For Fear of a God
A sandstorm raged in the Badlands. It was night, but you would never know it. The dead sand fell upon the desert, blown upon a constant dry wind.
Twilight and Naudia were camped out inside a cave, in one of the many rocky outcroppings in the Badlands. Naudia had allowed a small ration of the delicious fungus. Twilight wanted more, but there was a magical lock on the saddlebags.
They could not light a fire, as there was nothing to burn, but Naudia conjured a glowing ball of light that would suffice for illumination. It provided no heat, however, in the increasingly cold desert night.
Twilight had a headache and wanted to be alone with her thoughts after what had happened today, and they had very sensibly brought two blankets...
Which would have been helpful if they were sleeping bags, as the sandy ground was easy to lie on but rough on their fur. So once again they had to share, which Twilight didn't mind much at all at this point... save for the thought of-
NO. She cut that thought off right there. She didn't want to think about, she couldn't think about-
Princess Celestia.
All right, all right, Twilight, calm down, just calm down, it's not like you're in a relationship with the daughter of the changeling queen, who defeated the princess in open combat...
OK it wasn't just “like” that, it was exactly that.
But Naudia was a nice changeling, one of the nicest she'd ever known. OK, the only changeling she'd ever known, but still, that had to count for something, right?
Twilight could see it now: walking into the throne room side by side with Naudia, she would try and explain to Celestia the situation. Celestia would assume she was under the control of the changeling queen, and wouldn't listen, and then she would blast Naudia with a bolt of sunfire-
"NO!" Twilight shouted aloud.
----------------
Naudia had been detecting some strange emotions from Twilight these past few minutes.
At first there was less confusion, more caring and even the slightest hint of love, then the emotions spiraled down into nervousness, fear, and most worryingly of all, outright terror.
Naudia put her hoof on Twilight's back to try and comfort her, but she was too engrossed in her own emotions to notice. Twilight, now in full nervous breakdown mode, was shaking and staring ahead at her own thoughts. In outright fear, she screamed out.
"NO!"
Naudia managed to calm Twilight down enough to get some coherent words out of her, several minutes of nervous spurts of unattached phrases later.
"Now, Twilight, what’s got you so worked up?"
Twilight took one look at her and had to take several deep breaths to calm down again. She looked worried, very, very worried.
"Princess Celestia."
"Oh." Naudia felt a little colder at the thought.
"I'm just so worried that when we return she won't even give you a chance, and will just automatically assume that I'm under your control or something, and then when she finds out I'm NOT she'll stop being my friend, and banish me to the moon, along with the course materials for..."
Twilight was once again visibly shaking. "MAGIC KINDERGARTEN!"
"Let’s concentrate on getting out of this desert before we start worrying about Celestia, OK, Twilight?"
Naudia put a hoof over Twilight's still-shaking shoulders.
"There are worse than feral dragons out there. You'll need to rest up for tomorrow."
Twilight did eventually manage to get to sleep. Naudia managed to hide her feelings at that moment, but she was thinking along the same lines as Twilight was.
Throughout all this, though, Naudia felt unmasked and strange talking to a pony who hasn't lynched her simply because of her appearance. The emotions she felt from Twilight were strange as well, even though Twilight hadn't fully accepted her yet. The feelings that radiated off her felt strongly of uncertainty and nervousness, but underneath that was a steady stream of hope, affection, and the beginnings of love.
When she was quite sure Twilight was asleep, she got up and walked over to her pack, the one that carried all the food for Twilight, and, as such, had to be magically locked and sealed. The seal was dispelled with a faint green light, and she carefully lifted the food out of the pack, peering in at the very bottom.
There were a set of old and very utilitarian hoof-cuffs, enchanted, and a magic dampener, of a similar caliber to the one used on Luna.
Naudia had been thinking ahead too, and it saddened her... but this was the only way.