The burning sun in the sky, the hot breeze, the dusty roads, the faint smell of cherries that permeated everything... Actually, that one wasn't too bad, and while Twilight might once have been reluctant to say anything against the sun, they all agreed that Dodge Junction, with its uncomfortably warm southern location, left much to be desired, like some shade, a cool drink, and a train ride somewhere else. Sat in the singular inn that Dodge Junction had, they had at least two of those things, but the third was definitely off the menu.

"I'm pretty sure it's only going to get worse from here on in," said Twilight. "I've never been to the Badlands, but I'm fairly sure it didn't earn its name by being a lush and vibrant land. Not to mention the creatures that live there, as well as the changelings."

Moondancer pushed her breakfast around on her plate and sighed, "I'm not going to pretend to not mind, but after freezing all of last night, I now feel like I'm sweating my own body weight every hour. How could ponies possibly live here?"

Trixie rapidly chewed the chunk of toast in her mouth, and swallowed. "Y'know Moony, you could maybe, possibly, remove that rather thick and noticeably black turtleneck you insist on wearing."

"I am not taking my sweater off, and stop calling me Moony!"

"But it's cute! And it works so well with the group; Sunny, Moony, Twily, and Trixie. Perfect!"

"I think you can leave out calling me Sunny as well," Sunset said quietly.

"Why? What could possibly be so bad about that?"

"My parents called me Sunny, and we didn't exactly part on good terms."

Trixie rolled her eyes, "Great, so now we all have tragic back-stories. And here I thought that yours would at least have a nice start."

Sunset shrugged, "I'm not going to go into it as I made peace with it long ago, but the fact is I hate my parents, so don't use their pet name for me."

"Oh pssh," Trixie scoffed, lazily waving a hoof at Sunset, "it's just a name, and hating your parents hardly sounds like a good reason to get snippy at ponies."

Twilight leaned forwards and rested her chin on her hooves as she smirked at Trixie, "Is that right... Lulamoon?"

Trixie stopped and narrowed her eyes at Twilight, "Now why did you feel the need to call me that?"

"I don't know what you mean Trixie," Twilight said innocently; "it's just a name. That, and only my brother gets to call me Twily."

Trixie threw her hooves up in the air, "Fine! I guess we'll all just go around calling each other by our proper names if it makes you all feel so much better!"

"I knew you'd unders-"

"That still doesn't explain why Moondancer won't remove her sweater. Are you horribly disfigured under there or something?"

"Of course I'm not! I just don't want to take it off!"

"Strip!" Trixie started to chant, "Strip! Strip! Strip! I'll give you ten bits if you do!"

"Rrrgh!" Moondancer snatched her breakfast up in her magic and stormed off to another table, putting her back to the rest of them.

"Nice work Trixie," Sunset said sarcastically, while Twilight glared at the blue mare.

"I gave you one simple instruction Trixie, which was to be nice to Moondancer. Care to explain that?"

"She'll feel better if she takes it off."

"Even though she doesn't want to."

"Exactly! Clearly she doesn't know what's best for her, and I'm trying to help. That, and I want to see what's under there." Trixie looked at Moondancer as the unicorn sullenly ate her breakfast, "I'll get her naked some day."

Using her magic, Twilight grabbed Trixie's nose and pulled it around until they faced each other. "Ignoring that comment, unless it gets to the point that she's about to suffer from serious heat stroke, you are going to leave her alone, is that clear?"

Trixie rolled her eyes at Twilight, "Crystal, your highness."

"Good! Now eat up! We have a long journey ahead of us, and I'd like us to actually make some progress on it today."

Twilight placed some bits on the bar to pay their bill, and lifted her gear onto her back as the others did the same. The time had finally come to go walking into one of the few places in the world that's ponies had no real business going. To say that they were excited about the prospect would be highly inaccurate.

"This is the worst idea in the history of ideas," Moondancer grumbled, making both Trixie and Sunset snigger to themselves. To them this barely even ranked in the top five.

"It'll be fine," said Twilight, trying to sound confident. She held the door open for the rest of them, and joined them on the dirt road that led out of town, and eventually out of civilization. "If we're careful the changelings won't even know we're there."

"And if they do find us?"

"Then they better outnumber us pretty good."

"Actually," Sunset said, unsure, "I was thinking it might not be a bad idea to look for somepony who could guide us through the Badlands. I'm sure there must be somepony in this dustbowl crazy enough to have been there before."

"I wouldn't count on it," Twilight said back, dismissing the idea. "There's never really been a reason good enough to warrant taking the risk of going in there. If it wasn't for the fact that Equestria is in a bit of a situation, I'd suggest bringing an army with us, or not going at all. All the same, the Badlands are surrounded by cliffs on all sides, with two entrances, so the odds on getting lost if we follow the cliffs are nil."

"The trick is to not get caught?"

"Exactly," Twilight nodded. "Now come on, dithering and putting this off won't make it any easier."

"What are we even looking for in there?" Trixie asked.

"Moondancer?"

Moondancer looked up and adjusted her glasses as Twilight said her name. "Right. Starswirl's journals on the time he spent here said he made camp on a small plateau amongst the cliffs on the west side of the Badlands. He also said the outskirts of the Badlands were the only places not always affected by a massive magical dead-zone that covers most of the area."

"What did he say about the changelings?" asked Sunset.

"Almost nothing. He studied a lot of the flora and fauna of the Badlands, but there's barely even a mention of the changelings, apart from the occasional feeling of being watched, which I can only assume was about the changelings."

"That's decidedly unhelpful."

"He was probably not including them in case ponies found out about the possible connection he has with them, if Faust's to be believed," said Twilight. "I doubt ponies would think well of him if they found out he created the changelings."

Trixie shook her head bemusedly, "That still sounds like a steaming pile of horse apples to me. While he might have been powerful, he was still only a unicorn, and I really doubt he possessed the ability to create life."

"I know," said Twilight. "I'd like some answers to that as well. Still, we're not going to find anything out by hanging around here."

The journey south was mostly done in silence, save for the chirping of insects and the occasional complaint. The other major sound was the laboured breathing of Moondancer, who started to lag behind after a few miles.

"This is exactly what I was talking about," Trixie said to Twilight. "She'd probably feel way better if she took that stupid jumper off, plucked her eyebrows, and changed her mane style." Trixie blanched as Twilight glared at her again, "Fine, but I'm still right about the jumper."

"As afraid as I am of the idea," said Sunset, "I think Trixie might be right."

"See! Unnecessarily insulting, but at least she agrees with me."

"Fine, I'll go talk to her." Twilight trotted back to where Moondancer was slowly plodding along, her chest heaving with every breath. "Hey Moondancer, are you struggling a little?"

"Too hot," Moondancer said bluntly. "I'm not used... to carrying... this much weight... in this kind of heat."

"Uhh..." Twilight glanced back up the road to where Trixie was nodding vigorously at them. "Maybe it would be a good idea to remove your jumper, so you don't overheat."

"No," Moondancer stated firmly. "Is this Trixie's plan? To get you... to ask me?"

"No, it's my plan to stop you from getting heat stroke and being seriously ill."

Moondancer stared flatly at Twilight for several seconds. "Even if I believed that, the fact is that I burn in the sun way too easily, so I'm keeping it on."

"But we have sun block."

"No! No! No! Stop asking, because I'm not taking it off!"

Twilight took a step back from Moondancer in surprise, "Okay, sheesh, I won't ask again. If you think we're getting too far ahead, give us a shout, and we'll slow down to let you catch up."

Moondancer sniffed haughtily and adjusted her gear before trotting past Twilight with her nose held high. A second later she gasped angrily as Twilight trotted past her with ease.

"Yeah, she's not taking it off," Twilight said to Trixie and Sunset once she caught up to them, falling into step with them as they started to walk again.

"She's not going to be a problem is she?" asked Trixie. "This seems horribly familiar to what happened with Octavia when we got to Mareitania. I doubt we'll find many kindly old mares to nurse her back to health out here."

"I think you'll find this is almost the polar opposite of what happened to Octavia, but you're not wrong either." Twilight looked back at where Moondancer was slowly trudging along behind them. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt to dump some water on her once in a while."

Slowly the land on both sides of the road started to rise, meaning that within a few hundred meters they were walking down through a canyon, that did at least afford them a little shade from the glaring sun. It also showed them the warnings daubed onto the sides of the canyons, warnings of the dangers ahead, and a few friendly suggestions that they turn back before it was too late. Not that they weren't going to ignore the warnings anyway, it certainly would have been easier if it weren't for the fact that most of the signs were written in a dark red.

"Is that blood?" Trixie asked a little sceptically. "It looks like blood. I didn't think ponies were into writing things in blood. Maybe if there were a few skeletons around, still lying where they fell, desperately trying to finish their warnings before their life ended I'd believe it, but there's nothing."

Sunset turned around to look at the dozens and dozens of warnings written on the canyon walls, "I'd believe it more if there was only one warning. I really doubt ponies would need more than a few before thinking coming down here's a bad idea." She looked up at the warnings that were several times higher than she could reach. "I also doubt that dying ponies had the strength to fly and write messages in their own blood."

"But who would write fake messages?" Moondancer asked once she caught up.

"The changelings I bet," Sunset replied. "Who else would have an interest in keeping ponies and whatever out of the Badlands? I imagine if this was Celestia's doing she'd use actual signs instead of this."

"But is it real blood or fake blood?" Trixie asked.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say fake," said Twilight. "I doubt Chrysalis would sacrifice a meal just to do this."

"Even after she's sucked all the love out of them?" Moondancer asked with a shudder.

Twilight thought about it, then shrugged, "Love isn't a finite resource, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that. Come on guys, let's not dwell on these obviously fake warnings, and get on with this."

Twilight marched stoically past the blood red warnings, and within another hundred meters she passed out through the end of the canyon, and into the dry, rocky, sun-blasted confines of the Badlands. She also staggered sideways as the full strength of the sun blasted against her, reminding her that down here in the south was a horrible place to be for oh so many reasons.

"You think Celestia does this just to piss Chrysalis off?" Sunset said as she shielded her eyes from glaring sun. "I want to think not, but too much of me says it's true."

"I wouldn't put it past her," Twilight muttered. She looked back as Moondancer groaned, "You okay there Moondancer?"

"Are we in hell? It feels like we're in hell."

"No, but this is probably the closest thing you can get to it."

"What's that?"

Twilight shielded her eyes and squinted in the direction that Trixie was looking, trying to discern through the shimmering heat what had caught her attention. It looked like a spire made of rock, but seemed too smooth and rounded to be a natural formation. There was also dozens of black dots hovering around it. "Oh dear."

"What?"

"I do believe that's the changeling hive."

"Oh. Shit." Trixie dropped her own hoof back to the ground, then shrugged. "I guess we're not going on a whacky adventure where we try to kill Chrysalis then?"

"Not on your life. We'd fail miserably, get captured, and probably have interesting things done to us. Very interesting, and very horrible things."

"How interesting, and how horrible?" Moondancer asked nervously.

"Lets just say my brother goes into a nervous sweat whenever he sees a bug in the castle, and leave it at that. He has to get Cadence or one of the guards to deal with spiders now."

"But the changeling invasion was almost three years ago now."

"As I said, very interesting, and very horrible things." Twilight grabbed her canteen and drank greedily from it as she thought. There was no real way to hide from the changelings, so she wasn't going to bother. The best they could hope was that they weren't spotted, as they likely couldn't defend themselves, not only because the changelings possessed highly superior numbers, but also because their magic was limited. Even holding her canteen in her levitation seemed to be taxing her more than it should.

"We should try and get to that plateau as soon as we can."

Trixie upended her canteen over her head, drinking as it splashed over her head, soaking her completely. "This endless water thing is incredible. Best invention ever!"

"Do I need to remind you of the magic dead zone we're in?" Twilight said, annoyed. "The magic on that canteen might stop working at any moment, and then you'll have no water. Or you might strain the enchantments making it work even here on the edge of the dead zone, and break it completely."

"Alright, I'll stop, sheesh."

"You're also washing your sunblock off."

"Trixie sweated that off hours ago, so that's hardly the issue."

"Put more on then!"

"I did! I sweated that off too."

"Guys?" Sunset said quietly, her throat too dry to shout. She opened her canteen and drank to fix that.

"Then keep putting more on!" Twilight continued, amazed that Trixie wasn't currently as purple as herself from sunburn.

"We're going to run out if I keep using it that fast. I'm pretty sure we should save some for that circle desert place as well."

"We can buy more supplies in Saddle Arabia Trixie, so don't worry about that."

"Guys!" Both of them stopped and turned to Sunset as she shouted at them, Sunset in turn pointing back at Moondancer in the distance, sat unmoving, and barely visible through the shimmering heat. "I think Moondancer's in trouble."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Twilight gasped as she trotted back past Sunset towards Moondancer.

Sunset directed a flat stare at Twilight's rear end, "Because I didn't think it was my job to keep an eye on Moondancer perhaps? I only just noticed." Sunset sighed bitterly and followed after Twilight, Trixie just behind her.

"Moondancer? Are you okay?" Twilight asked as she reached Moondancer, who was sat on the ground, panting heavily. She still had enough focus and energy to glare angrily up at Twilight.

"Do I look like I'm okay?! I'm too hot, I feel sick, and the ground is burning my hooves."

Twilight sighed and pulled Moondancer's bags off her back, "You've got heat stroke. I warned you that you could overheat if you didn't take that jumper off."

"And I'm still not taking it off!"

"Oh come on! What is it that's stopping you from taking it off? Are you determined to make yourself ill?"

"I'm not taking it off, and that's final!"

Twilight stared at the obstinate Moondancer until she started to get uncomfortable. She also made a decision. "It's not final."

"Excuse me?"

"You have heat stroke, you are making yourself ill, and you're slowing us down in what could possibly be the worst place to do so! Either you take that jumper off willingly, cool down, and try to get better, or I'll take it off you by force!"

"She will too," Trixie warned Moondancer. "She has issues with personal space."

Moondancer gawped up at Twilight's steely glare, shocked at the sudden aggression that she'd shown. "You don't mean that."

"Fucking try me Moondancer."

Moondancer stared up at Twilight a little longer, then growled. "Fine. Fine! You wanted this, so now you can deal with it!" Moondancer lit her horn and raised her legs, pulling the jumper off as fast as she could and throwing it to the ground, although Sunset caught it before it landed. "Are you fucking happy now?!"

"Uh... Yes?"

Moondancer was shocked. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"About what?"

"About these!" Moondancer shrieked, pointing at all the small, evenly spaced scars running up and her front legs. "Go on! Take a good long look!"

"Maybe you should stop shouting," Trixie suggested, only to be ignored.

"So you have some scars. That's hardly worth making a big deal of right now in place that we are."

"Twilight," Sunset said nervously, "you do know what those are, right?"

"Yes I know what they are!" Twilight shouted at Sunset, making her flinch. "And I also know that I'm probably the reason she put them there!"

Trixie frowned as she felt the ground tremble beneath them. She was fairly certain that wasn't normal. "Uh, guys, maybe you really should stop."

Moondancer stared open mouthed at Twilight with tears in her eyes, "So you know what these are, and what they're about, and you won't even acknowledge them?!"

"Guys, I really think you should stop shouting."

"Believe me Moondancer, they are incredibly acknowledged, and internally I am loathing myself quite severely, but right now we are in a place where we could be easily captured by changelings, stung by something poisonous, or eaten by something much bigger than us!"

"Guys! Shut up!" Trixie shouted as the tremors suddenly intensified.

"Or what Trixie?!" Twilight shouted back, only to fall silent as her brain suddenly registered the quaking earth. "Oh."

"What is this Twilight?" Sunset asked nervously, only for Twilight to throw Moondancer's bags onto Sunset's back, and her own onto Trixie's.

"Run."

"What?"

"Run!" The urgency in Twilight's voice spurred them all into action, and they began running as fast as they could in the opposite direction they came from. Seconds later the ground burst open where they'd been standing, and a massive, pink, worm-like creature rose up through the rock and dust, opening its maw to reveal the wriggling black tentacles in its tri-jawed mouth, and roared.

"What the fuck is that?!" Trixie screeched in shock, putting on a burst of speed as the creature lurched towards them.

"Tatzlwurm!" Twilight shouted back, only just being heard over the sound it made as it crashed onto the ground. "Keep going! I'll hold it off!"

"Are you serious?!"

"Yes! I am! Go!" Twilight spread her wings and used her momentum from running to lift herself in the air and loop back around to where the tatzlwurm was pushing itself along the ground like a snake. A massive, ten ton snake. Due to its size it didn't look like it was moving all that fast, but it wasn't only matching Trixie's, Sunset's, and Moondancer's speed, it was catching up to them.

"Oh no you don't!" Twilight dived towards the wurm, firing blast after blast of magic at it, scorching its scales and making it roar in pain. It reared up to confront its attacker, shooting its tentacles out to try and snatch her out of the air. Twilight deftly dodged them, and looped back around, only to be surprised as it coiled up like a spring and launched itself into the air.

Massive jaws snapped through the air, far too close for Twilight's comfort, but thankfully the beast had all the grace and manoeuvrability of a rock in the air, and it was easy enough to dodge. She looped back around and conjured a telekinetic blast that blew the wurm sideways into the cliff with a bone shaking crash.

The tatzlwurm fell back to the ground in a shower of rocks, and it took a few moments to shake itself loose. Twilight watched as the wurm shook its head in a daze, and thought it was about to give up when its tentacles snapped back out again, wrapping around her rear leg, and dragging her back towards its tooth filled maw.

"Get off!" Twilight fired blast after blast at the tentacle, which thankfully didn't seem as invulnerable to her attacks as the thick scales that covered the rest of the wurm. After a few tries she successfully blasted through the fleshy tendril, and pushed herself back into the air, the spasming remains of the tentacle still firmly wrapped around her leg.

The tatzlwurm wailed in agony as Twilight kicked the remnants of its tentacle off her leg. It coiled up defensively as it shifted backwards, trying to get away from her, but couldn't find a hole to escape into, not when it thought Twilight might still attack it. Then it looked sideways towards where her friends where still running, and it, along with Twilight, saw Moondancer lagging behind, struggling to run at all. A much easier prospect than Twilight.

"No!" Twilight shouted as the tatzlwurm squealed with delight and crashed face first into the ground, vibrating its scales so it less dug through the earth, and more swam through it, almost as fast as it could travel on the surface. It didn't go very deep though, as Twilight could see the earth cracking as it sped in a beeline straight for Moondancer.

As fast as it was though, Twilight was faster, and she overtook it just as Sunset and Trixie came running back towards Moondancer. Twilight slammed down on the ground behind Moondancer, grabbing her with magic to throw her towards the other two, both of them catching her in their telekinesis just as the tatzlwurm burst up through the ground, right underneath Twilight, smacking her up into the air. She formed a shield around herself, that the tatzlwurm clamped its jaws around, trying to crush her.

Twilight could hear her friends frantically shouting her name, and could feel the thud of magical impacts hitting the tatzlwurm's scaly hide. Logically she knew it should head back underground to safety, but as that hadn't happened she suspected that it wouldn't until it could close its mouth, which her shield was preventing it from doing. It wouldn't take long until it could though, as its mass of razor sharp teeth were already splintering her shield. She couldn't go back, and couldn't stay where she was. She could teleport out, but that could mean the wurm going back after Moondancer, so that left her with one option.

Twilight pushed herself past the teeth, and into the wurm's gullet before collapsing her shield, and sliding down into the warm, slimy darkness around her.

"Twilight!" Trixie screamed as the tatzlwurm's mouth finally snapped shut on Twilight. It keened with delight and started retreating back into the ground with its prize. "Twilight! Get out of there! Teleport! Blow your way out! Something!"

Sunset fired another bolt of magic at the tatzlwurm, "Maybe if you helped me!"

"I- I can't! I don't want to go crazy again!"

"But Twilight's in there!"

"Twilight can't die! I can!"

"Perhaps not, but it's going to take a long time to recover from becoming worm poop!"

"It's too late anyway," Moondancer said as the wurm vanished out of sight. "It'll never come back now."

"Not until it's hungry enough to come after us anyway," said Sunset as she collapsed to the burning ground with a sigh. "What the hell do we do now?"

"We find Twilight," Trixie said firmly, unwilling to bridge any argument. "It's kind of a cliché to say this, but we can't do this without her. We find the wurm, save Twilight, and get the fuck out of this place."

"And how do we do that, huh?" Sunset asked harshly. "How are we supposed to find that thing in the entirety of the Badlands?"

"I don't fucking know!" Trixie shouted back. "Why am I the one that has to have ideas?!"

"I think I know how to find it," Moondancer said during a lull in their argument.

"Oh yeah?" Trixie asked hysterically, "How's that then?"

Moondancer gestured at a pebble in front of her that was bouncing around as the ground shook again. "I think we find it when it comes back for us now."

The ground burst open barely a dozen meters away from them, and the tatzlwurm stretched up into the air, screeching as its tentacles writhed around frantically. The display would have been terrifying, if it wasn't for the smoke that poured from its open mouth. Seconds later a red mark appeared below its head where its throat was, below the red crest that surrounded its head, and traced around the wurm's neck. Immediately after that, its head fell off.

"Fuck!" Trixie shouted, grabbing Moondancer and diving out of the way of the spray of blood that came from the wurm's body. The body collapsed to the ground, still writhing in the wurm's death throes, just as the mouth on the head kept opening and closing. The body smashed hard into the ground, and Twilight tumbled out of it, along with Swordy, covered head to tail in blood.

"Did I get him?" Twilight asked once she'd stopped rolling, her voice a little slurred. "I think I got him."

"Twilight!" Trixie started to run towards Twilight, then stopped at the edge of the pool of blood that still poured from the writhing body of the wurm. "Twilight, you're alright!"

"So I did get it then. Oh good."

"Twilight! You're alright!" Moondancer gasped, still shocked at Twilight's sudden return.

"So it would seem." Twilight tried to stand, but slipped on the blood all around her, smacking her face on the ground, and getting a mouthful of dirt and blood. She quickly spat it back out, "Urgh! Aargh! Bleh! Pfffeh... yuck. Yay me." She stood and walked out of the blood, "Somepony give me my canteen please, I really don't want this to dry on."

Trixie wordlessly passed Twilight her canteen, a little unsure what to say to the blood soaked mare as she sat and tipped the water over herself.

Twilight sighed as she scrubbed at her coat with her magic, "Well this seems like an auspicious beginning to our journey. We've barely started, and I'm already covered in blood."

"Is that all you're going to say?" Sunset said to Twilight, still stunned by the sudden turn of events.

"What would you like me to say?"

"I don't know! But I do think that you'd say something after killing one of the biggest creatures I've ever seen!"

"Actually, the females are even bigger," Moondancer said timorously.

Sunset blinked incredulously at Moondancer for a few seconds, "You mean this isn't the biggest they can get?"

"Oh no, this is just a male. You can tell by the crest around its head. The females don't have that. Also, they're bigger."

"How are you so calm about this?" Trixie asked Moondancer as she sat there dispensing knowledge.

"I'm not calm! You're calm!"

"Ah."

"And how are you so nonchalant about this, huh?" Sunset said to Trixie accusingly.

"Do you really want to know the answer to that?"

"Yes!"

Trixie patted Sunset on the shoulder, "Kill a few hundred ponies, and then you'll understand."

"Oh you did not just play that card."

"Girls!" Twilight shouted as she poured water through her tail, trying to get it at least reasonably clean. "As much fun as having an argument sounds about now, we can't stay here if we're going to reach the plateau before sundown. If you two keep carrying our bags, I'll carry Moondancer."

"But I don't want to ride you; you're all gross and covered with blood."

"Tough. You've given yourself heatstroke by being so stubborn about your jumper, and believe it or not, I didn't just throw myself down the throat of a tatzlwurm because I thought it'd be fun. I did it because I want you to be okay. So I'm going to carry you, and you're going to like it."

The journey continued in a strangely awkward silence after that. None of them seemed to want to broach the subject of Twilight killing the tatzlwurm, and none of them, save Trixie, knew what to even think about it. Trixie herself didn't care, and would've been humming happily to herself if it wasn't for the fact that she was quietly dying in the heat, and from the extra work carrying Twilight's belongings. At the very least, she was coping better than Sunset with Moondancer's stuff, thanks to being fitter.

Since nopony was bringing up the tatzlwurm, and the silence was making Twilight feel guilty, like she'd done something wrong in saving them from it, she decided to poke the other elephant in the room. She knew it was likely to start another argument, but it possibly beat trudging slowly in silence.

"So," Twilight said after a while, "do you want to talk about it Moondancer?"

"Talk about what?"

"About the scars."

"What's there to talk about? You know what they are, and why they're there. I thought that you didn't want to talk about them."

"I do! I just-" Twilight stopped, unsure of how to go about this. "I know I fucked up when I left Canterlot. I left without saying so much as a goodbye, and I'm sorry for that. But you know what I was like back then! I'd get sucked into things, and barely even notice the world around me. I'm sorry for just up and leaving Moondancer."

Twilight prepared herself for getting yelled at, or tears, or even the most unexpected thing, an acceptance of her apology. What she hadn't prepared for was silence, of which there was an awful lot. If it wasn't for the fact that she could feel Moondancer going tense, she might have thought Moondancer had flat out ignored her. "Moondancer?"

"That's it? You really think that's what this was all about? You really think that you leaving without saying goodbye was enough to make me do all this?"

Twilight winced guiltily, "I'm guessing it's not?"

"Of course it's not! You were my best friend Twilight, since we were little fillies! We did so much together! Then you left, just like that! You discarded me like a piece of trash! Like I was nothing to you!"

Twilight winced again, "And I'm sorry, I really am."

"On the day you left I was throwing a party Twilight. Sure it was only small, with you, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Lyra invited, but it was a big deal to me! Do you remember what you did?"

"I didn't go," Twilight said quietly.

"You didn't go! My best friend, whom I invited weeks before, didn't go! The first time I was really putting myself out there, after all the time it took the others to convince me that ponies might like me, and want to be my friend, and you, my best friend whom I've looked up to for years, didn't come!"

"Moondancer, I-"

"And then a year later, there came another huge kick in the teeth when I saw you parading through town at your coronation, the friends that you threw me away for right beside you! Then not long after that you were named the princess of 'friendship.' Friendship? Don't make me laugh! I've never been so hurt in my life Twilight, and I never wanted to be hurt like that again! Which is why, even though we're working together now, we are far from friends."

Trixie sighed and rolled her eyes, "And how many ponies do you know that would let themselves get swallowed by a tatzlwurm to save your life? I bet the number is pretty low."

"Stay out of this Trixie," said Twilight.

"Fine..."

"Do you know what I was doing when I missed your party?" Twilight asked Moondancer as Trixie sulked silently.

"Reading, I bet."

Twilight almost blushed at being caught so easily, "Yes actually. I was doing the research that would lead to the defeat of Nightmare Moon, and the return of Princess Luna. Then Princess Celestia told me to go to Ponyville to oversee preparations for the Summer Sun celebration, and also to make some friends. I didn't plan on leaving myself at all.

"But you had friends!" Moondancer gasped as she realised something, "You never even told the Princess about us? We were in the same class together! A class taught by the Princess herself sometimes, and she didn't even know we were friends?!"

Twilight lowered her head, in both shame and irritation. "As I've said, I was crap at the whole 'friend' thing back then. But my point is that I was sent away by Celestia, and it led to the defeat of Nightmare Moon. If I had gone to your party, we'd probably be on year four of eternal night about now."

"Okay, fine, I won't deny saving the world from eternal night was a nice bonus, but you still never came back after! Yes you missed my party, and yes you moved to Ponyville, but you could still have come back and apologised for missing my party, and said goodbye, and all the other things that would have gone a long way towards not completely tearing my heart out!"

"I know, and I'm sorry! I really am, but what were you thinking pinning all your hopes of a social life on me? Relying on me for social validation? Me, the pony that once forgot to go to her own birthday party? Me, the pony whose mother had to remind her of her friends birthdays and other things? Me, the complete social retard with only the most basic of social skills required for survival? What were you thinking?"

Moondancer went stiff, "You're blaming me now? Really?"

"No, I am still incredibly at fault here, but you picked the worst pony possible pony to build your social life off of. And why did me leaving suddenly stop you from talking to your other friends?"

"Because I didn't want them to hurt me either! Lyra left just after you did, and I thought the others would go too, so I hid. I locked myself away, and threw myself into my studies, and did everything I could to save myself from getting hurt ever again! And then you rocked up to my door with that- that- fucking... bitch, Trixie-

"Hey!"

"-And acted like nothing had happened! Like you hadn't left me the shattered remains of a mare that once thought she could have been somepony worth being liked! Right now I'm not sure what I should hate you for more, leaving in the first place, or coming back and dragging all these feelings back up!"

Twilight sighed and nodded, "And because of what I did, you ended up self harming."

"From the sound of it, you should be glad that's all she did."

"Shut up Trixie!"

Trixie jerked as Twilight shouted at her, "What? That wasn't me!"

"No, it was me," Sunset said, glaring angrily at Twilight. "What the actual fuck Twilight? How could you have done that to her? If that had been me in her position, I probably would've done the same thing she did. The fact that you could point out that she was wrong to be friends with you in the first place is just the icing on the cake."

"I'm not sure if you've noticed," Twilight growled, "but I have said plenty of times that I was a crap friend. I was crap at being friends, and I am so, so sorry for hurting you Moondancer, and I would do absolutely anything to try and make it up to you, but I really can't accept that you thought of me as your best friend when I did nothing to deserve you calling me that."

"You liked the same things as me, Moondancer explained. "In fact, you even introduced me to the classics. Sure our other friends were nice, but you were the only pony that I could talk to about these things. Don't you remember spending hours talking about the latest magical theories? Or the time we spent trying to work out some old alchemical recipe one of us had found? Don't you remember any of what we did together?"

Twilight stopped walking and closed her eyes as memories started replaying themselves in her head, all of them revolving around her childhood with Moondancer. They really had done so much together, but at the time she hadn't known what she had, and certainly hadn't appreciated it. Looking at it with what she knew now though...

Twilight sat hard, tipping Moondancer off her back, and when she opened her eyes again, they were brimming with tears. "We spent three hours arguing over the implications of Morari the Maneless' writings on magic's affect on non-magical materials. It turned out my book had a typo, saying that a magicless material would nutrify the magic's effect, instead of nullifying it. I always found that a bit strange until I saw your copy. Nopony else in the class would have even known who Morari the Maneless was."

"Mmhmm."

"Oh Celestia, what have I done?" Twilight turned to look at Moondancer, "I know I've said it before, but I'm so sorry Moondancer. Could you ever forgive me?"

"After you threw me away like old garbage? No." Moondancer stood and walked past Twilight, glaring at her as she passed, "Now you know what I lost when you left, and how it feels."

"That still doesn't explain why you cut yourself," Trixie pointed out.

"Because I wanted to feel something other than pain."

"That... doesn't even make sense."

Twilight stayed behind the group on her own for the hours after Moondancer had given her a verbal thrashing. Moondancer herself was at the head of the group, stoically leading the way despite how ill she felt. Trixie and Sunset stayed with Moondancer, which Twilight was fine with as she didn't need Trixie being sarcastic at her, and Sunset she knew was pissed at her for what she said to Moondancer. Twilight didn't even know why she said it. Sure it was a fair observation on her part to point out that using a pony like Twilight as the focus of your social life was a terrible idea back then, but it didn't need to be said. Honestly, after Mareitania, it was a terrible idea now as well.

"Great job Twilight," Twilight muttered to herself, berating herself again for what felt like the hundredth time. "Moondancer is understandably pissed at you, but Sunset? That was a masterful move indeed. Just what we need to make this mission a success."

Twilight didn't notice that the others had stopped until she almost walked into them, although she definitely noticed the dirty look Sunset gave her. "What's going on? Why have we stopped?"

"I think that's the plateau," said Moondancer, pointing a hoof up at a ledge that jutted out, halfway up the cliffside. "Even if it isn't, it's probably a good place to stop for tonight."

Twilight looked up at the sky, checking the position of the sun. By her own reckoning, it should have been another few hours until they reached Starswirl's plateau. Still, if it wasn't what they were looking for, Moondancer was right that it was a good place to stop, especially considering her condition.

"Fancy going to check it out, little miss wings?" Trixie said, nudging Twilight on the side.

"Uh, sure." Twilight spread her wings, and winced as a lot of her feathers stuck together with dried blood. Clearly she hadn't paid enough attention to them as she was trying to clean herself. She was not looking forward to preening them.
Her wings were still capable of flying though, and she lurched into the air, wobbling slightly as her sticky feathers didn't move like they should have. She compensated by flapping harder, and was almost exhausted by the time she reached the plateau. "Should've just teleported."

The plateau itself was empty, and was barely big enough to warrant being called a plateau. Six ponies could probably sleep here comfortably, but more than that would be risky. Still, it was shady, and probably well protected from anything below that didn't have wings. If there was just some sign that Starswirl had been here it'd be perfect.

"There's nothing up here," Twilight shouted down to the others.

"Then maybe you could fix that by bringing us up there!" Trixie shouted back. Twilight did so, teleporting them up in a violet flash. Trixie staggered and blinked away the dots in her vision before looking around. "Huh, there really is nothing here."

"Floor's been magically smoothed," Sunset observed, running a hoof over the mostly flat surface, "so I dare say this is the place."
Twilight ran her own hoof over the ground, and nodded, agreeing with Sunset's assessment. "Still, you think there'd be something here. Even just a circle of rocks where his campfire was."

"Probably not a good idea," said Trixie. "A fire would be visible for miles around. It would definitely be spotted by the changelings," she concluded, pointing at the massive hive in the distance.

"It's the right place," Moondancer said firmly. "Starswirl described what he could see from here in his journal, and I think it matches up. With the ground being made smooth with magic as well, I can only conclude that we're in the right place."

"And there's nothing here," Twilight sighed. Realistically she knew it was silly to think they'd find what they were looking for right off the bat, but it would have been nice.

Trixie groaned and slumped to the ground, "Typical. It would have been nice to not have to go running all over the world to find what we're looking for." She levitated a miniature apple out of her bag and restored it to its original size before viciously sinking her teeth into it.

Without saying a word, Moondancer walked to the middle of the plateau, set her bags down, drank from her canteen, then lay down and rested her head on her bags. A minute later she was asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly. They could only conclude that she was exhausted to be able to do that.

Trixie pouted at the sleeping Moondancer, "Wish I could do it that easy."

"She could always do that," Twilight said wistfully. "Every time she stayed over at one of the others houses, the goal was to stay up all night, but every time she was always the first to conk out."

"And you never noticed, because your nose was buried in a book?" Sunset said, raising an eyebrow at Twilight. Although it wasn't said viciously, the accusation was obvious.

"No," Twilight answered, hanging her head. "I never went. I always thought they were kind of silly, even though Moondancer begged me to go every time. Because she wanted me to go..." Twilight sighed, "I know I've hurt her, but I had no idea how much until now, because I never realised how much she cared about me."

"And then you blamed her for that."

Twilight closed her eyes at Sunset's words, "I know. It was stupid and cruel of me to say that, and I wish I hadn't. Doesn't make it any less true though."

"Twilight!"

"You didn't know what I was like back then Sunset! The fact that I was totally oblivious to how Moondancer thought of me should be enough to give you a hint. I really wasn't born the Princess of Friendship, and- and- I don't know. Sunset, can I talk to you in private please?"

Trixie scoffed at Twilight, "And what am I? Chopped cabbage?"

"Sorry Trixie, but Sunset... has a better perspective on these things than you do. You keep a eye out for trouble."

"Ugh, fine." Trixie stood and walked to the edge of the plateau, laying down and hooking her hooves over the edge. They could still hear her grumbling as they walked to the rear of the plateau, which narrowed down into small crevice, in which Twilight saw something twinkling in the built up sand. She picked it up and inspected it, uncovering more pieces as she did.

"A broken mirror? Why is there a broken mirror here?"

"Maybe it was Starswirl's shaving mirror or something," Sunset said irritably.

"I'm pretty sure Starswirl the bearded wasn't called so because he shaved." Twilight picked up a few more fragments and twirled them in her magic. "Maybe-"

"Twilight, I'm hot, I'm tired, and I'm fairly pissed at you for what you said to Moondancer. Say what you're going to, so I can finally have a break."

Twilight looked at the mirror shards for another few seconds, then dropped them. "Alright, I'll be quick then. How do I fix things with Moondancer?"

"I don't think you can. Good talk Twilight."

Sunset started to rise, and Twilight pulled her back down. "Please Sunset, I'm being serious!"

"You might well be Twilight, but what you did was cold, even by my ex-villainous standards. If I'd have done that to a pony, I would have at least got some malicious glee out of it, but you were so unthinking that you didn't even realise how much she needed you, let alone how much you hurt her. And then to blame her for latching onto you as a friend, especially when you two had so much in common..." Sunset shook her head, "That's a special kind of fucked up there."

Twilight stared at Sunset for several seconds, "Wow Sunset."

"What?"

"You've read about what I did in Mareitania, and you know how that's affected me, so could you please consider that, yes, I am a little fucked up at times. I know that's no excuse for what I said to Moondancer, now, or in the past, but still."

"You're also the 'princess of friendship,' remember? If anypony should know how to fix this, it's you."

Twilight nodded sadly. She knew there was no point in pushing Sunset for an answer when she was angry. "Okay, then could you at least do Moondancer a favour and try to be her friend. She deserves as much." Twilight quirked a small smile at Sunset, then stood to go join Trixie.

"You know you almost had her friendship back today," Sunset said as Twilight started to walk away. "You helped her, and carried her when you could have made her walk. You saved her from the tatzlwurm, and all of us I suppose, which makes it really unfair for me to be angry at you." Sunset grinned apologetically, "Anyway, if you hadn't blamed her for wanting to be friends with you, you could have been friends now. I suggest you keep on being nice to her, and showing her that you care, and hopefully she might soften towards you."

"Okay, I'll do that. Thanks Sunset."

"You're welcome."

The arrival of night was a curious thing in the Badlands. The air turned cold, but the rocks held the heat, so in the end you were glad for the cool air as it gave respite from the heat from the ground, and yet you were thankful for the warmth of the rocks for saving you from the chilly bite of the cold night air. It didn't seem fair.

Gradually the cold won though, and as the chill grew, they started to feel it. Moondancer was still fast asleep, and shivered occasionally, so Twilight unrolled Moondancer's bedding, lifted Moondancer, and placed it beneath her without disturbing her sleep. She even got a small smile in return as Moondancer snuggled into the warm material, which was nice.

Not given much else to do, and not yet inclined towards sleep like Moondancer and Sunset, she went and joined Trixie on the edge of the plateau as she kept watch. "Seen anything Trixie?" A tiny snore answered her, telling her that Trixie had very much fallen asleep. "Trixie!" she whispered harshly, smacking the blue unicorn on the side.

"Snggkt, mnah... What?" Trixie asked, opening her eyes just a crack to look at Twilight.

"You fell asleep."

"Mmn? Cool story bro..." Trixie closed her eyes, then yelped as Twilight levitated her into the air. "What the hell Twilight?"

"Go to bed Trixie. Now. I'll take watch."

"Don't have to tell me twice. G'night."

Twilight sighed irritably as Trixie sauntered away, grabbed her bedroll, and half unrolled it before falling asleep on it. She couldn't quite understand why the others were as tired as they were, because she'd done just as much walking, carried Moondancer for a while, and fought and got eaten temporarily by a tatzlwurm. While the obvious answer was the whole alicorn thing, it still seemed unfair, even if it was convenient.

Twilight put it out of her mind and turned said mind towards keeping watch. Luna's moon shone brightly over the barren expanse of the Badlands, illuminating everything. Even at the distance she was, she could still make out the changeling hive, it's sides lit up almost silver in the moonlight. She wondered briefly what it was made of as it obviously wasn't natural, and concluded it must have been made in much the same manner as termites built their nests. Then she stopped thinking about it as that was a little bit gross.

A flash of movement caught her eye, dragging her attention back to the area around the plateau. She couldn't see anything, save for dozens of pony sized rocks that just lay about the place. The problem was that she wasn't able to remember them being there when they arrived. Sure she wasn't paying a huge amount of attention at the time, but she was fairly certain that that would be something she would notice. She also really doubted moving rocks were really a thing.

Feeling paranoid, and yet rather silly, she picked one of the rocks up and floated it towards her, and was immediately struck by a sense of wrongness. The rock felt far too light for its size, and had a strange, almost organic feel about it. She turned it over a couple of times, and bounced it in her magic, confused about what her magic was telling her. It was telling her the rock was alive.

Fully ready to dispute that, she wound up her magic to toss the rock away when it opened a pair of pearlescent blue eyes and chittered at her. "Eeeyaaah!!" Twilight tossed the rock away, but it flashed green, changing form into a chitinous black pony-like creature, that she knew full well was a changeling, and caught itself on its wings, soaring back up towards her as the area around them lit in with an eerie green fire as the other rocks turned into changelings.

"Changelings!" Twilight shrieked, hoping to wake her friends. She erected a shield over the plateau, and turned to her friends, only to find changelings stood over them, baring their fangs at her. Fangs that dripped with venom. "No!" Twilight shouted, only to feel a weight slam into her and clamp its own fangs onto the back of her neck, followed by another on her shoulder. Straight away she felt dizzy, but despite that she kicked the changelings off her and crawled towards her unresponsive friends.

More changelings piled on to Twilight, and she tried to use her magic to blast them away, but whatever the changelings fangs had injected her with destroyed her focus, and her horn lit up in a uncontrolled mass of sparks that quickly fizzled out, having done nothing to deter her attackers as more jumped on her, biting her again and again. Black creeped in around the edges of her vision, and her limbs felt leaden as she tried to fight the changelings off, and in the end she couldn't fight it, or them, any more. She flopped onto her side as her eyes drooped shut, and the last thing she remembered seeing was a pair of dragon-like eyes, and a big, fang filled grin.