Candles
Twilight dragged her hooves. They had been walking all day, after they’d found the changeling skull. She wasn't hot, she wasn't hungry, or even thirsty, as they could draw water up from the water table with magic (Spell #42, one she had never thought would come in handy). But Twilight wasn't accustomed to walking long distances, and she was still shaken from the expression on Naudia's face when they found the changeling skull.
The good news for her was that the sun was setting, and they would shortly be stopping to sleep. The bad news was that there didn't appear to be any rocky outcroppings to set up camp in anywhere.
They had thought to bring a tent, without any instructions as to how to set it up. Ten minutes after they figured out that they were using that particular part of the tent upside down, they finally managed to get it in working order.
Twilight looked like she could use a pick-me-up of some kind, to distract her from today’s events, and after only a few seconds Naudia thought she had the perfect thing.
"Twilight, I think we need to do some studying." Naudia said, pulling a book out of her saddlebags.
The effect on Twilight was almost instantaneous. Any trace on her face of exhaustion or of today's events was replaced by the librarian’s perky enthusiasm for knowledge. She even clapped her hooves together in that way Naudia found simply adorable.
"Oooh, oh, oh, what is it?" Twilight said, sitting down next to Naudia in the reading position they used back at the library, only this time their sides touched as they read the same book.
"It's 'The Mana Debt Cycle.' It’s a little dry, but it's how most of the ecosystem works in the Badlands."
Twilight's eyes were as wide as saucers. This was something she had been dying to ask about for days now. Naudia smiled to see the librarian truly happy for the first time in days.
"Now, the Mana Cycle starts when a spell is used, any spell, even the rising and setting of the sun and moon..."
Twilight and Naudia read long into the night, discussing the various unusual creatures that had popped up in the Badlands, circling around its very unique ecology. Finally, even bookish enthusiasm couldn't keep them up any longer, and they fell asleep, happy in each other's hooves despite all the desert could throw at them.
Until, during the night, Twilight awoke to find a strange light flowing into the tent from outside.
Naudia also awoke, later in the night, with a cold spot next to her and a faint light filtering in through the sides of the tent.
Instantly alert, she cursed. They had drawn the attention of Sand Spirits.
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Frantically, Naudia ran through the nighttime desert looking left and right for hints of a certain pony, but she knew where Twilight would be. As she passed by floating lighted candles, one after another, she saw a faint blue glow on the horizon up ahead and a vortex of glowing blue candles spiraled up into the night.
Naudia cursed herself for not seeing this coming. Twilight was an immensely powerful unicorn, drawing the nastier arcanovorous creatures was inevitable.
As she approached the center of the ring of candles, she began to see their ghostly faces faintly outlined in the light of the sheer amount of magic being expelled. They glared down at the changeling queen as she passed. She was neither a source of mana, nor of any interest to them: to them, a changeling was simply an obstruction.
Finally, Naudia came upon the edge of the veritable cyclone of sand spirits. Here, she hesitated.
She could see Twilight in the center of it all, in her own little world, horn aglow with a violent intensity as she levitated pony-shaped amalgamations of rocks and talked to them as if nothing was wrong.
The sand spirits fed off of "mana debt," but instead of waiting for it to happen, they would hypnotize a pony into incurring it for them--often to the point of exhaustion. Oftentimes, with unicorns, the spirits would force them to create their own illusory world that held something they desired most. It was a very personal experience and if the stories from the patrols were to be believed not something to be intruded upon lightly.
It may have been an illusion, but the mana spirits made sure the pony levitated enough rocks into place, that it was all too real.
Naudia took a deep breath, and took a step through the veil and into an illusion world conjured from Twilight's deepest desires.
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Instantly, Naudia found herself in Canterlot.
Looking behind her, she could no longer see the Badlands. Instead, the mountain city of Canterlot stretched off into the distance in a very complete way, except it looked empty somehow: not abandoned, but without life.
In front of her stood what could only be described as a mansion. Ornate detailing and high windows framed a door that could have been fit for a palace. It looked old, a handed down house. A house that came with a family name.
Naudia didn't bother knocking on the door, as she knew she would be turned away. For the moment though, the sand spirits wouldn't do anything to her unless she directly tried to interfere with their feeding. They couldn't do anything to her directly, but she didn't relish the thought that they would force Twilight to fight her.
Brushing a strand of turquoise hair out of her eyes, Naudia made her way around the outside of the house, stopping to look through all the windows and hopefully locate Twilight. The illusion itself was a very extensive and thorough job, she had to admit. Most of the time the best the victim could manage was one room, sans windows. But here, every room was richly decorated and detailed, obviously from memory, but the detail, and certainly the scale of the illusion was a testament to Twilight's magical prowess.
The only difference she could see was that the illusion looked too small for normal ponies. After searching through window after window of empty and slightly-too-small furniture, she came upon what could only be described as a dining hall, because it was too big for a dining room.
Inside there were two long tables, each big enough to seat twelve ponies apiece. Only the one closest to the window was in use at the moment. On the table was a feast: fruit, pies, cakes, and other foods, with names too high-class to even be pronounced without dropping into a fancier accent, littered the table. And seated around the table was... was...
Her and Twilight. Naudia saw herself sitting, undisguised, talking amiably to Celestia. Twilight's friends, and two ponies Naudia could tell were Twilight’s parents, sat at the table with them as well.
Stunned, Naudia sat peering through the window. For how long she sat, she didn't know, but she watched, occasionally brushing a sea-green lock of hair out of her eyes.
It was... hard for her, to stand outside, watching that table. Everypony there was equal, and nobody looked down on anybody there. There were no unkind words or thoughts there, just Twilight and her friends, accepting her for who she was.
It makes it so much harder to do what I need to do, Naudia thought with a faint sniffle.
Unfortunately for her, one of the diners inside finally noticed her and shouted.
"CHRYSALIS!"
Naudia automatically flinched at hearing her mothers name spoken aloud, and frantically looked around until she met the gaze of her reflection in the glass.
Staring back at her was the predatory gaze of her mother, framed by her sea-green hair.