Deleted Scenes: The calm after the storm · 8:10pm Apr 23rd, 2015
You should probably read the actual chapter before reading this post.
The following cut occurred when Artemis decided to 'poke' the ring out of curiosity while Daring slept.
*Boop*
She frowned in her sleep and once more scrunched her muzzle in the most adorable way possible, making me giggle while she remained unconscious as if nothing had happened.
She then grunted and flipped herself over, lying on her back. The shiny golden ring she had taken, or perhaps stolen from the fortress was still hanging around her neck, reflecting the sunlight.
Still curious about its apparent dormant and somewhat mysterious energy, I slowly approached, extending my left fore hoof to poke--
I was brutally pinned to the tree bark, an angry equine face scowling at me with narrowed eyes while I wondered what the heck just happened with wide surprised eyes.
Shock.
Guilt.
Remorse.
"(I... I'm sorry! I d-didn't mean to--!)" desperately exclaimed Lara, quickly getting off of me on noticing my terrified expression before I backpedalled away from her, holding back a fearful whimper as I put about five feet of distance between us.
Lesson learned: Don't touch a mare's jewelry while they're asleep unless you wish to die from asphyxiation. They're a little bit possessive of their shinies.
...Just a little bit.
She flapped her wings and quickly closed the distance between us, freaking me out for a second as she scooped me up in mid-air to embrace me in an apologetic hug which I struggled against for no more than a couple seconds before the surprise wore off.
...Whereupon she began blabbering words too fast for me to listen to.
I honestly think that scene had more "feels" than what I ended up publishing, however I scrapped it because I felt that it wasn't the kind of thing you could just shrug off, both from Artemis' and Daring Do's point of view.
Artemis would've forgiven Daring almost immediately because she would be able to feel how bad the mare felt. To keep it somewhat realistic, however, Artemis would have to remain a bit wary of Daring afterwards.
In the meantime, Daring Do would just continue feeling remorseful for quite some time, whether she knew Artemis forgave her or not.
...It kind of puts up this cloud of tension between them, both making it somewhat awkward and removing a lot of potential for extra fluff.
Other scenes I had included in my vague chapter outline but never actually inserted or even worked on for various reasons include:
-The chimera mentioned in the chapter "Tomb Raider" makes an appearance, the snake tail swallows Artemis, she uses her hoof-grips to remain stuck in its throat which would kind of choke the snake until either Daring Do came to rescue her or Artemis herself cut out a hole with her horn. (Gave up on that idea because, not only would it ultimately do practically nothing for the plot itself, it would've served as completely useless filler. Also too gory/dark for my tastes, even if the idea was mine to begin with.)
-Daring Do getting slightly angry at Artemis for the little holes that were made on the straps from Artemis' fangs, since the bag would've been described as being made of expensive leather or something of the sort. (I didn't want to cause a rift / argument between Daring and Artemis, no matter how small.)
I felt like sharing these to somewhat show other paths the story could've (maybe) gone towards. I might end up posting more omakes as they come up if people end up finding these posts interesting.
When I read the chapter I had to stop and reread because i thought i thought this is what had happened when artamis touched the ring.
I agree with the change you made.
The current version added quite a bit of humor to the chapter.
I feel you made the correct decision with cutting these out of the story.
Mares like Lopp, they like shinies.
I agree with your overall decision for that scene, and that you are so aware of all it shows great authorship