Daring Do: Shadows Over Equestria

The ivory-white unicorn with the cutie mark of a pony’s skull pushed a strand of her dull blonde mane out of her bespectacled face and bent over the tarp. Her gray eyes passed over the fragments of teeth, forelegs, kneecaps, hooves, ribs, and a partial skull placed for display.

“What a mess,” she commented.

“Sí, time has not been kind to these poor souls,” Caballeron commented, scratching at the thick layer of hair around his jaw.

“And neither have you,” Doctor Rigor Mortis replied, shooting Caballeron a frown. “I’d have preferred that you waited for me before you kept digging for these bones.”

“That’s what I told him last night,” Daring glared at her companion. “But he just had to keep digging.”

“I figured that I could at least get a head start on it,” Caballeron grumbled.

“And keep the rest of us from sleeping,” Spike groused. He, Zecora, and Twilight all shot Caballeron dirty looks.

Doctor Mortis sighed and went back to studying the selection of bones. “You think that these are the bones of the Verdant Sisterhood?”

“That’s the working theory,” Daring Do said. “Especially since we found this.” She held up a bagged sample of torn fabric. The color of the remnant had long ago faded, but traces of the vivid green were still visible. “Do you think you can find out more?”

Doctor Mortis stood up and pulled her glasses down her snout to give Daring an even stare. “Professor Do. You present me with the scattered fragments of two-hundred-year-old skeletons that have been out in the woods, exposed to the elements and scavengers, and you really expect me to try and piece them back together?”

“Uh…” Daring stammered.

Mortis stared at her, then burst into a broad grin. “Ooh, I feel like Hearth’s Warming came early!” she practically squeed, prancing in place. “Thanks for calling me in, Professor! Let’s get started!” With a giggle, she trotted over to the trowels and sifting screens.

“Ugh, she creeps me out,” Spike muttered. “No one should be getting that excited about dead bodies.”

“Spike!” Twilight hissed, elbowing him.

“What? It’s true!” Spike protested, rubbing his chest where he’d been struck.

“Hmm…we’ve only got a couple of days left of spring break, so time is against us,” Mortis mused, looking over the standing stones. “Thankfully, you’ve got a unicorn on your side.” Her horn lit up with a light yellow glow and she swept the ground like a spotlight. The glowing silhouettes of bone fragments appeared in the ground, visible through the layers of dirt.

“See? Much less work,” Mortis grinned. “And why should we have all the fun? Twilight, can you bring me back to the university so I can call my grad students? I’m sure that Darlene would love to help out!”

“Of course, Doctor!” Twilight chirped, guiding her back over to the teleport beacon. “The more the merrier!”

Spike glanced at one of the skulls staring out with empty eye sockets and an eternal grin. “I really wish you’d come up with a different way of saying that, Twilight,” he mumbled.

Dean Blotting Paper stared at the array of bones on display, each of them nearly sorted and labeled.

“I’ve got the fragments I wasn’t sure about over here, Doctor,” the light tan jenny with her long blonde mane tied in a single braid reported to Doctor Mortis. “But by my count, there are at least twelve different individuals here, likely more.”

“At least twelve of them!” Doctor Mortis echoed, her clipboard floating in front of her as she jotted down notes. “Wonderful! This work will be keeping us busy for a good few days, Dean Paper, and I bet you’re gonna love what we find out; Darlene here has some brilliant ideas on figuring out what previous skeletons ate!”

Darlene blushed. “It’s not that amazing, Doctor,” she admitted, scratching idly at her cheek and licking her lips.

“Aw, don’t be modest, Darlene,” Mortis beamed at her protege. “Oh, Dean Paper, you should see those cool daggers that Professor Do and Doctor Caballeron found! They’ve got some really intricate designs on them. Makes me think I should work with them more often!”

“I’m…sure,” Dean Paper nodded, shivering in a manner that had nothing to do with the chill of the basement where the Hippology Department was stashed like a dirty secret. “I do hope that you’re planning on resuming classes in between working on this. Spring break does end tomorrow.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, of course!” Mortis said. “I’m actually planning on integrating this into some practical lessons!”

“Splendid,” Dean Paper murmured. “If you’ll excuse me, I should speak to Professor Do.”

“Ooh, definitely! I’m sure that she’d love to tell you all about what they found!” Mortis chirped.

“Oh, I’m hoping,” Dean Paper muttered as she headed for the stairs.

“Doctor? I think I should see Doctor Caballeron and talk to him more about the stones,” Darlene said, scratching at her nose again. “If we can get more information about who these creatures might have been, it might give some context to what we should be looking for.”

“Splendid idea, Darlene,” Mortis answered, already bending over her work in eagerness to begin. “Hey, you should ask him to show you the daggers!”

“Whatever you say, Doctor,” Darlene said as she exited, swallowing nervously and wiping a bead of sweat from her brow as she exited.

The rusty blade was twelve inches long, the thin blade of crude iron attached to a handle of hoof-carved beech wood, similar to the trees from the Whitetail Woods. The outline of a horribly familiar beast squatted on the handle, carefully etched into the surface, glaring out at the world with the paw on its tail ready to strike. Out of the seven broken blades they’d recovered at the stones, this was the only intact one and Daring had studied it every way she knew how.

It was at least two hundred years old, going by both the techniques used in crafting the metal and the carbon dating of the handle. The blade was chipped, having been used to cut through something hard.

And the dull red color on the ancient blade was not just due to rust.

Daring Do shuddered. Even having worn gloves and carried it in a bag, she felt tainted just touching the artifact. She’d handled weapons before, but this had been used for something repulsive. Something evil.

What the hell would drive a bunch of charitable nuns to worship a monster? To do something like this? The question burned in her gut like a fire.

“Professor Do?”

Daring Do looked up and found herself staring at a massive grin spread across a blue-furred canid face, black eyes laced with yellow-green shining malevolently down at her. Daring shrieked and leaped back, crashing out of her chair and onto the floor, fumbling for the gun that was locked in the safe in her closet and was not holstered at her side.

The monster shrieked and jumped back as well. “What?! What is it?!”

Daring Do blinked from the floor and realized that the Ahuizotl was, in fact, Dean Paper, who was now staring at her wide-eyed from the door, clutching a set of papers to her heaving chest.

“I…s-sorry, Blotting Paper,” Daring stammered, rising red-faced to her hooves and righting her chair. “I…was lost in thought, and, er, you startled me.”

“I see,” Blotting Paper murmured, her face returning to seriousness as she adjusted her glasses. “Are you getting enough sleep? You look exhausted.”

“Just…” Daring yawned. “Late night doing research. ‘M fine. I’ve been putting in a lot of work on the new site in the Everfree Forest,” Daring said. “There’s still a lot to catalog–”

Blotting Paper held up a hoof. “As interested as I am, I feel as though I need to remind you that you have duties here at the university, to the faculty, and the students.” She frowned at the scattered, unmarked quizzes across Daring’s desk. “Duties that I fear that you are neglecting.”

“I’m not the only professor here who has research projects on the side while also teaching,” Daring scowled back at her. “I can handle it, I’m just…having a bit of an off day.”

“Except this isn’t a few isolated incidents, Professor Do,” Blotting Paper countered. “It’s more than your lack of sleep, though that is a problem; I heard that you fell asleep in the library and nearly attacked Twilight when she woke you up. But more than that, it’s your frenetic activity. It’s barely halfway through the school year and you’ve already gotten yourself deep in another dangerous legend. We’re still working on the Sunken Church, and we’ve barely gotten started on the secret chamber in the Whitetail Monastery, and you’re already rushing off to the next one.”

“I’m an explorer. It’s kind of what I do,” Daring snapped back.

Blotting Paper closed her eyes and sighed. “Family Tree was obsessed with a legend, too.”

The words burned like a bugbear’s stinger. Daring flinched involuntarily, a vision of dried blood splattered across a stone threshold briefly flashing before her face, and it took a moment for her to prepare a suitable counter.

“I’m not like that,” she protested, sitting down. “Family Tree was trying to get her husband back, and she didn’t know what she was really getting into. I’m an archaeologist and explorer. Learning about ancient cultures is literally my job.”

“Yes,” Blotting Paper answered. “To learn about it safely and methodically, while also teaching your students.” The jenny closed her eyes and sighed again, then opened them again, her penetrating gaze full of…sadness? Pity?

“Daring…what are you really looking for?” she asked.

Daring Do blinked and looked down, the silence settling in as though the air itself gained a physical weight. It took several moments for her to formulate a reply.

“Answers,” she finally said.

“Answers to what?” Blotting Paper asked.

Anger flared defensively in Daring’s chest. “For right now, who built those stones and why.. And why I’m being questioned about doing my damn job,” she finished in a snap.

Blotting Paper flinched a bit at the harsh tone, then frowned and adjusted her glasses. “I see that this is not the time to discuss this,” she said. “Then let me just say that if you insist on pursuing this…new discovery of yours, then please make sure that you don’t neglect your work here. Or your sleep.” And with that, she turned and exited Daring’s office.

Daring glared at the dean’s retreating back, then huffed and threw the knife into a drawer, which she slammed shut with far too much force. She pulled a stack of lesson plans out of another drawer and began flipping through them, but the words just passed through her brain without her absorbing any of the details.

She’s a politician riding a desk. That’s all she is. She’s just scared I’m gonna miss a monthly report or get into a scandal and make the University look bad. Fuck her. She doesn’t understand.

Daring shook her head to refocus and sighed. “Gotta put on the professor hat now,” she muttered to herself, starting back at the beginning of her lesson plans.

“Since creatures take their languages with them when they move, tracing the origins of names can explain the history of the creatures who lived there,” Daring explained to her Methodology of Archaeology class a week later. “As an example, take New Horseleans. Since it was initially settled by immigrants from northern Prance, they simply decided to name it after their homeland. Or San Franciscolt, which was named for Saint Franciscolt by the Esponish missionaries who first set up there.”

She paused for a moment to allow her students to catch up, listening to the sound of pencils scratching. “And names can change. For example, consider Uluru in the Aushaylian Outback. When the land was first colonized by Equestrians, they named the site Hayers Rock, after the Chief Secretary at the time, but now we call it by the name the Aborigineigh gave it,” Daring continued. “So when you’re studying the history of your site, you’ll want to ask yourself not just what it is named now, but what it was named in the past and what other names it has.”

“So where do we get info like that?” Luster Dawn asked.

“Libraries, historical societies, even just asking around can be helpful,” Daring explained. “When I was a kid, there was a row of strange hills near the village where my Uncle Adventure lived.” Her hoof idly drifted to the rusty hipposandal on her desk. “One day when I was thirteen, I figured out that the locals called the largest one ‘Tear’s Hill.’ After some digging, I figured out that centuries ago, someone found some medallions dedicated to Tyr, the Gerwhinnic god of war, on that hill, so they called it ‘Tyr’s Hill’ at first, but it had gotten mangled into ‘Tear’ over time. The coins were at the local historical society and after some more research, I theorized that the hills were actually tumuli–burial mounds–of Saxoneigh officials. With my parents and my uncle’s help, I did a dig there and discovered that I was right.”

“Cool! What’d you find?” Ifaa asked, the zebra wagging his tail in excitement.

“Buried ships loaded with grave goods and the bodies of a cult of Tyr that was buried in the late 13th century,” Daring grinned. “Included with the goods were idols of Celestia, Luna, and Faust, which led to a lot of new research on the evolution of religion in the Grifish Isles. I actually got my cutie mark on that dig.”

Luster and Ifaa both gasped in excitement. “I’d love to hear more about that!” Luster gasped.

“I might tell you more later,” Daring smiled, the memory a balm that soothed the squirming stress in her gut.

Someone in the back of the class scoffed. “Doesn’t seem that exciting,” he muttered to his friend.

Daring’s ear flicked and she briefly considered informing the class that every single tumulus had been heavily booby-trapped to protect the intricate set of enchanted spears and armor buried within, but the bell ringing cut that thought off. “Okay, class, remember that your drafts for your research proposals are due at the end of the week,” she said as the class started to file out.

Once the last student had exited, Daring sighed and mopped her brow, adjusting the bow tie that had been trying to be a garrote all morning. Much as I love teaching…maybe I should go for a non-teaching role next semester. Focus more of my time on my work.

She glanced at the clock. Three PM. She had a stack of tests and reports to get back to at her office, but the monoliths stuck in her mind like a splinter in her brain. Ideas buzzed in her head, too vague to make any conclusions, squirming away when she tried to pin them down with solid theories.

Ugh…maybe Blotting Paper was right. I am obsessed. It’s not like the world depends on me figuring this out, right?

She looked back down at the rusty hipposandal and flinched as Uncle Ad’s dying scream echoed through her head once again. Daring groaned and rubbed her forehead.

“Professor? Are you okay?”

Daring looked up to see Doctor Mortis entering, papers tucked beneath her foreleg.

“I’m fine, doc,” Daring replied, mopping her forehead. “Just…got a lot on my mind.”

“Anything you wanna talk about?” Mortis asked.

“Thanks, but no,” Daring said. “Something you wanted to talk about?”

“Ah, yes,” Mortis answered, pulling out a manila folder. “I just wanted to share my findings on the bones you found!”

“You’re done already? It’s only been a week,” Daring asked, accepting the folder.

“Helps having some ace graduate students and my own personal methods of forensically examining bones,” Mortis beamed. “I should tell you about it sometime! Anyway, as my report indicates, I’ve figured out that there are at least fourteen bodies in there, likely more. Five I can positively identify as female, and three of them committed suicide via stabbing themselves in the chest, going by the marks on their ribs. The other two, and the three males I’ve identified, each had their throats cut by someone else. The lack of defensive markings also indicates that they allowed themselves to be killed.”

“Did you get a date on them?” Daring asked, looking over the complete report.

“At least two hundred years old,” Doctor Mortis confirmed. “And Doctor Suunkii asked me to confirm that he studied those cloth scraps and the knives you found with the bones. He’s confirmed that the materials are just as old. I think you were right about those being the missing Sisters.”

Daring Do should’ve felt satisfaction, but instead, all she felt was a strange itching at the back of her neck. Another breadcrumb. Another answer that just raises more questions.

“Professor! Professor!”

Twilight and Spike skidded into the room, both of them panting.

“What’s happened?” Daring asked.

“The stone circle!” Twilight gasped. “Someone’s destroyed it!”

“And that’s not all they’ve done!” Spike cried.

Daring’s eyes narrowed as her heart suddenly sunk into her stomach. “What happened?”

“I…I think you’d better see for yourself,” Twilight gulped. “I’ll go get Doctor Caballeron, and then I can teleport ourselves there.”

Purple lightning danced around the perimeter of the copper circle and the mirrors began to glow a bright violet. With a flash of violet lightning, four figures appeared in the Everfree Forest.

Daring Do blinked repeatedly to try to get the spots out of her eyes. “Never gonna get used to that,” she grumbled. “So what–?”

“¡Hostia puta!” Caballeron gasped.

Daring’s vision cleared and her jaw dropped, as did her heart. The majestic standing stones had been reduced to rubble, their remnants scattered about like the detritus of a battlefield.

But far more concerning were the corpses. Four of the five horizontal slabs were occupied by a body, lying faceup on the stone, a knife in their bloodstained chest. Flies and maggots swarmed around the stinking corpses, gnawing at the rotting flesh; crows hovered about, cawing their distress at having their meal interrupted. The bloated eyes stared from the pale faces, each of which had an incongruous look of contentment. The fifth slab was unoccupied, though the fresh red stains marked where a body had once lain.

“Madre de Faust,” Caballeron breathed. “Who are these ponies? And how did they get out here?”

Daring’s stomach dropped when her gaze fell upon the sole donkey of the group. Her blonde braid lay over her shoulder, the end stained dark red with the blood that had flowed from her chest. Her eyes were open, staring at the sky in a frozen expression that seemed to carry a blend of awe and terror; looking closer, Daring imagined that she saw tear tracks running from her now cold blue eyes.

“Oh, Celestia,” Daring said. “That’s Darlene. Doctor Mortis’ grad student.”

Caballeron blinked. “She kept coming by my office to talk about the stone circles. The history, the maps.” He groaned and slapped his forehead. “¡Ay, soy un pinche idiota! I thought she was just academically interested!”

“Is what it is,” Daring sighed, setting aside the disgust and shock. “Twilight, did you contact the police?”

“Oh…no! No, I didn’t!” Twilight gasped. “I should have done that first! What was I doing? This is a crime scene! I…Spike, come on! You guys, just, just stay here and make sure the crime scene’s not contaminated! Don’t touch anything I’ll be right back!” She grabbed Spike and lit up her horn. With a flash of violet light, the both of them disappeared.

Caballeron sighed and sat down next to the copper circle. “What’s this going to mean for the dig?” he pondered aloud.

“I think we have more important things to worry about, Dorado,” Daring frowned at him, circling around the perimeter of the crime scene. In the back of her mind, she noted how abnormally quiet the forest was around them; gone were the whining and buzzing of insects, the distant howls and calls of the fauna. Even the wind that gently rustled the trees seemed oddly muted.

As she circled back around to Darlene, a strange discoloration against the jenny’s pale brown coat caught Daring’s eye. “What’s that under her nose?”

Daring hovered over to the corpse, swallowing down bile as the scent of decay assaulted her, and peered more closely at the skin beneath her nostrils. Traces of a vivid purple powder clung to the rim of her nostrils.

“Revelation,” Daring exhaled. “Looks like she wasn’t honest about a lot of things.” She made an examination of the other bodies. “Yeah, looks like they all used it,” she confirmed, noting a similar powder clinging to each of their nostrils.

“What led them here, though?” Caballeron asked as Daring landed beside him. “Why choose this place? How did they even find it?”

“I don’t know,” Daring admitted.

But I do know I’m going to find out.