"It's only when we stand out of our own set boundaries that we find true beauty."
[ α Ω α ]
“Come on. What’re you doing, slowpoke?” Daring Do called.
Flapping her wings over the mountain’s cliffside, she turned around, looked down, and let out a heavy sigh.
“Couldn’t you be a Pegasus? You’re. So. Slow!” she complained.
A grunt echoed back, distorted by the edgy stone shards that covered the tedious slope of the ridge. Far below stretched a massive valley, dank and foggy.
With a roll of her eyes, Daring Do swiftly landed, dusting off the greyish dirt that had accumulated on the cliff path.
“It’s getting late,” Daring Do brought forth. “Not like staying out in the cold is something I don’t like but…”
Another grunt popped close.
“I shouldn’t have followed Dash’s advice,” a mare’s voice answered, gradually getting louder. “I shouldn’t have followed Dash’s advice.”
A hoof reached the side of the promontory and with a final, heart-wrenching effort, a mare hauled herself to safety. Her last drop of strength drained, the earth pony jerked and sprawled at Daring Do’s hooves.
The pegasus raised a brow at the little wreck of an earth pony before her: a cream white mare with a turquoise mane streaked with icy blue. Daring Do shook her head disapprovingly.
“Yeah,” Daring Do snarled. “Why did I accept to help you? I bid you to remind me.”
“Rainbow Dash is your friend,” the mare rasped, hardly catching her breath. “She… asked… you… to help me.”
“I’m no babysitter, especially if it’s to carry a Manehattan pony around the Uncanny Valley of the Basin,” Daring Do huffed. “And for Scorchero’s demise, why would Miss Coco Pommel want anything to do in that deadly part of the region in the first place?”
Holding a hoof on her chest, Coco Pommel breathed twice.
“I told you before,” she coughed. “I need the Flower of Iridescence. I’m competing against Rarity. Next Month. In Manehattan. Rainbow Dash told me. I. Could find something… Here. That it was in your. Book!”
With a final raspy breath, Coco Pommel dropped her head and tried to regain composure.
“Blah, blah, blah,” Daring Do snickered, moving her right hoof in circles. “You want to be the very best. Got it. But there are other ways to die than out here.”
With a pained hiss, Coco Pommel hauled herself on her hindlegs and sat on the cold ground. The snow that had fallen last night had melted away and just a little pond remained by her side.
Leaning over, the small-framed earth pony took in how dishevelled and dirty her mane was. Her shoulders and ears dropped a little. Daring Do squinted her eyes at Coco’s prude reaction, stretching her cheek skin with her muddy hooves.
“Can’t believe it,” Daring Do rumbled.
“The valley seemed peaceful to be honest,” Coco broke her silence.
A roar in the far distance struck out and the fashion pony cringed a bit on her legs, taking back her words.
“Because predators know who’s the alpha down there,” Daring Do mused with a grin, motioning towards the valley below where a luxuriant jungle stretched out for miles. “You’re safe with me.”
With a wide smile, Daring Do crawled closer to Coco Pommel and pushed her back on her hooves.
“If I hadn’t been here…” Daring Do mocked. “You wouldn’t have last for… very long.”
The Pegasus clacked her teeth and stormed in the air in a flap of her wings, leaving Coco in the dust.
“Usually I work alone,” Daring mentioned ahead. “I’ve done an exception for only two ponies. Dash… and you. I’m very disappointed in my second pick.”
Coco Pommel mumbled unintelligibly and looked down, rubbing her hoof.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised.
“Oh come on, slowpoke,” Daring smiled. “I’m on holidays. It’s not like I’m going to have you go through the Sleepy Hallow rite.”
“What’s that?” Coco asked, creepily curious.
“A story for another time,” the Pegasus replied with a wink.
Coco’s neck cracked as she rubbed her cranky and rusty shoulders. She closed her eyes and sighed. She had just lost her scarf. She looked behind at the valley below. It would be impossible to fetch it back… even to find it in the foggy, cold, and dank cliffs.
“Are we there yet?” Coco asked without enthusiasm as she looked at her scrapped hooves.
“You, slowpoke, should look a bit higher than you own worries!” Daring teased, dashing to Coco’s side and pushing her chin a bit higher. “We. Are. There.”
Frowning, Coco Pommel raised her head and met the vastness of the world. She had reached the mountain’s peak without knowing. Her mouth gapped open and she took in the view. If not for the fog and angry clouds, the view would have covered dozens of miles. The highest peak in the region gave a gut-punch sight of the valleys, rivers, far-away villages, and places one couldn’t see except from here. Coco dropped on her haunches with a gasp.
“Do you often see that as a pegasus?” Coco wondered.
“Pretty often,” Daring Do boasted. “Why? You’re envious?”
“A bit.”
“Well, no time to lose,” Daring continued, “I want to be back in the valley tonight. There not enough air to breath very long up here and the night will ice your bums.”
“But we haven’t found the flower, I need it for my dress,” Coco pleaded.
“Open your eyes, sweetie,” Daring cajoled. “Look further than your own hooves.”
There it was indeed. Bathing in the cold light slithering through the clouds far above the mountain top, the Flower was there. The Flower of Iridescence. White as snow, the star-shaped flower shone above the dirt. A rainbow lace seemed to enclose its five petals. It was magnificent. Eerie. Attractive and drawing Coco closer. There was only one of them.
“Have you ever seen something like this?” Coco asked, unable to break eye-contact with the plant.
“It’s a very rare flower,” Daring said, her eyes reflecting the rainbow light. “I’ve heard of it. But looking at it… Wow, it’s a beauty..”
“I…” Coco Pommel stretched a hoof and hesitated. “I…”
A roar boomed over. Something caught Daring Do mid-air and like dead-weight, the Pegasus and its attacker fell on the ground. With a thump, a cloud of dust blew over the mountain top, obscuring Coco’s vision.
A heavy paw dropped over Coco’s head and pinned her against the rock beneath her hooves. She gasped, trying to catch her breath. The grip tightened and her chest heaved with difficulty. Whining with tears of terror wetting her cheeks, she opened an eye and looked over at Daring Do.
A tiger.
A laugh pierced through the lid of grey. It was a massive four-legged creature. Dark blue fur covered a major part of its back and below picky yellow eyes, a mouth garnished with razor-sharp teeth cackled.
“I got you this time, Daring Do!”
“Ahuizotl,” the Pegasus spat, feeling the tiger’s claw brushing over her ears. “Would you call back your pets?”
“I’m afraid I won’t,” Ahuizotl said, lowering himself to Daring Do’s eye-level. “I want what you went snatching here.”
Daring Do arched a brow.
“So?” Ahuizotl growled scanning the surroundings. “Where is the temple? The gold? The booty?”
Looking right and left, the beast had only the air and the breath-taking landscape to feast upon.
“There must be a trick,” he whispered, rubbing his chin.
“Hey, rectangle-head!” Daring Do called out. “I know you like to stalk me around, but don’t you think you’re abusing the secret lover statute here?”
Ahuizotl snarled at the pegasus.
“What have you done?” he roared. “Daring Do doesn’t just hike around. Where did you hide your finding?”
“You’re so dense,” Daring sighed.
“Please, stop,” Coco breathed, a heavy paw crushing her down the ground.
Daring turned over and saw Coco, sweating madly, crouched and arched over the flower, trying to protect it from the second tiger pinning her down.
“Don’t break it,” the earth pony whined. “It’s important.”
With a snap of his tail-fingers, Ahuizotl called back the feline and crept closer to the fashionista.
“What is this?” Ahuizotl rumbled as he lifted off the poor pony with just one hand.
Narrowing his eyes to a blade’s width, he took in full view the little flower. His eyelid twitched and one could hear his teeth grind together even though his mouth was shut close.
“A flower?!” he boomed. “You came all up here for a… f-flower?”
“Hey, what did you expect?” Daring mused with a faint smile.
Ahuizotl saw red. With a cry he lifted his hand and smashed it down.
“No!”
Coco jumped in the way and curled over the plant. The claw bit in her flank and she whimpered. Another kind of red dripped over along with a steady stream of tears. Ahuizotl froze, looking at the small pony that had dared come in the way.
Though pain burnt her flank, Coco slowly stretched her hoof away from around the Flower of Iridescence. It was intact.
“You can’t have it,” Coco cried. “It’s too precious for a boorish like you.”
Coco slumped aside as the sky screamed and cracked with thunder. Rain started to fall and winds rose and violently whirled around the peak. Ahuizotl’s ears drooped and he backed away, watching the steady flower glow its rainbow light in the rising storm.
Though the sky rumbled, cracked, and twisted, Coco’s cries did pierce and reached Ahuizolt. He sat down, pouted, and sighed. Eyes closed, he lifted his hands to his temples and shook them in silent. It lasted for a few seconds until deep tiredness drew over his face.
“Oh come on,” Ahuizotl mumbled in anger. “I scrapped my bottom on those cliffs for… a f-flower? You can keep it.”
With his fur tainting darker with the rain drumming over his back, the blue beast snapped his fingers.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ahuizotl managed to say, calling off his henchcats.
As they crawled down the steep, Ahuizotl turned back and glared at Daring Do, finally breathing after the tiger had let her go. He lifted his right hand to his eye level. With only his index and middle finger stretched out, he pointed at his eyes then turned them in Daring Do’s direction.
“Curse you, Daring Do,” he muttered as his face faded out below the mountain top.
With Coco still crying next the flower, the two ponies looked at each other with barely hidden though pained smiles.
“It’s intact,” Coco whispered.
“Yep,” Daring Do said victoriously. “Time to get you help. He badly hurt you.”
Coco nodded, refusing to look at the wound.
“It’s superficial,” she mumbled weakly. “But it hurts.”
“It will get infected,” Daring warned. “I’ll fly us to the nearest village.”
Coco pondered the offer.
“Why haven’t you flown me over here then?” the earth pony asked.
“Hey,” Daring giggled. “It’s your adventure, not mine. Gotta do the work alone, don’t you think?”
Coco let out one short laugh. Her side hurt.
“Time to cut it off,” Daring said, pulling a small sickle out of her back.
“No,” Coco interjected. “No…”
They both looked at the flower. The roaring thunder cracked and spurred over their heads. The echoes in the nearby mountain was chimeric and otherworldly and despite the elements’ rage, the flower remained undisturbed, motionless. While the sky grew darker, the flower still shone, magnificent. The mountain peak was its realm.
“We don’t,” Coco mumbled. “Just, let’s go. I don’t want to rip a queen off her throne.”
With a smile, Daring walked to Coco’s side and hauled her on her back.
“I dunno if you’re making the right choice…” the adventurous pegasus pondered.
“But it’s mine,” Coco cut off with a whisper. “Thereof it’s the best, I think.”
Daring looked one last time at the flower, nodded, and gave a short giggle. Then she jumped off the cliff with the raging wind lifting her in the air without effort. Coco was too weak to scream and her eyes had long blurred, hiding how high in the sky she was.
Something soft licked her face and she stretched out a hoof.
It was the scarf she thought she had lost and one single iridescent petal and a seed, white as snow, were entangled in its silk.
With warmth spreading to her whole body she tried to look up at the mountain peak. Her eyes only met thunderous clouds, hiding everything from sky to ground.
She held the rainbow-beaming petal and the scarf to her chest.
“Thank you,” she said before fading away into unconsciousness.
