It’s the day of your big presentation, in front of all your peers!
This story is sorta a sequel to Hannah Hawes, Shop Assistant.
“At least we finally got out cushy hotel room,” you tell Daring Do.
“Aw, come on, Hannah. That box car wasn’t that bad.”
“Easy for you to say, you’ve got a fur coat.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you should keep a blanket in your bra.”
“Did you—” You pause for a second to consider. “I don’t think it’d fit. I’d wind up looking like Lara Croft.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s a fictional character, who inspired me to get into adventure archaeology. She’s got really big boobs. Made her popular with all the boys.” You stretch out on your bed and change the subject. “You ready for your presentation?”
“Ugh, no.” Daring sighs and flops on her back as well. “I don’t even know what to talk about. How the hay am I supposed to inspire other writers when all I do is write down what I’ve done? Change some names so nopony gets mad. Decide if I’m going to put in getting tied up again or not, because one reviewer said he thought that A.K. Yearling had a confinement fetish.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t think so. You were with me at the Andravidan Temple; did I look like I enjoyed being tied up?”
“Yeah, actually. You were kind of moaning.”
“I was not.”
“Squirming around on your seat.”
“That was to keep the ropes from being too tight. I wasn’t—ugh.”
“I’m just messing with you,” you say. “I wasn’t actually paying that much attention to you; I was looking around to see if there was a chance to overcome Dr. Callebron’s henchponies.”
Daring throws a pillow at you anyway, and you put it under your head so she can’t get it back. “You could talk about the basics.”
“Basics. Like, invest in a typewriter unless your mouthwriting is really good? Learn to spell?”
“I hope learning how to spell is obvious.” What would people want to know about the writing process? “How do you decide what to put in a story?”
“I dunno, if it seems interesting I include it. Otherwise I don’t.”
“Have you started working on a story with our raid on the Temple?”
She nodded.
“Am I in it?”
“Of course you’re in it. I couldn’t have done it without you. Nopony else would have been crazy enough to jump off the top of a temple and grab onto an airship.”
“Out of curiosity, what are you gonna call me?”
“Well, I don’t know much about human names, so I figured that I’d just spell your first name backwards.”
“Backwards?”
“Sure, nopony will know the difference.”
“Sounds reasonable. I wond—hey!” You roll over to face her, and she’s got her tongue stuck out, so you pull her pillow out from under your head and throw it back at her.
“Maybe I should just not give a speech.”
“You’re a guest of honor,” you tell her. “You pretty much have to.”
“I could just do question and answer for the whole thing. Find out what people really want to know, and then come up with something that sounds good. What would you want to know?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” you tell her. “I think that maybe when you tell your stories, it’s like you’re telling a friend at a bar or something, right?”
“Kinda, but my editor gets mad when I go on tangents. Speaking of telling stories at the bar, do you want to go down and have a drink? I hear that they have special ones for the convention.”
“Really?”
“Really really. I saw the sign when I came in. There’s one called the Marina that sounds pretty good.”
“A marina? Like where boats dock?”
“No, Marina like the orca-pony. Look, see how I’m moving my ear, that means it’s a name and not a thing.”
“Wait, you’re telling me that ear movement is how you tell names from nouns?”
“Yeah. In case you were wondering why I can never figure out if you’re talking about a pony or a piece of furniture.”
“You ponies are silly.” You stand up and Daring flies off her bed and lands on the floor. “Okay, but we’re not going to drink too much and we’re going to be sure that you’re ready for your speech, okay?”
“Yes, Banana.”
•••••
She’s up before you, pacing nervously around the hotel room like a caged animal. “I thought we talked this all out at the bar last night.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I can bring some rope, tie you to the chair, if you’d be more comfortable that way.”
That at least gets her to stop her pacing. “I’m being silly,” she decides.
“Yup.”
“I can do this.”
“You’re a brave adventurer. You’ve faced countless dangers.”
“Yeah.”
“Like Ahuizotl.”
“Did you know his real name is Fred?”
“What? Really?”
“No, not really. It’s actually Āhuitzotl. The only change I made to his name is dropping the macron over the a, since most ponies don’t speak Classical Nahuatl.”
“Back on topic, if you get nervous, just imagine that everyone in the audience is naked.” You stop and think about that for a moment. “Okay, well almost everyone in the audience will be. Except for me and the cosplayers. Huh.”
“That’s one of those human things, isn’t it? Imagining other people naked?”
“Yeah. Another one is break a leg, but that doesn’t seem like something you should say to a pony. What kinds of little pep talks do ponies have anyway?”
“Pain fades, glory lasts forever, and chicks dig scars.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. That’s from a human movie. But it’s good life advice.” She tips out a small packet of green coffee beans and begins nibbling on them. “You want some?”
“I prefer my coffee brewed.” The hotel doesn’t have little coffee makers in it. “But I guess when in Rome.”
They’re really bitter, but certainly wake you up. You’re going to have to remember to pack them in your adventure kit. After a handful you feel ready to wrestle a hydra. “Do you want me to make cue cards to hold up? In case you get lost?”
“Oh, that’s just what I need.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That was sarcasm. One ear a little bit back, and the other kinda angled.”
“I’ll be there for moral support. And to bop any bad guys.”
“I’m sure there won’t be any bad guys at the panel.”
•••••
Daring did start off a bit nervous. You’re not sure if anybody else on the panel picked it up, but you could tell. So you waited until she was looking right in your direction and pretended to start unbuttoning your shirt, and that was enough to get her back on track. Good thing, too, because you hadn’t brought any poster board to write an inspirational message on.
She still rushed through her presentation, but that didn’t matter because when she got to the question and answer section, ponies quickly filled the aisle. It was obvious that there wasn’t going to be time to get to all of them.
And they all felt like introducing themselves and giving a brief rundown of their work. You think that’s kind of rude; it cuts into everpony else’s question time, and not always necessary in order to answer a question about if you can write a good self-insert story.
Daring is starting to look a little bit overwhelmed, so you turn to a fresh page in your notebook and scribble in big letters FIRST DRINK IS ON ME and then hold it up until she nods and brightens a little bit.
•••••
“So how did I do?”
You’re both sitting at the bar. True to your word, you bought her her first drink. A Marina, named after the orca-pony, not the place where boats dock.
The drink is blue, roughly the same color as windshield washer fluid. Judging from your first sip, it’s also got about as much alcohol in it.
“You didn’t uninspire me from writing,” you tell her.
“Shame. I like my niche, and I’d hate it if other adventure archaeologists were crowding the market.”
“The good news is that I’d probably write about working at Jim Jam’s shop. Nopony wants to read another book about exploring a dangerous temple.”
“Or dangling from the nose of an airship while Dr. Callebron’s henchponies shoot arrows at you.”
“Exactly. Readers want something that’ll put them to sleep.” You swirl your drink around and take another sip. “I wonder why they named this after the orca-pony? Do you think it’s because it’s blue like the ocean?”
“Yeah, or maybe Marina’s drunk all the time.”
“Very much a possibility.” You take another sip of your drink. “So what are you doing next?”
“I was gonna go to the cosplay contest as myself, see how I do. What about you?”
“Go around the merch hall, see if I can find a Daring Do plushie. And then have you autograph it.”
She slaps you with a wing. “If you do that, so help me, I’ll commission a Hannah Hawes plushie, and I’ll make you sign it.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a deal.”
She sticks her tongue out at you, and you return the favor.