“Tarnish, are you sure you’re okay?” Maud asked as she watched the unicorn that she loved more than just about anything else in the whole wide world start tearing open the remaining packages of junk food.

“I’m starving… it hurts so much inside… but I feel fine otherwise… but if I don’t eat, I’m gonna die,” Tarnish replied as he sat down on a rock and then began to stuff his face.

Maud watched him eat, still feeling worried, not understanding what had taken place. The earth around her had been carpeted in poison joke. Somehow, Tarnish had made it grow. Spontaneous manifestation and growth. No seeds, no shoots, no nothing. It boggled the mind. In her pocket, she felt Boulder vibrating and if she listened, she could hear his faint song.

The poison joke, now planted, could begin its work, but it would be a long time before the surrounding land would heal, if it ever healed. She thought about the strange, glowing crystal growths that she had found. The beetle melon. The horrible grapes. Had all those things been caused by this? She turned to look at Tarnish. The strange blue mist was still leaking from his eyes, rising up like smoke. His amulet was flashing from bright blue to black. Tarnish’s natural defenses had compensated for the flux of chaotic magic, and were still compensating. He was cramming food into his mouth with so much reckless abandon that Maud worried that he might choke. She had never seen him eat like this before. She wondered how long it would take before the land healed itself.

Centuries?

Perhaps.

Centuries were a short time for rocks and the terra firma.

With one reckless, careless act, ponies had caused unfathomable ruin upon the land, and it would take centuries before the land in the surrounding area healed. The Ghastly Gorge was going to get a lot worse. There would be new monsters, new plants, new mutations, this was an act that would have consequences. Maud, still looking at Tarnish, thought about her husband and his place in the world. His actions were not a conscious act. His magic reacted to the environment around him. She wondered if she would see him spontaneously create poison joke again. She might. Maud felt that there were good odds.

Tarnish’s horn fizzled, causing Maud’s ears to perk, and then the strange blue mist leaking from his eyes faded away. Tarnish’s amulet was now flashing from a light blue to a dark shade of blue, but not black. Tarnish guzzled down a bottle of Luna~Cola, which stained his lips a shade of bluish-purple.

Heading to the wagon, Maud decided that it was time to go to work.

Blinking, Maud looked down at the thaumaton reader. She blinked again, her expression sleepy and bored, but deep inside, Maud was a churling maelstrom of emotions. She had taken a reading from a rock that she had found near the skeletons and had cracked open. Eighty one bars. Deep into red. So very close to one hundred, the highest reading the device could measure.

Fifty six bars were fatal levels, as indicated by the little skull and crossbones. The corner of Maud’s mouth twitched, it was a faint thing, almost unnoticeable except by the most observant of ponies. The two surveyors should have died long before reaching the point that they did.

Unless of course, the change had not happened in a gradual way, but all at once. Had the surveyors come to the spot to place the sign, started to hike in, placed the first sign, unaware that the ambient background radiation was rising, or about to rise? Had something gone off in an explosive burst? Maybe when the surveyors had visited, the radiation wasn’t so bad, but continued exposure had finished them off.

It was time to talk with Twilight Sparkle. Maud intended to talk to the mare herself. She had a few angry things to say. Maud reconsidered. Being angry with Twilight wasn’t going to fix anything. The land was already ruined and would probably continue to get worse for a time.

Sighing, she looked at the thaumaton reader. Eighty one bars. She and Tarnish were sitting in enough harmful magical radiation to cook a pony. The soothing sound of Boulder’s singing calmed her. There was no point in being angry. Anger would not fix this. Rage would not right this wrong.

Only time. Lots of time.

She turned off the thaumaton reader and then began to pack it away. It would be used again later. Inside, deep within herself, Maud felt the same kind of hurt that she had felt when Tarnish had been petrified and turned to stone. She shut the lid to the box and left it sitting there on the ground.

Even though the circumstances had changed, the plan was still the same. She had come here to survey the Crack of Doom. She would still do that. She would measure and take readings of everything she could. She looked at Tarnish and had an idea. What if she could get him to surge again, only this time, on camera? There had to be some real hot spots around here. What would it prove though, from a scientific standpoint? Maud wasn’t certain.

Theories had to be made. There had to be more than just reckless experimentation. All Maud needed was for Tarnish to say that he was feeling funny and then have the camera ready. The moving picture camera. She wanted other ponies to see this. What good would it do though? It wouldn’t convince them of anything unless there was also data. Useful, meaningful data. Her ears perked as Tarnish let out a belch that echoed off of the rocks.

She looked northwards, her eyes staring at the horizon. Northwards… the Froggy Bottom Bogg… all of this would affect the wetlands. Beyond the Froggy Bottom Bogg was Ponyville. No doubt, with this much magic, the river would change. The water would become irradiated. The rocks would change. The ground would change. Froggy Bottom Bogg would probably have more monsters and hostile plant life. What would that mean for Ponyville? For the Everfree?

Had this caused the giant spiders? What if they had been small giant spiders at first… but then had mutated into giant, enormous, hulking giant spiders? Maud had questions, but no answers. The quarray eels were acting funny, or so Feather Quill had mentioned.

This was only the beginning of this disaster. Long after Maud was dead, gone, and returned to the rocks, this mistake would still be plaguing Equestria. But this, this was not the first time this mistake had been made. There was an outright war on poison joke, burning it away, destroying it. What had Equestria done? Had the many monsters came about because of recklessly destroying the environment? What had destroying null wood trees done to the land? Tarnish talked about them sometimes after he was done studying, wondering what they were like.

Tired of thinking, Maud sighed.

“—so you are telling me that Tarnish caused a spontaneous manifestation, followed by explosive growth, filling the area with poison joke?” Twilight’s voice asked, coming out of the mirror.

“Yup,” Tarnish replied before Maud could.

“Twilight, they have to stop burning away the poison joke around dangerous areas.” Maud lifted her hoof and gestured to the land around her, not thinking about the fact that Twilight couldn’t see it.

“You’ve explained your theory, but we need proof. They’re just going to keep burning. We can’t go on speculation and conjecture. The poison joke in the area you are in proved fatal, a student from Las Pegasus university died.”

“What happened?” Tarnished asked, his eyes popping from astonishment.

“I don’t know the dark, gritty details,” Twilight replied.

“Twilight, as bad as one death is, with more monsters, more mutations, more wild magic, there is going to be more death.” Maud peered into the mirror, her eyes narrowing as she focused on Twilight’s face, which was visible within the silver surface of the glass. “The land feels all wrong. Burning it was wrong. The land feels violated.”

“Yeah Twilight, everything looks pretty bad. The entire forest is gone, not just the poison joke. Hundreds of acres of dead, black trees.” Tarnish rubbed his stomach, belched, and then took a deep breath. “I feel funny again… like I did before.”

“Tarnish?” Maud asked.

“Is he sick?” Twilight’s voice sounded panicked. “I can come right away!”

“No,” Tarnish said in a strained voice. “You’ll die here, we’re sitting in the red… I think my body is just… trying to process… all the harmful magic.”

“He had blue mist pouring out of his eyes.” Maud grabbed the mirror and held it in her fetlock as Tarnish’s telekinesis sputtered and died. “His eyes went all white… he’s been eating everything we have… he’s been eating dry oatmeal right out of the container.”

“Maud, I hate to suggest this, but you two might need to get out of there. If Tarnish can’t stop eating, it might mean that his magic is depleting him.” Twilight’s voice was serious and full of worry.

“We have enough food for me to finish surveying the area, I think,” Maud said as she looked at Tarnish. His horn was sparking. “Might be a change in plans though. You might be right Twilight. Once we’re done here, I think we’ll head east, towards Appleloosa, and get back to some kind of civilisation. Think you can meet us in Appleloosa if we contact you once we get there?”

“I sure can,” Twilight replied.

“I’ll see what I can do about getting you some data on the area. Try to send it to the ponies who would know how to read it.” Maud glanced at Tarnish, who appeared to be vibrating. She reached out with her free hoof and poked him. He belched.

“Once you two leave that area, use the thaumaton reader to check yourselves… you don’t want to go into a populated area with enough magical radiation emanating from you to cause a disaster,” Twilight said.

“I already planned on that. We have the rectal probe attachment for the thaumaton reader. I think Tarnish will read normal, call it a hunch, but I might be hot for a while.” Maud could see worry on Twilight’s face in the mirror.

“Maud’s hot all right,” Tarnish remarked.

“Tarnish.” Maud looked at her husband.

“Well, you are… I dunno why, but I am a horny little unicorn… I feel… great. I feel energised. I feel like a million bits. But I also feel a little weird. But, like, in a good way.” Tarnish sprang up onto his hooves, lifted his tail high, and then went pronking off with no warning, bouncing through the poison joke.

“I need to go. My husband is acting strange. It’s like he’s turned into a big colt,” Maud said in a flat, solemn deadpan.

“Good luck, I’ll see you in Appleloosa,” Twilight replied.

“Feel better?” Maud, feeling worried, even though her expression did not show it, looked down at Tarnish. She reached out and stroked his cheek with her folded fetlock.

“I feel fine. I feel full. And tired. I gotta rest, Maud. I’m sleepy,” Tarnish replied.

Looking at the amulet hanging around Tarnish’s neck, Maud noted that the sapphire now glowed a pale blue and stayed that way. She looked around and noted that Tarnish was laying down in the absolute center of the poison joke. He had himself an island of stability. He closed his eyes and Maud continued rubbing his cheek. She was tired too. It was a safe bet that they were safe here. This place was a deadzone.

Yawning, Maud laid down beside Tarnish, scooting up against his side, snuggling up against him. The poison joke all around her was fragrant, pleasant smelling, and stood out in sharp contrast to the sharp tang of sulphur and ozone. Maud lay her head down upon Tarnish’s withers, glad to be close him, and she heard the unicorn beside her make a happy, contented little grunt.

When they woke up, there would be work to do. So much work. Maud suspected that if Tarnish left behind his island of stability that he had created, his natural defenses would kick in and there would be another display. She hoped that she could get it on camera.

Going further into the Crack of Doom would probably be quite an experience.

Author's Notes:

There is a lesson here...