As her friends gathered with her, Twilight lit her horn faintly and began to observe the items in the sack one by one. Most of the things were basic items like, food, water bottles, and a first aid kit, but there were also some very peculiar ones too. The first one Applejack noticed as it fell from the sack, was a brown piece of paper, she picked it up in her teeth

“What in the hay is this”

Twilight looked over and saw moving purple lines on it. She quickly snatched it from Applejack

“It looks like a map, this purple trail must represent the magic the Princess was talking about, and these little dots must be us”.

There were six dots, all different colors in accordance with her friends on them, and then a long purple trail that seemed to constantly shift around on the map. Besides some basic land marks and features, the map was not very detailed, although the magic that was causing the dots and lines to move would probably make up for that, Twilight just wasn’t sure how yet.

Besides the map, there was also a number of weird devices in the bag which Twilight could not identify, but since the Princess felt the need to add them, she felt sure they would need them. Twilight began to place all of the items back in the bag with her magic, once she had finished she looked up to see her friends quickly look away from her, she raised her eyebrow suspiciously.

“What?”

Her friends all seemed sheepish to speak and pretended not to understand what she meant. She looked to Applejack, she knew she would get the truth from her

“What, what are you all staring at me for”

AJ looked unwilling to answer “umm, well-you see-umm, well the thing is sugar cube…”

Rainbow Dash cut across her, seeing that she was struggling

“Are you sure you’re up for this journey Twilight, I mean, you haven’t really…you know been yourself since Cantterlot, you sure you want to go?”

Twilight huffed “No I don’t want to go, but the Princess asked me too so I will, so let’s go”.

With that statement she turned and began walking towards the train station, her friends quickly catching up when they realized she meant 'let’s go right now'.

Although it took some time to convince the train conductor to take them as far as the train could go while still following the map, they eventually succeeded and found themselves on route to the edge of Equestria. Twilight sat in the back of the train away from her friends, but she still listened to them talk, they seemed to be generally excited for their journey.

“Fluttershy, are you quite sure Spike will be okay, watching after your little animal friends while we’re gone, who knows how long this journey might take” Rarity shivered at the thought of poor Spike tending to all Fluttershy's animals

Fluttershy nodded, not seeming lyworried at all, in fact she seemed a little bit confident

“Don’t worry Rarity, I gave him instructions on how to to take care of everyone, he could last at least a month without my help now, and I don’t think we should be gone that long, do you?”

Rarity flushed “Oh well I have no idea darling, I just wanted to make sure you were ok with leaving him there”. Rainbow Dash hovered above the others, seemingly the only pony not interested in the conversation at hoof. She hovered her way back to Twilight, and although it was clear to that Twilight wanted to be alone, she knew that Twilight needed her friends. Rainbow flew next to Twilight, lightly floating back and forth in front of her

“Sooooo, what do you think is at the end of this ‘magical trail’ the Princess told you about”

Rainbow waved her hooves at the words “magical trail” like it was some special word. Luckily for her, the magic trail was actually something Twilight wanted to discuss. She pulled the map out of her bag, and rolled it out on the floor for Rainbow to see

“Well personally” Twilight began “I can’t seem to tell, I know these little dots are us”

She pointed to the six dots moving slowly across the map

“But I can’t see the end of the trail, as the dots, (us), move past certain land marks, the images on the map change, seeming to scroll to a new section, but no matter how many times the map has changed, the end of the trail doesn’t seem to be visible to me yet”

Rainbow rubbed her head “well the Princess did say that the trail led almost out of Equestria, and since we’re still in Equestria I guess it makes sense you can’t see the end yet”.

Twilight hadn’t even considered that, she looked up from the map at Rainbow Dash “That’s very observant of you Rainbow Dash…why didn’t I think of that”.

Rainbow seemed to have been waiting for a question like this, and dove right in, figuratively of course. She landed next to Twilight.

“Well I can tell you why Twilight, because you’re not being you. If you were how you should be, you’d of figured that out hours ago”

Twilight saw where this was going, and knew what Rainbow was going to do

“Oh Rainbow Dash please don’t…”

“Seriously Twilight you need to listen to me!”

Rainbow cut her off, not wanting to give Twilight a chance to stop her

“You haven’t been yourself since Canterlot, you’ve stopped going to the spa, you’ve stopped coming to Pinkie’s parties, you’ve stopped spending time with us nearly all together! We’re your friends Twilight, you shouldn’t hide from us, you know that, you wrote an entire letter to the Princess once about it. We want to help you Twilight, I know it hurts, but he’s gone, and you have to let it go! You can’t shut yourself away in your house for the rest of your life, come and be with your friends we’ll help you get through this. This journey is the perfect time to refresh yourself and get back to life!” Rainbow finally stopped and looked at her, it seemed she had been preparing that for her for quite awhile, for she looked out of breath at the end, not tired, just relieved.

Twilight turned away from her “You want to help me Rainbow Dash, THEN GIVE ME BACK MY DAYBREAK!” She turned and ran through the door, Rainbow watched her run to the very back of the train and out onto the back railing of the caboose.
Rainbow Dash flew back over to her friends, she barely floated over and her friends could tell from her expression that things had not gone well

“Ah’m guessing that she didn’t warm up to coming over here with her friends, did she?”

Rainbow shook her head at Applejack, she truly felt bad for Twilight, she had some feelings for Daybreak as well, and had actually planned on asking Twilight and him if they wanted to be in a three pony herd with her. It was mostly about the sex, but she cared deeply for both of them and it would have been nice to have, but like Twilight, she had lost him and now she was forced to move on. Rainbow acknowledged that Twilight couldn’t “move on” from him, but that was not what they had done either, she just needed to understand that, but she was all around unwilling to even try. Rainbow hated to admit it, but right now Twilight was acting as stubborn as she was. She let out a sigh, this was going to be one long journey.

…..

Daybreak had yet to find much of anything along his walk, no matter how far he traveled, it seemed like this forest was never ending. Every so often he would find a random tree and climb to the top, hoping to see some form of settlement somewhere, but as of yet, he had only ever been met with more forest and clearings.

After a considerable amount of time passed, he yet again found a tree and climbed to the top. This time however, he was greeted with a sight very different from before. As he looked over the top of the many trees that lay before him, he saw an end to his seemingly endless forest walk. There, at about 50 meters ahead of him, he saw the path of trees end at a cliff side, beyond that he could not tell, but anything was better than wondering this forest for another day. He jumped from tree to tree, desperate to keep the cliff edge in his sights. He finally cleared the forest with one last long jump, but as he looked over the cliff, he immediately regretted his choice. The trees completely ended after the cliff, Daybreak panicked in the air and quickly teleported back to the top of the cliff before he could start to fall.

Once his feet were on solid ground, he gently leaned over and realized, he was on top of a mountain. The mountain must have been huge, for there were clouds that he would occasionally pass by if he were to continue in the air. Even still, despite his height above the ground, as Daybreak looked over the mountain/cliff edge, he could see very vague structures lay at the bottom. He was unable to make out whether they were buildings or not from this height, but seeing as he was starving, and the possibility of buildings meant the possibility of food, he decided that it was better than nothing.

He gave a slight jump over the edge, and quickly found that it wasn’t as steep as he first had thought. For once he jumped he was able to gently slide down the side of the mountain in his own miniature rock slide. It wasn’t particularly comfortable on his feet, but it was defiantly quicker than walking and better than slipping. Plus this way he could keep his eyes locked on the structures at the bottom, which were quickly growing larger.

Daybreak never took his eyes off the structures at the bottom of his rock ride, but that made him used to the sight and could not see the changes as they happened. However once he rubbed his eyes from yawning, he realized he could fully comprehend what they were now. Unfortunately he was met with a slight disappointment, they were not buildings, or at least not the ones he had hoped to find. As he hit the bottom, he tripped, but he managed to roll into a summersault that made it look like he had meant to do that. He momentarily wondered what Rainbow Dash would have thought of that move, then he shook his head. He knew he could not allow himself to become distracted, if he thought of his friends, he would miss them, if he missed them, he would not focus on his situation, and if he did not focus, he would never find his way back to his Twilight.

Daybreak resumed his walk toward the old ruins, for that was the best way he could describe them “they had a very ruiny look about them” as Pinkie would say. He chuckled at his own sad joke, it was odd, he hadn’t thought of his friends until this point, even Twilight. He knew that had kept him on task and undistracted, but still, his thoughts seemed unusually focused, not wondering off like he used to, now he wanted to daydream.

Now that he thought about it, he did miss those nights, the nights he and Twilight had shared, making love, talking, even just reading together, those moments seemed like an eternity ago to him. He felt a faint tear in his eye, but not from his thoughts, he looked down and felt a sharp pain in his left hand. He realized he had been squeezing his claws into his hand. He rolled his eyes, he must be getting stressed out, all this thinking about Twilight and how much he did truly miss her, was making him forget what was important at the moment, finding out where he was, so he could get back to her. He almost chuckled, he had to stop thinking about her, so he could find a way to get back to her, Pinkie would have thought that made sense.

Daybreak realized with his daydreaming and stabbing his own hand, he had arrived at the ruins. They seemed very elaborate in design, obviously made of stone, but still apparently holding carved images on them. The designs were intricate, but too eroded to be discernable, he had a feeling though, if he found some that were more protected from the outside air, he might be able to understand them. He proceeded to look for some entrance to an underground temple or something. He didn’t have much to go on, but with all of the Daring Do books he had read with Rainbow Dash, and a number of other adventure type books he read with Twilight, weird ruins always seemed to have some kind of hidden temple or underground fortress. It was a foolish and unscientific hope, Twilight would have never thought to believe that, but he felt it couldn’t hurt to try.

For the next several minutes he wandered around the stone ruins, touching, poking, or examining everything he could, whether with his hands, or his magic. He just wanted to make something interesting happen so this wouldn’t feel like a waste of time. He poked a number of, what he considered to be, weird looking rocks, but he was continually frustrated by failure. He even tried kicking a large ruin out of frustration, he had read about that working randomly too, but again, nothing. He finally conceded defeat and sat down on the nearest ruin he could find. He shot a small stone across the dirt with his magic, and watched it bounce around the buildings until it came to rest in front of a pair of large twin stone doors. Daybreak stood up “how’d I miss that…figures”

He shook his head, not even bothering to go there, and walked over to the doors. They obviously were not meant to open normally, a foal could have seen that just by looking at them, and judging by the fact that they were the only entrance to the large building they were in front of, he would obviously need to open them to proceed inside. So then the problem remained, how could he open the doors.

…..

Twilight awoke to the feeling of being launched out of her bed quite suddenly! She came up with her head only half out of her sheets, looking out the window, she could tell it was in the early hours of the morning, and still dark outside. Why then, had the train come to a sudden stop? Her question was answered when the conductor opened the door leading into her room, with her friends behind him and said

“Come on little missy, this is as far as the tracks go, you six are gonna have to hoof it from here”

Twilight groaned, this was the part she was going to despise, at least the train ride was comfortable, but judging by where their dots where in accordance with the magic stream last night, they still had several days of walking to do.

She pulled herself to her feet and walked past the conductor without a word. Once she came to the door, she hopped out of the train, then stood to wait for her friends. She saw them depart the train one by one, and once Fluttershy had finished thanking the conductor for the ride, she started on her way. She started so quickly, her friends nearly didn’t notice, Rainbow zoomed to catch up when she did, and forced her to slow down

“Whoa there Twilight, what’s the rush, wait for everypony else”

Twilight walked around her “I just want to get this over with and go home”.

Rainbow rolled her eyes, she flew back and caught the others up quickly, with some motivation, then returned to bugging Twilight.

“Why you in such a hurry, it’s not like we have any pressing matters to get back to” Twilight grumbled under her breath, but Rainbow could still make it out “I just don’t want to be out here so long”

Rainbow smirked “Why, worried you might have trouble dealing with your estrus out here?”. Twilight flinched at the mention, she knew her heat was fast approaching, without medicine, she would lose herself to her hormones, and that was not happening now that Daybreak was gone. Estrus always seemed to come around the time of her birthday, and her birthday had been weeks ago even though she had refused a party to Pinkie, she hadn't even returnd to where her gift from Daybreak was in the woods, for all she knew, it was covered in moss by now.

After they had been walking for most of the day, Twilight consulted the map to check their status. The stream looked the same as it did every time she looked at it, constantly moving and changing, but still unhelpful. She knew if she could just see a larger view of the map, then they could cut off the stream and see what they were after, but none of her magic seemed to do it, no matter what she tried to make happen. She finally became frustrated and tossed the map away from her. She sat down against a tree stubbornly, and everypony took that as a chance to rest. Applejack picked up the dmap and brought it back to Twilight

“What’s wrong sugar cube?”.

Twilight lifted her head from her hooves deciding to fill her in on her problem “I can’t see the entire map, no matter what I do, and it’s driving me crazy!”.

Pinkie Pie, out of nowhere, jumped out of the tree Twilight was under and yelped

"Did you try this!”

She snatched the map and jabbed it with her hoof. Twilight rolled her eyes, but when she took the map back, she could see the entire trail, start to finish, although “the finish” seemed odd to her.

“Pinkie..h-how did you do that?”

Pinkie hopped over to her

“Easily silly, I just poked the map like…this!” she poked it several more times, and Twilight watched it get bigger and smaller each time she poked it. Pinkie was defiantly enjoying herself

“Bigger, smaller, bigger, smaller, smaller, bigger”

Pinkie kept playing with it until Rarity snatched it away.

“Honestly Pinkie, you’re going to break it…here Twilight”.

Rarity gave the map back to Twilight, but she still seemed perplexed

“But this doesn’t make any sense”

Rainbow chuckled “Oh come on Twilight, it’s Pinkie Pie, of course it doesn’t”

Twilight shook her head “No not that, I mean the stream, it’s still moving, like the end of the stream is moving away from us”

Rainbow leaned down to see clearly “Well…what does that mean”.

Twilight actually looked interested for the first time since their journey had started “It means that whatever is causing this magic stream, is still making it, and it’s moving, so it must be a living thing”.

Fluttershy was the first one to comment on this knowledge

“Oh dear, I hope whatever it is isn’t hurt or anything, I mean, it might be a distress signal”

Twilight squinted at the map “We’ll soon find out girls, let’s sleep here tonight, once I’ve looked at this for awhile I can think of a way for us to cut this thing off and find out what it is”.

They all nodded, many of them just happy to finally rest. Rainbow flew next to AJ and whispered “At least now she’s actually interested in this thing, maybe this is just what she needs, another adventure!”

Applejack nodded “yeah, but for now, Ah say we catch some shuteye, we’ll need it tomorrow”

Rainbow nodded, then flew into the closest tree to sleep. Everypony found somewhere to sleep, except Twilight, she stayed under Rainbow’s tree and continued to stare at the map late into the night, trying to find a way to catch up to, or cut off, this thing they were chasing

“I will catch you” she whispered to herself.

“I will catch you!”.

….

Daybreak was beginning to develop a profound dislike of ancient buildings, for none of them seemed to like him. He had tried everything he could remember his friends teaching him; from asking nicely for the doors to open, to trying to blast or bash them open himself, but nothing worked! He felt like screaming, he could not believe he was being outsmarted by a building. He knew there was a way to open these doors, that’s what doors do, they open things. Yet all he could do with these doors was poke, pry and plead for something to happen. Nothing! He sat down in the sand/dirt and began to think if there was anything more he could do.

He had done everything his friends would have done, Rarity would have offered the door something, he had tried that. Fluttershy would have asked nicely, he had tried that. Pinkie Pie...well he didn’t have a party cannon on him, so he had tried telling it a joke, failure. Applejack and Rainbow Dash would have tried to break it down, his throbbing hands and feet told him that wasn’t working either. And Twilight would have tried to find a magical solution, aside from trying to blast it open, which had failed, he couldn’t think of any other way to magically open it.

His frustration became very apparent when the small croak of a frog, caused him to jump in the air, claws extended, ready to strike at the first sign of movement. Although, that might have been his anxiety, he was becoming more and more worried he was wasting his time here and should just move on. Then out of nowhere, and he meant nowhere, the doors began to creak, crackle and crunch as they started moving.

Daybreak rolled his eyes

“Figures, more weirdness, what’s next?”.

He almost expected the doors to answer him, but to his relief, they did not.

Once the doors were fully opened, Daybreak stuck his head inside them, he then saw that the doors opened up to an underground tunnel. Although he was not too fond of walking in a dark tunnel, he had come this far, and nothing, other than his common sense, said he shouldn’t continue forward. He started forward, taking each step slowly, not wanting to trip any ancient traps that might be lurking about. He remembered reading about ancient traps and temples in one of the Darin Do books Rainbow Dash had loaned him. Some of them had been very graphic and gory, and he was in no hurry to have himself dropped into a pit with spikes in it. So he checked each and every step he took, but as cruel fate would have it, he eventually did, hit a trap stone!

He brought up his hands, preparing to magically assault whatever horrid thing attacked him. But the only thing that changed, was the amount of light in the room. Daybreak turned around in horror, praying to Celestia that he was wrong. He wasn’t, the doors a few yards away were shutting themselves, and trapping him inside the tunnel. He sprinted to the entrance, but he came up short. By the time he reached the entrance, the doors were shut, and he was trapped in.

Daybreak lit himself a magical light on his finger, and cursed his rotten luck. He felt foolish, now he had no choice but to continue his walk and hope there was an exit some ways away. He started forward…no longer bothering to check his footing, he felt oddly sure that had been the only trap in the immediate area. As Daybreak traveled deeper and deeper in the tunnel, it became excruciatingly obvious that there was no end near. He began to wonder if he would have been better off trying to break free, but then he remembered, all is attempts at the door from the outside had failed, so why would it work now. No, he was better off following this through to the end, it’s not like he had anything left to lose, he’d already blown himself up and that hadn't killed him. It was sad, but he actually chuckled at that thought.

After what seemed like another endless eternity of walking, Daybreak began to spot shimmering light at, what seemed like, the end of the tunnel. He sprinted towards the light, not even bothering to concentrate enough to keep his own light active. Daybreak burst into the room filled with light, and he immediately wanted to scream in surprise! He looked around the room, it was filled with green light, luminescent green light, that bounced off thousands of green transparent sacks!

They were everywhere, they lined the walls, and even hung from the ceiling. Daybreak wanted to vomit, the little sacks were disgusting, each one dripped globs of icky green glop. He had no idea what kind of tunnel he was in…but he wanted out, so he carefully tip-toed his way through the room. He carefully avoided going near any of the sacks if he could. At one point he actually got a good glimpse of one. As he passed it the light in the room shone onto it. He could see there was some kind of odd looking creature on the inside. It twitched and swirled, but never woke from its apparent slumber.

Daybreak quickly let out a sigh of relief as he saw the exit to this room of horrors. He quickly shimmied his way past two sacks and continued into a much larger room. The next place Daybreak found himself, looked like the thing he had actually wanted to find in the first place…readable ruins.

The room was much larger than the last, but only in width, the walls instead of being lined with sacks, were lined with writing and ancient pictures. Daybreak had only minimal light from the previous room, so he decided to light his own. However the moment he did, every single picture and letter cover the walls burst into light, echoing the color of his magic. He was so stunned he almost ceased the spell, but his curiosity deafened him to the sounds now coming from the previous room.

Daybreak began to stare at the ruins closest to him, the little pictures shimmered in the light of his magic, they almost seemed to be moving, but he knew it was only in his mind. What he saw however, made no sense, he couldn’t see how it was possible. He had little time to decipher what exactly this new knowledge meant for him, for at that moment, he saw the shadow of a creature with razor sharp teeth, directly behind him! Daybreak turned to the creature, and held back a scream of terror!