The Alicorn certainly didn’t expect this—whatever this was—to be part of her afternoon break. Her mother had barged into her room and led her into the basement, past the carefully sealed and maintained cases of artifacts and historic tomes, past the portraits of long dead family matriarchs and important figures, and past the old escape tunnel leading out of Canterlot. The house matriarch wore a fitted black sweater complete with hood, which while the Alicorn thought looked good on her, went way past what she knew her mother usually wore.

The unicorn stopped, knocked on the wall, and watched her daughter gape as a section of wall swung open with a groan, revealing a gaping maw of blackness. The unicorn grabbed her daughter with her magic, pulled her in, and slammed the door shut before flicking the lights on.

“Ow!” Twilight Sparkle raised a hoof to shield her eyes. “Mom, what’re we doing here?”

“Oh, nothing honey.”

Twilight Velvet’s sweet voice bounced off the basement’s painted cinderblock walls as she threw open a bunch of lockers.Steel clanged against steel and concrete as the unicorn began digging her hooves into whatever she kept inside those lockers. Meanwhile, her Alicorn daughter rubbed her eyes and fell back onto her haunches, ears twitching at the sounds her mother made as she searched the contents of the steel locker.

“Aha!” Velvet cried out among the ringing of her magic and the metallic clicking sounds made by whatever she was holding. “There you are!”

Finally, Sparkle opened her eyes and glared blearily at her mother. They widened, and the Alicorn got back to her hooves.

“Mom!” she stammered, “What’re you—what’s—that’s a—how did—_what_?!”

Her mother cradled the Thrussian assault rifle in her forelegs as if it were her own baby, kissed it atop the iron sights, and passed it over to her own daughter, who held it in her magic as she stared.

“Scratch her and you’re grounded forever,” Velvet said, turning back to her arms locker. “If you jam her, double grounded forever. This was supposed to be Daring Do’s birthday present.”

Sparkle ever-so-gently held onto the rifle and grimaced. “Daring Do? Y-you know Da—”

“Shush.”

Velvet pulled all manner of armaments from her locker, inspecting them with a critical eye.

“To answer your question,” she said, going over her guns, “yes, I knew Daring Do. ‘Course, I have no idea what that mare’s up to now. We don’t explore the far reaches of Equestria together anymore—let’s just chalk that up to ‘creative differences.’ But hey, at least you get to have her rifle!”

Velvet returned the guns to the locker, none of them having passed whatever metric she had in mind. Eventually, she settled on a wide-barreled apparatus and cracked the breech open. She smiled, picked up a 40mm grenade, and slammed it home as Sparkle gaped. The breech swung closed, and the elder Twilight slung it on her back beside her black saddlebags.

“Okay.” Twilight Velvet grinned. “Now let’s get your father back.”

===

Part of a collection of concept art for

_Daring Did

Tales of an Adventurer’s Companion_

By Seriff Pilcrow and AdmiralKew

Daring Did: Tales of an Adventurer’s Companion is an upcoming fanfiction series that aims to breathe new life into a once popular headcanon: that Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle’s mother, was directly involved with Daring Do and her adventures. Travel with Daring Do and Twilight Velvet across Equestria and beyond as they unearth treasures of old, battle dangerous foes, and discover the knowledge the world’s past has to offer.

Credits found in deviantART source