The Red Dusk

by Barony

Chapter 13 - The Dark Quarter

Night loomed over the horizon, as the sun's rays lost their grip on the land, giving way to darkness.

Canterlot as a city still stirred into the night, vendors in the winding alleys of the city still open, inside of their little boxes in the walls and holes to the outside world.

Carts went down and up the roads and there was the occasional guard or guard patrol. Atleast, this is what a rather concerned Celestia saw from the palace into a few of the many winding streets of her city.

Luna stood by her, her hair having begun to slightly darken and flow since the last time Red saw her. Ofcourse, this process was going to be slow, for Luna to be back to her old appearances.

But her general confidence almost had a correlation with her appearance and her personality will reveal itself in the coming months.

Celestia looks back at the city as more street lamps flicker on. Both watch.

"Sister, doth thou think Red Dusk... despises Us for Our actions? Having manipulated him?" Celestia looks over with a concerned look, a rather nervous Luna who slightly shy's away from her glare.

"No, Luna. Infact, I bet he is more than happy to be with you once more. Just... Be careful with him." Her younger sister nods, Celestia turning back around to face the city once more. A sigh is heard from behind her.

"Art thou sure?" Luna asks.

"I have never been so sure, Luna. Look at it this way, he would die to see you live with his final dying breaths. I know it." Celestia looks down at her sister with a smile, Luna looking to the side.

"But, after all We have put him through..."

"He idolizes you Luna. Besides, what is there to worry? I do have my doubts about him backstabbing me, especially not you. I mean, why would he? He has no achievable goal, he's just one pony!" Celestia chuckles, her magic stretching over to Luna's mane to stroke it. Luna was not so sure, however, and backed away.

"Stop worrying, Luna. Infact... I see him. Over there." Celestia says with a smile, pointing towards a black spot in the sky. Luna wanted to say something before Red would get there, but it would probably make things worse, she thought.

As she looks around for the speck, she sees a star get covered, only for her night vision to kick in as her eyes wandered far from the lights of the city.

From the battlements of the palace, however, Red's distance from them still made his form just look like a speck, with slight form. He flew fast towards the observation tower, only to seem to crash inside it.

Celestia and Luna gasp, only to see his form pop out from behind the railing and his head look around. His head stops as he locks eyes with them, before walking into the tower.

"Doth thou think he is okay, Sister?"

"He's definitely okay. Lets go see him, shall we little sister?"

Luna squinted as she rubbed the back of her neck. She's nervous, but she has not seen him in days, maybe it would be a good idea to set up better relations with him other than being his idol who he barely sees?

She says nothing, pumping her wings as she glides past Celestia, who follows slightly behind.

They both land on the balcony of the tower, having flown over many of the small buildings within the walls of the expansive palace. Nothing was ajar or out of place, except the door into the tower inside having been opened and left so.

There is a slight light coming from the stairwells magical lanterns, but the one inside of the tower was not on, strangely.

Celestia leads the way down the stairway, and as they near the bottom, talking could be heard, echoing from down below. It was Red's voice and Shining Armor's voice, and the two princesses see it fit to stop walking and listen in.

"We played on the 'Matawi 6200'. It was a pleasurable experience."

"Yeah, I guess it was for you. Pretty colors, but the 64?"

"It was more than satisfactory in the department of... 'fun'. However, I did prefer 'roleplaying'. I had nearly no bounds, but Rose kept yelling at me for having an 'OP' character." Shining only snickered, with Red hesitantly doing so likewise, with nearly timed chuckles, one second apart from eachother.

The Princesses just look at eachother, Celestia shrugging. They continue to listen.

"What does 'OP' exactly mean, Shining Armor?"

"Overpowered."

"She could have said just that."

"Well thats why there are such things as acronyms Red. Why bother wasting oxygen on saying the whole word when you can just say O P?" For a second, the stair way is silent, before a clop is heard.

"I see your point, friend. But I still think it to be very unproductive for you to say it if the one with who you speak with is not with the knowledge of such a thing."

"Why did she not tell you of this?" There was yet again some silence, before Shining gave a hum of approval.

"I see. Well then, wanna be useful?"

"I would love to be. However, one question, why are you not at home resting like our aforementioned Rose Melody?"

"'Cause Im the captain of the guard and I volunteered to take this weekend, because usually, after big media things like this revolving around something in the palace or the Princess's, there is fallout, and sometimes there are crazy ponies out there who want to get over in here. Its weird, but true."

"My only option is to agree with that statement. Now, what shall we do?"

"I was thinking of showing you---" Shining's and Red's voices become quieter and fainter as they presumably walk down a hallway. Their clip clops were layered behind their voices at the start of their little journey.

The two princesses come out from the staircase, looking around. The little entrance to the stairway was open, into the hallway from its little square spot dug into the side of the hallway. Ofcourse, there was a picture, a picture of the great city of Cloudsdale in this space, which was rather fitting.

Both sisters look at eachother, nodding as they follow the boys, or atleast predict where they are. They go down the hallway they presume the two went down.

But the two go down winding hallways and differing paths where they find anyone else but the captain or the burgundy alicorn. They both grow weary as time goes on, their search having nearly no purpose other than for a talk with the alicorn.

Finally, they stop. Celestia sighs, rubbing her eyes, a tired sun princess is a mad sun princess, and to do away with that, Luna sends Celestia back to her room with hoof motions, primarily that of the shoo variety, which was surprisingly well received.

Celestia obliged, yawning as she walked to where she knew her room was in a groggy, almost zombie like way with a tiny bit of form that was lost in the general, drunken swaying of her legs. Luna only rolled her eyes, moving deeper into the palace.

Primarily, Luna went deeper into the darker hallways of the palace, the place where her new night guard division was to go. However, she was going her to find Shining and Red since she remembers Shining showing her the barracks room in the dark, older part of the castle. She liked this area, an area of near perpetual darkness.

She entered the void, going down one of three hallways. Her hooves transfered from carpet to straight marble, each hoof making much sound. She could hear whispering, and she could see eyes looking at her in the darkness.

Her horn made a very dim glow that only outlined the form of it, providing a measure of infrared light for her to see. By this time, her vision was a mixture of cool grays and the barely made forms of ponies in black, indicating heat. They danced in the shadows, and they looked at her with glee.

She only smiled, calling to her subjects.

"Good evening, Subjects."

"Good evening, Your Majesty." they all called in unison, music to her ears. This was how subjects were suppposed to act, in her explicit opinion... But Red was a special one.

She continued to walk through the hallway, eyes still following her from the doors of rooms. There were some rooms with dim candle lights in them, which she noticed due to the temperature of the candles showing up in Luna's temporarily modified vision.

She continued to walk the barren hallways, still certain she would find Red Dusk around here. Shining would have definitely sent him here, its a big possibility, considering that Shining would think that Red would feel right at home here. '

Luna chuckled to herself, her chuckles echoing through the solid hallways. Ofcourse he would, she thought, its a place of camaraderie between those of the night essentially, only thing that one can complain about here is the fact that without night vision, its very inconvenient to walk around here and that its in such an old part of the palace.

She looks to the walls which are covered, top to bottom, in various engravings, telling of stories, etc. One small one seemed to glorify Nightmare Moon, which was rather saddening, but minor. She saw it before, no biggy.

She continued to walk down the empty hallway, taking a left corner. Her hooves were still loud, but seemed to get loader and doubled? She realizes this, stopping in her tracks and looking behind her.

Nothing. She shudders, suspicious. She continues to walk, but faster, and even then, she could hear someone else's hoofsteps almost in step with her's.

She stops, looking behind her with a frowning face,ready to give them a piece of her mind, to see a figure at the end of the hallway. To her infrared vision, it was a vague silhouette of a pony, a big one.

It was not until the pony seemed to walk forward, diagonally from her. She backed up.

"Red Dusk, reveal yourself!"

The figure did not say anything, but did stop and look at her. It changed direction, and walked towards her.

She backed up more, her ears falling to the sides of her head.

The figure suddenly began to gallop, an axe very similar to Red's materialized from behind him. She screamed, her entire body wheeling around immediately on the slippery marble floor. Her hooves uselessly slip on the smooth marble as she...

...Crashes into a pony, a big one who barely moves or recoils. She jumps back, looking up to see its Red, with his black eye covered with a bandage, looking down with a shocked expression.

"Your Excellency, are yo---"

"Aye, tis Us in the flesh..."

"I was going to ask you if you were okay." Red's face showed genuine concern, Luna nodding with a sheepish grin. She could see a Thestral poking his head out in his armor. He was going on Night Patrol.

She shakes her head at him and he goes off, looking at Luna as he rounds the corner before disappearing.

"Ofcourse We are intact. We just... Saw thou following Us?" Luna looks behind her, seeing noone. Nothing at all. She looks back at him with a frown and a furrowed eyebrow.

"Art thou responsible for the scare We have just experienced?" Red blinks, shaking his head.

"I would never do such a thing! How dare you think me so low to try to scare you in such a way, what did you see?" Red asked worriedly, looking around. There were still eyes watching them, as Red could see by the little forms of black in the doorways.

Luna was still skeptical, since she should never let her guard down, lest the one she speaks to may have been infected with the idea of 'pranking' your leader.

"We saw thee. An ethereal duplicate, We assume." Luna responded, the stallion rubbing his mane and ruffling it up. However, Luna does notice he seems to look a bit nervous, but she chooses to ignore it. Its maybe that he thinks he'll be considered guilty anyway?

"Oh... I guess you are having a hallucination for whatever reason?" he suggests, shrugging. He grins sheepishly, looking to the side. Luna looked at him for a few more seconds, before rolling her eyes and shaking her head with a hum.

"We guess it would be better to assume it is nothing more than a hallucination. The question is, why?" Red still shrugs.

"I would never know."

"Anyway, why are you here, Your Maje---"

"Call Us Luna." Red's head recoils and Luna just brings it back to its normal position. She chuckles at his flustered face.

"L-Luna? Is that not a bit personal?"

"Red Dusk, We are 'friends', are we not?"

"I...suppose so?"

"Then call us, Luna." she says with an breath out from her nose. Red only nods, accepting it reluctantly.

"Why are you here, Luna" he drags the L a bit, much to her annoyance and to his embarrassment.

"We have come to find thee, and converse with thou... To be more like what 'friends' are."

"I believe we already are friends in the fullest sense of the word but in a different way, Your Ma--- Luna. What more could we improve?"

"We barely talk and We barely do anything with thou." Luna motions her hoof in a circular motion indicating 'other things.'

"Fair point. But there is nothing we can do on a regular basis that is... friend like?" Red asks bluntly, the princess looking away to think.

She just shrugs seconds later.

"We do not know what to do. Who applyith thine bandage for thee?" Luna points up to it, the stallion touching it.

"One of the Night Guards. She said I would look better with this on. I protested against it since it seemed wholly unnecessary." Red sighs, rolling his other eye.

"But its on now. Why take it off, its not doing anything wrong."

"Thine appearance has been improved, however. We would rather look at Our subject without an obnoxious purple bulge on his face." she says with a smile. The stallion blushes, Luna giving a small chuckle.

"I assume so. Now, I am ready to go to sleep. I only came with Shining because I did not want to seem rude." Red turns around, quick to trot away, but Luna was not having it.

"Stop right there." he stops in his tracks and walks back.

"Thou art going to do something with me as a 'friend'. We believe it would be suitable that we both go and fly in the night sky as 'friends'."

"Your Majesty, I have no depth perception!" he protested, Luna shaking her head.

"Tis' Luna and We know you can fly perfectly well considering We saw you flying over to the tower."

"I stumbled because I could not gauge the distance I had from my position in the air to the balcony!"

"Was thine body hurt to a major extent?"

"N-no?" Red rubs his leg as he sweats profusely. He almost got into a verbal tango with Princess Luna and he was not too happy about it, neither was his body, some hairs in his mane standing on end.

"Good. Now come along, dear Subject!" Luna's face instantly turns from skeptical bordering on smug to full on smiles, which, ofcourse, did not effectively compute with Red. Such rapid transitions were mystifying, almost cartoonish.

The Lunar Alicorn just wheels around, triumphantly marching away from Red as she made her point or rather just ended it after a rather simple question.

Dusk sighs, trudging along behind Luna, who looks back.

"Stop dragging thine hooves on the marble! We mustn't wait!" she calls out, going faster as Red reluctantly goes after her, both Red's and Luna's hooves' sounds, both different, echoed through the halls.

However, as Luna goes through the exit, Red sticks near it, looking behind him.

A laugh sound as in done in the throat of the one it was coming from could be heard, echoing. It was feminine, and it was familiar.

Red blinks, turning back around to go into the light.

Author's Note:

I must... work through the...*Yawn*... Night....

*Passing out, hitting head against wooden desk, falling over onto back and slamming back into the desk as the chair rolls back, hitting the floor and then snoring intensifies.*