//------------------------------//
// Xenophilia: Et In Equestria Ego 
// Story: Short Flights And Failed Takeoffs 
// by Snakeskin Ducttape 
//------------------------------//

Luna once again strode through the dreamscape, and once again she beheld the source of her vexation. Bellerophon, the human, walked on. Time and again, Luna had tried to discern the meaning of this place, and time and again, she had failed. She was nothing if not persistent, however, one does not live through thousands of years without learning patience after all. And so she continued.

"Lero!" she called out to the distant form. Always, he failed to notice her. Always, he kept walking away, the laws of time and space seemingly being incompatible for the two forms. She tried following him, as she had many times, but the strong beats of her wings were never adequate to match Lero's calm gait.

"Lero, hear me!" Luna called out, and then, something unprecedented happened. The distant form stopped and turned around. Time and distance did not hold the same meaning in this place as the waking world, Luna could not tell how many leagues away Bellerophon was, but she could still see him clearly in the great distance.

Bellerophon looked at Luna with impassive eyes. She took some comfort in that his form looked healthy and sound. In fact, Lero looked almost impossibly tranquil, with a small smile on his lips. It was clear to her that communicating with this human in the dream-world would not be as simple as with her little ponies.

Luna decided that coyness and pleasantries would have little meaning in this place. She was here with a purpose. "I am here to learn about you, my dear human," she stated clearly.

Lero slowly closed his eyes and calmly nodded once in recognition.

"Will you sate my curiosity?"

Lero slowly shook his head, his calm demeanor never changing.

Luna frowned, but she did not sense any malice or even mischief from the human.

"You will not allow it or you cannot?" Luna asked.

Lero's head dipped slowly, but his expression still did not change.

Luna thought for a moment, this had never happened before, and she would not throw this opportunity away.

"If you cannot, then who can?"

Lero slowly raised his hand and very gently touched Luna's forehead with a finger.

Luna was jerked back into the physical world with a great start. The sensation had been alarming, but not unpleasant.

Forgotten lore from forgotten beings. How does one reach the twilight between awareness and forgetfulness? She thought about this for only a short time before realization suddenly hit her. Of course!


—


Berry Punch kept waiting. Anypony else in her situation would assume that they had been forgotten by whoever had requested to meet her. But Berry Punch's mind worked in strange ways. Ponies often assumed that she was completely irrational, while those who knew her knew that she wasn't always true, but still couldn't tell when she was and when she was not. She allowed others the same indulgence.

So she kept waiting patiently, and after a while, a dark-coated unicorn approached her.

"Still here, your majesty. Or do I not call you that?"

"Indeed. For the moment, I am Silver Shine. I thank you for your patience," Princess Luna said.

"I get the feeling that it's not because you don't want to be associated with somepony as crass as myself," Berry said.

"That is true, but for now, please pretend that it was so."

Berry finally looked at the princess, it was a long look, full of the kind of contemplations that normal ponies do not let themselves have. "You mean pretend that you would want to go somewhere where we wouldn't get the stink-eye?"

"Yes,” Luna said with a strange form of approval in her voice. “Where would that be?"

Berry Punch had never been to Los Pegasus before, but she took a moment and looked around her. "That way," she said after a while, and pointed in a seemingly random direction with a small measure of conviction.

"Excellent," the disguised Princess Luna said as they started walking down where Berry Punch had pointed.


—


They had been walking for some time through the city when they Luna had felt something. It was a short while after they had passed the marina into the older residential-areas. It was somewhere here, perhaps not what she was looking for, but somewhere that led to it.

Until recently, Luna had had very little to indicate whether there had been any purpose to this whole enterprise or not, but she knew not to ask Berry Punch questions as they made their way through the city. This was very subtle magic, the kind that took a lot of commitment to even get a vague sense of its workings.

But now it seemed that they might be on the right track, even though that was a phrase that didn’t fit the situation at all.

After Berry had said that they were in a good spot, they had settled down on a bench and Luna had started looking around carefully in the fading daylight.

My little ponies' cities are clean and pleasant, Luna thought as she carefully scanned their surroundings. But there’s an aberration. Neglect, disrepair, filth, it should be here somewhere.

Then she spotted it. An alleyway between an old pool-hall and a storage shed. The signs were faded, the stone had cracks and the windows in the alley were old and grimy, with a few panes missing. The alley was ignored by all passersby.

Luna, still in her disguise, wordlessly got up from the bench and calmly walked down the seemingly empty alley, Berry Punch followed. The further they walked, the more muted the sounds of the city behind them became. The shapes of the houses were becoming uneven, perhaps even a bit uncanny.

Soon they reached a small crossroad. "Wait here," she told Berry, making sure that the way they came out of was still in sight, the ponies who ignored the alley still visible in the distance.

Berry Punch hadn’t said anything for some time now, she stood there with a expression of unease as Luna peered around the corner. Uneven, almost abandoned old streets stretched into the distance, old newspapers held in place by small trickles of water from rusty old drain pipes. Steam or fog obscured much of both the sights and sounds. The occasional shape hurried across the street in the distance and the windows were all dark with the occasional hint of an onlooker.

Luna turned to Berry. "Thank you for your help, Miss Berry Punch. Now please, go back, I will watch over you."

Berry gave a small nod and walked back they way they came. After she reached the streets of the normal world, she gave Luna one last worried look, and then walked away.

Now then, Luna thought to herself. Let us see if there indeed are any answers to be found in this... place.

Not carrying herself with confidence she hadn’t earned, Luna cautiously walked down the street, the ground, the buildings, the refuse, even the air feeling forlorn, twisted… wrong.


—


Celestia lowered the sun, then did something she’d hoped she would never be forced to do again: she raised the moon.

For a thousand years her sister had been locked away in the form of that foul being, and now she was alone again, as Luna's inquiries would right now require her to be absent from the castle, and indeed the world, in a way. At least this time, Celestia would have her sister back soon.

At least she hoped so.


—


Luna opened the decayed wooden door, and slowly descended the damp, stone stairs. The establishment at the bottom was dimly lit and worn. The guests were talking quietly amongst themselves, playing cards, nursing their drinks, and reading newspapers.

There was no direct reaction to her entering, but she still felt watched as she made her way over to the bar through the thick, smoke-filled air. She looked around and saw that the patrons looked mostly fine, but a few details stuck out if one inspected them long enough. A few worryingly sunken eyes, odd and strangely old-looking wounds, and a few bloodstains on jackets and old travel-cloaks.

Luna inspected the menu as the bartender approached her. A strangely impressive collection of beverages were available at about half the normal price, and a few that didn't last all that long, so they were supplied from somewhere.

As the bartender looked at her questioningly, Luna said, "I'm looking for someone, with one eye, someone solitary who leaves shortly before midnight."

The bartender wordlessly gestured towards a table in the back. Luna turned to see and saw a lone figure sitting by an old wooden table. She slowly approached it.

In the world of Equestria, Princess Luna was a guardian of an entire realm, and had power enough to enforce the protection of her subjects. In this place and in this presence, however, she felt smaller and more powerless than she had in a long time.

The figure at the table was imposing, majestically so, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and covered by a great, plain cloak. A filmy membrane covered one of the eyes. Luna could not hold back her curiosity and peered through the veils of the world to try and get a better understanding of what exactly it was that she had approached.

She recoiled and just barely held back a cry of shock. She had not managed to discern what was in front of her, but she had seen two great, black birds on the figure's shoulders. She took the last few steps even more carefully than before.

The figure observed her in silence beneath the brim of the hat. Luna took heart and spoke up. "I am under the impression that you can help me."

The figure kept observing her as it nursed a beer, and it was impossible to tell if her statement had been acknowledged. She tried again. "I have questions about Bellerophon the human."

The figure slowly gestured for her to sit down, but otherwise did nothing. Luna did so and assumed, and hoped, that her presence was not unwelcome. "Do you know of Bellerophon?"

"Yes," the figure answered in a calm, low, and masculine voice.

"Who are you?" Luna asked, her voice void of accusation of passion..

"I am the Decreer," the figure answered patiently.

“And how do you know about this visitor among my subjects?”

"I know of Bellerophon and his kind, for through much of what you know as time, I have walked among them through the Lands of Lies."

"And what is that place?" Luna asked.

"The Elysian Fields," the Decreer answered. "Their sanctuary and prison ever since the Sinfall. Erected by the Usurper and false creator."

"And what is the ‘Sinfall’?" Luna asked, despite starting to feel light-headed.

"The great Deceit. The imprisonment of Anthropos."

"Lero is a prisoner?"

"A prisoner of time, matter, and flesh."

Luna shook her head, she was starting to feel dizzy and could not stay here for long, and needed answers to important questions.

"Is Lero powerful?"

"He is Anthropos," the Decreer answered cryptically.

"Is he dangerous?"

"If he so chooses."

Trying to think hard, Luna tried another tactic. "What would the involvement between Lero and my subjects mean for their safety? And please, answer clearly," Luna pleaded.

The figure paused for a moment at this before leaning forward and for the first time really looked at Luna with a piercing gaze from his eye, then leaned back in his chair and took a sip from his drink before answering. "The Last Cycle approaches. Should Anthropos awake, her friends will be shielded from all the darkness in the cosmos, everywhere, and for all time. Her old tormentors... might find themselves beneath her notice,” he said, then seemed to consider something for a moment before continuing. “Or not," he concluded simply.

“What will happen if I talk of this with Lero?” Luna asked.

“You will bring him pain.”

That would have to do, Luna shook her head in frustration before rising up. "Thank you for your time," she said.

The figure gave her a small but still respectful nod. "Take care, mistress of moonlight, your presence and what you still possess breeds envy in this place," the figure said and gestured towards the rest of the establishment.

Luna noticed that the slight buzz had died of and all eyes were hungrily locked on her. A subtle but deep fear crawled up her spine like an impossibly deep rumble.

Then the figure on the other side of the table turned his head towards the room at large and its patrons. As he did, the figures looked away and once again went back to their drinks and talks. Luna gave the Decreer a grateful nod and walked across the room, up the stairs, and out the door into the night.

She kept walking, through the alley and out on a street down towards the marina, still in her unicorn-disguise. Close by, a night-open restaurant's patio-section held several happily laughing groups of ponies. There, in the comforting radiance of merriment, she leaned against a streetlamp and let her composure drop. She shivered at her experience and the relief of its ending. She breathed deep for a few moments before gathering up the strength needed for the final stretch.

She reached her royal chariot, ignored the worried looks her guards gave her and simply said, "Canterlot. Post-haste."

Her guards obeyed immediately, and Luna leaned back in her seat. Before long, she would be home, and she could not reach her sister's comforting presence soon enough.