil against the burning sun would cost her. More than apple pies had menaced her predecessor, especially when she had taken some risks of her own with outsiders. The important part, however, was that some of such risks had paid dividends, and it was that fact that kept spurring her on.

"It is refreshing not to have meals that are so stuffy," Blackbird commented. "We'll have to look for more excuses to invite the princess and the Element-Bearers over. They really lighten things up."

"That assumes," Diamond responded, looking at Blackbird with a cold stare that didn't make her so much as twitch. "That everything goes according to this risk laden plan that we are putting in motion. You are certain that Zigzag will be able to handle their part?"

"They were pretty confident about it," she responded with a shrug. "It's not like I know anything about zebra magic, but it looked like the amulet was reacting."

"They are always confident, regardless of what is asked of them. It fails to fill me with any confidence of my own. And being able to attune to an artefact does not mean being able to use it correctly, or wield it to its full effect. We are putting our trust in--"

"Zigzag's personality quirks aside, they're more than competent," Penumbra cut in, meeting the redirected glare and returning it unflinchingly. "We can trust them to do their job when the time comes. As for us, we should focus on the celebration. I want to give our princess a party truly worthy of her."

The stare held, for a time, and she could hear Brandy snort at them as the silence stretched. Then Diamond bowed her head, words working their way out through clenched teeth. "By your will, Chancellor."





Warm water could do wonders for the mood, and Twilight Sparkle felt her temper soothing as she floated along the surface of the bath. It was big enough for all six mares and then some, more like one of the communal bathhouses in the older parts of a Canterlot that had slowly, one by one, been converted to other purposes. Group bathing was more likely to be done with immediate family and other smaller herds these days, and so most tubs could comfortably hold about four or five, with facilities at places such as Ponyville's local spa able to accommodate a few more. This was closer to the size of a pool, which Pinkie Pie seemed to be taking advantage of as she showed off all manner of swimming maneuvers.

Princess Luna and her guards--the guards being the only ponies who hadn't joined the mayhem either intentionally or accidentally, and whom had showed their training well in keeping all laughter internal--had been granted their own bathroom, and so she slowly felt the immediate pressure ease. No princess, no Umbral Society, not right now. She could finally have a moment to think.

As she looked around at her five closest friends, she knew what she needed most to think about.

Twilight took in a slow breath. "Okay, so the Winter Moon is soon and..." She paused to make sure the others were paying attention. It took an extra moment for Pinkie Pie to surface, having produced a snorkel from... somewhere. "We need a plan of attack."

Rainbow Dash's reaction was, regrettably, predictable. "Now you're talking! Let's--"

"Not that kind of attack." The chastisement sent Rainbow down the few body-heights necessary to land in the water again, and Twilight weathered the resulting splash. "We have time before the celebration, and I need to know how everypony is going to use that time." 

She looked up at the high ceiling; extra light sources had been added to the room to make it more comfortable for them, and it allowed her to pick out a few details of what seemed to be a large painting on the stone's surface looming above them, if not enough to see what it was a painting of. It was almost more unnerving than it being so dark Twilight wouldn't have been able to tell it was there at all. "We're in unfamiliar territory, and we need to be smart about getting familiar, quickly."

"I'm gonin' t' go visit my cousin." Applejack always looked strange without her hat, or with her mane and tail undone, but she looked right at home in the water as she spoke with confidence. "Not only was I hopin' t' see him, but he might know some things. See what the hardworkin' everypony thinks o' this Umbral Society." She frowned a bit in thought. "After all, you heard Penny sayin' what she did t' Princess Luna, 'bout bein' the citizens' will. I'd like t' hear some citizens' opinions 'bout it."

Rainbow snorted. "You're calling her Penny now?"

"She did request so, Rainbow," Rarity cut in, pausing half-way through applying shampoo. Twilight still sometimes found herself surprised with how long Rarity's hair actually was, when mane and tail were too waterlogged to keep their artificial curls. "And as for my part, Applejack is right. We should look into what Eventide thinks of its rulers." She went back to her diligent cleaning, and Twilight could spy three other separate hair-care products sitting at the edge of the massive tub. "From my chat with Blackbird, before it was so rudely interrupted, she seems to be the secretary with the most connections to the common creature. I may be able to learn a great deal by cultivating a positive relationship."

"So you're just gonna spend the whole time... ugh..." Rainbow shook her head a bit, then zipped up out of the water again, pointing to herself with a front hoof as her flapping wings splattered water. "Well, I'm gonna check out the militia. See how good their training is and figure out what they're hiding."

Applejack raised a foreleg to keep the flying droplets from her face, while wearing a sly smile. "Right, an' you're not jus' sayin' that 'cause you want t' see Honour Code fight a hydra."

"You know what, AJ? You can--"

"I'm gonna help Dusty with the celebration!" Pinkie was suddenly at the same distance above the water as Rainbow, and she hovered there for a moment with no visible means of levitation before splashing back in. The snorkel wasn't anywhere to be seen for the entire sequence of events. "I'll make sure that the whole thing is a Deluxe, Extra-Special, Certified Pinkie Pie Party!"

That's what I'm afraid of. But there was only so much anypony could do to keep Pinkie from a party, and maybe she really had learned her lesson from the Gala. Twilight could only hope. "Okay, that's four accounted for. Fluttershy..."

"...I um... might've made plans... with Brandy..."

Twilight hadn't quite caught the words, over the sounds of the water, but Rarity seemed to have no such trouble as her ears perked. "Oh? What sort of plans, dear?"

Fluttershy's wet mane covered not just one, but both eyes as she rinsed it free of its own shampoo, and if the temporary blindness bothered her, she didn't show it in the slightest. "Well... we both do a lot of the same things, so..." One eye peeked out from behind the coral-coloured shield. "We wanted to talk, about maybe moving animals to her, or to me, when we have too many to handle, or when there's somepony looking to adopt and we think the other has an animal who'd be a good fit." The second eye slowly appeared as well. "Brandy doesn't have a talent for animals, so I can't send her the really wild ones, but--"

"I'm wonderin' jus' what her talent is," Applejack commented. "I've seen that cask mark before, but in my family it's for makin' cider." She looked thoughtful. "S'pose it could be for brewin' her namesake, but it's a real leap from makin' distilled wine t' all this shady political business."

"...I didn't ask," Fluttershy admitted. "She just mentioned that she had to learn animal care the harder way, because it's not her talent."

Twilight hadn't even thought to look at the secretaries' marks, having been so disturbed by Penumbra's, and so that information came as a relief. Ponies with the same, or extremely similar, marks clustering together in occupations was normal enough. Even with every individual discovering their talent under personal circumstances, it seemed that certain icons stuck out in the collective subconscious and found themselves repeating again and again. But for a repeating mark to be that mark would have been alarming.

Maybe she was overreacting. Nopony else was focusing on that, not even Rainbow Dash. She needed to focus on the details that were important, not get caught up something that stole all her attention from the goal of making sure this visit didn't end in disaster.

"Okay, so we've got scouting the militia, talking to some locals, and learning what we can from the secretaries." Twilight nodded at each of her friends in turn as she spoke. "I'm going to stick close to Princess Luna. She has her guards, but I think she could use a friend, too."

Rarity gave an approving smile. "That's a lovely idea, Twilight. The princess should never feel as though she's without support, and she no doubt feels much more secure with you around."

Twilight couldn't help the nervous chuckle. "Well, I mean, I don't know if I'd go that--Gah!" 

All else she could say was lost in the splash of Rainbow Dash cannonballing back into the water, and before she could think to get it back, Pinkie Pie popped up with cry of triumph and sent a similar wave of water at Dash. The impromptu splash fight spread, consuming a reluctant Rarity, much more reluctant Fluttershy, and much less reluctant Applejack, and soon all five ponies were laughing as water flew.

Twilight watched this for a few moments, almost tried to raise her voice to stop them. As she was again splashed with a stray wave, however, she instead found herself laughing and joining in, reminding herself that there were no eyes from guards, princess, or the Umbral Society to judge them. She could afford a moment of fun.

She'd remember this, later. The moment when she'd let herself laugh, and felt like everything would turn out all right.





Diamond Dust and Brandywine had left to clean up. Penumbra remained in the hall, eyes locked on the silver, moonlit unicorn captured in stained glass, and feeling Blackbird Song's gaze equally locked on the back of her head. She'd grown very good at that, detecting the gazes of others when she seemed utterly distracted, a skill honed from when she would make conversation while muzzle-deep in a book. 

"Are you alright?" Penumbra asked softly, without looking back, and heard wings rustle behind her.

"Nothing I haven't lived through before." A few hoofsteps ventured closer, enough that Penumbra could see Blackbird out of the corner of her eye. "All part of the Daywalkers' Duty, right?"

Penumbra snorted, giving a sharp shake of her head before she turned to meet Blackbird's eyes. "That's just it. You aren't a daywalker. I should've--"

An inky black wing fanned out, laid itself across golden withers. "Penny, it's okay." Blackbird's voice carried that soothing, melodious quality that could calm a crowd or lull a foal to sleep, and despite herself, Penumbra relaxed some. "I was the best we had and we're on a time crunch. I'll face the light however many times it takes to see this through."

Penumbra looked back at the window, but it was a different unicorn she was seeing. Even now, she could almost feel her predecessor's stern stare. "Do you think she's proud of us?"

"Moonie?" Blackbird paused for Penumbra's nod. "I think she's cheering us on, in her own way."

"Not calling me a fool?" Much like how her gaze tried to peer into memory, her voice sounded distant in her own ears.

"Nah, she'd see that this is..." Blackbird's free wing rustled again as she searched for the right word. "Necessary."

Eyes closed, head dipped, and Penumbra let out a deep sigh. "I wish I believed that. I keep thinking she wishes she'd left me in the archives where I belong."

"She picked you--"

"You know that I wasn't her first choice. Other factors--" Penumbra's eyes opened again, and she turned her head to regard her own flank, where the Mare In The Moon stared back at her. "...Forced her hoof."

"Horseapples." The force in the word made Penumbra look up, where Blackbird's eyes burned with fierce conviction. "That stubborn old mare would kick anything that tried to force her hoof right in the snout." A sharp stomp rang through the dark stone hall. "She wouldn't have put down your name if she didn't believe in you."

They held the stare, and in those moments, she believed Blackbird. In the time their eyes met, the doubts were gone, the way was clear, and she felt the full force of the faith that was being placed in her, a force that almost sent her to her knees. She felt not just purity of conviction, but, in that time, the idea that she could have felt anything but conviction seemed a distant imagining.

Then Penumbra snorted, broke the gaze in favour of glass again, and the world was back to its murky state. "It might not matter. If there's need for a scapegoat when this is over... If the princess and her sister need an example... I'll pay that price."

The wing across her withers withdrew with a start. "You said they..."

A golden wing opened, and settled atop Blackbird; she was gracious about not complaining about the feta cheese still stuck in the feathers. "They won't kill me," Penumbra reassured softly. "But I may be forced to step down. Or imprisoned. Or..." A wry smile came across her muzzle, and the chuckle held no mirth. "Drafted, perhaps. There is an Equestrian tradition of taking those too dangerous to let walk free, but too useful to squander, and pressing them into service to the Crown. I may qualify."

Blackbird stepped closer, and leaned against Penumbra's side. "You know we're not gonna let you go through that alone. Me, Dusty, Brandy, we go where you go." She smiled. "Besides, it'll all work out. I know it will."

The next chuckle was closer to a breath. "You really are the most dangerous one of us."

"Who, me?" The faux innocence made the third chuckle from Penumbra much more genuine. "Why?"

"Because hope is dangerous." She gave Blackbird the slightest nudge with her shoulder. "But I also wouldn't want to live without it." She slowly withdrew her wing and folded it at her side again. "You should get some rest, after you clean up."

"So should you."

"I have some reading to do."

"You and those old books." Blackbird reluctantly stepped away and turned in the direction of the baths. "Don't stay up too late with them."

"I won't. I promise."

Penumbra waited until she could no longer hear the retreating the hoofsteps, and then turned toward her office. She would clean up, but first she would need to prepare for a visitor of a different sort. The kind who indeed required a book, to able to visit at all. Someone that her secretaries were better off not meeting, or knowing he'd been here.

Moonshadow's contacts with outsiders had indeed been invaluable, but there were outsiders, and then there were outsiders. Desperate times made for unlikely benefactors, and so the burden of contact would be hers and hers alone, as Society Chancellor.

It would hardly make much difference for her, after all. She already suffered nightmares, every night.





She should have been reading the Eventide guidebook.

The room was quiet, as Twilight was the last awake. After cleaning up, they'd been informed that their hosts wouldn't be able to make it to dinner with them, but that they could ask the cooks for anything they'd like to eat in the comfort of their room, within reason. That "within reason" had been stretched to its limit, Twilight felt, between Rarity's exacting instructions and Rainbow's frustratingly vague ones, but there hadn't been the slightest complaint, and the resulting meal had been delicious.

Much like with the bath, it'd been Luna and her guards in their own royal suite, and the other six in their own room. The massive bed had Rarity at one far side and Applejack at the other, with Fluttershy curled in a tight ball next to Rarity, Rainbow laying with all six limbs spread out next to Applejack, and Pinkie Pie laying on her back with her legs in the air as she took up the middle. Twilight would have the room to join them as long she pushed one of Rainbow's wings out of the way, and she would, in time, but right now she was stretched across the floor's soft lounging rug, her head resting on a pillow as she regarded the book in front of her.

She wasn't sure why she'd brought the Sunbream Smiles book with her. It'd seemed silly to take the folklore compilation on a mission, and distracting herself from the task at hoof with her research wouldn't be professional of her either. Yet she'd found herself putting it in her saddlebags while preparing to go to Canterlot, and there it had stayed on the train ride to Eventide.

Twilight should have been studying the location they were in, hunting for clues of what they were in for, and potential faux pas to avoid. Yet as her friends had drifted off, it was Sunbeam Smiles she had pulled out, her eyes scanning the pages by candlelight.

Something about it kept nagging at her. It was a straightforward book, telling the tale of when Sunbeam got her mark, and then throwing together various adventures of hers into the author's best guess of a chronological order. Yet something felt off about it, something she couldn't quite put her hoof on, and she found herself skimming the tome for the third time, hoping to find what it was and settle her restless mind.

It was like any other book she had read about Sunbeam. Nothing out of place, every story that Twilight was familiar with accounted for.

So why did it feel like something was missing?





One of the first lessons had been how to properly meditate.

Penumbra was laying on the cold stone of her office floor. She'd requested a blanket the first time, and been told that the sensation was part of ensuring that she remained on the razor's edge between waking and sleep. She needed the cold, hard surface to help keep her grounded, else she may float away beyond the point where she would properly remember the meeting. Lucid dreaming had been another lesson, but it was best not to need it, as so long as she remained partly awake, she would retain the most control over the interaction.

Moonshadow had taught her much, and had supervised the first introduction. She had also written much down, and done so with a thoroughness of notes rarely seen. She'd been preparing for the future, for generations of linguistic drift, and so had written and re-written the rules and precautions in as many different phrasings as possible, trying to safeguard against a misunderstanding brought about by quirk of language. These were not creatures to contact lightly, nor to let one's guard down with.

As Penumbra found that edge between awareness and sleep, something changed. Not to any hypothetical observer who could have stumbled into her office--they would simply see a freshly-bathed pegasus on the floor with legs tucked under her body and eyes shut--but to gazes just outside of physical reality, the black in her fur, hair, and feathers started to overtake the gold, darkness swallowing light until not a single glimmer of it remained, only her mark standing against the inky tone. Then, while eyes remained shut in the physical world, in the immaterial, they opened, shining a fierce green.

No magic was necessary, for this summoning. All that was needed, once she was at the threshold of dreaming, was the will, and a name.

"Hypnos."

The shape of the creature that appeared from the shadows before Penumbra was something like a sloth, save for all the ways that it wasn't. The blue-silver body was wrong in every aspect of proportions, and faded off into wisps of smoke in motions that reminded her of the ripples in a moonlit pond. The candle in the room was no longer necessary, as blank eyes carried their own sickly green glow as they met her gaze, and the head moved too quickly when studying her, jerking left and right like a curious bird. And let it simply be said that the less said about what it had in the place of claws, the better. 

Staring too long would lead to seeing something other than the not-sloth, and so she did everything possible to remember to blink, even if she technically didn't need to while like this. Then Penumbra took a single deep breath, also unnecessary, and spoke the words, "The Princess of Dreams has returned to Eventide."

The pegasus branded with the mark of the Society stood firm as lips pulled away from a maw filled with daggers, and the nyx before her smiled. "Good."