//------------------------------// // Wherein Our Heroine Finds a Treasure // Story: Treasures // by Carabas //------------------------------// She was sailing in a storm, with buffeting darkness all around and rain lashing across the ship’s deck. Her hooves grappled and struggled with the weight of the helm’s wheel, trying to force a straight passage through the crashing waves on all sides. It was stuck, however, and the force of the storm threatened to wrench it beyond her control. Past the blinding rain, she looked around in desperation, looking for anypony on the ship who might be able to help her. But there was nopony else aboard, nothing on the empty decks but rain and shadows, and when she called out, nopony answered past the thunder. Long shadows ran forth from the railing, slowly spreading with each passing second and twitching like tendrils, as if some beast was trying to pull itself up from the deep and up over the sides, inch by unstoppable inch. Her gaze rose up, up to where she might yet be able to see her destination, some ruined tower out in the ocean, whose topmost light should have been shining like a beacon. But there was nothing there, nothing but the dim outline of a raggedy tower already half-swallowed by stormclouds. The clouds swallowed more as she watched, and as she reached out with a hoof and tried to urge the whole ship on with will alone, its shape grew fainter and fainter, and the darkness swallowed the world — And with a full-body shiver, her senses shifted, and Daring woke up. It was hard to tell she’d woken up at first. She slowly opened her eyes, and there was nothing but black on all sides. She blinked, and wriggled faintly, and that at least confirmed she was awake once again. She lay on her left side atop a solid and uneven surface, thick with dust. She breathed in, choked, and a thunderous sneeze shook more of the cobwebs out of her brain. It was cold here as well, wherever here was, and as Daring wriggled her limbs with more vigour, a great full-body ache made itself known as well. She whimpered as it set in, and then gasped when she tried to move her wings. The one under her hurt, as if she’d twisted it hard or broken it, and it twinged with every movement. When had she … ? She’d fallen. She’d fallen down so far she’d been unable to keep track, and only her desperate flapping on the descent must have slowed her down enough to not get smashed on impact. Her left wing must have caught the brunt of it, and water came to her eyes when she accidentally shifted it again. Steelhart had come falling with her as well. They must be down here as well. Daring struggled to her hooves and peered hopelessly into the gloom, hunting for any sign of them. But she couldn’t see a thing. A faint red light shone far above, so far away and so shrouded by swirling dark dust to be all but useless. She couldn’t see any shapes, any outlines, not even the basic shape of wherever she was. Steelhart could be anywhere in the darkness, watching her. Waiting. She knew it could be silent. Another thought came hard on the heels of Steelhart, cold and terrible and gnawing at Daring’s guts. Dad. She was down here because she’d flown right at Steelhart to try and protect him, and knocked them both down. And her last memory of him was his form lying still and bloodied on the ground. He had to have been still breathing. He had to. Heroes’ parents had a terrible dying habit in books, but that didn’t happen to non-heroes like Daring, it didn’t happen to real parents, to real Dads, it didn’t. She craned her head up as high as she could, focusing on the murky and far-off red glimmer. “Dad!” she cried, the call coming out hoarse and echoing, and she tried again. “Dad!” She stopped to feebly cough, and the convulsion of her body and withers brought about another fresh burst of pain from her wing. She cried out and shuddered, letting her legs falter and bring her down back to the ground. Daring craned her head up as much she could from where she lay, hoping for any sign of movement, listening for any voice. Nothing but her own echoes, which faded away after a moment or two. And then nothing but silence. Nopony came. Daring lay in the silent darkness below everything she knew, her wing hurting and her whole body aching, hungry and lonely and tired, with no way to see the guard who could be lurking anywhere in the murk around her. She was hatless and saddlebag-less, with nothing to prove she was an adventurer except that she’d ended up here, and with nothing to show for that but a memory of Dad lying still and bloodied and not answering when called. She began to cry, and for a long while, it was all she could do. Eventually, Daring shuddered, when it felt like she’d cried herself dry. She kept her eyes screwed shut and lay still where she was. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if she just stayed here, waiting for whatever. Steelhart. The earth swallowing her up. Whatever. She drifted off again, briefly and fitfully, dark dreams flitting before her eyes in short spurts before falling back into a black morass. At one point, her eyes fluttered open, and in a hazy, detached state halfway between sleep and wakefulness, she saw a dust-shrouded stone floor roll away before her, lit under a soft blue light. Debris cluttered it, rising from the dust like shipwrecks from a beach. Thin pieces of solid rust sat next to pale things like broken bones, and here and there pieces of crumbling paper lay like fallen leaves. One sat a short way away from Daring’s forehooves, and she listlessly ran her eyes over it, the letters on it taking new shape as she watched. It seemed like hasty notes taken in a crisp hoofwriting, jotted down across this one sheet. Seventh hour, eighth of Winterheight Onset senility coupled with induced sleep - necessary passivity. Goal is to recreate. Last-minute changes to instructional sygaldry. Ensure prior skillset and personality is emphasised, not emergent learning. Recreate. Will be somewhat odd, having nobody left in here save crafted. Already poor conversant, though, even before onset senility. May be a boon. May not. Husk discarded. Pneumic transfer into ethereal body underway, stable, note thaumic count. Elevated beyond the fraud’s reforging — transaetheric incorporation a success. This and future works to be greatly less tiring. Done. Spoken with my new and improved buckservant. Demure courtesy masking eagerness to please - very much retained. Sharp as in their heyday, with no outside memories or allegiances cluttering things. Massive improvement. Should have done this more often in the old days. Really should have. Still, too smart to have around my materials here. Dispatched buckservant. Let’s see if it can actually prepare something edible before full judgement is passed, but otherwise, a good day. Personality not separable from memories, though. Remember, proof of concept. More work needed. More subjects needed. Maybe Loceros will send a suitably stupid messenger that shan’t be missed. If not, write — call in any remaining favours, ask for some thrall. Aurum. Flora. Aurum. Flora. It’ll all be worth it. Daring blinked dully as the words trailed off onto crumbling flakes of paper and as the paper trailed off onto the rough stone floor, all given a blue hue under the light. Blue light. Realisation coursed through her like lightning, in the same moment a polite cough sounded behind her. “Miss Daring?” She tottered to her hooves and turned around, slowly, almost not wanting to see in case that made it an illusion, made it go away. There behind stood the familiar shape of the ghostly buckservant, brilliantly alive against the darkness of the space. “Cervile?” “At your service, Miss.” Their eye-lights focused on her, sharp and unmoving. “Are you hurt?” Some lingering reflex made her want to say no, that she was fine, a heroic adventurer of her stature could just walk it off. But her wing twinged, and she choked out, “Yes.” A ribbon of blue magic spooled out into the air next to Cervile, and Daring became aware of a blue aura covering her wing and suffusing it with a warm numbness. “Please hold still for a moment. This won’t hurt at all.” Daring remained still, and as Cervile’s blue form trotted in close to her, a hot wave of guilt shuddered up through her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her gaze at the floor. Cervile didn’t answer, and as Daring felt her wing shift without any accompanying pain, she felt it deserved repeating. “I’m sorry! I — I tricked you. I sent you to get water and snuck away behind your back. You were never anything but friendly, you didn’t deserve that —” She realised she was crying again, hot tears of anger at herself, but they were hard to maintain. Cervile kept working in steady silence, their pace slowing as Daring’s form shuddered, and as she gradually stopped, they finished binding something around her wing, keeping it in a steady position at her side. “I did look for you,” they said gently. “And when I heard a racket followed by silence from the library, past a boundary I couldn’t enter, I feared the worst. But I went looking where I could, and I am able to delve down into this place of refuse. And I found you here as it turns out, and was able to attend to your wing, and have received an apology as well. I accept it, and no harm done.” “There was harm done!” Daring scuffed at her eyes with a forehoof and looked straight up at Cervile. “I shouldn’t have lied! And there was … my Dad, in the library, he, he —” “Your father,” Cervile interjected. “He’s the guest who came in after you, who you asked me not to alert to your presence, correct? Dressed in an indigo coat, this high at the withers?” They raised their hoof in the air to about the level of Dad’s withers. Daring warily nodded. “In which case, if you’ll pardon the presumption as to your suspicions and line of thought, Miss Daring,” continued Cervile, “I suspect you’ll be delighted to know that as I made my way down here, I caught sight of your father, very much alive and well, albeit with nasty wounds to his head and leg and in no small amount of distress. He’d emerged from the library on this side of the freehold, was limping through the arboretum, and calling your name.” Daring stared up at Cervile, a black cloud vanishing from her world. Dad was alright. Dad was alive, and rightly defying what stories said ought to happen to the parents of heroes. He was alright and alive, and moving around, and looking for her, and a third set of tears threatened, but this time from pure joy. On the moment’s heels, though, came another black cloud. “He’ll be mad,” murmured Daring. “He’ll be so mad. I mucked this all up, I got him hurt, I tricked him as well, right at the start of all this.” “Whatever anger he may manifest will, I assure you, be born only from love and worry. He’ll forgive you as well,” said Cervile. “Let me take you to him.” Daring’s gaze was back on the ground. On some intellectual level, she knew it was silly. It wasn’t nearly as bad a prospect as Dad being dead up there, but the certainty of his anger and disappointment, no matter how much it would be born of worry for her, all but rooted Daring to the ground. She stood still and trembled. Cervile stood still before her as well, a long moment of silence passing before they spoke. “Pardon my boldness, Miss Daring, but you seem reluctant to meet him.” “He’ll be mad,” Daring repeated. “He’d be right.” “You feel awful at the prospect of enduring his disappointment?” Daring hesitantly nodded. “I … yeah.” “At present, he’s a father who thinks he faces the prospect of never seeing his daughter again,” said Cervile softly. “Imagine how awful he must feel as well.” The words made Daring feel sick, but they made her know what she had to do. She breathed in, forced her legs to be straight, and rubbed at her eyes once more before letting the same breath out. “Alright,” she whispered. “Alright.” “Bravery lives on in the world still,” Cervile said approvingly. “Let me take you straight to him, then.” “Alright,” said Daring vaguely, glancing around the room they were in. “Just let meAAH!” She’d started at the huge shape lying against one wall in the circular room they were in, huge and swaddled in a dark cloak. The dark cloak was only keeping bits of them together, she realised, and pale, armoured bones lay scattered across the whole floor. They must have shattered on impact, with no wings to slow them down. Steelhart’s huge form lay shattered and still, one antler snapped clean off their huge head. No red magic gathered around their remaining antler, and their glaive lay at one side. Daring steadied herself and stared at them a moment longer, and no sign of midnight-blue healing magic flickered where their bones had been broken. Maybe it didn’t work when they were damaged enough, she thought numbly to herself. Past a point, the magic had to give up. Steelhart’s magic had given up, and the great guard didn’t look nearly as scary anymore. She wanted to move closer, but some inner note of caution held her back. She looked up to Cervile. “Are they … dead?” “Yes,” said Cervile, padding over to Steelhart’s fallen form, still tiny against it. They looked down at the black eye-sockets, and what seemed like mixed parts sorrow and pity danced in the fire of their eyes. “The fall must not have been kind to them.” Cervile’s magic glimmered, and a little rune flared at the front of Steelhart’s still head. “Stars carry you in lasting peace, kin.” Daring was already moving closer as the words were spoken, and stopped short with a surge of indignation. “Don’t wish them peace! They nearly killed Dad! They tried to kill me!” “Then peace is what they need the most,” replied Cervile gently. “They were forged broken, and I suspect they were broken even before that. Now they’re beyond hurting anything else, and beyond their own hurt as well. I regret whatever they did to you and your father … but they only ever did what they did because they had to. So do we all.” Daring prepared to spit more vitriol at the thought of extending any charity toward Steelhart. She remembered the way they’d twisted their weapon in the back of Dad’s leg, the sound of their glaive striking his head, the sight of them preparing to kill him when he was helpless. But next to their silent, shattered form, whatever vitriol came to her mind just seemed hollow and useless. They weren’t as scary as a crumpled sack of bones as they’d been as a living(?) guard. She leaned down and peered into the black of their eye socket, lit under Cervile’s light. What looked like charred flakes of black flesh filled the hollow, and nothing more baleful than that stared back out at her. She had to remember Lord Fallow. Wherever he was in here, and whatever he was doing, he was the real villain of the piece, the one who'd presumably jotted down notes for the dreadful things he was doing to the original Cervile in the note she’d read on the floor, and who’d done dreadful things to Steelhart and Padhoof and Whitetail and Belladamma as well in the name of … recreating, was it? But a full-blown Antlertean Mage-Lord like Lord Fallow might be beyond her ability to really take on. Her wing was busted, and even if Dad could help her, she didn’t want him to have to fight again when he’d already been hurt. She reluctantly considered that it would be sensible to just cut her losses and go, to leave finishing off Lord Fallow for another day, and she twisted her head around to glance at her bound wing while thinking. She started in surprise when she saw Cervile’s bindings, with glowing transparent-blue bandages sheathing the wing against a similarly translucent splint. The wing twinged again when she shifted it to try and get a better look, but it couldn’t be helped. They were way cooler than any decorated plasters she’d ever gotten. “Mind those, Miss Daring,” said Cervile, noticing the focus of her attention. “Absent any surviving medical equipment to work with, I had to make do with magic. They shall fade away without my constant attention, so if you leave this place, be sure to get them attended to elsewhere. I’ll take you back to your father, and it would be wise to make sure —” They kept talking, but the words passed right through one of Daring’s ears and out the other. Her gaze had risen past the ghostly bandages and onto something on the floor, battered and marred by dust, but still instantly, wonderfully familiar to her. It was her mother’s helmet, lying atop the dust like a mountain, and with an excited cry, Daring sprung right for it and snatched it up in her forehooves, cradling it against her front. “I did observe you didn’t have it when I first saw you down here,” said Cervile, trotting over. “It fell afoul of events, I assume?” “Yes,” said Daring breathlessly. “But I’ve got it.” She hugged it, bending the cloth-covered pith slightly, and found herself lost in the feel of it, all the familiar sensations. The helmet was stories by candlelight, with Dad going through his full range of attempts at spooky voices while the hat sat on the mantle overhead. It was a warm pillow in the cart, keeping her head comfortable while the contents of said head sailed on magic seas. It was the crash of the ceiling-trap and the fire of the sentry, the first dangers Daring had overcome on her first adventure, and carried a faint burnt scent from the latter. It was fire and mystery and excitement and promises and Dad and a Mom Daring had never met but could imagine vividly. It was every story she’d ever heard, and it had fallen down into shadow but had re-emerged with a few scuffs and a great new story for its trouble. Just like her, Daring thought. It was a reminder. She gently pressed it back onto her head, imagining that it fitted more comfortably than it had done before, and she turned back to Cervile. A bright and lively fire danced around her soul, and she felt that a little bit of it must reach her eyes. “Cervile, you said you could teleport me away if there was any danger,” she said. “Right?” “Quite correct,” replied Cervile, disarmed by the sudden line of enquiry. “Should unusually truculent guests threaten, it was intended as a means of disposing of them without bothering Lord Fallow. Why do you ask?” “So you could just get me out of the way somewhere if I was in any real danger, and you could do it right away? You could take me somewhere, and then, say, teleport me right to my Dad?” “Correct,” said Cervile, their tone becoming slower and dubious, as if they sighted the stormclouds approaching from the horizon of this conversation. Daring took a breath in. “Could you let me see Lord Fallow?” Cervile blinked, and then their gaze flickered from side to side. “Miss Daring, it is customary that guests await the pleasure of Lord Fallow. He does not make himself available at all times, and a guest meeting him unannounced would violate all propriety.” “So could you announce me?” Daring tried to meet Cervile right in their eye-lights and found it surprisingly difficult; they were reluctant to meet her gaze. But why? “I don’t have to disturb him. I just have to know that he’s there, and whether he’s doing anything else evil. If I know, then I can tell my dad. And me and him don’t have to come in without a clue about what’s waiting for us at the heart of this place. That’s only right, right?” If it went right and Cervile agreed, she thought, then she could play things by ear. Maybe if Lord Fallow was distracted or weak, or was the sort of villain who could be redeemed of their wickedness with the power of friendship, she could defeat him there and then. And if not, she could always get back to Dad and get out of here, and come back better. Cervile stood silent. “Cervile?” said Daring. “Teleport me in, teleport me out if Lord Fallow gets mad. And if he gets mad, you don’t have to take the blame, you can just tell him I threatened you and you gallantly tried to fight me off or something, but I was just too strong, but in a last-ditch heroic effort you were able to overcome me and teleport me away from your master. He might like it.” The ghostly lines of Cervile’s face creased with a subtle, sad smile. “Lying to one’s master certainly violates all propiety. I don’t recall being threatened, for one.” Daring glanced around the room, and alighted upon the shaft of the great glaive lying just to her side. “Grr!” she said in what seemed like appropriately thuggish tones. “Lead me to your master, er, lackey! Or I shall horrifically eviskerate —” “Eviscerate,” corrected Cervile. “Eviscerate,” said Daring, who had only ever seen it written down, “you with this glaive right here! Grr, again!” She tried to pick up the glaive with her teeth, and after straining for several long moments, gave up. There were probably buildings that weighed less than it. She panted and looked up at Cervile. “There. That totally counts as a threat, right?” Cervile stood in silence, their eye-lights blazing with an inner turmoil of fire. They raised a ghostly hoof to their mouth and coughed slightly. “By the slimmest of technical margins, I believe it does.” “Aha! Then you can tell Lord Fallow that I did —” “I could,” said Cervile softly. “For all the good it would do.” Daring stared up at Cervile, trying to make sense of their reluctance to go along with what was a clearly sensible plan. Was Lord Fallow that cruel that his servants feared to cross him? “You don’t have to teleport me right in there, I guess,” she said — she didn’t want Cervile to get hurt. “Just point me the way, I’ll slip in, and if Lord Fallow objects, then you can be the brave hero who teleports the unruly guest away.” “I do appreciate the thought, Miss Daring. But I fear it would equally ...” Cervile trailed off. Their eye-lights dimmed for a moment, and then snapped back to brightness. “I suppose it could scarcely do much harm at all, and propriety has probably been reduced to tatters by this stage regardless. I’ll take you to Lord Fallow, but in return, I must beg one boon.” “Oh. What?” “Let me reunite you with your father as soon as possible,” Cervile pressed. “My experience with most things is limited, but I know enough of the unpleasant emotions that a parent must feel for a lost child.” A flush of guilt spread throughout Daring, and she briefly reconsidered this half-baked idea partly inspired by the helmet, thought about just going straight to Dad. But she had to do this, take this last plunge before the first day of her first adventure came to a close. “Sure,” she said. “As soon as I’ve seen Lord Fallow, take me to him. That’s fine. You’ll be able to teleport me or him away if there’s any danger, right?” Magic began to curl into a blaze about Cervile’s antlers, matching a spreading fire billowing from their eye-lights. “Please believe me, Miss Daring,” they said sadly. “You are in no danger at all.” Then the world flashed blue, then white, and Daring felt a sudden lurch all about her body, as if she was being picked up off the floor and plonked down a scant few inches away. The white faded away, and Daring found herself in the middle of a study next to Cervile, the library-bottom entirely vanished. She was in Lord Fallow’s study. It couldn’t be anywhere else. The study itself was as dusty as everywhere else, low-ceilinged and darkly-textured, with shelves full of books and pictures and assorted little pots and devices lining all the walls. Cervile’s light was the only source of it, casting deep shadows all around. Daring glanced at a heavy wooden door and then looked across the room, to the great desk facing it. From her side, looking up at it, she could see scattered books, jutting quill pens and stacks of paper, a thick tome and a thin volume stacked atop one another, and the backs of two picture-frames. It was silent here, and a throne-like chair rose behind the desk with no sign of Lord Fallow sitting in it, or anywhere else for that matter. “Cervile?” she said. “Where’s Lord Fallow?” The buckservant didn’t answer, and as she peered at the desk, she caught a glimpse of white by its side. Her breath caught in her mouth, and she circled around slowly, hesitantly, to see what waited there. And there, there lay the skeleton of a stag sprawled out on their side as if they’d simply slumped and fallen down from the chair, their bones and antlers pale amidst the rags and tatters of a long-decayed robe. The empty sockets of their skull stared blankly ahead at nothing at all, passing right through Daring. The bones of his skull were sharp, his withers were broad, and the shape of his antlers was a match for a set she’d seen in a painting not so long ago. Daring stared at the skeleton of Lord Fallow, less horrified for it being the umpteenth one she’d seen that day alone and one of the few that wasn't actually trying to kill her, and desperately tried to make sense of things. There was no evil wizard to threaten or vanquish anymore, nothing here that hadn’t stopped being a threat to anyone three thousand years ago. Questions and curses and demands and clouds of purest bewilderment raged through her skull, and in lieu of them all, she eventually glanced round at Cervile, who stood still in the silent murk of the study. “You tricked me as well, I guess,” she said at last. “You said he was still in residence.” Cervile hesitated before speaking. “In a manner of speaking —” “No. He’s really dead. That’s not residence.” Cervile didn’t speak for the longest time, and Daring couldn’t decide on any questions or curses to try and break them from their silence. This was how the heroic quest ended. There’d never been one at all. There’d only been what there’d always been from the start: an old ruin filled with a dead mage-lord’s mistakes. She shouldn’t be disappointed — she’d only expected a cool old ruin from the start — but her hopes had been raised, and Dad had been hurt, and it had all been for nothing much at all. How could she help Cervile and the others now? Lord Fallow’s empty eyes stared right through her, and Daring shivered. She moved away from them and clambered up onto his empty chair. That gave her a better view of the desk’s contents. The papers were covered in illegible chicken-scratch, and the various scattered books seemed to all be about soul-forging, or at least have ‘Pneuma-something’ in their titles. She looked down to the thick and thin books, and the thin one simply had Journal stitched into its faded cloth front with thread that retained a subtle golden glow. She shifted it, and the thick tome beneath had Notes on its own front, in thread that was a silvery blue. Finally, she looked up at the two pictures. They seemed like photographs at first sight, but as she looked harder, they seemed to be made up of thousands of tiny brush-strokes, like paintings in miniature. Maybe the Antlerteans had had a different way of taking photos. In the one on the left, she recognised another image of the doe from the painting, Lady Aurum. She stood in front of a strange set of pillars overlooking an unknown seascape, a knowing and patient smile on her features. Daring peered closer and realised with surprise that her eyes were subtly creased at the edges, and her tongue protruded out at whoever had made or taken the painting — maybe Fallow himself. Like mother, like daughter. The daughter herself was in the picture to the right, and was racing across a stretch of floor that Daring recognised as the main hallway. She had a piece of string in her mouth and was trailing it along the ground, hotly pursued by a little scorpion sporting a pink collar just past its front legs, its claws raised to snap at the trailing string like a cat would. Even past the string in her mouth, Flora looked like she was laughing. “I remember one day waking up,” Cervile said, their tone still soft. “And that was that. I woke up, and remembering started. Lord Fallow was there, and I knew my duty was to serve him till time’s ending. He asked me questions, some personal and some not, some I knew the answers to and some I didn’t, and he seemed satisfied. And then he withdrew, gave me an instruction, and my service began. I cooked his meals, tidied his quarters, received visitors and royal messengers to wait at Lord Fallow’s pleasure. And that went on, and it was all right. It was what I had to do, it was my duty, as natural and necessary as breathing.” “And then, one day after the last messenger came, there was all manner of rumbling from outside and no small amount of disruption and breakages inside, and once I’d finished cleaning, I made my way to this study. And I found Lord Fallow like this. And there were no more orders, no more service, no more guests to be received and treated with every kindness. Days of waiting turned into weeks, and months, and years, and so forth, and everything spoiled or wore away.” “I couldn’t clean. I couldn’t serve. I couldn’t greet guests when none came. And I could only wander these halls, do what I could with what little implements wore away over the years.” Cervile’s voice tightened. “The dust gathered and the air darkened, and centuries became millenia where I couldn’t so much as breathe. I couldn’t go mad as a salve or destroy myself. And I tried hard, so very hard, to remember who I might have been before my soulforging, and whether they had some inner treasure to grasp as my own, something to give me another purpose to sustain my spirit and keep me going. But Lord Fallow had done too thorough a job. I only had myself. I could only wait, and … and try to trick myself as best I could. It never entirely worked.” Daring didn’t dare to speak, and Cervile awkwardly finished. “You truly are my first breath of fresh air in longer than I care to think, Miss Daring. And I can only apologise for tricking you as I tried to trick myself.” Daring swallowed, hopped off the front of the desk, and trotted to Cervile. “Can you … be anything other than intangible?” Cervile paused. “I could manifest an aura of solidity to fit my frame, if such would suit. Shall I?” Daring nodded, and as Cervile’s antlers blazed anew, he was shrouded in a glittering haze of blue light. Daring reached out and hugged him as hard as she could. “Don’t worry about the trick,” she said. “I did the same. All’s forgiven. Again.” Cervile, after a long moment, awkwardly reached one newly-tangible leg around to pat her on the back. They didn’t seem like a natural hugger. “Shall we call it quits on that front, Miss Daring?” “Let's.” Daring released her grip out of kindness towards Cervile and stepped back. “I … uh ...” Cervile regarded her patiently, and Daring finally marshaled her thoughts. “There’s … if this whole adventure by my dad and I works out — and I guess it already has, if there’s no Lord Fallow left to muck things up — other ponies might want to come here as well. For ‘follow-up studies’ or something. They’ll all be your guests. They’ll all want someone to show them around, to give them hospitality, help them translate, and lots of other things. Maybe they’ll bring food and stuff, and you could help them there. Would that make you happy?” Cervile didn’t answer for a long while, and Daring couldn’t even begin to describe the motions in the depths of their eye-lights. “Are you sure all that will transpire?” they said. “Positive,” said Daring. From all Dad had told her or alluded to, wherever one adventurer-archeologist went to secure a claim and bring home a trophy-piece, the rest flocked as well to look over the place and gather up whatever the first one had missed or study things that fitted with their own line of research. This was ‘the spirit of the great mutual endeavour’ when Dad was feeling kind, and ‘like a pack of screeching gannets’ when he wasn’t. Either way, it could only be a good thing for Cervile. “Some of them might even want to ask you questions about you. Would that be alright?” “I am a frightfully boring subject, Miss, but I’m sure I could do my best,” said Cervile, looking curious at the notion. Their growing delight was all but palpable, though. “If they come as guests in need of my attention, then I shall receive them. And if such does come about thanks to your visit, Miss Daring … I doubt you’d find a more grateful buckservant.” “You’re not that boring. And it’s no problem.” A glow of pride swept out from Daring’s heart. At least one being would get a happy ending out of all this. There was surely still some way to get a happy — or at least, more satisfying — ending for herself and Dad as well. And if there was the right kind of trophy-piece around here, that could do the trick. If the Royal Archaeological Society expected a trophy-piece from Dad for all his pains here, then she could make sure it got one from him. She’d find something in here, one of Lord Fallow’s own treasures, and present it to Dad. Even if he was still mad, he’d know that she’d been right to come down here, that she was meant to be in this sort of place. She swept her gaze around the room and thought of what that trophy-piece could actually be, though. There were various strange objects on some of the shelves, but nothing that really seemed to scream trophy-piece, nothing that seemed like it was from this place and nowhere else. Her gaze went up towards the desk, and her eyes glittered with realisation. Most trophy-pieces she’d heard about were golden idols, rich old tapestries, an old king’s personal lance, that sort of thing. But there was no rule saying one couldn’t be a book, was there? And if the old personal notebook of a mage-lord holding goodness knows what mysteries and ancient secrets and lost magics between its covers wasn’t a worthy treasure, what was? Cervile’s form flashed away for a moment, and then flickered back into existence. “If there is nothing else you wish to do here, Miss, then let me take you to your father,” said Cervile. “He is currently making his way through one of the storage chambers, and his voice is growing hoarse.” “Could you ...” Daring thought quickly, wondering whether she could lug the notebook (which was far too small a name for it, it was a notetome) all the way. If Dad could come here instead, she could show that it came from here, make sure she could give it a suitably dramatic presentation, show him that she’d made it here. “Could you bring him here to the study instead? Put lights on the floor showing him the way, or just tell him I’m here if you have to, or … or however? Please?” Cervile regarded her for a moment, and then nodded and bowed. “A favour for a breath of fresh air, then. I shall alert him as to your safety and location here.” “Thank you,” said Daring. “For that. For everything.” “Never a problem, Miss Daring,” said Cervile. “This has been the brightest day I’ve had for a very long while, after all.” They flashed out of existence, leaving a little glowing orb in the air that rose up towards the ceiling for Daring to see by, and in the silent emptiness left behind in their wake, she moved quickly. She clambered back up onto the desk and made right for the stacked books, pushing the journal to one side. It fell harder than she’d expected and flapped open on the desk, making Daring wince. It didn’t look damaged, though, and she pushed the notetome free. It was as heavy as she’d expected from something that was half the size of Daring herself, and she strained to push it across the desk, inch by inch. The pictures of Aurum and Flora lay in her path, and she scurried around the notetome to gently move them to one side. She pushed Aurum over a few inches, leaned over to scoop up Flora, and turned around to find an empty place on the desk for her. As she turned, she caught sight of the slumped form of Lord Fallow behind the desk, fallen where he’d been working, where Cervile had found him so many years ago. Daring couldn’t help the memory that came to her of the hallway painting then, of the great sharp-featured stag alongside his wife and daughter. She looked down at the picture of Flora and her pet scorpion, and wondered who’d gotten it and the pink collar around its neck for her. Words by a library door came to her as well, telling Flora to keep out of said library, written for her alone. Had Lord Fallow wanted her to keep safe and away from the abyss and the maybe-dangerous enchanted books there? Did he want her kept well away from the laboratory where he did his soulforging? Why did Cervile sound like they had only ever known Lord Fallow? The note she’d found discarded amidst the refuse at the bottom of the library rose in her mind, and the emphasised words upon it rested on her mind like a lead weight. “Recreate,” she whispered. Nothing could be a good enough reason for the things Fallow had done here. Daring knew that beyond a doubt. But … that was a reason, if nothing else. She spent a long, long moment there on the desk, with only the silence and Lord Fallow’s body for company. And though it cost her more precious moments, she gingerly picked up both the pictures in her mouth, jumped down to the chair and down from there to the floor, and nestled them both against the fabric of his robe covering the sweep of his neck, past the bones of his forelegs. She took a step back, and wondered if there was anything she could say. Nothing she could say past the lump in her throat came to mind, and she made her way back up to the desktop. Maybe other archaeologists would disturb Fallow and the pictures, she felt, but for now they could be together again, as best she could manage. Daring steadied herself on the desk, steadied herself in general, and had just made her way back to the notetome to make sure it was facing forward when there was a flash of blue in the air before her. She looked up and saw Cervile there. “Your father is on his way here,” they said. “A map of the place was conjured in the air before him, and your location was marked upon it. He knows you are safe, and he shall be here shortly.” “Thank you!” said Daring, happy for the distraction from what lay at her back and hoping she didn’t sound choked. “I’ll talk to him. It’ll … it’ll be fine.” “I’ll keep myself at a certain remove, if you feel my direct presence would be intrusive.” “Okay,” said Daring. It might have been good to have Cervile there for moral support, but this was something she knew she had to do by herself. This was her thing to face up to. “I … I might leave with him after. If I don’t speak to you again, thank you. Again. And even if other archaeologists don’t come for whatever reason, I promise I’ll come back.” Cervile smiled. “I look forward to that. For that, and for everything else, Miss Daring, my thanks.” They faded away then, becoming nothing more than blue motes that dissipated into the air of the study. Daring took as deep a breath as she could, rested a forehoof on the cover of the notetome, and heard rapid hoofsteps come her way from the corridor beyond. They came closer and closer, a limping dissonance to their rhythm, and after a tense and expectant moment that lasted an eternity, the door slammed open, revealing the shape of Dad. He was panting and ragged, his tricorn loosely on his head and his jacket slashed to ribbons wherever it had met the glaive. Part of it had been ripped off and wrapped as a tourniquet around his wounded leg, the indigo there given a dark purple hue by his blood. The right side of his face was a solid mass of purple and slick crimson, and what little of his eye showed past the patchwork of swollen bruises looked solidly red. The other eye was bloodshot and filled with a panicked sort of desperation. He looked right at Daring, and that desperation fell clean away in favour of a dawning, giddy, and purely delighted relief. “Dad!” Daring called at the same time as he cried, “Daring!”, and he limped towards her with all the speed his wounded leg afforded him. As he drew closer, she saw that her slashed saddlebags were draped over his back, and then she saw nothing else as she was swept off the desk in a great, deep hug right against the front of his justacorps. “I’m alright,” she said, somewhat muffled by the fabric, hugging back as best she could. “Wing’s a little busted, but I’m alright.” “You’re alright,” Dad murmured, seemingly to himself without reference to Daring’s words. “You’re alright. Thank the stars and earth and skies and everything under the sun, you’re alright. Thank everything. You’re alright. Your wing ...” “It’s okay,” whispered Daring. A low shudder escaped him, and after a long while, she felt herself being lifted away from his front and set back upon the desk. She looked up a little to meet Dad in the eyes and saw that he had them closed. He was breathing deeply, as if he was steeling himself, or mastering himself against some rising tide of emotion. “It’s going to be okay, Dad,” Daring ventured, and she tapped her forehoof against the top of the notetome, watching Dad’s unfamiliar, closed-off expression with trepidation. “I found a trophy-piece, you can —” “What were you thinking?” Dad said, his voice soft, his eyes still closed. Daring tensed. “I … know you didn’t —” His eye slammed open, and a tide of simmering, fear-born anger blazed from it, from the snarl on his face, right down upon her. “What were you thinking? I told you you couldn’t come down here! I told you you weren’t old enough for this, that you’d be getting into danger that could kill you! Did you listen to me at all?” “I just —” Daring all but cowered before the force of this row; she’d never gotten one this fierce, never seen Dad so frantic and blazingly angry. And it was only starting. “Do you know how worried I was when I first saw you in that library? Can you even imagine how I felt when I woke up after fighting that guard and you weren’t there? Hah, ‘what were you thinking’. Were you thinking at all?” “I —” Daring swallowed and tried to ignore the bubbling anxiety that was twisting her stomach into knots and the mounting pressure behind her eyes. She had to defend herself. “I had to come down here. I had to have this adventure, to prove to you I could!” “You’ve proved nothing,” hissed Dad. “Nothing but that you’re too young, too reckless, too unthinking to even deserve to dream of having adventures! I told you ponies die on adventures, and if I hadn’t come in that moment, you would have!” “I wasn’t going to die!” Daring stamped her hoof and screwed her eyes shut against a second wave of angry tears that threatened. She had to defend herself. “I’d gotten through everything else! I’d been fast and smart and lucky, and I would have gotten out of —” “Lucky? You never, ever trust in luck! You prepare. You advance with all proper caution and as much foresight as you can. You remove luck from every possible bit of the equation! That’s what proper adventurer-archaeologists do. They don’t rush in like little fools, thinking they’ll breeze through anything the delve throws at them!” “You told me Mom was brave and lucky!” Dad seemed stunned for a brief moment. “Don’t you dare,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare use her as a reason for your utter thoughtlessness.” “You told me she was the bravest and best pegasus in all Equestria! I listened to your stories. You said she was lucky as anything, that she could get out of any —” “She trusted to luck once too often, and that’s why she died!” The last word was shouted, and Dad shuddered after it, his next words coming out hoarse. “And if I hadn’t found you just at that moment, that’s what would have happened again. Another pony I love to be buried. Was that what you wanted? Because it’s what you were doing. Open your eyes and look at me.” “I’d have been fine,” replied Daring, her eyes still shut. “You told me she came out fine as well nearly all the time! And all the stories I read —” “Not another word,” growled Dad. “We’re leaving this ruin. You are staying at Ivory’s. I’m coming back here alone, and we’re going straight back to Canterlot after. The next time I head out, you are not coming. And if you ever do this again, I will take every single book in your room that told this would be a good idea, and I will burn them.” Daring found her throat closing tight at the idea of it, of countless stories she knew and loved and re-read like old friends going up in flames. And that closedness twisted inside her into purest anger, and she slammed her eyes open to glare right at Dad, heedless of the tears that sprang forth. “Then why did you give them to me in the first place?” she screamed in a voice that all but erupted out of her. Dad stood as still as if he’d been bolted to the floor. “Not another word.” “Why did you ever tell me about Mom or anything she did?” “Not another word!” From the corridor beyond, there was the distant clatter of hooves. Dad paused, catching his breath, and wheeled to face the door. Daring craned to see what might be there, and Dad glanced briefly back in her direction. “Get behind the desk,” he said flatly, and Daring obeyed, her anger deflated by the sudden distraction. She sprung down behind the desk next to Lord Fallow and craned her head around its corner to try and see what was coming. As she did, she heard the clack of Dad’s spurs against the floor. The hooves came closer and closer, in what sounded like a leisurely trot. Daring held her breath, and she was aware of Dad shuffling into a battle-ready stance as best he could on his injured leg. Eventually, the trotting sounded just outside the door to the study, and a new figure came strolling in. Daring stared up at them, up at her, and she blinked in utter bewilderment as recognition dawned. It was the tall, wiry, copper-coated mare she’d bumped into out on the streets of Ponyville, the one who’d been dressed in a rumpled cloak and pulling a wagon similar to Dad’s. Her cloak was gone, though, and in its place she wore bright steel barding partly covered by a crimson cape and a combed steel helmet, an old-styled morion. Dark and compact saddlebags hung across her back, jangling as she moved. She came to a stop in the middle of the study, sporting the widest smirk Daring had ever seen on a pony and which she turned right on Dad. “Gallivant. It’s been far too short a while.” From past the hulk of the desk obscuring Daring’s view, there was a pregnant pause, and then Dad’s slow, disbelieving tones. “Old Chestnut? What in the name of the Mare in the Moon are you doing here?” “Following hoofprints somepony kindly left in the dust for me to follow. And tsk. Back in the day, you’d greet me and others with all manner of professional courtesies.” Old Chestnut’s eyes glittered. “But it’s hardly the old days anymore, I suppose.” “It’s been a gruelling day,” Dad growled. “What are you doing here? I’ve staked a claim, if you’re thinking of doing something daft.” “Have you now?” said Old Chestnut innocently. “Ponies at the society offices have such loose lips. I followed your wagon here yesterday, and I saw you go below earlier today. Thank you for clearing a path through most of the obstacles, by the way. You’ve had no time to send a message back confirming your claim. Have you even picked up a trophy-piece yet?” “Not yet,” Dad said curtly. “Excellent.” Old Chestnut’s smirk sharpened. “Then you won’t have anything slowing you down while I shoo you off the premises.” “Oh dear. You are doing something daft.” His tone was dry, and there was the sound of Dad’s hooves scuffing a short distance on the floor. “Weren’t the last two times humiliating enough? I recall leaving you tied upside-down by your tail from a flag-pole for the last one.” “Yes, lovely glory days for you, I’m sure,” purred Old Chestnut. “But you’re rather lacking a certain quality element now.” “Old Chestnut, this has been lovely and professional so far,” said Dad, and danger ran through his tone like a thread of steel. “I advise against making it personal. For your own sake, of course.” “Frightening,” sneered Old Chestnut. “Scary as a kitten on a teat. You’ll forgive me if I choose not to be intimidated by a useless has-been with as much right to be conducting a delve as a tortoise has flying.” “The latter would appear truly marvellous to all onlookers, so you’ve stumbled onto an apt comparison for once in your career. Well done. Keep it up.” “A useless has-been who’s spent the last eight years quietly and correctly mouldering behind a desk while better ponies than he do proper field work,” continued Old Chestnut. “Don’t pretend you’re still up to this. You’re nothing without—” There was the sharp clang of a spur slamming into the floor, and Daring saw Old Chestnut reflexively edge back before rallying. She glared flatly in Dad’s direction. “Your wife merited respect when she was still around, may the Hereafter treat her kindly, and stars know what she saw in you. I’m not going to be upstaged again, and certainly not by the useless half of your duo,” she hissed. “You don’t merit spit, Gallivant, and I’ll be damned if you get to slather your dusty, useless hide over a piece of Antlertean gold.” And that was a little too much for Daring to stomach. “You shut up!” she blazed, leaping out from behind the desk and scowling right up at Old Chestnut. “He does so merit spit! I mean, he doesn’t … that is … you shut up!” Old Chestnut stared right at her, eyes wide. “Daring,” Dad said wearily. “You were told to stay behind the desk.” Old Chestnut took a deep breath. “Gallivant,” she started, her words slow and deliberate and rising to a shout, “Why in the name of the princess’s last earth-quaking rut is your daughter down here?” “Language,” rasped Dad in a tone that was all steel. And past everything, Daring still found the mental space in which to exult and add rut to her ever-growing curse catalog. What a productive day this had been for it. “This is a feathering ruin! An Antlertean ruin! Why would you bring a foal here?” “I didn’t bring her along with me,” said Dad from between gritted teeth. “It's a rutting school hour, for star’s sake!” “I brought myself along!” Daring yelled. “I came down here by myself, and don’t you dare blame Dad for that. He’s a great adventurer, and I’m doing what he does!” “Please stop helping, Daring,” said Dad gently. “Enough of this,” hissed Old Chestnut. “You’re leaving, and you’re certainly taking your daughter with you, you irresponsible Eohippus of a stallion. Don’t think about forcing the issue. This is my spot to claim. This is my glory you’re squatting in.” There was a pause, and then Dad kicked off one spur. He said, in a tired voice, “Get behind the desk, Daring.” “You can’t be serious,” said Old Chestnut. “You’re going for hard negotiation. You’re already injured. Do you want your daughter to see you humiliated that badly?” Dad kicked off the other spur. “Behind the desk, Daring,” he said flatly. The steel lingered in his tone, and Daring found herself edging back behind the desk. Her gaze remained fixed on the two, and she winced as Old Chestnut kicked sharpened steel shoes off and onto the floor with a clatter. She swept them to one side with contemptuous ease, and Daring hated how fresh and upright she was, how undented and gleaming her armour and helmet were. Her eyes went to Dad, and she shivered at how battered and tired he was in comparison, how slow and fatigued his movements were. He winced as he adjusted his stance, his injured leg’s hoof skittered awkwardly across the floor as he hesitated to put any weight on it, and his bloodied coat hung around him in rags. She couldn’t see the hurt right side of his face, but she knew it was there. The eye that faced Daring flickered in her direction for a moment. Another sad attempt at a reassuring smile creased Dad’s battered features, and she saw him mouth, “It’ll be alright, Daring. Stay behind the desk.” And with that, she saw him face Old Chestnut with his one good eye and draw himself up into as high and ready a stance as he could. He had to know he couldn’t win, she realised, but he was doing it anyway, as if there was something he was trying to live up to. Was it for his own pride’s sake? Was it to make somepony else proud? Was that somepony Daring? Was it Mom? “Look away, little filly,” came Old Chestnut’s cold tone. “Your daddy’s about to get himself hurt to an inch from the Hereafter.” With that, she lunged forward across the study in an eye’s blink. Dad braced to meet her, and for the next few moments, all was a blur of crashing bodies, snapping teeth, and swinging hooves as the two archaeologists conducted hard negotiation in the best traditions of their profession. Daring struggled to keep track of what was happening as hooves spun and cracked against armoured bodies, as coats and capes whirled, as the two tore into each other with the mad desperation of fighting dogs. They broke apart and circled for a moment, just a moment. Dad barely had time to take in a ragged breath before Old Chestnut tore at him again, plunging forwards with both forehooves kicking. He could only fend her off with one, and for every blow in the flurry that he turned aside, another slammed into his front, into his throat, into the injured side of his face. The smack of impact mingled with his cry of pain, and he was sent staggering back. “Yield!” snarled Old Chestnut. She was already circling around Dad again, moving around his blind right side, and he was forced to hobble around to try and keep her in his sight. “Yield, you waste of hide. Spare yourself the shame of another loss.” Dad lunged, his teeth champing inches in the air from Old Chestnut’s ear, and she slammed her morion-clad head forward into the injured side of his face again. A low hiss of pain escaped him, and he shrunk down, hunching up his withers to try and protect his face even as Old Chestnut began to circle him again. His injured leg’s hoof caught on the ground, and the moment he spent trying to extricate it was all Old Chestnut needed. She dove in and slammed one almighty kick into the wound on his leg, and Dad collapsed with a rasping cry. “Yield!” The yell came from Old Chestnut. From Dad, there was a cut-off growl that might have been a new curse, and he twisted and tried to right himself on the ground as Old Chestnut threw kick after kick into his side. Daring watched from behind the desk in mute horror, and she thought with all the furious energy desperation afforded. Dad couldn’t lose. He couldn’t. But if Old Chestnut kept being faster and kept hurting him where he’d already been hurt, he’d have to give up. And then everything here would have been for nothing, and Dad would limp away with no ruin, no trophy-piece, an injured leg and face, and feeling he’d disappointed whoever he was fighting for. Cervile had looked for some inner treasure to keep them sane over the centuries, Daring remembered. And she remembered that bleak age spent down at the bottom of the library, and how much worse it would be to have that sort of treasure and to have it torn away from you. She had to help. But how? Part of Daring wanted to plunge right in to kick and bite and buffet Old Chestnut to drive her off Dad. But another part of her which had hardened and taken shape throughout this day told her how that could go wrong. If she charged in, Dad might just surrender then to spare her from harm, and then he’d have lost anyway. If she charged in, she might just get hurt herself, but she wasn’t scared of that. If she got hurt by Old Chestnut, how would Dad react? There wasn’t any outcome there that led to anything good, and plenty that led to horrors Daring didn’t even want to think about. What would a storybook adventurer do, when the battle was nearly lost and they themselves weren’t strong enough to win it? What would a sensible adventurer like Dad do if he could? Daring racked her brain, cast about for any hanging thread to pull on to bring the whole horrible fight low, and then she remembered what she had. It wasn’t often where both sorts of adventurers would run with the exact same solution, but it was perfect enough to fit them both. “Cervile!” Daring went unheeded by the two battling archaeologists, and in the corner of her eye, there might have been a glimmer of blue. “Cervile, are you there?” The glimmer of blue came again, motes of it twinkling in the air. “Please! We need your help! Get Old Chestnut out of here! Get her somewhere where she won’t hurt Dad!” There was a moment of silence, like the hush after a first musical note. The blue in the air vanished. And then there was a thunderclap and flash of light in the air between Dad and Old Chestnut, and where the latter had been knocked sprawling on the floor, an ethereal blue shape rose over her. “You trespass in a private study, ma’am, and your conduct is unacceptably disorderly,” said the freehold’s buckservant in mild and meticulous tones that jangled with ice. “If you’ll pardon the presumption, I believe you need to comport yourself in the solarium for a short while. There is reading material there if you get bored.” And before Old Chestnut could rise, or manage anything beyond a cut-off, “What the skyfiring ru—?” Cervile’s blue light enveloped her, and in a flash that sent the dust on the floor trembling, both vanished from the room. There was silence in the study then, before Dad feebly coughed where he lay upon the floor. Daring stood still, and trembled slightly where she stood. A high, disbelieving laugh escaped her. The dust in the room settled, and Dad struggled to his hooves. “Poppet?” he said, after a while in which he tried to shake a certain concussed bleariness out of his expression. “What was that?” Daring felt another laugh try to escape her as it finally set in that she’d done it, they’d won. “I saved the day with the power of friendship.” Technically, she thought as her legs threatened to collapse out from under her with sheer happy relief, it could have equally been the power of teleportation. But it was a friend’s teleportation, and that was what mattered.