The Legend of Daring Do

by The Red Parade

Daring Do and the Real Life Savior

“Rainbow?”

My ear twitches at the sound of my name. Looking around, I realize that I’m in the weather office. Cloud Kicker is looking at me curiously from the other side of my desk. “Are you alright?” she asks.

I shake my head, trying to gather my thoughts. I don’t really remember much of yesterday, other than sitting on the floor of the library and crying. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Like, really really sure?”

I grunt in annoyance. “Yes,” I snap at her. “Why?”

“Because according to today’s deployment you’ve assigned Raindrops to four sectors and have Blossomforth covering a nonexistent area.” Cloud Kicker slides the day’s paperwork across the desk for me to see.

Looking it over, I realize she’s right. The orders I gave don’t make a lick of sense. “Well, it was a… test! To see if you were paying attention!”

Cloud Kicker rolls her eyes. “Look, boss, if you need some time, I get it.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Cloud holds up a hoof and keeps talking.

“Nopony’s going to blame you if you need to take a break. We can run ourselves just fine for a day, Rainbow. Please, go take care of yourself.”

Cloud Kicker comes around the desk and basically starts pushing me out of the office. “Hey!” I protest. “I’m fine, really! Stop pushing!”

“Nope! You’re taking the day off, Rainbow! No exceptions,” Cloud says as she shoves me out the door.

“Wait, I’m your boss! You can’t just--”

“I just did! Bye Rainbow!”

I blink again as the door’s slams into my face. I take a second to consider my options. Cloud really doesn’t have the authority to do what she just did. But then again, my heart isn’t really set on weather work right now.

As I’m standing in the hallway, trying to sort myself out, I hear a chuckle behind me. I turn around to see Daring leaning against a wall, forelegs crossed. “Did you just get kicked out of your own office?”

I scoff. “Of course not. I can totally go back in if I wanted to.”

Daring cocks an eyebrow at me. “Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you?”

I hesitate at that. “I… just have stuff to think about.”

Daring shrugs and pushes off the wall, examining the pictures and notices hung on the cork board. “Right. Something to do with me, I’m guessing?”

“Maybe. You know that you’ll always be my sister, right? No matter what?”

She sighs. “Yeah, I know. But that didn’t make things any less scary, you know? I had so much left to figure out.” My sister takes off her helmet and runs a hoof through her mane. “It’s kinda funny now that I think about it. Fleetfoot would always tell me that I had time to figure things out, that I could afford to take it slow. Heh. Guess she was wrong, huh?”

“I could have helped you, you know. That’s what a sister’s job is,” I say.

“I don’t know, Rainbow. I wasn’t even sure of myself. I guess that’s another reason I didn’t tell you. I kept telling myself that once I figured myself out, I could show you who I am.” She turns away from the wall to look at me. “I always thought that one day I’d figure it out. I guess now we’ll never know.”

Before I can answer her, somepony behind me clears their throat. “Hello, I’m assuming you’re Rainbow Dash?”

I turn around to see a familiar light blue unicorn with a two-toned blue and gray mane behind me. Minute Maker smiles at me, waiting for a response.

“I, uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Minute gives me a huge smile. “Great! My name’s Minuette. I either work for the government, or I’m a dentist. One of those is a lie. Anyways, I was wondering if I could talk with you for a second?”

I nod. “Yeah, sure. Why don’t we go outside?”

She nods and lets me lead. I glance behind me to see that Daring’s disappeared.

I take her to the little courtyard outside the Weather Management building. It’s got a few benches and tables for ponies to take their lunch breaks, but it's generally pretty quiet. Minuette sits down at one of the picnic tables, looking around the courtyard as she does so. “Nice place.”

“I guess,” I reply neutrally. “So, uh, why are you here?”

Minuette chuckles. “Right down to brass tacks, huh? Alrighty, I can work with that. A friend reached out to me, told me that some mare was asking some questions about Daring Dash.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Twilight?”

“No, Redheart. I haven’t spoken to Twilight in quite some time.” Minuette sighs and shakes her head. “But that’s not important. Redheart told me you kept calling her a weird name. Redblood?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s… well, it’s a long story.”

Minuette smiles again. “Is it? I’m assuming you’ve found one of Daring’s books.”

That gets my attention. “You know about that?”

“Yeah, she showed me some rough drafts of her work. She really was into it.” Minuette chuckles at that. “Your sister had a way with words. I always told her she would have made a great author someday.” The smile falls off her face. “She was taken from us far too soon.”

“You’re telling me,” I say, my mood souring as I’m again reminded of her untimely death. “So what’s the deal with Redheart? Why’d she freak out like that?”

Minuette shrugs. “Redheart’s never been… the greatest at showing her emotions. I suppose it came with her being a nurse. She’s tough, and insists on soldiering through. She never really talked to us about losing Daring, but we could tell it hurt her. You just surprised her, coming out of the blue like that. You forced her to think about things she shoved away a long time ago.”

I nod slowly. “Yeah, I gathered that much.”

“I didn’t take it all that well, but I told myself I needed to be strong. For her and for everyone else. So I put on a brave face and faced the truth.” Minuette looked up to meet my eyes. “How did you take it?”

“Well, hard, I guess. I mean, she was my sister and everything.” I rub the back of my head with a hoof.

“You know, we spent a long time debating whether or not to reach out to you. I guess we decided not to in the end,” she remarks sadly.

I shuffle in my seat. “It’s been three years. I’m fine.”

“Time can only heal your wounds if you let it.” Minuette observes she points to her cutie mark, and I see that it’s an hourglass. “That’s something that your sister taught me. We have to learn how to hurt before we can learn how to heal.” She sighs again, staring off into the distance. “When I first met her, I truly believed that things would just get better with time. But your sister? She called me out. She told me that if I really wanted things to change, I’d have to make the change myself.” She clears her throat and turns her attention back to me. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that advice saved me. It got me out of a bad place and a horrible job, and into a wonderful place.

“When I told her she saved me, she didn’t believe it. Daring always said that saviors are only things in stories. But that’s the thing, to me she was that. A real life savior. I just wish she saw that.”

“What do you mean?”

Minuette thinks for a second. “Well, I don’t think Daring ever saw her own potential. We talked alot about her research and writing, and it just blew me away. But she was always looking to improve, to make it better. That’s what I respected the most about her. And she saw the best in everypony, even those that didn’t see the best in her.”

I take in her words. I can see Daring sitting on a bench across from us, rubbing a foreleg and looking away in embarrassment.

“But she never once called herself a hero,” Minuette continues. “She always said she was just a pony. She often said that Daring Do was who she wanted to be, but Daring Dash was who she really was. I disagreed. I think that it takes a true hero to do the things she did.”

She trails off after that and we sit there in silence for a while.

“For what it’s worth, I think you were a great friend to her,” I say.

Minuette smiles. “Thanks. And you’re a good sister, Rainbow. I hope you know it.”