With candlelight as his only companion, Thoraxis the changeling sat by himself in his study area. Sprawled out messily on the table in front of him was various maps, notes, and black, crossed-off symbols on said maps denoting the places he's searched for Skia twice, thrice, and sixteen times in a row in, depending on the amount of crosses put on the locations.

"Perhaps... she is in... the Smokey Mountains?" he whispered to himself, his voice dull and lethargic. "I've already gone there four time in the last month... surely I can try again... But what about Manehattan?"

Despite being compound, Thoraxis's eyes had turned a bright, bloodshot red, all from the amount of strain he was putting on himself. He had been up for three days in a row now, and despite what the others thought of of his strenuous efforts, he still believed he was doing the only right thing, and had the upper hoof.

"Thoraxis, what are you still doing up?" a familiar voice spoke. Turning about, but slowly, he saw Petra Whitescales, an albino wyvern and his girlfriend, enter the room, walking up to him. "Are you still trying to see where Skia could be now?"

"Yes," he replied.

"You promised me you were going to go to sleep tonight..." she said, in a hurt voice.

"This was more important than a promise that small," he argued, his tone becoming grumpy, but hazy still. "I just know that I'm on the right track. I can't give up now."

"You've been up for almost seventy-two hours, Thoraxis!" she exclaimed. "You're trying harder than your body can manage. It's breaking down!"

"Sleep is for... the weak..." he yawned. "Sleep doesn't help find Skia..."

"You need to go to bed and regain your strength, or you'll never have it to find her!"

"I'm not going to bed!" he shouted back defiantly, slamming his hoof against the desk, knocking over the inkwell, its liquid, black contents dripping into a puddle on the floor.

"Thoraxis... is that you?" Petra's tired voice suddenly spoke up from behind him. Confused, and rubbing his eyes, Thoraxis looked forward again, and saw the Petra he was talking to had vanished.

He was hallucinating again. It had been getting worse lately, and this moment was no exception. With a sigh, he turned, and saw the real shape of his girlfriend exit their bedroom, and enter the living room, rubbing her head sleepily.

"Thoraxis? You're still up?" she asked. "Who were you talking to?"

"Myself... again," he replied, wearily. "I'm so sorry I woke you, dear."

"Don't be," she said. "You need to be the one that gets some rest."

"No... not until I find Skia."

Petra groaned. "Thoraxis... you're doing the best you possibly can, and then some. But just look at yourself for one second. We both know she's alive, but we just need to find her. What you're doing is only rushing whatever you have planned, and hurting yourself in the process."

"What do you suggest I do, then?"

"Well, I'd start with getting some sleep," she spoke softly, as she rested a claw on his shoulder. "You deserve it more than any changeling, pony, or dragon I know of."

After looking at his desk, then his girlfriend, then his desk again, Thoraxis made his choice. Leaving his chair, he slowly stumbled to the bedroom, tripping twice on the way from his legs disobeying his brain. When he reached the bed, instead of jumping into it, he practically had to crawl to get on top of it, and fell on his side when he finally finished, deep, exhausted breaths exiting his mouth from what should have been a more-than-easy task.

Petra, who had walked in with him, grabbed the blue sheets, and slowly brought them up to her boyfriend's body. Thoraxis's eyes closed the second the covers were pulled over him, his chest slowly heaving up an down as he breathed easily. The wyvern smiled, before she pecked the already-sleeping changeling on the cheek.

"Goodnight, dear," Petra spoke in a gentle whisper, as she turned to leave, intending to give Thoraxis as much comfortable space as possible. "We can always try again tomorrow. Sleep well."

As she closed the door, Petra thought of the surprise she was dying to tell Thoraxis, but she knew, deep down in her heart, that this wasn't the right time. She sighed, and headed for the living area, pleased that her boyfriend was finally getting some sleep. When she sat down on the chair, she looked to Despereaux, her sleeping pet cryophoenix that rested on his perch nearby, before looking at the clock next to him, and saw it was a quarter to two. With nothing left to do, and too awake to rest, she began to reflect over how the past year had went.

Skia was missing but alive, or that was what Longinus, the alicorn that used to live with them, said. He moved out six months before, and relocated to a cottage he had created in the middle of the Everfree Forest, away from most ponies, where he spent most waking moments of his time meditating, and focusing his magic on trying to pinpoint Skia's location, but, as of right now, to no avail. He could sense that he was close, and as soon as he heard these words, Thoraxis nearly doubled his already overzealous efforts to find his daughter, checking every single possible location around Equestria, taking several unpaid vacations from his job at the pet store in Ponyville, threatening to get him fired from it.

In the process, his health had been deteriorating significantly as well. While Petra may have given him enough love to keep any changeling happy, his lack of sleeping had lead to many problems, such as a tendency to act exceptionally grumpy towards anyone, except for her, slower reactions when performing everyday events, and severe, long-lasting hallucinations. It never ceased to disturb her whenever he claimed that he saw Skia in front of himself, when instead it was only thin air that lied before them. She knew she had to find a way to get him to relax himself, for a week at the very least, or something terrible was sure to come their way.

Just as she could feel herself slowly becoming drowsy once more, Petra heard a sudden knocking coming from the front door, several feet away from where she sat.

Huh. Who could be knocking at this hour? she thought, anxiously. Petra exited the chair, quickly walked up to the door, and pulled on its handle, opening it just a crack. There, just in front of the entrance, was what appeared to be a pony with a copper, bell-shaped object enveloping its head, and a body-covering cape of smaller, cup-shaped bells and tubular chimes that trailed a fair distance behind it, and seemed to be radiating a musky, swampy smell, mixed with rotten fish. Through two very small holes near its "helmet's" middle, two, pupil-less, cornflower blue eyes peered out of. Whoever it was just stood there, staring at her, as if waiting for Petra to start the conversation.

"Hello? Can I help you?" she inquired, breaking the silence.

"Flyer," the character spoke back, in an impossibly quiet, though just barely-audible whisper, so much so that Petra couldn't discern whether it was a male, or female speaking.

"I'm sorry..." Petra apologized. "Come again?"

"Ah hae a flyer Ah wish tae offer," it spoke at a higher volume, in a clearly female voice bearing an extraordinarily thick, outlandish accent or dialect of some sort. Without further exposition, the strange pony pulled a roll of paper from under her cloak of bells, and handed it forth on a dark, phthalo blue hoof that had a shiny, wet-looking complexion, as if freshly-soaked in water. "It's fur the upcomin' event, the Theatre Metamorphoses. It rolls intae toon the-day, an' th' first performance is gonnae be tha' moorns nicht, an' we want folks tae be prepared fur it."

"No way!" Petra shouted, in a surprised whisper, snatching the flyer from the moist-feeling hoof. "The Theatre Metamorphoses?"

"That's whit Ah said, isnae it?" she spoke back, in a snarky tone.

"Why are you handing these out at this time? It's two a.m." Petra inquired curiously, after she had calmed down slightly, as she read the flyer.

"Ah saw ye waur awake," she replied. "Nopony else in toon seemed tae be, sae efter Ah posted th' ones aroond toon, Ah cam by haur first."

"This is great and all, but... wait, how did you know I was awake?" the wyvern asked once more. The bell-wearing pony just looked at her with those unblinking, blue, glassy eyes for nearly a minute of awkward silence, until she looked down slightly.

"Reasons," she said, finally responding. Without a further word, the strange pony lifted her head again, turned, and began to trot away at a snail's pace, the objects she wore making a jingling racket as they bounded up-and-down, or dragged behind.

"What in Equestria is that supposed to mean?" Petra wondered to herself, before she decided to go back inside, closing the door behind herself.

Longinus sat in a cross-legged position, his two front hooves closed together in the position of deep meditation, as the slowly-rising, orange sun showed on his back. The wise zebra, Zecora, had taught him the technique, made to clear the mind and soul. Behind him lied his small, brick cottage, and its straw rooftop.

In the months that followed his restoration back to becoming a physical being, his magic power had increased to what it was before his descent into madness from thousands of years before, and he had been using every ounce of it in his attempt to locate Skia. By combining it with his meditation, and several herbal supplements, he found it dramatically improved his abilities.

His meditation was interrupted by the sound of what seemed like the clinking of bells and chimes a far ways away. Zecora commonly passed by his place to say hello, but whatever jewelry she wore never made the sound he was hearing now. Then, as briefly as it began, it stopped, but seemed to be replaced by a horrid stench of rotting fish and unkempt marshland. Apathetic to to it, Longinus simply tried to ignore the smell until he had gotten used to it, and continued to meditate.

He knew, just by feeling it, that Skia was alive and well, and was so close to locating her. So tantalizingly close. Every day and night he would attempt to find the changeling matching her description, clairvoyantly looking at every inhabitant throughout Equestria and beyond, one-by-one, never looking at the same pony or changeling twice. The list was now running short, and this gave him hope.

"Woods ye caur tae tak' a flyer, Maister Eveningstar?"

Longinus, startled beyond all belief, lost his balance and clumsily fell onto his back, as he heard the light-sounding, female, whisper-like voice touch his ears, coming from directly in front of him. Getting back up and opening his eyes, he saw a strange figure standing right there, clad in what appeared to be chained-together bells and chimes, with a large bell-like helmet over her head.

It was a few awkwardly-silent seconds before Longinus asked, "Who are you?"

"Some caa me insane..." she instantly started in a calm, casual manner, though her extremely light voice kept its quiet pitch. "Some caa me a bampot, some caa me somepony obsessed wi' bells... but most caa me Carol. As in, holiday carols. As in the singin' ye see foals dae ootwith ay pony's hooses near th' time o' Hearthswarmin'."

"Your accent tells me you're from Lochland, Carol," Longinus spoke. "That's far away from Equestria."

"Aye, that's whaur Ah was born an' raised," she said, before her head swiveled to the side slightly. "By the way, who're ye supposed tae be?"

"Um... you just said who I was," he answered, in a confused tone.

"Nae, Ah meant who are ye," she replied. "As in, are ye guid? Are ye evil? Are ye a complete looney? Are ye perfectly sane an' rational? Are ye a kin', or a beggar? 'At sort ay hin'."

"Hmph," Longinus huffed. "I'm just a soul trying to find peace with himself."

"Yoo're sure yer nae a bit wrang in the heed an aw?" she asked again. "Yoo're nae somepony that's, say, destroyed the li'es ay thoosands fur nae guid reason?"

Longinus went silent after that comment, hitting spot-on to the kind of monster he was in the distant past. Since he couldn't see her face, he couldn't see what the strange pony's reaction to what her question did was.

"Nah, ye look mair loch somepony that's lost friends an' fowk, an' 'en gained friends an' fowk," Carol then laughed as she continued. "Soonds a reit bit loch me. Ye got onie relati'es?"

"Relatives? Well... I have two daughters, but I became very distant from them after a certain... event," Longinus responded, uneasily.

"I've ne'er hud onie foals afair. I've heard they're pleasant, but a tad bit trooblesome," she laughed.

"You seem like a rather exuberant pony," Longinus spoke.

"Ah sure am. An' ye seem loch an interestin' unicorn yerself."

"I'm an alicorn," he shot back, spreading his wings out for her to see.

"An' aam actually an ancient loch demon who's bin cursed tae wander th' lain as an insane madpony," she responded in a half-playful, half-sarcastic voice, as she shook her cloak of metal instruments with a hoof. "Everypony knows alicorns are abit as real as ghosts an' goblins. Mere stories tae teel uir foals at nicht."

"Are you real?" Longinus asked, obviously convinced that this pony either truly was insane, or just plain nutty.

"Nae," she replied, as suddenly pulled out and unraveled a roll of paper. "Are ye?" Before Longinus could answer, he felt as the paper was swiftly planted onto his horn.

"I'll see ye at th' openin' nicht performance in a few days, Maister Eveningstar," Carol then said, bidding the alicorn farewell. "We can gab abit each other's histories some mair thaur. Lang may yer lum reek!"

Unable to even think of something to say to such a strange, manic creature, Longinus could only watch as the pony went on her merry way, humming an old folk tune as her long, trailing cloak made a rattling noise, soon vanishing through the trees, and out of sight. With her passing, so did the horrible smell.

Deciding to see exactly what she was advertising, Longinus pulled the paper off of his horn, and looked at it. There was a picture of several ponies reciting what appeared to be a play of some sort, with a white, brown-maned unicorn in the center standing in a regal position, and below it was some writing.

"Hmm... "The Theatre Metamorphoses is coming to town..."" he spoke to himself, as he read off of the paper. ""Come witness the greatest actors and actresses of the millennium recite the greatest comedies, tragedies, and musicals of our time, for the first time in twenty years..." that's some boast."

Without a further comment on the matter, Longinus folded the paper up, and tucked it away, before getting back to his meditation, though he found it difficult with the distracting thought of that bell-obsessed pony running through his head.

Author's Notes:

In case you didn't realize it, Carol's speaking with a Scottish accent. There's just something I find so appealing about Scottish accents.