Daring Do's Map

by DemonicPinkieGamer

The Map

After a couple of days, Rainbow Dash had all but blazed through Daring Do's journal. In her cloud house, Rainbow sat on the roof, book in hoof, as she was sipping some fruit punch.

"And so, I grabbed the ancient treaure with glee, only to see something out of the corner of my eye. I stuffed the bracelet into my bag, and tensed my wings, just in case I needed to fly." Rainbow said. Her wings tensed as well, excited for what might happen next. "I looked to where I saw it, and there it was, a full-fledged dragon!!" Rainbow Dash gasped, jumping a bit.

"It stood... hmm... perhaps 15 feet tall, 27 feet long. One of those long, serpentine dragons, quick and elusive. Clever, too. I hadn't heard there were dragons here, so this came as a surprise. As you know, I like to do research about an area before I go exploring there." Rainbow Dash read.

"The Dungeon of the Cloven Queen is nothing an amateur adventurer should take lightly, I found. Many adventurers have been here, and next to none have come out. The worm dragons are nothing to be taken lightly as well. This may be one of the most difficult dungeons I've faced thus far. So, I flew up into the air and looked around. There was a hole in the ceiling, letting in some light. I flew through it and peered down at the dragon. it was climbing up the wall, finding crevices to put it's claws into, and keeping its eyes on the hole in the ceiling."

Rainbow paused. She knew that Daring Do had faced many things ten times as difficult as dragons, so why was she afraid? She figured that maybe the dragon looked a bit more menacing to Daring Do then it appeared in her mind. She took a long drink of juice before continuing the story.

"Aaah. As the dragon climbed the wall, it spied my head poking out and breathed a jet of flame at me. I quickly pulled my head in and let the rock take the blow for me. I could feel the rock under my hooves begin to heat up immensely. The dragon continued to breathe fire at the rock at my feet. I realized what it was doing, with a start. The dragon WAS clever, for the dragon was heating up the rock under my feet so he could burn my hooves!!!" Rainbow Dash said.

She wondered if Spike would be able to breathe fire one day, and wondered, perhaps, if Spike would someday act like the dragon in the story. She shuddered and moved on. "I flew up and did a loop around another jet of flame. I paused for a moment in the air. The dragon quickly moved up the wall with ease, finally popped its great head out of the hole and stared right at me. We locked eyes for a moment. It's great golden eyes looked like shining gold in the daylight. Finally, its gaze moved away from me and- EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" Rainbow Dash was frightened by something colliding into her.

"HEY!!!" She yelled. She saw a blur of blue, and suddenly, it was gone.

She breathed, relieved. She looked for Daring Do's journal, which she spotted plummenting towards the ground with great speed. Rainbow Dash's eyes widened to saucers as she dove down, flattening her wings against her body, quickly catching up to it. She finally spied the book falling toward Applejack's apple stand! She flew super-fast toward the stand, belly-up.She got to it just in time to have the book smack onto her belly with amazing force. She skidded across the ground, scraping herself up.

"oooooooowwwwwwwww.......... my... stomac- BLERCK!!!" She said, throwing up her lunch.

Applejack rushed to help her up. "What was that fer? Ya nearly darn knocked over mah stand!!" She said. Her eyes softened. "Are ya alright, sugarcube? Ya don't look too good."

Rainbow Dash's face was almost as green as a strip of her spectrum-colored mane. "I'm... okay. This-" Rainbow Dash said, taking the book and quickly waving it in front of AJ.

"Ah knew ya liked Darin' Dew, Dash, but ah didn't know ya woulda risked yer life to save a old book o' hers!" She said jokingly.

Rainbow Dash slowly got to her hooves and shook her head. "This 'old book' is the REAL Daring Do's journal. And this book is an artifact, being like 600 years old. If I broke it..." Rainbow Dash shuddered. "Anyway, it's every bit as awesome as the books."

Applejack raised an eyebrow, but stayed quiet. "Anyway, i'd be best if maybe ya stayed away frem mah stand." AJ said warily. Rainbow rocketed up into the sky without a word. Applejack rolled her eyes. Rainbow probably didn't even hear her...

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A couple minutes later...

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Rainbow Dash settled down on her cloud bed, opening the book. CRACK!!! Rainbow Dash gasped, had she broken the book? She gently closed the book, and peered at it. "Phew... ACK!!!!" she said.

She had spotted a large crack in the spine of the book. "BUCK!!!!" She yelled.

She looked at it, turning the book slightly. She thought she saw something. She put her eye up to it and squinted. 'A piece of rolled-up paper... what would that be doing here?' thought Rainbow. She reached in with her hoof- and it didn't fit. She thought for a second, then extended her wingtips and reached in. She focused and curled her feathers around the piece of paper, grasping the paper. She pulled her wingtip out of the book, which now awkwardly grasped a piece of paper.

She pulled it out of her wing and opened the paper. Draw on it, in fine detail, was Equestria. Only much, much different. She saw things like 'The Cloven Kingdom', 'Tenohooflan', and something where Ponyville used to be called 'The Zebra Tribe'. However, Canterlot was still there. And Celestia was crudely drawn next to it, though. In brown ink, however, there was a big X over her.

Author's Note:

Couldn't think of a better way to end the chapter. *shrugs* Anyways... What'd ya think? I tried SOOO hard to keep it grammatically correct... I hope I did a good job. Oh, by the way, in the 1st chapter, Rainbow Dash was excited for Twilight to get there because she hadn't heard that Twilight went off to the Crystal Empire.