“Dreaming? You’re not dreaming.” Melody’s toothy smile remained frightfully large and terrifying, even though Rarity knew the siren was trying to make it friendly. “You’re alive, and you’re awake. You had a close call there, but you’re all better now!”
Rarity still didn’t feel like she could trust her eyes, or her ears, or anything, for that matter. The longer she stared at this impossible situation, the more she convinced herself that she had died and gone to some kind of strange purgatory. None of this could be real, could it? A colossal stone dome, a tiny marble bedroom, an enormous and friendly green siren—none of this could remotely be reality.
But then again, she’d talked with a dark spirit, maybe even a literal god in the tomb. Was a friendly siren rescuing her and nursing her back to health really that hard to believe? It wasn’t like Melody had come out of nowhere; her and Rainbow had heard and even seen the siren before. They knew that at least one siren, maybe two, prowled these waters, and if they liked to sing at night, then why wouldn’t Melody be able to find Rarity dying on the beach?
Melody’s eyes softened, and she cocked her enormous head to the side. “You are feeling better, aren’t you? If you don’t feel good, you should go back to bed and sleep it off. It’s probably not good for you to be moving around so much if you’re still sick.”
Rarity managed to shake her head. “No, it’s not that. I’m… just thirsty, is all.”
“Thirsty?” Melody blinked and slapped her hoof across her forehead. “Oh! Right! I forgot ponies need fresh water. You can’t just absorb water from the ocean, right…”
Melody backed away from the doorframe, giving Rarity some much desired space for her fraying nerves, and slid halfway into the water. Closing her eyes, the green siren opened her mouth and began to sing, her voice gliding between octaves and notes with ease and grace. The emerald gem in her chest began to glow, and the very rocks of the dome seemed to hum with her music.
And then Rarity’s eyes widened as the world began to change around her. A goblet of stone rose from the floor, the rock moving as if it was molten glass, stopping at Rarity’s chest height. It solidified with a few cracks, and then the water around the siren began to shimmer. Rippling waves rose out near the fins on her legs, glittering like crystal before dribbling into the bowl. A steady stream of white powder fell out of the water like dust, coalescing on the floor in a small pile. Only when the goblet was full did Melody’s voice fade away into a trailing note and the water returned to its pool around her.
Rarity blinked in surprise at the bowl full of water in front of her, then the pile of powder off to the side. “Did you… did you just create freshwater and a bowl with nothing more than your voice?”
Melody smiled back at her. “A siren’s magic comes from her voice. We don’t have horns like you do, so we use our songs.”
“What about those… antenna on your head?” Rarity asked, pointing up at Melody’s head.
“Oh, these?” Melody brushed one with a cleft hoof. “Those are just for navigating and sensing the environment when I’m swimming. When you’re out in the open sea, it can be very easy to get lost if you aren’t paying attention.”
“That would make sense.” Rarity swallowed and glanced back down at the bowl of water in front of her. If Melody had spent all this time and effort to save her life, then surely this wasn’t some kind of trick. Besides, she couldn’t help herself; she was practically dying of thirst. With barely any restraint, Rarity plunged her muzzle into the bowl of water and sucked down several gulps of brilliant, perfectly refreshing fresh water.
Melody looked on and tapped her hooves together. “I pulled all the salt and sand out, right?” she asked. “I haven’t practiced that song in a while.”
Rarity took the time for one last gulp before she bothered answering the siren. “Darling, it was more than perfect,” she said, happily wiping away some excess water from the hairs around her muzzle. “It was exactly what I needed.”
Her praise made the siren beam a little brighter. “Great! Happy to help! Do you need me to make more? I’d be happy to do that. Or what about food? Are you hungry?”
Rarity abashedly smiled at the barrage of questions. Despite the siren’s great size, her demeanor reminded her of an excitable filly rather than a dangerous and cunning creature of the sea. “If you have some food, I would take that as well. I haven’t eaten in… how long have I been down here?”
The siren thought for a moment. “Well, I found you on the beach three nights ago. So, that long.”
“Three whole days?” Rarity blinked in surprise. “Why, Rainbow and the others must be worried sick!”
“I mean, it was actually closer to two days, two and a half,” Melody said. “It was the middle of the night when I first found you, and this morning was the third sunrise since then. But those are just details, I mean.” The siren furrowed her scaly brow. “What I want to know is what you were doing on the archipelago’s beach, all bloodied up like that. Or even, where you came from! I haven’t seen a pony in… well, ever!”
“You… you haven’t ever seen a pony before?” Rarity was dumbstruck by that little piece of information. “But… you’re a siren! Don’t you see sailors all the time?”
For the first time since meeting her, Rarity saw Melody’s face turn into a sullen frown. “No,” she said. “Nopony ever comes to these islands. There’s only the minotaurs, and they’re not very nice. The last time there were ponies here was several hundred years ago.”
Rarity nodded along, but a thoughtful frown twisted her lips. “Do you know anything about the ponies that used to live here?” Rarity asked her. “Anything at all?”
“Some things, yeah,” Melody said. She blew an annoyed breath out of her nostrils. “I’ve had lots of time to look around and learn things. Do a little exploring and stuff. I’ve only been stuck here for like… forever.”
“Stuck here?” Rarity cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Melody abashedly flattened the spines on her head and neck with her hoof. “It’s… a long story. But suffice it to say, there’s some sort of powerful magic keeping these islands isolated, and coupled with siren longevity… I’ve been stuck here for eighty years now? I think.” She frowned. “Yeah, eighty sounds right. It’s hard to keep track when I can’t go on the annual migrations with the others.”
“Eighty years?” Rarity echoed. She felt bad for the poor creature; no wonder she seemed so excited to see a pony, or hadn’t seen any sailors before. “You can’t just swim away?”
“If I could, don’t you think I would’ve by now?” Melody sighed and idly splashed her tail through the water. “I haven’t been able to do anything except swim circles around these stupid things and try to feed off the minotaurs.”
Rarity suddenly remembered she was talking to a giant reptile with carnivorous teeth that could turn her to mincemeat in seconds. “F-Feed off them?” she worriedly echoed.
“Oh! No, no, not like that!” Melody sank a little lower into the water and sheepishly smiled. “I mostly eat fish. But I need their emotions to refill my magic, so I usually sing near their island once or twice a moon.” She tapped the green gem embedded in her chest, which Rarity noted swirled and shimmered like it held an entire galaxy inside of it. “They’re kind of sour, though. It’s not the best tasting magic. Ponies are supposed to be much sweeter.”
“Yes… sure…” Rarity put a hoof over her heart and swallowed hard. “I would prefer if you didn’t try and sample mine, though.”
“Oh, that’d just be rude! You’re a guest of mine!” Once more, Melody returned to her bright and beaming self and she hoisted herself out of the water some more. “Tell you what, I’ll go get us some fish, and then we can talk some more while we’re eating! It’s no fun chatting on an empty stomach, right?”
Rarity nodded, though the thought of eating fish made her empty stomach churn. “Can you find something vegetarian for me?” she asked. “I’m… not a big fan of meat.”
“Really?” Melody’s eyebrow rose. “My mother used to tell me that lots of ponies ate fish.”
“Maybe the ones on the shore, but I’m from further inland,” Rarity said. “There’s not a whole lot of fish where I’m from, but there’s lots of plants.”
“Cool! You’ll have to tell me all about it. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live on land!” Grinning once more, she pushed off from the ring of stone and bobbed in the water. “Don’t go anywhere! I’ll be back with breakfast as soon as I can!”
And then she slipped beneath the water before Rarity could even say anything. Without her presence or colorful voice, Rarity felt like she was alone in a tomb. It didn’t help that she didn’t know where exactly she was or even how deep underground she might be. Even if she tried, there was no way for her to leave, save through the water in the middle of the chamber. And Rarity doubted that she could hold her breath long enough to navigate it and somehow make her way back to the surface.
“I guess I’m not going anywhere any time soon,” she muttered to herself. Sighing, she sat down by the edge of the water, wrapped her tail around her side, and simply waited for the siren to return.