16 - Show Some Manners
Chapter Sixteen
Show Some Manners
Daring pulled her wings in briefly to let a family of earth ponies pass her in the hall. Alone, she spread them until the tips nearly touched the opposite walls of the corridor. She sighed, stretching and rolling the muscles in her neck and back to relieve their unbearable soreness. “Sweet Celestia, I hate winning,” she said with a little chuckle. “Now where the heck is that cafeteria?”
Groping through the dusty corners of her memory, Daring managed to find the noisy room that offered every basic food on Equus. Eagerly, she filled her tray and moved to the closest table, many of which were empty by that late in the morning.
“Hey, Daring!” called a scratchy voice. The adventuress looked toward the noise and noticed a blue hoof waving vivaciously over the small crowd. “Over here!”
“Huh?” She flapped her wings for a better view and squinted her still-blurry eyes, but there was no mistaking that multi-colored mane. “Uh oh.” Gulping, she timidly waved back, catching her tray before it fell. Lowering herself into one of the chairs around the nearest table, she ducked her head and started to eat, hoping Rainbow wouldn’t make a scene. As much as she loved the attention, right then wasn’t the time: she was hung up, hung over, and hungry.
Rainbow Dash suddenly slammed into the seat at Daring’s side. The yellow mare yelped and lost her grip on an apple, watching it roll away.
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck. “Whoops… sorry. Heheh….”
Daring shrugged. “Nyeh, it’s all right. They got plenty more where that came from.”
“I wonder how many of these came from Sweet Apple Acres,” Rainbow said, glancing at the apple station in the center of a far wall. “They seem to pump out a lot of fruit every year.”
Daring furrowed her brow. “Is that, uh… Flapjack’s place?”
Rainbow laughed. “Applejack. Close enough.”
Rolling her eyes, Daring said, “You’d think I could remember that one,” and took a big bite of another green apple.
A small smile came over Rainbow’s face and she shrugged. “Eh, at least you’re trying.”
Daring cast a sideways glance at her partner. “You seem… happy.”
Rainbow beamed. “I am happy!”
“Well, that’s great. But, I mean… you don’t seem… y’know… mad.”
“Aawww, it’s fine. You were drunker than I can ever relate to. I know you didn’t mean it.” In a painfully familiar manner, Rainbow thumped her hoof against the space between Daring Do’s wings.
“Aaaah-ha-ha-hooowww…” Daring whined, pushing herself away from Rainbow’s hoof. “Don’t do thaaat.”
Rainbow scrunched up her face and snickered. “You sore, Doctor Do?”
“Doctor?” Daring snorted. “Kid, that’s a name for the books alone. I’m not a doctor of anything. And yeah, I’m frickin’ sore as Tartarus.”
Rainbow cackled to the ceiling, clutching her diaphragm. “Oh, I bet you are! Nopony keeps up with Rainbow Dash and doesn’t feel the burn!”
“Not just keeps up,” Daring said with a wink.
Rainbow raised her hooves and stifled her giggles. “Well, I can’t say it was fair and square, but you’re right, Doc: you beat me.”
“What’s with this Doc stuff all o’ the sudden, kid?”
“What’s with calling me ‘kid’ when we both know you know my name?”
Daring smirked at that. “Oh, yeah. What was it again, uh… Thunder Clap? Prism Bash? Tender Hoof?”
“Hey!” Rainbow punched her partner playfully in the shoulder while they laughed.
“Do you even remember the crap you said?” Rainbow asked.
“Not all of it,” Daring answered. Her tail swished. “But… enough to know you should be mad.”
“Yeah, prob’ly.” Rainbow stole one of the carrots on top of Daring’s pile and chewed off the end of it with her back teeth. “I’m no good at staying mad at my friends.”
With raised eyebrows, Daring turned halfway and looked at the shine in Rainbow’s ruby eyes. She couldn’t think of anything to say, but the involuntary grin growing under her snout was more than enough for Rainbow Dash.
“So I guess Ditzy and I are on our own, huh?” the weathermare said with a mouth full of carrot. “Since you quit and all.”
“Quit?” Daring guffawed and flicked her hoof dismissively. “Pssshh. Did I say that? That was either the alcohol talking, or you’re just making stuff up.”
“Could be!” Rainbow laughed, spinning the last bite of carrot on the upturned flat of her hoof. “It’s not like I’m the Element of Honesty over here.”
Daring took her next bite with her teeth wrapped in a warm smile.
{-DD-}
A unicorn wearing the blue vest of an on-ship employee shocked a couple of levers with a beam of red magic. Immediately, four enormous ramps extended from the edge of the deck all the way down to the Stirropean harbor where several more unicorns secured them to the ends of docks.
Wide-eyed foals—mostly earth ponies—stared in awe at the compact cityscape starting at the very coast and stretching halfway to the orange horizon where the Sun was nearing its set. Dull reds and browns dominated the old, sturdy buildings and narrow streets of the blooming Chevallian port-town.
Rainbow Dash relished the inklings of wind that surged back and forth on the coastline and tossed her prismatic bangs around her ears. “Oh, boy… I’ve missed that.”
Daring snorted. “It’s been, like, one day, kid.”
“Yeah, well, a day without wind is like a day without the Sun!”
She hurried to another part of the deck to get a better view of the city. Daring shook her head at Rainbow’s words. “I know someone who’d be very happy to hear you say that,” she murmured to herself, following her partner’s lead.
Ditzy emerged from the wall of doors with two dozen other passengers chattering about how quick the trip was. She pushed past them and easily spotted Rainbow Dash at the base of the stairs that led to the upper deck.
“Rainbow!” she called out, trotting forward… and suddenly noticing her sister at the blue pony’s hip leaning over the banister to point out landmarks. Ditzy twitched, groaned, and continued her march.
“…and that’s the opera house, which I’ve never been to, but I hear it’s pretty special… oh! And see that tall thing over there on the hill? That’s an old basilica, Notre-Jument de la Garde, Our Mare of the Guard. It’s super cool and old and stuff. You’d like it. We should go there—”
“Ahem!” Ditzy coughed.
Daring spun around. “—after we find the foals, of course.” She narrowed her eyes at her sister and turned back to the city. “Yeah, kid, Mareseille is beautiful. Been around for thousands and thousands of years, way before Equestria was founded.”
“What’s that shiny thing on top of the… Noter Shumont day luh Gard?” Rainbow asked.
Daring laughed. “That’s a golden statue of Celestia. Biggest in the world, I’m pretty sure.”
“Celestia?” Rainbow blinked. “But isn’t she our princess?”
“Ponies all over Equus love Celestia, kid,” Daring explained. “Y’know how we say she ‘raises the Sun’? Well, it’s more like she ‘keeps it in orbit’. Sun shines everywhere, believe it or not.”
Rainbow pushed her jaw to one side. “But then… how did Nightmare Moon plan to keep the whole world in eternal night or whatever?”
“Not the whole world,” Ditzy said from behind them. “Nightmare Moon wanted her very own nation to rule over, free from what she saw as Celestia’s supremacy.”
“Huh?”
“She was pissed at her sister,” Daring explained. “Didn’t you read Daring Do and the Hollow of the Moon? I sorta philosophized about it in there.”
“Uh…” Rainbow pulled a timid smile. “I tend to skip the wordy parts that don’t have tons of action.”
“Hey, no worries. So do I!” Daring snickered. “Back when I was searching for the Moonstone—”
“We were searching.”
“—rumored to be part of Nightmare Moon’s fortress built beneath the surface of the natural satellite—”
“Nice work, Rainbow Dash. You turned on her prose.”
“—I met with a stallion who had been studying Nightmare Moon’s banishment and prophesied return for more than half of his life. He believed that everything Luna did and everything she became was due to her jealousy toward Celestia.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Well, duh.”
“It might seem obvious now,” Daring admitted, “but at the time, Nightmare Moon was nothing more than an old mare’s tale.” Her eyes glazed over and she donned a distant smile. “That book saw a huge resurgence in sales when Nightmare Moon returned. Turns out most of my predictions about her disappearance were right on the money.”
“Our predictions!” Ditzy snapped.
“So, wait… are you saying she wanted to raise the Sun?” Rainbow asked.
Several ponies stationed at the tops of the ramps nodded to their counterparts below and started to herd the hundreds of passengers on deck into a new country.
“She didn’t want anything to do with the Sun!” Daring yelled over the increased volume of the surrounding ponies. “That’s the whole point! She was sick of Celestia getting all the attention, but more than that, she hated her sister for acting like a, uhm…”
“Like an enemy,” Rainbow finished, taking slow steps with the flow of the crowd.
“Yeah, exactly!” Daring grinned. “See? You get it.” She turned to a random pony on her other side and elbowed them in the ribs, gesturing to Rainbow Dash with her other hoof. “Best partner ever!”
Rainbow snickered at the stallion’s confused expression, hiding a flattered blush with one of her own hooves. Ditzy grit her teeth and sort of rolled her eyes, but nopony would have guessed it.
“Hey, hold on!” Daring said, stopping in her tracks. “I gotta go thank Fancypants.”
Rainbow blinked. “Fancypants? You mean Rarity’s uppity friend in Canterlot?”
“You know Fancypants?” Ditzy asked.
“Sure, I’ve met him a few times.”
“Well, come on, then!” Daring encouraged, linking her foreleg with one of Rainbow’s and lifting them both into the air above the masses. “You can say hello!”
“He’s on the ship?”
“He’s the captain!”
“Hey, wait up!” Ditzy grumbled, flying behind the pair. She couldn’t believe how swimmingly they were suddenly getting along. What about the race? What about the insults? Had they already forgotten how different they were? Eyes and lips twitching, Ditzy trained one eye on their destination: the upper deck, where Captain Fancypants was watching his happy passengers depart.
“Ah, Miss Do!” he said as the yellow pegasus landed. “And Miss Doo! And… Miss Dash?”
“Hiya!” Rainbow said with a smirk.
Fancypants’ monocle popped out of place. “I say… were you the other pony involved in the race?”
“Yup, that was me!” Rainbow said, flipping her mane.
“I should have known,” Fancypants chuckled, wiping his monocle once on his jacket before setting it back in its place. “Though you’re not quite the Wonderbolts’ trainer, you’ve certainly a passion for flying fast.”
“Ha!” Rainbow wagged her eyebrows. “Rarity has been spending more time with Applejack since the wedding, just so you know.”
“I would hope so,” he said with a smirk of his own, turning to the clueless Sisters Doo. “Sorry about that. Private joke.”
“I just had to thank you before we left, Cap’n,” Daring said earnestly. “What you did for me… and said to me… well, it was really nice. I’m very sorry about your deck.”
“It’s quite all right, Miss Do,” he assured her, shaking her shoulder. “Thank you for being cooperative in the plans for its repair.”
Ditzy perked up. “You… paid the fine?”
“Fine!?” Rainbow yelped. “Oh, shoot! I should have helped out!”
“Nah, it’s no problem,” Daring said, adjusting her hat. “It was my fault and my responsibility—” She bit her lip. “—even if I didn’t see that right at first.”
Ditzy’s jaw dropped at the humble expression on Daring’s face, lowering even more at Fancypants’ approving nod.
“It was a pleasure to you meet both of you,” he said, “and to see you again, Miss Dash. Please take care in Haissan, whatever business you have there.”
“Wouldn’t dream of otherwise!” Rainbow said, saluting the captain. “Hey, by the way, does Rarity know you fly this thing?”
He tilted his head. “She is aware that I captain air vessels, yes.”
“But this one? Like, trans-oh-she-ant-tic, or whatever?”
Fancypants grinned. “Well, perhaps. I’ve never brought it up.”
“You should tell her,” Rainbow said, nodding suggestively. “She’d think it’s so awesome.”
Another sort of smile twitched at the corners of the captain’s mouth. “I shall certainly remember to address it.” He tipped his hat. “Thank you, Miss Dash.”
“It’s Rainbow Dash!” She dove over the edge of the upper deck and back into the dwindling crowd.
“Heehee! She’s awesome,” Daring said, quickly following suit.
Fancypants’ smiled at the diving pegasi, but his expression fell as soon as he noticed the tears building in Ditzy’s quivering eyes. “My dear Miss Doo, are you all right?”
“Why are they so… happy?” she choked. Fancypants took a step closer to hear her quiet words. “I try so hard to do the right thing, and... Daring is just so... so mean, and Rainbow Dash… she keeps… I don’t know, forgetting or something! One minute they’re fighting, and now they’re best friends, and… they’re acting like—”
“Sisters?” Fancypants offered.
Ditzy tilted her head forward, staring down at the blue and yellow pegasi laughing and chatting on the main deck. Her golden eyes flashed and suddenly focused for only a couple of seconds.
“I can’t pretend to know your history, Miss Doo,” Fancypants said, draping a comforting foreleg just behind Ditzy’s green collar, “but I can assure you, as a stallion with a sibling of my own, that family relationships are not only the most difficult, but also the most important… and the most rewarding.”
Blinking away tears, she looked up into his gentle smile.
“I promise you that things will improve with time and effort,” he said, never breaking contact with her momentarily steady right eye. “You are a delightful, sensible pony, Miss Doo. Your sister is remarkably different, though she, too, has her set of charms. I only implore that you do not give up on her… or Miss Dash, for that matter. From what Rarity has told me, that rascal of a pony is enough to handle on her own. I do not envy your position.”
The bubbly tone in his voice lifted Ditzy’s spirits. She giggled behind a lifted hoof. “Thanks, Mister Pants. Er, I mean…!”
He tapped her snout. “That will do just fine,” he said with a nod. “Now, you’d better catch up with your company.”
She swiveled her neck to see Rainbow and Daring approaching the top of the nearest ramp. With a little squeak, she smiled a final “thank you” to the debonair stallion and swooped down to complete the adventuring trio.
“You okay, Ditzy?” Rainbow asked, squinting at her reddened eyes.
The mailmare sniffed once and forced a smile. “I will be,” she said, and they started their descent.
{-DD-}
Rainbow’s hooves were the first to hit Stirropean ground.
“Gah, this is so awesome!” she said, bouncing between her front and back hooves. “We’re in a totally different country! Across the freaking ocean!”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty great. Cool your jets,” Daring said, grinning as she yanked her partner’s tail.
Rainbow grimaced and pulled away, sticking out her tongue. “Gosh, when did you turn into Applejack?”
“Huh?”
“Stay focused, girls,” Ditzy said as the group drifted farther from the dock and its droves of noisy travelers. “Who knows how long the foalnappers have been here? They might be in Haissan already.”
Rainbow’s face paled and she straightened into a serious position. “Ah, horseapples, you’re right. We better get going!” She hovered and glanced in all direction. “Uhhm… which way to Haissan?”
“It’s another long trip, kid,” Daring said, pointing east. “We’re on the coast, and it’s in the dead center of Stirrope, all the way through Cheval and Germaney.”
Rainbow dropped to the cobblestone and groaned. “How long is that gonna take?”
“It doesn’t matter, because—” Ditzy started.
“Back in our hay day, Ditzy and I flew there in, like, six hours.” Daring looked to the sky and tongued one corner of her mouth, flicking her sore wings nostalgically. “Do you remember that, Ditz?”
The mailmare snorted. “It was more like eight hours.”
“No way! We were lightning fast back then.”
“I could still do it.”
“I beat the Best Young Flier!”
Rainbow yelled, “How long is it gonna take us?”
The feuding sisters realized they were nose to nose and backed away quickly; Daring pretended to calculate on her hooves.
“Prob’ly, like, a day,” she guessed.
“I told you, it doesn’t matter how long it would take for us to get to Haissan, because we’re—”
“Rainbow Dash?”
The mare in question whirled around. A large, dark-feathered griffon had stopped between the trio and the emptying streets of Mareseilles. His beak curled into a smile. “I thought that was you.”
“Hi, Filo!” she said. “Where are you going?”
“Back home to Aquila.”
Ditzy gasped and stepped forward to speak.
Rainbow didn’t notice. “How are you getting there?”
He popped the joints of his massive wings. “It’s not far. Just a few hours north if you don’t stop along the way.”
Rainbow tilted her head to the side. “Really? Well, that’s pretty close. No wonder there’ve been so many conflicts between ponies and griffons.”
“There’s a mountain range that separates our territory from theirs,” he said, taking a few steps closer to the group. “It isn’t hard to fly over, but it does a good job at keeping us separate.” He smirked. “Usually.”
“Well, at least there are no wars going on right now,” Rainbow said with a weak chuckle.
He nodded and sat on his haunches, swishing his lion tail behind his angular head. “And you? Are these the ponies taking you to Haissan?”
“Ohhhh, okay,” Daring sighed. “So you two met on the ship. That’s good to know. I was all like ‘Whaaa?’ for a second there,” she said, waving her hooves wildly.
Rainbow laughed. “Filo, this is Daring.” She made a face as if to ask how much of her story he remembered. “Daring Do.”
He dropped his head in a firm nod. “Ah, yes. The funny friend of yours. Good to meet you.”
Daring beamed at the back of Rainbow Dash’s head even while addressing the griffon. “Yeah, dude, you too!”
“And this is Ditzy,” Rainbow said, rotating her upper body to look at the impatient mailmare. “Her sister.”
“A pleasure,” the griffon said.
“Yeah, yeah, listen: you said you were going to Aquila?”
“Ditzy!” Daring scolded, reaching over to slap her sister’s outstretched hoof. “Show some manners, huh?”
Her angry eyes swirled in their sockets while Rainbow smiled sheepishly.
“Heheh… so, yep. We’re all goin’ to Haissan.”
“I wish you safety and the best of luck,” Filo said with a little bow. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—” He bent into an impressive crouch and spread his enormous wings. “—I must be off.”
“We’re coming with you!” Ditzy said.
All eyes darted to her wonky pair.
“Huh?” Daring’s voice cracked.
“We’re going with him to the mountains of Aquila,” Ditzy repeated, lifting her head higher.
“Why the heck would we do that?” Rainbow asked. She stole a quick glance at the griffon before trotting closer to Ditzy and whispering, “The foals might be in Haissan already. You said so yourself! We don’t have time for detours.”
“Believe me, this will be the fastest way,” Ditzy whispered back.
Daring used her wings to hop into the quiet circle, wincing at the tightness in her muscles, and stuck her head between her partner’s and her sister’s. “What are we hissing about over here?”
“Ditzy says the fastest way to Haissan is by going north to the griffon mountains.”
“That’s stupid,” Daring said matter-of-factly, poking a hoof under Ditzy’s chin. “Are you feeling okay?”
Ditzy swatted the hoof away. “There are things I know about this place, Daring,” she said, flexing her lower eyelids, “that you were never around to learn.”
Daring’s jaw clenched. “Oh, like the size of Alula’s mattress? Lemme guess, king sized.”
“Daring!” Rainbow and Ditzy said together, pounding her on the crown of her helmet. In a fit of surprise, both mares snorted back laughter to maintain the moment’s seriousness, but by the time Daring yanked the headgear from her flattened mane, the Ponyvilleans were wheezing with laughter.
“I’m sorry… am I free to go now?” Filo asked.
“Uh, no! No, sorry,” Ditzy stammered, breaking away from her little group to approach the worried griffon. She cleared her throat. “Uh, we’d actually like to come with you to the borders of griffon territory.”
He frowned. “Why? Isn’t Haissan your destination?”
“Uh, yes.” Ditzy nodded. “Yes, it is, but… there’s a very important mountain we need to visit first.”
“An important… mountain?” the griffon repeated.
“What are you talking about, Ditzy?” Daring asked, sauntering up to her sister’s side and brushing off the top of her pith helmet.
“It’s… literally impossible to explain,” Ditzy said. “But just trust me, this is the right way to go.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Rainbow asked, appearing at the mailmare’s other side.
“Because you would have wanted an explanation,” Ditzy said, “and I don’t have one. You’ll just have to believe me.”
Daring and Rainbow shared an unsure glance behind Ditzy’s head. The griffon shrugged his wings and said, “If you’re going to follow me to the border, that’s fine, but I’m going all the way in one flight. My visa doesn’t allow for any pit stops in Chevallian villages.”
“No problem,” Ditzy said quickly.
Daring shot her a disbelieving look. “What? Uh, actually, there’s a big problem. I’m sore as heck, Ditz! I can barely fly!”
“Hopefully you’ll think about that next time you want to get drunk and race a pony half your age.”
“She’s not half my age!”
Filo snorted in amusement and took off without another word into the late evening sky. Ditzy followed him, breathing evenly between heavy pumps of her wings.
Daring whimpered and looked to Rainbow Dash. “Well… we better get goin’.” She gulped and prepped for takeoff with a painful spread of her feathered appendages. “Hey, how old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty one.”
Daring blinked. “Ah, ponyfeathers.” Donning a scowl, she flapped past the pain and ascended after Filo. Rainbow Dash laughed under her breath and rocketed straight up into the air, flying lazy circles around her suffering partner.
{-DD-}
“There it is. Do you see it, Rainbow?”
The blue pony followed Ditzy’s hoof to a dark, jagged mountain on the blurry horizon. It stood out like a lame hoof from the marble-based mountain range along Aquila’s border, nearly twice as tall and infinitely more black.
“Are you kidding me?” Daring squeaked, struggling to flap her twitching wings. “That thing looks super evil!”
“Griffons do not approach that mountain,” Filo called down, flying above the ponies. “There is dangerous magic around it.”
“Dangerous magic!?” Daring yelped. Growling, she turned her head as far toward her sister as her tight neck would allow. “You trying to kill us off, Ditz?”
“Come on, Daring,” Rainbow said, rolling in the air to whisper over her partner’s ear. “Give her a chance, will ya? If Twilight’s taught me anything about magic, it’s that it can be really helpful. Maybe Ditzy knows something in that mountain that’ll help us find the foals.”
Daring crossed her forelegs, but said no more. Rainbow winked at Ditzy who smiled gratefully.
“Thank you for your guidance, Filo,” Ditzy yelled up to the griffon. “We can find our way from here.”
“Are you sure, ponies?” he asked, swooping closer. “I would hate for you to fall victim to the Dark Mountain.”
“I know its secrets,” Ditzy assured him. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.”
With a nod to her and a smile at Rainbow Dash, the griffon put all his strength into his wings and took off for a southern dip in the mountain range. Ditzy led their flapping trio north toward the pointy peak of obsidian stone.
Rainbow maneuvered around the sisters to coast at Ditzy’s left. “What did you mean about its secrets?” she asked. “When have you been here?”
“I’ll tell the story soon,” Ditzy promised, staring ahead, “and hopefully I’ll have some help with the details.”
“If that’s a request to me, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Daring grumbled.
“It wasn’t.”
Rainbow and Daring exchanged a curious glance. With a shrug, the yellow pony went back to maintaining her altitude on trembling wings. Rainbow looked down at the greyish landscape far below, marked with dozens of tiny villages—maybe a third the size of Ponyville—between weatherworn hills and lake-filled valleys.
“This place is beautiful,” she found herself saying to no one. “My friends would love it.”
Ditzy smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re thinking of your friends back home, Rainbow,” she said. “Your real friends.”
Rainbow wasn’t listening; she pulled her wings in for a hundred foot dive, weaving between wispy clouds barely visible in the twilight. The vapor swirled in her wake and twinkled in emerging starlight.
Ditzy glanced over her shoulder. “We’d better hurry, girls,” she said, noticing the tip of the Moon on the horizon behind them. “I can’t see well in the dark.”
“You pronounced ‘at all’ wrong,” Daring teased, grunting. “Gaah, I don’t know if I can do this! My back is killing me!”
“Oh, please, you little—”
“You can do it, Daring!” Rainbow said, rising from her dive to loop around her partner. “It’s not much farther now! Just pretend you’re racing me!”
“Ha! Yeah, right,” Daring said, reaching out a hoof in an attempt to slap one of Rainbow’s wings. The speedster darted away without a problem.
“You sure you’re the same mare who beat the Best Young Flier, Daring?” Rainbow asked, barreling below her partner for just long enough to poke her in the belly.
Daring wheezed and lost her balance, fumbling in the air for a moment. “Aw, come on! Quit it, kid, I’m serious!”
Ditzy giggled and shook her head. “How on Equus did you ever keep up with Rainbow Dash?”
Daring was silent for a moment. She dropped her head and pulled off her hat, twirling it on the end of one hoof. “I…” She took a deep breath, looking away from Ditzy’s interested squint. “I cheated.”
Rainbow appeared directly above her. “Whoa, what?”
Daring growled and kicked her hind hooves. “I cheated!” she yelled.
Ditzy banked closer. “What? How?”
She let out a raspy sigh and dangled her legs helplessly. “Well… y’know that stallion I was making out with in the bar, Rainbow?”
“Yeah,” she answered with a grimace. Ditzy shuddered.
“He was a salesman,” Daring explained, “taking his product over to Stirrope for the first time. It’s this… I dunno, some kind of potion, I guess. He called it an ‘energy drink’ and named it Manticore or something rad like that. Anyway… it tasted nasty, but I bought some, loaded it with vodka, and chugged way too much.” She shrugged. “Revved me up. Made me feel twenty again.”
Rainbow’s mouth was wide open. “So… it was just some drink? You can’t actually fly as fast as me?”
Daring frowned. “Yeah, I just said that. No need to rub it in.”
Ditzy cackled. “More like every need to rub it in! You’re a cheater!”
“You totally cheated!” Rainbow screeched, beaming. “Ha haaa! I am faster than Daring Do!”
She took off, rotating forward like a torpedo before throwing her wings open and backflipping twice.
“Is it really that surprising?” Daring asked, blowing a lock of her bangs out of her face and replacing her helmet. “You’re faster than everypony in the frickin’ world, kid!”
“Haaaa ha ha ha!”
Rainbow’s laughter and impromptu stunts were enough to distract the Sisters Doo from the unexpected chunks of rock hurtling toward them. One of Ditzy’s eyes drifted just in time.
“Aaack! Rainbow, look out!” she gasped, narrowly diving below a sharp, black boulder.
“Holy Smooze!” Daring swore, avoiding a cluster of much smaller rocks by the breadth of a few tailhairs. “What was that?”
Rainbow swept her body to the left of one boulder and slammed her front hooves into another, thrusting its cracked surface to the distant ground. “I hope that doesn’t hit any Chevallians!”
“Ditzy!” Daring said, forcing her wings to carry her to her sister’s side. “Did those come from the mountain? Did something throw them at us?”
The mailmare gulped. “I-I don’t know! I can’t see very well, remember? It’s already pitch black!”
“Well, you said you know the mountain’s creepy secrets. Anything about cannonballs of shattered stone we should know about?”
Ditzy bit her lip. “Well… there are some freak avalanches, but… we’re not that close yet, are we?”
“Ow!” Rainbow said, slamming into the side of the mountain. Daring closed her wings in fright and plowed into a ledge of black gravel. Ditzy—gasping—smacked her front leg into a protruding slab of ebon granite. It spun her out of control and she landed on a pile of cake-sized rocks.
“Where in Tartarus did this thing come from!?” Daring yelled, kicking the gravel every which way as she scrambled to her hooves. “We were just, like, two miles away!”
“Filo wasn’t kidding about dangerous magic,” Rainbow groaned, shaking out dust from her mane. “Where’s Ditzy?”
“Right here,” the mailmare whimpered into the dark, poking her right leg tenderly. “I think I broke my hoof.”
“What?” Rainbow leapt into the air, confused by the inky blackness of the mountain, almost indistinguishable from the expansive night sky. She noticed Ditzy’s blonde mane and green shirt behind a natural column, flying around it to examine the injury. “Oh, shoot! That looks bad!”
Too sore to open her wings, Daring found a way around the back of the column, joining the other pegasi below the mountain’s peak. “Is it cracked?”
“Looks like it,” Rainbow hissed, holding Ditzy’s damaged hoof between her own. “Might be a broken bone in there, too,”
Ditzy tried to laugh. “It’s all right, Rainbow. I’ve had a lot worse.”
“Oh, this is just great,” Daring said, kicking at a flat part of the mountain. “Thanks a lot, you big, dumb rock! Now we have a pony who can’t walk, a pony who can’t fly, and pony who lost her helmet.”
Rainbow blinked. “Like, two days ago!”
“That was a nice helmet!” Daring wailed, dropping her own protected head against the obsidian wall. “Thanks a lot, Ditz. Now we’re stranded on an evil mountain a billion miles from Haissan.”
“Geez, Daring,” Rainbow said, smirking. “Is it that time of month or something?”
Daring shot her a look. “What, you don’t think this situation sucks?”
“I don’t think Ditzy’s plan is done,” Rainbow said, helping the grey mare to her three good hooves, “is it, cap’n?”
Ditzy smiled gratefully and sniffed. “No, it isn’t. We’ll be fine. Rainbow, would you mind flying out a ways and seeing how high up the mountain we are?”
“You got it,” Rainbow said with a salute. She flung herself into the night just as the Moon broke free from the world’s edge, providing enough light for Rainbow to make a good judgment. Once she was a dozen good pumps of her wings away from the towering crag, she spun around and squinted. Two little dots of yellow and green stood out of the blackness nine-tenths of the way to the top.
“Whoa,” she said, diving back to the Sisters to report. “We’re really close to the peak!” she said when she could see the whites of Ditzy’s eyes.
The mailmare blinked. “Oh, really?” She looked up the side of the incredibly steep mountain. “All right, then. We gotta go down.”
Daring tilted her head. “Why down?”
“That’s where the cave is,” Ditzy said, hobbling forward. “It shouldn’t be far. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Rainbow landed between the other mares. “Cave? I didn’t see a cave…”
Ditzy smiled. “No, I don’t imagine you would’ve.”
With a snort, Daring followed her sister, wincing with every step. Tail twitching, Rainbow finished the line of three as they inched their way down the mountain and toward its northernmost face.
True to her word, Ditzy stopped the train mere minutes into their trek. “Here it is,” she said, jerking her head at a horizontal, crescent-shaped gap in the rock, barely wide enough for a pony to squeeze through the widest point.
Daring raised an eyebrow. “That looks like the grinning mouth of a mountain monster eager to peel the flesh from our bones.”
“Thanks for that lovely visual, Daring,” Ditzy said with a sweet smile. “Why don’t you go first?”
Daring stepped back. “Uh… I delegate my partner.”
Rainbow grinned. “Deal!” Launching from her hind legs, Rainbow Dash dove through the crack and followed its bumpy tunnel deep into the mountain.
“Rainbow, wait!” Ditzy called out behind her, but the speedster didn’t listen. Her crackly laughter echoed in the narrow path, just wide enough for her to keep flapping. The tunnel curved left, right, up, down, challenging Rainbow’s attention in the dimness. And then—very suddenly—it opened into an enormous chamber filled with bronze light. Pencil-thin stalactites of glimmering copper oozed from the ceiling; their counterparts on the ground were thick and conical, tipped with the color of molten gold.
“What the hay…” Rainbow murmured, looking all around the bright, spherical chamber. Her words were echoed by the stir of movement at the bottom of the sphere. She gasped and lifted her hooves into a defensive position, scanning her eyes over the portly stalagmites as she hovered.
“My word,” a deep, gravelly voice shook the walls of the chamber. “I haven’t seen a mane like that for centuries.”
Rainbow grit her teeth and draped her hooves over her head. “Yeah, well, you can’t have it!”
After a moment of silence, the disembodied voice started to laugh. “What—haa haa!—wh-what do you think I would want with your mane, child?”
Rainbow scrunched up her nose. “I dunno… you might eat it or something. I don’t even know what you are!”
The copper-colored stone at the lowest curve of the sphere buckled and inflated like some kind of clay. Rainbow watched with wide eyes as the liquid rock formed into a tall, equine shape, complete with enormous, regal wings and a spiraling horn. A pair of clear grey eyes opened below the magical spire and focused on Rainbow’s pinprick pupils.
“I am Piedra,” he said in a voice that rumbled the cavern. “Welcome to my home.”
Rainbow couldn’t speak, staring at the pony that continued to take form amidst the cones of glowing bronze.
As soon as a mouth appeared below his narrow snout, the alicorn offered her a calming smile. “There is no need to be afraid of me, child. I assume my old friend Ditzy sent you?”
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Sorry Statoose.
fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/291/e/c/tropicalgif_by_1n33d4hug-d5i5qw8.gif
(I bet you guys wish you had gifs as awesome as mine.)
1701202 They made a GIF of that whole dance?? Holy crap! :ponkylaugh:
Well Ponky this chapter was as epic and pleasing as ever!
Keep it up! I want an update noow but I have to wait...
So Daring cheated? One, nice way to save Rainbow's reputation, and two, completely in character for that glory-greedy idiot. But I still think other characters are being too kind in thinking that she's worth the hassle. I have a sister, too, and it's never been this bad.
If this is your way to give Ditzy a break and stop treating her like crud, well...we'll see how it goes.
But the end of the chapter? Did not see that coming. I hope it proves good.
1701202 dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8370-35506__.gif
Hooray for more ancient guardian spirits! I'm really digging the way that Rainbow interacts with both sisters - she obviously cares about them, and her friendship with Daring is hilarious to watch. I'm about ready for Ditzy to stop being a stick in the mud, but that's just another charm of your writing style. I love having love-hate relationships with characters, and you do it in spades. Totally worth being late to Tonal Harmony.
1701309
i755.photobucket.com/albums/xx192/dangerfmj/SniperDealwithitdance.gif
dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Pinkie_loool.png OMGPONKEH.
Oh by the way, 1701340, that right there is one of the best things I have ever seen.
1701213 I get this or dancing Luna on every blog post I make
I gotta say, I love this story, but at the same time, I hate reading it. I just fucking hate Daring so fucking much.
When are we going to get back to Dinky and the CMC? They're still on their own way to Hissian to inevitably get in BIG trouble right?
Poor derpy
Hmmm....
Good call getting back-up to deal with Alula.
Awseome! Already can't wait for more!
1701450
Your not the only one.
I find it funny that Daring decided to be responsible and pay for the damages behind Ditzy's back just to one-up her as always. I love how Fancy Pants was so quick to forgive Daring for all her misdeeds. And, as a dick move, tell Ditzy that she's in the wrong and needs to be patient with someone who doesn't care about her own sister's saddened state (whether Daring noticed or not), while at the same time push a kid in the way of a moving bus or walk all over a leukemia victim in a wheelchair, brush it off as an accident, and not get so much as a slap on the hoof.
I believe a sex offender would make a better sister than Daring right now; not to mention a better lover. Daring seriously needs to go to hell and I want Ditzy to shove her ass face-first into the fiery depths.
Finally off the damn ship. I'm excited to see where this goes now
1702110 My general reaction to Daring:
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8rrnteqBy1rteslro1_250.gif
1702110 She has a high charisma score and diplomacy skill, so she can get away with anything. You hate her because diplomacy doesn't work on PCs.
Good chapter, and I know that Fancy Pants is right. He's not throwing anyone under a bus, he's giving good advice.
Friends come and go, enemies accumulate, and family is always family.
Awe-inspiring-some. Nice chapter. Daring cheated, woot!
Oh... and also...
Doctorly,
~Plyxe
Great chapter. Can't wait for the next one to be up and I would also like to say that this has been one of the most interesting stories I have ever read.
Keep up the good work.
1000 get?
1702110
. Fancypant's knows little to nothing about their history and has no reason to suspect it's anything more than sisters being sisters. Give the guy a break.
I love the desire to see everyone who doesn't hate Daring as an enemy
1702710
See Ponky, someone else saw it too.
Now I am curious, how would Piedra have reacted to Daring instead?
Ditzy broke a hoof? Not good! Especially since they're on a misson, and it just so happens a stallion that likes her is involved!
1702710>>1703002
houseofgeekery.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/bugs-bunnyreclining-499x367.jpg
1702992 The reason some readers have that desire is because Daring has genuinely been given the mary-sue treatment of having no honestly negative consequences for her actions. You need to understand that some people get annoyed and frustrated when believability is jarred by author favoritism towards a character.
That said, that one bit with Fancypants is also the only major issue I had with this chapter, barring carry-on baggage from previous complaints I've voiced. I agree with Shafdogg that it felt like just another of the recurring slaps-in-the-face to Ditzy for acting like a real person would. Specifically, that we never got to see Daring doing her good deed and apologizing to Fancypants. It felt as if the whole scene was just stilted to make Ditzy be wrong again. It's happened enough already that I'm honestly done even caring about it anymore. It's just a fact of the story at this point that Ditzy is in the wrong. The only other things I'd noticed were that the bit where Rainbow 'made up' with Daring and the sudden jump from travelling to arrival were a bit rushed. The make up scene just felt a bit glossed over, like there wasn't enough description or fluff. For one your conversations, it felt really quick. The travel jump has the same issue, it just happened. A simple line or two of transition would have made the jump less sudden and stilted.
With the complaints out of the way I can finally say that everything else in the chapter has been massively refreshing. The plot is moving, Daring is finally showing signs that she can take responsibility for her stupidity, Rainbow is acting like Rainbow, and Ditzy is actually contributing something without the other characters fighting with her. Hallelujah! This, this right here, is what I signed up for when I first started reading this story. Keep this up, please.
1703082 Hopefully would've killed her. *Sighs* well, his opinion on her might be determined next chapter or so.
I don't know how, but somehow Daring didn't come off as much of a bitch as she is. I don't like this, something's wrong. It's just... she's NEVER a good character. She doesn't just up and pay for the damages, she is NOT a nice entity and she would NEVER admit to cheating, just to keep the glory! And Derpy's just as much of a douche, but in a different way, as several people have said before.
Still holding onto the hope that Dashie finally realizes they're not worth the effort, either saving the foals herself or just beating the crap outta both of them.
Wow...I liked GAK better...put GAK back in...
...
...But if it makes you feel better I smiled inwardly both times.
1703981 Ditzy/Derpy has good reasons at least. Daring gave the foals back and messed up her eyes while nearly killing her. Also abandoned good old dad to write out their adventures, then have the gall to askfor another. Ditzy has every reason to be mad, I want to give her lemons. Combustible lemons.
1703981 And I get the feeling that much shouting was involved in Daring's compliance.
1703797 "It's just a fact of the story at this point that Ditzy is in the wrong."
No, it's a lie disguised as a fact. Those are the worst, no matter where they appear.
Alicorns love Spanish eh? Celestia, Luna, and now Piedra? I guess Cadence is a distant Italian niece "Mi amore Candeza" lol
1705578 I no longer have any desire to argue or complain about that point. As far as the story and it's characters are concerned, Ditzy is wrong. Whether I agree or disagree with that is long past irrelevant (though for the record I don't and have stated as much). Rather than remain bitter about it, I'm just going to ignore every instance of those moments in these last few chapters as best I can for the sake of enjoying the nicer bits of the story.
1704276
What's wrong with Smooze? (It's basically the Discord of G1 MLP, except with grey goo capabilities instead of chaos.)
IDGI
Nice FIW reference
Need more. Still good story and awesome chapter.
Now, Smooze I can get behind, nothing can stop it you know.
Just ask Cult Leader Fluttershy.
I sorta see Daring cheating in the same vein as what she's been trying to do this whole time, trying to relive her glory days. Sure, she's being an enormous butt about it, but I feel it just hammers in that this trip for her is all about nostalgia and feeling like a hero again. Plus there's the 'need new story'. All three of the pegasi are there for different reasons, and I still am enjoying their interactions.
Cool to see Filo again, but I have no idea what is gonna happen next... and that's awesome. :D
Also, I am pretty excited/curious to see what will happen if/when the CMC+Dinky do meet up with TSD+Rainbow.
1706491
Sweet and Elite
No complaints here. A couple questions, though.
I'm assuming Cheval is the rough equivalent to France, however, the common version I see is Prance - is there any particular reason for this choice?
Also, if Stirrup is roughly analogous to Europe, I am rather confused that Haissan seems to have an Arabic flavour to it.
Mayhaps you have a map plotted already - in which case I might have a peek at it?
Stumbled across a hiphop song the other day; I was surprised to learn that the entire song from start to finish is a perfect example of that Father-hating bitch (referring to Daring obviously). It's by Tupac, I'm sure the people out there can fill in the blanks
I kind of want to see Ditzy's anger control her into turning evil....temporarily anyway.
fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/214/2/4/derpy_delivers_by_alevgor-d42d5td.jpg
No one is as sensibly pony as Ditzy.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who the heck is this molten copper alicorn OC? Color me intrigued! There must be an awesome story behind this old friend.
1706964 I'm so glad you pointed that out! Poor 42 year old Daring, just wanting to be a Rainbow Dash again...
1707586 Haha! Great questions. The "Cheval" thing I can't really explain... I didn't really like "Prance" and so I went with the French word for "horse". Looking back it was a poor idea, but I started using it in Chapter Three, I think, and now I'm just trying to be consistent. :sheepishponky:
As for the map, I imagine Equus as a very small planet, and Stirrope is, like... Europe and the Middle East all squished together into six or seven little countries that combine a lot of cultures on Earth. I know it doesn't make much sense, and I'm sorry about that, but I just wanted to keep things relatively simple. I've never been good at geography, anyway -- American, and all. :ponkywink:
1708054 Thanks for spotting that. Fixed! :}
1707586 Cheval is French for "horse"
1706720 1706720 It's actually a reference to earlier generations of MLP.
Also, I like where this is going with another (what I presume to be) elemental alicorn.
After giving it some thought, I think I'm able to give some elaboration as to the misgivings I have for this chapter. I've always been touchy about this line of pony fics: I'm not a fan of fics suddenly bringing in gods - they seem like they have no place in the story. When this sort of thing has no proper build-up, it feels like it came out of nowhere. Alula was fine, because he was introduced pretty much perfectly. This, however, is just plain odd, and feels like it has no place in the story.
However, as I said before, I've placed my trust in you, Ponky, and I am confident that when Piedra gets some elabroation, my worries will be resolved. Maybe not, though (and if they don't, that's my problem). Like I said, I've never been keen on Equestrian gods aside form the princesses - the country's history is a very sensitive and dangerous topic. I prefer that the whole issue simply be left out and skirted around whenever possible, unless it's the whole focus of the story - which, in this case, is not.
In the end, this bit is simply my opinion and taste (not the whole bringing-in-a-god thing, that's still weird, but the history bit is), and the story is yours to write, so it doesn't much matter.
170920
You sure it's not Lord Smooze? What is it then?
1708054 Celestiadamnit. Me and Mead must be terrible editors - It seems like people are always pointing out stupid errors that we didn't catch. Ugh.