Daring wrung out her shirt, watching the water drip from the wet fabric. She stood aside an old, abandoned fishing shack in a sorry state of repair. She thought to sneak inside and stay low until the ship had left the harbor, but a quick push on the door told her that the shack was locked.
Tossing the shirt and her helmet into her equally-soaked bag, Daring decided to attempt to draw as little attention as possible and try to locate a safe place to hide for the time being. She set out in the direction of the town’s road.
Carpathia was a small country set between a mountain range and the sea, and populated by mostly ponies, though some Gryphons also shared the populace. They tended to live at higher elevations closer to the mountains. Daring was currently in some seaside village, which made most of its money by catching the fish that would then be sold to the Gryphons, who did not live by the sea yet desired fresh fish. It was one of the few examples of a community made up of Equines who fished for a living. Farther inland were large fields of corn, a vegetable native to Equestria that had spread to new continents through trade.
The town itself was actually rather large, and filled with an array of shops and restaurants. One such building served as a combination of a club and a bed and breakfast. There were pool tables and a piano set downstairs, while upstairs were rooms available for nightly rent.
Daring approached the manager, a spindly mare with spectacles who was currently polishing glasses at a bar.
“Name?”
“Dari- er, Daren Wrong.”
“Daren Wrong? That sounds like a stallion’s name,” said the pony with a disapproving glance.
“It was my parent’s choice... they were expecting a son, and they kept the name. Not much I can do about it now,” lied Daring. She heard something drop upstairs, and the mare behind the bar visibly winced.
“Let me check if we have a room available, Miss Wrong,” she said, “Don’t get into the drinks while I’m gone, I’ll be able to tell if you did.”
“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” admitted Daring truthfully. She sat herself down on an overstuffed sofa and waited for the mare to come back, idly flipping through the pages of a magazine placed on the coffee table. There was an article featured in one of them that was dedicated to the bidding for the International Games, like the Equestria Games but on a global scale. It was a big deal, and the games were to be held the following summer. The magazine declared “Gryphons Win Games Bid!”, with a black and white photograph of the Gryphon Emperor on the cover, standing at a podium in front of a massive crowd to make the announcement.
The mare came back down the stairs, motioning for Daring to follow. Daring met the pony at the bottom, and was handed a key.
“First door on the left, Ms. Do.”
Daring thanked her, and headed up the stairs. The first door on the left was painted red, and emblazoned with “No. 1” in black paint. Room one... she must have been the first customer. The fact that the manager had called her by her actual name did not sink in until Daring was already through the door, and face-to-face with the barrel of a pistol.
Another pony shut the door behind her, while the pony holding the gun grinned at her.
“I suggest you give the items you stole from our boat back to us, Dr. Do,” he said. Daring scoffed.
“Stole? They were mine in the first place.”
The pony pulled the trigger, but instead of going off, the gun only clicked. Daring smirked, only to be hit in the head with the weapon as if it were a club.
She fell to the floor, only to strike with her hooves at the legs of the unloaded gun toting pony, kicking them out from beneath him and causing him to fall. The other grabbed a wooden chair and attempted to smash it over her head, but Daring bucked backwards, catching him in the chest and causing the chair to drop onto his head.
In the moments she had, Daring ran across the small bedroom and smashed her way through the window, ignoring the painful cuts from broken bits of glass and landing in a heap on the ground, right on top of a small orange pony.
“Yeeouch, watch it lady!” cried the pony, who was a filly wearing some kind of newspony cap. Daring groaned. When the larger pony did not get up immediately, the little thief looked around to make sure nopony was watching, reached into Daring’s bag, and pulled out her wallet and journal.
“Hey!” Daring yelled, springing to her legs. The filly had darted away down the alley, taking a left. From the window, one of the two stallions produced an automatic rifle, and began firing down at the adventuress. Daring ducked down and took off, hearing bullets strike the bricks of the building on the other side of the alley in rapid succession. She rounded the corner, following the sprinting filly thief.
They ran through the city streets at breakneck pace. Daring could hear yelling and gunfire behind her, but she persisted. She could see the orange filly ahead, ducking and weaving through the crowd to escape. A sofa was being moved across the cobblestone street, and Daring was forced to leap up and over it, just as a shot rang out from the ponies pursuing her, tearing a chunk out of the mattress much to the owner’s fury.
Daring saw the filly round a corner, and she took the turn herself, coming to a dead end. the filly was trapped between Daring and a solid brick wall, and had her back up against it, panting and wide-eyed with terror.
“Alright, I give! Take your stupid stuff, just don’t shoot me!” she wailed, tossing the journal and Daring’s wallet back.
“I wasn’t shooting- it was the ponies chasing me!” Daring said quickly and hurriedly, “Kid, you know these streets, where can I hide?”
The filly cocked her head to one side. In the space of a few seconds she had gone from being chased and convinced she was about to be shot to being asked to help this adult pony. It wasn’t everyday she was asked for help.
“Ahhermm.... uh.... here,” she said, moving over to a bulkhead. She took a small tool out from under her cap, and fit it into the lock, snapping it open.
“Get inside.”
Daring and the filly scrambled down the stairs of the bulkhead quickly, swinging the doors closed above their heads. The filly shut the latch.
Outside, the stallions who had been chasing Daring down poked their noses around the corner into the alley.
“There’s no way out down here, she must’ve gone down a different side street,” said the other, “let’s go down there before she gives us the slip.”
They moved off down the cobblestone street, leaving the alley and the bulkhead behind.
****
“So where are we?” Daring asked quietly.
“Somepony’s house,” said the filly, listening, “I don’t hear anything upstairs, they must not be home. We can hide out here for a bit, lay low.”
They were inside a basement, which was dusty and dark. Cobwebs lined the supports and dirt covered the floors, but Daring was able to find a lantern that had a bit of fuel left inside of it on top of somepony’s woodworking bench. She lit it, allowing her to see the filly. She made sure that she made no threatening gestures, as she felt she might need the help of the kid.
The filly was young, and covered in scuffs and smudges. She had an unkempt quality, and Daring had a suspicion that she was a vagrant, and orphan turned out on the streets and forced to live as a thief to get by. She was short and scrappy, and had a blackish mane to match her orange coat. In the lantern’s light Daring could see that the filly had amber eyes, and wore a dirtied newspony cap over her shock of unwashed hair.
“Who are you?” the filly asked, wiping a trail of blood from her nose with the edge of her leg.
“Dr. Daring Do,” Daring said honestly, “I’m a professor in Canterlot, and an archaeologist.”
“What’s that?” the kid asked, sitting back on a wooden bench. She seemed a little more relaxed than before.
“An archaeologist?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Daring said, “That means I study history, ancient civilizations.”
“Huh?”
“Really, really old stuff.”
The filly smirked. She picked up a knife from the woodworking table, and began idly carving her name in the wooden bench.
“What’s your name?” Daring asked. The filly shrugged, not looking up from her masterpiece.
“Oh come on, I told you mine,” Daring said, “You’ve got to be square, right?”
“It sounds stupid,” the filly said, “after my parents... well, when I took to the streets a few years back, I stopped using my real name. I’ve forgotten what it was.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Daring offered, “What are you called?”
“Scootaround,” she replied, “Because I can scoot out of just about any sticky situation. They’re never gonna catch me.”
“How old are you, Scootaround?”
“Why should I tell you? Gonna write a book?”
“I’m only making conversation while we wait,” Daring scoffed, “If we’re going to be stuck together, we should at least be honest and open. I’m thirty four years old this September, currently thirty three.”
“You’re old. I’m only nine.”
Daring raised an eyebrow at that. Only nine years old, and being an experienced thief?
“Kid, er- Scootaround, why are you a thief? I mean, why did you want to take my stuff?” Daring asked, “I ask because I need your help. You seem to know this place like the back of your hoof. I’m a pony in a pickle.... those ponies, and a bunch more out there... they want to hunt me down.”
“Why?”
“Well, they broke into my room and stole my stuff. I think it’s got something to do with the item I’m supposed to be chasing down, they probably want to get me off their trail as well as taking all of my notes. Now they’re trying to find me because I killed some of their henchponies in a gunfight.”
“Wow,” whistled Scootaround. She seemed to be opening up, as she had put the knife down and listened to Daring a little more intently.
“I was around six or seven when my parents were... uh... they’re dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You don’t gotta be sorry, it’s not your fault,” Scootaround said.
“No, I mean I’m sorry that you had to go through that,” Daring replied, “It must be really hard to take such a loss at such a young age.”
“Tell me about it. Yeah, with nopony to take care of me, I figured I gotta take care of myself, you know? I’ve been stuck in this shitty place ever since, dyin’ to get out.”
“What language!”
“Eh, bite me,” Scootaround said, “I don’t have to listen to you. But look, I have a hideout that I can take you to if you promise not to rat me out, you hear?”
“I promise with Celestia as my witness.”
Scootaround’s ears perked up.
“Wait... say that again....” the filly said.
“I promise with Celestia as my witness,” repeated Daring. Scootaround smacked a hoof off the ground.
“You’re from Equestria! Y’know, the big place across the pond! Land o’ harmony, and all that jazz?”
“You could say that,” Daring nodded.
Scootaround peered about furtively, and grinned. She was hatching some kind of scheme.
“You want my help, right?” Scootaround asked. Daring nodded.
“Alright, I’ll make you a deal. If I help you shake these bozos and get whatever the thing is that you’re after, you have to take me back with you.”
“Are you kidding?” Daring said, rearing her head back, “There’s no way I can....”
“You want my help, or not?” Scootaround said with a raise of her brow.
“Alright,” Daring said after a brief pause to think, “but on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“I’m the big pony, and you’ve got to listen to me. If you want me to take you back to Equestria, you’ve got to prove to me that you’re gonna change. No being a potty mouth, no stealing, and when we get back to Equestria you’re sticking with me.”
“No way!” Scootaround jeered, “I’m not your kid!”
“Alright, I guess you can stay here then. I’m sure I can get by without your help, anyways.”
Scootaround opened her mouth, and shut it again. She sighed.
“FFffffine, you win.”