Daring Do and the Infernal Machine
A.K. Yearling narrowed her eyes and licked her lips. She moved her head ever so slightly to loosen a crink in her neck. “Hello, my old nemesis,” she said quietly. The stare down continued.
Her body tensed, her eyes darted to the side. In a flash of motion, a blank sheet of paper was swiped up, set into the typewriter and the keys began clacking. “Daring Do and the …”
She stopped, taking a deep breath, her hooves still hovering over the keys. Alternately, they drummed on the keys while not actually pressing down on any of them. She pulled her hooves back and their little dance continued on the tabletop.
“Title, title,” she muttered as her eyes moved to the right, the scattered notes from her last adventure laid out next to her field journal. The drumming of hooves stopped, leaving only the sound of a grandfather clock slowly ticking away in the remote cabin.
Then her hooves moved again, moving the loose pages around, making sure their edges were neatly lined up with the corner of the desk. She shook her head, the process began anew, the loose pages this time being pushed to the far side of the desk while the journal was flipped open to a random page and set closest to the typewriter.
A.K. nodded and once again placed her hooves on the keys. Again, they danced in anxious anticipation. Again, no key was fully depressed. Again, the dance stopped and the ticking of the clock became the only source of sound in the simple cabin.
The clock! She stood up abruptly, walked over to the clock and retrieved the winding key from the shelf next to it. Giving it three full revolutions, she wound up the clock, carefully replacing the key on the shelf and closing the glass casing when she was done.
Nodding at a job well done, she returned to her writing desk. And she sat there. “Tea,” she mumbled. “Tea would be good.”
Getting back up again, she made her way over to the kitchen counter and put on the kettle. Deciding that there was no sense in walking back and forth, she stood there and watched it until it boiled. Soon the monotony of the ticking clock was broken by the shriek of the kettle. A.K. Yearling felt a sense of accomplishment as she poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip.
She cast a glance over to her desk, then noticed the bucket she used to get fresh water from the stream outside. It was half full after taking some for the tea. “Better top that up, I guess.”
Having spent a couple of minutes fetching fresh spring water, she purposefully strode back to her desk, then stopped abruptly when she heard a squeak. She took a couple of steps back. There it was again. She frowned, feeling around with her hooves for the crooked floorboard. “Well, this simply will not do,” she declared to nopony in particular. “There’s no way I can concentrate if I leave it like this.”
So she went to get her tools. A short time later, every loose board in the home had been nailed down. Then of course, things would need to be cleaned up, wood chips and such. And what the heck, the cleaning utensils were out now anyway.
Two hours later not a speck of dust, no unwashed dish, no wayward hoofprint on glass or polished wood was left in A.K. Yearling’s home. Rearranging the shelf of reference books by publication date had been a mere afterthought of the process. Resolutely, she marched back to sit down at her writing desk.
The grandfather clock ticked forth, unaware and uncaring of its owner’s plight, its ticks and tocks broken up by only the occasional, hesitant keystroke.
Yearling shook her head, pulled the page from the typewriter, crumpled it up and sent it sailing above her shoulder on a trajectory towards the paper bin before clamping in a fresh sheet of paper.
Typing resumed, more urgent this time, for about ten seconds. Then the clock once again reigned supreme over the cabin’s sound ambience.
A.K. Yearling, award-winning author, and Daring Do, death-defying adventurer extraordinaire, once again stared down at their enemy in silence.
Suddenly, the door to her cabin burst open. “A.K.! We need your help!”
She recognized the brash voice, without turning around, as that of a certain Rainbow Dash, immediately followed up by that of the Princess of Friendship herself. “The Cutie Map has summoned you. We need Daring Do!”
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yeeeeessssss!
A.K. Yearling turned around slowly, her features carefully schooled into a frown. “Your Highness,” she hissed dangerously, “I am, as always, at your service. But it would be kind of you in the future to call ahead. I was in the middle of writing my new book.”
“Can I see?” Rainbow Dash asked with a huge grin.
“It is not finished,” Yearling declared, grabbing the page from the typewriter and placing it firmly on the desktop upside down.
“Aww.”
“We’re sorry,” Twilight said, her ears folding back in a display of remorse. “We’ll be more considerate in the future. I’m sure we could wait for you to finish the chapter before heading out.”
But A.K. Yearling had already doffed her casual clothing and was getting together her adventurer’s gear. “It’s too late now. The moment is gone,” she said in a tone that dripped with self-pity. “No matter. Duty calls. I apologize for my rudeness. I simply hate being interrupted when the words are flowing freely and page after page rolls along as steadily as the Friendship Express. But the fate of Equestria might be at stake here. Come, my friends! Onward to adventure!”
With a spring in her step, Daring Do led the two ponies outside, slamming the door behind her. The action caused a momentary draft in the now empty cabin.
In it, the single page got caught up, rising up and floating back down to the floor right side up. The singular line on it read: “Daring Do and the Infernal Machine.”
The clock ticked on, oblivious to the epic showdown that had just occured, and the typewriter sat in smug silence, putting another one in the win column for itself.
