Daring Do and Trixie and the Armband of the Coatl

Daring awoke to the sound of her alarm clock ringing in her ears. Startled from it, she glared at the offending device before ramming her hoof down silencing it. She snuggled under the covers tempted to rest longer. Ultimately she decided to awaken to start her day. She got up not bothering with her mane, pulled on her favorite pink robe, and set off to the kitchen to make her breakfast.

After a quick meal of oat cereal and celery she picked up her mail at her mailbox. Standing at the gate she flipped through her letters until she came across a package on the floor. It was titled to Daring Do. "Oh, no.."

She quickly grabbed the package, her eyes darted side to side seeing if anypony was watching. Seeing no one around she made a bee line to her mansion and slammed the door shut. She panted wondering who could have sent the package to her. only a few ponies knew her alter persona and even fewer knew where she lived. She flew to her kitchen placing the package down on the table, eyeing it suspiciously.

There was no return address only a mark of a star tipped wand and a blue swirl of some kind. Daring racked her brain to remember where she'd seen the symbol before. It was at the tip of her tongue. An old friend? A fan? Obsessed student maybe? She couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd seen the mark before.

She ventured a guess thinking it was an old acquaintance of hers who she long forgot. Throwing caution to the wind she opened the package. Inside was a lot of paper packing something down in the center, and on top was a set of notes and a letter. Taking the letter in hoof, Daring unfolded it to see what it said.

Dear Daring Do,

You probably don't remember me but we use to know each other back in school while at Canterlot University. It was our second year in Ancient Cultures and Dialects with Professor Velvet Sparkle. Anyways, it took some time but I recently came across an artifact of great power and it slowly drove me to madness. Thankfully a rival close friend help me out of that and I'm doing better now.

While I was under its influence I heard whispers of another powerful device south of the Badlands and decided to take a journey to see if I was going crazy or not. Turns our I wasn't crazy. I found what I had thought existed for years! The couatl-pony civilization really did exist!

I know you might think I'm crazy so I sent you a small tablet from the site I found and hoped you could authenticate it. If it is the genuine article then it could change the history of pegasi and dragons! If you care, please tell me if it is the real deal and not a cheap fake. I'll be in Manehatten in a few days so I left my arcane sigil so you could send me a message quickly.

I know this is a lot to take in from somepony you probably don't remember but please, if you can help me with this I'd be eternally grateful. We use to be a good team back in school! Hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Trixie Lulamoon

Daring stared at the paper with a mixture of shock and anger. Now she remembered where she saw the symbol on the box before, Trixie. Loud, obnoxious, prideful little bitch. Daring hated her when they met and she really hated her after she came up with this crackpot theory that couatls were real and were the birth from the union of dragons and pegasi.

The unicorn was so sure of it based off an old text book her father owned that she went on a month long excavation to find the truth. The effort proved fruitless as she came back in shameful defeat. Daring remembered that day. Trixie rolled up to the University and was mocked by her peers and the professors alike, especially the pegasi. Daring didn't.

She felt the mare was being harassed for trying to find the facts. And the fact was she found nothing and she was mocked for it all throughout the years until she graduated. After her humiliation Daring opened up to Trixie becoming her friend when no one else would. The two shared stories and ideas regarding history and how ancient cultures influenced them. Trixie seemed fixated on the couatl-pony theory to the point it made Daring a bit upset. She gave good support to her theories based on a single account of a dragon and pegasus having a child with scales and feathers, but no documentation existed beside a paper written by a house nurse who was present which wasn't much to go off of.

She'd kept up with Trixie until two years ago when she seemed to drop from the face of the planet. At that point in her life, Daring was having trouble adjusting to her new classes with rowdy students, many of which were vying for her affections/attention, and she had no time to keep up on current events. What had she meant by being possessed from an evil artifact?

"I don't know what you've been up to Trixie, but I hope you're OK." she said pulling out the paper from the box.

Inside was a half complete stone tablet. It was old and weathered greatly. It was sandstone, early pegasi text from before the pre-classical era. From what the pegasus could gather it was random gibberish that made no sense. She decided to ask Trixie once she verified this tablet was indeed an ancient stone from long ago.

"Alright then. Let's see what my old colleague has for me this time." she said placing a rubber 'glove' over her hoof.

She took it down to her lab along with the box and letter placing it on a large table. She came back with a large device called a digital microscope. She ran it over to the table and pulled up an computer and prepared to take detailed pictures of the tablet. She placed the stone tablet under the scope and ran a series of tests and scans. Eventually she came up with several 3D images of the carvings in the sandstone tablet. All of which were weathered indicating they were all aged and none were made recently, except for a test scratch at the base. A technique used by geologists to help determine the age of a carving in stone by comparing a new carved scratch versus the old ones to help give a estimate on the age of the writings.

After some time and a series of tests Daring came to the conclusion that the tablet was indeed old and of ancient origin. Just to make sure though, she wanted it to be tested by someone familiar with this field. Trixie made a good call giving me this, anyone else might have thought it was trash. she thought placing the tablet in a silk cloth.

She then placed it in a pair of saddlebags along with all the notes Trixie had made with it. After quickly making herself presentable she put on her favorite adventure clothing and hat that she was iconic for and placed on her saddle bags. Pulling tightly on the straps she flew off into the city of Manehatten to seek out an old professor of geology she knew. He'd be able to tell her how old the tablet was.

After an hour of flying, Daring came upon an old museum called the Manehatten Museum of the Ancient World. Landing in front of the building she pushed open the large double doors leading in side. The museum was massive. It was three city blocks wide and two long. It had artifacts dating back thousands of years back before the founding of Equestria. It also had fossils of ancient beasts that made dragons seem tame and small.

Daring wandered the halls for a few minutes heading into the back of the museum. There she entered a door marked [employees only]. Inside she found the only she was looking for. A fat old unicorn stallion looked under a microscope inspecting. He hadn't notice her enter, he was fixated on his work. His eyes never left the scope but his horn glowed bright blue as a quill scribbled notes down on a paper beside him.

She put on a sly grin tip toeing closer to him like a silent ninja, she snuck behind the working stallion. she inhaled filling her lungs to capacity before screaming, "Yo RAGGY HOW'S IT GOING!?"

The stallion jumped screaming at the top of his lungs dropping his quill and spilling his ink all over the floor.

"Damnit Daring! Why do you do that?!" he scolded the pegasus, who was rolling on the floor gripping her sides with laughter. "You'll be the death of me I swear!" he yelled gripping his chest, his heart racing.

He rolled up a newspaper and swatted the golden pegasus with it. She squeaked rolling over bolting up into the air just out of reach.

"Aww, come on Professor Raggedy Bones! It was funny!"

"Not if you give me a heart attack it won't!" he said throwing the paper at her.

The paper bounced off her chest as she feigned agony. "Ah! My heart!" she gagged rolling on the floor, careful not to roll on the tablet in her saddlebags.

The stallion rolled his eyes at the mares antics. "Just what are you doing here you marechild? Honestly, you're like a kid that never grew up."

"Well at least I didn't grow as old as you." she rebutted.

"What do you want Daring?" he said with an exasperated sigh.

"Oh, right!" She jumped up picking into her bags pulling out the covered tablet. "Got a sandstone tablet in need of carbon dating sir." she said hoofing it over to him. He inspected the tablet for a minute before placing it on his desk.

"What's this?"

"A friend of mine found it and wanted it to be tested to determine it's age."

'Well this could take a while." he rolled the tablet over inspecting it. "What is this? Draconic from the pre-classical era?"

"My friend was researching a mythical ancient culture related to- wait did you say draconic? That's an old pegasus dialect it makes no sense." She said sternly.

The professor inspected it again before he scribbled something down. "No this IS draconic script." He said writing something down. He used his magic to levitate the paper to Daring so she could read it. "This here is the root word for power, tiranu, which in this script from what I can gather from it is done in a pegasus style of writing."

"That makes no sense!" daring darted over to the tablet poking it with her hoof. "I read it in pegasus script! It doesn't say anything!"

"It's draconic in a pegasus style. There's a difference." He wrote down more on the paper. Daring hovered over his shoulder to see. "The tablet reads something about an object but the half we need is missing. So of course I can't make sense of it without the other half. The tablet seems to be done in a Pre-classical era metaphorical style which requires the whole thing to be intact or the meaning is lost."

"You mean like a, what's it called, a cipher key or something?" she ventured a guess.

"Not exactly Daring." Raggedy replied. "A cipher only requires a word or key phrase. This style of writing is done so the whole text is the cipher in a way. That's the best I can do to explain it. Take for example I say, Juliet jumped from her balcony. Without the rest of the story, the context of Juliet and why she jumped is lost. Yes, we know she jumped but the finer point are lost because the rest is not there."

Daring nodded in understanding.

"By the way," Scraggy began his testing of the tablet. "Who found this? This is really amazing a discovery!"

"First off you mean, ' really an amazing discovery', second do you remember Trixie from a few years back in my class?"

The professor stopped dead in his tracks at the thought of the arrogant blue mare. Trixie was so prideful to the point it aggravated others. "I recall. Why?"

"She found this." Daring said in a serious tone. "She thinks it may very well be a clue to her father's journal from all those years ago."

"Interesting. Well, I'll know more by tomorrow. Come back and see me then." he said, shoving the mare out of his office. "And don't scare me with your antics again!" he yelled swatting her over the head with his newspaper.

"Gee, thanks Raggedy." she scoffed rubbing her sore head. Stallion had a nasty back swing with his magic. "Guess I better let Trixie know."

With that the mare flew back home leaving the stone tablet behind.

Later that night as Raggedy worked late into the night a silent predator slinked into this office unnoticed. He heard a noise turning to see his door open. The stallion stood up and walked over closing it. But before he could turn around, a striped hoof smacked it shut and he felt a pair of arms pinning him to the door. He managed to turn his head to see a pair of masked zebra mares holding him down wearing white Saddle Arabian garbs for desert traveling consisting of white clothes and capes with hoods and masks. Beside them was Daring's most hated rival.

"Ahuizotl." Raggedy sneered.

"Ah, the famous Professor Raggedy Bones." The blue beast exclaimed in heavy sarcasm. He clapped his hands together giving him a wicked smile. "So glad you stayed behind to help me!"

The stallion snorted. "Like I'd ever help a scum bag like you."

Thwack! The zebra mare holding him elbowed the back of his head, thrusting it into the door. He glared back at her with a bloody muzzle. She smirked at him. She was much taller than him, easily the size of Princess Luna, and was a massive bulk of muscles. The other was smaller and slimmer. Ahuizotl laughed using his tail to lift the tablet up from the table.

"Well, regardless your are instrumental in my plans." he snapped his fingered paw and the zebras tied and gagged him. "Take him to the ship. We set forth in the morning once we've acquired the other half of the tablet. Now, off we go!"

As they set off leaving the door open, Ahuizotal cackled. His laugh echoed all throughout the museums halls as the sun rose over Manehatten.