Not All Scars Are Seen

by Shadow_Wolf

Interlude: Dinky Hooves and the Temple of the Golden Tassel

Not All Scars are Seen
Interlude

Theme: Pure Imagination - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

If she really thought about it, there was no such thing as silence in the wilderness; the rustle of the leaves, the skittering of insects, even the occasional footfall of some great predator. It all added up to a strange symphony which could lull the brave and frighten the cowardly in the same breath. The rain was something new, however, for as humid as it had been for her trek, not a single drop of rain had fallen before now and it was the sound of the sudden shower which woke her from her sleep.

It was always so easy to lose track of time when cutting your way through the dense jungles beyond the Everfree, days blended together for those who weren't used to such things. But she was no ordinary explorer. Oh no, she was the Great Adventuress Dinky Hooves; and she knew exactly how long she had been on her quest. She had searched for her quotation... qualification... quackery... her target (1) for longer than the great emerald famine of the Diamond Dogs, but thankfully not as long as the feather plague of the Fourth Griffon Dynasty, meaning that her forty days and forty nights of endless searching fell neatly between the two historic events.

Everyone, her colleges... cartographers... cauliflowers... her friends (2), even her own sister had said she would never find what she was looking for, that it had been lost on purpose and would never again see the light of day; and yet she had proved them wrong. All of them! After forty days and forty nights of searching, her goal had finally been reached when she had finally discovered the Great Temple of the Golden Tassel! Yes very soon, her genius, bravery and stick-to-it nature was going to immortalize her in the animations... anchors… amphibians… in the great big halls(3) of history up at the university!

Of course, if she hadn't been completely exhausted the previous day, it would have only been thirty-nine nights, but who was really counting? Technically she was, and the stupid exhaustion had kept her from outdoing her greatest icon and most bitter rival by one whole night! Just. One. Night! But again, what was one more day – or night – in the face of what was going to be overwhelming glory anyway? Nothing! That's what it was, absolutely nothing!

And it had absolutely nothing to do with the legends of the great guardian beast that consumed the souls of the ones who dared to trespass in its home. Yeah, it had nothing to do with those legends at all!

So she had waited for the warmth of Celestia's Sun to peak through the cracks of the temple's pillars and walls, its light waking her as the sound of the shower faded to reveal sun-flies dancing across the rays that slipped into her tent. Of course, sun-flies were harmless and her invincible magics kept the worst of the predators away while her ingenious camping gear hid her perfectly from those too foolish to be frightened away. As the sounds faded back to normal, she knew it was finally time to make the impossible happen.

"Time to get started!" She whispered to herself

Rolling from her alcove, her small hooves sank into the thick moss which covered the flagstones as she focused her magic once more; this time drawing in the energy she had used to set up her protection spells in favor of a new one. Her sister had taught her this at her insistence and when she found that moving around her campsite didn't produce the slightest noise, she knew she had been an adapt student once more. But she couldn't go into an adventure without getting geared up first, so she quickly donned her black armored trench coat and red helmet.

"Hey!" she said to no one in particular, "pith helmets and khaki vests are expensive and I'm not rich and famous yet!"

Now satisfied with her attire, she turned to face her first obstacle of the day; the nearly mile high, multicultural... monotheistic... maximized... the really really big rock (4) that barred her way with its at least zillion tons of weight. Moving it should have been impossible, she reckoned and thought that even the Element of Magic herself might have had trouble with it. But while she wasn't the Element of Magic, she had studied the rock before finally giving into exhaustion and she knew its secrets like the back of her hoof.

Yes, even though it should have been impossible, halfway up its surface, a cleverly hidden bronze lever was the key to its defeat; the same lever she now wrapped in her flaxen gold aura of magic and began to pull. Of course, had it not been for the powerful spell she'd cast earlier, the sound of the rock's bindings being shattered would have been heard all the way in Canterlot, but like the genius she was, the spell extended outwards to cover the rock itself as she worked.

Sucking in her cheeks and taking a deep breath, sweat already trickling down her mane, she forced the rock to move inch by inch until it reveal a space just big enough for her to slip through.

"Hah! Take that you dumb do... er rock!" She whispered.

Once through the opening, she looked into the darkened hallway before her, images of traps both magical and munched... minced... mulled... normal (5) dancing across her imagination as she left Celestia's Sun behind. Fortunately, she had studied what to do in such situations and slunk down quickly onto her tummy, using her forelegs to pull herself down the thick carpet of moss as the traps activated overhead. Arrows, blades, flamethrowers and things she couldn't even identify were up there, but there were advantages to being as... er... small... as she was.

Finally, she reached the end of the hallway and stood up, brushing of her jacket and adjusting her helmet before staring down into the Great Steps of Tartarus. Each of the steps was a hundred yards long and another hundred yards deep, going down into who knew what horrors lay below. So many legends had been told of them that she couldn't help but pause and gulp, a silent prayer going to the Princesses that she wouldn't be the next one to purchase... prance... pelt... to get killed (6) on them as she started her decent; her horn lighting up ever few seconds as she used her magic to keep herself from falling.

It was times like this she really envied Pegasus ponies.

She lost count of the steps after the thousandth one, and with more effort than she wanted to admit, she reached the bottom to find herself in another hallway. But unlike the first one which had been filled with traps, this one was filled with millions of carvings whose cold, soulless gazes bored into her as she gazed back. Part of her wanted to run at that moment, because if the legends were true, these carvings had once been ponies, their bodies turned to stone when the great guardian had devoured their souls.

"Is it worth it to go on?" She asked herself, only to answer, "Duh! Of course it is! Fortune and Glory and all that fun stuff!"

Nodding sternly, she tiphooved forward and out of sight of the long dead gazes, her body pressed firmly to the wall as she pulled herself along the floor as she had above, the sounds of soft music reaching her ears in an almost lullaby-like manner. She knew then that she was closer than she had ever dared to hope, but she wasn't going to let herself get caught in a trap now. Leaning forward as far as she dared, she angled her neck around the corner and scanned the room, readjusting her helmet when it momentarily blocked her sight.

The room which greeted her could easily have held a million ponies and was beautiful in a way she could barely describe.

"You ancient guys sure now how to impress an adventuress,"she whispered.

Laid out around a massive avocado... abacus... abalone... a great big hole (7) in the ground, everything about the room seemed to glow, from its silver columns and silk-wood beams to its tiles of white marble and black onyx and platforms of precious stones at every conceivable height. Worth at least a gazillion bits in just construction materials alone, the decor was beautiful and awe inspiring, but it wasn't what drew her eyes. There, just on the other side of the hole, hanging from the statue of some ancient and magnificent heroine, she spied her goal; The Legendary Golden Tassel of the Seven Crystals!

If the legends were true, it had been given to the three tribes by the first Council of Alicorns back in antacid... aquarium... antipasto... back a long time ago (8) and contained more power than could be described. Even the famed explorer Daring Doo - Dinky's personal rival, of course - had tried and failed to retrieve the artifact, claiming it to be lost forever. Yet here it was, swaying in some unknown breeze as if saying "Come and get me, Dinky, I'm right here"

And that was exactly what she was going to do!

Scanning for any signs of the Great Guardian Beast, she determined it wasn't in the room, but didn't want to take chances and hugged the wall as she scurried for one of the platforms, her hoof-falls making no noise at all thanks to her unstoppable magic. Then, at the last moment, she was sure she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and fast as lightning, she dove behind one of the tree-trunk thick columns beneath that platform and pressed her back against it. Biting her lip to keep from panicking, ears flicking, she thought about trying to cast a teleport or invisibility spell; but the Tassel was right there and she might need that energy to make her daring escape!

Scrunching up her courage, she slowly turned to peer around the pillar, all the while working up her bravery for the final run. It had to be a trick of the light or something, yeah, that was it, a trick of the light; the Guardian was just a legend after all. And yet, as she turned to look, she felt her nose bump into something warm, soft and slightly damp which caused her eyes to open wide in panic.

It was the Guardian! It was real! She had come face to face with the golden eyes of the Great Temple Guardian Beast and the gaze made her breath catch in her throat as it bore into her. She longed to look away, to scream or run but it was too late. Already she could feel the gaze working its way into her very soul as the Guardian spoke its terrible words which would turn her into one of the lost stone statues.

“Gobbled you up again, muffin.”

Author's Note:

In the original draft of this story, this part was in the middle of Chapter 2 and was done primarily to add a bit of levity to the story as a whole. Back then I struggled with whether or not to include it and ultimately decided it was necessary, but this time I decided to give it it's own little chapter (which I may do with other things later, we'll see).

I count pony ages in human terms, not animal, because that's the easiest for me to understand and relate to. If you don't like it, I apologize, but I'm not changing it.

Anyway I always get the impression that Dinky is a smart filly, but at most she's probably around 8 or 9 in human years and even the smartest kids are going to get words mixed up form time to time. Heck, even adults do that! So, even though I figure most or all of you will figure out what she's really meaning before she comes up with her simpler version of things, here's a quick guide for what she originally intended in her narrations.

(1)Quarry, (2)Colleagues, (3)Annals, (4)Monolithic, (5)Mundane, (6)Perished, (7)Abyss, (8)Antiquity

Comments

[moguera]

That has to be one of the most adorable fantasy sequences I ever read. I especially like your view into Dinky's thoughts and how she keeps having difficulty with words.

[Shadow_Wolf]

6158925
Many thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

[Bad_Seed_72]

D'awww, that was adorable. Especially the ending.