A much-mended satchel, a whip whose leather had become bootlike with age, and a geriatric pith hat: those were her companions, her solace at the end of a long and tiring adventure. For Daring Do, it's all she needs. Anything else would just be more more weight to carry, more chains that tied her down to a world that wasn't full of mystery and adrenaline and awesomeness. Hayseeds, she only has a house so she could get mail. Dash understands that perfectly. What she doesn't understand is where all the money goes.
“Anti-ageing cream,” the adventurer snorts, laying on the sarcasm as thick as mortar. Her hoof still smarts; when a pony suddenly jumps out from a bush at her, there's only one reaction worth considering. “By the way, you'd have less injuries if you'd quit stalking me.”
Dash's efforts to reach out to her hero haven't won her much more than an understanding of what it feels like to be hit by a
train and some minor cranial trauma, but she's never been a quitter. Sure, she can't do math now, but what good did algebra ever do for anypony?
“I'm serious. You must have a whole bunch of cash from your book sales, even if you get rid of all the treasure. What do you do with it all?”
Daring Do rolls her eyes behind her comically big glasses. If it were anypony else, she'd think they were looking for charity. Rainbow Dash just doesn't strike her as the mercenary type, though. “Why do you wanna know? You got debts or something?”
Dash rolls over, hooves splayed, and thinks for a second–as if she'd never even thought it a question worth asking. Was that how she was, Do wondered? All action and no planning, no forethought beyond her next action? It was a wonder she was still alive. Nothing is ever quite so valuable as a contingency plan, and there's no substitute in the heat of the moment than your wits.
“Iunno. I just wanna know more about you. I mean, sure, I know you're awesome, but there's gotta be something other than that, right?” the pegasus asks finally, with a swish of her rainbow tail.
The explorer pulls her shawl down, a little uncomfortable. Considering this is a pony who's previously offered to be her live-in maid, she needs to be careful what she says next.
“Get real. Nopony wants to know about me outside of adventures,” she says eventually, and feels it's the right answer. Even she isn't really interested in her life outside of her exploits. Writing them up is all well and good, but what else is there after that? You eat, you sleep, and one day, you die. Big whoop. Nothing left behind for the ages, no statues, no heroic legends like that ones that inspired her so long ago–barely worth thinking about, really. Who needed today, when you had yesterday and tomorrow to keep you occupied?
“Hey, who're you callin' nopony?” Dash asks, trying to sound fiery, but the squeak in her voice isn't fooling anypony at all. “Come on. We're war buddies. You can open up to me.”
“One adventure doesn't make us war buddies. It doesn't even make you a sidekick. Given the choice, I'd still rather work alone,” she says, and the uncertain smile on Dash's face fades. She groans; even she can't stand to see somepony so excitable look like that. “But if I need somepony to stand outside and hold my bags, I'll call you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just remember that I got your back, whether you like it or not. I don't leave friends hanging.”
What can she say to that? It's not her business if somepony elects themselves her friend. And if her self-proclaimed friend wants to risk her life rushing into dangerous temples after her, despite all warnings to the contrary, then she can't really stop them. It'd be nice if she could turn it to her advantage, though. It wouldn't really take much–some basic lessons on ruin safety so she didn't have to keep looking over her shoulder all the time, a few quick tips on boulder running, maybe a couple classes of martial arts... Just enough to keep her safe, of course.
“Hey, Daring Do! Are you listening?” Dash asks, clopping her hooves a few inches from the explorer's nose. Do resists the urge to give her a lesson on how to avoid a kick in the face, and shakes her head.
“It's A.K.Yearling in public. Are you going to lie there forever? If you're that interested in my life outside adventuring, you can come shopping with me. I could use a hoof carrying back my groceries,” she says with a practised shrug. “Gotta warn ya–I eat like a horse.”
“Pfft. You haven't seen anything. This one time, I challenged my friend AJ–she's the one with the funny accent and the sweet hat–to an eating contest, and by the time we were done, it took Big Mackintosh and Twilight to carry us home. I'd have beaten her, too, but she just edged ahead at the last second…”
Daring Do smiles beneath her disguise as Dash walks beside her, recounting in glorious detail the days of post-contest nausea. She has a feeling the weather pony will feel significantly less chatty after hauling half a month's food back to the house. She mentally ticks off 'weight-lifting' on Rainbow Dash's new training regime, and starts to wonder if she has any spare whips lying around for her to practice with. In the end, she never does answer the question of what she does with her money, but but the size of her grocery bags have something to do with it.