Changeling Wasteland - Southern City-States border, time and date unknown.

Among the sands, about ten kilometers away from the scorpion-infested oasis, one very bored changeling stallion was wandering aimlessly in hopes of finding any sight of civilization. He was quietly singing to himself, to stave off the boredom of his dull travel.

"...Two friends were walking home -Down the forest road - Suddenly a gang of bandits - Came out of the trees, o-oh...*" Stas was bored out of his mind and was singing to himself any songs he could remember, no matter how grim or childish those songs are. He wandered through the desert, rarely climbing any dunes, cliffs or trees he found to give himself a vantage point and practice his creepy-crawly skills. As he ascended up yet another tree, he noticed a large ravine cutting it's way through the sands, like a fresh gaping wound on the body of earth itself.

He was curious to take a look into the ravine, hoping that there might be something in there, like a stone quarry or a mine shaft. Also, the large canyon was almost three kilometers in length, and he thought it might be easier for him to pass directly through it by just climbing the sandstone walls on both sides.

Stas carefully approached it from the side. Making sure he had stable ground underneath him, he took a peak into the ravine's stone depths. Weathered sandstone met his sight and so did the bottomless dark abyss on it's bottom, as it greedily devoured small streams of sand falling into it from canyon's walls. On his side of abyss, about twenty meters to his right, he noticed a small ledge. This ledge, placed rougly four or five meters below him, was apparently leading into a cave.

Realising there is no way for him to cross the ravine without risking plummeting to his doom or getting stuck on the bottom, he was about to turn back and go around it's right edge when something caught his sight. As shadows suddenly grew in size, he raised his gaze to the sun above his head. Stas watched in utter bewilderment as the sun traveled through the sky with a speed simply impossible for a normal star, colossal ball of superheated plasma fell under the horizon within seconds.

Just as swiftly as it fell, sun was replaced in the sky by the pale moon of enormous size and the canvas of bright stars. Stas watched as it raised over his head bearing the distinct visage of Nightmare Moon as she watched from her prison from above this land. Almost immediately, unnatural cold fell over the desert as Nightmare Moon's scornful sight traveled across the land, staring on the world below her with millenia of resentment. Stas shivered in his carapace, as he felt like a prey under the longing stare of a hidden predator.

Lifting his head, Stas made a grave mistake and locked his eyes with a fallen alicorn. He felt his heart beat faster in fear as he stared upon the moon. He attracted her attention. Nightmare moon returned his gaze, black malevolent eye piercing him to his very soul as Princess of the Night judged him with disdain in her eye. He felt his body grow cold under pressure of goddesses cold gaze as the very stars drowned in endless darkness. Warped shadows loomed closer as they witnessed what knowledge he carried, whispering in tongues long-dead promises of power and great rewards in exchange for his loyalty, voice of Nightmare being the loudest among the cacophony. With great effort, Stas looked away and felt shadows retreat, leaving to return another night.

He cant stay here in the open, he just cant. Thinking quickly, he descent down into the ravine below with all the haste he could afford and hid in cave he saw earlier, not even bothering to check how safe it was in the first place.

He will stay awake for many hours, hiding from the light of the moon by the small cave's backwall, afraid of eyes and voices from the dark. By midnight, fatigue will take it's toll and he will fall asleep, in hopes of forgetting this night like a horrible dream.

Awakening from his slumber, many hours after sunrise, he felt thirst claw at his throat. Stas uncorked the waterskin and took few sips, trying to remember why he went into this cave in the first place. In spite of his efforts, he cant remember what happened after sundown and yet, small voice in the back of his head told him to never again lock eyes with the Mistress of the Moon.

He sat on cave's sandy floor in silence as he was having his breakfast, shivering from a seemingly absurd thought. Stas looked into the darkness surrounding him with sense of unease, as if he was expecting something to be there, watching him. He wondered, just what exactly happened yesterday?

Stas raised from the floor and shaked the sand off his form, he was about to make his way out of this cave as a sudden noise broke the silence. Above him, like a meer whisper of wind over dunes, he could barely hear the sound of multiple voices speaking in Arabic, all of them female.

Slowly, afraid to make a noise as if it could scare those voices away, he walked to the entrance and looked above his head to the edge of ravine. Voices became louder. For a moment, he stood there, wondering if those voices were real or he was going crazy.

Silently walking across the canyon's wall like a spider, he raised his head above the ledge, just enough to take a look at who could possibly be here in the middle of nowhere. To his relief, those voices were more than real.

Three figures stood with their backs to the ravine, about fifteen meters away. A kestrel-headed griffoness with maroon feathers was actively gesticulating as she was telling some sort of a story to a pair of tall ponies. A light-blue unicorn with a long black mane and a brown earth pony with short chestnut-colored mane stood beside her, clearly tired of her talking. Being a changeling, he could feel pride and enthusiasm from the hen, while both mares tasted like annoyance and boredom. He had no idea how he knew what those emotions tasted like, but he simply didnt cared, believing it's something all changelings were aware of on instinct.

All three of them had small backpacks and were covered in tan cloth, hiding them from desert's harsh weather. And yet, something was clearly wrong about them. First off all, three women had their heads and bodies fully covered, as if they were intentionally hiding everything but their eyes. Second, griffoness and earth pony were wearing what seemed to be light leather armor on top of their robes and they were armed, earth pony had a saif on her belt and the hen brandished a small mace as she was telling her story.

"Who are they?" This was a very valid thought. This group looked weird to him, even sketchy. Were those some sort of bandits? Maybe a travelling unicorn noble with her bodyguards? But why would they be here out of all places? Now that he thought about it, they were probably nomads, after all, if scorpions like those in the oasis were commonplace here, it would make sense to be armed at all times.

He had a decision to make and, after a taking a moment to decide, he realised that trying to talk with them was the best option he had. Who knows how would they react if they were to discover him tailing behind their group and hiding until they left was even worse to him. He crawled on the desert's floor and, after hiding his scramasax to make sure he wont look threatening (which is kinda hard, considering he was bigger than all of them) called them.

"Hey!" Stas saw all three of them quickly turn to face him with feeling of fright and genuine surprise. Seeing him, all three looked bewildered, as if they were not expecting to meet anyone else here, especially someone like Stas. While they spoke in their language, Stas could feel something strange radiating from the trio. The sense of fear and surprise they felt were quickly replaced by... sense of joy and lust?

Slowly, trio made their way towards Stas, ogling him with a sight which screamed to him he is about to get molested. Suddenly, he could feel fear from the griffoness as she got closer, hen took a quick step back and screeched something which made both mares freeze with fear. She pointed a claw at him and said something to the rest, earth pony got to her side and a unicorn took shelter behind the duo. With a sense of mild panic, they were talking about him.

Stas realised they must have seen a glimpse of chitin from underneath his disguise and now were scared of him. Suddenly, unicorn screamed something and all three turned their heads to him. Mare told something to the other two, and fear was quickly replaced with grim determination and hostility. Earth pony and griffoness armed themself and unicorn ignited her horn with a spell ready to be unleashed. Stas could feel their murderous intent in the air.

Music for this segment:

https://youtu.be/_vwB_0L3r8w

Earth pony and griffoness jumped to the sides. With a loud crack of magical discharge unicorn launched a large fireball towards the changeling. Stas jumped to the right with fear and all the speed his body could master, managing to successfully dodge. The destructive spell went wide, falling into the canyon behind him.

Stas realised he had to deal with a sorceress before she turned him into a fine piece of Chinese cousine. And he had to deal with her quickly. As the mare stood still, charging yet another spell, Stas lifted a large rock off the ground with his magic and threw it at unicorn, aiming for the head.

In his panic, he did not realised just how much power he used to throw it. With a sound of whistling air, the stone hit the unicorn. A loud crack resonated through the desert as sorceress got hit on her neck, force of impact was more than enough to snap her spine in two. Stas could feel her emotions fade away as unicorn silently crumbled to the ground.

"Fatima!" Earth pony on his left screamed with anguish as the dead body hit the floor. Enraged, she rushed towards the stallion, holding the saif in her mouth. She took a wild swing, trying to behead him in her anger.

Thinking quickly, Stas dodged to his left, placing her between himself and charging griffoness. Earth pony barely had enough time to stop herself from falling down, stopping mere centimeters from the ledge.

Seeing this opportunity, Stas used his magic to catch the mare by the saddlebag and pushed her into the ravine. For a moment, he saw her eyes widen in fear as she realised what he did. With a scream of terror, the earth pony fell down, plummeting hundreds of meters to her doom.

He saw the griffoness from the corner of his eye, quickly approaching him while using her wings to propel herself forward. She silently flew at him, holding her mace high above her head in hopes of ending him with a single strike.

Waiting for her to get closer, Stas unsheathed his scramasax and parried the blow, trowing his attacker backwards. Using the moment as she was defenceless, he threw the large steel blade forward. He felt hens fear intensify for a moment as the cleaver dug deeply into her neck, ripping through the cloth and flesh with ease.

Dropping her mace, kestrel-headed griffoness fell on the ground, holding her throat with both her claws in desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. Within seconds, she laid motionless in a pool of crimson sand.

"OH FUCK, OH FUCK! WHAT DO I DO?!" Stas stood silent, shaking in fear of what he just did while staring at the dead hen. Sure, he was trained to kill in the army, but he never thought he will actually have to kill someone sapient!

"Why would i be sorry? They tried to kill me first!" The small voice whispered from the back of his mind as he tried to calm down. They tried to kill him, so much was true, but it only explained his actions, not excused them. Today, he took three lives and he was terrified.

"I-I need to g-go, there could be more of them..." Stas ripped his gaze away from the motionless body and run away, afraid of being discovered once again.

Amina laid motionless on the ground by the barkhan, waiting for the monster who just killed the rest of her group to leave. Five minutes after she saw it ran away, she finally had enough courage to raise onto her shaking hooves.

"Holy buck..." At first she thought today will be an easy day. Ataman* send her with Fatima, Layla and Abda to gather scorpion poison at the Camel's Rest oasis for the next ambush. The trading caravan from Equestria was making it's way to the Al-Telar and ataman put her entire gang to work in hopes of taking northerner's goods in the easy fight.

But, as Amina just witnessed, luck was not on their side. She left her accomplices for a minute to take a leak in peace just to hear Fatima's call to arms. Quickly finishing her dirty deed she rushed into the battle just to witness one of Shaitan's daughters throw Layla off the cliff and cut Abda open with a massive steel cleaver.

She spend last three years of her life ambushing caravans and ransacking villages on the borders of Arabia and yet, she never was so afraid. What those three idiots were even thinking trying to kill a bug-demon armed with a steel cleaver the size of northerner's entire leg!? Even she still cant afford to buy herself a steel blade after three years!

".... Let's not waste usefull stuff." Amina walked closer to the bodies and, after making sure she is alone, cut their coin purses and started to rummage through the bags. She tried not to think about how she is going to explain to the ataman why she didnt brought any poison or what happened to the rest of her squad.

Author's Note

1) Fan-made English translation of "Two friends and bandits" by Russian punk-rock group "King and Jester".
Source, for those who are curious: https://youtu.be/-QQ86GmL0vs

2)Ataman - ringleader or robber baron.

PS: here is violence with a side of racism, enjoy