Scarred Serpentine

by Metanoia

Act I, Chapter VI

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There was a distinct smell to the sea. He remembered how it smelt the first time he had ever come across the shore: salty, with a tinge of exotic algae and seaweed. That’s what he had been told, the seaweed and algae produced these scents as byproducts of their everyday functions. He found it right that the sea would be blanketed by this odor, and there was no better way to revel in its influence than when he gazed outwards—starboard side of the ship.

The Andalusian Empire was great, and they were considered to be the greatest shipbuilders in the world, but everypony knew that no one ship would be mightier than the expanse of the sea. It was truly mind boggling at how much vastness can exist, feeling both full and empty at the same time. The sea was filled with seaweed and algae that went on for miles and miles; who knows what other secrets it held, moreso the ones of legends old?

He took note of where the sky met the sea, seeing how it curved slightly. The sea was large enough that it could show one the curvature of Equus—a tiny slice showing any explorer that the world was both incredibly large yet incredibly small. It was the same emotion when one found themselves on top of Mount Everhoof; they had made it to the top of the planet, and yet the odd feeling of knowing no other peak out there was taller brought a great discomfort, a great yearning to a non-existent goal.

As beautiful as the sea was, it was harsh at other times.

He was called to the deck by their Conquistador, an old stallion who spoke softly yet held a demeanor that could silence an entire pod of hunting orcas. As he spoke and commanded his men to attend to their duties in this time of emergency, the wind was suddenly twice as strong as it had been, and only in mere moments it became even stronger than that. The ship began to rock from side to side, the sky turning a bleak grey.

When he witnessed the sky meeting sea, it too was the calm before the storm.

He was instructed to go down and check for any signs of a hull breach. He was diligent, not a time waster. One by one, going through each of the rooms, he inspected the floors, walls, and ceilings. As he went on his way through his duty, he felt glad that there weren’t any signs of any water coming in.

Until it did.

The sea was becoming more unforgiving, showing its sheer resolve. The ship thrashed from left to right and forward and backwards, and it seemed that it got off the water before crashing back down into it again, slamming its hull into the stormy waves, nature playing with the great object with an even greater power. It proved, once again, that it would best any creation not from gods themselves.

They yelled for his name. He was inside the ship, and he wanted a way out. Some of his crew mates were already on deck, but a few of them—such as himself—were deep inside the quickly degrading structure. Time waited for no soul. He had to bail.

Quickly leaving the room he was in, he found himself in a hallway and ran through the best he could through the water, already two-thirds a foot deep and rising at an alarming rate. Wading through the rumbling liquid, he arrived by a staircase that would lead to the deck before he heard a sound.

A sound that came from a hallway to his left. It was a cry of help.

He stared at the hallway and glanced back at the steps, his hoof already on the railing. He let out a short breath before leaving the foot of the staircase, rushing to the source of calls for a savior.

---

There was something about plants. They were mostly green things that could vary from being the tiniest of moss to the tallest of giant redwoods. Feather Dew himself had seen giant redwoods during his visits to Califoalnia. They truly were great and giant; an average sized Manehattan townhouse could fit in the base of their trunks! He saw how ponies scaled the height of them like mountains. It amazed him how living things could be that way.

He lazily swung from his hammock—indolent—though he wasn’t at the treehouse complex. Feather hung from a rather long tree branch that extended over the natural pool with the waterfall. He somehow wasn’t anxious at the thought that he could fall into the water and be completely soaked—the light white noise of the waterfall helped him soothe his anxieties away.

Well, save for one anxiety.

He kept being reminded of her, how he triggered something in the mare. It wasn’t intentional at the very least, but the least he could do right now was to feel bad for it. The whole situation was bizarre; they were talking about dreams and his experience with one of his own, and she suddenly had a change of tone and demeanor, a calm yet fiery pertinacity.

Feather was glad the weight of her words hit her, regardless of him being to blame for the mishap. There was something... about that. About her. She was strange, an anomaly, and yet there was something beautiful about the mare he wouldn’t fully admit even to himself. He sighed and tried to let the Amarezonian breeze help him and his thoughts cool down.

It was as if he had left a conversation that never occurred, recalling words that existed not, a weight in his soul that harkened to memories from another timeline. But, though one way or the other, he allowed a small smile. Did he dare to explain any of those things, much less the contentment in his heart when he confirmed he would be coming back?

His moment of solace was interrupted by a sudden jolt that rocked his hammock. It was as if the branch he was hanging on was hit by something, an object. He peered out and turned wide-eyed as he peered at the perpetrator.

River Moon stared wide-eyed as well, a blush on her cheeks as he kept staring at her. He blinked, and she blinked back in response. “I... was trying to find a breeze, that’s all.”

“You could’ve said you were trying to fly and that would have been funnier, y’know.”

And she looked absolutely, adorably furious at that statement. He tried to stifle his laughter by putting a hoof on his mouth, but his moment of elation soon turned into one of absolute horror as he felt a slap on his hammock, and inadvertently a slap hitting his side.

“Hey! Stop hitting me! I’m gonna fall into the water if you keep doing that!”

She stuck out her tongue and made a look with her eyes. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!”

Feather Dew jumped out of the hammock, splaying his wings and taking flight. She struck at the empty hammock a few times before glaring at him, Feather hovering at her side with his hooves crossed.

“Sometimes the game is rigged for some of the players to have wings, mind you. Some have horns. Some have none at all. To remind you just this once, I am the former.”

“Racist.”

He was genuinely shocked at that crude but short remark, placing a hoof on his chest. “I-I’m not racist at all!”

She let out a heartfelt grin. “I always get the last laugh, to remind you just this once. And by the way, I was about to dip in the pool but then I saw you hanging around up here.”

The epiphany suddenly came to him. “How did you even get up here without me noticing you?”

She shrugged as best as she could while keeping her balance. “I’m not sure, chief. You seemed to be in a trance as I was scaling this tree. I was about to ask you that.”

“Oh.” Do I really space out like that? In retrospect, he truly had been in deep contemplation, thinking about himself and the mare in his visions. This wasn’t a good place to talk about that, though. “Hold on. Let’s get you down to firm ground.”

Even though she politely refused, Feather lifted her up with his hooves and brought her down towards Amarezonian footing. She mentioned something about the use of better smelling deodorant and you don’t need to hold me like that, you scoundrel! But he couldn’t think about any of those remarks as he realized she was probably about to ask him what he had been pondering on.

Feather tried to think of the ramifications. If that was the case, could he tell her? What would she even say? River Moon would probably think of him as a loon for the rest of her days!

“Hey, Feather. I wanted to ask you what you were thinking about. From the look of your face, it seems serious. Wanna talk about it?”

He hesitated and was slightly jolted at the fact she knew it was grave. It was more than whatever the word “serious” was. It was downright queer.

“I... I don’t know, River. You’d probably think of me as crazy for it.”

She didn’t look pleased with that answer. “Hey, I can keep a secret. You can tell me. And besides, I have seen some crazy stuff myself. Tell you what, I won’t even try to play devil’s advocate for you.”

Feather Dew felt somehow comforted by that. River Moon has been trustworthy to him since they met; he knew that this silly mare could act rather seriously if she wanted to. “You promise?”

“I absolutely promise you.”

The pegasus nodded. He glanced at a row of empty beach chairs lined up by the water’s edge. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll explain it to you?”

With a nod, River followed Feather, the two settling on two chairs adjacent to each other. They sat down, facing each other with their undivided attention. Feather Dew allowed a silence to come between them for a moment before he cleared his throat and began.

“Well, I’ve been having the usual Ohteotl experience these past few days, with a lot of the same elements everycreature else talks about. But I keep seeing things that are strange in my visions. I... I keep seeing somepony.” The cool of a breeze hit his face as the last of his words reached her ominously.

“You keep seeing somepony?” River Moon was paying rapt attention.

Feather agreed by nodding. “Yes. I keep seeing this mare... but I’ve never met her before. At least not in real life. I... keep seeing her in my visions ever since our first day here, but I’ve only been seeing her clearly since, well, just a while ago at the treehouses-”

“Wait wait wait wait wait.” River Moon cut him off. “You’ve met somepony in your experiences that you’ve never met before? Ever?”

“Not exactly. I’ve met her only in my dreams. I can somehow remember it now. I can sometimes spot her in my peripheral vision, or in the background, or just being there, but whenever I wake up, I just forget it as if it were an insignificant detail. I started to realize more was going on than I thought ever since our first meeting.”

Feather waited for River Moon to reply, but she seemed to be having problems of her own. Her mouth opened and closed slowly, as if she were trying to find the words she wanted to say. Her hind legs fidgeted under her weight as she sat in complacent wordlessness, looking out into the distance.

“River, what’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

“Her eye. It’s red, isn’t it? Her face is covered by a green mask. I remember it. I...” She suddenly turned to him, eyes shocked yet apprehended. Her coat turned the slightest bit pale. “You saw her, too?”

Feather’s heart beat like drums at her revelations, his hooves pulsing like a rapid telegraph sounder. She... “You... you too? You met her? Wearing golden mane and tail ties, a white skirt, an aquamarine necklace, everything?”

She gravely nodded her head.

Feather rested his neck on his hoof. He couldn’t believe it. Feather assumed this whole time that he was somehow communicating with an entity that was isolated to him and only him, but now... She could contact others, and the epiphany sounded more unbelievable the more he attempted to wrap his head around it. How could that be? Frankly, did he even know anything anymore?

“What does she tell you?” River Moon’s voice was a soft sound, a mere bated whisper.

Feather’s mind was trying to process her question, trying to think of how he would even begin to answer that. It was as if he was standing in front of a million options to choose from.

And even if his mind was blank, his words were loud and clear.

“She talked of a quiet night. She talked of silence being the loudest scream. The air begged of... ‘living another sunrise.’”

River seemed speechless herself, staring at the ground in what he assumed was blank desolation.

The howl of the wind interrupted any thought that could form in his head. It washed through him, toying with his mane as it had always done. And yet it was colder than usual. Was that in his head? Another breeze made its way between the two baffled ponies, reminding Feather of the distance being formed between them.

He wondered if it was a mockery by the wind, to come in between them. It was possibly trying to bridge the two together, or to make them grow apart. What was its intent to be here at all?

“She told me something different the first time we truly talked.” Feather snapped out of his blank state and redirected his attention to River Moon as she started, “She told me that the silence was strangling her, like she couldn’t breathe. She said that the most silent times were the ones that made her bleed the most.”

Feather was silently devastated. He let out a ragged exhale, almost sounding like a chuckle—a defeated chuckle of a stallion who has lost to the enemy, silently waiting for the moment he’ll be slain. He moved his hoof to his cheek and rested it there as he was suddenly thrust back in the moment.

He remembered her touch. It was gentle, and it almost seemed to be out of familiar compassion rather than raised suspicion. He then remembered the touch being more grounded but still very much soft. It was stroking him. She was stroking him.

“She caressed my cheek. It was only for a moment, from the first time we met here. But she did! It was so soft at first I wasn’t quite sure if it was even real. But then it came back firmer, realer. I... I wonder why she did that. Why did she do that?”

“Calm,” interjected River, glancing at him. “I... that’s not what she acted like when we first met. When we first met, it was as if she was trying desperately to seek help but didn’t know how. She was like an abandoned animal. Scared. She looked scared, even more so than I was.”

She sniffled, setting her front hooves by the sides of her hips on the chair. “What else did she tell you?”

“’We forget.’ She told me that we forget dreams and the things we see in them. She talked about how people forget the lives we live in them. She said that it was hard... to let go of the things that mean so much.”

“Let go?”

“She got... sad for me saying exactly that. I was telling her one of my dreams and then she started to explain... I can’t remember it exactly. I can’t remember exactly what we talked about before she seemed to realize something that made her space out that way... Then she asked me if I wanted to come back."

He sighed, more heavy than he would have expected. Feather shut his eyes as he reminisced the fuzzy sensation of waking up from a dream, except that it didn’t necessarily feel good. It was as if he was being massaged very gently by the tip of a sharp blade.

Feather didn’t know how to describe what he felt in general.

“Talk to her.”

He looked up from his state, calm but solemnly. “I should have said I was sorry.”

“That’s not what I said. I said you should talk to her.”

He allowed a tuft of his mane to cover his eye and snout. Feather was a tad uncomfortable. “About what?”

“About us.” River Moon pointed a hoof at his chest and then put it on her own. “This isn’t normal. We’re supposed to trip about jaguars and meet with the occasional alien and see flashing rainbows and stuff, not meeting what is clearly the same entity because she can only talk to us one at a time. Something strange is going on. I’m not sure of what it is, but what I’m sure of is that we have to get to the bottom of this.”

Feather felt the anxiety. “How do I even start that conversation?”

River sighed; it seemed she also didn’t know. “I’m not so sure myself, but what I can tell you is this.

“She hasn’t talked to me at all during this visit. Now that I know she’s been talking to you, we can deduce that she can only talk to one of us at a time. It seems like she... comes back to you, somehow. I have a feeling she might be more comfortable with your presence. If there’s somepony to tell her, it should be you.”

Feather Dew realized the weight that was being put on his shoulders. Albeit his subconscious was seeking for any other way, Feather Dew knew she did have a point. If there was somepony to tell her anything, it was him. And yet, despite feeling the pressure of a conversation that has yet to have taken place, he felt rather blessed with the opportunity for it was as if he knew deep within himself that the only pony who could break this to her was... him.

Feather shook his head, trying to shake off the anxiety and heavy sensation in his temples. “You’re right. I somehow feel that it has to be me that has to do it.”

“Yeah.”

He puckered his lips. “And I have to say, this has been a rather... interesting development.”

River Moon awkwardly chuckled. “I- yeah. Actually, this whole thing sounds crazy. An entity we somehow only communicate with through hallucinations. Funny.”

Feather stepped off his chair and sat beside River, finally coming close to her. “I myself wonder if she’s found us or if we found her.”

River Moon and Feather Dew sat with not another word said. He finally had a sort of quiet in himself, but not the same blankness he was hit with moments ago. Feather felt a comforting peace, for he understood that he needed it, they needed it—a moment of interlude before a reprise.

Feather allowed himself to take note of the gentle crashing of water from the waterfall, pouring the aquamarine liquid into the tranquil pool. On the water, he saw several leaves that fell from the trees above wander aimlessly, coursing through the waves with little hesitation and with a great many repose.

He was somehow relieved by the movement of the leaves, and he understood that he needed to reconnect with the world around him, for he had a fear in him that if he didn’t, his soul would start to wane from his body.

Author's Note:

A bit of a twist, eh?

Comments

[Jatheus]

I love the opening paragraphs about the sea. Delightful!

River Moon is a bit of a flirt, isn’t she? I approve.

Hovering, in a technical sense, is maintaining a position in the air. Descending is more clear to indicate a downward vector.

Huh… now that is interesting… it raises questions.

[Metanoia]

10926000
It raises lots of questions indeed. And I guess it does make sense to use descend as opposed to hover.