• Published 3rd Apr 2020
  • 691 Views, 89 Comments

Legends - Carabas



A young Daring Do embarks on her second adventure.

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Wherein Our Heroine Conducts Diplomacy

After the last couple of days, Daring expected to find the world rocking under her whenever she slept, whether that world was an airship or a birlinn deck. Things were strangely steady.

She struggled into something approaching consciousness, and found herself blinking up at a stone ceiling, past jutting wooden walls lined with cushions and blankets. She remembered where she was.

Past the sides of her nest, she could hear voices. Dad and Gamfer. Something else made thick, bubbling noises.

“—their Scar spits up fire fae the earth’s heart. If ye believe the tall tales, ye can fly in and, if ye somehow dinnae melt, find Diamond Dugs wi’ pelts of pure charcoal and eyes o’ rubies. Their clan’s never lacked for black powder and never lacked for rich farmland. Means they’ve always been trading with a’body, what with being tucked in closer tae the mainland. Means they’ve always been plentiful and prosperous. Means they’ve always swaggered, and often pecked aff mair than they can swallow.”

Daring blearily did battle with an entangling blanket as Dad replied, “And this Drumloch’s doing the same, you say?”

“Aye. The latest in a line of Scarrach chiefs who fancy themselves a kingdom o’ the isles. Greedier and luckier than maist, and many o’ the peedie clans have already knuckled under tae him. Anything for an easy life. But not Glimrovoe.” Gamfer’s voice rose with pride. “Never Glimrovoe.”

“Never Glimrovoe?”

“We’ve never knuckled under tae any other clan. Even when corbies o’ Glimrovoe flew as part of the Cormaers’ warflocks, they were slow tae join, and did so only on their own terms rather than letting themselves be meekly summoned. We’re too remote tae be bullied easily and thrawn enough tae make any attacker’s life a misery if they tried. And gey few have ever tried. Even Scarrach.”

Dad didn’t reply and an awkward pause followed. Daring continued fighting the blanket, which had just about given up. Gamfer spoke next, his voice soft. “If ye’d prefer that I’d dwelled mair on Clan Scarrach as a risk, then I’m truly sorry I didnae. But I swear that I dinnae rate them as a real threat tae the delve.”

“And you’re sure Scarrach won’t try anything stupid? You don’t think Cranreuch will try anything if we find something in the Howe?”

“They won’t, unless they want tae break themselves aff the hard heart and any storms and rockets we flung their way. I doubt Cranreuch will either. Even if she stole whitever we found and flew like her tailfeathers were on fire, it’s too far tae fly unassisted from here back tae Scarrach. We’d pursue her and take her on the wing.”

And on that note, Daring finally kicked the vanquished blanket free and tottered up to look out over her nest’s sides.

Sunlight spilled in through the porthole-windows, lighting up the room. Gamfer hovered over the heating-block, its top sporting both a large pot steaming away as well as a thin slab of sandstone, atop which two bannocks were toasting. Dad stood to one side in the act of pulling on his barding.

Daring’s yawn made her jaw creak, but she was able to get a word out eventually. “Morning!”

“Morning poppet.” Dad looked up from an uncooperative flanchard. “Sleep well?”

“Yep.” Daring blinked round at the room, at the furnishings, at the sunlight spilling in from outside, and at the old bard giving her a cheerful nod. “We’re actually in Corva.”

“Struggling tae believe it myself,” Gamfer replied. “Come on. Get a bannock. Porridge as well if ye want it.”

Daring half-flapped, half-shambled her way clear of the nest, still groggy, and accepted a bannock on a platter and a little pot of blackberry jam that was pushed in her direction. She ate, as did Dad, who alternated bites with strapping on the last sections of his barding.

“Sure ye’ll need all that?” Gamfer asked over a bowl of salted porridge. “It must be deid heavy.”

“Not especially. It’s fitted stuff, so it’s nicely distributed.” Dad, with practised dexterity, managed to finish strapping on his croupiere. “Besides, better to work up a needless sweat than get needlessly punctured by anything.”

“Words of adventurer-archaeological wisdom, I take it?”

“The wisest.”

Sensible enough, but Daring felt she‘d never need barding. She could just fly out the way of any danger rather than be weighed down. So long as she kept an eye out to know the danger was coming, of course. And once she learned to fly with any degree of grace. She flexed one wing. That’d be something else she would try while she was here. She’d watch the corvids and pick up tips. Maybe practise flying with some of the fledglings she’d inevitably ingratiate herself with.

She ate, and plotted, and continued plotting even as she finished eating and brushed her teeth. Gamfer fiddled with the heating-block and set aside the pot of porridge, while Dad finished pulling on his justaucorps till it was snug over the barding.

And shortly after that, someone rapped on a window. “Delve team’s assembling,” some corvid called from the other side. “Dinnae be fashionably late.”

“Never any fun allowed in this clan.” Gamfer theatrically sighed and moved to his door. “I’ll fly on ahead and sort a thing or two with Tirla. Ye mind where tae find the chief’s hall, Gallivant?”

“Walk outside, turn right. I can find my way down a street, sometimes. On occasion.”

“I’ve faith in ye.” Gamfer departed and from the other side of the door they heard him briefly blethering with the messenger before receding.

Dad donned his tricorn and looked down at Daring. “Will you be alright by yourself for the day?”

Daring grinned fiercely and flapped her wings. “More than alright.”

“You’ll stay safe and not annoy anyone who’s working?”

“I will. And won’t. In that order.”

“And you’ll make friends?”

“Millions.”

“And you won’t slip ahead of me into the site and provoke any age-old guardians therein?”

“I—that happened once.”

“And what a stick-in-the-memory sort of once it was.” Dad tousled her mane, and Daring feigned the usual protest. “If we can get anywhere in the Howe cleared and secured by day’s end, I’ll see if I can take you along to have a look inside.”

And Daring wouldn’t turn her nose up at any old ruin, even if she didn’t get to risk her life in it quite yet. She had learned. “Sounds great!”

And with that, Dad departed as well with a backwards smile. “Spread your wings, poppet.”

Daring trailed behind him by a couple of feet, just to see him off, and stopped at the front door of the schoolhouse as he emerged outside. It was a crisp, cold morning crowned with a clear blue sky, and when Daring looked out over the roofs of Glimrovoe’s homes, running down towards the harbour and the sea, she saw the blue arrested only by the distant grey of the clouds that encircled Glimrovoe — the clan’s weather, banked up in a great ring around the isle.

Corvids flew hither and thither. Down by the docked birlinns, she saw several fussing over the Storm-Birlt, flapping around and inspecting it from all angles, while others heaved along carved blocks of stone on rollers and ropes towards the warehouses by the piers. Distant caws and calls filled the air and from the great buildings that hugged the shorelines, she heard the clanks and grinding of machines at work. Corvids flitted in and out of their high windows.

Daring looked right, in the direction Dad was heading, where she saw Gamfer and a dozen or so corvids outside Tirla’s hall. They waited on the ground and perched on its roof, resting on any surface available as they quietly blethered amongst themselves. They all seemed to have the cool bearing and marked features of the clan’s hard heart, and most bore gonnes across their backs.

Bundles lay on the ground around them; ropes, steel tools, glowing crystals set in lantern frames, paper and ink pots, wooden poles and struts.

They turned to Dad as he approached, and Daring struggled to make out the low thrum of conversation that sparked up then. “...waiting for the chief...” she caught, and little else. She sidled closer.

As she did, Tirla emerged from the front door of her hall, Airt by her side. Tirla briefly scrutinised the delving party before turning to the aloof jay.

“We’ll waste nae time,” Daring heard her say. “While I’m below, I want ye keeping an eye on things topside. Call us out if Cirein-cròin rises from the sea or Scarrach invades or anything of that magnitude, I’ll want tae be informed. Otherwise, I trust ye tae handle it.”

Airt nodded. “Aye, chief. I’ll make sure things dinnae go entirely tae pot while you’re below.”

“Mind and actually keep an eye on the clan some of the time, Airt,” said one of the team, a lean rook. “Dinnae spend all that time sneaking off tae preen Kuil.” This got a few snickers and caws of helpful advice from the others.

Airt rolled his eyes in answer. “Jealousy disnae become ye, Uncan.”

Dad forebore passing comment, though his gaze travelled in the direction of Daring, and caught sight of her at the same moment she realised she’d been seen. He mouthed something that might have been, ‘Lady Charroan’s a dreadful example to follow’. Fairly caught, Daring turned aside.

What else was there to see? Daring turned and looked up past the gap between the schoolhouse and the neighbouring home. Beyond, a patchwork of yellow fields ran up into heather-covered slopes, rising and growing craggier all the way up to the sheer ridge that made Glimrovoe’s spine. Several standing stones rose from the heather, and as Daring watched, a pair of corvids flew by, alighted on one, seemed to check it and its neighbours for a moment, and then flew on. What were they doing?

“Heroines,” Daring murmured to herself, a suitably heroic smirk coming to her features, “find out.

And while she was at it, she’d fly right to the highest point of the island, high enough to see it all and the sea around for miles, right to the edge of the ring of clouds and maybe beyond. Then she’d properly have her bearings, and be able to plan everything she’d visit in the days to come.

She’d make a map, Daring decided. Maps were vital.

Daring rushed back inside Gamfer’s quarters, and rooted around in her and Dad’s luggage till she found the lucky compasses, a spare pad of paper, a pencil, and a saddlebag to throw everything into.

And last and most importantly, the hat. The hat. It was still a little too big for her, but forcibly pushing it down around her mane and ears did the trick most of the time. It’d finally get a chance to experience Corva.

Would she need anything else? Her jacket? Her scarf? No. It was a hardy sort of land. It may be brisk outside, but so what? She’d be hardy too.

Daring pulled on her saddlebags and donned the hat, and crammed it on till she was sure it’d stay donned. And then, satisfied, she headed back outside, her peripheral vision only slightly obscured.

As she emerged, Dad and the corvids of the delving party were heading off. Dad trotted on the ground with Tirla herself by his side, the pair slightly ahead of most of the party, who flew around and over him and chattered amongst themselves. They were far too distant now for Daring to make out what they were saying.

They made for the Howe, awaiting at the isle’s head, and so Daring turned in the other direction where the spine of the isle clipped low-lying clouds. She took a deep breath and then took flight.

Daring flapped vaguely skywards with great effort, wobbling as she vied with the wild air currents that seemed to think they had a right to the sky as well. The town’s roofs gradually fell below her. She gritted her teeth as she tried to force both her wings and the air to behave themselves, and re-steadied her hat as she flew on, past the edge of the town and out over the isle proper.

Below her, a patchwork of gold blanketed the rolling lowland between the town and the high ridges, barley and oat stalks shivering in the gust. Distant corvids flew over the fields with some ushering little rainclouds. Here and there, dark stone structures rose above the surface of the stalks, crofts and barns where they presumably kept their tools and stored the harvest till it could be hauled over to one of the windmills.

They didn’t have earth ponies, she remembered, who could practically coax a harvest from stones if they bent their magic to it. The corvids of Glimrovoe had to make their land work, every inch of it that could be spared and the seas around as well. Suppose the land let them down one time, or there was a blight, or …

...well, they’d struggle. They’d have to be vigilant, all the time.

Past the fields, running on for a few hundred metres yet, the land began to climb into a snarl of heather and craggy rock. Daring examined it as she flew onwards, at the dark, towering shapes that soared up from the rolling land.

They were the standing stones she’d glimpsed the day before. Some sprouted up in wide circles, like fairy-rings of mushrooms, while others rose by themselves, aloof from the rings. Some were so low they barely rose above the heather, while others soared over six metres high. They were all the same flagstone that Glimrovoe’s buildings were built from, dark and lustrous and sparkling in the sunlight.

And as Daring flew closer, skimming over the fields and passing over the heather, she saw a couple of crows hovering over one of the stand-alones, one bearing a tape measure and the other a bundle of red ribbons.

“Aye, ready as it’ll ever be. Cannae imagine it’ll grow much mair,” the crow with the tape measure called to the other with the ribbon. “Mark it.” His partner tied the ribbon around the top of the stone. Daring flapped closer, curious, and they glanced her way.

“What are you doing with the stone?” she asked.

“Just marking it for collection and processing,” the ribbon-bearer replied. “Ye must be one of Gamfer’ cuddies, aye? We’ll chat anon, peedie wan. These stones arnae gonnae mark themselves.”

They both took off before she could get a word in, making for a ring sprouting from the next ridge over. Daring stared after them for a second (“I’ve heard they’ve got stones in foreign parts which really are smart enough tae mark themselves,” said the measurer, distantly. “Ye’re thinking of golems, ye daft spyug,” replied the ribbon-bearer.) before she turned back to the standing stones and mulled over what they’d mentioned.

“Oh,” she said, realising. “Rock farms. Right. That makes sense.”

Ponies back home grew gemstones on their own rock farms, where they carefully nurtured and enchanted the ground and grew bumper crops of everything shiny the arcane industries and jewellers could ever need. If Glimrovoe had figured out how to do the same but for big chunks of building stone, that all seemed fair and sensible.

She flapped in an ungainly way over the marked stone, tried to land neatly on top of it, failed, and scrabbled at it with her legs until the general effect had been achieved. She spread her wings to keep her balance, her pinions fluttering in the gust, and looked up.

The land rose for a little while yet, pock-marked with more stones and circles, growing steeper and steeper till sheer grey cliff-faces broke up from it and soared to a towering ridge, the highest on Glimrovoe. Daring looked up, peering up from under the brim of her hat, till she risked falling over backwards. If she listened closely, she could hear the skirl of the winds around the peak, flying in from the open sea.

The same heroic smirk returned to Daring’s features.

“Our heroine,” she said to herself and for the hypothetical audience of agog page-turners, “resolved to conquer the perilous peak or perish piteously in the attempt.” She was proud of getting ‘piteously’ in there, it was a good word, it ought to be used more often. She spread her wings and caught a little updraft from a breeze to carry her, which helpfully carried her off the wrong way.

“Aargh, no, peeving, tabula rasaargh.” Daring heaped these and other blandishments on the breeze before she was able to settle into a steady rhythm with her wingbeats. “At its top, there was a lair of … of ice-wyrms? An evil sorceress and her trained mantaghasts?”

She soared onwards, up past one of the little cliff-faces that climbed up towards the sheer ridge. At the top of that face, a few feet in from the edge, a smaller stone rose, as if standing vigil over the landscape below. Daring swept up past the lip of the cliff and alighted on the standing stone’s top. She took stock, came to a decision as she did so, and shook her head. “No,” she muttered. “No, stranded sun-bears who’d forgotten to leave with the dusk, and who needed to be led—”

But before she could elaborate on her theme much more, a call rang out from the ground.

“Here! Here, cuddy!”

Daring glanced down and saw three corvids near the base of the stone, peering up at her, seemingly surprised by her appearance with their intent looks. They were fledglings, around her age and size, their feathers still touched with downy grey fluff. One of them had the white markings of a magpie. The other two might be … were they crows? Maybe rooks, or jackdaws? Those tribes had been mentioned in passing in one of her books, though she couldn’t remember precisely what they looked like or what they did, nor had Gamfer mentioned it.

She flew down to greet them and alighted on the ground in only a slightly meteoric way. As she recovered, the fledgling at the front regarded her with bright eyes. Their expression was hard to read.

“Hello!” Daring panted, her bearing regathered, and she extended a forehoof. “I’m Daring Do.”

Their leader, the magpie, didn’t take her hoof with their own claw, but studied Daring for a moment longer before speaking. “Flannan,” she said, a faint smirk appearing on her features, and gestured with one wing to the crow on Daring’s right, who began shuffling clockwise. “Rashan. And Roostan.” This to the one on Daring’s left, who began their own slow counter-clockwise shuffle. “We heard the bard was planning on bringing cuddies here.”

The hairs on Daring’s back prickled slightly, and her eyes flitted between Rashan and Roostan and to the distant peak, which was where she’d only wanted to go when setting out. She was suddenly wary … but maybe the three corvids were wary too. “That’s me. Or, well, I’m one of them.”

Flannan kept up the same smirk. “Aye, we’d gathered.”

“Whit does the clan need cuddies for?” Roostan said suddenly. “It’s oor Howe.”

“Wheesht,” hissed Flannan. “I’m eldest. Ye dinnae speak till I say.”

“Ha, aye, first tae hatch in the clutch,” said Rashan, who kept shuffling clockwise round Daring, and she had to crane her head to see him when he was just about at her wing. “A whole half-minute. Like that means anything.”

“Wheesht, I said!”

Daring hesitated for a moment. Just a moment. “I like your island!” she ventured. “I’ve never been anywhere like it back home, in Equestria—”

Flannan’s eyes narrowed. “Equestria,” she repeated.

“...Yeah,” Daring said, after a pause. “Equestria. Have you ever—?”

“Our dad said Equestria’s an evil place,” Roostan cheerfully blurted out, and Daring had to spin on the spot to keep track of the speakers. “Yer queen turned the Seventh tae ash, he says, and a hunnert-thousand other corbies wi’ him.” His eyes lit up. “And that armour in the chief's hall’s auld Chief Bride’s from when he took the black cockade and fought at the Valley. Got cut tae collops by the cuddies, alang wi’ nearly every Glimrovoan that followed him.”

“Collops?” Flustered, Daring kept turning on the spot to face Roostan. “What’s a collop? What do you mean ‘evil’? We’re not — ow!”

Something had jabbed into the base of her right wing then with a sudden sting of pain, and she whirled back the other way, to where she saw Rashan with one of her down-feathers in his beak. “Hey! Did you —”

Rashan spat the feather out. “They are real.” His smirk was nastiest of all. “Could have fooled us, the way ye were flying.”

And that clicked things into place for Daring.

She’d had this at school, a little bit and a little while ago, before Dad and her teachers had gotten involved. Red-hot anger and humiliation simmered up in her, and her hide and feathers fluffed with fury. “Leave me alone!”

“‘Leave me alane’,” Flannan sang. “Thought ye cuddies were meant tae be terrible and ferocious.”

“Dad’s told us stories the bard hasnae,” Roostan said. “About the sorts of things yer queen did tae oor Cormaer and the corbies that followed him. Got burned tae ash in Equestria, didn’t they? Well, now ye’re in Corva.”

“The cheek of it,” Rashan said mockingly. “A cuddy thinking they’ve any right tae the skies here.”

“But dinnae fret. We’ll leave ye alane. Soon as we’re bored.” Flannan jabbed her beak out at Daring’s face, and Daring flinched back reflexively, only for something else to jab into the base of her left wing. She spun two-thirds of a circle again, goaded from all sides, and Roostan met her gaze, another feather in his beak.

A red-black haze pounded in her head and a painful lump had suddenly taken up residence in her throat, and she found herself torn. Fillies faced with bullies ought to fly away or gallop off (and she’d have to gallop, these three could probably fly better than her). They ought to find a teacher who’d supposedly solve it, eventually. But heroines stood their ground.

“Leave the cuddy be!”

The scratchy caw came from a short distance away, and Daring glanced its way. She saw another fledgling hopping in an ungainly way through the heather as fast as he could, his left wing flapping free to keep him steady and a hemp satchel wobbling on his back. Livid blue eyes flared at Flannan, Roostan, and Rashan.

Skyare. Daring was surprised as she recognised him. Why was he here? Had he been keeping an eye on her all this time? Why was he getting involved if he’d seemed so unfriendly? But whatever the reasons, she was briefly delighted that he was doing it. She bet Chief Tirla’s son would be able to send these bullies packing—

“Aw,” crowed Roostan, “Skyare fancies the cuddy.”

“She’s a guest o’ the bard!” Skyare sprackled free of the thickest heather and into the clearer patch around the stone, panting and glaring at the three. “Call this Glimrovoe hospitality? Ye’re shaming the clan!”

Rashan laughed then, harsh and derisive. “We’re shaming the clan? Look in a mirror, ye clip. Ye wouldnae ken Glimrovoe if ye plummeted ontae it.”

Skyare hissed, the feathers around his hackles fluffing. “Ye come closer and say that, ye —”

But before he could finish the sentence, Rashan flew at him, springing into the air in one smooth motion and flapping down at Skyare in a flurry of claws and flapping wings and jabbing beaks. Skyare tumbled back with a squawk, Rashan atop him, and Daring didn’t need any more urge to act than that. She lunged at them, hell-bent on pulling Rashan off.

But she was stopped in her tracks by something seizing on her tail with a painful jerk, and she twisted to face Roostan with her tail in his beak, with Flannan by his side. “Where ye going, cuddy?” Flannan sneered. “We’re no done wi’ our sensitive diplomatic exchan—”

Daring didn’t think. She just kicked back with her rear legs. Her hooves slammed into Roostan and kicked him tumbling backwards, poleaxed and briefly senseless on the ground.

For a moment, Daring was shocked. Her thoughts caught up, and she was, at first, simply surprised by how hard she’d just kicked Roostan. She wasn’t frail or weak or anything, but … were corvids lighter than ponies? Were ponies stronger? Maybe both? Was that how she’d just kicked him flying like that?

And all these questions were followed by the realisation that she probably ought to feel worried for Roostan and check whether he was alright, which was in turn drowned out by the indignant flare of no, to Tartarus with him, he’d ganged up on her, and before her breathless train of thought could chase this too much further, Flannan came at her.

The magpie sprang at Daring, her beak open and claws spread, and Daring barely had time to react before she was bowled into and sent rolling backwards. She yelped and flailed wildly with her hooves, trying to throw any kick she could into Flannan, who was pecking and flapping equally wildly atop her.

Daring felt Flannan’s claws jab painfully into her side, and she was dimly aware that her hat had fallen off. The spurt of red indignation this realisation provoked was enough to make her lunge out, champ into the scruff of feathers at the front of Flannan’s torso, and wrench to one side.

Flannan went tumbling over with a pained squawk, and Daring paused just long to cough, spit out a piece of down that had got caught in her teeth, and scrabbled forwards at Flannan. But the little magpie had recovered before Daring could properly bring herself up off the ground, and Flannan’s beak jabbed at Daring’s face, and Daring scrambled back reflexively. She felt some sensation flicker across her right cheek, numbed by sheer adrenaline.

For a moment, she paused to just catch her breath, and Flannan did the same. The pair glared daggers at one another, and though it could have been the adrenaline talking, Daring could have sworn Flannan looked hesitant

Then there came a sharp keen of pain to one side, and Daring turned instantly to that.

Skyare was pinned beneath Rashan, his hemp satchel fallen free as he struggled under and pecked up at Rashan. One wing, his left, flapped at Rashan, while his right lay spread and helpless on the ground. He threw his head up to try and peck Rashan, legs thrashing up at the magpie’s belly. Rashan avoided either attack with ease as he flapped up effortlessly and lashed down just as quickly, his bunched claws dashing down into Skyare’s midriff to knock his breath out.

Skyare rasped out a cough and flapped his left wing to vainly try to roll round onto his belly and thrashed with his feet anew, claws clutching just short of Rashan. Rashan flapped up, alighted heavily on Skyare’s left wing, took aim at the joint of Skyare’s right wing with his beak, and pecked down savagely. Skyare keened again.

“Whit’s the matter, clip?” Rashan snarled, and once again drove his beak down into where Skyare’s inert wing met his body, drawing out another keen. “It’s no as if ye’re using it! Stay doon while we see tae the cuddy, and then ye’ll get yer—”

Daring didn’t let him finish. Without thinking, she tore at Rashan and blindsided him, barging him off Skyare and sending him sprawling back towards the cliff edge. He tottered and then corrected himself, his wings spreading and flapping to help correct his footing.

Daring found herself standing over Skyare, her vision blurry and her mind still caught up in a mad red fog. Below her, the crow hissed with pain.

She looked from Rashan to Flannan, who’d started forward when she’d seen Rashan attacked but had held back, and round to Roostan, who was groggily picking himself up as well. She glared round at each of them, drums pounding in her head, willing one of them to be dumb enough to come at her first. She’d have a forehoof waiting for them.

But not three or even two of them at once, some little part of her whispered, under the red. She’d be pecked and scratched apart then.

Daring held her ground regardless, and pawed the ground with her forehoof. Her wings unconsciously spread, and her feathers fluffed.

“D-dinnae,” hissed a voice underneath her. Skyare, sounding so very far away. “Just fly off, cuddy. Go away.

And Daring hesitated, but she held her ground. She didn’t even look round at Skyare, but stayed fixated on the three before her.

None of them, it turned out, wanted to be first to get a hoof to the face.

Flannan glanced briefly round at her brothers, donned a smirk, and then turned that smirk back round at Daring and Skyare. “Come on,” she declared. “The lovebirds want peace? We’ll gie them it. Here, Skyare, ye’ve finally found something that’ll suffer ye.”

She flapped up and into the air with effortless grace, Rashan and Roostan following after a moment’s hesitation. Daring’s wings itched as she watched them take off and fly overhead, back in the direction of the town. Part of her wanted to pursue them — especially when Rashan dipped down for a moment, snagged Skyare’s fallen satchel with a claw, and dropped it over the cliff edge. Daring turned to watch it tumble down amidst the heathery crags and onto the grass below and then scowled up in the direction of the retreating fledglings. What had been the point of that?

Her anger began to ebb and the roar of adrenalin dimmed. She panted, suddenly breathless, and was aware of a stinging sensation across her cheek. She gingerly reached up towards it with her forehoof and yelped as patting it produced a sharp twinge of pain. Her forehoof, when she inspected it through suddenly-watering eyes, came away red. Flannan must have pecked harder than she’d realised.

Skyare keened on the ground, the sound lurching her even more into reality, and she looked down to see him trying to rise to his feet, his right wing still limp on the ground. “I - I’ll help!” she stammered as she stooped to him. “Let me —”

Leave aff!” he spat at her, his head jerking up and making her start back, his angry blue eyes filled with water. “I ken how to do it myself! Just gies a minute!”

Daring stared for a second, bewildered and then livid, anger and frustration and simple hurt making a froth of her mind. Possible retorts snarled up in her throat, got nowhere, and she stooped to pick up her hat before turning sharply away with a flick of her tail. She glared out at the landscape of Glimrovoe, which was now blurry for some reason, and scuffed at her eyes with her non-stained forehoof.

For a moment, she hated it here. She hated it here on this faraway island, where they flew better than she could and she didn’t understand things and they ganged up on her when she’d done nothing wrong and where she couldn’t do anything right.

She’d survived undead Antlerteans. Some dumb corvid bullies shouldn’t have had any right to make her feel like this. Neither them nor Skyare.

Daring scuffed at her eyes again and then turned when there came a cough and rustling noise at her back. Composing herself, she turned to give Skyare as cold a look as she could manage. He’d risen to his feet, his wing still limp and trailing. His usual sulky look had turned a little apprehensive, and he seemed to be pointedly not meeting her gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he bit out, eventually, after only a short eternity. “Shouldnae have snapped. That wisnae worthy o’ the clan. I can manage things, but ye were doing yer best. And ye helped.” And, a few achingly long seconds after Daring had gotten over her surprise, “Thank ye.”

As she put her hat back on, Daring opened and shut her mouth a couple of times. She turned her own gaze away for a moment, before deciding at last on, “It’s okay. Um. Thank you too. For getting involved. Sorry if I made you feel bad.” Eloquence seemed to have momentarily deserted her, and she channelled a little of the frustration there into a backwards glance over her withers. “Who are they?”

“Cloacs,” Skyare said disdainfully. “Like tae swagger and hurt. Least, as much as I’ve seen of them. Maybe they’re different wi’ others and I just bring oot their best side.” He gave her a wry look. “Ye as well, seems like.”

“What’s a cloac?”

“It’s rude,” he said ominously. “Say it before ye’re tall enough in front o’ anycraw who is tall enough and ye get a bit o’ down plucked.”

Good enough for Daring, who gave the landscape at her back a grim smirk. “Total cloacs,” she dubbed the long-departed three. It clicked off her tongue nicely. Corvids seemed to have good curses; she ought to learn more.

“If ye’re hanging aroond,” Skyare said, his gaze roaming the heather around the stone, “help me find my wing-strap. It must have come off.”

Daring helpfully looked downwards, though she couldn’t help but steal a look at his trailing wing. Eventually, curiosity could contain itself no longer. “Is it hurt?”

Skyare looked up at her, briefly puzzled before annoyance flushed across his features. “Nae mair than usual. It’s just like that all the time. Can we no talk about it?”

Daring didn’t answer for a moment.

She imagined if one of her own wings didn’t work, even living with Dad who was an earth pony, living on the ground in Canterlot, knowing plenty of pegasi who worked on the ground, knowing she’d probably be able to live a normal life even if she never took to the sky again.

She didn’t want to imagine it.

“And can we no stare at it for ages either—”

“Is that why they picked on you?” she said softly, cutting off Skyare. She looked up, saw him looking tetchy all over again, the found strap dangling from his beak, and she quickly clarified. “The cloacs, that is.”

After a moment, he dropped the strap over his wing and snorted. “It’s whit they bring up. I think they just like picking. They’d find any reason. They tried it on ye, didn’t they? They’ve tried it on peedie Grimleen as well, just ‘cause she’s smallest o’ her clutch.” He hunkered down, carefully balanced on one crouched leg, and used his other foot and his beak to begin tying his wing back in against his side. “But I’m their favourite. Managed tae get them aff Grimleen a few times by stumbling intae the way o’ their beaks instead.”

Beings were the same everywhere, it turned out. Even if you wished they weren’t.

“Why?” Daring asked at last as Skyare continued fussing with his wing.

He was quiet then. “Because even if I’ll never be a complete Glimrovoan, I’ll try tae act like a Glimrovoan,” he said suddenly and heatedly. “They dinnae get tae take that from me.”

“No, I meant —” Daring circled her hoof. “Why do they pick on you, though? You’re the chief’s son, right?”

Skyare adopted an expression similar to Dad’s upon being compared to a sheep. “...Aye? So I’m reliably telt.”

“So you’ll be chief one day,” Daring patiently said. “Why get you annoyed at them before then? Even if your wing doesn’t work, shouldn’t they be sucking up to you?”

Now Skyare looked like Dad upon being asked where his wings were. “Why would I be chief one day?”

Daring didn’t even know what her own expression was like at that moment. “...Because that’s how it works?”

“That’s how it ...” Skyare trailed off, and then gave Daring a peeved look, inasmuch as he could with a length of strap in his beak. “Ye ken we tell Cormaer stories oot here as well, aye? We’re corvids like anycraw else, we’ve bards and everything. Do ye think the Second’s legend’s totally passed us by?”

“I don’t know what that is!”

There followed a mutual pause. “Ah, alright,” Skyare said. “Aye, alright. Maybe ye wouldnae. Well, naw. It doesnae work that way. A chief’s child doesnae just get tae become the next chief. The next chief’s whoever the clan trusts tae lead them. Whoever’s tried and tested and respected, and never mind who hatched them of a’ things.”

Daring considered this. It seemed stranger than rulership by an immortal alicorn Princess, but she was here to learn about strange things, wasn’t she? “And that’s what the Second started? Whoever the Second was?”

“The Second Cormaer, and naw, he didnae. He’s why chiefs dinnae just birth the chiefs after. It’s a whole...” Skyare finished with his wing, stood up with it firmly secured and gave Daring a lofty look. “It’s a Cormaer story. They’re the stories. A’body ought tae ken them.”

Daring didn’t ken them and added kenning them to the to-do list. But she also couldn’t help but feel she was getting side-tracked. “Well, even if that’s not how chiefs work,” she said, “they still shouldn’t get away with bullying you. Does your mom know they do? Have you told her?”

Skyare gave her a flat look. “Ye’re really making friends today, cuddy.”

“What?” Stung again, Daring saw his flat look and raised him an annoyed one. “I get that I don’t know how everything works here, but I’m not doing it on purpose! You don’t have to keep being rude to me about it, you can just say. What’s wrong with what I said?”

“I’m no a clype.” Skyare sullenly avoided her gaze once again. “I dinnae tell tales. I dinnae need tae tell tales. If I’ve a problem with Flannan or anycraw, I’ll deal wi’ it by myself, and I’m not gonnae share my problems around.”

Daring knew when someone was acting stubborn in the face of help and recognised she’d make no headway. Not head-on, at least, so she’d have to come up with another way to convince Skyare to do it. It was frustrating. Thank goodness she’d never be so dumb.

“Never mind me,” Skyare said, shaking his head, his gaze picking over the ground again. “Do ye ken where my satchel fell? There’s stuff in there Gamfer asked me tae work on.”

Daring nodded towards the cliff edge. “Rashan grabbed it. Tossed it down there.”

“Whit?” Skyare stepped over, peered down, and gave the satchel a frustrated look. “Ach, utter cloac,” he muttered. “That’s a hard climb doon and back.”

“What’s in it?”

“A few passages in Auld Corvic. Gamfer wanted me tae brush up on translating it before he came oot o’ the delve wi’ whitever auld writing or texts they might find inside the Howe, so he could get my second opinion. This side of the isle’s fairly quiet, when the harvest’s still growing and the stones roundabout are being left tae grow. Best place I can hear myself think.” Skyare frowned down at the satchel, and turned to one side, aiming for a circuitous path winding down the cliff face.

“Wait, it’s alright.” Daring had paused then and thought quickly. She whirred her wings. “I can go get it for you.”

“I can climb doon just fine, cuddy, I’ve done it before,” Skyare replied coldly, impatiently.

“I’m not saying you can’t do it. I’m suggesting ...” Daring assembled and deployed her quick line of thought. “...more an exchange. You said it’s a hard climb, right? So let me go get it to save you the bother, and in return, you tell me a Cormaer story. Or a few of them, if you’ve got the time. That way, I’ll know a bit more, and I won’t keep insisting you become the next chief or whatever. That sound fair?”

After a moment, Skyare turned, met her gaze, and gave her a look that was briefly wry. “Bit transparent, don’t ye thi—?” He paused. His eyes suddenly filled with concern as he looked directly at her cheek. “Ye’re hurt.”

“I’m hur—? Oh.” The cut on her cheek stung again, now it’d been brought back to her attention. Daring reached up to pat it again, forgetting, and yelped when the predictable happened. “It … it’s just a scratch.”

“It’s bleeding. Ye’ll need it cleaned.” Skyare seemed to make a decision then and made for the same path down the cliffside. “Come on. I’ll show ye tae the sea, ye can wash it there. We’ll grab my satchel on the way. Maybe I’ll tell a Cormaer story or two as we go.”

If it wasn’t quite the victory Daring had hoped for, it was darn-near the same thing. “Let’s!” she said brightly and made to follow Skyare down towards the distant sea.

One thing prodded at the back of her mind, though, something she felt she’d forgotten. She mulled it over as Skyare approached the cliff path, his good wing slightly spread to help his balance. Then it dawned on her.

Introductions. Right.

“I’m Daring Do, by the way,” she said suddenly, drawing Skyare’s attention back to her. She offered him a forehoof. “You maybe didn’t know that.”

Skyare blinked, and though he didn’t seem to know what to do with a proffered hoof the way Gamfer had, he seemed to realise what this was about. “I’m Skyare,” he replied. “If ye want Cormaer stories, the First’s a guid yin to start at, I suppose.”

Comments ( 28 )

I really like this chapter and I love all the references to future events such as Cirein Croin and Daring's stubborness. Those bullies are just as cowardly as everywhere else as soon as their victim fights back they try to flee.

10238342
Glad you like it! Pony strength in close combat was definitely something those three didn't anticipate.

Getting in a reference to Cirein-cròin seemed only appropriate as well. :raritywink:

She just kicked back with her rear legs. Her hooves slammed into Roostan and kicked him tumbling backwards, poleaxed and briefly senseless on the ground.

Those fools. They gave up their chief advantage over ponies: range. Now they're gonna get krumped like a Tau fire warrior fist-fighting an ork.

Cloacs

Ha! Bird swears!

Good enough for Daring, who gave the landscape at her back a grim smirk.

And this being Daring Do, she immediately added it to her arsenal.

“Because even if I’ll never be a complete Glimrovoan, I’ll try tae act like a Glimrovoan,” he said suddenly and heatedly. “They dinnae get tae take that from me.”

I've decided that I like Skyare.

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Those fools. They gave up their chief advantage over ponies: range. Now they're gonna get krumped like a Tau fire warrior fist-fighting an ork.

"I dinnae ken whit this gonne these aliens dropped is or whit it's even doing, but I like it. Look, it shoots blue."

"Well, ye play with it all ye like. I'm gaunny beat up that cuddy over there, the one that's struggling wi' that axe those other green and shouty aliens dropped. They look vulnerable and peckable as a'hin."

"Roostan, ye stupit cloac, we've been over this."

I've decided that I like Skyare.

Glad you do! He's due for quite a few more appearances yet.

You know, from what we've seen on the show pony medicine seems disproportionately advanced compared to the rest of their technology. I wonder if pony surgeons could fix Skyare's wing. Of course, would Corvid pride allow Skyare or his mother to even consider it?

10238869
It'd be a tricky order even for Equestrian physicians — Skyare's wing condition comes down to a peculiar form of muscular dystrophy, as I imagine it. But given a description of it, enough time after he'd fully grown, and a shot at it, I'd reckon they'd be able to lash together enough magical treatments and arcane prosthetics to give him something like functional flight.

As for whether Skyare and his mother would consider it, definitely, if the chance was offered. As they'd see it at this moment in time, the utility of flight's worth most prices. If the cuddies have the odd good idea, why not poach it?

After reading the title:
...Now I'm wondering what would happen if someone brought out a game of Diplomacy at a meeting of your world leaders.

There was just something I found delightful in how Daring accepted the rock farming. :)

I see their dad's stories did not so much include anything on the advisability of standing nice and still directly behind a pony who knows you're there and is none too pleased with you.
(Though good thing his beak came free of her tail.)

And another nice chapter, I found this. :)
Thanks for writing!


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10238493
Oh, has that happened already in one of the stories? Which one, if you don't mind me asking? I'm afraid I don't recall it.

10238636
"He's due for quite a few more appearances yet."
Unsurprising, but nice to hear, as I rather like him too. :)

10239496
Glad you like it, and that Skyare went down well! :pinkiehappy:

...Now I'm wondering what would happen if someone brought out a game of Diplomacy at a meeting of your world leaders.

Much the same levels of acrimony and frustration, with multiple someones definitely getting hit over the head and/or crown with the board at least once.

Oh, has that happened already in one of the stories? Which one, if you don't mind me asking? I'm afraid I don't recall it.

Parlous! He's the sea-monster in its description, who Luna has a jolly exchange of views with.

TParlous
A month after her return to Equestria, Princess Luna flies forth to fight a sea monster.
Carabas · 12k words  ·  309  2 · 4.3k views

10239509
:)

Yes, that sounds about right. :D

Ah, right, thank you! :D
I have indeed read that, but I'd forgotten the monster's name, even so much as a little niggle prompting me to check.

Just had a random thought about corvid black powder. Historically the hardest and most expensive component of gunpowder to acquire was “saltpeter,” nitrites (nitrates?), and the most abundant and accessible source was bird guano.

Though if the corvids are literally using their own shit to kill their enemies, could they possibly resist taunting them about it, military secret or no?

10239804
Yep! They'll get it from any source they can, but their own guano's a reliable source. Do your bit for the clan by crapping where the powder-maker's assistants can get to it. :pinkiehappy:

Secrecy-wise, the continent's probably cottoned onto the basic components by now. It's replicating the exact alchemy and magic used by jackdaws to make the finished product that eludes them as yet. Till then, any corvids they have as foes can keep on combining their insult and injury with impunity.

If ye believe the tall tales, ye can fly in and, if ye somehow dinnae melt, find Diamond Dugs wi’ pelts of pure charcoal and eyes o’ rubies.

Given the setting, that's not entirely out of the question.
And yeah, a blend of volcanic soil and plentiful gunpowder materials will make for a clan with all the resources necessary to go a-conquering. Explains a lot there.

She could just fly out the way of any danger rather than be weighed down. So long as she kept an eye out to know the danger was coming, of course. And once she learned to fly with any degree of grace.

And, she would later amend, provided her wings could stay intact more than a few hours into an expedition.

Call us out if Cirein-cròin rises from the sea or Scarrach invades or anything of that magnitude

Don't worry, the first one isn't due until Luna gets back and the second...
Oh dear, it seems that bit of the schedule's been smudged.

Heh. That's certainly one application of rock farming. And a rather essential one when you don't have the available real estate to make a quarry.

Aargh, no, peeving, tabula rasaargh.

I will never get tired of Daring being convinced that "tabula rasa" is a curse.

“Our dad said Equestria’s an evil place,” Roostan cheerfully blurted out, and Daring had to spin on the spot to keep track of the speakers. “Yer queen turned the Seventh tae ash, he says, and a hunnert-thousand other corbies wi’ him.”

Oh dear. Everyone's the hero of their own story, and that's as true on the national scale as the personal one. Equestria saw that incineration as an act of self-defense. Corva, not so much. And Celestia's reputation preceding her is definitely not the best way for Daring to make friends with the locals.

And then Flannan learned a valuable lesson: Be very careful when directly behind an equinoid. Pegasi may not be as strong as earth ponies, but that's a relative term. Especially for a species with hollow bones.

Cloacs

:rainbowlaugh: Yeah, that's another one for Daring's most treasured vocabulary.

Ah, the magic of assumptions. It's easy to get offended when you don't realize that someone from the other side of the continent doesn't know all the stuff you were raised on. And that goes for Daring and Skyare. Now that they've gotten past the mutual incomprehension/frustration phase of things, i think this will the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
You know, provided the cloacs don't try to come back.

10239895
It would be completely out of character but I have this funny mental image of the next corvid invasion completely confident in their “next gen,” black powder weapons and anti-magic ammo getting annihilated by smokeless powder, repeating rifles, machine guns, and rapid fire explosive shell artillery because Twilight gave the Equestrian Arms Department a stack of printouts from the human world internet.

Although it was a plot point that the pony military is being expanded and upgraded and I could maybe see a scenario where the newly ruling Twilight goes “Tirek, Chrysalis’ Throne, Cozy Glow’s ritual, the Bewitching Bell, and the creatures who can use the Magic of Friendship to overcome threats like them are limited in number and can only protect so much. Equestria needs a way to protect itself from powerful foes that doesn’t rely on magic.”

10239911

Heh. That's certainly one application of rock farming. And a rather essential one when you don't have the available real estate to make a quarry.

Handy, aren't they? Genuine Glimrovoan flagstone, plucked fresh last week, is always a handy resource for building and bartering.

Sometimes, you see a circle of standing stones and a fairy ring of mushrooms, and then you have the best ideas.

I will never get tired of Daring being convinced that "tabula rasa" is a curse.

Some callbacks just can't be resisted. :twilightsmile:

And then Flannan learned a valuable lesson: Be very careful when directly behind an equinoid. Pegasi may not be as strong as earth ponies, but that's a relative term. Especially for a species with hollow bones.

It's a skilled or unwise corvid that dares prolonged close combat with a pony. Test this for yourself at home by taking a horse and a crow and goading them to fight.

Now that they've gotten past the mutual incomprehension/frustration phase of things, i think this will the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

All the best friendships begin in brawls, this is known. :pinkiehappy:

10239915

"I'm not sure I can really condone using the mirror to this sort of effect. It doesn't seem altogether ethical," said Celestia, overlooking the battlefield. There seemed to be rather a lot more smoke and miscellaneous shrapnel whirling through it than on previous fields she'd seen, and she sighed. "I mean, I'm not saying it's not working, but ..."

Avian anatomy is so neat for swears. Call somebirdy a vent or cloaca, and you get to call them an asshole and wanker/cunt at the same time with a single expletive. Telling someone to "Kiss my cloaca" though, raises a challenge. You may mean it in the same way that a pony or other mammal might say "Kiss my ass," but to a griffon or fellow corvid your words might be mistaken as an invitation to get busy.

10241235
They're efficient swearers, the corvids, though it can lead to some cross-cultural confusion like that you described. One editor also observed how tricky it'd be to translate the 'Dicks, Pussies, and Assholes' speech from Team America into corvid terms. 'Cloacs, cloacs, and cloacs' just doesn't have the same intelligibility.

I already like Skyare, and can't wait to hear some Cormaer stories. Gamfer chose his successor well.


10238889 Maybe Equestria can't fix him, but at least he should get a scooter.

10244573

Maybe Equestria can't fix him, but at least he should get a scooter.

"It's alright, I've got this," Skyare muttered to himself as he perched atop the wheeled plank, his good wing outspread to try and steady himself. "Just gie the ground a peedie kick tae get it moving ... ach, cack, I'm moving, this is fine, this is fine, and I turn it by ... how dae I turn? Dae I shoogle mysel fae side tae side or ... cloac, that's a stall, how dae I stop this, LOOK OUAARGH"

"I dunno why I was asked to teach him stuff," Scootaloo said admiringly, watching the havoc from afar. "He already knows all the moves."

She could just fly out the way of any danger rather than be weighed down.

I guess it's true what they say about tempting fate.

“What’s a cloac?”

“It’s rude,”

Ah. Well, it makes sense they'd have obscenities tailored to their own anatomy, really.

10245249

I guess it's true what they say about tempting fate.

Vital quality for any would-be adventurer. Otherwise where'd be the fun in the adventure? :raritywink:

Ah. Well, it makes sense they'd have obscenities tailored to their own anatomy, really.

Only fitting, really. Invoking the nether regions of other species ("Whit a hectocotylus he is," etc) seldom has the same satisfaction.

10244644 Oh yeah, I forgot Scootaloo lives in flat town and not a jagged mountain/island.

Its really criminal how low the views for this story are considering how much passion has clearly gone into it. Hope to see it continue someday.

10409576
Glad you like it! I'd never object to a few more digits at the end of a view tally, but I'm gratified by the comments and engagement Legends' gotten so far. Last few months have knackered my writing mojo a wee bit, but I'm currently trying to finish off another story, and plan to get back to this once that's published. :twilightsmile:

Good enough for Daring, who gave the landscape at her back a grim smirk. “Total cloacs,” she dubbed the long-departed three. It clicked off her tongue nicely. Corvids seemed to have good curses; she ought to learn more.

Travel, meet strange peoples, experience new things, learn to swear in a foreign language or three

10566463
The ideal goals for any foreign holiday.

Much obliged for this and your other comments. Can confirm, donkey ship-naming conventions have been lifted wholesale from the Culture. :twilightsmile:

This fanfic has been on my RIL list for a terribly long time, and I finally got around to reading it. And I wish I had read it sooner! Young Daring is just the right combination of book smart and street smart. It's great that she's following in her dad's footsteps and wearing her mother's hat (which, now that I think about it, is similar to Applejack, but it's still sweet).

The plot takes a while to get going, but it makes for an immersive experience. I adore your donkeys and their organized chaos, for example. And it's great to see more of your corvids and their colorful language. They're curious, intelligent, crafty, and sometimes cruel, but not entirely without kindness, as Gamfer and Skyare have shown.

Fun fact: baby crows really do have blue eyes like Skyare. They also really do love fish.

Anyway, I know it's been a while since you updated this story, but I hope you decide to continue it someday.

11112534
Glad you've gotten round to reading it, and delighted you've been enjoying it! Wee Daring's good fun to write about, and it's great fun to inflict her on bits of the world I've been keen to flesh out. Good to hear you've been liking the corvids as well - I've been wanting to give them more attention beyond just Cranreuch's appearance in The Tempest and Wedding March for a while now. Looking at how the corbies got on with life (as well as Asinia's) at a more grounded level appealed greatly.

Baby crows having blue eyes was a fun fact I came across when doing a bit of research for this. I imagine their eyes are as technicolour as any ponies, but keeping Skyare's classically blue seemed fitting.

It's a rare day that goes by where I don't think about this story and feel guilty over the dust it's been gathering. Been mulling it over more often lately - with any luck one day, that might translate into action and I'll be able to get it rolling again. Hope it continues to satisfy as and when that happens. :twilightsmile:

11239033

Did you happen to acquire any reference art of such before starting this story?

Alas, if there's a picture out there of a corvid clad in plaid, I've yet to see it. Attempts to create one as a real-life model only got me repeatedly pecked.

11239821

As neat a cadence as it has, should that be "Unfriendly blue eyes watched her go." or is it a turn of phrase that I'm overlooking in favor of base pedantry?

Turn of phrase. Skyare's eyes can be taken as read for the purposes of the blue, so far as I see it. If not, well, a nice cadence justifies all sorts of cruelties to the language.

does 'somebody' have the same stigma when it comes to the immaterial?

Cervile would probably consider any attempt to update the term on their behalf unnecessary, though it would be quietly appreciated.

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