The fire had died in the night. She awoke, flat on her back and shivering.

Daring stretched, her back and abdominal muscles sore from the exertions—both amorous and archeological— of the previous day, and her pussy a bit sore, too. She frowned. Ouch. She had... she had bruised her cervix. That was probably going to bother her once she got up and moving.

She rolled over and stood up, shaking her wings out. Dried bodily fluids crinkled in the fuzz of her coat. "Hey, Caballeron?"

A single small lantern and the narrow shaft of daylight from the chimney lit the room.

Silence.

He was gone.

His bags were gone.

The artifact was gone.

All that was left of him was the puddle of cum that had leaked from Daring in her sleep.

The small lantern and two canteens sat near the ashes of the fire. On the floor, in red chalk, was a note.

Daring Do,
I marked the path out with white chalk and the traps with red. Be sure to drink plenty of water.
Until next time~

She shoved the canteens into her bag, grabbed the lantern's handle in her teeth, and followed the first white chalk arrow.

It led her to another, then another. Jump a pressure plate marked in red. White arrow. White arrow. Duck a tripwire, also marked red.

She dared not run, but she moved at a fast walk, almost a trot.

Her nose sampled the air. She smelled her own pussy wafting along Caballeron's trail. He wasn't far ahead of her.

"You!" Daring shouted and surged into the air as her hooves met the muddy loam outside the temple's half-hidden entryway.

Caballeron, two hundred yards beyond the temple, stopped and looked at her. His tail smashed a mosquito.

Daring buzzed over him, close enough to smack one of his ears with a hoof as she zoomed past. She landed in front of him and flared her wings in rage, hindquarters tensed to pounce. "You! You... you used me and fucked me and left me! We found that artifact together!"

"This is the capstone to my dissertation, Daring Do. If I wish to be Doctor Caballeron, and no longer Doctoral Candidate Caballeron—I must produce it."

"That's fine," Daring snarled, "but I want half the credit when it's in the museum. I want to be first author on the publication. You can be senior author, I don't care. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canterlot, I think."

Caballeron laughed, raising his head to the sky and holding one free hoof against his belly. His entire body shook. "Barely even eighteen and already thinking like a jaded academic. Fine," he waved a hoof dismissively, "you may first-author the paper, I don't care. But it will not be in a museum."

Fury drained the blood from Daring's head, the bright morning sun dimming as her eyes narrowed. The pain in her pussy and her ear receded. She ground her right forehoof into the dirt, fighting the urge to beat him upside the head with her wings. "What?"

"My PhD, it is funded by an... anonymous philanthropist, shall I say? The dildo—"

"Wand!"

"—dildo shall be going to his private collection." Caballeron gave her a wide grin and raised his eyebrows. "But I will not tell if you should like to try it once, before it disappears from the face of Equestria, again."

"No!" Daring shouted and leaped, forehooves pawing for his backpack.

Cabelleron sidestepped and pushed her away, forehoof on her chest. "Do not do that, Daring Do. I am taking the artifact. You are not."

"Were you planning to betray me the whole time?"

"I was planning to take the artifact, yes. We never agreed on a split, so I find your accusation of betrayal to be a base canard. I will not stand for it."

"Were you planning to fuck me, too?"

Caballeron spluttered. "You were masturbating! Right in front of me!"

"We've known each other for years. Since—since I was fourteen. Have you been planning to fuck me the whole time?"

"No. I've seen you as a potential asset. You proved yourself, yesterday, as brave and resourceful, but also proved you need more training... which I can give you."

She leapt at him again, landing solidly on his withers and scrabbling for the backpack once more.

He batted her aside. Daring landed in the mud with a splash and leaped back to her hooves.

"Daring Do, stop that. You are half my size, you will not take the artifact by force."

Daring reared to her hind legs and kicked him right on the snout with a forehoof. He grunted and stepped back, blood dribbling from his nose.

"I have warned you, Daring Do." Caballeron's forehoof lashed out twice. With a crunch-snap, Daring went down.

Flat on her back, she cradled her face with her wings, gasping and cursing, right foreleg tucked to her chest. Stars spun around her and her entire head burned. She tried to stand and the foreleg collapsed underneath her.

"Still, still, Daring Do." Caballeron's forehooves forced her wings away from her face. She stared at him, her vision doubled and blurry. "Ah. Damn."

"W—what?" Daring said, realizing she was flat on her back in the mud. She tucked her tail over her genitals, unwilling to expose herself to... to him.

"You rushed me, Daring Do. I'm sorry, I broke your zygomatic bone."

"What?"

He dug into his pack and removed a first aid kit. He crunched down on an instant cold pack with his teeth, releasing its spell, and pressed it against her face.

"Ow!"

"I do not think the bone is displaced, but you must see a doctor. An orthopedic surgeon. Go to the Maretle Beach hospital emergency room." He then examined her foreleg. "I think I dislocated your knee, too. Here, take this."

Daring flipped over and sat, haunches in the mud, and focused one-eyed on him. Caballeron held an open bottle of pills and a canteen.

"Painkiller and anti-inflammatory," Caballeron explained. "You shall want it."

"Fuck you." Daring stood on three legs, injured leg tucked high and one wing pressing the icepack to her face. "Fuck you."

"We already have, Daring Do. I am sorry about the eye and the knee, but you did hit me first."

"I'm going to learn to fight," Daring said. "The next time we meet in a temple..."

"Of course, Daring Do. How is your direction sense?"

Daring blinked. She pulled the icepack down and glanced at the sun. Her left eye seemed to be working all right, if blurry.

As she scanned the horizon, Caballeron put the unused painkiller back in his bag. "At least take the canteen. A pegasus with a head knock can have trouble navigating for a few hours. Maretle Beach is that direction." He pointed just north of the rising sun, indicating east-northeast. "Go straight until you hit the beach, then turn left and follow the strand. Can't miss it."

Replacing the ice pack on her face, Daring glared at him. "I still have the two canteens you left in the gallery."

Caballeron shrugged and continued his walk.

Daring dropped the icepack into the mud, flapped into the air, holding her injured foreleg tight to her chest. She hovered for a moment to judge if the head injury had affected her balance, and then flew east for Maretle Beach.

His form, heading west at a canter, disappeared behind her.

The train rocked back and forth, clickety-clacking its way back from Maretle Beach to Baltimare.

Daring flushed the toilet and looked in the mirror. The entire left side of her face was a bruise, from jaw to the new stitches the emergency room doctor had put in her ear. Her right foreleg was splinted and trussed to her chest.

Mom and Dad were going to freak when she got home.

She returned from the lavatory to her seat next to Minor Scale.

"Daring?" Minor asked.

"Yeah?"

"How's your head?"

She rubbed the unbruised side of her face. "The painkillers are helping a lot. But there's this dull... like a dull throb underneath everything. I can't concentrate, I can't sleep... they said once the bone starts knitting, that'll go away."

"Your leg?"

"They said it'll be okay, but it'll dislocate easily for life, so be careful."

Diopt, Daring's cousin, abandoned the card game and joined Minor and Daring. "You've gone to the bathroom four times in an hour," she said.

"Yeah, I'm pissing lava," Daring replied, looking out the window. "I guess I'm seeing another doctor when I get home, get tested."

"Birth control spell?" Minor asked.

"Doctor at the emergency room checked it, said it was one hundred percent, and that I wasn't fertile, anyway."

"Well," Minor said, "at least there's that."

Diopt leaned close to Daring. "Great-grandpa is going to want to press charges."

Daring stared out the window. "Charges won't stick. The sex was my idea and I started the fight."

"Wait, really?" Diopt and Minor said together.

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do, then?" Minor asked.

Daring glared at the countryside. They'd left the Lowcountry around the beach and were crossing the low rolling hills, corn and cotton fields passing by them as the train rocketed across the piedmont. "First, no more partners. I work alone, now. Second... I learn to fight."

Author's Note

Please let me know what you thought!