//------------------------------// // Revelations // Story: Daring Do and the Daughter of Heroes // by Commando-Scarecrow //------------------------------// As the cyan face of Rainbow Dash left the muzzle of Daring Do in the hills above the forest, and outside the death trap of a temple, the aging adventurer's heart began to break. It was nothing romantic; she knew that much from when she used to 'experiment' back in college thirty years ago. It wasn't out of solid friendship or respect, either. No, Daring Do knew more than enough about herself to know that her particularly abrasive and and arrogant personality type meant that she couldn't make friends that fast. Even if the young mare of exactly 19 years, six months and 13 days was her biggest fan. She never let anyone come that close. No one except her family, most of whom were long since dead. No; Daring Do's heart was breaking, shattering, and splintering into pieces that could very well fit through eye of a middle, and whatever else was smaller. As the mare with the rainbow mane let go of the mare she sought to emulate and flew off with her friends into the veridian horizon, Daring Do realized an awful mistake she made all those years ago. Rainbow Dash was her daughter, and now, after 19 and a half years, she saw her all grown up, her biggest fan and a heroine in her own right. As Daring Do’s tan hooves made soft contact with the grass and as her body ached, she wiped a single tear away from her violet eyes. She realized ,now, for the first time in ages, she'd been living her life far and away from anyone that might have cared about her. Her daughter's friends walked, and flew, away off into the green of the forest and off into the horizon, while Daring Do, adventurer extraordinaire whispered to herself: "It’s time to make things right." So she flew back to her home, which was still ransacked by the thugs, including that admittedly suave gentlecolt, and looked through all of her stuff. That's all it really was: stuff, things, and junk that her home insurance could have easily enough replaced if she ever had the inclination. It was then that the archeologist went up stairs and saw that, surprise, surprise, it had also been pillaged. Again though, it was nothing a weekend off work to spring cleaning couldn't fix. Moving like a ghost through her empty home, passing by her antique redwood bed and it's brown comforter, blanket, and white sheets. They were thrown asunder by the stallions that had invaded her home, the broken glass and a few brass and bronze trinkets, not really worth enough to donate to a museum or university littered the floor. She finally saw her dresser. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward and Daring Do, master of the worlds history, began to take the first steps she took in confronting her own past. Her hooves passed over her old khaki clothing, most of them were the exact same shirt, though all having different holes in them from the constant action she used to see. When her “going out into the field” was more than just an occasionally thing. Some of the wooden handles were broken, but again, nothing too serious. But as she opened the middle drawer of the small dresser and dug deep into the back, Daring Do set her hat down. Her body soon followed as memories flooded back, from over 19 years ago. Held her tan hooves was Rainbow Dash's baby picture. It was taken only fifteen minutes after she'd been born. Daring Do couldn't help but smile at her little filly's sleeping face as she was laid in her Mother’s arms for the very first time. She noticed her rainbow mane, something both Rainbow Dash and the father of the mare had, and she remembered the violet eyes, same as hers. She tan coated mare let out a long sigh as she realized that, not only had she cheated herself out of watching Rainbow Dash grow up into the young mare she is today, but she cheated her out of ever knowing her mother outside of her novels. Even during that she was under the ridiculous pen name of A.K. Yearling. That was when Daring Do, adventurer extraordinaire, raised her flank from the hard wood floor of her forest hideaway. There was something that she needed to fix, and darn it if she wasn't going to take care of that business. She got up and tucked away the small photo into her shirt pocket and, for the first time in a long while, she decided to leave her home and go into public society without any disguise. "When I meet my little girl," she began with resolve as strong as steel, "It's going to be as I really am. No disguises or anything," but first, there was anything she had take care of and another pony she needed to meet. Looking up to the sunset with real purpose for the first time in ages, she spread her tan wings and took flight. It was time to meet her baby's daddy. ... She took a deep breath and she took off her signature hat. There were dozens of ponies around her that stopped and stared at the seemingly fictional character come to life, and she was next to them as well. Daring Do smiled as she heard maybe five foals stop and tell their parents that Daring Do was there. Daring Do, just like the character from the books and the movies. There was even a little filly that walked up to her, maybe seven years old and staring in awe of the woman of fifty. She looked up to the Master of History with big, blue eyes and a red mane that blew in the wind. "Excuse me? Miss Lady?" She asked up, her mouth missing a few teeth, "But are you weally her?" Daring Do smiled, deciding to play a game with the filly, "Who do you mean?" "Are you weally her?" said the little girl, clutching a Wonderbolt plushy for dear life, "Dawing Do, I mean," the small girl with the scarlet hair pointed to a group of little colts that couldn't have been more than a year older than her, tops. "Those ovah thuh said you wunt." The older mare knelt over and put her hoof on the little filly’s shoulder, bearing a small smirk that would have been impossible to stop. "Actually, Kid?" She said with a smile, "That's exactly who I am. Daring Do, Famed Adventuress" The little red headed filly's face lit up like a tree on Hearth's Warming eve, "So ah you on the hint foh sum kind'a tweasuh?" she asked, her heart evidently skipping a beat as her voice jumped an octave. "Like a giant saphouh? "You know what, little girl?" She looked the filly over, the unblocked sunshine hitting her right in her big blue eyes, and her mane healthy enough to even reflect a little bit of sunlight off of Daring Do's tired and aged face. She felt regret that she'd missed that part of Rainbow Dash's life. It was something that she felt that she cheated her and her daughter out of "That's exactly why I'm up here in Cloudsdale." "Is it a big tweasah?" Daring Do had to fight back some emotions as she spoke next: "Yeah. You might say that." "How big?" As Daring Do rose up to the sound of hooves hitting the hardened clouds of a home she hadn't seen in years, she gave the little filly one last answer. "The treasure is going to be the biggest and most precious I'll ever find." It was the truth, too. "I'm coming!" She heard the voice as his hooves hit the floor of his home amongst the heavens. This is it, Daring Do began thinking as the little filly just stood there, now in awe of what she thought to be nothing more than a fictional pony from a story book and a popular movie series. She took the deepest breath of her life, taking in the pure and untainted air of Cloudsdale City, the unofficial capital of the pegasus tribe. It was the exact opposite of when she left her daughter here without- No, she told herself. You lost the right to call her yours when you left her here, on the porch of her father's place. You don't get to call yourself her mother until, or if, she accepts you back into her life. The door slowly opened, leaving not even a screech as clouds doors generally did, and she saw the stallion that her daught- Rainbow Dash. And she saw him in all of his splendor. "Sorry I took so long," he explained as the door finished opening, revealing a ghost from his past. "There was a spill and I-" He was stopped dead in his tracks as he looked at the mare, a few years his senior in his doorway. Time almost stood still as he saw his one time lover standing in the threshold of his home, grey mane and all. "Daring? What are you-" The archeologist moved her hand up, motioning for him to stop talking. "Rainbow," she called his first name plainly. "We need to talk," she held her hat close to her chest. "May I come in?" "Um, yeah," he answered back, unsure of what was going on, but having a fairly good idea of what, or more precisely, who, this was about. "Come on in, Daring. Are you thirsty? I made up a fresh pot of coffee just a few minutes ago if you want." That was when she realized just how exhausted she was. Daring Do hadn't resting since before Rainbow Dash came back into her life over 24 hours ago. "Please," she answered back with a small amount of desperation entering her voice. "Well then," he turned around. "Follow me, I guess," and she did. She made her way into the rather nicely sized home, seeing how well he'd done for himself since he was just a dumb undergrad kid from the University of Canterlot. It was still the same house he lived in then, too, only it was obvious that the old residents had moved on, and judging from the recent looking photos, Rainbow Blitz still had his folks around, which was nice, she thought. Daring Do realized, at least now, how important family could be. That was when she heard his hooves on the clouds once again, carrying the two cups of coffee on his off purplish or bluish wings and setting them down on a coffee table in front of the sofa she's taken to sitting to. "Hazelnut," he threw out there as she began to take a small sip from the warm beverage, forgetting how cold it got up in the cloud city. "So..." "So..." Daring responded with an equal measure of awkwardness. "Listen," she demanded. "You probably know why I'm here." The rainbow maned stallion smiled. "You ran into Rainbow Dash, didn't you?" She furrowed her brow at that, "How did you-" "Lucky guess," he answered before she could finish, closing his eyes as he sipped some more of his coffee. "She wrote me letters about how she was 'so into' the Daring Do novels. Then I heard about how the next novel was delayed and I knew for a fact that little Dashie would go off searching for the author and try and force her to finish," he let out a small chuckle. "I wouldn't have been at all surprised if she broke your wings, tied you up in her basement and forced you to write novels just for her." "You know her that well, huh?" She asked, feeling a little guilt now. "Well," he set his coffee down. "When you're a single parent for half of your daughter's life, you tend you get to know them pretty well, Daring," he was trying to lay the guilt on extra thick this time and she felt every last bit of it. She knew that she had it coming, though. She'd left her on a doorstep when she was just a week old, after all. Still, Daring Do never remembered Blitz being this bitter. "I'm sorry," she said meekly, looking around to see all the photos scattered around the room. Even pushing fifty years old, Daring Do's eyesight was still as keen and as sharp as it ever was, and even from the sofa, she could see a few pictures of Rainbow Dash on a swing set, one of her getting her GED, and even a small shrine in the side of the room adorned with maybe a dozen blue ribbons with maybe only two or three red. "You should have seen her when she started school," he said, letting a small chuckle out, using his wing to lift a small framed picture from the coffee table and handing it to Daring. There was a cyan filly with a big black eye standing triumphantly over a few other kids twice her her size. "She got into that scrap when she was nine years old. A few other foals were picking on a yellow filly. Kind of reminded me of you like that," then he looked at her. "Only, you know, she stuck around." "I don't know what to-" "Say?" He finished he agreed. "Good, then you can listen instead. You left your daughter, Daring. Do you have any idea what it was like?" She braced herself, knowing full well that this was coming and that she deserved every last bit of it. "Hearing your little girl ask once every few weeks 'when's mommy coming home?' and then having to say, with a straight face mind you, 'I don't know'?" The archeologist just drank it all in: the blame, the guilt and the regret all at once into an emotional cock tale that she, under any other circumstance, would have found utterly repugnant and pathetic. "I mean," she wanted to cut him off, but didn't. Daring knew that he'd been preparing this speech for a very long time. "I mean, good night, Daring! You were a full grown mare! You could have gotten a job at any museum or university in the world!" He was standing up at this point, yelling at her while her head was down. "I mean, you never had to come home and be a stay at home mom, but you," he sat back down. "Darn it, Daring. Why would you leave your own little girl like that!? No letters or birthday cards. Not even a phone call or even any support to help pay for her food or clothes," he looked back to her, with ten years of being a single dad still showing on his face. "So what makes you think you even deserve to know about her at all? I mean, she's read everything that you've done, right?" He got up and walked over to a book shelf on the far side of the room, one shelf in particular housing each and everyone of her novelized adventures, gifted to him by his little girl over a year ago. He then began to list them off. "Daring Do and the Golden Trumpet, Daring Do and the Topaz Tome, Daring to and Ruby, bucking, Carbuncle! And I know you must have read about her helping stop to Nightmare Moon, King Sombra and Discord, along with being a Wonder Bolts recruit, so you two should be about even! So tell me, Daring..." he looked her straight in the eye while she was barely able to look her back. "What do you think gives you the right to see her again?" "Why do you think I'm here, Blitz?" She began to explain. "She just crashed into my life from out of nowhere and now I want," a tear began to flow from her eye, followed by another. "I want to see my- get to know the kid," she tried to wipe them from her face as they continued to flow. "You got to see her grow up. You were there when she first flew... you got to threaten her first boyfriend, I just... do you even know how lucky you were? To see her grow up and become-" "You?" He insinuated as he saw her breaking before his hazel eyes. It seemed as if a flood gate had been opened of tears had been opened as she began to weep all over the photo of her daughter standing atop a pile of bodies, bloody nose and all. "I know I'll probably never get the right to call her my daughter, but I just... after so many years of just living for myself, of just writing those darn books, can't you just tell me where she lives to I can see her?!" Rainbow Blitz was taken aback by her sincerity. All of that anger, and rage, all of that disappointment that had built up over almost twenty years of Rainbow Dash never knowing her real mother through anything other than the Daring Do books seemed to melt away as he saw her. Daring Do, for the first time in Celestia knows how long, had finally been defeated, and it wasn't by any unholy amalgam monster, it's strike team of predators or a rich guy and his thugs that did it. Rainbow Blitz saw Daring Do broken and weakened, her strength melted away due to the one desire to meet and tell her one, lasting legacy that she was sorry and that she wanted to start over. "Darn it," he muttered under his breath as he took her in his arms and wings, feeling her warm tears and her hot breath on his chest, well rounded from years of hard work trying to support their kid. "It's... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..." he cut himself off because they both knew that she'd deserved it and a lot more than that. "I'll... I'll tell you where she is." "You don't..." she tried to decline, but Princess Celestia had kept a surprisingly good grasp on keeping the exact whereabouts of the elements of harmony secret, given the circumstances. "I mean, thanks, Blitz." "Don't..." he pat her on the head. "Don't worry about it, Daring. Just remember, she might take it differently seeing you as her mother for the first time. I'm not saying she'll automatically hate you, but remember that this is the first time," he looked down to see that she'd fallen asleep on him. "Great," he muttered as he tried to think of a way to move but couldn't. So they both just laid there, on a couch in the clouds. He knew his wife wouldn't be home for a while still, but he didn't think that Firefly would really mind. Not once he explained, at least. He took one last sip of his coffee before joining her in the bliss of slumber. His daughter's life would be changed soon enough, though. He knew that much. ... It wasn't until it was dark when Daring Do woke up on the couch of her child's father, with a blanket on top of her and a pillow underneath her head and everything. It was dark in the house, too, so Rainbow Blitz and whoever the mare was that he married were long since asleep up in the master bedroom of the two story house. She had to admit that Rainbow Blitz had done very well for himself, considering how she left a little kid on the doorstep of what had at the time been his parent's home. And, even though she found him on one of her adventures purely by him following her into the wild, she had to admit that he'd done a great job providing for his little girl. As she wiped the sand from her eyes, she saw that in front of her had been a small box lunch. She had to admit that she was starving, so she just dug right in, eating the through the apples and the celery a couple of day old biscuits like it was five star cuisine and taking a drink of the lukewarm coffee that had been in the enchanted thermos. Daring Do honestly had no idea why Blitz had suddenly decided to change his mind, but it was probably all that bawling she did in front of him. She couldn't help but feel some level of disgust at herself as well. For so long, she'd been strong and she would never let anything really get to her. Maybe she just preferred to work out all of her weaker emotions with violence and action, but for the first time in so long, the archaeologist was being confronted by her own history. She couldn't help but laugh at the bitter irony that life had presented in front of her, but she chose not to dwell on it, at least not now. There was still a confession to be made, after all, and as she walked through the dark house in the middle the night, and as she opened up the door to the outside, looking upon the thousands of stars and feeling the cold of the night brushing past her once rainbow mane, Daring Do knew that would make things right, or at least try. She spread her tan wings and took off, taking the near 30 mile flight all the way to Ponyville. While she had flown greater distances in her youth, as the cold night air sent shivers down her spine, Daring Do knew that this was the longest flight she had ever, or will ever have taken. She went over in her head again and again what she would say to Rainbow Dash upon meeting her. After all this time, though, it wasn't like I could just say 'Hey', the older mare thought to herself. Sorry for leaving you on your father's doorstep when you just a baby! Think we can still be friends? Daring Do knew the risks, alright. She knew that being her hero and idol she looked up to was one thing. As a symbol, Rainbow Dash could try and strive for to be like her. She wasn’t real to her before, and that was one thing, but this? Dropping a bombshell like 'Oh hey, I'm your mom' was a different monster all together. As her hooves hit the emerald grass, wet with dew, an enormous knotted seized her stomach as she looked up to Rainbow Dash's home in the heavens, large for just a 19 year old mare. It was late, though, so despite her desire to just see this through to conclusion, Daring just stopped and took some time to think about what her move was going to be. Daring Do needed to think this through to every last possible conclusion. So, in the interim of the facing off with the greatest challenge of her forty two long years, Daring Do, master historian and archaeologist, adventurer supreme and now mother, stared up at a full moon, it's silver light reflecting off of her amethyst eyes, she just waited. She waited for hours, going through and shuffling past every last possibility, the uncertainty and the lack of faith in her mind eating away at her very mind and soul, unable to think clearly through the early, sunless Ponyville morning until finally, there was a bright light. The sun peaked over the horizon and Rainbow Dash left to go off to work with the weather team. Daring Do trailed her for the entire way she went to work, moving under the cover of the cumuli nimbus clouds and staying with the sun at her back to make sure that, on the off chance that Rainbow Dash did see someone trailing her, she wouldn't be able to tell that it was Daring. Finally, she stopped and began her job of directing the other weather pegasi and making sure that they did their jobs right, although by and large Daring had to assume that a jasmine maned mare had to be the assistant manager, judging by the fact that she seemed to wield just as much authority as Rainbow Dash herself. The historian took a deep breath as she took off her hat and puffed out her chest. She was tired from staying up all night with nothing to do to keep her occupied. Slowly, but surely, she flapped her wings as she stood upon a cloud just above where Rainbow Dash was hovering. With a deep breath and a voice filled with faux confidence, she finally spoke up. "Hey, Rainbow Dash. We need to talk." There was some brief hesitation before she turned around, but by the time she did so, the rainbow maned mare turned bearing a smile bigger than Daring Do had ever seen in her life. In an instant, the younger mare not even out of her teens flew fast as she could to give her senior a great hug. "Daring!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. "What are you doing here? I thought you had to work on that book for me... I mean," she let out an awkward laugh. "For all of your adoring fans out there!" "Yeah, I did, but this..." she paused looking down and kicking the cloud. "This is more important. Do you think we can... talk? Alone, I mean?" Rainbow Dash's smile faded just a little bit, but she agreed none the less. "Yeah, okay. Hey, Raindrops!" She called out to an off yellow mare. "You think you can take things from here for a little bit?! I need to talk to someone about a thing!" She let out an irritated sigh. "Sure! Why not!" "Awesome!" the blue mare shouted back. Rainbow Dash then looked back to Daring Do. "Alright, Boss. Where were you wanting to go?" She just shrugged. "You know this town better than I do," Daring admitted to her younger counterpart. "Why don't you decide?" "Killer!" Rainbow exclaimed, now happy as a clam. "I know this little bakery/cafe thing on the other side of town. They opened a few minutes ago, so we should be fine. It's called 'Sugar Cube Corner, and I just know you'll love it as much as everypony in town does!" "Yeah," Daring agreed as she followed Rainbow Dash back down to the earth. "That sounds nice." The two of them walked through the town, just now starting to see other ponies, and an odd mule here and there, out and about, setting up their fruits and veggies stands and most of them wearing a light coat or jacket of some sort. Daring Do never cared for the cold, really. It was one of the reasons she preferred her house on the ground, where she could keep warm easier, as well as be surrounded by her precious antiques, relics of gone by eras that didn't really seem to matter that much now that she was looking at her offspring, a relic of her own past resurgent. There was still a few ponies staring at her for Daring's apparent resemblance to her the once thought fictional character from the books and movies, but there weren't any kids to have the courage to call her out on it this time, so she was left in peace. As Rainbow Dash opened the vibrant, hot pink door, a bell sounded off, followed immediately by Rainbow Dash herself. "Yo! Pinkie! Are you in here!? I got-" "Helloooo, Rainbow Dash!" An even more vibrant pink mare showed up, having the disposition of a child on Hearth's Warming eve. "What brings you here so-" She let out a gasp. "Is that Daring Do?! In my bakery! THISISTHECOOLESTTHINGEVERANDICAN'TBELIE-" A blue hoof then entered the mouth of the earth pony. "Easy there, Pinkie," Rainbow said with a chuckle. "It is way too early for this kind'a thing, you know?" Before the hoof left her mouth, she nodded her head. "Mhmm!" she squeaked as the hoof was removed. "I'll be sure to keep it quiet!" The pink pony whispered. "Thank you," Daring responded as she followed Rainbow Dash to their seats. "So..." Rainbow Dash began with an ear to ear grin on her face. "So..." Daring repeated after her. She could tell that Rainbow Dash was maybe five seconds away from fangirling out, but even given that time and that warning, she just couldn't figure out what to say.Alright, Daring Old Girl, she thought to herself. You had the gonads to see her father. Heck, you cried like a little filly on his couch. So here you are now, in front of the kid you abandoned on her father's door step. You made it that far, so why. Aren't. You. Talking? "Is this because you need help with your next book?" Rainbow Dash blurted out with a cocky smile on her face. "Because, and I don't mean to brag," yes, she did. "I have a few adventures of my own I think you can use. Like there was this one time I got into a bar fight," her voice then went deep. "I remember like it was yesterday! There was a minotaur, a griffin and they were led by a mule. The mule, naturally, was drunk off her flank and wouldn't leave this one nerdy looking guy alone, so naturally I had to step in and-" "Rainbow Dash, I'm your mother!" She blurted out, immediately covering her mouth after saying it. There was a very long pause as Pinkie Pie returned with the hot cocoa and cherry fritters. "Here you go!" She announced as she set them down and bounced away, completely oblivious to what had just been dropped like a bombshell in the middle of the bakery. "Wait..." she began, her eyes now wide like a deer caught in a thunderstorm, unsure of it's next move. "What?" She took a long drink of the hot chocolate and continued. "I... I was on an excavation and I met your father. Nine months later, you came out and I left you on his doorstep with no explanation." That's it, Daring. Rip it off like a bandage. Quick and painless. "Wow..." she took another awkward sip of her warm drink and the two mares just sat there in the terrible awkwardness of the moment, neither of them sure where to proceed from there in the slightest. "So... I'm the daughter of-" "Yes," she answered simply and meekly. "And you and my dad..." "We had a fling over twenty years ago, yes," she then smiled. "Would you like to know how good it-" "Okay! No! Just no!" She waved her hooves, her blue face now turning violet from all the new red showing up and declining the need for her to bleach her brain later on that day. "So... you came here to make it up to me? To try and make things cool after almost 20 years?" "Rainbow Dash," She looked down to the table, once again trying to fight a hurricane of emotions. "I'm not going to pretend that what I did, or didn't do rather, was right. I left you and your dad with nothing to help you guys out. Not a single letter or birthday card," a tear began to form on beneath her right eye. "I know I can never really expect forgiveness, but if you're willing to-" that was when she saw a cyan hoof going for her violet eye and wiping away her tears, followed soon after by a warm embrace of the girl she'd left behind. "Rainbow Dash?" "It's okay," the daughter said simply, holding the older mare as tight as she could, feeling the warmth of her long lost mother's tears stream down the side of her sky blue coat. "You don't have to explain anything, and I'm not going to force you too." "Wha... what?!" Daring Do stuttered and stammered, taken aback by this, expecting, hoping for her to start yelling at her for leaving her behind like some toy you'd give a child to shut them up. "Why? I left you like a hoof-me-down in a charity store. How can you just say 'it's okay' and just leave it at that?" That was when Rainbow Dash let her go and began to break down exactly why she was able to do that. "Daring... Mom, I've seen a genocidal goddess switch sides because she was taken down by weaponized friendship. I was tricked by the avatar of chaos and then found what out made me... me again, and then turned the tables on him with my friends," she began to smile. "I saw a monster queen thing with shape shifting powers and swiss cheese legs get blasted half way around the world with the power of love, and later, I saw the avatar of chaos I mentioned earlier turn his life around on a dime because the most timid and introverted pony I've ever met called him her friend," She got up, taking her mother's hoof with her own. "And you're asking me why I'm forgiving you that easily?" "I... I don't..." Daring Do never expected this, not in a million years. She abandoned her. Left her to a stallion who shouldn’t have been able to take care of her near as well as he did, and in the back of her mind she knew that, even when she shoved that memory into the deepest, darkest part of her mind, she knew that. Even if she tried to rationalize it by saying that it was for her own protection, her daughter, Rainbow Dash, heroine of Equestria, had still seen more than Daring herself had seen at her age. Daring Do had no excuse and as she laid it all on the table for her daughter to see, broken thought she may have been by this experience and forgiven without a second glance, she now felt… Whole. She felt whole. "This life's way too short to hold grudges, Mom," Rainbow Dash argued. "I mean, yeah I might be a little hacked off right now, but you're here now, aren’t you? Trying to make things right between us and fix your mistakes? That’s gotta count for something, dontcha think?" She then put her arm around her newly found mother, the mare that had left her on the doorstep of her dad, and the one who shared the same eyes with. "Come on, Mom. I need to introduce you to my friends." "Yeah..." Daring Do agreed, barely able to stop the tears of joy welling up in her eyes. She'd finally done it. Daring Do had found her greatest treasure. "That sounds great, Kiddo."