Double Dare

by Wordplay42

Chapter 11

Chapter 11-

With how dense the trees were, and the way the soaring canopy of green leaves blocked quite a bit of the sun from reaching the jungle floor, Rainbow Dash had some slight difficulty telling what time it was. It could have been evening for all she knew. The sun could have been setting and she would have never realized it. Unfortunately, the lack of sunlight didn’t lessen the humidity any. Sweat was dripping down her forehead as she continued to trudge through the dense undergrowth beside Daring Do. Oracle walked ahead of them, and Rainbow Dash was surprised to see that, for such an old stallion, he seemed unfazed by the hot, humid, stagnant air.

And though she might not have known precisely the time while making her way through the jungle, she did realize when night fell. She’d never been somewhere where that phrase had been so literal. It seemed like one moment they were trudging through the dim, shadowy jungle in a limbo state between light and dark, and the next they were in darkness so palpable Rainbow felt like she could bite off a hunk of it and eat it.

She squinted, trying to strain her eyes and force them to see through the impenetrable blackness that had formed all around her, but it was nigh on impossible. She lost her footing on a tree root she didn’t see, then landed roughly on the ground, her heavy saddle bags pressing her into the mud. She struggled to rise from under their weight.

“I’m fine!” she called as she found her footing once more and brushed dirt she couldn’t see from her legs.

“Hold on,” Daring said from somewhere in front of her to her left. There was a sound of bags behind rustled and items being shifted around, then the sound of a match being lit. A tiny point of light burst into being, illuminating Daring’s face as she held it cautiously in her teeth. She quickly lit some sort of makeshift torch from the packs and stamped the match out under hoof. She wrapped one leg around the torch and held it aloft, then looked back at Rainbow Dash with an amused smirk.

“You alright, kid?” she asked. Rainbow tried not to blush as she ambled forward to stand beside Daring. She shrugged her shoulder, trying to seem nonchalant.

“’Course I am,” she replied coolly. “I meant to do that.”

Daring chuckled a little. Ahead of them, Oracle surveyed the dark forest.

“We should find a place to rest,” he said. “The dark jungle is dangerous.”

“No kidding,” Rainbow muttered, recalling her meeting with the tree root. She also didn’t entirely want to think about what kinds of animals were lurking through the forest, veiled in the night. She tried not to shudder at the thought, then told herself that she’d be able to take them easily, if they did meet any.

All the same, she made a mental note to keep an ear out for any sounds around them.

Daring used the torch to light a fire, which fortunately dispelled some of the darkness. It still hung around them almost like a wall, and Rainbow Dash felt strangely disconnected from the world, as if all of Equestria had faded away around them, and they were the only ponies that still remained: them, and this tiny patch of jungle in Manegolia, lit by flickering firelight.

As soon as the fire was set up, Oracle began to slowly walk in a large circle around the perimeter of their small campsite, mumbling to himself. Rainbow Dash wriggled out of her pack, which fell roughly to the ground. Daring looked up at her from where she was securing her own pack to a tree branch, high above the ground.

“Hey, careful with that,” the tan pegasus said. “That’s got our food in it.”

“Sorry,” Rainbow muttered. Getting the burden off her wings felt amazing, and she was too intent on stretching them to listen to Daring’s remarks. Her bruised wing was feeling a lot better, and she thought about maybe taking short flight just to work the muscles. All that walking had been torture.

“You listening?” Daring was suddenly in her face, rapping her on the forehead with a hoof. Rainbow jerked her head back in surprise.

“What?” she demanded. Daring rolled her eyes.

“I told you to get enough food out for us and then hang those bags up in the tree, like I did,” Daring said, pointing at the hanging bags over her shoulder. “It’ll keep the animals from getting to our supplies in the night.”

Rainbow Dash gave a mock salute and did as she was told, unpacking enough food for the three of them before hanging the bags up. This was the perfect excuse to take a short flight – she took to wing and hung the sacks of supplies from a higher branch than Daring’s just to give herself a reason to fly.

“I have placed a charm around the camp,” Oracle told the two pegasi once he had stopped his mumbling and came to eat with them. “It will protect us through the night from predators. But don’t leave this area. Out there in the forest, danger awaits.”

“Thank you, Oracle,” Daring said with a smile as the old shaman stallion sat with them to eat.

They ate a basic meal of fruit and bread, and then Oracle announced that he was tired and promptly unrolled his bedroll and fell asleep near the fire. As far as the two pegasi could tell, he was sound asleep within seconds.

“Wow, he falls asleep fast,” Rainbow noted dryly, trying to keep at least a little conversation going. Daring grunted in response, but the blue pegasus was pleased to note that the adventurer was also stretching out her wings, obviously cramped from being trapped under the bags all day.

Rainbow Dash poked the ground with a hoof, as she sat in front of the fire, feeling slightly awkward. She still was struck with the incredible fact that she was on an adventure with Daring Do. She wondered if her friends would ever believe her….

Her heart hurt a little at that thought. She remembered now – she wasn’t in her world anymore. She’d been sent into the book. Would she ever be able to get back home? Would she be stuck here forever?

Although, she had to admit, if she was going to be stuck anywhere, this wasn’t too bad. But still, she’d never see her friends again…

She shook her head, trying to get her mind off the subject and turned to Daring.

“You wanna take a flight?” she asked hopefully. “You know, stretch our wings?”

Daring glanced sideways and Rainbow Dash and half-smiled, trying not to seem too eager.

“That sounds like a good idea,” the tan pegasus said, and Rainbow smiled wider. But then the adventurer pony shook her head.

“But I don’t think so,” she said. “We need to stay here, where it’s safe. I especially don’t want to leave Oracle alone. He’s too old to fight if something attacks us.”

“Oh,” Rainbow had to admit, she was disappointed. But Daring touched her with a hoof and smiled.

“Cheer up, kid,” she said. “We’ll be finding the Alicorn Stone soon enough.”

“I thought you said it doesn’t exist,” Rainbow Dash said. Daring shrugged.

“Well, something’s out there, burning stuff up, and whatever it is, it’s powerful. I don’t know if it’s the Alicorn Stone, like Oracle keeps saying, but it’s definitely interesting.”

“So what if it is the Alicorn Stone?” Rainbow Dash inquired. Daring smirked.

“I don’t think it will be,” she told her, beginning to unroll her own bedroll. “But I’ll be happy to be wrong. Let’s get some shut-eye.”

Rainbow Dash nodded and unrolled her own set of blankets, then lay down on it as she watched Daring smother the fire. She left a little of it glowing – “For protection,” Daring said. “In case Oracle’s charm doesn’t work.”
Once the two pegasi were settled, Rainbow Dash rolled over to look at the adventurer with the grey-scale mane. Daring Do met her eyes and half-smiled.

“Another question?” she asked. Rainbow nodded.

“If you don’t believe it’s real,” she asked. “Then why are you going after it?”

Daring Do laughed lightly.

“Fortune and glory kid,” she said as she rolled over onto her other side. “Fortune and glory.”

~**~

Rainbow Dash yawned and her eyes blinked open. For a brief moment, she was terrified that she had gone blind – all she could see around her was darkness. But slowly, the light from the dim, barely smoldering campfire allowed her eyes to adjust to the night around her. She sniffed and rubbed her eyes, as she smacked her lips together. She was thirsty.

The blue pegasus glanced sideways at Daring Do, but the only sign of the adventurer was a lump under a blanket and her signature hat lying right beside her.

Rainbow Dash stood, drowsily, and looked around. She knew the canteens were in the bags they’d hung in the trees earlier. But with the darkness the way it was, the blue pegasus could hardly see their supplies at all.

She stood and grabbed a nearby stick in her teeth and poked at the embers of the campfire, which immediately began to flare up a little. Then she threw another few pieces of wood onto the blaze and fanned it with her wings until the fire was not quite blazing, but high and bright enough for her to see better. With some light shed on her situation, Rainbow Dash turned her attention back to the supplies hanging from the trees.

But she was distracted. As her eyes moved back towards the packs in the air, she realized that something was wrong. Her eyes settled on Oracle’s bedroll, where the earth stallion had been sleeping only hours before.

Only to find it empty.

Alarmed, Rainbow looked around, trying to spot him, but besides Daring asleep nearby, there was no pony else around. Rainbow Dash frowned. It seemed odd for the stallion to have left after he had told them earlier that he’d set a protection spell around the perimeter that they shouldn’t leave. So where was he?

“Oracle?” she whispered hoarsely, trying to keep her voice down. She didn’t want to disturb Daring.

There was no answer. Rainbow Dash’s eyes moved to the dense jungle beyond the light of their camp and swallowed. Why could he possibly have wanted to go out there?

Think, Rainbow, she told herself. What would Twilight do?

Almost as if the purple unicorn was standing right next to her, she heard her overly-smart friend’s answer in her head immediately.

Look for clues, her inner Twilight told her. Rainbow’s face became determined and she nodded to herself. Of course. If he had gone out there into the forest, then she needed to find him. He could be in serious danger.

She moved over to his bedroll and looked down at the ground near it. His hoof prints were all around it, of course, but one specific set jutted off into the trees surrounding them. Oracle had left the camp. But why?

Only one way to find out, she thought to herself. For a moment she glanced at Daring, considering waking the adventurer up and tell her about Oracle’s disappearance. But if it turned out to be nothing, Rainbow Dash didn’t want to appear like an idiot in front of her idol.

And, if it did turn out to be something….well, Rainbow Dash could show Daring Do that she was good for something.

Recalling what Daring had done earlier, Rainbow grabbed a stick off the ground, wrapped a piece of cloth she’d ripped from her bedroll around it, and let it on fire. The makeshift torch blazed with hardly a steady light, but she hoped it would be enough to let her find Oracle before he got hurt.

With her leg wrapped around the torch, and before she could second-guess herself, Rainbow Dash started off after Oracle’s tracks into the jungle. As she walked, leaving the warm firelight and the protection spell behind, she tried not to let the unknown of the world around her push down on her thoughts too much. But there were a few times, not that she’d admit it to anypony, that she jumped slightly at the sound of a twig breaking, wind through a tree, or a frog croaking in the distance. She wasn’t scared, of course. It was just very dark and…

She shook her head and focused on the tracks she was following. As she walked, she became aware of what sounded like a voice ahead of her. It was deep and rhythmic, like chanting. Rainbow Dash paused and listened for a few moments, trying to understand what it was and were it was coming from. It was definitely somepony’s voice. Was it Oracle?

She followed it, torch held out in front of her, until the forest broke a little, ahead of her. The noise was loudest there, and Rainbow crouched down to peer through the shrubs in case there was trouble.

To her surprise, however, there was no trouble. In fact, far from it. Oracle was standing in the center of the small clearing, his back towards her, sitting on his haunches, rocking back and forth. He was chanting, his voice low and rhythmic, exactly as she’d heard. Rainbow frowned. She didn’t understand the words. What was he saying?

She took a step forward, and a twig cracked loudly under her hoof. She gasped, looked down at the broken twig, then looked back up to find Oracle had turned around and was gazing right at her.

Rainbow Dash straightened, decided to sound stern instead of scared. Which, of course, she was not.

“Oracle,” she said, sounding disapproving. “What are you doing out here?”

“Ah, Rainbow Dash,” the pony said, sounding as though he had been expecting her. “I should ask the same of you.”

“I saw your sleeping bag was empty,” the blue pegasus shot back. “I thought you might be in trouble. What are you doing, Oracle?”

“I am sorry if I caused you worry,” the stallion said calmly, crossing to where Rainbow Dash stood. “I was simply doing some meditation. I find that it helps my mind.”

“But out here?” Rainbow Dash asked, confused. “And at night?”

“I did not want to disturb you and Daring Do,” he replied as means of explanation. “I am finished now, however. We should return. There are dangerous things in this forest. It would be better if we go back to where I have set up my protection charms.”

Oracle walked past her into the forest, and Rainbow Dash looked after him, her eyes narrowed. For the first time, she got a twinge that there was something fishy going on here. Was Oracle trying to hide something from her and Daring?

“Are you coming, Miss Dash?” the earth pony called over his shoulder. Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed, but she followed him through the undergrowth, the torch still held in front of her. She made a note to talk to Daring about this in the morning.

She wondered if there was more to Oracle than he was letting on.