Foxfire's Tail II: A Fleeting Dreamscape

by Dragonborne Fox

Prologue

It had been years since Whiterock, Dragontongue, and Still Coldwater were assassinated.

In Whiterock's talon was a note in his cold body.

To the one reading this note:

Should Foxfire be alive and well when the tragedy of my death hits her ears, tell her to search for a conspirator.

She must search far and wide....

Or perhaps within herself or her kin for an answer.

Ponies passed by graves with 'Flowerfeather,' 'Coldwater,' 'Dragontongue,' and 'Bloodstream' engraved on them and spat on the tombstones. It was a common thing to see every day, though some cursed to the heavens above that there should be a fourth Flowerfeather grave on which to disrespect.

The night, however, was an entirely different story.

There in the dead of night cleaning the graves and lighting candles with blue flames stood three beings.

One was a night blue alicorn mare with a mane and tail made of the cosmos.

Another was your average changeling drone, just mute and deaf.

The third, another alicorn mare, was an anomaly. She had a tri-color coat and multi-colored wings. A monotone mane didn't match with her huge tail, the tip lit ablaze with a soft, cyan flame. Her eyes were shrouded by her mane, tears held back as the candles glowed alongside her tail. Her wings lay limply at her sides, black ears folded back. The full moon was blood red because a lunar eclipse was happening.

The graves would always have wax on them upon the brink of dawn.

And again the ponies who did not like who the graves belonged to removed the wax and continued to spit and curse. There was the occasional Canterlot riot regarding a student of Luna. Guards had to hold off the rioting ponies and ended up making a few arrests over the months that followed. But they all shared the same story: they learned the truth from somewhere, yet they wouldn't say where.

Cloaked ponies also began wandering throughout Equestria, all chanting some ominous prayer that nopony else could hear or make sense of. They all bore an inverted gold cross with bat-like wings on their back for reasons unknown. They carried daggers forged from silver, their purpose unclear.

But what was odd about these cloaked figures was that they wore necklaces of severed Changeling horns and translucent wings stitched onto their hoods. The more decorations probably meant the highest ranking. They would walk by, saying their unheard prayers and doing no harm despite the daggers and decorative assortments on their beings screaming otherwise. They would not talk to anypony aside from other cloaked beings that shared their insignia and whatnot.

But when one looked underneath their hoods, their eyes glowed a dark gold-blue. This was true for all of the cloaked figures. Every last one.