Deep in the Forbidden Jungle, south of the monster-infested Equestrian Badlands, stood the great Temple of Neighopsa. Long sought by generations of scholars and generally believed to have been destroyed, rumors had nevertheless persisted for years that it endured, hidden by impenetrable foliage, hostile savage tribes, dangerous flora and fauna, and quite possibly ancient and terrible curses. To a certain unlikely pair, the promises of danger coupled with historical secrets drew them as inexorably as a magnet. After a long and grueling expedition and at least two near-death experiences, they arrived at their destination.
After gazing up the stony edifice of the temple, immense stone blocks raising high above them in the form of a ziggurat, the feminine half of the pair let out an excited squeal and darted inside on blurring wings. Her male companion cursed and charged after her.
Daring Do grinned widely, heart racing and blood pumping a steady rhythm in her ears in time with her pounding hooves. Corridors of dank, roughly hewn stone blocks raced past as she pushed herself forward at a breakneck pace through the twisting corridors of a forgotten jungle temple. Fragments of daylight slipped in through cracks in the ceiling, dappling her golden coat. At her side, a familiar earth pony stallion snorted, breathing heavily, with the first traces of froth forming on his dark brown coat as he pushed himself to keep pace with the lithe pegasus who led him by half a body-length at most. Daring risked a glance back and stuck out her tongue. “Better keep up, Caballeron! You’re getting soft now that you’re on the good side!” In response, Dr. Caballeron grunted and glared; he certainly didn’t have the breath to spare to rejoinder her taunt, much as it galled him.
In the split seconds of her distraction, Daring’s attention drifted away from her hooves and the floor underneath. Long years of experience and well-earned paranoia had taught her to be ever-vigilant for traps, and her special talent generally allowed her to notice the subtle cues that let her avoid them. However, she couldn’t perceive what she wasn’t paying attention to. She never saw the slight gap that set one of the stones on the corridor’s floor apart from its neighbor. She did feel the way it sunk slightly into the ground when her hoof settled on it, presumably activating some ancient mechanism. Her finely-honed ears twitched as they detected the tell-tale sounds of grinding gears and clunking machinery from the walls around her. She spread her wings and prepared to take to the air, already planning to dodge poison-tipped darts or slip between swinging blades of death or any of the thousand other cliches that seemed to haunt ancient ruins. She was not prepared for a pair of shackles to come shooting out of concealed slits on the walls, one on her left and right, and fly towards her with unnerving precision. She shot past them, wings blurring. “Hah! Missed me!” she crowed, confident in her acrobatic abilities. Thus, she was considerably dismayed to feel the restraints closing around her hindlegs midflight. As soon as they clicked shut, the chains connecting them to the wall tightened and brought her to a jerking halt. “OOF! Son of a mule!” she cried as her forward momentum was completely arrested, leaving her dangling upside down in the middle of the hallway. “Don’t you dare laugh,” she growled at her partner, who had a perfect view of the entire debacle.
“Daring! Are you hurt?” Caballeron panted as he came thundering up, taking in the sight of her suspended above the floor, her triply-monochrome mane brushing the ground and her signature pith hat lying below her.
“Just my pride,” she muttered, crossing her forelegs across her chest.
He smirked at her. “So, what happened? Daring Do, the world’s greatest adventurer, stumbling into such an obvious trap?”
“I was busy looking at your ugly mug,” she retorted.
Caballeron shook his head. “How will A.K. Yearling ever explain this to her fans?”
“Creative editing,” Daring replied flatly. She flailed about, flapping her wings, to no effect. “Gah!”
“You appear to be in a bit of a bind, my dear. Would you care for some assistance?” he asked.
Daring sighed, going limp in her restraints. “Get me out of this? Please?”
Caballeron trotted forward and examined the shackles with a critical eye, poking at them with a hoof. “Locked,” he replied.
She rolled her eyes. “Pick them?”
“I see no sign of a keyhole.”
She growled. “Cut them off?”
He shook his head. “Now that we are no longer mortal enemies, I would prefer to avoid accidentally maiming you.”
“Ugh!” Daring groaned, rubbing her hooves over her eyes. “Alright, fine. I am kind of attached to my legs. Got any bright ideas, then?”
“How kind of you to ask. I do, in fact, have an idea,” Caballeron said as he stepped closer.
As he drew closer, Daring couldn’t help but notice that his bulky frame left her feeling more than a little vulnerable, especially at close range. Had they still been enemies, her heart would have been beating from fear at the thought of being at his mercy. Now that they were friends – and partners, in more ways than one – she found her heart beating with an entirely different emotion. When he reached out with a hoof to trace across the fur of her cutie mark, the tingly sensations left behind gave those feelings a kickstart and sent them into overdrive.
“H – hey! What’s the big idea?” she protested. “I said to get me out of this, not to stop for a quickie, ya know?!”
Caballeron chuckled, a deep and resonant sound that Daring hated to admit she rather enjoyed. “Can you blame me? Here we have the great Daring Do, helpless and vulnerable. I suppose some old habits stick around.” He allowed his hooves to roam as they pleased over her body, lithe and supple as befitted her pegasus heritage and her adventurous lifestyle. It had once irked him to admit how attractive he found the intrepid explorer, but now the fickle whims of fate had seen fit to bring him together with the object of his desires.
Daring bit her lips to stop from moaning as he ran his hooves over her fur, tracing random patterns down her sides, across her flanks, up her thighs, and anywhere else he pleased. She felt the burning heat in her cheeks and knew she was blushing profusely, but refused to admit it out loud. When his wandering hoof brushed against the superbly sensitive flesh surrounding the base of her wings her resistance melted like butter in tropical heat and she moaned aloud, flaring her wings in an instinctive signal of willingness.
“Such a lovely sound,” Caballeron mused. Satisfied with his efforts so far, he decided to shift gears. Instead of allowing his hooves to aimlessly rover across her body – delightful though that was – he instead allowed his touch to focus in on the fur nestled between her thighs. “Please feel free to continue.”
Daring obliged, letting out a soft whimper as his hoof brushed against her marehood. “Nyah!” She writhed in her bonds, accomplishing little. “Cabby, please . . .” she murmured. Whether she wanted him to stop or ravish her harder, even she wasn’t completely certain of. On the one hoof, using the interior of an archaeological site for a carnal interlude struck her as more than a little sacrilegious. On the other hoof, it was definitely turning her on.
“You know you love it, my dear,” he replied. The folds of her nether lips already glistened with her arousal, matting the sandstone-colored fur that covered her loins. In obedience to his touch, her folds soon began to twitch eagerly.
“Y – yes,” Daring panted heavily, all too aware of her mounting need for release as her arousal filled her until she felt like she could burst. She could feel herself beginning to wink, a wordless invitation to her stallion to mount her and fill her emptiness with his member.
Caballeron smiled widely when her vulva began to respond to the stimulation, the twitching of her lips allowing the small, fleshy nub of her clit to push itself into view. “Now there is a treasure worth taking possession of, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked.
Daring’s question was cut off as his head darted forward and his lips closed around the protruding flesh. “Ooooh!” she wailed in ecstatic dismay as the single most sensitive bit of flesh she possessed was overwhelmed by stimulation. Her hips bucked wildly and her wings beat erratically as he first squeezed the aching bundle of nerves with his teeth ever-so-gently before releasing it to the ministrations of his lips. What felt like a trillion nerves cried out with pleasurable signals that set her brain ablaze and threatened to melt her mind, sending bliss thundering through her veins. If it weren’t for the shackles and chains holding her suspended, she would have collapsed to the floor as a mewling, horny mess.
Encouraged by her reactions, he bent himself fully to his task. He tirelessly lavished her clit with loving attention, drawing forth a whole litany of squeals and moans intertwined with exclamations in half a dozen languages, several of them centuries dead. She flailed and thrashed, cursing the iron shackles holding her in place and making sure she was borderline helpless against his assault. Finally, after several moments that simultaneously felt like forever and not nearly long enough, she tensed all over and her sopping-wet slit released a powerful spurt of marecum, followed rapidly by another and another.
She felt as if her heart stopped for an instant and a great vice suddenly clamped down and squeezed her entire body in its grasp. A heartbeat later, something broke inside her somewhere and a flood of raw ecstasy poured into and through her like a racing river. She let out a wordless shout that mingled relief with pleasure as her orgasm crested, carrying her along like a leaf adrift on the ocean.
Gradually, the force of her climax waned and she slowly came down from the high of her release and afterglow. In the aftermath, she dangled limply, lungs desperately heaving as if she had been diving. Even her wings hung like lifeless puppets and her eyelids fell shut as if attached to 10-ton rocks. Eventually, after she felt like she could breathe again, she mustered up the will to crack open one cerise eye and lock gazes with his greenish-grey ones. “You . . . huff . . . suck,” she panted.
“Oh, I was rather hoping that you would handle that on my behalf, Miss Do,” he remarked with a grin and an eyebrow waggle. He gestured towards his own lower half with a hoof and she followed the motion with her eyes, drawn to the prominent sight of his engorged stallionhood.
She huffed. “I guess it’s only fair,” she grumbled. “C’mere.”
Caballeron wasted no time in taking the captive mare up on her invitation. He reared up on his hind legs until he stood bipedal, wrapping his forelegs around Daring’s flanks for support. His position displayed his member proudly, allowing Daring’s eyes to lock onto its flared tip and watch with growing eagerness as it drew closer. Without prompting, she opened her mouth and accepted as much of its length as she could, swallowing eagerly until her lips brushed against his medial ring. The musky smell of stallion filled her nostrils and she breathed deeply of it, allowing it to mix with the taste of his cock on her tongue.
He shivered, a tremor rolling down his spine and through his body, as her lips closed on his hardness. Softer than the most luxurious Saddle Arabian silk, they caressed the sensitive skin of his member as she began to work her head back and forth. He sighed and let his eyes drift shut, losing himself in the moment and savoring the results of Daring’s dedicated worship of his cock. It soon began twitching of its own accord, responding to the soft and comfortable warmth surrounding it and the steady pressure of her lips as they explored as much of it as they could.
It didn’t take long before a familiar pressure began to build up in his balls, spreading out into his legs and causing his twitching erection to begin throbbing with considerable force. Suddenly, an animalistic urge reared up from somewhere deeply buried, urging him to slam his cock the rest of the way into her maw and silence any protest she might make by filling her throat with his girth. He opened his eyes and locked eyes with her rosy ones, wide and sparkling with mischief, vivacity, and – most importantly - trust. The sight banished that urge whence it came and he forced himself to relax and enjoy the moment, not contemplate taking more than what his partner freely offered. He wasn’t that kind of pony anymore, even if he occasionally needed to remind himself of that.
The steady pace she set for herself as she lavished his stallionhood with her affections swiftly had him teetering on the knife’s edge separating him from climax, and just as swiftly sent him teetering over it. With a mighty throb, his cock unleashed the first wave of his cum into her mouth, surprising both of them. Caballeron grunted and Daring gagged as she pulled his member out of her, which gave her the ability to at least swallow the warm, salty load he had deposited in her throat. It also meant that the subsequent spurts of his seed arced away from the flared head of his hardness to land on her, coating her muzzle and face with thick, goopy white strands.
He saw stars, blackness rushing in to replace his vision as his climax ran its course. All too soon, though, it faded away like morning dew and he found himself sitting on his rump, panting heavily. After he had a moment to get his breath back, he got unsteadily to his hooves. “I have good news, my dear. I have determined how to free you from your current predicament.”
Daring rolled her eyes. “Gee, how convenient that you thought of it after you took advantage of having me at your mercy.”
Caballeron gasped, clutching his hoof to his chest in feigned indignation. “Miss Do! Are you accusing me, the noble Dr. Caballeron, of being improper in my conduct towards a lady? How dare you?”
She tried not to laugh, but quickly let out a chuckle. “Okay, fine, so maybe I didn’t exactly complain. Still, if you can get me out of here I’d be grateful. Any longer and I’m gonna start to have a major headache.”
“Your wish is my command,” he replied, already digging his muzzle into his saddlebags. Rummaging around for a few seconds, he soon emerged with a hacksaw clenched in his jaw.
“Hey, what happened to not wanting to maim me?!” Daring protested, already envisioning the saw slipping while working through the steel shackles and the jagged teeth digging into her flesh. He said nothing, but merely quirked his eyebrow and applied the saw to the first link in the chain connecting one of the shackles to the wall of the corridor. “Oh,” she said as she facehoofed, feeling more than a bit foolish.
He worked the saw patiently, but it didn’t take long. Centuries of humidity and lack of maintenance left the chains weakened and rusty in spots and it quickly yielded to the modern, diamond-tipped, magically-reinforced sawblade. With one of her legs freed, he shifted position and made brief work of the second.
Daring grunted as she felt the tension slacken in the last remaining restraint, twisting her body with the nimble athleticism that served her so well and making sure she didn’t land on her head. “At least I get some free jewelry out of this,” she grumbled, glaring at the shackles still locked around her hind legs.
“It is a good look for you, I think,” he replied with a smile.
“Don’t get any bright ideas,” she retorted, lightly flicking her tail against his nose.
“I make no guarantees,” he said. “Stand still for a moment before you go flying off.” Pausing briefly, he removed the red and white-spotted bandanna from around his neck and used it to wipe the strands of cum from her coat. Daring sat patiently, waiting for him to finish cleaning her up as best he could. When finished, it went into the saddlebag rather than back around his neck.
“Thanks,” she said. “Now, c’mon. We’re still looking for a treasure here.”
Daring sat dejectedly by the campfire, staring into its flickering heart while she rested her cheek on her hoof.
“Come now, Miss Do!” Caballeron said as he settled down on his haunches next to her and hoofed her a bowl of jungle-root stew. “An experienced archaeologist such as yourself must understand that sometimes the search for lost artifacts comes up empty-hooved.”
She took the bowl with a sigh and kept staring into the fire. “I know,” she murmured, “but it always gets under my feathers when somepony else beats me to it. Whether it was a rival tribe hundreds of years ago or a thief last week, I can’t stand thinking that a piece of history is probably gonna end up destroyed or collecting dust on some collector’s shelf.” She stomped a hoof on the ground for emphasis. “It belongs in a museum!”
He winced at that. More than a few valuable bits of history had gone astray thanks to him over the years. His former list of accomplishments now weighed on his conscience like a roll call of his bad decisions and failures. What made that weight bearable was the mare at his side, who of all ponies had the most right to hate him to his core and instead had offered forgiveness and, eventually, affection. She was more beautiful than any masterpiece of gems and precious metal, he thought, with the way the firelight cast a warm sheen over her golden coat. The color reminded him of the sheen of golden bits, but infinitely warmer and more desirable.
Daring glanced over at him, curious about the silence her partner had lapsed into, and found him staring at her with a small smile on his muzzle. “What?” she asked.
Caballeron chuckled. “I am just thinking that no trip is devoid of treasure if I’m with you.”
Daring’s mouth dropped open, cheeks blushing. “That is the most overly sappy pile of horseapples I’ve ever heard,” she said, smacking him lightly in the shoulder. Then, smiling, she scooted closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “And thank you.” She chuckled.
“No, my dear. Thank you,” he murmured, resting his own head lightly on top of hers and turning his attention to the fire as well. Soon, a gentle snore let him know that she had dozed off. Smiling, he continued to keep his vigil of the small clearing where they made camp. The fire warmed his body, while the closely-pressed form of her body warmed his heart. His friend – his partner – trusted him to keep her safe. If he could have that trust appraised like a fine gem or a precious metal, he was sure it would be worth far more than any artifact he’d ever held in his hooves. There would be another adventure, more expeditions, and more treasures found and recovered to be studied and enjoyed by future generations. None would be more valuable than moments like this.
Author's Note
Well, here we are! I hope you enjoyed this little interlude between everyone's favorite pony versions of Indiana Jones and René Belloq. I know I had fun writing it!
Superfun suggested this idea to me, and I was interested in writing a story that features the two. After they more-or-less became friends at the end of Daring Doubt, I always liked the idea that the former enemies became close.
Please feel free to leave a like or comment to let me know what you think!
