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// 83 - Amphibious Exercise 
// Story: Perchance to Dream 
// by David Silver 
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As we drew closer, I could barely make out people, and it was the wrong kind of people. Or the right kind, depending on how you looked at it. They weren't beach partiers. They were emergency crew, likely summoned by my own family. Red and blue lights warred for attention from what had to be several emergency vehicles that had been summoned to find some trace of me.

I ducked under the water and gave Wave Bell a squeeze. I couldn't talk without a bubble, alas.

Fortunately, she seemed to get what I was asking quickly and soon remedied that fact. "What's wrong?" she asked after she got a bubble around my head. "We're almost there."

"We are, and I'm glad for that, but things are complicated." I pointed up along the beach. "Let's take a right, go up until you can't see those glowing colors, then come up."

She tilted her head like a confused dog. "Well, alright... But that isn't the way you want to go." She pulled me close and got to swimming loyally, going despite her obvious reservations. "What are those lights? Are they monsters?"

"More complex than that. They are people looking for me, and if I just emerge from the water like nothing happened, they will be very confused." I let out a huff that steamed the inside of my bubble. "I need to make this work, somehow, without giving you away."

"You can't give me away," she said with a merry laugh. "I don't belong to you, silly."

I was quiet a moment, just processing that failure in communication. "I don't want them to know you're here. I also don't want to lose you. We promised to get you to safety, back to Equestria, and I meant it."

She squeezed me tightly. "Thank you! I mean, your ocean's not bad bad, but compared to mine, it could be better." We ascended up out of the water into the gloom of evening. There were no lights in sight. "Here we are, safe from nasty mean lights."

That was a step, but hardly the last... I seperated from her and started to paddle towards the land, just for her to come swooping up, grabbing me, and pulling me towards the shore. "You swim slow!"

I gave her a little nudge. "Be that as it may, I don't want you seen. Wait here until I call for you."

She released me from her warm grip. "Well, alright. If you need any help, you just have to call." She shook from top to bottom. "But I need help too."

"I didn't forget." I gave her a final hug and kept going until my feet could actually reach the sandy ground and I could start walking up onto the beach.

Cold. The dripping water on my body did nothing to help, and I didn't have a warm cuddle-pony to ward away the chills. The more of me came free of the water, the colder it became. By the time I was completely free, I was shivering fiercely. "N-now... Twilight?" I had no way to summon her specifically, just hoping and waiting. She said every ten minutes. It couldn't be too long before she appeared.

Thankfully, she did not disappoint. A faint shimmer appeared in the water of the sea. "Hello?" came her distorted voice. "I can't tell, are we closer to land?"

I leaned out over the portal. "I'm right here."

"Linda! You look... cold. Are you alright?"

No... "Let's get Wave Bell home before we worry about that."

"Right. Where is she?" I couldn't see Twilight, but I imagined her looking around for hints of the sea pony.

"Right here!" sang a new voice suddenly as Wave emerged from the depths beside the image. She was laying in the water, barely covered by the lapping waves. "Can I go home now?"

"Setting up a mirror portal would be cumbersome and this isn't the ideal place. Wave Bell, do you trust me? I need to do something to you before I bring you over. It will be uncomfortable, but should get you here safe and sound."

Wave's ears danced. "That sounds a little scary, but if it gets me home, then yes. Linda said you were a nice princess."

"Aw, thanks... Alright." Twilight came into view. "Stay perfectly still." She lowered her horn, pointing it at Wave. Magic flowed through the portal, striking Wave. She made a most uncomfortable noise before she vanished. An instant later, a little miniature of her lifted into the air, held by Twilight's magic. It looked like a little stone version of Wave Bell.

"You... made her into a toy?" I gaped at it as it floated over Twilight's picture.

"I did. Non-living objects can pass through, as we've demonstrated. I will return her to normal once she's on this side, and after I've done a complete check for imperfections. It won't be fast or easy, but it means she'll be here." The statue descended into the water and landed on Twilight's uplifted hoof. "Now go. You look terrible." The bell went off twice in rapid succession. "And I think Starlight and Trixie are probably losing their minds, to say nothing of your family. Get back to them."

Her image faded as I barely got in a shivering wave at her vanishing presence. I was left in the dark, shivering with cold. At least I had done what I set out to do. I turned towards where the lights had been. I needed to get back to them. There was really only one way. I put one foot in front of the other, quivering as my legs might have been, and got to moving like humans normally did instead of being carried around by a sea pony.

In the dark, I missed things. My foot, alas, did not miss them. A fresh pain rushed up through me as something cut into the flesh and I yanked the abused foot away from it in shock. I felt moisture running along the skin there. I was bleeding. Oh crap, I was bleeding. I went to the bottom of the ocean to just die on the beach!

Panic surged, heart pounding as I tried to examine the injury, but the lighting was only getting worse by the moment. I could scarcely see a thing. There was no other option. I could cry, which I was already doing a little, or keep going. I put down the injured foot, putting more pressure on the front where it wasn't cut. I had to keep going.

"I won't... lose it this close to the end." My pace slowed to a crawl as I put each foot down ever so carefully to not repeat that mistake. I didn't want another new hole. Step by shuddering step, I pushed onwards. It was cold...

I slumped to my knees. I was failing. I was going to freeze to death on what was once a scorching hot beach. Of all the insane things I had done recently, to be done in by hypothermia on a public beach was... It was stupid. I hated it.

I forced myself back up, a choked sob escaping me. I hated it! I didn't want to die like that. I took another step forward, wondering how it had all jumped on me at once. Was all the abuse of the journey just catching up with me? Had I lost track of time? I didn't know. It didn't matter. All I knew was that I was in a very bad place.

I staggered forward for what could have been hours, but probably wasn't, before my legs seized and I toppled over into the sand. I was, on some level, grateful that it was sand. It wasn't as bad as many other things I could have fallen on. I couldn't stay there. I couldn't... I punched at the ground once with a grunt of pain and frustration as I got to climbing back to my feet, but that felt like too much. Maybe crawling? I could manage that.

How far away did that blasted sea pony drag me away from the lights?! I should have been back already. I should have been safe, worrying about awkward excuses instead of literally dying. I sank into the sand. I needed a rest. Just a little... I passed out.





I heard a bell go off. I was in stone. I wasn't freezing. I was a horse. A chill ran through me. I was either very dead in the human world, and had passed over full time, or I had been rescued. There weren't a lot of options in the middle. The fact that I had no way to know which it was terrified me. I shook free of the stone and saw I was in Twilight's castle, not Canterlot's. When had I been moved?

"He's awake," came a young male voice. Spike's. He came in through the door from the hallway. "Hey there. You alright?"

"I... don't know." I shook loose bits of stone. "Do you know how long it's been since Twilight last talked to me?"

"A few hours?" He shrugged lightly. "She was pretty worried about you, but you look alright, besides, you know..." He gestured at my face. "You look freaked out."

"Spike..." I sank to my haunches. "I don't know if I'm... alive."

"You look pretty alive to me," said Spike, voice dripping with a little snarky edge. He stepped up and put a hand on my chest. "Warm, feel a beat. Yep, alive. Congratulations! Why wouldn't you be sure of that?"

I wasn't sure if I wanted to slap Spike at that moment or just hug him and never let go. Was both an option? "Spike, I did not lay down and go to sleep. I passed out with severe hypothermia. That's a pretty good recipe for never waking up again." I didn't do either, in the end. "I... might... be stuck here, forever. I..."

"Is that bad?" he asked with an arched brow. "I mean, you seem to like it around here anyway."

"That is not how that works!" I shrieked with my masculine throat. "I have a life! I have friends, a job, a family! God, I've... ruined their party entirely.... I had ambitions... have! Have, I have them." I was shivering almost as badly as I had been before. "I'm not dead. I'm not dead... I was rescued and taken off to rest and recover. I'm sleeping peacefully in a bed somewhere, maybe with some IVs and a machine and goes beep beep in a dark  but warm room and I'll wake up and laugh this whole thing away!" I was lost to hysterics, not even breathing as I rambled.

"I mea--"

"I am not dead!" I bellowed at him so loudly my throat hurt from the effort. I sank to my belly and the world was lost to tears. "I'm not dead," I mumbled out, starting to curl up on myself.

A new presence entered the room, but I was barely aware of it. I could distantly make out that Spike was talking with someone who was responding, but it just didn't matter. I wasn't dead, damn it. I wasn't... I kept repeating the fact to myself, hoping to convince the universe, perhaps. If I said it long and hard enough, it had to be true, right? That's how that works! I was not in a good place.

A hoof came down on my side gently and started to rub. There were no words, just slow and gentle petting.

My sobs were choked and miserable, but I did relax, just a little. I wasn't alone, at least. A clawed hand joined it. I was a mess, but I had people around me that cared.

That didn't make the situation go away, no, but it was something. It would just have to do for the time. "I'm not dead..." I was almost angry at myself for not thinking of something new to say, but it was all that came to me. 

It was all that mattered.