by Anahita Riyaz Ahmed
© 2026 Anahita Riyaz Ahmed. All rights reserved.
This story may not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without permission.
Whoosh! Daring Do, an adventurous Pegasus, swooshed through the air, hoping to find the Saquire Necklace of Truth and Hope somewhere in the Tenochtitlan Basin before Ahuizotl, a monster, and before Dr. Caballeron got to it. Dr. Caballeron is a greedy archaeologist and a black-hearted 🖤 trader who is bad to the bone.
Ahuizotl is a dog-faced monkey with a monkey hand on his tail who walks on his hind legs. He is always chasing Daring Do when she gets an artifact. For some reason, it made sense to her in an eerie, uncanny way that he did not want her to take any of the artifacts. Who knows what would happen if Ahuizotl got to the necklace before she did? Well, he’s never gotten the artifacts, even though he lived in that territory, but he still could try to and succeed, right? It could be anyone’s game and she still didn’t know much about him.
All she knew was that he always stops her from saving an artifact. Daring Do wished she could just say, “Dude, I’m just trying to get these artifacts to a safe place in a museum where everypony could see it. Duh.” Although she knew she could not say it, she still felt the urge to do so.
But she still knew a lot about Caballeron’s moves. For one, she knew what Caballeron would do if he got the necklace before she did. He would obviously melt it down (since the necklace was made out of pure gold) and sell it to get rich. Classic Caballeron. 🙄
She was so absorbed in these thoughts, she didn’t even notice that she was walking straight into a tree!! 🌳
She bumped into it, knocking her to the ground. That seemed to catch her attention, because she said, “Wha?” Suddenly, the bush nearby shook. Daring Do grabbed her hat and popped back up, cautiously walking to the bush. Then a tiny claw popped out and grabbed the plump, sugary, rainbow berries known as wildflower berries. 🌈🫐
Zip!! Daring Do flew up to the treetops as she thought it was one of Ahuizotl’s cats that might stop her journey like the last time she tried to recover this artifact. Ahuizotl’s cats were all of the wild jungle cats that were his pets and lived with him in the Everfree Forest and the jungle. The jungle cats were a tiger, a cheetah, a lynx, a panther, and a fussy white house adorable kitty cat that were Ahuizotl’s pet jungle wild-cats. 🐅🐆
She soon realized that the creature was not going to pop out again, that it was not one of Ahuizotl’s cats, and that it would not stop her journey, so she decided that it was safe to land. 🪽
As Daring Do flew down to land, a fluffy, adorable little dog jumped out! 🐕 She immediately jumped up, caught a vine hanging to a tree, used her wings to propel herself, and flipped up into a tree — with style and flair, of course.
“A Whirling Mungtooth. I better not get it too excited by seeing me or it will flatten me and I will be Daring Done,” she said, as she watched the Whirlie (the short form for Whirling Mungtooth) from the treetops.
As the hours passed, Daring Do shifted nervously as the Whirlie did not seem to move. She decided to move across the canopy slowly so she could pass the Whirlie without it looking at her. She carefully jumped from one tree branch to another. 🪹
She accidentally stepped on a vine that swept her from the treetops, tied her wings and legs together so she could not use them, and held her upside down right in front of the Whirlie!!!
She looked left and right, searching for something that could free her. Finally, she saw a pine tree and — blink! — her light bulb switched on. She grabbed a pine needle from a nearby tree with her mouth and sliced right through the vine. 🔪 Then she zoomed back up to the treetops.
But it was too late.
The Whirlie saw her and started to sweat — 3… 2… 1! — the Whirlie turned into a giant cyclone. 🌪️ It sucked up all the berries and, one by one, released them, allowing the berries to hit everything — including Daring Do!!
When the berries hit something (including Daring Do), they turned into pulp from the force the cyclone used to release the wildflower berries. 🫐💨🫐→🪨 One of the berries even knocked a boulder over, causing it to roll down the hill — straight toward the tree Daring Do was in!!!
