Author's Notes:

Well, this is a first, when I ran the chapter through Grammarly it found nothing that needed mending or fixing.

I know we haven’t gotten to any clop yet, but this chapter is a bit of a clop tease. Don’t worry, the more kinky stuff will be showing up in one of the future chapter.

The expedition was finally starting, Daring and Spike both looked unhappy as they waited for the first train of the day. Beside them were two travel bags for each of them, a camping set for each of them, a large travel case of bottled water, a large case of energy bars, a small case of books Twilight had insisted they take along for the ride (Spike had managed to negotiate down from something that would clearly put them over several weight limits), and the magical duplicate of the idol Twilight had made for them the day before.

Celestia, Luna, and Twilight actually managed to arrange for a private car for the two of them going to their starting point for the expedition, also making the offer to do the same with the return trip if the two decided to send word back ahead of time. Spike had mixed feeling about all this, more than he was willing to admit. On one hand, they wouldn’t have to deal with any potentially embarrassing moments on the train, on the other hand, the two would be stuck in the same confined space as each other and if things decided to get odd there would be no incentives to restrain themselves. It was almost like they were trying to get the two of them to be a couple, Spike wouldn’t be surprised if Cadance was in on the plot as well.

Thinking about all that made Spike’s gaze wander towards Daring’s rear, he started getting thoughts of massaging and spanking that somewhat meaty plot. He shook his head to clear it, job first then find a private place to fantasize about things that were likely not going to happen. He just had to keep a level head about him, they were just going to investigate a temple that had held the idol of an ancient draconic deity. A deity that was known for being a sex symbol, inducing the ability to bear offspring, and having a rather erotic nature.

Everything started to click, something had happened to him and Daring when they somehow restored the idol. For Spike it was far more subtle, just being attracted to the one pony that had contact with the artifact immediately before him, the same pony that had admitted to accidentally getting a little blood on the artifact while retrieving it. Daring’s changes were more evident; her figure taking on a much more erotic form, drawing his sexual interest, being the image of his personal fantasies. In short, some sort of magic was at work here, a magic that was very old and not seen in the modern era. It couldn’t be an actual deity pulling the strings, right? Sure, alicorns had divine tier magical power and abilities but they were very rare magical cases.

Spike just hoped nothing weird happened on the train. The sound of the train’s whistle announced its approach, Spike had an ominous feeling that he and Daring were being watched by someone. He hoped everything turned out alright.

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Daring was starting to feel nervous, mostly because she had found herself with far more bags than usual waiting at the train station. Daring had been on trains plenty of times, her trip from the temple to civilization was a tricky one. What she had failed to mention was the fact the train ride would add another six days onto the journey, with a journey this long she was thankful the princesses had decided to give them a fully furnished private train car.

Curiously, Zelshirska hadn’t pulled her from the dream realm for a further conversation the previous night, chances were Princess Luna had managed to tie the dragoness up with a meeting and would not permit any others to be involved. Daring quietly snickered to herself, there was a very good chance Princess Luna wouldn’t be in her chosen attire during the meeting. That line of thought got Daring imagining Princess Luna in the nude, the night princess’s figure was definitely something that Daring’s unasked for ‘gifts’ from the dragon goddess couldn’t compete with, same held true Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance.

None of that was surprising, even Twilight Sparkle was getting to the point nopony could compete with her looks. Alicorns were just on a completely different level than other ponies, in many ways. Daring started wondering what she would be like as an alicorn, the thought had never really crossed her mind before.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of the train whistle being quite nearby, the train managed to stop with the private car that had been reserved for her and Spike stopping right in front of them. The two of them quickly gathered up everything and loaded it into their car before sitting down and trying to relax.

Spike’s way to try and relax was to pull out a Power Ponies comic and do his best to read it, chances were he would get through the thing before lunch rolled around. For Daring it was working on the manuscript for her final story in the series, she was used to having to omit some things but never before had she found she had to do so on such a grand scale. A good fifth of the story needed to be omitted or altered this time around, before then the most she had found herself having to omit or alter was just under a tenth of everything, that meant she was doing over twice as much as before to keep certain things out.

First of all, she had to change the kind of deity it was. She was still keeping it a dragon deity but she was going to change it to a Knowledge deity instead, which wasn’t far off considering what Zelshirska had shared with her. Secondly, she needed to change the deities name, she didn’t want anypony who might actually know the truth about Zelshirska and want to use the power of her idol for less reputable purposes. Thirdly, she was going to have to find a way to tie her novel counterpart’s interactions with the deity into the story in a way that didn’t come off as too much of a plot convenience.

Thinking about the word plot also caused her to think about all the “naughty” things Spike would do to hers. She shook her head to try and clear it, she needed to focus on the matter at hand. Unfortunately, there was actually more than one of those and some of those matters involved her getting potentially emotionally involved with the very dragon that she was sharing a car with.

Daring decided to get a little shuteye, she had actually had a hard time sleeping the night before. She just hoped nothing crazy happened while she was out. But before she could sleep, Spike had to sate his curiosity.

“How long will the train ride be?” Spike inquired.

“A few days,” said Daring, “I hope you brought enough to keep your interest during idle moments such as this.”

“Not really, just enough to hold my attention for a few hours. You really should have warned me ahead of time.”

“I would have, but we both had so many menial errands to run that we really didn’t have time to talk about this sort of thing. And the few times we were alone we both found ourselves feeling so awkward that one or both of us felt the need to part ways without so much as a word.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that,” said Spike with a bit of annoyance regarding the truth of her statement. With that, Daring fell asleep in her chair.

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She must be more tired than I thought, thought Spike, and it doesn’t help that I’m finding her sleeping slouch cute, what is wrong with me?

Spike did not like how his mind was wandering towards Daring Do. After five hours, during which Daring was still sleeping, Spike had literally gone through all of his materials to keep busy. He took a look at the manuscript for the final Daring Do novel, which had about a dozen notes on and around it stating that it was to not be touched or looked at without permission.

Spike chuckled to himself, mostly thinking of how Twilight and Rainbow Dash react to this situation. Twilight would be in conflict because it’s a book still being written and her personal need to follow the rules and wishes of others whenever appropriate. Twilight had admitted after the Zeppelin Incident, as they had come to call it, she was more wary about deals she made, much to the annoyance of several business ponies that came to her over the years with propositions. Rainbow Dash would likely just disregard the notes and go straight to reading, that was before she was put in a position of command. The old Rainbow would definitely do that, the current Rainbow was actually a pretty big stickler rules and regulations. Before joining the Wonderbolts she thought those things were just something to hold back ponies from doing things, she still held the opinion that some did just that, but she had learned most of those rules and regulations were there for the safety and benefit of the populace and make sure ponies didn’t hurt themselves to severely.

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At about hour six of Daring’s decision to sleep she finally woke up. Spike was still very much awake, most likely due to his needing to be of use to Twilight whenever she asked it of him. Daring felt an urge, one she didn’t want to suppress. She trotted right up to Spike and sat on his lap in a way that caused her breasts to press against his chest, she could feel his body reacting. The thought of triggering an erection in the dragon was actually sending a shiver of delight down her spine.

A little known secret Daring had when she was a teenager, before her sister disappeared without a trace, was the fact she once had a dragon fetish. She thought she had outgrown that little kink, but apparently, Zelshirska decided to revive it and slowly crank it into overdrive. Spike stared at her with surprise as their eyes were almost perfectly lined up, she licked her lips erotically before sensually leaning closer to his face. Daring had never kissed anyone on the mouth before, Spike was going to be her first and she was going to her best to make the experience as memorable as possible.

When his mouth was in the process of opening is when she struck, with a quickness and precision that it surprised Spike even more. She made the kiss on his lips an amazingly sensual one somehow, she had never kissed anyone before yet she somehow knew how to make the kiss amazing from start to finish.

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When Daring forced her tongue into his mouth, in the most stimulating way possible, calling what Spike found his tongue was doing with Daring’s “wrestling” would be an understatement of the highest order. It was like their tongues were dancing to an unheard, yet incredibly erotic, rhythm. His forked tongue and her amazingly articulate pony tongue seemed to go through different dances every few seconds with an unheard series of tempos. What’s more, his boners were going into overtime. If he was right any moment she would notice his half-mast rods...and there it was a smile of surprise and erotic delight, while she continued to tongue him. It was almost as if he was interacting with someone entirely different, yet not.

Daring was stimulating him in ways that aroused his sexual side, but she seemed to be waiting for a moment to take it to doing all this with no clothing on. Spike had never been so grateful for having articles of clothing blocking the advance of another before, he was also cursing himself for not trying to remove clothing when Daring had done that erotic lip lick.

As things were now, Spike didn’t want to take off his shirt, or Daring’s, for fear that once their kiss was ended they would never experience the sensation again. The way she kissed made him think she had clearly done this before, or at least had practiced in some manner or way. In addition to that, the way she had her bosom pressed against his chest was enticing but still very comfortable. Daring hadn’t had a bust like this a few days ago, so how did she know exactly how to press herself to him in such a way?

Spike really didn’t care at the moment, he just wanted to see how long the kiss went. Maybe, if they were lucky (he mentally snickered at the choice of wording), they would actually end up making or breaking a record regarding the length of a kiss, he was totally going to ask Twilight about the kissing record thing.