Daring Dark

Daring ghosted through the half-lit halls, each step guarded. You could never be too careful with unfamiliar temples, especially ones whose origins she couldn't place. Its design was foreign, its creators a mystery. The stones were pale and regular; so smooth they seemed nearly glossy in the dim light. Macabre murals and blurry pictograms lined the walls, their facades turned all the more sinister by harsh shadows.

At the edges of her mind, questions teased at her focus like moths dancing around a lantern. Was this a simple exploration, or was there some scheme afoot; one of Caballeron's heists to foil? And if this place was truly abandoned, why was there such a smell of death about it?

But most importantly, where exactly was she and how had she gotten here?

Her body ached with each step; she must have been in a fight recently. Knocked out? Drugged? That would explain the quaver in her legs and the fog in her mind.

Not that it mattered. She'd faced worse. It'd take more than a kidnapping and a little blow to the head to put down Daring Do, intrepid explorer and budding novelist.

She turned a corner and half-stumbled back as she was suddenly blinded by a harsh orange light.

"There you are," a voice like a gravel pit ground out, "We've been looking for you."

She rallied herself and squinted defiantly past the lantern. "Yeah? You wouldn't be the first. Who are you? No, that’s not important. Who do you work for? Caballeron? Minister Umahou? The Occult Society?"

He snorted, but didn’t reply. Her eyes were adjusting to the light. He was huge. An earth pony, easily three times her size. Bad odds if it came down to a fight.

"Just come quietly, Yearling," a second voice, softer, but no less firm in its demand. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

Panic birthed a jolt of adrenaline that made her wings ache. How did they know? "Who told you that name?"

The lamp finally lowered, its light diminished to a runny reflection that cast strange shadows. The new voice was a young mare, a unicorn. Both her and the bruiser wore identical uniforms, both... distractingly familiar. A flicker of distant recognition danced in her brain, but nothing substantial surfaced.

"You did," the mare soothed, "It’s... You're forgetting again."

Forgetting? Lies. Only her closest confidants knew her secret. Her memory was perfect.

...except for how she got here.

"We need to go back. You really shouldn't be running around like this at your age."

At her age? What kind of nonsense was that? She was only...

She wasn't even...

She was...

No. More mind games. She raised her hoof as she slid into a combat stance. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't just lay you two out right here and be on my way."

The stallion grunted, nonplussed. "I think that's probably reason enough."

Her eyes followed his gaze to her own pointing hoof. Like rivers winding across a weathered old treasure map, thick blue veins ran up her wrinkled foreleg as it trembled under its own weight. Rivers with a name that pushed its way through the fog of her mind. Varicose.

She stumbled back onto all fours, her face nearly crashing into the floor. In the glossy tile, she caught a muddled reflection of herself.

So much grey. Where did all the black go?

She didn't even notice as a third figure came up from behind and plunged something cold and sharp into her flank.

“There we go, upsie-daisy. Let's get you back to your room."

Cold Comfort sighed and rubbed his eyes as Steady Care led the doped up old author back to her suite. He hated night shift.

"Poor thing. Can't tell what's real and what's made up anymore," Rosebud commented beside him. "And she's getting worse. This is the third incident this month."

"And what do you want me to do about it? Up her meds? Again?"

"No, she'll just build a tolerance faster. But I think I’ve noticed something."

"Yeah?"

"Her episodes always seem to spike after a certain visitor drops by."

He knew immediately who she meant. Yearling only had one regular visitor since Old Martingale finally bit it a few years back.

"That Wonderbolt mare? You think she's encouraging the delusions?"

Rose shrugged, noncommittal as always. "Who's to say? I'm just pointing out a pattern. But the mare's the right age to have been a fanfilly when Yearling was at her peak."

He could see the logic. Some punk tries to prod the author’s poor brain into churning out another installment of a long ended series and leaves her all mixed up and confused in the aftermath.

"Alright. Worth a shot. I'll take her off the approved visitor rotation, see if Yearling stabilizes."

Rose nodded, then yawned. "Gonna grab a coffee. You?"

“Black. Thanks.”

Cold Comfort had worked at the Wings of Grace Assisted Living and Care Facility for nearly fifteen years, yet it never got any easier watching the ponies in his care decline. The geniuses were always the worst. A Fillyharmonic cellist who couldn't hold his bow steady for the shakes. A royal portrait painter whose eyes went long before the rest of him. A bestselling author who could no longer distinguish reality from the fantasy she'd written.

Some might have said it'd be kinder to let her stay in her happy delusions rather than sit and stare silently out the window all day. For any other resident, he might have agreed. But her body couldn’t keep up with nighttime acrobatics and regularly trying to climb out a window like a teenager breaking curfew.

No. For her own safety it was better to reinforce the truth; Daring Do was a fiction, and Yearling just an old mare with an overactive imagination. It was for the best.

He turned up the gas in his lantern and began the long walk back to his station. He hated night shift.