Daring Doodle Donkey

Chapters

A Filly
A Daughter
A Mare
A Family

A Filly

The 24th Pegasus

A Filly

Cranky Doodle Donkey adjusted the weight of the bags on his back and stared up the trail ahead of him. The many, many boulders and avalanches of the rugged Smokey Mountains had left him exhausted, but he had to cross the range. The rail line that was supposed to connect Tall Tale with the rest of Equestria had yet to be laid, and probably wouldn’t be finished for another few years. Most would’ve simply bypassed the mountains by following the pass along the Unicorn Range, but not Cranky. As far as he was concerned, the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and he had no intention of straying from his planned path.

Besides, he’d already walked the Unicorn Range and never found her. For all he knew, she could’ve been holed up in one of the small villages that clung to the sides of these mountains, standing defiant against the snow and ice and blizzards that tore through their peaks. Although she never had been much of a winter girl herself…

The path fell apart in front of Cranky. Snow and ice choked what little had remained of the spring trails the ponies of the mountains had carved, promising treacherous hoofing and a terrifying plunge into the jagged ravine on Cranky’s left. The next safe slope was about a quarter mile away, where Cranky could see some bare gray granite. If he was right—and he knew he was—from there, it’d be little more than a gradual descent into the next town, and his bed for the night.

A shrill wind whipped across what little of Cranky’s muzzle the donkey had left exposed, and he shivered and raised his scarf. It would be getting dark soon, and the temperature would drop extremely low in the middle of the night. Sure, Cranky had enough firewood and tinder to survive another night on the mountains, but he wasn’t going to risk hypothermia with civilization so close nearby. He was experienced enough to know how dangerous that could be.

Cranky took a second to check the spikes on his shoes, stomping them hard into the snow and ice. He’d taken excellent care of them, and the points were extremely sharp. They bit into the ice without a fuss and refused to let go when Cranky slid them left or right, remaining firmly lodged until the donkey pulled them straight out. Confident in his hoofing, Cranky began to carefully cross the slippery, snowy trail ahead of him.

The wind barreled into his chest with a howling frenzy when he was halfway across, and he missed a step. The spikes in his horseshoe hit the ice at an oblique angle and skidded across its glistening surface as they failed to support Cranky’s weight. The misstep sent Cranky falling towards the ravine, but a quick twist of his torso allowed him to sink two of his other legs into the ice as shavings of frost and snow flew into his face and off the ravine behind him. His carefully-preserved spikes held, biting deep into the ice and anchoring him there while his left hind leg kicked into the empty air behind him.

Cranky simply hung from the side of the trail, regaining his breath, as chunks of ice continued to clatter down the side of the mountain below him. He stared blankly ahead in disbelief at the vapor that bellowed from his muzzle with each haggard breath. Perhaps it took him a moment to realize he was still alive, or perhaps his heart finally ceased pounding in his chest, but after a minute, Cranky set his jaw, dug into the ice with his other two hooves, and began to haul himself back onto the trail.

It was excruciating work, especially with all Cranky carried on his back, and as soon as he was back on relatively even ground, the donkey collapsed in the powdery white snow. Gasping for breath, he laid there while snowflakes decorated his face, melting into tiny drops from the heat radiating off his body.

He was getting too old for this…

When the winds finally exhausted themselves for the moment, Cranky grunted and stood up, though not without some difficulty in keeping the weight on his back centered. He began to carefully pick his way through the snow and ice again, working closer and closer to the stony slope. Even as the world shrieked and howled around him and the temperature steadily dropped, the donkey continued his stubborn advance, until finally his ice spikes scraped against solid rock.

Sighing with relief, Cranky pulled himself onto the stone platform and sat on his haunches to remove his spikes. Behind him, his blunder was little more than a patch of flattened snow amidst the natural chaos and tumult clogging the path, and beyond that, the trail continued down the mountain before eventually winding out of sight. He knew where he was sitting offered him an impressive view of the Equestrian countryside, but night was falling, and all he could see were faint glows on distant, obscure structures as they reflected what tiny slivers of daylight remained. But despite that, the darkness settling over the mountain provided him the opportunity to notice something he would otherwise miss: a tiny, flickering light emanating from a hollow in the snow, not even twenty yards away.

Confused, Cranky furrowed his brow and began to walk toward the light. Another traveler, perhaps? If so, he had to question their survival skills. Starting a fire in a snow hollow wasn’t safe. Sure, it might seem like a good idea to stay sheltered from the elements with a fire, but the heat from the fire could weaken the surrounding walls of the hollow, causing it to cave in. Most ponies wouldn’t be able to survive being buried alive by heavy, wet snow, and even if they did dig themselves out, they would find themselves soaking wet in the freezing cold with all their supplies buried under the snow and ice. The only thing they had to look forward to then was a slow, freezing death.

Cranky had seen a lot on his travels. He knew these things from seeing them on the road.

As the donkey approached the hollow, he heard a voice coming from it, nearly lost to the whining of the wind around him. Where he expected the disgruntled voice of another explorer or mountain climber, perhaps, he instead heard what sounded like a filly muttering to herself. Frowning, he stopped a few feet away from the edge of the hollow and cleared his throat. “Hello?” he asked, watching the hollow carefully. He’d found that ponies in the wilderness preferred it if unexpected visitors announced themselves first before intruding upon their campsite to disarm any intentions of harm. “Are you alright?”

The muttering abruptly stopped, replaced with dead silence. When it seemed clear a response wasn’t coming, Cranky decided to investigate. Dropping his bags into the snow, he trotted over to the hollow and peered inside.

The flickering light of a tiny, feeble fire, barely stronger than a candle, illuminated the hollow. The tiny flame fed on scraps of paper that looked like they’d been torn from a book, and the foundation of the fire, if it could be called that, was made from a few pitiful twigs. Sitting in the back of the hollow, however, was a khaki filly, who hardly looked more than ten or eleven. Her winter coat was torn, singed, and losing its down stuffing, and the filly sat with her grayscale rainbow tail wrapped around her midsection for warmth. Wide rose eyes stared at him from atop her frightened expression, and as Cranky stepped closer, the filly shuffled backwards until her back was pressed against the far wall of the hollow. She didn’t say a word, only sitting there watching him, terrified.

Cranky froze in his tracks. The filly was far too young to be out in the mountains on her own, and she was woefully unequipped to deal with the cold. Her miserable attempts at a fire would hardly be enough to keep her hooves warm, let alone actually keep her from freezing to death. The damage to her winter coat told Cranky that she’d already had an unpleasant encounter with a will-o’-the-wisp; if that was true, she was lucky to have gotten away with only a few burns. Still, he didn’t think it likely that she was going to survive the night if she was left alone.

“Where are you from, kid?” Cranky asked, stooping to enter the hollow. “Glacier Point?”

Though the filly didn’t answer him, her eyes widened slightly at the name of the nearby town. Shaking his head, Cranky sighed and looked to his left, further along the trail. “What are you doing out here all by yourself? You’re going to freeze to death.”

The filly seemed to have finally found her voice. Shivering, she nevertheless managed to stare defiantly at the donkey. “I’m not going back! You can’t make me!” At Cranky’s surprised look, she wilted and stared at her hooves. “Just leave me alone…”

“Kid, do you even know how to make a fire?” Cranky asked, pointing to the already-fading flame between them. When she didn’t answer, he rolled his eyes and gestured to the otherwise empty hollow. “Where are your supplies? You’re not going to survive in the mountains without some food and a bedroll. And if your jacket loses any more stuffing, then it’s not going to keep you warm, anyway.”

But the khaki filly only shrugged, staring at the ground. Cranky found himself at a loss for what to do. The easiest choice would be to simply press on and make it to Glacier Point before it became too dark to see the trail. While it was still another hour’s hike away, Cranky knew where he was going, and he could hurry if he needed to. But that would mean leaving this filly to die in the cold. Despite her attitude, she was scared and alone, and she didn’t have the supplies, let alone the know-how, to survive on her own. He could try to take her with him, but she would likely struggle, and even if she did come willingly, she’d likely slow him down too much to make it to town in a timely fashion.

Standing up, Cranky trotted back outside and dragged his supplies over to the mouth of the hollow. There, just outside the natural shelter, he piled some wood and surrounded it with a protective wall of snow to try to keep the wind from blowing over the foundation. After layering some dried bark over and within the fuel, Cranky drew a flint and steel and struck them once. His expert blow created a shower of sparks that immediately caught on the tinder, beginning a tiny flame, which he carefully shielded with his hooves and grew with his breath. In a few minutes, he fashioned a proper campfire, which immediately began to radiate warmth. Grunting, the donkey sat in the mouth of the hollow, sheltered from the worst of the wind, and stowed his supplies inside, even going so far as to remove his scarf and hat and simply let the fire warm his face.

It didn’t take long for the fire to attract the filly. Shivering, the khaki kid wandered out from the depths of the hollow to sit at the entrance, though she kept herself out of Cranky’s reach. The donkey pretended to ignore her; he figured if she was going to talk, she’d do it on her own time. Not that he minded, anyway. He’d spent so long traveling by himself that he was used to the silence.

“Are you an adventurer or something?”

Cranky’s ears twitched at the filly’s question, but he didn’t look at her. He simply stared into the fire as he mulled his response. “I’ve been all over the world, kid. I’ve seen places you can’t possibly imagine. Used to be a pretty important donkey myself; I got an invitation from Princess Celestia herself to attend the Grand Galloping Gala, once upon a time. And I’ve been wandering Equestria longer than you’ve been alive.” His eyes slid over to the filly. “But I’m no adventurer. Just a traveler.”

That answer apparently didn’t satisfy the filly, because she pouted and glared adorable little daggers at him. “You’re an adventurer! That’s what adventurers do! They go and see things and do stuff!” Her hoof stomped on the snow, and a proud smile appeared on her muzzle. “I’m going to be an adventurer someday! It’s what I got my cutie mark for!”

She grabbed the lower hem of her coat and yanked it up, revealing a green and gold compass rose on her flank. Cranky nodded and went back to staring at the fire. “How’d you get that?” he asked.

“I used to be on the trail cutting teams,” the filly said. “We lost our marker flags in an avalanche, but I found the way home!”

“What was a filly like you doing on the trail cutting teams?” Cranky asked, giving the filly a sidelong glance. “That sounds too dangerous for a kid. Your parents were okay with that?”

The filly fidgeted, pawing at the ground. “Mama and Papa died in an avalanche a long time ago…” she murmured.

“I’m… sorry,” Cranky said, guilt hammering away at his insides. If the filly was an orphan with no immediate family to look after her, the town had likely taken her in and given her the odd jobs to work and help contribute. Sad as it was, orphans were often looked down upon by these small mountain towns, and the filly had every look of a runaway. “You’re from Glacier Point, right?”

Though the filly refused to answer him again, she did give Cranky the smallest of nods.

“Right.” Digging into his bags, Cranky pulled out a bag of dried seeds and held them out to the filly. The khaki pony sniffed at the bag and regarded it with suspicion until Cranky took a few seeds out and ate them himself. “Get some grub in your gut, kid. Don’t want to sleep on an empty stomach.”

As if on cue, the filly’s stomach rumbled, and she glanced at it like she was startled by the noise. Once more, Cranky offered the seeds, and this time the filly took them. She didn’t bother using her hooves to pick them out of the bag; instead, she simply shoved her muzzle into it like a feed bag and began chomping through the seeds, shells and all. Cranky felt the beginnings of a smile making their way onto his muzzle, but he forced it back down. He would just be passing through Glacier Point in the morning; no sense in getting attached.

Still, though, he had some questions regarding the little filly that was now his impromptu campfire companion.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked, finding a reasonably comfortable snowbank to lean against.

The filly stopped and took her muzzle out of the bag to look at him. Sunflower shells were stuck to her cheeks and lips, and her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk holding a wad of food in its mouth. Swallowing the seeds, she wiped the shells from her muzzle. “Daring.”

“Daring, eh?” Cranky repeated. Nodding, he added, “Seems appropriate.” He held out his hoof for the seeds, and Daring reluctantly passed them back. After crunching a few between his flat teeth, he rolled up the bag and slipped it back into his supplies. “Just Daring?”

“Yeah,” Daring said, grazing her hoof across the top layer of snow, which began to glisten more and more as the fire worked on melting it. “Mrs. Snowbound says that I used to escape from my crib all the time, and Mama would always say, ‘My, isn’t she daring?’ And then she and Papa decided to call me Daring.” She shrugged and looked away. “At least, that’s what they tell me. When I ask Mrs. Ice Pick, she just yells at me."

Cranky nodded, leaving it at that. Shrill winds disturbed him from his thoughts, biting into his thin brown coat, and he wrapped his winter coat tighter about himself. The sky outside was pitch black; not even the moon was visible. The only light the two of them had was their fire, and Cranky was reluctant to feed it any more fuel. Whatever he could save would be something he didn’t have to buy in Glacier Point, and he was already low enough on bits as it was after gearing up for the trek.

Besides, a quick glance at Daring revealed she was struggling to stay awake. After finally having some food and warmth, the little filly seemed about ready to pass out where she was sitting. Grunting, Cranky stood up and went to his supplies, ultimately digging out a bedroll and a heap of extra blankets, which he put in the back of the snowy hollow. Daring watched him the entire time, and when Cranky began to wrap himself in the spare blankets, she feebly protested, “But I’m not tired…”

“You look like you can hardly stay awake, kid,” Cranky said. He gestured to the bedroll next to him. “You can have my bedroll for the night, since it doesn’t look like you have one of your own. In the morning, I’m taking you back to Glacier Point.”

Daring pouted and stomped the snow. “I don’t want to go to Glacier Point. I hate Glacier Point."

“Kid, there’s somepony there who’s worrying their head off over you, I guarantee it.” Sighing, Cranky made a crude pillow from his hiking supplies and laid down. “We start moving at first light. Get some sleep while you can.”

Daring stood in the entryway to the hollow for several long seconds, her little frame silhouetted by the fire behind her. Ultimately, though, she sighed, hung her head, and trudged inside. Slipping into the bedroll Cranky had laid out for her, she flopped down with an aggravated grunt and laid with her back to Cranky and her forelegs crossed.

Cranky suppressed the first of what was sure to be many yawns. He knew the kid wasn’t going to speak to him the rest of the night, so he didn’t bother saying goodnight. Some part of him doubted she’d still be there when he woke up. For some reason she seemed very adamant about refusing to go to Glacier Point, but the donkey just shrugged and sought a more comfortable position for his aching back. Kids would be kids, and Daring was just entering the rebellious stage of her life. He didn’t see it as anything more than natural teenage angst and resentment toward adults.

His mind didn’t linger on those thoughts very long, however. All it took was two more yawns, and Cranky was out like a light.

Despite the long winter nights, morning came far too quickly. Even with the blankets he’d wrapped himself in, the first thing Cranky felt was the chill of the frigid mountain air on his face and numbing his hooves. It chased away what remained of his exhaustion, and in a few seconds, the donkey was fully awake and squinting into the gray light of morning beyond the snowy hollow.

Something squeaked at his side, and Cranky suddenly became aware of a small bundle of fuzzy warmth clinging to him. A look to his right revealed a sleeping Daring curled against him, sharing his warmth under the blankets, and snoring like an oversized chew toy. She’d removed her coat in the middle of the night to better share body heat, and now her khaki wings twitched by her sides as she dreamed. Cranky shifted slightly, but Daring only whimpered in her sleep and clung more tightly to the foreleg she’d trapped beneath her.

It would’ve been easy for Cranky to shake her off and get moving again. After all, he’d already told the filly that they’d be moving at daylight, and there was already enough light outside to see the trail. Every minute they lingered in the hollow was another minute he wasted getting to Glacier Point... and trying to find her.

Daring hummed and nuzzled Cranky’s leg, wings fluttering as she slept.

The donkey’s nostrils flared, and with a stiff sigh, he laid his head back down on his makeshift pillow and closed his eyes.

It was another hour before the filly finally stirred. Yawning, she carefully untangled herself from the blankets and threw on her coat, stopping in the middle of the hollow to stretch and arch her back, fluttering her little wings as she did so. Only when she disappeared outside the hollow and past the remains of the fire to make water did Cranky finally groan and kick his way out of the blankets.

Daring came back a minute later to find Cranky packing his bags and preparing for the trek ahead. “Sleep well?” the donkey asked as he tied down the bedroll and hooked it to his bags. The filly’s cheeks flushed, and she shakily nodded, a little embarrassed about where she’d ended up in the middle of the night. “Good,” Cranky said, tying down a strap and setting a plate of hay on the ground between them. “Eat. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

The pegasus filly plodded over and plopped herself on the ground in front of Cranky. “I don’t want to go back,” she pouted, poking at the hay. “Everypony’s mean to me there. Can’t I just stay with you?”

The question caught Cranky off guard, and he fumbled as he tried to process it. Once he did, however, he frowned and shook his head. “My journey’s no place for you, kid. You’d find it boring, anyway.”

“Nuh-uh!” Daring exclaimed. “You said it yourself! You’ve been all across Equestria—across the world! I want to see Equestria! I want to see the world! Please please please please please!” She flattened her ears against her head and stared up at Cranky with the biggest puppy dog eyes she could muster, jutting her trembling lower lip out just far enough to look natural and particularly heart wrenching.

“I’m not falling for it, kid,” Cranky said, pointedly turning away from the filly. “You’re too young to be wandering the roads. Your place is back home, where you belong.” He quickly stuffed some hay into his muzzle and stood up, slinging his packs over his shoulders. “Come on. It’s time to get moving.”

Daring said nothing, choosing to quietly glower at the snow and ice around her hooves as she shouldered what little she had with her and followed Cranky out of the hollow. After a brief moment to stretch his legs, Cranky set off along the trail toward Glacier Point, with Daring following in his hoofsteps.

They arrived in the town after two or three hours of hiking, stopping only once or twice along the way for Daring’s sake, as the trek was much harder on the filly’s shorter legs, and it was too cold for her to fly. Glacier Point was, like most of the mountain towns, hardly enough to be considered anything more than an outpost. There were forty, maybe fifty little wooden buildings at the most, and Cranky put the population at around two hundred ponies by that alone. A few ponies were out in the streets, but Cranky figured that most of the sane ones were hiding inside where there were fires and alcohol to keep warm. If he wanted to get Daring back to whoever was looking after her, his best bet would be to go poking around the tavern and find somepony to dump her off on.

For her part, Daring just plodded along in Cranky’s hoofsteps, eyes glued to the ground, and shivering not from the cold, but from the baleful stares the few ponies that they passed gave her.

The bell above the tavern door rang as Cranky nudged it open, and he made sure Daring followed him inside before he shut it again. The filly winced at the slamming of wood against wood like it was a death sentence, and she shuffled her hooves as she followed Cranky to the bar. True to his expectations, it seemed like most of the ponies of Glacier Point were inside the single largest structure in the entire town, gathered around a roaring fire pit in the middle of the floor and clacking mugs of warm cider together. Even more were seated around the bar, which was shaped like an oval to maximize seating space, and housed a pair of bartenders that kept everypony happy and chatty. Glacier Point was an important waypoint on the road through the mountains, after all, and Cranky figured that the majority of the town’s income came from the ponies passing through it. There wasn’t much else the mountains were good for.

Cranky found two empty stools near one of the ends of the oval and climbed onto one, dropping his bags at his hooves. He motioned for Daring to join him, and the filly wordlessly fluttered her wings and lifted herself onto the stool next to him. She refused to look away from the polished wooden counter, however, and if Cranky looked, he could have sworn that her frown only darkened. Kids will be kids, he supposed.

One of the two bartenders noticed Cranky’s arrival and hurriedly cantered over to him. “Good morning, sir, welcome to the Frosty Keg. Can I get you anything?”

“Cider,” Cranky grumbled, “and some vittles. I’ve only had trail food the past few days, and I could use a real meal.”

“Right away,” the bartender said, turning around to get Cranky his drink and snatch a waitress to have her bring out some food. Cranky noticed that he never bothered to ask Daring what she wanted, or if she wanted anything at all. He also noticed that Daring had sunk into her stool and was trying to look as little as possible. Maybe there really was something going on that had made the filly want to brave the mountains on her own just to get away from the town.

When the bartender returned with Cranky’s food and drink, Cranky cleared his throat and patted Daring on the back, making her flinch. “I found this filly in a hollow in the mountains last night. She said that she’s from this town. Know who looks after her?”

The bartender narrowed his eyes at Daring. “Huh, we all thought she was going to die out there.” The dismissiveness in his voice surprised Cranky, but the bartender continued, oblivious to his reaction. “Daring, go find Ice Pick and apologize for running away. Again.”

Daring slunk off of her stool and plodded toward the door of the tavern, pausing in front of it long enough to shoot Cranky a silent plea for help. The bartender scared her away with a glare, however, and the cold winds of the outside pierced the cozy interior of the tavern for only a second before she was gone.

For some reason, Cranky had lost his appetite, so he set his food aside for now. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, carefully wording his inquiry. “She seemed nice enough on the path.”

The bartender sighed and shook his head. “That filly is a menace. She endangers the very safety of our town.”

Cranky’s eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “She just seems like a little filly to me.”

“Yes, but she’s reckless, and doesn’t think before she acts.” Leaning on one elbow, the bartender suddenly dropped his voice to a low murmur. “Four years ago, her parents took her out with them on a trail cutting trip. They were both hiking guides, so they knew the trails inside and out. Problem was, their daughter didn’t share the same sort of… respect, let’s call it, for the mountains. When they were deep into the mountains, she wandered off on her own and started playing in the snowbanks above where everypony was working, trying to clear the trails of the ice that’d built up over the winter.”

He stood back up and looked around him. “She started an avalanche that killed everypony on the trail. Her parents included. Glacier Point’s a small town, so we all knew everypony that died. Some of those ponies were brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers to ponies sitting in this tavern right now. And they’re all gone. Because of her.”

Cranky grimaced and leaned back. “But she’s only a filly. Kids make mistakes. That’s why they’re kids.”

“Most fillies don’t have the blood of twenty ponies on their hooves before they’re ten,” the bartender shot back. Then, shrugging, he snatched Cranky’s mug and refilled it before the donkey could protest. “Ice Pick runs the orphanage here, and she’s trying her best to whip the kid into shape. Spend enough time cleaning snow from rooftops and emptying the outhouses, and you learn to follow the rules sooner or later.”

Cranky was at a loss for words. Daring only would’ve been six when she caused the avalanche, and the ponies here treated her like she was a murderer. No wonder the poor filly wanted to run away. Still, it was probably for the best that he stay out of the small town’s affairs. Besides, having another traveling companion, a filly no less, would only slow him down. And he didn’t exactly have the bits to support another pony traveling with him.

It left a sour feeling in his gut, but Cranky decided to ultimately push his thoughts of Daring to the back of his mind.

He finished his meal undisturbed, making sure to completely clean his plate of the delicious home cooked food, and left a few bits to pay. Then, shouldering his pack, he left the safety of the tavern behind, venturing out into the snow to gather supplies he’d need to reach the next village. Some more firewood, extra rations for the trail, and a few other things to make his journey through the next mountain pass tolerable. A few inquiries as to where she was turned up nothing, as he expected, so he simply shouldered his gear and set his sights on the next village. His bags were bulging again, but Cranky didn’t mind. He’d carried heavier loads in worse weather before.

By the time he was ready to leave, it was noon—or at least, he supposed it was noon. It was hard to tell where exactly the sun was with the swirling clouds overhead. Not wanting to waste any more daylight, Cranky made his way straight toward the north gate of the town, and the treacherous trail that laid ahead of him. He hesitated right at the wooden arch that marked the symbolic limits of the town, his mind drifting to unfinished business and uncomfortable thoughts. That was when he heard the shouting.

Turning around, he spotted the source of the commotion. An ice blue mare was shouting down at a familiar khaki filly, who looked like she was trying to bury herself in the snow to escape the mare’s fury. Cranky figured that had to be Ice Pick, the mare who ran the orphanage, or the closest thing Glacier Point had to one. The screams were unintelligible this far away, but the actions weren’t. After finally shouting Daring into submission, Ice pick raised a hoof and struck Daring across the face. A tiny little cry of pain stopped Cranky’s heart, and the filly collapsed in the snow, curling up into the fetal position and shivering. Ice Pick scowled at the small pegasus in front of her, and turning around, marched inside the orphanage and slammed the door behind her, leaving Daring alone in the cold.

Cranky grinded his teeth together and turned around, marching back toward the town. He didn’t know what he was doing, only that he was acting. Soon enough he found himself standing over the filly, who was holding a hoof to her cheek as she laid in the snow. It already looked like a welt was forming.

“You alright, Kid?” Cranky asked in a tender voice he hadn’t used since the Gala all those years ago. Daring flinched and peeked up at the donkey from the snow she laid in, and Cranky offered her a hoof. Biting her lip, the filly took it and stood up, still a little shaky on her hooves.

“Y-Yeah…” Daring whispered, sniffling. She rubbed the welt on her cheek again and shuddered. “I’m f-fine. I should probably be going anyway. Mrs. Ice Pick wants me to shovel the roads, and I don’t want to disappoint her…”

Cranky looked around him. All he saw was snow covering anything that might resemble a road in the summer months. Far too much for even a team of stallions to handle in a day.

“Tell you what, Kid,” Cranky said without even thinking. “Forget the shoveling. Get your things and whatever else you want to bring with you and meet me by the north gate. Don’t tell anypony, okay?”

Daring stopped moving like she was frozen in place. “You… you mean it?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. When Cranky grumbled and nodded, she began to smile—a genuine, excited, ecstatic smile. Grinning from ear to ear, the filly ran forward and hugged him, making Cranky flinch back at the unexpected contact. “Thank you thank you thank you! You’re the best. The beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssttttttt!” she sang as she galloped back to the orphanage. She didn’t even bother closing the door behind her.

Cranky watched her go, only moving toward the gate when her excited voice died away somewhere inside the building. As he walked, he felt his muzzle contorting into something it hadn’t done for a long time. Before he knew it, he had a small, proud, happy smile on his face and a warm fluttering in his heart. Ten minutes later, when he saw the khaki filly practically tripping across the snow as she lumbered over to him with a stuffed pack as big as she was, he felt that feeling intensify. As they left Glacier Point behind them, he found it incredibly hard not to reflect the happy grin Daring had plastered across her muzzle.

Though he probably could have done without the happy singing the filly belted out in her squeaky voice over the next several hours.

A Daughter

“Hey, you doing alright?”

Cranky puffed and wheezed as he hiked up the side of a ravine. The air was warm and almost dripping with moisture, and the donkey was drenched in sweat. Thick jungle foliage threatened to obscure his hoofholds on the rocky ravine, but Cranky was a donkey, and that meant he never lost his hoofing. Ever. Or so he liked to claim.

About a hundred feet above him, a khaki face peered down from a ledge. No longer a filly, Daring had grown into a lively and beautiful young mare, with the tone and build of a pegasus who had spent as much time climbing and hiking as she had flying. Though her face had picked up a few scars and blemishes from years of adventures, it was still a pretty one, able to draw out adventurous young stallions in the many, many towns the traveling pair stopped in along the road. Cranky certainly knew the struggles of that firsthoof, as he had to chase away a good number of them, though he knew that there were others who’d slipped past his defenses in the middle of the night to share some kissing and touching with the khaki mare. At least he trusted Daring to never take anything farther than that. She was too proud of her freedom and didn’t let herself get attached to any one place or any one pony.

But that was neither here nor there, and all Cranky wanted to do at the moment was swat the bemused face looking down at him from higher up the side of the ravine. “I’m getting older, okay?” he grumbled, shifting the bags on his back and redoubling his efforts to scale the ravine. “I don’t move as fast as I used to.”

Daring chuckled and watched him struggle up the slope for a few more minutes. “You want me to grab your bags? I have wings, you know.” That only earned an irritated grumble from Cranky, which made Daring whoop with laughter. “You’re stubborn as a mule. You know that, right?”

“Both of my parents were proud donkeys,” Cranky retorted. “I’m no mule.”

Daring rolled her eyes and spread her wings. Before Cranky was even aware of what she was doing, she’d already silently glided down the face of the ravine, careful to avoid the branches and thick foliage of the jungle, and landed right behind him. In one smooth motion, she plucked one of the heavy bags off of the donkey’s back and shouldered the weight, sizing it to fit around her significantly smaller frame. Cranky shot her an irritated glare, but it quickly melted away to reveal the appreciation hidden underneath. One after the other, the pair of travelers wordlessly scaled the ravine until finally they made it to the flat ledge where Daring had already piled her supplies.

“This,” Cranky panted, “is a good place to make camp.”

“Please, we could’ve gotten to the top of the ravine if we really wanted to,” she said, waving toward the amber glow of the sun in the west. “We still have another three hours of daylight. We could make it even at your pace.”

Cranky found a mossy rock to sit down on and grunted. “Don’t forget who had to wait for who when I first took you with me.”

“Yeah, but that was years ago,” Daring said, grabbing one of the bags and poking through it. She dug out a few split pieces of firewood, some tinder, and some kindling. “I could hardly even fly straight then. Though you did good with teaching me how, despite, you know, not having wings of your own.”

The donkey just shrugged while Daring built a fire. “I’ve met a lot of pegasi in my life. Guess something rubbed off on me.” Leaning forward, he waved his hoof dismissively. “And it’s not like you were without flying buddies of your own. You spent half the time we were in Los Pegasus causing mischief with your friends above the clouds while I was searching for her.”

Daring chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I was a hoofful then.” After taking a second to admire her work, Daring nodded and left the wood alone for the time being. Next she focused on setting up their small tents, putting them on opposite sides of the fire pit she’d scraped out in the middle of the clearing. “I’m glad we got tents instead of lean-tos,” Daring said. “Those mosquitos are nasty.”

“And you’re the one who wanted the lean-tos in the first place,” Cranky said, smirking at Daring from his rock.

“Well, I’d never been in the jungle before. I just didn’t want to carry all the extra weight.”

“This is why you listen to your elders, kid.”

Daring snorted, her breath knocking aside a strand of sweaty mane hanging in front of her nose. “Oh, so you finally admit that you’re old?”

“Not old enough to settle down and retire,” Cranky said, crossing his forelegs and frowning. “There are still too many places left to search. I won’t give up until I’ve looked everywhere.”

Daring pursed her lips, though she kept her back toward Cranky. Unfortunately, Cranky knew the pegasus too well to not notice the silence that followed, and sighing, he patiently looked across the clearing at Daring. “I know you think we’ll never find her, Daring, but I won’t give up. She’s out there somewhere.”

The pegasus turned around and rested on her haunches. “You’ve been searching for almost twenty years, though. Equestria’s a big place; you could go searching for another twenty and never find her.”

“Then I’ll search twenty years more.” Rubbing his muzzle, Cranky looked up to the sky, reminiscing on the memories of that night. “We had something special that happens once in a lifetime. Honest-to-Celestia true love. Maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to know what that feels like. I just hope you never have to have it torn away from you the next day.”

The khaki mare frowned. She hated when Cranky got like this. She opened her mouth to say something, but the donkey was already lost in his thoughts, and she knew there wasn’t anything she could do to shake him out of his melancholy. It made her feel useless, and above all, Daring hated feeling useless. She’d gotten enough of that back in Glacier Point.

Glacier Point… she shuddered and whipped her head back and forth. The less she thought about her hometown, the better. The six years she’d been traveling with Cranky had been the best of her life. She wouldn’t have given them away for anything. Not even to have her parents back. That was just an old wound that had healed with time, and she had the donkey sitting across from her to thank for that.

“I’m going to go gathering,” Daring announced. She surveyed their campsite, making sure that there wasn’t much left to be done, and smiled at Cranky. “You can get the rest?”

Cranky waved a hoof. “I can still do my share of the work. You don’t have to fawn over me.”

“Just making sure I can blame somepony if I find ants in my pillowcase again,” Daring teased, smirking. Then, spreading her wings, she galloped toward the edge of the cliff, saying, “I’ll be back before sundown!”

“Remember what I taught you!” Cranky hollered after her. “Watch out for pythons! And poison dart frogs! And—!”

“I know, I know!” Daring shouted back, even as her wings carried her further away. Cranky swore that he saw her shaking her head as she plunged beneath the canopy in search of some plants to supplement their rations.

It took almost two hours, but Daring returned to their campsite just as Cranky started to get worried. Flaring her wings in what Cranky knew Daring thought was a flashy and cool entrance, the young khaki mare landed right in front of Cranky and dropped a bag stuffed full of greens and berries at his hooves. “You’ll never believe what I found!”

Cranky poked through the bag Daring had collected, noting the colors and textures of the fruits inside. “Avocado, camu camu, and cacao? Not bad.” He pulled out a few camu camu fruits and popped them in his mouth, letting the sweet and tart wash of citrus prick at his tongue. “These are great in vitamin C. Highest concentration of any fruit.”

“You’re like an encyclopedia, seriously,” Daring teased, joining Cranky on the rock. “You know everything.”

The donkey merely shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t say I know everything so much as I have a great memory. Once I see it, I won’t forget it.”

“No wonder you like to go through the library of every town we stop at.” Grinning, Daring reached into another saddlebag and pulled out a rolled piece of paper. “But I found something even better than fruit,” she said, passing the roll to Cranky. “Take a look!”

Cranky unfurled the roll of parchment and spread it across his lap. It was a rubbing of some intricate carvings Daring had found while she was out. He recognized several equine figures gathered around a central one with its forelegs outspread, while radiant energy seemed to glow from around it. “You found Mareyan carvings?”

Daring beamed. “Yeah! They were right across the river from a bunch of camu camu plants. I almost didn’t see them at first, but then I saw the gold!” She craned her neck down and pulled out a necklace she’d hidden underneath her shirt, letting the hoof-worked gold glint in the fiery sunset. “I think it was a burial ground or something like that!”

“Not quite,” Cranky said with a shake of his head. Pointing to the figure in the middle, he elaborated. “The carvings tell me that it was a shrine of sorts to a sun goddess. The Mareyans gave her jewelry and other offerings so that she would continue to raise the sun for them. She was their most important deity.” Pointing to the necklace around Daring’s neck, he added, “I’m surprised it hasn’t been looted by treasure hunters yet if you were able to find that. Who knows what else is there?”

That question had Daring fidgeting in excitement. “Can we go look tomorrow?” she asked, resting her hooves on Cranky’s shoulder. “I love treasure hunting!”

Cranky chuckled and patted Daring on the back. “That’s in the complete opposite direction of where we need to go, kid. Besides, I’m sure the Mareyans would appreciate it if you left their treasure where they put it.” Daring pouted and frowned at her necklace, fidgeting with the small golden sun on the end of a silver chain, and Cranky nudged her. “Don’t worry about flying back there to put that back. Consider it a birthday present.”

A huge grin broke out over Daring’s muzzle, and she leaned against Cranky. “That’s right! It’s my birthday! I completely forgot!” Laughing, she nuzzled the donkey. “I can’t believe I’m seventeen now!”

“Enjoy it while you have it, kid,” Cranky said, rubbing her neck while he supported her weight. “Forty-three’s not as fun as it sounds. The years only seem to go by faster and faster.”

“Heh. Yeah, I bet.”

They fell into easy silence for almost an hour, simply watching as the sun finally went down and the sounds of the night began. Daring idly played with her new golden necklace, admiring the skill that had gone into making it, and occasionally pressing the soft metal to her lips to simply feel the cool surface in the remains of the hot day. Only when she began slapping at the mosquitos plaguing her did she finally stir from Cranky’s side, muttering profanities under her breath.

“Start the fire,” Cranky said, lazily plucking a mosquito off of his foreleg and crushing it on the rock underneath him. “The smoke will keep them away.”

“That’s what you said last night,” Daring grumbled as she dug through her bags for a fire striker. “I still got bit like nopony’s business. And those stupid ‘magic mosquito repellant’ coils didn’t do anything.”

Cranky shrugged, watching as Daring expertly created a coal, then grew the coal into a crackling fire. Much better than when he’d first found her. “We were in the middle of the jungle then. There are more mosquitos there than on the side of a ravine. They’ll tend to stay away from open spaces so the bats don’t pick them off, and the smoke will chase away the rest.”

“I hope so,” Daring said as she stepped away from the fire, stowing the fire striker and flint back in her bag. “It’d really suck to get malaria on my birthday. Worst. Present. Ever,” she added, chuckling quietly.

“This is why we get vaccines,” Cranky said. At Daring’s disgusted look, Cranky simply shrugged. “Trust me on this one, kid. I know needles aren’t your favorite, but getting sick is much, much worse. You should be lucky to live in a day and age where we have medicine like this.”

“Or we could see a healer,” Daring said, sitting down across from Cranky with the fire between them. “You know, magic is pretty good at getting rid of disease.”

“Magic is expensive. And even if it wasn’t, do I look like a unicorn to you?” Cranky asked, pointing to his forehead.

Daring waved a hoof. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. There aren’t exactly a whole lot of traveling doctors.” Then she grimaced and shuddered, rubbing a phantom pain near her shoulder. “Doesn’t make needles any better, though.”

They fell silent, both staring at the fire and pretending they knew how to read the flames. The buzzing of grotesquely large bugs and the trilling of little tree frogs filled the night with noise. Daring would occasionally flinch at the flutterings of a bat, and Cranky spent several minutes trying out different spots on his rock to find something more comfortable.

Eventually, Cranky cleared his throat and looked at Daring. “Hey, kid.”

Daring’s ears perked toward him first, followed by her eyes, then her face. “Hmm?”

Cranky gestured to one of his bags lying next to his tent. “Go get the black bag. I’ve got a little something for you for your birthday.”

The pegasus’ eyebrows raised a little. “Oh? Even with the necklace?”

“I didn’t know you were going to find something better than what I could give you,” Cranky said with a shrug. When Daring opened her muzzle to protest, Cranky held up a hoof. “Don’t worry about it, kid. Just go open your presents.”

Extending her wings, Daring fluttered over to the bags and opened the black one. After pawing around in it for a few seconds, she let loose a surprised gasp. When she turned away from the bag, she had a thick journal in one hoof and a pith helmet in the other. Grinning from ear to ear, she held them up to Cranky as if he’d never seen them before. “Oh, thank you! This is awesome!”

Cranky smiled. “I know how you love reading those adventure stories of yours. I figured you’d enjoy the chance to write your own just as much. You’ve always had a knack for storytelling.”

Daring flipped the hat onto her head and gently set the journal down on her bag so it wouldn’t get dirty. “And the hat?”

“So you can keep the sun out of your eyes,” Cranky said. “A mane’s good, but it doesn’t last forever,” he added, rubbing the rapidly thinning hair on his scalp. “And, well, what’s an explorer without a hat of some kind?”

The mare’s eyes practically glowed, and flying over to Cranky, she sat down next to him and wrapped him in a big hug. “I love it. Thank you so much, Dad.”

Smiling, Cranky returned the hug and nuzzled Daring’s neck. “You’re welcome, my little Daring Doodle. Happy birthday.”

A Mare

Cranky’s back ached, like it always did. Normally he wouldn’t even notice the aches and pains—he’d gotten so used to them—but every so often, they’d flare up, forcing him to call it quits for the day. Stopping only to roll his shoulders and adjust the harness hitching him to his wagon, the old donkey slowly trudged into the town.

Normally, visiting a new town was exciting. Seeing new sights, meeting new ponies, a chance to sleep under a roof with a fire to keep him warm. They were all things he looked forward to when he was on the trail. But not anymore. Cranky was old, his joints ached, and he had to give up his saddlebags for a wagon a year ago. Wagons were easier to pull than it was to carry a saddlebag, he’d been forced to admit. Unfortunately, that meant he had to stick to the roads, unable to wander through mountains and jungles and deserts like he’d done in the years past.

His throat made a noise, like he was about to say something to somepony, but the words died before they could reach his lips when he glanced at the empty space next to him.

Frowning, the donkey wandered down the town’s main street, weary eyes glaring dead ahead. The ponies gave him a wide birth, whispering to each other as they passed or exchanging curious glances. Cranky didn’t care. He already knew she wasn’t in this town. He’d visited it seventeen years ago and found nothing. There was always the possibility that she had moved here, but if Cranky considered that for every place he stopped at, he’d never feel like he was making any progress on finding her. For now, it was only a convenient stop for food before he continued onto the next leg of his journey. The final leg.

Unhitching himself from his wagon, the donkey found a seat outside at a local delicatessen and frowned at the menu placed before him. Nothing looked that appealing to him, and he doubted the little eatery had anything spectacular to offer. The waiter brought him some water, and when he asked him what he’d like to order, Cranky just pointed blindly to something on the menu and grunted. The waiter said some words, complimenting him on his excellent choice, but it was just noise to Cranky. He would’ve gone right through the town if he could have, but his body had needs that his attitude had no time for. But even that was a joke, a lie; the donkey had all the time in the world to get where he was going, but the sooner he got there, the sooner he could finally surrender this laughable fancy.

Boredom overcame his bitterness, and Cranky’s eyes slowly slid about in their sockets. The ponies at the deli laughed and chatted over food and drink, discussing everything from the newest fashions to the upcoming wedding in Canterlot. Even the news of the return of Discord, and his subsequent defeat, still made splashes every now and then, cropping up in conversations here and there. Apparently the next town over was hit hard by the draconequus, until the Bearers made short work of him. So long as the town was quiet now was all Cranky cared about.

Some voices heralded the arrival of more patrons behind Cranky, but the donkey didn’t bother to turn and look. His ears twisted casually in the direction of the conversation, hoping for something new now that he’d already listened in on the other ponies sitting around him.

“Here you go, Miss. May I get you anything to start with? Water, lemonade, cider, perhaps?”

“Water’s fine, thank you.”

Cranky flinched at the mare’s voice. His hooves shook as he held them against the table, and he waited until the waiter trotted away to turn around. He had to rub his eyes once and squint through the disguise, but he knew exactly who he was looking at.

He could never forget his daughter.

“Daring…?”

The mare jumped at hearing Cranky’s voice, losing her grip on her menu and almost falling out of her seat. When she finally recovered, she adjusted her thick red rimmed glasses and stared forward in shock. Both she and Cranky made eye contact, and a mixture of surprise, shock, and confusion all tried to grab hold of her face at once. “Dad?”

In a flash, the khaki mare stood up from her table and moved to Cranky’s, sitting opposite of him. She fussed with her hat and purple jacket, trying to get them to settle comfortably around her, before giving up with a groan and removing her glasses to rub at her eyes. “I didn’t think I’d run into you! What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same about you,” Cranky grumbled, but he couldn’t mask the tiniest trace of a smile beginning to fight its way onto his muzzle. “I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while, yet.”

Daring sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve just been real busy.” She leaned back in her chair, and Cranky saw the fabric covering her sides shift as she fidgeted with her wings. “Trying to lead two lives is hard.”

Cranky shook his head. “I don’t know why you bother, kid. This whole ‘A. K. Yearling thing…”

“It’s… complicated, Dad,” Daring said. She opened her mouth to say something, but the waiter came by to deliver Daring’s water, refraining from commenting on her shift in table. Daring quickly gave him her order, and when he left again, she sipped from her glass. “Things are a little hot for me, right now. It’s just best if I separate my adventuring life from my daily life.”

“You never had these problems when you traveled with me,” Cranky said. Though the remark was lighthearted, it carried a touch of loneliness underneath.

Daring immediately picked up on it, and she held the donkey’s hoof in her own. “I know, and I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, trying her best to give him an assuring smile. “But…well, I needed my own room. I needed to spread my wings, you know? I couldn’t keep following you forever.”

Cranky sighed. “I know, kid. I couldn’t keep you anchored to me in a fool’s search across Equestria. I just… well, the road’s a lot lonelier when you’re only one.”

Silence stretched between them, both searching for words to say. Cranky found them first. “I bought your first book in the last town I was at. You’re a good writer. Though what’s with the name change?” he asked, a tiny, teasing smile on his muzzle. “Daring Do? Was ‘Doodle’ not heroic enough?”

Daring sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, about that… um…”

Cranky held up his hoof. “Don’t worry about it, kid, I’m only teasing you. If I really wanted to ask about your name, I’d ask where the Yearling name came from.”

“I couldn’t begin to say,” Daring said, grinning. “It sounded… writerly. And it’s about as far from a household name like ‘Daring Do’ as you can get.” She took another sip of her water, adding, “Plus, nopony thinks I’m actually an adventurer. If they knew that my books are based on real life, I don’t think I could go anywhere without somepony trying to get my autograph, or nefarious minions of Ahuizotl ambushing me on a daily basis.”

“On second thought, I’m kind of happy you decided to go your own way before getting involved in all this. I didn’t need any of it in my life.” His ears wilted, and he went back to staring at the tablecloth. “But that’s all behind me, now.”

Daring cocked her head to the side, a confused frown on her muzzle. “What do you mean? You’re not…” Realization dawned on her face, and she frowned. Cranky imagined that if her hat wasn’t covering them, her ears would’ve been pressed against her skull. “I’m sorry.”

Cranky just shrugged, the resignation already much too familiar to him. “It’s over, kid. I’ve looked and looked and looked. Thirty years of my life spent traveling Equestria, looking for her. I’ve left notes and fliers in every town I’ve visited, and still nothing. I’ll never find her. The world is simply too big.” Sighing, he rested his chin on the table. “I’m too old to walk the roads anymore. It’s time I give up and enjoy what time I have left. I’ve wasted enough of it as is.”

“Wasted?” Daring asked, rubbing her hooves together. “Dad, you haven’t wasted anything. You spent thirty years on the road, chasing a dream, a jenny that you loved more than anything. Can you really say that you regret it all now?” Daring crossed her forelegs and nodded at him. “I don’t regret any of it. You taught me how to survive in the wild on my own, and you fed my hunger for adventure. You rescued me from a town that hated me, and if it weren’t for you, I would have frozen to death on the mountains, or spent the rest of my life as an outcast in my own home. I don’t know which would be worse.

“But I didn’t, and that’s because of you,” she said, almost pleading Cranky to understand. “You pulled my flank out of there and gave me something to live for, and I saw so many wonderful, beautiful things with you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best damn father a girl could’ve asked for.”

Cranky was silent, and when the waiter delivered their meals to them, he didn’t respond, leaving Daring to express their gratitude and shoo the waiter away. When he finally spoke again, it was with a small nod. “You’re right. I don’t regret any of it.” Looking at Daring, he offered her a weak smile. “When I found you, I’d already spent fourteen years wandering by myself. I got to spend the next eleven with another pony, another living soul. I believed that I could go looking forever, so long as I had another pony with me to keep me company.” Sighing, he poked at his meal, a salad of various greens and flowers. “When you left six years ago to go to college on that grant, to start your own adventures… well, I tried to make it work for a time. But I missed having you with me, kid. And eventually I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore.”

Daring stared down at her own meal, a daisy sandwich, and reluctantly accepted Cranky’s confession with a dip of her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

They both sat at the table, silent, a million miles and a square of table cloth apart. Neither had an appetite, but both ate regardless; years of forcing themselves to eat on the trail to keep their strength up even when they didn’t feel like it were hard to shake off. The waiter came to check on them once more, but Cranky dismissed him with a wave of his hoof.

Setting half of her sandwich back onto its plate, Daring tried to force eye contact with the donkey. “So what now?”

“Now?” Cranky asked, wiping his muzzle and raising his head to Daring. “I retire. I bought a place out in the woods in a little town not too far from here. Ponyville, I think it was called.”

“Not Canterlot?” Daring asked. “It’s a big city, and that’s where the Gala is held. At the very least, you’d think she’d visit it every once in a while for some reason or another.”

“Can’t stand city life,” Cranky muttered. “I’ve spent too much time on the road. The wilds are home to me, not the stone and marble jungles of civilization. This place should be quiet enough for my liking.” He idly spun a piece of bread between his hooves before tearing off the end and popping it into his mouth. “It’s got a nice view of Canterlot on the mountain, though. Something to remind me of things long gone.” Sighing, he added, “Thirty years is a long time.”

They passed the rest of their meal in silence, and when their checks arrived, Daring swiped both before Cranky could even move, stuffing them into the folds of her purple jacket and dropping the appropriate number of bits on the table. Cranky didn’t say anything about it, not wanting to start a petty argument with his daughter. They hardly saw each other nowadays, and he didn’t want to spend what little time they had left bickering before they moved on again.

“So, are you on another one of your adventures now?” Cranky asked. “I know you wouldn’t be in a small town like this without good reason.”

“Something like that,” Daring grumbled, kneading the table cloth beneath her hooves. “I’m trying to track down some leads on an artifact that supposedly has the power to manipulate the sun.”

Cranky’s eyebrow perked. “I thought only Princess Celestia could do that.”

“And you’re right,” Daring assured him. “I’m not sure I believe all the hocus pocus myself, but if it’s something Ahuizotl is interested in, then I’m interested in it, too. After all, something like him having control over the sun, or even influencing it in any way, could be disastrous to the entirety of Equestria.” She shuddered, anxiously toying with the lapel of her jacket. “I’m sure you remember what it was like when Discord came back a month ago.”

“Had me confused on the trail,” Cranky remarked, nodding. “I just decided to stay put until the sun and moon made up their minds about what they wanted to do.”

“And I was trying to navigate a temple with traps that operated off of the sunlight.” She pulled back the collar of her jacket to reveal a scar across the left side of her chest. “Happened to be underneath a skylight when the sun came back, and that triggered an arrow trap. Missed my heart by an inch. I had to crawl my way back out of the temple and try again the next week.” She couldn’t help herself but grin a little when she saw the look of alarm on Cranky’s face. “Those are spoilers for the next book, by the way. Don’t tell anypony.”

Cranky rubbed his temples with his hooves. “Praise Celestia you’re okay!”

“It’s just an occupational hazard,” Daring offered, shrugging. “I got what I wanted, though. The Trottingham Archaeology Museum paid me a good reward for that idol, though most of that money immediately went into looking for clues to the whereabouts of the rings of destiny. It’s kind of why I took up writing; adventuring is expensive, and I needed a little more help paying bills and buying supplies.”

“You always did enjoy writing your little stories.” Cranky pushed his empty salad bowl away from him and looked around the outdoor eating area. This was a nice town. Maybe a bit too big for his tastes, but it did have a certain charm to it. He hoped this ‘Ponyville’ was as nice. “What are you doing the rest of the day?”

“Oh, me?” Daring asked, and after a moment, she sheepishly retreated under her hat and put the fake red glasses back on her muzzle. “I have a meeting with a contact. He’s supposed to have information on the rings, but we’ll see what comes of that.” She hesitated a second before adding, “He also told me that he wanted to meet… you know… alone.”

The implication was clear, and Cranky felt a little of the comfortable mirth that they’d built up over lunch together slip away. He nodded and stood up on knotted knees. “I see. I hope you find what you’re looking for, kid. All that danger isn’t something for me. Just… stay safe, okay?”

Daring stood up and reached over to her father, offering him a heartfelt hug. She squeezed him like she wanted to get all she possibly could out of the embrace before finally being forced to separate. “I will, Dad,” she said nuzzling his shoulder.

Cranky nuzzled her back. “I know you will.”

They separated, and Daring awkwardly pawed at the ground for a second. “I know you’ve given up, but if I ever see anything, hear anything…”

The donkey nodded and patted Daring on the back. “Thanks, Daring. It means a lot to me.”

Swallowing hard, Daring offered Cranky a brave smile. “I’ll do my best to come visit, okay? Just take care of yourself in the meanwhile and try to make some friends. Nopony should be alone.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Then, with one last attempt at a smile, Cranky took a step back. “I hope it won’t be another two years until we cross paths again.”

“It won’t,” Daring said. “I promise.”

With that, Cranky could only give his daughter a proud smile, and he left the deli behind. Hitching himself up to his wagon, he continued down the road, replaying their conversation again and again in his head.

She might not have been with him on the roads for the past few years, but the khaki pegasus had never left his heart. Even if he never found her, that mare was the one thing he would always, always be proud of.

It made the last road ahead a little bit brighter and a little bit shorter.

A Family

A knock on the door stirred Cranky from his sleep. At first he thought it was nothing, and was content to simply let it be, but another series of knocks put an end to that idea. Whoever was knocking on the door, they sure were insistent.

Groaning, the donkey sat upright and rubbed his eyes. The sun was already coming through his bedroom window at a steeper angle than he was used to, and a glance at the clock on his nightstand told him it was nearly ten in the morning. Grumbling, Cranky stretched his legs and worked his neck from side to side, popping vertebrae and getting some blood flow back to his brain. He hated sleeping in past the dawn.

Still, he at least had good reason to sleep in today. He glanced to his right, where a jenny mumbled something and shifted, searching for Cranky’s warmth. He could still see a bit of her makeup from the day before, and he grinned as the memories came rushing back to him. Leaning over, he nuzzled the other donkey and kissed her cheek before crawling out of bed.

More knocking reminded Cranky of why he got up in the first place, and quickly throwing on his toupee, the surly donkey trudged over to the door. “Yes? What is it?” he grumbled, doing his best to keep his shout to little more than an annoyed growl for fear of waking the other donkey in his bed.

He opened the door to find a familiar khaki mare beneath a purple coat and red glasses staring back at him with a small smile on her face. “Hey, you look like you just got up. Getting too old for the sunrise, Dad? Or just catching some sleep before the big day?”

“Daring?” Cranky whispered, nearly stumbling over her name, before smiling and reaching forward to embrace the mare in a hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! Why, I think the last time we talked face to face was—”

“Over lunch at Spring Run,” Daring finished for him, nuzzling the donkey’s shoulder before ending the embrace. “Celestia, that feels like forever ago.”

“You’re telling me,” Cranky said, standing back so that Daring could enter. “Don’t be a stranger, come in! Are you hungry? I can get some eggs made in a few minutes if you want.”

“That’d be great,” Daring said, stepping inside. As soon as the door shut behind her, she tossed her hat on a hat stand and shed her purple jacket, flexing her wings. “It is so uncomfortable to travel in that thing. Especially in the heat.”

Cranky strolled into the kitchen and set a pan on the stove and turned on the heat. “Did you ever find what you were looking for? Those rings of something or other?” He glanced at the sun and smirked, adding, “The sun hasn’t fried us yet, so I guess that’s a good thing.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Daring said, rubbing her shoulder. “Yeah, I put a stop to Ahuizotl’s plans for that by… well, destroying an archaeological treasure. But I’m sure that’s better than the alternative.” She looked out the window to where a majestic white mansion floated above the town and added, “I actually had some help from Rainbow Dash and her friends. Who knew that they lived in the same town as you?”

The pan sizzled as Cranky dropped some eggs into it. “I certainly didn’t, not at first,” he said, discarding the eggshells and turning back to Daring. “Though I learned pretty quickly. The pink one, Pinkie Pie, wouldn’t leave me alone when I first moved in.” He chuckled, shaking his head before adding, “She made up for it in the end, though. She found her for me. I guess I really owe her everything.”

“So you said in your last letter,” Daring said, grinning at the donkey. “I’m really excited for you guys. It should be quite the ceremony!”

An egg slipped from Cranky’s grasp, shattering on the floor. Daring raised an eyebrow at the donkey, cocking her head to the side. “You alright, Dad? Need help cleaning that up?”

Instead, Cranky just swallowed hard and turned around. “Oh, Daring, I’m so, so sorry, I should have found some way to let you know about the wedding.”

Daring opened her mouth to respond, but just that moment, another donkey entered the kitchen. “Doodle, sweetie, you should have told me we were having guests! I would’ve gladly cooked!” Then, turning to Daring, she put on an enormous grin and trotted over. “Oh! Are you Cranky’s daughter? Why, it’s so nice to finally meet you!”

“So you’re the famous Matilda I spent years listening to this old donkey go on about,” Daring said with a grin, standing up and hugging the jenny. “Cranky told me he’d finally found you in a letter a while ago, but I’ve been too busy to drop in and say ‘hi’ in the meantime. Good to finally meet you. We traveled all over Equestria looking for you. It took the stubborn donkey thirty years before he even considered settling down.” She winked at Matilda. “That’s commitment. You guys are going to have a fantastic marriage.”

“It’s already been off to a fantastic start,” Matilda said, sharing a look with Cranky. Only when she saw the horror on his face did something click. “Oh dear…” She whipped her head back to Daring, who sat at the table, watching the two donkeys with her brow furrowed and head tilted to the side.

“I’m sorry… am I missing something?” the mare asked.

Cranky trotted away from the stove and wrapped his adopted daughter in a hug. “The wedding was yesterday, kid. I know I told you last time we talked that it’d be today, and it was supposed to be today, but our printer was a complete ditz and messed up the dates on the invitations, so we had to move it to yesterday, and this wouldn’t have happened if I’d checked the invitations before sending them, and—”

Daring’s hoof pressed against Cranky’s lips silenced him. “The wedding was yesterday?” she asked, blinking. Her excitement deflated a little, and she covered it up with a sad smile. “Oh. Well, how was it?”

“It was wonderful,” Matilda said with a happy sigh. “It was everything I ever dreamed of since we first met at the Gala all those years ago! So many of Cranky’s friends he’d made along his travels were there, including Steven Magnet, and that changeling, Kevin. It was something to see!” She grinned at Daring, though that fell away in an instant when she remembered who she was talking to. “I mean, we took pictures, and I think Photo Finish may have been recording the whole thing.” Fidgeting, Matilda made her way to Daring’s side and joined Cranky in hugging the pegasus. “We’re sorry, Daring, but it was just out of our control! It all started with the invitations, and there was no way we could’ve notified you in time, and—”

Daring pressed her other hoof against Matilda’s muzzle, silencing her as well. “Hey, it’s okay. I get it, alright? Besides,” she added, smiling at the two of them and lowering her hooves, “it’s the marriage that matters, not the wedding, right?”

Matilda chuckled and covered her muzzle with a hoof. “Oh, you should have heard Steven yesterday. He said just about the exact opposite. I think he was trying to rile me up before the big moment.”

“That sounds like the slippery serpent,” Cranky mused, smirking. “He didn’t mean any harm, Matilda.”

“Yeah, Steven’s a nice guy,” Daring said. Then she turned to Cranky. “So you actually got Steven to show up? I haven’t seen the big guy in years!”

“Oh, yeah, Steven was there, alright,” Cranky said. “He couldn’t exactly fit in the town hall, but he watched through the window. The big guy hasn’t changed a bit.”

“You met Steven, too?” Matilda asked Daring. “Oh, I’m sure he’d love to see you!” She turned to Cranky and asked, “He’s still in town, right?”

Cranky nodded. “Steven lives in the Everfree Forest nowadays. He decided he’d had enough wandering the rivers after the ordeal at the Hoofer Dam.”

A grin broke out across Daring’s face. “I remember that. If he were a professional high diver, I would’ve given him a nine.”

Chuckling, Cranky added, “Those ponies sure weren’t happy about us convincing a sea serpent to jump from one side of the dam to the other.”

“Yeah, but you talked our way out of it in the end.” Wiggling her eyebrows at Matilda, she nudged Cranky in the ribs. “Watch out for this one, he can be a real smooth-talker when he sets his mind to it.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” Matilda said, making her way around the table to stand next to Cranky. “You never told me the Hoofer Dam story, Doodle. All this time to catch up, and I don’t think you’ve hardly told me a fraction of all the adventures you got up to.”

Cranky shrugged. “A lot happens in thirty years…”

Daring smiled, then raised her muzzle into the air and sniffed. “Uh, Dad? The eggs?”

“Oh, dang it!” Cranky shouted, turning around and shutting off the stove. All that remained of the eggs in the pan were two black patches of char, scorched remains of what once had been a promising meal. Grumbling, Cranky opened the kitchen window to let the smoke out and scraped the remains of the eggs into the waste bin. “You distracted me, kid,” he grumbled over his shoulder.

Daring chuckled and waved a hoof at the donkey. “Dad, you couldn’t make an egg on the road to save your life. I was the one who did most of our cooking, remember?”

“I got along just fine without you for fourteen years.” Throwing the pan back on the stove, he threw two more eggs into it and stared at them, daring them to burn themselves again.

Matilda smiled and trotted to Cranky’s side, brushing her coat against his. “How about I take care of that, Doodle?” she said, gently ushering the jack away from the stove. When she finally got Cranky to sit down at the table with Daring, she placed her hooves on the counter and smiled at the two. “How about you tell me some of your stories, you two? I’d love to hear all about them.”

Daring and Cranky both looked at each other, and the pegasus shrugged and smiled. “Hey, I thought the wedding was today, so my schedule’s cleared for the rest of the day. You?”

Cranky shrugged back at her. “I was just going to spend the day with my wife, but I guess I can make room for my daughter as well.”

Matilda grinned at them. “Perfect! This will be fantastic! Tell me all about it!”

“Well, she’s your wife,” Daring said, looking at Cranky expectantly. “You pick the first one.”

“Oh, that’s a no-brainer,” Cranky shot back. Clearing his throat, he leaned forward in his chair as his family quieted down to listen. “Well, what was it… fifteen years ago? Sixteen?” He shrugged and waved his hoof. “Anyways, I’d just left Los Pegasus, and was on my way north through the Smokey Mountains to Tall Tale. I’d stayed at a few mountain settlements, but the next on my list was a little place called Glacier Point…”