The sun was up, and Daring Do literally flew down the stairs, landing at the base. The bar was already empty, except for a stallion sleeping curled up on an ottoman and the barkeep poking him with a stick.
She turned to Daring. “Do you want to buy any breakfast? I’ll give it to you half-price, twenty bits per egg.”
“No time! We’ve got to catch a flight!”
“Flight? It’s sandstorm season, there’s no way--”
By the time she had finished, Daring Do was already out the door, her books left safely in her room but her journal filled with her notes at her side, along with Wun’s clothing.
Almost as soon as she exited into the early-morning sun, she heard a piercing scream. A young mare carrying a bucket in her magic ran by, terrified.
“It grabbed me! Oh sweet Ra’s slappable bum, it GRABBED ME!”
Daring stared, confused, and then looked to see exactly what she should have expected. Wun was standing there, brushing the sand from herself and chewing on something exceedingly crunchy. Something crunch that had long, insectoid legs sticking from her mouth.
“Did you just grab a filly?”
“It’s instinct,” said Wun, continuing to crunch. “When I was your age, father sent me to Kludgetown to see if I could find my way back. Sleeping in the sand kept you from getting stole. Plus, you learn to listen for the moisture beetles when they run by in the morning. That is how you prevent dehydration.” She slurped the legs into her mouth and swallowed. “However, the fauna is different here. Mostly camel spiders.”
Daring Do shivered. She disliked spiders, but at least they were not snakes.
“The trick is not to swallow them whole,” said Wun. “I have already learned something today.”
Daring Do shivered again and passed Wun her clothing. “So I take it you don’t need breakfast?”
Wun stared in the direction the young mare had run. “Well, it escaped.” Daring Do stared at her aghast, and Wun stared back. “That is a joke, Daring.”
“It’s hard to tell with you.”
“Yes. That is what makes it funny.” She took her clothing in her magic. “Now that you are rested--”
“The southern airfield,” said Daring Do, already taking flight. “I know, we need to get going!”
“Excited, I see. That is good. I am as well.” Wun dressed herself quickly and unfolded her parasol. “However, life is long. I have no need to rush.”
Daring Do rolled her eyes, because of course there was no NEED. But she had only grown more excited as she read through the texts and their descriptions of strange and ancient things, and as she lay sleepless she had envisioned all the artifacts she might find, fantasizing of incredible adventures in her head. Artifacts that would soon have a place in the Perr-Synt private museum, a monument to her ability and heroism.
She was sure that if given her level of excitement, she could fly all the way to the excavation site on her own.
“You have to be joking.”
The pilots laughed, one of them even falling off his chair and rolling under their shared table.
“Why not?” snapped Daring Do. “I could do it!”
The eldest of the pilots leaned forward in his chair. “You want to pull a cart, down that far? No. No you can’t. The atmosphere down there is nothing but storms. Every day, and every night. No jetstream, no clean path. A Pegasus can’t make it, a camel can’t walk it, nobody can go that far.”
“You can’t land either,” said another. Like the first, he wore the garb and glowpaz of a local. “The Red Desert has nothing in it. No water. And everywhere you land? Tazlewurms. Thousands of them. There’s more airships in that desert than there are submarines in the sky.”
“Relathor would beg to differ,” said another.
"Quiet, you."
“We paid to have the weather maintained,” snapped Wun, her normally cool demeanor growing strained in the growing heat.
“And look?” one of the pilots pointed upward. “It’s fine. But not out there. Nopony controls weather in the Red Desert. You can’t. That’s where the storms live.”
“Then we take the corsair,” said Daring Do, her own composure completely lost.
More laughter. Another pilot slid under the table. “That big fancy yacht? Something that big, you’re coxswain better be made of solid steel.”
One of the Pilots, a pale Pegaus, laughed along with the others—although seemed to remain more sympathetic. “You can’t get a big ship trough. It’s just too dangerous. And you can’t fly a cart, either. You need somebody who knows what they're doing.”
“And,” snapped the elder pilot, “nopony here is going to help you.”
“We paid in advance--”
“And pay doesn’t matter. Nopony here will help you. No one in the Association is willing to take the...risk.” He smiled at them. “Just go home. It’s all you can do now.”
“Unless you want to walk it,” laughed another. “Or, if you’d rather end it quickly, ask Cretin.”
He pointed to a hanger far from the others, one that was really more of barn. A barn that had almost entirely collapsed some time ago. This caused the entire group to erupt in gut-busting laughter, as if that were the most absurd thing they had ever heard.
“Come on, lads,” said the leader, standing up. “We have mail to deliver. A nice, reasonable use of our time.”
Still snickering, the group stood up, walking off to their own hangers and to their respective balloons and vehicles. Only the white Pegasus remained, himself standing and brushing himself off.
“Hey,” he said, approaching Daring Do. “I’m new here, so I don’t know all of it...but no one here is going to take you. It’s something between them. Nopony every goes south. It’s a rule. I’m really sorry. If it were a calmer season, maybe I could try...but the Association...”
“So you’re not going to help is what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying that you...well, don’t even try. None of us will take you. We can’t. It’s better that way. Whatever down there, they’re terrified of it. And it’s not the wurms. I didn’t even think there was something worse, but I guess there is.”
“Thanks for nothing, then.”
“Look, I’m just trying to help.” He sighed and started to turn away—but then stopped. “And, seriously, for the love of Celestia’s squishy tushy, don’t talk to Cretin. You seriously would have better luck walking.”
He waved, and then flew away to his own craft, a thin airship tethered to one of the smaller masts throughout the strip.
Daring sighed, and then swore.
“Horsefeathers! Son’s of horses who were daughters of DONKEYS!”
“Language, Daring.”
“You can suck a lemon, Wun, I’m not happy right now!”
“Do not tell me what to do. I will suck whatever I please.” She turned and started walking, leaving the shade of the outbuilding where the pilots had been having their morning tea.
“How did we get the crew there the last time?” asked Daring Do.
“They used a skiff. Privately crewed. It was not storm season then, I suppose.” She sighed. “I had assumed we would not need to take one again, seeing as we have only ourselves and no cargo. I seem to have miscalculated.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“I think that ought to be clear. Since they are ignorant fools, we do exactly the opposite of what they have suggested.”
Daring Do realized that they were headed toward the collapsed barn. She immediately had a bad feeling.
As soon as she opened the door, she should have known from the smell. The strange scent like sweet manuer. It was a smell she should have known. Now, as she looked at the body on the floor, she felt the urge to spill her oats. She turned away and retched.
Wun stood impassive, staring at the pony. “From the look of him, I would say he has been here for several weeks.”
“How can you just—oh Celestia—”
Wun pointed at the bottles covering the stallion. “It looks like he met his end by being crushed by those. We can only hope it was quick. Or else he would be trapped here, in this sweltering heat. Trapped. Unable to move.”
“Wun, just stop.” Daring Do stared at the still pony, and the flies swarming around him. “Should we...I don’t know, bury him?”
The pony suddenly sat up, the bottles clinking around him as his eyes opened. “For Celestia’s sake, if you sons of horses try to bury me in that anthill again--”
Daring Do squeaked in terror, and Wun fired off a bolt of magic, striking the pony in the chest with a surge of green magic and sending him skittering across the dirt floor and into a nearby wall.
“WUN!”
“I thought he was undead! I thought there was necromancy afoot!”
“None of that necro-romancing here!” snapped the stallion, barely managing to rise to his feet. He swayed severely, seeming to be largely supported by the flies surrounding him. He was an earth-pony, clad in an old bomber jacket. His coat was gray—probably—and when he looked at Wun, he also looked at Daring Do. Neither of his eyes faced the same direction.
“Who are you and where am I?” he demanded. He picked up a bottle of punch that had been sitting out for some time and drained it without even apparently swallowing. This only caused his swaying to increase. “And why is it hot? Did I not pay the AC bill again?” One of his eyes looked up. “Oh. Probably not. I don’t pay for anything. That’s what the government is for. That’s why I keep invoices.” He pointed to a pile of paper airplanes with muddled text written on them. “Then I fling them at the sun, because that’s where Celetia’s house is.”
Daring Do winced. “Are you Cretin?”
The pony stopped swaying, and his derped eyes narrowed. “What did you just call me? It’s not my fault I don’t have any iodine! Iodine is a government conspiracy! It derps us! That’s why there’s four of you right now, because iodine...that I drank...” He pointed to a pile of first aid supplies. The bandages were all still intact. The antiseptic was totally empty.
“Who you are does not matter much,” said Wun. “Can you fly?”
“Can I fly? Can I fly?!” He paused. “Can I fly?”
“Can you?” asked Daring Do.
“Of course I can fly! I’m a Pegasus, aren’t I?!”
Daring Do and Wun both looked at his back. There were no wings there.
“Um...but you have no wings.”
“Of course I don’t! Because I lost them in the WAR!” The pony began wobbling his way to the center of the hanger, where something was held under a stained tarp.
“You were in a war? Which one? The changeling rebellions?”
“Or the Assyrian border conflicts,” suggested Wun. “Or the griffon insurrection of 49, perhaps? Or the third Equestrian War?”
“What do I look like, a guy who can read?! I don’t know what any of those are!” He pointed to his back, nearly falling over in the process. “I lost them in the war with Nightmare Moon you idiots!”
Daring Do groaned, following after him. “First, Nightmare Moon isn’t real. She’s a mythological figure as part of the Celestine creation myth. Second, the MYTH of the war sets it one thousand years ago. And you’re not that old.”
“What do I look like, a guy who owns a calendar?!”
Wun pointed at the wall. A calendar about four years out of date—with a picture of a pale unicorn in nothing but socks—was hanging askew, pinned through the wall with a bayonet. Wings had been drawn on her back with crayon.
“Stop correcting me! I control reality, not you! Also, I ate that crayon, so you can’t change the picture now! It tasted like purple...”
He took the edge of the tarp and pulled it away, falling on his back in the process. As the tarp fell away, Daring Do understood that her bad feeling had been entirely correct.
Under the tarp was something that looked like it had once been a biplane. Whatever it was, now, though, could hardly be called a vehicle. It seemed to consist entirely of rust and tape, and even as Daring Do watched part of one of the wings fell off.
“I’ve been overturned!” cried Cretin, waving his feet in the air. “I am upset!”
Wun levitated him and flipped him over. Cretin immediately began to dog-paddle before he was set down.
“Does this thing actually fly?”
“Does Nightmare Moon drink moonshine?” Cretin approached what resembled the output to an electric dryer—or several—but that was apparently the engine. He lifted up a bottle of punch, drank half the contents, and poured the rest into the fuel tank. “Which direction are you going?”
“South.”
“South is a good direction. It’s like north, but the other way.”
“And you don’t have a problem with that?”
“No. I go south all the time. Or at least I wake up there. Near the freaky pyramid thing.”
Daring Do’s eyes lit up. “You’ve seen it?”
“I can’t see nothing! Never did, never will! Legally blind! What are you, the tax collector?”
He approached the door to the barn and pushed it. It fell off the rusted hinges and collapsed entirely. Then he walked back to the biplane and grasped the propeller, turning it sharply and throwing it downward. He collapsed under it, and Wun barely pulled him away in time for it to start rotating.
The engine sputtered and backfired, and then the propeller started turning on its own. It was the first time Daring Do had ever even seen a biplane that was not in a museum. She had hoped the experience would not be so terrifying.
“Hey, what do you know, no fire this time,” mused Cretin as he was set back down and nearly wobbled back into his own propeller before Wun pulled him away and placed him farther. This, though, placed him near more punch, which he promptly drank.
Wun looked at Daring Do, and Daring Do at Wun.
“You have wings,” said Wun. “You can eject if you need to. I can’t.”
“You want to get there, don’t you?” Daring Do put her hoof to her face and muttered to herself. “I can’t believe I’m saying this...”
Wun considered for a moment. “If it is the only way.” She looked to Cretin, who had once again become upset, his feet flailing in the air. “How much do you charge?”
“The spark plugs run on twelve volts, but I only ever use one-point-one because that’s the only voltage it darn well needs!”
“Do you eat paint chips or just drink it from the can?”
“You mix them together, like cereal!”
Wun sighed. “Well, at least I am sure he resists radiation. I say this is our best shot. Storm season will only grow greater. Our window grows narrow.”
Daring Do groaned. “Wun. You’re supposed to be the voice of reason and convince me not to do stupid things.”
“Since when have I ever done that?” Wun collapsed her parasol and began to climb into the rear seat of the biplane.
Daring Do sighed, and then, against all better judgment, found herself doing the same.