Daring Do's sense of adventure wasn't something she was born with, but all the same she knew from an early age that she wanted to be a fearless explorer. She wanted to scour jungle villages and desert wastelands in search of rare, ancient treasures that nopony had ever seen before. She wanted to embark on adventures that most ponies could only dream about. And she wanted to make her mark on Equestria, battling against evil forces like the heroes in all the bedtime stories her parents read to her.
As it so happened there was already a rare and valuable treasure that the filly was poised to seek out. A treasure within her home, and a treasure that to a filly like her was the greatest thing to exist besides Celestia's sun. The sacred cookie jar that housed the ultimate food for any colt or filly: Cookies! Not just any cookies though, Daring Do's mother made the most delicious chocolate chip cookies known to pony kind. At least, that's what Daring thought.
But every time the little pegasus had pleaded for even just one cookie, she had been denied. Her parents always said she would spoil her appetite and that a growing filly like her needed her nutrition. Grown-ups could be so boring and not fun, especially when they put that cookie jar high up on a shelf knowing that their daughter couldn't reach it. It wasn't fair! She wasn't as tall as they were and her little wings couldn't possibly hope to carry her up to such a great height all on their own!
However, the filly wasn't one to just give up in the face of adversity. The heroes she took so much inspiration from faced far greater obstacles than just an out of reach cookie jar and they always prevailed in the end! If they could be successful in their quests then could she. And Daring's little mind began to scheme. She would retrieve that precious jar and snatch its contents away without its guardians being any the wiser.
Daring had to bide her time before she could put her plan into action and embark upon her quest. In order to even have a chance at obtaining her prize, she knew she would first need to wait until there was a considerable period of time where her parents would be occupied with other things. It would do no good to get so close to the precious cookie jar if the guardians were there to snatch it away from her, and cart her off to the time out dungeon. Staring at those blank walls was so boring, made even worse by the fact that she was forbidden from flying in order to escape (the one time she'd tried, she'd been captured again and her wings tied so as to prevent another attempt).
At last, after what felt like eons of waiting (but had only really been a couple of days) the opportunity Daring had long waited for finally came! Both her mom and her dad were distracted talking to some stranger at the front door of their humble little estate. They'd naturally assumed their daughter was playing with her toys, and indeed she had been until noticing both grown-ups leave.
So the young pegasus ceased her playing and rose to her hooves. It was for her first adventure to begin! Daring Do was going to retrieve the sacred cookie jar no matter what it took!
Donning a pith helmet (all great adventurers had to wear one) Daring Do set off into the thick of the jungle. Her prize rested inside of an ancient temple. It was a jar that was said to house the most delicious treat known to pony kind. Even Princess Celestia would surely do anything to get her hooves on it and probably would've if not for the two guardians tasked with "protecting" it.
Well, Daring felt they'd held onto their treasure for long enough! She had been tasked with retrieving the jar from its resting place in exchange for her fair share of the savory treats that resided within it. It was a deal she was all too eager to accept. This adventure would be a piece of cake for her.
Or at least, that's what she'd assumed. But Daring soon found that the path to the jungle temple was anything but straightforward and easy. All kinds of obstacles stood in her path. The first of these soon presenting itself to her in the form of a quicksand pit. Her moderate rose eyes scanned every inch of her surroundings only to find that there were no ropes or vines she could use to swing across the pit. "Of course. If it were easy it wouldn't be much of an adventure." She thought to herself as a faint chuckle escaped her lips.
The only way across the quicksand pit it seemed, was a series of stones placed a ways apart from each other. For any ordinary pony this would've been a problem, but for a gifted flyer like Daring Do it was no trouble at all. She leaped from stone to stone with the greatest of ease, not even needing to unfold her wings and flap them. That's how great her sense of distance was.
But as the brave adventurer jumped onto the last stone, she misjudged her landing. Her hooves began to slide and try as she might she couldn't stop them! She fell off the stone and into the quicksand, her wings quickly proving to be of little use in lifting her out! In fact, it seemed like the more she struggled the deeper she sank.
Wait, maybe that was it! Daring thought she'd heard somepony say that the key to escaping from quicksand was not to flail about but to move slowly and carefully. It was worth a try. So the pegasus stopped trying to fight back so drastically. She took one step at a time, grabbing hold of anything she could to keep her from sinking further. And it worked! After a great deal of time and effort she was freed from the quicksand pond. "That's one for the books." She said to herself as she was already thinking of writing down the memories of her adventures. And years from now she would pass these tales of bravery onto others, inspiring them to become like her.
All that would have to wait until her inevitable happy ending, though. Nopony would ever want to read about an adventurer who came up short in her quest.
The pegasus trekked slowly but surely towards her end goal. Yet it seemed like the further into the jungle she ventured, the further away the temple became. It didn't help that the jungle's humidity was starting to take a toll on her. Every step was sapping her of her energy. And while she had lots of it in reserve, it was being challenged quite heavily by this long and perilous quest.
Stopping for but a moment, Daring plopped down onto a rather odd looking stone to rest and get her bearings. Maybe she was going about it all wrong. Maybe there was a path she was supposed to follow that she hadn't been following all this time.
However, it seemed that fate had other plans in mind for the adventurer. For the "stone" suddenly roared and gave away, causing Daring to stumble to the ground! She looked up and found herself face to face with a ferocious cragadile! A cragadile that seemed intent on making the pegasus before it its next meal!
Well that was not the kind of ending Daring Do had in mind! "Sorry, Mr. Cragadile! I've got better things to do than waste time with you." She apologized while sticking out her tongue and flying away as fast as she could! It took a great deal of flapping, but she managed to eventually leave the fearsome predator in the dust.
And what luck! That little chase had not only given the adventurer a much needed boost, but it seemed to have brought her closer to the temple entrance. A few more chases like that and her adventure would be at an end. She would be safe at home with the jar, writing about her adventure while enjoying the sweet tasting success of her journey.
So Daring trekked onward, a renewed vigor reflected in her eyes and in every step she took. She knew she was getting close, she could smell the aroma wafting from that jar already. It was taunting her with its sweet scent, making her mouth water as she pictured how delicious the treats housed within it must be.
That naturally made it difficult for Daring Do to concentrate. But somehow she managed as the adventurer pushed ever forward. "Come on, Daring! You're so close!" She mentally reassured herself! "You've got this! Nothing can stop you now!"
At long last, the temple entrance was upon Daring as she made her way up the steps. She was nearly out of breath, yet she found the will to go on (no doubt motivated by the delicious smell that was growing stronger and stronger with every step she took).
Yet just when the brave pegasus hoped for the worst to be behind her, one more obstacle now presented itself to her. It wasn't a quicksand pit or a vicious jungle predator waiting to pounce. It wasn't the harsh jungle weather that had been slowly sapping her strength or the temple's guardians (who remained nowhere to be seen). No, it was what passed for a security system for this ancient temple. It was a door. Not just any door though, but a door that could only open if one gave the correct password.
The adventurer groaned. To come so close only to be denied because of a stupid password! It just wasn't fair! How was she meant to collect her reward or write her happy ending if the temple refused to cooperate?! Well, she knew she'd come too far and risked too much to think of just turning back. Like it or not she would have to give this "password" in order to gain access. But what was the password?
Daring Do guessed a wide variety of phrases that might get the door to open, but none seemed to work or yield any kind of results. Flapping her wings to scour the temple only confirmed that this password guarded door was the only entrance (or exit for that matter). So any hope of going around it was dashed. It might as well have been guarded by a sphynx, a creature that was said to love riddles (and food).
Wait, maybe that was it! Hoping beyond hope, Daring shouted at the top of her lungs to the door! "Sphynx!" For a moment, nothing happened. But then her trained ears heard a faint clicking noise. The temple door slowly rose until it was opened fully. The dimly lit chambers now stared right back at the pegasus, daring (no pun intended) her to enter and retrieve the treasure that surely lurked within them.
So with a smile on her face the brave adventurer charged forward, relieved that there were still lit torches that enabled her to see the path both ahead of and behind her. And she could already see that ancient jar resting on a pedestal just up ahead. The smell of its treats was so overpowering that Daring's mouth wouldn't stop watering! She was so very close!
But no temple was complete without booby traps. A fact that Daring learned the hard way as she stepped onto a tile, and a whole bunch of arrows suddenly shot out from a wall! Lucky for her her pith helmet caught all of them with no harm to her, but it now had more holes than the adventurer could count on one hoof (maybe even two).
And it wasn't just arrows that seemed to come from out of nowhere! Swinging blades attached to ropes, trap doors, even a pit of flames for some reason! Clearly, the guardians had gone above and beyond with booby trapping this temple. They clearly didn't want to part with their treasure. Which just made Daring Do all the more determined to reach the end of the hallway and retrieve the jar. The guardians had held onto it for long enough!
Thankfully, despite all the bobby traps, Daring reached the end of the hallway looking only slightly worse for wear. Her trusty pith helmet was worn, riddled with arrow holes and singed around the edges. But it was one of many and if worse came to worse she could always get it fixed at a later date and time.
For right now though, the scared jar commanded the adventurer's immediate attention. The pedestal it was on was too high for her to reach normally, and her wings were too exhausted to generate the lift she would need. There had to be a way to get at it, though! But how? The pegasus sat on her rump and tried to think.
Suddenly, Daring's moderate rose eyes managed to spot something nearby. It looked like some kind of stool. It wasn't very high off the ground but it looked like it would give her just enough height to reach up and grab the jar, maybe even pry the lid off it if she was lucky.
So Daring did just that. She trotted over, picked up the stool, and after she had nudged it close enough to the pedestal she jumped off the edge of it and toward the pedestal! Sure enough, she was just able to grasp the ledge and hoist herself up in a rather clumsy fashion. At last, the scared jar of the temple guardians was hers for the taking!
Unfortunately, the pegasus misjudged her balance once she had removed the lid. The smell had so overpowered her that she just had to get a look inside and maybe sample one or two of the treats within. With the lid gone there was nothing to really keep the adventurer from tumbling into the jar face first, her rump and tail sticking out in the most humiliating fashion.
"Daring Do!" A sudden, stern and authoritative female sounding voice called out, snapping the filly out of her imagined scenario. No longer was she in the middle of some ancient jungle temple. She was back in her own home, stuck face first in the cookie jar. And try as she might she couldn't get out.
She could still hear her parents though. And they did not sound pleased. "Daring," Her father spoke up, no doubt scowling at the sight. "Haven't your mother and I told you by now that cookies are not good for you? That you'll spoil your appetite?"
Daring didn't bother to argue back. She had heard this so many times before. Why did her parents think she needed a reminder?
"And now look at you," Mrs. Do spoke up as it sounded like she was trotting forward. "You've gone and gotten yourself stuck in my cookie jar."
Mr. Do, for his part, sounded kind of amazed. "She got all the way up there and opened the lid all by herself? I'm telling you, honey, Daring is no ordinary filly. She's a flying prodigy."
Normally that sort of praise would've made Daring blush and swell up with pride. But right now she was too embarrassed and afraid to feel at all happy.
Mrs. Do simply sighed. "Well, I guess I'll have to find somewhere else to keep my cookie jar so my little filly won't try to gain access to it."
"But Mom, I wanted cookies!" Daring pouted from within the jar, her voice sounding quite muffled as a result.
"Cookies are for after meals, not before them," Mrs. Do lectured. "If you eat only cookies you're going to get sick. And then you'll never grow up to be big and strong. And you want to grow up big and strong, don't you?"
At that the filly found herself in a rare moment of agreement with her mom. Growing up big and strong meant she would surely grow up to be an adventurer. An adventurer who didn't need her parents to come and rescue her because she got stuck in the cookie jar. An adventurer who could brave the toughest of threats and navigate her way through the thickest of jungles, and come out none the worse for wear.
But for now she was but a helpless filly who had been outsmarted in the most humiliating way possible. A filly who was going to once again be sent straight to the time out dungeon as the guardians she'd thought she could defy.
Yet Daring Do made a vow to herself never to give up! "One of these days I will obtain my prize!" She thought to herself, though that day was not today.
It would only be years and years down the road that a much older (and wiser) Daring Do would reflect back on this. With years of hindsight she would realize that it was from her active and healthy imagination that her dream of becoming an adventurer had been born. And that it was thanks to her imagination that she'd gone ahead and published the written accords of her adventurers, albeit under a pen name since her publisher claimed nopony would ever believe even one tenth of what was written in the books was true.
And whenever pressed for details on where her love of adventure had been born, the reclusive author would only vaguely refer back to her childhood. The humiliating experiences of trying to steal cookies from her parents' cookie jar only to always come up short were just far too embarrassing for her to tell a single soul. It was a story that she would sooner take to her grave than risk anypony finding out. To say nothing of what her many adversaries might do with the knowledge of such an "adventure".
Author's Note
Because nothing is more adorable than a child's imagination.
