Daring Do and the Wailing Mountain

by BlazzingInferno

One

Just keep flying. That’s all that mattered. Daring Do knew this. She’d known it from the moment her hooves left the ground, spears streaking past her and murderous cries echoing across the oasis. She’d known it as the hours ticked by, one increasingly pained wingbeat at a time. But now as she flew higher, leaving the desert’s low-lying thermals in search of a safe place to rest, the all-important notion was going the way of all other rational thought: leaking out of her like so much sweat and spent breath.

She felt so tired. Why did the oasis ponies have to get so angry? All she’d done was ask if she could examine the stone idol they’d built their village around, just to see if it was indeed the map to the long-lost Pinkan diamond mines. She should’ve asked them at daybreak when it was cooler, or at least after she’d had a chance to rest after the long trek that brought her to their village in the first place.

Desert sand shimmered beneath her: scalding, featureless, and, according to the oasis ponies, forbidden. She’d needed an escape route, and the barren wasteland that the villagers refused to set hoof in had seemed like a good bet. The boiling hot sand was just a desert after all, and the great stone spire reaching up to the heavens from its center was just a mountain. Giving landmarks scary names like Forbidden Desert and Wailing Mountain was the surest sign that the locals either had an ancient treasure to hide, an even more ancient tradition to uphold, or sometimes both.

The desert was just a desert, a big boiling sand trap the locals called Forbidden to keep their kids in line. But was the mountain really just a mountain? Scary landmark names had a way of traveling, sometimes. No aged historian or dusty tome back in civilization had ever heard of the Forbidden Desert; they always skipped over that and pointed to the Wailing Mountain, the peak that supposedly rung with horrible screams that reached across the sands and oceans and found their way into the minds of ponies who should’ve known better.

Daring couldn’t hear any screaming now, not as she worked her way up the near-vertical rockface in search of a place to land, a place that wouldn’t burn to touch. She’d seen little patches of green partway up the summit, but that had been from miles away. How many vertical miles did she have to climb? How many miles, or minutes, did she have left in her?

A sudden rush of air answered her, a breeze that would’ve been refreshing if it didn't come with a sense of weightlessness that accompanies free-fall. Daring didn’t notice her wings hanging limp at her sides, nor the earth-shaking scream filling her ears, nor the foreleg reaching for her own.

---

Waking up took a small eternity. Her first memories were nothing but sensations: a soft blanket beneath her, a damp rag on her forehead, bitter-tasting broth trickling down her parched throat, the smell of heavy rain, rhythmic drumming in the distance, and a countless other things that she couldn’t identify. In the midst of all these brief moments of semi-wakefulness were dark spots, bouts of dreamless sleep that set her more on edge than anything else. Where was she? How long had she been here? Her own senses wouldn’t tell her; which was worse than breaking a leg: wings and legs either worked or they didn’t, but senses were trickier things. Senses could lie. If she couldn’t trust them, if she couldn’t wring truth out of her eyes, ears, and nose, then she truly was doomed to whatever her captors had in store for her.

Sight came more suddenly, when her brain finally deigned to let her eyes focus. Only a curtain closed the room’s single door, and flickering candlelight leaked through its loose weave. The room was as sparse as it was small, furnished only with her bed and a contingent of clay pots lined up against the wall by the door. Her eyes poured over every detail, drinking in the visuals that she’d been starved of for untold days. The walls were cobblestone and mortar, worn with age but not covered with dust and cobwebs. Whoever lived here took care of the place. The clay pots were as varied as the wall’s cobblestones, some of them shining in the candlelight and others riddled with deep cracks. Interesting.

Purpose came back next. She flexed her left wing, then her right, and then each leg in turn. Everything moved like it should, albeit slowly and with the dull ache that accompanies disuse. She’d put a stop to that. No matter if she’d been laid up in bed for a day or a year, she was herself again, and the door before her beckoned. Daring wasn’t a pony to stay in one place for very long, not when the world was full of treasures to find and evil schemes to foil.

Very slowly she pressed each hoof to the ground, testing its ability to bear weight while also keeping her movements silent. Maybe she’d find a pony in the other room to thank for saving her life. Maybe she’d find a pony she’d need to brain with a clay jug or two in order to leave. She didn’t care; she was on her hooves, and soon enough she’d be winging it out of this awful desert.

She edged closer to the door, her ears straining against the silence. She could hear breathing in the room beyond and the rustling of tree leaves in a light breeze. That told her everything she needed to know: she wasn’t alone, and the door to the outside was close. Inside of a heartbeat she dropped into a crouch, instinctively ready to battle her way out should the need arise.

“Would you like some soup?” The voice was male, deep, and not at all surprised.

Daring’s breathing faltered. She burst through the curtained doorway all the same, wings flared and muscles tense. In an instant she took in the scene, noting the potter’s wheel in the corner, the black robes hung by the curtained front door, the moon shining through the window over the dirty washbasin, and the earth pony stallion seated at the table.

He met her fierce gaze with a sort of sullen stoicism, the expression of a pony who didn’t care if she fled his home or shrugged and hopped back into bed. At a glance she could tell he wasn’t much older than she was; his black mane and grey coat still shone with some lingering youthfulness. Deep creases lined his face, as if he’d been born frowning and never found a reason to stop.

He nodded to a steaming clay pot on the table and a pair of bowls.

She could smell the soup in the pot now, more of the bitter stuff she remembered choking down before. “Who are you and why’d you bring me here?”

“My name is Calcine. I was on the ledge when you fell.” His voice remained emotionless, and after a moment his attention returned to his bowl of soup.

Daring’s battle stance slackened. So much for having to fight her way out. “Daring Do. And thanks.”

Calcine dipped his snout into his bowl.

She took a second glance around the room before approaching the table. The biggest danger here was to her tastebuds. “How long was I out?”

He finished another mouthful before replying. “Two days. Two days of delirious muttering and heat fever. When you finally became silent I knew you had awoken… or would never wake again.”

She sank into the chair opposite his, and repeated what she’d said before with all the conviction she could muster. “Thanks.”

“There’s soup. You should eat.”

Daring sniffed the clay pot again. “What’s in it?”

“Mushroom and grass. We don’t have much to choose from.”

She nodded and, with an air of resignation, scooped some soup into her bowl. “So you make pottery?”

“Yes.”

Daring watched him eat for a moment, more unnerved by his apparent lack of tastebuds than his inability to have a conversation. “I’m an adventurer. I hunt for treasure, fight bad guys, that sort of thing.”

Calcine paused mid-swallow. A few stray drops of broth trickled down his chin and fell back into the bowl. He resumed eating a moment later, murmuring “We have no treasure here.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m just passing through anyway. Why do you live up here anyway, on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert?”

“It is my village’s way. It has always been so.”

Daring’s empty stomach won out. She took a mouthful of soup and suppressed a grimace, forcing a smile as she swallowed. “I don’t suppose you know how far it is to the coast? I really appreciate your help and everything, and if there’s anything I can do for you before I go—”

He nodded with such swiftness and vigor that she couldn’t help pausing. “Yes. If you are truly a fighter, then yes.”

She flexed her wings and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“My family was destroyed by a great evil that lives nearby. I fear I am unable to stop it myself.”

Her smile couldn’t have been wider. Finally she was back in familiar adventuring territory. “Just point me at it and it’ll be buzzard food by sunup.”

A laugh escaped Calcine’s mouth, a low laugh of near-hopeless incredulity that Daring knew well. “Let us hope. After you have eaten, we shall see. You will need your strength.”

“Like I said, I’ve dealt with monsters before.”

He stared at her, his smile gone. “For the hike, Daring Do. You will need your strength for the hike.”

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

“Would like like some soup?”

*cough*

[Sam Yellek]

Interesting setup. I look forward to see where this goes.