Author's Note

Warning: Loooots of teasing in here *wink wink*

Also, this is the last chapter before my vacation.
Please don't expect any updates for the next 2-3 weeks.

What in the hay?!

Chapter Four: What in the hay?!

Twilight laid the book down, eyes widened. She had expected something to happen, but not that it would happen so fast. She didn’t dare to make a sound as she glanced over the book where it was more than detailed in describing how Daring had fallen onto Dash. A flurry of emotions raced through her, a mixture of arousal, excitement, and… jealousy? Calm down, Twilight, it was just an accident. The fact that they’re… they’re… it’s just a coincidence.

***

Daring stood up, removing herself from above Rainbow Dash. If she were being honest with herself though, she did so almost too quickly. “Come on, Dash, on your hooves. We’ve got to be getting closer. Walking down the tunnel she turned quickly to glance at the cyan pegasus, her glance lingering slightly too long on both the flustered look on Dash’s face and on her still-ruffling wings.

“Huh, what?” Dash shook her head and glanced at the adventurer. Is… is she checking me out? “Got it!” Turning over and jumping to her hooves she grabbed the torch in her muzzle and quickly trotted after the golden mare.

Daring quickly averted her gaze and tried to not show everything, but she was… shaken. Just a small accident is all it takes for me to act like a filly in flight school, that’s unbelieveable. She shook her head and moved on. “No slacking, Dash.”

Dash muttered something around the torch, quickly bolting to Daring’s side.

“Take the torch in your wing, I can’t understand anything you’re saying,” Daring chuckled and nudged Dash gently, before a blush spreading on both mares made her quickly maintain some distance again.

“Sorry. I said I was just shaking that dust off my coat. No big deal,” Dash stopped and glanced at the way before them. “What now? Are we just going to follow that path?”

“What else should we do?” Daring asked confused.

“How about we talk more?”

Daring laughed silently. “I thought you’re more the action kind of mare, not the talking one.” She glanced over at the cyan mare and wiggled her eyebrows slightly, earning a flustered stutter and a quick glance away. She’s cute when she gets flustered… in a, uh… friendly sort of way.

For the life of her, Dash couldn’t figure out why she was getting teased so easily. Usually she was the one who could prank or tease anypony and get this sort of reaction. But now? Now she felt like the school filly with a crush. Who does she think she is? Just because she’s super awesome and totally hot, she can’t… wait, what? Time to fight fire with fire.

“Well yeah, that would usually be the case. But at this point you’ve already wound up on top of me and gotten up and left without so much as breakfast or getting to know me. I figure the least I can do is learn who you are, inside and out,” she said with a smirk and some added emphasis.

It was Daring’s turn to blush profusely before turning away and looking toward the path ahead.

Rainbow Dash mentally gave herself a high-hoof for the comeback. “So what should we be looking for, anyways? I mean, so far it just seems to be a straight shot, I haven’t even see any traps or other paths.”

“That’s the problem,” Daring Do sighed. “I don’t really know. Every recording, even the myths, they’re all are so vague... it crawls up my coat. And not in a nice way,” she added.

“Then why take the risk?”

“I could ask you the same. You don’t even know me, and yet you just jumped right into this adventure,” Daring glanced at the blue pegasus. “What are your motives here, Dash?”

Dash coughed. Jumping into it. Nice phrasing. “Uhm…” I can’t really explain that I know all about her from her books, that she’s just a character. But beyond that what am I really doing here? I thought it was just a super amazing chance at adventure, but now? Ugh… this is usually the point where some convenient trap door or plot twist would—. Dash stopped. “Daring, hold up.”

“Don’t change the subject, Dash,” she said with a grin. Got her.

“Shh. Look!” She pointed a hoof at a small, red gleam, reflecting in the torch light. If the torch wasn’t in just the right spot she would’ve missed it. But after pointing it out to Daring, they looked over it closer and found it to be a ruby eye from a small, golden statue. The idol’s hand seemed to be pointing down toward a thicket of ivy and moss.

“Wow,” Daring mutter, innerly cursing. Buck, I nearly had her!

“I know right? I’m totally awesome for catching that, I know. Where’s it pointing though?”

Daring inched closer to the patch of greenery, “hold the torch closer.” Leaning in she began poking at the plant life with a hoof and found she could push straight through it. Feeling around in the dark she found a raised portion of stone. Pushing on it, she quickly retracted her hoof at the sound of sliding stone and clanking gears.

“Oh horse apples.”

Before she could react, the floor beneath them retracted, sending them into a sliding spin down a carved path. They were side by side in the not-very-spacious slide, always hitting the wall and each other. Glancing over, Daring blushed as she realized that Dash was sliding flank first down the slide with her.

Sliding through the darkness with their torch trailing behind, the two pegasi just tried to keep their wits about them… and off of the fact that they were sliding as close together as they could possibly be.

Daring squinted as she watched for what she believed to be the base of the slide, “I think… I think I see something! I think we’re getting close, hold on!” She wrapped a wing quickly around Rainbow Dash to keep them from getting separated at the bottom as they rocketed toward the unknown.

Feeling the slide fall out from under them, the two pegasi tumbled heads over hooves for the second time that day, this time landing with Dash on top of Daring, and with Daring staring directly up at her flicking tail. Daring blushed before Dash realized their position and turned around, still being careful to stay on top of Daring. My turn.

“Ya know, Daring, we really need to stop meeting like this,” she said with a sultry gaze, “looks like this time it’s my turn to be on top.”

Daring blushed and quickly tilted her head back to look away. Rainbow smirked and continued to stare at the mare when she saw the adventurer’s jaw pop open. “Uhh… Dash? Look!”

Looking up, she saw it. In front of them was a monumental pyramid of rock and moss at least 50 hooves high, surrounded by a pool of murky water. The dust hung heavy in the hair, but several beams of light came down from what looked to be a hole in the ceiling several hundred hooves above them. Atop the pyramid was a platinum statue of a mare with emerald eyes and golden wings extending from her back.

“Is… is that…” Dash tried to speak but couldn’t find the words.

“Rainbow Dash, I think that’s it!” Daring Do extended her wings and wrapped them around the cyan mare, pulling her down and planting a firm kiss on her muzzle. Dash’s eyes grew wide with shock before slowly closing and allowing herself to enjoy the embrace.

It lasted for exactly five seconds before Daring threw Dash off and bolted like she was stung by a bee, eyes wide. “I...I… I’m sorry! I was just so excited and… I never had anypony else with me, I think my emotions just burned with me and…”

Dash simply looked confused before giving a pained laugh and scrambling to her hooves. “Yeah, I understand. No problem.” She doesn’t like you like that, don’t be stupid, Dash. “So what now? We just grab it?”

That sent Daring’s thoughts flying. “What?! Of course not! There could be traps everywhere.”

“So we check for traps?”

Daring had to resist a facehoof. Did I kiss her brains out? “We check for any gravity plates that could trigger without the object, we check all of the ground around it for if there are any small ropes or wires attached that could set off a trap. We check everything. ”

“Uhm. You got more experience with that. I’ll… follow you?” Just to learn from you, not to stare at your flank.

“Alright. Just watch what I do and then you can help me do this quicker;” Daring replied and slowly walked towards the statue, testing the ground every step with her hooves.

For Dash it wasn’t really helping that every hard stomp Daring made to test a suspicious floor tile sent ripples through her flank, even if they were ever so slight. She knew that kind of flank. It was the flank of a hard working and hard training mare, but still with the right amount of flesh on it to make it look sexy and desireable.

“You done staring at my sexy flank and finally going to start looking at what I’m doing?” Daring suddenly asked, jerking Dash from her thoughts.

“Huh.. bu..wha? I was not!” Dash quickly looked away, tired of the fact that she seemed to be blushing more often than not at this point. She couldn’t tell for certain, but she even thought she saw a smirk on Daring’s muzzle, giving her some semblance of hope that the other mare may have been in the same horse shoes as she was.

The two pegasi spread out and quickly searched the surrounding floor, marking off any suspicious tiles with red chalk. Slowly flying up to the top of the pyramid, the two began to think in unison, wondering if it was somehow too easy. The ancient ponies surely knew of pegasi, but why did all of their traps around the statue seem to be designed to capture earth ponies and unicorns?

Face to face with the statue, Dash was mesmerized by the sheen of the polished metal. How it had stayed so immaculate after so many years, she was unsure. All she knew was that she wanted to be the hero and retrieve it. She reached a hoof out toward it and—

Daring Do’s hoof slapped Dash’s out of the way. “Ow, hey! What was that for?”

Daring gestured to the side of the idol and blew a deep breath around the pedestal, kicking up the dust. There, revealed in the now-detailed air, was a series of thin strings all spreading out from the statue and to the surrounding walls.

“Oh crap, we flew right into it. That’s why all the other traps were for the ground-bound ponies. They just had to get us flying and we would be screwed!” Dash yelled, facehoofing.

Daring flew out, following the wires to the walls to try and determine what exactly would happen if the traps were triggered. She was careful to not accidentally hit one, but she had only two eyes, not four, and missed a wire. Her left wingtip touched the string, sending cracks through the ceiling.

Before she knew what was happening, a rainbow-colored blur sent her crashing to the ground, right before the massive slab of wood that swung from the ceiling would have hit her.

One by one the surrounding walls began to release their traps, swinging wildly through the air. As the planks came loose, so too did the rock supporting the chamber, as the entire room began to crumble. “Daring, let’s go!”

“It’s already coming down, we need to get back to the slide!”

“Psh, if there’s one thing these ponies could never plan on, it’s having the world’s fastest flier be the one to come for their statue. Let’s go!”

Grabbing Daring by the hoof, she pulled her to the sky and zoomed toward the idol. Snatching the platinum mare from her roost, she raced for the skylight. As she reached the opening she paused to look for Daring. She saw her 100 hooves below as another rock came loose and caught her wing; the golden mare began to fall. In a flash, Dash dove and scooped the mare up in her forehooves, statue still gripped firmly in her maw. “Hrldn!” The statue garbled her words, but Daring took the hint and gripped the cyan mare’s neck with all her might.

The two shot toward the opening as their world literally came crashing down around them, making it out of the skylight surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris.

“Whrsrampf?” Dash looked at Daring with an inquisitive eye.

“Huh?”

“Whrsrampf?”

Daring facehoofed and pulled the statue from Dash’s mouth, holding it close.

“Thank you. I said ‘where’s your camp?’”

Daring pointed to the outskirts of the old city.

Touching down outside of Daring’s tent, she gently placed the adventurer down on her own four hooves.

“Dash! That was… amazing!” Daring hopped around and flexed her wings, a twinge of pain still emanating from where the falling rock hit her. “First the wire, then you… you pulled me out, then the statue, and then again. I got hit and you… you…” She jumped at Rainbow Dash and kissed her hard on the muzzle. Pulling back with a sheepish grin, she looked at the flier whose blush shown through her coat. “That’s uh… the emotions from saving my life and all… thank you.”

Rainbow Dash looked at her idol, not sure what to think of it. Twice now Daring Do had blamed her emotions for her impassioned kiss. Rainbow decided to take the chance.

“Saving your life huh? Well this is because I think we both just want to.” Leaning in and wrapping the golden mare in her wings she pressed her lips to Daring Do’s and closed her eyes, feeling the mare push back into her as well.

***

Twilight sat alone in her library. Well, as alone as she could be knowing that Dash could come back out of the book at any second. As she followed along with the story, she read about their escape and could feel her heartbeat increase as they went. When the two returned to Daring’s camp she was expecting a heartfelt reunion and tales of bravado and bragging. Instead, their passionate embrace and…

What? No, no no no… awww. So cute! Wait… where is this… oh come on! But… Daring… aw ponyfeathers. Definitely jealousy.