The air was as cold at night as it was hot during the day, and the meager sheets of cloth the yurt was made of could only do so much to keep it out. Karon flexed his fingers and grasped the spear harder. His left leg had fallen asleep a long time ago, and he had himself nearly gone the same way at first. However, the exhaustion from keeping the invisibility up had mostly gone after the first hour, and he had spent the next few listening to the slowly dying racket of the jackals outside with Trixie and Lyra.

While they had at first laid underneath the bed with wide eyes, just waiting for a jackal to come inside and somehow know they were there, the fear had eventually turned to boredom. The uneasy tension in their muscles, ready to spring into action any second, had instead relaxed and left them to fully enjoy their uncomfortable positions.

More than once, Karon started to crawl out from under the bed, only to stop himself when a slight shuffling or clamoring of steel outside reached him. Had he been alone it would have been different, but he wasn't, and he couldn't risk getting caught with Lyra and Trixie right beside him.

He thought about leaving them, running out alone and attacking the jackals at random, about drawing them off and giving the ponies time to escape. He thought about it repeatedly, despite deciding against it every time. There were plenty of reasons why it was a bad idea; it would endanger Trixie and Lyra since they would be without Karon's abilities to help disappear, and they would be without Karon entirely and perhaps not make it back to Equestria. The jackals would start searching for them twice as hard after they've killed him. Reasons upon reasons, and it all boiled down to the fact that Trixie and Lyra would have a harder time surviving than if he stayed put and exhibited some patience.

Yet the idea kept returning to him.

And as the night deepened and the sounds outside gradually died down, he became more frantic about doing something before it was too late, before he lost his chance. Yet he couldn't, for the sake of his friends.

When the time came that the only sound disturbing the night's peace was that of a few jackals howling disappointingly, Karon decided he had had enough and crawled out from under the bed. Both Trixie and Lyra were quick to follow, nearly swimming through the sand on their way out.

The jackal leader was snoring heavily on the bed, his claws twitching every few seconds, perhaps dreaming of hunting down a tasty zebra.

Karon thoughtfully hefted his spear and brought the edge down towards the jackal's throat. It would be an easy thing, to strike with the spear and let the beast choke on his own blood as his life escaped. Of course, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the jackal would wake up sensing the danger, or maybe he would make enough sound to draw attention to the yurt, and other warriors would come barging in.

More importantly, if Karon managed to kill the leader silently and leave the camp behind, the other jackals would not be happy about him dying. They only knew about Trixie, and if he kept hidden and left without causing any damage, they might decide to forget about her or find someone to blame the escape on.

”Limiting damage is key here.”

”Maybe the jackals would respect something that can kill their leader? Maybe they have a hierarchy based on killing and threatening your way to the top?”

”A lot of maybes … can't risk it. Stealth is the way out. Let's stick to it.”

”You're very boring nowadays.”

Karon suppressed his agitation at the thought. He wasn't boring, he was trying to be responsible...

”Which is boring.”

...he had companions now, friends that relied on him not to get them killed.

”Maybe we should just tell them to go home, to leave us. Maybe then we can be fun again instead of depressed and trying to find ways to-”

“Silence!”

No, it didn't work like that. They had their own reasons, their own desires and thoughts for why they were with him. It wouldn't be easy, they wouldn't want to leave him, even though he could twist their minds and hearts so they would, but such a thing wouldn't last. They would untie the knots he placed within them eventually, and perhaps more importantly, he didn't want to do it.

He didn't want to go on alone. Their presence was distracting, comforting and it gave purpose.

Karon blinked in surprise. He hadn't meant to sink so deeply into contemplation. It was a clear sign of how weary he was, to the extent his control was beginning to slip, and not just from hiding under the bed or from the last week's traveling. He was just bone deep tired. No, even deeper than bones, it stretched into his soul.

Lyra brought him out of his thought and back into reality when she laid a hoof on his arm, staring into his eyes with a clear no shining in hers. She wanted to get out of there, leave the camp of predators far behind. Trixie stood behind her, glancing ever so often at the flaps swaying gently from the chilly wind.

He bit his tongue, but drew back his spear in resignation. If they wanted to get away, he shouldn't do anything to compromise that, no matter how tempted he was to get into a fight, to sink the tip of the deadly spear into the throat of the foul beast snoring on the bed. It would have been a glorious thing to wade through the camp splattered with the blood of the jackals and to make them hurt.

Lyra looked up at his face, her confusion showing clearly as she looked upon his rage twisted features. He hadn't even noticed he was showing it or even that he was feeling such anger – no … hate.

He stalked over to the nearby table and grabbed one of the rocks the jackals had referred to as pieces of the ruin they were searching for. It was sand colored and weathered with age, yet despite the wear, it was clear that it wasn't a natural formation. It had been chiseled, the sides of it too clean and straight to be part of any natural formation.

It wasn't particularly large, and he put it into one of the many pockets Rarity had been thoughtful enough to sew into the robe. He joined the two ponies at the lose tent flaps, and they all stood there unsure of what to do, listening as hard they could for any noise outside.

The sounds that reached their ears that allowed them to make no mistake that the camp was clear, but none of them appeared to come from anywhere too close. Karon took a chance and stuck his head out and looked around.

The similar circular tents stood close together at all sides, forming small narrow streets and thankfully no jackals were in sight as far as he could see. He pulled his head back in and looked down on Trixie and Lyra in turn.

”Time to go then. I should be able to keep all three of us invisible back to the edge of the camp, as long as we hurry,” he whispered to them.

”What about the well? We need water,” Lyra whispered back to him.

”Right … forgot about that,” he replied in irritation, ”We go back to were we left our stuff, grab it, and if we find the well fast, I can keep the field up while you refill our water bags.”

”Are you sure?” Trixie asked worriedly.

”No, but I don't have a better idea. Do you?”

None of them answered, not that he was surprised. Good ideas had been in somewhat short stock lately, so mediocre ones would have to do.

He weaved the dome of invisibility around them and the throbbing pain cut its way into his head once more. They walked fast, not bothering with stealth, the field around them would take care of that, speed was of the greatest value at the moment. Get the water, get out, then run very fast.

High above, the moon was descending from its peak, crescent in shape and only spreading a small amount of light. It was enough to let them see, but the details were blurry, and with each minute that passed, Karon felt the pressure on his mind increasing.

They followed the same path the jackals had led them upon to their leader, and after having passed by a few sentries standing at the edge of the camp, they reached their gear. Lyra and Trixie grabbed all of it, strapping the packs onto their backs and allowing Karon a few minutes to rest. The pain was insistent, but manageable, and within a few more minutes they had passed by the sentries in their search for water.

They nearly ran, Karon increasing his pace more and more as the growing pain was threatening to drag him into unconsciousness.

They found the promised well eventually, nestled in the middle of a cluster of the odd tents, guarded by a single bored looking jackal. Karon didn't waste time, and after they sneaked up behind it, he struck with the butt of the spear hard on its head.

It gave off a half voiced yelp, and after waiting anxiously to see if any jackals would come to investigate, which they didn't, Trixie and Lyra hurried to the well and began filling the bags up with water. There were no other jackals in sight, so Karon dropped the field and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. However the pain had barely started to recede when Trixie and Lyra were done and motioning it was time to get out of there.

He ran, and so did they, the increased sound they produced piling more strain on him than if they had walked, but he didn't care. They ran until they were out of the camp and hidden within the maze of jutting rocks and ravines of the surrounding cliffs. Then Karon dropped the invisibility and nearly began laughing from the sensation of being light as a feather that came over him, but he didn't stop running. Trixie and Lyra kept an even pace with him as they continued their chase to get out of the jackals' reach, even though such a thing was days away.

Both Trixie and Lyra shouted the question of when to stop several times when they reached the open desert plains, but received no answer. Karon's legs kept pumping until nothing remained in them except battery acid and burning muscles, only then did he stop. Well, not stopped so much as collapsed.

He tripped over his own feet and came crashing down on the dry, brittle ground. He turned to his side and wheezed, air pushing and pulling through a windpipe that felt like it had shrunk to the size of a straw. Beside him, Lyra and Trixie sat down as well, not quite in as bad shape as Karon, but not far behind.

Karon remembered Trixie asking him something, but before he could answer her, he fell asleep.

                       ************************************************

He twitched awake when the pressing need for water overpowered his tiredness. The sun had been up for hours already and the heat had just increased since. His legs protested loudly against being used at all, and to top it off, he'd gotten sunburned on the left side of his face.

He voiced his complaints against the world with an almighty groan, one that attracted the attention of his two companions.

“Finally, I thought you'd never wake up,” Lyra's voice cut in through the layers of self pity Karon was experiencing.

“Master, we've been trying to wake you up for hours. The jackals might still be out looking for us,” Trixie's voice added, and that got Karon's attention.

He quickly got up on his legs, sending sparks of pain down along them, and turned around to face the ponies, both of them sitting in the shadow of a small boulder. Lyra was giving him a look of impatience, while surprisingly, Trixie was looking on him with concern.

“Are you … feeling alright master?” she asked, and Lyra rolled her eyes at the other unicorn's use of the title.

“No worse than usual,” he answered her and took off his rucksack.

He dug around in it for some food and together the three of them had a big breakfast, and afterwards they all drank deeply of the water. The amount they carried offered confidence that it wouldn't run out anytime soon.

“So we're heading back to the zebra's now right? We know what's going on with the jackals now,” Lyra said after a final sip.

The question lingered in the air for quite some time, and the tension grew thicker the longer Karon took to decide on his answer.

“Actually...” he began and Lyra groaned, “...actually I think this should be investigated further, by me.”

“What do you mean … master?” Trixie asked.

“It means he's trying to get rid of us,” Lyra answered and glared at Karon.

“Hey, I told you it would be for the best if you just get back to the empress with the information we have while I try and find a solution,” Karon said defensively, doing his best to keep from squirming under Lyra's gaze. The unicorn would have none of it.

“And I told you that's not your decision to make. You might be the leader, but don't think I don't get a say in what we do … or Trixie.”

“Why … why would you want to leave us? Did I do something wrong? Master, I promise I will try better if I did,” Trixie pleaded, all signs of haughtiness or control fleeing from her, leaving only a terrified pony.

“No, no, no you didn't do anything wrong Trixie. It's just … better if you get away with the information before things get worse. It will be enough for the empress to let you stay with her or go in peace.”

“And what did you think you would be doing while we went back to the zebras?” Lyra asked and pointed to him with her hoof.

“Simple, look for this lost city and crown, then get rid of it in some way so the jackals will never find it.”

“You mean the same place and the same thing every jackal is looking for? Karon, you know how dangerous it would be to even try,” Lyra said, and Trixie nodded for emphasis.

“Which is why both of you should be somewhere else,” Karon claimed and wrangled his hands nervously.

“No, that is why we should be with you, helping you. We keep each other alive Karon, you need me … us, you have said it yourself.”

“That was before...”

“Before what, Karon? Before what!?” Lyra shouted at him, losing the little patience she still had left.

He turned away from the two unicorns and stared at the desert landscape, sweat poring down his forehead. He clenched his fists several times and tried to find the words that would get the ponies out of there and make sure they were in a place where they would stay alive. He couldn't make plans this way, couldn't risk their lives.

He didn't know if he loved or hated them at that moment when the feeling of helplessness settled inside him, there to stay because the ponies refused to leave him. He thought it strange that such a good feeling could be mixed in with so much resentment.

“Never mind, I get it, you're not gonna leave...” he said with a sigh, his shoulders slumping like a great burden had been put upon them.

“Of course we're not gonna leave you here in the middle of nowhere. We're not gonna leave you anywhere … well, I'm not anyway,” Lyra said and approached Karon with a careful smile.

“Trixie would never … I would never leave my master either! I would leave him even less than you!” Trixie was quick to cut in with, giving Lyra a challenging glare to go with the statement.

Karon's right eye twitched as something resembling his old emotions made themselves known deep inside at the sound of his friends becoming so hostile towards one another.

“Catfight? CATFIGHT!?”

“That's enough,” Karon said sternly and blew out another sigh, a thoughtful one this time. “Do we have any kind of bowl or cup I can use?” he asked and looked at the two unicorns in turn.

“Uh, no,” Lyra responded after a few seconds of silence, “but there was a kind of bowl shaped piece of wood next to that dead tree,” she said and motioned towards a dried out shell of a tree standing next to the big boulder who's shadow they had relaxed in.

Karon walked over to the tree, and after a hasty look around, found a thick branch that matched her description. It was worn and broken at both ends, but in the middle it was hollowed out, giving a small incline shaped like a primitive bowl.

“What are you doing … master?” Trixie asked when Karon took the piece of wood and went over to the shadow of the boulder and sat down, the wood in his lap. He didn't answer immediately, instead he took off his rucksack and dug around inside it, pulling out one of the smaller waterskins, made out of some kind of dried and oiled leaf. He poured water into the hollowed out area in the wood, and when the waterskin was half-empty it had been filled to the brim.

“I'm going to find this lost ruin the jackals are looking for,” he responded finally, his voice calm.

“How?” both Trixie and Lyra asked, the former with more than a little curiosity present in her tone.

“Divination, I can scry for the location with that chunk of rock I grabbed from the leader's tent,” he explained, bringing forth said rock and holding it in his right hand while the piece of wood laid across the lap of his crossed legs.

“You can do that? Why didn't you try something similar back when we were looking for More-than Tardy's place?” Lyra asked with a frown.

Karon mimicked her frown and spoke, his voice a little more tense than before. “Because he was a practitioner, and it isn't that hard to trick someone trying to divine your presence, or shield a place so it becomes hard to find. If his place had been something you could find with just five minutes of scrying, Tia would have found it herself.”

“So if you can hide places from … that, why do you think you can find the jackal's city?” she continued to ask, Trixie standing beside her silent, soaking up every word.

“Did you pick up on something I missed Lyra? Because to me, the jackals didn't seem like the most intelligent species around. I doubt they've got much, if any magical skill or knowledge at all.”

She couldn't refute the statement and both the ponies remained silent, seeing that Karon had started to stare into the water with an intense look of focus on his face. It did not take long before Trixie and Lyra walked around the camp awkwardly, wearing bored expressions while they waited for Karon to bring himself out of the trance.

The sun had moved a noticeable distance up into the sky by the time he sucked in a deep breath, instantly gaining the ponies' attention.

“Well...?” Lyra asked cautiously while Karon rubbed his temples.

“There is something … I got a sense of dark tunnels underground, and not anywhere close.”

“But you know where it is?” she asked tentatively.

“Yeah, maybe three weeks northeast from here,” he said dryly and drank the water from the trunk in his lap.

“Three weeks?” Trixie repeated, her tone suggesting he should come up with something better since she didn't like the sound of that.

“Yes, three weeks. And as far as I know our water will last maybe one and a half at the most,” he said after spitting out the chips of wood the water brought with it.

“Can't you do some magic to find some? Or maybe create some?” Lyra asked, Trixie nodding her consent of the suggestions.

“I'm not all powerful Lyra. I'm not good with heavy lifting of the magical kind, you unicorns are supposed to be,”

“But can't you just summon a raincloud? I've seen Twilight do that several times,” she insisted.

“I'm not Twilight. I know a bit about weather manipulation but no, I refuse to go even near it here in Equestria. I can control weather a little back home where it's dynamic. Here though … I might seriously mess something up. I'm talking accidental tornadoes, floods and storms that will wipe out everything in their path,” he said, casting a suspicious glance upwards into the blue sky.

Lyra considered what he'd just said for a moment, and then found herself swallowing nervously.

“Okay yeah, maybe you shouldn't try that then,” she said.

“Thank you captain obvious,” Karon replied and inched a little to his left, keeping in the shadow of the boulder behind him.

Lyra scowled at him but made no further remark, instead Trixie spoke up.

“Tr-... I always thought it would be a good idea to learn how to conjure rain, in case my, uhm, fireworks would misfire. Unfortunately all I learned was how to conjure a lightning cloud,” she finished and dropped her head in defeat.

Both Karon and Lyra turned to stare at the unicorn open mouthed, to which Trixie responded with an irritated look. “What!?” she demanded off them.

“Trixie … do you even know what clouds are made of?” Lyra asked her gently.

Trixie gave her a haughty look and flicked her mane, “Of course I do! They're made out of … fluff.”

Lyra smirked back at the unicorn with unconcealed glee, however Karon merely shook his head with amusement and said, “Well, I guess technically that could be right. Let me explain.”

For the next ten minutes Karon gave a brief lecture on clouds and how Trixie could perhaps, with a little alteration, provide them with an endless supply of water. It took a long time for them to get anywhere, as Trixie had learned the piece of magic solely by trial and error – an impressive feat in itself, one that hinted that her cutie mark wasn't entirely misplaced.

Even so, it still took a lot of time and frustration before Trixie gained a fair grasp on such things as pressure, the interplay between heat and cold, vibrational frequency and electric charge – things that Karon noted someone claiming the title of 'Great and Powerful' should know. However at the end of it, when enough time had passed that the sun was setting and the air was getting colder, he was fairly certain she could manage to conjure a small cloud of rain instead of accidentally killing all of them with a hail of lightning.

But he still winced when her horn lit up.

And to all of their great relief, a small dark blue cloud snaked out of her horn and trailed a tiny way up into the sky before stopping above them. When it stayed there and did nothing, Karon and the ponies looked at each other with blank faces, and were then promptly drenched as the cloud dropped the water it contained. The trio fled in different directions, and to Trixie's despair, they found the cloud was trailing after her, making sure she could not escape her fate.

Three minutes later, Karon and Lyra did their best to keep from laughing when a miserably wet Trixie came walking towards them on shaky legs, her mane clinging to her head and a look on her face saying she was not far from weeping openly.

“Well, at least that solves the water issue,” he said before snorting out a giggle, after which Lyra fell down to the ground laughing.

After many apologies from Karon, and a not-so-heartfelt one from Lyra, the trio grabbed their gear and began moving in the direction the human had sensed the lost city would be, where dark tunnels awaited them.

               ********************************************************  

Much of the journey was spent with them looking forwards in the direction of the waiting city, and backwards over their shoulders, imagining a horde of jackals suddenly on their tails. The latter was mostly Karon, since his senses kept telling him danger was lurking around somewhere, watching them. As a result, he did not sleep well at night, leaving him easily irritable and snapping off at the ponies more than once.

One week passed of trekking their way across the cracked earth of the desert, never once seeing any signs of other sentient life except at night when they sometimes heard distant howling. No one could say for certain if they came from the jackals or something else entirely, but Karon banned all camp fires after the first night they heard it.

After one week of traveling, the desert shifted from cracked earth and dried out bushes to plain sand, rolling hills shifting constantly in the wind. It grew harder to walk after that, and during the day the sand heated up to the point the ponies were complaining that it hurt their hooves. Karon did not have that trouble in his leather boots, but he faced another pain, that of overheating. His robe and thick boots kept him constantly warm to the brink of delirium, but he dared not take it off for the danger of scalding his skin with the sun's rays.

So they trudged on, defying the inhospitable landscape and heat during the day, and stopping at night to huddle close together to defy the cold. Every night that they stopped, Karon made sure they were heading in the right direction, the hills of sand looked all alike to his eyes, and it was easy to get lost.

His lessons with Trixie continued, and he was growing more and more impressed with her as they went. She possessed talent, none could argue that, and she picked up on things fast when she decided not to be quite so stubborn. Karon kept getting the urge to ask her why she was so untrained when she obviously had such potential, but every time he did, something held him back. The way the unicorn's eyes would shine whenever she mastered a basic exercise, or the way she clapped her hooves in joy whenever he gave her an honest compliment. It made him think she was not accustomed to such things, and he didn't want to spoil her mood by dragging something up that would make her sad.

When three whole weeks had passed, she had made progress, a lot of progress. The beginning was the hardest part after all. She was beginning to get a proper sense of things even though her natural inclination leaned towards more heavy energy works instead of the soft workings Karon was better at. But all in all, Karon was proud of her. He had so far taught her no specific ability, simply attuning her more properly to herself and the world around and increasing her natural ability to tap into energy fields that played in the environment. She would complain about it sometimes, but knowing the basics would make the difference between being able to channel a lightning strike, and creating a storm that could level a city, because there was no doubt, Trixie had talent for destruction.

“No, no, no! I keep telling you, the difference is in the polarity. If you have the power to destroy something, you can create. If you can kill you can heal and so on. You need to be able to control the flow, otherwise you might as well quit now. You won't be much use to anyone, least of all yourself, if all you can do is destroy,” Karon finished, throwing his hands up into the air.

Trixie sat patiently on the ground before him, doing the deep breathing he had taught her to keep the cold at bay. Above them the stars twinkled with something reminiscent of amusement, looking down on the scene below. The moon was nearing its fullness, and spread ample light across the desert, giving it a serene presence lacking in the day when the sun scorched the land.

“I'm sorry master, I don't understand exactly how...” Trixie phrased carefully, looking down on the cooling sand thoughtfully.

Karon grimaced and looked around for some kind of example he could use, and he found it lazily gliding across the sky.

“There! The moon, look at the moon! Do you sense it, the moon rays shining down, can you feel the energy? The charge? Can you feel the state of the charge, the degree it radiates force?” he said, grasping the best way he could try and explain.

Trixie nodded and looked up at the silvery orb.

“But how? The light is a reflection of the sun after all, and the sun's rays are opposite in charge, opposite in what polarity dominates the energy's structure.”

“You've told me that,” Trixie pointed out, but still looking up with knitted brows, following the train of thought he was leading her down.

“Then how? If the moon's rays are a reflection of the sun's, then how can it be the exact opposite?” he asked her, waiting patiently when silence settled.

Trixie started to look nervous when she realized he wasn't going to elaborate further, and that he was waiting to hear an answer from her.

“Because … the moon isn't like the sun?” she carefully worded, drawing out each word to give herself time.

“Exactly, more right than you think. The moon's aura, or presence if you so will, isn't one like the sun. It works as a reflection of the sun, a mirror image as it is in this case. And what is our mirror image?”

“It's … us, but switched sides, like a copy but one in direct opposite,” she said, realization dawning.

“Yes, now you get it. That's what you need to be able to do, switch sides as you put it. They are both mirrors of each other. There is always the core, but they are sides that take forms. You need to be able to let your magic take both forms, all forms on every level.”

“How?” she asked and looked into his eyes, to which he smiled a crooked smile. It was like staring into the past, when he had asked that question.

“With hard work, you'll learn with practice. Not tonight though, I think we're done for now.”

The unicorn sighed deeply and got up from the ground, brushing her flank gently. She and Karon walked over to where Lyra sat, drawing figures in the sand distantly.

“Done with the lesson?” she asked with a hint of anger.

Over the past few weeks she had adopted a passive aggressive attitude towards Karon, and an openly aggressive one towards Trixie. He had tried to steal some time to mend whatever wound had gotten between them, however between the mercilessly tiring wandering of the day – where opening one's mouth and letting moisture escape for talking could be lethal – and the lessons with Trixie at night, he simply didn't have the strength for any deep or serious talks with her. Leaving Lyra to experience the pain of neglect, and in her mind Karon had begun to suspect, the fear of being replaced.

“Yeah, we're done Lyra. And unless my senses are fooling me we should be close to the ruins now, maybe tomorrow or the day after that is all it takes,” Karon said in an attempt to cheer her up.

“We still have the way back too you know. The jackals might be in our way,” she answered back, not taking the bait.

“We'll find a way to slip past them,” he reassured.

“Then what?” she asked and brushed away the sand she had scribbled in.

“Then we get back to the empress and deliver the good news,” he said, Trixie walking over to where Lyra was, but still keeping her distance.

“And then what?” Lyra continued.

“Then … we'll see we're we end up,” was all he could offer, holding out his hands helplessly.

Lyra didn't say anything else, she merely turned over on her side, her back turned to both Karon and Trixie. A twinge of guilt played on Karon's heartstrings, a note of quiet sadness that said it was his fault Lyra was slipping from them. He had tried to push her away, tried to get her to leave, and even though she remained, she had not forgotten it seemed.

Then there was something else. She was a unicorn and possessed innate psychic abilities, even if they weren't honed by practice and study besides a few lone abilities. And at times Karon could feel some small echo of empathy and telepathy reaching out towards him with fragile tendrils, and he would find Lyra staring at him while they walked across the desert, unconsciously reaching towards his mind in an attempt to find answers to what he was hiding from her.

Besides pretty much everything.

Even though she was obviously hurting, it never once occurred to him to tell her the truth, there was no chance she would understand or let him be. She would try to 'save' him, try to convince him of his folly. Perhaps she would even be right, but as long as she didn't speak the words, so long as she remained ignorant and silent, he was spared the pain of having to go through all of that. And if there was one thing Karon was tired of, it was pain.

He remembered what he had told Luna, his meager attempt at trying to console an immortal being like her with his empty rhetoric.

“Life is pain,” he had told her, as if she didn't know.

He was so tired of pain.

He laid down besides Lyra, Trixie joining him at his other side. He took off his robe as always and spread it over the three of them like a sheet, offering some small protection from the cold. Lyra didn't move, however Trixie squirmed closer to him for comfort and warmth. For a moment he thought he heard her make a pleased sound when she buried her face in his chest, her horn dangerously close to his face and pointing over his shoulder.

It wasn't perfect, but in a place like the desert, you take what you can get. And her presence was soothing, as was Lyra's despite her back being turned to him.

Sleep took them all fast.

Karon was the first to wake, dawn was breaking and the air was slowly shifting from chilled to pleasant warmth. He had learned there was a small period of time when the sun was barely peeking over the horizon that the temperature was perfect, and he had taken to eating breakfast at that time.

He was halfway through it, munching on a dried pear, when Lyra got up from the ground the brushed of the corns of sand still clinging to her coat, leaving Trixie alone on the ground with the robe covering her completely.

“Good morning,” he told her carefully.

She looked at him bleary eye before stretching her limbs and yawning, then answered.

“Yeah, good morning,” she said and shuffled over to where he sat on the ground, two sets of provisions wrapped in soft leaves for the ponies placed out before him. Lyra grabbed one with her telekinesis and it hovered up before her. She opened her mouth and absentmindedly began chewing when a dried piece of fruit floated into it.

“How much farther is it?” she asked while looking around at the surrounding hills of sand.

“See that set of rock sticking out of the sand,” he said and pointed towards a distant collection of rock, rising above the sand. Lyra nodded.

“I think that used to be a mountain, but it has been weathered for some time now and now little remains of it. And I also think the remains of the city is below it, that the jackals built their city not only on the surface but dug deep down into the earth, perhaps making use of natural cave formations. That's the sense I get anyway, most of it is conjecture but the stone I have in my possession came from deep underground, but it still was a part of the city.”

“So … we have a partially underground city. I guess that would explain how no one could have found it, but what if the crown was in the above section? What if the tunnels were just storage or something unimportant?”

“I can't know for certain but I doubt it. If the city was lost because of war, then the caves would be where the jackals were backed into or what would have been left standing. And if the king last wearing the crown died before the city fell, then they probably took the crown in as deep into the caves they could, to keep it safe. Or any other scenario, point is the tunnels are natural places to escape to, and the crown must have made its way there somehow.”

“Fine, so are we just going to look through everything that's left of the city or...?” Lyra asked, swallowing the last of her breakfast.

Karon sighed and brought out a waterbag, which he drank deeply from before handing it over to the unicorn.

“Honestly I don't know. If the crown really is that important, then they probably didn't leave it discarded on the floor somewhere. Though that means they put it somewhere safe, most likely guarded by traps or inside a vault or hidden area or something.”

“This is going to take a while isn't it?” she asked and took a swig from the levitating waterbag.

“Yeah, unless someone else has done all our work for us and we can just waltz in and grab it.”

“That would be lucky. We don't get lucky,” Lyra said with a smile, and Karon turned to her smiling as well.

The tension that had hung over them for the last few weeks eased up a little, and Karon carefully cleared his throat before asking, “So … Lyra. Wh-”

“No Karon, I'm not having this conversation with you until you tell me what it is that's bothering you so much,” she interrupted, her voice flat and uncompromising.

“I-”

“No, I know there's something. Sometimes I can almost feel it, but I can always see it in the way you move and talk. There is something wrong and you refuse to tell me, even though you know we could get hurt.”

“Tell her, tell her, tell her what?”

“An unvoiced desire, a need too scary to bring fully to the surface. Something that would be better to leave known but not acknowledged, until it's over, done and gone.”

“Lyra, there's a thousand things always bothering me,” Karon offered.

“I know, but this is different. Your eyes don't shine anymore, not even in the dark.”

Karon flinched, then turned away from her and looked in the opposite direction.

“Maybe they don't, doesn't matter. Could you wake Trixie up and tell her to eat her breakfast? I'm going to get a better sense for where we get into the tunnels,” he said and got up, walking towards the outcrops of rock without looking back.

Lyra's eyes followed him until he sat down on his knees in the sand again, stretching his arms out like he was playing with puppets. She watched as his fingers danced for several minutes before getting up and doing as he had asked, shaking Trixie awake and pointing wordlessly to the food. The showmare understood and went over to the waiting breakfast, leaving Lyra to stare over at Karon, her eyes glistening.

After ten minutes he returned to them, avoiding Lyra's gaze and focusing on Trixie.

“The tunnels are definitely somewhere within and underneath those cliffs. If there is some topside remains of the city, we'll just have to see but I doubt it. If nothing is left but sand, it would explain why the jackals haven't found anything.”

“Is there an entrance somewhere?” Trixie asked after chewing the last of her food.

“Yeah, I can sense some kind of opening halfway up one of the cliffs, I think it's a collapsed roof.”

“How are we supposed to get up there!? We're not pegasi, we're unicorns,” Lyra asked, suppressed anger trickling into her voice.

“It's not exactly a straight wall. We can find a relatively easy way up I think.”

“Fine, let's go then.” Lyra finished, looking over her shoulder at the sea of sand they had passed through.

Karon nodded before looking in the same direction, sharing her sentiments. The feeling of being tracked lingered still, and he had no interest in playing prey.

They set off towards the waiting cliffs, weathered by the constantly shifting winds carrying sand with it. The rock had no sharp outcrops and was curiously dome like in shape, perhaps it had even been a building some time far past. Now though, it was just a patch of stone the desert had claimed for itself, but still hopefully holding the treasures of its past untouched.

They had to pass almost halfway around the cliffs before they found a slope the sand had carved out, leading up towards the top. Once there it required a bit of acrobatic maneuvering to get to the opening Karon had sensed, something the ponies took to less naturally than Karon. And Lyra glared at Karon's hands enviously during the entire ordeal.

However they eventually found it, a pitch black wound in the rock, three times Karon's size. And after they had dropped a small rock into it and waiting for a clatter, the human was the first to dare to jump into it, hoping desperately that the floor wouldn't be cracked or uneven in some way. Luck for once seemed to be smiling, or at least not spitting, in their direction and he landed on both his feet safely, though the impact sent needles running up his legs. The ponies left their gear outside, having decided earlier that what Karon carried would have to do.

The darkness was nearly impenetrable, and the small shaft of light that trickled through the opening was shadowed twice as Lyra then Trixie followed Karon down. Squinting his eyes the human cupped his palms and breathed a ball of light into being. Photons danced together and coalesced into a small sphere, which attached itself to the tip of Karon's spear, running in currents around it.

All three of them blinked when the white glare struck out into the stale air around them, chasing the darkness far down into the hallway they realized they stood in.

“Huh, so it was a collapsed roof,” Karon muttered and looked over at the unicorns.

“Where to now master?” Trixie asked and sniffed the air with a grimace.

“Don't know. Can't use divination for the crown, don't have a map and we have no real idea if the crown is even in here to begin with. All I can think of is following the paths that looks to lead to the wealthiest areas. By reason, the crown should be at the center of power and wealth.”

Lyra sighed deeply, “We really need to start going over plans before we go anywhere from now on,” she murmured, her words louder than normal in the dead silence of the tunnels.

They began marching down the hallway and Karon noted that the walls bore pictographs, not entirely unlike those used by the zebras. The feeling they evoked was unsettling and he frowned while heading deeper into the dark. He should have wanted to investigate them, to study to see what information they would have revealed. He would have never hesitated earlier in his life. Now … they merely made him feel sad.

The sound of their steps echoed off the walls, preceding them down the hallway. It made for an eerie journey, and Karon began noticing that the passage wasn't entirely horizontal, they appeared to be heading downwards steadily. That and he could almost feel the pressure of the rock above increasing as they went, the sound of their steps ringing through the empty dark like a call to all things dead and forgotten to wake.

“Drums, drums in the deep.”

“Shut up.”

“They are coming!”

“Shut up!”

They reached several crossroad as they went, and always they headed down the path that looked a little richer, a little more adorned. Something that turned out to be easy, since the pictographs on the walls always were more elaborate on the different paths. Perhaps it was how they had separated quarters back when the city was still alive?

However, when they reached a dark gap in the middle of the floor, they had to stop. Karon could see the other side clearly, and it was a little far to casually jump across even if it seemed entirely possible.

“Should we turn back or-” Lyra did not finish the question, they all had heard it. Somewhere from deeper inside, a sound echoing from the path ahead. It was faint, but still too loud and clear to be mistaken as something imagined. It had been a clanging sound, the sound a chandelier would perhaps make when falling to a stone floor, and it had frozen the trio in place.

They stood unmoving, barely breathing, waiting for some other sound to confirm what they all suddenly feared. They were not alone.

No other sound came, but instead the hallway they faced was lit at the other end by an orange light, coming closer fast. Karon felt panic rising, what was it? Was it dangerous? Should he try and attack it first before it reached them? Should he cover them in invisibility and watch unseen?

The last one sounded good, and he was about to do just that when he realized that whatever it was approaching it must see his light as clearly as Karon could see the approaching one. Since stealth was no longer an option he cursed loudly and brought his spear forward in a ready stance, the ball of light skipping from the edge to hover above him.

“Karon maybe we should run?” Lyra asked in a shaky voice.

“Are you seeing how fast that thing is? Well never get away,” he responded evenly, then stopped as a thought occurred.

“But you two should run,” he said, his eyes flickering to the ponies at his left.

“What!?” they both shouted in unison.

“I said-”

“We heard you master, and we're not leaving,” Trixie said firmly, her and Lyra giving each other a look of mutual understanding.

Karon didn't have time to argue, the light had stopped for barely a second when it was halfway towards them, then came again at an even faster speed. Karon gripped his spear hard and both the unicorns at his side entered a ready stance with their horns tipped forwards.

When it came within range Karon threw out his left palm and a bolt of lightning struck towards it, however the light dodged to the right impossibly fast, narrowly missing being hit. It changed its direction slightly and came right at Karon. He swung his spear in arc towards the light, and hastily got a glimpse of something green and yellow before it flew over him, avoiding the tip of the spear and coming at him from behind. Curiously, the light didn't attack him immediately, and when he spun around he didn't strike towards the light, instead he held the spear forward and spoke.

“What are you?” he asked, squinting in the glaring shine of whatever it was.

“Huh? Oh right the light,” He heard a slightly raspy but feminine voice say.

The light bobbed for a moment, then winked out of existence, leaving a pegasus flapping her wings steadily in its place. One that looked very familiar...

“Uhh, Rainbow Dash?” Karon asked dumbfounded, blinking away the afterimage.

“Karon … I think that's-”

“No, the name's Daaaring Do! Emphasis on the daring. Now would you mind telling me what you are doing down here in MY ruin?”

Sight returning to him, Karon took a closer look at the pegasus, and did in fact now see that it wasn't Rainbow Dash after all, just someone that looked a lot like her. The only real difference he could make out was the color of her mane and coat, yellow and gray respectively. And the fact that she wore clothes, much in the style one might have expected a British explorer have worn a couple hundred years back. Although perhaps the most noteworthy thing about her was the fact that as far as Karon's knowledge stretched, Daring Do was a fictional character, yet there she was flying in the air right in front of him, in an underground ruin, holding in her right hoof a large golden crown.

“Well I'll be damned.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 38: Asante sana Metatron Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 13 Minutes