Daring Do and the Crystal Cane

Chapter 01

Most people would consider being woken up in the middle of the night by gunshots and screaming to be a terrible way to start the day. However for the woman laying in bed, it was a typical Tuesday here in Madagascar. Definitely not the most kid friendly place to be. Luckily for her, she was an adult. The woman brushed a strand of her orange and yellow hair out of her vision, just staring up at the ceiling. With a sigh she thought, '16 months and still no leads. Where are you Dooie?' Sitting up she gazed around the plain thatch hut she was staying in. Nothing new.

*16 Months Earlier*

There was a knock on the door of her front door. She got up, walked towards the entrance and opened the door. Suddenly a couple of loud pops were heard that startled the woman causing her to jump back and make her fiery hair to quickly bop as streamers gently fell from the skies.

"Happy 18th Birthday Spitfire!" The couple of friends around the same age - one guy, one girl - cheered to the woman while each held a small confetti cannon. They both dropped the cannons and grabbed one of Spitfire's arms as they pulled  her into a group hug.

After a few moments of standing and embracing her friends, Spitfire pulled herself away from them before brushing a few stray hairs from her face with a massive grin, "I have to admit with all that's been going on lately I forgot it was even my birthday. I was planning on having a day of reading, but I guess that plan's out the window now, huh?" She explained with a small chuckle.

Soarin, the man had dark blue hair and green eyes, had a quick laugh as he pulled out an envelope, "Speaking of your weird book addiction." It was small in size but rather thick and placed it into Spitfire's waiting hands. "It's a few vouchers for your favourite book store, you better be grateful, I spent a lot of bits on this, so make the most of it." His grin was practically ear to ear when he saw Spitfire's shocked face.

"You could have gotten me like a fifty bit one and I would have be happy."

He just laughed and used his thumb to point to the woman next to him. "Fleetfoot here said that I had to get presents that costed at least four thousand bits, so I got you something you can use to get whatever book you would wanted."

Spitfire quickly looked Fleetfoot after Soarin's explanation, "Four thousand?! Fleet why so much?"

Fleetfoot, the woman had white hair and green eyes, bent down to pick up a large package and held it out for her friend. "Well you see, my gift got more expensive after each one I bought. I managed to get you a new book series that came out recently. It's suppose to be about a female archaeologist who is looking for ancient artifacts and take them to a museum to protect them from falling into the wrong hands. There's apparently already five books in the series and it barely started a year ago. I heard a lot of good things about them so I thought you might like it." She finished explaining with a smile as Spitfire took the books.

"But over four thousand bits, are the books printed on gold?!"

"they are all the very first copy of each and signed by the author. If you don't like them you can give it back to the book store, I put the receipt in the first book." She smiled. "And this way you can spend your day reading."

Soarin's head quickly shot towards Fleetfoot, "I thought we were taking her out for a drink."

Spitfire shook her head. "No thanks Soarin. Do you two wanna come in, I can open the presents and we make some plans for tomorrow or something."

"Sounds like a plan. Can't wait to see your face." Soarin said with a laugh before he took the two presents from Spitfire.

The three friends walked in, the girls sat down on the couch while Soarin placed the presents down on the coffee table in front of Spitfire before he took the seat on the opposite side of her from Fleetfoot. Spitfire looked between her friends waiting for them to let her know if she could start. Two nods later she was opening Soarin's present. Sure enough inside were three gift vouchers for her favourite book store, The Golden Oak. she looked at the number indicated on each card. One thousand five hundred bits, each.

Spitfire was shocked to say the least. Soarin was a bartender so he wasn't making this kind of money. "S-Soarin! What the hell! This is far too much! Where did you get this kind of money?"

Soarin shrugged at the question, "I got a few loads from my dad."

"But-but-but." She was speechless, her mouth agape.

Fleetfoot slugged her shoulder but to avail. "Wow if you reacted this badly to his present you will faint when you see mine."

Spitfire just looked at Fleetfoot then at the present. She reached out and began open the package, The paper wrapping fell to the floor and the small stack of five books were presented. Spitfire picked up the first book and looked at the cover. One it was a woman, she wore a dark olivine vest and cargo shorts, a tan pith helmet with a dark olive band, hanging onto a tree vine with one hand while the other held a blue jewel statue of two jackals looking in opposite directions with a gem between them, the statue and gem were both made of Sapphire, if the title was any indication. Bellow her were three crocodiles, one was right under her and making an attempt to bite the woman.

But there were only two things that Spitfire took notice of, the multi toned grey hair and the Cutie Mark that was present on the back of the hand that was holding onto the vine. It was a Compass Rose. Spitfire held the book in one hand and gently placed her hand on the image of the woman. She stared fondly at the image for what seemed like an eternity.

Fleetfoot and Soarin shared a worried looked. Soarin placed his hand on Spitfire's shoulder making her start at the contact. "Hey, Spitfire? you okay?"

Spitfire just nodded and spoke, "Just... Thinking." she got up and walked to her desk at the back of the room. Placing the book down she began looking through her draws near frantically. "It's gotta be here. It's gotta be here. Please let it be here."

"uhm Fire... you're starting to freak us out. What's going on?" Soarin said as he slowly began closing the distance between him and Spitfire.

Spitfire shot up holding a photo album in here hands, "Found it!"

She picked up the Daring Do book and carried both to the coffee table. Slamming them both down she started paging through the photos before stopping on a page that was filled with an 8 year old Spitfire and another girl, she was at least about 13 at the time, she had multi toned grey hair and each had an arm around each other both holding up their free hands to reveal the newly earned Cutie Marks of the girls. Spitfire had a wing that seemed to be made of a roaring fire, while the other girl had what appeared to be a Compass Rose.

She looked between the two images, one of the friend Spitfire use to spend days on end playing with and the other of the woman narrowly not getting bitten by crocodile while holding an ancient artifact. "Why?" Her breathing became hitched and her vision became blurry. Picking up the Daring Do book she hugged it tightly to her chest and began to sob. "Why? I thought you were dead." Her voice grew louder and louder after each word. "WHY DOOIE?!" Her friends could do nothing to stop the tears from cascading onto her legs.