Dusk Falls

by NorrisThePony

Dusk Falls Isn't A Nice Place to Visit (IV)

i

I awoke an hour before dawn, easing my way into my slippers and housecoat and leaving my bedroom to enter the still dark living room. The ocean waves looked ominous and foreboding in the pitch black light of the early morning, more intimidating than the ferocious storms that had ravaged Dusk Falls all last week.

Beach houses are a bit of a two-sided coin, in the sense that they can be both beautiful and frightening in the same vein. The darkness is quite a large contributor to this fact; the same solitary, isolated beach house can take quite an intimidating turn when there is nothing but darkness in the sky above. It is deathly quiet save for the warbling of the waves and the chattering of the shells below, and sometimes the howling wind bristling the palm leaves outside.

Lighting a torch, I carried it in my magic as I ventured further into the living room and went to select a random book from the hundreds on my shelf, but within moments of sitting down and starting to read I found myself nearly unable to focus on anything more than thoughts of the matters I had agreed to help with.

It was going to be a busy week.

As I sat watching the stars twinkle through the early morning sky, my thoughts wandered to Luna, and a sudden revelation was enough to push me onto my hooves in surprise.

Something was amiss. Luna had said something felt wrong about Dusk Falls, and I had scoffed and brushed her warning away. And then I had promised I would inform her the moment I noticed anything at all was off. And now, something indeed was.

I was halfway through grabbing a scrap of paper when my wits caught up with me and I set my quill carefully back down and took a deep breath.

Nothing was amiss, truly. Not yet. And until I knew for sure it was, getting Luna or anypony else in a frenzy of fear and panic was a foolish decision I would not be the one to make. By the day’s end, I would have plenty more to report anyways, which was of course reliant on the wild assumption that something actually was wrong with Dusk Falls.

Feeling much calmer, I took my torch back to the fireplace and set it down into a nearby sconce, and once again attempted to focus on the words of my book, this time finding it quite a bit easier.

So engrossed was I in the book before me that I almost didn’t see it out my wide ocean-facing window.

Through the blackness of the early morning sky, it came as quick as a lightning strike, but instead of disappearing in an instant, it was still hanging low over the waves as I swiftly turned my head to the window to look. My eyes grew wide with curiosity and my magic hold on my novel sputtered and died as my attention towards it vanished.

I would have liked to have called what I saw fog, but its colour and glowing luminosity robbed me of the ability to call it such. It was a dark, blood red, yet despite its freakish colouring it billowed and twisted much like clouds or mist would be expected to. As peculiar as its colour and glowing light was its position over the ocean. It was isolated in one particular spot, a cloud of blood over an area of thirty square feet, quickly dissipating into the night elsewhere.

It had come as swift as the blink of an eye, not through any means of natural formation. Surely I would have seen it earlier if it had. My eyes had been wide open the moment I had first looked to the ocean, and for the first time I spared myself a moment to blink...

And in the split-second my eyes were closed, the luminous red fog had vanished.

I blinked a few more times rapidly, desperately wishing the fog would reappear. But as I had expected, it did not.

“Not enough sleep...” I shook my head and chuckled awkwardly, although I think the doubt in my voice was quite obvious to myself. What I had just seen was far too vivid to have been my mind playing tricks on me...but it had also been too impossible to be anything beyond my fervent imagination. It was as if I had temporarily lapsed into a dream.

Yes...that had been what I’d seen. I must have fallen asleep ever so briefly and dreamt whatever freakish vision I had just witnessed in Harmony Bay.

With another, more confident chuckle, my telekinetic grip on my novel resumed, and after casting one more wary glance at the ocean, I resumed reading and the red fog faded to no more than a memory of a slightly disturbing dream.

ii

I rose the sun without looking up from my novel, and eagerly waited the arrival of the distraught mother I had met on the boardwalk. To my surprise, she arrived shortly before Deepsy and Indigo’s guard shifts had begun at 7:00.

In the corner of my eye I’d seen her trudging across the beach not even thirty minutes after I had risen the sun, and quickly threw down my book, kicked off my slippers, and dashed into my bedroom to don my royal regalia. I noticed my mane was still a bit of a bed-swept mess, and cursed myself as I looked from my sunhat to my golden crown and ultimately decided on the crown.

A light knocking came at my front door, quick and nervous, as if the pony on the other side was half hoping none came to the door to answer it.

“Coming!” I trilled, fastening my regalia to my chest and placing my hooves into my golden hoofguards (which I had been assured would in fact not mar my hardwood floor.)

With everything in place, I cantered swiftly to the round door and opened it theatrically, offering my warmest and most welcoming smile to the orange mare on the other side.

“Good Morning, Miss Morning Glory!” I greeted. “Welcome to Pink Sunset! Please come in.”

She obeyed without a word, instead communicating her thanks through a shaky, fearful bow. It was slightly difficult to believe this jumpy, shell-shocked mare was the same one who had charged me the night prior as I lowered the sun.

We sat at the round dining table, with its white and blue tablecloth completely free of any blemishes showing it to be of any considerable usefulness. I did not even wait for a moment after she had sat down before I asked my first question.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Morning Glory?”

“N...actually, yes please.”

As with the sun, I did not even for a moment break my smiling gaze across the table at Morning Glory even as I levitated my kettle over to us from across the room, magically raising the heat of the water within so that it was whistling before it even reached the table. I next levitated two delicate tea cups and saucers both decorated carefully with beautiful minimalistic depictions of flora and fungi. They’d been a gift from the ever-humble Breezies, four and a half years in the making for a small set of several cups, saucers, and a teapot, and as such they were reserved primarily for rare occasions.

“Thank you,” she murmured as I filled a cup and pushed it across the table to her, before doing the same for myself.

“You can begin from the top, if you don’t mind,” I said. “Your son’s name, physical appearance, what you were doing when he disappeared…”

“Right,” she said, looking a little taken aback at how quickly I was diving into the matters at hoof. “His name is Dune. Dune Shores. He’s a unicorn, with a sandy coat and a...a vibrant blue mane. I believe the colour name is cerulean. He’s only ten, but he already has a cutie mark; a blue surfboard.”

I chuckled a little and nodded. Only fitting for an energetic young colt living in a beach town.

“Thank you. And what were you doing when he disappeared?”

“We’d gone for a long walk down the beach. There’s a little cove a ways beyond the boardwalk.”

“I see. And you were alone?”

“Yes.”

“The whole time? You saw nopony else on the beach?”

“No.”

“Not even in passing?”

“No.” she said again, more firmly than before.

“So you made it to the cove,” I waved a hoof, “What happened next?”

“We...we stopped there for lunch. Dune finished before me and went looking for seashells alone. After half an hour, he didn’t return, and obviously I started to get worried. I went looking for him... and...”

“And he was nowhere to be found.” I finished for her, seeing the tell-tale signs of tears forming in her eyes. She nodded and I stopped, taking a drink of my tea and allowing her to collect herself.

“I looked and looked, even when the sun had set I kept looking. I walked for miles down the beach, I screamed his name as loud as I could...but there was nothing.”

“Did you check the water?” I asked.

“Wh...why would I...what do you mean?”

“I mean nothing. I’m simply asking if you—”

“You think he may have drowned.”

“I never said that.”

"You didn't have to," she said, choking back a few stray sobs.

"I promised you on the boardwalk I would find him,” my voice did not even for a moment break from its confident, near-monotone. "I have no intention of breaking that promise."

“You’re just saying that—”

“Look, Morning Glory,” I said, cutting her sentence off in a stern, authoritative voice that in another age would have made a raging dragon think twice, “I understand you’re upset,and you have every reason to be, but I need you to focus. Take a minute if you need to, but I can’t help you unless you help me. Do you understand?”

“Y...yes, Your Majesty…” she managed between sniffles. “I’m sorry.”

“This cove...you said it was close?”

“A thirty minute walk south from the boardwalk.”

Then it looked as though I would be going for a bit of a walk that day.

I pressed her for more information, but most of what I received was relatively irrelevant and unhelpful. The basics of the story remained the same, which was hardly welcomed considering how bare they were. What I was thinking, but did not dare say, was that I presently had absolutely no reason to believe young Dune Shores hadn’t been swept into the shifting tides and drowned.

Currently, I was left with no idea how I could believe any different...unless...

“Ah!” I exclaimed in a sudden moment of revelation. I had interrupted Morning Glory, but was too excited to care. “Hoofprints! In the sand! Surely you would have noticed them, correct? Why did you not follow them?”

“They led as far as the beach, and occasionally I thought I saw one in the sand, but he must have been walking close enough to the water that it swept them away in the waves.”

And then the high tides would have come. At their highest, the waves lapsed under my own porch, adding an extra twenty feet of water. As such, after only an hour of searching the tides would have swept even the faint traces Dune had left behind. Nevertheless, Morning Glory managed to confirm even from the sad amount of hoofprints she had seen that he had been walking further on down the beach, away from the boardwalk.

She proceeded to tell me that he was an extremely skilled swimmer, and that even at high tides the waters of the Crimson Coast stretched for almost a quarter of a mile before dropping off into any measurable depth. It would seem that, thankfully, the probability of him having drowned was at least partially disproved by her assertions.

It did not take long for my questions to make the inevitable transition from what concerned her to the greater danger that concerned me.

“Last night you told me that disappearances in Dusk Falls were relatively common,” I recounted, remembering her swiftness to change the topic the moment I called Deepsy and Indigo over and brought the suspicious statement to the limelight. “Would you mind being a little more...descriptive?”

“I...well, there isn’t a lot to say,” she stuttered. “Half the ponies, unless you actually knew them, you never would have noticed them gone.”

“Could it be that they simply moved away?” I asked, forming a quizzical frown as I raised the tea cup upwards and took a hefty swig. “Claiming them as ‘missing’ seems a tad rash, don’t you agree?”

“I guess, but that doesn’t explain why I’ve occasionally seen acquaintance’s relatives asking around about them.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” I agreed. “Of course, it also does not prove that anything foul is at play here. Perhaps it simply means ponies are just miserable at communicating with each other. I know I’m guilty of it.”

“Then what of my son?!”

“Please stop shouting at me,” I said coldly. Not that I particularly cared whether or not my subjects grew vocally upset towards me, but I still had to maintain some image of elevated respect, “Your son is an isolated incident, and I doubt has any connections with anything else Dusk Falls may be facing.”

“Then what do you presume—”

“Miss Morning, in my long life I’ve found it rather rude and counterproductive to ‘presume’ anything,” I levelled. Morning Glory opened her mouth as if to reply, but a loud knock at my door promptly interrupted her. Somewhat thankful for the interruption, I smiled, rose, and trotted towards the door. Already through the painted glass I could see Deepsy and Indigo, and opened the door to let them in.

“Good Morning, Princess Celestia!” Indigo greeted with a smile that Deepsy didn’t share when he saw Morning Glory over my shoulder.

“Good Morning, my guards,” I said, taking a step back to let them in, “Me and Morning Glory were just discussing the circumstances of her son’s disappearance.”

“So I assumed,” Deepsy replied, “Did you learn anything helpful?”

“Well…” I began, and then turned to look at Morning Glory in the living room, “O...outside, you two. I’ll tell you.”

iii

“Drowned?” Indigo’s eyes were wide with horror. “That’s horrible!”

“And also unlikely,” I assured. “The Crimson Coast beaches are shallow for half a kilometer before dropping off. Even a novice swimmer could keep their heads above water in the conditions Morning Glory states the ocean was in that day.”

“Then the other options aren’t pretty,” Deepsy replied grimly. “Do you think he was kidnapped?”

“Normally with this sort of thing there’s a pattern,” I said, “As well as a specific reason.”

“You mean like a cult?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Have you ever encountered something similar, Your Majesty?"

I had, actually. Well, I hadn't. While investigating complaints of small-game population decreasing in parts of the Everfree Forest, my sister once discovered a group of ponies who gathered in a grotto to toss bats, pegasi feathers, goat and deer antlers, eagle talons, and live snakes and lizards into a fire in an attempt to communicate with the Spirit of Chaos, Discord. I remember Luna describing to me the odd, nonsensical assortment of things she had seen, and then asking me to guess what otherworldly demon they were intended for; as if it were some sick game. There was only one being in Equestria that had such a hideous mishmash of discomfitting appendages.

Of course, small animals and discarded deer antlers were one thing, and there was quite a difference between them and the apparently perfectly fine ponies who had seemingly vanished into thin air. If what were happening in Dusk Falls was anything similar, then it seemed as though I had a much more severe problem on my hooves than what Luna had encountered back home all those years ago.

With surprise I realized that Deepsy was still anticipating a response, so I shook my head to tell him I hadn't; a lie, but the truth was hardly beneficial unless my goal was to insinuate fear and panic throughout Dusk Falls. Besides, I had no concrete evidence that what was happening was even anything criminal. It could even be something as simple as a few letters lost in the mail and a significant hyperbole on the part of Miss Morning Glory.

“Are you two saying Dusk Falls has some sort of hexing cult which sacrifices ponies?!” Indigo had been listening quietly, evidently turning our words over in her head and finally speaking them out loud as bluntly as possible.

“No!” I said instantly, “Heavens no!"

“Then what?” Deepsy asked, sounding almost irritated, “What other possibility is there? If what that mare in there said is true, then this town has a history of disappearances and residents that seem quite content keeping quiet about it.”

I didn’t disagree, and honestly I was quite proud of my two guards for having their logical doubts. Too often did I make decisions and receive no resistance besides from Luna, who seemed willing to simply disagree for the purpose of disagreeing. Every other noble and guard, by comparison, were too blinded by respect, duty, obligation, and fear, that my word was final and rigidly correct. And now, here was Deepsy and Indigo, travelling down the route of logic instead of the route of baseless delusions of obligation. While I did not like being talked down on as if my leadership was worthless and ill-gained, I also did not take well to being regarded as perfect. If ponies had their doubts, I’d prefer they expressed them considerately, instead of withholding their tongues out of intimidation.

What other possibility was there?

Well, there were many. None of which were particularly welcoming to think about, and certainly none of which I was about to storm into Pink Sunset and tell Morning Glory about. Nor would I bother saying them aloud to my guards, or the Mayor, or even my sister. Not yet.

Instead, I would take it slow. Gather information. Play a longer game, for if whatever was terrorizing Dusk Falls by the bright, shining light of day really existed, it was hardly going to look at me favorably. In all honesty, it was rather surprising nothing had yet happened to tip me off towards the existence of something probably less than excited to be sharing a town with Equestria’s diarch.

Deepsy and Indigo could help me, too, although to what extent I did not know. They were loyal and reliable, but regardless they were still just glorified bodyguards. And if there was some sort of evil lurking...a monster, a sickness kept hidden from the public eye, or even ritual killings like Luna had seen (albeit on a lower scale) then it would be beyond irresponsible of me to pit them against it without them at least being aware of the dangers. As much as I perhaps needed them to be, they were not detectives or...thanatologists. Hopefully, neither would I be the latter.

I cleared my throat, and abruptly turned back towards the round pink door. My guards moved to follow, but the lifting of a hoof stopped them dead in their tracks as I peaked my head into Pink Sunset.

“Miss Morning, if you could come outside, please?”

Once she was outside, I introduced her properly to Deep Sea and Indigo Posy. Deepsy shook hooves, Indigo gave a polite bow, and Morning Glory took an awkward step back once the greetings were concluded.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you two could escort Miss Morning back to her home,” I instructed, my tone as authoritous as it was benign. “And stay with her, as you so insisted you did with me upon first arriving in Dusk Falls.”

“Princess…” Indigo began warily.

“Is there something about my instructions that confuses you?” My voice was all commanding now, any guise of my request being a choice now gone. “No? Excellent. Then please, have a wondrous day.”

iv

Over the course of the morning, the sky unfurled in a manner quite unexpected considering the fairly cloudless conditions I had raised the sun under. Now, while rain seemed distant and yet to come, the sky was still largely grey and overcast. Bright enough for the occasional pinprick of sunlight to penetrate the veil of mist above, but hardly ideal for a long beachside walk.

Not that I had any mood for relaxation. I intentionally avoided the boardwalk by instead flying down the long path towards the entrance of the town. As I had predicted upon first traversing the road from Pink Sunset on my first day in Dusk Falls, it twisted its way to the entranceway and would have taken fifteen minutes had I not been dashing through the sky a dozen feet above the seldom used dirt road.

Despite the graveness of my situation, it was refreshing to once again have a purpose. I had looked forward to a vacation for years, and yet once I had received it, it was taking the best of my abilities to force myself to its closure. Even in Equestria, when I was swamped with paperwork stacked to the ceiling and was drinking cup after cup of tea in order to stay awake to finish it all late into the night, at least I wasn’t bored.

“You’re terrible.” I chided myself internally. “Bored. So this is excitement? Finding some poor pony’s missing son?”

As guilty as I felt upon considering it, it was. This did feel exciting. Normally, Luna was the one who would deal with Equestria’s underworld; the evil done in the shadows, the slums of cities unfortunately tiered even despite my best efforts to care for all of my subjects. While I was in Day Court mulling over political strife and trade negotiations, Luna was dealing with the macabre side of Equestria so well hidden from the public eye.

It was with ironic justice, then, that Luna was so well loved by the young fillies and foals. I would sometimes see Luna enter our parlour bloodied and bruised from some pony’s nightmare she had been grappling with, clean herself off, and proceed to play with young ponies at celebrations hours later. Neither of us had really known why, but even ponies whose nightmares Luna had never had to battle against were drawn to my sister with looks of admiration on their faces. While nobles with as much wealth as pride shined my hooves, children ran and played with Luna, wearing toothy, exuberant grins. It had been a common sight at weddings, garden parties, or Summer Solstice celebrations.

Well, it had been. Recently, though…

I reached the end of the dirt road, surrounded on both sides by the tall barriers of the stone ravine, with the occasional tree struggling to survive on the unfortunate patch of dirt their seed had landed upon. A tall sign bore the message “Welcome to Dusk Falls!” in large, block capitals, with depictions of the Ferris Wheel and beach filling the remaining area. The road into town was well used, uncountable tracks left behind by carts and carriages dug into the dirt several feet below me. I had only seen Dusk Falls from this angle several times, for it was a road I had no reason to travel down.

My wings carried me to the waterfall in several minutes, and I flew low enough over the lake below for my hooves to drag into the water and shoot a refreshing spray of water upwards. Crystalline Lake, I was once told, had been a larger affair about two decades ago. While the beach had always been the focal point of the town, the lake had remained a welcome alternative for quite some time. Its cooler water was preferred over the lukewarm seawater on blistering summer days, and the scenic beauty of Crystalline Falls attracted tourists from miles around. When the Ferris Wheel had been built on the boardwalk, it laid waste to any desire they had to go to the lake, instead luring tourists with its bright and colourful neon lights and eternally joyful band music.

Town of the future. Traditions of the past. That had been what the postcard had said. It seemed as though the future was priority in Dusk Falls, regardless of what the postcard claimed.

Crystalline Lake had a beach, but it hadn’t seen very much use in a long while. Grass had started to take control of the sand, and a small wooden structure that may once have been a cantina had since been left for dead. The falls themselves were situated exactly across from the beach, separated by the entire diameter of the lake. They could be seen but not touched by anypony unwilling to fly or swim to them. A river flowed from Crystalline Lake towards the ocean, and it was this river that I followed as I continued my flight.

It was swampy and reed-filled, but the symphony of croaking frogs was a fascinating sound which I decided sufficiently compensated for the unpleasant scent produced by the marshland muds. Light grey cranes with patches of red above their beaks turned to regard me with mild annoyance as I flew past, returning to their chattering and foraging once I had been deemed as non-threatening.

Soon the river made contact with the saltwater, and I merged my flightpath so that I was flying parallel with the southward shore. The building wind carried faint, barely audible boardwalk band-song to my ears, and when I turned around I could still see the Ferris Wheel, no bigger than a thimble on the horizon. A few stray drops of rain had started to fall as a faint drizzle, but I was already damp from the water of the lake and came close to not even noticing.

It was midday when I reached what I presumed to be the cove Morning Glory had been referring to. It was a gorgeous, ancient formation of rock which rose alone in a tiny bay, so that the small circle of ocean water was entirely shaded by the cool rock cavern ceiling above. The sound of dripping water joined the light drizzling of rain on the ocean outside as I crept out of the grey and into the black. With no outside light able to penetrate except through the entranceway, I figured it would be nearly pitch-black in the cavern.

I was then, surprised, to find that the walls seemed to be glowing in places with some form of phosphorus luminescence emanating from the stone, giving the entire cave a greenish tint. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the glowing stones were in fact crystals, and the light was fading in and out of them perpetually like the Northern Lights one could sometimes see on a cold winters night at the summit of Canterlot Mountain.

As pretty as the cavern was, it was empty. Not that I had quite been expecting anything, but I meandered back into the drizzling rain disappointed none the less. A few of Morning Glory’s hoofprints seemed to have survived the repeated, persistent motions of the waves, beyond where the tide could have reached. I hardly even paid them any attention as I walked past them, but some subconscious part of my brain must have found something odd about the hoofprints in the sand. For the sake of simple, passing curiosity, I leaned closer into the sand for a closer look.

I was quite glad I did, for what I saw upon careful examination was greatly intriguing. They weren’t a ponies hoofprints, as I initially had expected. I’d assumed that the tide and drizzling rain had contributed to the deformation of her hoofprints, but what I saw seemed to contradict that assumption. A pony’s hoofprint was typically a slight ovoid shape, with a sharp, pronounced V-shape near the bottom. These, however, were longer but seemingly thinner, and lacked the tell-tale V-shape of a pony’s hoofprint entirely. Equally as distinguishing was the deformed nature of the print; it seemed to lack any particular pattern and instead twisted about at random across its elliptical shape. What was even more intriguing was the additional digits above where the heel must have been. It was difficult to identify for certain how many digits whatever made these prints had, for they were faded nearly beyond visibility. It was as though something slightly heavier had made these prints, and did so on feet, not hooves, with three or perhaps four toes.

Now greatly intrigued, I started following the footprints, all the while wondering why Morning Glory’s weren’t visible and why she hadn’t spoken at all of these odd ones. She had said she had looked for the prints, so why then would she not tell me how odd they were?

I had an idea as to why, but had no desire to pursue it when a greater mystery was before me.

Past the cove, the sand started to rise in grassy dunes, which in turn would eventually give way to bushes and then trees. With a growing feeling of dread in my stomach, I pursued the prints further and further down the beach until my worst fear seemed to come true as they turned towards the dunes, with the promise of grass above that would obscure them completely from my view.

I imagined a pony without legs as tall as my alicorn stature gifted me would have slight trouble ascending the considerable incline the dunes rose at, but the mysterious prints from the past I was pursuing seemed to have just as little trouble as I did. Clearly, this meant that whatever I was chasing also had long legs, and was more than likely much larger than a pony and perhaps even taller than myself.

As I had expected, the tracks were all but invisible when I reached the top of the grassy dune, and I looked instead at the sand-turned-grass that rolled on in hills, gaining rocks and steeper inclines until they were now the two hundred foot tall ravine leading into Dusk Falls. With this magnificent sight in front of me, I stood thinking for some time, wondering what the tracks could possibly belong to. Something tall, but perhaps not necessarily large. Something with three toes sometimes and as much as five toes other times, in seemingly no concrete pattern.

They could have been made after Morning Glory and Dune had gone on their walk, or perhaps even before, I had no sure way of knowing for sure. I hadn’t seen any smaller hoofprints that a young colt would have left behind, nor did I see any that would have belonged to Morning Glory, which surely meant that they had either not seen the other tracks, or that they had been made after. I firmly believed that their own hoofprints would have been swept away by the tides, which meant that I was faced with two mysteries entirely.

Where had Dune Shores been going? Had he been following whatever creature had left the odd prints, and if so, why then were his prints not visible too?

I retraced the prints back to the cove, where they soon disappeared as they entered the range of the tides. Where they had come from, it was impossible for me to know.

With the cove and its surroundings revealed to be barren of any actual concrete clues, I sighed and sat down in the sand while the rain started falling steadily. While the odd prints I had found were intriguing, they in no way brought me any closer to finding out what had become of Dune Shores.

I would have to come back another day, and inspect the water. What I would find, I did not know nor had I any desire to find out, but it seemed necessary regardless. I would perhaps scour through some spell books I had at Pink Sunset, for I was quite certain there was at least one that could be used to temporarily allow me to investigate the immediate ocean around the cove more clearly.

Having seen as much as I could see at the cove, I rose from my resting position on the sand, shook myself and my regalia free of any imperfections it had caused, and took off through the rain towards the boardwalk. This time, I didn’t really care if I caught any attention, I was cold and losing daylight. I would have to hurry if I expected to have enough time to speak with Mayor Kleos about why he had chosen to keep knowledge of Dusk Falls’ mysterious happenings from me.

v

The Mayor of Dusk Falls lived in a mansion grander than even some nobles lived in back home. It was at least five times the size of my house, with well cared for flowers and grass surrounding it on both sides. Tall, imported elm trees stood on equal distances in front of the mansion. I received no answer at the door, so I instead set out on hoof in the direction of the boardwalk, which was almost directly accessible from the back lawn of his house.

I found him after only several minutes of searching, lounging by a railing overlooking the ocean with a drink hovering beside him in his magic. Internally I reminded myself that this was only the second time I had spoken with him since arriving in Dusk Falls, and I was three months late on a promised dinner. Truthfully, I neither liked nor respected him after our first meeting, and it wasn't with the intention to please that I approached him this time, either.

He didn’t see me until I was standing beside him, and he started a bit in surprise, bowed politely in respect, and then met my eyes with a look of respectful curiosity.

“Princess Celestia! It’s good to see you!”

“Likewise.”

“I don’t believe we’ve spoken since...since you and your sister first arrived.”

“Yes,” I said, “You definitely heeded my request for a private house.”

“Perhaps a little too well,” Kleos chuckled good naturedly. “How has Dusk Falls been treating you as of late, Your Majesty?”

“Wonderfully. It’s how you’ve been treating Dusk Falls that is more my concern,” I was in no mood to meander about conversations, or make idle, worthless chit chat. Not when a job had to be done. If I expected concise, quick answers, I knew I had to phrase concise, quick questions.

Before he had time to ask any of his own, I proceeded.

“Why is it that I was approached yesterday by a mare who claims that her son has gone missing, and that nopony here would’ve done anything to help?”

He looked at me in pure surprise. It was clear from his expression he had no idea what I was speaking about. Nevertheless, he answered.

“I imagine you are speaking of Miss Morning Glory?”

“Yes, I certainly am.”

“The mare whose son was swept to sea and drowned? The mare who refused to believe us when we stated differently?”

I bristled a little, not enough for him to notice. I had been the one asking questions. He had twisted the situation to his own advantage in two sentences.

No. There was no advantage above the Princess of the Sun.

“Yes, that is the mare,” I said, pointing at the ocean next, “And that is the ocean her son allegedly drowned in. Shallow for the first thousand feet before dropping off. And I’ve been told he isn’t the first disappearance, either.”

“Told by…?”

“Miss Morning Glory,” I answered emotionlessly. He had spoken of her word as if it were unreliable...as if she were delusional. I hadn’t seen any traces of delusion this morning; I had seen a mare desperate for help and fearful of those in Dusk Falls willing to give her any.

“And I firmly believe her word,” I continued, “So is there something you are not telling me, Kleos? Something about this town that I should know of?”

"Such as?" He was almost challenging me now. I was as shocked as I was indignant, but I hid both with my flat, expressionless glare. Wordlessly I urged his response further.

"Your Majesty... I don't think that I have an answer for you,” he said, “I have no idea what Miss Morning means when she says her son isn't an isolated incident. What do you think she is suggesting?"

“Kleos, have you forgotten who you are speaking to?” For the first time since I'd been away from Luna, my voice rose to borderline hostile as I took a single step towards him. “Or are you simply too insolent to care?”

Kleos fell silent for awhile, not out of contemplation, but out of realization, and his silence was lengthened out of serious, honest regret. Eventually, he formed words which came as careful, cautious whispers:

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he muttered, sounding as though he meant it honestly and truly, “I’m simply tired of ponies and their superstitions. My frustration wasn’t supposed to be so evident, and I assure you it wasn’t directed at you.”

I felt not even a tinge of sympathy for him, and didn’t bother to offer him any assurance that I forgave him. It was quite obvious that neither of us carried any respect for each other, and I didn’t have in me the capacity to care anyways. Kleos wasn’t the type of pony I particularly strived to please.

“You mentioned you’re ‘tired of ponies and their superstitions,’” I reiterated, quoting him precisely to prevent him from dancing around the question, “What superstitions, may I ask?”

“Ah...well, it’s all quite silly, Princess Celestia. But if you must know, there’s a bit of a legend amongst Dusk Fallians that the waters of the Crimson Coast carry with them a certain sense of doom. There have been a few shipwrecks in the past along the Crimson Coast, before Dusk Falls even existed, and about a dozen or so deaths associated with them. Or so I'm told."

“That much is factual?” I questioned.

“I...I think it’s exaggerated a little, but for the most part, yes. You might actually be able to see some of the wreckage if you look through the waters by your cottage.”

“And the superstition, then?”

“Ah...heh. It’s...like I said, it’s a campfire story,” Kleos chuckled awkwardly and began toying with his jet black mane, “The quick version is, some genius of a pony decided to start spreading the idea that the ships were brought down by something in the water. Yet others say one may have been carrying something that caused her crew to go looney, and now the waters carry some sort of curse. I believe the most popular ship ponies cite as the catalyst of despair was called the Sisyphys.

“Basically, she runs afoul in the sand, nopony knows why. The ship itself was discovered when a particularly odd piece of driftwood floated up onto the beach, and turned out to have a name stenciled onto it. The ship’s still under the water in Harmony Bay, I believe.

"Anyways, it seems now that every time somepony drowns or skips town or ends up on the wrong side of a dangerous situation, every permanent resident in Dusk Falls jumps on the opportunity to scare away every tourist in a thousand mile radius with their cries of ghosts and demons from children’s stories.”

I noted that for once, it seemed as though me and Kleos were on the same page with matters. We were both trying to keep panic and fear at bay in order to maintain a bit of order. It was fascinating to know that Dusk Falls had a bit of an urban tall-tale which seemed to shed a bit of light on the relatively uneasy tone its residents seemed to carry.

“I must admit,” I said critically, “I was hoping for a concrete answer, not some silly campfire fairy tale.”

“I’m just repeating what’s got Dusk Falls so paranoid,” Kleos answered, not even remotely offended by my gibe. “I thought that was the whole reason you’d come to Dusk Falls, at first: to try and put an end to the rumours entirely. The rumours that every single accidental drowning or missing pony is caused by some century old superstitious bedtime story.”

“You speak like somepony who has something to hide,” I thought with words I desperately wanted to express but knew better.

I was willing to bet that if I asked about, I would be met with similar stories regarding Dusk Falls and its history. Perhaps different in some areas, but the general motif would be the same; some sort of supernatural curse or legend told to the residents to keep them blind to something larger. I’d seen it before...even as early back as with King Sombra in the Crystal Empire. The vast amount of ponies who genuinely viewed myself and Luna as villainous tyrants and their own leader as a holy saint had been surprising.

Even earlier, when I was a mere filly, me and Luna were nothing more than winged unicorn freaks in a world of chaos and disharmony, ruled by the Lord of Chaos himself. Discord had fed propaganda and fear into the hearts of every pony so as to make every alicorn born a monster and every barbaric murder of them to be a blessing. As sick and twisted as we had seen it, it was no more than basic nature for everypony else.

Ponies accept what they are given and disregard what is foreign and described to be dangerous. They stick to what claims to be safe and sometimes unintentionally allow themselves to be destroyed because of it.

I wanted desperately to tell all this to Mayor Kleos and demand he told me the truth, but I stayed my tongue and instead thanked him for his time and bid him good day. I then skulked back to Pink Sunset, where I would stay alone with my thoughts until a certain pony bid me an unexpected early visit.

vi

She arrived shortly after I had lowered the sun, alone, and without a flourish of chariots or pegasi guards to announce her presence. I hadn’t even seen her land or approach, I simply heard a heavy rapping on my door. I dropped my book to the hardwood floor and trotted over, curiosity and surprise rushing to my mind as I saw the pony on the other side once I had opened it.

Nonetheless, I did not hesitate as we both leaned in for a quick, well meant but instantly regretted hug, broke off, and stood face to face, and miles apart.

“Hello, Luna.”

She was dressed only partially in her royal wear, a sight I was not quite used to seeing. Her black crown was perched atop her head but her hoofguards and regalia were gone. Her mane was dishevelled from what surely must have been at least several days of flying if she had come from Canterville, and her eyes were bloodshot and carried heavy bags underneath them. Despite her evidently tired appearance, she smiled warmly as she spoke.

“Hello, Celestia. I...I’m sorry to arrive without letting you know...I simply…”

She broke off into awkward silence and smiled, blushing ever so slightly.

“You’re welcome anytime, Luna. It’s been awhile.”

“It has.” she agreed, nodding slowly.

“Are you staying the night?” I asked softly. Part of me was wondering why she had arrived almost three weeks early, but another, larger part of me did not possess the capacity to care.

“I would like that.”

Luna, as it had turned out, had no particular purpose for her arrival in Dusk Falls, and simply had, as she herself had put it, nothing better to do. With peace across Equestria, Luna and I had been enjoying a relatively quiet decade, one made even quieter when ponies had found out Luna alone would be hearing out the problems they brought to her. Working hard to either complete all office work beforehand or shove it off onto somepony else, she had vaguely announced that she would be disappearing for several days, and before any nobles or governmental authorities had time to question her she had quite literally left without another word.

“I imagine I’ll have hell to pay when I return,” she said with genuine wit, smiling and sipping her tea as we sat at the same place by the fire as we had on our first night in Dusk Falls. “I don’t care. It’ll be worth it.”

“As much as I can’t condone your leadership tactics...” I falsely chided, “...I’m glad you’ve come to visit me, Luna. Even if I don’t really understand why.”

She shrugged and stared into the fire for several seconds before responding.

“I don’t really know either, Celly. Things were quiet in Equestria, and I didn’t want to squander my time off doing nothing at home when I could come out here instead.”

“You’re still coming for the Summer Sun Celebration in two weeks?”

“Yes, of course,” she assured.

There was still tenseness as we shared our experiences by the fire, still the odd awkward pause or quick dismissal of a question in a sharp tone, but I genuinely felt significantly more comfortable speaking with Luna that evening then I did any moment of the several years past.

In retrospect, I think my judgement was clouded by the mere fact that the two of us were simply excited to see each other and once that excitement had died off, then we would be back to our unpleasant, bickering selves.

As we talked, I did not make any attempt to pass on the words Mayor Kleos, Morning Glory, or Deepsy had spoken to me, nor did I recount what I had heard and suspected of Dusk Falls. That would have to wait for another, later time. The morning, perhaps, or maybe some distant time entirely.

Either way, it had no reason to be then.

After Luna gratefully devoured a helping of pasta I made for us (even though I myself had already eaten) we set about trying to find proper sleeping arrangements for her. She had made it quite clear that, as happy as she was to see me, she was not sharing my bedroom’s huge double bed. Instead, she found herself quite comfortable sleeping on a few cushions in the living room, clearly expressing her delight at the beautiful view she had as she looked outside.

I did not wait long after Luna had retired before I, too, set down my book and extinguished the oil lantern beside my bed. My mind was flung into dreams almost as swiftly as the last light caused from the dimming lantern faded into darkness. Past the short hop, skip, and jump that was my dreams came a fresh new day, one which had the fascinating distinction of being Luna’s first actual day in Dusk Falls.

Comments

[Carbon]

Nice chapter! Want more!

[Rune Soldier Dan]

imgfave-herokuapp-com.global.ssl.fastly.net/image_cache/1416239283391177.jpg
"I like where this thread is going..."

[kooarbiter]

I hope she ends up letting the missing pony incident slip before luna leaves

[Danger Beans]

Well school has been kicking my ass, but im done now, so back to reading! This was another slower chapter, but I'm still enjoying it for the most part. Kleos is hiding something, obviously, and I'm looking forward to hearing it. Also Luna's sudden appearance was unexpected but not unwelcome.

[Dinode]

I know the mayor's hiding something, since I know this is a story, but Celestia seems to be unusually suspicious of him if you ask me. I know she doesn't like him, and he isn't all that respectful, but nothing he says is all that unbelievable.