The melting snow from the unusually warm air was beginning to create mist in the Everfree. For now, it was lying close to the ground, but it was not helping the general eeriness of the place in any way as it rolled over their hooves, obscuring the ground beneath them. Fortunately, however, the six ponies, one zebra, and one baby dragon had a way of distracting themselves.
“…and so that’s how I got my cutie mark,” Carrot Top finished, the last of them to reiterate her story to Raindrops.
“That’s nice,” the jasmine-coated pegasus intoned, ruffling her wings slightly.
“So that makes it your turn, then,” Cheerilee said. “I’m not going to save Equestria with a pony I don’t know anything about.”
Raindrops shrugged. “Born in Cloudsdale, loved it when it rained, and I got my cutie mark pretty early since I’d known that all throughout my foalhood. When my brother was born a unicorn my parents and I moved to Ponyville. I joined the weather patrol, and…that’s it.”
Lyra’s ears were twitching and swivling slightly, as though she heard something. “Anypony else hear that?” she asked absentmindedly as Raindrops spoke. When the pegasus finished, however, she looked back to Raindrops, scowling a little. “Oh, come on,” she objected. “We pour our bleeding hearts out for everypony, and you expect to get by on that?” She furrowed her brow in thought. “You’ve got to, like, resent your brother or your parents for making you move from Cloudsdale.”
“Nope,” Raindrops said. “Ponyville’s nice, I like it.”
“No weather patrol stories?” Cheerilee tried.
“A few, I guess,” she said, again ruffling her wings, “but a lot of them are really technical. Like that time Cloud Chaser made some cirrocumulus undulati when the schedule called for cirrocumulus laconusi, but I’d gotten my part right so when the two cloud sections began overlapping they made an altocumulus lenticularus and caused some virga and microbursts, and Rainbow Dash was actually working that day so me and Cloud Chaser had to work our wings off to cover before she noticed and before the altocumulus lenticularus devolved into an altostratus translucidus – ”
“Okay,” Trixie interrupted. “Anything that non-pegasi would be able to follow?”
“I’m a pegasus and I couldn’t follow that,” Ditzy Doo provided.
Raindrops thought a moment. “Nope,” she said. “My life is pretty dull, usually. I like it like that.”
There was a collective sigh from the remaining ponies at that. “Fine…” Cheerilee groaned. She looked ahead, at Spike and Zecora. The former was sitting atop the back of the latter, keeping his balance with practiced ease “How about you, Zecora?” she asked. “Do you have a cutie mark story? What is yours, anyway?”
Zecora shook her head, and didn’t move the cloak that covered her flank aside. “All I have are the stripes you see,” she said, “There is no cutie mark on me.”
“And dragons don’t get them either,” Spike noted, as Zecora turned off of the rough path they had been following and began walking into the woods. Everypony followed.
“I’m not the only one who hears that, am I?” Lyra asked. Her ears had gone back to twitching slightly, focused in the direction Zecora was now taking them through the twisted trees.
“Hears what?” Spike asked.
“You’ve got to have some stories, though,” Cheerilee pressed, as she picked up her pace slightly to be trotting next to Zecora. The other five ponies, minus Lyra, also picked up their pace a little, and Zecora seemed to have an extra spring to her step.
“I do not mean to cause offence, but my story I do not wish to dispense,” Zecora explained. “My spirit quest is a private affair, and I do not wish to lay it bare.”
“That’s alright,” Ditzy Doo admitted as they came to a wide river. It was probably supposed to be frozen over, but the ice atop of it was melted, and the river itself was fast-flowing and beginning to lap at the edges of its banks due to all the melting snow and ice that was finding its way into it. The low fog that permeated the Everfree stopped at the edge of the river.
Lyra stopped her canter when she reached the river, ears no longer twitching, instead focused forward. “Okay, now I definitely hear music – uh, guys? Guys!”
Come on in, the water’s fine…
Lyra dashed forward and in front of the others, as they had not slowed down at the riverbanks, instead heading directly into it. She gasped slightly at the chill of the water – despite the rising heat, the water itself was only just barely above freezing. Her exclamations, coupled with her interposing herself between the others, stopped them in their tracks before they could get too deep, but the ponies and zebra all stared at her strangely.
“Lyra?” Raindrops asked. “You’re in the way.”
“I’m not gonna try and ford a raging, freezing river,” she responded.
…Please oh please, don’t decline…
The others blinked, looking down as though seeing the water for the first time. “Stars,” Trixie exclaimed, as they all backed out of the river and onto its banks. “How did I not notice that?”
“I dunno,” Spike said, looking around. “I was getting worried for a second…and yeah, I definitely hear music, Lyra.”
Come on in, the water’s fine…please oh please, don’t decline…come and dance on the river’s bed…
“I don’t hear anything,” Cheerilee noted, as she began absent-mindedly trotting forward. Lyra blinked, putting herself between Cheerilee and the water. She stared uncomprehendingly at the unicorn for a moment, then shook her head. “We need to get to the other side…”
“…yeah,” Raindrops noted as she started forward. Lyra leapt in front of her, hooves up and pushing her back.
“You have wings, you idiot,” Lyra noted, as Zecora closed her eyes and began chanting something in a language Lyra didn’t understand, while Spike hopped off of her back. “You and Ditzy Doo can just carry us over if – ”
“But this is faster…” Ditzy Doo said, eyes wide and a serene look on her face – yet her eyes were also focused forward, as she began trotting into the river. Groaning, Lyra’s horn glowed, and she seized Ditzy Doo in a golden aura and pushed her back onto the shore. Then Trixie began trotting forward, forcing Lyra to move in front of her and shove her backwards. The other unicorn stumbled a little, falling down, but was quickly on her hooves again, and in the meantime Carrot Top was wandering forward…
…come on in and join the dead…
“Um, that’s creepy,” Spike objected, grabbing Carrot Top’s tail and digging his feet into the ground. Unfortunately, his small size made little impact. Lyra grabbed Cheerilee with magic and pushed her back, while trying to physically hold Trixie back.
“Zecora!” Lyra shouted at the zebra, the only one besides her and Spike that seemed unaffected, though the zebra remained in place and chanting. “A little help?” She didn’t move. Ditzy Doo managed to trot in nearly to her stomach, but Lyra once again resorted to magic, and had to do likewise for Raindrops and Trixie as she moved to put herself directly between Cheerilee and the water, pushing them back.
Come on in, the water’s fine…please oh please, don’t decline…come and dance on the river’s bed…come on in and join the dead…
“Something’s wrong with them!” Spike exclaimed. “But how come we’re not affected?”
“I think it’s some kind of magic song!” Lyra exclaimed as she used telekinesis to hold back all of her friends. It wasn’t going to work for long – sweat was already forming on her brow. “Dunno why it’s not affecting you, but for me it’s ‘cause it’s poorly harmonized!”
The music stopped suddenly. The five ponies that had been trying to plunge into the freezing waters stopped trying to commit suicide, but remained in a trance, waving back and forth slightly.
There was a splash from behind Lyra, and she turned and found herself face-to-face with some kind of creature that looked like a cross between a pony and a fish. It upper body was mostly the same, with forelegs ending in hooves and a long-snouted face, but rather than a mane, the creature had a long fin travelling down its back, and smaller fins at its fetlocks. Its lower body, meanwhile – the parts that Lyra could see through the water, anyway – consisted of a long, fish-like tail, with a pair of elegant-looking fins in the place of rear-legs. Instead of hair, its body was coated with fine, aquamarine scales, and it had a pair of blood-red eyes. As Lyra watched, two more similar creatures appeared from beneath the river’s surface, only slightly different in scale coloration but with yellow and teal eyes, the last of them having pony proportions more in line with a stallion than a mare.
There was one more notable difference between these creatures and normal ponies: their mouths were full of small, sharp teeth. None of them looked happy to see Lyra, either.
“I beg your pardon?” The first one to appear demanded. “Poorly harmonized?”
“What are you?” Lyra asked, one eyebrow rising.
All three of the creatures fixed Lyra with a deadpan look. “We’re trying to lure ponies to their deaths by drowning and then eating them,” the second one, with yellow eyes, said. “What do you think we are?”
“Sea ponies?” Lyra guessed.
A little bit of winter’s chill returned to the Everfree Forest at the glare she got. “This is a freshwater river,” the third, teal-eyed creature noted. “And sea ponies are herbivores.”
“Sirens!” Yellow Eyes – as Lyra mentally dubbed her – exclaimed. “We’re sirens!”
“I thought sirens only lived in the ocean,” Spike said from the shore. Then he pointed at Teal Eyes. “And you’re a stallion. Sirens are always mares.”
“Yes, well,” Red Eyes, the first to appear, noted. “Ponies…and dragons I suppose…possess many misconceptions about us – ”
“How would we reproduce with only mares?” Teal Eyes asked incredulously.
“Magic?” Spike suggested. Teal Eyes shrugged, conceding the possibility.
“ – but back on topic,” Red Eyes continued, “What do you mean, poorly harmonized?”
“I mean what it sounds like!” Lyra exclaimed, and jabbed a hoof at Red Eyes. “And I’m lookin’ at you, and don’t try to deny it I know it’s you. You’re not syncing up with the other two at all. You’re pitched too high and singing a little faster.”
“I am not!”
“…actually, I did notice that,” Yellow Eyes objected. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”
Red Eyes glared at her companion. “You’re taking the food’s side?”
“Hey, yeah, about that…” Spike tried.
The sirens ignored him. “Out of harmony is out of harmony,” Teal Eyes noted. “Sorry, but food or not, she’s got a point.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were putting on a concert for the river dragon. I thought we were just trying to get lunch. My mistake. Here,” she held forward her front hooves. “Slit my veins open, why don’t you?”
“We don’t have major arteries in our legs,” Yellow Eyes pointed out.
“Why do you even have legs?” Lyra asked.
Two of the sirens shrugged, while Red Eyes glared at her companions. “Can we please stop talking to the food and just eat already?” she demanded. Lyra skipped backwards, out of the water, at that. Red Eyes waved her off. “Whatever, you’re immune, the dragon and zebra are still immune like last time, but that still gives us five! That’s plenty!”
“She gets cranky when she doesn’t eat, sorry,” Teal Eyes explained, as Red Eyes began to grumble.
“Last time?” Lyra asked, looking to Spike. Zecora had not stopped chanting whatever her protection spell against the siren’s song was.
The baby dragon offered a stupid grin and a shrug. “Guess we do have some stories?” he said.
Lyra shook her head as she looked to the sirens. “I’m not going to let you eat my friends,” she proclaimed.
“Three on one with you trying to save five,” Red Eyes noted. “I’m feeling pretty good about our odds.”
“Plus, we’ve got hunger on our side,” Yellow Eyes said. “That’s a great motivator.”
“I’m trying to save the world,” Lyra noted.
“Noble goal and all, but that’s impersonal,” Teal Eyes philosophized. “You don’t really know the whole world, whereas being hungry is a really personal thing and – ”
“Stop talking to our lunch and just sing already!” Red Eyes shouted. The three sirens drifted backwards, to the middle of the river – having no problems fighting against the current – and began singing again. Even worse, Red Eyes seemed to of corrected her mistake and was now singing in harmony with the other two. Lyra still proved to be immune, but the other five ponies began trotting forward again.
“Come on in, the water’s fine…please oh please, don’t decline…come and dance on the river’s bed…come on in and join the dead…”
Lyra’s closed her eyes and let her horn glow brightly. She shoved the five ponies backwards with telekinesis, but only as a stopgap. Working a significantly more advanced spell, she created a golden orb in front of her. With a pop, the orb burst apart, and Lyra caught her lyre as it began to fall, telekinetically bringing it forward as she sat down and began strumming on it, magic pouring from her lyre and over her friends. They stopped in their tracks.
“You’re not the only ones who can sing,” Lyra proclaimed in verse, “you don’t want the kind of pain I’ll bring.”
The sirens stopped their song once more, staring. Lyra’s friends remained motionless behind her. “You’re joking,” Red Eyes said.
“I just spent three years at Luna’s school of magic on a musical scholarship,” Lyra explained. “Come on, there’s got to be some fish in that river you can eat instead.”
“We actually can’t eat fish,” Yellow Eyes remarked. “Tastes horrible. Actually most seafood. Or river-food, I guess.”
“We only eat land animals,” Teal Eyes said. “And you ponies are delicious.”
“…thanks?” Lyra guessed. “Still. There’s got to be something else you guys can eat in the forest. Like a turkey or something, I dunno.”
“Maybe,” Red Eyes admitted. “But there’s a whole feast here now, and who knows how long we’ll have to wait for some poor gobbler to wander close enough?”
Lyra plucked a few notes on her lyre. “I’m warning you…”
“You’re bluffing,” Red Eyes said. “And you can’t possibly save all your friends.”
“I can try.”
“You’ll fail.”
Lyra played another few notes on her lyre in response.
Red Eyes glared at her. As Lyra watched, her iris’ seemed to both expand outwards and shrink inwards, until her eyes were nothing more than a pair of blood-hued orbs. She let a full, sharp-toothed grin show, then began to sing in earnest, not a simple rhyme anymore, but a full song –
The five ponies began to slowly trot forward. Lyra’s hooves danced across her instrument, golden magic reaching out and slowing their advance, with Spike trying to help as best he could, but the ponies moved inexorably, as the other two sirens – their eyes similarly turning uniform in color – joined in Red Eyes’ song.
“So stupid
“You're trying to resist us
“And save them all
“But they're gonna slip away
“You'll lose them all
“Why not just give up now?
“Just stop fighting
“We're sirens and we're hungry
“You can't win –
Lyra interrupted them with a full pull across her lyre, while her horn interceded to amplify its volume several times beyond what should have been possible.
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“Nothing you can sing can stop me from winning!”
The golden threads that grasped her friends swelled in size and intensity. They were pushed backwards, and for the first time the enthralled ponies looked around of their own volition, wide-eyed and panicked at the sight of the sirens and what the sirens were trying to make them do.
The sirens, meanwhile, had been thrown backwards by the force of Lyra’s magic-enhanced song, their eyes snapping back to normal and looks of genuine surprise on their face. Glaring, their magical song returned, their magic taking physical form for the first time and lashing out at Lyra.
“Can’t you see?
“You cannot keep this up
“We do this every day, fool
“Luring critters to the river
“So we can eat.
“But ponies are so tasty
“We’re gonna feast
“Your magic doesn’t scare us
“You’ll get weak – ”
Again, Lyra interrupted them, standing on her two hind legs – somehow keeping balance while doing so – and conjuring up a golden shield to ward off the siren’s magical lashes as she countered their continued hypnotic attempts and responded, hooves still dancing across the strings of her instrument.
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“Nothing you can sing can stop me from winning!”
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“Nothing you can sing can stop me from winning!”
The sirens screamed – but still in song – as Lyra countered with magic. Despite her prowess, with three-on-one the red, yellow and teal lashes that were reaching out to her golden shield. Lyra pushed back, however, and tendrils of golden magic began to lash out at the sirens as well. For the first time, fear as well as concern appeared on their faces.
“Maybe give us one or two? To eat?” Red Eyes offered in verse. “You’ll still have two, seems like plenty! Agreed?”
“No way!” Lyra responded as she dragged her hoof across her harp. The sirens’ magic and her own flared as they battled, then died suddenly, giving out under the strain of constantly being maintained by the two forces. The sirens fell backwards, almost falling under the river’s water again. Lyra, on the other hoof, remained standing on her hind legs, magically holding her lyre aloft as she began strumming the same two strings over and over.
“I told you the pain that I could bring.
“But you didn’t listen to me.
“You’ve lost, you’ve got nothing left.
“But I’m. Still. Here.”
Next to Lyra, a ghostly image of her formed, and began echoing that verse, while she continued with the song, and with each verse another Lyra would appear and begin echoing her.
“Just swim away while you still can.
“Find something else to snack upon.
“You’ve lost, you’ve got nothing left.
“But I’m. Still. Here.”
“You couldn’t sing in harmony
“Without my help, where would you be?
“You’ve lost, you’ve got nothing left.
“But I’m. Still. Here!”
The sirens shouted in defiance, rising up and magically lifting the water with them – the water in their grasp turning blood red, sickly yellow, and a deep, almost black shade of teal – and surging forward. Lyra didn’t budge as the water came on, conjuring up another golden shield and golden tendrils to push it back, as the two competing musical forces dueled. The sirens had seemingly lost the ability to sing in verse at all, instead conjuring with pure vocal power, but Lyra actually turned that against them, incorporating it into her song as her chorus of illusions continued to sing as well.
“I told you the pain that I could bring!
“But you didn’t listen to me!
“You’ve lost, you’ve got nothing left!
“But I’m. Still. Here!”
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
(“Still! Here...!”)
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“Nothing you can sing can stop me from winning!”
(“Still! Here...!”)
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
(“Still! Here...!”)
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“Nothing you can sing can stop me from winning!”
(“Still! Here...!”)
“I'm not gonna just let you eat my friends
“I’m telling you right now to just go somewhere else
(“Still! Here...!”)
There was a golden flash. The wave of water was thrown backwards, but the sirens remained floating in the air, grasped firmly in Lyra’s magical aura. They had stopped singing, their legs and tails and fins flailing, but Lyra only smirked before tossing them upstream as hard as she could. They landed with a splash some thirty feet away, quickly surfacing and staring wide-eyed at Lyra Heartstrings.
“Music is my special talent, sirens
“And now that I have won, you’d better swim off home!”
The sirens stared for only a moment more, before disappearing beneath the river’s water, rushing away. This was probably for the best, as it meant they didn’t see Lyra collapse to the muddy riverbank moments later.