This plane ride is exceptionally long. How long have you been sitting on this couch? Three… four days?

Maybe years.

It is only a matter of time before this metal blimp runs out of food and the passengers are forced into cannibalism.

You and Daring are probably the strongest individuals on board this vessel; or so you like to think. So once cannibalism begins, you and Daring will be able to defend yourselves and eat the others.

Who knows how much fuel this blimp has. You don’t know what this contraption runs on. Gasoline? Magic?

For all you know, there are gryphons underneath this blimp holding it up while they fly.

Once they die, it’s all over. This whole thing is going down.

“How long have we been on this thing?!” you groan, falling back into the couch, which has gradually become very uncomfortable due to the amount of time you have spent seated on the thing.

Daring looks at you, turning away from the window. “I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Like… five… six hours?”

Impossible. You must have been stuck on this blimp for at least a few months. This ride is endless, and the only thing to do to pass the time is to argue with Daring, which becomes less and less fun the more you do it for some reason.

“Your food, sir,” the waiter says, placing a tray down in front of you. “And you, madam.” A separate tray is placed in front of your winged companion and only friend.

As it turns out, this place still does have food, and you did order. The only meat option on the menu was a chicken breast, which is what you got. Daring got a salad or some leafy dish. You don’t really care.

You snicker to yourself, lost in your thoughts. Daring curiously looks over at you, making you chuckle a bit louder.

“What?” she deadpans.

“The waiter,” you begin. “He… He called you, ‘madam.’”

For some reason that causes you to laugh even harder. Daring rolls her eyes and sips her drink.

“That’s cause I’m a lady.”

Your laughing continues and cannot be stopped. Daring doesn’t join in, but she smiles at you.

Daring continues to eat and relaxes further into the couch that the both of you have been sitting on for hours. The pegasus is lying down on her stomach with her head facing away from you.

As you finally calm down, you start thinking, as you often do.

Do you have to pay for this meal? The wait staff here has been giving you shit, but you haven’t thought about a price. Would purchasing a ticket be all-inclusive? You didn’t buy a ticket.

Not matter. Everything seems to work out somehow. You actually have a lot of luck for someone who always manages to wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How much longer is this ride?

“You know…” Daring says, stretching. Her hind legs push against you a little as she does so. “I never did tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark, did I?” she questions, sliding her rump a bit closer to you, showing off the tattoo.

Naturally, you look down at her butt tattoo. You’ve seen it before, and because she enjoys showing it off, you will definitely be seeing it in the future.

The discomfort you felt at looking at the tattoo a few days ago has disappeared. Daring doesn’t seem to mind you looking, so why should you?

“What do you mean?” you ask. “Didn’t you just get it at a tattoo parlor or something?”

“Pfft! No. Not all ponies get tattoos, but most get cutie marks. Ponies get cutie marks when they discover what they’re meant to do in life.” She looks at you like what she is saying should be obvious. “Did you seriously not know that?”

“I may have, at some point.” Your memory still isn’t the best.

“I could’ve sworn I told you… No matter. Do you wanna hear the story?”

You may as well. She seems really eager to tell it, so you decide to indulge her.

“Sure, Daring,” you say. “Go right ahead.”

She gazes fondly up at the ceiling. “I was about 8 years old, which is when most foals start getting their cutie marks. I remember everything like it was yesterday…”

==========

It is very dry and humid in the deserts of southwestern Equestria.

A little yellow filly wonders why she chose to come along with so many other ponies when she could be exploring by herself. These ponies are just slowing her down!

Surely if the little filly goes off by herself she will find something cool. These stupid boy scouts don’t do anything but walk around and talk about lame badges.

Who cares! There’s so much to explore out here, she doesn’t even know where to begin.

“You look excited,” a slightly older blue unicorn says to the red eyed pegasus.

“Sure I am,” Daring responds. “Who wouldn’t be? I mean, just look at all the places to explore!”

Daring gestures around with her tiny legs at all the caverns that surround the scout troop.

“Uh…” the unicorn begins. “We can’t go exploring, Daring. We gotta stick with the group. If we don’t, we might get lost or get in trouble, and I can’t get in trouble if I want to get all my badges.”

“Geez, Lucas, you’re the biggest dork I’ve ever met. And I’ve met hundreds of dorks from here to Fillydelphia.”

“Hey!”

“Where is the excitement? I thought you colt-scouts went out and actually did stuff.”

“We do stuff.”

“Lame stuff. I’m talking about exploring and adventure! Going where nopony has been in centuries! Risking life and limb for fame and glory!”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Only to dorks and pansies.”

“I am neither.”

“You are both.”

The red-eyed filly, fed up with walking, decides to jump onto her companion’s back. She lays down in a huff and allows all four of her legs to dangle over his sides.

“This is sooo boring!” Daring groans.

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Relax, Daring. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?!”

“I don’t know.”

“For the love of…” Daring jumps off Lucas’ back and starts looking around again. She suppresses the strong urge to run off by herself and into one of the caves.

Daring hears something.

What was that noise? It sounded like voices to her, but it couldn’t have been from anypony in the scout troop. It sounded more distant than that…

She turns her attention towards one of the caves and stares intently at it, concentrating.

There’s definitely somepony over there.

“Come on, Pipsqueak,” Lucas calls, having walked a good distance ahead of the filly.

“Don’t call me ‘Pipsqueek,’ asshole!” the filly shouts, scowling and running to catch up.

“Hey! You can’t say, ‘asshole!’ You’re just a filly!”

“And you’re an asshole! Asshole!”

“Oh yeah? Who let you come along with his colt-scout troop? Was it me?” He pretends to think as Daring scowls up at him. “Oh yeah! It was me.”

Daring somehow manages to control her short temper and not say what she really wants to.

“Thank… you…” she manages through gritted teeth, and the older stallion smiles at the great victory that is making Daring apologize.

“You’re too cute,” Lucas says, ruffling up the pegasus’ mane.

Daring pushes away and styles her mane back into its usual form.

“You should watch your language more. You shouldn’t swear, like ever. You’re only six.”

“I’m eight and a half!”

Lucas shrugs.

The two continue the walk with the rest of the scout troop. Daring glances back occasionally to that cave where she heard the voices.

After only a minute or two, they all finally stop.

“Alright, lads!” scout leader Spielberg yells. “Let’s take a break. No one wander off!”

“Let’s go check out that cave!” Daring whispers excitedly to her older companion, despite what the scout leader has literally just announced.

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Did you not hear Mr. Spielberg? He just said we can’t wander off.”

“We can do whatever we want. It’s a free country. Besides, he’s not my scout leader.”

“No, but he is the adult, and he knows best.”

“Adults are stupid.”

“You’re stupid.”

“You’re boring!” The little yellow filly turns in a huff and begins walking towards the cave.

“What are you doing?” Lucas asks, a little panicked, trotting to catch up with the little pegasus.

“What do you mean, ‘What are you doing?’ I just told you! I’m exploring that cave!” Daring tries to propel herself forward at a faster rate by flapping her undersized wings, but she is unable to get herself off the ground.

“You can’t go by yourself!”

“Then come with me!”

Before Lucas can respond, the little filly has already bolted in the direction of the cave. Seeing no other options, Lucas follows. He checks over his shoulder to make sure they sneak away unnoticed by the rest of the troop.

Daring runs into the cave and immediately hears some group of ponies talking. She can’t make out any words yet, but she knows they’re in here somewhere.

There is only one path in this cave. Thankfully, she hears voices coming from there, so she begins walking.

She proceeds quietly in order to sneak up on whoever is in there.

“Wait!” Lucas says, finally catching up.

“Shh! Not so loud,” she whispers. Without saying anything else, the filly begins to move forward along her path with Lucas hesitantly following.

After a few short moments, Daring and Lucas come up to a ledge that looks over the bottom part of the cave. In the bottom part, Daring counts four ponies.

Three of them are digging. Two are wearing pith helmets and another is wearing a baseball cap.

There is a fourth guy in a leather jacket and fedora who is not digging, but casually observing what is happening.

“Who are they?” Lucas asks.

“Shh! How am I supposed to know?” Daring moves as close as she can to the ledge to hear what they are saying.

“Keep digging, boys!” the one in the fedora, who is not digging, instructs. Daring assumes this one is their leader, as he is not doing any physical work and is wearing a jacket. Why would somepony where a jacket out here? It’s 90 degrees out here.

But Daring must admit she really likes that jacket. She wants it.

But even better than the jacket, she wants what they just dug up.

One of the diggers grabs something out of a hole and excitedly rushes it over to the jacket-wearing pony. The other two are quick to follow, looking equally as excited. Their leader takes the object and begins to closely observe it.

“What is it, boss?!” one of the diggers asks excitedly. “What is it?!”

“It’s gold, ain’t it?” another digger asks.

“Is it worth a lot?” the third one cuts in. “Are we rich?!”

“Shut up, morons,” the fedora-wearing stallion breathes, observing the artifact. He turns it over and over again slowly, looking at closely as he possibly can at the thing.

“Keep digging,” he instructs, still looking at the golden star-like object.

The other three stallions quickly grab up their gear and get back to digging in the same spot where they found the star, hoping to find something else. They push each other around a bit, trying to get the best potential spot to actually dig something up.

“It’s real,” the fedora says to himself, placing the golden star on the ground.

“What is it, boss?” one of the workers asks, having stopped digging for a moment.

“The star of Jehovah!” the leader says, glancing behind him at the object on the ground. “And yes, it is worth a pretty penny.”

Daring’s eyes go wide and her mouth forms into an “o” as she gazes at the object, which must be worth a fortune. From what the filly can see, the object they possess is a star of David made of gold.

She wants it.

“But how are the four of us going to split a penny?” the digger asks.

“It’s an expression, you dolt. Now keep digging!” The leader walks up closer to the diggers to instruct them.

Daring sees the star laying on the ground, and she sees the diggers, facing the exact opposite direction.

They look pretty busy. Nopony seems to be paying much attention to the priceless artifact.

So why not just take it?

Daring begins to move forward.

“What are you doing?” her companion asks.

“Lower me down!” Daring whispers excitedly, her eyes moving rapidly between the gold star and Lucas.

“What?” Lucas asks, disbelievingly. “No way! Have you seen those guys? If they see us here, they’ll kill us.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” Daring turns around, looking over the edge of her position. “Just like, use your unicorn magic and float me down a little.”

“Why don’t you just fly? Oh wait...”

“Why don’t I just kick your teeth in?”

“Daring! I’m not going to help you- ah!” Lucas exclaims, backing up a little bit.

The filly looks down and sees a snake, slithering towards Lucas. She rolls her eyes before picking it up between her hooves and tossing it away.

“I’m getting out of here. And you should too!”

In just a few seconds, Lucas scurries out of the cave.

“Fine then,” Daring breathes. “I don’t need your help anyway. I can do this myself.”

Daring knows better than anypony else that she cannot fly, but she needs to get down to ground level in order to get the star.

The wall is a little rocky, so she gives that shot.

Daring slowly climbs down the wall so that she is on the same level as these “archaeologists,” or whatever they are supposed to be. Her small hooves are great for gripping the tiny indents in the cave wall, allowing her to safely move down.

Her hoof slips off one of the rocks and her undersized wings flare out to either side of her, but she manages to hold on. She freezes on the wall for a second, making sure the diggers didn’t hear her.

They are all too preoccupied with searching for more treasures to hear anything. After the excitement they felt after the first artifact they dug up, there is no way they are paying attention to anything other than finding more gold.

The filly’s hooves touch the cold stone of the cavern floor. Her red eyes do not move away from the diggers once as her heart continues to beat faster and faster.

‘Is this stealing?’ she asks herself.

‘Hell yeah it’s stealing! But who cares about stealing from thieves?’

With her conscience at ease, she slowly makes her way to the object that was left all by itself.

Her eyes still on the diggers, she slowly moves backwards until she feels something strange touch her hind hoof.

Looking back, she is met with the beautiful sight of gold.

Her red eyes get bigger as this is the first time she has seen real gold. It’s so shiny and pretty…

And now it’s hers.

She picks the object up in her teeth, but it is heavy and it almost falls to the ground. She’s not sure how she is supposed to carry it.

She could keep it in her mouth, but it’s heavy. She might be able to put her head through the middle and carry it like a necklace, but what if she can’t get her head back out? Decisions, decisions…

Well, before she worries about carrying it long distances, she needs to sneak it out of here. It was relatively easy to climb down here, but how is she going to get back up?

“Hey!” one of the diggers yells, causing Daring to freeze. She looks over only to see all four diggers looking right at her.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

The filly stares at them in shock for a moment before deciding to take her leave. She slips the star over her head and around her neck and charges at the cave wall. Her short legs run up the wall before gravity begins to set in. Before she starts falling, Daring flaps her undersized wings faster than a hummingbird, desperately trying to reach the ledge.

Surprisingly, Daring finds herself not falling back to the floor. She keeps flapping her wings as her legs climb up the wall.

She feels a hoof on her hind leg, but she kicks it away.

And she actually manages to reach and climb up to the ledge.

“How the hell did I do that?” she asks herself in amazement, taking a moment to catch her breath.

“Get back here!” a voice booms from deeper in the cavern. One can only assume that the diggers are giving chase, which forces Daring to run out of the cave as fast as her hooves can carry her.

After sprinting out of the corridor and back outside, she immediately starts looking for the scout troop she came here with.

Only to find a sea of rocks, sand, dirt… and no ponies.

Where is everypony? Where did they go? This is where they’re supposed to be!

Shit!

“Lucas, you bastard!” she yells, her voice echoing off the rocks that are all around her.

Hearing the hoofsteps of multiple ponies who are probably upset about their stolen treasure, Daring realizes she has two options. She can either run or hide.

Running does not seem to be an option, as she is already exhausted from carrying the heavy gold weight around. It was difficult enough getting out of that cave, but civilization is two or three miles from here, and Daring doubts she will be able to make it that far without getting caught by her pursuers.

It’s too hot to run anyway. Daring soon finds herself regretting that she ventured to southwest Equestria by herself. It’s too hot for anypony to comfortably live down here. Surely there are treasures in areas of the country with more moderate temperatures.

Seeing that running is not an option, she chooses to hide. All she needs to do is find a nice hiding spot.

She spots a collection of rocks that she believes will make an adequate hiding place and sprints in that direction. She just has to get there before she is spotted.

“How am I supposed to carry this thing?!” Daring shouts to herself, fumbling with the strange star-shaped object. Not only is the object shaped in a peculiar way, but it is quite heavy.

She would simply fly away with it, but she’s not the best flier. The pegasus filly doesn’t know how she was able to levitate earlier.

Truth be told, Daring is terrified of heights, so flying isn’t an option anyway, despite the semi-operational wings on her sides.

The bottom part of the star around her neck hits the ground as the filly is running, causing Daring to flip over and fall into a collection of rocks.

Where a tremendous amount of spiders happen to be living.

The filly shoots straight up into the air, screaming.

“Get ‘em off! Get ‘em off!”

No longer paying attention to where she is going, she runs around and swats at herself, trying to remove the disgusting creatures from her. Daring flings the golden star from around her neck and starts rolling around the ground.

She finally gets all the spiders off her as she lays on the sand on her back, staring up at the sky, completely out of breath.

The she feels a pressure on her tail.

Daring looks down and sees the leather jacket pony and his companions all standing around Daring.

And they have the gold.

The fedora-wearing stallion smiles down at the defeated filly. Of course, because Daring is Daring, she will never admit defeat, even to a much older, more experienced, and stronger stallion.

Daring tries to pounce at the stallion, but he moves and Daring falls on her face.

“That was close call,” the group leader announces, and his companions chuckle.

The filly looks up at the stallion, not bothering to get up. She’s exhausted.

“You’re quite the adventurous little one, aren’t you?” the fedora-wearing stallion asks. Daring’s only response is to look menacingly in his direction, eliciting a chuckle from the professional adventurer. "And very sneaky."

The fedora-wearing adventurer removes the pith helmet from one of his companions and places it atop of Daring’s head.

The helmet is much too large for the young filly, as it covers her entire head and weighs her down.

Daring pushes the helmet off of herself with her forelegs defiantly before glaring up at the stallion who has taken her treasure.

“You’ll have to grow into it.”

Daring’s only response is her best one: not saying anything and glaring daggers.

“What’s your name, little filly?”

As one should expect, Daring says nothing.

The stallion laughs. “You’ll make a great adventurer one day, kid.” He turns to the rest of his group. “Let’s get back to work. And we’ll have to keep a better eye on what we find.” He smiles and winks at Daring, who still looks pissed.

The rest of the group turns and moves back to the cave. The stallion turns to Daring one last time.

“Oh, and uh…” the stallion smiles sweetly down at the little filly, still pissed off and lying on the ground. “Congratulations.”

'Congratulations? On what?! What a toolbag!'

They all leave, and Daring is alone.

“What a douche,” Daring says, rising and dusting herself off. “Congratulations? What a cocky son of a-”

As Daring is patting herself, she notices something on her flank.

Her cutie mark.

“Holy shit.”

==========

Daring smiles at you, looking proud of her story and waiting for you to praise it.

“Are you really that afraid of spiders?” you ask, trying not to laugh.

She scowls at you, her red eyes searing into your soul. “That was what you got out of that story?”

“I thought it was cute.”

“It’s not cute! How does none of that impress you?” she asks disbelievingly.

“What?” you ask. “I’m impressed! It’s cool that you started your career in thievery at age eight.”

“Sarcasm is like a second language to me. I have, like the best cutie mark story ever!”

“Sure.”

She scoffs before pointing a hoof at you. “You’re just jealous ‘cause I have a cutie mark and you don’t.”

“How do you know I don’t have one?” you ask with a smile before leaning in slightly. “Have you been looking?”

Her face turns red in an instant and she moves away from you before looking down at the ground. “N-No! You-... You’re so... Bah! Forget it.”

Daring is so cute when she’s embarrassed.

“I guess that also explains why you wear that stupid hat,” you say.

“Hey!”

“But why do you wear that shirt all the time?”

“Because I do whatever I want.”

You suppose she does.

“Ladies and gentlecolts!” a well-dressed pony announces, getting everyone’s attention. “We will be landing in about one hour.”

Praise Jesus.

“Cool,” Daring sighs, lying down on the couch and putting her head on your lap. You look down at her curiously, but her eyes are closed and she has a small smile on her face. “Got time for a little nap.”

There’s no reason she can’t lay in the opposite direction, but you don’t say anything.

“I liked your story, Daring,” you say, and she opens her eyes to look at you. “It was cool.”

She smiles at you before closing her eyes again.

Author's Notes:

So many delays.
I got exams next week, so updates should pick up.
But who the hell knows anymore