Daring Do sighed. Rainbow Dash had, eventually, gone back to bed, as Daring Do had just confirmed, mainly by the positively thunderous snoring coming from the upper floors with such strength that Daring Do was sure the crystal walls were flexing. Aside from the bellowing snores, though, Rainbow Dash did actually look highly adorable while sleeping. Daring Do was not able to look at her without a pang of jealousy, knowing that she was not nearly as adorable, nor had she been for many years.
Her only consultation seemed to be that she had been able to convince Rainbow Dash that she actually knew what she was doing. Of course, nothing that she had said was a lie; in fact, the only lie was that she actually understood the majority of the text she had been given. Al’Hrabnaz’s books were not nearly as helpful as they had initially seemed; they were strange and unapproachable, often conflating language and mathematics in a way that was maddeningly unicorn. Daring Do had translated enough to understand that her goal was, in fact, the Hand of Doom, but her confidence in the rest had been something of an act. Most of the information still eluded her, even after a day of searching.
Making matters worse was the fact that she could not sleep. Her mind was racing, both from the translation and with the newfound knowledge that Caballeron was probably looking for the same artifact. Caballeron actually had a degree in advanced ancient linguistics; he would not need to waste time with dense and moldering tomes written by dark wizards.
Still, Rainbow Dash had been unusually perceptive, as she often seemed to be. Daring Do was loathe to admit it, but she also feared what dreams she might have. Dreams were rarely prophetic in general, and those that were had for the past seven years contained Princess Luna to give various types of advice. Still, Daring Do knew that some dreams could carry strange things. It was not unusual to have them in response to proximity to strange artifacts, especially powerful ones. The fact that she had already started having them when she was nowhere near the artifact in question was not a good sign.
The lights had dimmed when she returned to her makeshift office, and the room was flooded with pale blue light. It was as though the crystal sconces were trying to force her to rest. Despite their efforts, Daring Do had spent many a night reviewing similar texts by candlelight, the glow of fireflies, or in some cases the light of a waning gibbous moon as various unpleasant things stalked her through the brush.
As she moved to sit down in her chair, though, a sudden tapping caused her to jump with a start. She whirled around toward the window of the study, and to her horror saw a pair of yellow eyes staring from the darkness outside. She nearly screamed before she realized that they were attached to a dun mare who was hanging from the upper exterior sill.
Daring Do opened the window. The thestral smiled, and her fluffy ear twitched. Even in the dull glow of the crystal lanterns, her pupils had started to narrow into slits. This might have seemed threatening if her eyes were not otherwise facing two different directions.
“Night mail!” she said, gesturing toward a male sack. She reached in and produced a letter. Hesitantly, Daring Do took it. The thestral remained.
“Um…do I have to pay you?”
“No. Mail is a free service. But I take scones as tips. Do you have scones?”
“Um…no?”
The thestral’s expression fell. “Oh,” she said. “Never mind.”
She dropped away and vanished into the night, leaving Daring Do quite confused. In response, she closed the window and sealed both of its locks.
Only then was she able to turn her attention to the letter. It was quite ordinary in appearance. Too ordinary, in fact: the stamp it used was completely generic, and the address was simply stated as “Mrs. Daring Do”, scrawled in perfect block-printed capitals.
“It’s ‘Ms.’,” growled Daring Do as she pulled open the envelope. Inside was a single white page with no letterhead. It was blank, save for a single sentence written out in the same squareish, perfect block printing that the front text was written in. Daring Do read it and realized that she would be getting no sleep at all for some time. There had been a development in the situation.
It read simply: “Caballeron is currently in Singapone”.