Lost in Time

When she'd been a foal, she'd always loved her great-grandmother's books. All the adventures of Daring Do, some of them based on her great-gran's real exploits, others a little more embellished, but none of them untrue. They had been magical little escapes, and inspired her to find her own adventures in life.

After all, much of Equestria's surrounding lands were still undiscovered and wild. There were islands, cave systems, stretches of tundra to the north and south that still had yet to be fully explored, and temples, ruins, long-abandoned seasonal settlements that still had yet to be mapped and investigated.

She loved the travel and the adventure, even if it wasn't quite as glamorous as she'd hoped: more often than not, she spent her time digging through rock piles and doing long, boring site surveys than she did discovering treasure or artifacts or legendary relics.

Her rivalries were tepid at best, and she could count about three times where she'd actually been afraid for her life, and one of those times had been from food poisoning, which would have been an exceedingly embarrassing way to go as an explorer. After all, none of her great grandmother's stories involved the intrepid hero having to spend a night in the bathroom, gross coming out of one end or the other as she lamented picking up suspicious-looking kabobs instead of just stopping at the restaurant, but no, she had to be a cheapskate...

“Hey boss, we're here.”

The stallion's voice snapped her out of her brooding, the mare blinking and looking up with an awkward smile at her crewmate and friend. “Thanks, Razz. You ready?”

“For what, another long, boring day counting how many steps it is from one end of this place to the other?” Razzmatazz asked with a grin, and the mare couldn't help but laugh before he shook his head and said, optimistic as always: “Hey, but it should at least be more interesting than the usual jobs, right? Whole untouched temple for you to explore, get a few samples from, maybe label some treasure.”

“Yeah. It was nice of Argyle to give us the first look.” admitted the mare as she climbed up to her hooves and glanced out through one of the side windows of the research vessel. Yes, she could see that they were docked, and it looked like half her team was already off the ship... “When did we land?”

“Only a few minutes ago, but you know Roxy. She was already waiting to get off the ship with all her equipment by the time the island came into sight.” Razzmatazz replied with a shrug as the unicorn stood up and pulled several bags down from the overhead compartment, then smiled as he held hers out to her while he shouldered his own pack.

She took it with a slight smile and a roll of her eyes: Razz was always a gentlecolt with her, even when it annoyed her. Earth pony mare or not, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, with or without the aid of magic or magitech. She'd never run into a problem she couldn't solve with her own two hands and a bit of ingenuity.

She tossed her backpack over her shoulder, then headed quickly down the aisle of seats to the door, Razzmatazz following her out of the cabin and into the bright sunlight. She grimaced a little, blinking at the blue sky and sparkling water as she strode quickly to the lowered bridge to the docks, calling to the team members she could barely see thanks to the sun-blindness: “Everyone ready?”

“Just about. We need to shoot an opening here first, though, Boldly Go.” instructed one of her teammates, and the mare sighed and glowered at them through the almost-painful glittering brightness of the day.

“Don't call me that. My name is Golden Glow, and this is a documentary, not 'Boldly Goes.'” she retorted crankily. “I'm not playing pretend anymore.”

“Okay, boss, sure. Ace didn't mean to rustle your feathers.” quickly stepped in another stallion, then handsome blue pegasus giving an awkward smile before he pointedly glowered back at the small, freckled white mare behind him, who scowled but then nodded grumpily, ignoring the nest of a mane that fell over her face as she did so. “Let's head inside and see what's waiting for us, right?”

Golden Glow grumbled a little, but then sighed and nodded: she knew the drill by now, after all. So she rubbed wildly at her face for a few moments to get some color in it and the sleep out of her eyes, and then she reached back to dig in her bag to pull out her explorer's hat, quickly popping it on her head as Ace Shot argued with the pegasus about where they wanted to set up their initial shot.

“How about up there?” Razzmatazz interrupted, pointing at the top of the path, and the rest of the team all looked up at the spot he had indicated: just in front of the base camp, with the ruins of the hilltop temple visible in the distance, forming a perfect backdrop.

“I like it.” Golden Glow said, and while the rest of her team grumbled, that essentially settled the matter. She was the boss, after all, but more importantly, her team trusted her to figure out what they needed to do. That was her real talent, after all: getting ponies to believe in her, or whatever role she decided to play.

Before she knew it, her crew had set up the cameras and she was recording the intro for the documentary, not even aware of the words she was saying as they all-but-fell out of her mouth. But that was pretty much how they'd always done it: they trussed her up a little, and she rambled away with whatever came to mind, and later Ace Shot or the pegasus, Clip Stream, would edit it until it sounded like she knew what she was actually talking about.

As always, pretty much the moment she was done, the whole crew gathered around the little camera to review the footage. It was still weird for Golden Glow to see herself: a smiling, sun-colored earth pony with a two-tone mane, streaks of neon glowing in her otherwise dark locks, almost as bright as her tiger-green eyes. She had that silly explorer's cap on as always, and the red neck scarf she always wore, and nothing else: like most ponies, she preferred to wear nothing but her own natural coat, and the equipment she had to carry on mission. Their bodies were naturally tough and durable, after all, and ponies had never really been shy: they only covered up their bits and bobs for fancy occasions, and even then it wasn't all that uncommon to see a pony wearing all kinds of jewelry or accessories that covered up everything except for their bodies.

“Hey everyone!” Camera-her greeted, giddy and juvenile and happy, not at all the tired, antsy mare who was watching her doppelganger perform. “We're here today off the coast of Equestria, at what the locals call the Sleeping Giant Isles! Sleeping Giant Isles were once thought to be a single island that mysteriously sank for unknown reasons, mysteriously vanishing into the sea; all that are left of what might have once been a far more massive island structure are dozens of smaller islands and a dangerous maze of rock reefs and shallow barriers hidden in the shallows.”

“We'll have to edit out all that repetition.” muttered Ace Shot.

“Shut up.” Golden Glow grumbled.

“Normally, the Sleeping Giant Isles are off-limits. But we're here today as part of the research expedition to do the initial site survey and get a sense of what we can do to preserve this temple.” continued camera-her. “This temple, located on the Sleeping Giant Isles, was only discovered recently during an aerial survey of the Sleeping Giant Isles-”

“Repetition.”

“Shut up.”

“-done by the Geological Survey Division of the Royal Equestrian Air Service. REAS has asked us to come and complete the land survey and assess the temple, which has perhaps remained untouched since before the island sank and became the Sleeping Giant Isles. I, for one, look eagerly forwards to uncovering whatever secrets await us inside.”

“Like dusty relics and knickknacks and useless, mildew-eaten papyrus.” muttered Golden Glow, and camera-her grunted almost in agreement as the mare on film visibly fell out of character a moment before the clip ended. “Still. At least it's more than we usually get.”

“That's the way to think.” encouraged Razzmatazz, and then the unicorn quickly gestured at her, asking: “Do you want to do an initial sweep before we move the crew in?”

“Uh... yeah, let's check in with the ground team here, get that out of the way, maybe record our initial meeting or whatever, then I'll slip inside, check the place over and see how the stability and layout looks, and you guys can sweep in after. Hopefully that'll save you some trouble.” Golden Glow agreed after a moment with a nod.

The rest of her team grumbled a little amongst themselves as Razzmatazz gave his big smile and half-pushed her forwards, encouraging her to lead the way. It was their usual drill by now, she supposed: Razz talked her into being responsible, the others grumbled and argued, Razz shooed her off to do her thing, and by the time she got back he'd sorted out the rest of the team.

She'd really be lost without him, she supposed. Or at least a lot more stressed, yelling at her crew a lot more, because she still had a childish fascination with being an explorer, but did she ever hate the things she had to do to keep that dream alive.

She was good at this, though. Annoyingly good at it, which made her question sometimes if she was less the adventurer her grandmother had been and more of a performer than anything else. A fraud, just playing her way into these parts, emphasizing and exaggerating her achievements, always taking credit for all the hard work other ponies did...

She sighed as she finally found herself at the entrance to the ruins after an hour of paperwork and negotiation. They had already done the general inspection and taken some echo scans: the structure was mostly intact, and there were still a few vague magical emanations coming from within the temple system, although they were probably from ancient magic batteries rather than any valuable artifacts or trinkets.

Still, she wouldn't know for sure until she completed the inspection. For all she knew, this could finally hold the... the lost chalice of the thousand horse crusades, or the... the legendary ring of seven winters, or-

“Or maybe a lost pirate treasure and I'll never have to work again and I can just spend the rest of my life swimming around in a vault of gold coins to show everyone how successful an adventurer I was.” grumbled Golden Glow, and she rubbed at her eyes convulsively as she lamented: “Even if every single successful adventurer I know of died either destitute or out on some wild goose chase...”

The earth pony shook her head as she walked into the structure, glancing uneasily back and forth: as trustworthy as the drones and scans were, they still only captured obvious flaws and paths. That was why what she was doing was still considered a 'first look.'

“Okay. Well... Aeiro, care to help?” Golden Glow asked as she raised her foreleg in front of herself and looked down at the syncpad strapped to her forelimb.

The little personal computer gleamed for a moment before it projected a bright light that rapidly coalesced and formed into a luminescent seahorse that flitted carelessly through the air around her head. Golden Glow smiled a little as she looked up at it: Aeiro – or more properly, AEIRO, the Artificial Equine Intelligence Resource Officer – was her assistant of sorts, a magically-enhanced and technologically-advanced 'living program' that helped her gather information and kept her in contact with the rest of the team.

Aeiro floated down beside her head, the radiant seahorse asking in a chime: “What can I do for you, Golden Glow?”

Golden Glow smiled a little as she headed into the temple: sunlight shone through broken windows and cracks in the ceiling, illuminating the open hall that stretched out before her, but she knew as she descended into the temple that wouldn't last forever. “Set a waypoint here for me so I can find my way back, then give me a destination. I know this is just a first look, Aeiro, but I'd like to actually look at something, not just confirm what the drones already know.”

“You got it!” replied the cheery voice of the seahorse, before it flitted forwards: only so far, of course. Even with the magic that enhanced this impressive piece of technology, Aeiro was only able to travel so far away from his anchor point, which was the syncpad on her foreleg.

But thirty feet was more than enough free reign for Aeiro to detect what was ahead through her sensors and previously gathered information. “I've marked an area of interest on your syncmap! The path ahead should be pretty straightforward, the temple looks like it was repaired recently!”

“Repaired recently? Workcrews haven't been in here yet, have they? I mean, I thought I was getting the first look and all.” Golden Glow furrowed her brow and rubbed moodily at her cheek as she walked forward, not wanting to admit how much that bothered her.

“No, these repairs were made using more primitive techniques. I can't date when the repairs were made; perhaps local worshipers made them on their last voyage here?” suggested Aeiro, positive as ever. But of course Golden Glow had the optimism level on her little companion cranked all the way to eleven: she needed something to counterbalance her, after all.

“We haven't made contact with any local tribes or villages... but I guess it's possible that traditional seafarers might still stop here from time to time.” muttered Golden Glow, even though she had her personal doubts. She was wondering more now if maybe the local guides who had shown them the way up here in the first place had maybe gone ahead and tried to fix up the temple for whatever reason... that could slow down some of our restoration efforts. Assuming there's enough here to restore...

Golden Glow slipped through a stone archway, heading down a dark hall into another large room that was lit through the cracks in the ceiling above. She looked critically back and forth: the dust had definitely been disturbed over the ground here, and she doubted the flying drones had done that. “It looks like they dragged something through here, too. Can you analyze that trail?”

“Absolutely!” chimed Aeiro, and the seahorse flitted down to it, then said after a moment with the faintest hint of confusion: “Well, analysis indicates this path may have been left by a serpent. Perhaps a Fey Swamp anaconda or a greater Gnork's boa.”

“Uh... do you want to repeat that, Aeiro? Because we're in completely the wrong climate for those two snakes.” Golden Glow said after a moment, looking quizzically over at the AI.

“Sorry, Goldie! Those are the only two snakes on record that coincide with this size and pattern!” apologized the digital seahorse as it flitted down with Golden Glow, mimicking her as the earth pony knelt to examine the trail. “I'll resync my database, but it's possible this is either a new species, or a non-native species that ended up here gosh knows how!”

“Gosh knows.” Golden Glow repeated dryly as she rubbed her fingers across the trail through the dust, and Aeiro giggled as she flitted up into the air before the earth pony straightened with a grimace. “Okay, well... thermal scans, then-”

“Snakes are cold-blooded!”

“Not that cold-blooded!” grumped Golden Glow. “Fine, then, run, uh... electrical activity scans, there, you happy?”

“I'm only happy when you are, Goldie!” Aeiro replied brightly.

“Sure doesn't sound like it.” Golden Glow grumbled, but the bantering helped settle her nerves. The last thing she wanted to run into was a giant snake, after all...

Her eyes lingered along the trail for a moment before she checked the syncpad on her wrist and the data estimates. She had time to figure this puzzle out later: for now, she was here to see if this place was worth all the trouble they had invested into it.

Still, it unnerved her a little that they ended up heading in the same direction as the trail left by the snake: she reasoned with herself that maybe it had ended up spotting one of the drones and followed after it, thinking it was food, but...

Her uneasy thoughts were cut off as she entered a gallery, her eyes widening slightly as she looked back and forth at an incredible lack of decay. The furniture looked moldy and there was fairly thick dust in a few places and it seemed like some of the tapestries had been removed, but a few were still covered and whole, protected by weakly-flickering gemstones channeling some kind of stasis magic over them to protect them from time and weather.

It was an incredible find. Golden Glow grinned from ear-to-ear as she looked back and forth as Aeiro noted: “The drones failed to report these magical emanations or artifacts earlier. Some form of tampering may have occurred.”

“Well, that's why they always have me check the place, in case of drone failure. It's not the first time we've had problems because of water dripping on them or air pressure or, you know, whatever...” answered Golden Glow, but her eyes were locked on a nearby tapestry, approaching it to stare with awe at the level of detail in the worked thread. It depicted some kind of half-serpent, half-pony... naga? Lamia? Some other form of chimera? “Look at this place, Aeiro, this is... I gotta take some pictures, send them back to base. This is fantastic!”

Golden Glow almost tossed off her backpack to dig quickly through it, not hearing the sound of something shifting above as Aeiro flitted around, the living program picking up the faintest hint of disturbance with its sensors. “Uh, Goldie? Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“This is an amazing discovery, Aeiro, we need to document it and get the crew in here.” Golden Glow dismissed as she pulled out several datapads. She absently tossed a stack of these aside on a stone table that sat behind her before she held up another in front of herself, muttering: “How do I do this again...”

She fiddled with the recording settings on the tablet computer as Aeiro flitted anxiously back and forth, neither noticing as a large shape slipped down from above and a slender arm stretched down to carefully steal one of the datapads, curious eyes watching the mare as the serpentine shape retreated back above. Aeiro's sensors detected it a moment too late, the seahorse spinning around before it blurted: “A datapad is missing!”

“Yeah, probably still in my bag, Aeiro, it's not important right now.” Golden Glow muttered as she swiveled at the waist to scan the entirety of the hall into image memory on the pad, making sure she caught everything that was important: the decaying but half-maintained furnishings, the weak crystals protecting the artifacts, the elaborate setup of softly-glowing candles that provided light through the gallery and the-

Golden Glow's eyes widened as she halted, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at a nearby pattern of candles: most of them were lit, and from the candlewax that dripped down their stalks and that pooled in the bronze catchers beneath them, she knew they weren't magical.

Someone had lit all of these candles. And recently, too, because the drone sensors would have absolutely detected all these little heat readings otherwise.

The mare swallowed a bit as she looked back and forth, then she flinched as she heard something above: the creak of wood, the shift of sinew and scale. She looked sharply up, just in time to catch a shape move quickly through the shadows of the rafters, and Aeiro buzzed an alarm before the living program blurted: “Sending out a distress signal, oh no!”

“Not yet!” hissed Golden Glow: okay, rationally, all they knew was that someone was lighting candles and maybe doing some repair work around the temple. Sure, it sounded like something big had just moved up there, but old creaky timbers could make even a mouse sound big...

Or a snake.

“Uh... hello there?” Golden Glow tried, knowing it would probably be useless. And of course it didn't get any response, Golden Glow giving a creaky grin as she nervously took in her surroundings, moving into the center of the gallery and hopefully away from where anything could jump out at her.

“Aeiro.” muttered the mare, and the sentient AI flitted down to her in a gesture of listening, even though whether she was here or thirty feet away, she would hear her all the same. “I want you to go take a look at what that thing is.”

“I don't wanna get eaten!” Aeiro squeaked shrilly, and Golden Glow gave the seahorse a flat look, making it wiggle indecisively before it groaned: “Okay, I'll do it!”

Aeiro nervously flitted upwards: she couldn't precisely be 'hurt' by physical things, but because she was a living program with 'organic' emotions, the shock of being attacked could cause her to overload. Golden Glow bit her lip as she watched her companion uneasily slip up into the rafters above: she knew she wasn't supposed to worry about the living program, that it could always be reset or she could ask Explorers United to send her a new unit, but... a friend was a friend.

Aeiro flitted anxiously towards the ceiling until she reached the extreme of her tether: any further than this, and she would start to suffer signal loss and memory faults.

She couldn't recognize the shape: it was no snake, however, that was for sure. It shifted in the shadows, clutching a datapad, a faint hissing emanating from the creature as it seemed to blossom and burgeon in the darkness, a terror, a monster-

Aeiro yelped, suddenly glowing brightly and directing that light on the shape, and the creature squawked in surprise before it tumbled backwards, a heap of coils toppling out of the rafters and barely catching itself with the end of its long body tail. Golden Glow gaped at the sight of the creature as it swung helplessly upside down for a moment before there was a loud crack from above, and the rafter that it had been anchored to nearly snapped in half, dropping the serpent-creature on its face with a thud.

Golden Glow stared at the mess of brown coils in front of her, then flinched as it stirred with a jangle of the golden bangles that decorated its soft tail and limbs. The orange-tufted tail of the strange creature flicked as it pulled itself out from beneath its body, straightening and blinking a few times as it stared across at the mare, who stared back, amazed, at the creature... the being that was only a dozen or so feet away from her.

Was it a lamia? Or a hippocampus? It was an incredible mix of snake tail merging into leonine body, with feathered wings stretching out of the furry back, and a gorgeous glam-rock mane that puffed out of its head and fell around its shoulders. It wore freshly-washed clothes, white and clean even in all this dust, kept secured to its body by straps of what could be cured hide or brown leather; a kilt or half-toga around its waist, and what was almost a short-sleeved belly shirt around its torso, with the jeweled collar hanging from its shoulders adding a finishing touch.

Blue eyes made all the more bright by the now slightly-smudged black makeup around its eyes looked at her with... was it actually afraid of her? Sure, it didn't look like a hulking murderer but she was pretty sure that a whatever-it-was could take an earth pony like her in a fight pretty easily. But hey, if it didn't want to fight...

Golden Glow realized it was clutching her missing datapad in one hand, and she looked at this for a moment before she looked up and asked: “Can you read?”

The feline serpent shifted nervously away, but Golden Glow quickly smiled and stepped backwards as she raised her own hands in supplication, trying to show that she meant no harm, not wanting to scare away this... this find of a century as Aeiro flitted anxiously down and asked: “Should I call for backup?”

“No, not yet, uh... keep a hoof on that.” Golden Glow muttered, before she bit her lip and asked: “What's your name?”

The creature stared at her, shifting on its coils, looking anxiously around the room as it hugged the little datapad against its chest, and Golden Glow chewed on the inside of her cheek before an idea snapped to mind: she quickly picked up the tablet she'd dropped in the confusion and flicked it from picture mode to input, tapping a greeting on the screen as she muttered: “Aeiro, sync with this tablet, I need your help.”

She held up the tablet screen towards the creature, which flinched a bit, clearly not recognizing the 'HELLO' that Golden Glow had written on screen. It started to nervously move away, and Golden Glow grimaced as she ordered: “Translate this to different language, start with common dialects in this area, change every ten seconds.”

Aeiro chirped her affirmative, and the screen flickered, the creature staring in surprise as the word changed. It hesitated, watching as the word changed, and changed again, and then its eyes filled with recognition at the next flicker-

“What language is that?” asked Golden Glow urgently, before she stared in surprise as the creature looked down at the datapad glowing in its hands. It fumbled at it for a few moments, and then it awkwardly held the datapad up, displaying the screen and a single word back:

hello

“Wow.” Golden Glow breathed, and then she looked quickly over at Aeiro before saying quickly: “Tell her we don't mean any harm!”

Aeiro clicked, and the datapad Golden Glow was holding up created a new message as the living program chirped out the language at the same time, which Golden Glow recognized now as a primitive form of Ionic dialect, and she couldn't help but mumble along: “Hello, we don't mean any harm, we want to be friends...”

“Don't mean any harm, want to be... friends.” parroted the creature, and Golden Glow stared in amazement at the creature across from as she gave a flabbergasted laugh.

“Holy hell.” she mumbled.

“Holy hell?” questioned the leonine serpent, in its soft, pretty voice.

Golden Glow laughed again as Aeiro blurted an apology, and then the earth pony rubbed wildly at her face for a moment before she asked quickly: “What's its name? Ask her name, uh...” Golden Glow thought frantically for a moment, then blurted out what she hoped was the right question in stumbling Ionic.

The serpent stared at her, then looked a little miffed for a moment before it answered her, and the earth pony had enough time to wonder if she'd said something offensive before Aeiro translated awkwardly: “Goldie, um, he says his name is Terry.”

“Oh.” Golden Glow gave a lame smile to the effeminate creature, before she cleared her throat and said awkwardly, deciding to let Aeiro do the translating for her: “My name is Golden Glow. It's nice to meet you, uh... Terry.” Terry. I'm guessing Aeiro translated the name, too, so I hope he understands... he? He's prettier than I am!

She laughed despite herself as Terry studied her curiously, and then he hesitantly smiled, and Golden Glow gave a warm smile back as she leaned forwards in excitement.

This was the find of the century, her generation's sphinx. This was better than any dusty old temple or set of artifacts, this was a living myth that she was opening communications with. She was the first person to talk to this 'Terry' in years, decades, maybe centuries!

Finally, she could live up to the name of Daring Do, and prove that Boldly Goes was going to be so much more than just your kid's PonyTube show.