Chapter One: A Sunburnt Beginning
Chapter One: A Sunburnt Beginning
The magic pulsed through Luna’s horn as she gradually positioned her celestial body in the sky. When the moon was almost in its perfect place, a massive surge of magic exploded in the distance, shocked she accidentally sent the moon careening through the sky and straight over the horizon. However, this went unnoticed to Luna; her attention was firmly focussed on the mushroom cloud of magic that was forming somewhere in southern Equestria. Confused, she quickly moved to her telescope, she gazed out in the direction of the magic finding the Macintosh hills firmly placed in her sights. However, it seemed to be coming from further south from the accursed Badlands.
Luna’s large wings shifted as she summoned fourth her Canterlot voice,
“Guards!”
Two black coated bat ponies emerged from Shadows behind her
“Yes, my Mistress” they hissed in unison. Their voices carrying a peculiar accent.
Luna looked at the two ponies from the corner of her eye,
“Investigate the magical surge in the Badlands, My Little Ponies”.
***
The Badlands is an inhospitable place where few things live and even fewer things grow – ringed by tall formidable mountain ranges that cast long rain shadows upon the Badlands. These mountain ranges shield the Badlands from its otherwise lush and fertile neighbours. The Badlands themselves are full of thick sprouting thorned bushes and cactus’ armed with sharp jagged thorns. What little animal life exists here are confined to small fissures in rocks and the occasional cave that dots the landscape. The landscape they inhabit is rolling and monotonous seemingly endless if you were to stand within it. The Badlands itself is bisected by a large canyon and this is where we find our two haggled adventurers.
The sun beat down hard on the two quickly reddening figures stuck within the sand. A vulture slowly glides down from above, moving towards the two men. Deciding to go for the plumper looking of the two men it lands right next to his face, ruffling its wings as it does so. Leaning forward it clamps its beak around the strange creature’s ear. The man lets out a shrill squeal as he jerks to the side causing the vulture to leap into the air with a shriek of alarms as it begins flying away.
The man stood up shifting the thin layer of sand from him in the process, he clutched at his ear in pain and was shocked to find he was in a desert. Blinking the sand out of his eyes raises his hand to protect himself from the glare he looks around. Seeing large sandy cliffs on either side of him and another man seemingly stuck in the sand nearby.
* * *
Edward looked down his somewhat beaklike nose at the unconscious figure partially buried in the sand. Although, partially obscured it is obvious that the prone figure is much taller than Edward was. The man appeared to have long shaggy brown hair and seemed to be developing a delightful looking burn on his back. As Edward stares, the man slowly began to stir if awakened by the feeling of eyes upon him or just by sheer happenstance. One of the figures massive hand slowly began to shift from the dirt. As Edward saw the size of this man’s hand and his size, in general, the thought that he was completely alone with this man came to mind. Not wanting to get on his bad side immediately, Edward leapt into action helping the figure out of the sand and onto his feet, As the unknown man stood, Edward came to the unpleasant realisation that both were naked as saw the man’s sand encrusted parts swinging in the wind. Recoiling and turning to the side Edward spoke
“H-hey I’m Edward and… umm… w-who are you?”
The large man stretched before letting out a groan
“uhhh… hi I’m Jack and I don’t know the fuck where we are?”
Upon that hearing that a change came about Edward, breathing heavily and growing very red in the face he exclaimed
“Great just great! we’re in a desert in a ravine”
“and we appear to be naked” Cut off Jack
“Yes, I can see that! But what are we going to do now, it’s the middle of the day and we’re going to get burnt to a crisp out here without clothes and we don’t have food and water! We’re going to die out here”.
“Calm down buddy there’s no need to lose our heads” said jack.
Leaning against the side of the gorge Edward took a couple of deep breaths and said
“ok, what do you propose we do then”.
“well I propose we should get into cover, there should be something around here” jack says looking around.
“fine” said jack “our best bet is to find some sort of cave or an outcropping of rock. I don’t know how to navigate without a map do you?”
“nope”
“Ah shoot guess we just need to pick a direction then” But inwardly he thought “ah shit I’m going to die in the desert and this giant is going to eat my corpse”.
Picking a direction Edward and Jack began walking
* * *
After some time walking in the hot sun, the two men came across a small rocky outcropping barely deep enough to hold the two it did, however, provide shelter from the sun. Abandoning all sense of modesty, the two shove up next to each other attempting to get all of their body out of the sun’s rays. They huddle together in the small shadow as they wait for night to fall, however long that will be.
“So…” said Jack “Edward, what did you do before we ended up in the desert”
Upon hearing this Edward seemed to puff a bit from his huddled state.
Proudly he stated “I was a zoologist, I studied animals and their habitats so we could protect them more effectively in conservation programs. Although… I just can’t seem to remember any particular place I worked… or even the organisation I worked for… hmm odd” Erra mumbled” “What did you do? Can you remember”?
“Well I worked for plants and farming, I was an agronomist, I was an allrounder. I cannot seem to remember the country I worked in or if I even had a family”.
Jack scratched at his bristly chin in confusion.
“Do you remember what you were outside of work or any family members”
Edward’s face scrunched up while he thought hard for several minutes before his face settled into a look of despair and consternation”
“I can remember going out with a net to hunt butterflies and other insects, but I cannot remember where I did it. More importantly, why the frick can I not remember my family! I can’t remember their faces or what they sounded like! Its just nothing not even a blur or fragment in my mind. It's literally just nothing”
“yeah I think I get what you mean” said jack” I cannot remember my family either, or what country I was in or what city even. But I do remember my job and what I did in my job and all the things Involved in learning about my job”.
as the two slowly began to think to themselves, unnaturally quickly night fell upon them and with it, a dense mist immediately sprung up.
As the mist rapidly filled the air, the two men looked around in confusion.
Jack is halfway through saying “something is strange about this mis-“ before turning around the rocks a look of joy flooding his features. “Look!” he cried “water!” before he lunged at the rocks. Edward turned his head and could not believe what he saw – it was water! And not just a little bit but enough for small streams of it be condensing onto the rock face!”
Smashing his face against the rock Edward joined Jack in greedily sucking the water from the walls.
* * *
Tarsus slowly crept through the night as the full moon struggled to pierce through the mist that is provided by those strange weather ponies on the outskirts. Tarsus had heard it was for the animals that lived here, but personally, he through that the ponies just wanted to control more of the world. Catching a whiff of fear on the air that seems to not come from a mere animal Tarsus lifted up his nose and sniffed deeply at the air. “Although it was not love, fear was a good enough substitute for the hive if it was strong enough” Tarsus thought. She slowly began to track the scent, silently stalking through the night. It took only moments before she located them, they seemed to be in the Grand Ravine that split the Badlands. However, that was no problem for tarsus gossamer-like wings and quietly flittered down towards her prey.
***
Although it was night, Edward had yet to sleep. The fear of being in this unknown land and the pain of the day's sunburns had all but prevented him from relaxing fully. Not to mention all the strange sounds that emanated from the landscape. All this combined had ensured that he was completely in edge listening and attentive to any strange sounds or sights.
Out of nowhere, he heard a strange noise, nothing like the hoots and howls that he had been filling the misty night air. It was like the fluttering of an insect, or a large beetle, only much larger. Hearing that he sat up higher he strained his ears and eventually heard a shifting of sand nearby. At this, he turned and began to shake his companion’s shoulder repeatedly with a fever and fierceness born of terror.
Jack woke up annoyed but is hushed instantly. Whispering Edward told Jack about the fluttering and that movement nearby. At this Jack stood to his feet looking around, he didn’t see anything, but he decided that Edward sounded frightened enough that he should take him seriously. The two strained their senses peering out into the night, attempting to catch any sign of movement. Eventually, Jack caught a flash of something in the corner of his eye and pivoted to look in that direction. A moment later Edward noticed it as well. Turning his head, he saw something that appeared to be a pair of glowing, floating and unnaturally large eyes – letting out a sickly blue colour that seemed to pierce the mist like a knife. Whatever the thing was it let out a hissing noise and began rushing at Jack and Edward. Jack scrambled, his hand landing on a fist-sized rock and out of desperation and panic he hurled it at the creature. It missed, whistling past the creature’s head causing it to pause momentarily before continuing even faster. At this jack fled climbing up the rockface behind him, Edward was not fast enough, and he was trapped with the creature that was quickly approaching him. As the creature lunged Edward instinctively struck out with his foot, striking it in the face driving it backwards. The creature let out a clicking noise as it carefully approached again. As the monster went down onto its haunches in preparation to spring at Edward a large bowling ball-sized crashed down from above catching the thing’s head underneath it, sending viscera everywhere across Edwards prone body.