//------------------------------// // Under the Sea // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// “Rarity is a siren now?” Champagne stared at Rainbow Dash in disbelief. Rainbow didn’t blame her; if it’d been the other way around, she would’ve thought Champagne was losing her mind. “Listen, I watched the whole thing go down, and I still don’t believe it,” she said, flapping her wings a few more times to keep up her altitude and airspeed. “I didn’t know siren song was that powerful, but apparently it is.” “And there really was no better way?” Rainbow shook her head. “Melody needed somebody else to help her under the water. She couldn’t do everything by herself, and it’s not like there are any seaponies or other sirens around here. But apparently, she could turn one of us into a siren like her with the aid of one of their chest gem thingies that Rarity had found on the archipelago. So, Rarity volunteered and insisted that she do it, even though I tried to get her to let me take her place.” Champagne whistled. “That’s quite a tale,” she said. “At least you didn’t try to make me do it. I would have said no.” “The thought crossed my mind,” Rainbow said with an amused smirk. “But that wouldn’t be right. In the end, Rarity got to be the beautiful badass fish dragon pony and I didn’t.” “You almost sound like you’re jealous,” Champagne chided. Rainbow shrugged mid flight. “I mean, it would have been pretty awesome. Not gonna lie, sirens are friggin’ cool when they’re not trying to eat you. But Melody was also worried that she wouldn’t be able to undo the transformation once she performed it, and Rarity insisted that she should do it because she stands to lose less than I do if it is permanent.” “I couldn’t imagine being water bound for the rest of my life,” Champagne said. “Even if sirens can fly.” “I bet I’d still make a pretty awesome Wonderbolt,” Rainbow said. “Not even becoming a several ton fish monster could slow me down!” Champagne’s eyebrow crawled up her forehead. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “Meh. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I’m not the one who’s a fish right now.” She shook her head and turned her gaze further north, where the green palms of her home island rose up out of the calm blue waters around it. “I’m mostly worried about what the others are going to think. And by others, I mean the pirate brothers.” “Why them, specifically?” Champagne asked. “Or is it just because they’re the pirates?” “Because they’re coastal ponies by the looks of it,” Rainbow said. “And sirens are a sailor’s nightmare. How do you think they’re gonna react when two sirens show up later?” Champagne thought for a moment, her hoof rubbing her chin. “I… think I can see your point.” “Yeah. Exactly. We show up with a pair of sirens and they’re gonna think the end of the world is upon them or something. I don’t really know, but whatever they do, it’s gonna be stupid and dangerous. So we need to try and get them calmed down before Melody and Rarity show up later.” “That seems like it will be easier said than done,” Champagne said. “They aren’t exactly trusting of us in the first place.” “Yeah, it’ll be a pain in the neck, but we’ll manage. Somehow.” Shaking her head, Rainbow adjusted the weight of her supplies on her back. After hers and Champagne’s expedition to the south island had ended up not even being a full day, she was immediately regretful that they’d brought so much equipment. She was even more regretful that she didn’t decide to just leave it on the beach and let one of the two sirens bring it back when they were done with whatever they had to do beneath the atoll. It certainly would have made her flight back to the island easier and faster if her and Champagne didn’t have to carry everything on their backs. For now, though, she could only fly—fly and focus on what lay ahead of them all when she got back to the island and the wards finally came down. ----- “Melody—Melody, darling, please do slow down!” Rarity grimaced as she tried to keep up with the green siren’s nearly blistering pace through the tunnels and halls of the sunken temple. She constantly darted ahead, twisting and weaving through tunnels and cracks in the earth, leaving Rarity to struggle and catch up with her as she navigated her alien body through the water. Straight line swimming had come quite naturally to her, but every time she tried to turn her sheer size around a corner, she usually ended up rolling or twisting her tail and fins in some direction she didn’t want to go. She resorted to using her cleft hooves for grip and to keep herself pointed the right way very often, and she envied how effortlessly Melody could move through the temple while keeping her forelegs tightly tucked against her chest. Still, her slower pace gave her ample time to take a look around the temple she was currently working her way through. Her first impression was that this was once a grand structure, grander than anything she’d seen so far on the islands. There were magnificent vaulted arches, enormous halls easy enough for a siren to make her way through without feeling cramped, and statues, carvings, and decorations galore on the walls, though many were crumbling, cracked, and covered with algae and other aquatic vegetation. The floor was covered with stone chairs and toppled, split tables, and occasionally, she’d spot the remnants of some equine bones left in a dark corner. This temple had been inhabitable by ponies at one point—why was it underwater now? Melody was waiting for Rarity in the next of one of the great halls. After watching Rarity spin herself about with her legs until they were both oriented the same way, she had to stifle a chuckle with a hoof. “Getting the hang of it?” she asked, her tail idly swishing in the water to keep her in place. “No, but I’m still moving,” Rarity said. “My brief stint as a seapony was not as difficult as this. In addition to being a lot smaller and more flexible, there weren’t as many tight and cramped quarters in Seaquestria as there are down here. There really wasn’t much of anything, in fact.” She paddled her way up to Melody and looked around the great hall they found themselves in. “What is this place?” she asked. “It’s so… so grand and gorgeous.” “I think it was once the center of these ponies’ worship and government,” Melody said. “But at some point in their civil war, the entire island sank into the sea, leaving behind only the little atoll.” “Celestia! Their war was that destructive?” Rarity shook her head in disbelief. “There must have been powerful magic at play to do something like this.” “Which is why I’m so concerned about this spirit, even if you and Rainbow think you can handle it with Equestria’s resources.” Melody turned around and continued to swim deeper into the structure, but she at least slowed down enough for Rarity to easily keep up with her. “Their war destroyed an entire civilization. I think there may have been more islands than these four, as well, but they also were sunk straight to the bottom of the sea. How the ponies defeated the moon god’s avatar in the face of such awful destruction is beyond me.” Rarity’s scaly face would have paled if it wasn’t already milky white. “That’s… that’s horrifying.” “It is. But, if we have some way to stop it, we have to try,” she said. Her tail flared, and she quickened her pace to the doorway at the far end of the hall. “Come on. It’s not much further along this way.”