This morning, instead of rain, there was a heavy fog that filled the valleys down below. Tarnish watched it as he ate breakfast, his curiousity caused him to chew in an absentminded manner. He was distracted, not just from the fog, but from a confusing, almost dreamlike memory from the orb yesterday, something about an act of destruction and an act of creation.

The memory was just real enough to be recalled, but just hazy enough that total recollection was near-impossible. He supposed that more study into the orb was required. He would have to dive into the deep blue nothingness and see what was hidden beyond the mists.

“I’ve seen fog like this in places like these before,” Cranberry said in a low voice. “It does something to a pony’s magic. My magic seems to be fine now, but I think it’s because of this tea… it seems to be making everything better… but I’ve had experience with fog like this in places like this one. It leaves me defenseless. I couldn’t swing my hammer or use my bow in this fog. The only thing I could do is run.”

“Curious.” Maud’s head swiveled with a slow, almost glacial movement, and she looked down at the fog below them. Little curls of it were creeping along the ridge, mere yards from their camp, but it couldn’t seem to climb any higher. One of Maud’s eyebrows arched.

Saying nothing, Maud vanished into the wagon for a moment, and then appeared a few minutes later with the fancy new thaumaton reader strapped to her foreleg. The eyepiece was secured to her head, and a little pale yellow light near the base of the eyepiece was blinking. Tarnish knew from reading the manual that the light was an indicator of danger, starting in yellow and ending in a bright, vivid red, with orange in the midrange.

As Tarnish sipped his hot, steaming tea, slurping it and not caring about his manners, Maud went tramping off down the incline, heading down into the valley. He watched with relaxed curiousity, wondering what was up with the fog. A stabbing cramp went through his stomach and he cringed, almost squeezing his eyes shut.

“And so this is what you do?” Cranberry asked.

“Well, when things aren’t trying to kill us, volcanos aren’t exploding, or I’m not being stalked by a maniacal psychopath that wants to use me for some twisted, nefarious purpose,” Tarnish replied.

“I understand.” Cranberry nodded. “Regular ponies just wouldn’t understand what it’s like for us. We adventuring types have our own special problems that we have to face.” She too, slurped from her teacup, and did so with great enthusiasm.

Tarnish felt a bit of worry. Maud had vanished into the fog and could not be seen. He didn’t like this, but he didn’t feel the need to panic, not yet. He decided to play it cool and wait. Maud was a big mare and she knew what she was doing. It was difficult to trust, but trust he must. Overhead, the awning rustled as a stiff breeze blew, which caused ripples in the fog.

Little droplets of morning dew glistened on the sides of The Egg, birds high along the ridge were chirping all around them, and the warmth from the fire kept away the faint chill in the air. It was almost a perfect morning.

A lone figure emerged from the fog below and trotted up the incline of the ridge. Tarnish heaved a sigh of relief, looked over at Cranberry, saw that she looked as relieved as he was, and watched as Maud returned to the camp. She looked damp after being in the thick, pea soup fog.

“Fascinating,” Maud said as she approached, “Forty four bars in total.”

“Bars?” Cranberry asked.

“At around fifty five bars, ponies tend to start dying,” Tarnish said, reciting it from memory. “At thirty four bars, the yellow range begins and that means that ponies begin having some real problems using their magic.”

“Oh… dang.” Cranberry looked concerned.

“This shouldn’t be happening.” Maud returned to her spot near the fire, sat down, and looked down at the device strapped to her leg. “It kept spiking… most of the time, it was in the mid thirties, but in spots where the fog was thickest, it jumped, considerably. The highest spike hit forty four bars.”

“And fog shouldn’t behave like this?” Tarnish asked.

“I’m no weather expert, but no,” Maud replied. “Water can act like a carrier when it is a liquid form, but it is almost always a low grade form of radiation. It shouldn’t be this severe. Something about this bothers me. My bones tell me this is wrong.”

“Earth pony sense!” Cranberry’s chirpy voice almost echoed through the camp.

“So, we have a big scary cave full of magically twisted creatures, unreliable readings in the rocks down in the river, a crater charged with bad magic, and creepy fog that could potentially kill a pony caught in it.” Tarnish felt his summary was succinct, one eyebrow raised, and then he killed off what was left in his teacup in one gulp. He set his teacup down, belched, and then looked at Cranberry when she started giggling.

“Wait…” Tarnish blinked a few times as something nagged at his memory. “Maud, you said the decay rate for water was high, which is why water doesn’t hold much of a charge. With fog being fog, the decay rate should be higher, which means that the fog should have less of a magical charge than liquid water.”

“Correct.” Maud gave a faint nod.

“The magic held in the air is the weakest and has the highest decay rate, while rocks act like batteries that release magic slowly and over time.” Tarnish, surprised by his own memory of that lesson, shook his head and looked down at the fog. “You’re right… this fog doesn’t make sense. It’s not playing by the rules.”

“Well…” Cranberry smacked her lips together and she also set down her teacup. “As much as it pains me to say so, it is about time I got a move on. There are other ponies in need of saving. As soon as this fog burns off, I plan to be going. I need to get to Baltimare and check up on a friend.”

“Must you leave so soon?” Tarnish asked.

“Yep.” Cranberry looked sad, but only for a moment.

“We live in Rock Haven on the Pie Family Rock Farm. If you ever need a bed or a bite to eat, you should stop by.” Maud focused her intense, steady stare upon Cranberry. “Something tells me that you don’t have an address.”

“Nope.” Cranberry gave Maud a winning grin. “I’m a vagabond. A hobo. A bum. I’m a good for nothing that doesn’t contribute anything to society.” The effervescent mare let out a carefree giggle at her own gentle sarcasm, looked at Tarnish, and then back at Maud. “It was great meeting both of you. I’m sure we’ll meet again. We still have a bit more time together before this fog burns away.”

There was a soft sigh from Maud. “I had plans to study this fog… I fear I won’t have much time to spend with you.”

“I understand,” Cranberry replied. “Things are the way they are. No sense being upset about them. I promise I’ll be here when the fog burns away and we can have our goodbyes then, okay?”

“Okay.” Maud blinked and then looked over at Tarnish. “I hate to even ask, Tarnish, but I need your help. The fog destroys my sense of direction, it muffles all sounds, and there might be dangerous stuff lurking about. This is a unique opportunity of study. I know you are sore and recovering, and you probably want to entertain our guest—”

“I understand,” Tarnish said, cutting Maud off. “It’s okay. I’ll do what needs to be done.”

“And I’ll bake cookies… I think I have the stuff to do so… cranberry cookies… I should be able to do it in your cast iron camp stove. If not cookies, then scones. Or something. I’m gonna bake come Tartarus or high tides.” Cranberry tossed her head back to get her mane out of her eyes.

“That would be wonderful, it would give us a chance to have a final get together before you left.” Tarnish eased himself into position so he could stand up. His muscles ached in protest, but he ignored them. There was work that had to be done while the opportunity presented itself.

“Hold up, Maud, let me grab Flamingo…”

The fog was creepy. Tarnish found that he didn’t like it. It made his skin feel weird and clammy, he felt moist in a most unpleasant way. Visibility was poor. He couldn’t see much more than a yard in front of his face. He wondered how Maud had even returned herself to camp, but realised that she must have not gone far into the fog, and must have followed the incline to get back up to camp. He peered ahead and no matter how he squinted, he found that he couldn’t see anything. Even the sun seemed lost. The world was a white grey nothingness.

Maud stood beside him, and the light on the eyepiece was either dark yellow or light orange, Tarnish couldn’t tell. She moved around with great caution, going from place to place, standing near trees and rocks to get a reading, which Tarnish wrote down.

Tree - 39

Rock - 51

The ambient air also had high readings. Everything caught in the fog was being steeped in dangerous magic, unpredictable magic, magic that had soured a bit. Tarnish could feel it, the magic here was wrong.

Rotten log - 37 - I wonder what this is doing to the larvae in the log?

When Tarnish felt something slither over his back, he let out a frightened whinny. Stiff legged, terrified, he looked around, trying to see what had touched him, but there was nothing. Maud was wide eyed and looking around as well. The two of them moved closer together, almost touching.

Maybe it was just his imagination. It probably was. He was getting all worked up over nothing. Still, he was certain that he had felt something. Imagination or no, it was creepy. He kept Flamingo in her sheath because the last thing he needed to do right now was start waving a fantastically sharp sword around in his current panicked state.

He and Maud were both saturated with water, which ran down from them in rivulets. It tickled down the legs and did nothing to help them in their current spooked state. Maud moved with slow steadiness until they found another boulder jutting up out of the ground.

Rock - 49

“Maud, I don’t like this,” Tarnish said in a cautious whisper.

And Maud replied, “I don’t either, this place is creeping me out.”

“There’s no going back to the camp, is there?”

“Not sure, I think we’ll have to wait for the fog to clear.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

It felt as though they had been in the fog for days. Time had lost all meaning as they stumbled around. They found the river, which was at the base of the ridge they had camped upon. The shroud of fog maintained a strange, eerie silence. Several times both Tarnish and Maud had felt something crawling over them, or slithering against them. Maud remained in a wide eyed state of alertness.

It might have been Tarnish’s imagination, but the fog was getting thicker, or seemed to be. His vision was fuzzy and he could feel that he had strained his eyes from trying to squint to see everything.

“Maud, if we keep walking along the river, we’ll find the cave…”

“Tarnish, that’s a terrible idea.”

“Well, I was just sayin’—”

“Terrible idea.” There was a strange emphasis in Maud’s voice.

He nodded and then thought about ghastlies in the mist. He decided that he wanted no part of that. The sunlight burned them, but this fog was thick enough that they might be able to come out of the cave. Without meaning to, Tarnish let out a whimper and part of him wanted his mama.

“Look.” Maud pointed with her hoof.

It took Tarnish moment to make out what it was she was pointing at, and his lip curled back in disgust when he saw that it was a dead bird. Something was wrong with it, so very wrong. It’s eyeballs had burst out of its tiny, feathered head, and its entrails had squirted out of its backside. It was awful, really awful.

Dead bird - 79!

As Tarnish finished writing down the number in the notebook he carried, a lone tendril of poison joke sprouted from the dead bird’s corpse. It coiled around the body, moving with explosive growth, and then a single poison joke flower bloomed. Already, nature was resetting itself.

“What happened?” Tarnished asked.

“I don’t know,” Maud replied. “Bad magic… but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Could this happen to a pony?”

“Maybe.”

Tarnish shuddered and wished that he was someplace dry, sunny, and free of fog.

He had never been happier to see the sunlight. He stared up, squinting, glad to see Princess Celestia’s sun. Rays of golden light speared through what was left of the fog, burning it away. The strange fog retreated, going wherever it was that strange, creepy fog went when it wasn’t welcome anymore.

There were lots of dead animals scattered about along the bank of the river, near the mouth of the cave. Birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, little dead bodies were everywhere and no doubt, all of them had high readings.

Poison joke had begun sprouting from many of them and Tarnish had a peculiar sensation that he was going to sneeze again. The feeling lingered, but nothing happened. He gave himself a shake and tried to get the water off of his pelt.

Turning about, Tarnish was treated to an odd sight. The fog seemed to be retreating into the cave. It was probably just some optical illusion, some trick of the eye brought about by fear, panic, and an overactive imagination. Or maybe there was some science to it, like cold air moving to where other cold air was when hot air filled an area. He didn’t know, but it creeped him out and made his skin crawl to watch it.

“Lots of dead fish too,” Maud said, making an observation as she stood on the edge of the river. “I’d hate to think of Cranberry being caught in this fog.”

Tarnish nodded. “All of the dead bodies are around the river and near the mouth of the cave. Over there”—he pointed with his hoof—“and over there”—again, he pointed with his hoof—“the ground is free of dead bodies. So it seems to me that whatever happened, the worst of it was right here. I’m betting that if we checked out readings to our relative location somehow, they would get higher as we approached the river and weaker as we moved away from it.”

“Perhaps.” Maud nodded. “We’ll worry about that later. We should return to Cranberry. No doubt, she is hankering to leave and she’ll need to make the most of whatever is left of the daylight if she wants to get out of this area.”

“You’re right.” Tarnish nodded. “We should go.”

True to her word, Cranberry had done some baking. Cranberry cookies sat cooling on a plate, well, more like craisin cookies, and there were craisin scones as well. She had packed up her stuff and her rig stood nearby, waiting.

“Have fun in the fog?” Cranberry asked.

“Not really,” Tarnish replied.

“Sorry to hear that.” Cranberry gave Tarnish a warm, sincere smile. “Take care of yourself, Mister Teapot, and look after your pretty wife. I really must be going. Daylight is burning.”

“Thank you, for everything.” Tarnish stood, feeling flustered, not quite sure what to do. He hated saying goodbye and Cranberry was no mere casual acquaintance. Something about her… something about how she was… they had only been friends for a short time, but it felt as though they had been friends since, well, forever.

Much to Tarnish’s surprise, Cranberry lunged forwards and grabbed Maud, embracing her, and squeezing her in a ferocious hug. It took Maud a moment, but she responded, returning the hug. She gave Cranberry a squeeze.

And then, Tarnish found himself being hugged, and he hugged her right back, ignoring the excessive amounts of moisture building up in his eyes. The day was getting was far too warm now and his eyeballs were sweating. He wrapped a foreleg around Cranberry’s neck and held on for dear life.

Then, much to his dismay, Cranberry pulled away. He stood, watching as she slipped on her pack, he watched through blurry eyes as she secured her many straps and buckles, and he felt Maud leaning up against him.

“Goodbye, Cranberry, and good luck saving other ponies,” Maud said.

“See ya later, both of you,” Cranberry replied as she bounced a few times to secure her pack and make certain it was comfortable.

It took effort just to say anything, and Tarnish could hear the squeak in his own voice. “Goodbye!”

Satisfied with her pack, Cranberry hummed a few bars and then began singing in a cheerful, chipper voice that held the sadness at bay as she began to trot away. “We’ll meet again… don’t know where… don’t know when… but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day… keep smiling through… just like you always do… till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away...”

Author's Notes:

Thank you, Vera Lynn, for making the world a brighter, better place.