//------------------------------//
// Chapter 71: Coral Keep 
// Story: Secrets of the Everfree 
// by PaisleyPerson 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 71
Coral Keep


“Easy! Be easy with ‘em!” Water Mark barked to the guards as he himself was roughly tossed into a cell. The guards ignored his request, and just as carelessly tossed the others into their own individual prisons. New coral crept up and covered over the entrances after each pony had been stuffed into a cage.
They were deep underwater, in near complete darkness. The only interruption to this absolute black was the occasional flicker of a passing electric eel, or the rare fluorescent particle of algae that trickled down from the surface. Despite their impaired vision, the ponies got the idea that the prison cells were circular. The fan-like branches twisted and curled in such a way to truly give the impression of a cage, most of the gaps not even large enough to fit a hoof through. It could only have been sculpted by Trident’s trident, for while the cells were indeed made of natural coral, they were placed in perfectly neat rows. The nine ponies were kept on either side of a single aisle, the four land ponies creating a square on one end with the hippocampi girls on the other. 
Only the cages holding the land ponies were engulfed in a massive air pocket, most likely Trident’s doing. At least he wouldn’t let them drown. This would allow them to breathe and even converse, though conversation with the hippocampi would be all but impossible. Charcoal judged the thickness of the wall. The coral was brittle, and would be easy enough to break through, but the ghost sharks and electric eels patrolling the waters nearby reminded him that escape was impossible.
“Great going, Doctor,” Ditzy tearfully sneered. “Now we’re stuck at the bottom of the ocean, with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. How do you expect to get us out of this one?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” the stallion mused. 
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” Charcoal banged against the side of the cage. “What was that?! We were trying to reason with him for his help, not steal his trident!”
“I was just trying to get leverage we could use to... persuade him.”
“Did all your other negotiations go this smoothly?”
“I have to agree with Charcoal, Doctor. That was a little out of line, even for you.”
“Come on, Ditzy! You know I’ll get us out of here. Haven’t I always before?”
“But now there’s no way to get the hippocampi to help. It’s a lost cause.” Charcoal sadly slumped against the slimy, algae-coated wall of his cell. “Even if we get out of here, we can’t defeat the changelings. There aren’t enough of us... we aren’t strong enough. Now Spectrum, Trixie, and Glitter will all be converted, Shift and Fink might well be executed, and even Lilac could be in danger.” Charcoal held his head in his hooves. “And it’s all my fault.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, lad. Ya did the best you could. It was that there bloak that blew it for us all!”
“Oy!” Time Turner indignantly shrieked again. “He wasn’t going to listen to us, and I knew it. So I found a way to get his attention. Ditzy, back me up here. Ditzy?” From what he could tell by the dim silhouette of the pegasus’ form, she had her back turned to him, arms folded to properly deliver the ‘silent treatment’. “Not you too!” Time Turner groaned. No response. One by one, all the others turned their backs to him as well, including the hippocampi girls. “Fine, be like that,” he grumbled, moping in his own cell and hoping that he could think of some grand escape plan to make it up to them.
“Well,” Water Mark sighed, “if we’re going to be stuck down here together for eternity, we might as well clear the air.”
“Thank you!” Time Turner perked back up. “Hear that, Ditzy? He forgives me!”
“Not you!” the old sea dog barked. Time Turner flattened his ears and resumed muttering to himself, incredibly disappointed. Water Mark turned in his cell to clarify who he was speaking to. As it so happened, Current had been placed in the cell next to his.
“Current,” he started again. Though he couldn’t clearly see the face of the mare beside him, it was evident that he had gained her attention by the way her head jerked up. She also made it obvious that she was still not on good terms with him by the way she shrank away. He took a breath before continuing. “I know neither of us has forgotten what happened all those years ago... what I did. I thought avengin’ my pa would set things right somehow. I didn’t have all the facts, and ended up wreakin’ even more pain on innocent ponies. I took a couple of newlyweds to make me realize I’d become exactly the monster I’d been tryin’ to get revenge on. Thank Celestia they stopped me!
“Honestly, I don’t even know what I was trying to accomplish. Find closure? Bring honor to his name? It doesn’t matter anymore. The point is, I reopened old wounds and rubbed salt in. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to heal ‘em, for my sake as well as yours. A bit hard to do from a distance, admittedly, but there warn’t no way I could face ya after that.
“I won’t ask ya to forgive me for what I’ve done, but I just need ya to know that I’m sorry.” Speech successfully delivered, he supported himself on the side of the cage as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Indeed, he even shut his eyes, bowed his head and took a few steadying breaths.
Current couldn’t have responded if she’d wanted to; even hippocampi couldn’t speak beneath the ocean without the water inhibiting their words. But she didn’t need words. Water Mark felt something tickle his hooftip. Looking up, he found that Current had somehow wiggled her hoof through one of the larger gaps in the cage, far enough to take his. The fully grown stallion broke down crying right then and there, clasping the mare’s hoof and babbling indecipherable remarks of gratitude. It was impossible to make out Current’s reaction, but she was probably likewise tearing up.
“It’s such a shame King Trident won’t let merponies come to the surface,” Ditzy sighed to no one in particular, watching the tender scene as best she could. “We could all be such good friends! Well... when we aren’t trying to steal their tridents...”
“Oh... alright, alright! I’m sorry too. There, are you happy?”
“Very. Thank you, Doctor.” Ditzy pressed as close to his side of her prison wall as she could.
“I wonder why the hippocampi split in the first place. We get along just fine!” Charcoal murmured to himself.
“I’m beginning to wonder the same thing.” In a pulse of golden light, the bubbles encasing the land pony cells merged and expanded, engulfing everyone present. A tenth figure emerged, only his head poking into the enormous bubble. Light from a familiar golden trident also permeated the air, finally illuminating the dark ocean floor.
“Your highness!” Current gasped, hastily untangling her hooves from the coral and bowing to the visiting king, despite their predicament. The other hippocampi girls did the same.
“King Trident?!” Charcoal gasped. “W-what are you... uh...?”
“I confess, placing you together was my doing,” he looked to Current and Water Mark. “Admittedly, I thought it would be quite amusing to watch Current attempt to tear into the unicorn,” he slyly chuckled to himself. “I was not prepared for what transpired instead.
“You surprise me, Current. One regrettable experience with a selfish unicorn made you cold and distant towards anything related to the surface- precisely what my council looks for in subjects. But now, even after two foul encounters with the land folk, you embrace them, forgive them. Why?”
Current’s gaze darted about, unprepared as the king put her on the spot. Her eyes finally settled on Water Mark, and she seemed to regain her composure. He had already given his confession; now it was her turn.
“Because, your majesty,” she began, gaze never leaving Mark’s, “they remind me of myself.”
“Explain.”
“Just as Water Mark was once lost to hatred and sorrow, so was I. But we cannot let the selfish actions of one unicorn determine the rest of our lives. We all have a choice; linger on the sadness and pain a select few have inflicted upon us, or embrace the love and closeness of many friends, despite gender or age or race. It took me a long time to find the right course, but now that I have it, I won’t ever let go. And with respect, your highness, that’s something not even your prison walls can take from me.” Trident raised an eyebrow. 
“King Trident, your grace, I have spent a good deal of time with the land ponies. And truly, the only difference I have found is appearance. Some have horns, wings, or both or none, while we have fins. We live beneath the sea, and they reside on the surface, but beyond all that, we are one and the same.” The king fell silent, and the prisoners all held their breath. He was actually thinking it over!
“Doctor,” he finally looked up. The brown earth pony/time lord looked back with no small amount of surprise. “Removing the power from my trident was a strategic move.”
“IT WAS?!”
“It did indeed catch my attention. Perhaps we all need someone to keep our power in check.”
“Including Chrysalis,” Charcoal cautiously piped. The sea king turned to him. 
“Indeed,” he slowly nodded. “Especially Chrysalis.”
“So you’ll help?” Kelpie gasped.
“You all have proven to me that our worlds are not only compatible, but perhaps even belong together,” Trident regally declared. All the faces around him lit up with glee. “What ails the surface also ails the sea. The hippocampi race shall rise again. As for you, my boy,” he looked back to Charcoal, even smiling at the thestral! “If you would kindly run your plan by me once more?”
“Absolutely! But first...” Charcoal’s gaze flicked between the coral wall and the sea king.
“Of course. And I presume you would rather discuss matters on the surface?” Charcoal couldn’t tell if Trident was being sarcastic or not.
“Well, the changelings would have reached the town by now. My brother and friends are there. I would like to check on them...”
“Very well.” Charcoal couldn’t believe it. He was being serious!
With one blast from his trident, the tops of the cells were blasted to bits, and the bubble flooded with water again. Water Mark hastily cast the water breathing spell before they drowned. The glow of the trident began traveling upward, and so the ponies scrambled after it. The land ponies were having difficulty keeping up, and Current was the first to remember. Smiling, she dove back down and looped her arm through Mark’s, pulling him gently but swiftly along, at the same time skillfully creating an undertow the others could ride. While Cascade delighted in the new current, Whirlpool also doubled back and scooped up Ditzy. High Tide and her sister dove down in perfect sync to retrieve the two remaining ponies.
The train did not have far to travel, however. Once they had cleared the murky depths of the coral keeps and reentered the clear, pristine waters of Trident’s kingdom, they found the king’s royal chariot and a large unit of waiting guards. Charcoal grinned. The sea king knew he would be releasing them, or he wouldn’t have come so prepared. Maybe Time Turner’s stunt worked after all, in its own quirky way. 
Trident gestured for the land ponies to hop in the rear compartment of the chariot, while he rode in the front. Towed by a string of strong guardsponies and escorted by a platoon more, King Trident ascended to the ocean’s surface for what very well could have been the first time in his life.
As they passed over the village, hundreds upon hundreds of hippocampus civilians joined in the parade, whether by order of the king or just out of curiosity Charcoal didn’t know. Either way, the king made no effort to turn them back. Just like that, the hippocampus nation rose from the sea once more.
A changeling welcoming committee was waiting for them.