Incarnate: Book Two of the Nexus

“Give me a bit o help,” requested Goldwater. Sky stepped over to a contraption in the middle of the lift.

It was a set of levers, like on a hoofcart for the mine rails. Sky pressed down on his side, and then Goldwater pressed the other. The lift slowly descended.

Flickering firelight glinted off of several more sets of iron railings until the lift clunked onto stone. An iron gate was opened, and they all stepped through into the dark as Goldwater reduced the lantern to a dim glow.

They paused. Sky asked, “Are you sure?”

Cobalt nodded with confidence, “I know from experience. I've handled these things in full moonlight without trouble. This little metal box of light you have here is much dimmer.”

Now Sky questioned Goldwater, “Ponies at the bar couldn't agree if they saw a cockatrice or a basilisk. Which was it?”

Goldwater's voice creaked like the lift, “I still say I saw a big ol' lizard down here, but my eyes ain't what they used to be. Reckon folks probably meant the same thing. Ain't nopony I know even seen a real-live basilisk before.”

“Wait here a moment, could you give me a little more light?”

Goldwater set the lantern down and did so. Sky nuzzled into his packs and withdrew a ragged and tattered book. It was unbuckled and opened gently.

Pages were turned with a dexterous wing to the letter B. He found the basilisk entry, and read in silence. He then spoke,

“Every claimed sighting has been in the frozen north. Mostly from explorers who ventured even further north over the mountain ridge, and out of Equestria entirely into the No-Pony's land beyond.”

Cobalt spoke in a harsh whisper, “They ain't never been seen in the south?”

“Never, not once in history," answered Sky, "Book also says that if you avoid the stone gaze, their scales aren't that tough. Physical weapons can dispatch them, so...”

Sky held up his right leg and used his mouth to undo a slipknot. He withdrew three bolts for his crossbow, and tightened the knot.

One bolt was loaded into the bow with the noise of creaking springs and a sharp click. Sky took his mouth off the winder, picked up the two extra bolts, and tucked them into his harness. The sharp metal arrowheads scraped against his fur.

Cobalt stood up on her hind legs, crouching to avoid hitting her head on the low ceiling. She withdrew her heavy sword carefully, ducking to draw the blade without scraping it on the ceiling.

The polished surface glimmered in the lantern light. Cobalt placed the handle of the sword in her mouth, grasping it at an angle with fierce fangs.

Sky took the lead, hobbling on three legs and keeping the leg-mounted crossbow pointed at the darkness beyond. His gray amulet glowed steadily and emitted a soft hum as a spell of detect magic hopefully took effect, though he didn't hear any reply from it.

Cobalt walked behind, keeping a dark blue glowing shield over herself and the old miner. The tip of her sword occasionally dipped into the dust, with a scraping noise.

Goldwater stayed right behind with a lantern whose light barely reached Sky. Any shot fired would have to be aimed by sound alone.

Sky held his wings out partially for balance, unable to unfurl them fully in this constricted space.

The narrow mine tunnel and the consistent square wooden braces suddenly burst open into a large, empty space where distant water could be heard. Sky closed his eyes. He heard a quiet voice in his mind. It was free of inflection and sounded calm and neutral as it said, Magic animal detected.

It wasn't needed. They heard growling noises and a scuffle.

They rounded the bend, Goldwater reluctantly staying in between Sky and Cobalt as they walked abreast in the cavern. The dim lantern light reflected off of dark gray scales. All stopped walking and prepared for a fight.

The lizard noticed the faint light and quiet steps. It turned its eyes towards them. All flinched. Lantern light flickered and sputtered. Cruel white fangs could be seen, which crushed a struggling cockatrice.

The basilisk suddenly hissed and turned from them, running deeper into the cave.

Cobalt was first to speak in a breathless whisper, “Well, how about that. A basilisk eating a cockatrice.”

She checked on the condition of the others. They were unharmed, though Sky had wet his fur. Cobalt didn't have time right now to make fun of him, but she would later once they got through this.

Forward now, very, very slowly. Not a word. Breath held.

They passed seven more dead cockatrices, which had been consumed down to skin and bones. Sky and Goldwater grimaced and fought back rising sickness. Cobalt took the lead around a rock outcrop which left only a small opening they could squeeze through.

“Wait for my word,” said Cobalt sternly. She disappeared into the dark beyond the stalagmites and smooth stone.

Her sharp hearing on full alert, her sword raised as she walked on her hind legs with her broken rib pulsing with pain, her wings unfurled fully as she passed the narrow gap, she took several steps forth.

Clucking noises, just like a standard farm chicken. A cockatrice, all but invisible in the dark. The quiet whoosh of air as a blade came down with a sickening thunk against flesh.

Cobalt dropped to all fours now, breathing hard. Every cobalt blue feather around her neck was bristled, as was the pure white fur all the way down her spine. The powerful and lean muscles of her lion body were tensed.

She took a few deep breaths, and dropped to a crouch. Her ring glowed brightly, and a headless cockatrice could now be seen by its dim light. A telepathic message was sent to Sky, Stay back a moment. Ran into a cockatrice.

Cobalt lowered her head and had an impromptu meal. No point wasting food, and no telling what might happen down here. She heard another scuffling noise nearby, and her ring glowed as a spell of detect magic spoke softly in her mind, Magic animal nearby.

The sounds were in the air, but a cockatrice was almost flightless. Something glowing smoky red approached, intensifying in color.

A firebat swooped by, unleashing a jet of fire which scorched the air nearby Cobalt. She angrily swooped up into flight herself, and smacked the bat with sharp talons hard enough to send it out of control into the stones. A magic missile finished it off.

The others came running towards her now.

“What was that fire?” asked Sky, and Cobalt explained.

“That's not right,” said Sky, “I read about firebats in my mom's journal. They only live in ocean caves at the southwest coast, something of an anomaly.”

“What the hell is going on?” asked Cobalt in a stupor. She couldn't eat the firebat with its meat infused with fiery magic, so she picked up the carcass and placed it in wax paper and then into a saddlebag alongside a dead cockatrice. Proof for the bounty.

Cobalt said in an angry whisper, “We're several moons journey away from any ocean!”

“I know,” said Sky, at a loss for words.

They hiked onward, keeping the light dim. Ahead could be heard the sound of scales slithering against craggy stone. They passed stone lumps lying in the cavern, which proved to be ponies. Many of them were undamaged and could, potentially, be restored.

There came the sound of heavy steps on gravel. The basilisk approached them, still hungry. A growl rippled the darkness, and the lizard's steps became a run.

Sky shot a bolt towards the sound. He heard a thunk, and a clattering noise. The lizard was right on them now, close enough that its hot, putrid breath was in Sky's face as he shakily reloaded his crossbow.

It pounced on him with its vicious and bloody maw open wide. Sky calmly stared death in the face and fired a powerful bolt straight down its throat.

The basilisk was thrown back, and Sky set his tired left leg on the ground, a bit numb from the recoil. He suddenly froze in place, his eyes wide as dinner plates as he stared into the darkness.

A crossbow bolt clattered onto the stone as the basilisk got up and walked towards Sky without a single scratch. It lunged, and Sky was frozen in place. He heard Cobalt yell “Don't just stand there!” and he reacted, a little too late.

The massive lizard, the size of a foal but much denser, crashed into him in a flurry of claw and fang and violence. Sharp teeth scraped off of his metal helmet with a horrible shrieking noise. Claws slid off of his vest and the metal armor of his legs, and sunk into exposed hide with red-hot pain.

Sky fought back with bursts of golden magic which illuminated the cave and strikes from his hooves. The two creatures tumbled over the stone cavern floor as Sky's metal armor made clanging noises.

Cobalt joined the fray. She had taken flight through her pain, and she held her sword with its sharpened point aimed straight down. She dropped from the air, plunging the sword into the flesh of the basilisk.

The point of the sword simply slid off of it, causing Cobalt to spin out of control and bounce off of the creature. She hit the stone floor hard, the pain in her side reached explosive intensity, and she curled up while clutching her ribs and whining.

Sky had managed to draw his own knife with the distraction. He kept fighting, now with blade and magic bursts. The basilisk clearly felt threatened. With each burst of golden magic it attempted to stare into Sky's eyes with a hypnotic gaze. Sky closed his eyes each time, feeling some cold, unspeakable magic in his extremities warning of the chill of stone.

With a surge of adrenaline, he kicked with all four hooves and catapulted the basilisk into a stone pillar. Even this barely fazed it, although it at least had some kind of affect.

Cobalt was back on her feet now, still clutching at her side. Tears streamed down the blue feathers of her face from the pain. She managed to weakly shout in Sky's direction, “Sky, think for a second... we can't, we can't harm it so,”

Sky sat down and his jaw dropped. He spoke now, “So... it's a dream creature.”

The basilisk had shaken off the daze and now it crouched in anger, preparing to lunge. Sky was too exhausted to defend himself as it pounced. He hit the stone floor hard and felt sharp teeth at his throat.

Cobalt let loose a roar that shook the cavern, took two steps forward, and raised her right talons.

Her ring glowed fierce blue. Beneath the armor of her leg, a fierce red light glared against her white fur. Telekinesis hefted the lizard into the air and began slamming it repeatedly against the walls and floor. Spittle dripped from Cobalt's beak as she growled in fury.

A voice began cutting through the anger clouding her mind, “Shit, stop! Cobalt stop! Oh fuck... no...”

Cobalt calmed down now with a puzzled look in Sky's direction. The basilisk had actually been harmed by the magic attack, and it ran off into the darkness.

Cobalt walked over to where Sky was, and sat down. Her mind was blank with horror and disbelief. An empty feeling was growing in her stomach like butterflies.

Several columns and stalagmites had collapsed. The petrified ponies in the cavern had all save three been shattered, and were now beyond all hope.

“No...” said Cobalt, “No!”

She ran towards where the basilisk had gone. Sky took off after her. Goldwater hesitated for a moment, and then took off in pursuit while holding the lantern.

A blaze of light cut through the cavern, disregarding the basilisk. Sky could cut it off in a heartbeat, he had to catch up to Cobalt. She was going to die if he didn't stop her. They were fighting a dream world monster, it was basically invincible here in reality.

The uneven terrain of the cavern shook in his vision as he galloped towards the cavern's edge. The bracelet of light, held in his mouth, sent a bouncing ray of illumination across the cavern. A chicken type creature was caught in the beam, and began to look at him.

Sky flinched and prepared for a fight. The cockatrice clucked and ran away in a flurry of gravel and feathers. Sky breathed a sigh of relief.

He tripped over a rock, kept his balance with a wobbly skid, and kept galloping on. Sweat steamed off of his back and salt stung numerous cuts which streamed blood through his golden fur.

Ahead was an underground lake, glittering in the arcane light and beautiful in other contexts. At the water's edge was something Sky hoped never to see and which he should not be able to see: A dark tear creased the air above the water like a rip in clothing.

Through this rip could be seen a pastureland scene far removed from the depths of this hellscape cavern, where full moonlight illuminated snowfall and copses of trees. Sky's hooves splashed in the water once, twice, thrice, and water sprayed everywhere as he took flight through the portal.

A moment later Goldwater reached the lake. He stopped short, staring and failing to comprehend. He paused to unhook a flask and took several unhealthy gulps of whiskey.

He shook his head at his own insanity, said “Here goes nothing,” and took a running leap through the portal, just hurdling the edge.

He could be seen disappearing into the world beyond as though a shrinking figure in an animated portrait. The dust and water settled, and the cavern was silent and dark once more.

Princess Luna glided through the night like a shadow as she surveyed the Dreamspace.

She stifled a yawn. There was no time for rest, not after the delay caused by the changelings. Her sworn obligation to defend Equestria still remained.

It was calm, at least. No signs of damage, no strange dark magic, nothing that would indicate the return of their great enemy. On this night, Luna had only to comfort ponies suffering from nightmares.

Often, those were caused by monsters of the Dreamspace. She only had to lure them away for the dream to change to a happier scene.

Luna's horn glowed a deep purple as she began to shimmer and fade. She vanished from the node of Dreamspace she was in, which was a cheery town at holiday time quite like an abstract painting of Ponyville.

She found herself in a nightmare. The scenery was nothing lucid, just a bunch of shadows and spikes and ethereal forms. The few points of solid ground were broken up and hovering at different heights in this nightmare.

Typical for a temporal node of the Dreamspace. Luna flew around for a while in search of the culprit.

A wight, the most common source of nightmares. They fed off of fear and negativity. Princess Luna commanded the shadows to flow like dark and wispy clouds.

They formed a smoky trail out of the node and into a main pocket of the dream world. The wight hungrily began following the trail and absorbing the shadows until it began to fade.

Now the nightmare began to glow and become blurry. After a blinding flash, the scenery changed. It was still incredibly abstract and nonsensical, but it appeared this pleasant dream was a combination of beach and poolside memories.

Luna smiled as the world around her began to crackle and shimmer like an image on water. All began to fade to black; the dreamer was waking up from the dream. Darkness surrounded Luna. It began to lift, and she found herself back in the permanent pocket of Dreamspace she had just been in. Moonlight illuminated a dense forest where trees marched on in every direction.

These dream woods had a definite structure and more clarity, yet it could not be mistaken for reality. There was a certain shallow feeling to everything, as though walking through a pop-up book. Distant objects became blurry and obscured by mist. Sounds would echo as though in a cave.

Euclidean physics sometimes broke down entirely. Luna would walk or fly in one direction and find herself suddenly looping back to where she had been before.

However, there was a pattern and consistency to all of this which Luna had learned through her millennia patrolling the Dreamspace.

Luna paused at a brook. She closed her eyes and cast broad, scattering rays of dark purple magic. These thin rays shot way up into the sky and formed a grid over the landscape.

Four pale crystals were taken from saddlebags and placed on the ground in a square. A dark purple grid formed between these crystals. An opaque background appeared, the color of parchment. Lines and words began to form. Finally, colors washed over the parchment until terrain features could be seen projected with some depth of field like a hologram.

There were forests, deserts, pastures, a beach, mountains, a snowy tundra, all contained in their own divided rooms.

Each room was bordered in dark green, and connected to the others by dotted lines. Bright green bubbles were connected to each of these rooms by arrows. Words resolved onto the map in Old Ponish. Modern ponish became visible beneath them.

The map began to flicker and fade, filling with static. Luna walked around it and thumped two of the crystals with a hoof. The map returned to perfect clarity, but now some of the letters began to blink and dim like a broken neon sign.

No matter. Luna knew each area by heart. Her attention now turned to a room on the Southwest side of the map which was colored in a purple hue.

Luna's eyes widened. Several red lines, about four or five total, could be seen on the borders of the purple room. The crystals were picked up and the map flickered out.

After a sip from a flask and a disgruntled sigh, Luna galloped into flight to see what the problem was.

A few hours of flight at supersonic speeds elapsed. This land of dreams did not need to abide by real physics, and she felt no exhaustion nor wind shear even without a shield up.

The edge of the forest region approached. At the border, a wall of fog and mist climbed as high as the eye could see. Luna dove into this fog, the mist trailing off her wingtips.

She found herself passing through into a serene pasture. She knew better than to take it lightly.

Several steps ahead, a wall of purple light ensconced the entire vast expanse of pasture and woodland. Luna shot a few magic missiles at it. They made a dull ringing noise and bounced off, making a ripple but otherwise doing no damage.

A scroll was withdrawn from a saddlebag. Luna read the words on it as her eyes glowed fierce purple. A symbol could now be seen on the purple wall, a circle with runes all along it.

Luna's horn glowed and magic struck the symbol. It flashed white, and a door opened in the purple wall of light. Luna stepped through, turned around, and locked the magic seal once more.

Her horn glowed fiercely and cut a line into the air, which opened into a portal. She stepped through this into a dimensional pocket, where wooden shelves held cleaning supplies and paint buckets. A broom and mop could be seen. It would be mundane if not for the entire room being composed of cloudy gray mist.

At the back of this storage space, she rounded a bend that wasn't visible from the entrance. It was a small alcove, full of books and artifacts. Luna took a dusty papyrus scroll off of a top shelf. The aged paper had a glowing purple ring of magic at one end.

It was unrolled. Faded ink formed a runic language. A list of these runes ran down the page, with a glowing purple dot after each item.

Several of these dots were missing, and those particular entries were read: Flaming spiny slime, drake of ice infused with thunder magic, parasprites, and one basilisk.

Luna gasped. She stuck the scroll back on the shelf, ran through the portal, closed it, and took flight.

Fierce purple light ensconced her body. Armor plates enclosed as her mane and tail became dark purple fire.

A sonic boom ripped the air as she launched forth in her Nightmare Moon form, towards the red lines she had seen on the map.

In this abstract replica of a meadow, she had no difficulty maintaining control in her alternate form. Tendrils of anger and darkness pulled at her vision, but it was her own mind that kept sway over the potent ancient magic.

She breathed in deeply on this moonlit night. She flew into the shadows of a grove, and faded more and more into the dark.

A streak of darkness accelerated from the other side of the grove. It slipped through the night air with great speed towards the cracked boundary.

Skyblazer was growing frustrated with this stupid dream world. It made no sense at all. This was the third time he had tried to fly straight towards a lake, only to find himself suddenly going the opposite direction.

Out of spite he tried swerving left. It actually worked, and he realized with a start that he was now over the water as the moon and scattered trees of the pasture reflected off of it.

He had been drawn to the lake by flashes of bright blue magic on the ground below. Now he cautiously glided towards the ground.

Except he was already at ground level, standing in a crouch with his wings spread out in a flying pose. He cussed, stood up straight, and looked around.

It was a small grove, not more than a few acres. Most of this place seemed to be plains, and unseasonably warm despite snow coating the ground. Every sound he made echoed. Even the owls and crickets echoed, which was driving him crazy.

Cobalt was standing on a hill in the distance, visible as a silhouette in the foggy moonlight. Sky walked over towards her while shaking his head to clear his vision. She seemed oddly out of focus until he drew near.

She was victorious. The basilisk lie in a pool of blood, not moving. Cobalt's saddlebags slumped over to the right. Some of the left straps had been sliced, and shallow cuts covered the left side of her body.

Clearly, the creature was not invincible back in the Dreamspace. Which left more questions than answers. Sky asked,

"Wait, if these things are from the dream world, then how did you kill the cockatrice and the bat?"

Cobalt answered, "I don't know, doesn't matter... I really fucked up."

"We all make mistakes," said Sky, "and that thing was way out of our league," he stared at the dead basilisk with disgust. He drew his knife and sliced off a patch of gray scales for the bounty proof.

The wind picked up, rustling tree branches and cattails. A shadowy cloud could be seen in the distance, out in the open pastureland. Cobalt was distracted and unfocused.

Sky saw the shadow and exclaimed, "Look out, another monster incoming!"

His necklace glowed gray and a golden magic surrounded Cobalt and himself in an arcane shield. One of his two remaining crossbow bolts was loaded and aimed at the thing.

The cloud began to glow purple and took the form of a pony.

Cobalt yelled, "Dammit, it's the dark wizard again!"

The mass of shadow revealed itself to be Nightmare Moon. She landed lightly, and spoke in an eerie voice, "You should not be here."

Sky ran over and shouted, "Luna, it's us! Snap out of it, don't you recognize us? It's me, Sky!"

Nightmare Moon sat down calmly and replied, "I am in full control. I simply mean, you don't understand how dangerous this place is. Why, and how, are you here?"

Cobalt answered, "We were on a monster hunt in the mines, and there was a basilisk, and some kind of hole into the dream world."

Nightmare nodded. She spoke, "This is the Monster Conservatory. It is here that especially hazardous creatures are kept, those that threaten the well being of all nature and the lives of ponies."

Sky felt terrified sitting this close to Nightmare Moon. She was a being of pure darkness and purple fire, glowing armor, glowing eyes. Cold seemed to radiate off of her. However, Luna seemed perfectly lucid in this form.

Sky spoke through shivers, "Did anything else get out?"

"Yes," answered Nightmare, "But you must retreat from this place immediately. Allow me to escort thou to a safer region of the Dreamspace."

Sky and Cobalt agreed. If this place was built to contain monsters, then the basilisk was only a minor nuisance compared to what else might be in here. Cobalt asked,

"Hey, there were some monsters I could harm in reality. What's up with that?"

Nightmare replied as they all galloped off into flight, "Some of the creatures here are dream beings native to this world... others are real creatures who have been deposited here for public safety."

They arrived at the Western edge of the plains, where mists began to swirl. A portal here tore through the Dreamspace, and through it could be seen the cavern.

As they slowed for a landing, they caught sight of a figure lying on the ground below.

It was Goldwater, the old mining pony. He was alive but in rough shape. Nightmare Moon began to glow white; when this faded, she had returned once more to her regular self.

She began applying healing magic, a purple glow ensconcing Goldwater as all but the most serious of cuts scabbed over.

Sky sat at a distance, taking drinks from his canteen and giving worried glances at the hazy land around. Cobalt stared at the ground for a moment, and then walked over to Luna and Goldwater.

She spoke softly, "This is all my fault. You're hurt because of me."

Sky disagreed, "He volunteered to come with us on this hunt. He didn't have to follow us here."

Cobalt didn't seem convinced. Sky stepped over now and asked Goldwater to return to the mines and inform the town that their monster issue was resolved.

They watched him leap through the tear into the darkness of the caverns, where he landed with a splash at the lake's edge. He kept his lantern dim and walked out of view.

Luna began glowing fiercely again, and she returned to the form of Nightmare Moon. She began to speak an incantation in Old Ponish while carving a rune into the grass with magic.

The rune glowed dark purple, as did the portal. The tear in the Dreamspace began to close shakily until only a seam of purple magic was left. This faded away into dust and the border was whole once more.

Nightmare needed time to rest after the spell, panting from the exertion. Soon, they moved on to the north. Another tear was here, through which a forest could be seen.

Sky and Cobalt waited in the Dreamspace while Nightmare stepped through the portal. They stayed alert for danger, and caught sight of something strange approaching them slowly.

Nightmare Moon returned, as terrifying as ever and radiating a cold and dark energy. She, too, noticed the thing encroaching on them.

It seemed to be a large statue of a pony made from crystal, but it was walking. Nightmare told them, "This be a golem. In times far before the Crystal Empire vanished, these sentinels were enchanted to stand guard against monsters. After the vanishing, they went rogue."

Nightmare launched into the air, her broad, spiky wings flapping hard and gaining lift. Her purple magic held the creature in place and dismantled it crystal by crystal. A pile of crystals was left, which glowed faintly white.

"This shall delay it for a time," announced Nightmare Moon.

She used another rune and spell to seal the forest portal, and then they flew for a time further North along the border. The mists occasionally formed chilly fog which pooled out into the pastures. The sun, hazy as it was, descended towards the edge of the dream world.

Several more tears were repaired. At two points Nightmare returned with a monster carried by telekinesis, knocked unconscious and roughly dropped on the ground.

The first was a blob of spiky goop which pulsed red and broke out into occasional flame. The snow hissed as it plopped onto the ground.

At a portal over the ocean, a small but fierce dragon was brought back. It was a sapient one; it protested loudly, saying Nightmare had no right to keep it here.

The dragon attacked with a blast of icy breath which crackled with electricity. Purple magic covered it, and it began to scream in agony and let off the attack. It flew off into the pastures with a glare back at them.

Night fell as they found the final crack. No stars were overhead, just a dismal sheet of gray and the foggy half moon.

This portal was different from the others. It didn't simply open back into their own world like a portrait. It tunneled for a ways into the mist, although when Sky walked around behind the tear no tunnel could be seen.

He walked back to the fore, and there it was. A tunnel made of glowing gray mist which seemed solid to the touch. Nightmare stepped through the tunnel, appearing as though she were walking on a cloud with the floor made of glowing mist.

She returned and said, "This tear leads to the East Badlands, not far from the Spire of Magnus between the dragonlands and the griffons."

After applying another runic spell and catching her breath, she spoke, "This tear leads to a land far distant from the other portals... it may take time to heal. We shall wait."

A carved magic rune glowed fiercely and its purple magic flowed to the edge of the tunnel. The walls of mist began to take on a purple hue. The tunnel began to slowly seal from the bottom up.

Cobalt had been quietly sitting off to one side, alone in the dark. She stared at the ground, clawing at snow with her talons.

She walked over to Sky and embraced him in a hug. Sky was startled, but he returned the gesture and hugged her with his wings. Nightmare smiled and glowed fierce white, becoming Luna once again.

Cobalt let go of Sky, nuzzled his nose with her beak, and took a step back.

She said to him, "I'm sorry," and took off at a run towards the closing portal. She vanished into the tunnel.

After a moment of surprise, Sky took off after her.

Luna did not block his passage. She merely said calmly, "The portal shall soon close. Hurry."

Sky galloped into the tunnel, not so much as looking at the glowing purple mists as they began to constrict around him. There wasn't so much as space to extend his wings, and it was shrinking faster.

He neared the end of the tunnel and saw a portal through into an unfamiliar landscape of desert scrub brush. Cobalt stood there, calm and fierce. Her feathers rippled in the wind, and she stared into the night sky northwards, towards Griffonstone.

Sky reached the tunnel's edge and cried out, "Wait, don't go! I love you!"

He dove towards the aperture as it began to seal shut with a purple magic.

Cobalt turned around and said, "Sky?"

The griffon dove towards the portal as it slammed shut, and landed hard on the dusty ground.

Sky watched her dive and saw the portal fade away into the mists. Now, the mists began to fade as well. The tunnel wafted away until all that surrounded him was murky gray in every direction. He began to fall.