An Interview with A.K. Yearling
Twilight Sparkle yawned loudly as she levitated the full kettle over the cooker, barely stifling it with a fore hoof. As the soft blue flame sparked and settled beneath it, she leaned against the kitchen counter, telekinetically collecting a mug and jar of coffee granules.
“I swear,” she groaned, barely paying attention to what she was doing, “I will never stay up studying until four in the morning again.” She managed to continue preparing her morning coffee for several seconds before cracking a weary smile and laughing at the vow she knew in her heart she could never keep. “Well, I’ll certainly try to get to bed a little earlier when Spike isn’t here to make coffee for me.”
The words had barely escaped her mouth before she heard a knock on the front door followed by the creaking of it opening. Twilight lowered the heat beneath the kettle before entering the library to attend to what she presumed was a customer, considering anyone more official wouldn’t barge on in and her friends would have called out for her.
“Good morning,” she greeted chirpily, a well-practiced façade, “can I help you find anyth…”
Twilight’s words died in her mouth as she saw the pony standing in the door way of the library. The mare was draped in a dark cloak, reminiscent of the one she often saw Zecora wearing, but it failed to hide her tan legs and piercing magenta eyes.
“Daring Do!” Twilight exclaimed without thinking before being hurriedly shushed by the pony, now glancing around nervously for someone who might have heard. Twilight giggled at this before relieving her fears, “It’s okay, we’re all alone.”
Daring Do sighed with relief, her body noticeably relaxing before throwing her head back along with the hood concealing her face. As she did, she gave her messy grayscale mane a dramatic flip before resting her rose eyes on Twilight and flashing her a signature grin.
“Sorry Princess, force of habit,” she explained in her gravelly voice.
“I told you,” Twilight began with a moan of annoyance, “don’t call me…”
“I know, I know,” Daring cut in, sniggering. “It’s good to see you again, Twi”
“You too,” Twilight replied, glad things had settled quickly enough, she had even forgotten her previous exhaustion. “How’s the book going?”
“That’s actually what I’m here to talk about,” she explained, removing her cloak to reveal she was wearing a simple pair of saddle bags as opposed to her usual costume. “You don’t mind if I hang this up do you?”
“Not at all,” Twilight insisted, taking it from her in a purple aura and draping it over a lectern. “So what did you want to talk about?”
Daring opened her mouth to reply but found herself cut off by a loud whistling coming from behind Twilight. It only took a second to register with the alicorn she was letting the kettle boil over, so she quickly dashed in levitated it off the heat before it could bubble over the edge. She gave a little ‘few’ as hoofsteps approached behind her and Daring entered the kitchen.
“Sorry, I didn’t know I was interrupting,” she apologised, scratching the back of her head while giving the same nervous chuckle Twilight had heard from Rainbow Dash so many times.
“It’s quite alright,” Twilight insisted. “Would you like some coffee? Or tea if you’d prefer.”
Daring tapped her chin, mulling it over before giving a nonchalant shrug. “Sure, tea would be great.”
A few minutes later, the pair were sat around Twilight’s kitchen table, each sitting in silence breathing in the aroma of their own steaming mug. “So,” Twilight said at last, breaking the comfortable silence, “you were saying about your book.”
Daring nodded while taking a sip of her tea. “Yeah, after you girls helped me out the other week, it seemed only right to give you an advanced copy of the latest book.”
“That’s so considerate of you,” Twilight said, honestly surprised. She had assumed Rainbow's advanced copy of Daring Do and the Ring of Destiny was going to be a one off thing. “You really don’t need to feel like you owe us anything, of course we’d help out a friend in the area.”
“Nonsense,” Daring dismissed, rummaging through her saddle bags. "That’s the second time you girls have helped me out; I want to give you this.” With that said she pulled up, now clutching a green, leather bound book in her hooves. Placing it on the table she slid it across the surface for Twilight to inspect.
Twilight smiled as she looked down at it, but her smile quickly faded to be replaced by a look of confusion at what she saw. The book was completely lacking in the usual extravagant art style she had come to expect of the series, and instead of the usual ‘Daring Do’ title, she instead read…
“The Daring Doers: Quest for the Sovereign Crown?”
She looked up to see Daring watching her with a mixture of anticipation and sheepishness. “Are we going in a new direction?” she asked slowly.
“I guess you could say that,” Daring said with sigh, leaning back in her seat. “You see my last book, ‘The Ring of Destiny’, didn’t get the best reviews.”
“It what?!” Twilight said aghast, “but it was excellent. I read it after Rainbow and we both loved it.”
“Yeah I thought it was good too,” Daring defended. "But a lot of the fans didn’t like the way I teamed up with Sonic Spectrum. They insisted Daring Do works alone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Twilight said sadly. “Rainbow will be crushed if she hears that.”
“Yeah, could you not tell her that,” Daring requested nervously, “but after Dash teaching me there was nothing wrong with working as part of a team, I wasn’t about to just cut her and the rest of you out. So instead I decided I would make a spin off series.” she gestured to the book between them, “I’ll keep the classic, ‘Daring Do works alone’ adventure for the main series, but anything I do with you girls can be written as part of this series.”
“So fans who don’t like Daring working with others can just choose not to read them and stick to the main series,” Twilight finished, sounding impressed.
“Exactly,” Daring finished, returning to her tea. “Obviously I had to change your names, but you girls will know who they really are.”
“I understand, you can’t have ponies hassling us to get to you,” Twilight said knowingly, before remembering something. “Oh, while you’re here, maybe you could clear up some things for me.”
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t get to ask you when you were last here because, well, you know,” she said taping the cover of the book in front of her, “but when I was reading ‘The Ring of Destiny’ I noticed a lot of things that I don’t remember happening.”
Daring laughed at this, but seeing that Twilight was still confused she stopped herself. “Well of course the events are heavily sensationalised; the books have to sell after all.” Twilight continued to frown so Daring continued.
“Did I ever tell you how I started into writing and adventuring?” Twilight shook her head. “Well I suppose it all began when I finished school and became an apprentice archaeologist, based in Canterlot museum. Back then I was still going by my birth name, Aviary Kiwi.”
Twilight snorted in her cup, bursting into uncontrollable laughter. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Daring said disgruntled, “can I continue?” Twilight forced herself to stop laughing and nodded for Daring to continue, blushing profusely.
“Anyway, so I started going on small field expeditions around Equestria. I quickly learned archaeology was very boring, and after several months we hadn’t found a single thing of historical interest.” Twilight listened, enthralled at learning the origins of one of fiction's most legendary heroes. “This all changed when during one trip to the Badlands, when the group I was working with dug up an old bust of Discord.
“For a second it felt like our luck had finally turned around, but then later that day our camp was raided by some bandits, who stole the bust among other things.” There was a hint of bitterness in Daring’s voice, but she carried on regardless. “The ponies in my team didn’t want to pursue them, but I wasn’t about to give up the first discovery I’d ever made. So I left my team in pursuit of the bandits, it didn’t take long for me to locate their hideout.
“I was still pretty young at the time so the thought of entering a dark cave full of dangerous ponies made me pretty scared, but I had my priorities out of order that day and rushed in regardless of the risks. What followed was messy, un-coordinated, and I would not advise trying it at home, but in the end I got away with the bust more or less in one piece. After that, everything began looking up for us, we’d uncover ancient artefacts, they’d get stolen and I’d retrieve them, earning me quite the reputation. It became a routine and I got good at it.
“However it didn’t last long before my then boyfriend, now ex-boyfriend, pressured me into dropping the whole archaeology thing.” Daring’s face was now clearly screwed up in distaste at recalling this.
“I’m sure he was just worried about you getting into so much danger,” Twilight suggested hesitantly, causing Daring to let out a bitter laugh.
“Oh yeah, totally worried about me,” she said, her voice dripping with scorn, “in fact his exact words went something like ‘my dinner isn’t going to cook itself’, how protective.”
Twilight shifted uncomfortably, unsure how to respond to this. She was quite glad when Daring carried on her story as if nothing had happened. “Well it was during this time of early retirement I took to writing. I’d detail my experiences on my expeditions and how I fought off numerous treasure hunters and thieves, but it wasn’t until after my breakup that I thought to do anything more with them.
“I visited every publisher I could find, but they all turned me away telling me the same thing. My stories would not sell, they weren’t exciting enough to be adventure novels, and I wasn't interesting enough for them to be biographies. I didn’t want nothing to come of the whole escapade, so I took my once entirely genuine writings and… embellished them slightly. Gave them a lot more action and suspense, made everyday criminals into in-depth villains, but most of all, I changed myself.
“I wouldn’t just be some generic archaeologist; I would be Daring Do, Hero and Adventurer. Yeah looking back now I realised I had a pretty big head. But the point is it worked, suddenly publishers were clamouring to sell it for me, but in the end you know very well which publisher I ended up going with.”
Twilight returned Daring’s knowing smile before replying, “and my mother has always been most grateful to you.”
“So the book became a best seller, and very quickly fans were demanding a new one be written. Except I had no more material, ‘The Quest for the Sapphire Stone’ was based on all my adventures until my retirement. If I wanted to get anything to write about, I’d have to re-enter the field, but when I did, everything changed. From that point onwards, I didn’t feel like Aviary the Archaeologist during my adventures, I became the character I’d created, I became Daring Do while A.K. became nothing more than a pen name.”
“So how much of the books are true then?” Twilight asked curiously.
“Most of them to be honest,” Daring insisted, “but for the most part all those relics with world destroying properties were nothing more than ancient pieces of junk with a ton of monetary value. Take the ring of destiny for example, if it could really bring about eight hundred years of never-ending sunlight, don’t you think Celestia would have intervened in some way?”
Twilight’s jaw hung open as she realised she hadn’t considered that before. “But… what about Ahuizotl? If the ring did nothing, then why did he buy into it?”
Daring gave a crooked grin at this, giving another nervous laugh. “Ahuizotl… he’s a funny guy. he just kind of showed up during one of my original adventures, and ever since then he’s just kept popping up as my self-proclaimed nemesis, I don’t know if he genuinely believes all this stuff, but he seems to be really invested in being a villain in an adventure.”
Twilight wrinkled her nose at this revelation, “you make it sound like he needs serious psychiatric help.”
“I often think that too, but he’s never been a real threat, so I figure it does no harm to let him act out his little fantasies.” Twilight didn’t know if she was comfortable with that, but she chose to ignore it for the time being, she still had one thing bugging her.
“So your adventures are mostly true, but you exaggerated them to make them sell… does my mum know all this?”
Daring smirked, standing up from the table. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” with that she began walking from the kitchen, Twilight hurrying after her. “Thanks for listening; I don’t tell that story often so consider yourself very special.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to point out to Daring how much she was like Rainbow Dash. Instead she summoned Daring’s cloak over to her, which she draped over herself gratefully. “Thank you for the book,” Twilight said sincerely.
“Thank you for the tea,” Daring replied smoothly, opening the door. She stepped out of the library, only looking back to say one final sentence, “until the next adventure.”
Twilight smiled as she watched her favourite author strut away, before closing the door and returning to the kitchen. There she found a two mugs, one drained and the other nearly full of cold coffee. Ignoring those however she turned her attention to the book still sat on the table. sitting back down at the table she read the title once more, The Daring Doers: Quest for the Sovereign Crown, before opening the cover and diving straight in.
Author's Note
So yeah... this is pretty crap. But I was feeling down after officially changing all my incomplete stories to 'on hiatus' status and this idea wouldn't leave my mind.
Also I know any brony would have to be living under a rock to not know now that Daring Do is a real pony, but I still felt compelled not to spoil it in my description.
What may follow is a short Daring Do styled story where Daring teams up with the mane 6 to find 'the sovereign crown'... that is, if I can feel arsed and this doesn't get more dislikes than a FelixDawn story.
