The Sound of One Hoof Clopping

by Trick Question

Koan 11: Daring Do's Last Stand

Daring Do raced along the edge of a cliff, a bloodthirsty tiger hot on her tail. As she galloped for her life, she kept a keen eye on the edge of precipice, trying not to be distracted by the approaching sound of sharp claws raking the earth behind her. Initially she'd hoped the cliffside might slow down the predator, but the tiger's superb reflexes kept him on track without missing a beat.

While the intrepid explorer was no stranger to peril, this was a dire situation even by her standards. Both of her wings had been injured in a recent accident, so she had no hopes of flying or even gliding to safety. She'd lost her trusty whip down a crevasse about half a mile back. Worst of all, her legs ached and she hadn't slept in two days. It took every ounce of her strength to keep moving, and she was rapidly running out of steam.

At the edge of exhaustion, she spotted a thick, dry vine which dropped off the edge of the cliff. Steeling herself, she pulled down on the brim of her pith helmet with one hoof and leaped over the edge. Daring Do reached out with her left foreleg to grapple the vine, twisting it around her ankle and shoulder to slow her descent. Her other forehoof tugged hard on the edge of the vine, and her rear hooves dug into the muddy surface of the cliff. The combined action from all four legs slowed and finally halted her descent, just before reaching the end of the plant growth. She quickly estimated she'd slid about thirty hooves down from the top of the cliff.

The tiger paced and raged above her, but he was intelligent enough to avoid damaging the vine from which his would-be prey was hanging. Daring Do breathed a tentative sigh of relief, tugging at a tear in her clothing with her free hoof.

"I'm getting too old for this," she grumbled.

Despite the mood, she managed to crack a smile, briefly pausing to consider her long and storied career of adventure. She knew she wouldn't have things any other way, even if there were moments of excessive danger like this one that she could gladly do without.

Daring's left foreleg was sore where the vine had burned it from the slide, and the segment of vine holding her up was wrapped about it painfully tightly. At least her grip was secure (for now). The cliff was vertical and muddy, offering her no hoofholds at all, so the vine was her only remaining lifeline.

It was then that Daring looked beneath her and almost wished she hadn't. The good news was that the drop was short enough she might survive it, though she'd probably break all four of her legs in the process. The bad news was the second tiger waiting for her at the base of the cliff. The tigress below licked her jowls hungrily, waiting for her inevitable meal to arrive.

"Well, this sucks," she said to herself, adjusting her weakening grip. "Maybe I can tie my arm to the vine and wait them out?" Just then, Daring Do heard an odd squeaking sound coming from above her head. Her attention turned to the vine above her. At first she didn't see anything other than the first tiger preventing her ascent, not that it mattered. She lacked the strength to climb back up even if her life depended on it.

After a moment of observation, she spotted two tiny mice, one snow white and the other coal black, both near the top of the cliff. They were slowly chewing through the vine from which she hung! They were probably using strands of the vine as bedding for their den in the cliffside.

"Oh, shoo! Please, little mice," she begged horsely, but they didn't appear to notice her. The vine above began to peel into smaller strips. Daring Do realized she had a few minutes left to live, tops. Her exhaustion left her with no avenues of escape. "I wonder if anypony will ever know what became of me. There probably won't be so much as a shred of a cutie mark left to identify my remains."

Just then, something very strange hit her senses, something she had never before experienced in the face of danger. Perhaps it was the inevitability of her current fate, or maybe it was just how exhausted she found herself. Either way, the adrenaline simply trickled out of her veins. The pegasus pony’s muscles relaxed and her mind cleared. She realized that she did have an option: she could accept her fate. In the end, it didn’t really matter how she died, or whether or not ponies from the outside world found what was left of her. What mattered is how she lived, and this was something that she was at peace with.

With this paradigmatic shift in mindset, the world around Daring Do seemed to undergo a remarkable change. No longer focused on survival, the sky became a brighter shade of blue. The air smelled a dozen times sweeter. She looked across at the expanse of jungle: how beautiful it was, so lush and green and teeming with life! She smiled and simply acquiesced to the moment. How long had she missed all the beauty which surrounded her? And as she glanced at the muddy cliff side, she noticed another detail her senses had previously passed over: it was a grapevine she hung from. There were thin stems from grape bunches all along the vine, though the mice had eaten most of the grapes already. A single grape, too small to possibly be ripe, just barely lay within Daring’s reach. She stretched upward with her free hoof and gently plucked it from the vine.

At any other time, Daring Do might have hurled the tiny grape at the tigress below her in a futile gesture of defiance, but her concerns at this moment no longer lay rooted in the future. There was no future, she realized, and there was no past. Everything that mattered was right here, in the present. So she popped the grape right into her mouth, her mind free of desires and expectations.

It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

Comments

[Misty Spell]

And then she died. But at least she died happy...? Until the excruciating pain brought her senses back down to earth at any rate.

[Rocket]

This.