"What is happening?!"

Luna sighed."Ponies, please remain calm." She had been working late into the night shift yet again for the third night in a row. It was simpilar before, she would give a quick update several times over to large groups of sleeping ponies. But it wasn't the mass quanities of ponies that were exhasting her, it was the fact that she was getting ahold of fewer and fewer ponies in the night. "I can assure you we here at Canerlot are on the case, and if anypony has any related information, please contact your local guards..."

"Why don't I ever see any Griffons here?!" shouted a tall mare from the back. "Like my husband? Or my hippogryth children? Are they not Equestrians?"

"Well, um, you see...I can only enter the dreams of 'ponies', specifically, and it seems as though the problem is mainly targeted to ponies..."

"It was those changelings, infecting our cities! I knew this was going to happen!"

"Now, relax, Changelings are not the sorce of the problem..." Actually, Luna hadn't thought about that, merely because she assumed changeling magic wouldn't quite work that way, but think about it at the moment she figured she wouldn't write that off as a possiblity. Afterall, with the Changelings sudden form change only a few dozen years prior she didn't quite have the opertunity to examine their new abilities... but they were Equestrian Allies, what would be their motivation? "... I will reconvine with everypony next week, and I assure you I will find some answers. I am just as concerned as everypony else about this crisis attacking the land of Equestria."

"Where are you going?" said several furuius ponies before Luna vanished from the dreamscape, wakeing in her room as usual.

She knew that probably wasn't the best desision, but the past few nights had been exhasting. Getting up and stretching out, she brushed out her flowing mane and got dressed in her usual royal attire, then headed to the archives.

Luna knocked on the door. "Celestia? You haven't slept in three days... are you okay?" Upon the third time knocking the door slid open, only to reveal nothing but a castle keeper dusting.

"The Princess moved her studies to the dungeon, Princess Luna." She said. "Her students thought it would be better... for whatever they are doing I did not wiah to interfer with their work..."

Luna teleported herself to the lowest levels of the castle, careful to poof in a distance so she didn't give any of the guards a heartattack. Trotting through the old dungeon, she got a sense of unease seeing the eyes of the lowest of pety criminals,the ones just harmful enough for Canterlot sociaty but not dangerous enough for the ultimate punnishment of Tartaras. It was times like these she was thankful for the sound proof cells.

Eventually, she made it to the center of the Canterlot Dungeons. "Celestia? I heard that you would be down here."

Celestia rushed over. "You shouldn't be here, Luna.We're doing tests."

Luna tilted her head to look past Celestia's wings. "Tests?"

"We were just making sure it wasn't a virus... so far no pony else has been hurt down here, so that's good. What's also good is it seems like some of the subjects are starveing, so... at least they don't seem to have a longlifespan without food, and they don't even go near animals."

"Test subjects?" Luna frowned. "Celestia, are you..."

"Luna, this is the only way we can know about them. The better we understand this magic, the better we can produce a reversal spell and fix this whole situation." Celestia patted Luna on the back. "Now, I do believe somepony needs to raise the sun soon."

"Celestia...", Luna frowned with a sigh, "What would the citizens think if they knew you were testing on the infected corpses of their love ones?"

Celestia glared. "That's irrelivent. What I and my beloved students need to focas on at the moment is studying these creatures, seeing how they behave and how long the magic lasts, then develpe a proper reversal spell. Then, we can search out the culprit and send them to the fitting punishment..."

Luna stared at her a moment. "Is there anything else?"

Celestia was annoyed by that. "Else?"

"You saw something the day it started. I want to know... no, I need to know. And I want you to give me a strait answer. No more hideing here and not telling me anything, sister."

Celestia sighed. "I... I saw an old student of mine. I'm not sure what it means..."

"An old student? Who... Twilight? Sunburst?" Luna pondered it a second. "Sunset Shimmer?"

Celestia shook her head. "No, none of them. I dismissed it, because... well, it would be impossible. Because the student I saw... she's been dead for over five hundred years."

Starburst must have played fifty games of solitare before she bothered to talk to anypony. She grimiced at the idea of having to have that slut muffin doing things for her, but it wasn't like she could just make Dragonsblood leave, but Rose thought it would be nice for her to have somepony to do things for her while she was recooperateing, and that just made Starburst wonder more why Rose wouldn't just stay at the clinic with her instead of going to do her 'job', as if money even mattered anymore. "Dragon butt!"

Dragonsblood rolled his eyes and trotted over. "What is it, Star?"

"I'm bored."

He sighed. "Well, there are books, some magazines... maybe I could get some paper..."

Starburst smiled. "Dance!"

"What?"

"Entertain me." Starburst clapped her hooves together. "Come on, shake that plot! Want me to get some magic?"

"Umm... no." Dragonsblood said. "I'll see if the staff made dinner yet. You hungry?"

"Nope." Starburst quivered.

"Star."

"What?"

"You haven't eaten anything all day except for those carrots."

She glanced away. "Do you know how awkward the bathrooms are?!"

The door to the recreation room opened and a younger teen unicorn filly trotted in with a tray of food with two plates. "Mrs Starburst, here's your meal! There's one for you, too!" She smiled as she set them down on the table. "My mother made them tonight!"

"Thankyou, Chalk Dust." Dragonsblood said. "As punctual as ever, and it looks great as well."

Chalk Dust's face lit up "Thankyou!"

Starburst stirred the food with a spoon. "Cabbage and potatos again?" She reluctantly took a bite. "Yup."

"Hey, it's not all the same, see? She made some delishous toast with it." Dragonsblood said optimistically.

"Garbage." Starlight said, takeing another bite. "I'm done."

"Starburst, if you don't eat more your pain reliever will give you a stomach ache again." Dragonsblood said.

Starburst rolled her eyes and took a bite of toast, wiped her mouth off, then magically pushed her plate away. "I'm full. Can't eat another bite."

He glared at her, but she was immune to his empty threats by now. "Don't starve yourself."

"I'm not, I'm just not hungry."

"Stop acting like a foal."

"Well, stop acting like my mother!"

He sighed. "Are you going to stop being difficult so I can stop treating you like a foal?"

She smiled. "Nope!"

Chalkdust stepped in. "If you don't like it, maybe I could see if I could make something else?"

"She'll just crush your culinary dreams, Chalk." Dragonsblood said.

"I would love something. Anything other than mashed potatos and cabbage." Starburst said, slumping onto the table.

"Okay, but if Chalkdust makes it, you have to eat every bite..." Dragonblood said as Chalkdust happily trotted off back to the kitchen.

Starburst sat up and rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I would be that rude?" She paused at the sound of hooves down the hall. "Oh, your marefriend's here."

"Oh, please, Rose shouldn't be off work for another hour..."

"I mean Muffin ass." Starburst smiled.

"Oh, come on now. Besides, I am engaged to Rose."

"You may be, but that doesn't mean either of you like it. Infact, that is plain to see." Starburst looked over at the ponies in the hallway. "Then again, it looks like she managed to actually find some poor mare."

Autumn trotted up to them. "Hi... I'm back."

Dragonsblood turned and waved. "Wellcome back. Your a bit early though. Who's that mare next to you?"

Autumn looked around and nearly bursted out laughing. "What, you mean Whirlwind?"

Whirlwind rolled his eyes. "Ha ha, funny funny. Is it so wrong if I like to take care of myself?"

"Well...", Starburst snickered a bit, "...you can't argue your grace, or that long flowing mane..."

Whirlwind sat down. "Didn't we come here to play a card game? I was promised a cardgame."

Starburst magically shuffled her beloved deck of card then set it down. "No. I'm gonna eat first. And, Rose won't be back anytime soon either, unless that slave driver Prim lets her go early."

"Oh." Autumn stood awkwardly.

"So. How did you meet?" Dragonsblood said, eating his food.

"Huh? Oh, well..." Autumn paused. "After Everypony locked me out of the bathroom leaveing me for death with ravenous zombie ponies, I ran away and this kind Unicorn guy let me in his house, then ran off and got himself exploded protecting his daughter. After the trauma died down, I realised there was actually a group of ponies already there. One thing led to another, yadda yadda yadda, here I am."

"Well, I was pretty in and out of conciuosness. Not like I could go, 'Hey, muffin ass, come on in! Room enough for everypony!', but hey, what's important is that we can look back on that and laugh..." Starburst gave a hollow laugh, and the air grew thick, and she took a drink of water while reshuffling her cards.

Whirlwind glanced over at the cards. "Woah, are those from Las Pegasus?"

Starburst paused, then kept shuffling. "Yeah. This is my mom's deck, she used to work in one of the buildings in Las Pegasus, always keep them with me for when I get bored."

Autumn tilted her head, puzzled. "Where did you even keep them? I doubt you went back..."

"Muffin butt, are you deaf? Or blind at that? My outfit had a jacket. It was zipped up and I had these in the zipped up pocket." Starburst smiled. "Stitch made it for me..."

"That was what she was good at."

"It got a little ruined when they had to take it off of me when the gaurds came, but Rose saved it for me anyway." Starburst smiled at the deck of cards. "It's in my room, not that it matters. I was hopeing I might be able to find somepony to help me sew it together." She set it down. "Let me guess, your going to ponyville, right?"

Autumn and Whirlwind looked at eachother, then Whirlwind spoke up. "Yeah."

"Good. I'll go with you, my shit-faced uncle makes custom prostetics for some medical company. I'm getting sick of this thing." Starburst took a long drink of water.

"Well, we don't know how we're going to get there yet." Autumn said.

"And who said you were going anywhere, Starburst?" Dragonsblood said.

"I did. Just now." Starburst smiled wider. "And I think I can make arrangements."

Darkness. Nothing but pitch black misery, sofficateing void. Is it death? Blindness? Sleep? It is increaseingly not clear. In that abyss, a feeling is also unsettlingly hyped. Numbness. Cold, dark numbness. There is no body. There is no thought. Just nothing.

Then all at once, the void is blasted with a thick white light, eyes wide open, limbs finding a new strength and overwhelmed in sensation. Then, a arura of sounds waft through the air...

"...successful..."

"...revived..."

'Revived...?' Eyes wide open, the whiteness dulls to blurred color as a sweet melodic voice wafts the new space.

"Wellcome back."

Zian smiled as she woke up, stretching on her small cot bed. She was honestly amazed that she could sleep so well, she didn't even hear Autumn come back after her cardgame last night, which surprised her. She sighed a moment while lying in bed, her sleepy mind drifting from one hazy thing to another, her hooves gently rubbing the tired from her face, then slipping back down herside as she hazily rolled around.

She tried to just go back to sleep, but couldn't. Her sides burned, and she tried to rub them against eachother to stop the small itch. Then she realized what her body was trying to tell her to do. She paused a minute, then shot her head up, looking around the room. She sighed with relif seeing that Autumn wasn't home, and assumed she went to stay the night at her aquaintence's place, maybe she got drunk last night and couldn't remember her way home.

She frowned. She knew it was selfish to think that Autumn would just fall into her lap and accept her advances, and she wasn't even sure why she was trying, after all she barely even knew the mare. Zian rolled her eyes and decided she better go look for her incase she got lost in the street or something, she didn't like the look of most of the ponies in this city anyway, especially the stallions. Not that she had anything against stallions, but still the ones in town seemed increaseingly unsettling with an extra aura of perviness.

Autumn yawned, her fur slick and wet, the room instensely saturated with the smell of musk. She itched her mane, and rolled over. Where was she? She thought. It smelt thick and humid, but some how nice. She retraced her thoughts as she laid back down on the bed that smelt surpriseingly well.

After Rose didn't show up, she and Whirlwind decided to go out to do something else out of boredom. They went to this weird bar... feelings drowned out... Autumn couldn't really remember what happened.

That is until Whirlwind spoke up. "Um... yeah, why don't we just don't talk about this."

"Huh? Sorry, things are a little hazy..."

"Yeah... things got pretty intense last night... I mean, you were venting your emotional baggage, I was ranting my mind off about junk, and then everything... well, let's not talk about it and move on with our lives." Whirlwind said, gathering his things.

"How did we get here anyway?"

"I think Starburst brought us here after whats-her-face didn't show up, and yeah, then this happened, yadda yadda yadda it's morning now, want to get some coffee?"

Autumn got up and found her hoodie on the floor, then shook it on. "I would love that."

"Oh, well... good." Whirlwind said. "And once you get back, you should deffinately brush your hair... but then again I guess some ponies would find that cute."

"Whirlwind." Autumn said. "What about getting some coffee and just going back to haveing conflicted feelings about everything that happens. "

"Sounds good to me."

Author's Note

I couldn't go to the place I normally do to edit, I'm sorry, I'll edit this chapter and re-realease it as soon as I can , but I felt like I needed to release it on time at least. :/

Also, Sorry if some parts feel a bit rushed. Also for the short chapter. I promise the next chapter will be full of plenty of plot, and as for the anniversary chapter, I still need to work on that. Also, this story may feature some light sexual content, but I didn't want this to be considered full-out porn. If you want to see my full out mlp clop and other random nsfw ect's, you can follow my nsfw blog here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/toastgirlafterdark