The Conversion Bureau: Drops in the Sea

by Brightwater

Chapter 2

Aquamarine surveyed the newfry she had been assigned. To her right, there was a young-looking seafilly. Her age estimate was around six or seven years old. The newfilly looked pitiful and miserable, as if something horrible had happened. It probably had. She decided not to delve too deep into it. The next newfry seemed to be floating almost halfway out of the water. She boggled for a moment. Conversion was supposed to strip the body of excess fat, if leaving behind a little chub. This guy, whoever he was, was shaped like a beach ball. The other newfry, a lilac female, seemed to just be average. Late teens, no strange features. Normal. She turned her attention to the one that was just out of the corner of her eye. She turned and did a double take.

It was Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn who had been on the HoloTV more times than she could count. The lavender mare was scribbling down notes with a pen on a waterproof notebook. She looked up, blinked, then continued scribbling down notes. She was wearing long, black flippers on all of her hooves. Now, it was Aquamarine’s turn to blink. She hadn’t been warned about this. She decided to get all of the newfry’s attention, the inexplicable Twilight included.

“So!” she said in a bubbly and cheerful tone. “How about we introduce ourselves, huh?” The newfry just stared blankly at her.

“Okay, let’s start with me. My name is Aquamarine. I’m your instructor. Like you, I was a newfry once—”

“Newfry?” the child interrupted. “I thought we were newfoals. Are you gonna fry us or something?” Aquamarine giggled, shaking her head.

“Foals are pony babies. Fry are seapony babies.” she explained. “Anyway, I was once a newfry like you. I was converted here, too. I’ll be showing you exactly how to be a seapony!” she told them, trying to be as exuberant and happy-sounding as possible. “After everypony introduces themselves, I’ll explain what we’ll be doing.” The aquamarine seapony pointed to the flabby orange beach-ball with her fin. “Your turn first.” He visibly gulped.

“My name is Herman. I like food. I didn’t want to be converted to a seapony. All of my family are pegasi and unicorns. I guess I’m weird.” he muttered. “Do I have to say anything else?” he asked.

“If that’s all you want to say, you don’t have to say anything more.” Aquamarine replied. “Does anyone want to volunteer to go next?” she asked. The lilac one raised a fin.

“My name is Mary. I lived in the middle of the city and was converted at Windbreaker Bureau. Unfortunately, there was a potion mix-up with one of the seaside bureaus and they received a keg of potion capable of turning people into seaponies.” She paused, looking around at the shallow, almost-enclosed bay area that they were in. “So, after a long truck ride, here I am.” She glanced around again. “Uh, why is there a unicorn in flippers over there?” she asked. Aquamarine bit her lip.

Directing her attention towards Twilight, she explained that it was her turn to tell them something about herself. The prodigious unicorn had obviously not anticipated having to explain anything. She blinked a couple of times, probably mentally preparing something to say.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m here to study how newfry adapt to being seaponies.” she informed them. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a spell that lets me breathe water.” she continued. Aquamarine raised an eyebrow, then looked around her smallish group. She pointed her fin at the last one, the child.

“Would you mind going next?” she asked the small, snow-white newfry. The seafilly gulped.

“My name is Lily, but I wanna be called Waterlily.” she began. “I don’t want to be a seapony.” She paused, her eyes welling up with tears. She dunked her head underwater, probably to wash them away, then popped back up, her previously dry cyan mane plastered to her head with water.

“My mom hates seaponies. She’s afraid of fish. She works in a lab. Someone found a piece of rotting ancient shark fin—” she made a face “—and they speed-grew a shark. It bit her hand off. I think she sees all things in the sea in the same way as that shark.” Waterlily informed everyone. “I like cheese.” she finished.

Aquamarine took a mental note- everyone here was not hoping to be a seapony. “So,” she said, flashing a grin, “I’ll explain what we’re going to be doing.” She glanced around, searching for any positive facial expressions from the newfry. Frankly, they all looked bored. “You’d better be paying close attention,” she reprimanded them. “I don’t want to have to repeat this.” The newfry looked up with less-than-rapt attention, but that was close enough.

“All of you—” she pointed with her fin in the three newfries’ general direction “—are going to be learning how to be seaponies.” Pointing her fin towards the flipper-wearing lavender unicorn, she told her “And you do whatever you do.” Focusing her attention back on the newfry, she continued with what she had been saying before.

“Don’t worry about swimming lessons. Swimming is instinctual. As seaponies, you already know how to do that. No training involved. However!” she felt her words end in a sharp point, “You need to learn how to harness seapony magic. We have magic, just like pegasi have weather magic, unicorns have magic-magic, and earth ponies have growing magic. You need to learn how to tend to the seas, how to clean them. But, most importantly...” she said, building suspense for something that was utterly undeserving of it, “You need to learn about seapony society.” Twilight Sparkle, still standing at the side, was swiftly scribbling down notes. “Today, we will be learning about magic.” she told the former humans. “Before you can clean the seas, you must learn to harness the water.” She led them deeper and out of the enclosed area, each seapony subconsciously swishing their tails to keep themselves floating.

“As a seapony, you can breathe, see, talk, and hear properly underwater.” she informed them. She dived underwater, the newfry following. Herman, the beach-ball pony had a significantly harder time staying underwater than the other two, who were happily floating neither up nor down, but she ignored it. Most of seapony life was spent below the waves, and he was going to have to get used to it.

The first thing that she showed her class how to do was a simple piece of magic that created a current. If you kept focusing on it, it would last as long as you needed. “When are we ever going to need to use a measly little current?” Herman complained, directing one towards the ground, suspending sand in the water. Aquamarine stole a glance towards Twilight, who, despite the reduced visibility, was still writing things in her notebook. “You may only be able to make a measly little current now, but with practice and the help of others, you will be able to do a lot more things than kick up sand.” she explained to the impatient orange newfry. He grumbled out something that Aquamarine could not understand, then went back to directing currents at things..

The newfry seemed to be decent at creating currents now. Mary, the lilac one, seemed to be experimenting with curved ones. She gulped. She hadn’t really expected them to progress this fast. She was going to have to think of a new lesson plan, and fast. Twilight seemed to have gotten bored with her previous captivation, taking notes, and was attempting to make currents with her horn and failing. “Everypony!” she shouted. All four others froze. “Do you want to learn more magic, or do you want to learn how to clean the seas?” The vote was unanimous, Twilight not participating.

They wanted more magic. She was pleasantly surprised by this- herding muck around was not one of her favourite pastimes. Unfortunately, after she had demonstrated countless things, they eventually got around to dealing with a practical application for all this magic. The aquamarine-coated seapony gritted her teeth. She began a short speech to explain what they were going to do, planning to drag it on for as long as possible before she had to deal with the icky brownzone. Her favourite part of cleaning the seas had always been reintroducing life to it, not removing muck.

“You’ve learned how to control the waves. Now, I’ll show you how to put it to good use.” she told them.

Waterlily yawned. “I’m tired.” she sleepily muttered, her eyes glazing over with sleep.

“I concur.” Mary agreed. She looked as if she was about to doze off any second. She probably was. Seaponies could sense the time of day from the water, and it was exceedingly late.

“Oh!” Aquamarine’s eyes widened in shock. “I didn’t notice the time. Here, let me show you the best aquatic sleeping position...” she trailed off, noticing that they were already adopting the position when she hadn’t even shown them. Instinct. The tiny pod of seaponies lay in the sand at the bottom of the ocean, gazing off into the blue above them.

Comments

[Wungiel]

Yay, new, great chapter