The both of you are outside your designated ride. Considering it is not what most people would call, “legal,” to board a zeppelin without tickets, you and your winged companion are crouching behind the giant flying death-box.

How you haven’t been spotted seems to be a miracle, but this area doesn’t seem to be heavily guarded for whatever reason.

Zeppelins give you a very uneasy feeling, for some reason. It’s probably nothing, though. Most things seem to give you that feeling.

You’ve basically had that feeling since waking up in the jungle a few days ago. You’ve grown uncomfortably used to it.

Crossing the open and active airfield was actually pretty easy. There were no security cameras, no security guards… no security whatsoever, really.

Besides that sign, of course, but that didn’t seem to stop you and Daring from hopping that fence and coming across now, did it?

No. It did not.

It should worry you that security is so loose here, but at this moment it’s a very good thing. Having to dodge more obstacles than absolutely necessary is not something that sounds especially appealing right now.

In fact, if you wouldn’t mind if you never had to dodge another sort of obstacle ever again, ever; whether it be guards, murderers, booby traps, or whatever. The fewer the better, as they say.

It is troubling, though, that anyone can do what you are doing. Think about it. Anyone can walk across the active runway. Anyone can sneak onto a zeppelin.

One of these days something really bad is gonna happen, then security will finally be taken seriously.

Oh well. Not your problem.

“The best way to get in is the staff bathroom in the very back,” Daring says, not whispers. One would think that when attempting to “sneak” somewhere, someone should “speak quietly” or “shut the hell up.”

But, of course, it’s Daring. And she’s gonna do whatever she does and that’s just about that.

Not that you really have a problem with that; her personality, that is.

The more you stay around her, the more she seems to be growing on you. She’s a pretty cool pony… sometimes.

She knows how to get on your nerves a little too well, especially for someone you only recently met, but you really like that.

If the both of you agreed on everything, what would you talk about? What would you do all the time if not argue? You’re not sure.

The good thing is that the both of you have yet to find anything you agree on, aside from the fact that Kiduttaa is an asshole, but everyone can see that.

No, Daring and you don’t really get along well, but you really like her, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her straightforwardness is something you admire, and you love that she is not afraid to take chances. Of course, that has gotten the both of you in quite a decent amount of trouble, and you guarantee something very bad is gonna happen to either you or her because of it.

You love that she’s doesn’t back down from a challenge and that she’s not afraid of anything. Nothing at all.

She’d trot up to Stalin himself and smack him across the mouth if she wanted to.

You can’t say the same for yourself. Ever since you got here, fear is something you have really gotten to know.

The only thing that seems to worry your yellow companion is that weird French pony she was telling you about. And that worries you, too, for a number of reasons, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

What are the chances of running into that guy? Or the rest of those dudes she was telling you about at the bar?

Little to none, hopefully, but anything can happen. You’ve really come to believe that in the past few days.

Whatever. At least you’re with Daring, now, and you pray that things will stay that way.

“Why are you staring at me?” Daring asks, her red eyes looking into yours, her cheeks slightly pink.

Was I staring?

Yes. You were staring.

I wasn’t staring.

“I wasn’t staring,” you say, looking away.

“Yeah? Then what do you call it when someone looks at you for a really long time without saying anything and doesn’t blink?”

Think… Think! You’re smart! Say something witty! Say something witty!

“I call it ‘mind your own damn business’,” you respond, your face feeling warmer than it already is.

Way to be clever, you moron!

And there’s another thing about Daring; she’s quick. Quicker than you, usually, but you can give her a run for her bits on a good day.

Today is just not a good day. You can feel it already.

Daring finds your response rather humorous, and takes a few moments to laugh. Whether it be at your statement, or you, or both, you cannot tell.

“Aw, man,” she chuckles, regaining her composure. “I love you, Jay. I really do.”

You roll your eyes, partially at her laughing and partially at the name ‘Jay.’ It doesn’t feel right when she calls you that. “Yeah, I bet. What’s the plan, now?”

The both of you are standing towards the back of the zeppelin. The only way in seems to be a rather small window high above you. For only a second, you wonder how you’re supposed to make it up there.

Then the answer wraps her forelegs around your chest and under your armpits and starts flying again.

“Don’t move around this time,” she commands, her voice strained. “As if lifting your fat ass isn’t hard enough already.”

Nothing witty or clever comes to mind, so you choose not to respond. It’s a slow day. Everyone has them sometimes.

Daring flaps hard, her wings making an easy to hear *whoosh* sound with every motion, and you get a little closer to the window every second.

The window looked really small from the ground, and now that you have almost reached it, you can confirm that it is really small.

Smaller than you thought. It’s big enough for Daring, but for you? Maybe not.

“Open the window!” she pants. “Open the window! Quickly!”

“But you told me not to move.”

“I’m not in the mood right now, Jay! Open the window or I’m gonna open your skull!”

You’re not usually threatened by the small, yellow mare, but she is holding you very high over a very hard surface. It would be best if she did not drop you.

The window opens with one easy push of the hand. One may expect the window to be locked, but apparently not. It doesn’t seem like anyone around here takes security seriously.

What is wrong with these ponies?!

You shouldn’t feel so upset about the lack of security, but you are. This is just ridiculous.

Daring, eager to get rid of the extra weight, practically throws you at the window once you get both arms inside. The lack of Daring holding you up is surprising, as you suddenly have to support your full weight once again.

You slowly pull yourself up and mostly through the window before flopping onto the floor. Daring is quick to follow you and she shuts the window behind her.

“Good thing this room is empty,” you say, observing the bathroom and its’ lack of a user.

Daring chuckles. “Yeah. One time I came in and there was some guy already in here. I surprised him so bad he… ha ha… well, I definitely surprised him, I’ll tell you that. I’ll let you infer the rest.”

You don’t want to think of other random animals shitting themselves right now.

“Where do we go from here? We don’t look like we’re part of the crew.”

Daring rolls her big red eyes. “Well, you don’t, that’s for sure. You don’t look like anything.”

She pauses for a moment, as though she is expecting you to say something. Which you don’t.

Noticing the silence, she continues. “We gotta get to the lobby. Once we’re there, we can just chill on one of the couches or something.”

“How do we get there?”

“Easy. It’s just through the kitchen.”

You let out a breath.

“The kitchen?” you ask, incredulously.

“Eeyup.”

“I assume the kitchen will be occupied?”

“Uh, duh. Where else would the chefs make the food?”

You rub your forehead and clear your throat. “How the hell are we supposed to get through there without being spotted?”

“It’s called ‘sneaking’.”

You have just about had it with Daring’s shit today, and it’s barely noon.

“And how exactly do you expect me to get through there unnoticed?”

Daring shrugs. “I don’t know. We’re gonna have to go in there and find out.”

As much as you would love to argue right now, following Daring seems to be the only option you have, as it always is. It’s not like you can leave now, considering the exit is a window that drops to your death.

And you have come too far already to die by falling out a bathroom window.

“Let’s go,” Daring whispers to you, opening the door slightly and creeping out. You duck down and follow behind her.

The kitchen, for the moment, is empty. It’s a small area for a kitchen, but it probably works well enough. There are stoves and a few push carts on the side of the room used to deliver the food out to the passengers.

You assume the staff is still bringing stuff on board, or else they’d be in here. How fortuitous for you.

As that thought crosses your mind, the door on the far end of the room opens.

Before you can register what is fully happening and curse your luck, a yellow hoof grips your collar and yanks you behind one of the food carts.

You pull your knees into your chest and ball up as much as possible, trying to shrink yourself.

Daring huddles close to you as the sounds of hooves fill the room. You can feel Daring’s wing rub against your side and her head pushing on your shoulder as she tries to duck down too.

Shit! Great plan, Daring.

You glance over at her and she puts a hoof to her lips, signalling for you to stay quiet. Then she tries to scoot herself even closer to you, as if that were possible.

By the sounds of it, it is only one pony. Ponies have four legs, so it sometimes sounds like there are more than there are, but you’ve gotten used to it. Only one guy.

For a brief moment, you try to figure out a good way to distract him, but come up with nothing.

Maybe you can kill him.

No, better not.

Luckily, you don’t have to be creative or allow your mind to contemplate murder as the pony opens the door he came in from and exits.

Daring is quick to move away from you and towards the door. “Come on,” she hisses as you lazily rise back to your feet.

You quickly move towards the door and the both of you exit, closing the door behind you as to avoid any suspicion. At least, that’s the idea.

The lobby you have entered is just starting to get full of passengers, and luckily, none of them appear to have noticed you or Daring.

Thank God for that.

Not that it would have really mattered, anyway. If they saw you, they’d just assume you were waiters or something.

The lobby is very nice. There are plenty of sofas and tables with chairs. This place is full of places just to sit and relax.

Your kind of place.

There’s even a bar towards the end of the lobby, which you may be stopping by later, and Daring with you. She claims not to drink much, but your memory of last night contradicts that.

It’s a miracle she didn’t wake up with a hangover. She seemed pretty out of it last night.

What a lightweight.

She really is. She didn’t have so much to drink that she should have been that drunk. So, either she’s a lightweight or she wasn’t actually drunk and was just pretending.

You can think about that later. Best to get settled in, now, while there are still seats available.

You look forward to nice, long, relaxing ride.

“Let’s get that sofa over there before it’s taken!” Daring says rather loudly, this time getting a few ponies’ attention.

Daring bolts over to the end of the zeppelin and dives, flopping onto the sofa right next to the window.

“Ahh,” she sighs, relaxing. “It’s good to sit down again.”

You walk over, being careful not to trip on anypony. There is a stack of newspapers on a table you pass, and you decide to grab one. This ride is supposed to be rather long, so you may as well do something besides sleep and argue with your infamous, grave-robbing friend.

“I can’t believe that worked,” you say, taking a seat next to Daring and getting yourself comfortable.

“Pfft!” she scoffs. “Of course it worked! Who do you think you’re dealing with, here?”

“Someone who brags too much.”

“There’s no such thing as bragging ‘too much’ as long as you can back it up. Which, I can.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You open your paper and scan the pages.

“Now, Jay, it’s smooth sailing from here on out!”

You really wish she hadn’t said that. You want to believe her, but you can’t. Especially not after she just said that.

I can’t believe she would say that.

She jinxed it. She jinxed everything. Something terrible is gonna happen soon, you just know it.

“Wake me up when they start bringing food around, ‘k?” she asks, taking off her pith helmet and placing it on the table in front of the sofa.

“Sure.”

Despite the sofa being rather large, and thus, there is plenty of room to lie down fully, she turns herself so that she is leaning against you; her head resting on your shoulder.

Why doesn’t she just lie down if she wants to sleep? It’s probably more comfortable, and you won’t bother her by moving around that way.

You don’t mind it, though. It’s just rather strange that she would choose to do that. As long as she’s comfortable and happy, so are you.

==========

You feel Daring shift her head a little bit on your shoulder as she nuzzles your neck. The feeling of her fur on you is strange, as though she is tickling you. The feeling definitely makes it harder for you to concentrate on reading.

You try to glance down at her but that proves difficult, as her head is in the way. Just by moving your eyes, you can see that her eyes are closed and a small smile is on her face.

She probably hasn’t fallen asleep yet. She’s only been lying like that for a few minutes. The zeppelin hasn’t even taken off.

You shift around a little bit to get a little more comfy before turning back to the paper.

For whatever reason, you find it hard to concentrate.

==========

Daring is really smart, you think while reading the paper but not taking in any of the information. She has proven that to you on multiple occasions.

For one, you would never have thought to take a zeppelin to wherever the hell else you were gonna go. You would’ve tried walking there or something.

But that’s probably due to the fact that you didn’t even know they existed until this morning.

She also broke out of that prison cell Kiduttaa had you in. You don’t have a clue how, but she did it.

She’s smart, she’s ingenuitive, she’s funny.

And she’s pretty.

“Watch it!” she yelps, scooting a bit away from you. “You trying to crush my wing or something?”

You turn your attention from your paper and to Daring for the first time since you sat down. “What?”

“You gotta be more careful, dude. Wings are sensitive, you know, so that means you shouldn’t try to crush them between you and the damn couch.”

“Then don’t wrap your wing around me,” you respond simply. She was the one who fell asleep on you.

“Yeah right! Why the hell would I ever do that?” she asks harshly.

“Jesus, Daring, I don’t know. You done? I’m trying to-”

“No.”

“No?”

“What?” She glances at you before looking to the other side of the room. “No, not you, Jay. Not…”

“What is it?” you ask quietly, scanning the room as well. You don’t know what she’s looking for, but you’re trying to help out anyway.

“I’ll be right back.” She begins to get up and tilts her helmet down more over her face.

“Where are you going?” you ask, sounding worried.

“Don’t move,” she glances back at you before leaving.

She trots off into the crowd of passengers who are finally getting settled. Your eyes follow Daring as she trots away before she disappears behind a door.

Oh shit. Something’s going down.

You knew something bad was going to happen. It just had to. Everything was too easy for you this morning.

You don’t know what to do. Should you keep looking around? Should you hide?

Daring told you to stay, and you trust her. So you’ll stay. Just go back to reading the paper and everything will be fine.

You open the paper and try to read again, but no sooner does that happen then do you hear a voice directed at you.

“Excuse me, sir?” you hear, and you lower the paper a little bit.

Behind it stands a white unicorn with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a nice black suit with a red band around his left foreleg. By the sound of his voice, he sounds German. Or the pony-German equivalent.

When he sees your face, his face lights up like the night sky on the fourth of July. And you are nervous.

A smile creeps his way onto his face.

“Got you.”

Now you’re scared.

“Now where is our little yellow friend?”

You can’t even make a move to respond. All of those memories of being trapped with Kiduttaa have suddenly resurfaced and you are paralyzed.

What does this guy want? What is he going to do to me?

He levitates a pamphlet out of his jacket pocket and shows you the inside.

On the left is a picture of Daring.

On the right is a picture of… you?

“That’s me…” you whisper.

“Ja. That is you.” His smile never falters.

You don’t recognize that picture of you. But you know it’s you. It looks just like you! How the hell does this guy have a picture of you?

It does not concern you that he has a picture of Daring. She is a known criminal, apparently. Shocker.

But a picture of you? And one that was not taken all that recently. At least not since you’ve been with Daring!

How the hell does he have that picture? Who is he?!

You are sweating now.

“Excuse me?” a familiar female voice asks.

The white stallion turns to see Daring. Only Daring is now wearing a white hat and shirt, like she’s part of the crew or something.

The unicorn stares for a second. Just a second.

His eyes widen in recognition of just who is standing in front of him.

No sooner does that recognition come to him than does Daring’s hoof. The yellow pegasus uppercuts the suit-wearing pony in the jaw, hard, causing him to actually lift off the ground and land flat on his back.

You instinctively move backwards on the sofa.

Daring grabs the injured unicorn, picks him up, and throws him out the open window.

Lucky for him, he lands on a pile of luggage. Lucky for you, he appears to be unconscious.

Daring exhales and pushes her mane out of her face before looking around the cabin.

Everyone is staring at her. And for good reason, too. She just threw some dude out the damn window.

“He didn’t have a ticket,” she says, pointing out the window, her voice echoing in the silent room.

Immediately, every being with a ticket on board this shit pulls it out and raises it above their head. The gesture would be comical if you weren’t terrified.

“Oh shit,” Daring breathes. “They found us. I don’t know how, but they found us.” She sits next to you on the sofa as the zeppelin finally begins to move.

“Who, Daring?” you ask. “Who found us?”

“I’m not really sure what they call themselves,” she says, scooting really close to you and putting a hoof on your thigh to calm you down. “But we call them the ‘Koirat’. And you don’t want to mess with them.”

Author's Notes:

Thank you for the patience!
Always appreciated.
A lot of you called this little 'ticket scene' in the comments of recent chapters, so congratulations, you were correct! I always planned on having that scene in my story, so good on you guys.
Merry Christmas!
Love you!