Derpy held out the letter to Carrot Top, who accepted it with a trembling mouth. After months, no, years of waiting it was finally here! The secret of Froggy Bottom Bog was in her grasp.
Heart beating fast, she tore the envelope open, withdrawing the letter. Her eyes flew over the text quickly, hardly taking the time to comprehend the words. When she reached the final lines, she dropped the letter with a squeal of joy.
“What? What is it?” Derpy asked, leaning down to pick up the letter. Before she could, Carrot Top snatched it away.
“It’s private!” she snapped. “Sorry. I mean, it’s private. You can’t snoop around other ponies’ mail, Derpy.”
The other mare frowned a little. “But you were so happy, I thought you’d want to share.”
Carrot Top felt a twinge of guilt. Derpy was a good friend. Ditzy, but good. Sighing, she spoke. “If I tell you this, promise not to tell anypony ever.”
Derpy smiled, and thrust a hoof into her eye. “Cross my heart and stick a cupcake in my- OW!” She had thrust too deeply and poked her eye.
The ginger mare sighed deeply. “Look, I’ve only told a hoofful of ponies this… I’m not a gardener. Not really.”
“But you have that garden of carrots. And you work in it all day.”
“Okay, yeah. But that’s not my real job.”
“When you’re not working in the garden you’re selling your carrots in the market.”
“Gosh, Derpy. Just let me finish my story,” she pleaded with an irritated stamp of her hoof. When the mailmare did not reply, she continued. “I am an adventurer. I go into ancient temples and dangerous ruins and recover artifacts for lazy archaeologists. And that letter was about the one ruin I’ve always dreamed of exploring: The Froggy Bottom Temple!”
“Wow. Cool name.”
“I know. Wait!” A sudden thought had occurred to Carrot Top. It was completely vital to this conversation. “Have you heard the legend of the Froggy Bottom Temple?”
The blank look on Derpy’s face told her everything she needed to know.
“Well, long ago the bogbunnies of Froggy Bottom Bog constructed this temple to worship the fertility goddess Poppemowte. However, Poppemowte was displeased with its feng shui and cursed the temple, making it sink to the bottom of the swamp.
“But, every one thousand years it rises from the bog, for any who would dare venture past the death traps and angry spirits to adjust the feng shui and please the goddess.”
“Oh, cool. Y’know I was an adventurer once.” Derpy’s expression became thoughtful as she reminisced. “Then I got banned from the arcade for being too enthusiastic.”
Carrot Top nodded, not paying attention to her friend. She was too concerned with her preparations for her trip into the Froggy Bottom Temple.
“I just figured out something,” her friend crowed excitedly. Turning, Carrot Top saw that she was beaming with delight. “You’re Daring Do!”
“Daring Do is fictional,” Carrot Top replied irritably. “None of the temples or ruins I’ve been to have had guardian spirits, traps, or a vengeful villain lurking in the shadows. They’ve just been run down, and the only danger about them is if they start falling apart.”
Derpy’s gleeful expression fell, looking like she could hardly believe it.
“Sorry, Derpy,” Carrot Top said lowly. She looked down, a pang of guilt for ruining her friend’s dreams going through her. “Actually,” she added, looking back up. “Why not come with me to the temple?”
From an oak trunk, Carrot Top withdrew a black hat with carrots strapped to it, a saddle which also had carrots strapped to it, and some boots. She pulled the clothing on as Derpy watched, perplexed.
Derpy found she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She asked the question, the one she knew both of them were thinking. “Why are there carrots on your clothes?”
The other mare shot Derpy an incredulous look, mouth hanging open slightly as her green eyes glittered. “They’re for emergency snacking purposes! Now hurry, the temple only stands for a few days before sinking back into the bog!” She galloped out of the house, almost bowling Derpy over. The pegasus followed after her, trying to match her pace.
The march to Froggy Bottom Bog was long and hot. The summer had just begun, and the sun was high in the sky, baking the ground.
They had to stop a few times to wipe the sweat from their eyes, but to Derpy’s credit, she did not complain once. Carrot Top, meanwhile, was frustrated at the slow pace and heat. Her complaints were usually long and venomous. Again, Derpy took it in stride, never once taking offence at any of the angry pony’s’ words.
When they finally reached the temple, all of Carrot Top’s gloomy thoughts vanished. Her heart skipped a beat. She was finally going to enter the Froggy Bottom Temple! It was just as grand as she had imagined. It rose above the swamp, easily a couple hundred feet tall. It stretched back farther than she had imagined. It was absolutely gargantuan. Bog goo dripped from its cracked spires, and grey-green moss grew all over the brown stone. Squinting, she could just barely make out the entrance to the temple. It was covered in hanging moss and vines.
“Let’s go,” she said, and started for the entrance, Derpy not far behind.
The entrance was cramped, having been built for bogbunnies and not ponies. Several times Derpy thought she was going to be stuck. She would wiggle desperately, making a high-pitched keening noise. Then Carrot Top would slide back and pull Derpy through the tunnel roughly. She was pretty sure she would bruise from her friend’s harsh treatments.
After what seemed an eternity, but wasn’t actually very long at all, the two emerged into the temple proper. It was slick and mossy from laying at the bottom of the bog for centuries. Pillars rose on each side, vines snaking their way around them. Roots and upturned stone littered the ground. There was only one path – forward. Carefully, Carrot Top made her way to the next doorway. Derpy followed, not quite paying attention to where she was stepping.
The next room looked very much like the first, only the ceiling had an opening. From the opening rays of the sun streamed down, bathing parts of the hallway in light. There were four statues of thin, lanky rabbits, each holding a spear.
Carrot Top frowned, surveying the statues with her keenly honed adventurer’s eye. She was certain… Yes, they were!
Ducking under the beams of light, Carrot Top travelled quickly through the room, not stopping until she reached the other side. Derpy followed, pausing at her friend’s shout.
“Don’t cross the light!”
“What?” she asked, cupping a hoof to her ear. At that exact moment, a grinding mechanical sound drifted to her from where a statue stood. Something sharp and hot poked her in the tongue. Panicked, she began to hop around, trying to reach her friend.
More poison darts began to fire from the statues. Derpy’s hops somehow propelled her out of the way of every single dart. Carrot Top couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was bizarre, like it came out of a pulp novel. Death traps? Why would there be death traps in a temple devoted to worship? It didn’t make any sense!
Derpy stumbled to the ground in front of Carrot Top, one final dart barely missing her upturned flank. “Carrot Thop, thomething’th wrong with my thongue.”
Sighing, Carrot Top leaned down. “Open your mouth.” Derpy did so, revealing a tiny dart sticking out of her pink tongue. Carefully, Carrot Top opened her mouth and leaned into grab the dart.
Derpy kissed her.
“What the hay!” Carrot Top jumped back.
“I thought you wanted to kith me,” Derpy said forlornly.
“No! I’m trying to get the dart out of your tongue. I don’t want to kiss you.”
“Well I thought it wath thrange of you.” The mailmare shrugged.
“Just… Just hold still. And don’t kiss me again.”
“I didn’t want thoo th’ firthst time. I juthst wanted to make you happy.”
“Hush.” With a quick jerk of her head, Carrot Top pulled the dart from Derpy’s tongue.
“Ow.”
Carrot Top sighed, and turned to go through the doorway. Picking herself off the floor, Derpy followed, trying to match her friend’s pace.
Skidding to a halt, the orange pony stared into the abyss. Somewhere below her was a pit trap. The bones of adventurers like her doubtless filled the bottom. It’d be a bad thing to fall in-
Derpy tumbled into her, knocking her off the edge. Screaming, Carrot Top fell about ten feet before she hit bottom. There were no bones, only nasty clumps of grey-green moss and bog goo. Still, the fall hurt, and she had struck her head. Woozily she looked up and shouted at Derpy.
“What did you do?”
“Um. I might have hit you?” Derpy smiled sheepishly, like she always did when she knew she made a gaffe.
“Get me out of the thing. Back up. Where’s my hat?”
The pegasus waved a black hat.
“Ah. There it is.”
Setting the hat down, Derpy fluttered down, and grabbed her friend. She flew back up, struggling greatly with the extra weight. When she reached the top, she dumped Carrot Top onto the ground, and collapsed on her friend, pinning her to the ground.
Carrot Top made a strangled sound, and wiggled under the girth of her friend. “Derpy, get off!” she tried to ask. What came out was “Drrrff gib ovf!”
“What?” Derpy asked cupping a hoof around her ear again. “I can’t hear you.”
Managing a few strangled breaths, Carrot Top gasped, “Can you get off me, please?”
With an “Oh”, Derpy rolled off her friend and onto her butt, watching as Carrot Top stood up on wobbly legs. Craning her neck to look at the room, Derpy saw something in the shadows. It was gold and it glinted in the light. The pegasus flapped her wings and flew over the hole in the ground and landed by the glinty thing.
“Hey, what’s this?” Derpy asked, picking up the thing. It was shaped like a bunny with a grossly oversized skull. Its eyes were crossed, gazing at two different things at once. Derpy shook it. “There’s nothing inside.”
“It’s the idol of Poppemowte!” Carrot Top shouted happily. “Throw it over!”
“But I can fly.”
“Throw me the idol!”
“But I can fly.”
“Fly me the idol then!”
With a shrug, Derpy flew back over the hole. As soon as she landed, Carrot Top greedily snatched the idol, a wild look on her face. Her curly mane was frizzled and her eyes had a manic energy to their darting.
“After all these years I have it.” Gripping it in two hands, she held the idol above her head. “The idol of Poppemowte!”
“Dah-dah-dah-dahhhhhhh!”
“Derpy, what was that?” Carrot Top shot her friend an utterly confused look.
Derpy shrugged again. “I dunno. It just seemed to fit.”
Carrot Top returned her gaze to the shiny idol. So entranced was she in rubbing it, she failed to hear a rumbling.
“Er, Carrot. What’s that noise?”
“What noi-”
It was at that moment that a wall of water burst through the far wall. Carrot Top jumped up in surprise, almost dropping the idol. “RUN!” She took off for the way back out, but not before slipping the idol into her saddlebags.
Derpy sprinted after her, just barely keeping ahead of the rushing water. The sound of the water deafened her, making it impossible for her to hear whatever it was Carrot Top was yelling at her. Probably something like “Run faster”.
She could see that Carrot Top had passed through the light. The chunks and tings of flying darts were drowned out by the water’s rush. Derpy stumbled over a stone, but managed to turn it into a mid-air somersault. Stomach turning end over end, she somehow avoided being hit by a single dart. It wasn’t until later that she realised how awesome that was.
The two mares rolled out of the temple, tumbling over each other. There were bound to be bruises when they were done. Water rushed from the temple’s mouth, barely passing them by.
Carrot Top got up, brushing her wet fur down. Derpy was doing the same, taking extra care to get her feathers dry.
Pausing for a moment, she sighed and looked over at Derpy. “I’ve been a jerk, haven’t I?”
“Jrmk?” Derpy asked, mouth full of her own feathers. Releasing her grip on her wing, she repeated, “Jerk? No, you haven’t.”
“Yes I have. This whole adventure I’ve been snapping at you. I’m sorry.”
Derpy frowned. “Apology accepted, I guess. You just sounded like you usually do around me.”
“Yeah. And I’m sorry for that.” Carrot Top extended her forelegs. “Hug?”
The two mares hugged tightly. They stopped when a loud, slow clapping echoed off the stones surrounding them.
“Excellent job, Miss Top,” came a mocking voice.
The voice’s owner was a grey earth pony, dressed in a khaki outfit that reminded Derpy greatly of Daring Do. His short black mane was slicked back, and his gold eyes had a wry glint to them. He was flanked by a band of dirty, tattooed, masked bunnies – the bogbunnies of Froggy Bottom Bog.
“Once again you’ve proved admirably at only getting yourself into trouble.”
“Glory Hog!” She literally spat the name out. “It figures you’d hang around, waiting for an actual adventurer to do your work for you.”
“Yes, well, it’s the results ponies are interested in, not what actually happens while you’re doing the job.” Glory Hog took a step forward. “The idol, Miss Top.”
“Never,” she hissed.
Glory Hog raised a hoof. The bogbunnies began to advance. “You wouldn’t want to get them angry, would you?” At Carrot Top’s defeated sigh, he lowered the hoof.
She thrust the bag holding the idol at him, and he took it in his mouth. Unraveling the opening, he withdrew the golden idol. The bogbunnies froze, gazing at the image of their goddess.
“Glorious,” he said. “The subtle artistry. The eyes. Moer importantly, the gold! It’ll make quite a few bits melted down.”
“It belongs in a museum!”
“Not anymore,” Glory Hog said with a snide tone. He opened his mouth to continue when the blunt end of a bogbunny spear struck him in the head. He stood there a moment before collapsing.
The bogbunny chief stood over the unconscious pony’s body, nose twitching in victory. He leaned over, picking up the golden idol. With a glance over at his companions, he made a sound that sounded like wisk-wisk. The bogbunnies advanced, spears ready for poking. Their chieftain held the statue of Poppemowte high above his head, nose still twitching wildly.
Carrot Top and Derpy’s back were to the wall. There was nowhere for them to go. Carrot Top felt tears sting her eyes. Here she was, being nice to Derpy and helping her tag along, and now they were both going to die. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
The chieftain lowered the statue and took a quick glance at it. He frowned, noticing the walleyed expression of Poppemowte. He looked up at Derpy, and back down at the statue in comparison.
As the spearbunnies drew closer, he raised his paw and shouted something in bogbunny. Carrot Top cracked open an eye. The bogbunnies had lowered their spears. Her frown matched the chief’s. Then, he opened his mouth.
“And then they made me their Queen,” Derpy finished her story, all the patrons of the milk bar looking at her in awe. Rapping on the counter she added, “Check please.”
