Just Deserts

“That’s the last of it,” Misty Moonrise announced as she buckled her saddlebags shut. It had taken longer than she had intended, but, then again, the grey unicorn had never needed to prepare for a journey as long as that which now awaited her. The train ride from Ponyville to Appleloosa would be no problem. It was the trek through the San Palomino Desert that would prove challenging. Nevertheless, Misty was not one to pass up a rare chance to study Star Catcher’s Comet through the incredible telescope at the San Palomino Observatory.

Her friend Juniper Berry had offered to lend a hoof with the packing, as she was coming along as well. The sky-blue earth pony was having a much harder time securing Misty’s stacks and stacks of books to the little one-pony cart that Misty had rented. Balanced precariously atop the pile, Juniper had nearly finished tightening the ropes containing the bulging mountain, rose and teal curls somewhat frazzled.

“Are you sure you need so many books?” Juniper asked through a mouthful of rope. “We’re just going to the desert, after all.”

“A pony must be prepared for anything,” replied Misty, shaking her disheveled white mane out of her eyes. “Besides, Princess Luna expects my work to be topnotch. I don’t want to let her down.”

Juniper Berry rolled her eyes. “You’ll just be staying up all night looking through a humongous telescope. What’s there to mess up?”

“Juniper, this is serious. It’s the first exponential assignment Princess Luna has given me since I came to Ponyville.”

“You’ll still be doing there what you always do here,” Juniper argued, sweat beginning to trickle down her brow. “What’s so ‘exponential’ about it?”

Misty nudged the leaning tower of books back to a more vertical position. “Look at it this way: If all your soufflés were normally just being baked in your kitchen, how would you feel about getting the chance to cook them in a restaurant kitchen? Excited? Maybe even nervous? You wouldn’t want the very first soufflé you made at the restaurant to deflate or burn, would you?”

Juniper Berry sat up straight, letting go of the rope. “Oh!”

The books began to wobble and tilt dangerously. Misty braced her fore hooves against one side in an attempt to restore balance, but it was not working. “Juniper!”

Belatedly, Juniper realized what she had done. Before she could even try to regain control, however, the stacks swayed and toppled. Both ponies vanished beneath the avalanche, but only briefly. Juniper Berry emerged cutie mark-first, and the sprig of purple berries was soon followed by the rest of the mare. When Misty surfaced, it was with a book punctured by and lodged on her horn. She glared flatly at Juniper.

Juniper Berry smiled sheepishly. “Oops, sorry.”

A knock at Misty’s bedroom door cut off any retort. “Girls, the train’s here. You better hurry if—” Both ponies glanced at the door to find a little purple dragon with green spines staring in disbelief at the scene. “What in Equestria…?” Spike began. Then he caught sight of the book on Misty’s horn and doubled over laughing.

Biting back sharp remarks, Misty removed the damaged book with a wisp of sapphire magic. “I suppose I could leave a few things behind,” she admitted, climbing out of the landslide.

“This doesn’t mean I can’t still come with you, does it?” asked Juniper.

“Not if you’re going to fool around like this the whole time,” Misty answered as she started floating the tomes back to their respective shelves. The one extra book she chose to squeeze into her saddlebags was her blue journal, on the cover of which was enameled her clouded moon cutie mark. “This is important and must be taken seriously. If you come with me, you can’t be so careless and you definitely can’t disrupt my studies. Star Catcher’s Comet only passes over Equestria once every thousand years. If I miss it this time because you’re too busy horsing around, I won’t get another chance and I’ll fail Princess Luna without a hope of making it up to her. Do you think you can handle restraining yourself for the entire trip?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Misty raised a skeptical eyebrow, but acquiesced nevertheless. “Then, yes, you can still come.”

Juniper Berry beamed and began to bounce gleefully around the room. “Yippee!” Then she realized how very unserious she was behaving and quickly rooted herself to one spot and wiped the cheer from her face. She cleared her throat and said, almost gravely, “That is, thank you for the opportunity to accompany you, Misty.”

Plopping her own saddlebags across her back and Juniper’s onto hers, Misty led the way past the still laughing Spike and through the castle halls. Despite Juniper’s promise, Misty had a sinking feeling about allowing the distractible mare to come with her on such an important assignment.

* * *

Contrary to Misty’s previous suppositions, the train ride to Appleloosa was far from unproblematic. She and Juniper were at odds from the moment they boarded. Misty wanted to catch up on some lost sleep and a bit of reading. Juniper Berry chattered away like a squirrel over every little thing, from how her café was doing to the recent sunny weather, whether this year would prove as eventful as the last and if some other little country town somewhere would suddenly have a new princess and castle, and what exactly were those little toothpick umbrellas that came with tropical drinks even for?

It was not that Misty Moonrise did not enjoy a friendly conversation. The problem was that Juniper’s idea of dialogue was a steady stream of nonsensical, idle prattling that never seemed to stop. No matter how many polite hints Misty dropped that she wanted to end what could only loosely be called a “discussion,” Juniper would find something new to commentate aloud. More often than not, Misty found herself attempting to just block out Juniper’s constant chatter, though it never worked. The scenery passed them by in a blur outside the window, flat desert soon replacing rolling hills and forests, and Juniper Berry filled every dragging second with the most absurd small-talk likely ever uttered.

Passing through Appleloosa proved to be a trial unto itself. Juniper Berry insisted that they enter every shop and entertainment hall, if only to browse and meet the pioneer ponies who populated this western township. No matter how many times Misty reminded her friend of their limited time, Juniper found some new distraction to while away the precious hours. Misty was sorely tempted to simply leave Juniper behind and continue to the observatory alone, but she knew no real friend would do such a callous thing to another friend. So she waited.

And waited.

And waited, until the sun had set and the stars came out. Finally, Misty put her hoof down. She encircled Juniper with her magic and floated her out of Appleloosa. Only when the town’s lights were hidden from view did Misty set Juniper down on solid ground again.

“Why couldn’t we just stay the night in town?” Juniper Berry asked, squinting in the darkness. The trail was difficult to follow in the night’s gloom, despite the sapphire glow emanating from Misty’s horn.

“Because we only have a limited window of opportunity,” replied Misty, studying the map levitating before her. “If we don’t reach the observatory by tomorrow night, we’ll miss Star Catcher’s Comet.”

“Right…” Juniper peeked over Misty’s shoulder at the map and pointed at a blue squiggle. “What’s that?”

“Saddle River.”

“Ooh, a river! Do we get to cross it?”

Misty suppressed her irritation, rolling up the map and stowing it in her saddlebags. “Yes, we should reach the river tomorrow morning, assuming we don’t stop.”

“Morning? That’s ages from now!” Juniper complained. “Can’t we just stop here for the night?”

“No.”

“What if we get lost in the dark?”

“We won’t.”

“But we might.”

“We won’t,” affirmed Misty. “We have a map, and I can light the way with my magic. As long as we stay on the trail, we’ll be fine.” She eyed her friend pointedly. “So don’t wander off.”

Juniper raised her right fore hoof in salute. “Yes, ma’am!”

Of course, that only worked for a few minutes. Eventually, Juniper Berry’s short attention span won out, and she was frolicking zigzags around Misty as each new fancy struck her. She went from examining the faint tracks left by a speeding hare to admiring the conical fronds of a yucca plant, from doodling pony faces and horseshoes in the sand to interrogating Misty on every star and constellation visible above them. Her constant stream of babble rose and fell like the tide, depending on how much a particular distraction captured her curiosity. It still irritated Misty, but not nearly as much as the rambling on the train had.

So when Juniper fell quiet for a time, Misty at first thought nothing of it. Then, when the silence began to stretch, she glanced back to make sure her friend was keeping up. However, Juniper was nowhere to be seen.

“Juniper?” Misty called, searching the darkness beyond her pool of light. “Juniper! Juniper Berry, this isn’t funny!” When there was no answer, she summoned a series of magical teardrops that glowed with soft blue light and spread them throughout the nearby gloom. With a wider patch of the desert illuminated, Misty began to retrace her hoofprints. Juniper could not have gotten far.

* * *

The rustling that had caught Juniper Berry’s intrigue was definitely closer now. It was hard to see in the pitch black, but she could just discern the outline of a shrub, from which issued the curious sound. She had been chasing the rustling from cactus to cactus, but now she was close enough to catch it if it tried running off again.

“Come on out,” Juniper coaxed, bending down closer to the shrub. “I won’t hurt you, little guy. Come out and say hello.”

The rustling stopped, replaced by a pair of glowing, crimson eyes.

“Hello, there, little fella!”

“Buenas noches, señorita,” came a soft, raspy voice.

“Ooh, I love your accent!” exclaimed Juniper. “Does everypony in the San Palomino Desert talk like you?”

“Hmm… some.”

“My name’s Juniper Berry. What’s yours?”

“Mauricio.”

Juniper squinted, trying to make out more of Mauricio’s features. “Why don’t you come out?”

Mauricio’s eyes smoldered like fire. “Does señorita wish for me to come out?”

“Well…” Something about this was beginning to feel off. Juniper inched back as the red eyes drew closer. “On second thought…”

“¿Tienes miedo?” Mauricio rasped, advancing. “Are you afraid?”

“N-no,” Juniper Berry lied, backpedaling.

“You should be.” He growled, white fangs flashing in the night.

Suddenly, a sphere of sapphire starlight hurtled past Juniper into Mauricio, sending him careening into the desert. Not long after, Misty Moonrise skidded to a halt beside her friend, horn afire with magic. Several glowing teardrops of light took up hovering posts in a circle around them, illuminating the darkness.

“I thought I told you not to wander off,” chastised Misty sharply.

Before Juniper could respond, a dark figure staggered into the light. He was short and stocky, with the legs and cloven hooves of a goat and the body and head of a dog. His fur was sleek and black as midnight, and his eyes burned blood-red. Mauricio’s lips curled in a guttural snarl. “That was not very nice,” he growled, glaring daggers at Misty.

“Don’t look him in the eye,” Misty instructed Juniper, “and don’t turn your back to him.”

“W-why not?” Juniper stuttered.

“You’ll go mad.”

Juniper gulped, careful to avoid direct eye contact with Mauricio. “But what is he?”

“A cadejo,” replied Misty, “a desert creature that preys on unwary travelers on dark roads.”

Mauricio sneered, snapping his jaws at the ponies. “And now you’ll never be found again!” He lunged, jaws agape.

As Misty was about to unleash a second magic sphere, a white blur barreled into Mauricio from one side. The two rolled in a flurry of gravelly snarls and flashing teeth. Sand flew everywhere as they fought. Howls of fury filled the night. Once Mauricio finally extracted himself from his attacker, he was covered in shallow scratches and streaks of dust. Standing across from Mauricio, planted firmly between him and the ponies, was a second cadejo—a white cadejo.

“Leave, Mauricio,” the white cadejo commanded.

Mauricio’s fur bristled, and he snarled in defiance.

The white cadejo growled low in response. “These travelers have safe passage. Now go.”

Reluctantly, Mauricio withdrew, still snarling.

Once Mauricio had vanished beyond the ring of light, the white cadejo turned its crimson gaze upon the two ponies. “Forgive my brother, señoritas. He cannot help what he is; it is his nature.”

“Another one?!” Juniper squeaked, cringing behind Misty. “How many cadejos are there in this place?!”

“It’s all right, Juniper,” Misty said. “White cadejos protect travelers and help those who’ve become lost. It’s the black ones you have to worry about.”

“Correcto,” assured the white cadejo. “I am called Faramundo. I believe it is the river you seek, ¿sí?”

“How do you know that?” asked Juniper.

Faramundo chuckled. “We cadejos have our own kind of magic. Now, sígueme—follow me.”

* * *

They followed Faramundo through the dark desert to a shallow arm of the Saddle River. When they arrived at its banks, the dawn had begun to paint the sky with light. There Faramundo bid Misty and Juniper goodbye and departed, with a friendly warning not to stray from the trail next time. Once he was beyond their sight, the ponies crossed the cool waters and began the second leg of their journey.

Several long hours later, Juniper Berry yawned. “Can we stop now? It feels like we’ve been walking forever!”

“In a little while,” replied Misty Moonrise, studying the map again.

Juniper groaned, head hanging. A ferocious growl gurgled from her belly. “Can’t we at least stop for lunch?”

“We’ll eat when we stop to rest.” Misty glanced up from the map to survey the area. “Hmm… This says we should be at the Chestnut Hills, but I don’t see them. Do you see anything, Juniper?” she inquired, turning to address her friend.

However, Juniper had strayed from the path again, though thankfully not beyond sight this time. She had her nose to the ground in a patch of sparse grass. The dry, brown blades waved in the breeze—but then, when the breeze subsided, the grass continued to move. After the encounter with Mauricio, Juniper recognized impending trouble and galloped back to Misty.

“What happened to taking things seriously?” quipped Misty.

“This is serious!” Juniper argued. “There’s something wrong with that grass!”

Misty rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the map. “It’s just a little withered; there’s nothing odd about that. Quit fooling around.”

“But—!”

“Oh, there they are,” interrupted Misty, spying the Chestnut Hills in the distance. “The observatory is on the other side of them. We’re almost there.” She put away the map and picked up a brisk trot.

Juniper Berry glanced back at the weird grass, but the patch had vanished. A shiver quaked down her spine, and her skin started to crawl. She hurried to catch up with Misty. Maybe whatever it was would leave them alone.

* * *

They reached the Chestnut Hills just as dusk was descending. Sparse desert foliage gave way to dry dust, rock, and clay. The ground here was not the same shade of yellow as the rest of the San Palomino Desert; it was red, which was how the hills had earned their name. In the vibrant hues of sunset, the hills looked like half-buried rubies.

“Hurry up, Juniper!” Misty called from ahead.

Juniper Berry huffed. This was supposed to be a fun adventure, just the two of them exploring the desert and seeing the comet. But all it seemed to be was Misty bossing her around and Juniper messing things up. Where was the fun in that? The sooner they reached the observatory, the better. Maybe then Misty would loosen up and be willing to actually have fun.

Something tickled Juniper’s hoof, making her giggle. She looked down to see a small patch of wiggling grass—the same grass.

“Misty!” Juniper scrambled away as fast as she could. The grass wriggled through the earth after her. “Misty!”

“What is it this time, Ju—?” A sudden tremor shook the ground beneath Misty’s hooves. “What in Equestria…?”

“MISTY!”

There was no time to turn around. The earth quaked and rocked; cracks spider-webbed across the surface. A lithe, scaly body surged into the open air, as large as a dragon but with neither wings nor legs. It was all Misty could do to stay balanced atop one shimmering length of the writhing serpent. A deafening scream—not a roar, a scream—shivered the air and numbed the mind. With ears and heart falling, Misty craned her neck to look upon the monster that had sprung its ambush.

A cerastes gazed back at her. With the head of a viper and the flared, scaly mane of a cobra, the ancient beast gleamed like copper in the dying sunlight. Two pairs of vicious, onyx eyes glared upon the world from beneath the thorny ridges of its brow. Above the four slits that served as both its nostrils and its thermal-sensors danced the patch of thin, grass-like tendrils that it used to lure prey. The cerastes spread its jaws in another earsplitting scream, revealing two fangs like long, deadly needles.

Then Misty saw Juniper, trapped in the cerastes’ coils and gasping for breath as the serpent sought to squeeze the life from her. Brow furrowing, Misty summoned her magic and hurled a sapphire sphere at the cerastes’ head. The serpent recoiled, shrieking. Misty used that time to teleport to Juniper Berry, vanishing and reappearing in bursts of stardust. She tried to pull her friend out of the cerastes’ coils, but its grip was too strong.

By now, the cerastes had recovered, and its malicious glare was fixed on Misty. It flared its mane with a scream and lunged, jaws agape, to devour her whole. Standing her ground, Misty Moonrise assembled a second orb of swirling magic, the largest she had ever created. As the last rays of the sun glinted off the cerastes’ fangs, Misty mustered every particle of strength, every fiber of her being, and launched the sphere. It sailed straight between the cerastes’ fangs and down its throat. The cerastes gagged, staggering in its assault, all four eyes widening. Blue light sprayed from its mouth as the orb exploded within its maw, searing smoking holes in its hide.

So wracked with agony and spasms was the cerastes that its coils loosened involuntarily. Sucking in fresh breath, Juniper Berry quickly clambered out of the serpent’s grasp.

Misty embraced her. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

Juniper smiled and returned the hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise.”

The scream of the cerastes jolted them back to reality. Writhing madly, the monster dove into the ground, returning to the dark confines of the earth. As they rode their coil speeding into the sand, Misty grabbed Juniper’s hoof to keep her from falling. Starlight shimmered around her horn, and they disappeared in the blink of an eye. Both mares popped back into existence at the top of the hill, but Misty’s aim had been skewed by the cerastes’ jostling—they appeared several feet above the ground, hovered in the air for a split-second, and then dropped to the earth.

The cerastes’ tail finally slipped beneath the desert sands, leaving the ponies alone in the Chestnut Hills. Breathless and reeling from the adrenaline rush, Misty and Juniper exchanged wide-eyed, disbelieving stares. Then grins of relief and exultation spread across their faces. They descended into gales of laughter, exhilarated by the sheer improbability of their own survival.

“Now that was fun!” crowed Juniper Berry between giggles.

“Fun?” gasped Misty, regaining some control over herself. “We could have been killed!”

“But we weren’t, and that’s what matters.” Juniper managed to slake her laughter and pick herself up, helping Misty to do the same. “Now let’s get to that giant telescope and catch that comet!”

* * *

“Your turn, Juniper,” Misty said, stepping away from the enormous astronomical instrument. Juniper Berry eagerly took her place, squeezing one eye shut and peering through the lens with the other.

Star Catcher’s Comet greeted her, seemingly trapped in a slower, faraway time. The comet itself was obscured by its blazing tail of scattered ice. Shimmering flakes of blue, white, and pink glittered like diamonds in the comet’s wake. It was these peculiar colors that had, in part, earned the comet its name. The other part was that it was the pegasus Star Catcher herself who first spotted the recurring comet and recognized it from astronomical data collected over past generations.

“It’s beautiful!” Juniper exclaimed. She had viewed it a number of times already, and each only seemed to increase her awe of the comet.

“I know,” replied Misty, returning to her journal and taking up the quill with a wisp of magic. “I can’t wait to tell Princess Luna all about it. She must have seen it a hundred times or more already, but she said she never tires of the sight.”

At the sound of the quill scritch-scratching on paper, Juniper Berry shifted her gaze to Misty. “Come on, Misty, you can do that later,” she said, leaving the telescope to stand beside her friend.

“I know, but I want to do it now.”

Juniper frowned, but then smirked impishly. She stretched past Misty and grabbed the quill in her teeth, yanking it free of Misty’s magical hold and darting across the observatory.

“Hey!” Misty wrapped both the quill and Juniper in magic and floated them back to where she stood. Juniper flipped upside-down and contorted her face into one of the silliest things Misty had ever seen. Both mares got tickled and fell into a fit of giggles.

Once they had finally recovered and Misty had returned Juniper to all four hooves, Juniper Berry released the stolen quill and peered at the page that Misty had been filling. “What are you writing, anyway, Misty?”

“What you taught me today.”

Juniper beamed, but, a moment later, she frowned. “What did I teach you?”

“That, sometimes,” answered Misty Moonrise, “it’s okay to loosen up and not take things too seriously.”

After a quiet minute, Juniper Berry took up the quill, dipped it in the inkwell, and then added her own passage underneath Misty’s words. “And sometimes,” she read aloud once she had finished, “you have to slow down and take things seriously, or you could wind up in a serious mess.”

“You can say that again,” Misty agreed.

“No, thanks,” said Juniper, bounding back to the telescope. “I’d rather look at Star Catcher’s Comet.”

“That’s not quite what I—”

Juniper Berry winked back at her, smiling. “I know. Now get your tail over here! You’re missing everything!”