I sat at a wrought table in one of the Castle Everfree's gardens. A Sarosian spellbook in my hooves. I took a teacup off the table and took a sip.

... Still not quite right.

I set it back down and resumed reading.

The garden was almost totally silent.

"Lu?"

I paused in my reading and glanced around.

Nopony was there.

I shrugged and returned to reading about the Oneiroi.

"Lu! Wake up Lu!"

"Gah!"

I sat up, suddenly in bed.

Wait no... Not bed.

A bedroll.

Tia's concerned face greeted me.

"You awake Lu?" she asked.

"Guh... I am now..." I replied, rubbing my eyes.

"Come on, we should be getting there today."

It had been several days since that first night. Tia and I had left shortly before dawn, and performed our new duty when we were out of sight. The journey from there was fairly normal.

Until the next day that is.

As we walked, the terrain on the horizon began to shift and distort.

The thing's vile claws were once more at work.

The mountains in the distance shifted and malformed, becoming checker patterned mounds that looked like rolling cloth. The trees around us bent and warped until they fully resembled something that had recently came out of the Earth Pony's bakeries, something they called "pretzel sticks". The water in the rivers appeared normal, until you took a drink. The water had become sickeningly sweet, and tickled your tongue in the most peculiar manner.

Whatever had become of the "water", while it may have been pleasing to drink, did nothing to staunch our thirst. When our canteens ran out, we had to resort to gathering the morning dew that came off whatever plants that remained. And they where slowly being replaced in a similar manner as the trees. The underbrush became various sorts of candies, leaf shaped masses of green gelatin coated in sugar, round mounds of brightly colored shells that smelled of chocolate, and big globs of a sticky substance that was somehow gooey and hard to bend at the same time.

The dew gathered off them was sickly sweet and tasted awful to drink.

But finally, we were almost there. The point that the Sun and Moon had told us about was only an hours walk away.

Tia and I performed the spell again before we set out.

The Moon fell in the West, and the Sun rose in the East.

"Do you think whatever we're looking for can fix them?" I asked Tia, watching the bright orb on the horizon gradually grow brighter and higher.

"I hope so." Tia replied. "I don't know how I'd get used to this."

"I imagine it would become fairly routine. Like your cups of tea at breakfast." I bumped playfully into the slightly larger pony. She rolled her eyes.

"You say that Lu, but I seriously think you'd enjoy it."

"I'll think about it." I stated, beginning to trot away from our now repacked campsite.

I let myself smirk as I faced away from Tia.

"Don't you think it'd be a fine way to celebrate? When we defeat Discord?"

I felt my smirk fall into a frown as that thing's name was mentioned.

"Let's... Let's focus on the task at hoof Tia." I tried to assuage. "It wouldn't do to count our chickens before they hatch."

"...Yes, you're right Lu." Tia sighed.

I'll make it up to you Tia, I promise.

The trek to the location was spent in silence. I could only speculate on what Tia thought about, but my mind was divided between the conversation I had with Tia, and dreading what we would find.

Had I been too aloof with Tia?

What would we find?

Had I upset Tia?

What dread thing could seriously threaten such a demon?

Down and down my thoughts spiraled. Both of my worries swirled around each other in a hypnotizing dance.

Eventually however, the corrupted terrain abruptly stopped, transitioning back to its normal self. Bushes were bushes, trees were trees, the small creek we had found was filled with actual water. In fact, as we crested a hill, we could clearly see a circle of normalcy in a world gone mad.

"I imagine we'll find what we're looking for towards the center." I pointed out to Tia. Her eyes glinted over the terrain, as her thoughts churned. Slowly, she nodded.

"I agree." she stated.

And the trek continued.

As we approached the center of the normal terrain, I began to feel a sort of... Serenity. Like I could lay down on the ground for the night and not worry at all about a pack of hungry Timberwolves discovering me. But it wasn't like the mind affecting spells a Dark Wizard would use to lull a victim into a false sense of security. Far from it in fact. The feeling of peace and harmony was there, but it didn't affect my caution at all.

Finally we entered a sort of glade, roughly in the center of the enforced normalcy. It was set at the base of a sort of cliff, only a few stories tall. A waterfall fell off the cliff face and fed a sizable lake, which in turn fed what was probably the creek we had found not a few minutes prior. Most interesting however, was the gaping maw in the side of the cliff. A round opening, just big enough for us to continue single file, bored into the earth.

The feeling of calm serenity seemed to emanate from the cave.

Tia and I both peered into the cave. While I imagine Tia could only make out darkness, even I could only see a bend in the tunnel as it veered slightly downward to the left.

"Well... Here's a good a place to start searching as any." Tia stated, starting to stride forward.

"Wait Tia-" I interrupted, holding a hoof in front of her. "Perhaps I should go first, I am much more comfortable in the dark and if I'm ambushed I'm much more likely to win the encounter."

Tia seemed to roll the thought around in her head.

"I see your point. You go first." she agreed.

I nodded and took the lead, head bent low, horn at the ready.

How rude of these Ponies! Try to throw a picnic for the whole nation and that makes me a terrorist! Ooooh!

You made the rivers into soda! Do you know how much rot and fungus would've choked out the ecosystem?!

Oh posh, it's not like Earth Ponies couldn't have-

Sneak attack!

Ow! Hey! Quit it! When's the last time you cleaned that broom?!