After a freak incident in an ancient Sumerian city, three ponies, strangers to each other, find themselves in ancient Greece. Getting back to Equestria won’t be simple, as the locals intend to make it complicated.
After a buried Sumerian city is uncovered, three ponies, Daring Do, Lyra, and Diamond Tiara, find themselves in the land of ancient Greece. Getting back home is not an easy task, as the locals, these humans, have never even seen Equestrians, let alone real magic. With no way to return to Equestria, these three will spend their time along the Mediterranean, attempting to find a way.
Off in the distance, near where the cave ended in a pinprick of light, Daring Do could hear the waves of the Red Colt Sea crashing down on the rocky crags. The whooshing sound grew fainter as she trotted down through the cavern. The sound of her hoofsteps soon overtook the waves, echoing off the walls with a rhythmic click-clat.
Her pith helmet didn’t protect her from the draft coming from the darkness. The breeze whipped through her black mane, wrapping around her golden neck like the gentle flow of an icy stream. Being a pegasus, she was built for the wind currents of the sky. This measly breeze was nothing compared to the typhoons she pushed through in years past.
The draft felt like nothing to her, but it did mean something. She was trotting against the breeze, which flowed for the exit. Normal caves didn’t do that. The draft is supposed to go into the cave, not out of it. Something was deep inside, pushing air out of this cavern. Daring Do could feel it.
The light behind the pegasus dimmed shortly after the sound of the ocean disappeared. She turned on the lantern she had attached to her vest, illuminating the cavern in a warm, yellow glow. Shadows danced behind rocks and crags as she moved down into the earth. The breeze still remained, whipping through her hair.
Daring Do was looking for something in this cave, but she didn’t know what. A traveler she met in a tavern in Bullga told her about this place. He had grown up in a town on the coast of the Red Colt Sea, where caves such as this were plentiful. The traveler had played in these caves as a kid, taking preference for a crack in the cliffs with a mysterious carving. “It was a snake covered in thorns,” he said, “It coiled around a flower, which bloomed from the tip of its tail.”
Going off the description, the carving wasn’t among the known symbols of ancient civilizations. This piqued her curiosity. Within a week, the pegasus had arrived at the shore the traveler claimed to have seen the carving. It was far down the coast from a small port town. The area itself was hard to get to if you weren’t adventurous enough. She had spent three days searching for the cave. On the third day, she found the etching, the flower with a thorny snake. Like she had predicted, it didn’t resemble anything from any known culture.
She went back to town that night, coming back the next day with a full bag of supplies. Her pack contained food, water, blankets, rope, batteries, and her emergency teleport crystal. The last object was a souvenir from a trip in Marelasia, where one of her more profitable adventures occurred. The crystal teleported the user to a spot he or she designated earlier. It had come in handy once, though she lost a different priceless artifact in the process.
Daring Do set the crystal’s location outside of town before she left. One small trot along a rocky beach later, and she was back at the cave. Now she was Celestia-knows how deep under the ground, with only her flashlight keeping her company.
She didn’t know what she was looking for, but something in her gut told her it was big, very big.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
It was high noon in the city of Tottingham. Those working outside had the pleasure of enjoying the sun’s warmth, giving them a break from the bitter morning cold. Downtown, the city council was discussing which park to hold the starting position for the upcoming Running of the Leaves festival. In the residential district, things were heating up for one house.
“A magic kit!” A mare yelled as she burst through a door. “You spent Celestia-knows how much on a freaking magic kit?!”
The mint-green unicorn the mare was referring to jumped at the sudden intrusion. “What?! I didn’t do anything!”
The mare chucked a box at the unicorn. The latter ducked out of the way, letting the box sail over her head and smash against the wall. “Lyra, take this seriously,” the mare continued. “You used whatever money you had to buy that piece of trash when you’re still behind on your half of the rent!”
“It’s my money,” Lyra said. “I can do whatever I want with it.”
“And it’s your half of the rent! How much did that thing cost you?”
“Enough that you shouldn’t be tossing it around.” Lyra scurried over to the box, which sustained no damage on the outside. She opened it up to check if the interior was still intact. To her relief, everything inside was exactly the same from when she bought it. “Oh, that’s good. Nothing broke.”
“Nothing broke, does that make you happy?” the mare said. “I hope that makes you happy, because you won’t be this happy once the landlord kicks us out!”
“Take a chill pill, Bon Bon,” Lyra said. “There’s no need to get this angry.”
“Angry? Angry?!” Bon Bon’s words seethed out from between her teeth. “I’m working hard, paying all the bills, buying the bargain brands because I can’t get the good stuff. I don’t want to get the cheap toilet paper, but it’s all I can get. Then there’s you, sitting at home doing jack squat and throwing bits at whatever you feel like. You’re a unicorn. What’s the point in even having a magic kit?”
“I’m thinking of going into performing magic.” The unicorn pulled out a red ball from the box and held it out. “Alright, so this little diddy is called the”--
Bon Bon gave her flat-mate a deadpan look. “You play the lyre. You have a job with the Trottingham orchestra. You don’t need get into performing magic because you already have a job! It’s even magically tattooed on your butt!”
Lyra glanced at her flank, on which she had her cutie mark, a golden lyre. “This old thing? I don’t know. It’s always felt a little confining to me. Why should I base my entire life on a single thing?”
“Because that single thing is the one thing that makes you money!” The mare’s face flared into a burning, bright red. “You know what, forget it. If you want to live your life as a deadbeat magician, be my guest. But you’re either going to pay the rent or so help me I’ll frame you for murder just to get you out of here!”
Before Lyra could say something, Bon Bon went out of the room and slammed the door behind her. The unicorn jumped at the noise, dropping the red ball on the floor.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
On the lovely side of Ponyville, in a lovely house, it was snack time. A gray filly poured tea into four cups on a kid-sized table. One cup went to her, one to Madam Moose, who accompanied her, one to Diamond Tiara, her new friend, and one to Mr. Giggles, who accompanied Diamond.
“Oh, what a lovely day for a party,” the filly mused, “I can’t believe you’ve never had one of these before.”
Diamond Tiara nodded, “Yeah… your name’s Silver Spoon, right?”
Silver Spoon giggled. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were bad with names.” They were spending time afterschool at Diamond Tiara’s house, at Silver Spoon’s request. Diamond Tiara was hesitant about letting someone she barely knew into a home she was still moving into, but her new friend was insistent.
Silver Spoon placed the tea kettle on the table. “So, what’s it like having Filthy Rich as a dad? I didn’t even know he had a kid.”
“It’s okay, I guess.” Diamond Tiara picked up her cup and took a sip. “He lets me have whatever I want if I ask nicely. I never see him at home, though. It’s been work, work, work since I got here.”
“Tell me about it.” Silver Spoon wrapped her foreleg around Madam Moose and hugged her tight. “Madam Moose is always busy counting up the millions of jillions of bits at the Equestrian bank. She never gets a break.”
“That must be hard.” Diamond Tiara looked over at Mr. Giggles. The stuffed bear hadn’t touched his tea yet. He stared blankly at the wall, like he always did. “Mr. Giggles spends his time working in the gardens.”
“Oh, is he a servant?” Silver Spoon asked. “The servants are the ones that work in my family’s gardens.”
Diamond Tiara shook her head. “No, he does it for fun. He can grow some tasty veggies in his garden.”
“For fun?” Silver Spoon’s face twisted in disgust. “It’s all dirty in the gardens. Who would ever want to work in the mud? It’s all gooey and icky, and there are worms.” The grey filly shuddered. “I have no clue how Applebloom’s family does it, doing stuff in the muck. I almost feel sorry for her.”
“Yeah… Applebloom.” For some reason, the tea didn’t sit still in Diamond Tiara’s stomach. She looked down, catching a view of her own flank, a blank flank. “What you said to her earlier… wasn’t that a little mean?”
“What, that she's a blank flank? It’s a joke. I give her a hard time and we laugh about it later.”
The words had stuck with Diamond Tiara for most of the day. Silver Spoon said something demeaning about Applebloom’s lack of cutiemark. Diamond Tiara played along, just to make a friend, though it made her wonder how her friend thought about her own lack of a cutiemark. “It still seemed a bit mean.”
Silver Spoon shrugged. “Is it? Oh, I forgot, we need spoons to stir the sugar. Where does your dad keep the spoons?”
Diamond Tiara stood up from the table. “I think I have a box of in my closet,” she said, looking away so avoid Silver Spoon’s gaze. “I’ll go get it.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do leaned up against the rocky wall, taking a bite of an apple and enjoying the view she had on this cliff. The cavern she now sat in was adorned with specks of glowing rock that speckled the walls. Enough light came from the rock that they lit the the massive expanse of the cavern, including what stood at its center. She was deep underground, far from where Celestia’s sun could find her, yet she had found one of the brightest wonders lost to pony history.
Off in the distance from the cliff, a giant sculpture of a white serpent jutted out from the rock. It coiled at the center of the cavern, constricting a pink flower that bloomed in the middle, similar to the symbol at the cave entrance. Thorns covered the entirety of its body, as if hundreds of talons punctured its skin and were trying to break out. The head reared up, poised to attack, barring rows of razor-sharp fangs. Despite its mountainous height, the head didn’t even come near the top of the cavern.
The pegasus took another bite out of her apple, admiring the vast size of the sculpture. She could tell from this distance that the serpent was made out of solid marble, and the flower made out of a cloudy, pink amethyst. What she couldn’t tell was who, or what, made this. Although some ancient civilizations managed great architectural achievements, none of them had been documented to have built something like this.
At the base of the serpent, a city sprawled out across the cavern floor. This wasn’t a traditional ancient city, with tightly-packed, single-floor buildings and a few taller structures scattered about. No, this city rivaled Manehatten in height, and certainly outdid it in urban-sprawl. Skyscrapers ranging ten to twenty stories high sprang up from the ground. They were grand and tall, but the skyline hardly reached the height of the serpent’s first coil.
From the cliff, Daring Do saw the entirety of this architectural marvel, aside for the parts behind the sculpture. The city reached out from the snake for miles, at least. Light came out from the windows, but it didn’t take an archeologist to say no one was home. All the buildings seemed to have intricate designs decorating their exteriors, but the pegasus needed to get closer to see how complex things were.
Fortunately, she had filled her backpack with only what she needed, and nothing more. This meant her pack was light enough that she could glide through the city without any trouble. And after seeing how massive this civilization built its cities, she was glad she had flight on her side.
She took one final bite out of her apple, and put the apple core in a plastic bag she had tucked away in her pack. Take back with you what you bring in and don’t leave a trace, the sage advice all explorers lived by. Daring Do ran for the edge of the cliff, jumped off, opened her wings, and soared off above the city heights.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Red Bute Plaza was a long walk from Lyra’s apartment, which she could appreciate. A long walk gave you time to think, and her mind was flooding with thoughts. She had her lyre case strapped on her back, which although somewhat heavy, was precious enough to her to warrant carrying on these long travels.
The plaza was clear today, as it usually was. It dipped in behind a hill, which blocked the view of pedestrians on the other side. The park was secluded enough that ponies didn’t wander into it often, and it was small enough that few ponies went out of their way to find it.
Lyra walked along her favorite path, passing a sign that said, “Future Home of Fancypants Condominiums.” Her lyre case bounced on her back as she headed to a bench in the middle of the park. A jogger passed her, nodding before trotting off to wherever joggers go. She found her bench and sat down on it.
The case on her back glowed in her green magic, pulling her instrument out. She placed the case on the ground, leaving it open so the “Tips” sign faced the pathway. She strummed a few strings, producing a soft melody.
Lyra loved her lyre. She loved playing it in this Plaza, especially when she sat on this bench. It wasn’t the best spot to play, not a lot of foot traffic passed by to hand out tips, but the solidarity of the area gave her a piece of mind she couldn’t find anywhere else in the city.
Satisfied with how her lyre sounded, the mint-green unicorn started plucking a somber, but quick, tune. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back over the back of the bench, slipping into a calmer mindset. “You believed,” she sang, “You believed in the moments not conceived. You believed in me.”
After so many times playing this piece, the song had become a part of her. She could play it without any thought. It wasn’t the type of song she played for tips. Her happier pieces drew in more profit than her sober ones. But she didn’t feel like playing the money-makers this month. The solitude of her other music called out to her.
“A passionate spirit, uncompromised.” You have play the lyre! You have a job with the Trottingham orchestra! Bon Bon’s words echoed through her mind, stinging wherever they touched. It was true, she did play the lyre, and she did have a job with the orchestra, once. It felt right to play the lyre, but there was something she couldn’t get out of it.
“Boundless and open.” It’s even magically tattooed on your butt! So what if the lyre was her cutie mark? Why did it determine her life? Does it force her to do a single thing for the rest of her life? Lyra knew she could live a happy life playing the lyre. In fact, playing the lyre is what everyone told her to do.
Despite what everyone says, couldn’t she have a choice?
“A light in your eyes, then”--
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Diamond Tiara pulled at an ornate box from her closet. She opened the lid, revealing rows of polished silverware lying on a velvet cushion, neatly organized by size. There were knives, forks, and spoons, each with the design of a necklace etched into the handles. “Would some small spoons be fine?” she asked, holding up a spoon that seemed to be appropriate.
“Small ones are perfect,” Silver Spoon said. “They’re the only ones that’ll fit in these cups.”
Diamond Tiara grabbed four and carried them over. She placed a spoon by each of the guests’ plates. “I never used these before,” she said as she sat back down at her spot. “Mom told me that Dad gave these to her before I was born. She kept them in the attic for some reason.”
“Why would your mom do that?” Silver Spoon held up one of the spoons up to the light. “This silverware is amazingly crafted! My dad made them, no doubt. It should be a crime not to use these.” She brought the spoon closer, holding the handle upright. “That’s a very complex necklace design. Is it your mom’s cutiemark?”
“Yeah, it is.” Diamond Tiara looked down at her tea, half-heartedly pushing the around the spoon in her cup. “It doesn’t look as pretty as the real thing, though.”
“I think they’re amazing,” Silver Spoon gawked. “It’s a shame she never used these. Good silverware like this should never be kept in a closet. They’ll tarnish without the proper polish.” She giggled at her unintentional rhyme. “You should keep better care of your mom’s things.”
Diamond Tiara shrugged. “I forgot I had these. They were under so much other stuff Mom had.”
Silver Spoon raised one of her eyebrows. “Why would you forget about these?” The filly scooted out of her seat and headed for the closet. “What could hide this amazing treasure away in your closet?”
“Stuff, mostly.” Diamond Tiara got up and followed behind her friend. “Dad said he’d throw it all away if no one took it, so it’s all in there.”
Silver Spoon threw open the closet door, revealing a towering stack of multicolored boxes, all neatly aligned and packed together. Each row of the tower shifted half-a-box to the side, so that any pony could pull a box out without having the entire pile come falling down. “Wow, that’s a lot of boxes. How did you even find the silverware?”
“It’s all organized,” Diamond Tiara explained. “All of this has a system, like right here.” She pulled out a blue box from the pile and placed it on the floor. She lifted the lid to reveal some framed photos, all the same size and all placed neatly in the box in four stacks. “I arranged this box to contain all the four-by-five pictures from Mom’s house. I put them in here chronologically.”
Silver Spoon looked at the top photos. They were all taken in a park, in which a mare played around with her kid. “When were those taken?”
“The top ones?” Diamond Tiara pulled one of the photos out. “These were the last ones taken. They were right before… before”- Her voice stopped. She stared at the photo she held. A pink mare held a ball in her hooves while a pink filly ran towards the camera. She photo was clearly focused on the filly, but Diamond Tiara could only focus on the mare’s face.
“Hey, are you alright?” Silver Spoon asked. “You look like you’re about to cry.”
Diamond Tiara rubbed her eyes, ignoring what her friend just said. “This is from that school field day, before summer break,” she sniffed. “Mom said she would make it to all my school events…”
Silver Spoon grabbed a tissue from the dresser and handed it to Diamond Tiara. “Dad said he would come to Family Appreciation Day this year,” she continued, rubbing her eyes with the tissue. “I like him, he’s fine… But I want to”-- -
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Deep within the ancient city, Daring Do swooped down and landed along a large road. The architecture in the city interior was even more spectacular up close. All the designs were based on triangles. The pillars that supported the building were triangles. The carvings that made the murals on the walls were triangles. The windows and doorways were triangles. The roads had triangle bricks. Triangles ruled this urban jungle.
But the city was just as abandoned as it had been when she was on the cliff. The windows of all the buildings glowed, but nothing walked amongst the streets. Daring Do expected maybe a skeleton of some creature would pop up, but she didn’t bet her hopes on it. Everything here seemed clean as well. The streets were swept of dirt, the stone was finely polished, and the air didn’t smell terrible.
The pegasus still couldn’t pinpoint what culture built all of this. The use of triangles with everything didn’t resemble any culture she knew of. Plus the sheer size of everything needed an incredibly advanced nation to build. Some type of records had to exist to document the infrastructure that went into creating this place. There was no way this city was built in a day.
Now that Daring Do was in the depths of the city, the serpent sculpture seemed even more immense. No matter where she went, the majority of the serpent could be seen. The tallest buildings in the city had trouble blocking its view. Its head reared up way above the metropolis, looking beyond what lay below it.
Although she knew it was just a stature, Daring Do found it daunting to look anywhere near its general vicinity. She walked into a building’s triangle door, half to escape the statue’s shadow, half curious of what was inside. The interior wasn’t much different from the outside, which meant triangles dominated everything. The room had three walls, which came together at the top to form a pyramid. A fountain sat in the middle, though no water came out of it.
The pegasus pulled out a water bottle from her sack. Despite the differences of the city compared to other abandoned civilizations, it shared one irritating trait, dry air. Normally, she could go a while without drinking, even in deserts. But the air had a pasty quality to it that sucked the moisture out of her mouth. Two water bottles were already in her plastic trash bag, and her current bottle was halfway there.
As she took a swig from her bottle, Daring Do heard a strange noise coming from behind her. She looked out the doorway, where she found a stream of glowing shapes floating above the road. The pegasus ran outside to get a better look.
The stream contained a single line of shapes, gently swaying in the air. They gave of a bright blue light that illuminated the street. As Daring Do came closer, she recognized the individual shapes. They were letters of an ancient alphabet. She ran through her head all the possible ancient races that used a written word. Not the Ponysians, they had more curves. Hayans had written vertically, so it wasn’t them. It wasn’t the Turese, this language had too many triangles to be those guys.
Then Daring Do remembered a stone tablet someone found south of Stalliongrad. The tablet dated back to the first known civilization on the planet, the Sumerians! Little was known about the Sumerians, only that they laid the groundwork for all societies after them. So this was the Sumerian alphabet Daring Do was looking at. That meant that the city had to be Sumerian as well.
“The ancient Sumerians, long forgotten,” she gasped, taking another look at the grand architecture. “So this is what their cities looked like, and I’m the first to see them in over ten thousand years! I think I smell another best-selling book around the corner.”
The letters were flowing down the street, towards the snake. Since she couldn’t read the words, she might as well see where they’re going. Daring Do leapt into the air and followed the magical word stream.
They went deeper into the city, taking only a few turns along the street. The pegasus glided above the buildings, following the illuminated path made from the blue light. She couldn’t guess why the letters appeared then, nor could she guess where they were going, but following them seemed like a better idea than wondering the city aimlessly.
After several minutes of flight, the word stream entered into a large building that sat against the serpent’s base. A large, marble thorn wrapped itself along the slant of the buildin’s roof. The pegasus landed at the building’s grand archway, following the letters inside.
The first thing Daring Do noticed was the giant wall made out of marble. She guessed that this was part of the serpent. The word stream weaved itself along the wall, forming glowing, blue paragraphs. None of it could be deciphered.
Daring Do walked up to the wall and placed a hoof against it. All the letters darted away, frightened by her touch. All that remained were three words. These three words were eye-level with the pegasus, an easy place for them to be read. To her surprise, these words were composed of letters of her own language. These were words that she knew.
“Tasked to three,” she read-
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
-“Bring her,” Diamond Tiara sniffed, wiping her eyes with a tissue-
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
-“Immobilized,” Lyra sang, strumming her lyre to the song.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do stared at the glowing blue words. “Tasked to three… what?” she asked herself. “What’s tasked to three?” Prophecies, although vague, have more detail than this. Incantations were unbelievably wordy, so it wasn’t that either. Maybe it’s a code phrase for-
The world shuddered under the pegasus’s hooves. Out of instinct she jumped in the air and hovered above the ground, but Daring Do could still feel the shaking. The last three words on the wall spiraled out and vanished, leaving blank marble behind.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
“What’s going on?” Diamond Tiara asked with panic. She crouched down and held the photo frame in a tight embrace. “Does Ponyville get earthquakes?”
Silver Spoon raised one of her eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re alright. You’re acting a bit weird.”
Daimond Tiara could feel her tiara shaking off her head. She threw a hoof on it to keep it from falling off. “It’s an earthquake! Don’t you feel it?”
“No…” Silver Spoon shook her head. “Is it a small one? I felt small ones before in Canterlot.”
“How can you not feel it?” There was no mistaking it. The world was shaking like crazy. Diamond Tiara failed to see how anypony could ignore such an event, yet her friend remained completely unphased. “We got to get out of here!”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
The unicorn dropped her lyre and dashed under the bench. She did what all those earthquake safety classes in primary school told her to do, but she didn’t feel any safer. The world went mad. Lyra could feel her teeth chatter from all the vibrations. She pulled the lyre under the bench and held it tight.
She looked around as much as she could from under the bench. With an earthquake of this magnitude, buildings would start collapsing at any moment. Fortunately for her, she was in an open spot in the park, far from any likely place a building would collapse on.
She curled up into the fetal position, unsure of what else to do. She tucked her head in, hoping the disaster would end soon. She didn’t notice the jogger passing by, who gave her a weird look.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do had trouble staying in the air with all her body shaking this violently. This wasn’t a normal earthquake. Normal ones don’t shake things in the air. No, there was something shaking everything. Maybe it was magical, she didn’t know. She only knew that she was getting tossed around in the air.
A ripping sound cut through the air. The pegasus looked up to see a vertical slit in the marble wall. The slit started expanding out, revealing a dark and swirling emptiness inside of it.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
“What is that?” Diamond Tiara screamed. The slit appeared along the wall of boxes in her closet. She would have pointed at it, but she still had a grip on the photo and her tiara. The shaking did not relent.
Silver Spoon took a step backwards. “This isn’t funny,” she said. “It’s getting a bit freaky now.”
“Don’t you see that?” Diamond Tiara asked, “In my closet! What the heck is that?”
“There just boxes.” Silver Spoon started backing up towards the door, keeping her eye on her friend. “I’m going to get your dad.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
The slit continued to open up, but Lyra didn’t notice it. She remained tightly balled up under the bench, keeping her lyre tight against her body, unaware of what was happening around her.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do could feel a breeze start to pick up. The slit had expanded enough that a pony could slide on through. She flew against the current, but it grew into a gale-force wind. The portal wanted to take her.
It was a losing battle. Inch by inch, she came closer and closer to the hole in the wall. The shaking only made it harder to fly away and escape. Nothing relented.
The hole became too strong to fight against. Daring Do felt her wings snap back before somersaulting through the air. She threw out a hoof and grabbed the rim of the hole. Now that she was inside, she could see the vortex that was sucking her in. Darkness swirled around her, strengthening its pull as time went on. Her mane whipped behind her in the storm. She wasn’t strong enough to open her wings out against the air.
Then she lost the battle. Her hoof slipped from the edge. The pegasus screamed as she plummeted through the void and away from the hole of light.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
“Silver Spoon! Help,” Diamond Tiara yelled, kicking against the floor as she was pulled toward the hole.
Silver Spoon panicked as her friend slid along the floor. “Hold on!” she yelled, running over to help!
Diamond Tiara let go of her tiara, letting it fly into the void behind her. Silver Spoon grabbed her now-free hoof and pulled as hard as she could. “Don’t let go!” Diamond Tiara yelled.
“I’m trying!” Silver Spoon yelled back.
Diamond Tiara lifted up into the air. Her hind legs dangled towards the center of the hole. Silver Spoon was having a hard time pulling back against it, and having an even harder time fighting against the shaking. Nothing relented.
Silver Spoon’s eyes filled with panic. “What’s going”--
Before she could finish, her grip failed. Diamond Tiara went flying into the hole, screaming and kicking as hard as she could. She could hardly hear what her friend said before the hole closed off.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Lyra felt the wind pick up, but ignored it. “It’s nothing,” she muttered to herself. “It’ll all go away soon.”
She didn’t expect the gale-force winds to pull her out from under the bench. The unicorn yelped as she plummeted into the void, completely confused on what the heck was going on.
Several minutes passed since the hole opened. Even after that time, Daring Do still found herself falling into an endless void. Screaming became a hassle, and things became simpler once she stopped. The pegasus tried flying around the void, but since she had no reference point, she couldn’t tell how effective this was. Having no reference point also meant she couldn’t tell which direction she was falling, if directions even existed in this void. But she knew she was still falling, the wind made sure of that.
The escape crystal didn’t work, and it didn’t surprise the pegasus. The crystal was supposed to glow and show a little image of the escape point the user chose, which was the point outside the village Daring Do picked earlier. Now the crystal showed nothing. The thing had snuffed out and was incapable of escaping.
As an experiment, the pegasus marked a point in the void. The crystal came to life, but showed only black as an image. She shook it, and it flashed in response. Supposedly, that meant she teleported back to her escape point, but she had no way to tell.
Those were the first few minutes in the void. Nothing else happened after that. Daring Do thought about eating another apple, but she thought it might be a better idea to ration her supplies. Who knew, maybe this endless void wasn’t so endless after all. Why go through all her supplies now and die of starvation later? She could die right before she reached an end. Now that would be the biggest disappointment of her life.
Daring Do started getting comfortable up with her inevitable fate when a voice called out. “Hey!” she heard, somewhere around her. “Behind you!” The pegasus turned around. Just a few leg-lengths away, another pony fell alongside her. It was a mint-green unicorn, waving her hooves around excitedly and grinning like a maniac. “Mother of Celestia, I thought I was a goner!”
The pegasus noticed a lyre tumbling next to the unicorn. Oh good, she can play some music while we fall to our dooms. “That’s great that I’m not alone,” Daring Do replied, “But we’re still goners. The falling through an endless void thing hasn’t stopped.”
The unicorn shrugged. “At least we can talk before we go splat or die of hunger.” She reached out with a hoof and glided over to the pegasus. “Anyways, hi, my name’s Lyra. Nice meeting you here.”
The pegasus reached out with her own hoof and gave a firm hoofshake. “Likewise. I’m Daring Do.”
Lyra glided back over to her instrument, tumbling back as if she was lying on a bed. “This is pretty surreal. I was in Trottingham when an earthquake struck, and now I’m here. Do you know what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Daring Do said. “But I did get an earthquake too. Well, I was shaking in the air, so it wasn’t a normal earthquake. One minute, I’m exploring an ancient Sumerian city. Next minute, I’m being pulled into a portal and now I’m falling with you.”
Lyra nodded as she tilted a bit to the side. “Well bugger, I guess we’re trapped here for all eternity.”
“It could end at some point,” Daring Do noted. She reached behind her into the backpack, pulling out two silver packets. “Have a granola.” She tossed one of the packets to Lyra, who caught it in her teeth.
“Can you pass one up here?” another voice asked. Both Daring Do and Lyra looked above them, meeting eyes with a pink filly, not old enough to have a cutie mark, wearing a tiara and holding a picture frame. “I’m a little hungry. I was about to have lunch before that hole kidnapped me.”
“Sure.” Daring Do pulled out another packet and tossed it to the filly. “How long have you been here?”
The filly grabbed the packet with a hoof and tore it open with her teeth. “Just now. I thought I was the only one in this… darkness.”
“So did I,” Lyra said while chewing on her granola. “Hi, I’m Lyra.”
“I’m Diamond Tiara,” the filly said, wincing at the unicorn’s open-mouth chewing policy. “And thanks for the food, Ms…” Diamond Tiara’s eyes lit up when she looked at the pegasus. “Oh my gosh, you’re Daring Do! I’d recognize that hat anywhere!”
Daring Do nodded, swallowing her own granola bite before talking. “Yeah, that’s me. I do have an unforgettable hat.”
Lyra gave the two a confused look. “I’m I supposed to know you?”
“Know her? She the most famous adventurer in Equestria!” Diamond Tiara gushed. “She’s found treasures for lost nations, fought bad guys, and even saved the world! She’s incredible!”
“Oh really, you do that kind of stuff?” Lyra asked, giving the pegasus an unbelieving look.
Daring Do shrugged. “I write down my experiences and sell them as young-adult novels.”
“I can’t believe you’re real!” the filly continued. “My mom read all your books with me! I know everything you’ve done. The Curse of the Roaring Mustang, The Quest for the Wheel of Ferrari, The Last Shot of Colt Viente Dos! I’ve always dreamed of adventuring with you!”
Daring Do finished her granola, listening to the filly squeal. “Kid, I’ll gladly take you on an adventure,” she gestured at the void with a hoof, “But we have to get out of this darkness first.”
“You’re in luck then,” Lyra said, looking down. “Something’s coming at us fast.”
Every pony looked below them. A circle of light had appeared, and it was growing fast. Before they could say anything, the light completely engulfed the trio.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Seagulls. The cawing of seagulls filled the air. Daring Do heard the seagulls first. She could also hear wind gently blowing through trees, a swish sound made by air flowing through leaves. She could hear another sound, distant and muffled, crashing and turning. Are those waves? she thought. Am I by the ocean?
Daring Do’s eyes fluttered open. The first thing she saw was blue, an endless expanse of blue. She ended up on her back and now looked up at the sky. The air had a pleasant warmth to it, just under the border of being unpleasantly balmy. She took a deep breath in, tasting the humid, salty air. At least this isn’t the void.
The pegasus sat up, stretching out her limbs as she did so. She looked around and found Lyra, who was laying back, face up, wide awake. The unicorn’s head turned to meet eyes with the pegasus. “Hey, we made it!” Lyra said, smiling. “And you thought we’d have to do something to get out of that darkness.”
“Yeah, dying in an endless void isn’t my style,” Daring Do said, adjusting her pith helmet. She looked to her other side, where she found Diamond Tiara standing up from the ground. “Hey kid, I think you’re about to get your adventure.”
Diamond Tiara glanced up and gave a half-hearted laugh. “That’s fantastic,” she said, turning to look around the area. “But I have one question. Where did we end up?”
“Good question,” Daring Do said. At first glance, it was obvious they were not in Equestria, or at least a familiar part of Equestria. They found themselves on a lightly used road, at the peak of a hill. The road cut through a forest, if it could even be called a forest. The forest didn’t have trees as much as it had overgrown bushes. The trees were bulbous, covered in small leaves, and were barely four ponies tall. They crowded tight together to the point that even Diamond Tiara would have trouble fitting through the gaps.
Beyond the tree line, the forest continued to roll over several steep hills. The vegetation near the hill peaks thinned out somewhat, leaving solid rock exposed to the elements. Judging by the sounds and the air, Daring Do guessed that they were nearby an ocean. They were either along the coast of a continent, or in the middle of an island. The land didn’t seem too tropical to be near the equator, but it was warm enough to be far, far distant from the arctic. “I’m not familiar with this place,” Daring Do said, “But I would guess we’re not in Equestria.”
“This place looks pretty amazing,” Lyra noted, walking to the edge of the road. “I wouldn’t mind living here.” She walked up to a tree, planted her face against the branches, and took a long whiff. “Hmm, the flora has a faint olive sent. Olives come from the Maretimarean, so we may be somewhere in that area.”
Diamond Tiara seemed amazed. “Really?” She sniffed the air. “All I smell is the ocean.”
“I have a really good sense of smell,” Lyra said, taking her face out of the tree. Daring Do stifled a giggle at the tree branch stuck in the unicorn’s mane. “My dad specializes in cooking with exotic ingredients, and can pick out different scents from different plants to mix the best dishes. I think I got my nose from him.”
“And did your good nose help you in getting your cutie mark?” Daring Do asked, nodding at the lyre on the mint-green unicorn’s flank.
“You know, that would make my cutiemark story a bit more interesting,” Lyra thou outloud. “I could say I used my nose to pick out the best lyre- My lyre!” The unicorn jumped as she remembered her instrument, which was now sitting in the dirt, on the other side of the road. “Can’t believe I forgot about my lyre,” she said as she ran over to pick it up.
“I can’t believe she hasn’t noticed the stick,” Diamond Tiara remarked, giggling at the branch that bounced in Lyra’s hair.
The unicorn scooped up her instrument and held it between her forelegs. “Oh, if I left that any longer in the dirt, who knows how much tarnish would have built up.” She held it out to inspect the lyre’s condition. Her ears flattened and her brow furrowed as if she realized something terrible. “And I don’t have a case for this. That’s just great.”
“Then just carry it and don’t drop it,” Diamond Tiara said. She held out her own object, the photo frame. “I have to carry this around without a case, and it’ll get dirty if I drop it.”
Lyra looked at the filly with deadpan eyes. “Diamond Tiara, right? Can I call you Dia? Look, I don’t know how much that picture weighs, but my instrument is a whole lot heavier than what you’re carrying.” The unicorn cradled the lyre in her forelegs as she would with a baby. “And it’s awkward to carry around. It has no strap. The only way I can hold it is by the spine and I can’t grab that with my teeth.”
Daring Do rolled her eyes. “Lyra, that lyre is unnecessary weight. I can offer to carry the picture in my bag, no problem. But the lyre won’t fit. I don’t know how long we’ll be out here, but I bet we’ll be doing some walking, and the lyre will tire you out.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed at the pegasus’s words. “Are you telling me to get rid of my lyre?”
“No, I’m telling you that it’s deadweight and you’ll have a miserable time if you bring it.”
“How dare you even suggest”--
“Girls,” Diamond Tiara interrupted, pointing down the hill, “There’s something coming up the road.”
Both the mares looked at where the filly indicated. At the base of the hill, an odd creature walked up the road. The creature appeared quite alien, having been wrapped in layers of cloth to the point that it looked like a lopsided, fabric ball with limbs. It had three legs instead of four, and used the most out of them to waddle up the hill. A hole appeared in the fabric where the face was supposed to be, protecting what was inside it from the sun.
“Is that a rock monster?” Lyra asked. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
Daring Do shrugged. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s dangerous.”
“It could be a pony with a missing leg,” Diamond Tiara suggested. “My mom helped a lot of ponies without legs.”
“Could be,” Daring Do said. “At the very least, it may know where we are. Let’s ask it for directions.”
“Really, you want to ask it for directions,” Lyra asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You don’t even know if it can talk.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah, hide,” Lyra replied, gesturing to the forest. “We run into the trees and hide until it passes. We won’t put ourselves at risk and maybe we can spy on it as it walks by.”
“That’s a terrible idea!” Daring Do said, raising her voice. “For one thing, it’s already seen us, so it knows that we’re hiding. Another thing, I have more experience dealing with strangers on empty roads in the middle of nowhere. If they aren’t running at you or holding a weapon, more times than not, they’re harmless and you could learn something from them.”
Diamond Tiara nodded in agreement. “Daring Do knows what she’s talking about. In fact, this seems almost the same to the turtle in Rescue from Midnight Keep and the zebra in Quest for the Star Staff. A mysterious person gives information to start a quest. I’ve read about these things.”
“Yeah, and I lived them,” Daring Do added. “So don’t do anything crazy and wait for it.”
Lyra grumbled as she was outnumbered two to one. As they were talking, the creature had made progress up the hill, making it halfway from where it started to where the group sat. Now that it was closer, they could make out the more subtle features. Instead of three legs, it had two legs and two arms. One of the arms carried a staff that it used to walk with, which made a tap every time it hit the ground. The fabric bundle bunched up in the rear, giving the creature a hunchback. Features of a face could be made out from the gap in the fabric. As it came closer, the trio could hear quiet muttering coming from the gap.
Daring Do took a few steps closer to the creature. “Excuse me,” she called out, waving a hoof above her head, “We’re not from around here, and we’re incredibly lost. Can you please help us?”
The creature paused, ceasing its muttering. It lifted the arm without the staff and pointed a small appendage out. The appendage looked similar to that of a dragon’s claw, though more fleshy and wrinkly. It continued walking towards the group, then, in a clear voice, spoke. “Ah, these ponies are not from around here.”
The voice was feminine, and dripped of age. It reminded Daring Do of her elderly mother’s voice, who now resided in a retirement home. “That’s right,” Daring Do said, “We don’t know where we are or how we got here. Can you help us?”
The elder continued walking towards them, now almost at the peak of the hill. “Oh, that’s unfortunate, or fortunate, depending on how you look. The Maw has made its choice, so it requires assistance. Oh, but these poor souls. They have naught a clue as to why they have been taken from Equestria.”
“Waitwaitwait,” Lyra interrupted, “We never said anything about where we came from! How do you know that?”
“Sweetheart, I’m an old lady,” the creature said with sweetness in her voice.
“Sorry,” the filly apologized, “This old lady is the mystic guide that has come to give us our quest. It happens all the time in the books.”
Daring Do shrugged. “It does. It’s an adventure cliché at this point.”
“Well, I don’t read books for kids,” Lyra scoffed. “I read novels! You know, books, for adult ponies, that kids would find boring.”
The fabric ball shook as the old lady laughed. “It seems the unicorn prefers her literature… incredibly saucy.”
Daring Do threw a hoof against her mouth, suppressing a laugh. Lyra looked away, hiding her face as it burned bright red. Diamond Tiara gave them both a confused look. “What that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t worry about it kid,” Daring Do said with a giant grin. She turned her attention back to the old lady. “Anyways, can we get some help?”
The old lady walked by the pegasus, hand still up, not bothering to turn to look at her. “This one is a brash one indeed. As a thorn of the great flowering serpent, the pegasus will guide the Maw of Tartarus and reclaim the one that has escaped.”
Daring Do nodded as the lady passed her by. “Ah, a quest in the form of a riddle. It’s not like I get enough of those. Can you tell us”--
“This little filly,” the old lady continued, passing Diamond Tiara and ignoring Daring Do, “What a sad little thing. At the time when this will end, no one will be able to bear you, not even the king. But the filly shall bear the queen!”
“Uh,” Diamond Tiara’s mouth hung open slightly, “That’s… a little rude, I think. Did anyone else think that was”--
“Oh, what tragedy has befallen on this unicorn,” the old lady moaned, silencing the filly.
Lyra’s eyes went wide. “What tragedy? What’s going to happen to me? Did it already happen? Is it happening to me right now? Do I have cancer? Please tell me I don’t have cancer!” Lyra knelt down and gave the old lady a pleading look. “Anything but cancer! Please!”
The old lady ignored Lyra’s cries. “Oh how I pity her. Why would the gods curse such a poor soul? I cannot fathom such cruelty.” She paused and took a breath, keeping her finger up. Lyra’s body clenched up in anticipation at whatever the old lady would say. “Her life is so boring.”
Lyra looked up, cocking an eyebrow. “My life is boring, that’s my tragedy?” The unicorn stood up and looked the old woman in the face, raising her voice. “What do you mean my life is boring? What kind of advice is that? I do all kinds of neat things! I do magic, I play the lyre, I can smell real good! How is that boring?”
“Sweetheart, I have seen through every aspect, every single detail, of your woeful existence in this grand thing we call everything, from now and beyond. I fell asleep looking at your life.” The old lady shrugged. “Sorry, you don't have much going for you.” She started walking once more, but stopped mid-step. “Well, your life does get a whole heck more engaging once the undead Sumerian kills you!”
“Waitwhat!” Lyra’s body locked up. “I’m going to get killed?”
“Oh yes, it’s a horrible death, very unpleasant,” the old lady admitted, putting her hand down for once. “You won’t see it coming. Sorry, I don’t make these things happen. I only see them. The gods tell me I shouldn’t be blabbering to mortals about these things, but posh to them.”
Before Lyra could shout at the old lady for being a nasty creature and curse her for spouting filth, or something along those lines, Daring Do jumped in front of the unicorn. “Really quick, did you say undead Sumerian?”
“Yep. The Sumerian is the escapee for your fortune, just so you know.” The old lady pivoted on her heels and started walking at a brisk pace towards the forest. “Anyways, tood-a-loo! I’ll see you around.”
“Why you little!” Lyra yelled, lunging forward.
Daring Do threw out a foreleg to her side before Lyra could charge at the old lady. The unicorn caught the foreleg by the crook of her neck, gasped, and toppled over. “Thanks, I guess,” Daring Do said. “Oh hey, can you tell us”-
“Just take the down the hill, in the direction I was going,” the old lady interrupted, not turning around. “I knew you wanted to know that. It’ll take you to the town you need to be in. It’s an hour walk from here, so the unicorn can bring her lyre.”
“Oh, thanks for that.” Daring Do looked down at the unicorn, who rubbed her throat with her hooves. “Did you hear that? You can bring your lyre.”
The old lady waved back at the trio as she entered the forest. “Antio, goodbye, I’ll see you again soon. Don’t forget to try the gyros! And remember”- The old lady turned around before completely disappearing through the forest. “Tasked to three, bring her immobilized!” She turned back around and continued on. “Welcome to Greece!” Then she disappeared.
Lyra stumbled to stand back up. “Flipping old ladies,” she wheezed, half lunging, half falling towards the forest. “I’ll show you boring. I’ll be boring your teeth in when I get my hooves on you. Come back and fight me like a mare!” She yelled into the forest, clenching her hoof in the air. She stumbled once more and fell on her face.
Daring Do walked next to the down unicorn. “She gone, give it a rest,” she said, wrapping a foreleg around the unicorn’s torso. She hoisted her up, and allowed her to regain her footing before letting go.
“The throat punching,” Lyra said, rubbing the underside of her chin, “Was completely uncalled for.”
“So was threatening an old lady,” Daring Do remarked. “Beating up the elderly is a big no-no. We do not need the locals thinking we’re raging psychopaths.”
“Hey, quick question,” Diamond Tiara piped up, “How’d you do that throat punch without looking?”
Lyra glared at the filly. “Don’t encourage her.”
“What? It was awesome. Everything went wham!” Diamond Tiara threw her hooves in a sideways circle, mimicking the move in an exaggerated fashion. “And you just fell down! Daring Do didn’t even have to look! How’d you do it, Daring Do, how’d you do it?”
Daring Do looked down at the filly. A serious look cropped up in her eyes. “Kid, when you explore dungeons on a regular basis, you need the skills to dodge, bounce, roll, move, and anything else to ensure you won’t get caught in a trap. These skills require reflexes, strength, flexibility, and a hardened will.” She gave the unicorn a pat on the shoulder, who pulled away from it. “It also comes in handy in beating up bad guys.”
“Wow!” Diamond Tiara said, eyes wide open. “Can you teach me how to do that?”
“How was that impressive?” Lyra yelled, pointing a hoof at the pegasus. “She just clotheslined me!” The unicorn looked at the pegasus with a scowl. “And I am not a bad guy!”
“Eh,” Daring Do said, giving little care to the unicorn’s woes. “I find the term ‘bad guy’ broad enough to suit my needs. Now stop chatting.” The pegasus started walking towards where the old lady told them to. “Kid, get your picture. Lyra, get your lyre. There’s a town nearby and I want to get there before nightfall.”
Lyra glared at the pegasus. “I’m not listening to”-
“Just follow me,” Daring Do snapped. “Or you can stay here and get lost in the forest. I’m not forcing you to do anything.”
Lyra grumbled as she picked up her instrument, carefully balancing it on her back. She tailed behind Daring Do and Diamond Tiara, the latter having ran up ahead of the unicorn so she could chat with the pegasus.
They continued on down the road, walking around a switchback after climbing down the hill, then turning on another switchback shortly after. The tree line blocked the view of anything other than the hills, so no one could tell how far the village was. All they could do was walk down, making idle conversation to keep themselves occupied. For the most part, Lyra hung back, brooding and keeping her lyre balanced, while the other two kept the talking alive.
The filly kept on asking questions that Lyra assumed were about the books Daring Do wrote. They were questions about little details of adventures: what it was like doing that, how did it feel doing this, things Lyra couldn’t care less about. Daring Do would reply with basic answers: yes, no, I don’t remember, that sounds right, slippery, more things Lyra had no interest in.
After Daring Do answered what her favorite place in Zebrica was, apparently South Zebrica, the trio rounded another switchback. “Ok,” Diamond Tiara paused for a moment. “What was the strangest animal you’ve ever seen?” she asked excitedly. “Did it have wings with fangs? Did it have arms that had mouths? Did it have a whole bunch of eyes?” The filly bounced with every question she threw at the adventurer.
These questions, although not directed at her, were grating on Lyra’s senses. Her teeth ground against each other with each high-pitched word that came out of the filly’s mouth. The pegasus’s answers were even more grating. For an author, she kept on giving the least descriptive answers possible. “The old lady was strange,” Daring Do replied. Diamond Tiara just ate those answers up as if they were the words of Celestia.
“Oh for Faust’s sake!” Lyra screamed. The two in front jumped at the outburst, turning around to see the unicorn’s face flare up. A flock of seagulls flew out from the trees nearby. “Can we stop talking about how great Daring Do is? Daring Do this, Daring Do that! We get it, you’re a famous author! Daring Do, the greatest wordsmith in all of Equestria! Let’s see how she tells us about her amazing adventures using only simple sentences!”
“I can see how you’re irritated,” the pegasus said, keeping a calm demeanor, “But for the record, I publish my books with my real name, A.K. Yearling. Daring Do is my pen name.”
“You do?” Diamond Tiara asked, surprised.
“Oh yeah, A.K Yearling, what a name,” Lyra rolled her eyes, “Famous and rich writer of young-adult novels in Canterlot, the great, adventurous Daring Do anywhere else she goes!” The unicorn could feel something burning up in her. “Oh, what a fan-bucking-tastic life you got going for you! Let’s just talk about her all day because she’s interesting!”
Daring Do gave the unicorn a deadpan look. “Kid’s been bringing that up, not me. Would you rather talk about something else?”
“That’d be great,” Lyra replied, swinging her head to every word. “Hey, why not give other ponies a chance to talk? That’s a swell idea. ‘Hey Lyra, what did you do before we fell into that endless void?’ Well, I sat on my butt all day because no one wants to hire a pony who plays the lyre!”
The heat inside of Lyra burnt like lava. It overwhelmed her, taking control, and she let it. In a twisted way, it felt good. “We got ponies with cuties marks tailored to these jobs! Mailmare, got a cutie mark for that! Frycook, got a cutie mark for that! Janitor, my next door neighbor has a cutie mark for that!”
Diamond Tiara took a couple steps back, putting the pegasus between her and Lyra. “I think she’s gone crazy,” she whispered. “We should leave while we can.”
Daring Do shook her head. “Give her a moment. I think she’s just letting off steam.”
Lyra continued, mimicking an imaginary pony she was conversing with. “Oh yes, a cutie mark for everything! ‘But Lyra, you have a lyre as a cutie mark. Someone must need your talent for something?’ Yeah, they do, but the Trottingham Orchestra found ‘better’ talent, so they don’t need me! In fact, every city in Equestria has better talent! Every freaking pony has better talent at something! Even A.K. Everypony-loves-my-books Yearling and Daring Bucking Do! What a privileged bucking life they have!”
Diamond Tiara could see the veins throbbing in Lyra’s neck. The unicorn took a bite out of the air every time she said a word. The filly shrunk back as the mare continued to thrash about. “I am the least employable pony in all of Equestria! You know who said that? My parents, that’s who! Those buggars apparently know everything! Get a job, they say, we’re not going to support you anymore!”
Lyra jumped in front of Daring Do. The pegasus stepped back, and the unicorn stepped forward. “But hey, my life is boring! The old lady said so! Let’s talk about something else!” Lyra looked around the pegasus, meeting eyes with the filly, who cringed behind Daring Do. “Hey Dia, let’s talk about you!” Lyra seethed. “You haven’t told us much about yourself!”
Daimond Tiara crouched behind Daring Do. Lyra tried walking around the pegasus, but the latter threw out a hoof to stop her. Daring Do narrowed her eyes and simply said, “Don’t.”
Lyra ignored the pegasus, rearing up on her back legs and looking down behind her rear, staring at the cowering filly. “Let’s hear it Dia! Where’d you get that tiara? Did your parents spent large amounts of cash to get you that little piece of silver on your head? Oh, they must spoil you rotten. Our precious little Dia, off in another world!”
“Stop it, now,” Daring Do demanded. From behind, the pegasus could hear siffles building up.
“I can just imagine your mom,” Lyra continued, sneering as the filly. The burning rivaled the heat of the sun. “Emptying the Equestrian reserves just to get her precious little crown back! Their precious crown, who doesn’t even have her cutie mark! What about your mom, huh? Does she ever tell you that you can’t do anything?”
Daring Do threw her hoof into Lyra’s torso, knocking the wind out of her and wiping the sneer off her face. The unicorn fell to the ground with a flat thud, her lyre skidding away from her. The unicorn cringed in pain as Daring Do looked down at her with stern eyes. “I told you to stop.”
Lyra looked up at the pegasus and snarled before dropping her head. Her eyes met those of Diamond Tiara, once again. Only this time, the filly’s eyes were watering. Her lip quivered, holding back the sobs, a little less with each short gaps of air. “Mom,” the filly sniffed, doing her best to hold back her tears, “She… she died.”
The heat inside Lyra instantly froze over. Her eyes went wide as reality hit her in the head like a train. The filly turned and bolted down the road, completely helpless of the sobbing that took over. Lyra could feel her insides twist and implode as the filly ran off.
Lyra looked up, only to meet the eyes of and angry Daring Do. The pegasus said nothing. She only shook her head. She turned around and took off in flight, going after the filly.
Lyra lay in the dirt, lyre off to the side. “I… I didn’t know,” she said, but no one had heard her.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do flew over the treetops, looking down at the road. She kept her eye on Diamond Tiara, who kept running down the hill. The pegasus only watched her run, making sure the filly wouldn’t run into trouble. As far as she was concerned with Lyra, well that pony wasn’t high on her list.
The pegasus knew that the filly needed a moment to cool down before she talked to her. Daring Do had no idea what to say. The writer in her could come up with thousands of words to describe her experiences, but she never had the skills to speak those words, especially in these situations. She did know that Diamond Tiara would need to stop running before she talked to her.
She realized this was the first time she flew since they arrived. The only reason she stayed grounded was to support the other two. Now she could see what land she was dealing with. Immediately, she noticed the sea. It wasn’t just on one coast, it surrounded the entire land mass. They had ended up on an island.
Up to the north, a patch of white squares broke out from the green of the forest. From this distance, Daring Do could clearly see that these were buildings. The building cluster was large enough to be a decent sized town, but not so large that it constituted as a city. It probably had half the population of Canterlot, from Daring Do’s best guess.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Diamond Tiara had finally stopped in the middle of the road. Daring Do knew this was the time to come in. She circled around and descended.
The pegasus landed right behind the filly. She walked up next to her, looking down. Diamond Tiara hunched over her picture frame, which she had somehow managed to carry all the way down the road. The picture frame’s glass remained intact, albeit covered in splotches of water. Diamond Tiara shuddered with every sniff, with an occasional tear dropping, adding another splotch to the frame.
Daring Do tried to think of something to say, but nothing solid formed in her mind. “Hey kid, are you okay?” was all she could come up with.
Diamond Tiara looked up at Daring Do, eyes puffy and red. The pegasus noticed what the picture frame contained, a scene in a park, with a mare playing with a filly, a filly that looked like Diamond Tiara.
Daring Do paused for a moment as her writing skills words filled her head. Her brain pulled a few out, though fewer made sense to say. “Kid… I”--
Diamond Tiara stood up and wrapped her forelegs around Daring Do’s neck. The filly buried her face in the mare’s yellow coat. Daring Do could feel tears run down her skin, more with every sob. The pegasus embraced the filly with her own foreleg, gently hugging her.
Daring Do had no use for her writing skills. She only had to be there. Diamond Tiara did the rest. Several minutes passed like this. The pegasus remained silent for all of them.
Out of the corner of her eye, Daring Do noticed Lyra walking around the bend. The unicorn saw them, but made no effort to approach them. She sat down on the road, laying her lyre next to her. The pegasus said nothing about her presence, but it did remind her that they needed to get into town before nightfall.
“Hey, Diamond,” Daring Do said softly, looking down at the filly. The filly, in turn, looked up at her. “I know it may be hard on you, but we need to get to town.”
Diamond Tiara nodded. The pegasus could feel her head rub against her chest.
“Do you think you can make it there? It’s not too far ahead now. I flew around and checked.”
Diamond Tiara nodded again. Her forelegs slid off Daring Do’s neck, letting go from the embrace. The pegasus let her go as well, and watched her walk down the road, head low, carrying the picture frame.
Daring Do looked up the road, towards Lyra. The pegasus beckoned for her to come down. Lyra picked up her lyre and walked. Daring Do waited for her before stopping her.
“I didn’t mean any of that,” Lyra explained. “It’s just the old lady, what she said… It got to me.”
Daring Do looked at the unicorn, the writer in her coming up with words to describe the situation, yet unable to create speech out of them. Instead, she turned and walked after Diamond Tiara. Lyra followed suit, lyre on her back and head low.
The journey down the road stayed rather quiet. Diamond Tiara sulked as she walked next to Daring Do. The filly hadn’t spoken for a while, which disappointed the pegasus somewhat. She enjoyed being asked questions from such a young, lively fan. There was something about her age that made her fan-girl attitude cute. It broke the adventure’s heart a little to see that enthusiasm replaced by depression.
Daring Do kept a sluggish pace next to the filly, walking the same speed as she did. For the pegasus, this speed was too slow for her liking. It wouldn’t turn night anytime soon, but the sun was dipping behind the hill a little too fast for comfort.
Lyra lagged behind the two, keeping a steady distance between them. She hadn’t complained about the harp on her back for the entire time, but the strain was starting to show on her face. She stopped for a moment to wipe off the sweat that was dripping from her face. “I know we’re not on the best of terms right now,” she panted, jogging forward a bit to catch up, “But we’re not doing a silent treatment thing, are we?”
“Depends on what you say,” Daring Do said, looking back at the unicorn. “You’re not in a position to complain, if that’s what you’re going to do.”
“Not exactly,” Lyra said, shaking her head. “Do you know how much farther that town is? I saw you flying around, so you had to have seen it nearby.”
Daring Do nodded and looked back forward. “Since you ask, we’re close.”
“Great. How close?” Lyra shifted her shoulders to rebalance her lyre on her back. “Could you guess an ETA?”
“My best guess,” Daring Do paused, looking at the sun that was now halfway behind the hill. “I would have to say…” She halted in the middle of the road. Diamond Tiara stopped as well, followed by the unicorn. “Less than a minute.”
“We’re that close?” Lyra asked, slightly shocked.
“Yeah, it’s just down this hill.”
Lyra galloped forward, closing the distance between them. She skidded to a stop next to the pegasus, on the opposite side of the filly. Lyra’s jaw dropped once she got a look at what lay beyond the hill. “Holy cow, what is this place?”
Below them, the dirt path gently sloped, and broke off into a stone road, into a large town surrounded by lush forest. The town was full of white houses with terracotta roofs, all built in a valley between the rolling hills. The light from the setting sun bathed the town in a warm glow, making the houses seem like they were made of gold. Several large, white stone buildings jutted out from several points in the city, appearing simply yellow in the sunshine.
At the edge of the town, the valley dipped into the ocean. A stretch of green hill rolled out into the waters, creating a barrier from the wakes of the sea and forming a natural harbor. From where they stood, they could see boats flocking into and out of the harbor. These boats weren’t large by any means, but they gave a pleasant texture to the crisp blue that made the ocean.
Beyond the harbor and the ocean outside of it, a large stretch of land stood above the horizon. The green hills that made up this land glowed with a brilliant yellow from the sun’s falling light.
“Wow,” Diamond Tiara said, speaking her first words since Lyra’s outburst. “It’s so… pretty.”
Daring Do nodded in agreement. “Kid, I’ve been to many places, and I never get tired of how amazing and different each one is.”
“Frankly, I’m jealous of the town down there,” Lyra said. “They get to live here. It’s prime real estate! Dang, I feel sorry for anyone who can’t see this.”
“Ponies will,” Daring Do said, “When they read what I write about this place. Though I don’t think even I can give this place justice.”
Diamond Tiara looked up at the pegasus. “You’re going to write about this?”
Daring Do shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? I write about all my good adventures. I have a good feeling about this one.”
A smile grew on the filly’s face. “Does that mean you’re going to write about me too?”
Daring Do patted the filly on the shoulder. “I think you’ll have a big role in this story.”
Diamond Tiara’s mouth opened wide, merging her smile with a wide gaping hole. “Oh my gosh!”she squealed, practically jumping in place. “Me, in an adventure with Daring Do! The Canterlot fanclub is going to be so amazed!” Her enthusiasm spread to her legs as her hooves did a rapid tap dance with the ground.
Lyra groaned as the filly spun around in a circle. “Really, you have fanclubs?”
Daring Do gave glanced at the unicorn. “Ponies really love my books,” she said before switching to a subtle glare. “And don’t start with that attitude again.”
Lyra rolled her eyes as Diamond Tiara bounced right in front of Daring Do. “I can’t believe this is happening! It’s exactly like I dreamt it would be like,” the filly spouted out, “Though, I didn’t dream of being sent to a different world, or talking to old ladies, or anything else that happened, but still! I get to be in an adventure with Dari”--
The filly went dead quiet when Daring Do put a hoof to her mouth. Before the filly could protest, the adventure put a hoof to her own mouth, gesturing to be quiet. The pegasus looked at the forest, her ears twitching underneath her pith helmet. “Did you hear that?” she asked in a low voice.
“Hear what?” Lyra asked, imitating the pegasus’s sudden quiet voice. “I couldn’t hear anything over Little Miss Fangirl’s”--
“Shh,” Daring Do interrupted, not taking her eyes off the forest. “Listen.”
Diamond Tiara nudged the hoof away from her mouth, looking towards where Daring Do looked. She didn’t hear anything specific, just a flock of birds flying away. She did hear the muffled sounds from the town below, but they weren’t anything special.
Before she could say anything, a dull thud echoed through the forest. The filly scanned the forest for anything strange, but nothing had made an appearance. “What was that?” she whispered, taking a couple steps back.
“Something big,” Daring Do replied. The ground shook when another, louder, thud came from the forest. “Something really big.”
Further in the woods, the filly could make out a rustling sound, possibly from something moving around the trees. A loud groan rolled through the forest, shaking off a cloud of leaves from the branches. Diamond Tiara’s ears went flat at the noise, followed by her nose shriveling up when a musky sent wafted over her.
“Oh sweet honey, that reeks,” Lyra cried, covering her nose with her hoof. “That’s some genuine B.O. right there.”
More tree rustling, then a large crashing sound came out from the woods. A large, lumbering figure rose up from the tree tops, towering well above the ponies. The figure let out a groan as it stood up.
In unison, Lyra’s and Diamond Tiara’s jaws dropped at the sight before them, though Daring Do remained stoic.
Several thuds echoed around as the figure turned around to look at them. This creature reminded Diamond Tiara of a gorilla she met one time at her mom’s work, only much larger and elongated. A thick, black mat of hair covered its entire body, save for its pale belly and face. Its legs made up half its height, keeping it upright far above the treetops. At the end of the creature’s arms hung a pair of hands, similar to the old lady’s, but fuzzier. A circular pattern of triangles radiated around its exposed belly button, emitting a soft, red glow.
Now that the creature stood at its full height, the air thickened with the musky odor. Diamond Tiara could hardly breathe, and almost didn’t notice the red eyes looking down at her. One of the creature’s massive hands lifted up and scratched the red belly markings. “The Thorn’s vision has not failed,” the creature boomed with a deep, lethargic voice. “Ponies did come to serve the gods.”
“And of course it can talk,” Lyra muttered. “Why would it not?”
“These things tend to happen,” Daring Do replied, “You get used to it, eventually.”
Lyra waved a hoof through the air. “Unless he takes a breath mint or something, I’m not going to get used to the smell.”
The adventure ignored the unicorn and looked up at the giant. “Hi, I guess you were expecting us. Do you know a place we can spend the night?”
The giant didn’t answer. He scratched his belly, particularly around the red patter. “The gods are cowards,” it boomed once again. “They send their servants to twist fate for them. Pathetic! The Thorn will not tolerate this!”
“It doesn’t sound like his guest room is going to be an option,” Lyra noted, backing up along with Diamond Tiara.
The giant’s leg lumbered forward in a massive step, clearing the forest and stepping onto the edge of the road. “I am Ubara, Earth Shaker! Know thy slayer’s name, for it’ll be the last one you’ll hear!”
“I guess we’ll try the bed and breakfast down the street,” Lyra hastily said before screaming, “RUN!” and turning to gallop down the hill. Daring Do and Diamond Tiara immediately followed, dodging out of the way as Lyra’s lyre fell from her back and tumbled behind her.
Ubara let out a massive roar, shaking anything and everything on every corner of the island. The hairy beast lunged forward with a step that could be felt for miles. His next step landed right behind the fleeing ponies, knocking them over and sending them tumbling down the hill.
“AAAHH!” Lyra screamed and she rolled down the slope, “AAA-OOF!” crashing into a fence post. She lay there, seizing up in pain, the world swimming around in a foggy daze. Within seconds, she found herself being pulled up by a hoof. She was thrown onto her feet and into a gallop next to Daring Do.
“No time for pain,” Daring Do yelled, ducking to the left to avoid a brick that flung through the air. Lyra could barely hear the pegasus over the stomping coming from behind them. Even without the stomping, the unicorn didn’t think she could hear anything with the stench in the air.
“Do we have a plan?” Lyra yelled back, jumping a foot forward at the sound of another stomp.
“Run and hide,” Daring Do said, running by houses. “Exactly what we’re trying to do right now!”
“Oh sure, great plan.” She could hear her own panting as the chase pushed her to her limits. The stench wasn’t making running any easier for the unicorn. “Do we have something that can speed up that plan?”
Another stop shook the ground. “I got a teleport crystal in my bag!”
The houses were packing tighter together as they ran into the heart of the town. “Great, use that!”
“I didn’t set a return point!” The roofs of the homes around them jumped up an inch from the next stomp. The pegasus dived to the left to avoid a falling terracotta shingle.
“That’s useless!” Lyra yelled, jumping over a crumbling statue. Her horn glowed a golden yellow, encasing Daring Do’s backpack in the same glow. “I’ll look at what you got!”
“What? No!” Daring Do protested, but there was little she could to stop the unicorn’s magic from opening her bag’s flap and shuffling through her stuff, especially with a giant Earth Shaker tailing them.
“Let’s see,” Lyra mumbled, looking at the stream of items that floated out of the bag. “Batteries, nope. Water, nope. Food rations, nope. Rope, maybe.”
“Quit it!” Daring Do screamed over the sound of another stomp. “That’s my stuff!”
“Hey, I’m trying to help,” Lyra said, threading the items she already looked at back in the back and pulling something else out. “Oh, hello. What’s this doing in here?”
“What did you”-- Daring Do glanced back, nearly exploding at the sight. “NO!”
Lyra grinned wide as she flipped through the pages of a magazine she held in front of her face, a magazine with a scantily clad stallion posing on the cover. “My oh my, what’s a copy of Playmare doing in your- ACK!”
The unicorn toppled over when her throat met Daring Do’s foreleg once again that day. The magazine of female delights fluttered through the air, flapping its pages of provocative stallions for the world to see. The pegasus jumped up, snatched it from the air, and shoved it into the deepest, darkest recesses of her bag.
Lyra lay on the ground, coughing from a lack of breath after a hard run and from the force of another clothesline to the throat. “I didn’t know Playmare counted as wilderness survival material,” the unicorn snickered between coughs. “Does it come in handy on those cold winter nights?”
The pegasus’s cheeks turned a noticeably bright shade of red. If looks could kill, Daring Do’s eyes would have torn the snickering unicorn to shreds. “Never touch my stuff,” she seethed, giving Lyra a rough kick to the stomach.
“Gah!” Lyra cringed, holding her belly with her hooves. “Don’t be rough down there,” she moaned, “I might want kids someday.”
“Then don’t touch my stuff!” Daring Do snapped.
Lyra rolled onto her belly and carefully sat up. “We had a giant chasing us! I had to do something.”
“Don’t touch my stuff,” the pegasus repeated, her eyes attempting to burn through the unicorn’s skull.
Lyra rolled her eyes, and in doing so, something behind the pegasus caught her attention. A crowd of onlookers had gathered in a semicircle, watching the two ponies interact. These onlookers were not ponies, or anything Lyra was familiar with. They looked similar to the giant, but they were smaller, much smaller. They were almost the same size as a full grown pony. And they weren’t hairy. In fact, they didn’t have much hair to begin with. They stood around, skin showing, completely hairless, with only some clothing covering them.
“Hey, guess what?” Lyra said, grinning at Daring Do. “We have an audience.”
The pegasus turned around to meet the gaze from a crowd of tiny hairless giants. They all wore some variation of a white sheet around their torsos. Each one of them had some combonation of confusion, shock, or awe on their faces. They awkwardly stood there, staring at the two ponies. Daring Do could hear someone cough from the back of the group.
The pegasus noticed the location they were in. Previously, they were running for their lives down a street of houses. That street fed into a plaza with wooden stalls spread out in rows all over the place. These stalls had varieties of foods in them, from fruits to vegetables, even some red food types she wasn’t too familiar with. Just by glancing around the place, she could tell that they found their way into the town’s market square. The buildings surrounding the plaza were the same houses throughout the town, only bigger. At the opposite side of where they stood, a large white building towered over the market.
Daring Do looked back at the crowd. The tiny hairless giants didn’t move much. She guessed they were waiting for a response of some kind. Well, the ponies needed shelter, and there was a group to ask about it. “Hello, people of… Greece, I think,” she said, slowly, remembering what the old lady called this place. Several of the tiny hairless giants gasped. Whispers rapidly spread through the group. Did she say something wrong?
“Um, yeah, do any of you know where we could find a place to spend the night?” she asked. “We don’t have money, but we’re willing to work for our keep.”
The whispering in the group grew louder. Now Daring Do was getting a bit worried. A single one of these strange, tiny giants stepped out from the crowd. “You’re a pegasus,” the tiny giant said, “That can talk…”
Daring Do nodded, slowly, keeping eye contact with this single tiny giant. “Yes, I’m a pegasus… That can talk.” She paused to see if this… person would say anything about it. “Is that an issue we need to deal with?”
The tiny giant took a step forward before turning around. “People of Ithaca,” the person called out, raising his arms above his head, “We have pleaded with the gods, and they have answered!” The crowd cheered at this. “Poseidon has sent down his own steeds to aid us! We’ve been saved!”
The crowd broke into an uproar of louder cheering, causing the ponies’ ears to fold back from the noise. Daring Do looked back at the unicorn, furrowing her brow. “What?”
Lyra shrugged, but then jumped when she felt a tremor. The crowd’s cheering all but died out at the sound of stomping. The unicorn’s eyes went wide as she frantically looked around. “Where’s the giant? I thought it was behind us!”
“So did I!” Daring Do said, eyes dashing around the place in a mad search. Then her gaze locked on to an empty spot next to the unicorn. “Better question. Where’s Diamond Tiara?!”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Diamond Tiara screamed as the beast stepped out of the forest. She heard Lyra yell, “RUN!” The filly turned and sprinted after the unicorn, who had gained a head start.
The hairs on Diamond Tiara’s neck stood on end when the giant let out a massive roar, shaking everything and anything on the island. The filly galloped as fast as she could down the hill, kicking up a dirt cloud behind her as her hooves kicked into the dirt. Daring Do came up next to her. “Find a place to hide!” the pegasus yelled over the thunderous stomps behind them.
Before Diamond Tiara could respond, a large foot slammed into the ground right behind her, sending out a shockwave that knocked her over. Her body flipped over her head, sending her tumbling down the hill. She tucked her head in between her legs, curling up into a ball. Using gravity to speed her up, she rolled down the rest of the hill, putting as much distance as possible between her and the giant.
When the dirt road changed into stone, Diamond Tiara sprung out of her ball and landed upright on her legs, charging forward in a sprint, and thanking her dad for enrolling her in gymnastics classes. The unicorn ahead of her wasn’t so lucky. The filly winced as Lyra tumbled straight into a fence post. A loud cracking sound filled the air as pony and wood brutally met. Out of the corner of her eye, Diamond Tiara could see Daring Do rushing over to help the downed unicorn, ignoring the giant that loomed over the trio.
Up ahead in the town, a building split the road into a fork. On the right, the road went straight off into the distance, ending in a market place. On the left, the road snaked around several buildings, going uphill and around the outskirts of the town. Diamond Tiara banked towards the left, charging back up a slope as the giant closed in. She figured the winding road would be easy to lose the giant in.
She dared to take a moment to look behind her to see how far the giant was. The two other ponies didn’t follow the filly, instead taking the path to the right and running towards the market square. Ubara’s foot skidded across the road, sending bricks flying at the ponies. The filly’s eyes widened as it pivoted on its leg and walked forward, taking the left road and pursuing Diamond Tiara.
Up ahead, the road ended at a T-intersection. Diamond Tiara leaned to the right and ran around the corner, nearly clipping the edge of a building. She ran farther down the street before hearing a loud crash behind her. Looking back once again, she saw Ubara step through the building she turned at. Layers of bricks crashed into the road as a massive body tore through the walls. Ubara’s head cut through the terracotta roof. “Don’t escape fate, child,” the giant roared.
Diamond Tiara focused forward just in time to see a wall of spears pointed at her. She yelped as she skidded to a stop, almost tripping into one of the spikes. In front of her, a row of large, golden disks stretched out across the street. Between each of these disks, a long spear jutted up, angled high towards the giant. Strange animals crouched down and held the spears and disks in front of them. They looked strangely similar to the giant, except with less hair. In the middle of the street, a lone tiny giant stood above the rest. “Return to where you came, beast!” the standing animal yelled. “Don’t ever come back!”
The stomping came to a halt behind the filly. She looked behind to see Ubara standing in the street, looming above her and the animals, blocking the path from where they came. “Don’t challenge me, humans,” the giant boomed. “This pony is mine. Leave us be and you will be spared.”
The standing tiny giant threw an accusatory finger at the larger giant. “You monsters keep attacking our city! We won’t give into your demands!”
The hairy giant let out a deep chuckle, making Diamond Tiara stumble from the tremors. “I am Ubara, Earth Shaker! Those that oppose me, or the Thorn, shall perish!”
While the exchange went on, Diamond Tiara notice a gap underneath the row of disks she could fit under. She crouched down and slid underneath the disks, popping out from between the legs of a tiny giant. The standing one turned to watch the filly gallop away down the street. He refocused on Ubara, who lumbered forward after his prey.
“Strike his belly,” the standing animal yelled. “Aim for his circle!” Diamond Tiara looked back to see the rows of spears strike at the giant’s stomach. Ubara simply covered the area around his belly button, hiding the red, glowing pattern and blocking the spear strikes. The animals in the middle of the street scattered away as Ubara stepped into the middle of the row.
Diamond Tiara ignored the yelling behind her, turning right at an intersection and running down the street.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Lyra scrambled up to her feet, frantically scanning the area in search of a pink filly. “Crap, we lost Dia!” she said. “I hope she didn’t get eaten! Or crushed! Or stabbed!”
“Stabbed?” Daring Do said with a confused look.
“Maybe that giant likes to shank ponies.” The earth shook once again as a distant Ubara took another step. Both the ponies looked to where the sound came from. They couldn’t see the giant behind the buildings, but they heard it loud and clear. “She’s probably being chased by it as we speak. Oh, I hope she’s okay.”
“She will be,” the pegasus reassured her. “But we need to go help her, now.”
The unicorn nodded, and started running through the square. Almost a second later, she skidded to a halt as the crowd of tiny giants ran past in front of her. All over the square, tiny giants ran all over the place, trying to get to where ever they thought was safe. “Watch where you’re going!” Lyra yelled as she stepped out of the way of a runner.
“Can’t stop, guard luring giant into the market,” the runner yelled back. “They better not destroy my stall!”
As soon as he passed, Daring Do noticed a battalion of armed tiny giants entering through the streets behind them. They marched in-between the stalls in rows, holding golden shields and spears in front of them. The rest of the civilians scattered out of the market square once they caught sight of the soldiers.
The pegasus could hear one of the soldiers yelling orders, likely the commander, but she couldn’t pick who was doing it. “Keep your spears high!” The voice was loud enough to be heard over the distant stomps. “Aim for its circle! We’re not going to let another one of these bastards destroy our city!”
The clusters of soldiers let out a loud war chant at their commander’s order. They fanned out through the market square, seven groups of three marching through the stalls. The battalion formed into a semi-circle, the edges marching ahead of the peak towards the road at the opposite end of the square.
“Here it comes!” the commander yelled again as the stomps grew louder.
The earth shook once more as the giant crashed through a house on the side of the market. The building crumbled as it lumbered through. “Running is useless, little pony,” the giant boomed. “Save me the trouble and meet your end.”
Once the giant entered the square, the battalion charged forward with a battle cry, spears raised and aimed for the monster. The pegasus realized that Diamond Tiara was somewhere between the giant and the battalion, who were racing towards each other, destined to clash in the square center.
Daring Do flared her wings and launched into the air, dropping her backpack in the process. She soared right over the charging soldiers, searching the ground for the filly. There, running past a stall full of cabbages. A pink streak dashed towards the battalion, narrowly missing the large foot that crushed the cabbage stand. Bricks and vegetables erupted from the foot, carried by a shockwave that tripped the filly.
Daring Do banked to the left, folding in her wings to go into a dive-bomb. She twisted through the air and streaked straight towards the downed filly. The other foot loomed right above Diamond Tiara, casting a shadow over the pony.
The filly looked up and screamed at the giant’s filthy heel. The foot grew large as it came down. Just as the world went dark, she lurched to the side at breakneck speeds. Her vision was filled by the side of a large foot that crushed the pavement underneath. The foot grew smaller as market stalls zipped by her.
“Hang tight, kid!” The filly looked up to see Daring Do grabbing her by the waist, zooming through the air. She looked down for a moment, only look back up when she saw paving stones rushing two feet below her.
Daring Do tilted up and glided over the stalls, heading towards where the unicorn still stood. She flew next to her and deposited the filly next to Lyra. The unicorn jumped up at their return. “Dia! You’re alive” she squealed, running up to give her a hug. Lyra squeezed the filly against her, only to be pushed away by pink hooves.
“Don’t,” the filly said, walking away from the dejected unicorn.
Daring Do landed next to her backpack and shoved a hoof into its pocket. “I’m glad we’re all safe,” she said, rummaging through her stuff. “Take a breather. I’ll take care of Ubara.”
Lyra looked over to the square, where the soldiers surrounded the giant and were prodding it with spears. The giant kept a hand against its stomach, and used the other to brush away the attacks. “I think the guards over there got this. We should run while we can.”
“Lyra, if there’s one thing you should learn in life,” Daring do said as she pulled out the rope from her bag, glancing over to the scene in the square, “It’s not to count on others to do your work for you.” She gave a brief glare at the unicorn. “And to never touch my stuff.”
Once more, the pegasus shot into the air, gliding over the market. The soldiers kept the giant preoccupied with their attacks, but they seemed to have no effect on the beast. Ubara stepped around the tiny giants, as if he was making an attempt not to hurt them. He had no problem with the safety of the market stalls; his foot crushed one while avoiding stepping on a soldier.
She noted how odd it seemed that this giant, who had made it clear his intentions were to destroy the ponies, was now dancing around the soldiers in order to not hurt them, even as they prodded him with their weapons. The soldiers wanted to kill the giant, the giant wanted to kill the ponies, so she didn’t think anyone would truly complain if she decided to take down Ubara, though Ubara might complain.
The giant noticed the pegasus flying over the market, lurching forward in pursuit. “That’s right, follow the tasty pony,” she said to herself. Daring Do started playing around with her rope, twisting and tying it around. The knot she wanted wasn’t hard to do, in fact she even made it before while flying at high speeds. What she needed was a good place to use it.
She looked around to find a good spot before her eyes landed on the roof of a particular building. It was a larger building than the others that surrounded the market. It stood at least twice as high as most. The outside walls were surrounded by pillars that supported a terracotta, a-frame roof. Perfect.
She dipped down towards the street and picked up a heavy piece of stone rubble she spotted. With the extra weight, her ascent towards the roof went slower than she wanted to. Ubara managed to walk right underneath her and take a swipe at her, barely missing her tail. Daring Do glided up onto the roof and tossed the stone towards its peak, cracking the terracotta shingles underneath.
She rushed towards the rock and quickly tied the free end of the rope to it. Behind her, she could hear the giant begin to climb the side of the building. Time wasn’t on her side.
Once her work was done, she picked up a piece of broken terracotta and placed it into the knot she made. It was a sling knot, a knot she made surprisingly frequently under stressful conditions. She picked up the end of the knot with her teeth and turned around to face the giant. Ubara’s head poked over the roof edge just as she finished. His red eyes bore down on her like a massive ship about to run over a dingy.
Daring Do took a step back, twisted her head back, and then jerked forward, letting go of the sling knot. The knot soared through the air, only stop when its rope snapped tight against the rock it was tied to. The terracotta, on the other hand, shot out from the knot, striking the giant in the eye.
Ubara let out an agonizing scream that shook all the shingles out of place. The pegasus covered her ears as the scream rolled over her. Both of the giant’s hands went up to cusp his injured eye, leaving nothing for him to hang onto the building. He tilted back and crashed into the market square below, destroying countless more stalls on impact.
Daring Do flew above the mess she just created. Ubara thrashed around, kicking and screaming, tearing up the road and sending stalls flying into the air. The pegasus looked up to see the battalion rushing in on the downed beast. From the looks of it, it seemed another group of guards had joined them while Daring Do was making her sling knot.
“Strike his circle!” she heard the commander yell to his troops! “Strike it while the monster is down!”
The pegasus looked down at Ubara when she noticed the circle of red triangles on his belly. Earlier, the guards had been spearing at it, only to be blocked by his hand. Now, his hands were grabbing his face in pain, leaving his belly circle wide open.
Without another moment of thought, the pegasus dived towards the belly of the beast. Halfway down, she flipped around in the air and pointed her hind legs downwards.
CRACK!
Her hind legs spiked into the circle like a nail. The circle shattered like glass before bursting into a pulse of red light. Her attack continued on into Ubara’s stomach. His skin wrapped around her kick before springing back. The giant lurched up in pain as the pegasus recoiled into the air.
“NO! How dare you!” Ubara screamed louder than ever before. Everyone present, from pony to soldier, keeled over and covered their ears as hard as possible. The soldiers dropped their weapons as they fell, and Daring Do simply fell from the sky, crashing into a market stall full to the brim with bread.
Ubara continued to thrash around and roar. “The seal! You broke my seal! How dare you break my seal!” His yell cracked the walls of the building he fell from. One of its columns shattered into two. “Thorn, save me! I don’t want to go back!”
A ripping sound cut through the air. The world shuddered under the pegasus’s back, adding to the tremors that came from the giant. Daring Do rolled out of the pile of bread rolls and looked up at the sky, where a slit had formed in space. The slit started expanding out, revealing a dark and swirling emptiness inside of it.
Ubara howled as the slit opened up into a massive hole above the city. “I don’t want to go back! Leave me be!” The monster lifted up into the air. He flipped around and dug his hands into the street. His legs dangled above him as a mysterious force pulled him towards the hole. The ground bust apart as his hands lost their grip. The giant shot up into the sky, screaming, “NOOOO!” as he flew into the air.
Everyone lost sight of the giant once he entered the hole. The rip immediately closed behind Ubara, disappearing with a light zipping noise. The world stopped shaking right after, leaving a market square full of tiny giants and ponies lying on the ground.
Daring Do pushed herself up, bread falling off of her body as she stood up. She took a moment to look around at the carnage. Many of the market stalls were destroyed, but many more were left untouched. The paving stones lay torn up all over the plaza, leaving behind craters large enough to fit several ponies. Only two buildings sustained damage, including the one Ubara climbed up on.
She eyed the soldiers, who were getting up one by one. None of them seemed to be hurt, although their hearing might have taken a blow. One of the soldiers made eye contact with her, giving her a smile as he started to walk over.
“I wasn’t expecting help from the gods,” the soldier said. Daring Do recognized the voice as the commander of the battalion. “In fact, I was starting to think they didn’t care. But wow, they out did themselves.” He stretched his arms out towards her. “They sent a pegasus! By Zeus’s beard, I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Um, yeah,” Daring Do said. “I’m guessing you don’t see a lot of us flying around.”
The commander chuckled as he continued to walk forwards. “And you can talk. And I thought fighting giants was crazy. No, mythical creatures never stop by our island to say hi. Heck, we didn’t really think you existed.” The soldier walked right up to the pegasus and held out a hand. “I’m Homer of Deneth, captain of the Vathy guard.”
The pegasus grabbed the hand with her hoof and gave it a firm shake. “I’m Daring Do, adventurer and in need of food and shelter.”
Homer grinned as they let go from their shake. “Well Daring Do, fate smiles on you, then. You’ve come to Vathy just in time for the King Bakkos’s banquet tonight. I’m sure he’ll be happy to invite the pegasus that took down a giant.”
“Thanks,” Daring Do, returning a smile. “I have two companions traveling with me. They will need food and shelter as well.”
“If Bakkos doesn’t invite them, then I’ll serve them dinner myself.”
“Again, thanks. So, we’re in Vathy? I thought this was Greece.”
“It’s the city of Vathy, on the island of Ithaca, off the coast of mainland Greece,” Homer happily replied. “Seems a bit odd that you don’t know where you are.”
“I guess the gods dropped us here without telling us anything,” she said, shrugging. “They enjoy being vague.”
It didn’t take long for Daring Do to find her fellow dimensional travelers. They hadn’t moved during the ordeal, staying on the other side of the square from where Ubara fell. They introduced themselves to the soldiers, who , surprisingly, were not surprised by them. The soldiers had watched a pegasus take down a giant, so anything less wasn’t as impressive. Even so, they welcomed the ponies in a similar manner that Homer did.
“I am Homer, captain of the Vathy guard,” he said, introducing himself to Lyra and Diamond Tiara. “It’s an honor being able to play host to creatures such as you three.”
“Thanks,” Diamond Tiara said, the filly shaking the captain’s hand. “I’m Diamond Tiara. Thanks for letting us stay here, and for saving me from the monster.”
“As much as I hate admitting it, I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he replied, nodding to Daring Do. “The pegasus was the one who took defeated the beast.”
“I know, but I was talking before that. Some soldiers stopped him in a street. You gave me chance to run from that.”
Homer tapped his chin. “I don’t remember doing… Oh,” he waved a finger to a guard off to the side. “That must have been Commander Ajax. His men were on the west side of town when the beast came. You should be thanking him, if he actually did anything important.”
Diamond Tiara nodded, trotting off to the aforementioned guard. Lyra walked up to Homer before shaking hands with him. “And I’m Lyra,” she said with a smile, “The unicorn of the group.”
“Ah, another imaginary creature I get to meet today,” Homer said, chuckling. “It’s a pleasure.”
Lyra nodded. “Ditto. Could I ask you a favor?”
“Sure. What’s this favor?”
“I dropped my instrument when the giant went after us,” she said, pointing to the distant hill she had tumbled down earlier. “Could you send someone to get it?”
“That won’t be a problem.” Homer barked a quick order to two of his men, who then went off down the road to fetch the lyre. “They’ll bring it to the palace.”
Daring Do noticed the sun was now completely hidden by the hills, though it was still light enough outside to walk around. “Hey Homer,” the pegasus said when she found the captain in the battalion crowd, “Do you think we can head to the banquet now? It’s getting late, and I’d like to get something to eat.”
The captain nodded. “If you wish. We’ll be early, but I think Bakkos wouldn’t mind. The fat lard eats all day as it is. What’s a couple hours difference from snack to dinner?” Homer turned to his battalion and raised his voice. “Men, time to head to the palace. Get into escort formation for our guests. They’ll be dinning with the king!”
All the soldiers gave a salute before scattering in all directions. They formed two lines behind the ponies and Homer, and marched forward once the front started walking. The captain started walking, leading the battalion and ponies through the square and out into a street that went deeper into town. The soldiers remained stoic, but Homer wasn’t afraid to get chatty.
“I have to ask, what’s with the markings on your body,” Homer said, looking at Daring Do’s and Lyra’s flanks. “You have a compass, and you have a lyre. Is there anything special about those?”
Lyra was the first to respond. “They’re our cutie marks! They represent our special talents. I can play the lyre, so I got a lyre.”
Homer nodded. “Interesting. What about your compass?”
“Just general exploration,” Daring Do said. “I do go out on adventures, but I have a few other talents. For instance, I’m a writer by trade.”
“Ah, a writer. You should meet my wife, in that case. She loves writing plays.”
Daring Do nodded. “That sounds like a pleasure.”
Homer looked down at Diamond Tiara, who walked between him and the pegasus. “You don’t have a… cutie mark. Is there a reason for that?”
Diamond Tiara looked up at the captain, and glanced at her flank. “I just haven’t found my special talent yet.” She grinned at Homer. “But I know I’m going to get it soon. Just you wait.”
Homer nodded as the group turned a corner. “Do all ponies get cutie marks then?”
“Yep,” Lyra bust out, “Though, I think they’re rather annoying. Ponies like to think that a cutie mark is all there is to you. If you have a cutiemark, then they expect you to be good at whatever job you do. And if they find someone better than you, they’ll just toss you away, and no one will hire you if you don’t have the cutie mark they need.”
“Sounds brutal,” Homer noted.
Daring Do shook her head. “Don’t listen to her. She’s being overdramatic.”
“Says the published adventurer who’s set for life,” Lyra muttered.
They chatted for a little longer. They told him a small amount about Equestria, and he told them a small amount about Greece. The tiny giants were actually called humans, and they were scattered all over the Mediterranean Sea. He heard that there were humans in more far distant lands, but he had never seen them.
They walked up to a large, white building in the center of town. It was far larger than the one from the market square. It filled up the entire space between the four streets that bordered it. Pillars completely surrounded the building, holding up a roof that was higher than the market building. Square windows lined the walls, blocked off by wooden shutters.
The majority of the battalion stayed outside. Only the ponies, Homer, and three other guards walked in. Daring Do assumed that one of them was Commander Ajax, and the other two were only there as escorts.
When they entered the palace, they were greeted by a large stature of a soldier, standing on a stone pedestal, in the middle of a court yard. Upon closer examination, Daring Do saw that the statue looked remarkably similar to Homer. The statue Homer held a spear high above his head, as if he was about to strike down an imaginary enemy that had entered the palace. He looked down at the guests with beady eyes, his mouth curling down in a snarl.
Homer noticed the pegasus eyeing the statue, and smiled. “Do you like it?” he asked. “King Bakkos had it made for me to honor my well fought victory in Leucas.”
“It’s...” Daring Do paused as she thought up a proper word, “Overbearing.”
“You can say that,” Homer nodded as he replied. “The sculptor made it a tad intimidating, I’ll admit. But it does get a message across.”
Lyra walked up to the base of the statue, craning her neck to see the top. “Is the message, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’?”
Homer let out a dismissive grunt. “It’s actually, ‘Ye who enter here have never seen such a handsome man.’ I guess the message can be misinterpreted.” One of the guards, presumably Commander Ajax, walked up next to the captain and whispered something in his ear. Homer gave a confirming nod, and looked at the ponies. “I must ask all of you to wait here. I’ll go tell King Bokkos of your arrival.”
The captain left the courtyard and entered the building, followed by the commander. The other two guards remained with the ponies, standing at attention at their commander’s orders. Other than that, there were few other people outside in the courtyard. Only a couple of pockets of two or three humans were scattered about. Those groups were composed of important looking officials, who were deep in the conversations they were having. They looked up only a couple times to gawk at the ponies, but for the most part they kept to themselves.
Lyra circled around the statue, examining every part of it as if it were an alien. Her eyes fell on the hands, which gripped the spear, preparing to strike. “Are hands supposed to be like that?” she asked to no one in particular. “They look… icky. I really don’t want to be touched by one of those.” She perked up when she remembered the guards, and flashed them a quick apologetic smile. “Sorry, uh, no offence.” The guards didn’t respond, instead choosing to stay standing at attention.
Diamond Tiara looked around the palace courtyard, taking in every inch of the large stone building. “Are we going to be staying here?”
Daring Do shrugged. “Don’t know, kid. It depends on what this Bakkos guy has to say about it.”
“Well, say that we did,” the filly said, sitting down next to the pegasus. “Don’t we still need to find a way back home?”
“Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Truth be told, this was the first time the thought of trying to get home crossed her mind since they plummeted out of the void. She went traveling abroad so much that she didn’t consider any place really home. She had her cottage, but that was more of a base of operations than a real home. Now that she thought about it, there was something nibbling in the back of her mind about this place, something she didn’t consider before.
Daring Do’s jaw dropped when the thought punched through her head like a brick. “Holy crap, we’re in a different world!” she yelled. Her voice carried over through the courtyard, interrupting the conversations of the small human groups. They looked up with annoyance, glaring at the pegasus.
Lyra stood up from behind the statue, looking at the pegasus from between its legs. “No way, Sherclop, how’d you come up with that crazy idea? Did the human’s clue you in about that? Or was it the rampaging giant yelling shlock about killing us because fate says so? I thought there was something otherworldly about that old lady.”
Daring Do rolled her eyes at the unicorn. “Yes, I know we’re in a different world. It just didn’t fully occur to me until just now.”
“What makes it so different from your other adventures?” Diamond Tiara asked. The pegasus looked down to meet the filly’s questioning gaze. “You explore ancient ruins all the time. Aren’t they different from Equestria?”
“Yeah, but those ruins were touched by ponies in some way. This place just seems…” she paused. If it weren’t for the humans, she would say that they were in Cloudsdale. The pillars and statue reminded her greatly of that pegasus city. Yet everything was different in just some way. Stone replacing clouds, humans replacing pegasi. “…Off,” she finally said. For all it was worth, these humans could be made of floating eyes and teeth and she’d feel just off as she did right now.
“Says the published adventure,” Lyra said, leaning against the statue’s left leg. “Out of all the exploring you apparently do, you’re weirded out by a different world that’s inhabited by humans?”
“That’s just it, we’re in a world of humans,” the pegasus said glancing at the guards. “I’ve been exploring places that, in one way or another, were made by”--
“Ponies!” a voice screamed from across the courtyard. Everyone, ponies, guard, and human groups, looked over to see a single person standing at the entrance to the main hall. This human looked different from the guards the pegasus dealt with so far. The human had longer hair, and had a subtle curvature with its body. Daring Do took a wild guess and assumed that this was the female variety.
The female cusped her hands over her mouth when everyone in the square turned to look at her. She stood there for a moment before walking across the courtyard. When she walked up next to the statue, her hands fell to her hips and she bowed for the guests. “I’m sorry for the outburst. Please call me Phoebe.”
Lyra hopped down from the statue, going up to Phoebe and shaking her hand with her hooves. “How do you do, Phoebe? I’m Lyra, the bard in this campaign. The little one over there is Diamond Tiara, I call her Dia.” From behind, the unicorn could hear a muffled ‘hmph’. “And the pegasus you see is called Daring Do. She writes down everything about my adventures and serves as the group pack mule!”
“Haven’t I punched you in the throat enough today?” Daring Do said, giving Lyra a nasty glare.
Phoebe stared at Lyra as the unicorn stuck her tongue at the pegasus. “It sounds like you’re an interesting group,” the human remarked. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them in front of her face. “So, King Bakkos has agreed to invite you to dinner, and to let you stay in the palace as long as you need to.”
“That’s wonderful,” Daring Do said. “We’re grateful for his generosity.”
“Think nothing of it,” Phoebe said, shaking her head. “It’s our honor to be able to host,” she paused, glancing a Lyra, “Ponies such as yourselves. We’re glad the gods have sent you to answer our prayers.”
Lyra thought she picked up on a disingenuous tone at the mention of ‘gods’. “Sure,” the unicorn said. “The gods didn’t give us much of a choice anyways.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Phoebe led the ponies through the palace, and soon they found themselves in a large dining room. Columns bordered the entire room, standing over anyone who sat at the long table. Tapestries hung from the ceiling, displaying intricate patterns of human soldiers doing battle.
Several humans were already sitting down along the table. They were all idling chatting to each other before the ponies walked into the room. One by one, heads turned to see the odd creatures sent down by the gods. Whispers hopped around the table as Phoebe led each of the ponies to a designated seat. The whispers ceased when Lyra smiled and greeted them in their language.
Near the end of the table, Phoebe indicated which chairs the ponies would be sitting in. “Bakkos has requested for you to sit near him,” she explained. “Take any of the three seats at the end.”
Diamond Tiara was the first to take a seat, choosing the one at the corner. Lyra walked up to take the one next to her, but decided against it when the filly gave her a disapproving frown. Lyra allowed Daring Do to sit between them.
As the ponies got comfortable sitting in chairs not made for ponies, Phoebe placed her hands on Lyra’s and Daring Do’s chair backs. All the ponies present turned to look at her grinning face. “So, how’d you get here? Did Poseidon get sick of you guys and kicked you out of Olympus?”
Daring Do tried to make eye contact with Phoebe, but something about her face made her look away towards Lyra. The unicorn took this as a go-ahead to talk, which made Daring Do regret looking anywhere at all. “For the record,” Lyra said, looking up at Phoebe, “I have no idea what these gods you humans keep referring to, let alone this Poseidon fellow. There’s only one god, and that’s Princess Celestia, god of the sun.”
Daring Do ran her hooves across her face. “Oh, don’t do this now,” she mumbled.
“Oh, I forgot, we just got another god. Princess Luna, the moon god! She’s the moon god, right?” Lyra glanced at the pegasus for conformation, but all she received was a glare.
“Lyra, lean in for a second” Daring Do said, beckoning the unicorn to come closer. The pegasus wrapped a foreleg around Lyra and whispered in her ear. “I want you to use a little common sense. If the strange creatures that are feeding you think you were sent from one of their gods, don’t say their god doesn’t exist. That tends to end very badly.”
Lyra nodded. “Yeah, I can see how that might end badly,” she whispered back. “But Luna’s the moon god, right?”
Phoebe leaned in between the ponies. “You know that I’m still right here,” the human whispered, “And I can hear everything you’re saying.”
“I know,” Daring Do said, glancing at Phoebe through the corner of her eye, “I’m trying a new tactic to stop this mare from saying stupid stuff.”
“Hey,” Lyra said, recoiling back, “When did I ever say something stupid?”
Daring Do leaned back in her seat, nodding to the filly next to her, who had been idly playing with her silverware.
Lyra gave a deadpan look. “Point taken.”
“I’ll be honest with you,” Phoebe said in a hushed tone, “I don’t think these ‘gods’ actually exist. I just play along.”
“See, no harm done,” Lyra said, flashing the adventurer a smile.
The pegasus rolled her eyes as she leaned forward. “Say that when you find a spear poking out of your neck.”
“Anyways, how did you get here?” Phoebe asked again. “I highly doubt you three were sent here by the will of whatever gods these guys believe in.”
Daring Do cut off Lyra before the unicorn could say anything. “A rip in space and time sucked us in and spat us out on a hill nearby.”
“And if the gods did that to get us here,” Lyra said, “As opposed to simply asking, then I would love to give them a piece of my mind”
A deep voice interrupted the conversation. “Ah, Phoebe, I see you’re enjoying the company of our fine guests.” The three ponies, and Phoebe, looked up to see Captain Homer standing across the table, with a female human standing at his side. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, it really is, but you currently have a duty for the king, and standing around making merry with our guests isn’t part of that duty.”
Phoebe stood up straight, and gave Homer a quick bow. “Yes, sorry sir, I got distracted.” She leaned into her bow just enough to give a quick whisper to the pegasus. “After dinner, meet me in the courtyard. I’ll show you something you might like.” She snapped back upright and scurried away to perform her duties.
“I apologize for that,” Homer said, looking at the ponies. “The servants here can hold quite entertaining conversations, though sometimes at the expense of their work.” The captain turned to the female next to him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I would like you to meet my wife, Anastasia. She’ll be dining with us tonight.”
Anastasia gave the ponies a curt nod, greeting them with a quiet voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet creatures such as yourselves.”
Lyra cocked her head when she noticed that Anastasia, out of all the humans, was the first to not have an extreme reaction to meeting them. She had a calm demeanor, a subtle grace to her movements, and a soft smile strewn across her face. Another aspect the unicorn found odd was how young she looked compared to Homer. Ana had to be about half the captain’s age. Lyra smiled back and nodded. “Likewise.”
Homer and Anastasia sat across Daring Do and Lyra, respectively, leaving a single spot at the end of the table. “Our pegasus friend here,” Homer said to his wife, “Says she’s a writer. I’m sure you two would have fun discussing the secrets of your craft.”
Daring Do shook her head as her eyes led her to the end of the table. “There’s not much to talk about. I write about my adventures, and ponies seem to enjoy reading about them.”
“But I’m sure there’s plenty to discuss,” Homer said. “I’m always fascinated with what Ana comes up with. Tell her about the play you’ve been creating, my darling.”
Ana shied away from her husband, looking off to the guests that were taking their place next to them. “Can we forget about that blasted play, just for tonight? I’ve been working on it so much that it’s driving me mad!”
“As you wish,” Homer said, nodding. “Though, you should talk more about your profession. You’ll enjoy yourself more if you indulge your ego, even just for a moment.”
“Ooh! I just remembered!” Lyra burst, nearly hopping off her seat. “I write stuff too. I write stuff all the time. Just last month, I scribbled down an idea I had about a big mega space battle between an army of purple alien giraffes and a giant pudding cup.” She waved her hooves in front of her, mimicking out her imaginary war in the stars. “The giraffes went, ‘pew pew pew,’ and the pudding cup went ‘Kablamo!’ but then it splat up into a storm of angry pudding stains, and”--
Homer, Ana, and Daring Do stared at the unicorn as she retold her story about giraffes and pudding, flailing her arms about as her epic space battle took place. Lyra was so engrossed in the act that she didn’t notice the humans that were present give Daring Do a confused look, as everything she said went over their heads. The pegasus groaned as she ran a hoof down her face, silently praying to Celestia for the mare to shut up.
--“And Sir Combo Breaker swoops in and saves the stallion in distress, flying away as Planet Turquoise explodes in a mass of pudding dropps behind them.” Lyra slammed her hooves against the table, shaking the silverware on it. “I’m calling that story The Grand Spudnugget of Sammy the Stallion! Do you like it?”
Nobody said anything for a full minute. Ana squinted at Lyra as if she was trying to use psychic powers to figure out how sane this mare was. Homer’s mouth cycled between open and closed as he tried to piece together anything that came out of Lyra. Daring Do gave the unicorn a deadpan look.
Then, with a dry voice, the pegasus answered her question. “Lyra, I want you to know that I have the utmost concern for you, as much as anypony else. And you should also know if you have any questions regarding what I’m about to say to you, I will answer them in excruciating detail. So please, for the love of Equestria, take my advice to the fullest extent possible.” She placed a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder, and looked her dead in the eye. “Stop speaking stupid.”
“Hey, just because I’m not a published author, like you,” she pushed Daring Do’s hoof away, “Doesn’t mean I can’t write whatever I want. I have you know, I’ve been working on Sammy the Stallion for three months now, and I’ve made a ton of progress on it.”
Daring Do cocked an eyebrow. “Really? How much have you written so far?”
Lyra stared at her for a moment. “Uh, two sentences on a napkin... But I wrote the entire musical score that’s going to be in the movie! Has the published adventure written her movie score yet?”
At this point, the deadpan look was become the default expression whenever Daring Do talked to this unicorn. “Two of my books are already movies.”
“I-uh… oh.” Lyra’s hoof tapped out a melody on the table. “When?”
Daring Do looked over to Diamond Tiara, who was still playing with her silverware. “Hey kid, do you know when my movies came out?”
“Sapphire Stone came out six years ago, Griffon’s Goblet came out three, both of them were top ticket sellers for two months straight,” she said, not bothering to look up.
The pegasus looked back at the unicorn. “Now, are you going to stop speaking stupid, or will we have to ship our dead brain cells to the morgue?”
Lyra shrugged. “I still have my music score.”
Anastasia let out a light cough, bringing attention to her. “These 'movies,' how long do the music scores for them tend to be?”
“Uh, they average out to about an hour and a half,” Lyra said. “Though, my music score could last for eight movies.”
“And how long did it take you to make you music score.” Lyra noticed that Ana was leaning towards her. The unicorn couldn’t help but smile when her ears picked up on the interest brimming in that soft voice.
“A few days,” she answered. “I was a little pressed on time, but I managed to write most of it down when I was working. You won’t believe how much spare time a lyrist gets. It’s as if my conductor didn’t want me to play.”
Ana nodded. “Would you mind if you came to my house tomorrow and help me on my project?”
“Sure,” Lyra said with an enthusiastic grin. “If you’re stuck on writing something, space pirates can always spruce things up.”
“No, that won’t be needed,” Ana said, “I just need some musical help.”
“Oh sure, I can do that.” The unicorn glanced at Homer, who was finishing up talking to a servant. “Hey Homes, do you know what happened to my lyre?”
Homer looked over as the servant walked away. “Your lyre? I believe my guard delivered it to the room you’ll be residing in. If it’s not there currently, it should arrive while we feast.”
“That’s good. Thanks again for that.”
“My dear, it’s nothing to make a fuss about. Now, if I may.” Homer stood up from his chair, and then knocked on the table with a fist. Everyone along the table looked up and gave the captain their undivided attention. He raised his voice enough to be heard from the farthest reaches of the room. “All rise for our lordship!”
All the humans at the table stood up simultaneously. Daring Do stood up as well, once she realized what was going on. Lyra looked around in confusion, getting out of her chair moments after the pegasus just so she didn’t stand out. Diamond Tiara continued to play with her silverware, though no one said anything against this.
From the side of the room nearest to the other end of the table, two guards opened a large double door, revealing a dark room behind it. Lyra could make out shadows moving around in the room, though she couldn’t tell what they were doing. Homer’s voice rolled through the dining hall once again. “I present the host of our banquet,” he pointed his hand at the room, “Our honorable ruler of Vathy and all of Ithaca Isle, King Bakkos.”
A large, chubby man stepped out from the dark room. A white sheet billowed forward with every step the king took. His bald head twinkled in the light as he moved out from the shadows. Upon further inspection, Lyra saw it wasn’t just his skin that twinkled. He wore a ring of golden leaves as a crown, letting it sit above his ears.
Bakkos stopped several feet away from the dark room, smiled at the crowd, and stretched out his arms. “Ah, I’m glad everyone could make it,” he said in a bouncy, cheery voice. “It’s always a joy to have friends join me for the Harvest Banquet.” He dropped his arms and walked around the table. “Though let’s be honest, you’re all here because it was either this, or eating at home, and at least here you won’t die alone if the food is poisoned.”
A light chuckle cropped up from the guests. As King Bakkos passed by the humans at the end of the table, another person walked out of the dark room. The person was a she, a tall, dark-haired woman that stood a foot above the king. Her face was solid as stone as she followed the king around the table.
Lyra heard Ana whisper at her from across the table. “That’s Tatiana,” she said in a low voice, “The king’s wife.” The unicorn watched as the woman ignored the guests, keeping her eyes straight as she walked behind Bakkos.
“You can all sit now,” the king said as he walked past the halfway point of the table. Lyra hopped back on her seat while everyone else sat down in a calmer manner. “I can’t imagine how tiring it is to stand around all day and listen to my voice. How does Homer do it all the time?”
“With generous amounts of wine, my lord,” Homer called out.
“Oh, I can’t be that bad, or maybe I can.” He stopped behind a guest that was only a few places down the table from the ponies. “I implore for all of you to sit back and enjoy the bountiful harvest to come this season. Our fields have been shaping up nicely over the course of the year. We’ll be feasting until all of you look like me.” Bakkos drummed his large belly, causing a few of the guests to laugh.
“Now please, eat up, and”-- Bakkos went dead silent when he glanced to the end of the table where the ponies were sitting. Lyra shifted in her chair, giving a nervous smile as the entire room looked down at the table’s end. Then, a wide grin grew on Bakkos’s face. “By Zeus almighty,” he said as he started walking to the end. Without warning, he broke into a scamper and squealed, “That pony is so adorable!”
He scurried across the room in a mad dash for the ponies. Both Daring Do and Lyra both instinctually braced themselves for whatever the wild-eye king was about to do. Diamond Tiara, on the other hand, was too engaged with her silverware to notice an incredibly round man running towards her.
The filly let out a surprised squeal when Bakkos scooped her up, her eyes bulging as he gave her a bear hug. Diamond Tiara cringed when the large man yelled, “She’s so cute!” right into her ear. Her whole world spun out of control as Bakkos swayed left and right. She could hardly scream as her ribcage was almost crushed by a fat king.
“Put… me… down…” Diamond Tiara managed to sputter amidst the royal assault.
Her words fell on deaf ears, evident by Bakkos’s non-stop pony swinging. “She’s soft, and warm, and plushy, and soft! I’m going to name you Princess Softy, because you’re such a softy!”
“Bakkos! Cease this nonsense!” The king stopped swinging Diamond Tiara in his bear hug, much to the filly’s relief. Everyone looked at Tatiana, who bore into the king’s skull with a nasty glare. “Put the horse down.”
“But she’s soft, and pink, and soft,” Bakkos said with a frown. He held out the filly above the table, who looked like she was about to buck the king in the teeth. “Isn’t she cute? She even comes with her own tiara.”
“You’re a king, Bakkos,” Tatiana seethed. “I expect you to act like one. Now put the horse down.”
Bakkos gave his wife a sad look, and then nodded as he placed the filly down in her chair. He didn’t even notice the daggers Diamond Tiara was staring at him with. He walked over to the tabled end, covered his mouth to cough, and smiled at the guests. “I apologize for that. I don’t know what came over me. Shall we eat?”
Homer nodded before signaling a servant to start bringing out the food. Bakkos took his seat at the end of the table. Tatiana sat down at the empty spot next to him, which put her right in front of Diamond Tiara. They both looked away from each other, doing their best to avoid eye contact.
Soon after, a regiment of servants walked into the dining hall with ceramic food platters. They started placing platters at the far end of the table, working their way up towards the king. Bakkos gently rocked in his chair as he watched the servants do their work. “Can you sing any songs?” he asked the filly as he rapped his fingers on the table.
Diamond Tiara turned to face the king, and then leaned back when she saw his goofy little smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she could make out Tatiana silently glaring at her. “No, I don’t really sing that much.”
Lyra jumped out of her seat, flying halfway across the table, waving her hoof in the air. “I do,” she squealed, “I know songs, and can sing them. I know a happy one! ‘Strapped down, to my bed, feet cold,’- Ack!”
Lyra cringed when Daring Do pulled her back and slammed her into her seat, sending a loud, audible crack out as the chair almost snapped apart. Diamond Tiara looked away from the scene and shook her head. “No, I do not know any songs.”
“Can you dance?” Bakkos asked, eliciting a glare from his wife.
Diamond Tiara sighed, rolling her eyes as she ignoring the borderline beat-down Daring Do was putting on to keep Lyra in her seat. “No I can’t dance, either. Are there any other talents you want to ask about?”
“Well, I was hoping you could come to my court tomorrow and be cute,” Bakkos said with an innocent smile.
The filly’s face mimicked Daring Do’s deadpan look she had been giving most of the day. Her ears twitched back when the unicorn’s scream filled the dining hall. “Fish! We’re eating fish! What are we, griffons?”
Diamond Tiara turned just in time for a servant to place a ceramic plate in front of her. On this plate lay a fish, or what was left of a fish. It lay, decapitated, in a pool of black oil, skin peeled off. Its flesh had a light brown coloring to it, as if it had been thoroughly cooked. The filly recoiled when the stench of the fish hit her nose. It wasn’t as bad as the giant’s stench, and it was quite different, taking on a salty quality as opposed to a sweaty one. But Diamond Tiara’s stomach turned all the same. She cusped her mouth when she felt an ominous pressure in her throat.
Bakkos gave the filly a concerned look. “You barely touched your meal and you already look sick,” he said, tilting his head. “Don’t you like fish?”
“I’m sorry if my friends here are acting rude,” Daring Do said to the king in a calm voice. “Ponies don’t eat meat. In fact, we tend to see it as a horrible thing to do. I wasn’t aware humans were carnivores.”
Bakkos shook his head. “No need to apologize. I didn’t think about this as I should’ve. The banquet was already cooked, and I’d assume you’d be fine with it. But alas,” Bakkos paused as he glanced at the filly, who sunk in her chair, “It was a mistake on my part. Any guest, be it mortal or sent from the gods, should have a good meal no matter where they are from. I’ll have the chefs prepare something for you immediately.”
Diamond Tiara slumped out of her seat, standing up on the ground. Her mind waved in the fishy stench. “I wasn’t all that hungry to begin with,” she muttered. “I think I need to sleep. It’s been crazy today.”
“Oh, um, I understand,” Bakkos stammered. “Giants and all, from what I’ve been told. Pheobe, can you show our guest to her room?”
Out of nowhere, Pheobe showed up next to Diamond Tiara. She beckoned the filly to follow her, and they walked out of the dining hall.
Lyra turned to look back as the filly paced herself across the floor. She cocked an eyebrow when she noticed something about her gait. Diamond Tiara didn’t walk slowly and haphazard like a mare that was about to be sick. Instead, the filly walked carefully and loosely, with a bit of sadness in her step. The unicorn watched as the filly walked out of the dining hall, led by a human to where ever her quarters where for the night.
The majority of the banquet turned into a blur in Daring Do’s mind. At some point, the servants switched out the fish with cabbage soup. The soup tasted bland, and hardly compared to what Equestrian chefs could make in a pinch. Granted, the chefs had to make it on short notice, but they could’ve added some spice to bring out the taste. In any case, the important thing about the soup was that it was edible. Daring Do survived on worse during some of her nastier adventures.
Lyra didn’t complain about the impromptu meal. In fact, she almost swallowed the thing whole from how fast she was eating it. If Daring Do didn’t know better, she would’ve guessed this pony was starving to the point of becoming a cannibal. The pegasus ignored the slurping sounds to the best of her ability, though Lyra did her own best to grate her nerves to a fine pulp.
It didn’t take long for the unicorn to finish dinner. Almost as soon as the servant placed the plate in front of her, Lyra cleaned out the bowl. She wiped the soup dripping from her face before getting up from the table and leaving. King Bakkos insisted that she’s stay for the festivities, but Lyra said she needed to make sure her lyre wasn’t broken and it would bug her to no end if she didn’t check it out at that moment. The king couldn’t say no, and she trotted out of the dining hall.
This left Daring Do alone, stuck with a table full of curious humans. Across the span of the evening, she fell into a pattern of taking a bite of her soup, listening to a question, answering, take another bite, and repeat. The questions were as mundane as they came, but were to be expected as the humans knew nothing about ponies, let alone pegasi. Are there more ponies out there? Can you fly? What’s with the hat? Do ponies come in weird colors? Can I see the little princess pony again? How many giants have you beaten before you got here? What is your favorite color? She gave the simplest answers she thought of, keeping her eyes mostly on her food most of the time.
Before she knew it, her soup was gone. Dinner was wrapping up in the dining hall, and human guests were beginning to leave. At first, those that left went unnoticed. But as they exited the banquet one by one, the dining hall felt emptier and emptier. Soon, only a handful of humans were left. Homer was next to say his goodbyes and depart with Anastasia. Daring Do took this opportunity to excuse herself from the table and go to her room.
A servant led Daring Do through the palace halls. The palace was a far cry from the epicness of Cloudsdale’s largest buildings, and it certainly didn’t have the elegance of the regal Canterlot Castle, but it had its own grandeur flavor. The halls were wide enough for a few humans to walk comfortably next to each other. The ceilings were at least two stories high, with a row of windows lining the top of the walls. Everywhere she went, a hallway either had columns, statues, or both standing against the walls.
Her own room the servant led her towards was also grandiose, but the average Canterlot lobby could beat it in any way conceivable. The ceiling was high, but not as high as the hallway. The room had a red theme going on, with red paint covering the walls, and red curtains hanging from a large window. Black pots with orange paintings of people doing various tasks were scattered about the room in different spots. A tan bed stood against the wall across from a couch of a similar color. There was also a desk sitting under the window. The last three objects were made out of a black with white, painted trimming.
Daring Do thanked the servant for leading her here and dismissed him. The pegasus took off her backpack and placed it on the couch, then threw her pith helmet on top of the bag, letting her black mane fall out. Relief flowed through her body once the heavy backpack was off her shoulders. She bent down to stretch her back, flaring out her wings and rolling them in their sockets.
In the back of her mind, she remembered Phoebe told her during the banquet, to meet her outside in the courtyard. Despite the size of the palace, navigating it was straight forward. When the servant showed her to her room, Daring Do saw several outlets that led into the courtyard. Getting there was easy. The hard part was deciding whether to go or not.
Daring Do plopped down on the couch across from her bag. Something about the humans didn’t sit right in the pegasus’s stomach. Whenever one walked around, she couldn’t help but think they were preparing to attack. Sitting down wasn’t so bad, but then something about their faces made her hairs stand on end, even if they had friendly expressions.
And one of these humans asked to meet after dinner. It seemed like an innocent gesture, saying to meet tonight to show something. But it was the innocent gestures that turn into devastating betrayals. This human, Phoebe, seemed innocent enough. For the few minutes they were together, the only thing Daring Do found out about her was that she seemed more innocent than the rest. Yet she was the first human Daring Do had found threatening.
She looked out the window as she thought. The moon was dim tonight, due to it being in its crescent phase. The moon didn’t seem as vibrant as it usually was. Maybe that was because she was on a different world, a world full of humans. If humans replaced ponies in this world, then maybe Princess Celestia had a human counterpart here. Maybe the human princess wasn’t as powerful as the pony princess, and couldn’t make the night sky look as nice as it did in Equestria.
“Wait a moment, Princess Luna’s back,” she reminded herself. “She controls the moon, not Celestia.”
After a few more moments of internal debating, Daring Do made her choice. She flipped off the couch and left her room. The pegasus might as well see what this human has to offer. Threatening feelings aside, she was curious as to what Phoebe wanted to show her. As an educated guess, she figured it would be something impressive the humans made that the pegasus hasn’t seen yet. Maybe it was a monument to the gods, a secret cave under the city, or a memorial for an angel.
She made her way through the hall and out to the courtyard. Immediately she saw Phoebe standing next to Homer’s statue, pacing the length of its pedestal. The human looked up and smiled at the pegasus. “I’m glad you decided to come.”
The human was shorter than others she met, and her arms didn’t have any obvious muscle tone. If worse came to worse, the pegasus would buck her in the teeth and fly away. Daring Do shrugged as she trotted over to Phoebe. “You made me curious.”
“Is Lyra coming to?” she asked. “I know Diamond doesn’t want to go, but I didn’t know anything about your other friend.”
Daring Do shook her head. “She went to check her lyre after dinner. As far as I know, that’s all she’s going to do tonight.”
“That’s a shame. I know she’d love the surprise. You all will.” She turned around and walked away from the statue. “Follow me,” she said, beckoning to Daring Do. The pegasus trotted up to next to her and slowed down to match her pace. “So, what do you think of the human world so far?”
Daring Do took a quick glance at Phoebe, who had a curios look in her eyes. “It’s… different,” she said. “Humans themselves are an odd bunch.”
“I heard what Bakkos did before dinner started,” Phoebe said, letting out a light chuckle. “That man can be such a knob sometimes.”
“Yeah, I didn’t expect that.” In the pegasus’s head, the image of a pink filly in a tiara swinging in the arms of a king popped up. “Do all kings do that here?”
“No, Bakkos is just a special breed of human.” Phoebe added a little more emphasis on ‘special’ than the pegasus thought necessary. “I haven’t lived in Vathy as long as everyone else has, so I only know what’s up from rumors.”
They walked through a doorway at the edge of the courtyard, entering another hallway. “What rumors?” Daring Do asked.
“Oh, just rumors about his uncle, his mother’s brother, actually being his father. From what I hear, his mother banished the uncle after she found out she was pregnant. She convinced the king that her brother was planning an assassination attempt on his life. The uncle got booted out from Vathy, and a few months later a bouncing baby Bakkos came into the world.”
“Great way to put humans up on a pedestal for a visitor,” Daring Do muttered.
“It’s just one of the few rumors that are running around,” Pheobe said as they turned a corner. “It also happens to be my favorite. But in reality, I think he just has mommy issues and never bothered to grow up.”
“He doesn’t sound that great of a king.”
Phoebe shook her head. “He really isn’t. The only reason people like him is because he throws a ton of parties. I don’t think anyone remembers if he’s ever made a good political decision, like that war with Leucas a few years ago.” The human stopped at a large doorway. She pulled out a key and unlocked the doorknob, making a loud click as she turned it. “At least Homer keeps everything from falling apart.”
“Then why keep Bakkos around?”
“He’s a fun guy.” Pheobe pushed open the door, leading the pegasus into a large room. The room had the same red theme as her bedroom did, with red curtains and walls, tan furniture with black, wood frames, and painted pots scattered about. This room was three times as long as the bedroom, making space for rows upon rows of shelving. The selves were packed to the brim with scrolls, up to the point that scrolls were spilling out of several of the lower shelves.
“Welcome to the library,” Phoebe said, closing the door as Daring Do walked in. “Don’t worry, there’s not much in here that’s educational. The palace uses this room mostly to store ledgers and other boring documents.” She locked the door behind her, and then stepped over a pile of scrolls with her short legs. “Sorry about the mess. Those accountant fruits have no sense of organization.”
Daring Do rounded a pile of scrolls. Upon close examination, these scrolls seemed to be made out of a weaker material than the ones from Equestria. Some of them were rolled open, showing paragraphs of hand-written charcoal lettering. “Is there a reason we’re in this room?” The pegasus asked.
“Yeah, no one ever comes in here.” She went over to a shelf on a wall and shuffled through the scrolls. “Well, except the accountants, but they went home a long time ago. It’s a great place to go if you want some private time.” Her arm jerked back, sending a pile of scrolls crashing to the floor. She looked over at Daring Do and flashed a grin. “Especially since I have the only key to that door.”
“Alright, you want to show me a secret then.” Phoebe ignored the pegasus, sending several more scrolls flying across the room. Daring Do let out a sigh, looking at a random pot. This pot had the figure of some sort of scholar painted on it. He was reading a scroll to a young child, who looked at the scholar in amazement. “I’ve had a long day. I want to go to bed. Can you tell me this secret now?”
Several more scrolls soared pass Phoebe’s head. “Sure, just give me a few more moments. Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask,” she glance behind her briefly, “Has anything interesting been happening in Equestria lately?”
“Not much,” Daring Do shrugged. “We have a new princess who’s ruling over the night. I guess tha…” The pegasus’s mouth went limp, her gaze snapping towards Phoebe. For the first time that night, she could look this human in the eye. “You said Equestria.”
The flying scrolls stopped coming off the shelf. Phoebe turned towards the pegasus with an excited smile stretching across her face. “I guess I did.” She pushed her arm to the back of the shelf, turning her hand in the cubby. A loud click filled the room, followed by a dull hum.
Daring Do found it hard to move the muscles in her jaw. “But… never… said… Equestria…”
Phoebe nodded. “Right, you never said where you came from.” The humming jumped several octaves, then ceased to silence. A bright light flashed in the center of the room, blinding Daring Do, forcing her to cover her eyes. Her ears fell flat when a screech ripped through the air. Then, when the room fell silent again, she peaked from behind her foreleg. The pegasus’s jaw dropped.
Floating in the middle of the air, a rip in space opened up into a hole, leading into an endless expanse of darkness. It looked exactly the same to the hole that pulled her into the void, and the hole that sucked Ubara into where ever he went. But now, the hole wasn’t pulling her in with extreme force. It was a rip in space that peacefully floated above the ground.
Phoebe walked around the hole, stopping to stand next to the dumbstruck pegasus. “You want to see something cool, or do you want to go to bed now?”
Daring Do took a step towards the hole. Without the gale-force winds pulling her in, the pegasus felt secure getting close to the portal, but not too close. She walked around the perimeter, careful in keeping her distance. Its shape remained uniform no matter how she looked at it. The portal was an orb that hung in the air. She lifted a hoof up and gently prodded its surface. Her hoof disappeared into the orb, but she wasn’t sucked in. “How?” she finally asked, pulling her hoof out.
Phoebe turned around and walked to the edge of the room. “Want to see what’s going on? “ She grinned at Daring Do when she reached the edge. “I know you want to”
Daring Do nodded.
The human sprinted forward, kicking up scrolls behind her. Her legs kicked up her dress as they charged forth. “To discovery!” she yelled as she ran into Daring Do. The human plowed into the pegasus, sending her flying through the air. The hole filled Daring Do’s vision as she was pushed straight into the darkness.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Daring Do crashed down onto a tile floor. Stars flew through her vision as she tumbled across the ground. When she skidded to a halt, she found the world spinning around her. Nothing felt broken, and the only pain she could feel was a spot that would no doubt develop into a bruise. She had to admit, that human packed more of a punch than expected.
Phoebe ran up next to the pegasus and leaned down next to her. “Sorry, that was more brutal than I intended it to be.” She wrapped an arm around Daring Do’s torso, pulling up to lift the pegasus off the ground. The world stopped spinning in the pegasus’s eyes, and she gained a foothold on the floor. Phoebe let go of her, and Daring Do felt her legs supporting her weight. “I thought you needed a little nudge getting through.”
Daring Do glared at the human, brushing off some dust from her own shoulder. “You call that tackle of yours a little nudge? Why the heck did you think it was necessary to do that? I could’ve cracked my skull on the floor with that kind of move!”
Phoebe shrugged. “The portal was about to close.”
Behind her, a low-pitched slurping filled her ears. Daring Do turned around to see the hole shrink and poof out of existence. The air rushed in to replace the void that the portal left, creating a crack that pierced through the room.
Daring Do went back to glaring at Phoebe. “You could’ve opened it again if it closed.”
“Yeah, I but that would be a waste of a perfectly good portal.” Phoebe glanced towards where the hole used to be. “Human-pony magic isn’t as reliable as I want it to be. We can’t do everything we want it to do.”
With an annoyed grunt, Daring Do turned her attention to figuring out where the portal dropped them off. They stood on top of what the pegasus assumed to be a castle rampart. A wide path stretched from either side of them. A wall towered over the path on one side and a vast landscape spread out on the other. Shadows of small buildings lined the night horizon, forming the outline of a city. It wasn’t as impressive as the Sumerian city Daring Do encountered, but it was certainly larger than the one on Ithaca. At the bottom of the ramparts, the moonlight danced across a river that separated the city from the castle.
“Don’t stand there all night,” Phoebe said, prodding Daring Do’s shoulder. “We got things to do.”
“Not a bad view,” Daring Do noted. “Where are we?”
“Nineveh,” Phoebe replied as she walked down the path. “Same world, different place. You see the city? This is the best time to look at it, when it’s too dark to see. Nineveh has been falling to pieces ever since I first laid eyes on it.”
Daring Do used her wings to catch up with Phoebe. “Is there anything special about it?”
Phoebe shook her head. “Not really. It’s just a good middle ground between all the lands of this world. My friends meet here all the time to trade information. Sometimes, we pretend to be dignitaries so we can get free food at the palace parties.”
“And would these friends also know about Equestria,” Daring Do asked with a knowing look on her face.
“Oh, we don’t just know about it.” Phoebe stood for a moment to flash the pegasus a smug grin. “We’re Equestrians ourselves.”
Daring Do’s ear perked up. “You’re from Equestria?! But Equestria never had any humans.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” Phoebe waved a dismissive hand as she continued to walk. “My friends and I transformed into humans when we left.”
“So… you were a pony?”
Phoebe nodded with a huge smile. “Yep, had a writing cutie mark and everything. I was a pegasus employed as a court scribe. Call me Gilded Feather.” Her smile flattened a tiny amount as she silently considered something. “Eh, don’t call me Gilded Feather. It’ll sound weird if you say it in front of other humans.”
Daring Do eyed Phoebe, or Gilded Feather, from head to toe. She still had that human face that looked like it would attack at any second, nothing like a pony’s face. “How’d a pony turn into a human?”
“You’ve heard the Crystal Empire?”
“Uh, the kingdom that disappeared a millennium ago?”
Phoebe halfway nodded, then her eyes shot open midway through. “Wait… It disappeared?”
“From what I hear.”
“A millennium ago?!”
Daring Do nodded slowly. “…Yes.”
“Oh…” Phoebe’s eyes shifted down as she rubbed the back of her head. “That’s… oh. Wow.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Well, yes.” Phoebe leaned up against the wall, sliding down into a sitting position. “I… it used to be my home, before I, we came here.”
“Oh, um…” Daring Do looked in either direction, keeping an eye out for anyone walking down the wall. The ramparts were empty tonight; it was only them. Shame, Daring Do saw where this conversation was going, and a guard yelling intruder would be a great way to get out of it. “I’m sorry to hear that?”
“Thanks.” Phoebe pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “There was a unicorn, Sombra was his name. He enslaved the Crystal Empire and turned it into hell on earth. We were all forced to do what he said, or else we face his wrath. A small group that worked at the palace escaped through a portal, a magic mirror Sombra didn’t know about.”
“And you ended up here, transformed into humans?”
Phoebe nodded, her hand wiping away the moisture accumulating under her eyes. “I left my family there, my friends, everyone. I left them to suffer with Sombra. I promised I’d get help and save them.” She paused for a moment to take a deep breath, and then looked up at Daring Do with watery eyes. “The Crystal Empire is gone?”
Daring Do looked down for a moment, and then nodded. “For a thousand years.”
“Then I suppose they’re not suffering anymore. Is that a good thing to say?”
“I don’t know.” Daring Do scratched the side of her leg. “I’m not the pony to ask.”
“Well… don’t worry about it.” Phoebe stood up, wiping her eyes once again. “I’ve done my crying a long time ago. I brought you here to show you something cool, not to hear my sob story.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Of course.” Phoebe sniffed before taking off down the ramparts. “I didn’t come to Nineveh to cry. I came to Nineveh to show you magic.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Diamond Tiara laid on the bed, turned onto her side. Phoebe led her to this room earlier after dinner. It had the same layout as a few other rooms she passed by, red walls and curtains, tan bed and couch, a couple of black pots. From between the curtain, moonlight streamed in and bathed the entire room in a soft, blue glow. Underneath the window, there was a black-wood table with white carvings etched on the surface. Earlier, she had placed her picture frame in the center of the table, next to a stack of towels, and placed her tiara over it.
Now the filly lay on her bed, staring at the picture frame. Somehow, she managed to carry it with her through all the action of the day, from walking over hills, to being chased by a giant, to having the living daylights shaken out of her by a portly human. The picture itself was in prime condition, having miraculously sustained no damage during those events.
Even after the entire day, the filly and mare were still playing together, enjoying a sunny day in the middle of a park, captured by photographic ink, forever frozen in time.
Diamond Tiara didn’t stir when someone knocked on the door. She didn’t take her eyes of the picture when that someone opened the door without being properly invited. “Hey, Dia,” a voice said from the doorway, one that the filly recognized as Lyra’s. “Is it alright if I come in?”
“What do you want?” Diamond Tiara murmured, not bothering to look at the doorway.
The filly heard the unicorn scrape her hoof against the floor. “I came to apologize,” Lyra said in a quiet voice, “About what I said earlier today.”
Diamond Tiara turned over on her bed to face the wall. That moment, earlier today. The exact details were a blur though, but the moment came out quite clear. The snarl on the unicorn’s face, how she yelled at her for no reason, she remembered. Lyra said something cruel to her, about her and her mom. The filly couldn’t remember the exact words, only that they were full of spite and no reason.
Lyra paused at the door, standing patiently for a response. The filly remained silent, neither inviting the unicorn in nor yelling at her to go away. Lyra took the silence as an invitation, and she walked up to the couch and sat down. She twiddled her hooves as she waited for Diamond Tiara to say something, but the filly never bothered to look her way.
The unicorn leaned her chin on her hooves, letting out a sigh through her nose. “I’m sorry about what I said. It wasn’t called for, and I was an ass for saying… things like that.” She looked up at the filly, still staring at the wall. “Sometimes… sometimes I just do things without thinking, and I can get carried away. I know it’s a problem, and it’s gotten me into trouble before.” Lyra unconsciously rubbed her neck around the spot that a hoof collided with it several times that day. “I think Daring Do figured it out already.”
Diamond Tiara shifted her legs across the bed covers. Lyra couldn’t tell if she was actually listening, but she continued on anyways. “We just met today, and for me to yell at you like that… You have every right to be angry at me. A total stranger, yelling at you about her problems, not knowing anything about what you’re dealing with, that’ll leave a bad impression.” She rolled her hooves across her ears, looking down at the floor. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your mom, let alone what it’s like for someone to say stuff about her after…”
Lyra rubbed her hooves in tiny circles around her ears as her thoughts trailed off. The bed sheets shuffled, and she looked up to see the filly looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes weren’t as puffy as they were earlier in the day, but they had a soft, red glow in the moonlight. Lyra cusped her hooves over her mouth, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry about what I said. You didn’t deserve what I said, none of it. I wasn’t thinking, and I lashed out at you. If I could… I’d wish it all away, like it never happened. But it did, and I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry at me, or think whatever you want to think about me. It was a stupid thing to do to someone I just met, and I’m sorry.”
Lyra realized the filly wasn’t going to acknowledge anything she said. She leaned back on the couch and looked at the window. The moonlight looked different here than it did in Equestria. She couldn’t fully describe it, but the best way she could put it was that the moonlight lacked life. It lacked the magic that filled the light back at home. It just felt emptier. This empty moonlight fell onto the table, pouring over the picture frame and glinting in the silver of the tiara. With the way the light hit the frame, it cast a shadow over the picture itself, darkening the image in it. Lyra could make out the outlines of the figures in the picture, enough to make a guess of who was in it. “You both look happy in that photo,” the unicorn said, “You and your mom. When was it taken?”
Diamond Tiara rolled over on the bed, her curly hair frizzing up from rubbing against the sheets. She looked up at the photo, careful not to glance at the unicorn. “Last summer,” she said, barely loud enough for Lyra to hear, “During the last month of school.” Her hoof rubbed the sheets in a circle. “She came for Family Appreciation Day, mostly to help set up everything for the families that came. Mom did all the decorations, and we played in the field when she finished with them.”
As Lyra’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out more details in the photo. Diamond Tiara was in the forefront of the picture, with her mother running behind her with a short, white mane billowing out as the mare ran. Her mom had a pink coat, similar to the filly’s, the glowed in the sunlight within the photo. The filly looked behind her, towards the camera, checking to see how far her mom was. They both had large smiles on their faces, Diamond Tiara’s full of laughter, and her mom’s filled with playful determination as she chased her daughter.
The lighting in the room wasn’t bright enough to show the details in the background, but Lyra could barely make out the outlines of a building she had seen during an orchestra tour a couple years ago. “That’s in Canterlot, isn’t it?” she asked.
Diamond Tiara nodded, keeping her gaze on the photo. “Yeah, Canterlot. My school was there, along with my friends.” She paused for a moment to let out a breath. “I don’t live there, not anymore. Dad had me move in with him in Ponyville after…” The sentence died out. Lyra noticed a glimmer in the filly’s eyes.
Lyra shifted her shoulders to get more comfortable on the couch. “Would you like to tell me about your mom? It seems she meant a lot to you.”
The filly’s lip curled as she stared longingly at the photo. “She did,” Diamond Tiara muttered, letting out a breath. “She did a lot with me, said she didn’t want it any other way.” The filly’s voice stuttered. Lyra looked over and noticed her hoof running up and down her wrist. “It’s kinda funny, now that I think about it. For the longest time, she said she wasn’t into kid’s books. She didn’t not like them, they just didn’t click for her, or that’s what she said. But sometime around last summer, I got her into the Daring Do books.” Diamond Tiara turned her head towards the couch, looking over at Lyra for the first time that night. “And I mean she really got into them.”
The unicorn sat up once she met eyes with the filly. “She was a big fan too?”
“Not as big as me,” Diamond Tiara said, shrugging. “But she came with me to the fan club meetings. She’d read the books, then we’d talk about it while we ate dinner at Donut Joes. She even wore a Daring Do shirt to work a few times.” The filly pushed herself up from the sheets to sit up on the bed. “We went on a trip that summer, just for fun. All away around Equestria, we went in a big circle. Las Pegasus, Maressouri, Colterado, a good chunk of the west. We got on a train and enjoyed the time we had together, going on all kinds of adventures.” She took in a choppy breath and looked up at Lyra. “She read a couple of the books on the train, and we read them together at night in a few hotels.
“Towards the end of the trip, we ended up in Manehatten for a Daring Do fan club meet up. It was this big event, and hundreds of other ponies came just to hang out and have fun talking about Daring Do.” Lyra twisted her hoof every time Diamond Tiara mentioned the adventurer’s name, but she did her hardest to contain her feelings about that mare and continued to listen. “Mom signed up to be a chaperone during the meet up, and she took me behind the scenes of a bunch of the events. I even got to meet some cool ponies, like this one artist named Fluffle Puff.” The filly’s lip curled up, letting out a faint chuckle. “She’s very well known in the Daring Do community, but she doesn’t like large crowds that much. Mom had to escort her to the staff area when a bunch of her fans swarmed her. Fluffle was a bit freaked out, though she was nice enough to give me an autograph. She’s a really sweet pony.
“It was a fun time. I even got to read some fan-made stories. Daring Do has a lot of fan-made stories.” Diamond Tiara’s eyes lit up and looked up to the ceiling.
“Wow,” Lyra gasped with wide eyes. “That sounds like an adventure.”
“Yeah, it was.” The filly’s head and ears drooped down, eyes falling to the floor. “Something was wrong with Mom. She had some sort of sickness. She stayed home from work a lot and she kept saying she didn’t feel well. On some days, she wouldn’t get out of bed, not to eat or do anything.”
“What did she have?” Lyra asked, leaning forward on the couch. “Polio? Cancer? Anorexia?”
“I don’t know,” Diamond Tiara said, shaking her head. “Her doctor said nothing was wrong with her. Dad said Mom was just lazy. They were both wrong. I know she was sick. Mom knew too, but no one would help her.” A shiver swept through the filly’s body. A small tear ran down her cheek, glistening in the moonlight. “I wanted to help so badly. She’d wake up a night crying sometimes. I’d go in and hug her, ask what’s wrong, but she never said anything. I tried to help her as much as I could, but I didn’t know what to do. There had to be some way to cure the sickness, but we never found a way.”
The face looked all too familiar for Lyra. The watering eyes, the quivering lip, the choked-back breaths, it was the same face she saw when she lashed out earlier that day. The unicorn got up from the couch and picked up the a from the table. “I’m probably the last pony that should be saying this, but sometimes we can’t do anything about life. As much we want to be, not all ponies are immortal alicorn princesses. Ponies get sick and the worst may happen, whether we like it or not.”
Lyra gave the towel to Diamond Tiara. The filly dabbed her eyes with it, blowing her nose afterwards. “But the way it happened, I could have stopped it. I could have helped her, and she’d still be alive. It was just all… stupid.”
The unicorn slid up onto the bed and sat next to the filly. Lyra waited to be pushed away, but Diamond Tiara didn’t say anything about it. “It is stupid just how short ponies actually live,” Lyra said, looking at the damp towel. “We barely have enough time to do anything with our lives. And we live knowing that there’s stuff out there that can end it all without warning or meaning. It’s scary when you think about it, but it’s just the way of life.”
“Mom could’ve lived longer.” Diamond Tiara ran the towel down her face. She stopped under her chin, resting her head on top of it. “I know I could’ve found a way to help her. She was sick. There was a cure. We just didn’t find it in time. She had so much of her life left.”
“I know. It sucks.” Lyra wrapped her foreleg around the filly’s shoulder’s, giving her a light hug. “But look at it this way. Your mom’s sickness may have put her in some pain. If the doctors said she was fine physically, then maybe she was suffering in her head.” The unicorn lightly rubbed the filly’s back in an attempt to comfort her. “Just think, she’s not suffering anymore. She doesn’t have to live with the pain.”
“But she…” Diamond Tiara paused as she stammered on her words. She jumped away from Lyra onto the floor, throwing the towel at the couch. “No, just no,” she snapped, shaking her head. “Not living with the pain, she’s not living at all! Out of all the stupid things you said today, that’s the most stupid I’ve heard yet!”
Lyra jolted back from the filly’s sudden outburst. “I’m trying to help,” the unicorn said softly. “Isn’t that what ponies say to help with this kind of thing?”
“Yeah, ponies do say those things.” Diamond Tiara’s head violently swiveled towards Lyra, throwing her a glare. “Ponies have been saying stuff like that to me ever since Mom died, and I’ve been saying the same thing back to them over and over again! She was sick, but I know there was a cure. But they don’t listen. They just keep saying stupid things like it’s going to help.” Her previously choppy breathing shifted towards a deep, yet rapid, rhythm. “So what if she’s not in pain? She’s dead. Before that, I knew it was only a matter of time before I could help her. If she lived for a little longer, I knew I would find the cure. But now I can’t, because no one else tried to help her.”
Broken words came out of Lyra’s mouth in a quiet mutter as she tried to say something tangible. “Dia, sorry, I”-
Diamond Tiara cut her off before the unicorn could say anything. “Just please don’t. You came to say sorry. Great, apology accepted.” The filly walked over to the table, where she looked up at the photo frame. “But right now… please just leave.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Phoebe led Daring Do down a winding route through the palace. She regained her composure soon after they left the ramparts, and went the entire way talking about her life before the Crystal Empire disappeared. She was the court scribe, not a long shot from her current job in Greece. She kept the records of the royal family during the day, and spent her nights out in the town center drinking and partying the evening away.
Despite the loud retelling of her drunk adventures, no guards came around to check on Phoebe’s ramblings. In fact, they encountered no one in their entire walk, to Daring Do’s dismay. She expected a maid or someone else to come around to tell Phoebe to keep it down, the royal family is sleeping. As far as she could tell, the castle was abandoned.
After passing through a central chamber, Phoebe led her to a door, where they were right now. It was an uninteresting door; nothing about it differentiated it from other doors they passed. Of course the secrets of the world were behind it. Phoebe threw open the door and held it open for her pegasus companion. “We’ve arrived.”
Daring Do stood outside the door, not making a move forward. She glanced at Phoebe’s welcoming smile, which didn’t feel so welcoming on her human face. “You’re not going to shove me in this time, are you?”
“Pff, no,” Phoebe said, waving a dismissive hand. “I only did that because the portal was going to close on us. You can take forever to walk on in. Well, don’t take forever, not literally anyways. Or figuratively.”
The darkness beyond the door loomed over Daring Do. It wasn’t the same darkness that she encountered in the void, but the kind that hid away many treasures deep in unexplored tombs. That darkness was familiar to her, and more welcoming than Phoebe’s smile.
She walked through the doorway, glancing at the human to watch if she tried anything wacky. Phoebe rapped her fingers on the doorknob, nodding for the pegasus to venture further.
When Daring Do entered the room, one word filled her head. Sumerian. She entered a circular chamber, one with a type of space displacement spell as the chamber’s ceiling reach far beyond the height of the palace. The chamber displayed triangle designs etched over every surface, the lines bathing the room in a warm glow, the same glow to the rocks in the sunken city.
A pedestal sprouted up in the center of the room. Daring Do’s eyes widened as she recognized the figuring sitting on top of it: a marble snake with thorns all over its body, poised to attack and coiled around a flower.
“Behold,” Phoebe exclaimed, beckoning towards the artifact, “The all great and powerful Snake with a Flower Thing!”
“You don’t know what it’s called?”
“The Thorny Snake God,” Phoebe shrugged. “If you’re looking for an actual name, I have no clue. But I do know it’s got some powerful human magic attached to it.”
Daring Do walked up to the pedestal to give the snake a closer look. It was an exact replica of the giant statue she found in the sunken city, except significantly smaller. Daring Do jumped up and hovered in the air. At this scale, she had a higher viewing angle than in the city. It was made of the same marble, with the same amethyst material for the flower. The head was poised to strike an imaginary foe. The snake appeared to be protecting the flower.
Phoebe leaned up against the wall, crossing her legs and arms. “When we first came here, we fell from the ceiling.”
Daring Do looked up at the roof, or the direction of the roof. The chamber went so high that she couldn’t see the pinprick that made up the roof.
“It was a long fall,” Phoebe continued. “In the last second, we all stopped a foot above the ground. I believe the snake thingy there saved us. I assume so at least, because we soon found out how powerful its magic is.”
Daring Do cocked a brow. “You learnt how to use this?”
“Yep,” Phoebe nodded. “Some blue floaty letters told us how. It made teleporting around the world pretty easy. So, do you want to see how humans can use magic?”
“Blue floaty letters,” Daring Do repeated to herself. She looked back at the snake, its marble body reflecting the glow of the walls. “This is definitely Sumerian.”
“Uh, summer-what-now?”
“The Sumer, an ancient race that lived in Equestria ten thousand years ago, or nine thousand in your case. I found a statue just like this one back home, although it was the size of a mountain and buried inside a cave.”
“So you know about this guy?” Phoebe asked pointing to the snake.
“Eh, no. I don’t know much about them.” Daring Do landed next to the pedestal, looking over the backside. “Other than a few poems from a stone tablet, no one knows much more either. They had four high gods, only two of that we know the names of. Enki, the wise and crafty god, and Inanna, the fertile and warmongering god.”
“And our sn”—
“Neither of them aren’t represented by snakes, though,” Daring Do interrupted. “Inanna has lions accompanying her, and Enki has a river for arms. If this is a water serpent, maybe it’s related to Enki.”
“Or the Summer guys just liked snakes.”
Daring Do ignored Phoebe’s comment, or at the least it didn’t register in her mind. “But the snake is coiled up ready to attack, so it could represent the aggressiveness of Inanna. But it’s protecting a flower, more defensive than aggressive. The flower could be a water flower, so that leans towards Enki, but the thorns could be for Inanna. Then again, no one knows the specifics of the other gods.”
“Yes, very interesting. Hey, do you wanna play with magic?”
“Maybe one of others serves as a protector. But a protector wouldn’t make much sense, since ancient cultures put emphasis on offense with snakes, and fertility with flowers. If those two are the case, then it could be related to Inanna.”
“Magic, the snake lets you do magic.”
“Oh, what about human symbolism? This artifact is in the human world, and given how we’ve been displaced from our world, that implies the Sumerians could travel between worlds. This snake could be a symbol for a human culture, and the Sumerians adopted it through either tribute or assimilation. Now would that place the stone tablet before or after the assimilation?”
Phoebe walked up to the opposite side of the pedestal from Daring Do. “Do. You. Want. To. Play. With. Magic?” she asked, emphasizing each word. “It’s the reason I brought you here in the first place.”
Daring Do made no attempt in hiding her groan. “Yes, I know this is magic. I play around with magic relics all the time. Some glow, others sparkle, the rest end the world if not destroyed.” Her head perked up as she circled the snake. “But if you look deeper all the mysticism and doomsday abilities, you can find the reasons why these ancient civilizations made these artifacts in the first place. This snake, for instance, seems to grant transportation capabilities between worlds.”
“It does other cool stuff too. Wanna see?”
“Which suggests the Sumerians might have had an empire spanning across worlds! Who knows how many early cultures they influenced”—
“Yawn, stop talking let’s play with magic.”
The chamber echoed with the sound of grinding teeth coming from Daring Do’s mouth. “This is an ancient artifact of a long dead civilization. How do you not comprehend how big of a discovery this is?”
“I left my family and friends to die under a tyrant by escaping through an ancient artifact. I don’t care if some Summer king used it as a toilet brush, it does cool things and that’s all that matters.”
“For Celestia’s sake, we’re looking at a priceless relic that can tell us a library worth of stories of a long dead race and all you care about is the magic sparkles that come out of it?”
“Do you want to play with it or not?”
“Considering every time I ‘played’ with an ancient relic, a rolling boulder chased me out of the temple.” Daring Do looked up the walls in attempt to find any holes that could potentially launch rocks at her. “Seriously, why is it always boulders?”
“Then you’ve been playing with the wrong magical toys. Go ahead, touch it.” To demonstrate, Phoebe held out a finger and poked the snake, creating a tiny shower of sparks upon contact. “It makes magic.”
“For Celestia’s sake, don’t touch it!”
“What? I’m not dead, my finger is fine. See?” Phoebe wiggled her figure, showing off its full functionality. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Is this all fun and games to you? Do you really consider this a toy?”
Phoebe rubbed her chin in thought for a moment. “Hmm, right now, yes. We have serious business with the snake thing later, but now I just want to play with it. Sure, it does important stuff, but right now, it’s for ‘fun and games.’ Touch it.”
“I feel the term, ‘tempted by a demon,’ applies here, and she’s doing a poor job at it.”
“I’ll stop pestering you to touch it if you touch it. Don’t worry, there are no boulders here.”
Daring Do rolled her eyes in a slightly defeated manner. “Fine, if it’ll zip your lips.” She stuck her hoof out, touching the statue on a body segment with few thorns. A spark ignited upon contact, just like when Phoebe touched it. “There, happy? I swear I’m the only sane pony on this forsaken wor—OW!”
The snake sprung to life. Within the span of a second, its head swiveled around and struck Daring Do’s foreleg, sinking its teeth into the base of her hoof. It gave her no time to react, and gave her little room to move. On reflex, she tried to pull her hoof away from the snake, but it kept her foreleg in a tight position.
Phoebe shrieked in surprise, jumping away from the scene as far as she could. “AHH! The thing moved! It bit you! It bit you!”
“AH!” Daring Do yelled back in pain. “For the love of, ow, ow, ow, I know it bit me! Stop yelling it in my ear!” Her flesh burnt like Tuataras on earth. If bone had nerves, those nerves would be screaming in agony as well. She suspected the fangs went into her marrow.
“I didn’t know it’d bite you! It never did that before! I’m sorry I brought you here!”
Swinging on her hoof, Daring Do flew up into air, throwing her hindleg around to kick the statue in the jaw. She flared out her wings to stop herself from kicking when she remembered the snake was covered in razor sharp thorns. “Stop yelling and help me get it off!”
Phoebe wrapped her hands around the snake’s jaws, trying to pull them apart. “At least you’re not yelling ‘ow’ anymore.”
Daring Do’s face twisted in pain and anger. “Shut up! It stings like a bleeping bleep!”
Phoebe looked up for a moment with a surprised look. “Did you censor yourself?”
“Shut up! I write children’s books!”
Between the two, the snake loosened up from its coil. Its body sprung out, wrapping itself around the rest of Daring Do’s foreleg in a flash. It’s thorns dug deep across her leg. The flower it kept save in its coil bloomed at the base of her hoof, replacing her horseshoe with stone petals.
With nothing keeping her connected to the pedestal, Daring Do flew back and crashed against the wall, dragging Phoebe along with her, who still had her hands tucked into the snake’s mouth. At the moment of impact, Phoebe’s head smacked the bottom of Daring Do’s jaw, whiplashing her had into the wall.
Phoebe rolled off and collapsed on the floor. “That hurt,” the human panted, rubbing the back of her head.
“Uhg, just kill me already.” Daring Do didn’t notice the snake glowing on her arm. Her head rang from the impact from the wall, she was too distracted to note the snake’s magic numbing the stinging pain in her foreleg. The trumpets in her head didn’t help the situation.
“So, uh, sorry about all that,” Phoebe said as she lumbered up to her feet, though her effort ended up with her slumped against the wall. “It never bit one of us before.”
“Yeah… don’t say anything.” Daring Do tried to make out reality from her newfound kaleidoscope vision, though the warm glowing color of the room made the act a challenge. “I hit my head before, but I never get trumpets blaring in the distance.”
“Trumpets?” Phoebe cupped her hand around her ear. After a few seconds, her eyes went wide. “Um, for the record, I didn’t come here just to get you bitten.”
“Yeah, I know,” Daring Do groaned. “You also told me you’re a pony turned human and you wanted to play with magic. I get it.”
“There was another… thing.”
The trumpets blared out in Daring Do’s head once again. “Sorry, can’t hear you, I’m hearing trumpets.”
Phoebe grabbed Daring Do’s foreleg that didn’t have a snake clinging to it, pulling her towards the door. “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s not just you. All of Nineveh can hear those trumpets.”
Daring Do failed to gain her balance and stumbled behind Phoebe. “Er, what?”
“Long story short, those are war trumpets. We need to leave.” Phoebe pulled the pegasus towards the exit, kicking the door open. “Nineveh is under siege tonight.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
In the darkness on the island of Ithaca, five serpentine heads poked over the forested hills. They stared down the town of Vathy, eyeing the largest building in the middle, the palace.
At the edge of town, several guards scrambled around at the sight of the silhouette over the hills. The guards all yelled the same thing.
