Darling Do and a Daring Dash

The first week of class flew by on wings of navy blue and silver as ponies studied furiously. In the first seven days alone, each student was directed to go to certain workshops. The first one was all about building a setting. As exciting as it sounded, most of the settings were tea-rooms, mansions, and gala halls. The second part of the week was spent developing a protagonist and antagonist. None as interesting as Daring Do or Auhizoto. Still, Daring began to pull ahead and soon had very nice beginnings.

Her setting was Wing-Guard hall. A large mansion on the outskirts of an elegant metropolis. It was inhabited by a society of unicorns who hated pegasi and spent their days playing piano and drinking tea. It was a glorious and charming mansion that sat in the center of sprawling rose gardens and was lined all around with a tall imposing fence of black metal. The hedges in every garden were trimmed to match and paths were lined with beds of tulips and daylilies. Her main characters were two unicorns by the names of Swift Stitch and Diamond Jewel. Swift Stitch was Diamond Jewel's seamstress and Diamond was the daughter of the head of the house. Her mother was an imposing unicorn by the name of Iron Gem. She enforced the law of the house with an iron hoof.

"How are things coming along Miss. Do?" A pale pink pegasus loomed over the author as she looked up from a sketch of Swift Stitch. Ms.Dreadsbelt her name was. And she was in charge of the character workshop. Daring cleared her throat and responded.

"Things are coming along swimmingly." She said sweetly. "This is Swift Stitch." She added, indicating her drawing. "She is the seamstress of my main character Diamond Jewel." She pulled out a slip of paper with a drawing and writing about Diamond and handed it to her teacher. Dreadsbelt nodded.

"Very wonderful work." She said pointedly. "You will benefit greatly from the plot workshop next week." She added crisply.

Daring nodded. Plot. Great heroes, saving the day, daring jailbreaks-. She cut herself off. Wrong idea. tea time, postal deliveries, everyday affairs at Wing-Guard. That's what was going to make a good story.

That night, crickets chirped in the courtyard as Daring sat at her desk trying to make a map of Wing-Huard Hall. She puzzled over dimensions and stairwells until she pushed her chair back and fell. Rubbing her head, she got up and decided a break was much needed. Just then, her phone started beeping. She went to her bedside table and saw that it was a face call from Rainbow Dash. Sighing, she picked up. The picture was blurry for a moment before it focused. Rainbow Dash's blue bolt face came into view as she swept her rainbow mane out of her magenta eyes with a smile when she saw Daring.

"Heya Dares!" She exclaimed. "Howzit?"

Daring smiled back politely. "Oh, I'm doing wonderfully!" She squealed. "We have to publish a book and-"

"But that's like no problem for you right? You publish books like every day." Rainbow cut in smugly. Daring scowled.

"It's not polite to interrupt when someone is speaking to you." She said pointedly. Rainbow looked taken aback. "I'm writing a book about two unicorns in Wing-Guard manor. The book's premise is all about preparing for and having tea with this charmer stallion."

"Uh- sounds great," Rainbow said grimacing. "Anyway, I just wanted to say hey and uh yeah." Rainbow started to look uncomfortable.

"Wonderful," Daring said. "Now if you'd please excuse me, I have to prepare myself for the next week. We're working on the plot for our books."

"So like daring heroes and cool jailbreaks?" Rainbow asked timidly.

"On the contrary." Daring snipped. "Tea time and preparations are what it's all about."

"But that's not really what you do Dares you-"

"Goodbye, my friend," Daring said with finality. With that, she tapped the screen and ended the call.

She trotted back to her desk but couldn't think. Rainbow's last words had hit her hard. Was this her? Plotting about tea times and postal deliveries. making her characters moon over faceless stallions. Talking with pink-ribboned words and stirring up vocabulary that made people carry dictionaries around her. No. As far as she knew, she was a hero. An explorer. But she couldn't. Not at the memory of Celestia's word.

"The first part of the book focuses on them preparing the household for the prestigious Lord Wickerfine. It has a dual perspective aspect as well. Each chapter rotates between Diamond Jewel and swift Stitch. The second part is the tea party. Then the third part is when the love battle begins. It ends with Lord Wickerfine courting both of them and taking them around the town to dress shops and buying ribbon." Daring looked up at Jet Set expectantly and he smiled.

"Wonderful job Miss.Do. Really quite superb! I am so thrilled by enthusiasm." He said. Beaming.

"Please, call me Miss. Yearling." She asked, bowing her head to him.

"Wonderful job Miss. yearling, truly wonderful plot line!"

That night, Rainbow called again. She called for the next few weeks until daring stopped answering them. Each conversation had grown shorter and shorter. Every morning, Snowscort rapped twice on her door and Daring would gather her belongings and trot to her classes. She would politely greet her fellow students in passing in the breezeway and would continue to serve her teachers in all of her classes. Her folder grew and grew as more sketches and chapters were slipped into it every day. Every night, Snowscort would bring her back to her dormitory and Yearling would prepare herself dinner and drink some calming tea while listening to classical music and building her book. Everything was the same. Until the last week of school.

One morning, Snowscort brought her to her classes like usual and brought her back to her dormitory at night. But, when she returned, she found two things that shocked her. One was a letter from Jet Set about instructions for publishing. The other was a text. She skimmed the letter and reminded herself to take a trip to the publishing company the next day. Then, she read the text. It was from Rainbow.

Dares, idk if ur even gonna care bout this or not. But Flutters and i just wanna say something. We want the Daring you back. We see blips bout u and ur classmates in the paper sometimes. ur ak yearling now i guess. y cant u just quit.
i thought u thought it was a cult. what bout that? urs daringly, rainbow + fullters

Her head swam. She flopped on her bed and let the thoughts come rushing over her. Visions of pain and torture. Screams pierced the air around her as tears flooded her vision. A great ray of sun blinded her mind as the silhouette of a holy alicorn crashed down upon her, pushing her farther and farther into the earth.