//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Sapphire Stone // Story: Gusty and Ember // by Tobyc //------------------------------// Chapter 12: Sapphire Stone Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone Starring Harerion Trot Pigroot Cullen Dante Bronco and Ellen De Jennet as Coco Pie Director of Photography - Welterweight Editor - Match Cut, ECE Music - Carnauba Scratch Produced by Flank Marshall Screenplay by Minty Coral Adapted from the novel by AK Yearling Directed by J.J. Thistle-Whistle Shown in silhouette, a pegasus mare stepped out from behind the camera and looked at a distant mountain. As she walked through the jungle, her face kept out of sight, her noir-esque narration began: "'A few days'. That was my brother's unqualfied prognosis, after he bandaged my wing up. A few days, grounded in an Amazon jungle, the wet heat sapping my energy. It might as well be a few months. Or a few years." The pegasus leapt over a log and turned her head, her face finally coming into view - as she came nose-to-nose with a tiger. Trixie watched as Daring was surrounded by a variety of wild cats, erupting with laughter along with Lyra and Ember when a small white cat appeared. Even so, the ensuing chase had her on the edge of her seat until Daring landed and realised she could see the temple she was searching for. The scene dissolved into a flashback, to a week earlier. Daring was finishing up a lecture. Once the class was over, she walked over to what Trixie guessed was a teacher's aide, and passed him an envelope from her desk. "Take this to Masra, then get a message to my brother: 'Meet me at Bridlewild Airport, 6:00 pm.'" The young stallion nodded and left the hall. Daring finished packing up and exited the room, walking over to the campus library. The scene then cut to Daring and... Darrin, Trixie guessed, in a small airship. Daring told Darrin everything she'd managed to find out about the Sapphire Stone in the last seven weeks. She pulled out the best map she'd managed to find. "Took me three hours in the campus library to track this down." "That long? Couldn't you have got one of the pages to help?" "The only one on call was Herpy, and with his track record it would have taken us five hours." Trixie reacted with a strange mix of glee at the colt's mention and indignation over his implied incompetence, compared to what she'd read in Wooden Mask, much to the amusement of Lyra and Bow. Ember seemed to anticipate it, and leaned over. "Characterisation marches on..." she muttered. "He wasn't expected to have such a big role in later books. Actually, he wasn't supposed to be called Herpy to begin with." Trixie calmed down and watched in silence as the flashback continued. The plane landed outside a desert town, where Daring tracked down a mint green Earth pony, who Daring immediately recognised as Coco Pie. The two briefly haggled over a biplane, which Coco warned her was "pretty rickety". This proved to be a rather large understatement. After the crash, the scene returned to the jungle, and over the next half hour or so, Trixie found herself becoming bored with the exercise. Despite how close the temple had appeared before, several, rather repetitive chase scenes - mostly involving the various cats seen earlier - had been shoehorned in. Trixie could already see the point Medley's had raised earlier - so much of this could have been removed without affecting the story. The upshot, though, was that Bon Bon wasn't exactly eating up this part of the movie either - she proved to be a surprisingly good riffing partner. Things improved when Daring finally reached the temple. While the hallway of traps went on for far too long, there was at least a bit of variety - where the Tartarus did those crocodiles come from?! - and Trixie found herself amused by Daring's deadpan reaction to each of them. In the room where the Sapphire Stone was located, the floor was paved with images of various birds and animals. Daring threw a stone out, and, as she'd predicted a volley of darts were fired from the wall - much to Trixie's confusion, they formed the shape of a pegasus pony on the opposite wall. Daring stepped back and examined the tiles, quickly coming to a deduction: "These animals are all predators... except... rats!" Trixie turned to the sound of four mares slapping their foreheads. Seeing her confusion, Ember muttered, "You'd think they would have corrected that. I'll have to find you the Celestia Radio version." Putting it out of her mind, Trixie turned back as Daring made her way across the floor, climbed up to the pedestal, examined the statue and... somewhat anticlimactically swiped it away. Trixie immediately knew this had been a mistake - the pedestal sank into the floor and the room began falling apart. Somehow. Daring's narrow escape from the rising lava was interrupted by the doorbell. Trixie paused the movie as Bow got up to answer it. She turned her head as Medley walked in with another chair. "Where were you last night? And where is Thunderlane?" she asked. "Bulk, TL and a few other locals got their Wonderbolts acceptance letters," Medley explained. "So they invited us both to Ponyville for drinks. As for why it took us so long to get back, I had pets to feed, and Thunderlane was keeping an eye on Rumble while his brother recovered." She turned to Lyra. "On that note, we'll both have to head back to Cloudsdale in a few days, so I guess he's all yours until then." Lyra nodded. "So where is he now?" Medley turned to Ember. "He said he'd stop by your place and make sure you brought the extra sleeping mats over. So, where are we up to?" She turned to the screen, frozen on a shot of Ahuizotl's leg. "Cue Cullen." she muttered with a grin. After a moment, Trixie decided to resume the movie. The last, gripping act passed in relative silence from the six mares - Trixie was not the only one on the edge of her seat as Daring struggled to stay above the quicksand. But she was also not the only one cheering when Daring and Darrin escaped in the (rather conveniently recently repaired) biplane, statue in hoof. *** After a fifteen minute bathroom/refreshment break, Trixie pressed play on Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet - only to pause it one line into the movie ("Another day, another lesson."), as the doorbell rang again. Bow stood up to answer it. After a moment Thunderlane hobbled into the living room, the sleeping mats tied to his back. Ember got up to help him untie them. "Enough for everypony, excellent," she muttered. Once the bags were released, Trixie could see a thin, cylindrical package sticking out of Thunderlane's saddlebag. He reached back and pulled it out with a wing. "This was in the mailbox when I got home. The afternoon post must have been later than usual." He turned to Lyra and Bon Bon and passed it to them. "Addressed to you two." Trixie stared at the two as their expressions turned strangely fearful, in an, "Oh horseapples, we did not want anypony to know about this yet," way.