Unfamiliar

She anticipated she would be going back. In sleep, she would always go back one way or another. There'd be that sickly sweet scent in the air she'd come to be familiar with and it'd haunt her until she woke. However, the environment around her would often not be the same. The smell could come from anywhere, whether she was in a white void or slogging through a dreamt-up swamp. As such, it was not all that surprising to her when she opened her eyes to see a strange pillar surrounded by carved stones. She waited a moment for the scene to change and, when it did not, she rose to her hooves to investigate

It was unlike anything she'd seen before. The rocks on the ground had runes etched into them, which she could force into looking like a bird or a lily pad, but overall wasn't sure what they stood for. And then there was the thing in the middle - a tall, foreboding obelisk that glinted in the light. She sniffed at it from a distance, but doing so provided her with no helpful sensory information. She skirted around the formation, staring inward at the whole of it. Despite seeming safe overall, she had a nagging feeling in her chest telling her to stay away. For the time being, she listened

And then, the air nearby began to change. There were the sound of murmurs, though she didn't initially see anything when she spun her head towards the sound. Confused, she stood still with her ears held aloft, trying to catch as much sound as she could. Surely the stones weren't talking, were they? In her stillness, she saw a shimmer and then another. If she didn't focus her eyes too awful much, she could see something slithering through the air. They were the shapes of kin, approaching the obelisk and speaking with each other. In their less than opaque state, they didn't seem to be able to detect Cloy standing there, but she took several steps back regardless. She felt as if she was disturbing something... She'd rather just watch instead of get in the way

They ghostly kin paced about, doing this and that to the mysterious rocks. They seemed about as clueless towards it as she was and went on exploring it for quite some time. As she had nothing better to do, Cloy settled down in the grass beneath some shade to observe their progress. She noticed that every now and again one of them would react, as if seeing something she could not. She sighed and laid her head atop her hooves. Whatever was going on, it didn't look like she was going to get a very good explanation

She'd begun to doze (which was a little strange - sleeping within a dream) by the time the gathering collectively winced, as if the sun itself had beamed down into their eyes. She tried to lift her head, as they'd begun to spin around, looking at...something. Her efforts were in vain, though. It was as if tar had glued her jaw to her legs. No amount of fighting would separate them, so she elected to not struggle. She didn't wish to hurt herself and have the injury reflected on her waking form. Besides, the area had begun to grow black anyway, her eyes heavy. She was being slowly drug from the dream, pulled back into the real world. It could have been an elongated fight, with her insisting on watching the ghost-kin for a few minutes more, but that would be tiresome. Cloy simply shut her eyes