//------------------------------//
// Mini Chapter 4: Traditions. 
// Story: Harmonic Gift From The Stars 
// by DTavs exe 
//------------------------------//

Late in the afternoon in Tenochtitlan Basin, Daring Do was washing her face in a bowl filled with water meanwhile Izzi was cooking something near their tent, the older mare approached Izzi trying to see what she was making.

“Come on Short Round, tell me what you are cooking.”

Izzi rolled her eyes at the nickname Daring gave her, “nope, you will need to wait, just a little bit.”

Daring finished drying her face with a towel and poked some more at the cook, “does it have to do with today's celebration?”

Izzi stopped mixing the flour and eggs for a second, but then continued, “how do you know about today's festivities Daring?”

Daring Do was brushing her mane, “I told you I know about Casquillian culture, that includes some of it’s festivities, like today is um, what do you call it? Diah deh lus Muertes? Or Day of the Dead.”

Izzi poured the mix on the frying pan with boiling oil, “gosh your pronunciation is awful, but yeah this is about the Dia de los Muertos.”

“Hey yours is not perfect either, so I guess we can get some coconuts and paint them like skulls and adorn the place with some streamers and the like.”

“What? What are you talking about Daring?”

Daring Do made some signs with her hooves, “you know, like you guys tend to celebrate this day with music and decorations and skulls and the like.”

Izzi realized what daring was talking about, “OH YEAH, I know what you mean, yeah that is actually how the ponies on the Mexitli region celebrate it, I am for the Custatlan region, those are two of the many regions in Los Casquillos, like Tierra de Plata, Cavalos, among others and everyone celebrates Dia de los Muertos in a different way, is just that Mexitli is one of the most visited region by tourists and the like.”

“Oh sorry, and how do you celebrate it, then?”

“Cuscatlan celebrates it in a more quiet way, we just travel to visit our family tombs, clean them if needed, make a flower offering and then return home and eat hojuelas, there is some sort of animosity between the ponies from Mexitli and the ones from Cuscatlan.” 

“Oh yeah, kinda like a feud?”

“Not really, we get along just fine with trading and most of stuff, but there is a rivalry between the tribes of each region, it’s silly it begun with the elders and everypony else just followed with the tradition, the families of each region always compete against the ones from the other region. It doesn’t help that Mexitli and Cuscatlan are the only regions consisting mostly of ponies.

Izzi presented the hojuelas to Daring Do, they didn’t look like much, just a thin layer of fried dough, “careful they are hot.”

Daring bit one of the hojuelas, “this doesn’t have much taste in it.”

Izzi giggled, “because you need to pour some of this caramel on them, here let me put some on yours.” 

The older mare bit again on it, “oh that’s much better, you are a great cook you know, you will make a fine wife someday.”

Izzi blushed at the compliment, she hit Daring on the shoulder, “stop it, you! You are starting to sound like my Mami, ’Mija ya estás grandecita, ya deberías pensar en sentar cabeza. cuando me vas traer nietos?’ no thanks mom... I kinda miss her, you know. This is the longest I’ve been far from home, even College happened to be really close to my home so I kept living with my family.” 

Daring moved closer to Izzi wrapping her on her wing, “you don’t regret coming here with me, do you?”

The younger pegasus shook her head, “no, no one bit, this is exactly what I needed, to go out and discover the world… Hey Daring.”

“Yeah?”

“When I present my dissertation, would you let me travel with you again?”

Daring Do fixed her hat, “sure Short Round, I would like that,” Izzi smiled at her words, “hay, if you keep cooking for me I’d even marry you hahaha!”

Izzi pushed Daring, “this was a good moment and you HAD to go ruin it, didn’t you? I’ll go wash the dishes.”

“Sorry kiddo, you make is too easy to tease you, besides how do you know I wasn't being serious?” Daring said winking.

Izzi stopped, turned her head to Daring and blew a raspberry at her, then continued her way to wash the dishes leaving Daring laughing her cutiemark off, “idiot” Izzi whispered with a blush on her face.