Raindrops shivered as the four ponies trudged through the desert, dragging behind them the cart with the jackelope. Despite the incredible, oppressive heat of the day, it was freezing cold now, but Raindrops didn't mind much. She grew up in a cloud city thousands of feet above the ground; she knew cold like an eccentric, not particularly beloved but still familiar aunt. Besides, she couldn't feel the itching through the cold, so that was a relief.
She and Thunder Axe pulled the cart while Vinyl and Lyra helped levitate it over out toppings of rock and down cliffs.
"You sure you know where we're going?" Raindrops asked Vinyl.
"Yes," said Vinyl patiently. "Just like the last time you asked. We just have to head down."
"Easier said than done," grumbled Lyra. She had a point; the slopes leading down to the[ancient dry lake bed were a tangled maze of crisscrossing canyons, blind alleys and dead ends.
It was at the third dead end that Lyra's patience finally snapped. "This is ridiculous! How are we supposed to get anywhere in this stupid maze? I thought you knew how to get to whatever this place is!"
"Heart of the Desert," said Vinyl. "And look, I've been there once. As long as we keep going down, we'll get there eventually."
"If we keep doubling back, Cheesecake's goons will find us!" Lyra grimaced.
"Calm down, you two," said Thunder Axe. "Let's just relax. Maybe we need to take a rest for a minute before we continue on, marshal our strength and calm everyone down."
That's weird, thought Raindrops. All the interviews I've read say Thunder Axe is the hardest working Daughter of Discord. She would never be the first to call for a break... unless something strange is going on... or she isn't really Thunder Axe. She eyed the other pegasus suspiciously, but she looked like Thunder Axe, and it wasn't like iron horseshoes were common among pegasi. Still, Raindrops knew she would have to keep an eye on her, just to be sure.
In the cart, the jackelope twitched and made high-pitched muttering sounds. Thunder Axe looked over it. "Poor little guy," she said. "I think he's dreaming."
"Lucky him," grumbled Lyra, but no one paid her any attention.
"We've rested long enough," said Vinyl. "Come on, let's get moving before they find us."
And now Vinyl's tense and determined? No, this is all wrong, I don't know who these ponies are. I'm the only one who's acting normal.
The four ponies walked back out of the canyon they'd rested in and tried another path that seemed to go down. This one actually worked for a while, twisting and crossing several others but generally heading downward, until abruptly they turned a corner and found themselves facing yet another dead end.
"Sunshine!" shouted Lyra while the others looked at her in shock. The word echoed through the rocks, bouncing back and forth and overlapping itself, the sound of it distorting. "Sunshine sunshine sunshine" murmured the desert echoes, mocking them. Raindrops shivered, and not from the cold. She could feel it now. Something vast and ancient, alien and powerful, lurking just out of the corner of her eye, where she couldn't see it...
"Well," said a masculine voice from behind them. "Fancy meetin' you here."
They whirled to see Dusty Cliff, flanked by two rather burly Earth pony stallions in the black vests of festival security. "I reckon that's about enough chasin' through the desert for one night, don't you?" he asked.
"Up!' shouted Vinyl. Thunder Axe and Raindrops each grabbed one of the unicorns, the two of whom combined their magic to lift the jackelope. In a matter of moments, they were up and over the cliff wall.
All four collapsed, panting, on the other side, in yet another canyon slightly lower down. From above, they heard a shout. "Thought so," said Raindrops. "They've got lookouts at the top of the valley. They'll be able to spot us if we fly." She looked out over the desert. The sky to the east was starting to turn gray. The sun would be up soon, and as soon as that happened this trip would become much, much more difficult.
"Raindrops, can you carry the jackelope?" Thunder Axe asked.
Raindrops nodded. "For a while, at least. Tie him in place, though, I don't want to drop him."
Lyra and Vinyl floated the jackelope over to Raindrops, but as soon as his horn touched her flank she flinched away.
"What's wrong?" asked Thunder Axe.
"The horns," said Raindrops. "They tickle!"
The other three ponies stepped in to surround Raindrops. "They're vibrating," said Thunder Axe. "If you listen closely, you can hear the hum."
"There's a bit of magic coming off them, too," said Lyra. She bent down low. "You know, they're that same sort of iridescent gray as a crystaphone. Maybe they're responding to our emotions the way a crystaphone does?"
"What, you mean amplifying them? Playing them back?" asked Thunder Axe.
"Okay, that's interesting, but we have to keep moving," Vinyl reminded them. "Dusty knows where we are, remember?"
Lyra looked like she was about to snap at Vinyl, but she visibly bit back whatever she was going to say. They finished tying the jackelope to Raindrops, careful to keep the horns pointing up so they didn't touch Raindrops. Then they continued on as the sun slowly rose over the valley.
They took another break at Thunder Axe's insistence about an hour later, just long enough to sit for a moment in the shade of an outcropping and sip some water. Then it was up and on once more. The jackelope was starting to feel heavier and heavier, but Raindrops didn't let it show. She didn't trust the others, not when they were acting so strangely.
As they got closer to the lake bed, the maze of paths grew less complicated, and they began to pick up speed. After half an hour, as they passed another patch of shade, Thunder Axe said, "We should stop again."
"Chya, seriously?" Vinyl Scratch turned to face her. "Do we really need to stop again with a bunch of big stallions after us?"
"Yes," said Thunder Axe. "We're almost to the lake bed, and there'll be no cover at all there."
"Which is why we need as much lead as possible when we get there!"
Thunder Axe shook her head. "No, it's why we need to be completely hydrated and ready to move fast until we get to... wherever you're taking us."
"Oh, I don't CARE!" hissed Lyra. "Stop, don't stop, whatever, will you two quit flirting?"
Thunder Axe blushed. "I'm not--we're not--" She turned to Vinyl Scratch. "I mean... not that you're not cute, you are, I mean really, really cute, and... wait. Why am I..." She blushed harder, and at the same time began to look worried. "I'm... I like stallions, why am I--"
"Hyah!" shouted Dusty as he and the two security ponies leaped over a ridge and down among the four mares. Thunder Axe whinnied in surprise and danced nervously in place, while the other three ponies fell back onto their rumps.
"UGH!" shouted Lyra. "Why don't you LEAVE us--" a large boulder pulled itself out of the ground, surrounded in a pale-green glow--"ALONE!" The boulder flew with tremendous speed directly at Dusty, while Raindrops watched in helpless horror.
"Lyra!" shouted Thunder Axe, as she clapped her wings together, toward the boulder. There was a flash of light, a crack of thunder, and a smell of ozone, and the boulder exploded, showering down on the three stallions in a hail of pebbles. They yelped and ran back up the ridge, covered in bruises and scrapes. "What were you THINKING?" Thunder Axe demanded. "You could have killed somepony!"
Lyra shrank back in horror. "I... I don't, I didn't mean..." She looked on the verge of tears. "I just got so... so angry, angrier than I've ever been... what's happening? This isn't like me. Vinyl, Raindrops, you KNOW this isn't like me."
"No," Raindrops said. "It isn't. And it isn't like Thunder Axe to be stopping for rests, no matter how sensible it might be. It isn't like her to be attracted to Vinyl, either. And it isn't like Vinyl to be constantly pushing us to go faster. All three of you are acting strangely. Don't you get it? They're doing something to us!"
"They?" asked Thunder Axe. "Who's they?"
"I don't know!" Raindrops admitted. "But I'm going to find out."
"Yeah, I don't think we're the only ones acting different from usual," said Lyra. "Normally you'd be threatening whoever 'they' are, not investigating."
"You're right," I said, beginning to get it. "But instead you have my temper... and Thunder Axe is keeping us together and organized and safe, like the Element of Loyalty should..."
"Oh!" said Lyra, starting to get it. "And she's attracted to Vinyl..." Lyra blushed. "Well, you really are cute!" she admitted. "And don't you tell Bon-Bon I said that, or else I'll--" she stopped in midsentence and shook her head.
Raindrops watched her friend. So this is what I look like from outside. Nothing but a thug who can barely keep from attacking her friends, and has to be violently prevented from attacking her enemies...
"But what's causing it?" asked Thunder Axe. "What's blending all our personalities together like this?"
Oh, Raindrops thought. She jabbed a hoof at her back. "Isn't it obvious when you put it that way? Mr. 'Mix Things That Don't Belong Together."
Lyra groaned. "We're trying to help you, you stupid jackelope!" In response, it snorted and stirred fitfully in its sleep.
"Hey now," said Thunder Axe. "He's tired and sick. He's probably not doing it on purpose, just losing control of his magic in his dreams."
"He does feel very hot," Raindrops said, "and not just from the heat."
"Okay," said Thunder Axe. "Everybody drink up and then we move. Hopefully Cheesecake's stallions will spend some time licking their wounds, and we'll be able to beat them to the Heart."
For once, nobody argued, just drank quietly alone with their thoughts. "I think I get it," Raindrops said after a while.
"What?" asked Thunder Axe.
"Why us. It's the blending thing... you're a pegasus with iron in your hooves, that's not supposed to go together. Lyra spent some time as an omnivore a while back, that's another thing that doesn't belong in a pony."
"Ew," said Thunder Axe.
"Not my fault!" Lyra protested. "It was all Trixie's fault! She--" She bit back her response again. "Sorry. Having trouble with that temper."
"Yeah," said Raindrops. "That's me. The temper of a griffin and the strength of an Earth pony in a pegasus. Things that don't belong together. The only one I'm having trouble with is you, Vinyl. What do you blend?"
"Uh..." said Vinyl.
"I think I see it," said Lyra. "Vinyl's special talent isn't playing an instrument, it's air manipulation. That's a pegasus talent in a unicorn."
"Yeah," said Vinyl. "That makes sense. That must be it." She chuckled.
"So... what does it mean?" asked Thunder Axe. "What does the jackelope need us to do?"
"Only one way to find out," said Vinyl.
She was right, so they set out again, scrambling over the last slopes to at last reach the broad, flat expanse of cracked earth that was the lake bed. "This way!" said Vinyl. "Toward the center!" She began to trot, and the others followed.
As they neared... something, Raindrops felt it looming ahead of them. The itch, which had been steadily returning ever since the sun came up, flared suddenly and spread vicious tingles dancing along her back and sides. A headache exploded between her eyes before narrowing to a razor-sharp point. She could feel it, something enormous and enormously powerful under the earth, but also spiking upward into the cloudless sky.
"The Heart of the Desert," said Vinyl proudly.
Raindrops felt something shift, and suddenly the vast web of shimmering connections she had slowly, over the past few hours, discovered collapsed, and a familiar surge of irritation swept through her.
On her back, the jackelope stirred, and then it cried. It started like a cross between a whimper, a meow, and a musical note, but it built slowly, swelling, getting sweeter and sadder until it sang out in a shimmering wail over the desert. The jackelope was awake. It was at the Heart of the Desert. It was time.
"Now what?" asked Thunder Axe.