Daring looked at the shield she had hidden in their bags. She had picked it up in a bar fight with Zebrican cultists five years ago and that morning's escapade had hardly been the first time it had saved her life.
Understandably, Daring was quite opposed to letting it out of her grasp for the duration of their trip, but it was a bit too unusual to parade around in front of the other pasengers. Sealing the bag up, she dumped the supplies inside the captain’s wardrobe before turning back to her two companions.
Derpy seemed to approve of the Dazzler’s luxury bunks and was eagerly testing their springiness with joyful hops. There was an ominous crunching sound and Derpy halted her oscillations, trying to act as if nothing had happened. The blonde mare wisley decided to just gently rest on her haunches instead.
The bed imploded into sheets and splinters.
A grey hoof poked out of the pile, followed by a muffled sheepish voice.
“…….I’m okay!”
About then, Daring decided that any further sanity would hinge on her ability to ignore situations just like this.
Instead she turned her attention to their blustery benefactor Legs, who hadn’t given any notice to the ruined bed, as he was occupied with attempting to force his way into the fancy captain’s uniform. As he futilely tried to brush the knots out of his beard, daring wondered how he had got this job. After all, trying to make Legs look presentable was like trying to make a Cockatrice look adorable.
Having found a state somewhere between ‘Enraged hobo’ and ‘Singed wizard’ that he deemed acceptable, Legs made to address the room at large.
“Allright, stay put you two. As the captain, I have to go to some la-de-dah captain’s dinner with the prissiest guests, and I’d like be able to trust you won’t sink this tug while you’re out of my sight.”
“Yeaaaah…. That’s not gonna happen.”
Daring graced the old colt with a patronising glance.
“If we just stay in this room the entire trip, it’s only a matter of time before some crew or cleaning staff stumbles in here and starts asking questions.”
Daring pointed over to where a tangled Derpy was profoundly failing to navigate her way out of the bedsheets.
“And I’m fairly sure we could sink the tub from in here if Derpy tried hard enough. Keeping us in your sights is your best option, gramps.”
“I really hope you don’t mean…”
“If our only cover is to act like normal passengers, then I guess your taking us out to dinner.”
Legs struggled to find a way out of his current bind, but hit a logic wall and drew a blank.
Derpy struggled to find a way out of her current bind, but hit a physical wall and drew blood.
They both groaned.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This is so full of crap.”
Vinyl Scratch trotted down the metal steps of the crew corridors, irritated hoofsteps causing a resounding clanging to echo down the length of the staircase. Not content to merely vent her frustration with her body language, she also continually complained at the only volume she knew how to. That is to say, very loudly.
“I told those tools I wanted my rig set up before we left port, but is it? Nope.”
She raised her pitch in a whiny imitation of what is presumably a cruise organiser.
“Sorry Miss Scratch, health and safety protocols state that if our crew isn’t trained to assemble music equipment they are forbidden from doing so.”
The DJ flicked her two-toned electric-cobalt mane out of her face derisively.
“Pshh- as if! My turntable hasn’t caught on fire in months! Unsafe my flank...”
Vinyl trailed off into incoherent grumbling as she levitated a key towards a hatch near the bottom level of the ship. Her brow furrowing behind wicked purple goggles, Scratch swung open the cargo bay door and illuminated the dark hold as she sought out her musical machinery.
Vinyl made a beeline straight for where she remembered her crates being stored. Finding them, she proceeded to tear open the side of the crate and yank out the turntables with tugs of cyan magic.
You’d think that spending a lifetime playing music far too loud would have a detrimental impact on a pony’s hearing, but unfortunately for two stowaways, having a sound-based cutie mark gives you ears of steel.
An over the shoulder glance revealed a pair of young mares making a poor attempt at tip-toeing their way to the door. Vinyl cleared her throat loudly to get their attention and the pair froze on the spot. Hoof caught in cookie jar, they slowly turned to face the DJ.
“....This isn’t what it looks like.”
This came from the sky-blue Pegasus with the admittedly radical hair, her cute nerdish companion opting to hyperventilate instead. Scratch just grinned and shook her head.
“Chillax you two, we’ve all been there at some point.”
The purple one was decidedly shocked.
“We have?”
“Yeah, got totally salted one night with a hot mare, wake up some strange place with no memory of how you got there...... "
The musician stroked her chin thoughfully, reflecting on past events.
".......It's how I get most of my gigs actually.”
While Vinyl reconsidered if she was following the wisest course of employment, flustered embarrassment was adding itself to the list of emotions parading across the purple unicorn’s face. In contrast, the rainbow coloured one just chuckled nervously and threw her arm over the shoulder of her friend.
“Yeah, me and Twilight partied so hard even I forgot which one of us was the designated flier.”
‘Twilight’ elbowed her in the ribs and hissed in what was probably supposed to be an inaudible communication.
“Dash, don’t tell her my real name!”
Scratch, having also partied fairly hard the previous night, was nowhere near awake enough to deal with this kind of crap.
“All the same, I better go tell the captain about this.”
Faster than thought, the Pegasus was in front of her.
“No!”
Trying to think of an excuse, ‘Dash’ began to grin unconvincingly in a manner that would sound warning bells in the mind of any less hung-over pony than Vinyl was at that moment. Or indeed given her lifestyle choices, at most moments.
“….I mean, we had another friend with us and I need to find her!”
Scratch rubbed the base of her horn, feeling a headache coming on.
“You kidding me? I’ve gotta have this thing playing in the bar in 10 minutes, I don’t have time to-“
Then she hit the floor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Whoa, geez Twilight, what the hell?”
Dash stumbled back from the collapsed mare, who was now taking much needed nap courtesy of a magical lullaby.
“Well what did you expect me to do Dash, just let her go? She was going to tattle on us! And you’re the one who insisted we sneak on board, so don’t turn this on me!”
Vinyl mumbled something about ‘Rad skittles pony’ and rolled onto her side snoring.
“Is she.... Okay?”
“I just improvised an anaesthetic spell I learned for emergencies; she’ll be fine in a few hours. Now help me move her.”
The frazzled unicorn slipped her head under the DJ’s stomach, slightly lifting her off the ground and dislodging the signature shades from her face. As Dash moved in to help, she took note of Twilight’s snappy responses and short temper.
“If it’s getting you so worked up, you should just think of it like learning a lesson in going to extreme lengths to help out friends in trouble.”
Twilight did seem to clam down a bit, but gave Dash a snide glance.
“Something tells me that drugging an innocent pony and breaking onto a boat will be a lesson I won’t be able to ever tell the Princess about.”
Together, they hoisted the unconscious DJ onto their shoulders. She was heavier than she looked and she drooled into Dashie’s feathers a little, but they managed to hide her in their little crate alcove without too much trouble.
“Well that should keep her out of sight for a few hours, lets hope we can sneak up to top deck undetected in that time.”
In what could only be the start of a horrible chain of events, Rainbow Dash had an idea.
“Of course, this is perfect! Twilight, I need you to magic those turntables up to the bar right away!”
“What are you going on abou- oh no, there’s no way that’s going to work!”
Dash picked up The DJ’s discarded shades and applied them to her own features.
“I’ve got a gig to get to.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daring-Do had such a history of constant peril, she was actually kind of disappointed when her plan actually worked. The fancy dinner went off without a hitch and the two Pegasi were soon accepted into the niche of the wealthy and powerful.
Sadly, this also came with the crushing obligation to hang around after the meal and withstand the company of alternately dull, self absorbed or eccentric equines and their flunkies. And none present checked all those fisrt two boxes quite as heavily as his Royal highness Prince Blueblood. Though if he was also eccentric, that would have gone a long way towards making his presence sufferable.
"Well of course Auntie chose me to lead the diplomatic talks with the Gomoans, but can you imagine travling the whole way by chariot? I'd hardly make a good impression if I was jet-lagged and windswept now would I?"
The simpering entourage of nobles gave no objection, obviously.
'And I'm sure all those royal guards are quite thankfull for you vetoing in favour of this cruise, princey. It's only an extra day of watching you relax while their armor gets a taste of your aunt's heatwave, after all.'
For now though, the night had fallen- giving those many loyal soldiers were instead getting a taste of Luna's hospitality instead. As the prince continued to shove his head up his own flank, Derpy lightly nudged Daring with her muzzle and the explorer was only too happy to make her excuses and slip away. In a quieter corner of the hall, the disguised duo casually leant against a wall to talk.
“Uh... sis, about what Legs said earlier..... Are we putting other ponies in danger just by being here?”
Daring sucked in a deep breath and considered a response.
“Well in my line of work, there’s kind of a certainty of danger wherever you go. As for everypony around me... it won’t be as bad as last time.”
“How can you be sure?”
Daring pointed over to where Blueblood was doing an admirable job of providing useless ornamentation to the proceedings.
“As thick headed as he is, Blueblood is still a royal. Nopony would be willing to put him in the line of fire to get at us, because quite simply- There isn’t a soul on the planet so sure of their own abilities to risk pissing off that guy’s relatives.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From her vantage point above the skylight, Trixie considered whether it would be more dramatic to crush them under a chandelier, or just blow up the whole room.
It had been surprisingly easy for her to get up there, as the Green Star line had laid on the nautical theme thick by coating entire walls of the ship in entirely decorative rigging.
Trixie was absolutely determined to prove herself the better of that imbecilic griffon, and if that meant not allowing those wings to give it a vertical advantage, then arduous climbing was a small price to pay.
'Well now Trixie’s efforts have payed off! That fluffed-up pigeon will have to shove those words back down it’s beak if I take both of these ponies out before its even finished laughing!’
Yet Trixie continued to find herself stalling for considerations of the most theatrical murders she could inflict in the situation.
‘A lightning bolt? A Want-it-need-it spell to crush them under the weight of the crowd? Maybe just drown them in the punch?..... No, they don’t have punch at these kinds of parties…’
As time passed, Trixie realised she was just stalling for the sake of stalling.
‘What’s the matter with me? Trixie is master of every task presented to her, and that includes master of her own thoughts! Why am I so loath to succeed in this one?’
In a quantum leap on a par with the evolution of complex life, the invention of the wheel and the baking of the first Chimicherrychonga, Trixie’s brain made a previously unheard of advancement.
For the first time, the ex-showmare was forced to accept the fact that she might possibly…........improbably…............ infinitesimally…............be wrong about something.
The blue unicorn sagged with the weight of this new burden and reconsidered her stance.
‘Maybe the creature was right. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to kill somepony.’
In her life, Trixie had often been accused of not caring about anypony’s feelings but her own. Every time this had happened, Trixie had always taken great offense at the claims- The feelings of other ponies were incredibly important to her! Changing their lives for the better has always been the special talent…. neigh! The destiny of the Great and Powerful Trixie!
After all, she had dedicated her life to making sure that everypony she met showered her with the adoration she rightfully deserved!
This…..
This was just counter-productive.
No matter how dramatic or exciting she made their deaths, ponies would never adore her for being a hired killer. Which kinda sucked, considering she really, really needed the money.
‘If I let the monster take them down and just… try to ignore it’s boasting… Then I’ll still get paid. But it won’t take out all my debts, and next time I might not be able to avoid a job which involves murder…
.....And I might have to wear more ridiculous disguises too.’
Trixie stepped back from the skylight. Below, the two hunted ponies rejoined the party quite unawares of how close they came to extremely extravagant deaths.
‘Maybe there is another way for Trixie to get rich on this journey…’
A hatch clanged open on the outer deck, causing Trixie to press herself into the shadows of the roof as irksomely familiar voices drifted past.
“Can I point out that you have no experience whatsoever operating this equipment?”
“Twilight, you don’t get to be a DJ with technical knowhow or experience. It’s all about passion and artistry and… things.”
“You have no clue what you’re talking about do you?”
The second voice became agressively defensive, a state Trixie was quite familiar with taking.
“Hey, let me worry about this baby, you just focus on finding where she’s keeping the book.”
There was the sound of something heavy hitting the floor and the first voice, now angered, began to head back in the direction it came.
“Fine! In that case, you carry this thing to the bar!”
“Twilight!.... urgh.”
Presumably, the owner of the second voice began to heft the heavy object along the walkway, as there was now some grunting and scraping noises heading in that direction.
Trixie crawled her way to the edge of the roof and sure enough, had her fears confirmed as she spotted Twilight Sparkle re-entering the Dazzler’s inner corridors in a huff.
‘What is she doing here? And at a time like this?'
Though she would never admit it to anypony, Twilight Sparkle was one of the only ponies ever to earn Trixie’s respect- despite her obscenely humble façade. Being the most powerful unicorn in the world was a very lonely position to keep, so having a rival to compete for it was one of Trixie’s longest running dreams…. Right up until her little money problems that is.
Trixie grinned at the presented opportunity. If this book was so important to her of all ponies, then maybe it had some kind of powerful magic that could put Trixie back on the map!
‘Or at the least something equally valuable…’
Swinging over the edge, the azure unicorn began to descend the same way she climbed up.
‘It looks like Trixie’s luck is about to change!’
Shortly after, as she lay tangled in a heap of frayed ropes, Trixie wondered why she thought it was a good idea to put all her weight on something purely designed for decoration.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in the dining room, another misadventure was rearing to begin.
Having had enough of Blueblood's waffle, Daring and Derpy had traversed the fringes of the party, managing to keep up an apearance without actually having to talk to anypony. This small victory couldn't last however.
As if electrified, Derpy suddenly locked bolt upright and gasped. Before Daring could discern the cause, the peppy pegasus abandoned her decorum and zipped under Daring’s skirts. Through clenched teeth, Daring hissed as she struggled to remain balanced over the squirming pony.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Derpy poked her head out from under the dress and lowered her glasses long enough to fix Daring with a wonky, worried stare.
“Over there! I know those ponies!”
She flung a hoof in the direction of a bratish pink filly and a greasy stallion with a slicked-back mane and bushy eyebrows.
“Filthy rich and his Daughter, I crashed into their house last week! We can’t let them recognise me!”
In what was rapidly becoming a trend in their relationship, Daring groaned.
“Is there anything you don’t crash into?!”
“Hey, that time I had right of way!”
Reining in her annoyance, Daring flicked her head in the direction of the exit. Catching wind, Derpy ducked back into the elaborate folds of the evening gown as they made their escape.
The trial of the After Dinner Escape would later go down in history as one of Daring-Do’s most arduous achievements, one that took all of her skill and dexterity, honed by uncountable deathtraps and narrow escapes. This is because quite simply, trying to synchronise your steps with a crawling Derpy Hooves trapped under your dress is a lot like trying to play Twister with an enraged octopus.
Despite having trodden on Derpy’s legs 12 times, her tail 3 times, her face at least 6 times, and at one point what Daring could have sworn was a bucket of chocolate pudding, they managed to make it to the door.
As they slipped out into the corridor, Daring gave out a pronounced sigh of relief and exhaustion. Derpy on the other hand, made a noise that sounded to Daring a lot like somepony whimpering as they sucked on aching, swollen limbs.
Daring wiped a curtain of sweat from her forehead; the mental and physical excursion combined with the thick expensive dress was making her sweat up a storm. Her temperature was certainly not assisted by having another source of body heat curled up between her legs.
Daring was so sweltering, she was unable hear the near silent hoofsteps approaching from behind. Daring flinched as she felt the touch of cold steel on the back of her neck. Suddenly, her sweating wasn’t just because of the dress.
A low, even voice spoke softly into her ear as she felt a powerful wing drape itself over her back and hold the two ponies close together in a perverse hug.
“Don’t try to run, just start walking. Slowly.”
Daring gulped and complied with her kidnapper, cursing her own inattention.
“That’s it; we’re just a pair of friends leaving a party together for a drink.”
As Daring began to shuffle away from the lights out onto the dark outer walkways of the boat, she could feel Derpy nervously shift to accommodate. If her kidnapper saw any sign of the complex dance of limbs going on under the fabric, they said nothing to acknowledge it.
Now a fair distance from any hope of help, the hostage slowed to a halt and tried to think of a way out of this that didn’t involve getting a neck-based incision. No such luck, as her ‘friend’ began to speak again.
“Daring, if you honestly thought that you and your friend could board this boat without my detection you must be losing your touch. Now you have no hope of escaping me any longer.”
Being a never-say-die sort of mare, Daring cut her losses and rammed her wing into the ribs of her attacker before trying to pull away from her.
“Derpy, run!”
As if shot from a cannon, a grey blur blasted out from under the dress, ricocheted off a wall, broke three floorboards, tripped over a deck chair and fell down a flight of stairs faster than you can say ‘collateral damage’.
Grateful though she was at Derpy’s escape, Daring wasn’t about to get the same favour as with a fluid movement, she found her arms twisted behind her back and face pinned to the floor.
“Daring-Do, as an official representative of her majesty, I’m placing you under arrest on charges of concealing your identity to spy on a Royal Prince, suspicion of illegal activities based on past tendencies to break the law, and for avoiding me for two whole years without a chance to thank you for saving my sorry flank.”
Daring stopped struggling; brain freezing for a moment in sheer disbelief, before it decided that yes, that this pony really was that much of an ass. Her captor gave a chuckle at Daring’s exaggerated eye-roll and loosened her grip.
Daring broke free and turned around with a mixture of amusement, relief, and anger. In an aggressive, drawn out tone, Daring growled back a response.
“Spiiitfiiire…”
The Wonderbolt smiled innocently, eyes alight with mischief. Even more annoying, the ‘blade’ she was threatened with turned out to be a spoon Spitfire had picked up from the dinner table. Ever the Wonderbolt poster-mare, she replied in as sweet a goody-two shoes voice imaginable.
“Yes Daring?”
“I’ll smash your face in for that.”
Spitfire just grinned.