It's true what they say - like father, like son. Or in this case, like mother, like daughter. Interests are often passed down through family lines, becoming an almost hereditary trait and continuing throughout whatever family tree that may hold them. This is certainly true for the family line of Miss Daring Do, probably the most eminent active historian and archeologist known by anyone in all Equestria. Her hereditary traits include a natural curiosity, a talent and affinity for adventuring, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge which borders on the unreasonable. All of these traits were passed down from the legendary adventurer on the day her daughter was born; A healthy female Earth Pony.
Desert Dust was Daring's crowning achievement. The daughter she had always wanted to pass her love of archeology on to. After the untimely death of her husband only two days before the birth of their daughter, Dust was the main reason for Daring to keep on going. The thought of having someone so close to her who might one day share her interests meant that she was obliged not to give up. Her daughter saved her from the loss of her love, and that love which she had was poured into caring for the foal. Dust was brought up with history prominent in her life. Daring would take her daughter to work in the Manehattan Institute of Archeology, sitting her down on her desk as she studied grimy old tomes and ancient amulets of rusted metal. The filly showed a natural love for her surroundings, always wanting to flip through the pages of old tomes and stare at the pictures though she could not read the text. Admittedly, she managed to knock over a few priceless artifacts on her explorations of the office in which her mother worked, though none were broken, and only some were damaged. However, this cozy atmosphere of parent and child was soon shattered when Desert reached the age of seventeen.
Daring Do had set out on a quest to retrieve a certain rare artifact known only as the Cask of Undeath, leaving Desert Dust in the care of Mr Scrollwing, the curator of the Institute and a close, trusted friend. Unfortunately, the heroic mare had not returned and, after a patient year of waiting, she was declared officially missing. Dust was affected deeply by the loss, and continued to wait for her mother's return while studying archeology. She waited for another two whole years - long after the others had given up on her and decided on her unfortunate demise. By that point, the near-adult young mare had become almost a replica of her mother; curious, headstrong, bold, but also excelling in academic studies and archeological expertise. The keys to her mother's personal collections and her office had been bestowed upon her by the Institute in the hope that she would continue her mother's work. Desert Dust accepted, reasoning that if her mother was truly lost to the world, she should make her proud by being the archeologist she had been raised as. However, Dust would soon find out that her mother's line of work was not the safe, sometimes dull life she had once thought. The first clue to this was an item she first set eyes on upon opening the top drawer of her mother's desk. Within the wooden container, there lay a multitude of ragged old research papers, some photographs of archeological digs, a framed photograph of herself and her mother together, and.. A small, thin-walled wooden box. Pulling the tiny iron latch away with a hoof, she swung the lid of the box open. Inside, was a slightly beaten but sleek, black metal instrument. A pistol. On that day, she swore not to use her mother's rash methods, finding them to be crude and wrong.
A year later, however, this vow would be broken entirely.
"Dust.. Do you have a minute?" Scrollwing spoke out, poking his head around the door to Desert Dust's office. "Someone here wants to see you." Dust rose from her chair, setting down a particularly decayed tome on ancient Equestrian cultures. Now matured into a young adult, the dark mustard-cloured mare was incredibly alike to her mother. Her short, dark grey mane which was streaked with a single line of silver, reflected the noonday sun which shone through the window behind her, and her magenta eyes blazed with fevered curiosity. She adjusted her bow-tie, which was tucked into a shirt and jacket, and trotted out into the hall, narrowly squeezing past a huge stone vase propped up near the door.
"Who is it, sir?" She asked politely, her voice low due to her slightly introverted nature.
"One of our expeditions came across a crashed vehicle in the desert to the East of Sul-Menthar.. The desert city far from here, as I'm sure you're aware." Dust nodded promptly.
"Sul-Menthar, sixteenth city to be founded in the desert region of Tan. Erected in the fourth century by King Sarl, AKA 'Sarl the Just'." She followed this expert recital with a nervous laugh and a slight blush at her outgoing show of knowledge. Scrollwing simply smiled.
"Your studies are paying off well, I must say. Well, there was a wreck found in the desert East of the city, and.. Well, I'll let the visitor tell you the rest." He said, a look of some concern on his face. The pair turned into a vacant office, and met with the figure inside. He was a bulky, heavy-set Griffin, dressed in a business suit which was quite obviously not his usual attire. Dust assumed that this Griffin would rather suit a garb of adventurer's gear or combat attire. He introduced himself politely.
"Hello, Miss Dust. I'm Roughneck, commander of the expedition to Sul-Menthar's local desert in order to search for buried artifacts in the sand. As you probably know, relics from the past can quite easily be hidden in a forgotten antechamber or suchlike, lying right beneath your talons. Or hooves, of course." He smirked. " However, en route to the next dig site, we came across the wreckage of a long-crashed helicopter. Filled with supplies and some equipment. Unfortunately, we found this." He pulled a small leather-bound journal from his pocket, handing it to Dust. As her eyes met it, she immediately recognised the grimy brown leather cover, the makeshift metal latch holding it closed, and the pasted-on label on the front: 'PROPERTY OF DARING DO'.
"Some of your mother's exploration gear was found in a crate, which we're having transported to your office as we speak. Spare clothing, some collected artifacts, spare rope, and one item I'm sure you'll be pleased to see, her helmet." He smiled as best he could.
"And.. My mother? Was there a body?" Dust asked quietly. Roughneck sighed.
"I'm afraid no bodies were recovered at the crash site, Miss Dust. There is a strong possibility that her remains were taken by the desert fauna, though." At this prospect, Desert Dust's eyes welled with tears. She turned away, staring out of the nearby window to avoid showing her face as she wept silently. "I'm so sorry." The Griffin offered.
"Don't worry about it." Dust whispered, choked up. "I just need to go and see to that stuff you sent." She gave a weak smile to the explorer in the ill-fitting attire. "Thank you, though. I'm in your debt for this." She concluded, taking her mother's diary in a hoof and leaving the room. Scrollwing followed after her, thanking Roughneck on the way out into the hall.
"Dust, we don't know for sure that-"
"I don't want to hold onto that hope, Mr Scrollwing." She cut him off, stopping in her tracks and turning to face him. "She's gone. All I can do is remember her and move on with my life. That's what she would want me to do." Scrollwing took this in slowly, and finally gave a solemn nod. He stepped forward, wrapping Dust in a warm hug. Though this was unexpected, as Scrollwing had always been more of a stern father figure to her than anything else, Dust returned the gesture tenfold, sobbing silently into her last surviving guardian's shoulder as he comforted her.
The pale moonlight of the night sky shone down through the window of Desert Dust's office that evening, illuminating her desk and battling with the soft orange glow from the front grate of the old boiler which quietly rattled in the corner of the room. Desert Dust sat at her mother's old desk, staring into space and lost in happy memories of family. The days which she had spent studying with Daring, or watching her crack a thousand year-old cipher on some forgotten old vase. Dust gazed down at the leather journal on her desk, and then to the unopened crate on the grimy floor near her desk. Taking this opportunity, she hopped off her chair and, grabbing a crowbar from the nearest toolbox in her hoof, cracked the wooden box open with a quick stomp of the hoof. Lifting the lid away, the contents were revealed. As Roughneck had said, there were unworn shirts and trousers and boots, enough gear to last a month-long expedition. There were also some pieces of equipment such as spare water canteens, coiled ropes, medical kits, and binoculars. But nestled among it all, stowed in a battered old wooden hat-box, was the most important piece of kit. Daring Do's pith helmet. The hard-shelled helm was wrapped safely in a cloth, which Desert Dust unwrapped, taking the helmet out of the box and inspecting it. After a moment's hesitation, she raised the helmet over her head, and pressed it down gently. It fit perfectly.
"We really were alike." She mused, a glimmer of a smile on her lips as she adjusted the headgear and then flipped open her mother's journal. Immediately, a pile of grimy and yellowed papers fell to the desk, though Dust ignored these and continued to read the journal.
As the night wore on, she noticed the distinctive amount of research that had gone into the expedition for the Cask of Undeath. It would seem that the search for the Cask had been an obsession of her mother's for at least a good few years. It was a single scrawled note on the very back page of the journal which led Dust to the reason for Daring's obsessive need to procure this ancient artifact above all others. In a florid muzzle-written scrawl on the very last, slightly yellowed page of the diary was scribbled this short message;
'My love, we will be together again soon. I don't know how long it will take, and It may take many years indeed, but you and I and our daughter will be together again, as a family.. That's how it should be. I will bring us together, I promise.'
Reading this, and regarding a small photograph of the father she never knew brought a terrible sorrow down on Dust. She could feel a sinking depression in the pit of her stomach, thinking about the fact that her mother, one of the greatest heroes in all Equestria, may have become consumed by an obsession over someone who was already lost. It was a terrible thing to imagine, as she had always percieved her mother to be too strong to fall victim to any problem such as this. But now, she may have even met her demise in just such an obsessive search. At that moment, Scrollwing re-entered the office. Dust hurriedly shut the book over, dropping it down to the desk as she tried to dry the tears that had been forming on the brims of her eyes. Scrollwing sat down in a rickety old wooden chair at the far corner of the room, and ran his hoof over the surface of a bookcase.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He finally uttered, his eyes still staring into space. Dust stayed silent, peeling open her mother's diary again with a hoof.
"She was searching for something that meant a lot to her, and to me." She replied.
"I won't ask what, don't worry.. Though I have my ideas about what that might be." Dust looked down at the diary. Scribbled notes, additions to old manuscripts and ancient maps looked back up at her silently. Scrollwing continued. "But if you're having any thoughts about going after her, I'd strongly suggest not following them. For all we know, she went missing for some important reason.. One we shouldn't tamper with." Dust looked up at him, staring intently.
"Do you know how much she means to me, Mr Scrollwing? You may have looked after me for many years now.. You've been like a second father to me, and for that I thank you, but.. She raised me, taught me, and she shaped me into the mare I am today. Without her, I'm nothing." She said. Scrollwing lowered his head.
"I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?" He asked, a ghost of a smile on his face. She shook her head, and he lowered his again. "Then be careful, Dust. I've kept you safe for your mother up to now, and I don't want you throwing yourself into danger at every turn."
"I'll try to stay safe, sir." She replied, a tentative but genuine smile growing on her face.