//------------------------------// // Mereswine // Story: Bomblets // by Carabas //------------------------------// “You know what?” said Twilight, drifting in place, her words coming out amidst a stream of bubbles. “That settles it. From now, I check and double-check and triple-check the small print on a spell before casting it. And if there’s no small print and the whole bottom half of the parchment shows clear sign of water damage, I dwell on why that might be.” “I still fail to see a problem in this outcome, darling,” Rarity swept past Twilight in a blur of white softly streaked with pale purple. Powerful beats of her tail drove her muscled length on through the water. Unexpectedly transforming into a dolphin had been the cause of some initial consternation, as it would for most ponies, but she seemed to have recovered with aplomb. “Ooh, watch me leap!” Twilight continued drifting as Rarity swept up and leapt up past the water surface with a crash. There came a few muffled ‘Ooh’s and applause from those ponies that lingered on the lake’s bank — and all due credit to them for quickly heaving two new, surprised, and wheezing cetaceans to the most apt place possible. She swept around, arcing her own mulberry-tinted length in the surrounding blue of the deep lake water, and tried to get a good view of herself, one eye at a time. Seeing both sides of the world had been a little disorienting at first. As had propelling herself with a tail and flippers. And having to resurface every so often to breathe. And adjusting to a lack of magic. Frankly, there hadn’t been much that hadn’t disorientated. At least Rarity seemed to be bearing up well. “A narwhal would have been a bit more convenient,” Twilight muttered to herself. “They’ve been observed to use magic with their own horns in the wild, so there’s no logical reason we couldn’t have —” A sudden crash back down into the water behind her stole Twilight’s attention, and she turned to see Rarity coursing back down to her position, blinking somewhat dazedly. “Oof,” Rarity murmured. “Bit of a belly-flop there. Still, practise makes perfect.” She smiled at Twilight, the motion coming more easily to her mouth than usual. “Aren’t you going to indulge in a leap or two, Twilight?” “I will. Soon. There’s just something I want to test.” Twilight flapped and tried to angle herself to face the expanse of the lake away from the bank, where the furthest edges were all but swallowed by blueness and shadows. She closed her eyes, tried to breath out, accidentally spouted underwater instead, and after recovering herself, clicked. The little waves that flurried forth from her in the water were invisible to the eye, and so were the little waves that came rushing back in, bouncing off whatever surfaces they found. With the sudden clarity of a lightning bolt to the skull, Twilight’s world filled. Awareness of the contours of things inveigled into her head, the positions and ruggedness of the furthest banks and lakebed, the shifting shoals of suddenly-uneasy fish that shared the lake with them. And the form of Rarity, drifting at her back. Smiling, Twilight knew without turning. “Hah.” Twilight felt light-headed, the map of their territory spread open before her, and she turned to Rarity. “Well. If it’s not outright magic, it’s a close cousin. You’ve got to try that.” “Should I?” the ex-unicorn replied teasingly. “Oh, I could. It does seem to have enraptured you. But perhaps you could help me with a little display?” “What sort of display?” “A synchronised leap straight up and a flip forward, little more.” Rarity batted her eyes. “Think of all those gallant ponies on terra firma. I think they ought to see a little dophining, if that’s a verb. And … well, you could breathe at the same time. You do need to do that from time to time, Twilight.” That might also explain the light-headedness. Twilight grinned abashedly. “Alright. On your mark.” “Excellent. Remember, straight up. Bend forwards into the flip. In parallel, if we can manage it.” Rarity twirled a short way back through the water, coming round to face Twilight from several metres away, and angled herself up at the glimmering surface. “Ready?” Twilight nodded, and fought to right herself when the rest of her body wobbled into the motion. “...Ready.” “Now!” With one flap, Rarity sped up through the water like a bullet, and blue blurred past Twilight on all sides as she rushed to follow her. The surface rushed at her, the lights dancing within it growing larger and brighter as it grew nearer, nearer, nearer ... And then, air. Air and sunlight, impossibly bright and cold and sudden, flashing off Twilight’s wet hide as she rocketed up right out of the water. There was a gleam of green on one side, she dimly registered, and the sound of ponies whooping. Stages of the plan clacked through her mind like clockwork, though, and as she glimpsed Rarity’s white form bending forwards into a flip, Twilight did likewise, a fraction of a second behind. She arched forward, her body bending into a comma shape as she tucked her head down and her tail reflexively rose to meet it. Blue skies and blue water wheeled, and then, the instant after, the water swallowed her up again. For a moment, Twilight drifted, and settled. The hubbub from the ponies and sun-glare down here came muffled, was made distant and peaceful by the enveloping water. She relaxed for a moment, before her thoughts stole back to the show she and Rarity had just provided … … and what exactly their audience on land would have seen. “Rarity?” she said. “Yeeeees, Twilight?” The white dolphin wiggled gently towards her, all innocence. “Did … did you just arrange for us to form the shape of a love-heart from the audience’s point of view.” “Je ne regrette rien, darling.” “That is so—” Rarity playfully poked Twilight’s snout with her own and whirled around, making for the surface again. “How long did you say the spell was estimated to last before it wore off?” “I … a day, give or take an hour or two.” “Then come, come, show me that trick you did with the click. And after that, we’ve got plenty of time yet to practise our shapes.”