The Most Valuable Treasure
“Why do all of our adventures end like this!?” a stallion with a peach coat and a light blue mane and tail yelled as he raced down the collapsing hallway. Behind him was a familiar mare who sported a golden coat and a grayscale mane and tail, also galloping as fast as she could away from the falling jade pillars which held up the hallway. She was wearing her signature green vest and tan hat. “I mean, why can’t we just take the treasure and have a nice stroll out? They always rig the pedestal to collapse the place we're in! You know what I mean, don’t you, Daring?”
“Raider! Less talking, more running!” Daring Do shouted back, her heart racing and her hooves starting to feel the exhaustion of the intense running she had been doing for the past minute. However, turning her head back around, she noticed the falling pillars catching up to her which immediately sent adrenaline racing through her veins. Closing her eyes shut, she ignored the pain and kept up her intense pace, knowing that any minor slowdown would cost her her life.
“There! We’re almost out of here!” Raider’s voice shot her eyes wide open. Looking forward, she noticed a faint light at the end of the hallway, which was growing at an extremely quick rate. Both ponies gave themselves one last push with Raider exiting the temple first, stopping just outside to catch his breath.
Daring could see the exit clearly now; the warm sunshine and tall trees of the forest were in her sights. Suddenly, she felt something leave her head. Stopping a few feet away from the exit, she touched the top of head, expecting the rough feeling of her hat but instead feeling her soft mane. Quickly turning her head around, she saw that her hat was lying on the floor, only a few seconds away from getting crushed.
“My hat!” Daring shouted, dashing as fast as she could towards her beloved headpiece.
Raider’s hooves went shaky when he turned his head to look at Daring Do just as she started to gallop deeper into the temple, towards the collapsing pillars which could crush her in an instant.
“Daring! Are you crazy!? Daring!” Raider took off back into it, desperately trying to save his friend.
Daring reached her hoof out for her hat and managed to pull it out just in time. Biting hard on it, she made sure that it would not leave her possession again. She swung around and started to run towards Raider, who was also galloping towards her.
“Daring! Behind you!”
Daring turned her head back for a split-second, only noticing a large green stone flying at her before feeling an intense surge of pain. The last sound she heard wasn’t the loud crashing of pillars or any of the loud noises which surrounded her. It was the horrified voice of Raider calling her name one last time, before everything faded into black and every sound was muted.
Faint beeps and muffled voices were the first things that Daring heard as she returned from the darkness. Her eyes started to flutter open slowly and almost immediately, was blinded by the intense light over her. She brought her right hoof up to shield the light, hoping to reduce its intensity. At the same time, she took a deep breath in and a heavy medicinal smell filled her nostrils. Letting out a small cough, her eyes started to adjust to the light and her blurred vision started to focus on her surroundings.
“W-Where am I?” Daring whispered.
“Oh, Miss Do. You’re awake. Splendid.” The gentle voice caught Daring off guard. Turning to her extreme right, she saw a stallion, dressed in white scrubs and wearing a mask over his muzzle. He was examining the machine from which the beeps were emitting from, which Daring could now see was a heart monitor. “You’re in a hospital. You’ve been asleep for about a day since that stallion brought you here.”
Without warning, she felt a sharp pain from the right side of her head. As she moved her right hoof to feel that area, she felt a thick fabric which was wrapped around her head. Her sudden wince and soft shout did not go unnoticed by the stallion at the heart monitor.
“You really did hurt yourself pretty badly. The wound on your head will take a few weeks to heal up!” The doctor trotted away from the machine and up to the foot of Daring’s bed, pulling up a small clipboard and slipping on a pair of circular glasses over his eyes. “Please Miss Do, do not think of doing any activities until you have fully healed. I shall personally ensure you make a full recovery before letting you out.”
Lifting a few pages on the clipboard, he muttered to himself, “yes, yes. Heart rate stable, pain sensitivity normal. Still a little dazed.” Putting the clipboard back on the foot of the bed, the doctor gazed back to Daring, who was still glancing around the room, trying to remember what happened before she arrived her. “Well, Miss Do. You seem perfectly fine, except for the present injuries. You’re lucky that that stallion brought you here as fast as he did or else-”
The sound of a door sliding caught the doctor’s attention. Daring didn’t notice it though, as she stared at the white walls of her room. Turning around, he saw a familiar pony slide the transparent door open and trot in.
“And speak of the devil,” the doctor said as Raider walked up to him.
“How is she, doc?” Raider asked with a frown, glancing past the doctor and at the mare who laid on the bed before tossing his saddlebags onto a table which sat next to a chair.
“She’s fine. Just needs to rest for a few weeks. She’s still very confused on what’s happened. Maybe you should fill her in. I’ll leave you two alone,” the doctor instructed before leaving the ward and closing the door shut. Raider trotted beside Daring’s bed.
“Heya, Daring. You okay?” Raider asked, concerned about the blank look sprawled across Daring’s face.
“H-Huh? Y-Yeah. I’m fine, Raider. Just trying to remember how I got here, that’s all. All I remember feeling was this intense pain before everything went dark.”
“Well that’s kinda what happens when a large rock smashes into your head,” Raider explained nonchalantly.
“Oh! Right.” Daring sighed. “The booby trap, the collapsing pillars. I remember now.”
“That’s good. You’re lucky to even be awake after that hit on your head. I wouldn’t want my 3 hour trip of dragging you out of the forest by myself to be a waste.” Raider’s sarcastic tone caused Daring to let out a small chuckle.
“Thanks, Raider.”
“No problem, Daring.” Raider looked around the room and spotted the small chair which faced the bed. Slumping down on it, he spoke again. “Seriously though, you’re crazy.”
“I’ve been called that a lot by many ponies,” Daring said with a smile.
“No no. You’ve been called that a lot by many sane ponies. To hear that from me...well... that’s an accomplishment by itself.” Raider leaned back into his chair, staring at Daring who glanced back at him. “But you didn’t have to risk your life for that hat. I mean, we could’ve gotten one exactly like it at the market.”
Daring’s eyes widened at the realization. “My hat! Raider! Where’s my hat!?”
“Relax, Daring.” Raider reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the familiar tan-colored hat, unchanged and unscathed, before tossing it onto the bed right in front of Daring. Daring picked up the hat and lifted it to her head, a smile on her face the entire time.
“That hat really means alot to you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah!” Daring replied without a second thought.
“Why?” Raider asked with a curious look on his face.
“Huh? O-Oh,” Daring stuttered and the smile on her face vanished. She let her eyes fall onto the sheets that were on the lower half of her body, her expression turning solemn as she did so. “It’s a...It’s a long story.”
Raider pushed himself as far back in the chair as he could. “Well, we’ve got time. A lot of time.” He gave a warm smile. “Speaking of which.” He reached his hoof into his saddlebag, retrieving a small notebook with a pen stuck into the middle of it.
“Daring Do races through the temple floor, trying desperately to-” Raider whispered to himself, almost certain that Daring could not hear what he was saying, but he was wrong.
“Raider, you’re not still writing those stupid books about me, are you?” Daring asked, rolling her eyes at the same time.
“They aren’t stupid books! They’re biographies of your life!” Raider argued.
“Raider, on my quest to get the Sapphire Stone, I never encountered a giant blue cat-thing!”
“His name is Ahuizotl! And he’s a serious threat to you!”
Daring slammed her hoof to her face, almost forgetting about her injury. “He doesn’t exist! You made him up!” she screamed.
“Well, the thousands of ponies who read it sure seem to like it.”
“You know what? Nevermind. Forget we had this discussion. I just want to recover so I can go back to solving puzzles and retrieving artifacts.”
“Oh right!” Raider yelled, slightly startling Daring. Reaching into his saddlebag once more, he pulled out a colorful cube and tossed it to Daring’s bed.
Daring reached her hoof down and gasped the curious object. Each of the six faces on the cube was divided into nine smaller squares, each made up of one out of six colors. She gripped one third of the cube and managed to move it vertically. Daring was truly perplexed. She turned back to Raider, who stared with a wide grin on his face.
“What’s this?” Daring held up the object in question.
“It’s my Rubik’s cube,” Raider answered.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“You’re supposed to turn it and figure out a way so that each of the six faces only contain one color. For example, you see the green color? Find a way to rotate it so that one side has nothing but green. You love puzzles and since I figured you got nothing to do in this place, I thought you might enjoy it.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Daring said as she started fiddling with the cube.
Raider let out a short chuckle before speaking again. “You do that. I’ll wait.” The only sound left in the room was the ‘click’ whenever Daring made a move with the cube. “So... Daring?”
“Huh?” Daring responded automatically, all of her attention drawn towards solving the cube.
“Your hat?” Raider hinted.
“Huh? Oh! Oh right.” Daring blushed slightly at having so easily forgot. “Well, I was born into an odd family in Fillydelphia. My father was an explorer and my mum was a housemare. Almost everyday he would go out of the house really early and come back while I was asleep...”
“Promise me you’ll stay safe, Danger,” a mare with a blue coat and sky-blue mane told a stallion, who sported a light-cream coat and white mane. The stallion also wore a hat, a green vest and had a lit torch for a cutie mark. The mare, on the other hand, had two small purple hearts on her flank. Both of them stood next to the opened front door of their house. The skies were still a dark purple, showing that the sun was resting just above the horizon, preparing to rise and bring with it the morning light.
“I will. You take care of our little filly.” The stallion leaned forward and gave the mare a kiss on her lips. As their lips parted, Danger caught the sight of something at the corner of his eye. Turning to his right, he saw his precious daughter, standing and staring at him with huge, sorrowful eyes.
“Heyo, Daring!” Danger walked over and lowered himself to the filly, so that their eyes met. “Why are you up so early?”
“Daddy, where are you going?” Daring ignored the question her father posed.
“I’m going to work,” he replied with a smile.
“Can I come?” Daring asked with a frown. She knew what the answer would be, but she hoped that it would change.
“I told you before, DD. My job’s too dangerous to let you come along.”
Daring lowered her head, devastated to hear the same answer she had been hearing for the past year.
“You never spend any time with me,” Daring muttered, afraid to let her father hear what she felt.
Upon hearing Daring’s words, the smile on Danger’s face disappeared. He lifted his right forehoof to Daring’s chin and pushed her head upwards, so that her magenta eyes were staring at his turquoise ones.
“I’ll find time for you, DD, I promise. But for now, work is important for me, for us.” Danger gave Daring a light kiss on her forehead, a smaller, but more sincere, smile returning to his lips as he reeled back to look at Daring once more. “I’ll try to come back early so that we can hang out together, okay?”
Daring gave a soft and reluctant nod before watching her father give the mare one last goodbye and leave through the front door just as the first rays of sunlight appeared in the distance.
“He never did come back early...”
Danger Do pushed open the front door, still dressed in the pith hat and vest. In the sky hung thousands of glittering stars. The house was also drenched in darkness, a sight Danger was all too familiar with. He closed the door shut and ascended the staircase in front of him. When he reached the top, he made a left turn into Daring’s room.
Daring’s room was tiny, only having enough space to hold a cupboard with a mirror which faced the door and a bed, which sat at the end of the room in a corner. Laying on the bed was the familiar filly, sound asleep and oblivious to her surroundings. Danger trotted as silently as he could towards Daring and once he got close, he leaned down and gave a light kiss on her head.
“She fell asleep waiting for you.” The voice startled Danger, causing him to swing around to see the mare he loved standing at the doorway. “She really misses her father.”
“I know,” Danger admitted with a heavy heart. “But I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
The mare walked in front of Danger, giving him a silent kiss. “I just care dearly for her.”
“I know...”
There was a moment of silence, as the mare closed her eyes to take in the words Danger had just said. “No. No you don’t,” the mare muttered before leaving the room, allowing the silence to return and completely wrapping Danger in it. Danger let out a soft sigh before walking out of the room and closing the door.
Daring stared intently at the cube in her hooves as she twisted it randomly, still trying to get at least one face to contain one solid color.
“One day, I decided that it was enough. So, I did something only a filly that had no personal sense of safety would do...”
“Goodbye, Danger.” The mare leaned in for another kiss. When the kiss ended, she spoke the same line she had been speaking to Danger everyday for the past few years. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I will.” The reply had been the same for years but Danger never once forgot how much weight those two words held. “Daring isn’t here today?”
“No, she must be exhausted from staying up for you for so many weeks.”
Danger sighed. “I just wish there was a way to spend some time with her.”
“Then take some time off from your work,” Danger’s wife suggested, slipping her hooves around his neck.
“You know I can’t do that.” He turned his head away but was quickly pulled back by his wife as she leaned in for one final kiss.
“Stay safe.”
Danger nodded in reply, unsure of what to say. Taking the first steps out of the main door, he looked at the purple night sky. The lack of light brought comfort to Danger. It told him that he was still on time for his job.
Inside the house, the mare started to close the door, her sleepy eyes oblivious to the small yellow flash just as the door slammed shut.
“...I followed him.”
Daring took a deep breath in, knowing that there was no turning back now. Glancing forward, she spotted Danger walking onto the sidewalk and turning left into the streets of Fillydelphia. She followed closely behind with silent steps, making sure that there was always something she could hide behind before she advanced.
Daring had gotten a few green squares on one side of the cube, though they were random and scattered. She continued twisting and turning the cube, trying to beat this seemingly simple puzzle.
“I followed him as he trotted from morning to the afternoon. He trotted through the streets, not stopping to talk to anypony. He eventually walked into the outskirts of Fillydelphia, where tall trees grew in one of the thickest forests in all of Equestria.”
Daring Do watched every step she took in the forest. Even though it was close to noon, the tightly woven canopy blocked almost any rays of sunlight from entering it, covering it in a shroud of darkness. Childhood tales of this forest returned to her mind as she went deeper and deeper into it. Tales of creatures in the forest vicious enough to tear ponies limb from limb with ease, or that every filly who has ever wandered in has never came out alive. For that reason, the town had dubbed it the ‘Fillyeater Forest’.
Even though Daring had always brushed them off as myths, the tales of the Fillyeater Forest seemed more real than ever. She could barely make out the shape of her father in front of her, even though he was merely a few feet away. Many times she wanted to shout for her father and be brought home into the safe sanctuary of her home, but Daring steeled herself and pressed on, hoping that she would at least see light again soon.
Another minute of trotting later, Danger sliced through several thick vines and immediately, warm, welcoming sunlight shot in to slay the darkness which surrounded Daring. As her father trotted through the small opening, so did Daring, anxious to get out of the suffocating area and into some light. Though, what she saw did not allow her to breath. Instead, it took her breath away, both out of awe and fear.
In front of her stood a gigantic monkey’s head. The way that it shined in the sunlight made it clear the it was not made out of stone, instead it was made up of some sort of jewel. It seemed to be carved with intricate details, from its menacing eyes to its long fang-like teeth which stuck out from under the ground and at the top of its mouth.
In the middle of its mouth was a staircase which descended into a dark abyss. It was apparent to Daring that it was a cave and that her father would descend it in time. Her mind told her to run back to Fillydelphia, where she was safe from such horrors. However, she pushed away that choice, knowing that this may be the only way she would ever get to see her father at work.
Danger, on the other hand, looked unimpressed. He took a few quick glances before fearlessly descending the cave, forcing Daring to rush up with quick hooves. Peering into the depths of the cave, she gulped before putting her first hoof onto the cold, stone steps.
“It was really scary when I first stepped in. It was cold, damp and quiet. I pressed on, though I was unsure of what I hoped to gain through this ordeal.” Daring didn’t look up from the puzzle in her hooves as she continued to speak. “I guess I just wanted to see what he does that makes him come back so late everyday.”
Daring moved pillar by pillar down the stone hallway. Each pillar held a lit torch, illuminating the otherwise pitch black floor, walls and ceiling. The bricks that made up the entire hallway were of a unusual color: a striking tangerine. Her eyes were fixated on Danger as he continued on deeper into the temple.
“And then, I heard one of the scariest sounds I had ever heard in my life.”
‘Click!’
Danger’s head tilted upwards as the floor started to shake violently. His heart started to beat at an extreme pace as he scanned the area for what the trap may be.
Daring’s heart started to race too, her eyes filling up with tears of fear as the floor started to vibrate beneath her hooves. She couldn’t hold it in anymore, she needed the warmth of her father’s arms. She opened her mouth to call but before she could yell for safety, the sound of something falling echoed through the tight hallway.
Danger heard the distinct sound and didn’t even need to turn back to know what was causing it: the hallway was crumbling. Years of experience taught him that turning his head around was only wasting time and time was of the utmost importance in a situation like this. He took off into a extremely fast gallop, completely unaware of the frightened filly behind him.
Daring’s eyes widened and her mouth trembled as her father started to run away from her. Her hooves were rooted to the ground, unable to lift them as the intense fear started to drain away her energy at an alarming rate. Looking behind her, she noticed the falling pillars and collapsing ceiling. Turning back around, she gathered the last of her strength and shouted as loud as she could.
“Daddy!”
The voice stopped Danger right in his tracks. ‘That can’t be...’ Danger swung around and saw his daughter, unmoving with tear-filled eyes. He swore his heart stopped then as the collapsing pillars were just seconds away from his beloved daughter.
“Daring!” Danger ran as fast as his hooves could manage. The pillar Daring sat next to had started to dislodge and the ceiling had started to crumble above her. “Hold on!”
Danger reached his mouth as far as he could, barely managing to grasp Daring’s body in his teeth before pulling her away just as the pillar smashed onto the ground. The same ground Daring sat on mere milliseconds ago. Danger tossed Daring into the air and onto his back, taking off at full speed back down the hallway. He could feel the dust and wind that was being tossed around from the pillars on his flank, his tail centimeters away from getting squashed.
His hooves had begun to tire, threatening to end his life right here. However, the feeling of Daring on his back and her soft sobs and whimpers gave him an immediate boost of energy. Squinting his eyes, he saw a doorway a distance away.
“Finally!” Danger said with a smile, but his smile soon turned into a frown when a large piece of stone had started to descend down the doorway, threatening to block them in if he did not pick up his pace. With his daughter on his back, Danger gave one last push. He galloped at a speed he had never galloped before and in one swift motion, he turned his head back, bit on Daring’s coat and tossed her under the descending door. He continued his furious run and taking a huge breath, he slid on the floor. The last strand of his mane making it through the doorway just as the stone slab slammed it shut, turning the doorway into an impenetrable wall.
Daring stopped fiddling with the cube, her hooves trembling slightly from recalling the memory.
“I remember that scene so vividly, it scares me sometimes.” Daring took a deep breath in. Raider was on the edge of his seat, staring intently at the mare on the bed as she recalled the memory in every single detail.
“I expected shouting, screaming, yelling from him. I braced myself for an endless barrage of scolding but instead, he did something completely unexpected.”
Danger pulled the trembling Daring into his hooves, pressing her face against his chest.
“Daring, you have no idea how scared you made me.”
Daring opened her eyes in shock. She had always thought of her father as a brave and fearless stallion, to admit that he was afraid was something she’d never thought she’d hear. The warmth of his body only brought out more tears to Daring’s eyes, for now she truly felt safe. After a few seconds, Danger held her at hooves length and stared into her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Danger asked, a little flustered but mostly confused.
“I came to see what work for you is like, Daddy,” Daring replied with a guilty frown on her face.
“I told you before, my job is extremely dangerous! You shouldn’t be here!”
“I’m sorry... You just never spend time with me so I’d thought I’d spend some with you.” Daring tilted her head downwards. Danger looked at his daughter, speechless, his heart writhed with guilt. “Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad, DD. But your mother must be worried sick!”
Daring’s eyes widened once more. She had completely forgotten about her mother’s feelings when she planned her escape. Guilt started to overwhelm her, causing fresh tears to appear at her eyelids. Danger immediately noticed this and spoke again.
“But don’t worry, I’ll get you back home in no time,” Danger assured the filly and turned around to realize he had forgotten that the only path out was now blocked and destroyed. “I guess I don’t have a choice.” Lowering himself down to Daring’s height, he whispered, “I’ll let you come with me, just this once. But I need you to promise me that you’ll stay close and do what I say. Okay, DD?”
Daring’s face immediately lit up with a huge grin. She enthusiastically responded with a furious nod before Danger tossed her onto his back and ventured deeper into the caverns they were in.
Daring resumed trying to figure out the Rubik’s cube. Staring intently at it and not looking up as she continued talking. “That cavern was the darkest, scariest and the most dangerous place I had ever been in when I was a filly...and I loved every moment of it.” Daring, unknown to her, had started to smile. “I was finally doing something I’d never thought I’d do. I was spending time with my father. We were having fun, doing something together. It was one of the happiest moments in my life.”
Raider didn’t dare to interrupt, he closed his eyes and listened intently to Daring’s story.
“There were times when he would save me...”
“Daddy!” Daring yelled, her hooves flailing in the air as the floor beneath her broke without warning, sending her down into the deadly depths of the cave.
Danger immediately swung around and leaped to the edge of the large hole, barely managing to catch on to Daring’s hoof with his own.
“Hang on,” Danger instructed with clenched teeth, his face twisted in pain. Using all of the strength he could muster, he started to lift Daring up. He felt as if his hoof would separate from his body at any time. But he worked through the pain and managed to pull Daring to safety, his hoof burning from the ordeal.
Danger was gasping for air as if he had just been suffocated but Daring was surprisingly calm. In fact, she was smiling! Danger looked up and noticed the odd expression on Daring’s face, expecting tears but instead receiving a smile.
“Why are you smiling, DD? You could have died!” Danger didn’t mean to shout, it just came out naturally.
The loud voice didn’t break Daring’s smile as she answered, “I’m smiling because I knew you would save me, Daddy! And you did!”
Danger chuckled softly at Daring’s innocence. “Yeah, well. Just don’t go doing that again, all right?”
“And there were even times when I would save him.”
“Daddy! Watch out!” Daring jumped and bit Danger’s tail, forcing him to lower his whole body on reaction. He felt a bunch of objects whizzing above his head and grazing his fur. Looking back up at the wall to his right, he saw a bunch of large darts lodged into the stone wall. Danger was dumbfounded. He was always one step ahead of the traps that every cavern, temple or dungeon had set for him. This was the first time where he could have very well died if it wasn’t for the filly’s quick reaction.
“T-Thank you, DD,” Danger stuttered out, still reeling from the shock.
“No problem!” Daring replied with a huge grin as she trotted ahead of the stunned stallion. “Daddy, are you coming?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Y-Yeah. Right behind you.” Danger regained the movement in his hooves and trotted extremely carefully towards his daughter, his eyes darting around to watch for anymore hidden booby traps.
Raider couldn’t help but give an almost evil smile as he watched the mare on the bed twist and turn the cube she held in her hooves. It was clear she had no idea what she was doing and she was just hoping to get something from random luck and chance, but that only made it all the more satisfying for him. To see the self-proclaimed ‘Pony that can solve any puzzle’ get stumped by a simple cube drew out a slightly wicked pony within him.
Raider knew she wouldn’t admit that she couldn’t solve it, but all he had to do was wait. Wait for her to admit defeat. Only then can he truly stand triumphant and use the many sarcastic lines he had planned. A short while later, Daring’s voice brought him back down to Equestria.
“We eventually reached the central chamber. It was there where we found what we were looking for...”
“Whoa.” Daring was immediately captivated as she took her first step into the grand central chamber. The orange bricks had been replaced with flawless gold walls. Piles of gold coins filled the room, obstructing each step that they wanted to take. There were no lit torches in the room, but the room was not pitch black. In the exact middle of the ceiling was a small hole, which allowed a cone of sunlight to shine down into the middle of the chamber.
In the middle sat a stone pedestal and on the pedestal was a small blue necklace. The necklace glimmered under the soft light, hypnotizing Daring to trudge through the gold towards it, but a forceful grip on her shoulder snapped her out of her trance.
“Don’t. Might be booby trapped,” Danger cautioned Daring. Danger took a few steps forward, trudging through the gold ever so slowly. As he approached the pedestal, he made sure his ears and eyes were are their sharpest and his reflexes were at its peak, ready to react to anything that may strike out at him.
Finally reaching the pedestal, Danger examined the necklace at every angle. He looked at the pedestal it stood on and at the chain which hung from the middle of the flawless, diamond-shaped sapphire. He positioned his hooves inches away from the treasure and licked his lips. Taking one deep breath in, he swiped the necklace from its perch and froze. His hooves ready to take any actions needed to save Daring. After a few seconds, there was another rumbling. Danger immediately raced towards Daring, tossing her onto his back and scanning the room for any signs of what the trap might be.
To his surprise, the only thing which moved was a part of the gold wall at the other end of the room, letting sunlight bath the inside of the chamber and causing all the hundreds of gold pieces to glitter like stars in the night sky. The light was warm and welcoming; Daring looked at the light as a gift but Danger wasn’t as sure as his daughter was. He was still ready for anything. After all, the years of exploring has taught him to never be complacent. He tilted his hat slightly downwards, obstructing most of the glaring sunlight from reaching his eyes as he trotted towards the opening.
“Aha!” Daring yelled triumphantly. Bringing the cube high into the air, she turned her head to Raider and spoke. “I got it!”
Raider gave an unimpressed look as he stared at the object in Daring’s hoof. Daring had managed to get one side of the Rubik’s cube entirely green. However, the other sides remained scrambled with the other five colors.
“Nice job? But you still got five faces to go.”
“Wait, you mean I have to make all the faces the same color, at the same time!?” Daring asked in disbelief.
“Yep.” Raider replied, trying to stifle a chuckle and a grin.
Daring mumbled something under her breath before bringing the cube back down under her eyes, her face showing her growing frustration.
There was silence for a few seconds before Raider decide to remind the mare on the bed.
“Daring. You were telling me about your father...?” He hinted.
“Oh, right. Spending time with my dad was not all I had earned that day. My mother, however, was less enthusiastic than we were when we came home”
“Oh my goodness. Daring, you scared me to death!” The mare lowered herself and hugged Daring in her hooves, nearly driven to tears. Danger followed quickly behind, entering the doorway and lightly closing the door. He stood behind Daring, his face beaming.
Daring hopped excitedly in her mother’s grip. “Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!” she chanted. Breaking free of the hug, Daring looked into her mother’s eyes with the widest grin she could possibly muster on her face.
“Mummy! Look what I got!” Daring turned to her right, showing the entire left side of her body to her mother. Her mother immediately noticed something new, something that was not there before. On her flank was now a compass rose, but what that mark implied only caused the mare’s heart to sink further. “My cutie mark!” Daring bounced on the spot. “I got my cutie mark!”
“T-That’s great, Daring,” she said with trembling lips.
“And look! We also found something really cool!” Daring stood on two hooves in front of her mother, the small, dark-blue pendant dangling in front of her face.
“W-Where’d you get that?” her mother asked. Looking up to Danger, he merely reacted with a wink towards the mare. “Daring, go up to your room.”
“Okay!” Daring didn’t argue or question her command. Hopping up the steps and into her room to the left.
Once Daring was out of sight, the mare immediately stood up and trotted angrily towards Danger.
“What were you thinking!? Bringing Daring on an adventure like that!” She tried to whisper but the words were still noticeably loud.
“W-What!? How is this my fault? She followed me into the cavern!” Danger defended.
“And you didn’t notice her?”
“Well, I’m sorry if I didn’t consider ‘my-daughter-sneaking-out-and-following-me-into-a-death-trap’ a possible scenario!” Danger’s sarcastic tone only riled the mare up more.
“So when did you notice her?”
“W-When she was about to get crushed by a falling pillar, but...” The mare spun around, turning away from Danger, a hoof on her forehead.
“She could have died, Danger!”
“But she didn’t. Daring’s safe.”
“Yeah, for now! I don’t want her going on any more missions with you!” The mare had begun to yell.
“Oh, come on! She earned her cutie mark by adventuring! She’s a natural at this! She even saved my life a few times today!” Danger yelled back.
The mare rolled her eyes and spun back around, putting her hoof on Danger’s chest. “You listen to me, Danger Do. I know what sort of trouble you get yourself into each day and I appreciate how much you’re doing to keep our family the way it is. But I will not, I repeat, I will not stand here while you endanger our daughter’s life. No more adventures for her. School’s all the ‘adventure’ she needs.”
Danger took a slow, deep breath to suppress his want to argue further, knowing no good could come of further shouting and yelling. Closing his eyes, he breathed out slowly and nodded his head.
“Fine,” was the only word he could force out without screaming at the top of his lungs.
Unknown to them, up in Daring’s room, the filly sat in her bed with tears flowing down her face. Her hooves were pressed against her chest and the necklace she so proudly wore a few minutes ago was on top of the cupboard, separated from her neck.
Through her muffled cries and quiet whimpers, she managed to mouth the words she so desperately wanted to say.
“I’m sorry...”
“So you stopped adventuring?” Raider inquired, now fully absorbed into the story.
“I did... for a few weeks. After that, I begged my father to take me on more adventures. Surprisingly, he agreed without a second thought and soon, we were together hunting for treasures again. It felt amazing.” Daring turned the cube in her hooves several times as she spoke. “Only one problem.”
“What was it?”
“My mother didn’t know about it. I would pretend to go to school earlier than I usually would and my father would be waiting for me on the street a short walk away from our house. She eventually wised up though, but still acted oblivious in front of me. Only when she thought I had gone to sleep, did she confront him.”
“Why are you doing this to her!?”
“Doing what!? Giving her what she wants?”
“No! Endangering her life!”
“She’s gone on many adventures and she’s still here!”
“Many? How many?”
“I...Look, she’s a smart, observant and quick-witted filly. She can take care of herself.”
Daring’s eyes slowly opened, the loud screaming had brought her consciousness back into her house. She had heard the same argument many times, so much so that the tears she would usually cry didn’t appear anymore. She would just lay on her bed and listen to all the hurtful words and accusations that were thrown around.
“I know of the trouble that you’re involved in, Danger!”
“You knew that from the start! The booby traps are part of my job specifications!”
“Not the traps, Danger! I know the ponies you’ve been dealing with!”
“I need to deal with them! Its the only way that we’re keeping this house!”
Daring closed her eyes shut once again, not to sleep, but to pray to Celestia with a sorrowful heart.
‘Please Princess, if you can hear this. Make my family back to the way is used to be. I miss my quiet nights and my father’s kisses on my forehead. I want them back. I beg you, Princess. Make us a family again.’
“I prayed to Celestia every night. Hoping. Waiting. Begging for her to help me.” Daring briefly stopped turning the Rubik’s cube. “She never did.”
Raider felt his heart turn to stone upon those words. He wanted to sit further forward but knew he would fall off the chair if he did so.
“Betrayed. That’s how I felt when I wake up one morning and heard no shouting, no yelling. I thought Celestia had finally answered my prayers. I was wrong.”
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” the mare asked, her muzzle inches away from Danger’s as they stood next to the main door.
“I’m sorry. I wish there was but there simply isn’t,” Danger responded. Neither of the two ponies were smiling. Instead, they wore somber frowns.
“Where are you going, Dad?” The voice from the top of the steps drew both ponies’ attentions away from each other and towards the filly who stood, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Daring immediately noticed something out of place. Even though this was the correct time her father would normally go out, Danger wore something extra, something Daring had never seen him wore before: his saddlebags.
A lump appeared in Danger’s throat. He thought he could avoid contact with his beloved daughter. The thought of having to say goodbye was too much to bear for him, but it was even worse now. This was no thought in his mind. This was reality.
Daring trotted down the steps and up to her father, her head tilting upwards and her eyes wide open.
“Are you going on another adventure?”
The innocence in Daring’s voice chipped away at Danger’s heart.
“Y-Yes,” Danger stammered. He had his eyes focused on various parts of the walls and ceiling around him, just not on Daring’s eyes. “Daddy’s... going away for a while.”
“Why?”
That was the question Danger hoped Daring would never ask.
“B-Because...” Danger’s mind raced to think of an answer. “D-Daddy’s gonna lose a very valuable treasure of his and he needs to find it or let it find him.”
“Can’t I come? I can help you find the treasure!” Her optimism only made it harder and harder for Danger to talk without bursting into tears.
“N-No. Daddy must find the treasure by himself, or wait till it finds him.” Danger’s eyes were still locked onto every place but his daughter’s eyes.
“No more adventures?” Daring nuzzled Danger’s hoof, forcing him to look down at his daughter.
“No more adventures.” As he said those words, he could feel droplets of tears flowing down his cheeks and dripping onto the floor below. He tried his best to muster a smile but the smile resembled a shattered mirror; broken beyond repair.
“Daddy, why are you crying?” Daring didn’t know why, but as she felt several of the tears drop onto her face, it seemed to transfer the sadness to her. She wasn’t sad, she had no reason to be. She believed her father would come back in a few weeks. He was going to return and they would be a family again. After all, this is Celestia’s answer to her months of prayers, wasn’t it? Yet, she couldn’t contain the tears that flowed up from beneath her to her eyes.
“Daddy’s just very sad. That’s all.” The smile shattered further with each word he spoke.
“When will you be back?” Daring found it hard to make a coherent sentence without stopping to weep every word or two.
“I don’t-I don’t know, DD.” Danger averted his gaze back up, away from the filly at his hooves. He whispered once more, as if to confirm what he had just said himself. “I don’t know.”
“When you come back, we can go on more adventures, right?”
Danger nodded with closed lips. He could no longer muster out words, much less sentences. Looking back down one more time, his heart nearly fell apart upon seeing his daughter’s curious, tear-filled eyes. He lowered himself to the filly, every inch of his body trembling.
“T-T-This is-This is for you, DD.” Danger lifted his hoof onto the top of his head and pulled off his hat. He then placed it on Daring’s head. It was clearly too big, with the hat dropping all the way to Daring’s muzzle, completely obstructing her eyes and mane. Danger couldn’t help but chuckle a small bit. However, it did little to alleviate the immense pain he felt in his chest. Daring lifted her new headgear and held it in her hooves.
“You’ll grow into it.” Gathering the last of his composure, he spoke one last time to his daughter, “DD, if you ever miss me, just look at that hat. It’s yours now, junior explorer Daring Do.” He brought Daring’s face closer to his and gave one last kiss on her forehead.
Danger stood up and turned around towards the door. As he took his first step out onto the porch outside, Daring’s voice froze him in his tracks for a few seconds.
“I hope you find the treasure!”
When Danger’s consciousness finally came back to him, he then trotted out of the house and onto the streets, all the while in the gaze of his daughter.
Daring watched her father leave, his tears still felt warm on her face. Just as he disappeared from her vision, the sun had started to rise over the horizon. But before she could see the entire sun rise high into the sky, the loud slam of the door blocked any rays of sunlight from piercing into the dark household she sat in.
“See you soon, Daddy.”
“So that’s why you risked your life to get that hat.” Raider voiced his realization, to which Daring nodded silently.
“I was too young, too innocent, to understand what he meant by ‘going away’. I thought he would be back in a few weeks, that he was just going on another adventure. So I waited. Then the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years. Everyday I would wake up, hoping to hear his voice, hoping to go on another wild adventure but no. It would just be dead silence.”
“As years passed by, I felt an empty feeling grow within me. A thirst for adventure, a need for danger, a hunger I needed to feed. So, I decided to run away one day, late in the night when my mother would be asleep... or so I thought.”
Daring’s walked down the stairs as quietly as she could. Hoping that the wooden steps would not creak as she took one step after another, her eyes aimed at the wooden door only a few steps away. Finally, reaching the first floor, she now stood outside the main door. Reaching her hoof out, she was inches away from the doorknob when all of a sudden, out of the pitch-black darkness, a familiar voice called out to her.
“Finally deciding to leave?”
The voice immediately sent Daring’s heart racing. She knew who it was and braced herself for the scolding of a lifetime. She did not respond, frozen in place with her left hoof stuck out towards the doorknob. She didn’t know whether she should look at the source of the voice or retract her hoof.
“Daring, I’m not going to scold you.”
The words caught Daring completely off guard. Without thinking, she retracted her hoof and spun to her left to face the voice.
There, in the middle of the barely lit living room, was her mother who sat on the carpeted floor. Her sky-blue mane had clear strands of white, signifying her growing age while her emerald eyes stared directly at Daring, never once diverting its gaze.
“You-You won’t?” Daring stuttered to confirm what she had just heard.
“No, Daring. I won’t.”
Her mother’s answer should have comforted her heart, but it instead brought out more fears and worries. She wanted to ask the question on her mind, but she was afraid of the answer that might follow. Through the silence, she asked, “umm, mother. Why won’t you scold me?”
The mare smiled, her gaze unwavering. “What good would that do, daughter? If I scold you now, you’d just try to run away again and leave with a heart filled with hate.”
Daring kept silent. The mare that laid before her seemed completely different from the mare that would scream and shout every night.
“Daughter, I love you dearly.” She finally stood up and trotted slowly towards Daring. “But do tell me one thing, why are you running away?”
“M-Mum, if you don’t want me to run away. I’ll stay! I’ll never run away again! I pro-” Her words were cut short as her mother lifted her left hoof and placed it onto Daring’s mouth.
“Shhh. Just answer my question. Why are you running away?” The mare lowered her hoof away from Daring’s muzzle.
“I need to go on adventures! See the world! Cheat death!” Daring replied in a dramatic fashion.
Her mother smiled once more. “That’s all?”
Daring had another reason, the main reason she wanted to go on the adventure. However, the mere thought of mentioning it hurt her deeply. Maintaining a calm face, she nodded.
A soft laughter escaped the mare’s lips as she turned around to the very spot she laid at a few minutes ago. As she trotted with her flank turned towards Daring, she said, “if you ever do find him, please bring him back. I miss him too.”
Daring was left stunned at the words. “How did you-” But before she could finish her question, her mother replied swiftly.
“I’m your mother. And his wife.” She laid back down under the light, her eyes focused on the wall in front of her.
Daring knew that no more words needed to be uttered. She reached for the doorknob one more time, turning and pulling open the gateway of the start of her adventure. She closed the door lightly behind her, making sure it made as minimal noise as possible before stepping onto the streets of Fillydelphia, alone.
The mare sat under the light. As the sound of the door shutting close reached her ear, she could finally release the huge amount of tears she had held within her. Even though the tears flowed endlessly like a stream down her face, no sound came out of her mouth, not even a whimper. Opening her mouth to speak, she could only manage to move her lips, mouthing the words she so desperately wanted to say, but couldn’t.
‘I miss you already. Please come back.’
“After that, I started to source out for treasures. Got my first tip about an extremely valuable stone in the middle of a jungle the ponies call the ‘Sapphire Stone’. So I went into the temple, dodged booby traps and managed to retrieve it with little trouble, except for the broken wings.”
Daring turned her head to face Raider, who was nearly falling off his chair. She gave him a serious stare. “No ‘Ahuizotl’. No giant trap-of-death.”
“How did you feel adventuring again?” Raider quickly asked, hoping to divert the subject. Daring noticed his intentions with that question, but decided not to press it further.
“I felt great!” Daring answered. She lifted her right hoof off the cube and into the sky, moving it as she spoke, “I was finally adventuring again! That intense surge of energy when you’re defying death with adrenaline pumping through you! That sense of accomplishment you get when you successfully retrieve the treasure you have hunted for! Those were the feelings I needed to feel again!”
Daring’s smirk vanished from her face as she lowered her right hoof back down beside her. “But, I still felt empty. Something was missing. None of the feelings could fill the hole in me. So, I went back to the nearest town and...well...that’s where I met-”
“Me.” Raider finished Daring’s sentence.
Daring stared down at the small glass cup in her hooves, her pith hat blocking her face from other’s view. She could feel the many pairs of eyes locked onto her, visually inspecting every move she made. The bar would usually be filled with loud chatter and obnoxious drunks who would yell at the top of their lungs. However, there was almost none of that now. All eyes were on her, and Daring knew it. The only question was how long before somepony makes a-
Just as the thought crossed Daring’s mind. She saw a blur move at the other end of the table she sat at, followed by the sound of a chair being dragged over and soon, the blur settled. She could not make out any details of the pony that was now sitting across her for she did not want to give the pony the luxury of seeing her eye-to-eye. She prepared herself for anything that may happen.
“So, come here often?” The voice had a low pitch but a casual tone. It was clear to Daring that this was merely small talk. She knew what he was here for and she could not care less about anything else. Acting as if she had never heard the question, she lifted the glass cup to her lips to take another sip.
“I guess you’re not in the mood for small talk.” Again, there was no answer, only silence. “Okay then, let me just get to the point. Word around town is that you got your hooves on a very valuable treasure.”
Daring’s mouth started to stretch into a cunning smile. She already had a reply in her mind and didn’t look up to the pony as she said it.
“Do you believe everything you hear?”
“Well, no. I choose what I want to believe in.” The lightning fast response was something that shocked Daring quite a bit, but she never showed it.
“I know why you’re here,” Daring said bluntly.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure you do.” His blatantly sarcastic tone ignited a fire within Daring, forcing her to take deep breaths to maintain her composure.
“You’re here for the Sapphire Stone. And no, I am not selling it to you.” She assumed that he would stand up and leave silently, like the many others who approached her throughout the night, but he didn’t.
“I’m here for your skills that enabled you to get the Sapphire Stone. I could care less about that worthless hunk of rock.”
Worthless. For some reason, that word stuck out to Daring, who cringed slightly upon hearing it. But as the sentence started to sink in, she started to feel slightly uneasy.
“So, you’re not here for the Stone?” Daring inquired.
“No.”
The answer was enough for Daring to look up without thinking, her magenta eyes finally seeing the pony across her. The earth pony sitting a short distance away had a very light, peach-colored coat. His mane and tail were colored with two colors. An almost pure white was present in the middle and surrounding the white was a blue. A blue that was for some reason soothing and familiar to Daring’s eyes. His emerald eyes were gazing directly into hers, his mouth stretched into a small smile and hung open slightly.
Daring didn’t know what to say. This pony didn’t look threatening in the slightest, unlike the others who wanted to get their hands on the Sapphire Stone.
“N-Nice eyes,” the stallion muttered, still slightly dazed. The words brought Daring’s cautious nature back to her as she turned her head back down to look at the glass cup, her cheeks blushing slightly. She couldn’t show any signs of weaknesses to a stranger, no matter how innocent he seemed.
“So then why are you here?” Daring asked, bringing the subject back to what they were discussing earlier.
“Well, I-” The sudden silence brought Daring’s eyes up once more to see him give a menacing stare at every other pony in the bar and immediately, all the patrons resumed their loud chatter. The attention was no longer on her as the bar returned to the way it usually was; loud, noisy and dangerous. There was no longer any signs of silence and strangely, the booming noises were comforting to Daring. For now, she knew that she could talk without being examined or scrutinized.
“Well, I’ve gotten a lead about this very valuable treasure called the Griffon’s Goblet. Its supposed to be a sacred object that could be worth millions.”
Daring gave an unimpressed look, pushing away the cup to the side of the table.
“So, you’re an explorer too?” Daring asked, staring into Raider's eyes.
“Yep.” The stallion leaned back into the wooden chair he sat on, his right hoof still on the table.
“And what makes you think that this ‘Griffon’s Goblet’ actually exists? Is there proof?”
“Nope,” the stallion answered readily. “There is no proof that this treasure actually exists.”
“Hmph. Then what makes you think that we won’t end up on a wild goose chase?”
“I just...choose to believe that it exists!”
Daring couldn’t help but chuckle at the simplicity of that answer. “You choose to believe?” she repeated.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m sorry but telling somepony to go with a random stranger to hunt for a treasure that might not even exist just doesn’t sound, well, convincing.”
The stallion leaned forward, putting both hooves on the table. “Tell me something, did you know, for a fact, that the Sapphire Stone existed?”
“Well, no. But-”
The stallion gave her no time to rebut. “Then why did you go and find it? Knowing that there was no proof of it even existing?”
“Because I...Because I-” she knew what her answer was, but couldn’t bring herself to say it.
The stallion gave a smile and leaned back once again. “Because you chose to believe.”
Daring nodded slowly, admitting defeat. “Okay, fine. But answer me this. What makes you think I’ll go with you?”
“Well, the treasure could be worth millions of bits.” The bored look on Daring’s face told the stallion that money wasn’t her goal. “And the temple is said to be filled with deadly traps with no explorer to ever come out alive.”
Daring’s eyes widened three times of their normal size, a huge grin on her face as the description went on. “It was never about the treasure,” she muttered.
The stallion nodded in approval. “I know. It was always about the thrill of the journey.”
He stood up from his seat and looked down at Daring.
Daring stood up shortly after, confused yet impressed. “You really are an explorer.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” The stallion stuck out his hoof. “Name’s Raider.”
Daring grasped the hoof firmly and gave a strong shake. “Daring. Daring Do.”
“We went through a lot of crazy times together,” Raider laughed.
“Crazy’s too mild of a word,” Daring joked.
“Really? How about ‘completely-out-of-our-minds’?”
“Yeah, that’s better.” Their laughter echoed throughout the small ward. Daring’s hooves were still turning the Rubik’s cube, though her mind had wandered somewhere else.
There was only silence as both ponies scanned through their minds for the memories they shared together.
“Remember that time we went through that thirty story cave underground to get that silver, compass-y thing?” Raider used his hooves to give an estimation of the size of the treasure, his face beaming as he did so.
Daring rolled her eyes with a grin. “Oh, don’t remind me! That hunk-of-metal was worthless! And they didn’t even protect the cave with any traps!”
“It was like the people who put that thing there knew it was worthless!”
Both of them laughed simultaneously, the atmosphere in the room was now light-hearted and without worry.
As the laughter settled, Raider spoke once again, “Did you ever find it?”
Daring looked back down at the cube as she continued working with it, making no progress since she had begun. She knew what Raider was asking, but hoped that she was wrong. “F-Find what?” Daring asked, feigning ignorance.
“That treasure that your father was looking for. That’s what you set off to do, wasn’t it? To find it so you could find him?”
The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt like a thousand bricks. Daring was a little afraid at how observant and deductive Raider was, even though she knew it when she first met him.
“Did you ever find it?” Raider asked once more.
“No,” Daring responded coldly. “I never found it, whatever it was. I would go on adventures, risk my life, go through various dungeons hoping that someday, I’d get my hooves on that treasure.” Daring had started to turn the various side of the Rubik’s cube as hard as she could, the anger in her begging for release. “Every time I went to the end of a cave, I would pick up the treasure and wish that my father would appear in front of me, congratulating me and giving me a hug. Telling me what a great job I’d done.” It was clear she was no longer trying to solve the puzzle as she twisted the cube in blind rage, her voice escalating in volume.
“I went on the adventures for the thrill! That’s no lie! But as time went on, as I got my hooves on more treasures, I had started to lose hope and motivation! I would endanger myself so that he would come out of the darkness, so that I could see his face again! So that I could go home and we could be a family! But that never happened!” Tears were streaming down her face, her voice was as loud as she could possibly make it. Her speech were riddled with stutters and sniffs.
“As time went on, I started to lose hope! Every treasure I got, brought the realization closer that I may never find him! I was going in blind all the time! No idea what treasure he was talking about! Maybe I would never find it! Maybe I would never ever see his face again! Then what’s the point of me risking my life anymore!? All I want is to see. Him. Again!” As she yelled the last few words, she lifted the cube high into the air and flung it across the room, causing it to slam against the wall next to the door and fall onto the ground.
“This puzzle’s impossible!” Daring yelled in despair, her hooves trembling.
Raider shook his head and sighed before standing up and walking towards the cube that now laid on the ground. Picking it up, he trotted towards Daring, who had her eyes turned away and her hooves crossed.
“You wanna know why you can’t solve it?” Raider asked, holding the unsolved cube in front of Daring’s face. Daring didn’t reply, but she didn’t need to. Raider sat on the edge of the bed, making sure not to sit on Daring’s hooves.
“It’s simple really.” The words drew a bitter look from Daring, who stared at him like an enemy.
“You know what’s your goal, you know what’s the result you want, and that’s great. But you have no idea how to get there. You don’t know the process or the solution. You keep trying randomly, hoping that you’ll eventually get it. When in fact, if you know how to do it, all you need is a few twists and turns and...” Raider turned the cube with a few swift moves of his hoof and already, one side of the cube had been colored entirely green. He had accomplished in ten seconds what Daring took an hour to do.
“H-How did you-” Daring asked, in awe of what Raider had just done. If Raider had heard Daring, he certainly didn’t acknowledge it.
“But solving one part of the puzzle,” Raider pointed to the face he had just solved. “doesn’t mean you’ve solved the rest of it.” He rotated the cube to show Daring that the other faces were still filled with random colors.
“Sometimes, the answer’s right in front of our face and we just can’t see it.” With another few quick flicks, one more side of the Rubik’s cube was now entirely red. “The answer is simple if we just know how to reach it.” With more twists of his hoof, another side of the cube had been solved, consisting only of blue squares.
“And when we put all the pieces together,” A few more turns and the fourth side is solved, consisting only of orange tiles. “When we know the steps to solve the puzzle presented to us, when we can see the answer right in our face. Well,” Raider gave one last turn of his hoof and in it, he gripped a fully solved Rubik’s cube. Daring couldn’t find the words to describe how amazed, yet furious, she was.
“The puzzle practically solves itself.” Raider turned his hoof over, letting the cube fall out of it and onto the blankets Daring was under. There was no smile on either of their faces as Raider stood up from the bed.
“Looks like visiting hours are over. I’ll be back tomorrow, Daring.” Raider lifted the saddlebags of the table and onto his back and trotted out, leaving Daring, flabbergasted and speechless, alone in her ward, staring intently at the finished puzzle that sat in front of her eyes.
“Why does this keep happening to us!?” Raider yelled at the top of his lungs as he galloped down the narrow hallway.
“Shut up, Raider! Complain later! Keep running!” Daring turned her head back around and saw the giant rock chasing their every step.
“Oh yeah, get a giant rock to chase us down a narrow hallway! How innovative!” Raider felt his hooves start to tire, but one glance behind him and the pain vanished, allowing him to charge down the hallway.
“Raider! If you say one more word, I swear I’ll kill you when we make it to the end!” Daring half-joked.
“Well, looks like you won’t have to wait long! Look!”
Daring threw her head upwards, staring at the small wooden doorway in the distance. “Come on! Go go go go!”
The boulder was closing in on them, gaining distance. Daring could hear the boulder bouncing and grumbling on the rock behind her, vibrating the ground as it grew ever closer. Knowing that she didn’t have much energy left in her, she closed her eyes and hoped for the best.
Crash. The sound of a boulder smashing into the doorway resonated throughout the temple. Daring and Raider sat in the chamber, panting as if one more second without air would kill them. Sweat was pouring down their foreheads as they slumped on the cold stone floor. Their hearts were racing and their hooves were burning.
“And to think.” Raider panted. “That blow to the head was only a month ago. You must miss almost getting crushed by giant rocks.”
Daring couldn’t help but smile at Raider’s statement. Only he would have the energy to joke after cutting so close to death. As she looked around the chamber they sat in, her mouth started to open in awe. Piles and piles of gold and jewels sat around them, ranging from jade rings to sapphire necklaces, the chamber was so filled with valuables that the floor couldn’t even be seen past the ledge that they stood on. They descended down the steps into the sea of treasures. At the end of the chamber was a tall pedestal, something Daring was used to seeing.
On the pedestal sat a white jade statue, carved into the form of an archer. The archer was kneeling down on one hoof and was drawing his bow back, ready to fire an arrow. At the bottom of the statue was a large circular base, which allowed it to stand. As Daring and Raider waded through the piles of gold coins and jewels, the statue’s size and beauty only continued to increase.
Finally reaching the pedestal, Daring licked her lips and turned to Raider, who was taking a battle stance.
“Ready?”
Raider took a deep breath in and nodded. “Ready.”
Daring bit on the statue and pulled it away. The statue’s head and base jutted out of Daring’s mouth. Both of them stood firm on the ground, ready for anything that the temple might throw at them.
“What’s it gonna be this time? Giant spiders? Lava pits? Collapsing temple? Oh, that’s a classic.”
Daring ignored Raider’s ramblings, her ears perked up and her hooves ready to react to any incident that might happen. Suddenly, there was a large sound, as if a stone was being lifted. Turning to the source, which was on the right wall of the room. They spotted a part of the wall rising, letting rays of hot and glaring sunlight into the chamber. Both ponies lifted their hooves to shield their eyes from the sudden burst of light. Soon, the shifting noise stopped and there, in front of them, stood a doorway into the world outside. Daring lifted her hoof to grip the statue in her mouth and slip it into her saddlebag.
“An... exit?” Raider muttered in disbelief. “I don’t trust this one bit.” Raider trotted towards the newly-formed doorway. Poking his head out, he was taken completely by surprise.
“W-What in Equestria?”
“What is it!?” Daring asked, worried
“We went underground. Right, Daring?”
“Yeah! What’s wrong?”
“S-See for yourself.” Raider took a step away from the doorway as Daring poked her head out.
Daring’s mouth dropped open. Outside the cave was a huge canyon. On her right was a huge amount of trees, towering into the skies above. Even in the distance, on the seemingly dry and barren land were trees that stretched on into the horizon. To her left was a rocky landscape with no signs of life. The brown, dried land reminded Daring of the various canyons she had been to during her travels. In front of her, a distance away, was a huge crack that separated where she stood from the trees in the distance. She swore that the both of them went down steps, deeper underground. Her mind couldn’t understand as to how they could have ended up at such a majestic place.
“Hey, Daring. Congrats.”
Daring turned to face her friend, her face showing her confusion.
“Congrats? For what?”
“For another successful treasure hunt!”
Daring pulled out the statue she had kept moments ago, staring at it with sad eyes.
“No. This wasn’t successful.”
“W-What?”
“Here.” Daring tossed the statue to Raider, who barely managed to catch it.
“Daring, what are you-”
“This isn’t the treasure I want. Keep it.” Before Raider could respond, Daring turned to the exit, walking into the bright sunlight.
Something in Raider snapped right then and there. His eyes filled with the bottled rage he had kept for so long...
Daring sat on a small rock at the edge of the canyon, her precious pith hat resting comfortably beside her. She almost never took out her hat, but suddenly, she didn’t want it on her head, at least not now. She gazed towards her left, past the canyons and the various formation of rocks in the distance. The sun was now close to setting, still above the horizon, but approaching it ever so slowly. The bright white light had started to turn a warm orange, bathing the white clouds in its glow. The whole left side of the canyon, where all the trees stood, seemed to have night bestowed upon them already. Her mind was blank and empty. No more thoughts of any event crossed her mind as she waited for the dark night to arrive.
She also felt devoid of any sense of accomplishment she would usually feel after successfully getting a treasure. No more adrenaline, no more hope of a certain pony arriving to congratulate her. She sat silently, basking in the sun’s soothing rays.
She heard hoofsteps approaching her from her right, but she wasn’t worried. She knew exactly who it would be.
“So, you really don’t want this treasure?” Raider stood, the white jade archer gripped tightly in his right forehoof.
Daring didn’t budge, her eyes fixated on the sun setting slowly away from her.
“No. It’s not the treasure I’m looking for.”
“Alright then.” Raider lifted the statue high into the air and slammed it down onto the hard ground below, causing it to emit a high pitched shattering sound as it broke into many different pieces.
The sound broke Daring out of her trance.
“Raider, what in Celestia’s name are you doing!?”
“You said you didn’t want it, and neither did I,” Raider explained, “so I broke it.”
“W-What do you mean you don’t want it!?”
“Daring, it was never about the treasure. It was about the thrill of the journey. And I’ve had enough of this.” Raider turned to the place he had emerged from, a small alcove leading to the chamber. “Daring. Come with me.”
Daring was shocked at first, hearing Raider’s commanding tone, a tone he had never used against Daring before.
“Raider, what are we-”
“Come with me now!” Raider yelled. Danger didn’t question him further, following him out of fear and curiosity as they trotted away from the cliff.
Raider led Daring through the streets of Manehattan, which was the nearest town from their most recent quest. The sun had started to cross over the horizon, slowly turning the light from a bright yellow to a cozy orange. However, this didn’t mean much to Raider, who entered a multistory apartment to his right. Daring followed without a word or sound, her mind filled with questions and speculations.
Raider took two flight of stairs up, reaching the second floor of the apartment. Taking another left down the narrow hallways, he stopped outside a small wooden door with the number ‘33’ carved in red on it and a brown ‘Welcome’ mat on the floor. Raider lifted the mat and retrieved a small silver key. Inserting it into the lock, he angrily bucked the door open with a loud ‘thud’, entering the house.
Daring entered the apartment after Raider. As she took her first steps in, the small house intrigued her. She stood in the living room, which only contained a couch and a table with one chair. She gazed down at the only other way to proceed that was not the door she has just entered from. It was a long hallway, however, as no lights were lit in the whole house except for a small table lamp and the few windows in the living room, Daring couldn’t see much.
“Danger! I know you’re here! Get out here now!” Raider shouted as loud as he could.
“Danger?” Daring swore she had heard Raider say that name, though her mind refused any possibility of it being the same Danger she knew.
From the darkness of the hallway, the outline of a much larger pony appeared. As the pony started to walk into the light, his cream-colored coat and pure white mane and tail was clear for everypony to see. It was him.
It was Danger Do.
Daring leapt to her hooves, taking a defensive stance. She didn’t know what to think, what to feel. Her mind was in tatters and her heart felt like it had been ripped from her chest. Raider stomped towards Danger, each step carrying the anger of a hundred ponies.
“Raider! What’re you doing!?” Danger asked, filled with rage. “She can’t see me! She’s in danger!” But Raider ignored every word Danger said.
“You have a lot of stuff to make up for you idiot. I’ve covered you all this while but I can’t take it anymore,” Raider said through clenched teeth. Every few words he spoke, he would lift his right hoof and place it on Danger’s chest, pushing him hard. “You’re going to make things right, because I don’t believe in you anymore. So go there and explain to that tragic mare why you’d ruin her life.” Danger stood, not uttering a word. Raider stomped off into the darkness, disappearing from view.
Danger took his first step towards Daring, but Daring immediately took one similar step back.
“How long?” Daring inquired in a broken tone. “How long have you been hiding!? How long have you been working with Raider!?”
Danger was mum at first. However, as the silence dragged on, he realized that he needed to explain himself, there was no other choice at this point.
“Ever since you met him. I’ve been keeping an eye on you from a distance all this while.”
Daring felt destroyed, betrayed, deceived. “So, all this time. You knew that I was looking for you, risking my life and spending years trying to find you and you never bothered to say you were behind me all this while!?”
“Daring, it wasn’t that easy. Please let me expla-”
“I hate you!” Daring screamed, warm tears flowing down her cheeks like a river. “You’re disgusting! How could you stand by and watch your daughter desperately try to find you!? How!? Do you even have a conscious!? Can you even feel guilt!?”
The barrage of questions yelled at by Daring left Danger without words. He could sense that Daring felt no remorse, only hate. And that every word she wailed was backed with years of rage and anger.
There was a pause before Daring asked the question she expected an answer from.
“Do you even love me?”
Danger stomped him hoof down, unable to take the beating any longer. “Of course I do, Daring! How can you even think that!?”
“How?” Daring spun once in a circle. “How!? Then explain to me why you sat there, watching me try desperately to meet you again! So that we could return to Fillydelphia as a family! Why did you watch and not do anything!?”
“I couldn’t,” Danger whispered just loud enough for Daring to hear.
“What do you mean you couldn’t!? Did you not want to be a family!? Did you hate me? Hate mum!? Was it because of me, who caused all that fighting you and mum did in the middle of the night when I was a filly!?”
“Stop it, Daring and let me explain!” His voice was stern, causing Daring to freeze in place in fear, only the sounds of crushed sobs escaping her lips.
“I didn’t want to leave you or your mother but I had no choice. When I sell treasures, I sell them to very...shady ponies. Ponies who have done or are doing horrible things, but I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way to keep us afloat, to feed our family. Then one day, I angered one of them...”
“No? What do you mean ‘no’!?” A pony with a grey coat smashed the table in front of him. They were in a dark room, illuminated only by a lamp that sat above a table. No other ponies but him and Danger were in the room.
“I will not accept that price!” Danger stood up, slamming his hoof down on the table as well.
“You listen to me, Danger Do. If you do not accept my offer, I will harm you.”
“You can try.”
“And your family.”
Danger licked his dry lips, his breathing started to escalate, but his angered expression didn’t change.
“Two days. You have two days to reconsider or I... pay a visit to your family. Got it?”
Danger didn’t answer, his gaze still locked onto the ash-colored pony.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” The stallion clapped his hooves together and immediately, two large ponies, both sporting a fedora and dark sunglasses over their eyes marched into the room. “Takes him away.”
Danger didn’t resist as he was brought out of the room and tossed onto the streets outside.
“It was then that I realized how much danger I’d put both of you in. So, I ran. They didn’t know who my family was and I couldn’t risk them harming either of you. It was the only way.”
The sun had touched the horizon, the light passing through the windows turning a more vibrant orange with each passing minute.
“Raider. He’s been working for you all this while?”
“Y-Yes. After I heard about this crazy adventurer getting her hooves on the Sapphire Stone, I knew it was you. I hired Raider to look after you, to defend you if those ponies came looking for you. ”
“So, that’s her?” Raider nudged his head in the direction of the bar Daring sat in. She sat with a clear glass cup in her hooves. Every single pair of eyes in the bar were glued onto her. Danger sat to Raider’s right, both of them sitting in front of the bartop with a small shot glass sitting in front of Danger.
“Yes. Now, remember. You take care of her and you get paid, in bits. But first, you have to make her trust you.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. I am amazingly charming after all,” Raider said with a smirk.
“This is no joke, Raider. She’s very important to me. I have some information about a treasure called the ‘Griffon’s Goblet’ that you can use to catch her interest.” Danger slipped a piece of paper towards Raider, who picked it up and skimmed through it quickly.
“So, do we actually go for this treasure?”
“That’s up to you. As long as she stays safe, got it?”
Raider grasped Danger’s small glass of alcohol and tilted it so that all the contents disappeared into his mouth.
“Don’t worry. What could possibly go wrong?” Raider laughed to himself as he slammed the glass cup onto the bar top, pushing himself off the stool as he walked towards Daring.
Danger heard Raider’s first words and slammed his hoof to his forehead.
“So, come here often?”
“So he was never my friend. He was just acting like it.” Somehow, this realization hurt Daring more than anything else. She faced away from Danger and trotted to one of the windows, staring at the setting orb in the sky.
“No, Daring. It was this way at first. But after both of you retrieved the Griffon’s Goblet. Well, something changed within him. I wanted him to stop being with you! I fired him because he only got wilder and wilder! It seemed that he was putting you in more danger instead of protecting you from it!”
“You’re gonna stop following her right now,” Danger instructed, his face told Raider he wasn’t joking.
“Yeeeeeah...no.” Raider answered with a slight smirk on his face.
“Dammit, Raider! You’re endangering her life more so than the ponies coming after me!”
“Oh now that’s just exaggerating it. I won’t cut her up into many pieces! She’s way too cool for that!” Raider joked, only enraging Danger further.
“I’ll pay you right now. Double what I promised. Just leave her alone.”
“Danger,” Raider’s smile vanished. “I don’t care about your money anymore. I genuinely care about Daring. In fact, she’s the most amazing pony I’ve met. She’s fearless, adventurous and has an almost unpony-like sense for wanderlust.”
Silence.
“Sort of like you, Danger. Back when we were adventuring together.”
Danger had never seen this side of Raider before; a non-joking side.
“And why should I believe you?”
“You don’t have to. But you can...”
“...choose to believe, am I right?” Danger completed Raider’s sentence in an angered tone.
“That’s my boy.” Raider’s tone suggested that he had returned to his joking self. “I’ve taught you well. Now if you excuse me, Daring and I have a ‘Blood-heart Ruby’ to find.”
Raider turned and started trotting away from Danger, who stood helpless.
“Raider, come back here!”
Raider didn’t slow down.
“I swear, Raider! If you hurt her, I’ll find you and kill you!”
Daring didn’t know what to feel. She felt betrayed, yet comforted at the same time. She was relieved to see her father, yet an immense fire burned within her. She had so many questions, yet had no will to ask them.
Turning to look into her father’s crystal clear eyes, she asked, “So, what now? What’s your plan after telling your daughter that you left her alone in this world?” Daring closed her eyes shut to let her tears flow. “I went on those adventures, no longer for the thrill but for the hopes I’d see you again, dad.”
Danger nodded, tears of his own started to form at his eyes. “I’ve been... I’ve been running for too long. I foolishly thought I was being noble, sacrificing myself for both of you and in doing so, failed to see how much you and your mother has sacrificed for me too. I may have even put you in more danger by running away than if I stayed to face them.” Danger shook his head.
“I won’t run anymore. I’ll sort things out for all of us. Even if we have to move away from Fillydelphia. We’ll be the way we used to be, both of us going on adventures. We’ll find a way to get through this...as a family.”
“R-Really?” Daring asked, the words Danger said weakened her considerably.
“Yes, DD, really.”
DD. She hadn't heard those words except in her dreams when she slept. It seemed surreal to have this happening right in front of her, yet she feared that she would wake up in a bed, devastated that it was all just wishful thinking. Finally, she asked the one question she never got to ask in her dreams.
“We’re....We’re going to be a family again?” Her eyes widened, staring at her father. Her mouth quivered and her hooves felt like jello, shaking tremendously.
“Yes, DD. We’re going to be a family again.” These words acted like hooks, pulling Daring towards her father as they gave each other the hug each of them so desperately wanted. For the first time in years, the tears Daring were crying weren’t built of depression or despair. They were built of hope and happiness.
As Daring moved her hoof over the familiar cream coat of her father, she chanted to herself, “this isn’t a dream! This isn’t a mirage! This is real! You are real!” She didn’t ever want to let go. She was worried that as soon as she did, her father would disappear again. All of a sudden, one important question raced back into Daring’s mind. Pulling away the hug for a short moment, she looked into her father’s eyes and asked, “that ‘most valuable treasure’. Did you find it? Did it find you?”
Her father smiled and brought Daring back into the hug once more. Looking up through his window and into the horizon, Danger saw the last bit of the sun set in the distance, taking with it the last traces of light. With tears dripping off his chin and onto his beloved daughter’s coat, he brought his mouth up to Daring’s ear and whispered,
“I just did.”
The End
