Flying.
She remembered flying, from before. She had had wings then. Or she thought she had. It was hard to be sure, anymore. She had been so many things. Some had flown. Some had not. Once she had been a butterfly, dancing from flower to flower with shredded wings as an army of bees chased her, intent on ripping her apart. Once she had been a dragon, soaring through the sky raining fire down on a village full of screaming yellow ponies. They had cried and wept and called her by name.
It seemed strange to her, that she couldn’t remember her name anymore. Did she have a name? She had had one once, but she had lost it somewhere along the way. Did that mean it wasn’t hers, anymore? She didn’t know. There were a lot of things she didn’t know anymore. Her name. What face she wore. Who the ponies around her were, and why she had seen them in her dreams. Why her body didn’t change from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Why she hadn’t died yet, to begin again as something else.
But she knew that she wanted to fly.
They knew it too. She had seen it in their worried eyes and heard it in their hushed whispers. They were afraid. Were they afraid for her? Or were they afraid of her, of what she would find? She didn’t know. But she did know some things. She knew that the yellow pony, the one who had died screaming times beyond counting and yet seemed unchanged, cried over her. She had heard the apologies that one whispered, when she thought she was sleeping.
She wasn’t sleeping. She never slept anymore. Life was a dream now – maybe always had been – and so she didn’t need to close her eyes.
She knew the blue one had bought her here, taken her from where she belonged. And she knew she hated her for it. Things had been simple before. Run, don’t walk. Walk, don’t run. Save them, kill them, love them, burn them. Don’t bend. Don’t break. Do whatever it takes to survive, and then die anyway. No time for thought. No time to know.
But she knew things now. And she knew that she was empty inside. No thoughts. No memories, No soul. Something was missing, and she didn’t know how to find it. She had tried. She had wandered and wandered until her strange, weak body failed her. She had collapsed in the dirt and lay there for days waiting for him to find her, only for the pink one to pick her up and carry her back here. To the box.
It was small and quiet and loud and fearful, just like…
Like what?
It didn’t matter. Except that it was all that mattered. Here, in this place, with only her thoughts echoing through the terrifying sameness of the dark room, something gnawed at her mind like the rats that had gnawed at her flesh. But this was worse, somehow. There had been pain, there. Real. Visceral. Something to grasp at in a world made of shadows.
Here it was different. Here she was the shadow in a world made of realities.
But she knew things now. Some of them were things she had been. Some of them were things she had done. People, places, nightmares and endings. But above it all, as she stared through the window at the grey, swirling sky – ever changing and yet still so very much the same – she knew longing.
In the centre of the storm it sat. A pale fortress filled with flashes of light that roared like a dragon. Tall, proud and fading. It changed, when she looked away. Pieces shifted. Rearranged themselves. Fixed themselves. Crumbling walls became tall spires became demons became doorways became dancing lights that split the sky, breaking it apart before fading away. Perhaps they were shadows too. She didn’t know.
But she wanted to. Because she knew things now, and above all the things she knew she knew that that place – that swirling nightmare in a world not its own, a bastion of chaos and an echo of him – was meant for her. Perhaps it would contain her memories. Or her name. Perhaps it would whisper to her, and tell her why her heart ached whenever the yellow one was near. Perhaps it would burn her, destroy her, cast her down. Perhaps she would be like the lights, and find out what she was meant for in the instant before she faded away.
That would be okay. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew. She had already done what she was meant for. She had already played this game. She didn’t know it she had won or lost, just that she had left the board early.
And she had cheated, if he was to be believed. That was okay, too. As long as she had won. Winning was all that mattered to her, now.
And that was the why, wasn’t it? The one constant she held within her. Winning was all that mattered…and that was wrong. She wanted other things to matter. She wanted to find the laughter and the joy that she could hear but not feel. She wanted to be whole again.
The thing…the ruin…was a challenge, meant for her. That was good. She liked challenges. Perhaps she hadn’t always, but she did now. And she’d beaten them before. Beaten him before. Never for long, and she always paid for it. But something told her that here, in this strange, static world, once would be enough.
She leaned forward, hooves shaking in anticipation, and pushed the window open. They didn’t think she could do that, anymore. They had sealed it. But it opened this time. Because he wanted it to. She was playing right into his hands.
As she pushed herself from the window and forced her tired, aching, clumsy wings to carry her up, she felt a flicker of fear. She hadn’t been afraid for a very long time. Fear was good. Real things were afraid sometimes. And she would be real again. Or she would be nothing.
As she forced herself onwards the sky came ever closer, a swirling expanse of blackness and sound that rushed forth to consume her.
The sky was falling, and Daring Do rose to meet it.
The prompt: An ancient pegasus ruin floats into the skies above Ponyville.
It's probably worth throwing in that this is the third in a connected set, the first being A Lost Treasure and the second being Parallels.
1152259
I hated her either way.
I guess if that occurs at somepoint in the infinite and varied timelines, she can live a short and terror filled life the rest of the time, and Discord would still be keeping the bargain. Maybe? (or the whole wish thing was just a bit of fun in the first place, with no actual power to hold him to it)
And I really liked Parallels too...
Just to be clear here, is Daring Do actually attempting to fight her way out of hell after being tormented with endless nightmare scenarios, frequently revolving around Fluttershy?
Or did Dash somehow interrupt the sacrifice and bring Daring Do back to Ponyville, the broken bargain freeing Discord to remake the world over and over again?
1160893 Dash, Shy and the others stormed Tartarus and dragged Daring Do out back to Ponyville, but not before Discord had broken her mentally and physically.
This is inside her mind, where her consciousness is slowly rebuilding itself - some of what she's saying is really happening, and some of it is her dreaming. The bargain isn't broken though - Discord doesn't have the power to influence the world without artifacts like the one Daring used to save Shy, so long as he stays stone. So a little of both of those, and some that's not - this is essentially Daring warring with the damage done to her and the taint of Discord still poisoning her.
1155417 The bargain has already been made, and both parties have already done their part - neither has actually broken their side of the bargain, in a technical sense: but at this point it wouldn't matter if they had. To influence the world while he's stone Discord needs the physical pieces of his power - akin to the stone elements of harmony - such as the one Daring and Dash found. In Tartarus he still had power - but the elements already reclaimed Daring from Tartarus.
Fear not. Parallels still stands. And I'm glad that you liked it.
At first I thought this was going to be a Pinkie remembers being Surprise at one point sort of fic and then woops not really lol.
1161473 Heh. Sorry about that. ^^'
I dunno if this is quite kosher according to the site rules, but you might actually want to consider yanking this and the other Daring Do pieces from this collection and turning them into a stand-alone story. This is a really original take on Daring Do and how she fits into the MLP world.