Daring Doesn't Do Curses

Daring Do slinked across the ancient stones of the Maneyan temple, each step light to detect the possibility of a booby trap. The deep hallway was brightened by only a few torches on either side of the wall. She was slow, methodical, and precise, avoiding any rocks that looked too loose or out of place. Beads of sweat rolled down her face as she continued on. Hopefully, this was the last hall before the treasure room.

"So awesome!"

Daring froze and narrowed her eyes. She turned around to see her partner, Rainbow Dash, hovering right behind her. The cyan mare's eyes were wide with excitement as she watched her hero in action.

"Shhh!" Daring berated. "I didn't ask you to come with me on this hunt so you could alert whatever might be lurking in this temple to our presence!"

"Pssh!" Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively. "This place is like, a bajillion years old. Who do you think we might run into? Ghosts?"

"It's happened before," Daring said lowly.

Rainbow did a double take. "Whoa, really? I don't remember reading about that before!"

"That book's still in development," Daring whispered. "And stop flying! I told you there might be trap wires strung across the ceiling!"

Rainbow rolled her eyes, but lowered herself to the ground. "Sorry."

Resigned knowing that was the best apology she'd be getting, Daring Do turned her focus back to the hall. They sneaked through the rest of it in record time, soon finding themselves in a large chamber that must've been smack dab in the middle of the temple.

Daring looked around it quickly, taking note of anything significant. Some scribblings on the far wall, a carved circle on the floor that spanned the radius of the room, and in the middle of that: a podium.

"Jackpot!" Rainbow said.

Daring couldn't hold back a smile. "The lost Maneyan artifact of Calakmule! We found it."

"And it looks like we beat Ahuizotl to the punch, too!" Rainbow said with a grin. Daring matched it. They'd already encountered that blue monster twice on this journey alone, and both times had narrowly avoided getting caught.

"Well we owe that to you," Daring said. "Burning the directions before he could get a chance to look at them was genius."

"Aw, thanks." Rainbow blushed. "But you're the one who memorized them first. If you hadn't, I don't think I would've been able to do it."

"Fair enough. Now come on." Daring waved her forward as they trotted toward the podium. On top of it rested the lost treasure of Calakmule, but at this distance it only looked like blob.

"Hey, why'd the Maneyans go through so much trouble to hide this treasure anyway?" Rainbow asked. "Were they that paranoid somepony would steal it back in the day?"

Daring shook her head. "Not quite. According to legend, this artifact bore a horrible curse upon it."

"Curse?" Rainbow actually sounded a little worried.

"Relax, the Maneyan's were a tribe of earth ponies. None of them could've had the magic to actually curse something. They would just say that to make ponies stay away."

"Oh, okay." That seemed to assuage her worries.

They were approaching the podium now, stepping across the line made by the carving in the stone. Turning her attention back to the artifact, Daring cleared her throat. "Now, be on the look out for traps while I grab the... uh..."

She froze, her eyes falling to rest on artifact atop the podium. Staring back at her was a large, pink pacifier. The rubber bulb was big, big enough for a grown pony anyway, and the plastic guard bore a cutesy red heart on it.

"What?" Dash narrowed her eyes at the thing. "Are you kidding me, Maneyans?"

"This can't be right." Daring walked around the podium, hoping it was just a trick of the light. No such luck. "Everything I've ever read about this temple suggested that it held a treasure in the centermost vault. Some even suggested it was a fountain of youth!"

"You think Ahuizotl beat us here and left this behind to taunt us?" Rainbow asked.

"He couldn't possibly!" Daring almost shouted. "You burned the only map that had directions here. Nopony else knows how to get to this temple but us!"

"Maybe it was ghosts?" Rainbow suggested.

Daring rolled her eyes. "Haha. As if ghosts would trade a treasure for a pacifier." She glanced at the pink insult again, and before she really knew it, her expression softened. It certainly wasn't the worst thing she'd ever found in a temple before. In fact, it was kind of cute. Inviting even. The way it just sat there, as if it expected to be picked up and popped into somepony's mouth at any second...

"Ya think that might be a clue to where the treasure is?" Rainbow's voice ripped Daring from her thoughts. She glanced up from the pacifier and saw Rainbow pointing to the writing on the wall.

She squinted at it, but sighed. "Sorry, my ancient Maneyan isn't too good. I can only pick up a few words at best."

"Anything useful?" Rainbow asked with hope.

Daring stared up at the wall again. Among the confusing gibberish and pictograms she did her best to read what it said. She managed to translate only a few words though: 'Danger', 'spell', and what looked to be either the word for 'regress' or the word for 'soup'. Ancient Maneyan was very confusing.

She shook her head. "Nothing good."

"Crap. Maybe there's a secret door or something, nearby. Hang on." Rainbow darted about the room, determined for this adventure to not end on a sour note.

Meanwhile, Daring turned her attention back to the pacifier, pinching her lips in curiosity. She wasn't curious about how it got there, or how the ancient Maneyans managed to make a pacifier. No, what she was curious about, oddly enough, is what it would be like to suckle on it.

Part of her knew that was a weird thought to have, but another part of her didn't really care. She was drawn to the mysterious pacifier in a way she couldn't describe. She could even feel saliva building up in her mouth at the thought of suckling on this ancient foal toy.

What's the harm? She thought. The mission is a bust either way, I guess. With only the slightest of hesitations, she reached up and grabbed the pacifier from the podium. For a moment, she held the pacifier in her hoof, inspecting it. Then she slowly inched it toward her waiting lips.

RUMBLE RUBMLE

Daring's eyes widened as she realized the floor was disappearing from under them. The entire inner circle was slipping away! Her treasure hunter instincts kicked in and she slipped her find safely in her shirt pocket before snapping her wings open. "Dash, fly!"

Rainbow heard and soared upward. Daring matched her pace and the two left the ground as the inner circle completely vanished.

"That was a close one!" Rainbow said. "Sorry Daring, I guess I tripped a trap or something."

Daring opened her mouth, about to correct her partner. After all, her experience led her to believe that taking the pacifier was probably what did it, yet she stopped. She didn't want Rainbow to know she had the pacifier. Not out of embarrassment, but out of greed. It was hers, and if Rainbow knew she had it, there might be trouble. What if she tried to take it? Daring was not letting that happen.

"No worries, rookie. We're just lucky whoever made that trap didn't plan on us being pegasi."

"Guess so." Rainbow sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. She looked down, seeing nothing but a dark expanse under the trap door. "Boy, that looks deep. Where do you think it leads?"

"I try not to think about that most of the time," Daring said. "I've learned that you almost never want to know."

"Yeah... fair enough," Rainbow decided.

"Why don't we head out to the campsite and get some sleep?" Daring suggested. "It's been a long day. We can check out the temple again tomorrow, see if we missed anything."

Rainbow took the bait. "Yeah, okay," she said, eager to put her slip up behind them.

"Come on, we should be safe to fly out." Daring started back out the way they came, hearing the flapping of Rainbow soon follow her.

As they left the temple, Daring patted her pocket gently, her pacifier safe inside.