Inevitabilities

by Sharp Quill


18. Into the Lions' Den

The Zephyr’s gangway lowered. Shafts of sunlight from the setting sun illuminated the cave interior on the far side of the Gates of Tartarus. No sooner had the gangway touched the ground that Twilight trotted out, saddlebags on her back. Closely following her was Rarity, also laden with saddlebags. Rainbow Dash flew unencumbered behind them.

Twilight paused in front of the gates that marked the boundary between realms, frowning at the pegasus. “You really should walk through the bars, Dash. Flight magic barely works there.”

Rainbow Dash remained airborne, defiant. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Twilight shook her head and stepped through the giant, widely spaced bars. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you certain you won’t reconsider, darling?”

Dash crossed her forelimbs. “Yes, Rarity. I’m certain.”

With a polite smile, she turned and stepped through the bars herself.

The alicorn and the unicorn waited for the pegasus to fly through the bars.

Dash glared back at them. “Honestly,” she muttered, “just because some pegasi can’t manage it…”

A few feet off the ground, she drifted across the threshold. “See?” she said, bearing a huge smirk. “Easy as—whoa!” Fierce flapping halted her plunge. She slowly regained her original altitude. “No problem,” she insisted.

Twilight rolled her eyes and trotted towards the back of the cave. “Just remember that gravity is weird here, and we’re not about to go in circles, never mind what your internal compass is telling you.”

“Sure, whatever.” The pegasus flew behind them, refusing to let mere exertion force her onto her hooves.

They reached the throat at the back of the cave. Twilight did not slow down, and quickly she disappeared over the rounded edge. Upon failing to hear hooves or wings following her, she stopped. Rainbow Dash was hovering over the pit, gawking at the illusion of her standing on a wall; as for Rarity, her head was all she could see. “Gravity is weird here,” she repeated, and continued trotting.

This time, the others followed.


The end credits to the Daring Don’t episode appeared. Meg hit the pause button. She had saved this one for last. Since Twilight had brought over her guest several hours ago, it had been nothing but non-stop MLP cartoons. “Now you know what to expect,” she said to the pony lying down on the sofa.

A. K. Yearling adjusted her cloche hat. “That’s… a lot to think about.”

“That all happened, right?” She sat on the recliner opposite the disguised explorer. “Maybe not down to the smallest detail, but neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash found any material differences. Mostly just stuff left out so it all fit in twenty-two minutes.”

“I… can understand why they’d come to that conclusion.”

Meg leaned forward, hands clasped. “Meaning?”

“It’s… not that simple. One can be presented with a collection of true facts, yet the ignorance of other facts will lead to erroneous conclusions.”

Meg flopped back. “Like what?” Somehow she doubted she’d get a straight answer.

She got that infamous Daring Do smirk. “That would be telling.”

No, of course not. Straight answers seemed to be in short supply, in either universe. Luckily for her alleged secrets, the cartoon mostly followed the viewpoints of the Mane Six. “Well, you better decide quickly how you want to deal with that episode, unless you want to bail out now.”

“Thinking on my hooves has never been a problem for me.”

Meg had no comeback to that. She had no idea at all what to say. There was at least another fifteen minutes before they arrived. The silence grew.

Yearling broke the silence. “I’ve heard that you’re helping to give the Smooze the power of speech.”

“You have?” Meg asked. “Who told you that?”

“I have my sources,” was all she said.

Would it kill her to give a straight answer for a change? “I assume it was Twilight.”

“Nope.”

“I doubt it was Rainbow Dash.”

“Quite correct,” she replied, grinning. “It wasn’t.”

Meg was already tired of this game. Would she even admit it if she’d guessed correctly? She was half-tempted to throw out a random name, like Lyra Heartstrings, but decided to stop playing. “Yes, I’ve been helping to adapt human technology to the problem. We still have a long way to go.” She hadn’t worked on that for a while. There had been too many distractions lately. “Why the interest?”

Yearling exhaled. “You might say he’s an archvillain of mine—not in the sense you’re thinking.” A wry smile. “It’s not like he’s ever personally attacked me. We haven’t even met—I doubt he knows I exist, probably—but nonetheless he’s made my life quite difficult.”

“So… a conversation with him would… clear up some misunderstanding between you two?”

“It’s not so much a… misunderstanding.” She rubbed her suddenly tired eyes. “I’ve been searching long and hard for other evidence of ancient humans in our realm.”

“Okay…” Presumably without success.

“Over the years, I would occasionally stumble across a promising lead to something extraordinary, or so my special talent would insist. Every single time, when I visited the site, I would discover that at some point in the ancient past it had been wiped totally clean—and I mean totally clean.” She locked onto her eyes. “Every single time—with one exception.”

Meg didn’t like where this was going. “And the exception was?”

“The catacombs with ancient human remains. I’ve visited two other sites since then; both long ago had been wiped clean.”

Meg sifted the pieces, trying to make sense of it. “You think the Smooze had something to do with this?”

Yearling looked away. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to prove it. But I’m certain now those other sites, including, in hindsight, the ones I visited before those catacombs, were connected to ancient humans. I’m beginning to think somepony wanted to destroy the evidence, and the Smooze was the tool.”

During her first Grand Galloping Gala, Discord had admitted that “Smoozie” had wiped out villages in the past. Could it be connected to this? Asking Discord was unlikely to yield answers, helpful answers anyway, but… “You want to ask the Smooze if he did it, and if so, why.”

“That’s basically it.”


Cerberus sniffed Rarity with one nose, a laboring but still hovering Rainbow Dash with another, and his remaining mouth attempted to lick Twilight. “You just saw me yesterday, you silly dog,” she said, giggling. Her magic worked well enough to keep his tongue off her coat.

“Yes, well, no need to show me affection, darling.”

“Ah, come on, Rarity!” Dash said, petting the nearest head. “He’s such a pushover.”

“Not to the inmates, he’s not,” declared a minotaur guard.

“Speaking of which,” Twilight said, “please send some extra guards over to Tirek’s cell. Not that I’m expecting any trouble, but it’ll be necessary for us to open his cell and go inside.”

Rarity couldn’t help shuddering.

The guard bowed. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll notify our elite troops.” He returned to his station to pass on the request. The residents of this realm used a means of long-distance communications that somehow used the rock comprising the cave walls as a carrier.

Twilight hadn’t paid much attention to that before, nor unfortunately was there time to pursue it now. She headed towards to tunnel leading to Tirek’s cell, leading the way for Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

Once they had entered the tunnel and were out of minotaur earshot, Rarity spoke up. “This is really happening,” she said. “You intend to release him.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Dash said, flying along—barely—on Twilight’s other side.

There was little to be gained by rehashing the argument, but it seemed she had little choice. “First off, that’s not set in stone. He still has to meet certain conditions. He has to convince the humans to accept his return, and he has to reveal how he crossed over to our realm. Second, it’s not just about him or us, but about the humans, about how his return may help stop this insanity about us being invaders. And don’t forget he’ll return to being one of them, confined to their realm, devoid of magic and no longer a threat to us.” She turned her head to face Dash. “Or do we wait until he manages to escape Tartarus once more? He’ll have plenty of centuries to figure something out.”

“Jeez, I wasn’t expecting a lecture.”

“I’m not happy about it either.” Twilight lowered her head. “I need to convince myself as much as anypony else. It seems like no matter the outcome, I… don’t exactly win.”


There was a knock at the door. Meg stood up. “Last chance to back out.”

“As if,” said the disguised adventurer.

It’s your funeral, Meg thought as she went to answer the door. But this was Daring Do, after all, not Derpy, and it wasn’t as if she was about to be tied up and thrown into a pool full of hungry cragodiles. If cragodiles were even a thing.

She opened the door and stood aside. “Come on in,” she said. Andrew, the president of the board, Joe, the vice-president, and Elaine, head of PR and marketing—and sister of the infamous Eric Tanner—all entered.

Does she know yet? The social smile upon meeting her eyes suggested she did not. But then, apart from the fact that he was somewhere on Earth, Meg herself did not know Eric’s current status or location.

Meg led them to the living room. Yearling had, for some reason, relocated to the recliner—possibly to deny the others the option of sitting next to her. She adjusted her fake glasses, now magically enchanted to optically distort the face behind them, and greeted the new arrivals with a practiced smile.

The others halted and gaped upon seeing the celebrity author. “Tell me you see her too,” Elaine said.

“Yes, I can also see Meg,” Yearling deadpanned.

Joe found his voice next. “So you’re also a comedienne?”

“No, but I’ve gotten so bored of simply responding with ‘why yes, I am A. K. Yearling. Would you like an autograph?’”

“I, uh, hope this doesn’t come across as rude,” Andrew said, “but… are you a pegasus or an earth pony?”

Meg suppressed her gut reaction to that question, which was so obviously a roundabout way of asking whether she was really Daring Do. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The mare raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Meg almost choked on that reply. No, it wasn’t obvious, not even to other ponies—that’s why she wore that shawl—but apparently she figured humans wouldn’t know that.

“Um… no?” Andrew admitted. “Not to us humans, anyway.”

Yearling adjusted her glasses. “Well, let’s leave it a mystery, shall we? I’m here to discuss my potential appearance at your convention. Why don’t you all take a seat?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, as he, Joe, and Elaine found spots to sit on the sofa. “We’re more than happy to talk about that.” Meg went to the kitchen to get snacks and refreshments.

“My main reason for appearing, naturally, is to promote my books. Your realm is a huge, untapped market.”

“We are absolutely okay with that. Will you have books to sign? Have you found a human publisher yet? Are you even looking for one? Uh, how does any of this actually work?”

“That’s quite a few questions there,” she said with a smile. “The answers are yes, no, yes, and we’re making it up as we go. Any books I’ll bring with me will have to come from Equestria—this time, anyway—and I’m not even sure I’ll be allowed to do that.”

“Why would the princesses object?” Elaine asked.

“I’m sorry, allow me to rephrase. I can bring the books; the question is whether I can sell them. Trade treaties and all that haven’t been worked out yet.” Yearling rolled her eyes. “And then there are the taxes. I’d have to deal with your IRS.”

“Well, we can’t help you with that, specifically,” Elaine said, “but how about this instead? Don’t sell them, donate them to a charity auction. We already plan to do that with other Equestrian objects. Instead of taxable profits, you get a tax deduction.” She grimaced. “Well, you plan on making money here eventually, so it’d still come in handy.”

Yearling tapped her muzzle in thought. “I think I could get on board with that. It’d generate good publicity, and that’s good marketing.”

“Allow me to apologize in advance for our IRS.” Meg had returned with beverages and bowl of pretzels.

“It can’t be any worse than that monstrosity of a tax code the minotaurs have cooked up. That’s why I hire accountants.”

Elaine giggle-snorted. “Daring Do and the Minotauran Tax Audit.”

Yearling rolled her eyes. “If I ever wanted to retire from writing, that would be a good way to bring it about.”

The room went silent, apart from the sounds of pretzels being crunched. Eventually, Andrew sighed. “I’m really sorry, but I gotta ask this.” He looked the mare in the eyes. “Are you, in fact, Daring Do?”


A vast cavern opened up in front of them. Twilight stopped as a minotaur guard approached. Rainbow Dash took this as an excuse to finally land and rest her definitely-not-exhausted wings.

“Your Highness,” greeted the bowing guard. “The troops you requested are waiting at the entrance of Tirek’s prison.”

Twilight looked up to the ceiling, at the building in question. “I see them,” she said. How many there were was hard to tell, due to the distance, but there were certainly enough of them. It was mostly for show; her alicorn magic, limited as it was in this realm, would still be more effective in the unlikely event Tirek was… uncooperative. “We’ll be on our way,” she said, dismissing the guard.

The guard bowed once more and returned to his station.

They set out down the path to the nearest connecting pillar. Rarity felt the need to point out the obvious. “It’s on the ceiling, Twilight.”

“That is correct, Rarity. We’ll be taking that pillar ahead of us to the ceiling.”

Her eyes followed it from bottom to top. “If you say so, darling.”

Twilight couldn’t help noticing that Rainbow Dash was trotting alongside them. “Wings finally gave out?”

“Not really. Just pacing myself.”

Twilight threw her a skeptical look, but remained silent.

“Fine, you were right about this place. I think I’d like to come back here for endurance flight training.”

“I suppose that could be arranged.” She made a mental note to propose that for pegasus royal guards as well. The Wonderbolts might be interested too. Wouldn’t that make Rainbow’s day.

“Can’t something be done about the light?” Rarity asked. “This reddish-orange color just… makes everything look awful.”

“It’s a prison. What d’ya expect?”

“It’s not because it’s a prison, Rainbow Dash. The civilian caverns are like this too. The ambient illumination can be adjusted within a small area, like inside a building, but not out here in the open.”

“This is a definition of open I haven’t encountered before,” Rarity said, looking around her. “We’re in a cave.”

Twilight sighed. “It’s as open as this realm gets.”

“Where does the light even come from?” Dash asked.

“The cave walls.”

“But they’re not glowing.”

“Just take my word for it.”

They trotted on in silence. Upon reaching the curved ramp that joined pillar and ground, Twilight did not slow down. “Keep trotting. You won’t fall off.”

With only the slightest of hesitation, Rarity and Rainbow Dash followed. “If I was high off the ground,” the pegasus asked, “which way would be down?”

“I don’t know.” There wasn’t anything floating in the middle of the cave; there was that. “And this isn’t the time to find out,” Twilight preemptively declared.

Rainbow Dash refolded her wings and continued trotting in silence.

They reached the building in which Tirek was incarcerated. A half-dozen guards, armored up to fight a war, stood outside the door. They bowed at Twilight’s arrival. “You are to make sure Tirek does not leave his cell while it is open,” the princess commanded them. “But—and I want to emphasize this—I do not anticipate any problems. This is merely a precaution.”

“Understood,” their commander said.

The three ponies went inside, signed in, and made their way to the back, past the empty cells. The elite guards followed close behind.

When they turned the final corner, Tirek was already standing in front of the bars, alerted by the sound of so many approaching hooves. “Rarity!” he exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. “Dare I consider this evidence of having passed the first part of the test?”

“Hey, what about me?”

The centaur looked down his nose at the pegasus. “I know why she’s here.”

“Well, I’m here to make sure you don’t harm her.”

Tirek folded his muscular arms against his chest. “Are you sure you’re up to it, when you can barely fly?”

“That’s enough, both of you.” Twilight met Tirek’s eyes. “The final results aren’t in yet, but it’s looking good. That was a nice touch, by the way, throwing in the alphabet, a minimal dictionary, and a basic description of the grammar.”

He shrugged. “I have a lot of free time and a desire to make a good impression—and it was rather obvious from your reaction to that ‘thirty amphora of olive oil’ translation that you had no idea if it was correct, which suggests that knowledge of my native tongue had been lost.” He walked over to the desk and picked up a folder. “Here’s part two,” he said, walking back to the bars. “It documented a visit to Knossos by Mycenaean royalty,” he said dismissively. “Can’t imagine why those upstarts had been received with such honor.” With a heavy sigh, he added, “But it did take place well after my time.”

Twilight levitated it out of his hand, through the bars, and into her saddlebags. “Your language has been lost to time,” she confirmed. The test had been completed; there was no harm in admitting it now, and he’d find out soon enough anyway. “Let’s get started.” She turned to a guard. “Open the cell.”


“Am I, in fact, Daring Do,” the disguised pegasus slowly repeated. A smile grew on her muzzle. “I can definitely say that name does not appear on my birth certificate.”

Meg suppressed a groan. You’re gonna have to do better than that.

Andrew wasted no time in proving her right. “Are you aware of the My Little Pony cartoon?” He might as well have been asking about the weather, from how he asked it.

“As a matter of fact,” she beamed, “I am. Meg was kind enough to play the Daring Don’t episode for me. I can certainly understand, after watching that, why you’d think she and I were the same pony.”

“And…?”

“Well, I suppose, in some sense, we are the same. She is my creation, after all, and when I’m writing those books, I’m very much inside her mind.”

And you’re also “very much” inside her mind when you’re not writing those books. Meg had to give her credit. Not a single false statement, yet all designed to lead to the wrong conclusion. Would it work on an audience of adults?

“Could we see your cutie mark?” Elaine asked. “Please?”

The room got deathly silent. “Daring Do is not the only pony to have a compass rose cutie mark,” the author stated, strangely calm. She carefully lifted her shawl, revealing her cutie mark: a quill in an ink pot. “But I am not one of them.”

What the… Meg had never seen—no, that’s not true. The very first time she met Daring, in the guise of her alter ego, she had thrown off the shawl and revealed the compass rose. Is this a body double? If so, she was an unbelievably well informed double; Meg hadn’t suspected a thing.

“Wow,” Joe said. “The cartoon got something wrong, big time—and this was season four, not five.”

“Is something wrong, Meg?” The question was innocent enough, but the way Yearling was holding her ears, directed to either side instead of towards her… Only another pony—or a human who has spent a lot of time as a pony—would catch how odd that was. It was a signal, a wink, meant just for her.

“Uh… no?” You have a lot of explaining to do. “Just surprised at how wrong that episode was, that’s all.” And you’d better hope no one thinks to ask Twilight or the others about it.

“Unfortunate, indeed. I suspect this won’t be the last time I’ll have to lift my shawl.”

“We’ll see what can be done to keep that to a minimum,” Andrew assured her.

“I wonder,” Yearling pondered, stroking her muzzle with a hoof. “Would keeping the mystery alive—was I or was I not Daring Do—would that help book sales?”


Rarity rolled up her measuring tape and placed it back in her saddlebag, along with a notepad full of measurements. She retrieved a sketchpad and presented it to Tirek. “I was provided with pictures of ancient Minoan attire. They came from frescos, which are all that survived to the present day. I adapted them to your current partially equine physique.”

Tirek flipped through the pages. “Ancient to them, perhaps…” He paused on one of them. “To me…” he said, as he studied the details more closely. “I do believe this one is based on fashions that came well after my time.” He presented the sketchpad back to Rarity. “But no matter. I quite like it.”

The fashionista earmarked the page and returned the sketchpad to a saddlebag. “I believe we are done for now.”

“I do seem to have made quite the impression,” Tirek said, turning back to Twilight. “They must be quite eager to have this ‘press conference.’”

There was no denying that. If the “narrative” didn’t change soon, and for the better, Daring Do was wasting her time planning an appearance at that brony convention. “And they can’t put you naked on worldwide television, so this will be Rarity’s top priority.”

“I’m certainly being paid well enough,” Rarity said with strained civility. Nor had she made even a token effort to refuse payment from the royal treasury.

“Would you rather I imprison you in a force bubble for old time’s sake?”

Rarity glared at the forced attempt at humor.

“How about we go all rainbows and stuff and, you know, zap you for old time’s sake?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You’re not helping, Dash.”

That provoked a laugh from Tirek. “Indeed! The time has past for us to be enemies. We could even work together.”

While it was true that she had no cause to battle a human Tirek living in the human realm, that was pushing it. “Work together?”

“We could collaborate on research.”

Against her better judgement, Twilight found herself playing along. “Like what?”

“Oh… consider the matter of languages. Imagine my surprise when I was able to converse with the human prisoners with whom I briefly shared this prison. They spoke nearly flawless Equish; they didn’t even have an accent!” His lips curled into a smile. “But surely you once felt that same surprise. Haven’t you wondered how that came to be, how it’s even possible?”

Of course she had wondered. Since Equish had been around for far longer than English, she first had assumed that inter-realm contact had transferred the language to the humans. But then she had learned that the evolution of English over the centuries was well documented. There was no room for Equestrian influence—and if there had been such influence, it would had to have been so recent and massive that it couldn’t possibly have escaped notice in either realm.

Rarity broke the silence. “I must confess I have, on occasion, wondered that myself.”

“Yeah, well, so what?” Rainbow Dash spat out. “Twilight has the smartest ponies in Equestria to help her. How can you top that?”

Tirek bore a cryptic smile. “I’ve been around a very long time. When I arrived here, nopony spoke anything resembling modern Equish.”

The implications sank in. Not even Celestia predated modern Equish. Discord, maybe, but he rarely cooperated in such matters and for this he’d made no exception. On the origins of Equish there was no written record. If Tirek had lived through its origins and development, that was huge. “I’m listening.”

“And I’ll be happy to fill you in—once I’m back on Earth.”