A seapony's Heartstrings

by Paradise Oasis

Helpful as can be ponies

Helpful as can be ponies

"I hope she gets here soon!" The blue unicorn mare thought to herself. "I've been waiting for over an hour!"

The afternoon sun was high in the sky, as Lyra waited for her visitor to arrive at the Ponyville cafe. She tapped her front hoof on the table, as the serving pony refilled her glass of juice for the third time.

"Hello, Lyra." A voice behind her whinnied coolly. "I'm glad to see you are here."

"Little Sister!" A joyful Lyra immediately leapt to her hooves, and jumped over to embrace the mare behind her. "It's so good to see you again! What has it been, seven years? Eight?"

"I've been back for birthdays and holidays, sister." The mare snorted in annoyance, slowly moving to hug her sibling back. "And I've been around Ponyville now and then!"

"Anyway, it's still great to see you again!" The blue mare sat back down again. "Bon Bon and I hardly hear from you anymore."

"Happy to see you too, Lyra." Sea Swirl calmly trotted over, and took a seat herself. "Speaking of which, how's Bon Bon doing?"

"She's all right. We got a house over on the west side of town, you really should come over and see us sometime!" Lyra frowned. "But I heard you lost your job in Fillydelphia! Are you going to be ok?"

"Yes, they let me go, it's true." She picked up a menu. " But everything's going to be okay. I've got another opportunity lined up now."

"Really?" Her sister's ears perked up. "Is it here in Ponyville? I'd love to have you back home again!"

"I'm afraid not, sister." Sea Swirl shook her head. "Certain parties are starting some kind of underwater colonization program, and I've volunteered to be a part of it!"

"Underwater colonization?!?" Lyra asked, confused. "But why, little sister? You're a musician, it's what our family has always done! What is with this obsession with the sea?"

"A musician is what you and Aunt Octavia raised me to be, and it's your special talent, not mine." She looked back at her twin dolphin cutie mark. "I've always been drawn to the ocean's waves, almost like they are calling me... home."

"Sea Swirl, are you certain you're not just still upset with me over everything that happened between us?" Lyra looked skeptical.

"This has nothing to do with that!" The angry mare snorted. "I came here to say goodbye to you, big sister! But if you're just going to-"

"Okay, okay. Look, I'm sorry." Lyra gave a soft smile. "I just worry about you sometimes, okay? Just please take care of yourself, and write when you can!"

"Don't worry, sister, I will." Sea Swirl embraced the other mare. "I promise!"

....

"Please let us go, Queen Wavebraker!" Sea Star pleaded. "We didn't mean any harm, honest!"

"Yeah, we only came here to try and talk stuff out with you!" Splasher agreed. "We didn't want to jive talk, and start up a totally funky war!"

"'Funky', 'Jive'... the filth that tumbles out of you little vermin's mouths!" Seaspray snorted. "I say we should contact midnight castle, and see if our ally the Dark Lord would care to purchase them!"

"No, please!" Sea Shimmer cried in terror. "We don't wanna be changed into evil strydons by Tirek!"

"General, that is quite enough!" The queen glared at Seaspray, causing her to wince. "We Merponies have more dignity, than to go around scaring young fillies for the fun of it!"

"Thank you, good queen!" Sea Star smiled. "I knew you would-"

"Don't think this gets you off the hook, young lady!" Wavebreaker snorted. "You and your friends violated sacred taboos of our people, entering the hallowed ground of the shipwrecks!"

"And your kind have caused us no end of grief!" Seaspray spoke up again. "Seaponies, protecting land pony ships traveling the ocean, preventing us from sinking them. Your disgusting race prevents us from drowning those hooved land huggers, and taking their valuable cargo for our own!"

"I will speak with your mother about these events, Sea Shimmer." The queen acknowledged the young duchess, as she had recognized her from the start. "But if compensation of our grievances is not addressed, the gator ponies will be dining on sea pony fillies tomorrow night!"

...

"Look, Professor Booker! She's waking up!"

"Excellent! Let's she if she psychologically survived the transformation intact!"

The tank Sea Swirl awoke in was filled with water. Her first reaction was to panic and gasp for air... only she found that her lungs no longer burned for oxygen. She did not understand why she did not feel her front and back hooves, until she glanced down her body, and remembered that they were no longer there.

It was a strange sensation, actually... having front fins, and having the lower half of your body curl into a coiled-up tail. She had been told she was going to end up something like this, but it was still shocking enough to leave her stunned into silence for the moment.

As she floated there motionlessly, the gills on either side of her neck opened and closed reflexively, taking water in and out. As her thoughts and emotions swirled around in her mind, the water in the tank sloshed and moved with it.

"Look, Midnight!" Booker exclaimed, pointing towards the tube she was in with his hoof. "Hydrokenesis! She can bend and shape the water with her thoughts!"

"Interesting!" The unicorn he had called Midnight exclaimed. "I wonder if the others have that ability, as well."

Turning around in her cyndrilical glass tube, Sea Swirl saw a hundred of the other volunteers for the project- all sleeping in their tubes, transformed as she had been. Brothers and sisters in their new state, all having become creatures of the waves!

"Miss Sea Swirl, are you all right?" The unicorn called Booker asked her, looking into the tank. "Have you anything to say?"

The sea pony thought for a moment, remembering the singing over the earth pony pop star, Diana horse, from her childhood. Calm, cool, and totally hip, Sea Swirl had idolized the singer as a filly. And had always wanted to be like her when she grew up....

Raising her head up high, the transformed mare let forth a melodious cry-

"Shooby Doo! Shoop Shooby Doo!"

The mares and stallions in the other tanks awoke. Opening thier eyes, they responded to her in kind.

"Shooby Doo! Shoop Shooby Doo!"

"Reamrkable!" Midnight whinnied.

"Amazing!" Booker agreed. "Simply Amazing!"

"Heya, boys! Ah gotta favor ta ask!" She whinnied, emulating the speech pattern of her heroine. "It’s nawt that we don't appreciate all of the funky stuff you cats have done for us, but could we ask for larger accommodations? These dressing rooms are kinda cramped!"

As the two shocked unicorn researchers talked amongst themselves, Sea Swirl realized she now had many, many sisters- a family who would not abandon her for some cheap floozy of an earth pony mare. The open and free waters were her home now, with the others of her kind forever at her side. Sea Swirl was no longer shackled by the chains of a painful past, that had left a little filly home alone, crying on her birthday.

Now...she would never be alone again.

...

~"Ring out the old, ring the new!
Time for a major operation's due!
To a hope we all must cling
let the bell of freedom ring!"~

"What is all that racket!?" The merpony captain of the guard roared, storming into the castle dungeon. "We can heard it all the way up in the throne room!"

"It's the sea pony fillies, sir!" The frightened lieutenant replied. "They've been singing like that ever since we locked up in their cell!"

"What? This is not possible!" The dumfounded captain roared. "They should be cowering and crying, not singing!"

~"Ring out the news, speak loud and clear!
Tell them the day of liberation's here!
Soon the change's will take wing!
Let the bell of freedom ring!~"

"Sing when they're happy, sing when they're sad." The lieutenant replied, remembering an old merpony saying. "To sing is the sea pony way."

The captain saw several of the merpony soldiers were entranced, the song's defiant tone of freedom stirring something inside them, as the hypnotic seapony song worked it's magic.

"Order the guards to plug their ears with sponge fragments!" He roared, swimming back up the stairway. "We need to get rid of those brats as soon as possible!"

~"There goes the bell! We won the fight!
Send up the song of victory good night!
Oh, the joy the dawn will bring!
Let the bell of freedom ring!"~

...

Whitecap and her two fellow sea ponies swam towards the ocean border, but were quickly met by General Seaspray and two of her guards.

"Seaspray, long time no see!" The Sea Pony waved a fin at her. "How you been, girlfriend?"

"Save the snaky seapony comments for later, Whitecap!" The hooved merpony mare snorted. "We have a message for your duchess!"

"Lay it on me, girl!" Whitecap hissed. "I'll take the message back ta my sistah!"

"We have the young duchess seapony, Sea Star, and two of her friends!" Seaspray smiled evilly. "If Sea Winkle doesn't give in to our demands, her daughter will meet a terrible fate!"

"Why you-you sea slugs!" Whitecap's eyes went wide. "Threatenin' a buncha kids like that!"

"We do what we have to, in order to win!" Seaspray retorted, as she and her two guards swam away. "We'll be in touch!"

...

"This is all you fault!"

It was a cold winter's night, and Lyra was sitting at a tavern in Ponyvile, downing her eighteenth glass of cider, and scowling at Bon Bon. It was taking every ounce of her willpower, to stop herself from reaching out, and strangling the earth pony in front of her.

"Lyra, you can't blame yourself or me for what happened!" The other mare protested. "She made her own decisions, and-"

"Sea Swirl never would have run away, if it weren't for YOU!" The unicorn scowled at her. "I neglected her because of you, and I stayed with YOU when she ran away!"

It had been two days since the release of the names of the ponies that had died in the Tambelon research center disaster- the very place Sea Swirl had been volunteering for experiments. The worried unicorn mare had feared the worst when her sister hadn't written to her in several weeks. But when Lyra Heartstrings saw Sea Swirl's name on the list, it sent the poor unicorn into a spiral of depression.

"Lyra, please don't say that..." Bon Bon whimpered. "You're my best friend, and-"

"No! I need to be alone right now!" Lyra snorted. "Good bye, Bon Bon!"

The angry mare threw on her scarf, and stormed out the door.... leaving the stunned earth mare behind her.

The Pegasus had scheduled an ice storm for that cold, dark, and chilly night, but the weeping unicorn paid it little heed. Trotting out across the ice and snow, she was blinded by the drifting and blowing clouds all around her.

"Stupid, stupid snow!" She snorted aloud, as she was passing by Ponyville lake. "I wish I could just- AIEEEEEEEEEE!"

The unicorn slipped and fell, tumbling down the crest of a hill. The back of Lyra's head hit a large boulder, ending her screams with a loud CRACK! She lay there silently, as a burgundy-colored stain spread out across the snow beneath her.

"Lyra! NO!!" Bon Bon shrieked, sliding down the hill to the spot where the unmoving mare lay. The earth pony had come to her senses, and left the tavern to find her friend... but she had come to late.

"Lyra..." Bon Bon wept sadly, leaning over the dead mare's body.

From the nearby lake a pair of eyes watched the scene unfold. Rage filling her heart, a grieving sea pony was already planning to send the mare named Bon Bon, to a watery grave...

Comments

[richfiles]

Holy consistent chapter character count, batmare!
Such literary consistency! Twi may have just... umm... ...