Daring Do pushed her way through the thick leaves, stopping occasionally to wipe her brow. Her shirt was ripped and frayed as though she'd run into a swarm of particularly vicious moths, and her safari hat was covered in leaves and twigs, some of which had jointed legs and antennae. She shook the sleepiness from her eyes and lifted the hat off her matted mane, wincing as several dark and entangled hairs were pulled from their roots in the process. She took a folded piece of paper from her scalp, replaced the scratched pith helmet, and unfurled the parchment, looking around quickly at the shuffle of leaves nearby. When nothing leaped out of the bushes, she sighed and checked the map.
Thunder snarled above her like a startled, gigantic predator, and grey clouds lashed the canopy with rain. Hills and mountains all around were smothered with trees like untamed broccoli. The illuminated clouds shone through gaps in the green sea, the light passing through a frozen war between emerald spikes, bleached mazes of wood, hardened spiderwebs, crisscrossing tangles of vines, and flowers and moss cushions that would more usually be seen on the ground. Below them was unforgiving shadow, from which came shrieks and howls. A golden eye glinted in the gloom.
Within twenty feet of the ground where Daring stood and shivered, the mass of vegetation suddenly stopped, so that bare and skeletal trunks stood alone. At their feet were only ferns and small shrubs, all lurking around as though biding their time, waiting for a tree to topple over and provide them a chance to grow. Like static, the constant hiss of insect life droned on. It was such that anypony wandering through the jungle had to resist the urge to cover their ears, just in case a beetle crawled in.
Lines, crosses, and green splodges covered the papyrus before her. Daring felt her pupils drift apart as she read it, and gritted her teeth. Concentrate, Daring! she thought.
Her stomach groaned in protest, and she put the map down and looked around the floor. An unhealthy looking grey straggle of hairs poked through the dead leaf litter. Daring cringed, but at a second prompting from her stomach she bared her teeth, closed her eyes, and took a bite. She froze, the "grass" still in her mouth. Her frown grew more pronounced. With the desperation of a mare whose stomach holds her hostage, she took such an agonizingly long time to chew that the rains eventually stopped. Bracing herself, she swallowed. A few seconds later, her growling stomach fell silent with horror.
Daring checked the map again. A cluster of squares caught her attention, and she stroked her chin. Several silent seconds of calculation ensued. Then, she grinned, folded up the map, returned it to her hat, flexed her pegasus wings (the feathers of one stuck out at odd angles, as in fact did the wing), and pushed her way through the army of ferns.
Further downhill she went, stopping occasionally to open her mouth under trickles of rainwater, which ran off from the leaves overhead. Her throat was parched, and it was a brief visit to paradise even if only a trickle of water could be found. Clumsily, she wiped her lips with the back of her hoof, which in any case was slick with sweat and splashes of mud.
As she pushed a branch aside, it snapped back, and during the recoil thumped her on the rump. She stumbled. Daring looked back at her cutie mark - a golden compass on a dark circle - and thought she saw a bruise where the branch had struck. She groaned and marched ahead.
Please... just be a little... further...
Daring Do pushed the overgrown ferns aside. Before her was the village.
Within the clearing, huts made of bamboo-like branches clustered around a central woven carpet of fibres. Their thatched roofs were fraying in places, but compared to the tangle of thorns around her, they were wonderfully smooth and clean. Nopony seemed to be about, but as she watched, two tribal-looking donkeys came out from under different thatched roofs. Daring's eyes widened. A hopeful relief flooded across her spine and dawned across her face.
"Made it," she whispered. She could barely suppress the chuckles of a mind that had found sanity at last.
Without hesitation, she rushed forwards into the small village. Bits of leaves fell off her as she galloped up to the nearest donkey. He was bald, insofar as a mammal covered in fur can be bald, and seemed to be bearing the world on his shoulders (or at least shuffled like this was the case).
"Hey, you!" she said. She skidded to a halt beside the donkey, who stopped to look her up and down. "Oh thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness..."
The donkey watched her impassively.
"My name is Daring Do," she said. "Daring Do," she added when she got a frown. "Good grief, sorry, I forgot. Different country. Right. Um..."
The donkey stared at her. Daring grinned nervously and pointed at her chest. "Me Daring Do. Big tan pegasus filly from long way away."
He blinked.
After an awkward few seconds, Daring tried again. "From Equestria, see? Big land from far away." She stood up on her hind legs and gestured expansively. "And Canterlot," she added, miming a gentlecolt sipping tea out of a cup. "Like big village, yes?"
He frowned at her. Daring gulped and smiled weakly.
"E-ques-tri-a?" she said, grinning desperately. "I very important pony from big land?"
A pause followed this statement.
"I have moneys?" she tried.
"You been out there too long, haven't you darlin'?" said the donkey gruffly.
Daring blinked at him. He speaks Equestrian? Ah, she thought. Her hooves quickly went back to the ground, trying to bury themselves with shame. Oops.
"Sorry," she said.
"Yeah, I know who you are." The gruff-voiced donkey gestured to himself with a hoof. "Faithful Johannes."
"You're the contact! Great! I was told to meet up with you at the village?" She looked around at the two donkeys wandering between the quiet huts. Too quiet... "Listen, can you tell me the way to..."
Her shifty eyes looked left. Then they looked right. She took off her hat.
"Whoa, talk about bad hair day," said Faithful. "You know tree sap isn't a shampoo, right?"
Daring ignored him and unfurled the parchment before replacing the pith helmet. She laid the map squarely at his hooves and unfurled it.
"Can you tell me the way to... this place?"
She jabbed the 'X' with her hoof. The aged donkey leaned forwards. Although the image on the map was blocky, it had the definite shape of a pyramid. He nodded. "It's just north of here."
Daring grinned with relief and folded up the map. "Great! Just checking. Thanks," she said.
"What were you doing out there?" Faithful said. "You're late by five days."
"I was trying to find this place. You would not believe what I had to go through to get here. I've been lost in the jungle, drenched by storms, plagued by locusts, hunted by jaguars, bitten by flies, half-drowned crossing a river, forced to fly up to the canopy regularly to check I was heading the right way..." Daring hit herself in the forehead. "Never mind."
She leaned in close, with one hoof raised up to her mouth. Faithful raised a floppy donkey ear.
"Listen," Daring whispered. "I need to get to the site before... They do."
An ominous roll of thunder met this announcement.
"They've already left the pegasus cloud port! In fact, we arrived at the same time! And who knows how much terrain the enemy has covered so far. They might pass this way soon. We have to make an early move. Now, I was told you'd have all the equipment ready. If we can set off as quickly as possible -"
"You'll need a dandy brush first," said Faithful.
Daring paused with her mouth open. She cocked her head at him. Several days away from civilization had messed up her sense of how conversation was supposed to go.
"Eh?" she said.
"A dandy brush. You know, the thing you use to clean your fur with?"
"What?" she said. Her brain was struggling to get out of its chair, albeit out of a chair made from branches and vine that it had built by itself, and it wasn't in the mood to offer much.
The donkey looked at her branch-covered hat. "Dan-dy bruuush. It's like a sophisticated twig with bristles on it?"
"I know what a dandy brush is."
"Your mane needs a good brushing down. It looks like a family of parrots used it as a nest."
Daring pouted irritably. "They did."
"And as a feeding table."
A growl. "They did."
"And as a bathroo -"
"There's no time for this! Things are urgent! I need to get to the site before it's too late!"
As she spoke, Faithful walked around her, inspecting her critically. He had prominent knees and each move of his leg made a few joints creak. He stopped next to her crooked wing.
"Dear me," he muttered. "You've got a tense muscle or two in that thing. Did you try winging it? Heheh, winging it."
"Hilarious." There's a reason deadpan has the word 'dead' in it, she thought.
Faithful grasped the wing between two hooves. "Here, I can fix that."
"Wait, what are you -"
A crack of pain shot from one wing to the other and they both shot upright. Daring gritted her teeth. And I thought spraining the wing had hurt like heck!
"Ow..." she whispered. Her staring eyes tried not to leak.
"There," Faithful said. After Daring had flapped her wings to check the fixed one wouldn't fall off, Faithful stood in front of her and sniffed. He drew back quickly. "Whew, have you smelled your breath lately? It smells like someone fumigated your mouth and threw a cheese party to celebrate."
Daring did not dignify the flattery with a comment.
"What have you been eating out there?" Faithful said.
"Things that haven't even been discovered yet. And never will be." She stuck out her tongue, suggesting that this was probably a mercy as far as the culinary trade went.
A splash of water hit her in the face. As she spluttered, Faithful put down the bucket and, with a brush between his teeth, began attacking her fringe.
"Hey!" she said. "What - what are you doing?"
"'Ear ee," he said around the brush. "Oo 'eeda guh kwee uh."
"I don't need a good clean up!" She tried to push his brush away, but he kept coming back like a mosquito with OCD. "Do you realize what's at stake here?"
He backed off, leaving her fringe doing a good impression of a black fire. She knocked it down, which under her current soaked state meant her fringe flopped and slapped her in the eye. Clucking like a mother hen, Faithful tidied the fringe to get the hairs out. It seemed to give him some pleasure, so she surrendered, and stood as stoically as she could, and let him fuss.
"So you arrived at the pegasus cloud port five days ago, right?" said Faithful when he'd finished. He turned around and took a towel from next to the bucket.
"Yes." The towel was draped over her shoulders. "Listen, do you realize what we're up against? Them!" she hissed. "The enemy! If they get to the site before I do, and find the artefacts before I can get there first, I will have no right to call myself Daring Do! I'll have failed everypony - my friends, my admirers, the public! And my Aunt Temple!" Daring's heart leaped with panic as though trying to beat the panic out of her chest. "A fate worse than death hinges on this moment in pony history!"
It took a long time for her to breathe normally again.
Faithful rolled his eyes. She distinctly saw him mouth "fate worse than death."
"Let me guess," he said with mock gravitas: "you decided to set out early in order to beat the Canterlot University Archaeological team to this site in the Amaponian. You couldn't resist the challenge, and so you told everypony that, as soon as you landed, you'd head straight in and beat the old whippersnappers to the dig site, right?"
Daring stared at him as though he'd just sprouted a hand from his tail. "How... How do you know so much about me?"
He shrugged. "Your friends told me when they passed here."
"You've fraternized with the enemy?" Daring's ears stood up straight. A panicked look flashed across her face.
"The enemy? Whoa, darlin', that's a bit strong, isn't it?"
"They were here? In this village?" Daring looked around. Not here! It can't be happening. I'm Daring Do! "Are they still here?"
"Nope. Set off four days ago."
Wings flapping in consternation, Daring raised her forelegs in agitation. "Four days ago? How the hay did the University team get here that fast?"
"You were probably going round in circles, weren't you?" Faithful said. "Whoa, whoa, hold it!" Sidestepping quickly to avoid being bowled over, the jack donkey stomped on Daring's tail as she passed. Daring's galloping slowed to a stop.
"They're already there?" she said hoarsely. Around the small scars and welts from insect bites, her left eyelid twitched. "I was beaten to the site?"
She slumped. Something of the jungle pony died inside her.
"How did this happen?" she said to the sky. The dirt crumpled under her sore hoof as she idly scooped it into a pile with one aching forelimb. A slight gust slid through the clearing, and through the holes in her frayed and once-proud shirt, she was freezing. She removed her pith helmet, and gazed at the remains. "I know all about navigating by the stars. I can make a compass out of bits of stone and string. I've got a map and an inborn direction for travel. I'm a pegasus, for heavens sake! I'm not this slow!"
"Well, they did use the road," said Faithful.
This took a while to sink in. Daring put her hat back on. She looked up. She stood up on all fours. She turned around. She opened her mouth.
"Wha...?" she said.
"I said, they used the road."
"What road!?"
Faithful Johannes ambled past and gestured over to the edge of the village. Carts were passing them by via a thoroughfare cut through the forest. One turned off the route and stopped in the village with a creak of axles. Two ponies unharnessed each other and walked around the cart to face the cargo on board. As she watched, huge crates were unloaded, kicked off by the first one and landing on the back of the second one, who let it slide off carefully before accepting another. Behind them, the stream of carts kept flashing past.
Daring had the awkward feeling of one who had just run through a mudslide to catch somepony's hat, only to find that they had a spare.
"Uh... How long's that been around?" she said. "I could have sworn it wasn't there last time I was here."
"The locals built it a year ago to enable contact between the main town and the village. It sure makes our work easier, I can tell you."
Faithful Johannes walked up and stood next to her to watch the unloading. He seemed unusually pleased with himself; his tone suggested he was suppressing a chuckle.
"It was nowhere near the port. I would have seen it!" Daring said, sweating. Twigs fell off her hat as she turned her head. Please say it was nowhere near the port.
"You can see it from the port. It starts on the ground right underneath the pegasus' cloud town and cuts a clear path through the greenery." He raised an ear quizzically. "Yeesh, you really were at a rush, weren't you?"
Daring felt her stomach complaining, and it had nothing to do with the weeds she'd eaten. It suddenly felt as though somepony had pulled an antique Persian rug out from under her. She suddenly had a vision of a crowd of educated smirks greeting her at the site.
Right.
Well.
That's her reputation shot to pieces, then.
She tried a self-effacing grin. Under her lidded and sleepless eyes, it just looked ill. "Uh... Right. Of course. Huh."
Faithful raised his eyebrows and sighed. "Daring Do. Do you always take the adventurous route?"
"Uh... ummmmnnnot always..." she said evasively. "Only once or twice... OK, sometimes. Not very often." Under his skeptical eye, she sighed. "OK... most of the time. But not always. Sometimes," she added to herself.
Daring stared out at the thoroughfare, over the canopy of leaves to a distant hill, where faint shapes could be seen. North. The dig site. She could see it from here. Those smug Canterlot types had set up the dig without her. Probably also having their tenth tea party and a spot of laughter over crumpets, what ho. Daring covered her face with a hoof and groaned.
"Oh my gosh," she said. "I told them they'd be too old to keep up." From five days ago, her treacherous memory snickered at her. The cheeky wave and smile she'd given to them before setting out - a traditional parting gift - seemed a lot less cheering now, like a boomerang that had missed and was spinning back towards her. "Sweet Celestia, I told them that they were too old to keep up."
She fell back, sitting on the dust in complete shock. Too old. She was very close to bolting and taking her chances with the jungle again. Suddenly, she wished she was back in Roan getting threatened by mad druids and earth pony priests. At least all they did was try to sacrifice your worthy hide to the nature gods. They didn't give you meaningful little smiles as they did so.
"Lost your bet, huh?" said the donkey. "You must have gone on your derring-doing malarkey one time too many, if you ask me. I always say it about you adventurous types. Can't wait to rush in and make a drama out of a field trip. Come on," he added, giving her a nudge with his muzzle. "The archaeology team'll be waiting on you at the dig site. We've got to get you prepped up."
He held up a cloth. Daring's pride throbbed as it suddenly occurred to her how daft she looked. She glared at the soil.
"Chin up, lass," said Faithful. "Five days straight through impassable jungle is still amazingly good time. There're locals round here who'd be back in the village in a day or two if they tried it."
As she was pushed across the soil towards a nearby hut, Daring noticed the sort of cargo being unloaded. Some of the crates had been placed on their sides, and the two ponies bucked them open to retrieve the goods. There seemed to be too many cables.
"I thought this was just a primitive village," she said.
Faithful Johannes rolled his eyes. "Of course it is. Why do you think we have to import the fridges? The nearest factories are twelve miles away."
Daring watched in awe as the local donkeys began coming out of the huts and herding around the crates. None of them seemed remotely surprised. All of them were wearing elaborate face paint typical of Amaponian tribes, which twisted as they smiled in glee at the unloaded electronics. Quite a few, despite their traditional straw skirts and feather and bead decorations, had digital watches on. Several picked up stuff that glowed with unicorn magic and carried it back to their huts. One foal was proudly carrying away a television set.
"So..." said Daring, unable to take her eyes off the scene, "where are we going?"
"To the local spa. I think you'll like it. We modelled it after the traditional style, but with a mix of Canterlot baroque and Equestrian country gothic for the fixtures. It's got a jacuzzi," said Faithful, continuing to nudge her onwards. "With bubbles and everything."
"Bubbles..." Daring wondered what world she had stumbled into.
"That's the future for you. Yeesh, you're a few decades behind everypony else, aren't you, Daring Do?"
Daring stared out over the thatched rooftops towards the distant road. I told them they were too old...
"Still, it's relieving to know there's old-time ponies like you around. If it wasn't for you," Faithful Johannes said, stopping his nudges to give her an admiring look, "we wouldn't be able to fend off the great and unspeakable evil that stalks our land, now would we?"
Bits of twig fell off her gloomy mane. She looked out over the rainforest, then over at the villagers and their cargo, and at the roads and the distant dig site, all tucked away in this part of the immense jungle. Great and unspeakable evil...
Yes, she thought, glaring at the soil as Faithful pushed her towards one of the huts; tricksy, sneaky, underhanded evil with spies and enemies everywhere. Undermining the good will of ponydom without their even knowing it. I know that "evil's" name now.
"Modern progress..." she whispered darkly.
Then she sighed, and let Faithful Johannes lead her to the steaming room, where he talked about digital watches.
