//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Dearest Cantata, Part Three 
// Story: Follow Her Lead 
// by Ice Star 
//------------------------------//

Cantata stared blankly at the bundle of shimmering cloth resting in her hooves. She fidgeted with the edge of the material that was enchanted and unlike anything the Overworld had, for she was trying not to look at the blue-scaled filly sleeping inside the loveless makeshift cradle that her green hooves made. Next to her a kindly-looking, but still orderly and somewhat stern, midwife floated in the small current that swept through the green mare's new home, which was considerably larger than the one she had left. It had to be.

Cantata's fellow seapony awaited an answer. Her tail's swipes came in cutting swishes that tapped through the new mother's skull, an auditory dance in her dizzy mind. 

"Sonata," the fatigued mare said, still not looking at the slumbering filly again, if only to see how long her tired eyes could stay weighted on the little one. "Her name will be Sonata."

"Breaking tradition, I see," the midwife said with a nod. Her own hooves were currently occupied as she transcribed the name onto a tablet which she would later slip into the pouch she brought with her before the information was transferred on a more permanent record that was to be stored in a larger city.

Cantata stared at the large pouch, a few pieces of barding lying on top of it. She didn't want to answer the other questions, or even if she could. She took note of the spear in the corner - not hers - and dreaded knowing that even though the spear was for defense, the midwife - who, unlike her Overworld counterparts, was more than just a glorified nurse - would stay until she had all the information required about the latest citizen of this realm.

"Dusk," Cantata whispered, "Her name is Sonata Dusk."

If the midwife considered her choice of a name odd, she did not say so. Cantata thought she saw it in her eyes, for just a moment, how baffled this mare was. But hadn't Cantata spent far too long looking into eyes that were everyone else's? That were his?

"And the father?"

Cantata swallowed hard. "He left."

It was obvious that he wasn't here. She wasn't fooling anyone, she was a single mother and that was that. Something didn't fool the midwife either, and all Cantata's luck ebbed out of her like tides carrying stray kelp, and left only a cold feeling at the pit of her stomach. How the world around her felt so warm outside the scales that walled away her fear!

"Name?" came the frank question.

Cantata didn't want to say it - it felt like the biggest understatement in her life - 'didn't want to'.

"Anything at all?"

Cantata hugged Sonata closer and her child, who slept so deeply in cloth, felt more like a stone. "Where does this information go?"

A fool's question, but she got an answer anyway.

"To a record hall, dear. No one is going to look at these unless little Sonata here moves, is enrolled in a school, or becomes a criminal... there isn't any way her records will be seen unless there's a reason. I'm sure you know that death and marriage are examples of occasions where her records would need to be viewed. Or have the schooling regulations truly become that lax in these parts?"

Cantata knew this but listened anyway, so that she even missed that this mare thought her a native of this backsea territory. 

"The records here are controlled locally - the Overworld, of course, has it different - so even if King Neptune himself came demanding the name of this sweetie, he'd have to come up with a reason within the law he's created - as odd as it sounds - to even get a glimpse of your daughter's record, but that's not going to happen seeing as the king has a nation to rule and this little one isn't going to be causing him any trouble, now is she?"

It occurred to Cantata that this mare must have been speaking of the Overworld's older systems, because hadn't everyone heard about the gods? How the ocean was the last frontier of a ruined world above, and Neptune the sole survivor of all the divine who dared step forth from the dead worlds? Had those not been the things he whispered to her with a frozen look in his eye? And yet, they still spoke so much of this world above and how it had been.

Finally feeling reassured, Cantata blurted out a single name for the midwife to record and watched her gasp, particularly eating her words and too stunned to transcribe the name for a moment.

"Him?!"

She nodded and hugged Sonata tighter, careful not to wake the filly. "Yes."

There was a pause between the two mares and a single name was recorded.

"I see," the midwife mumbled staring at the siren filly's heart, "do you know what she is like?"

"What do you mean?"

"With a mind like one of them she'll be incredibly powerful at the cost of maturing slowly. Those who wouldn't know might mistake her for being 'slow'. The poor filly is going to outlive you by a long shot..." A somber look overcame the midwife as she trailed off, her eyes becoming spacey.

"You've seen this before?" Cantata hadn't realized the urgency that had crept into her voice until after she had spoken. Was she really that desperate in tone?

A shake of the midwife's head in a clear 'no'. "I've merely done my research in biology, you know... but I've heard of others that have, in the larger cities." She gave a sigh carrying a breeze of weight to it. "I went to Atlantis once - though, I am from Styx myself. There I heard quite a few tales. The king is not 'pure' you see. He keeps a wife who he minds when he can, and she has a young one who shows slower signs of growing in the head, but a heart that shines with talent. But before that, he fancied court seamares like yourself, and rarely they bore small siren fry quite like your Sonata. Two, I think, from premarital happenings are about, and Neptune thinks nothing of them. They can be wounded and killed like any other - Neptune lost one siren that way - but they are no Alicorn, no draconequus, no Reaper, and no divine. They still shall not live forever."

Hours later, when the midwife had long since left, Cantata finally began to cry softly so not to wake the still-sleeping filly, her heart feeling ever heavier.