Changeling Badland, time and date unknown

Without even realising it, Stas made a happy thrill with his wings. While at first he was giddy and excited about this slim glimmer of hope, he quickly forced himself to calm down. Even through he had an actual goal now, he realised there is a lot of questions still unanswered and he had a lot of problems to deal with.

"No need to rush. I don't want to break my legs, right?" He said while holding himself from running down the dune. The very idea of rendering himself helpless while being so close to a possible salvation tempered his ardor enough to put his thoughts back in order.

He could not afford to make rush decisions now, after all, there is a chance that he appeared in this world before Luna's redemption and changelings were nothing more than a myth. Or, his situation could be even worse if he appeared after siege of Canterlot and before the changeling reformation. He knew what if that was the case and he ends up stumbling upon a pony camp (who, considering his horrible luck, might end up being scouts of Equestrian Royal Guard), he will be neck deep in shit.

He carefully descended down the barkhan's smooth side and continued moving at the steady pace, all the while keeping his eyes on the smoke. Watching closely, he realised what that smoke trail looked small and thin, most likely, it was left by a small campfire running low on fuel. Maybe, he was lucky and whoever made it was alone?

Merely an hour later, Stas reached the area where the seemingly endless desert made way for a rocky semi-desert. In normal circumstances, the sight of arid shrubland covered with numerous rocks would been disappointing and unwelcoming, but after he was forced to stare at grey sand for almost an entire day, the sight of twisted shrubbery and dry rocky soil was almost surreal to him.

Gentle dry wind was blowing over the land, carrying sand and rare leaves with it everywhere it went. Stas was trotting through the now much easier terrain, occasionally looking where he placed his hoof to make sure he wont accidentally stumble on a scorpion or a rattlesnake. Natural armor or not, he didnt wanted to check if his chitin was capable of protect him from the snake's fangs or scorpion's stinger and, even more, he had no idea just how poison would affect his new body.

Stas lifted his head once more to make sure he is still walking in correct direction when something caught his eye. Old saxaul stood before him, mere twenty meters away. Approaching it, he noticed how twisted branches creaked with every gust of wind and yellow "leaves" clearly showed to the entire world that this tree was barely holding onto it's existence. He remembered reading about them in a botany book years ago, those trees grow only in deserts, roughly two to twelve meters in height and were known for the resilience.

For a moment, he sat and pondered. Perhaps, he should take a branch off of it? Saxaul wood was hard as bone, weighted almost us much as stone and it might make a somewhat decent club. If whoever made this fire was hostile to him, it will be better to just knock them down with a club rather than use his knife, after all, even if he had everything he might need to dress a bleeding wound, he wont be able to speak with a corpse. Or he was able speak with the dead?

For a moment, his thoughts returned to one very specific book in his bag, to the very chapter which described how exactly medieval black mages was able to speak with spirits of the dead. It made Stas shudder, as he had to idea how a pony would react to meeting an actual necromancer in the middle of nowhere. If he remembered correctly, an only necromancer he ever heard about in My Little Pony canon was Grogar and he doubted dark arts was in high regards in this world. Not to mention, he had no need to go this low.

Right now, club sounded like a very good idea. Igniting his horn, Stas watched how a relatively large branch was surrounded by white mist. Pulling it with great force, he managed to reap the branch off the tree. Before his face, he held a heavy piece of wood in his magic, about half a meter in length, it was more than enough to knock some sense in local wildlife or a random vagabond.

"Let's hope i wont need it..." With this words Stas decided to put it away, only to realise he had nowhere to place it. Grunting in dissatisfaction, he held the heavy branch in his mouth like he seen ponies do in the show, trying his best not to touch it with his tongue. He shivered in disgust as he imagined some poor earth pony working in a pigsty, holding a shovel with his teeth.

An hour later

Finally, after gods know how long, Stas got close to the source of smoke. Deciding caution was a better side of honor, he stood low to the ground as he ascended up a small hill. Slowly rising, he tried his best to make as little noise as possible as he reached the high ground . Looking from above, he was shocked to find a small oasis surrounded on all sides by hills, similar to the one he just climbed.

As if drawn by a hand of a masterful painter, beautiful clean lake shined like a mirror, surrounded by dozens of date palms. There, few meters away from the shallow shore, under a shade of small palm, a single-person tent stood. By it's side, ambers off small fire were burning out a few steps away and a small overturned cauldron layed on a sand beside it.

Stas watched closely for any sight of movement, but something felt wrong. The tiny camp was abandoned in a hurry, yet he saw no traces on the ground. Sun never moved from it's position in the sky, wind fell silent and no noise was heard in the oasis. To Stas, it looked like in this very moment the time itself refused to continue it's pace.

He stood up and treaded softly down the hill, his movement being an only source of noise. Trying to spot anything he might have missed, be it tent's owner or an animal, he walked along the shore, holding his club in his magic. Slowly and carefully, he approach the dying ambers.

"ТВОЮ МАТЬ!" Stas jumped back in shock as he felt something hit him on a leg. As he looked around trying to find what hit him, a loud hiss drew his attention to a pile of sand he just tried to cross. Suddenly, a black scorpion the size of a small house cat dug itself from under the sand, hissing menacingly and brandishing it's red-tinted claws at the changeling.

"Получай, мразь!" Raising the club high above his head, Stas striked down upon an abnormally-large arachnid with all his might. Scorpion tried to lunge towards the larger bug, but was quickly stopped in it's tracks as a large piece of wood hit it with all the force of a panicked stallion. Barely alive, it tried to rise once again and got hit with a branch once more, this time, it's stopped moving completely.

Taking his panicked breath under control, Stas poked the scorpion with his club to make sure it was dead. Panic quickly raised it's ugly head once more, as he remembered what he got stung by it. He raised his stung leg before his face and sighed in relief as he noticed the little bastard was unable to pierce his chitin.

Suddenly, he realised why exactly the camp was abandoned. With haste, he made his way into the small tent. Inside, he saw a pony laying on the small cot. Her physique was closer to that of a Saddle-Arabian, but she still was smaller than Stas, and, in spite of her being covered head to hoof in a arabic-style robe, he was able to catch a glimpse of a bleak orange fur and a sandy-yellow tail. Moving closer to the mare, he realised he was too late, milky white eyes and foam at her mouth was a dead giveaway she was beyond saving.

For a moment, Stas stared at the corpse in silence. He shook his head, breaking away from grim thoughts flooding his mind. He didn't liked what he was about to do, but he had no better options. Taking a look at insides of the tent, he started to look for anything usefull he could take. Marauding was something he never did before, but those things might save his life and the dead pony no longer needed any of that.

First thing he approached was the dead mare herself, he tried to gently move the body with his magic and realised rigor mortis already set in. Stas tried not to think about how that entire thing would look like at The Pearly Gates (if changelings were still allowed to enter human Heaven). He took a look through the robe's pockets in hopes of finding a map, to his disappointment, only things he found was flint and steel, a tiny bag of salt and a light-weighting coin purse. He took all of that anyway.

He decided to take a look at what was inside the coin purse. There was very little coin in there and he counted twenty copper, seven silver and three golden coins. Copper and silver coins were rough around the edges, as if they were cast and than went under press, both of them bore images of a arabic-style citys on heads and arabic letters on tails. Golden coins were different, as they were actually from two different kingdoms. First, was a single Equestrian bit, beautiful and completely symmetric coin of bright yellow gold, on heads it bore Equestrian coat of arms mirrored on other side by an image of Canterlot Palace. Second, there was two golden coins of similar size to Equestrian bit, those coins had some imperfections on the edges and was casted from grey gold, portrait of a vulture-headed griffoness adored one side and was mirrored on the other by untranslatable text with a pair of saif* underneath it.

Next on a line was saddle-bags by the wall. Gently putting down the deceased mare whose body he desecrated, he approach the pair of small saddle bags and started to rummage through them. First bag was filled with various foods, some dried dates, a small bag of farik* and two waterskins, one of which was empty. Uncorking the full one, he took a sniff and realised it was filled with hamr*. He corked it back, fighting his temptation to down it all.

Second bag greeted him with a sight of the large amount of different stuff. He found some sort of a journal, three rolls of bandages, some rope, a sheathed dagger, an empty clay vessel, a spare robe, inkwell and a pair of quills. And finally, what looked like a map. Excited, he unfolded ~~the looted~~ his map and took a look. His smile faded.

The map itself was written in what seems to be arabic and clearly was made by someone who had no idea how to make a proper map, in short, to Stas it looked like a toy map a kindergardener would make to search for "treasure" with his playmates. There was no directions, barely any landmarks and it was impossible to say just how much distance he had to cover to reach any of them. Even if there was any of the information he required to find his way out, it was written down in a language he cant read. Trying to find any clues, he took a quick look through the journal, just to find out it was just as useless to him.

Still, this map was somewhat useful - he found out there was a cave somewhere within this oasis and what seems to be a road somewhere nearby, he just had to figure out what direction to follow. But now, he had some work to do.

First of all, he is going to check the cave he found on the map. Exiting the tent with map in tow, he looked around, trying to find out where it was based on a shape of hills around oasis and how they were depicted on the drawing. Quickly enough, he figured out that it was merely fifty or so meters away from where used-to-be adventurer placed her tent. Turning to his right, he made his way towards the entrance, preparing his club to strike down any scorpion who might decide to jump him from the sands.

Reaching the cave's entrance he stood before it, gazing into pitch-black darkness before him. At first, he though about turning around and making his way back to search for a torch or a lamp he might have missed in the camp. Or he could reignite still dying flames of the campfire and use it to set some wood ablaze to use as a torch.

Stas gently smacked himself on the face when he remembered he could use his magic to light the way. Powering up his horn, he immediately regretted it as a cacophony of loud hissing reached his ears. On a small cave's floor dozens of black scorpions stoop up in agitation, clearly unhappy about blinding light filling their nest. They ranged in size from that of a rat to a small dog and every single one of them was very mad, still, they did not approached him. Stas slowly backed down from the nest, making sure not to extinguish his horn. Turning around, he made a mad dash back to the tent, thankfully, not followed by anything.

As he returned to the tent, he made sure to gather everything usefull he found. After gathering everything he could carry and calming down, he realised what no scorpions were following him. He once again gazed upon the dead pony.

"I already took her stuff, might as well do her a favor." With that though, he took the body outside. Using his magic, he dug a shallow grave in the warm sand of oasis under one of many palmes surrounding the lake. Placing the body inside he placed the dead mares journal with her, after that, he filled the pit with sand and covered it with some large rocks he found around the oasis. It was a shoddy grave at best, but he cant do any better. He didn't knew any dirges or prayers, but he decided to stay by the grave for a few minutes.

After Stas was done, he apologised to the mare for looting her body and moved to pack the tent and the cauldron for himself, filling an empty waterskin with water from oasis on his way back. Still, he had hope, after all, she was able to reach this place with such a meager selection of supplies, Stas only needs to figure out where the road is.

Author's Note

1)Farik (also known as freekeh) - grain, made from roasted young wheat, it's still fairly popular in arabic countries.

2)Hamr - arabic fruit wine older than Islam, which was mostly made from fermented dates or grape.

3)Saif - a wide termin, used to describe any curved sword of Middle Eastern origin, grandfather of scimitars.

Sorry for not including any interactions with actual locals, i got inspired to make a world-building chapter and experiment with chapter size, kinda forgot i told you about.