I’ve never found an adequate way to describe how it feels to wake up when you think you’re dead. Rainbow once told me she felt like she’d been reborn. I was mostly confused.
I moaned softly as I lay in the bed. Once I realized that I wasn’t dead I sat up quickly. My head began to pound and I made a note to move slower.
I looked around the dimly lit room, and noticed Rainbow lying in the bed next to me. I slowly got to my feet and walked over to her, shaking her gently.
“Rainbow? Are you okay?”
I got mumbles in response, a hoof swatting at me, and a request for five more minutes. She was fine.
I left her in the bed and began to explore the room. It didn’t look unlike my home back in Ponyville.
Did I dream this whole thing?
If you did, that’s one heck of a dream.
My pounding head wasn’t making it easy to rationalize where I was. Suddenly, the light in the room came up and forced me to cover my eyes.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed.” I felt a hoof on my shoulder pushing me back toward my bed.
“Wait. Who are you? Where are we?” I stumbled toward the bed trying to make out who was pushing me.
“Just lay down. You and your partner have been through a lot and you need your rest.” The hoof kept pushing at me.
I finally lost my patience and swatted the invading hoof away. “I don’t want to lay down! I want to know where we are, who you are, and what we’re doing here!” I shouted and through squinted eyes I saw a light green mare had taken a step away and looked rather scared.
“Look at the big stallion shouting at the lady.” The voice came from the doorway. I opened my eyes more fully to see an orange colt leaning against the door frame. “You okay, Coral?”
The light green pony nodded.
I sighed, frustrated with the lack of answers I was getting. “Look, I’m sorry but I just woke up in a strange place after thinking I was dead and then you come in here pushing me back to bed without offering any answers. I feel fine; I just want to know where we are.”
“I doubt you feel fine,” said the orange colt in the door, “You’re in Marelantis, and the shock of going from the surface to this depth is going to do a number on you. I’ll bet your head is pounding more now than it ever has.”
I struggled to focus on his words and felt myself wobble. The pounding in my head had grown intense.
“Just lay down and trust Coral here. She’ll take care of you and make that ache go away. But if you want to continue to stand and shout and eventually die from the pressure, then we can let that happen to.”
The light green pony shot him a look like she would never let that happen as she moved toward me. “Please, I’m a doctor. I only want to help you. Rest and we’ll explain everything when your body can handle it.”
I more fell onto the bed rather than lie down but I passed out again.
----------
“Do you think Marelantis exists?” Skip asked the question quietly as we sat on the banks of the Highland Reservoir, watching the moon rise.
“I don’t know. My dad always said that anything is possible. But Marelantis has been lost for a long time, Skip.”
He rolled onto his side as he spoke, “That’s just it. Everyone just says it’s lost. Not gone. It’s not like it got destroyed, everyone just forgot where it was. I think it exists.”
I lay on my back and thought about what he said. “Makes sense. What will you do when you find it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I should tell everyone about it. It’d be a great discovery. I’d like to live there if I could.”
“How would you live there if the whole place is underwater?”
“I’m sure there’s a way. Some kind of spell or something.”
I chuckled at him. “Well, if you ever find it come tell me first. I’d like to be in on the discovery.”
“But you hate sailing!”
“So? Marelantis is a big deal. I could put my distaste of water behind me for that. So what do you think it looks like?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine anything like that.”
I sat up and looked at him. “My mom told me once to never stop imagining. Because the day you do that is the day you die.”
He sat up next to me and nodded. “Your mom was a smart lady.”
“Yeah. She was,” I said softly before standing and stretching. “Come on. You’ve got boating exams in the morning and I’ve got work to do if I’m going to get my detective’s license.”
He fell in step beside me and spoke quietly. “I’m sorry about your parents, Shadow.”
“Me too.”
----------
I woke to Rainbow shaking me. “Shadow. Shadow, wake up!”
I sat up quickly again, this time my head did not begin to throb. “Rainbow? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine but we have to get out of here.” She spoke softly but with force.
“What? Why?”
“Because these guys are pirates! I heard them talking about our ship and how it was dead in the water and how they were going to have to ‘take care’ of it. Our plan to take down their mast didn’t work!” She looked panicked.
“Rainbow, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”
“The mast of that pirate ship coming down and hitting ours. I must have been hit by something and knocked out.”
“No. It didn’t hit our ship. You stopped it. You saved our ship, but somepony on the pirate ship hit you with a magic bolt. You fell into the water with the mast. I guess these guys saved us.”
“But how did you get here?”
“You don’t expect me to let you drown without trying to save you, do you?”
“But then who are these guys?”
“Marelantians.”
Rainbow’s eyes grew wide as she began to process it all. She sat next to me on the bed, slowly. “Horse feathers…”
I chuckled softly at her. “Maybe we should take a walk and see if we can find someone to explain what happened.”
Her eyes still wide she nodded. “Yea. That’s a good idea.”
I took her hoof and led her off the bed and toward the door. As we came out we were in a long hallway. It looked not unlike a hospital.
“Oh! You’re both up!” The light green pony from my previous wake up ran up to us. “How’re you feeling?”
“Very well, thanks. Whatever you did really helped my head.”
“Just doing my job, sir.” She gave me a sweet smile, “So who are you two? We’ve never seen you around before.”
“Oh, my name is Shadow Chaser, and this is Rainbow Dash. We’re from Equestria.”
“Equestria? I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
“Well, we don’t often hear Marelantis mentioned either. We used to, but you’ve all been lost to us for a long time.”
The light green mare led us out of the hospital and we got our first glimpse of what Marelantis really was. A slightly pink magical dome was overhead, not unlike the one Shining Armor had used to protect Canterlot during the changeling invasion. Rainbow Dash and I stopped and marveled at the sight of it. The ocean was held at bay by only a thin magic shield.
I turned to our friend, “This is how you all live here? Just a magical dome on the bottom of the ocean?”
She chuckled softly, “Oh no. This is just where we bring ponies that can’t breathe underwater. Beyond that barrier is the rest of Marelantis. It’s a very big city. But we always kept this magical barrier up just in case we get visitors. Which we do from time to time.”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Visitors from where? Equestria hasn’t known where Marelantis is for hundreds of years.”
“Well, the world is much bigger than just Equestria, my little pony. We’ve seen ponies from Germaney, the Ibex Empire, and occasionally we even see some Zebricians.”
“Wow. How did they stay in contact and Equestrians not,” I asked.
“Well, Equestrians were always friendly and welcome but when Equestria got so big, they had little use for trading with us anymore. They have all the resources we have right at their hooftips. So why not trade among themselves and save some bits?
Admittedly, I think some ponies were bitter at the Equestrians. They felt like Equestrians only used us for what we had and didn’t appreciate our needs. Over time the feelings of bitterness fell away and ponies just got on with their lives.”
“Wow,” Rainbow Dash and I said in unison, still slightly overwhelmed with the fact Marelantis even existed.
As I stared out at the water, wondering if the magical shield was visible from the top, my mind found its way back to the Captain and the crew.
“Miss, did the pony that saved us happen to know what happened to our ship? They’ll be terribly worried about us.”
“I’m not sure, but if you follow that path behind you and head to the center of town you can find his office. He’s the captain of our search and rescue teams. Look for a building with a sign that says, “Solar Flare’s Search Team and Rescue Service.”
I nodded and thanked her as Rainbow and I headed down the path and into town. If I knew the Captain like I thought I did, he’d waste weeks searching for Rainbow and I. We needed to make sure they weren’t going to get intercepted by any more pirates. Especially not when Marelantis was this close.
“Solar Flare’s S.T.A.R.S.” Rainbow read the sign as we approached. “That’s really corny.”
“Well, corny or not, he saved us. We owe him a thanks and we could use his help finding the ship.” I knocked on the door.
“I wonder how these guys keep this dome up,” Rainbow Dash said, staring up at the pink bubble over our heads.
“I assume it’s like Shining Armor’s. They just have to recast the spell every once in a while to keep it there,” I offered.
“Seems like the one Shining Armor did took a lot of effort for him, and that was supposed to be part of his special talent.” She continued to marvel at the dome.
“Well, maybe their magic is just stronger than ours. The Marelantians have been around for a long time. So something like this would be easy for them.”
“I guess.” She squinted and I read her mind.
“Do not go touch it. You don’t know what that would do.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Spoil sport.”
I smiled at her and turned as I heard the door finally opening. “Ah, you must be Solar Flare.”
“That I am. How’re you two feeling?”
“Physically, fine. But we’re in a bit of a bind. We need to find our ship. If they don’t know we’re alive then they’ll search for us for weeks.”
“Wait just one second. Which ship did you two fall off of?” He eyed us suspiciously.
“Uh.. The one with the mast still attached.”
He visibly loosened but he still looked wary. “Alright, I’ll take you at your word, but don’t pull any funny business while you’re here.”
“Excuse me?” He spoke as if we were criminals.
“Come inside. I’ll explain.” We followed him inside and he showed us several boards full of pictures of ponies, all with name underneath and a number next to them.
“What’s all this?” Rainbow asked.
“This..” He paused for effect as he gestured to the boards, “is every pirate pony we know of.” I did a quick guess as to the number and realized there must’ve been about 50 ponies up there. “Each one is labeled with a number. That’s how we know which ship they’re on.”
My mind couldn’t grasp that one. “Wait. How do you know which ship is which number?”
“Because we numbered them,” he said, flatly.
“But, how? How could you do that without them knowing it? Surely, they would’ve seen you.”
“Ponies can’t see under their ship. So we added the numbers on the bottom of the hull of every confirmed pirate ship.”
I stared once again at the wall of fugitives. “Why is there no number one?”
“Number one exists but we’ve only labeled it. We don’t know anyone aboard the ship, though.”
“Why not?” Rainbow Dash asked from behind Solar.
“It’s a changeling ship. Anyone we ever captured never showed their true form so we couldn’t document it. Our government won’t allow us to just blow the ship, either. They’re the worst pirate scum on the oceans but we aren’t allowed to do a bubble poppin’ thing.”
“What makes them any different from other pirates?” Rainbow asked.
“And how would you blow up their ship?” I added.
“Well, normal pirates generally steal what they want and cast the other ship and its crew adrift. A murder here or there doesn’t bother them but they know if ponies get too scared to sail then their livelihood goes away. What makes changelings so different is that they don’t just want the food or jewels ships have. They want the ponies.
“Changelings thrive on sucking love and kindness from their victims. Whenever we find a ship that’s been attacked by changelings, the ship is ALL we find. They kidnap ponies and suck the life out of them. We’ve never found any survivors from changeling attacks. Even other pirates give them a wide berth.”
Rainbow and I sat silent for a moment. The realism of life lost was hard to listen to. When the moment seemed to have past Solar spoke again.
“Your ship is a bit of a hero right now.”
Rainbow and I exchanged looks and spoke together. “Huh?”
“You guys took out the number four ship on the seas right now. That would be, the fourth most vicious pirate crew. And your little warship took them down.”
“Well, that was mostly Applejack’s doing. Breaking the mast was all her,” I said.
“One pony did that!?” Solar’s jaw dropped slightly.
Rainbow chuckled. “Yep. Only the best apple bucker in all of Equestria.”
“You earth ponies sure make ‘em strong.”
Rainbow giggled again.
“Solar, not to be unappreciative of this little lesson, but we need to be getting back to our ship,” I said.
He shook himself of his wonderment. “Right. Well, that might be a bit of a problem.”
“Why? Did something happen to the ship?”
“No, but we haven’t seen your ship since we got you back here. Is it possible they would leave once they lost you?”
“Not in a million years. The Captain would wait until the very last second to stop the search. And if I hadn’t been there to jump off the boat to save Rainbow Dash, then Applejack would have. No. There is no way they just turned and went home.”
He sighed. “Well, then we’ve got to find them. I’ll gather my teams and send them out but if they’ve gone there’s not much we can do to get you back to Equestria.”
“Don’t worry. They’re still here.” My temper was beginning to flare so I headed out the front door. I heard him say something to Rainbow and then she joined me outside.
“He said he’s sorry.”
“Yea, well, he should be.”
“What’s your problem? It’s not like they actually would leave us here. And even if they were forced to go back to Equestria, Applejack would tell Twilight and they’d come back for us.”
“No, Rainbow. They would come for you. I’m just the colt that would be tagging along. Ponies have a habit of not caring about what happens to the detective that makes his living in the shadows.” My temper was not about to start simmering.
“What are you talking about!? My friends know how much I care about you and they consider you just as important as me or anypony else. We’ve all risked our lives to save one another before. This would be routine for them at this point!”
She was right but my anger was clouding my judgment. “Look! I’ve been abandoned a lot in my life and I know the feeling and the fact that they haven’t seen that ship since we got here makes it pretty clear. They counted their losses and moved on!”
Rainbow’s expression changed to one of anger that I’d never seen before. She stepped close to me and spoke softly but more harshly than I thought she was capable. “My friends would NOT just leave us here. And if you think they would, then you don’t know them or ME like I thought you did.”
I stared into her eyes, they told me her anger was righteous and she felt very betrayed. She stepped away from me and turned her back. “Flare said to head for the closest wall of the dome. He’ll meet us there.” And then she was gone. She flew away from me faster than I’ve seen her fly in a long time. I could see a rainbow colored arc heading toward the dome wall.