Treasures

Chapters

Wherein Our Heroine Acquires Appropriate Headwear
Wherein Our Heroine Learns a New Curse
Wherein Our Heroine Visits a Library
Wherein Our Heroine Has a Great Fall
Wherein Our Heroine Finds a Treasure
Wherein Our Heroine Tells a Tale

Wherein Our Heroine Acquires Appropriate Headwear

Daring Do perched on the prow of her ship, outspread wings keeping her steady as the vessel plowed on through the raging sea. High waves furiously battered the ship, and the endless black stormclouds overhead rippled with lightning as they sent down sheets of rain. Both were soundly ignored. Daring had eyes only for the mountainous silhouette of an island past the storm, and for the vast and skeletal ruin that rose from its peak like a grasping claw.

Daring grinned her fiercest grin as the ruins of Lord Ghastly’s Eyrie took form, already imagining the great treasures and glories that were rumoured to lie within. Only the bravest and most skilled of adventurers were said to have a hope of uncovering its secrets.

So it was pretty lucky, all things told, that the bravest and most skilled of adventurers was on the scene.

“All right, crew!” she shouted, turning smartly on her heel to face the rest of her ship — because, naturally, the greatest of adventurers was a dashing pirate queen as well. “Belay that mizzenthingy! Rig the brig! Other nautical words! Don’t let a little rain get you down now that the goal’s in sight!”

“Aye-aye, Queen Cap’n Adventurer-Archaeologist Daring Do!” said the swarthy old pirate jack at the helm, who Daring had only come up with recently and hadn’t given a name yet. “Belaying the mizzenthingy!”

The ship rocked underhoof, but Daring remained steady. It was a calming amount of peril, really, even as a spluttering noise at the back of the ship brought a new problem to her attention. “Ignis!” she said, turning to a pony-sized dragon who was clutching the mizzenthingy for dear life, like the lovable coward he was. “The steam engine’s furnace has run out of coal again! Go below and breath more fire into it so we’re still on course!”

“Aye-aye, Daring!” said Ignis, his scaly face betraying relief at being sent below out of the way of the storm.

“That’s Queen Captain Adventurer-Archaeologist Daring to you, sailor! Now as for everypony else ...”

A sudden crash upon the ship’s hull broke Daring’s train of thought, and she turned back to the front of the ship, holding her pith helmet steady on her head as she did so. In the skies above, great winged shapes came plummeting down amidst the stormclouds, breathing plumes of lightning as they descended. Across the surface of the raging water, the tall shapes of dozens of other ships with ragged black sails and flags had appeared, bristling with weaponry. And under the waves, long and lithe black-finned shapes with heads like hammers wove around the ship. Splintering crash after splintering crash echoed up from the hull as the hammerheads applied their namesake.

This was to be expected. This was, in fact, just fine.

“Everypony else!” said Daring, turning to address all other ponies on deck. A mix of interesting and half-remembered faces, old playmates, assorted characters from the adventure stories she’d read, and whoever else seemed like suitable adventuring companion material. Mrs Nettle, Daring’s favourite teacher at her school in Canterlot, who’d once lent Daring a full set of Equid Brayton books. The Superb Six from said books, including, of course, their dog companion. Baron Munchorsen, the great braggart who often found himself reluctantly living up to his word. Tumbleweed the great pegasus explorer, who’d tried to sail around the world and had gotten himself lost forever for his trouble. Firefly, founder of the Wonderbolts and all-round haunch-kicker. All those and sundry talented others for Daring’s crew.

All stopped whatever deck-swabbing and line-securing they’d been engaged in and gave her their full attention. “I know this seems like dire straits! But even though we’re about to be attacked by a full flock of lightning-dragons, and a corsair armada, and a shoal of hammerheads —” Another splintering thud sounded against the hull as the last group reaffirmed their presence. “Don’t worry! I have a cunning plan. Lord Ghastly’s Eyrie’s getting explored, and nothing’s going to stop me!”

“Hurrah!” the massed crew dutifully echoed. All except for two figures at the back of the ship, next to the old pirate jack.

One of them, an earth pony stallion in a battered justacorps coat and a tricorn hat, gave Daring a cheerful wink. “Just be sure to leave some ancient ruins intact for the rest of us, poppet,” said Dad.

And the other was a pegasus mare whose face Daring couldn’t quite make out, but whose helmet and bush jacket were a match for Daring’s own, and who radiated pure awesome like the sun radiated fire. “I know you’ll make me proud, Daring,” she said, and that was all.

Daring turned round again for the umpteenth time that minute, her grin as fierce as any manticore’s as she regarded the odds ahead. Victory was in her hoof’s grasp. Now all she had to do was actually have a cunning plan…

But before she could go smoothly through one’s motions, another abrupt crash all but knocked her off her hooves. The whole ship seemed to have stopped moving, even as it seemed to keep rocking underhoof. Had they struck a reef? Another ship? A particularly strong hammerhead? Daring tried to steady herself and look over the side, but her senses were reeling and foggy for some reason. “Brace!” she called, which was probably a helpful, commanding sort of thing to yell under the circumstances. “On my mark … er … do something! I just have to think of —”

But coherent thought wasn’t coming, and the more Daring scrabbled for it, the more her senses seemed to become disoriented. Her bush jacket had become strangely constricting as well, and though she tried to shrug it off, the feeling remained.

And as her senses lurched and split away from what was happening, and as conscious thoughts began to knock her even more off-kilter, and the feeling of being smothered by her own jacket grew, Daring finally realised what was happening. “Dang it,” she muttered.

And in a few fitful bursts, and not without some counterproductive mental struggling, Daring Do woke up in her father’s travelling wagon.

She grudgingly yawned her way towards consciousness from where she’d fallen asleep amidst a pile of rope and old papers, and groggily raised her head from where it had been resting in her mother’s old pith helmet. Her plush dragon doll, Ignis, lay to one side out of hoof’s reach. Something covered her, and she shrugged off the heavy indigo material that must have been laid over her as a blanket—Dad’s patched justacorps, after a moment’s inspection. By her, there sprawled the books she’d taken along for the journey. Not too many, no more than about a dozen.

Daring poked her head clear of the jumble and out into the cool open air. A dark blue dusk had fallen over the hills around, painting the clouds and distant horizon orange in the last of the sunlight. Ahead, past the front of the wagon and the empty harness, she saw Dad standing to one side, his head tilted back as he held his canteen firmly in his mouth and gurgled water. His old tricorn had tumbled unnoticed to the ground at his back.

Dad and dignity weren’t often on speaking terms. Daring yawned and pulled herself free of the entangling stuff at her hooves—tent parts, spare crossbows, the odd bit of barding —and waved to get his attention. “Dad? Why’ve we stopped?”

“Glkglkglluk—ah! Good sleep, poppet?” Dad spat out the canteen, brushed water off his muzzle, and turned to Daring, his smile and eyes bright upon his slate-grey coat. Several small old scars ran across his face and hide, and those on his face creased whenever he smiled.

“Yeah. Why’ve we stopped?” Daring tried to be patient as she said it. If she’d learned one thing in her eight years of life, it was that adults could be very, very dense, and needed things repeated to them a lot. It must be terrible, getting to that age.

“Just a drink and a rest before the final hurdle.” Dad gestured at his canteen on the ground. “Next time, I think I’ll take the new railway they’re laying out from Canterlot. Once you get old and dottled like me, travelling while resting your hooves all the while and without having to heave your own luggage begins to sound like heaven on earth.”

“You’re not that old and dottled.”

“Flatterer. Were you dreaming? I heard you kicking and mumbling from time to time.”

“Just having an adventure dream,” said Daring. The details were already growing fuzzy in her memory, but she could recall some things. “I was on a ship to get to some old ruins on an island. You were there as well. So was Mom.”

“Ah.” Dad’s smile twitched. “Was I doing anything characteristically bold or gallant?”

“Mostly just asking me to leave some of the ruins for you after I was done with them, I think.”

“Definitely me.” He eagerly motioned her over to where he stood. “But now you’re up anyway, come, behold! The end’s in sight!” Daring awkwardly leapt out of the wagon, her little wings buzzing away to support her fall, and trotted over to where Dad stood.

Past him, the hill they stood on descended into a patchwork of wild-looking forest and farmland. Buildings sprung up amidst them, smoke trickling up from their chimneys and into the star-dusted dusk. Daring squinted as she tried to make out details in the dark — that might be a schoolhouse off to one side, and that was probably a row of houses. There, far-flung farmsteads, and there, a tree in the centre of the town, and amidst them all, a few ponies still milled around in the dusky streets.

Daring found her eyes glazing over as she regarded the village, and decided that the large expanse of dark and untamed forest at its back looked way more interesting. Parts of it rustled in a distant breeze, and it was easy to imagine the exciting monsters that might lurk within.

“Behold, the metropolis of Ponyville!” said Dad, sweeping his tricorn up from the ground, pressing it onto his unruly charcoal-coloured mane, and striking a dashing pose atop the hill as he gestured at the town. “Our destination awaits. What do you think, Daring?”

“It looks really dull.”

“Doesn’t it just? But— ” Dad’s grin grew mischievous, as he was conspiring something, and he leaned in close to Daring. “Underneath one of those buildings — that farmstead there, if I’m not mistaken, the good ponies of Ponyville have uncovered themselves a predicament. A ruin, of ancient and puissant origins, whose hoary secrets and artifacts beg to be dragged into the light of day!”

Daring couldn’t help but grin. She knew why they were here, of course, but Dad got excited and dramatic at the drop of a hat. He could have this. They’d all end up having fun, anyway.

“And who better, I may ask, to uncover such potentially perilous secrets from the dawn age of the world than Field Researcher Gallivant of the Royal Archaeological Society, and the surpassingly competent and adventurous Adventurer-in-Waiting—”

“—Daring Do!”. It was hard not to get caught up in the drama sometimes.

“Words stolen right from my own mouth! None better then, it’s been decided.” Dad smiled down at Ponyville for a moment longer, and then turned back towards the wagon to re-attach himself. “It’ll be good to get myself back in the game. Hop back in, poppet. No much further to go. You may as well rest.”

“No, I had a rest,” objected Daring. Drowsiness had been replaced with full wakefulness. “It’s bumpy in the wagon, anyway. Let me go on your back.”

Dad smiled even as he reached out to redon his justacorps. “How could I refuse? We shall gallop forth into battle — or Ponyville, whichever — and—”

“Can I wear the helmet as well?”

The twinkle in Dad’s rose-coloured eyes diminished for a moment, just a moment, but he nodded all the same. As he always did. “How could I refuse that either? Headwear is important for all adventuring purposes.” He tapped his own tricorn. “Just remember to be gentle with it.”

Daring reached up and into the big wagon, straining up on her hindlegs and flapping off the ground, and she managed to snag the edge of her mother’s old pith helmet. She turned with it in her mouth, and was swept up and onto Dad’s back before she could blink. She wobbled for a moment before she found her old balance and properly donned the helmet. “Adventure!” she cried, punching the air with her forehoof.

The dashing impression she was going for was somewhat undercut by the too-large helmet sliding down over her whole head. Dad had advised her to give it a few years before proper adventuring poise could co-exist alongside headwear. But where was the fun in waiting?

“Adventure, ho!” echoed Dad, as he took off at a brisk trot down the winding path towards Ponyville. Daring thought a gallop would have been more fitting, but she supposed a full wagon might have some influence there. Regardless, adventure! She imagined her compass cutie mark trilling along with the thought.

She wouldn’t just sit on the sidelines, she silently vowed as she held on tight to the helmet with her forehooves. This was the first outing Dad had done in her memory, his first in years, and if she’d been invited along for the journey, she sure wasn’t going to just hear about it as a new story after it all happened.

Hearing about adventure was one thing. Dreaming about it wasn’t bad either. But neither could surely compare to finally having one.

They made quick time into Ponyville along the well-trodden paths underhoof, fences and farmsteads and eventually townhouses rising up on either side. A few ponies they passed by gave them curious looks and polite nods, and Dad smiled their way in return. Daring held her own head high, partly to try and keep the helmet balanced and to try and keep herself alert despite her tiredness. Explorers shouldn’t doze off while looking adventurous, everypony knew that.

Past a little stream cutting through the town, a high and pointed hall rose. An earth pony mare who seemed vaguely familiar to Daring waited on its front steps, and she waved and trotted closer as the wagon trundled over the bridge. “Gallivant!” said the mare, blue-eyed and parchment-coloured and sporting a wisp of vivid pink mane. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. We’d been expecting you sooner.”

“And you’re a sight for sorer ones, Ivory Scroll,” Dad replied, doffing his hat and sweeping down into a deep bow. The motion came with a subtle wiggle to the right, code for Come off my back and be sociable, Daring. Daring needed no second telling, and flapped off to meet the mare. “Apologies for the delay. I loaded the wagon a bit too enthusiastically. Also, this peculiar filly chose to tag along with me. Not sure where she came from.”

“Dad!”

“Oh, shush, you old scoundrel.” Ivory smiled and leaned down to meet Daring’s gaze. “Hello, Daring. My word, you’ve grown since I last saw you. How old are you now?”

“Nearly eight and a half,” Daring replied with pride. It was a big age to reach; she wasn’t little anymore. She must have been really little when Ivory last met her, though, because she had no solid memory of the mare at all. Ivory was looking at her as if she saw an old friend, though.

“My word, you really are growing up.” Ivory sighed. “You’ve got your dad’s eyes, but otherwise you’re the spitting image of—”

“I was told by reliable authorities that you’ve got an ancient set of ruins in town?” Dad interrupted. “Curious thing to erect with the town’s budget, but I suppose I may as well have a look at them while I’m here.”

“Oh, by all means. You can leave the wagon, it’ll be quite safe. Nopony steals things around here.” Ivory Scroll glanced towards Daring and then back to Dad. “Should she, ah—”

“Spitting image of who?” Daring asked, but without much hope. Some questions would just be studiously ignored by grown-ups, no matter how patiently you repeated them, and that one indeed went ignored. She saved her breath. And in the back of her mind, she suspected the answer.

Dad turned around to smile at Daring. “Would you like to come see the outside of the ruin, Daring? Come see where I’ll be jumping into tomorrow?”

“Sure!” Where they’d be jumping into tomorrow, if Daring had any say. But she’d be clever. She’d pick the right moment to bring it up.

“That’s my girl,” Dad said, tousling her mane and unhitching himself from the wagon, stepping free and relievedly shaking his withers. He was lucky to be an earth pony rather than a pegasus, Daring thought, or his wings would have been terribly cramped. “Lead on, Ivory!”

“This way,” said Ivory, making for one of the streets leading away from the town hall and towards the outlying farmland. “Mrs Smith spotted the sinkhole on the outskirts of her land about a week ago. The mayor had some ponies try and do a little clearance, and they found a tunnel branching off into a cavern. And in that cavern … well, that was when the mayor asked me to send a letter to the Archaeological Society. Just as well I knew a suitably daft stallion still hanging on there, eh?”

“Quite,” said Dad. “Goodness knows I’ve got an archrival or two there who’ll be green at the thought of me getting initial adventuring and research access here. I can’t wait to trot into Old Chestnut’s office with whatever I get published and see the look on her face.”

“Your academic pettiness is an inspiration to us all. Just keep an eye out for whoever they send in your wake.”

As they trotted out through the streets and onto a winding path between the hills, Daring fluttered up onto Dad’s back and settled there amidst the folds of his coat. The conversation drifted off into considerably more boring grown-up tangents; the last thing Dad had gotten published a year or so before Daring had been born, Ivory’s plan to run for mayor after old Calamander’s forthcoming retirement and how she might invest in grey manedye to look more statesmare-like; plans to build more houses on the west side of the town, and other topics that passed through one ear and out the other. Daring found her eyes drifting shut as they ambled out into the countryside and towards a nearby farm.

Only the sudden jolt of Dad stopping roused her from sleep once again, and the voice of a new mare crying, “Howdy there, Ivory!” made her scramble off his back to meet whoever they’d bumped into. A collection of farm buildings lay sprawled out on a small hill before them, surrounded by orchards of flowering trees. A lean-looking and green-coated earth pony mare, who looked as if she was staring imminent old age in the eye and daring it to make the first move, trotted smartly towards them from out of a barn.

“Good day, Mrs Smith,” said Ivory. “I’ve brought along the archaeologist from Canterlot.”

“Really? ‘Bout time. That darned sinkhole’s made a ruin of the south-west field. Outlying and small field to start with, mind you, but any growing land’s good land.” The mare stopped before them, and her eyes briefly creased at the edges with mischief before she leaned down towards Daring. “You must be the high-up researcher-slash-adventurer out of this bunch, then. A pleasure to meet you, miss …?”

Daring tried not to giggle, and failed. “Daring Do, Seniorest Researcher. Here to delve into all your old ruins.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to make your learned acquaintance, Miss Do. And this must be your dashing assistant?” said Mrs Smith, turning to Dad.

“Oh, just a dashing and brainless intern, ma’am. I wouldn’t know what an ancient ruin was if you dropped one on me. It’s just as well I travel with the experts.” Dad extended a hoof. “Gallivant, Mrs Smith. Here from the Royal Archaeological Society.”

“Granny Smith in full. A pleasure,” she replied, all but lifting Dad off the ground with the strength of her hoofshake. As she released her grip, leaving Dad wobbling and trying to keep his footing next to Daring, Granny Smith looked at the dusk sky dubiously. “Mite late to go underground, ain’t it?”

“Just having a preliminary look at the exterior, Mrs Smith, if that’s okay with you,” Dad managed whilst recovering his balance. “I’ll conduct a proper exploration early tomorrow.”

“Fine by me, Mr Gallivant,” said Granny Smith, shrugging and turning in the direction of the setting sun. “Trot this way, y’all.”

Yet more walking, this time along pathways through endless orchards of budding apple trees, until they reached an unploughed field surrounded on three sides by apple trees. A wide sinkhole sat right in the middle of it, falling at least twenty metres down through layers of topsoil and earth and stone. A rough wooden walkway had been built down along its edge, circling down towards a natural tunnel amidst the rock at the bottom.

“My daughter and son-in-law slung that up when we were first exploring it,” said Granny Smith, gesturing towards the walkway. She snorted. “T’weren’t no stopping that mare once she’d gotten the notion, never mind no pregnancy with my first grandfoal or anything unimportant like that. Never made my mind up whether our Apple stubbornness is a blessing or a curse.”

“Inclined to bless it at present, Mrs Smith,” said Dad, trotting down the walkway and glancing behind as he did so. “Stay by me, Daring.”

Daring did so, hovering close to the edge of the walkway and peering down curiously all the while. Ivory and Granny Smith’s hooves creaked on the wood behind her, acquiring a certain resonance the deeper they got. They reached the end of the walkway and the dark tunnel loomed before them. Dad drew a small strip of alchemical paper out from the band of his tricorn, and one small tear in it made it shed golden light to see by. Tucking it back into his hat band, Dad pressed on with the group at his back.

The tunnel inclined downwards for a stretch, the air growing ever-mustier, before twisting off to one side. Past that twist and several others, a cavern waited, and for the first moment upon seeing it, Daring’s mouth dropped open.

At one end of the cavern, under a roof of packed earth and tangled roots, a short tower of white stone rose against one wall. Its stone was smooth and polished and seamless, shedding a soft white glow into the darkness of the cavern that was reflected by a few clusters of naturally-growing gemstones. Its top came to a curving point, with two elaborately curving jags that resembled antlers jutting outwards on either side. A door big enough to fit a large stallion sat at its base, slightly ajar but betraying little of what could lie within.

That was all, but there it was; an actual ruin in the flesh, glorious and luminescent (a word which had given Daring difficulty when she’d first read it, but which she was fairly confident the tower deserved). Its ajar door betrayed nothing about what lay within. Come inside and explore, it said to Daring. Come see things no pony ever has.

The first noise came from Dad. “Oh, aren’t you a beauty,” he murmured — the first sight of old ruins always had a way of making him strangely quiet. “Late Antlertean, if I’m any judge. Plenty of time and opportunities to become submerged like this, during the Fall and after. Which mage-lord raised you in bygone days?”

“Thought it best to hold off poking around inside till a professional could come,” said Granny Smith. “Ain’t too big a tower, though. Shouldn’t take you that long to look it over, surely?”

“It’s not the size of the tower that matters,” said Dad, still star-struck. Both Ivory and Granny repressed snickers for some reason. “It’s about what’s beneath it. The Antlerteans always built deep underground with their overseas outposts, and their mage-lords were paranoid about keeping their secrets far from prying eyes behind traps and wards. Ooh, this one’s going to be fun.”

“It’s been thousands of years since Antlertis sank below the waves and left all their outposts bare, though,” said Ivory. “Surely any traps or wards or whatever would have rusted away or faded long ago?”

“Not Antlertean stuff. The magic they played with makes ours look like foals at play. And they built to last.” Dad’s eyes twinkled, and his grin threatened to run right around his head. “Oh, this is going to be fun. And it’ll be one heck of a paper that can be produced from this. Just as well I stuffed the wagon with everything barring the kitchen sink. I’ll spend the rest of tonight planning — I’ve gone into similar ruins before, and I’ve read Tumbleweed’s Findings from the Pale Palace cover-to-cover more times than I can—”

“Dad?” said Daring eagerly. Now was the time, now when he was excited, now when he was starting to plan.

“Hmm? Yes, poppet?

“Take me in with you tomorrow! I want to see all the old Antlertean stuff too!” Daring all but hopped up and down on the spot with excitement. “I can help you look out for things, and if any of your academic archrivals come down to have a hoof-fight with you while you’re exploring like you said happened to you and Mom in Old Trotenu, then I can—”

“No, Daring.” The wrong answer, cutting Daring short, coming from a face that had lost its grin though the voice was still soft. “We’ve spoken about this before. Not until you’re older and you’ve got some practical experience under your withers. Archaeology is dangerous work, and I won’t have you get hurt.”

“But ...” Daring floundered. It hadn’t gone this way in her head, and maybe she could still fix it if she thought of something. Anything. “But I am older! Eight and a half! And I’ve listened to every story you’ve told me and I’ve read all the adventure books and—”

“I know, Daring. And you’re on the right track and you should keep up all those commendable habits, especially the listening to me one. But now’s not the time. Not yet. You’re not ready.”

“When will I be ready? I have to start adventuring and getting all that practical experience sometime! Why not now?”

“Because I’ve told you you’re not old enough now. And because I know what can happen to adventurers, prepared or not. Accidents happen on adventures, even to the best ponies.” The twinkle in Dad’s eye had become a steely glint. “You’re staying above ground tomorrow with Ivory Scroll, and I’ll tell you all about it once I’m done. That’s final, Daring.”

Daring looked helplessly around for support, and found none. Granny Smith shook her head. “Heed your daddy, young ‘un. Fillies ought to be out playing in the fresh air and sunshine anyhow.”

Ivory Scroll likewise shook her head. “It’s alright, Daring. I’ll be looking after you tomorrow, and we’ll have fun.You could meet other foals in Ponyville — it’s a school today tomorrow, but they’ll be out and about afterwards. I could introduce you to my niece Cheerilee. Or you can just stay with me. Do you know how to play chess? I’ve got a lovely new board and set of pieces I’d love to break in.”

She reached out with a hoof to pat Daring’s wither, and Daring stiffened at her touch. A hot ball of anger seemed to have gotten stuck in her throat, and her vision blurred. Her face screwed up to stop that blurriness leaking out. It wasn’t meant to have gone this way. She was a big filly, she’d gotten her compass cutie mark ages ago, and what was she meant to do other than adventure? She couldn’t be stopped from doing what Dad did and what Mom had done, what she was meant to do. It wasn’t fair.

It was her mistake. That hadn’t been the right time to ask at all, not with all those adults. They’d all had to be boring and grown-up in front of each other, and they’d had to back up each other’s own boringness. Why hadn’t she seen that coming?

Behind her, she heard Dad sigh. “Not much more to be done here. We should head back up and ruthlessly take advantage of Ivory’s hospitality. Plenty of work to be done tonight, and plenty more tomorrow.”

“I object to the ‘ruthless’ part of that—” Ivory said quickly, and whatever she said next, Daring didn’t hear.

The angry tightness in Daring’s throat petered away as she started thinking. The blurriness in her eyes didn’t go away — she’d have to blink it out when nopony else was looking — but she realised she wasn’t stuck. She could still adventure in these ruins, and she could do it so well that Dad would have to admit he’d been wrong.

The plan of it took shape as they left the cavern and made for the walkway, as Dad silently scooped her up onto his back again, as they left the walkway and ventured across the dusk-lit fields. If Dad was picking out stuff from the wagon tonight to take with him tomorrow, then that’d leave plenty of stuff Daring could borrow. She’d want to go in properly prepared. That was how you had a good adventure.

But if she wanted it to go really well, she’d have to do it herself.

And most importantly, she’d have to do it first.

Ignis, who pulled double duty as a little magical alarm clock as well as an enchanted dragon doll, roared Daring awake and produced a small stream of vivid light from his mouth. She blearily fumbled around in the tangle of sheets, found him, and bopped him on his plush snout to make the alarm-roar and spray of light stop.

No dreams exciting enough to be worth remembering happened this night. But then, she’d hardly need them today if all went as she’d planned.

Early morning light filtered in past the curtains separating Ivory Scroll’s second guest bedroom from the outside world, prodding painfully at Daring’s muzzy state of mind. Her plans from yesterday flared to life in her mind, giving her a jolt. She held her breath for a moment, waiting to hear if anypony else in the house had been woken. No hoofsteps came creaking through the solid timber, and Daring breathed out after a few moments.

Setting her alarm for before Dad was likely to wake up and head off had been the important part, and now all she had to do was stay awake until then. That was easy enough, all she had to do was keep planning and keep herself excited. She could do that. She was good at planning.

What was Dad likely to take with him, and what would he leave behind? There’d always be plenty of rope around, a few of the little head-lanterns, and spare magical multitools (probably including some of the really fun ones with little blowtorches built in that Dad had said she could only play with when supervised by a semi-responsible adult) but not much she could really carry apart from that. Things like the crowbars and ten-foot poles were too big for her, and all the barding was fitted for a grown stallion. Should she take a notebook? Dad always said proper adventuring-archaeology required some amount of boring writing-things-down so you could assemble your notes into a proper report afterwards and get it published in all the archaeology journals and get acclaim and tenure or whatever, which had always seemed like a waste of time to Daring.

Who cared about journal articles, really? If you had to write at all, books would be much more fun.

She wondered what sort of trophy-pieces the ruin would have in it. Trophy-pieces were what an adventurer-archaeologist used to affirm their first claim to a place, Dad had told her. In the strange mix of rules and violently-enforced honour that ruled amongst fellow archaeologists, you could stake first claim on a site if you made the first delve, sent a message to the Royal Archaeological Society saying you’d done such, and enclosed proof of something you’d taken from the site. That something was a trophy-piece, and the more glorious it was and the more inaccessible your reports had made it sound, the more drinks you’d have bought for you at conferences and the more journals would want to publish your field reports. According to Dad, at any rate. And if nothing else, you could put it on your mantlepiece, or sell or donate it to a museum or private collector.

Equestrian archaeology seemed like a strange place to Daring, and the race to get a good trophy-piece meant that all manner of hoof-fights could break out between rival archaeologists doing their own delves at the same time on top of everything else in a ruin that might be trying to kill them. Past all the explosions and inevitable devastation, though, you couldn’t deny it got results.

A creak from the next room along where Dad had been sleeping broke Daring’s line of thought, and she held her breath. Hoofsteps pattered on the floor, as if he had heaved himself out of bed and were trying not to wake anypony else as he moved around. The door opened, the hoofsteps moved further away, and there came the distant gurgling of water from Ivory’s bathroom. Daring kept careful track all the while, and her thoughts fluttered into furious motion as Dad’s hoofsteps left the bathroom and returned to his bedroom. He’d stored his clothes and barding there, so she’d have a few more minutes to think.

Was she sure about the route she’d planned? Out the window, flutter onto the nearest soft thing to break her fall, grab what she needed from the wagon, and run right through some of the little paths she’d seen that bridged the streets. That should let her go straight-on towards the Apple farmland rather than take the winding road there. Dad would always take the longer and more scenic route, and she could use that to her advantage. So long as she had her mental map right. Past the streets, she knew she could just go in a more-or-less straight line towards the field with the ruins.

Daring thought through the route she’d take, and then thought through it again, and then once more for good luck, and the broad details were very nearly similar each time, before a gentle rap sounded on her bedroom door. She quickly snuggled herself back down under her duvet, and tried to mimic a yawn as the door creaked open. Dad stood framed within it, the shape of barding visible underneath his justacorps and his tricorn set at a jaunty angle on his head. He gave her a concerned look as he entered. “Morning, poppet. Was that a cough?”

One day, she’d be able to do a convincing yawn. “It was a yawn,” Daring insisted. She moved slowly under the covers to turn directly to Dad, as if she was still half-asleep. In all fairness, that one wasn’t too hard to mimic. “It’s early.”

“The early bird catches the worm and also the bevy of ancient Antlertian trinkets with which to upstage its sneering bird colleagues,” said Dad. “It’s possible I’ve misremembered that phrase, but hey-ho. I felt like making a start while the day was young. Sorry if I woke you, Daring.”

“It’s alright,” said Daring. She looked up at Dad and posed the question she thought he’d expect her to ask, though they both already knew the answer. “Have you changed your mind? Can I come?”

Dad shook his head gently. “No. Not yet, poppet. But when you’re a little older, you’ll get your chance, I promise.” A smile broke across his face. “Once this is all over, I might head back to the Thorn Tower excavation site next month for a bit of work. Would you like to come with me then? Good easy place to show you some of the ropes. Every great adventurer has to start somewhere.”

Normally, Daring would have jumped out of her own hide with excitement at the offer. Even a cleared-out and toothless ruin had to be worth exploring. But in the face of what she planned to explore today, well, the Thorn Tower was foal’s stuff. “That’d be great, Dad,” she managed, plastering a grin on her face.

Dad peered at her more closely, his face growing concerned. He leaned down to feel her forehead with a hoof. “Hmm. You’re not jumping out of your hide with excitement at the thought. Are you feeling alright? That did sound like a nasty cough.”

“It was a yawn. I’m fine, Dad,” Daring said hastily. “Maybe just a little more sleep?”

“It is early,” Dad admitted, glancing towards the wan light seeping in past the window. “Ivory’s already awake; I bumped into her heading to the bathroom. Shall I ask her to give you a couple more hours?”

“That—” Daring thought quickly, and concluded that would be perfect. “That’d be great!”

Dad shook his head ruefully. “Nary a peep at the prospect of the Thorn Tower, but extra sleep gets a higher octave out of her. Am I sure she’s my daughter?” He backed away while chuckling at the squeaks of purest indignation this produced from Daring. “I’m joking, poppet. Get some sleep and try and feel better rested. Maybe I’ll be back by the time you wake up. You can be the first to see whatever trophy-piece I bring back. That’ll be fun, won’t it?”

Daring bit back the next indignant squeak and nodded her head. Dad leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Sleep well, Daring. I’ll be back soon.”

Daring nestled back into the bed as Dad turned away and left through the bedroom door, his coat rustling against the edges. He gently nudged the door shut as he left, leaving Daring alone.

It was just as well. The urge to grin was now uncontrollable, and she let herself. That had ended perfectly! Dad didn’t suspect anything. She had hours before Ivory would think to check on her and get suspicious that she wasn’t around. And she’d be getting at least one other adventure next month anyway, which certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as this one, but was still nothing to be sniffed at.

She was already the cunningest adventurer there was, clearly. They may as well give her all the awards and publications and whatever already. She wouldn’t be selfish, of course. Dad could have some of whatever she got.

Daring leapt out of bed, keeping one ear out for Dad’s progress. The tread of hoofsteps on the stairs, the creak of Ivory’s front door. And after a moment, the rustle from the oilskin being shifted off the wagon under her window.

She held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, until things stopped rustling and she finally heard the smooth sound of the oilskin being resecured. Somewhat more encumbered hoofsteps clanked away, until they passed beyond her hearing.

She released her breath. No time to wait, no time to brush her teeth or mane or do anything else now. This was it.

With one bound, Daring was through the curtains and fumbling at the latch on the window sill, sending them flying open as she wobbled precariously on the edge. Sunlight spilled down from the new dawn sky, lighting up the rooftops of Ponyville and the blossoming window gardens all around. Only a few ponies were out and about, and none of them seemed to have noticed her.

She closed her eyes briefly, and then let herself fall forwards, arresting her freefall through empty air with furious flapping and a minimum of disorientated yelping. The descent brought Daring tumbling face-first into a nearby bush, which she freed herself from after a few moments with yet more vigorous flapping. As she emerged, she glanced from side to side. Nopony seemed to have noticed yet.

Stars above, she was too good at this.

The wagon rose before her, resting at one side of Ivory’s house and covered by the oilskin Dad used to keep the stuff inside protected from the rain. She strained up to try and unfasten one edge of it, and with great effort was able to roll it entirely off. As it tumbled to the ground, she jumped up into the wagon.

As if by magic, or destiny, or whatever, the most important adventuring tool sat before her, as if it had been waiting.

Daring picked up her mother’s old pith helmet and brushed it off with one hoof before she perched it on her head. It was too big for her still and she had to nudge it backwards to stop it slipping down over her eyes, and she still hadn’t entirely decided what she was bringing, and she’d have to hurry if she wanted to be sure of beating Dad to the ruins, but somehow none of that mattered. She was doing what was right, what Mom would have surely approved of and what Dad would probably secretly approve of even if he had to be cross on the outside, and the surety lit a fire in her that couldn’t have been washed away by an ocean.

“I’m going to get there first,” Daring whispered as she rummaged for rope and lanterns in the bottom of the wagon. “I’ll explore where nopony’s ever explored, and nothing’s gonna stop me.”

Wherein Our Heroine Learns a New Curse

Five minutes of rummaging, clattering, and accidental entanglement passed before Daring thought she was ready. She had the pith helmet perched upon her head, and one of the little head-lanterns had been strapped around it. Her saddlebags had been donned — the ones Dad had gotten her for her last birthday, the ones with her cutie mark embroidered on the sides — and a couple of multitools thrown inside them, including one with a blowtorch which she was probably allowed to use under the circumstances. A pouch of steel ball-bearings went in the bags as well, which Dad had once assured her were great for setting off traps connected to sensitive pressure plates, as well as for makeshift games of marbles if you got bored on a delve. A coil of rope had been wound around her middle and under her wings — one of the smaller coils, in reluctant deference to her size. She’d had to give up on the crowbars and ten-foot poles entirely.

That would probably be all she needed, and Daring tugged the oilskin back into place. No time to waste. Dad would still be moving towards the ruins. She glanced from side to side, and then made for the street, jangling as she went.

She emerged into the main street of Ponyville, which now had several ponies bustling around in it, setting up little stalls and watering flower beds. A trundling noise came from one side, and she turned with some confusion. It sounded like their own wagon, which she’d just left behind her —

No, it was another wagon, smaller and compact, pulled by a tall and wiry-looking earth pony mare, her copper-coloured hide covered by a rumpled cloak. She looked down at Daring with sharp green eyes, which slowly widened with puzzlement. “You—” the mare started, but Daring was already wheeling away and sprinting towards a likely-looking alleyway.

She didn’t mean to be rude, but she was on a schedule, and the strange mare would just hold her up. She could apologise later if she met her again. Daring clanked swiftly through the alleyway, ignoring the calls at her back, and sprinted through into the street parallel to the first. Two sleepy-looking ponies were out in front of their house, watering a bed of dragon-snapper flowers, and turned her way briefly. One tilted her head and the other looked as though he was about to comment, and Daring hurried on past them. No time to get delayed.

Before long, and after several short twists and turns in Ponyville’s streets, she arrived at the town’s outskirts past a final scattering of houses. Past them, a grassy meadow ran up to a fence, and past that fence, row after row of budding apple trees rose up a small hill. Daring grinned and broke into a canter across the meadow, leaping at the last moment to try and clear the fence with one graceful jump.

Saddlebags and coils of rope didn’t greatly assist grace, as it turned out, but luckily nopony was around to see her as Daring tried to disentangle her rope — and by extension, herself — from the top of the fence, repeating the one curse she knew all the while. She finally succeeded and tumbled down to the ground, prompting one last “Flying feathers!” on impact.

She picked herself up, thanking the stars that nopony had been around to see that, retrieved the helmet and the multitools from where they’d fallen out of her saddlebags, and scrambled up the hill before her. The grass underhoof was still damp with dew, and a cool breeze rustled through the leaves of the apple trees all around, fresh and sweet with the scent of apple blossom. As she dragged her way up to the hill’s summit, Daring paused to catch her breath and briefly turned around.

Past the trees, Ponyville was beginning to bustle as more and more ponies emerged out into the day. Their voices could be heard even across the distance Daring had made so far, and she thought she could hear some fillies and colts amongst them. Ivory had mentioned it was a school day today and, unheroic as it may be, Daring couldn’t help but mentally gloat. She was already missing her classes back in Canterlot, and besides, catch her going to school when old ruins were around.

Out of Ponyville proper, the road to Sweet Apple Acres ran, and Daring craned her head to see if Dad was on it yet. There — a fair distance out from the town, there was the distant shape of a stallion in a long coat and with a ten-foot pole slung over his back. He seemed to be tossing an apple in one forehoof as he ambled up the path, occasionally pausing to take a bite and admire a bit of scenery. Far behind him, just emerging from the town, another cloaked pony pulling a wagon seemed to be taking their sweet time as well.

One day, Daring wondered if she’d understand grown-up logic and whatever made them want to wake up early just in time to do nothing whatsoever. Understand, if not actually participate.

Regardless, though Dad might be taking his time, he was still on the road, and she had to hurry up if she wanted to be sure of getting to the ruins first. She stuck her tongue out as she tried to gauge the direction she’d have to go, and took off at a brisk trot. The hill sloped down into yet more orchards of apple trees, with neat dirt paths crisscrossing through them all. From further off in the orchard, she could hear voices and what sounded like a cut-off giggle. She’d have to give whoever was working there a wide berth if she wanted to avoid being seen.

Daring pressed on for what felt like ages, weaving around trees and trying to keep far away from where she guessed the farm buildings and the source of the voices were. The minutes ticked by in the back of her mind, and she crept onwards as quickly as she could. Her saddlebags and the rope grew heavier and heavier, and the lack of any landmarks amidst all the trees chipped away at her sense of direction all the while. Was she still on the right path? Getting there at the same time as Dad would be trouble, and if she somehow managed to lose the ruin altogether, she might just die out of sheer embarrassment.

But a ridge rose into view, past which the trees seemed to thin, and Daring made for it with a sudden burst of hope. She clambered over the ridge and past the treeline, and by some miracle, there was the field with the sinkhole. No other pony was in sight, and the world was quiet but for the wind rustling through the leaves and the distant trilling of birds.

Daring delightedly dove out of the trees, only arresting her momentum when she was about to tumble right into the sinkhole itself. Fluttering down with all the weight she was carrying struck her as more of a fankle than it was worth, and she reluctantly opted for just trotting down the walkway like a sensible and boring pony would. The roughly-hewn wooden steps creaked underhoof, and she could see the stone bottom loom closer and closer through gaps between them.

And eventually there were no more steps. Before her, a tunnel ran deep into the earth, twisting down and down into musty blackness, far away from the morning air and the smell of the apple blossoms.

Daring took a breath, all but tasting the sheer, palpable destiny in the air, and then she took the plunge. She trotted onwards, and as the darkness swallowed her, she tapped the side of her head-lantern, coaxing the magical mechanism to life. A thin ray of light skittered out ahead of her to illuminate the ground ahead, far less bright than she’d have liked. But that would have to be alright. Everypony knew great adventurers weren’t scared of the dark. And besides, there couldn’t be anything in the shadows that was scarier or more competent than she was.

The dark tunnel twisted on for much longer than she’d remembered, and Daring found herself stumbling over rocks and ridges in the stone floor as she left the daylight behind and only her feeble lantern lit the way. Her hoofsteps and her breathing were the only noise, with the shadows seeming to swallow everything else. But the dim, pale light of the cavern eventually came skittering round the last corner before her, and Daring eagerly picked up the pace to meet it. She stepped into the light, and there the cavern waited, just as she’d left it. The pale tower rose at one end, its antlers' tips eternally clawing at the cavern’s roof, and the ajar doorway at its base stood silent and still. Come delve, it whispered.

Daring was delighted to oblige it. She took off at a mad scramble across the cavern floor, weaving between the jagged patches of naturally-growing crystals until she reached the doorway itself. One moment to catch her breath and re-adjust her helmet. One more moment to savour the destiny before getting properly stuck into it.

And in that moment, from behind her, maybe as far back as the walkway, there came the tread of distant hoofsteps. She cursed and started towards the ajar door, leaning her full weight upon it with her forehooves and feeling it creak inwards at an agonisingly slow rate. Eventually, it swung inwards far enough for her to get back on all fours and poke her head inside.

Past the entrance, the tower’s innards seemed to consist of a single circular room, lit by the pale and luminous stone of its interior wall which rose up into the darkness of the tower’s hollow top. At its centre, past a floor whose curving indents and patterns were half-hidden by layers of dust, a recessed stairway spiralled down into the earth.

All was silent as Daring held her breath. Faint etchings and curving runes ran along the wall, glimmering with what looked like long-faded magic. She peered at them for a moment, and concluded that they were indecipherable and hence currently irrelevant. No matter, though, and she raised her hoof to cross the threshold —

—And then she paused, as a sudden suspicion came to mind. Her gaze flitted back down to the dust-covered indented carvings on the floor, rising and falling like the waves of a frozen ocean. If she was reading an adventure story or listening to Dad chat about his glory days, what would she expect to happen about now?

Her gaze flicked up towards the dark and unseen ceiling, and amidst its shadows, she imagined she could see the shapes of spikes.

“Ten-foot poles!” came Dad’s voice from drowsy memory, part of some old account told within stone walls next to a roaring fire. “Worthy things, cherish them. Amidst all their other uses, they can save your life as well. Tap them out ahead whenever you’re going down a strange corridor or entering a new room, and if there’s any pressure plate in cahoots with something both unpleasant and deleterious to life and limb, your pole can suffer so you don’t have to. Why, when your mom and I dived down to Sunken Dunwhick—”

She didn’t have a pole. But she did have a nearby rock, and she scooped it up with her hoof to lob it across the floor. It bounced several feet away, stirring up little puffs of dust, and skittered several more before coming to a rest at the top of the stairs.

Daring held her breath for a moment as the dust began to settle.

And then, just as disappointingly little seemed to be happening, there was a creak from up in the shadows, a sudden rush of descending darkness, and something hammered down on the floor with an almighty crash scant inches from Daring’s nose. Before she could so much as jump back, the ceiling-trap was already rising back to its starting position, dust flurrying on the floor where it had made contact. It was a dark circular slab wide enough to cover the whole floor, its base covered with long downwards-jagging spikes made of some pitted dark metal.

Daring watched it rise, transfixed and still even as her heart tried to hammer its way out her chest. And only when it distantly clicked back into place, did she finally release the only fitting exclamation. “Cool!”

A trap! An actual trap, like in all the stories, right before her eyes! She’d just triggered something that could have killed her, like a proper adventurer. Days couldn’t get cooler than this. They just couldn’t.

Other pieces of pragmatic adventuring knowledge slid into Daring’s mind on the heels of the initial excitement. Sleuthing out the trap had only been the first step, she reminded herself. You had to actually get past it afterwards. Happily, this one didn’t seem too tricky. If there were pressure plates in the ground that brought down the spikes, then you just had to never make contact with the ground as you made for the stairs.

Tricky for ponies who weren’t Daring, maybe, but she was a pegasus. And she might not be strong enough for prolonged free flight yet, but she was definitely the strongest flier among the pegasi in her year. She could glide for ages and that was practically the same thing as flying. One little jump should be manageable even with her weight of gear. She tensed the muscles in her legs and flexed her wings, preparing for the next great leap onwards …

But another suspicion came to mind, bringing her to a reluctant stop before she’d even started. Was it actually pressure plates in the floor? Did she know that for certain? The trap certainly had sprung after the rock had hit the ground, but there might be something else that caused it. Baron Munchorsen’s Adventure to the Moon had had a few lessons in it, in which long words like ‘correlation’ and ‘causation’ and ‘combustion’ had come up frequently, often at the expense of the silly Baron himself.

And besides that, Daring knew there were other things that could trigger traps.

“Tap ahead,” came the voice of Dad once more. “Sound out threats to life and limb on the floors and walls - and the ceiling if you can reach it, why not. But it might not be a pressure plate you have to watch out for. Some —” and in that part of the retelling, he had stopped for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had briefly lost its warmth and his eyes had lost their twinkle. “Sometimes, it seems the world goes out of its way to make our trade difficult. Some vicious old wretches who loved their secrets too much hooked detecting enchantments up to their traps. Cast them on the walls to watch for motion and let fly when they spot it. You can’t trust even thin air. So if your ten-foot pole isn't dead yet, hold it out ahead as well - and wait. Be patient. Hold back for star’s sake, and for your own.”

Daring supposed that Dad might know what he was talking about in some cases, and despite herself, firmly fettered the urge to fly straight on. Instead, she scooped up another rock, eyed the distant ceiling, and tossed the rock straight upwards to make it spend a moment or two more mid-air. She watched it like a hawk as it arced up, coming close to the impenetrable shadow, and then came down again.

As the rock fell, the runes upon the wall slowly shone with the faintest of shimmers. And then, just as the rock was about to hit the floor, the trap slammed down before Daring’s eyes. There was a little crunch that was all but drowned out before the spiked slab ground its way back up towards the ceiling once more, and only scattered shards were left of the little rock.

Daring stared, her heart hammering anew, and the excitement she felt this time sat more queasily in her. Visions of what could have happened spun out suddenly across her mind before she forced them away, but not entirely. One stuck with her, and in it, the pith helmet on her head became little more than tatters spread across the ground, lying amidst … other things.

The chilly urge to give it all up for another day and turn back now briefly rose in her, but a little voice that could have been her cutie mark itself whispered, The trap has to rise back up. Seize the moment.

Daring looked up, and sure enough, the spiked slab’s progress back to the ceiling was slow. Maybe whoever built it thought the first slam would be enough that they wouldn't need an immediate follow-up, or that most intruders - curious thieves or animals or whatnot - would be pulped or scared off by that first slam alone.

It’s still rising. Use the gap. Seize the moment.

And although the appeal of backing away couldn’t be denied, the sheer urge to press on, to prove herself the great adventurer, to make Dad and Mom proud - that burned brighter for Daring, and she seized the moment. She leapt out in a swift glide towards the spiral staircase, under the creaking weight of the spiked slab, and half-landed, half-crashed onto its first recessed step. Quickly, she tried to recover her balance as best she could under the weight of gear, and she all but leapt down to the next steps to keep her head well below the reach of the spikes. For a long, long moment, she huddled there on the stairs, trying to keep her breathing steady and failing, waiting for another crashing descent from the trap.

But the seconds ticked by and the descent didn’t come. Her heartbeat subsided. And terror turned to triumph.

She’d found her first trap. She’d outwitted her first trap. Her cutie mark all but sang. She wanted to find another trap and relive that thrill again and again, feel her heart jump into her mouth on another gamble in the face of deadly odds.

Ancient Antlertis built deep to protect its secrets, sealing them behind traps and wards and mighty magic, so Dad said. Well, Antlertis would have to come up with far better than that, because it was up against Daring Do now, and hell mend it for that dangerous life choice. Daring adjusted her helmet, grinned a cocky grin she’d spent hours practising in the mirror before, and set off down the spiral stairway.

It wound down and down, each step wide enough to let two big stallions trot down side-by-side and only slightly less tall than Daring herself at the withers. A dank and musty smell rose from the bottom, far worse than the cavern above, and Daring wrinkled her nose. Nothing could have lived down there for ages.

The height of the steps forced Daring to take the stairs at a semi-coordinated tumble, awkwardly swinging her forelegs and hindlegs down to each new step, one pair after the other. Her rope and saddlebags took every chance they could to get in the way, and though being inside the tower seemed to have muffled the distant hoofsteps beyond hearing, that was almost worse than hoofsteps she could hear. No end in sight loomed for the stairs, and on an impulse, she tried to take them at a faster rate.

That just made her stumble, flail for balance, and then proceed to take the stairs at a not-even-remotely-coordinated tumble. The whole world turned to a bruising kaleidoscope of whirling steps as she bounced from one to the other to the tune of, “Ow! Aagh! Ow! Flying — ow!” Only the cushioning the pith helmet gave her head prevented stars from being added to the blur. After a brief and confusing eternity, she mercifully ran out of steps, and she was planted face-first onto a stone floor.

For a moment, she chose to just lie there, emitting faint groans as the world stopped whirling. “Flying feathers, ow,” she managed as she finally staggered to her hooves and checked her teeth were still intact. She wasn’t exactly sure why the words made a curse, and whenever she’d heard Dad use them when he thought she wasn’t listening, they were something he apparently couldn’t give, but she couldn’t deny it was fun to say. It took some of the sting off the bruises as well, which always helped.

Thank the stars nopony had been around to see that as well. No wonder most adventurers she read about started off by themselves.

The helmet had fallen to the floor near her, past a thin haze of dust that had been stirred into life by her landing. She scrambled to pick it back up and collect a couple of multitools that had flown out of her saddlebags, coughing on some of the dust - there was a lot of it, with an even layer covering the entire floor. Once everything had been secured, she looked up along the corridor she found herself in, the beam of her lantern skittering ahead to light the way.

Her eyes widened.

The corridor ended at a distant stone door. Roots had broken through the stone further along, and had carved rifts into the wall just to the door’s side. A soft blue light glimmered past these rifts, as if being shone through water. The large door itself seemed to have no handle or hinges. Instead, a side-on picture of a long-legged and sleek quadruped had been carved into it, their long head crowned with antlers as they leapt through the air.

Daring had seen pictures of deer before, showing the old Antlerteans before their Fall in adventure stories or her foal’s history books, and usually showing them off wearing elaborate robes and doing improbably cool things with magic at the same time. But she realised that this must have been a picture the deer had carved themselves, of themselves. She looked up at it, and a blank stone eye looked back at her.

Daring prided herself on being as tough and emotionally-hardy and proud as any proper adventurer should be, but under the ancient carving’s high and solemn gaze, it was hard not to feel overwhelmed and somewhat small. Someone must have made it once. Someone else must have cared about it enough to order it built. Even here under the earth, it must have seen things Daring couldn’t even imagine. And here it had lain for thousands of years, quietly co-existing alongside all the legends and great ponies of history without anypony suspecting it lay here at all.

It must have been a lonely carving, forever waiting to be seen again.

A little plaque ran below the carving, and as it caught Daring’s eye, magic suddenly flickered in the air around it. The sparkle of the magic was unexpectedly bright, much brighter than the old etchings she’d seen above, and the words on the plaque uncoiled and shifted in her vision to form understandable Equish letters. She squinted to make them out from across the length of the corridor, shining her lantern-light directly upon them.

PADHOOF, A THIEF REFORGED.
NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING.

Daring just blinked. The words made no sense — maybe the Antlertean grown-ups had been no different at all from grown-ups nowadays in the stuff they came out with — but she hadn’t been expecting them to translate for her. She stepped closer to investigate the door.

The carving’s eye shut. And then it snapped open, burning yellow.

A golden line of magic slashed out from the eye, arcing far over Daring’s head as she yelped and threw herself to the ground to avoid it, and landed on the last step. Flames roared to life across the step, blazing all the way up to the ceiling and blocking off any escape. As Daring scrabbled forwards away from the sheer furious heat, the carving turned to regard her, as if it were a three-dimensional object somehow stuck inside the wall. Two flaming pinpricks of purest gold blazed in place of eyes, high up past a gaunt muzzle and above a too-tall and too-thin body and legs.

“You intrude upon the freehold of Lord Fallow, Councillor to King Loceros and Lord High Necromancer of Antlertis,” growled a voice from the carving, as cold and deep and pitiless as the night ocean. A faint crackling snarl lurked just below its surface, as if the throat producing it had rusted over. Magic floated thick in the air, seeming to translate the words as they hit Daring’s ears. “If you are capable of speaking and desire to live, make yourself known. If you are merely a wandering animal or some local primitive, just keep gurgling vacantly where you stand and powers beyond your comprehension will reduce you to a carbonised smear in short order.”

Daring Do swallowed, even as sweat trickled down her brow and her legs trembled. This was something more than just a trap. This was it, this was the moment, you couldn’t back down from the first actually scary thing if you wanted to be the great adventurer you knew you were. She reached for the same inextinguishable fire in her heart she’d felt earlier, coaxed it to life, and let it fill her. “I’m Daring Do!” she said, with scarcely the hint of fear in her voice. “Who are you? And who’s Lord Fallow?”

The carving’s golden eyes simmered before the cold voice spoke again. “You are doing this entirely wrong.”

Daring blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I am the sentry. You do not quiz me. I ascertain your identity, compare it to the list of those with appointments, and either grant you entry or reduce you to fine charcoal. I generously assumed this was not hard to fathom. Owing to my excess of optimism, we shall try again. Make yourse—”

“Let’s not,” said Daring, who found her fear of the sentry-carving lessening with each moment, now that she could talk back to it and look it in its eyes. Or flames. Whichever. “I just want inside to look at all your cool old stuff. Nobody’s using it anymore anyway, so why not?”

“Look here, you primitive speck,” said the cold deep voice, which had acquired a certain peevish quality. “I guarantee you that only one of us has this procedure forged into the very essence of their being. We shall follow my lead on this. And in any case, no, you are not getting inside to look at the ‘cool old stuff’. Not unless you have an appointment. Which you certainly don’t.”

“I … what? You can’t be taking appointments now anyway! Antlertis Fell off the face of the world, like, ages ago!”

“Blackness Beyond, they’ll try anything these days,” sneered the sentry-carving. “‘Oops, I forgot my own name, please just read out your entire list of appointments until I recognise my own, honest.’ ‘Ooh, I’m a great and powerful rival to your master, let me in and I shall restore you to your true self after I vanquish him while he sleeps.’ ‘Ooh, you have to let me in, your entire civilisation’s gone.’ Do I look like I was soulforged yesterday? Do not answer that.’”

“Maybe you were! How should I know?” snapped Daring, who couldn’t escape the feeling that this wasn’t how bold entries into ancient ruins were normally meant to go. What was ‘soulforging’ anyway? “You know what, fine. I’m Daring Do! Can you schedule an appointment and let me in now?”

“That is a name not even slightly on the list of appointments,” purred the sentry. “There are, in fact, no appointments scheduled at all. There have been no appointments scheduled for over three thousand years. And I am not in the business of scheduling appointments, especially not for you.”

“Then why did you even ask?”

“Because this is what I do, because I was made to do this. What part of ‘procedure forged into the very essence of my being’ eluded you exactly? Was it all the long words? Should I reduce my present linguistic ability to better accommodate? How would monosyllabic grunts and inarticulate gurgles suit?”

She could have dealt with the sorts of monsters everypony else got on underground adventures, like troglodyte dragons or skaven or Diamond Dog slavers. Instead, every sort of sneering grown-up seemed to be in front of Daring in the form of one stone carving, and she itched to be able to bop its nose as her wing-feathers fluffed with anger. “You’re an inarticulate gurgle!”

“Oh, you little bastard.” And in spite of the multitude of other distractions, Daring still internally exhulted as she recognised what had to be a second curse and added it to her repertoire. “Why are you down here at all? Shouldn’t you be at school, assuming you primitives have those?”

“I —Yes! No! Shut up! Let me through!” Daring stamped her hoof, and instantly cursed herself for it. Adventurers didn’t do that.

“Enough of this,” rasped the sentry. “You’re distracting me. I ought to be incinerating you, both on dutiful grounds and on general principle.”

“Wha—”

And whatever Daring would have said next was cut off by fire. The sentry’s eyes flashed, and a ribbon of pure golden flame swept into existence in the air before it, weaving in quick little circles and flowing patterns like it was a living thing. A tongue of the flame split off and lashed right down at Daring before she could blink. Thoughtless instinct kicked her back across the floor, flapping frantically backwards to avoid the fire that blasted into where she’d been standing. Dust ignited, and a smoking black scar marred the floor.

She alighted awkwardly, all but stumbling as her limbs seemingly refused to work with sheer panic. Heat buffeted at her back from the unabated wall of fire there. She whipped her head from side to side, hunting for a way out, any way out, and there came another flash from far above. Another lash of golden fire came down in a sideways sweep, coiling in the air as if trying to form a noose. She fell to her belly, sending the helmet tumbling off her head, and felt her mane crisp as the lash swept inches overhead, slamming into the wall and leaving a long dent across it.

All the air seemed to have left Daring, and it was too hot to breathe. The room had become a furnace, breaking out beads of sweat across her whole form, and somehow a cold rigidity had seized her trembling limbs and collected in her gut. She tried to think, think, look for some clever way out, but nothing came to her frozen mind.

How do I escape?! How do I get out?!, some part of her screamed in her mind.

Flying feathers! Bastard!, wailed the distinctly-unhelpful bulk of her mind in response. Flying bastards! Bastarding feathers!

Another high golden flash caught her attention, and Daring looked up just in time to see the sentry’s twisting ribbon of flame stab down once more. She rolled to her right, tumbling as best she could with the bulk around her midriff and colliding with the fallen helmet. Heat singed her side just as she flopped onto her belly again. A growl sounded from far above, mixing with the roar of the fire, and she looked up to see the sentry’s cruel yellow eyes.

“I can keep this up longer than you, speck,” the sentry growled. “You’ll choke soon even if the flames don’t get you, but I’d prefer the direct approach if it’s all the same to you. ‘Incineration’ is probably too long a word for your kind, so I’ll just ask you to burn.”

Daring’s breathlessly witty heroic response just came out breathless, and she choked as she looked up at the tall, thin deer, up at its flaring ribbon of flame, and up towards its blazing yellow eyes.

And past those, a glimmer of blue, catching her attention. A glimmer of blue past the rifts in the wall, carved out by snaking roots.

Desperate hope seized Daring then, and an idea raced through her mind like chain-lightning, etching itself onto the forefront of her thoughts, onto her nigh-unconscious motions, onto what seemed like her very self. She clutched hold of the helmet by her side with one forelimb to hold it tight against her form and wriggled free of the constricting coil of rope - it might be a handy adventuring tool, but it wasn’t worth her life, and she needed to move like she’d never moved before. She sprung free just as a fiery coil flew down from the ribbon, already leaping up into a straight flight up through the air towards the blue light. Blazing golden fire looped in the air around her, singeing her hide with its closeness, but she flew free of it all and corrected her flight just in time to impact with the wall by the door with her hooves rather than her face. She scrabbled for a proper grip on the roots and gaps in the wall, her wings flapping as fires raged at her back.

But before her, a mercifully cool breeze wafted across her face. There was a broad rent running right through the half-foot-thick stone of the wall, and through it she could glimpse another corridor lit by some unseen blue light. It was an escape, it was a way away from the fire and the cruel yellow eyes of the sentry …

… and there was a large, sharp, inconvenient jag protruding right up through the middle. And the gaps on either side just weren’t quite wide enough to squeeze through, even for Daring.

Dad was right, the world did like to go out of its way to make adventuring difficult.

“Stop trying to avoid your death, you rude little bastard!” raged the sentry to her side, and the roar of its fire redoubled. Daring bit down on returning the curse with interest — she had little enough time and air to use on her survival as it was — and pressed herself closer to the wall, pressing the helmet between it and her body whilst her rear limbs and wings scrabbled and flapped to keep her precarious position. Her left forehoof punched out at the jag of rock, and all she got was a stinging pain in her hoof and a unmarred jag for her trouble. She frantically swung out again, and again, and again and once more before she gasped with pain and shook her hoof, the jag as untouched as ever. Stone had no business being that hard.

What did she have? What could she do? She couldn’t kick her way through it, not without a grown-up’s strength, and not unless she had a lot more time in which she wasn’t likely to be set on fire. She couldn’t wriggle through the gap, certainly not quickly enough to get away from the sentry. Could she take out the ball-bearings and throw them behind her as a distraction? Not likely — the sentry didn’t seem quite stupid enough to just blast anything moving, it had its target. Maybe one of the little multitools with a blowtorch would be able to sear through the stone? Could it do so in time, though?

Time. Time was the issue, and Daring knew more and more of it was ticking away as she rummaged through her options. The heat at her back intensified, and the golden light that spilled across the walls all but blazed with brightness. Daring twisted around to see the source, screwing up her eyes as much as she could to protect them from the drying force of the heat. From her side-on position, the sentry’s eyes seemed to radiate vicious satisfaction, and in the air before it, the flame-ribbon twisted and twisted through ever-faster loops, gathering speed and power.

Daring’s eyes flicked down to the impressions left in the floor and wall by the sentry’s last strikes, and a manic plan came to her then. It didn’t seem like it could work in any sensibly-run universe, but she didn’t have many other options, and damnit, everypony knew the great adventurers sometimes just had to blow raspberries at the odds and always came out in the end.

“Just hang where you are and this’ll all be over shortly,” said the sentry then as its fire wound up, its voice a self-satisfied purr. “And in your next life, speck, consider coming back as something with more forethought. Or at least less flammability.”

Daring eyed its fire, estimating as best she could. Would what it had be enough? A little taunting couldn’t hurt. “You’ll have to get me first!” she managed, in something between a gasp and a desperate trill of laughter. “Were you made to miss things as well? Come on, hit me with your best shot, slowpoke!”

The sentry’s inarticulate yell might have contained a new curse; it was hard for Daring to tell past the noise of the flame. Its fire briefly blazed brighter than the sun in the tight confines of the corridor, forcing Daring to avert her gaze to avoid being dazzled. There came the sudden roaring rush of moving fire, and it was now or never. Daring grabbed her helmet with her teeth and threw herself backwards from the wall with all the strength her limbs and wings could afford. The jet of flame rushed in just overhead as she fell, scorching the very tip of her muzzle and making Daring yelp with the pain of it. She hit the ground with her back just as the flames crashed into where she’d been perched, and though the fire’s roar muffled all else, it was possible to make out the splintering and crashing of falling stone.

“Got y— starfire take it!” blazed the sentry, and went unheeded. Daring rolled over onto her belly, bracing her limbs against the ground and whirring her wings as hard as she’d ever done, ignoring her growing collection of aches and small burns. With one more great lunge, she flew straight up again at the rent in the wall. And as she swept on up to it, she saw the jag had been blasted clean away, leaving only a jagged faintly smoking stump behind it.

Fire blazed at her side. With one last heroic flurry of effort from her wings, Daring plunged right through the rent, twisting mid-air to just avoid clipping the stone sides and to skirt the last lash of fire. And then she was free, leaving the smoky, golden furnace that was the entry corridor far behind and falling down into a new mercifully-cool and blue-lit corridor. A last cry from the sentry of, “Oh, COME ON!” pealed at her back, but she was already beyond its reach.

She landed hooves first on the stone, tottered for a moment, spat out the helmet, and then let herself slump. The taste of smoke was thick on her tongue, and she was seized by a sudden, breathless coughing fit, taking big, greedy gulps of cool air in between each hacking cough. Eventually, the coughing subsided, and the urge to laugh bubbled up inside Daring like water from a spring. She gave into it, and giggled where she lay upon the cool stone floor.

Munchorsen and Tumbleweed and the Superb Six didn’t have anything on her. Dad would forget to be angry and admit he’d been wrong the whole time. Mom would approve so very, very hard. And that sentry, and every other grown-up who’d been saying she couldn’t do this, that she wasn’t old enough to be a great adventuring hero … they could kiss the dust she left in her wake.

The laughter, coughing, and heavy breathing currently vying for control over her windpipes finally all settled, and the aches and small burns she’d picked up began to register as her adrenaline faded. Daring glanced around the corridor she found herself in, wrought of the same pale and seamless stone as everything else and carpeted with the same layer of fine dust. The plain front door sat at her back, on the other side of the sentry beyond. A strange light fixture dangled from the ceiling from thin white chains, a hemisphere seemingly made of thin crystal and filled with guttering blue flames to cast a sapphire hue all across the entry corridor. On either side, the corridor continued on for a short way before vanishing into darkness past two sharp bends.

Daring reached for the helmet on the ground before her — which was only a little scorched around the rim, thank goodness — and perched it back into place. Several multitools and several ball bearings also rested on the floor around her, presumably spilled from her saddlebags as she’d come flying in. With a wince as several of her burns protested, she staggered to her hooves and began scooping the multitools up. She was nowhere near done yet, after all, and she’d want all the tools she’d brought. Shame about the rope. She’d have to find some way to make its loss up to Dad.

She scurried from multitool to multitool, and the blue light in the corridor intensified slightly. Daring paid it little heed. Once done, she advanced on the scattered ball bearings. And just as she reached for the first of many, there was a polite cough to her right. “Good day and welcome to you, Miss. May I lend assistance?”

Daring froze, and her head slowly craned around to the source of the voice. Beside her, a spectral blue figure had emerged, about twice as tall as Daring herself at the withers. They were deer-shaped, with their outer form merely a translucent blue shell over a luminous deer skeleton. A plaque dangled around its neck, with script running across it in unknown Antlertean lettering. Short and erect antlers jutted up from its skull, crackling with pale blue magic as if they were electrified, and in the hollow pits of its eye sockets, blue lights flickered and stared right down at Daring.

Daring stood stock-still and wide-eyed, too bolted to the ground to even tremble. After a moment, the deer-skeleton-ghost-spectre-whatever once again ventured, “May I le —?”

And as swinging her saddlebags right off her back and smacking the deer-skeleton-ghost-spectre-whatever right in the face with them seemed like the only sensible course of action in that moment, that was exactly what Daring did.

Wherein Our Heroine Visits a Library

“Miss, if I may —”

“En-garde!” Thwap.

“My apologies if I startled, though I must —”

“Have at you!” Thwip.

“May I at least have the honour of knowing your na—?”

“Would you just be solid already?” Thwop.

Daring’s saddlebags, as it turned out, weren’t an optimal weapon for dealing with deer-skeleton-ghost-spectre-whatevers. Every swipe she’d thrown in the last few moments had just phased harmlessly through the apparition's bemused face with a soft thwp sound. No matter. She pressed the attack. If it startled her in the midst of a creepy old ruin just after she’d been fought by other Antlertean weirdness, it was as fair game as you could get. Basic adventuring rules.

“Miss?” said the apparition once more. Its tone was mild and light, hard to peg as either male or female. Thwip, went the saddlebags through its face. “I don’t come to offer hostility, and I would fain not receive it. Please cease assailing me so I can offer you Lord Fallow’s hospitality.”

She should have brought along a set of Dad’s spurs or heavy shoes — except no, they obviously wouldn’t fit. Would normal spurs or shoes even hurt deer-skeleton-ghost-spectre-whatevers? The Thunderstorm legends had their heroine pick up a set of enchanted shoes in one adventure, and what Daring wouldn’t give for those right now. But no sense dwelling on those. She’d have to come up with something else, something clever, and she thought as she fought. “Intangibility is cheating!”

“Miss, I commend your language proficiency, but —”

“Don’t patronise me!” Thwap.

”As you will, Miss. I don’t commend your language proficiency. Regardless —”

“Aaargh!” snarled Daring, and lashed out once more. “Why is everything in this ruin a smart-alec?”

“I can scarcely fathom why, Miss.” Thwop went the bag through the apparition’s face. With what sounded like a ghostly intake of breath, the pale blue magic that seethed around its antlers blazed anew. A blue aura seized around Daring’s saddlebags, freezing them mid-air no matter how much she pulled.

“Let go!”

“Miss,” said the apparation sharply. “Please observe that I have your weapon frozen, and that I am not exploiting this in any hostile manner. I would greatly prefer to not have to teleport you off the premises for disorderly conduct. Please comport yourself and make a proper introduction.”

Daring kept her foreleg firmly hooked around the bags’ strap and bit down firmly on it as well as she heaved back with all her might. The bags remained frozen in the air, as if they had been fixed in concrete, and as she pulled, she bit down as if she was trying to bite through a steel bar. “‘Ek go, ‘oo —!”

The strap snapped, and Daring tumbled right onto her back, her planned torrent of unkind demands turning instead to a breathless squeak as the floor drove the air out of her. Between wheezes, she managed, her mind red-hot with anger, “You — you broke my saddlebags! They were from Dad! I’ll — I’ll —” Kicked-up swirls of dust broke her down into coughing. “I’ll — blarck! — I’ll get out the — klaach! — I’ll — ”

Her mind raced through all the items remaining in her saddlebags, just out of reach, and through all of their possible unfortunate intersections with the apparition's form. As she struggled to decide which option to vocalise in between hacking coughs, the aura surrounding the bag shifted and became softer. The apparition lifted it up into the air, blue eye-lights studying the dangling straps and picking them up in their own smaller auras. A series of flashes passed up through their horns, like musical notes travelling along a page, and the individual threads of the broken strap ends splayed out and were smoothly pulled forward to meet in mid-air. Another susurration of magic and the mingling threads tightly twined together. Another flex of the strap, an experimental tug from the apparition’s magic, and one smoothing pass later, the bag bobbed in the air, as whole as if it’d been made that moment.

The first motions of their magic had stolen Daring’s words, and she’d only watched as the apparition had done its work. They offered the bag strap-first and said, “Pax, Miss?”

Daring looked up at the fixed saddlebags, her dust-smeared cutie mark still bright on their sides, and at the steady blue eye-lights regarding her past them. The anger that had been blazing red-hot lines through her mind had faded clean away, and Daring felt very silly. She turned her gaze away from the apparition’s. “Pax,” she bit out after a moment’s silence.

Words from Dad came to her then, and words from every other hero in the books, and they reminded she owed this creature more than that. “Sorry. I got creeped out. I shouldn’t have tried to smack your face off.”

“No hard feelings retained, Miss, and I apologise for my sudden appearance there. My mien must disconcert more than is ideal.” The apparition sketched a neat bow in the air, and a sweep of its magic scooped up the scattered ball-bearings around their hooves. “Rest assured, I offer no ill intent to those who bear none. I am but the buckservant for this place. May I have the honour of knowing your name, Miss?”

“Daring —,” started Daring, and then hesitated. Was it wise to give this creature her name? There were a few old stories about heroes getting into trouble when they recklessly gave away their true names to arcane evildoers. Thunderstorm had made that mistake, and she’d spent ages suffering all sorts of embarrassing curses sent her way by a goat warlock until she’d cunningly convinced the warlock’s wife to name their firstborn after her. Thunderstorm could sometimes be a bit of a jerk like that, but at least it’d worked.

There was a soft flash of magic, and the ball-bearings were dropped back into her saddlebag by the apparition’s magic. On further thought, true name magic only happened in old stories, so she’d been told. And if that wasn’t true, she could at least get a fair exchange. “—Do. I’m Daring Do. What’s your name?”

“I am the buckservant for this place, Miss Daring,” the apparition replied smoothly.

Daring nodded, and then frowned. “That’s a job. Not a name.”

“Perhaps. But it is what I am, so it seems the only fitting moniker.”

“But it isn’t a name.” The plaque beneath the fire-spitting sentry came to her mind then, the Antlertean script that had translated itself into Equestrian letters on viewing and prattled on about someone called Padhoof serving Lord Fallow. She squinted at the little plaque that the apparition itself had around its neck, and glared at the letters when they failed to obediently translate themselves. “What does it say around your neck? The sentry outside had a name there. Why can’t I read it?”

“Ah,” said the apparition, glancing down at its front. “I understand a translation charm was applied to the holding’s exterior, to the other servants, and myself; to keep matters clear for any proper visitors. Lord Fallow has not extended that luxury to the interior writings — perhaps to obfuscate matters for any rivals or snoopers entering uninvited — but would you wish me to lay such a charm upon you, Miss Daring? Just for the duration of your visit.”

Daring started to nod, before her thoughts caught up with her and turned the motion into an uncertain wiggle. There was probably some rule against getting enchanted by strange old ghost-deer-things, just like not crossing roads without checking both ways for carriages. If she read about a hero doing this in a story, she’d probably be groaning at their silliness.

But at the same time, it was the heroes who took gambles who won the most and got the treasure despite all the peril. And she’d already wagered her full name. This couldn’t be that much more dangerous. The wiggle became a more certain nod. “Sure. Go on then.”

A glow of magic extended from the apparition’s horns, with what looked like speck-sized letters and runes drifting in its aura. It wove out through the air and struck Daring’s forehead. Daring winced — it was briefly cold and damp, like an egg had been broken on top of her head, but the sensation quickly passed. Daring blinked, and with no other change in the world at all, the words on the apparition’s plaque shifted and became understandable.

ONCE CERVILE, A SERVANT REFORGED
NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING

“Cervile?” said Daring. She looked up at the apparition’s blue eye-lights, and though it should have been impossible past their magical blankness, there seemed to be lively enthusiasm dancing in their depths.

“Once my name, I’m given to understand. If you’d be comfortable using it, do feel free,” said the apparition — said Cervile, Daring corrected herself. Names were good things to have for beings. That had raised a new question, though.

“What does ‘reforged’ mean? Apart from ‘forged again’, obviously—”

“Such refers to Lord Fallow’s proficiency in soulforging. Applied pneumaturgy has long been a particular expertise and study of his,” replied Cervile. “Not an area in which I can claim especial academic proficiency. May I offer you refreshment?”

“Refre —? I, um.” Daring hesitated. She wanted to know what ‘reforging’ was, but the thought of refreshment smoothly diverted her train of thought altogether. The aches and little burns she’d picked up during the fight with the sentry made themselves known with a prickle of sensation, and she was aware of feeling exceedingly parched. A growl came from her stomach in that moment as well. Skipping breakfast to get on with the adventure as quickly as possible seemed like a slightly less great idea in retrospect. Maybe Dad had had the right idea when he’d grabbed an apple along the way.

Refreshment sounded way better than reforging, on consideration, at least for now. “I guess I wouldn’t mind,” she admitted. “Do you have anything to eat?”

“I do apologise. The holding’s perishables have long since perished, despite the best efforts of the cool-boxes. But fresh water remains available, should you wish to quench your thirst.”

“Thirst-quenching sounds great,” said Daring, trying to resist the urge to cough and trying not to imagine just how good some cold water would taste. A water canteen would have been a really sensible thing to bring as well, in retrospect. The earlier adrenaline had all but faded away now, and every other ache and complaint her body had to offer were enthusiastically making themselves known. “Is there a fountain or something further along?”

“A natural well still flows. Do follow me, Miss Daring,” said Cervile, smoothly turning on their backhoof and motioning to the right. “Mind your step. And I apologise for the dust. It’s accumulated of late.”

Daring looked at Cervile’s back as they soundlessly trotted ahead, shifted her saddlebags and adjusted her helmet with a sigh, and made to follow. But before she immediately did so, she remembered the other half of the corridor back off to the left. She quickly cantered to where the corridor led around a bend and peered around into the shadowed darkness.

“Miss Daring?” came the voice of Cervile from back along the corridor. “Please follow me.”

“Hold on. I’m just exploring,” said Daring. She squinted down the dark length, her little head-lantern’s thin beam skittering across it. This branch came to an abrupt stop after only a few metres, ending at an arched alcove containing a broad stone bench large enough for a big pony to lie upon. Ragged cobwebs dangled down from the ceiling, and the thick dust on the floor seemed flurried, as if something or somethings had moved through it several times over the last long age. “What’s this bit for?”

“That is the guard post for the freehold, should the outside sentry prove insufficient. There is customarily a guard there, though that particular one has … taken to wandering in recent centuries. Some quirk of an early forging, I suspect.” There was a pause before Cervile spoke again, and there was a new edge to their tone that Daring hadn’t heard before. “Miss Daring, please stay close to me.”

Nothing exciting jumped out at her from the short corridor after a moment’s further inspection, and Daring decided that Cervile’s route was probably more interesting. “Alright,” she said, and turned back and trotted to where the ghostly buckservant stood waiting. Cervile gestured around to where the right corridor bent off.

Around the bend, pale stone stairs sloped upwards at a shallow angle, leading up into shadow. More unlit light fixtures ran up along the ceiling, and a motion of Cervile’s magic sparked them all to life, drowning the shadows under the soft blue light they emitted. At the very end, there now stood revealed another dark archway, leading on into what looked like a great room.

“So, ah,” Daring started as they made their way up the stairs. “Are others like you here? I already met the sentry, and you mentioned that other guard. Are there any others?”

“I believe so,” replied Cervile, their tone still mild, their hooftread silent upon the steps. “Not all are known to me. There are some areas where I am unable to tread, such as Lord Fallow’s private library and laboratory, and there may be others there that I am unaware of. Past those … well, myself and the two you mention are the only soulforged beings here on whom I possess knowledge. We all have our own duties writ upon ourselves. You’ve been acquainted with the sentry and their role. The guard keeps watch over the interior. And I am the buckservant. I clean as best I may, attend to Lord Fallow’s needs, and offer hospitality to guests until such time as Lord Fallow deigns to receive them.”

“Until Lord Fallow deigns to — He’s the deer who ruled this place, right? You’re talking as if he’s still around.”

“Lord Fallow is indeed the master of this place, Miss Daring. And he is currently in residence.”

Daring paused mid-step upon the stairs. “He’s still around?”

“Quite so.”

The enormity of it, delivered so casually by Cervile, took Daring’s breath away. You didn’t get Antlerteans in the world anymore, not after Antlertis Fell below the waves in some calamity that had also ruined all its overseas holdings, back in the days before ponies even had writing. It was so long ago, nopony had ever recorded even seeing an Antlertean or speaking with one, not even in the very oldest stories. Ruins were all that were left, dust and darkness and a few old scripts that resisted most translation spells even the smartest pony scholars could throw at them. Nothing more.

So if there was actually one still here … if there was an actual Antlertean mage-lord alive and in the flesh and who was possibly willing to meet a great adventurer with stories from the surface world...

Medals and acclaim and all the publication everywhere wouldn’t even begin to cover it. Princess Celestia would have to mint new awards, just for her. There’d be more glory than Daring could ever imagine, and enough glory for Dad to have some spare as well. Enough for ten Dads, even.

“Could I meet him?” said Daring excitedly.

Cervile hesitated. “He is not presently receiving visitors, Miss Daring. But I would be happy to offer any hospitality within my power to extend until and if he does. To that end, let us go and get your water.”

Daring reluctantly nodded, her mouth drier than ever. That’d be fine. There was plenty of old ruin to explore while Lord Fallow finished whatever he was doing. And as they reached the top of the stairs, she prepared herself to get properly stuck into that.

They passed through the shadowed archway into the vast and equally shadowed room beyond, lit an instant later by Cervile’s magic. Daring’s jaw dropped to new unsounded depths as she took it all in. They were in a large hallway, lined on either side with the skeletal frames of low benches half-drowned in dust. Between each bench, different fixtures rose to divert Daring’s attention, one after the other. One plinth sported a golden orrery, a little and elaborately-crafted model of the world with the beads of the sun and moon and countless stars in orbit on little rods. Across it on the hallway’s other side, a huge and full suit of barding stood, made to fit a deer larger than the largest of pony stallions. Dark and tarnished scale-like plates covered the legs and torso and head, plates on a skeletal frame covered the fronts of broad antlers, and narrow slits glared down from the visor of an enclosing helmet. Past these, other marvels rested: rusted clocks seemingly made from spun silver webs, the marble heads of crowned deer, a model of a ship with tall masts and gently-curving lines, some amalgam of rusted gears whose purpose Daring couldn’t even begin to guess at, and yet more. Above, one great hemisphere shed blue light over the pale and dusty stone, as if all the room were suspended underwater, and even its light failed to penetrate the deep shadows lurking up in the vaulted ceiling.

And on the other end, flanked by two doorways, looming over anyone who climbed up the stairs, there rose a great and dust-smeared portrait. Three sitting deer looked out at Daring from it, and she regarded them right back.

The stag in the portrait had to be Lord Fallow himself, his aspect sharp and angular and stoic. Dark eyes glittered against a cream-coloured coat and from the top of his head, wide antlers spread high, midnight-blue magic dancing around them. He was broad across the withers, and dark blue robes covered him from the neck down, fastened around his throat by a plain silver brooch. A doe sat next to him, wearing dark green robes against a gold-hued coat. She wasn’t Fallow’s equal in height and her antlers were smaller and less branched, but she bore the same sharp and patrician aspect to her features, and her antlers were lit with a silver aura.

Between them both, there sat a fawn, her coat cream-coloured and her own robes buttercup-yellow and somewhat rumpled. Her own antlers were only buds, like the horns of unicorn foals. The haughty glamour of her parents hadn’t been even slightly inherited at the time of the portrait-sitting, and even past the sweep of centuries and millennia, it seemed as if she was trying to resist the urge to grin and stick her tongue out at anyone looking.

Daring felt an immediate kinship and stuck her tongue right out at her. She bet the fawn had read lots of adventure stories as well. Antlertis must have had its own share of those.

“Lord Fallow,” said Cervile next to Daring, either not noticing or deigning not to comment on the display of tongue-sticking. “And the Ladies Aurum and Flora. Its preservative enchantments have held up better than most here, I feel.”

“It’s pretty,” said Daring, her gaze running up and down the painting. The colours were vivid, even past the coating of fine dust, and it could have been painted yesterday for all she knew. “Are the others in residence as well?”

“I’m afraid not. It has only ever been Lord Fallow residing here in my memory,” Cervile said gently, and Daring’s hopes of borrowing cool Antlertean books from Flora were dashed. While she internally grumbled over the loss, the ghostly buckservant’s gaze flitted to the open doorway to the left of the painting. Blue light spilled down another length of corridor for a few metres before being entirely choked away under shadow. Daring’s gaze went that way as well, and she peered with futility into the darkness.

It might have just been her imagination, reading too much into the silence, but there seemed to be a faint sound coming from the dark corridor. Like something rustling, being dragged over the stone, and being the bold and undeterrable adventurer that she was, Daring stepped forward to investigate —

“Do come this way, Miss Daring,” said Cervile quickly, motioning towards the other door on the right. “The solarium is as fair a place to be received as any — and probably fairer than most, if you’ll pardon the frankness.”

Daring reluctantly stepped towards the indicated door, her gaze still on the dark left door. “What’s down there?”

“Sundry elements of the freehold. Sleeping quarters, storage rooms, the kitchen and dining room, Lord Fallow’s personal library-cum-laboratory, his private study — all that sort of thing. Few amenities there at present, I’m afraid. The solarium is somewhat more agreeable. Through here, please.” The door swung open, and Daring found herself staring into another shadowed room, wide and roughly circular in shape. She peered in at what the hallway light revealed and saw the shapes of several benches and low tables. The bare walls curved up into the shape of a dome.

It was then that the words used by Cervile caught up to her. “Hey, wait, a solarium? That’s … that’s a sunroom, isn’t it? Because of the sol bit. How can you have a sunroom? You’re underground.”

By way of response, Cervile sent a single pulse of magic right at the wall’s surface. The pale stone drank the blue in a sudden shimmer of enchantment, with the blue spreading rapidly outwards like ripples in a puddle. As it went, it illuminated countless tiny runes and pieces of script etched into the curving walls, each flaring for a brief moment in the blue’s wake. A moment later, the blue had touched all parts of the dome, and one last great flash from all sides dazzled Daring. When she blinked the dazzlement away, she found herself staring at the room.

Nothing seemed to have changed. She peered harder at the walls, whose texture seemed to have shifted to become vaguely more rugged and rocky. Faint white light came from the base, like the glow reflected by the naturally-growing crystals in the cavern outside.

To her side, Cervile’s usually-blank expression had become subtly perturbed. “I do apologise,” they said. “Customarily, it reflects the sky from the top of the external tower. Something seems to have gone wrong.”

“Oh. Ooh! That makes sense,” said Daring. “Your tower’s not pointing up into the sky anymore. It’s underground as well. You’re in this big cavern.”

Cervile blinked, their blue eye-lights flickering. “Truly? How did that happen?”

“I … I don’t know exactly. It must have happened during the Fall. Of Antlertis, that is. Lots of ponies think there were all sorts of earthquakes and such during it, so maybe the whole tower got covered then.” As she looked up at Cervile’s blank blue gaze, another thought came to Daring. “You … um, you did know that Antlertis had Fallen, right? Something just wiped you guys all out, and nopony knows why. Maybe something magical.”

“There haven’t been any visitors or fresh supplies delivered for over three thousand years,” said Cervile, and this time, they seemed almost sad to Daring. “Certain suspicions of some manner of outside collapse had occurred, I shall not lie. It shouldn’t impact upon my day-to-day duties — at least, no more than it already has — but I thank you for the confirmation.”

Daring tried to imagine living here, down in the darkness below the world, not knowing what was going on outside for three thousand years, never having anything other than suspicions. She couldn’t imagine it. “You weren’t able to check? Lord Fallow never checked?”

“My duties do not extend beyond the freehold’s entrance. I never could have done so. And Lord Fallow ... Lord Fallow has been otherwise engaged.”

Daring was silent for a moment. “You must have been lonely.”

“Please do not worry on my account, Miss Daring,” replied Cervile quickly. “I always had my duties to preoccupy me, inasmuch as I could fulfill them. Lord Fallow remains in residence, and the other soulforged servants persist. That said, your visit is a breath of fresh air, and it is a joy to be able to extend the hospitality of the freehold once more. Speaking of ...” They gestured into the cavern-lit solarium — cavernium? — with a forehoof and bowed. “Please, take a seat inside.”

Daring ventured inside cautiously, until a flare of magic from Cervile descended onto the shape of a table. It lit a small globe that had been balanced there, filling it with a flickering blue flame and lighting up the whole cavernium. The table sat at the centre, with shelves at its base holding dusty books. Sloped chairs and low benches were arranged about it, and a few empty flower pots ran around the circular room’s circumference.

“Take a seat, Miss Daring,” said Cervile as Daring admired the room. “Feel free to indulge in any reading material there, if it suits your tastes. I shall return momentarily with your water.”

“Sure,” said Daring vaguely, lost in admiration. Then, just as Cervile turned on their heel, she quickly wheeled around. “Wait! Do I have to wait here? I want to see the rest of the place and all your cool old stuff. Take me with you to get the water.”

“Miss Daring …” Cervile hesitated for a moment. “The solarium is traditionally where guests are received and summoned at Lord Fallow’s pleasure. I can fetch your water and come back in scarcely any time at all by myself. Please remain here.”

“I don’t need the water that quickly. And Lord Fallow wouldn’t mind that much if I saw some of his cool stuff, would he? Let me —”

“There are other reasons for my preference in this matter,” Cervile said, pressing on. “Recall the aforementioned wandering guard? Time has had a way of making their faculties erratic, and they have not been bound to be as accommodating and respectful of guests as I. I can personally guarantee your safety and teleport you away from any danger, but I would sooner not have you out there and taking the risk. Please, Miss Daring.”

Cervile seemed to have frustratingly grown-up ideas about risk-taking. Daring groaned. “But —”

Cervile’s eye-lights twinkled. “Miss Daring, please recall your earlier efforts to ‘smack my face off’, as I believe you put it. It would be ingracious of me to prevail upon courteous recompense for that, but if needs must ...”

Daring groaned harder. Cervile did have that over her. “Fine. I’ll stay here. I’ll take a seat and read and everything.”

“Thank you. I shall be back momentarily.” Cervile bowed and turned on their heel once more.

Daring watched them leave, and then jumped as if electrified. One more thought had occurred to her. “Cervile!”

The ghostly buckservant turned once again, as smoothly as ever. “Yes, Miss Daring?”

“There, ah.” Daring licked her lips. “There might be another explorer arriving here soon.” Cervile’s eye-lights brightened, and Daring rattled on as quickly as she could. “My dad. He’ll probably come in the same way I did, that sentry outside won’t slow him down much. But … he doesn’t know I’m here. Could you not tell him I’m here? Or … appear to him at all?”

Cervile hesitated. “He would arrive here as a guest. It is my duty to offer the hospitality of the freehold to any newcomers past the entrance.”

“I know that. But it’d be a big help to me. It really, really would.” Daring fumbled around for anything that might persuade the buckservant and latched onto the first desperate thing that came to mind. “He’d take me out of here if he found me. Then neither me or him could be Lord Fallow’s honoured guest. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Some sort of inner war seemed to be raging beneath Cervile’s calm exterior, as blue fire roiled like smoke in the depths of their eye-lights. But after an agonisingly long moment, they nodded. “As a courtesy to the first breath of fresh air in a very long time, then. I won’t alert him to your presence, or immediately introduce myself if I sight him.”

Daring breathed easy. “Thank you. Really.”

“I won’t hide away from him should he spot me. And if he asks after you directly, I shall not lie,” Cervile continued. “But otherwise, I won’t breathe a word. Will that suffice?”

“Yes. Thank you loads.”

“Very good, then. I’ll be back with your water.” Cervile turned on their heel for the umpteenth time that minute, and this time, Daring let them leave without any interruption. The cavernium door shut behind them, and Daring was left to her own devices once again.

After a moment of fluttery pacing and casting her gaze any which way, she decided on the only sensible course of action and went straight for the books.

None of them immediately leapt out at Daring, even as she pulled them out from the table’s shelves with her mouth and got dust in her teeth. Coughing, she inspected the covers, and the Antlertean lettering there flowed and shifted to become understandable. Treatise On Outer Void Soundings read one, an embossed crown running above the text. Another read Abstract Sygaldry in the Context of the Unfettered Arcane: Volume IV, complete with strange squiggles on either side and running up the spine. Daring put them both aside and stared at a third. Introduction to Practical Pneumaturgy, With Special Regard to and Observations on Soulforging.

Daring brightened. The last of those words rang a bell, from what she’d heard from the sentry and Cervile, and she flicked the book open at a random page.

The time taken for her expression to completely glaze over set new records.

— anent superfluous and unnecessary considerations of base morality ill-afforded in an Unfettered Arcane grounding, the text rambled, these observations concern themselves little. Instead shall be set forth clear descriptions of what is entailed and how most efficaciously it might be accomplished by the pneumaturgical process colloquially referred to as ‘soulforging’. Most simply put, that core essence of a higher being that underpins pneumaturgy offers fertile ground for rewriting, that the caster’s will may be effectively impressed upon a tabula rasa of a subject absent the clutter of independent thought and potential consequential truculence. Thus may perfect servants be created. The process itself demands much of those who would pursue it, however, and requires skill and power both matched and in abundance. Arcane sygaldry appropriate to the tasks required of the subject must be formulated and impressed upon the core essence, with the complexity of such sygaldry increasing exponentially to the complexity of the tasks. Subjects must be prepared both physically and mentally for the process, with extensive mental conditioning obligatory in order to induce a necessary degree of passivity. Physical conditioning must be conducted in order to achieve the optimal balance of internal humours and nerve channels. This balance must be checked and re-checked prior to the process in order to preserve optimality, through the expert application of such tools as galvanic pressures, vitreous hooks, appropriate sphygmomanometries —

“Sp … S-fig,” muttered Daring to herself. “S-figo — no, flying feathers — s-figmomamona — um ...” She gave up and glared at the book. “You just made that up.”

That had been as illuminating as mud, all things considered. She’d have to ask Dad what a tabula rasa was afterwards, and privately hoped that it was a new curse. Daring looked towards the other books and sadly concluded that none of them were likely to be cool or even translated into plain Equish. She sighed and reached for Outer Void Soundings in the hopes that it’d at least be marginally more comprehensible.

And in that moment, there came a distant and muffled shuffling noise.

Daring paused and stood upright to face towards the door. The shuffling continued, and as she strained her ears, she picked out the sound of something regularly clacking on the ground. It was like a hooftread, but slow, coming at a steady trudge, and it sounded as though something was being dragged along in its wake.

Cervile walked silently. Was it Dad and his coat dragging along the ground? Daring tried to make out the direction of it, whether it was coming from where she’d come into the freehold. It was coming closer, whatever it was. A slow hooftread without a doubt, as if someone was taking their time when walking, or was slowed down by something heavy.

Both of those things sounded like it could be Dad. But there wasn’t the sharp clack of metal meeting stone that Dad’s shoes and spurs would have produced. This sounded far heavier.

Daring held her breath, trying not to shiver as the slow, heavy hooftread drew closer and yet closer until it sounded like it was right outside the cavernium door. Then it fell silent.

Daring swallowed, and kept a steady eye on the door. “Dad?” she ventured.

The silence held. And then the door handle on Daring’s side was wrapped in a dark red glow and began to rattle back and forth.

Adrenaline's cold thrill shivered up Daring’s spine, and she slowly shrugged off her saddlebags and looped their strap around her forehoof. Her motions were slow, careful; her gaze remained fixed on the rattling handle. The blood-red aura around it flickered like fire, and its own motions seemed uncertain and turgid. The handle inched down, and Daring swept her saddlebag out and to one side, ready to be brought up in one great swing.

The aura diminished suddenly, becoming no more than the suggestion of a flickering outline around the handle. Daring dared to breath out, just before the aura flared bright once more and yanked harder downwards. There was a dull click from some shifting bolt inside the door, and the sound of something metallic scratching at the door’s other side. Coldness took up what felt like a permanent residence in Daring’s spine, and she itched to lash out with the saddlebags. “Come on,” she found herself whispering, just loud enough for only herself to hear, “come on, come on. I’ve got saddlebags, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be —”

And then there was a polite cough from the other side of the door, and the familiar voice of Cervile. “You’re far from your post.”

The aura diminished once again, and heavy hooves scuffed on the floor outside — the sound of something huge and ponderous turning. Cervile spoke again. “Back to your rounds elsewhere in the freehold. Come on. I can’t imagine what you think you’ll find in there.”

Silence for a moment, a deep and echoing silence that seemed to fill the world outside the cavernium. Daring realised she needed to breath in again, and duly did so once before returning her rapt attention to the door handle.

“Back to your rounds,” said Cervile again. “Attend to whatever areas you please. This one is under my watch.”

Silence for another moment, a moment that dragged on and on, before whatever was waiting outside began to walk away with its slow and heavy tread. The rustle of cloth being dragged along the ground followed in its wake, and Daring turned to try and keep track of its progress. It seemed to walk back out and into the hallway, before shuffling off into the next corridor past the painting.

Only when its hooftreads had all but slipped past hearing, Daring felt the cold prickle of adrenaline in her spine begin to subside. Her breathing came back to her, and she became aware of her own hammering heartbeat and dry mouth.

And she swore to herself that she only squeaked with fright a little when the door slid open and Cervile stepped primly back into the room. The buckservant held a bell-shaped white cup in their magic, and they quickly closed the door behind them.

“Apologies for that, Miss Daring,” they said, proffering the cup. “Here’s the water that was promised.”

Daring dropped the saddlebags and fell to a sitting position so she could take the cup with both forehooves. She took one trembling sip, and then another, and found herself downing every last drop of the sweet, cool water that the cup had to offer in a matter of seconds. She needed that.

“Thank you,” she remembered to say, as she glanced down at the empty cup. It wasn’t as plain a white as she’d first thought; there was a picture of a buttercup on one side. “What … what was —?”

“That would be the aforementioned wandering guard.” Cervile glanced round at the door, seemingly checking it was shut properly. “I shan’t speculate what goes on in their head these days — indeed, whatever went on in their head at all — but their routes have gotten ever-wider and more erratic as the centuries have gone by. They were the first to ever be soulforged here, so I understand, and perhaps Lord Fallow had yet to refine his technique then.”

Daring took another steadying breath and licked some stray water off her muzzle. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could see them,” she murmured to herself.

“Beg pardon?”

“Cervile, what’s soulforging?” Daring brought her head right up to look Cervile in the eye-lights; it was time to stop being the bad sort of scared. “You weren’t that clear earlier, and I’m sure that book over there just made up half the words it was using. What is it really?”

“It is the art Lord Fallow made his life’s work,” said Cervile, slowly and hesitantly, as if they were choosing their words with care. “I am the last he made with it, and never witnessed any others being produced. The procedure took place in Lord Fallow’s combined library and laboratory, to which I was never allowed access. I cannot attest as to what it entails in much detail. But from what I understand, and in laybeing’s terms, the self of a subject is rewritten.”

Daring frowned, and Cervile continued. “For a skilled mage like Lord Fallow, it is possible to tap into a being’s soul … or self, or core essence, there are all manner of terms for it — and to mould it like clay. Reshape it to what the crafter desires. If Lord Fallow wanted an unfailing and obedient being to serve him for all time, he could simply take some being else, use certain techniques to render their mind and soul blank slates, and impress their desired role upon them as a suitable and empty vessel. Such a soul could even be passed onto another physical vessel if required. That is soulforging. Do you follow, Miss Daring?”

Daring followed, and she shivered. That was the sort of thing that gave her nightmares from some stories, where the evil warlock or psychephage or other mind-meddling villain could outright brainwash others, make them what the villain wanted them to be and nothing else, snuffing out their free will like a candle. When the evil Prince Vanadium had done exactly that to nearly every member of the Superb Six near the climax of Superb Six on an Adventure Through Time, she’d had to finish it when Dad was in the same room.

Her gaze flitted down to Cervile’s plaque, and a different chill than the one adrenaline offered trickled down her spine like ice water. “Once Cervile, a servant reforged,” she whispered to herself.

“Indeed, Miss Daring,” said Cervile, sounding unfussed by the whole prospect. “I was somedeer else before Lord Fallow soulforged me, and I confess to no memories of who that deer might have been. My identity and duties as a buckservant have been impressed upon me, and I shall follow them as best I may.”

Mixed parts horror and bile rose in Daring, and a pang of sympathy went to Cervile and even to the sentry from before, whoever they’d been. Both couldn’t help the way they’d been made, or what they had to do. There was an evil old wizard pulling their strings.

But with that realisation, the horror and bile that had risen in Daring faded away, and a core of iron-hard determination took form in her instead. She might have been confused by the sentry and Cervile at first, and there might still be other scary guards waiting out there in the dark, but she knew what she was doing now. The adventure made sense now. This wasn’t just a ruin-delving glory-hunt anymore where she hunted for whatever to prove she could do things as well as Dad. This was a properly heroic quest. She had an evil wizard to vanquish, and an evil wizard’s treasures to unearth. She had soulforged servants to free. And if doing those didn’t prove she was the great adventurer she’d been born to be, then nothing else would.

A wild grin snuck onto her features, and she impulsively reached out to hug Cervile. The attempt ended in some failure when her forelegs just swept through Cervile’s ethereal form.

“Miss?” said Cervile, looking mildly confused. “I’m intangible, recall? It helped me cheat having my face smacked off.”

“Right, yeah. Oops. Sudden sappiness, never mind.” Daring stood and swept her saddlebags back onto her back with a suitably dramatic motion, her grin as cocky as she felt she could possibly make it. “Where’s Lord Fallow? Is he in his library-laboratory-whatever?”

Cervile hesitated. “Lord Fallow is in residence in his private study, Miss Daring, and the route to such leads through his library. But —”

“Pefect! Take me there.”

“I’m afraid I can’t oblige, Miss Daring. The library is not an area of the freehold to which I am permitted access. Lord Fallow never permitted relatively … sophisticated minds in there apart from his own. I can access his private study, but it would skirt propriety dreadfully to bring a visitor there uninvited. He may come to you if you wait here, though I do doubt it.” Cervile seemed resigned when it spoke next. “If you wish to leave and perhaps return at a later point ...”

“No! No, I’ve got to fix this now.”

“Fix what, Miss Daring?”

Daring thought furiously to herself. Cervile wouldn’t take her to the library or to Lord Fallow’s study, and she suspected if she asked them to lead her through the place, they’d refuse on the grounds of the wandering guard. Cervile had mentioned they could just teleport her out the place, so it’d be no use trying to force the issue or run away when they could still see her.

Not a problem. She’d just have to be cunning about it. Daring gathered breath and mimicked what she felt was a realistic-sounding cough.

Cervile looked concerned. “Was that a yawn?”

One day, she’d be able to do a convincing-sounding cough for that matter. “It was a cough,” Daring insisted. “My throat’s still a little dry.” She looked up at Cervile with her most pleading expression. “Could you get me another cup of water? Or three?”

“Of course, Miss Daring,” said Cervile, bowing as they picked up the buttercup-emblazoned cup with their magic. “I will be back shortly. Do keep the door closed while I’m gone. The guard’s unlikely to wander back this way, but erring on caution’s side is always advisable.”

They departed through the door, closing it behind them, and Daring counted out the seconds. One, two, three … she didn’t know how fast Cervile could actually move, or whether they would just teleport right there, and their lack of any noise when moving didn’t help matters in the slightest. But she gave it a few seconds, and then scurried over to the door and reached up to the handle. She pushed it open, wincing as it creaked, and poked her head around.

Nothing jumped out at her from the hallway, silent and still under the cool blue light, and all the stuff around the margins was still where it had been. The dust just outside the door was slurried, though, marked by whatever had been moving around outside. Daring wasted no time and rushed out under the eyes of the painted deer to peer around the other corridor.

Her headlantern’s light skittered ahead across the white stone, laying out the shape of the corridor. Several dark, closed doorways loomed alongside either wall, ending when the corridor split down two forking paths. The left path was dark and silent. From the right, Daring could make out a glimmer of faint blue light behind some further door, along with what sounded like a splash of water.

The left path, then, which would take her on towards the library with any luck. Daring hurried along as quickly and quietly as she could, her hooves padding along the dusty stone and her withers high and hunched, keeping one alert eye down the right-hand path. She stole down the left, slapped her headlantern dim, and pressed against the wall, trying to keep her breathing steady and quiet.

After a moment, the sound of splashing ceased, and a soft blue light spilled down from the right path. Daring edged down further along the wall, holding her breath altogether. The light grew, and she saw Cervile’s luminous form trot out from the right path, their back to her and three cups of water bobbing in the air over their head. They swept by the mouth of the left path without slowing down or apparently noticing Daring and trotted silently down the main corridor path. Daring breathed again as they stepped back into the hallway and out of sight, and bopped her headlantern back to life, preparing to move quickly on.

The first thing to greet her as light filled her world again was a great rising doorway to her front. It was arched and decorated around its edges, and past it, a stone staircase descended into depths unknown. A glitter of magic up by the doorframe caught Daring’s eye, and she peered up at what turned out to be glowing Antlertean script, seemingly written and left hanging mid-air. The script reshaped itself into understandable Equish.

Daddy’s library, it read in neat, flowing cursive. And just below that, in slightly bolder letters, Absolutely no fawns allowed! (This means you, Flora.)

Daring stared for a second, before her mind went back to the deer in the painting. A giggle escaped her then, no matter how she tried to muffle it. “Yeah,” she muttered to herself, in between giggles and attempts to silence said giggles, “Like that would have kept her out.”

She’d have gotten along with Flora so very, very hard. But she could add an Antlertean to her list of imaginary playmates later. For now, Daring had her destination clear before her, and she peeled herself away from the wall to pursue it.

From one side, there was the rustle of cloth across the stone, the sound of great scuffing hooves, and the sensation of something vast shifting in the air next to Daring.

She slowly turned to face down the corridor and initially struggled to make out what her headlantern’s light was playing across — it seemed like a great, dark, shapeless mass of dusty folds, twisting up into the air before Daring. She looked up, and up, and further up, up past where she’d have to make eye contact with the very tallest stallions. And past where the dark folds stopped, and at the other end of the huge form they covered, she saw the broad sweep of great bone-white antlers, each one as large as a pony, their width almost too great for the corridor that held them. A dark red fire flickered up the lengths of the antlers, almost too dark to be seen amidst the shadow of the corridor.

A cold ball gathered in Daring’s guts as she realised it was the same colour of the magic that had tried to open the door handle, and that coldness twisted up her spine when the great creature swept its head around to regard Daring face-to-face.

They towered above Daring, at least twice as tall as Dad’s full height at their hunched withers, a colossus of a deer-shape swaddled in layers of a dusty black cloak that could have covered a whole floor. Their huge head was encased in metal, along with what parts of their torso and legs she could glimpse beneath the black, a match for the barding that Daring had seen out in the hallway. Their visored helmet had a skeletal aspect to it, like molten steel had been poured over a deer’s skull. No lower jaw remained to them, and cracked white teeth jutted down past the helmet’s edge over nothingness and the bones within their throat.

And unlike for Cervile, when Daring looked through the visor of their helmet, no eye-lights greeted her. Only blackness, and within that blackness, Daring knew, something looked back.

They turned completely and lowered their head to face Daring, the movements slow and ponderous and their hooffalls like thunder. The expanse of steel plates covering their torso was revealed, along with the silver-steel plaque that dangled down from their neck. The black lettering on it twisted before Daring’s eyes.

ONCE STEELHART, A MURDERER REFORGED
NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING

The huge head tilted slightly, the blackness past the visor still regarding Daring in utter silence. Daring found words after a moment. Cervile had turned out to be friendly, and that had been as good a lesson on not judging by appearances as any. Maybe it would hold here as well. “Hi,” she managed, and the words came out strangled and high-pitched. “I’m Dari—”

The fire on Steelhart’s antlers blazed suddenly, the dark red guttering fiercely and shedding no extra light for it, and a weapon that they’d been keeping held against their other side came sliding out from behind them. It was a great glaive, its shaft longer than any pony weapon Daring had ever seen. The broad, single-edged blade at its end was larger than Daring herself, and a wicked grey sheen ran along its edge.

Steelhart rose to their full height then, the ponderousness of their movements falling away in favour of smooth grace. Their withers unhunched to send them standing straight at their full height, and their antlers all but scraped the ceiling. All the while, the blackness behind their visor remained fixed on Daring’s own eyes. The glaive was angled towards the ground and brought forward slowly, its edge deliberately scraping and sparking across the stone.

Daring decided that it was time to flee a minute ago and sprung through the library doorway to make up for lost time. She hit the steps on the other side in a mad helter-skelter of legs and flapping limbs, fighting to keep her footing and keep running at the same time. Her forehooves skidded on the dusty stone of one high, wide step, and only pitching herself into a frantic forwards glide saved her from meeting the stair’s bottom with a concussion.

She swept on down through the air over the steps, her headlantern’s light all there was to see by. The stairs blurred by her and ran on without end into the dark. There was a hammering in her ears, and it might have been the guard on her heels or her own pounding heartbeat; it was hard to tell. She dared to twist her head back and fleetingly check. In the ever-receding rectangle of faint light that was the distant doorway, there was the hulking shape of Steelhart, carefully maneuvering their wide antlers and glaive through the too-narrow door.

Daring flapped all the harder, her heart and wings beating equally swiftly as she scanned through the falling dark for any sign of an exit at the bottom, any exit. How far down did these stairs fall? She could only keep flying with all the strength that terror and exhilaration could give her.

There — like a miracle, her heatlantern’s light skittered across the forthcoming shape of a door, many metres distant. Daring sucked in breath and whirled her wings forward with all her might to slow her descent. The sharp motion worked too well, and she all but spun down into the stone steps, bouncing down the last stretch with cries of, “Feathering — ahh! Bas — ow! Tabula —!”

She finally hit the floor at the base of the stairs, skidding across it for several feet before she dug her hooves in and forced herself to rise — no time for checking bruises or whatever aches adrenaline might be hiding, she had to keep running, she had to get away. From above, where the doorway was all but too far away to see, there came the quickening thunder of huge hooves upon the stone stairs.

Daring snatched her fallen helmet from the floor and spun upon the door. It hung slightly ajar, and she threw her entire body into it side-on to force it open a crucial few inches. It creaked open, and she wriggled through, forcing her saddlebags to squeeze through along with her. She burst through into open space, whirled back to the door, and rose up onto her back legs to press on it with her forehooves. Daring pitched her entire weight into slamming it shut, and it creaked back inch by excruciating inch till, at last, the door slid back into its frame. Some rusted bolt clicked near its handle, and Daring finally drew in another deep, shuddering breath.

The distant thunder of Steelhart upon the stairs still came from the other side, and Daring stepped back to fall on all fours. Her wits slid back in past the red haze of panic and exhilaration, and she glowered up at the door while panting. “Yeah! There! It’s a closed door!” she spat. “You were pretty bad at the last one! Try that!”

The thunder grew ever-closer, and Daring braced her trembling legs to turn around and keep on running. As she did, she realised that there was light to see by - a soft russet-red light, with some source at her back that grew gradually brighter with each second.

Had something been triggered when she entered? She turned, tensed and ready, to regard the room in which she found herself.

After a moment, she could only manage a soft, “Woah.”

Before her, there waited Lord Fallow’s laboratory. And up and around it in all directions, as far as Daring could see, Lord Fallow’s library.

Elsewhere.

“You know what? You’re all bastards!” raged the sentry as it and the door it was impressed upon were ground open, inch by inch.

“Excuse you,” said Gallivant, somewhat muffled past the ten-foot pole in his teeth with which he was levering the door open. One of his forehooves was planted solidly on the floor; the other held his fire-resistant coat up against the sentry. Fires billowed helplessly on the coat’s other side. “My parents were quite happily married by the time of my birth. Possibly to different ponies, granted, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“What even was that approach?” hissed the sentry as Gallivant finally pushed the door far enough open to squeeze through. The stallion kicked a crowbar he'd used earlier through the gap with a satisfied grunt. “Holding your stupid coat up in front of you against my fire and just … trotting slowly forwards and tapping every square inch of the floor and walls with that equally stupid pole! What was the purpose?”

“You wouldn’t be the first trap that might try and bait an adventurer-archaeologist into rash action,” said Gallivant, pushing right on past into the corridor and sweeping his coat down from the sentry’s face. “You start shooting fire, I panic and try and press forward, and that’s when the spikes come out from the walls when I’m too distracted to check for them. Luckily, you weren’t quite as sophisticated as that, but I’m sure you did your best.”

“Shut up.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed by you regardless. You’re definitely the chattiest doorway I’ve come across in a while. There’s a juicy page or two to be written on you alone once I’ve had the chance to give you a proper look-over. And there’s surely a good mystery behind that Padhoof stuff on your front.” Gallivant dropped his pole and spread his justacorps out on the dusty ground. A few smouldering patches here and there — he’d have to get the enchantments redone — but nothing major apart from that. His pole hadn’t been damaged much getting through the ceiling-trap upstairs either.

Gallivant grinned his cockiest grin, the motion of it coming back to him like an old friend from memory, and swept his coat back on over his barding. A good start to the day. Doing this sort of thing by himself had been less hard than he’d expected.

“You don’t have an appointment to be here. The other one didn’t either,” the sentry muttered sulkily.

“I’m very rude, you might have gathered,” Gallivant said apologetically, adjusting his tricorn. “Chronic gatecrasher. Professional, even. If it’s any consolation, I’ve not done this sort of thing in a … a while ...”

His voice drifted off as the sentry’s words caught up to him. Gallivant glanced around at the hallway light, and at the dust covering the ground. At the small hoofprints in it, leading off to the right.

He turned around, and at the doorway’s side, there was a rent that might just be big enough for a foal to squeeze through.

The sentry, which had subsided into muttering Antlertean obscenities to itself, blinked when a crowbar rapped off its muzzle.

There wasn’t even the hint of a smile on Gallivant’s face. “What other one?”

Wherein Our Heroine Has a Great Fall

Daring needed a moment to simply take in the library’s scale. And shape. And everything else about it, really.

The whole shape of the place brought to mind pictures she’d seen of old amphitheatres, with a rising circle of tiers surrounding a central area. But instead of tiers of seats overlooking a sandy arena, each tier was a ring of bookshelves, joined to one another by randomly-placed ladders and spiralling ramps. Each tier rose at least six metres off the ground, and the top of each ring’s bookshelves formed the floor for the next one up. The floorspace that jutted out from where the shelves began was dotted with scattered wooden couches, short tables, and the odd mouldering pile of dust that might have once been a pile of cushions.

As she took it all in, Daring saw that book-lined paths cut into and through the bookshelves at irregular intervals, with tunnels running under the tiers above. Each tunnel twisted around and receded into shadow, escaping the soft red light that filled the rest of the library. That light came from a huge descending chandelier that filled the open space at the centre of the room — a chandelier set with countless crystals in place of candles, each sporting a red glow at their centre that gradually increased in brightness as the seconds ticked by. Daring looked up towards the ceiling to where its light might end, and up past more tiers than she could count, its light was swallowed by shadows to leave the uppermost tiers shrouded in darkness.

Daring found herself on the first tier of the shelves, with a descending walkway leading down to the lowest tier just before her. On the lowest tier of the library, the floor ran for a short while out into empty space, over a chasm with no bottom that she could see. Several walkways extended out from the floor’s side and over the chasm from multiple directions, leaving to a wide circle of white stone at the centre of it all, directly under the light of the chandelier hanging just overhead. An upraised slab sat at the circle’s centre, putting Daring in mind of an operating table. Dark grooves radiated out from the heart of the slab and off the sides, running all the way to the edges of the circle and out into the abyss below. Past the circle, and on the other side of the great library from Daring, another door sat, presumably leading on to Fallow’s private study.

Daring took a step forwards, her head turning slowly from side to side as she tried to drink in all the details. Even past the same thick, unmarred layer of dust covering most of the place, some things were still able to stick out. The curling bronze detail on the ladders and walkways, the dark and musty-smelling wood of the shelves, the flowing floral patterns described by the crystals in the chandelier …

...And the books! The thousands upon thousands of books! Daring thought she could have lived in here for a year and still struggle to get past so much as the tier she was currently on, even without daring to dive into the tier’s book-tunnels. All the covers of those around her were dark and covered in dust, but they still dazzled in their variety. Large and small books squatted side by side in the haphazard (or maybe non-existent) ordering system; runes glittered on their spines, and some seemed to be bound with chainmail or tightly-woven plants or rainbow-coloured silks or solid steel, or even all at once. And those were just those on the shelf nearest to her, on her right side as she entered the door. As she stared at their spines, the Antlertean letters on them uncoiled and re-arranged themselves, and their titles spun into existence across her vision.

First Principles of Applied Geomancy ran across the spine of a relatively staid-looking thick green tome. Next to it, another tome which seemed to have been pieced together from stiffened butterfly wings sported The Epic of Gilgamoose. Next to that, Observations on and Dissections of the Known Chattel Species, Volumes I Through XX, running across the spines of twenty thin volumes bound with different-coloured kinds of … what even Daring’s cheerfully morbid imagination didn’t want to conclude was leather and griffon-sized feathers and dragon-sized scales. The one after all those had a cover seemingly made out of pure iron, was wrapped around with thin chains, and simply had Caution written up its spine.

Daring swallowed. She wanted in that moment to just yank down the nearest lot and start reading them, presuming they were slightly easier to read than the one in the cavernium, and hang whatever else she had to do here. She didn’t have to confront Lord Fallow right away, did she? She could maybe afford to curl up in one of the seats with a pile of books, and if Dad found her, well, he’d probably forget to be angry in this sort of place. Heck, he’d probably join her.

There came a sharp clatter from the door handle at her back, evicting the happy daydream that had taken up a temporary hold in Daring’s mind and making her pull herself together. Adventure first, she thought to herself, read about other adventures later. She glanced around at the door handle, which had Steelhart’s dark red aura enveloping it, and which rattled once again in the aura’s grasp. Her recent terror of the guard was fading fast now that doors had turned out to be a challenge for it.

Another tentative rattle, and then an interval of uncertain silence. Then there was a strange, metallic scratching noise, followed immediately by a hearty thunk as something slammed physically into the door. Daring jumped back, and shook her head to try and knock her thoughts back into order. Make tracks away from the big scary guard with a weapon even larger than the princess, she told herself. Common sense wasn’t always wrong.

She adjusted her hat on her head and prepared to move. But her gaze couldn’t help but steal back to the shelves. Just one book for the road and for her saddlebags couldn’t hurt. And The Epic of Gilgamoose had the prettiest cover, besides. She tentatively reached out for it on the shelf, pulling it down with one hoof.

As soon as she touched it, a deep rumble came from throughout the library, seemingly shuddering up from the floor itself. The light shed by the chandelier guttered, acquiring a darker and more carmine hue, and there was a far-off clatter.

Daring quickly slid the book back into place. “Look, fine, it’s back!” she called out to whatever unseen library-spirit might be about to descend in wrath. “Keep it! I was just looking!”

The rumble ceased after a few seconds, but the light remained dark and flickering, and more clattering noises came from further on in the library. After them, there came a soft padding from high above, as if hooves were treading on a floor far above.

Daring held her breath. Cervile had mentioned they couldn’t access the library … but that didn’t mean there weren’t other servants who could, that there weren’t servants already here. She edged forward, making as little noise as she could, and peeked around the corner, looking up towards the higher tiers. There — half-hidden by the chandelier, roughly half-a-dozen tiers above her, something moved. She squinted at them, and as they came entirely into view, she recognised them as another guard.

They didn’t seem as large as Steelhart, at least from where Daring looked up at them. They probably came to about Dad’s height, their armoured frame seemed lighter and leaner, and they even had an intact lower jaw. Dust and old cobwebs all but covered them, but it was still possible to make out a light purple cloak hanging over their back, short enough to leave their armoured legs clear and their gait unencumbered. A plaque hung at their front, too far away to make out. Their antlers shone with purple light, holding a wickedly-pointed spear upright at their side, and when their helmeted head glanced from side-to-side, Daring saw two pinpricks of purple light shining behind their visor rather than utter blackness.

They padded along their tier, seemingly intent on making a complete circuit, glancing down at the lower levels every so often. Daring breathed out and planned. She couldn’t just run out in the open without being seen, but if she dived out and made it into one of the tunnels before being spotted, then she might be able to make it without the guard being any the wiser.

Nothing gambled, nothing gained. She tensed herself, and then bolted out as if released from a crossbow, turning to her left as she ran for the nearest tunnel —

From above, from the other side, there was an all-but-unheard creak. Daring ran, and then stopped herself sharply to tumble back with a yelp as something crashed to the floor just in front of her, just before the tunnel entrance. Clouds of dust rose around it, and Daring coughed and waved the dust away as she picked herself up.

Before her, a figure loomed out from the clouds of dust. It was the hulking frame of a different guard, built and armoured similarly to the one up above, who by now had turned around to regard proceedings from their high viewpoint. This new guard was similarly coated in dust and cobwebs, and a short green cloak tumbled down from their withers, Bright green light flashed behind their visor and around their antlers, and a long, thin, hiltless blade hovered in the air next to them. There was a plaque at their front.

ONCE WHITETAIL, A FRAUD REFORGED
NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING

“Good day!” said Whitetail, in an incongruously cheery and upbeat tone, and with a voice that was distinctly male to Daring’s ears. “You appear to be an intruder, Miss. Please hold still while I dispatch you!”

“Wha — Aah!” The blade blurred down through the air, and Daring frantically jumped back as it bit down into the carpet where she’d been standing. She wheeled around and began running the other way, counter-clockwise around the extent of the tier she was on.

“Wait! Miss, I said ‘hold still’, not ‘flee’!” The guard’s hooves began to clatter across the floor at her back, and she ran all the harder.

“She may not have heard you!” called the guard up above, whose tone was low and feminine. “Reiterate!”

Daring paid the calls at her back no heed. All that could exist for her right now was running, and run she did, with shelves and ladders blurring past her on one side and the abyss on her other.

There was another creak from high above, and some alert part of Daring’s hindbrain prepared her to jump away this time. The high-up guard came crashing down in front of Daring with one great leap, their spear already thrusting out to miss her by merest inches. She glanced up at the purple-clad guard, their plaque glinting before her eyes.

ONCE BELLADAMMA, A FAILURE REFORGED
NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING

“Miss,” Belladamma said, slowly and firmly as if talking to a toddler, “My associate asked you to hold still.”

Daring backed off from her, step by trepid step. The spear had drawn back to hover back by Belladamma’s side, its sharp point and honed edges glinting wickedly as it angled right towards Daring’s throat. One step back, and then another, play for time, move further away from the lethal sharp thing, common sense was having a gala day here…

But the world wasn’t quite so convenient as to let Daring get away with that, and the clatter of hooves at her back brought her up short. She glanced around to her rear and saw Whitetail rushing in, his hovering blade held at the ready. “Shoot,” she whispered.

“Excellent! You’ve halted!” Whitetail chirped. “Gosh, this is exciting. I’ve never actually had to deal with an intruder before.”

“It’s a day of firsts for everyone,” said Belladamma, drawing Daring’s attention back to her. The library guard drew her spear to one side as if preparing to slash out with it. “Close your eyes, Miss.”

“Gah!” Daring retorted in place of something breathlessly witty and suitably defiant as the spear came whirring in from her right side towards her throat. She ducked with seconds to spare, and only when the instant after ticked across her senses did she realise she hadn’t been slain.

It was more than could be said for other things, though. She ducked, but with mere inches to spare, and the helmet atop her head was swiped right off by the force of Belladamma’s blow. It whirled out through the air to Daring’s left, and fell before her horrified eyes down over the bottom tier, past a walkway, and into the darkness.

“T — That ...” Daring stuttered out, something white-hot building in the back of her head even as her vision blurred. “That was …”

That was a piece of history more real to her than anything Antlertis could hope to conjure, a piece of where she’d come from. It had hung in their livingroom since she could remember, and Dad had told her a hundred stories under its shadow about the mare who’d worn that helmet (a mare Daring had only ever seen a few pictures of) and the adventures she’d had, bringing out Daring’s cutie mark with words alone. When they’d prepared to come out here, Dad had brought it along as a good-luck charm. And whenever he’d trusted it to Daring, he’d trusted her to keep it safe.

And now it vanished into blackness, beyond all hope of recovery, and it was all Daring could do to tear her gaze from it and up towards Belladamma’s impassive purple eye-lights. Red fog filled Daring’s head, adding a crimson hint to the water in her eyes, and her feathers fluffed with fury.

“That was my Mom’s helmet, you flying feathering bastarding tabula rasa double bastard!”

“Er,” came the voice of Whitetail at her back, “Were those curses? Or at least attempts? Because I recognise ‘bastard’, but I’m not sure why you’re using ‘tabu —’’”

“Shut up!” The ghosts of Hurricane and Thunderstorm and Firefly and others like them filled her head, baying for battle. Teach these soulforged freaks why other tribes used to run when pegasi wings darkened the sky, they called.

But the red impulse met a cold and rapidly-rising tide of grim clarity. She was too small. She couldn’t hope to fight either of them, let alone both here. With a breathless snarl, Daring twisted to her right, and there, just a little further along, there was a tunnel opening. Somewhere dark. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere to plan.

She swept right up into the air towards the opening with one great burst from her wings, fury’s heat lifting her wings, and screeched, “Come get me!” as she flew. Belladamma’s spear lashed up into the air at her back, the library guard slow to react to the move.

“Miss, you’re not co-operating with the exercise! Do you actually know what ‘halting’ is?” implored Whitetail. Daring ignored him, her heartbeat drumming in her skull and her vision as yet red at the edges. She sprung right into the darkness of the tunnel within the shelves, her headlantern once more jerking a thin beam of light to and fro across the walls. She hit the ground running, swerved wildly to avoid a pile of books, and found the path split before her, running out to either shadowy side.

She chose the left side without thought, aiming only to put distance between her and the guards. The shadow enveloped her away from the library’s main light, and her headlantern flashed across the long and curving outline of the tunnel before her. “Follow her!” she heard Belladamma cry from the outside. “I’ll cut her off ahead!” Two sets of hooves thundered across the floor, and one of those sets, presumably Whitetail’s, seemed to be following directly after Daring.

She pelted down the tunnel as quickly as her legs could carry her, with the thunder of Whitetail’s hooves and Whitetail’s own increasingly hopeless imploring filling the world at her back. Obstacles rose up from the ground before her: piles of fallen books, rusted ladders, bundles of rolled-up scrolls and tapestries, each forcing her to jump and glide over them to avoid getting stuck. Overflowing shelves of books rose all around her like monsters in the gloom, shrouded behind shadows and dust, some sporting faded tapestries and ragged banners and charts across their lengths. High above, some books glittered with age-old enchantments, and some of those enchantments seemed to be bleeding, leaking tendrils of midnight-blue light into the darkness above. Trapdoors dotted the ceiling.

“Mi — oof!” Whitetail seemed to be having more trouble avoiding the obstacles than she was, if the crashing of books and ladders at her back was anything to go by. “Could you please halt so I may — ow! Why would someone put a ladder there?”

Daring glanced around for any sneaky alcove, any hiding spot, as she threw herself around another corner and out of Whitetail’s sight. There — a pile of books, higher and even more ramshackle than the others, blocking off half the tunnel in this confined space. She knocked her headlantern off, leapt up to glide right over the pile, and once on its other side, slammed herself backwards into it. A minor bookalanche ensued, and as she pressed her back against the bulk of the pile to avoid the worst of any potential concussions, dusty tomes came cascading down past Daring’s eyes, covering much of her visible body. A gap or two remained for her to see the tunnel through.

Daring hid there, trying to be as still as she possibly could in the darkness of the tunnel, trying not to tremble and shift the books around her any further, trying to not even breath loudly as hooves sounded at her back, entering this stretch proper. A faint film of green light fell over everything in her sight. Whitetail.

“Hello? Miss?” His run slowed right down, the library guard seemingly unaware of where she was. “Are you there?”

Daring held her breath as his trotting came yet closer. Whitetail’s oncoming green light grew brighter and brighter, and eventually there was a gentle bump against the books covering Daring as his armoured frame brushed against them. Not enough to dislodge them, thankfully, and his motions were careful and gentle now that he had slowed down. The source of his green light revealed itself as his backside came into proper view, a little indistinct glowing-green shape flickering between his antlers. Red-hot bands seemed to be pressing against Daring’s lungs, and she let herself all-but-silently breathe out.

“Miss?” Whitetail called out, turning his ironclad skull left and right. “I do promise it’d be a quick dispatching. You’d never know it’d happened.”

His back was exposed to Daring. The white-hot fire that had filled her had simmered down to something cold and steady and detached, though the red edge lingered around her vision. Some grim part of her considered that the odds might be sufficiently leveled now for her to have a fair shot at the hulking guard, and her hoof crept down to the flap of her saddlebag.

She had the multitools, the ones with the blowtorches built in, her memory reminded her. What damage could one of those do to him, even when directed for just a second? Fuse his leg armour to his bones. Fuse him to the floor. Make him helpless.

No. Better. Fly up, while he wasn’t expecting anything. Get at the back of his head. And if he was quick enough to turn round, go for his eyes.

Or if that didn’t work — Daring’s gaze swept up to the high shelves, and to the enchanted books bleeding their blue magic out into the air — maybe there’d be some way to topple a shelf, if she could go for whatever kept them upright or secured. They’d crush him, and if not, well, she’d once heard that fraying enchantments had a tendency to get explosive when handled sans care. And she wasn’t feeling even slightly careful with regards to the library guards.

Cold fire filled Daring’s heart. She was the great adventurer here in the dark, and he was fair game, mere cannon fodder who’d helped her lose her Mom’s hat, and she could take him apart any way she pleased. It was just a matter of ingenuity, that and nothing else …

Her gaze crept to the back of Whitetail’s head once more, and stole up to the green light flickering between his antlers. She realised with a surprise that ‘fluttering’ would be a better word for it; the green light Whitetail had summoned took the form of a large butterfly. It kept pace with the confused movements of his head, its antenna and wings as carefully sculpted as any pony illusionist could manage.

She stared at it, puzzled by the intricacy of the shape, and the longer she stared, the more the cold fire petered down. It faded altogether, and she was left just feeling faintly sick and angry with herself over the ashes.

She couldn’t do it. Whitetail might be trying to kill her, but she couldn’t do the same back. Why a butterfly? Why that lovingly-crafted a shape, when a simple orb would have done the same job? And could Whitetail even tell her if she could ask that? Maybe he’d been an illusionist once, and this was all the memory he had of how he’d used to be. Maybe it was just a small thing that made him happy, here where’d he’d been in the dusty darkness for three thousand years with only Belladamma for company.

He’d been soulforged. He had no other choice now but to try and kill Daring, but she didn’t. She wasn’t soulforged, and she had no right to hurt a being that couldn’t help itself, not if there was any other way to deal with them. Heroes didn’t kill things just because they were angry over a hat. And she wouldn’t either. Dad wouldn’t have wanted her to think the way she just did. Mom surely wouldn’t either.

All she had to do was get away from here, and get to Lord Fallow’s study. He was the real evil one here, and she had to deal with him, not his victims.

She glanced up towards the ceiling. It was possible to make out a trapdoor there, with a stubby wooden handle. If she could reach that before Whitetail caught her, then that could be her way out. If only there was some other distraction, just to give her an extra few seconds …

Her forehoof, which had rested in her saddlebag, brushed against the bag of ball-bearings.

Daring smiled a fierce, wolfish smile. Most adventurers had to trust to luck and make stuff up as they went along at one point or another, it was unavoidable. But if you were among the best adventurers, you could make your own luck.

She drew out the bag of ball-bearings, carefully extricated it from the pile of books without knocking any over, lowered it close to the floor, and tipped them out to send them trundling across the several metres of floor towards Whitetail. The library guard seemed to perk up as the soft noise of their movement hit his ears (earbones?), and he began to turn around.

And it was that moment Daring chose with expert precision to flap wildly up out of the bookpile, literature exploding around her and flying in all directions as she clawed her way up through the air towards the trapdoor. She might not be able to fly yet, she thought as she sweated and cursed and violently flapped her way upwards, but just maybe enough angry effort would fool the universe for that crucial moment.

“Ah-ha!” Whitetail’s attention focused immediately on her, his eye-lights brightening as he raised the blade in his magical grasp back up into a proper ward. He stepped boldly forwards. “There you are! I found her, Bella! Now, Miss, please hold still for a moment while I dispaAAA—”

His forehoof skidded on something, and Whitetail realised the trap he’d charged into entirely too late. One forehoof skidded off a ball-bearing, a rear hoof bounced off another, and the attempts of his other two legs to correct his gait sent his whole form crashing down to the floor in a pandemonium of flailing limbs and flying ball-bearings. “Aargh! Skullduggery!” he wailed from his confused position, and Daring gloatingly congratulated herself on the smoothest plan ever put into motion. She lurched up to the trapdoor with one final burst of effort, latched her teeth around its handle, and yanked down with all her might.

The trapdoor didn’t budge.

Daring yanked harder. The trapdoor continued to not budge. She let loose a muffled yowl of purest frustration and yanked like a pony possessed, and for all her efforts, the trapdoor retained a certain unbudged quality.

“Mvv, y’ bsshkrd!” she screeched past a mouthful of handle, her wings flapping like clappers in order that she wasn’t left hanging by her teeth alone. Below her, there was the sound of long legs getting a solid purchase on the floor, and of Whitetail ponderously rising upright once more.

“Now then,” he said, his chipperness diminished in favour of mild discombobulation. His blade rose up. “If you could just stay in your approximate position for the next moment or so, Miss, that would be a great help.”

“Nngh!” Daring offered up by way of a cutting retort, one half of her vision caught up with the glinting metal of Whitetail’s blade. She thrashed mid-air and yanked harder and harder, a cold weight gathering in her gut as the certainty stole across her that the door simply wasn’t going to move.

Whitetail’s blade slashed up at her in a graceful arc, and Daring twisted and swivelled around the handle, her limbs randomly thrashing out in every direction to try and bat the blade away before it hit her. There was a moment of wild terror, and then a hard clang and a stinging sensation in her left rearhoof, and she belatedly realised she’d managed to twist around and kick the blade right on its flat. It spun down in another arc, down towards one of the shelves.

To where a magical book sat between its ordinary neighbours, peacefully bleeding away blue streams of gossamer enchantment to itself.

The blade hit it. And the world below exploded in a spectrum of unreal colour and howling noise, the force of it buffeting upwards. Daring’s bite was painfully knocked loose from the handle and she was thrown into a nearby set of shelves. Below her, Whitetail yelped as he was violently thrown into the same shelves, making the whole section wobble. Another bookalanche ensued, burying the stunned Whitetail under a fresh weight of literature. Exploded papers and bindings fluttered in the air like leaves.

Daring groaned and probed her aching teeth with her tongue, checking that she still had all of them even as she clung onto the upper shelves with her legs. She glanced round at the trapdoor and saw that it was rattling from the force of the explosion. There was something strange about its rattle, and she peered harder at it and try and figure out what it was.

Then she realised. “It opens up the way,” she groaned.

That solved that, then. With another flurry of flapping from her tired wings, she flew at the trapdoor and pushed up with all her might. It was hard work, pushing up against its sheer weight, but she persisted, sweating and straining and hissing with sheer exertion, and eventually, the door yielded. It opened a few inches up, and that was all Daring needed to throw herself at the gap, to shove her forelegs in and to wriggle and barge her way through until she tumbled up and out onto its other side, up into a new stretch of dark and book-strewn tunnel.

Tiredness made her pant, had built up a solid lather of sweat across her form, but she couldn’t stop now. The bookpile over Whitetail was already shifting, albeit with a great deal of dazed moaning, and she let the trapdoor slam shut. That wouldn’t be enough, though, and she glanced around for its hinges, found them, and lurched over as she fumbled a multitool out of her saddlebags. She yanked out the blowtorch attachment, making her much-abused teeth ache anew, and laid it down upon the hinges before pressed down on the button that made the little magical flame shoot out from the side.

It was dicey work, quickly passing it over the hinges to get them properly melted and beyond any hope of raising, without also setting the wooden door or floor around her on fire. Even apart from the threat to her own life a fire in close-quarters posed, Daring felt that setting a library on fire, accidentally or otherwise, was the sort of thing that got you rightly sent to the bad sort of afterlife. But she finished the job without any unintentional arson, and a hopeless thumping from below coupled with Whitetail’s muffled grumbles told her it had worked.

Daring spent the next few minutes breathing heavily and sitting on top of the trapdoor, just to be sure, while she considered her next move.

Ground tier, first tier, second tier … she’d be on the second by now, unless this was one of those ruins with eldritch geometry that you got from time to time. If she crept along this level of the labyrinth in a counter-clockwise direction, got out at the room’s end, and flew down to the first tier, then she’d be able to avoid the attentions of Belladamma and Whitetail and get into Lord Fallow’s study without them being any the wiser.

Perfect. It couldn’t fail. Daring heaved herself back to her hooves and made off in what felt like counter-clockwise. She picked her way through the dark and silent tunnels, weaving her way between yet more bookpiles and other library detritus. Cervile really needed to be let in here to get this whole place in order.

There was the odd patter of hooves beyond, as well as the occasional creak from directions Daring couldn’t quite place. She hurried on; the guards were still moving as well, and she hadn’t the slightest clue where Belladamma was.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, she guessed she’d gone far enough, and took any left-heading paths that the labyrinth offered. There was the suggestion of fresh air — or at least, relatively fresh compared to the mustiness of the surrounding shelves — and Daring found herself trotting back out into the open library proper. She crept out onto the open floor past the tunnel entrance, and found that she was indeed on the second tier, the first and ground tiers yawning open before her before giving way to the abyss. There was no sign of the library guards.

There was the distant tramp of hooves, though, and Daring looked back to where she’d come in. The far-off door was ajar and slightly squint, as if something had finally prised it open with sheer force — and there, circling around the first tier on Daring’s right side, a familiar black shape moved forwards with the steady inevitability of a stormcloud.

Even from this distance, Steelhart looked huge. Their vast head turned casually from side to side as they walked, their hooffall unnaturally graceful and silent. They must still be hunting her down, though they mercifully hadn’t seen Daring yet. They’d be at her side of the room in less than a couple of minutes, though, and she had to move.

She glanced down and found to her relief that she’d judged the distances well. The door to Lord Fallow’s study was practically just below, and all she’d have to do would be to jump down and bolt for it. She braced herself to leap down over the side, prepared her aching wings to glide her gently down, and made the plunge.

It wasn’t as smooth a landing as she’d been hoping. Her wings felt stiff and sore and refused to glide her down gently, and she ended up slamming into the floor with her forelegs at a speed which jarred her legs. The noise of impact echoed around the library, and Daring jumped up with a cry of “Shoot!” She thought she could see Steelhart’s head turning in her direction, and she spun around towards the door to Lord Fallow’s study. No time to think, just run forwards and escape, escape —

There was a soft whoosh in the air behind her, and some dormant instinct of Daring’s told her to duck. Duck she did, and the instant after, a long spear came flying through the air and slammed forcibly into the wood of the door.

Daring stared up at the spear — Belladamma’s spear — and glanced behind her. From the side of the tier on Daring’s left, the purple-clad guard came striding. She’d emerged from a nearby tunnel, and her cloak had picked up an extra layer of dust and cobwebs. A distance behind her, Daring could also see Whitetail come tottering out of a further-down tunnel. He seemed somewhat battered.

“You are being exceedingly disruptive to the functioning of the library,” hissed Belladamma, making the words seem like a mortal curse. Her antlers blazed with purple magic, and an aura began groping around her embedded spear, trying to prise it free.

Daring glanced from side to side, her eyes wide and panic beating a tattoo within her chest. The door onwards was stuck fast by the spear, and the library guards had the left side covered while Steelhart was coming in from the right. She doubted her wings were strong enough to handle a flight up to the next level, and even if they could, she’d already seen the power with which the guards could leap. She could try jumping down to the ground tier, but the guards could follow her there too and she didn’t know how fast Steelhart could really move.

And even if she succeeded and escaped, she’d be right back where she started, only with all of them looking for her from the start and with the scariest of the guards an active part of the mix. She needed something brilliant, and she racked her all-but-frozen brain for it as the soulforged guards marched ever closer —

There was a far-off bang from the door she’d come in from, and Daring whirled to face it. Someone had kicked it right off its hinges, and that someone took shape with a swirl of their coat as they charged into the room.

Daring stared. And then she called out. “Dad!”

Dad’s gaze shot right to her from across the other side of the wide room. His tricorn sat askew on his head, his ten-foot pole was couched under one foreleg, his coat seemed to be slightly on fire, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of her. “Daring?!”

Daring would have called out again, but the spear wrenched free of the door in that moment and came whirling overhead. She cried out and threw herself to the floor to avoid it, and the clatter of hooves came ever-closer.

“Daring, I’m coming! Hold on!” Dad’s shout echoed off the furthest walls; his hooves were already bringing him forward in a breakneck charge. Daring thought he was going to try and run straight through the laboratory and the walkways, but that would surely take him too long. But he wrenched a coil of rope off from around his back with his teeth as he ran and was already twisting and looping it around itself with quick, clever movements of his head.

The spear came jabbing down at where Daring lay, and she scrabbled backwards to avoid it. Belladamma bore down upon her with every moment that passed, her antlers blazing and the spear alive in her grasp. “Stop trying to thwart library regulations, you little nuisance. Halt or be halted!” she hissed.

There was a blur from Dad’s direction, and Daring glanced there. He had thrown the rope out as a lasso up towards the bottom of the dangling chandelier. It caught around one spur of crystal and tightened just as Dad came charging off the edge, making the light and shadows of the whole room jerk and dance. His momentum carried onto his swing, cutting a swift and wide arc across the whole length of the room, his hooves passing inches over the top of the laboratory slab. He kept the ten-foot pole in his grasp, leveling it like a lance.

The spear rose high above Daring once more, and the guard that held it stood framed like an avenging goddess. Daring twisted frantically to avoid it as it bit down into the wooden floor, and kept edging back as it was wrenched free and hovered up for another stab.

But before that stab could come, a Dad-shaped blur crashed into Belladamma’s armoured frame, and the mixed screech of yells and twisting metal and cracking wood that erupted before Daring as the two slammed into the bookshelves to Belladamma’s side beggared description. There was a pained rasp from Belladamma, the crashing of another bookalanche, and finally a release of breath from Dad as he staggered back from the sundered shelf, giving Daring a view of the aftermath.

The pole had smashed through Belladamma side-on, punching through her armour and ribcage and out the other side and deep into the shelves, pinning her there like a thrashing, trapped insect. The sheer damage didn’t seem much more than an inconvenience for her, and she wildly tried to wrench herself free, magic erupting into life around her antlers. Dad bent, seized her fallen spear in his mouth, and swiftly jammed it through her antler-branches and right into the shelves. Every struggle from her brought her antlers into contact with the spear shaft, disrupting the magical energies there and preventing Belladamma from doing much of anything at all.

Dad didn’t stop for breath. He wheeled immediately upon Whitetail and stamped his forehooves upon the floor. Steel spurs clacked out, and he stood still and perfectly poised, his stance low and his withers hunched. Under the shadow of his tricorn, his eyes were burning coals.

“Get him!” hissed Belladamma to Whitetail, helplessly swivelling to and fro in an attempt to free herself, one millimetre at a time. “Hold him while I get loose!”

Whitetail dutifully lunged forward, his blade a silver blur descending through the air towards Dad’s head. But Dad twisted his stance slightly, enough that the blade came down on his left wither. It bit into the fabric of his justacorps but was caught by the barding beneath, and in the crucial second Whitetail tried to pull it free, Dad erupted. He shifted his weight to his forehooves and pivoted violently to one side, ripping the blade right out from Whitetail’s grasp and sending it clattering across the floor. His whole body swung around, and he threw his legs up, thunderously bucking Whitetail right in his face and sending him staggering back in a briefly-boneless heap.

Part of Whitetail’s helmet was cracked at the front, an addition to his existing injuries at the hooves of the Do clan. Despite it, the guard tried to recover and draw himself back up into a better position. The magic around his antlers scrabbled for his blade. But Dad came crashing down upon him, denying him the space to recover. A forwards kick to the throat, a sideways swipe from a spur across the visor of Whitetail’s helmet that made the metal scream, blow upon blow, each one battering Whitetail further into the ground and leaving him more exposed to the stallion-shaped storm of violence at his front.

Finally, he was on the ground, one foreleg spread flat, and that was all Dad needed. One steel-shod hoof stamped down on Whitetail’s bony knee, and the sounds of the hard crack and Whitetail’s yelp echoed throughout the library. The library guard seemed uninterested in rising again after that, and Dad stepped back, breathing heavily.

“You had one job,” groaned the pinned Belladamma as Whitetail softly meeped to himself.

Daring looked up at Dad with no small amount of surprise, fear, shock, awe, admiration, and other variants on the spectrum competing for the forefront in her head and playing across her features. She’d heard about the thrilling hoof-fights, often from Dad’s very mouth, but actually seeing one in the flesh —

The main emotion that made its way to the forefront, however, was simple relief.

“Daring!” Dad wheeled around after only a couple of breaths. He cantered over to Daring, and she could read all manner of emotions playing across a face that she was so used to seeing smile. Horror, relief as well, confusion, worry-born anger, and others yet passing under the shadow of flinty determination. “Get on my back. We’re getting out of here. Now.”

Daring opened her mouth, and the leftover panic from being pinned and attacked from all sides made her briefly consider not arguing. It didn’t last. There was still a door to get through. “But I —”

“Don’t argue! Do as you’re told and get on —!”

Past Dad’s wither, Daring saw a great antlered shadow rise. A glaive gleamed in a blood-red grasp and angled down at Dad’s back. She screamed the warning as fast as breath allowed. “Behind you!”

Too late. Dad glanced round mid-stride, just as the glaive’s point slammed right into the back of his left rear leg. He gasped with pain and lurched forward with the force of the blow, his forehooves scrabbling to keep him standing. Daring jumped back as well, and past Dad’s buckled frame, she saw Steelhart standing tall and dark against the crimson light of the chandelier.

Steelhart's red grasp flamed around the glaive’s great shaft, and with a slow, steady relish, they twisted the weapon. Things cracked and made soft, awful noises where the glaive twisted in Dad’s leg, and both he and Daring screamed.

Dad’s expression was a picture of purest pain, but with one mighty effort, he gritted his teeth and wrenched himself right off the glaive, all but collapsing forward as he wobbled on his forehooves.

Daring looked right up at him, their faces close, and she saw his eyes were shut tight, When he opened them again, they were watering and filled with agony, and when he met Daring’s gaze directly, there was a wretched uncertainty and helplessness in their depths for a few seconds. A smile was forced onto his face then. It was twisted and creased with pain and didn’t reach his eyes at all, but he’d forced it there regardless, and she guessed it was meant to reassure. He slowly rose to his hooves again, inch by wincing inch, and kept his weight planted on his right rear leg.

“Stay back, poppet,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “If there’s any opening, run to the door leading out. I’ll catch up.”

“But —”

He turned away from Daring and faced Steelhart directly. His spurs clacked on the stone floor. By way of answer, Steelhart raised the glaive and ostentatiously wiped the glistening tip dry against the floor. Each held still and ready in the moment after.

Then they charged. Dad lurched across the ground and tried to present his armoured sides, while Steelhart swept onwards in motions that were too swift and silent to belong to anything that large. There was the blur and screech and clash of collision, with the glaive whirling in the air and Dad’s armoured forehoof weaving a tight circle in the air about him to ward it off. It snuck in and swept up and across his side, slashing his coat’s fabric and sending Dad stumbling. The barding kept him safe, though, and the glaive drew back into a high ward. They broke apart and circled each other, Dad hobbling and panting and Steelhart as silent as ever.

A second’s circling, and then Dad lunged in, trying to throw himself within spurring reach of Steelhart and rip up into the guard’s defense. But Steelhart slid backwards across the floor in an eye’s blink, and the whirling motions of their glaive forced Dad back, sweeping out a vast expanse of room for Steelhart to move freely in. Another slash hammered into Dad’s other side, driving the breath from him with the blunt force of it.

Daring watched, desperate and feeling helpless. She had to help somehow, but how? She could try and get close enough with one of the little blowtorches, or fly into the tunnels and get another fraying book to throw at Steelhart. But the first one would be almost impossible with Steelhart’s huge reach and speed, and the second would be as likely to hurt Dad.

She had to help, though. Dad wasn’t winning against Steelhart, and as he lunged in for another pass, the colossal guard was easily able to keep him too far away to even try and land a blow. Meanwhile, Steelhart could freely slam blow after blow into Dad’s armoured sides, while it was all Dad could do to keep his unarmoured head and legs shielded with his spurred shoes. And each blow might not pierce the metal barding, but they landed as hard as sledgehammers. Dad would get bruised and hurt and tired, and his leg would keep bleeding, and eventually his defence of his head would slip, and when that happened ...

No. It wasn’t going to happen.

There was a rustle at her side. Daring quickly turned and saw Whitetail, still on the ground and wisely keeping out of proceedings. A dark blue light simmered around the edges of where his leg had been snapped, slowly pulling in the bones and knitting them back together. They could heal, then. This’d have to be finished, and quickly.

Daring saw Whitetail’s fallen blade on the floor near her as well, and felt a rush of inspiration. It was edged all around, like unicorn swords, so she couldn’t just wield it in her mouth. But if she had some thick cloth or other material to wrap around one part, making a makeshift hilt, then that might just cut it.

She didn’t even waste time mentally congratulating herself on the unintended pun, and immediately swept off her saddlebags and emptied out whatever was left in them onto the floor. Her birthday saddlebags might get a little cut up in the process, but even the best adventuring heroes had to make sad sacrifices from time to time. She folded their fabric around one end of the blade as quickly as she could, her heart hammering. She would make this work. She had to.

The screeching skirl of metal meeting metal broke her attention, and she looked abruptly up to see a shift in the fight. Dad had plunged in under the sweep of the glaive, coming up from under Steelhart’s defenses, and he now clawed at Steelhart’s front with the spurs. One, two, three swipes in rapid succession left a deep rent in the guard’s torso plates, ripped away a piece of cloth, and tore their visor clean off with a scream of metal, sending the sundered bit of armour clattering to the floor.

Steelhart backed off as quickly as Daring had ever seen anything back off, their glaive whirling in protective circles about them to force Dad back. Their visor removed, Daring could see that where the steel of their helmet ended at their eye sockets, something black and cracked receded into impenetrable shadow. Steelhart recovered quickly to resume a poised stance, but elation filled Daring’s heart. They could win this, and she bit into her newly-fashioned hilt and heaved the blade off the ground. It tilted her head to one side with the weight and dragged along the stone, but she charged regardless.

Dad, now on the left side of Daring’s vision, turned on her, his fleetingly triumphant expression turning stern again. “Poppet, I told you to run!”

Steelhart lashed out then, the motion of it wild and uncontrolled to Daring’s eyes, as if they were trying to exploit the momentary distraction and make up for lost dignity. The glaive came in a horizontal sweep at Dad’s head, and he tore his gaze away from Daring and ducked right under it, his head bobbing back up the moment it was clear. A pained grin flickered on his features once more.

The glaive flamed within Steelhart’s grasp, and stopped abruptly mid-air. And it smoothly spun back the way it’d came. The blunt, hammer-hard edge smashed into the side of Dad’s head with a sickening crack.

Before Daring’s breathless, paralysed gaze, the impact sent Dad tumbling off the edge of the tier. His form was boneless, lifeless, and it vanished from her sight altogether. Steelhart straightened. Even from their black blankness, vicious self-satisfaction radiated. They glanced briefly in Daring’s direction, turned away the instant after, and hopped nimbly off the tier after Dad’s body.

Words returned to Daring. She spat out the makeshift sword, all plans gone. “DAD!” she screamed. She all but hurled herself forwards, legs going helter-skelter across the floor, and craned over the edge of the tier.

There, on the ground tier’s floor below, right by the edge of the abyss, there lay Dad. He was crumpled upon the ground, struck-side-down, his eyes closed and the floor red underneath his head. His tricorn lay upside-down on the ground a distance away. Daring thought she saw him faintly breathing, told herself he was still breathing, screamed out again to get him to just wake up. “DAD!”

Steelhart strode into Daring’s view on the tier below, making their way towards Dad’s still form. The glaive glinted in their grasp. They stood right over Dad and raised the weapon high to bring it down for one last swipe, its steel red under the light.

No plans. No forethought. Nothing but the urge to stop Steelhart, nothing but the fire that filled her and threw Daring forwards with scarcely any conscious thought on her part. No ache in her wings, no pains or doubts or anything but forwards. She screamed a desperate war-cry as she flew right at Steelhart’s head and blindsided them with an almighty crash that jarred their whole form.

She was tiny atop Steelhart, but the impact wobbled the whole of the giant guard’s form. They teetered on the edge and stumbled back, their huge legs shifting desperately. Their vast antlers blazed crimson, the magic close enough to Daring’s face for her to feel its heat, and she kept on attacking, slamming kick after kick into Steelhart’s head and lunging forwards to bite one of their antlers, disrupting their magic with an almighty flash and making her taste ozone and iron. The whole world whirled around her as she shook atop Steelhart’s form, and there was a lurch in her perspective, a sense that gravity had tilted somehow, and a clatter against the floor was registered belatedly by her ears as a last attempt by Steelhart’s hooves to secure a footing. Instead, the world lurched, and darkness began to fill the front of Daring’s world, and it was only after a few moments and after her grip slipped off Steelhart’s tilting head that she realised, Oh, I’m falling.

Her wings began to flap with the strength born of desperation, but it was too little, too late. Daring fell into the darkness below the library along with Steelhart. There was a blind rush of air all around her, screams that might have been coming from her own throat, and then impact.

Stars spun across Daring’s world, followed by only blackness.

Wherein Our Heroine Finds a Treasure

She was sailing in a storm, with buffeting darkness all around and rain lashing across the ship’s deck. Her hooves grappled and struggled with the weight of the helm’s wheel, trying to force a straight passage through the crashing waves on all sides. It was stuck, however, and the force of the storm threatened to wrench it beyond her control.

Past the blinding rain, she looked around in desperation, looking for anypony on the ship who might be able to help her. But there was nopony else aboard, nothing on the empty decks but rain and shadows, and when she called out, nopony answered past the thunder. Long shadows ran forth from the railing, slowly spreading with each passing second and twitching like tendrils, as if some beast was trying to pull itself up from the deep and up over the sides, inch by unstoppable inch.

Her gaze rose up, up to where she might yet be able to see her destination, some ruined tower out in the ocean, whose topmost light should have been shining like a beacon. But there was nothing there, nothing but the dim outline of a raggedy tower already half-swallowed by stormclouds. The clouds swallowed more as she watched, and as she reached out with a hoof and tried to urge the whole ship on with will alone, its shape grew fainter and fainter, and the darkness swallowed the world —

And with a full-body shiver, her senses shifted, and Daring woke up.

It was hard to tell she’d woken up at first. She slowly opened her eyes, and there was nothing but black on all sides. She blinked, and wriggled faintly, and that at least confirmed she was awake once again. She lay on her left side atop a solid and uneven surface, thick with dust. She breathed in, choked, and a thunderous sneeze shook more of the cobwebs out of her brain.

It was cold here as well, wherever here was, and as Daring wriggled her limbs with more vigour, a great full-body ache made itself known as well. She whimpered as it set in, and then gasped when she tried to move her wings. The one under her hurt, as if she’d twisted it hard or broken it, and it twinged with every movement. When had she … ?

She’d fallen. She’d fallen down so far she’d been unable to keep track, and only her desperate flapping on the descent must have slowed her down enough to not get smashed on impact. Her left wing must have caught the brunt of it, and water came to her eyes when she accidentally shifted it again.

Steelhart had come falling with her as well. They must be down here as well. Daring struggled to her hooves and peered hopelessly into the gloom, hunting for any sign of them. But she couldn’t see a thing. A faint red light shone far above, so far away and so shrouded by swirling dark dust to be all but useless. She couldn’t see any shapes, any outlines, not even the basic shape of wherever she was. Steelhart could be anywhere in the darkness, watching her. Waiting. She knew it could be silent.

Another thought came hard on the heels of Steelhart, cold and terrible and gnawing at Daring’s guts. Dad. She was down here because she’d flown right at Steelhart to try and protect him, and knocked them both down. And her last memory of him was his form lying still and bloodied on the ground.

He had to have been still breathing. He had to. Heroes’ parents had a terrible dying habit in books, but that didn’t happen to non-heroes like Daring, it didn’t happen to real parents, to real Dads, it didn’t. She craned her head up as high as she could, focusing on the murky and far-off red glimmer. “Dad!” she cried, the call coming out hoarse and echoing, and she tried again. “Dad!”

She stopped to feebly cough, and the convulsion of her body and withers brought about another fresh burst of pain from her wing. She cried out and shuddered, letting her legs falter and bring her down back to the ground. Daring craned her head up as much she could from where she lay, hoping for any sign of movement, listening for any voice.

Nothing but her own echoes, which faded away after a moment or two. And then nothing but silence. Nopony came.

Daring lay in the silent darkness below everything she knew, her wing hurting and her whole body aching, hungry and lonely and tired, with no way to see the guard who could be lurking anywhere in the murk around her. She was hatless and saddlebag-less, with nothing to prove she was an adventurer except that she’d ended up here, and with nothing to show for that but a memory of Dad lying still and bloodied and not answering when called.

She began to cry, and for a long while, it was all she could do.

Eventually, Daring shuddered, when it felt like she’d cried herself dry. She kept her eyes screwed shut and lay still where she was. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if she just stayed here, waiting for whatever. Steelhart. The earth swallowing her up. Whatever.

She drifted off again, briefly and fitfully, dark dreams flitting before her eyes in short spurts before falling back into a black morass.

At one point, her eyes fluttered open, and in a hazy, detached state halfway between sleep and wakefulness, she saw a dust-shrouded stone floor roll away before her, lit under a soft blue light. Debris cluttered it, rising from the dust like shipwrecks from a beach. Thin pieces of solid rust sat next to pale things like broken bones, and here and there pieces of crumbling paper lay like fallen leaves. One sat a short way away from Daring’s forehooves, and she listlessly ran her eyes over it, the letters on it taking new shape as she watched. It seemed like hasty notes taken in a crisp hoofwriting, jotted down across this one sheet.

Seventh hour, eighth of Winterheight
Onset senility coupled with induced sleep - necessary passivity. Goal is to recreate.
Last-minute changes to instructional sygaldry. Ensure prior skillset and personality is emphasised, not emergent learning. Recreate.
Will be somewhat odd, having nobody left in here save crafted. Already poor conversant, though, even before onset senility. May be a boon.
May not.
Husk discarded. Pneumic transfer into ethereal body underway, stable, note thaumic count. Elevated beyond the fraud’s reforging — transaetheric incorporation a success. This and future works to be greatly less tiring.
Done.
Spoken with my new and improved buckservant. Demure courtesy masking eagerness to please - very much retained. Sharp as in their heyday, with no outside memories or allegiances cluttering things. Massive improvement. Should have done this more often in the old days.
Really should have. Still, too smart to have around my materials here.
Dispatched buckservant. Let’s see if it can actually prepare something edible before full judgement is passed, but otherwise, a good day.
Personality not separable from memories, though. Remember, proof of concept. More work needed. More subjects needed. Maybe Loceros will send a suitably stupid messenger that shan’t be missed. If not, write — call in any remaining favours, ask for some thrall.
Aurum. Flora. Aurum. Flora.
It’ll all be worth it.

Daring blinked dully as the words trailed off onto crumbling flakes of paper and as the paper trailed off onto the rough stone floor, all given a blue hue under the light.

Blue light.

Realisation coursed through her like lightning, in the same moment a polite cough sounded behind her. “Miss Daring?”

She tottered to her hooves and turned around, slowly, almost not wanting to see in case that made it an illusion, made it go away. There behind stood the familiar shape of the ghostly buckservant, brilliantly alive against the darkness of the space. “Cervile?”

“At your service, Miss.” Their eye-lights focused on her, sharp and unmoving. “Are you hurt?”

Some lingering reflex made her want to say no, that she was fine, a heroic adventurer of her stature could just walk it off. But her wing twinged, and she choked out, “Yes.”

A ribbon of blue magic spooled out into the air next to Cervile, and Daring became aware of a blue aura covering her wing and suffusing it with a warm numbness. “Please hold still for a moment. This won’t hurt at all.”

Daring remained still, and as Cervile’s blue form trotted in close to her, a hot wave of guilt shuddered up through her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her gaze at the floor.

Cervile didn’t answer, and as Daring felt her wing shift without any accompanying pain, she felt it deserved repeating. “I’m sorry! I — I tricked you. I sent you to get water and snuck away behind your back. You were never anything but friendly, you didn’t deserve that —”

She realised she was crying again, hot tears of anger at herself, but they were hard to maintain. Cervile kept working in steady silence, their pace slowing as Daring’s form shuddered, and as she gradually stopped, they finished binding something around her wing, keeping it in a steady position at her side.

“I did look for you,” they said gently. “And when I heard a racket followed by silence from the library, past a boundary I couldn’t enter, I feared the worst. But I went looking where I could, and I am able to delve down into this place of refuse. And I found you here as it turns out, and was able to attend to your wing, and have received an apology as well. I accept it, and no harm done.”

“There was harm done!” Daring scuffed at her eyes with a forehoof and looked straight up at Cervile. “I shouldn’t have lied! And there was … my Dad, in the library, he, he —”

“Your father,” Cervile interjected. “He’s the guest who came in after you, who you asked me not to alert to your presence, correct? Dressed in an indigo coat, this high at the withers?” They raised their hoof in the air to about the level of Dad’s withers. Daring warily nodded.

“In which case, if you’ll pardon the presumption as to your suspicions and line of thought, Miss Daring,” continued Cervile, “I suspect you’ll be delighted to know that as I made my way down here, I caught sight of your father, very much alive and well, albeit with nasty wounds to his head and leg and in no small amount of distress. He’d emerged from the library on this side of the freehold, was limping through the arboretum, and calling your name.”

Daring stared up at Cervile, a black cloud vanishing from her world. Dad was alright. Dad was alive, and rightly defying what stories said ought to happen to the parents of heroes. He was alright and alive, and moving around, and looking for her, and a third set of tears threatened, but this time from pure joy.

On the moment’s heels, though, came another black cloud. “He’ll be mad,” murmured Daring. “He’ll be so mad. I mucked this all up, I got him hurt, I tricked him as well, right at the start of all this.”

“Whatever anger he may manifest will, I assure you, be born only from love and worry. He’ll forgive you as well,” said Cervile. “Let me take you to him.”

Daring’s gaze was back on the ground. On some intellectual level, she knew it was silly. It wasn’t nearly as bad a prospect as Dad being dead up there, but the certainty of his anger and disappointment, no matter how much it would be born of worry for her, all but rooted Daring to the ground. She stood still and trembled.

Cervile stood still before her as well, a long moment of silence passing before they spoke. “Pardon my boldness, Miss Daring, but you seem reluctant to meet him.”

“He’ll be mad,” Daring repeated. “He’d be right.”

“You feel awful at the prospect of enduring his disappointment?”

Daring hesitantly nodded. “I … yeah.”

“At present, he’s a father who thinks he faces the prospect of never seeing his daughter again,” said Cervile softly. “Imagine how awful he must feel as well.”

The words made Daring feel sick, but they made her know what she had to do. She breathed in, forced her legs to be straight, and rubbed at her eyes once more before letting the same breath out. “Alright,” she whispered. “Alright.”

“Bravery lives on in the world still,” Cervile said approvingly. “Let me take you straight to him, then.”

“Alright,” said Daring vaguely, glancing around the room they were in. “Just let meAAH!”

She’d started at the huge shape lying against one wall in the circular room they were in, huge and swaddled in a dark cloak. The dark cloak was only keeping bits of them together, she realised, and pale, armoured bones lay scattered across the whole floor. They must have shattered on impact, with no wings to slow them down.

Steelhart’s huge form lay shattered and still, one antler snapped clean off their huge head. No red magic gathered around their remaining antler, and their glaive lay at one side. Daring steadied herself and stared at them a moment longer, and no sign of midnight-blue healing magic flickered where their bones had been broken.

Maybe it didn’t work when they were damaged enough, she thought numbly to herself. Past a point, the magic had to give up. Steelhart’s magic had given up, and the great guard didn’t look nearly as scary anymore.

She wanted to move closer, but some inner note of caution held her back. She looked up to Cervile. “Are they … dead?”

“Yes,” said Cervile, padding over to Steelhart’s fallen form, still tiny against it. They looked down at the black eye-sockets, and what seemed like mixed parts sorrow and pity danced in the fire of their eyes. “The fall must not have been kind to them.” Cervile’s magic glimmered, and a little rune flared at the front of Steelhart’s still head. “Stars carry you in lasting peace, kin.”

Daring was already moving closer as the words were spoken, and stopped short with a surge of indignation. “Don’t wish them peace! They nearly killed Dad! They tried to kill me!”

“Then peace is what they need the most,” replied Cervile gently. “They were forged broken, and I suspect they were broken even before that. Now they’re beyond hurting anything else, and beyond their own hurt as well. I regret whatever they did to you and your father … but they only ever did what they did because they had to. So do we all.”

Daring prepared to spit more vitriol at the thought of extending any charity toward Steelhart. She remembered the way they’d twisted their weapon in the back of Dad’s leg, the sound of their glaive striking his head, the sight of them preparing to kill him when he was helpless.

But next to their silent, shattered form, whatever vitriol came to her mind just seemed hollow and useless. They weren’t as scary as a crumpled sack of bones as they’d been as a living(?) guard. She leaned down and peered into the black of their eye socket, lit under Cervile’s light. What looked like charred flakes of black flesh filled the hollow, and nothing more baleful than that stared back out at her.

She had to remember Lord Fallow. Wherever he was in here, and whatever he was doing, he was the real villain of the piece, the one who'd presumably jotted down notes for the dreadful things he was doing to the original Cervile in the note she’d read on the floor, and who’d done dreadful things to Steelhart and Padhoof and Whitetail and Belladamma as well in the name of … recreating, was it?

But a full-blown Antlertean Mage-Lord like Lord Fallow might be beyond her ability to really take on. Her wing was busted, and even if Dad could help her, she didn’t want him to have to fight again when he’d already been hurt.

She reluctantly considered that it would be sensible to just cut her losses and go, to leave finishing off Lord Fallow for another day, and she twisted her head around to glance at her bound wing while thinking. She started in surprise when she saw Cervile’s bindings, with glowing transparent-blue bandages sheathing the wing against a similarly translucent splint. The wing twinged again when she shifted it to try and get a better look, but it couldn’t be helped. They were way cooler than any decorated plasters she’d ever gotten.

“Mind those, Miss Daring,” said Cervile, noticing the focus of her attention. “Absent any surviving medical equipment to work with, I had to make do with magic. They shall fade away without my constant attention, so if you leave this place, be sure to get them attended to elsewhere. I’ll take you back to your father, and it would be wise to make sure —”

They kept talking, but the words passed right through one of Daring’s ears and out the other. Her gaze had risen past the ghostly bandages and onto something on the floor, battered and marred by dust, but still instantly, wonderfully familiar to her.

It was her mother’s helmet, lying atop the dust like a mountain, and with an excited cry, Daring sprung right for it and snatched it up in her forehooves, cradling it against her front.

“I did observe you didn’t have it when I first saw you down here,” said Cervile, trotting over. “It fell afoul of events, I assume?”

“Yes,” said Daring breathlessly. “But I’ve got it.” She hugged it, bending the cloth-covered pith slightly, and found herself lost in the feel of it, all the familiar sensations. The helmet was stories by candlelight, with Dad going through his full range of attempts at spooky voices while the hat sat on the mantle overhead. It was a warm pillow in the cart, keeping her head comfortable while the contents of said head sailed on magic seas. It was the crash of the ceiling-trap and the fire of the sentry, the first dangers Daring had overcome on her first adventure, and carried a faint burnt scent from the latter.

It was fire and mystery and excitement and promises and Dad and a Mom Daring had never met but could imagine vividly. It was every story she’d ever heard, and it had fallen down into shadow but had re-emerged with a few scuffs and a great new story for its trouble. Just like her, Daring thought. It was a reminder.

She gently pressed it back onto her head, imagining that it fitted more comfortably than it had done before, and she turned back to Cervile. A bright and lively fire danced around her soul, and she felt that a little bit of it must reach her eyes.

“Cervile, you said you could teleport me away if there was any danger,” she said. “Right?”

“Quite correct,” replied Cervile, disarmed by the sudden line of enquiry. “Should unusually truculent guests threaten, it was intended as a means of disposing of them without bothering Lord Fallow. Why do you ask?”

“So you could just get me out of the way somewhere if I was in any real danger, and you could do it right away? You could take me somewhere, and then, say, teleport me right to my Dad?”

“Correct,” said Cervile, their tone becoming slower and dubious, as if they sighted the stormclouds approaching from the horizon of this conversation.

Daring took a breath in. “Could you let me see Lord Fallow?”

Cervile blinked, and then their gaze flickered from side to side. “Miss Daring, it is customary that guests await the pleasure of Lord Fallow. He does not make himself available at all times, and a guest meeting him unannounced would violate all propriety.”

“So could you announce me?” Daring tried to meet Cervile right in their eye-lights and found it surprisingly difficult; they were reluctant to meet her gaze. But why? “I don’t have to disturb him. I just have to know that he’s there, and whether he’s doing anything else evil. If I know, then I can tell my dad. And me and him don’t have to come in without a clue about what’s waiting for us at the heart of this place. That’s only right, right?”

If it went right and Cervile agreed, she thought, then she could play things by ear. Maybe if Lord Fallow was distracted or weak, or was the sort of villain who could be redeemed of their wickedness with the power of friendship, she could defeat him there and then. And if not, she could always get back to Dad and get out of here, and come back better.

Cervile stood silent.

“Cervile?” said Daring. “Teleport me in, teleport me out if Lord Fallow gets mad. And if he gets mad, you don’t have to take the blame, you can just tell him I threatened you and you gallantly tried to fight me off or something, but I was just too strong, but in a last-ditch heroic effort you were able to overcome me and teleport me away from your master. He might like it.”

The ghostly lines of Cervile’s face creased with a subtle, sad smile. “Lying to one’s master certainly violates all propiety. I don’t recall being threatened, for one.”

Daring glanced around the room, and alighted upon the shaft of the great glaive lying just to her side. “Grr!” she said in what seemed like appropriately thuggish tones. “Lead me to your master, er, lackey! Or I shall horrifically eviskerate —”

“Eviscerate,” corrected Cervile.

“Eviscerate,” said Daring, who had only ever seen it written down, “you with this glaive right here! Grr, again!” She tried to pick up the glaive with her teeth, and after straining for several long moments, gave up. There were probably buildings that weighed less than it. She panted and looked up at Cervile. “There. That totally counts as a threat, right?”

Cervile stood in silence, their eye-lights blazing with an inner turmoil of fire. They raised a ghostly hoof to their mouth and coughed slightly. “By the slimmest of technical margins, I believe it does.”

“Aha! Then you can tell Lord Fallow that I did —”

“I could,” said Cervile softly. “For all the good it would do.”

Daring stared up at Cervile, trying to make sense of their reluctance to go along with what was a clearly sensible plan. Was Lord Fallow that cruel that his servants feared to cross him? “You don’t have to teleport me right in there, I guess,” she said — she didn’t want Cervile to get hurt. “Just point me the way, I’ll slip in, and if Lord Fallow objects, then you can be the brave hero who teleports the unruly guest away.”

“I do appreciate the thought, Miss Daring. But I fear it would equally ...” Cervile trailed off. Their eye-lights dimmed for a moment, and then snapped back to brightness. “I suppose it could scarcely do much harm at all, and propriety has probably been reduced to tatters by this stage regardless. I’ll take you to Lord Fallow, but in return, I must beg one boon.”

“Oh. What?”

“Let me reunite you with your father as soon as possible,” Cervile pressed. “My experience with most things is limited, but I know enough of the unpleasant emotions that a parent must feel for a lost child.”

A flush of guilt spread throughout Daring, and she briefly reconsidered this half-baked idea partly inspired by the helmet, thought about just going straight to Dad. But she had to do this, take this last plunge before the first day of her first adventure came to a close. “Sure,” she said. “As soon as I’ve seen Lord Fallow, take me to him. That’s fine. You’ll be able to teleport me or him away if there’s any danger, right?”

Magic began to curl into a blaze about Cervile’s antlers, matching a spreading fire billowing from their eye-lights. “Please believe me, Miss Daring,” they said sadly. “You are in no danger at all.”

Then the world flashed blue, then white, and Daring felt a sudden lurch all about her body, as if she was being picked up off the floor and plonked down a scant few inches away. The white faded away, and Daring found herself in the middle of a study next to Cervile, the library-bottom entirely vanished.

She was in Lord Fallow’s study. It couldn’t be anywhere else.

The study itself was as dusty as everywhere else, low-ceilinged and darkly-textured, with shelves full of books and pictures and assorted little pots and devices lining all the walls. Cervile’s light was the only source of it, casting deep shadows all around. Daring glanced at a heavy wooden door and then looked across the room, to the great desk facing it.

From her side, looking up at it, she could see scattered books, jutting quill pens and stacks of paper, a thick tome and a thin volume stacked atop one another, and the backs of two picture-frames. It was silent here, and a throne-like chair rose behind the desk with no sign of Lord Fallow sitting in it, or anywhere else for that matter.

“Cervile?” she said. “Where’s Lord Fallow?” The buckservant didn’t answer, and as she peered at the desk, she caught a glimpse of white by its side.

Her breath caught in her mouth, and she circled around slowly, hesitantly, to see what waited there.

And there, there lay the skeleton of a stag sprawled out on their side as if they’d simply slumped and fallen down from the chair, their bones and antlers pale amidst the rags and tatters of a long-decayed robe. The empty sockets of their skull stared blankly ahead at nothing at all, passing right through Daring. The bones of his skull were sharp, his withers were broad, and the shape of his antlers was a match for a set she’d seen in a painting not so long ago.

Daring stared at the skeleton of Lord Fallow, less horrified for it being the umpteenth one she’d seen that day alone and one of the few that wasn't actually trying to kill her, and desperately tried to make sense of things.

There was no evil wizard to threaten or vanquish anymore, nothing here that hadn’t stopped being a threat to anyone three thousand years ago. Questions and curses and demands and clouds of purest bewilderment raged through her skull, and in lieu of them all, she eventually glanced round at Cervile, who stood still in the silent murk of the study.

“You tricked me as well, I guess,” she said at last. “You said he was still in residence.”

Cervile hesitated before speaking. “In a manner of speaking —”

“No. He’s really dead. That’s not residence.”

Cervile didn’t speak for the longest time, and Daring couldn’t decide on any questions or curses to try and break them from their silence. This was how the heroic quest ended. There’d never been one at all. There’d only been what there’d always been from the start: an old ruin filled with a dead mage-lord’s mistakes. She shouldn’t be disappointed — she’d only expected a cool old ruin from the start — but her hopes had been raised, and Dad had been hurt, and it had all been for nothing much at all. How could she help Cervile and the others now?

Lord Fallow’s empty eyes stared right through her, and Daring shivered. She moved away from them and clambered up onto his empty chair. That gave her a better view of the desk’s contents. The papers were covered in illegible chicken-scratch, and the various scattered books seemed to all be about soul-forging, or at least have ‘Pneuma-something’ in their titles. She looked down to the thick and thin books, and the thin one simply had Journal stitched into its faded cloth front with thread that retained a subtle golden glow. She shifted it, and the thick tome beneath had Notes on its own front, in thread that was a silvery blue.

Finally, she looked up at the two pictures. They seemed like photographs at first sight, but as she looked harder, they seemed to be made up of thousands of tiny brush-strokes, like paintings in miniature. Maybe the Antlerteans had had a different way of taking photos. In the one on the left, she recognised another image of the doe from the painting, Lady Aurum. She stood in front of a strange set of pillars overlooking an unknown seascape, a knowing and patient smile on her features. Daring peered closer and realised with surprise that her eyes were subtly creased at the edges, and her tongue protruded out at whoever had made or taken the painting — maybe Fallow himself. Like mother, like daughter.

The daughter herself was in the picture to the right, and was racing across a stretch of floor that Daring recognised as the main hallway. She had a piece of string in her mouth and was trailing it along the ground, hotly pursued by a little scorpion sporting a pink collar just past its front legs, its claws raised to snap at the trailing string like a cat would. Even past the string in her mouth, Flora looked like she was laughing.

“I remember one day waking up,” Cervile said, their tone still soft. “And that was that. I woke up, and remembering started. Lord Fallow was there, and I knew my duty was to serve him till time’s ending. He asked me questions, some personal and some not, some I knew the answers to and some I didn’t, and he seemed satisfied. And then he withdrew, gave me an instruction, and my service began. I cooked his meals, tidied his quarters, received visitors and royal messengers to wait at Lord Fallow’s pleasure. And that went on, and it was all right. It was what I had to do, it was my duty, as natural and necessary as breathing.”

“And then, one day after the last messenger came, there was all manner of rumbling from outside and no small amount of disruption and breakages inside, and once I’d finished cleaning, I made my way to this study. And I found Lord Fallow like this. And there were no more orders, no more service, no more guests to be received and treated with every kindness. Days of waiting turned into weeks, and months, and years, and so forth, and everything spoiled or wore away.”

“I couldn’t clean. I couldn’t serve. I couldn’t greet guests when none came. And I could only wander these halls, do what I could with what little implements wore away over the years.” Cervile’s voice tightened. “The dust gathered and the air darkened, and centuries became millenia where I couldn’t so much as breathe. I couldn’t go mad as a salve or destroy myself. And I tried hard, so very hard, to remember who I might have been before my soulforging, and whether they had some inner treasure to grasp as my own, something to give me another purpose to sustain my spirit and keep me going. But Lord Fallow had done too thorough a job. I only had myself. I could only wait, and … and try to trick myself as best I could. It never entirely worked.”

Daring didn’t dare to speak, and Cervile awkwardly finished. “You truly are my first breath of fresh air in longer than I care to think, Miss Daring. And I can only apologise for tricking you as I tried to trick myself.”

Daring swallowed, hopped off the front of the desk, and trotted to Cervile. “Can you … be anything other than intangible?”

Cervile paused. “I could manifest an aura of solidity to fit my frame, if such would suit. Shall I?”

Daring nodded, and as Cervile’s antlers blazed anew, he was shrouded in a glittering haze of blue light. Daring reached out and hugged him as hard as she could. “Don’t worry about the trick,” she said. “I did the same. All’s forgiven. Again.”

Cervile, after a long moment, awkwardly reached one newly-tangible leg around to pat her on the back. They didn’t seem like a natural hugger. “Shall we call it quits on that front, Miss Daring?”

“Let's.” Daring released her grip out of kindness towards Cervile and stepped back. “I … uh ...”

Cervile regarded her patiently, and Daring finally marshaled her thoughts. “There’s … if this whole adventure by my dad and I works out — and I guess it already has, if there’s no Lord Fallow left to muck things up — other ponies might want to come here as well. For ‘follow-up studies’ or something. They’ll all be your guests. They’ll all want someone to show them around, to give them hospitality, help them translate, and lots of other things. Maybe they’ll bring food and stuff, and you could help them there. Would that make you happy?”

Cervile didn’t answer for a long while, and Daring couldn’t even begin to describe the motions in the depths of their eye-lights. “Are you sure all that will transpire?” they said.

“Positive,” said Daring. From all Dad had told her or alluded to, wherever one adventurer-archeologist went to secure a claim and bring home a trophy-piece, the rest flocked as well to look over the place and gather up whatever the first one had missed or study things that fitted with their own line of research. This was ‘the spirit of the great mutual endeavour’ when Dad was feeling kind, and ‘like a pack of screeching gannets’ when he wasn’t. Either way, it could only be a good thing for Cervile. “Some of them might even want to ask you questions about you. Would that be alright?”

“I am a frightfully boring subject, Miss, but I’m sure I could do my best,” said Cervile, looking curious at the notion. Their growing delight was all but palpable, though. “If they come as guests in need of my attention, then I shall receive them. And if such does come about thanks to your visit, Miss Daring … I doubt you’d find a more grateful buckservant.”

“You’re not that boring. And it’s no problem.” A glow of pride swept out from Daring’s heart. At least one being would get a happy ending out of all this.

There was surely still some way to get a happy — or at least, more satisfying — ending for herself and Dad as well. And if there was the right kind of trophy-piece around here, that could do the trick. If the Royal Archaeological Society expected a trophy-piece from Dad for all his pains here, then she could make sure it got one from him. She’d find something in here, one of Lord Fallow’s own treasures, and present it to Dad. Even if he was still mad, he’d know that she’d been right to come down here, that she was meant to be in this sort of place.

She swept her gaze around the room and thought of what that trophy-piece could actually be, though. There were various strange objects on some of the shelves, but nothing that really seemed to scream trophy-piece, nothing that seemed like it was from this place and nowhere else.

Her gaze went up towards the desk, and her eyes glittered with realisation. Most trophy-pieces she’d heard about were golden idols, rich old tapestries, an old king’s personal lance, that sort of thing. But there was no rule saying one couldn’t be a book, was there? And if the old personal notebook of a mage-lord holding goodness knows what mysteries and ancient secrets and lost magics between its covers wasn’t a worthy treasure, what was?

Cervile’s form flashed away for a moment, and then flickered back into existence. “If there is nothing else you wish to do here, Miss, then let me take you to your father,” said Cervile. “He is currently making his way through one of the storage chambers, and his voice is growing hoarse.”

“Could you ...” Daring thought quickly, wondering whether she could lug the notebook (which was far too small a name for it, it was a notetome) all the way. If Dad could come here instead, she could show that it came from here, make sure she could give it a suitably dramatic presentation, show him that she’d made it here. “Could you bring him here to the study instead? Put lights on the floor showing him the way, or just tell him I’m here if you have to, or … or however? Please?”

Cervile regarded her for a moment, and then nodded and bowed. “A favour for a breath of fresh air, then. I shall alert him as to your safety and location here.”

“Thank you,” said Daring. “For that. For everything.”

“Never a problem, Miss Daring,” said Cervile. “This has been the brightest day I’ve had for a very long while, after all.”

They flashed out of existence, leaving a little glowing orb in the air that rose up towards the ceiling for Daring to see by, and in the silent emptiness left behind in their wake, she moved quickly. She clambered back up onto the desk and made right for the stacked books, pushing the journal to one side. It fell harder than she’d expected and flapped open on the desk, making Daring wince. It didn’t look damaged, though, and she pushed the notetome free. It was as heavy as she’d expected from something that was half the size of Daring herself, and she strained to push it across the desk, inch by inch.

The pictures of Aurum and Flora lay in her path, and she scurried around the notetome to gently move them to one side. She pushed Aurum over a few inches, leaned over to scoop up Flora, and turned around to find an empty place on the desk for her.

As she turned, she caught sight of the slumped form of Lord Fallow behind the desk, fallen where he’d been working, where Cervile had found him so many years ago.

Daring couldn’t help the memory that came to her of the hallway painting then, of the great sharp-featured stag alongside his wife and daughter. She looked down at the picture of Flora and her pet scorpion, and wondered who’d gotten it and the pink collar around its neck for her. Words by a library door came to her as well, telling Flora to keep out of said library, written for her alone. Had Lord Fallow wanted her to keep safe and away from the abyss and the maybe-dangerous enchanted books there? Did he want her kept well away from the laboratory where he did his soulforging?

Why did Cervile sound like they had only ever known Lord Fallow?

The note she’d found discarded amidst the refuse at the bottom of the library rose in her mind, and the emphasised words upon it rested on her mind like a lead weight. “Recreate,” she whispered.

Nothing could be a good enough reason for the things Fallow had done here. Daring knew that beyond a doubt.

But … that was a reason, if nothing else.

She spent a long, long moment there on the desk, with only the silence and Lord Fallow’s body for company. And though it cost her more precious moments, she gingerly picked up both the pictures in her mouth, jumped down to the chair and down from there to the floor, and nestled them both against the fabric of his robe covering the sweep of his neck, past the bones of his forelegs. She took a step back, and wondered if there was anything she could say.

Nothing she could say past the lump in her throat came to mind, and she made her way back up to the desktop. Maybe other archaeologists would disturb Fallow and the pictures, she felt, but for now they could be together again, as best she could manage.

Daring steadied herself on the desk, steadied herself in general, and had just made her way back to the notetome to make sure it was facing forward when there was a flash of blue in the air before her. She looked up and saw Cervile there.

“Your father is on his way here,” they said. “A map of the place was conjured in the air before him, and your location was marked upon it. He knows you are safe, and he shall be here shortly.”

“Thank you!” said Daring, happy for the distraction from what lay at her back and hoping she didn’t sound choked. “I’ll talk to him. It’ll … it’ll be fine.”

“I’ll keep myself at a certain remove, if you feel my direct presence would be intrusive.”

“Okay,” said Daring. It might have been good to have Cervile there for moral support, but this was something she knew she had to do by herself. This was her thing to face up to. “I … I might leave with him after. If I don’t speak to you again, thank you. Again. And even if other archaeologists don’t come for whatever reason, I promise I’ll come back.”

Cervile smiled. “I look forward to that. For that, and for everything else, Miss Daring, my thanks.”

They faded away then, becoming nothing more than blue motes that dissipated into the air of the study. Daring took as deep a breath as she could, rested a forehoof on the cover of the notetome, and heard rapid hoofsteps come her way from the corridor beyond.

They came closer and closer, a limping dissonance to their rhythm, and after a tense and expectant moment that lasted an eternity, the door slammed open, revealing the shape of Dad.

He was panting and ragged, his tricorn loosely on his head and his jacket slashed to ribbons wherever it had met the glaive. Part of it had been ripped off and wrapped as a tourniquet around his wounded leg, the indigo there given a dark purple hue by his blood. The right side of his face was a solid mass of purple and slick crimson, and what little of his eye showed past the patchwork of swollen bruises looked solidly red. The other eye was bloodshot and filled with a panicked sort of desperation. He looked right at Daring, and that desperation fell clean away in favour of a dawning, giddy, and purely delighted relief.

“Dad!” Daring called at the same time as he cried, “Daring!”, and he limped towards her with all the speed his wounded leg afforded him. As he drew closer, she saw that her slashed saddlebags were draped over his back, and then she saw nothing else as she was swept off the desk in a great, deep hug right against the front of his justacorps.

“I’m alright,” she said, somewhat muffled by the fabric, hugging back as best she could. “Wing’s a little busted, but I’m alright.”

“You’re alright,” Dad murmured, seemingly to himself without reference to Daring’s words. “You’re alright. Thank the stars and earth and skies and everything under the sun, you’re alright. Thank everything. You’re alright. Your wing ...”

“It’s okay,” whispered Daring.

A low shudder escaped him, and after a long while, she felt herself being lifted away from his front and set back upon the desk. She looked up a little to meet Dad in the eyes and saw that he had them closed. He was breathing deeply, as if he was steeling himself, or mastering himself against some rising tide of emotion.

“It’s going to be okay, Dad,” Daring ventured, and she tapped her forehoof against the top of the notetome, watching Dad’s unfamiliar, closed-off expression with trepidation. “I found a trophy-piece, you can —”

“What were you thinking?” Dad said, his voice soft, his eyes still closed.

Daring tensed. “I … know you didn’t —”

His eye slammed open, and a tide of simmering, fear-born anger blazed from it, from the snarl on his face, right down upon her. “What were you thinking? I told you you couldn’t come down here! I told you you weren’t old enough for this, that you’d be getting into danger that could kill you! Did you listen to me at all?”

“I just —” Daring all but cowered before the force of this row; she’d never gotten one this fierce, never seen Dad so frantic and blazingly angry. And it was only starting.

“Do you know how worried I was when I first saw you in that library? Can you even imagine how I felt when I woke up after fighting that guard and you weren’t there? Hah, ‘what were you thinking’. Were you thinking at all?”

“I —” Daring swallowed and tried to ignore the bubbling anxiety that was twisting her stomach into knots and the mounting pressure behind her eyes. She had to defend herself. “I had to come down here. I had to have this adventure, to prove to you I could!”

“You’ve proved nothing,” hissed Dad. “Nothing but that you’re too young, too reckless, too unthinking to even deserve to dream of having adventures! I told you ponies die on adventures, and if I hadn’t come in that moment, you would have!”

“I wasn’t going to die!” Daring stamped her hoof and screwed her eyes shut against a second wave of angry tears that threatened. She had to defend herself. “I’d gotten through everything else! I’d been fast and smart and lucky, and I would have gotten out of —”

“Lucky? You never, ever trust in luck! You prepare. You advance with all proper caution and as much foresight as you can. You remove luck from every possible bit of the equation! That’s what proper adventurer-archaeologists do. They don’t rush in like little fools, thinking they’ll breeze through anything the delve throws at them!”

“You told me Mom was brave and lucky!”

Dad seemed stunned for a brief moment. “Don’t you dare,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare use her as a reason for your utter thoughtlessness.”

“You told me she was the bravest and best pegasus in all Equestria! I listened to your stories. You said she was lucky as anything, that she could get out of any —”

“She trusted to luck once too often, and that’s why she died!”

The last word was shouted, and Dad shuddered after it, his next words coming out hoarse. “And if I hadn’t found you just at that moment, that’s what would have happened again. Another pony I love to be buried. Was that what you wanted? Because it’s what you were doing. Open your eyes and look at me.”

“I’d have been fine,” replied Daring, her eyes still shut. “You told me she came out fine as well nearly all the time! And all the stories I read —”

“Not another word,” growled Dad. “We’re leaving this ruin. You are staying at Ivory’s. I’m coming back here alone, and we’re going straight back to Canterlot after. The next time I head out, you are not coming. And if you ever do this again, I will take every single book in your room that told this would be a good idea, and I will burn them.”

Daring found her throat closing tight at the idea of it, of countless stories she knew and loved and re-read like old friends going up in flames.

And that closedness twisted inside her into purest anger, and she slammed her eyes open to glare right at Dad, heedless of the tears that sprang forth. “Then why did you give them to me in the first place?” she screamed in a voice that all but erupted out of her.

Dad stood as still as if he’d been bolted to the floor. “Not another word.”

“Why did you ever tell me about Mom or anything she did?”

“Not another word!”

From the corridor beyond, there was the distant clatter of hooves.

Dad paused, catching his breath, and wheeled to face the door. Daring craned to see what might be there, and Dad glanced briefly back in her direction. “Get behind the desk,” he said flatly, and Daring obeyed, her anger deflated by the sudden distraction. She sprung down behind the desk next to Lord Fallow and craned her head around its corner to try and see what was coming. As she did, she heard the clack of Dad’s spurs against the floor.

The hooves came closer and closer, in what sounded like a leisurely trot. Daring held her breath, and she was aware of Dad shuffling into a battle-ready stance as best he could on his injured leg. Eventually, the trotting sounded just outside the door to the study, and a new figure came strolling in.

Daring stared up at them, up at her, and she blinked in utter bewilderment as recognition dawned. It was the tall, wiry, copper-coated mare she’d bumped into out on the streets of Ponyville, the one who’d been dressed in a rumpled cloak and pulling a wagon similar to Dad’s. Her cloak was gone, though, and in its place she wore bright steel barding partly covered by a crimson cape and a combed steel helmet, an old-styled morion. Dark and compact saddlebags hung across her back, jangling as she moved.

She came to a stop in the middle of the study, sporting the widest smirk Daring had ever seen on a pony and which she turned right on Dad. “Gallivant. It’s been far too short a while.”

From past the hulk of the desk obscuring Daring’s view, there was a pregnant pause, and then Dad’s slow, disbelieving tones. “Old Chestnut? What in the name of the Mare in the Moon are you doing here?”

“Following hoofprints somepony kindly left in the dust for me to follow. And tsk. Back in the day, you’d greet me and others with all manner of professional courtesies.” Old Chestnut’s eyes glittered. “But it’s hardly the old days anymore, I suppose.”

“It’s been a gruelling day,” Dad growled. “What are you doing here? I’ve staked a claim, if you’re thinking of doing something daft.”

“Have you now?” said Old Chestnut innocently. “Ponies at the society offices have such loose lips. I followed your wagon here yesterday, and I saw you go below earlier today. Thank you for clearing a path through most of the obstacles, by the way. You’ve had no time to send a message back confirming your claim. Have you even picked up a trophy-piece yet?”

“Not yet,” Dad said curtly.

“Excellent.” Old Chestnut’s smirk sharpened. “Then you won’t have anything slowing you down while I shoo you off the premises.”

“Oh dear. You are doing something daft.” His tone was dry, and there was the sound of Dad’s hooves scuffing a short distance on the floor. “Weren’t the last two times humiliating enough? I recall leaving you tied upside-down by your tail from a flag-pole for the last one.”

“Yes, lovely glory days for you, I’m sure,” purred Old Chestnut. “But you’re rather lacking a certain quality element now.”

“Old Chestnut, this has been lovely and professional so far,” said Dad, and danger ran through his tone like a thread of steel. “I advise against making it personal. For your own sake, of course.”

“Frightening,” sneered Old Chestnut. “Scary as a kitten on a teat. You’ll forgive me if I choose not to be intimidated by a useless has-been with as much right to be conducting a delve as a tortoise has flying.”

“The latter would appear truly marvellous to all onlookers, so you’ve stumbled onto an apt comparison for once in your career. Well done. Keep it up.”

“A useless has-been who’s spent the last eight years quietly and correctly mouldering behind a desk while better ponies than he do proper field work,” continued Old Chestnut. “Don’t pretend you’re still up to this. You’re nothing without—”

There was the sharp clang of a spur slamming into the floor, and Daring saw Old Chestnut reflexively edge back before rallying. She glared flatly in Dad’s direction. “Your wife merited respect when she was still around, may the Hereafter treat her kindly, and stars know what she saw in you. I’m not going to be upstaged again, and certainly not by the useless half of your duo,” she hissed. “You don’t merit spit, Gallivant, and I’ll be damned if you get to slather your dusty, useless hide over a piece of Antlertean gold.”

And that was a little too much for Daring to stomach. “You shut up!” she blazed, leaping out from behind the desk and scowling right up at Old Chestnut. “He does so merit spit! I mean, he doesn’t … that is … you shut up!”

Old Chestnut stared right at her, eyes wide.

“Daring,” Dad said wearily. “You were told to stay behind the desk.”

Old Chestnut took a deep breath. “Gallivant,” she started, her words slow and deliberate and rising to a shout, “Why in the name of the princess’s last earth-quaking rut is your daughter down here?”

“Language,” rasped Dad in a tone that was all steel. And past everything, Daring still found the mental space in which to exult and add rut to her ever-growing curse catalog. What a productive day this had been for it.

“This is a feathering ruin! An Antlertean ruin! Why would you bring a foal here?”

“I didn’t bring her along with me,” said Dad from between gritted teeth.

“It's a rutting school hour, for star’s sake!”

“I brought myself along!” Daring yelled. “I came down here by myself, and don’t you dare blame Dad for that. He’s a great adventurer, and I’m doing what he does!”

“Please stop helping, Daring,” said Dad gently.

“Enough of this,” hissed Old Chestnut. “You’re leaving, and you’re certainly taking your daughter with you, you irresponsible Eohippus of a stallion. Don’t think about forcing the issue. This is my spot to claim. This is my glory you’re squatting in.”

There was a pause, and then Dad kicked off one spur. He said, in a tired voice, “Get behind the desk, Daring.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Old Chestnut. “You’re going for hard negotiation. You’re already injured. Do you want your daughter to see you humiliated that badly?”

Dad kicked off the other spur. “Behind the desk, Daring,” he said flatly. The steel lingered in his tone, and Daring found herself edging back behind the desk. Her gaze remained fixed on the two, and she winced as Old Chestnut kicked sharpened steel shoes off and onto the floor with a clatter. She swept them to one side with contemptuous ease, and Daring hated how fresh and upright she was, how undented and gleaming her armour and helmet were.

Her eyes went to Dad, and she shivered at how battered and tired he was in comparison, how slow and fatigued his movements were. He winced as he adjusted his stance, his injured leg’s hoof skittered awkwardly across the floor as he hesitated to put any weight on it, and his bloodied coat hung around him in rags. She couldn’t see the hurt right side of his face, but she knew it was there. The eye that faced Daring flickered in her direction for a moment. Another sad attempt at a reassuring smile creased Dad’s battered features, and she saw him mouth, “It’ll be alright, Daring. Stay behind the desk.”

And with that, she saw him face Old Chestnut with his one good eye and draw himself up into as high and ready a stance as he could. He had to know he couldn’t win, she realised, but he was doing it anyway, as if there was something he was trying to live up to.

Was it for his own pride’s sake? Was it to make somepony else proud? Was that somepony Daring? Was it Mom?

“Look away, little filly,” came Old Chestnut’s cold tone. “Your daddy’s about to get himself hurt to an inch from the Hereafter.”

With that, she lunged forward across the study in an eye’s blink. Dad braced to meet her, and for the next few moments, all was a blur of crashing bodies, snapping teeth, and swinging hooves as the two archaeologists conducted hard negotiation in the best traditions of their profession. Daring struggled to keep track of what was happening as hooves spun and cracked against armoured bodies, as coats and capes whirled, as the two tore into each other with the mad desperation of fighting dogs.

They broke apart and circled for a moment, just a moment. Dad barely had time to take in a ragged breath before Old Chestnut tore at him again, plunging forwards with both forehooves kicking. He could only fend her off with one, and for every blow in the flurry that he turned aside, another slammed into his front, into his throat, into the injured side of his face. The smack of impact mingled with his cry of pain, and he was sent staggering back.

“Yield!” snarled Old Chestnut. She was already circling around Dad again, moving around his blind right side, and he was forced to hobble around to try and keep her in his sight. “Yield, you waste of hide. Spare yourself the shame of another loss.”

Dad lunged, his teeth champing inches in the air from Old Chestnut’s ear, and she slammed her morion-clad head forward into the injured side of his face again. A low hiss of pain escaped him, and he shrunk down, hunching up his withers to try and protect his face even as Old Chestnut began to circle him again.

His injured leg’s hoof caught on the ground, and the moment he spent trying to extricate it was all Old Chestnut needed. She dove in and slammed one almighty kick into the wound on his leg, and Dad collapsed with a rasping cry.

“Yield!”

The yell came from Old Chestnut. From Dad, there was a cut-off growl that might have been a new curse, and he twisted and tried to right himself on the ground as Old Chestnut threw kick after kick into his side.

Daring watched from behind the desk in mute horror, and she thought with all the furious energy desperation afforded. Dad couldn’t lose. He couldn’t. But if Old Chestnut kept being faster and kept hurting him where he’d already been hurt, he’d have to give up. And then everything here would have been for nothing, and Dad would limp away with no ruin, no trophy-piece, an injured leg and face, and feeling he’d disappointed whoever he was fighting for.

Cervile had looked for some inner treasure to keep them sane over the centuries, Daring remembered. And she remembered that bleak age spent down at the bottom of the library, and how much worse it would be to have that sort of treasure and to have it torn away from you.

She had to help. But how? Part of Daring wanted to plunge right in to kick and bite and buffet Old Chestnut to drive her off Dad. But another part of her which had hardened and taken shape throughout this day told her how that could go wrong. If she charged in, Dad might just surrender then to spare her from harm, and then he’d have lost anyway. If she charged in, she might just get hurt herself, but she wasn’t scared of that. If she got hurt by Old Chestnut, how would Dad react? There wasn’t any outcome there that led to anything good, and plenty that led to horrors Daring didn’t even want to think about.

What would a storybook adventurer do, when the battle was nearly lost and they themselves weren’t strong enough to win it? What would a sensible adventurer like Dad do if he could?

Daring racked her brain, cast about for any hanging thread to pull on to bring the whole horrible fight low, and then she remembered what she had.

It wasn’t often where both sorts of adventurers would run with the exact same solution, but it was perfect enough to fit them both.

“Cervile!” Daring went unheeded by the two battling archaeologists, and in the corner of her eye, there might have been a glimmer of blue. “Cervile, are you there?”

The glimmer of blue came again, motes of it twinkling in the air. “Please! We need your help! Get Old Chestnut out of here! Get her somewhere where she won’t hurt Dad!”

There was a moment of silence, like the hush after a first musical note. The blue in the air vanished.

And then there was a thunderclap and flash of light in the air between Dad and Old Chestnut, and where the latter had been knocked sprawling on the floor, an ethereal blue shape rose over her.

“You trespass in a private study, ma’am, and your conduct is unacceptably disorderly,” said the freehold’s buckservant in mild and meticulous tones that jangled with ice. “If you’ll pardon the presumption, I believe you need to comport yourself in the solarium for a short while. There is reading material there if you get bored.”

And before Old Chestnut could rise, or manage anything beyond a cut-off, “What the skyfiring ru—?” Cervile’s blue light enveloped her, and in a flash that sent the dust on the floor trembling, both vanished from the room. There was silence in the study then, before Dad feebly coughed where he lay upon the floor.

Daring stood still, and trembled slightly where she stood. A high, disbelieving laugh escaped her.

The dust in the room settled, and Dad struggled to his hooves. “Poppet?” he said, after a while in which he tried to shake a certain concussed bleariness out of his expression. “What was that?”

Daring felt another laugh try to escape her as it finally set in that she’d done it, they’d won. “I saved the day with the power of friendship.”

Technically, she thought as her legs threatened to collapse out from under her with sheer happy relief, it could have equally been the power of teleportation. But it was a friend’s teleportation, and that was what mattered.

Wherein Our Heroine Tells a Tale

They left the freehold at a slow pace, with Dad encumbered by the weight of Lord Fallow’s notetome and his injured leg. Leaving the study and getting to the library was more of an adventure than Daring had anticipated — there were seemingly dozens of corridors, storerooms, arboretums, and other indoor botanical gardens that Fallow must have used to grow alchemical ingredients for his trade. On their way back through the library itself, where they cut a straight line through the central laboratory, Daring saw a fallen ten-foot pole lying on the ground near the way to the library, and sets of wary purple and green eyes watched them all the way from shadowed tunnels. It wasn’t until they neared the exit on the other side that she heard a distant, “Yeah, you’d better run!” from those tunnels.

The stairs back up to the front of the freehold were a slog, but it was relatively straight walking after that. They passed under the big painting of Fallow, Aurum, and Flora, and Daring stuck her tongue out at the latter by way of a parting salute. They’d meet again in her dreams. There was also a muffled cursing from the door leading to the cavernium, and while Daring couldn’t help a certain smugness at the noise, she knew Cervile would be kind enough to let Old Chestnut out eventually. After that, when they were in the entry corridor and just about to leave, there was a soft prickling from the binding Cervile had applied to her wing, and she looked down to see words scrawled there.

I’ll keep a fresh cup in readiness for your next visit, Miss Daring.

Daring nuzzled the words briefly, glanced back behind her just as they made to leave, and could sworn she saw a glimmer of blue vanish back into the freehold.

Then they were out, and Daring half-expected to be greeted by fire. Dad did keep her close and under his coat, but no flames greeted them. There was a moment where he pointedly glanced around at Padhoof the sentry and tapped the crowbar under his coat. The sentry glowered but let them go in peace.

Up the winding stairs, out from the tower, and back through the cavern. Daring glanced behind herself one more time, at the white tower where she’d had her first adventure. She would be back, she told herself. To see all the rooms she’d missed, to read some or all of the books in the great library, to see Cervile again.

But for now, she had places to be, and other places to explore, and so she kept pace with Dad all the way up the walkway made by the Apples and out into the open sunlight and fresh air after what seemed like an age. It hadn’t even been that long. It was only mid-day at the latest, judging by the position of the sun, which beat down steadily and brilliantly in a cloudless sky.

Dad stepped out into the open field and shrugged off the notetome from where it was strapped to his back with a relieved sigh. He rooted around in his saddlebag and drew out a little compact camera, meant for taking and printing out little magical photographs on the go. He took a careful shot of the notetome where it lay upon the grass and then drew out a piece of paper and pencil from his saddlebags.

The next few moments passed by in silence as Dad scrawled out a note affirming his first claim to the ruin, with enclosed evidence of a trophy-piece taken from said ruin. Daring watched the trees bustle to themselves in the light summer breeze, birds flitting to and fro in their branches. There was the odd prickle from her wing as Cervile’s enchantments began to fade.

Finally, Dad finished his note and bound it and the printed photo together with a clip. He then drew out a little slip of alchemically-coloured paper from the brim of his hat and slipped it in under the clip as well.

“Messenger-paper,” he said softly when he realised Daring was watching, making her start. They were the first words he’d spoken since they’d left the study. “They make it in Asinia, with a spot of draconic magic mingled with alchemy and other things. Expensive stuff, but wonderful when you want a message to get somewhere in a hurry.”

He made a little tear in the paper with his hoof, and a tongue of green flame grew from the tear to quickly engulf the note and photo. They all spiraled off into the air as a cloud of green sparks, flying back towards Canterlot. Daring watched them fly off until they were lost against the blue of the sky.

Dad sat by her side to watch them leave as well. There was relief in his eyes, and a certain amount of quiet pride, and other things, stirring under the surface of the still lake that was his expression.

“Let’s get your wing looked at,” he said gently after a while in which the sun seemed to dip a little closer to the horizon. “I assume this place has a doctor’s clinic somewhere.”

Ponyville had a full-blown hospital as it turned out, after returning quickly to the Apple farm to enquire about the matter. Granny Smith greeted them at the gate with, “Howdy there, Mister Gallivant. How did your ... what in the consarned —” and lost little time in grabbing a nearby burly-looking son-in-law and instructing him to speed the injured archaeologist and his daughter to the hospital with all the haste his legs could muster lest she teach him why the Apple clan twitched in the presence of birches, and the son-in-law seemed only too eager to comply.

As they trundled onwards in the wagon pulled by Granny’s son-in-law, Daring wondered whether ‘consarn’ was actually a curse or just something ponies in the country made up as a joke to confuse outsiders, and felt that if she was a country pony that was exactly the sort of thing she’d do. ‘Consarn’ was placed into a new probationary curses category until she could learn more on the matter, and after some consideration, was reluctantly joined by ‘tabula rasa’.

Once they made it to the hospital, which was a nice, airy building at its reception, Dad lost no time in bundling her over to the front desk and insisting that somepony look at her wing as soon as possible. This backfired for him, as the receptionist seemed more concerned about his bleeding leg and the bruise he had where half his face should be, and soon Daring found herself fighting off boredom in the waiting room after Dad was all but shoved into the nearest room for the attention of a stern-looking doctor.

After about ten minutes, a slightly more kindly-looking doctor, an old unicorn mare, came out to take Daring into her office. She inspected the busted wing critically and ran her eyes over the rest of Daring’s injuries, her brow furrowing more and more.

“That appears to be a burn on your snout,” she said at one point. “How did you get that, chookie?”

“I, um.” Daring’s mind came to a complete standstill and then lurched into motion as she realised she needed a story for that which wouldn’t suggest she’d been down an ancient ruin and which couldn’t get Dad in trouble. She drew upon her cunning. “I, um, I sniffed a candle too hard.”

Consarn her cunning.

The doctor didn’t look convinced, but she rubbed a salve on the burn and several other parts, applied plasters to any bruises which had split open, and settled the wing in a snug brace which was nearly as good as Cervile’s. “How did you hurt your wing, chookie?” the doctor asked.

Not candles, Daring told herself. “I … I tripped over a log.”

“Tripped over a log.”

“Uh-huh.” Consarn everything, was there a maximum cunning quota she had to stay under in a day?

The doctor couldn’t have looked less convinced if Daring had told her the world revolved around the sun, but she finished her work in short order and released Daring from her office at the same time Dad was released from his own prolonged ministration.

His own improvised tourniquet had been replaced with something a lot cleaner and more medical-looking. The bruises on his face lingered, but over the bloodshot slit that had been his right eye, there was now a black eyepatch, glittering with imbued enchantment. Daring looked up at it in admiration of the coolness factor, and as he returned her look, Dad’s face broke into the first cheerful smile she’d seen from him for what seemed like a long while.

“Doctor’s orders are that I have to look like a dashing pirate for the rest of the week while the enchantments heal me up,” he said. “It’s a cruel burden to bear, but who am I to deny the demands of medicine?”

“It looks cool,” said Daring. “It goes with the hat and coat. Like you really are a pirate.”

“Caught by the demands of both medicine and fashion.” Dad shook his head sorrowfully. “I should have asked if it came in indigo.”

As they were leaving, and Dad was going through some paperwork with the receptionist while Daring glanced through all the boringness a newspaper had to offer on a nearby table, there was a clatter from the main door. Daring looked up, and there stood Ivory Scroll. She was out of breath, and she fixed Dad with a look that was pure panic.

“Gallivant, what have you been doing?” she said in a voice that was trying very hard to not be a scream. She glanced down at Daring, briefly offered up a reassuring smile, and that slipped away as she noticed the bandaged wing. Her next words didn’t even try to not be a scream. “What have you been doing?”

“Ivory, what’s wrong?” said Dad. “We’re both alive and … I was about to say ‘unhurt’. We’re both alive. Has something come up?”

“Has something come up? Has something come up?”

Daring sat on a cushion on the floor of Ivory’s livingroom, the very model of politeness and demureness.

Dad sat next to her, his own expression carefully composed.

Across from them, there sat Princess Celestia, Paramount of Equestria and the Dominions Thereof, Sol-Wielder, &c, clad in the shining regalia of state, her horn alight with a deep, golden aura of magic.

She sipped from a cup of tea in her grasp, made by Ivory who had since fled for the safety of her own bedroom, and studied the open notetome held before her. Daring could have dropped a pin and heard it echo.

Daring sat still and tried not to wriggle out of her own skin with sheer explosive excitement. She’d never been this close to the princess before, and had only ever seen her from a distance during Summer Sun Celebrations held in Canterlot. But now here she was, close enough for Daring to reach out and touch, and some darkly impish streak couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she did.

Princess Celestia glanced briefly over at Daring, and there was a short, paralysing moment where she made eye contact. Daring felt briefly swallowed up for a moment by fathomless magenta, wondered what the princess might be thinking, whether she knew what Daring was thinking, whether she was being apocalyptically rude for even making eye contact this long, and the train of mad thought threatened to spill Daring right off her cushion with fidgeting.

Princess Celestia winked at Daring, and then returned to her reading.

Daring sat back to try and piece her mind back together from the fact that today the Princess of Equestria had winked at her personally and what sort of day even was this, and in that moment, Princess Celestia closed the notetome. “You have my congratulations, Field Researcher Gallivant,” she said. “It’s been several decades since the last new Antlertean ruin was unearthed in Equestria, and few before that were ever delved quite so quickly. Your society’s hardly diminished in diligence and skill in all the centuries I’ve been acquainted with it.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Dad, bowing his head briefly. “You do me and the society a great deal of honour.”

Celestia looked over at Daring. “You look set to raise the next generation in your hoofsteps as well. Do you plan on going into archaeology as well, Daring?”

The princess had said her name. There weren’t just stories about Princess Celestia, there were legends. Her name was now known and spoken by that legend, and Daring spent a long moment trying to find suitable words before Dad gently prompted her. “The princess asked you a question, Da—”

“Yes! Archaeology's fun! Or it looks fun! Definitely want to go into it.” Daring gabbled, and only remembered to add, “... Your Majesty,” a few seconds later. Dad gave her an encouraging grin, and Celestia’s smile remained bright.

Daring couldn’t shake the impression that there was something sharp and calculating in Celestia’s gaze as she looked Daring up and down, though, as if she were taking notes. The thought almost made her uneasy, and she told herself that a clever and immortal princess surely did that sort of thing to everypony before Celestia turned back to Dad.

“It has been a while since the last Antlertean outpost was unearthed,” said Celestia. “There are certain protocols and safeguards I have put in place for such unearthings. Antlertean lore can be a uniquely dangerous field for the untrained and unprepared. And there is enough in this book alone to give even me pause. Do you know the safeguards of which I speak, Mister Gallivant?”

Dad suppressed a wince. “I suspect I do, Your Majesty.”

“Let me be plain, then,” said the princess, her tone still gentle, but now undeniably unyielding. “The last time Antlertean arts were found and practised by a pony without proper foresight or balances, ruin was brought to all Equestria. There are reasons why such knowledge is kept guarded under the care of myself and select and trusted scholars from arcane schools. Look north to the eternal winter where an empire once stood, and there you’ll find only one reason amongst many. This ruin and the knowledge it contains must be safely contained in a controlled manner by ponies to whom proper safeguards and checks can be applied. This is a matter of security for the realm as a whole. Do you understand what that entails?”

“That you shall have to confiscate the notebook, that the location and details of the ruin shall have to be kept secret, and that nothing about this can be submitted for publication to any journals, Your Majesty.” Dad seemed resigned, and although Daring was sure Celestia knew what she was talking about, her heart went out to Dad regardless. He’d been so keen on getting something published, even if it was just a boring journal paper.

“Quite so, I’m afraid,” said Celestia. “But that is not to say you’ll be dismissed from proceedings. I confess that the traditions of your society are often a source of mixed parts bewilderment and nervousness, but I shall respect them regardless. Your claim stands, and during the early delving by myself and whatever scholars I assign to the ruin, your guidance will be invaluable and we shall request your close and confidential involvement. Your prestige in delving the outpost single-hoovedly shall stand, and I imagine many ponies will want to shake your hoof and buy you drinks at your conferences. And of course, should we ever lift the confidentiality of the outpost, you will retain first publishing rights to its contents. I hope all that can still satisfy, and that you gain every possible professional benefit from this. The field and some of the surrounding land will be purchased at a good price from the Apples as well. I can't imagine Granny Smith will appreciate me letting said land be engulfed again by the Everfree but ... well, for most ponies, a stretch of Everfree forest is sufficient deterrent.”

Dad settled, and when he blinked and opened his eyes, he looked happier. “That all satisfies entirely, Your Majesty,” he said. “Let me know when you require my assistance for a delve, and I’ll provide it.”

“Not immediately, I suspect,” Celestia replied. “A suitable team of scholars will have to be assembled and preparations made. To that end, I was going to request that you make a report on the ruin as you would for any journal, but only for my eyes and whoever I choose to share it with.”

“Easily doable, Your Majesty.”

“Very good. Write and deliver it in your own time.” Celestia smiled. “Would it unduly trouble you if I could walk away today with something for distribution, Mister Gallivant? A page-long account of the broad details, just to give a preliminary idea about what we can expect from the place. Nothing grander than that.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” said Dad. He frowned. “It would be vague, you understand? Today’s delve wasn’t as … involved as it could have been, and I shall need future trips to build up a clearer picture.”

“Perfectly understood. Just give me the broad details today, so I won’t be too horribly surprised when the full report winds my way.”

“I can work on it right away, Your Majesty,” said Dad, rooting around for paper and a pen. “Allow me about ten or fifteen minutes, and I can dash off an outline of the place.”

“Please, take your time. I wouldn’t mind a little while to enjoy the day from this place’s veranda.” Celestia glanced around to Daring, who sat bolt-upright when she realised the princess was looking at her again. “Would you like to join me, Daring?”

“Gllck,” replied Daring, briefly tongue-tied. Dad looked her way, smiled reassuringly, and mouthed something like It’s the princess, Daring, it’ll be quite alright. Daring didn’t doubt it would be alright. But it was like if Commander Hurricane or Baron Munchorsen had suddenly clambered out from the pages of a book and offered to hang out with her for real. This wasn’t the sort of thing that happened during sensible days.

Her cutie mark trilled, Consarn sensible, and Daring had to agree with it. She swallowed, smiled, and said, “Sure, that’d be cool. Er, Your Majesty.”

As if in a daze, she found herself stumbling next to the Princess of Equestria as they swept out from the living room and out onto Ivory’s veranda, just above the streets of Ponyville. Celestia’s chariot and guards waited by one side of the house, and as Daring looked round at them, one of the golden-armoured guards guiltily hid what looked like a comic book.

She just about suppressed her laugh then, releasing it as a snort, and Celestia briefly glanced her way with a smile before looking out over Ponyville.

The little town was in full bustle, which was still quiet by the standards of Canterlot. Ponies crossed the streets and manned colourful stalls, chatting with their neighbours and watering flower gardens. Some glanced admiringly up at Celestia as they passed and bobbed brief bows. Off in the distance, a group of foals played around the brook that ran through the town, and further off still, laughs came from high-up specks that were the town’s weather patrol, tossing a small cloud to one another.

It all sat under the summer sun, and Daring had to admit it was all nice enough, even if it had been a little (or a lot) boring at first sight. It was probably an ideal sort of place to rest between adventures, where a pony could feel at home.

“What a charming place,” Celestia said to herself, a note of genuine delight in her voice. “I might have to keep it in mind.”

“Keep it in mind for what?” Daring asked, and realised too late that she’d forgotten to add ‘Your Majesty’.

“A personal project of mine. Just a pipe-dream as yet,” said Celestia, who didn’t seem to notice or mind the lack of her title. She looked down at Daring. “You and your dad came here from Canterlot?”

Daring nodded. “Yeah. It’s a lot more … bustling than this place. More things going on. But here’s kind of nice too.” She met Celestia’s gaze, and it occurred to her just how huge the princess really was. She was the sort of pony who could have looked Steelhart right in the eye, and if even a quarter of the stories about her were true, she wouldn’t have even blinked when doing so.

“I grew up in a place like this,” Celestia said casually, and as Daring tried to so much as process the image of Celestia as a foal, a slightly sad look entered the princess’s eyes. “Quite a while ago now.”

“Oh,” replied Daring, for want of something more eloquent, and groped around blindly for that eloquent something. “At … at least you’ve always had plenty of stuff to do with your time since, right?”

Celestia chuckled, and the sound of it startled Daring with its simple genuineness. “Something of an understatement, but you’re quite right. I’ve never lacked for things to keep me busy.” Her gaze returned to Daring and away from Ponyville, and Daring was aware of that sharp concentration returning to Celestia’s gaze. The princess looked her up and down, and Daring was unsure what it might mean.

“Daring,” started Celestia, “would you mind if I asked you a question? Whatever the answer, you can tell me in total confidence.”

“I, er, can I? Can you? I mean, yes! Go ahead.”

Celestia looked her right in the eyes. “Your wing’s hurt. There’s a burn on your nose. There are bruises all over you. Could you tell me how those happened?”

Daring’s stomach seemed to jump up into her brain and do loop-the-loops around the rest of her body, and as her mouth opened and closed, an inner debate raged.

Don’t fib to the princess’s face!, wailed a responsible part of her.

Don’t get Dad and you in trouble by telling the truth!, wailed a differently-responsible part.

The second part was able to butt into Daring’s vocal cords first, and she found herself stammering, “I, um, I sniffed a candle too hard—”

“Daring,” interrupted Princess Celestia, “I should remind you that I’m fairly old as ponies go. Whenever I get a birthday cake these days, there’s often more candle than actual cake. And once you’ve lived that long … well, you do become fib-proof.”

Daring swallowed, and the part of her mind that had retired in disgust at her using the candle thing again was joined in its exit by the part that had advocated fibbing. Nothing else for it, then. “Total confidence? Do you promise?” she said.

“By every pony I’ve lost and hope to regain, one better day.” Celestia’s voice was soft. “Nopony can hear us here, Daring. You don’t have to worry about anypony else knowing that you’ve told me. How did you get hurt?”

Daring breathed in, and out. She steadied her nerves. Princess Celestia was infinitely less likely to hurt her than some of the things she’d encountered today. This shouldn’t be as scary as it was. She could do this.

And so it all came out, in one great sudden rush. “I went down into the ruins as well, without letting Dad know. There was a sentry who shot fire, and that’s where I got the burn, and then there was a library where I fell down a pit, and that’s where I got the bruises and hurt wing, and that’s how I got hurt. All of these things. And it was me who did it! Dad told me not to go down into the ruin, but I deliberately snuck out before he got there, I tricked him! It’s my fault! Don’t blame him for, for foal endangerment or anything like that, because he did the sensible thing and nothing wrong and you can’t be cross at him and punish him, you can’t! It’s my fault!”

Daring stopped to draw breath.

Celestia blinked.

“I, I.” Daring tried to pull more words out in case those weren’t enough. “I know that was wrong of me, and it nearly got Dad killed, it got him hurt. So if … you have to be cross or punish me, that’s fine. But nopony else did anything wrong.”

“Goodness,” said Celestia after a few moments in which Daring looked for any reaction in her eyes at all. “There wasn’t a single trace of fib in there at all.”

Daring wondered if she should dare to breathe out. “You … you mean—”

“Thank you for being brave and honest, Daring,” said Celestia, a genuine smile breaking out across her features once more. “Those are good virtues to have. And what you’ve told me isn’t as bad as what I feared it could be. Don’t worry that I’ll punish you or your dad or anypony else. I promised you total confidence, remember?”

Daring all but collapsed with sheer relief. “How did you know I wasn’t fibbing then? Can you read minds?”

“I can read ponies. That’s good enough. And I know honesty when I see it.”

Daring sagged further in relief. “And … you’re really not mad that I did that? That I went off to have an adventure all by myself?”

Celestia’s gaze seemed distant for a short while. “Do you know,” she started, “I used to be an adventurer as well? When I was very young — not quite as young as you — but definitely younger than a sensible pony should be?”

Daring looked up at the princess with rapt attention, and Celestia continued. “I adventured, with help of course, and when I got what I wanted at the end of it all … well, I had to settle down and become a princess, and leave the adventuring to other ponies who came after. I can’t ever be really cross at a pony who wants to be brave and leave their own mark on the world. And besides, I don’t think even if I was cross, it would make much difference.” She gestured at the burnt bit on Daring’s snout. “I doubt this was much fun to receive.”

Daring winced at the recollection of getting it. “No.”

“And I imagine your dad was worried out of his mind when he knew you’d been down there. I doubt you want to worry him like that again.”

“Not ever.”

“Well, then.” Celestia stood upright once more. “With those wise teachers already in your mind, I don’t see how I could add much. Just listen to your dad if he says things are dangerous. Dangerous things are his job, after all. And if you have to do it again, practise. Start slow and know what you’re getting into before you do it, and then do it with all your heart and skill. Can you do that?”

Daring mutely nodded.

“Good. That’s my sage-like princessly wisdom dispensed for the day, then.” A mischievous twinkle entered Celestia’s eye, and Daring couldn’t help a giggle. Celestia tilted her head with some curiosity. “Do you really want to get into archaeology like your dad?”

“Well … total confidence?”

“By the sun and moon and stars in my charge.”

“Dad has to write journal articles,” said Daring, lacing the two words with as much tedium as they deserved. “They’re boring, and I think you have to write them all the time if you adventure for the sake of archaeology. I read books instead. And if I had to write anything, I’d want to write a few books of my own. That’d be way more fun.”

“I can’t say I disapprove of that ambition in the slightest, though I should throw in a token few words defending the honour of the few interesting articles out there.” Celestia grinned. “But it’s as noble a course as any. Have adventures, and then write about them?”

“Yeah!” said Daring, as the idea took up a very happy solidity in her mind, now that somepony else had said it aloud. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

“Then as and when you get published, in whatever medium or format you see fit, Daring,” and here Princess Celestia doffed a short bow, taking Daring entirely off guard, “Rest assured, you’ll have at least one loyal fan waiting eagerly.”

Daring tried to think of how she could even respond to that, whether she should say thank you or hug the princess’s foreleg or whatever, and thankfully, Celestia didn’t seem put out at all by her silent indecision.

“Come,” said Celestia, motioning back inside. “Let’s see what your dad’s written so far. I don’t doubt it’ll be interesting.”

And it was mid-day, and it was afternoon, and after Celestia finally cut a golden blur through the sky back towards Canterlot in her flying chariot, it was evening of the coolest day of Daring’s life. She was in bed, and the helmet sat on the bedside table by her head.

She’d been restless in bed when she’d been sent there, and the full meal she’d eaten beforehand, the first proper one of the day, hadn’t helped matters much. It had been a meal fit for heroes, though the size of the portion Daring had thrown herself upon kept her digestion roiling for ages afterwards.

So she tossed and turned, and when she heard something clink from down below in Ivory’s living room, past the hush of Ponyville settling down for the night, she decided to head downstairs and see who was still up.

She crept down the stairs and peered around the corner, and there lay Dad amidst cushions on the floor beside a gently-flickering fireplace. He had an open album of photos on the floor beside him next to a stack of paper and a few pencils, as well a bottle and a tumbler half-full of amber-coloured liquid. As she watched, he turned a page of the album and looked at the contents, his gaze and thoughts seemingly far away.

Daring shifted her hooves, making the floor creak, and Dad looked in her direction with his one good eye. His distant look became a tired smile. “It’s past your bedtime, Daring,” he said gently.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Can I stay up for a bit?”

Dad shifted, making a space on the cushions next to him, and Daring trotted over to nestle herself in that space, pressing herself against the warmth of his form and against his reassuring heartbeat. For a silent moment, she lay there, and Dad hugged her close with a foreleg.

He raised the tumbler to his mouth for a sip, and Daring’s eyes watered at the fumes. She glanced around at the bottle and saw a parchment label wrapped around it sporting a stylised raven playing the bagpipes mid-flight. Blackstrath Reserve, the lettering ran beneath the raven, 25 Years Aged.

“Can I try some?” she said.

“This is the stuff which whenever you taste it, you always say ‘yuck’ afterwards. Pattern-recognition, poppet.” He moved it closer to her regardless. “Dip the tip of your hoof in.”

She did so, and she tasted the droplet, and it showed absolutely no signs of growing on her at all, demonstrating the ongoing insanity of all grown-ups who actually liked the stuff. “Blerrk.”

“Not a yuck this time,” said Dad. “I’ll call that progress.”

Daring tried to subtly spit the taste out, and as she did, her gaze drifted down to the photos. There seemed to be lots of ponies there, all celebrating something. Fancy clothes and buffet tables and discarded streamers abounded, in somewhere that might have been Manehattan. “What are you looking at?”

“Some old photo albums of Ivory’s,” he said. “This was all of us at a mutual friend’s wedding about ten years ago, nopony you know. Heck, I don’t remember them much now. I do remember it being a fun day and a fun night, though.” He paused then, and said, “Here.”

He flicked back a page, and Daring leaned closer to see. There, in a photo that had been taken by a waterfront, there stood a ten-years-younger Dad. His mane was slightly darker than its current charcoal-grey hue, there was a gregarious smile on his face, and the tricorn on his head had been decorated with several pounds of streamers.

And next to him, there stood a pegasus mare wearing a pith helmet, one of her forehooves wrapped around Dad’s withers. Her coat was a light gold, her mane was banded in a grey spectrum, and Daring drew her breath in as she realised who she was looking at. Ivory had been right, she was nearly identical, save for her eyes. Next to Dad’s rose colouring, Mom’s eyes were a sharp sky-blue. Her expression was set in a cocky smile, and her gaze seemed to pass right through the photo to meet Daring’s own.

“Her name was Storm Chaser,” came Dad’s voice, as if from a great distance. “And for the life of me, I’m still not entirely sure what she saw in me. But I’m glad she saw it, and she … she made every day a bit more alive. A bit wilder. She made everything more alive. She could light up a room just by being in it. And we cut a path across every ruin we could find. We delved into old ones and found new things, and we raced to find new ones to find whatever old things they had. And so long as she was doing it and I was with her, it was never tiring. Never.”

“We took a break, when we decided to have you. And you came, every bit the squalling and spitting image, and that was an extra bit of life right there.” Dad laughed. “Said coming was a little fraught, mind you. Storm Chaser wanted to keep working right up to the moment, no matter my common sense advice, and — well, suffice to say if the ornithopter lent us by that donkey ship crew hadn’t been as fast as it was, you could have been born in Saddle Arabia or right over the Cheval Sea rather than Canterlot. I’ll tell you that whole story some other time. But there you were regardless, and we slowed down. Only for a little while.”

“She —” Dad’s voice stumbled. “She wanted to get back in the action. So a few months after, we ran a few delves. Small stuff. But … there was one uncovered temple up towards Utmost North she wanted to have a crack at, said there were a few unsounded levels there. And I … I should have … ”

Daring nestled closer to Dad, and after a moment, he kept speaking. “Just one mistake, one I could have prevented with just a moment’s warning. She thought the corridor was safe, and I didn’t think to doubt her, and by the time the ceiling trap proved us both wrong … there wasn’t much left to save. I tried. Tried till the rest of the team came by and pulled me away. But there wasn’t much. And if I hadn’t had you waiting back home —”

Dad stopped and drew in a deep steadying breath, and though Daring could only see his eyepatched side from where she lay, she could imagine the emotions filling the one she couldn’t see. He leaned down and kissed the top of Daring’s head. “I’d never have burned your books,” he said. “I’d never have wanted you to not be what she was, if that was what you wanted to be. Hah, as if I could have ever suppressed anypony with a bit of Storm Chaser in them. I just … I just didn’t want to see the same mistake happening before my eyes again. A bit more caution than what she had, than what I had, so you didn’t go the same way. I just wanted that.”

“It’s okay,” murmured Daring. “I promise I’ll be more careful. If you don’t want to take me anywhere again, then I —”

“Ach,” said Dad. “You’re the spitting image. You’ll get in trouble whether or not I approve or let you. So I may as well take you places and show you the ropes, just so you’ll be able to handle the trouble when it comes. And I doubt she’d want me to do anything less.”

The words filled Daring’s heart with a fierce and steady joy, like the fire that burned at the core of a star, filling it till it felt too full for her to speak. She nestled in even closer.

“I once thought,” Dad said, “that if you grew up even half as brave and brilliant as Storm Chaser, there’d be no prouder father in Equestria than myself. And wherever she’s watching from, and I’m sure I couldn’t possibly speculate where, I was sure she couldn’t be prouder either.”

“And am I?” Daring dared ask.

“You’re growing up every bit her equal. Maybe even better.”

And for a long time, there was nothing left but the rustle of the fire and the sound of Ponyville drifting off to sleep from outside. Dad took another sip from the tumbler and gently closed the album.

“Anyway,” he said with emphasis. “If you’re going to stay awake, poppet, then maybe you could lend me a hoof.”

“With what?”

He slid over the pile of paper and pencils. “The princess asked me for a full report on the outpost, and that’s what I intend to give her. I’ll have to wait until I heal up before I can go back down, but there’s no reason I can’t start drafting things and writing down observations. Articles are hard things to write, and you need to prepare for them as much as any delve. I’ll ask you about what you found as well in more detail. You mentioned that she knew you’d been down there?”

“Yep. In total confidence. She promised.”

“Then since she won’t be suspicious, why don’t you write down a bit of what you found down there as well? Tell her anything you think she’ll need to know and pass onto the other scholars.” Dad slid over a few sheets of paper and a pencil. “Even if I have to boringify it later for the article, she might like something in your own words to start with. And it’s good practise in any case. What do you think?”

Daring looked wide-eyed at the paper and pencils before her. Where would she start? There was so much she felt she could tell Celestia and her scholars, and telling it all seemed like it would take forever.

But if it was a challenge, then all the more reason to accept it. “I’ll do it,” she said, with purest determination clear in her voice.

“That’s my girl,” said Dad gently, and set his own pencil in his mouth and leaned over his own papers.

For a long while, Daring hesitated over the empty page. What was important? How should she tell it? How might Celestia like to read it?

She’d have to mention Cervile for sure. Celestia should know that there was a kind ghostly buckservant there who’d love to greet and treat guests and who’d cast a spell to help her read anything down there. Padhoof as well. Celestia should be warned in advance about them. The library guards also.

And maybe, as Daring’s thoughts raced, she could even suggest that it’d be kind to these poor trapped souls to indulge them a little, to let them hold onto the treasure within. Pretend to be shooed off by the sentry before teleporting inside every once in a while, have a fake duel with the guards before pretending they’d driven you off, that sort of thing. It wasn’t much, and maybe it’d be impractical, but before Celestia figured out the magic to fix them all, maybe it’d give them something to be happy about.

What else? The routes she’d taken, what she’d done, and what she’d learned about the dreaded Lord Fallow and his hopeless quest to bring his family back. She wondered how she could even begin to write it all down and arrange it to be approximately readable.

And as she thought it over, she knew the answer. As she’d lived it, of course.

By firelight, under Dad’s approving eyes, Daring set her pencil to the paper and with increasing confidence, began to write.

There was a ruin underground and a filly trotted towards it, she wrote, letter by careful letter. Her name was Daring Do and she wore another heroine’s hat, and she was the heroine, and she was going to bravely vanquish the hole in the ground or perish horrificalillyhorrifically in the attempt …

And though Dad ended up carrying Daring back to her bed before she’d even got around to describing the heroine’s saddlebag full of useful gadgets, Daring thought it had been a perfectly good start.