The chorus of the sea played the endless song of nature. The lulling tune carried along an untouched vista of tropical paradise for as far as the eye could see both north and south. Composed by the static sounds of the shoreline where white caps rolled onto the beach, accented by the briny foam that sizzled away upon the beige sand. Gray toned seabirds called to one another as they flapped high over the waves of the first sandbar. A lone heron's raspy call was returned by the cackle of gulls swooping low as they surfed the breeze. Palm trees quivered and small shrubs rattled like maracas to a midday jamboree. Of the secluded section of coast there seemed nothing to taint the peace. A euphoric dream of an ancient god made manifest, the divine invisible yet guarding the blissful land while they slumbered.
“Adagio!!”, came a call carried along the breeze and rolling shore.
Just as soon as the voice vanished amid the ambience of the coast had a loud splash come from the vast waters of the sea. Silver darts shot upwards out of the brine with frantic abandon even as they caught the eye of passing seabirds. The little ingots shimmered in the sunlight in their brief exposure before slapping flat onto the emerald green. The shoal soon ceased its little spectacle and left a few hovering gulls with empty bellies as they arrived too late. Their black tipped wings held open in the wind for a second chance to catch a meal. Yet when no opportunity came, the bird ruffled the white feathers of their chests and made for the shore. The small flock that departed the main body of northbound avians landed upon the gritty dry sand as soft as butterflies, one by one they tucked their wings against their bodies still distracted from the lost lunch. One among them found a particular liking to a hump in the beach, completely oblivious to the oddity where all else was flat. In a show of dominance the ambitious gull cackled at its flock as it mounted the elevated spot, laughing so much as asserting itself as it held the high ground. The others took heed and backed away, their little heads cocking side to side unsure of what to do next. A black tern darted over their heads, making a few of them as skittish as deer.
“ADAGIO!!”, the shout came once again this time ever closer.
The mound shifted to the beck and call, where at the foot of the heap came a burst of air from a might breath. The birds made a hasty leave towards a fleet of pelicans lazily soaring nearby. The lone gull left upon the lively silt found itself torn between being abandoned and the new movement beneath it, its footing tenuous as the ground shifted each and every way. When the events became too much to handle, it flapped away giving the beach a displeasured caw as its leave.
Out rose a large golden fin, akin to the sail of a billfish which lacked in the luminous beauty in comparison. Chunks of sand and shells slumped off further eroded by the sea breeze. The organic sail more than five feet long stood erect as gold spines held bronze hued membrane which billowed in the air like a taunt sheet. A tilt to the sides soon revealed a back of sorts, covered in golden scales which shone immaculately against the sun’s own luster. Shoulders and contracting ribs hidden under the natural armor were soon visible. What followed suit were mighty and powerful forelimbs reminiscent of equine legs and terminated in ivory white cloven hooves as sharp as spears. Both impaled the beach one after the other as the beast muscled its way from its womb of the shore, the tide edged ever closer as the day began to grow old.
The last layers of the ocean worn earth slid away reluctantly, clump by clump a long sinewy neck became visible. In a single pull upwards the beast freed itself from its blanket of silt. Tossed sand as dry as clay was tossed at the vegetation behind, a lone jasmine bush took the brunt of the assault as branches snapped. With a dull slap of a finned fish tail, the creature sat upright gently swaying their head side to side. A yawn escaped the golden skinned maw of the siren who seemed as if her burial in the beach was little more than an accommodation if anything. Black eye lashes fluttered revealing entrancing magenta orbs, the black pupils quickly sharpened like a cat’s eye in the sunlight. She smacked her lips before stretching across the uneven sand, her back and long tail arched as far as they feasibly could with a sickening pop of vertebrae.
“Is that…?”, questioned a bewildered voice not far off.
A hundred meters northward, another siren bearing the colors of the purple Aurelia flower took notice of their golden friend. The large form seemed to defy gravity as it stood a few feet off the beach, hovering with ease as if it were swimming in the very sea itself. The near speck of the other siren quickly turned into a growing spear of violet as they darted over the shoreline like a missile shot by a scorpio artillery piece. The other siren had little time to reach as their mind tried to wake from its sleep, but the small equine ears seated high upon her head twitched to the miniscule disturbance in the air.
Adagio Dazzle grunted, “Uuughhh… my beauty sleep wasn’t finished…”
Aria Blaze, her second in command for eternity or until her death, reached her in seconds before encircling the leader of the pack. Her speed slowed down as her fins rose all along her body. The fushia siren was in a dire straight to be so riled up and Dazzle could sense her irate state by merely the first moment they met.
Eventually, Aria used her tail as a brake and let her large finned tail drag into the sand kicking up bits and clumps in the process. Once she came to a full stop right before Dazzle, there was an entire ring dug into the beach perfectly shaped and without error. Not anything that had any merits worth, as the two locked gazes there seemed to be yet another emotion hidden underneath the urgency. Adagio soon realized what was soon to happen well before she could even react.
“Got something to tell ya, but first…”, Aria huffed before turning her gaze at the little pile beside Adagio’s tail.
With the expertise of a sand piper plucking a mole crab just beneath the lapping waves, she shoved her snout underneath the heap. The act seemed preposterous and strange at first, until the siren lifted her head up and gave a mighty snort any dolphin would be proud of. Exposed in the warmth of the sun was a copper colored sirenling, tiny in comparison to the Dazzling sisters but nearly identical in physical form. Copper scales adorned her entirety from tail end to her head, fins and dorsal sail were a soft bronze metallic, all the while appearing like a fish who had just been pulled out of the water. It took a moment for the little ling to awaken, but when she opened her eyes to the distant ground there was panic in her heart.
Adagio still observing without action was not pleased at the least. Her fins started to rise slowly from the growing agitation, but she trusted Aria implicitly to know how far to press the limits. A tiny yelp escaped the little siren as she then wrapped herself around the muzzle she had sat upon. The quivering little one dared not to let go even as the older siren hefted the two up to a proper height, the sandy ground seemed infinitely far and impossible to perceive. With eyes clamped shut she couldn’t even register that Dazzle was but a foot away from the snout she gripped. Blaze gave a smug grin at the little ling’s expense, though it was obscured by the tiny tail and bronze fins of her little niece.
“I don’t appreciate you scaring Doubloon like that!”, Adagio frowned before she shook her head in disappointment.
Blaze gave a shrug before she ended the little teasing she enjoyed giving the young siren. She bent down and allowed the tiny ling to bump into the sand. It was an instantaneous reaction as her niece swiftly freed herself from the safety grip she held and scrambled under Dazzle’s belly.
Aria chuckled to herself before growing a stern flat expression towards her leader, “Come on, you know she needs to get use to surprises. Even with the Equestrian’s helping us guard the coast you never know when that monster might still show. She needs to be ready and hardened for the future!”
“I’m aware of that. That’s why Rocky Reef and his four brothers are out there right now. I made sure there are always a set of eyes out there before my beauty sleep.”, Adagio replied as her daughter squirmed behind her right forelimb
“Ya, it’s not like Twilight will come and rescue us either. She’s been gone for three years… back to that mud rock of human…”, Aria spat before being cut off.
Dazzle’s fins jumped at the insult made to their human packmate, “As much as I let you scare Doubloon for her own good. I WILL not tolerate any bad mouthing towards Twilight. You know the rules Aria.”
The guilty siren seemed to catch on quickly and rebounded as smooth as algae made a jetty slippery. She took to hovering in the air again and gave her body a shiver to rid any clinging grit much to Dazzle’s chagrin. She always knew how to escape a verbal lashing unlike Sonata who took it laying down.
“Well… I’d rather be having some fun with my niece anyways. Even in this new Equestria, she needs to be strong willed like us and hardened like me!” Aria sighed as she gave herself a once over in an acrobatic maneuver.
Adagio simply scowled in a mute reply. She still needed to wake up and eat something before she could handle her once previous usurper of the pack. If there was anything she detested the most besides the occasional siren eating monster from the deep, it was trouble right as she awoke.
Gingerly, she knelt down and coaxed her daughter to climb upon her head. It did not take much of her soothing hum before Doubloon eagerly snaked up with her wiggling scaly tail. She parked herself between golden equine ears and just before the first spine of her dorsal fin. After feeling the little siren firmly anchored down, Adagio called upon her inner magic with another tune she hummed softly to herself. Her whole body soon began to lift of its own accord as Aria’s had, rising to a foot high and no more.
She stopped the humming and glared at Blaze who had been inspecting the anterior fins of her tail, “I just hope she picks up from me in leadership and only your resilience. Poseidon only knows what would happen if she followed in your steps if you remember.”
Before Aria could rebuttal at the remark, out in deeper water more fish seemed to panic as if they were being chased. Silver spears flew without order all going in a general group direction from whatever scared them. The three sirens looked over with ears flicking each and every in that direction as more and more fish seemed to clearly afraid of danger. Their keen eyes narrowed upon the disturbance and waited for further warning signs of the monster all sirens feared. There were no shark fins to be seen, no tuna leaping after the morsels, and the water was far too shallow for a whale to be feeding. Seconds passed with nothing to note of, the fish eventually stopped of their own accord and brought a sickening peace to the waters. Even the white caps ceased to be in the general area they had once frothed.
Aria squinted with fins raising high, “No birds… Not even those fat pelicans…”
Dread was in the air, like a sickening thick fog invisible to all without an empathic sense. Even simple creatures like the many fish and dumb birds could feel, and they spoke far louder than a group of ponies during a cottage fire.
Dazzle moved back never letting her sight off the large zone in the water that had become still, “Come, let’s make it back to the others. We’re taking the back route.”
Blaze needed little other instructions as did Doubloon, they swam through the air in haste putting the sea well behind them. A few minutes through towering palms and cypress of the tropical forest, the three reached an open grassy plain before the coastal hilly range which rose high above. She knew it well, the back route to shield her way home from prying eyes of the deep water. They flew on through low to the ground to give any keen eye or sense the jip, she had a hunch she needed to confirm. It had been three years since they last saw of Jagged Tooth, three years since everything had happened.
“So… what was it you needed to tell me? By the way I owe you the first marlin the boys bring in for your impeccable timing.”, Dazzle noted calm yet urgently as her mind swirled with worries and plans.
Blaze seemed to care less for the gift as she shared in the concern, “Ya, I seem to have that down pat since we escaped the human world.”
“Don’t be so glum, I was already waking up before you came.”, Dazzle quipped, “I mean I chose that particular stretch because that water should only be four feet deep up till the third sandbar. It may have been nothing at all, even a shoal of electric rays could have been feeding there for all we know!”
Aria snorted in response, “Ya well… still. Could you at least pick a spot closer by the rest of us at least? I don’t want to lose my first niece… not to one of those things!”
Dazzle shook her head at the indignation towards her own judgement, “We haven’t seen one of them since the alicorns departed to their own realm. It’s been a few years…”
Aria interrupted abruptly as they swirled through leaning palm trees and spiky yuccas, “I know that, I do remember seeing the horror on that fancy alicorn who got too close to the water. With their magic that Jag Tooth shouldn’t need to eat for an eternity… still creeps me out how little the emperor cared for even one of their own though. And the ponies called us monsters?!”
The grassy plains they traversed soon gave way to a small oak thicket, but for the two sirens it was simple to navigate. They ducked and dived over grasping brush and low hanging branches like agile sparrows. In minutes, their flight brought them out of the shadowing cover of the oaks and before a drop into the inlet they called home.
The two let their momentum carry them down the soft slop into the half bowl of salt grass and sand patches. Feathery tassels swayed under the air from their wake, butterflies and bees moved out of the way to avoid being hit while rabbits darted to cover. They eventually reached halfway before slowing down even further as their pack became visible. A colorful area well away from the shore indicated the newest members that had joined them recently, a few more dots of color were off by the shore’s edge barely able to be seen. It was evident there were no males in the area, their darker dull colored bodies possessed far more brilliantly colored fins than the females. Their absence meant they were out on patrol, but it also meant they may have met trouble as well. Adagio knew she needed to get the pack away from the water and into the trees where no sea monster dared strand themselves in.
She snapped her head at her second in command, “Aria, warn the others by the water. I’ll move the new girls. Rendezvous at the Star Cherry tree on the levee!”
Blaze whisked away needing not to acknowledge the order. That left the golden matriarch and her little gem to the most important task to undertake, gathering further speed as the sense of dread began to creep in once again. Doubloon whimpered as she hugged herself as close as she could to Dazzle. The colorful marks ahead grew larger and more detailed in moments until the pack was in recognizable distance. Adagio slowed her aerial approach as ungainly as a mustang before a ledge into a deep canyon.
From the pack, a cerulean siren poked up and looked at them. Sonata appeared happy to see their return and flew at them to give her usual comical embrace. Yet as the three were within snouts reach, Dazzle curved around her younger sister and continued on. She left Dusk confused and perplexed, being ignored was not the usual behavior for the two of them anymore.
Adagio angled herself in the posture of a seahorse, forcing her magic to slow her down before colliding into the horde of hippocampi. Doubloon gripped as hard as she could to keep herself from being flung off. Her velocity finally bent to her will and she came to a full stop ten feet from the rest. The blood ruby in her chest pulsed as her magic strained to equalize, her heart thudding as her senses tasted the fog of terror approaching fast.
“Girls! Everyone!”, Dazzle huffed trying to speak through her breathing.
Something was amiss though as she tried to talk, when she called for their undivided attention at first they heard none of it. They all seemed preoccupied with something behind them, their dorsal fins of various colors to her in ignorance.
“GIRLS!!”
The loud authority drenched call snapped the sirens into line like glass cracking from a rock thrown at it. As they lined up in drilled order side by side, Dazzle could easily name them based on their appearances alone. The new members were all accounted for as she inspected the battle scars, torn fins, even the few missing forelimbs or hooves from a predator. She’d have named them off in a careful roll call had she not be in a rush to ensure their futures. The last three she had to double glance at were the ones who held their young pups in her cloven hooves. Everyone was there; Aria would be in charge of the seasoned members by the shore and taking that burden off her shoulders for the moment.
“Attention! Does everyone remember the recall point in case of emergency!?” she bellowed for all to hear, Sonata had only just begun to make her way over with worry drawn all over her muzzle.
Heads nodded quietly as fins hugged close to numerous bodies, they picked up on Adagio’s panic and were not found wanting. All had begun to float off the ground as well, readying to escape at a moment’s notice.
“Until I can confirm the waters are safe and an Equestrian marine patrol be dispatched I…” Adagio started to explain before something wormed its way through the scaly bodies of her pack.
While it was not unusual for ponies to visit them, she recognized a certain particular unicorn of lavender fur and bulky black glasses. Somepony she thought she wouldn’t see for many more years since they parted ways years ago. With mixed feelings she fought to continue her announcement before she stuttered her words. A part of her wanted to leap out and embrace the visiting human in pony form, but trepidation swarm around her mind like a disturbed hornets’ nest. Doubloon was also adding to the anxiousness of the moment as she mewed under the duress of her mother. The younger sirens slowly joining in in an unfortunate side affect, what sheepish smile the unicorn wore vanished into a fretful frown.
Before anyone could say anything, the whole land began to quake as the rumbling grew intense in sound. It was as if the world had started to snore. Adagio turned her horror stricken gaze upon the sea, the rest followed reluctantly. To their dismay the deep blue had changed and the birds had vanished from the area. Where the once calm waters had been churned a rising wave spearheading the beach ever slowly with immeasurable power behind it. Aria and the other sirens could be seen racing towards the others, their faces bore the look of panic that they knew of what was coming. They were hauling as fast as their magic could and the boys were nowhere in sight. Dazzle pieced the dawning clues together and found a grim picture to behold.
“No… not again.”