A Most Unusual Reading Buddy

by Damocles23

Rating: everyone
Tags: Romance, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Slice of Life, Daring Do, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash
Length: 6868

Pinkie and Dash read a book and fall in love.

Rainbow Dash is happily reading the latest Daring Do novel, only to be interrupted just before the last chapter by the untimely arrival of Pinkie. Undeterred by the interruption the two decide to read it together. Dash discovers then, that sharing your passion with a friend can lead to something more...
Now with audio version here by the awesome guys of Reading Rainboom.

Published 2012-09-06 14:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-09-06 14:34:01 UTC

Chapter 1

A Most Unusual Reading Buddy

By Damocles23

There she was: the end of her long journey was just a few meters ahead of her. In front of Daring Do stands the thing she earned the right to find with blood, sweat and tears. Her steps feel heavier by the moment and the relentless heat of the jungle Isn’t doing any favor to her , already proven, physique. The less she thinks about those aching pains all over her body, mostly caused by close encounters with crazed henchponies and savage animals, the better.

It doesn't matter.

There's a friend to save and an enemy to defeat. Does Daring Do need any other incentive? Of course not. She has all the weapons she needed, ready to fight what could possibly be her final battle.

“For her sake…” is the last thought that crosses her mind as she sets off toward the site her sworn enemy chose as the stage f their final confrontation. She moves away the thick tree branches in front of her to reveal before her eyes the full glory of the ancient temple of the Hoofidian Serpent, which was, according to an old Equestrian legend, built with the bones of a dead god. The humongous and horrific snake-like structure that tightly circles the bulk of the temple itself, constituted by a barren terracotta pyramid, did nothing but confirm that most preposterous claim.

As she gets closer to the primordial structure and sees the snake’ dreadful maw, his lower jaw half buried in the ground and acting as the door to the temple, the intrepid archaeologist can’t help but wonder: if the legend is true, what can possibly kill a god and make it in an ornament? More importantly, will she be able to defeat Ahuizotl this time, even if he’s the wielder of such power? Of course, Ahuizotl always underestimated one thing about Daring: if he hurt Coco, if he just grazed her cheek for some kooky plan of his, there’s nothing on Heaven or Earth that could protect him.

She crosses the threshold of teeth with confident step, barely fazed when the mouth of the monster tightly shuts behind her with a noise so loud that echoes in all the serpent’s skeleton.

“Next time, wait a little longer…” says Daring Do, without even turning to see, venturing further in the bowels of the monstrous building.

Rainbow Dash lifts her gaze from the book for a moment and stares, pupils wide open, at the door of Twilight’s library.
A shiver climbs up her spine and notes that her left fore hoof is trembling lightly. Nopony ever told her that the latest entry of Daring Do was this awesome! Well, Twilight described it as such, but their definition of “awesome” wasn’t exactly the same.

Not this time, though: for once the purple unicorn and the cyan pegasus were perfectly in agreement and both ponies had to bow in front of the bodacity she was holding in her hooves.

She makes a silent note to thank the lavender mare for having found her this early copy. So early, in fact, that she never heard of it until Twilight showed it to her that morning.

She didn’t hear of Daring Do and the Hoofidian Knife even after reading all the news, previews and interviews about the franchise Twilight always provided her every time Dash finished the newest one, so it came off as a nice surprise.
None of her sources mentioned this chapter of the series, and, usually, with the considerable information network she built, nothing Daring Do related could escape her.
She felt a little stab to her pride for Twilight being able to put her hooves before her, the so-called fast pegasus in Equestria, but she accepted defeat with dignity since it came from one of her closest friends.

Besides, Twilight probably played in her field, i.e. magic or researches, and for all her talents she couldn’t hope to beat the other girls in their respective fields. Last time she tried making a dress, almost ended with casualties… With only one chapter left, she is fully prepared to put an end to the incredible ride this book has been for the past few hours and, with all the solemnity and gravitas the occasion deserves, prepares herself to…

Turn!

The!

Page!

Sadly, the weaver of fate botches the thread that was leading to this glorious moment, messily intertwining it with one that runs a different, albeit equally animated, destiny.

A destiny kick started by a violent slamming on Twilight’s front door, a goofy, yet still endearing, grin and the loudest, most vibrant and lively salute that ever graced the air of Ponyville. All of this caused by the sudden intrusion of an over enthusiastic pink mare.

“Heeellloooo, Twilight!” the pink mare shouts at the top of her lungs, startling the blue mare and causing Rainbow Dash to slip from the pile of cushions she was leaning her shoulders on, making her to fall on her side to the floor.

Still tightly clutching the book, even though her concentration is flown out the window faster than a Sonic Rainboom, she grumbles a salute to the pink pony: “Hi, Pinkie Pie…”

Pinkie bends her neck to match Dash’s perspective and looks at the pegasus, confused: “Rainbow Dash? What are you doing on Twilight’s floor?”

“I was reading…”she says lifting up a bit the tome in question, keeping it open with a hoof.

“Huh! Isn’t that a teeny bit uncomfortable reading on the floor? You had all those nice pillows behind you!” she enters the library and nonchalantly closes the door with a hind leg.

“Never mind…” she pulls herself off the ground with a hoof and returns to her previous, cozy position, turns the page without further ado and reads the title of the next chapter: /The Final Confrontation. She stops looking at the book to look at the pink pony, who’s still there, humming a catchy song with her usual, relaxed smile. Humming a little too much for her taste, so she tries at least to strike a conversation, hoping the mare is just passing by and Dash can finally start reading the supposed grand finale.

“Can I help you with something…?” Rainbow asks, sheepishly looking at her from over the book.

“Nope!” Pinkie answers as quick as possible and keeps staring at Dash. Her wide, inquisitive, blue eyes keep staring at her very soul, like a savage beast of the savanna waiting for an ambush.
That vacant stare fills her mind with uneasy thoughts and unsavory suppositions, so much that she feels a drop of cold
sweat rolling over her temple.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she gets right down to business, even hoping to aid the pink pony of her own, mostly to make her leave faster.

“Well, I’m planning this party for this friend of mine obsessed with this role-playing game called Equestria of Darkness and I wanted to give him a horror themed party! You see, his birthday is at Nightmare’s Night so I thought it would be a great idea and Twilight said she had some sourcebooks or whatever they’re called, so I need to read at least one but I don’t know the name of the right one and I never even saw or even heard of the game until now, but Twilight said she had some of them and told me to pass this morning so I could borrow onebythewaywhereishe?” Pinkie never even draws a breath after finishing the whole rant, leaning toward the pegasus on her forelegs and eyeing her intensively without blinking, resembling more and more a predatory stance in her typical enthusiasm.

Rainbow lays the book on the floor in defeat, finally admitting to herself that she won’t be able to read in the same room with the erratic pink mare. She glances at it with a nostalgic look, feeling like a part of her has just been torn. “Twilight is out with Spike for a commission, so it’s just me here…trying to read…”

“Oh, well! I’ll just wait until she gets back, so I can keep you company! Aren’t you happy?”

“Delighted…” answers the pegasus with a tortured, fake smile, feeling like she’s just been punched in the gut.

Pinkie takes a glance to the book lying to the floor: “Is it any good, Dashie?”

“Oh, yeah!” her vitality suddenly returns. “It isn’t just good! It is awesome! No wait: awesome is not enough it’s…it’s…”

“Super-Special-Awesome!” Pinkie points a hoof at Dash.

“Yes! Yes it is! It is so good I can’t believe it’s right there in my hooves! Twilight said it was an early release but this…this must be a work of magic for how good it is.”

“I’m so happy for you, then!” Pinkie sits on her haunches and keeps staring at Rainbow, this time shifting her look between the blue mare, the floor and the surrounding scaffolds. She opens her mouth several times, trying to form words, but immediately shuts it, reprising the same series of awkward movements. She almost looks…embarrassed of something. Pinkie starts to tap her hoof on the floor, until she’s interrupted by Dash.

“Is it something wrong, Pink…”

“Can you read it to me?” Pinkie interrupts her instantly, leaning toward the pegasus with those same, scintillating blue eyes of hers from before.

“What? Since when do you like Daring Do?” she cocks an eyebrow, suspicious.

“Since…well, actually it’s my first one. But, you know just to pass some time until Twilight comes back…”she slowly draws a circle on the ground with a hoof. “My mommy always read me a story before sleeping when I was a little filly.”

“Well, you’re not a little filly anymore..” she adds a nervous chuckle.

“And it’s not night either, so I guess you can do it!”

Rainbow starts to trace some imaginary calculus in the air with a hoof. The results go to Pinkie’s favor but she scoffs at them almost immediately, trying to find some excuses:

“Well..actually…verily…I don’t know how to…”

“You don’t know how to read?!” the pink pony stifles a little laugh.

“He he…” Dash blushes a bit, “I guess it doesn’t hold up, right?”

“Nope! Not at all!”she says shaking her head left and right. Her enthusiasm quells once again, in her eyes is etched the same melancholic look she had just a minute a before. She lets out a sigh: “You know…” she lifts herself from the ground, “…we used to do everything together once. Playing or pranking or just taking a stroll together. Now you pass all the time reading in the library all alone.”

“Hey! I’m not reading here all alone! I’m…” she looks around herself and notices that the clock signs half past twelve…She literally stayed there all alone since nine…

“Oh.” Quietly says the pegasus at the realization of her loss of the sense of time.

“You see what I mean? You’re not doing anything else but working and reading! It almost looks like you’re…No. It’s too horrible! I don’t want to think about it!” Pinkie turns her back on Dash and closes her ears with her hooves, sitting on the floor.

“What? What is it? Tell me!”the cyan pegasus gets more and more desperate. Her taste for the dramatic takes its hold on her. She prepares herself for any shocking plot twist the pink pony has brought about her. Rainbow Dash braces herself, but no amount of preparation could be enough for what Pinkie was going to say.

The pink mare slowly turns her head, revealing an extremely distressed look, an slowly says: “It’s almost like…you’re turning in…

Rainbow Dash leans closer to Pinkie making barely a breath. She gulps loudly and her muscles tense. Pinkie immediately runs toward Rainbow, so close that her face is just a few inches from hers: “Twilight 2.0! Better, faster, nerdier!”

Rainbow stops for second, only for her worries to dissolve in a roaring laughter. She slumps down on the pillows, gasping for air.”Buhahahaha! That was…That was a good one!” tears start leaking from her eyes. “Hey! I’m the new Twilight! I found sixteen new ways to not have fun! I have a massive crush on the Princess and I like books!”

The pink pony joins her, too, falling on the pegasus’ belly that muffles her even more vibrant guffaw. ”We’ll…you’ve gotta admit…haha…that I have a point. You're all work and no play and your mane looks awesome in the wind! Ha ha ha ha! What next?” her chortling gets so strong that she needs to hold tight Dash, clutching her forelegs around the other mare’s waist. “You’ll try to stop time?”

“Twilight did what?!”

“Don’t worry! That went nowhere pretty quickly! I’ve really got to tell you about it!” the laughter gets so intense that she lets go of the pegasus and slowly slips her way down from the pillows to the floor, wagging her hind legs in the air.

“Hahaha…Aaahh” Dash wipes out some of her tears and lets out a throaty sigh.”You know what, Pinks? You earned it! Sit down with me! Let’s read it together!” she motions to her side with a hoof, invitingly patting the floor next to her.

“Really?! says Pinkie smiling widely. She immediately recovers from her laughing fit to return to her usual, but still more controlled, chirping fervor.

“Why not? At worst we’re gonna have some laughs, just like the old times. You said is your first Daring Do, right?”

“Yup! Never read it before. But if you’re the one reading it, I know I’ll like it! You told me about so many times.” she sits down at few inches from Dash, resting her bubbly, pink head on Dash’s shoulder.

“Pinkie, what…” Dash blushes once again, this time of a much more lively shade of red around her cheeks. She masks her embarrassment with a nervous laugh, although not that forced.

“I’m a little tired and you said you’ll be reading me a story, so you’ll be my pillow.” She playfully winks at the pegasus while circling Rainbow’s shoulders with her forelegs. Before Dash can open her mouth, Pinkie lets out a cute giggle: “I like hugging my pillow…”

“Ehm…” Dash chokes out a nervous laugh and, trying to hide her crimson turned cheeks and diverting her look and her thoughts from the pink pony’s warm embrace. She immediately picks up the book and opens it to the last chapter, “It’s a shame we’re so far in…”

“You can always sum it up. I’d like to hear it from you…”she strokes her snout against Dash’s shoulder, whose heart starts to beat faster and faster at the mere touch of the pink mare. She desperately tries to form some coherent thoughts, distracting herself from this weird, yet enticing, sensation.

“Well, at the start of this one Daring Do is in search for a treasure…But not just any treasure! The Hoofidian Knife!” she clearly pronounces every word as if to surround them of an aura of mystery and awe, even whispering in Pinkie’s ear, to allude at the incredible qualities of the artifact’s mere name.

“What’s that do?” Pinkie still sound eager and excited to listen, even half resting on Dash’s shoulder with her eyes closed, snuggling against Rainbow’s coat.

“Nopony knows..:” Dash wears a complacent grin. “…but Daring Do surely knows that according to the ancient legend it means problems: it was forged from the heart of an elder god and…”

“Elder?” Pinkie shots her eyes open and cocks an eyebrow, confused.

“It means really, really, really, really, really…”, Rainbow takes a deep breath, “Really old! Like older than Celestia and Luna!”

“Whohoooooaah!” the pink pony stands there, jaw dropping.
Dash smirks some more, proud of her talent as a narrator…or for Pinkie’s enthusiasm toward even the smallest of things. Either way, she’s fine with that.

“But wait a minute…” Pinkie says, after regaining her relative composure, “ Does this elder thingy keeps himself as good as the Princesses?”

“I really don’t think so, Pinks. He’s just a dried up skeleton now…”

“Yuck! Not even the combined efforts of Rarity, Lotus, Aloe and everypony else could do him any good. Not even a party could save him now!”

“Oh, no!” Dash slaps her cheek with a hoof, playing along.“This means it’s serious!”

“Well, I could still invite him to my friend’s birthday! I bet he would love a big, giant dead god!”

“Ha ha ha, yeah! But it’s more complicated than that: her sworn enemy, Ahuizotl, has his dirty paws on the knife! And worse than that, he found the temple where it was created, so he can start an ancient ritual and gain the ultimate power, so the whole universe can be his!”

“Oh, my gosh! That’s like…THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!” she lightly shakes the pegasus, yelling like a mad mare. Dash chuckles amused by her reactions, She missed her genuine enthusiasm and mirth.
Even if she liked reading with Twilight, sometimes it was just too quiet. The unicorn seldom makes any comments about what she’s reading and, having vastly different tastes, they rarely shared their opinions and Twilight sometimes just didn’t appreciate Rainbow’s frequent jokes. She wouldn’t expect anything less from Pinkie, after all: that little crazy mare always brought a smile on her lips, even with the simplest of things. She missed those kind of innocent fun Pinkie always brought with her…But the two are together now. No need to worry anymore.

"And you want to know the worst part about this?” Dash continues, causing Pinkie to nod enthusiastically, her blue eyes quivering with anticipation. “Ahuizotl captured one of Daring’s best friends and wants to use her as a sacrifice for the ritual and gain the power of the god! Coco Pie!”

“Whoah! That's my name!"

“That’s true. You know, I've never heard of any other Pies, beside you and your family. That is one crazy coincidence because she’s a lot like you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! She’s funny, always cheerful, always provides Daring with whatever she needs, be it a cupcake or an airplane, she has a…” Dash pauses for a second to look at the pink pony, who’s eagerly waiting to hear everything about what is probably the kookiest character of the series. Rainbow stutters a bit, before forging a clever embellishment of the truth:

“…A very unique way of thinking and she also likes sweets a lot!”

“Wow! I already like her! She and Daring are good friends just like us, right?”

“Yeah, you could say that. She’s in every book and she helped Daring in so many occasions that they both lost count of those. She’ll never admit how much she actually cares for her as a friend that because sometimes Coco is so random and weird that sometimes…She envies her, sometimes. She’s so full of life, easygoing and without responsibilities that she fears her to be a distraction from training for the Wonder…I mean adventuring…I swear I was going to say adventuring…”

“Yes, you totally were…” Pinkie rolls her eyes with a playful grin, “But it isn’t like that, right?” She wriggles her little pink head against Dash’s neck, starting to nuzzle it gently. The heat on the blue mare’s cheeks intensifies, her head spins and her breath gets frantic. Pinkie’s touch is like stroking an open nerve. The thing that disturbs Dash the most is the fact…she doesn’t seem to mind. At all.

“No, it’s not.” Dash continues, managing to calm herself down. “They have their differences and sometimes they bicker and get distant but at the end of the day, the two always come back for each other, ready a new adventure or a new crazy shenanigan.”

“Does Daring thinks of her as…something more? I mean, if she has known her for so long…”

Dash stops for a second, biting for just a fleeting moment her lower lip, wondering from where that question came out.“Maybe. That is one big part of the book, you know? Now that she is in such a terrible danger she starts to feel something different toward her. She has searched all over the world for her for half of the book and she misses her more than she ever thought and…Why don’t we just begin to read? It says everything you need!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! At the start of every final chapter Daring always remembers the past events and everything that happened before, which I think is a bit useless. I mean, I was here the whole time: I know what happened!

“Maybe the other ponies that like it aren’t as smarty and fast readers as you!”

“He he…Maybe. So, get yourself comfortable: let’s start!”

“Okey-Doky-Lokey!” she says while Dash puts a foreleg around Pinkie’s shoulders as well, letting the pink pony nuzzle her neck even more. Rainbow clears her throat and begins the tale:

As Daring was heading toward the lair of her arch enemy, with the fate of the world resting in her hooves, she couldn’t help but think that, in reality, she was doing all of this for a reason so simple and yet so noble: not for the fate of the world, not for personal gain and not even for the thrill of pursuing an ancient treasure.

It was for the sake of one, little green pony. Daring never was a pegasus known to complain or regret, but part of her determination stemmed from the fact that part of her felt responsible for Coco’s falling into her enemy’s merciless grasp.
She couldn’t help but think that if she listened to her at Bridledesh instead of leaving to recover the piece of the map that turned out to be a fake, Daring would still be with her and Ahuizotl wouldn’t have his sacrifice. Coco would still be there, so she could bask once again the green mare’s warm smile and enjoy together whatever strange and interesting items she managed to find in those places only she knew of. It was almost like she…

“Ugh…”, Dash lets out a frustrated groan and rolls her eyes, “This is getting too sappy. Want me to skip it…?”

“Nah! I like when you talk sappy. You blush when you talk sappy, it’s so cute!” she snuggles even more Dash, suffocating a giggle with the pegasus own warm coat. So dumbfounded Rainbow remains by such unexpected cuteness that she has no choice but continue reading:

It was almost like one big part of her life, a pony she remembered since the days she was a young filly in search of her true calling and always stood by her side for every one of her deeds, was missing.

She admitted with some grudge that it was true that you don’t notice to care for somepony, until that pony is gone.
But Daring couldn’t let her own doubts or regrets affect her so much, right a the moment of the truth. She turned those feelings into a fiercer resolve. The resolve to save the world for the sake of her friend…It was pretty heroic for her standards, after all. More heroic than she ever was, in fact…

“You know, Dashie…You remind me a lot of Daring Do.” Pinkie snuggles further Dash, burying her muzzle deeper in the pegasus’s coat.

“Really?!” Rainbow almost jumps for excitement, her profound admiration for her heroine overwhelming her common sense, so flattered by Pinkie’s innocent statement that a shy giggle escapes her. She regains her cool before going in full “squeeing fangirl” mode and clears her throat once again and speaks in a more somber tone: “I mean…Really?”

“Well, she’s a pegasus, she’s brave, she’s loyal, she cares a lot to her friends, even if one of them has an unique way of thinking and nothing will stop her once she has something on her mind. Is that enough for you? In fact, I think you’re even cooler than her”. she flutters her eyes at Dash, framing her face with a seductive, smarmy look.

Rainbow Dash doesn’t falter even if the burning in her cheeks is getting stronger by the minute, noting the cruel irony of the fact that now she’s spurred by the pink pony’s presence to focus every fiber of her being on the book, to not lose herself in the pink pony’s flattery, her alluring baby blue eyes and her warm, warm body clinging to hers…Dash lets out another, tortured, timid laugh and gulps loudly.

She feels a pleasant lightness in her chest and the hammering of her heart against her ribs has loosened up, allowing her to continue reading with much more clarity:

Daring Do stands in the Inner Sanctum, looking with anger at the ancient display of madness in front of the brave pegasus.

She finds herself in a large, spherical room whose surface is completely covered in mirrors, so white and translucent like nothing she has ever saw in her long travels. A long trail of rock platforms was splayed in front of her in an almost straight line, as if to invite her to the biggest of them, right at the very center of the room. Above the platform, Daring sees a metal cage hanging from a chain attacked to the ceiling. Inside that cage she could distinctively see a very distressed green mare, trying with everything she has to rip the bars open with just the strength of her hooves, but to no avail. Even her ardent spirit has to give up to such a simple, but effective, containment measure.

To add insult to injury, the strange creature sitting on a stone throne of the platform keeps laughing at her wasted efforts, playing with a green crystal knife he holds in the hand on his tail.

“Ahuizotl!” Daring screamed, making all the sorrow and anger in her heart reverberate across the room, “Let her go!”

“Ah, look who is it, my…”

The action is suddenly cut short by the bubbly voice of Pinkie, pointing with her hoof at the line Dash was just reading:

“Waitwaitwait, Dashie! Can I do his voice? Pleeease!”

“Ok! But be scary! He’s, like, really nasty! You need a scary voice for the villain.”

“Leave it to me, Dashie!” she loudly clears her throat and begins, “Ah, look who is it, my old, dearest enemy! Muahahahahaha!" As expected from Pinkie, her impossibly sweet voice is totally unfit to play the part, no matter how much she lowers it. But Dash doesn’t matter: she’s having way too much fun listening at Pinkie’s hilarious overacting.
“You come too late! Mine is the Hoofidian Knife, mine is the sacrifice!” he pointed with his ancient weapon at the cage holding Daring’s friend,” And mine is victory! Muahahahahaha! Man, this guy sure likes his evil laughs!”

Dash just nods and smiles happily at the statement.

From her metallic prison, the green pony screams at her would be savior: “Daring, don’t think about me! You have to stop him!”

“Wait a minute, Pinkie! You’re doing two characters?”

“Well, duh! You’re already doing Daring, that counts double! Besides, who else is going to voice Coco Pie?”

“You’ve got a point…again. Go on!”

“Prepare to meet Discord, Daring Do…In Tartarus!” Aluhizotl lifts his knife and points it right at her sworn enemy. From the tip of the ancient weapon a horrible creature made of living, bloating green darkness. He lashes the terrible weapon at her with a sharp swing and the creature opens its maw at her ready to gobble her up in one piece!
This doesn’t faze the brown pegasus in the least, as she responds with a smirk and a fluid jump at her side, fully avoiding the attack of her enemy and causing the ghostly creature to smash his jaws against the entrance of the inner sanctum, sending countless bits of rock flying in the air. Daring jumps from platform to platform with the aid of steady, powerful flaps of her wings, relentlessly followed by the magical creature, roaring at hissing at her. The creature tears apart every stone platform comes across his way, furiously smashing and eating every piece of rock, grinding them with its monstrous teeth and filling the air with ancient dust.
Before her sense of sight is overwhelmed by the pulverized rock, Daring decides to speed up right toward Aluhizotl, who desperately waves around the artifact in an effort to strike down the pegasus. Little did he knows that this is exactly what Daring wants: with a series of swift movements she circles her opponent like a predatory bird and, without thinking, he persists with his tactics and keeps moving his snake to try to strike Daring down, unaware that he’s being slowly trapped in the creature’s glowing spires. The villain is instantly zapped by the sickish, green energy, immediately falling on his knees!

“Yayyy!!!” Pinkie claps her hooves together, only to grab Dash again and starting to shaking her back and forth: “She did it, Dashie! Whohoooo!”

“It’s not over yet, Pinks!”

“This is awesome! You have to read me all the other ones! Can you do that? Please!”

“Sure we can! Now let’s do this part together: she’s flying up to the cage that holds Coco!”

Daring, taking advantage of her enemy’s temporary defeat, flies straight up and grabs the bars holding them tightly. She immediately draws a lockpick set from her breast pocket and jams one in the lock, holding it with her teeth.

“What are you doing?” says Coco, getting closer to Daring and staring right in the eyes of the very much busy mare.

“Thring ‘u fave you!”she says, frantically moving the iron pin with her mouth. A clack is heard as the door opens, allowing Daring Do to enter the cage and give Coco a tight hug.

After reading this, Dash notices that Pinkie, too, is holding her much tighter than before, tenderly clutching the pegasus in her forelegs.

“Don’t think about me”, she says, breaking the hug, “it’s all my fault! If only I managed to escape…”

“I don’t care! Even if the world wasn’t at stake I still would do this for you!”Daring says, grasping Coco’s hoof with a grip strong as steel, yet delicate as the night breeze.

“R-really?!” the green mare remains astonished, a single tear grazes her cheek.

“Really…”, Daring brings Coco’s hoof to her cheek and feels its warmth. “Ever since you got captured, thinking of you is what gave me the will to go on. I’ve been beaten, battered, almost fed to sharks, but I never surrendered…”

“Duh! You never surrender! That’s why you’re Daring Do and not Giveup McGiving Up!”

“I never gave up because the thought of you being in such a terrible danger, unlike any we’ve faced…was enough to give me a courage I’ve never thought I had inside me!”

“What are you talking about, Daring? You’ve always been brave! You…”

“That was nothing compared how I feel right now. How you’ve made me feel…I don’t know what it is but…I know this is something different.”

“How different?” Coco gets closer and delicately touches Daring’s forehead with her own.

“Something that I never thought about before, but it's also something that I know I always had. Something as beautiful as the setting of the sun or the smell of a freshly baked cupcake…”

“So it must be pretty good…”

“Not as good as the ones that you make.”

Dash suddenly notes that pink mare at her side is stroking her cheek with a hoof too, bringing her head closer to hers until their foreheads are touching. She struggles to continue reading with the corner of her eye.

“Ever since I saw your warm smile, keeping me company whenever I go, and be forced to part with it so suddenly…I’ve noticed that is one of those things I could never give up. Your smile always brought the light in a life where every day could be the last and I know is a bit selfish but…I need you at my side.”

“I’ll always be at your side. Even if I have my unique way of thinking…You’ll always have my smile, if is this what you really want.” Pinkie’s baby blue eyes are firmly pointed at Dash, without even looking at the book. She’s sporting such a tender, beautiful smile that Dash gladly plays along, feeling a wonderful warmth in her chest.

“You really mean it? Even if I’m all work and no play?”

“Until the end the world…” she gazes dreamily into the pegasus’ eyes. “I’ll follow you everywhere…Even if you forget how to
have fun, that’s okay: I’m enough for both of us!”

“That’s something that I can never forget, if you are by my side. You’re simply…awesome…”

“Not as awesome as you…” the pink mare blue eyes begin to quiver, while on her face appears a smile more beautiful and sincere than she ever saw on the pink pony. Pinkie puckers her lips and closes her eyes, waiting for something Rainbow
Dash is equally eager to give her…after finishing the book…

“There’s only one thing left…”

“Huh?” Pinkie immediately returns to reality and opens her eyes, giving Dash a confused look.

“Duck!”She is immediately tackled to the ground by Rainbow who dissolves in, yet another, joyous laughter, which only causes the pink pony to gladly join .

“You really want to get sappy now and miss the ending?” says Dash sporting a silly grin so close to Pinkie’s face that their snouts are practically touching.

“Oh, right!” she slaps her forehead and closes one ye, sticking her tongue out, “I completely forgot but I like so much getting sappy with you. Go on, I promise I’ll be a goody goody Pinkie Pie and stay quiet, all right?”

“But not too quiet, all right?", Dash turns on her back and lays on the floor, still in the comfortable grip of the pink pony. She lifts the book for the two to see:

“Duck” screams Daring gripping Coco between her strong forelegs, causing their combined weight to shift the cage around, missing for only a wing beat one last attempt for Aluhizotl to destroy his nemesis. The beam of sickish green light misses the two ponies and hits the reflecting surface that coats the interior of the room. It spreads across every mirror making the whole room glow of that dark, unholy energy and, suddenly, the awesome power causes the whole building to crack and crumble, showering rock bits and glass shard all over the place. While Daring rescues Coco from the cage and delicately entices her to her back, Aluhizotl tries to point his weapon at the two, in a last effort to win the battle. To his dismay, the artifact shatters just like the mirrors of the room, causing the villain to scream at the top of his lungs, cursing his luck and his enemy, while running back and forth to avoid being crushed by the debris.

“Ok, Pinks: let’s do this together, ok?”

“Ok!”

“At three: one, two, two and a half…Three!”

“CURSE YOU, DARING DOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Each of the mares hold the book with a hoof, while menacingly shaking at the sky with the other one. The two, then, slump down in another laughing fit, truly delighted for those couple of hours they spent together. Dash is surprised by this, truly surprised by how all of this went. Something in her heart changed about the pink pony, never to be reversed.
Something that was already sincere and beautiful before but grew to heights she couldn’t fully comprehend. But she didn’t need to: instead, she would just let the story carry her. And it following it, she lifted herself from the ground, standing right above the pink pony with her wings gloriously spread beside her. As she leaned toward Pinkie Pie with her eyes closed and her lips fully prepared to meet with hers, she’s stopped by the delicate touch of a pink hoof to her nose:

“Wait, Dashie.” her voice sounds way sweeter and relaxed than before, “What about the ending?”

“They have to smooch to escape. Smooch like crazy.”, she says, barely even flinching, “The ancient prophecy on the Mareyan Tablet of Hoofzlatlipoca says so. The fate of the whole world hinges on the fact that we must press our lips together and never let them go or everything will be undone.”

“It’s a good ending…” Pinkie pulls the other mare in an eager, voluptuous kiss, pressing their lips together in an exquisite embrace. She clings to the pegasus like a fine line, like she would be clinging to her as if she really was Daring flying Coco to safety out of the ruined temple. She feels in her kiss the delicate breeze of the wind like she always imagined in her fantasies.

Dash, too, feels like a dream. The taste of the pink pony lips is profoundly sweet, like cinnamon sugar. Even though it’s a bit sloppy, it has its charm. Typical Pinkie’s charm, the one she wouldn’t replace with anything else in the world. She’s so enticed by her primal passion that she’s forced to break the kiss for just a minute, resting her tongue on Pinkie’s neck, keeping it active with a frantic series of tender licks. The fate of the world can wait a few seconds...

“Oh, Dashie…” Pinkie says between giggles.

“Call me Daring…” she answers with a provocative smile, before swallowing her moans with another, hungry kiss.

Outside, in the streets of Ponyville, a lavender mare with an exhausted look and a young dragon are strolling toward the library. The mare carries a saddlebag completely stuffed of books, one of which is being read by the dragon along the way. The cover features a very refined stallion sporting an obvious pair of menacing fangs:

“Man, this Trotmere clan looks nasty…” he comments.

“I can’t believe Lyra had the books the whole time because some dragon forgot my checklist for books lend to friends…” she glares at him, disgruntled.

“Well, it’s easy to confuse them when have literally hundreds of checklist hanging around home…”

As they approach the house, Twilight hears a suffocated noise coming from behind her door. A sound that almost look like a very loud, impossibly sweet pony voice.

Twilight knocks at the door: “Rainbow! Is everything okay?!”

No answer but a snorted laugh and a playful grunt.

She pushes the door to open it and leans her head inside slowly, worried for her friend. She notes with extreme embarrassment that she didn’t need to worry at all, as a pink and a blue blur are consuming their passion on her floor as loudly as possible.

“OH YES; DARING DO ME!”

“MMMMMH, LET’S SEE IF THERE’S A TREASURE DOWN THERE !”

Twilight immediately closes the door, sitting on her haunches, slumping against it. Her cheeks instantly flush red and the unicorn can’t help but dissolve in a joyful laugh.

“So, I guess it worked…” says Spike from behind the book, to not show that he is blushing, too.

“Even better than I thought…”

The Night Before…

“So let me get this straight…You’re writing a Daring Do novel?” says the young dragon, holding a candle with a hand and rubbing one eye with the other.

“Yes, Spike!” she hastily scribbles down some words with a quill held with magic.

“The thing is it’s not a real Daring Do novel, but a fake one with a romance slapped right at the end that you plan to bind
together, draw a fake cover and hand it to Dash, pretending it to be the latest one?”

“Yes!”

“Then you will tell her that you have a commission leaving her alone for a while and knowing that Pinkie will pass from the library because of said commission, so they can spend some time together.”

“That’s the plan! I just told you a moment ago: you don't remember?”

“And you expect that the two, having nothing better to do, will start to read the book together, starting right at the romance part so they’ll be somewhat inspired by it to make out?”

“I’m not expecting anything! I’m sure it will work! I saw the signs, those two would be so cute together if Dash just noticed, instead of slumping all day in my library! Besides, they’re so gullible that the plan is simply fail proof!”

“You know…That’s very nice of you, after all.”

“Thanks, Spike.”

“Completely insane and contrived, but still nice.”

"If this works, I'll write something for you and Rarity, too. How about that?"

Spike just stands there and blinks, amazed at the endless possibilities suggested by Twilight: "Please, continue..."

"I will. Even the whole night if necessary. My friends don't deserve anything less from me..."

The End

Author's Notes: So, yeah: I've finally recovered from my writer's block and subsequent depression. It means that I'm back, dearies! I decided to finally finish the first story that I started writing but never finished until today. Also, if someone doesn't get the World of Darkness reference, you have to know that I'm currently playing Vampire in two different groups and I'm also writing a Changeling: The Lost and Wraith: The Oblivion campaign, so I had to write that out of my system.