143#E14C years later…
The train from R'lyeh was always an uncomfortable experience, but more so for the creatures who didn’t make many trips. Most of the ride was spent in relative comfort, passing shallower settlements along the shoreline and the light-water fish who lived there.
“We could still get off at Cliffside Shoal,” Cascade said, settling into the seat beside her with a tray of seaweed-wrapped fish rolls. “We could wait until next year. Nopony says it has to be now.”
Arcane Song pulled at one of the rolls until she yanked it free of the light layer of slime that kept it on the plate, chewing thoughtfully. “What, you sayin’ I’m not brave enough to be on land?” She pushed off from her chair, jingling the necklace she wore with one foreleg. “You think I can’t craft good enough legs for land? You wanna go back and buy somepony else’s legs insteada’ trustin’ me?”
“No…” Cascade argued, reaching up to touch his own necklace. Almost identical to the one she was wearing. And it was true—with more age and experience, she could probably craft working wings, or even the full package of convincing pony illusion that would make the air-breathers see them as one of their own. “I trust you, Arcane. You know I do.”
But that wasn’t the point of this visit. If pretending to be one of them had been part of the story, she would’ve written it that way.
“Yeah.” She glanced around the nearly-empty car. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if there were lots of other fish swimming up with them—but travel to the air city just wasn’t as inviting as it had once been.
There were no tracks yet, no breaks to squeak, but the train came to a stop anyway, hovering just above the platform. “Cliffside Shoal,” sung a bored voice. “Passengers not bound for the surface should exit now. Low Tide Travel is not responsible for accidental drownings that may occur otherwise.”
The doors slid open with a chime, onto a mostly deserted platform. Nopony swam in Cliffside anymore. The old sushi stands were deserted, and the parks were overgrown with ugly yellow seaweed. A squid drifted past the opening, glancing briefly in at them. She imagined it was amazed by their bravery to still be on the platform.
“Passengers are encouraged to exit now if they do not wish to continue towards the surface,” the voice sung again, a little more insistent. “Low Tide Travel is not responsible for accidental drownings.”
Arcane turned her back on the door, settling her two hooves on the ground beneath her. She wasn’t exactly sure how the leg-necklace would function in the real world, but she knew some things. Somewhere in memories long calcified with time, she knew there was a downward force waiting for her up there, a gravity that would turn her from a three-dimensional creature into one that could only move in two.
“You should stand up,” Arcane said, as the door finally slid closed. “See that up there? That’s the surface.” She pointed out the window, where a silvery sheet formed the underside of the distant surface barrier. A threshold where Arcane had never yet crossed, where stars and moonlight streamed down from a world of unknown shapes and dry, songless creatures.
“Oh, right.” Cascade drifted past her, gliding along with his extra fins. He’d always been the more graceful, since her earliest memories. She didn’t resent him for it—it was just the way things were. “You think it’ll hurt?”
“Only if we get caught,” she said. She fell silent as mechanical sounds shook the train, grippers finally securing themselves around the tracks. Metal ground against metal, and something jerked—the squidlike jet-drives falling silent as they were instead pulled upward with simple mechanical force.
“Brace for transition,” the voice sung, almost cheerful now. “Equalization in progress.” More mechanical sounds, this time much closer at hand. The layer of water overhead began to drain. Muscles clustered to the ceiling closed up tight, starfish withdrew into crevices, and soft anemones pulled in their tentacles. Arcane was so caught up staring at the vertical tide-pool overhead that she didn’t notice the water reaching her neck.
For the first time in her life, her soft scales were exposed to the cruel touch of the air. She opened her mouth, gasping desperately for water that wasn’t there. Water drained past her neck, her shoulders—and then the necklace hit the high-and-dry.
Water from her legs swirled around her, animated by the force of what she imagined a proper pony body to be. She’d only seen them drawn of course, since the dry art of chemical photography didn’t work underwater. But she had a pretty good idea. A second set of legs formed from the water, attached to her back beside her fishlike tail. They caught whatever sediment happened to be in the water, and lucky that there were no little fish to be caught up as well. Water coated her body, a thin layer that ran all the way to her gills, and would keep her from drying out.
“Well, that was… unpleasant.” Cascade nudged her with a foreleg, prompting her to turn.
First he’d been longer, and now he was taller, with watery legs much like hers. The spell was basically identical, since she’d created both of them. His voice echoed strangely, quieter than she would’ve expected and without any of the masculine reverberations in her chest. Just another sacrifice they’d be making to live on the surface.
This time she inhaled, and she felt the merciful cool of water sliding down her gills, then out the sides of her neck. She wasn’t going to suffocate. “How long can we use these things, anyway? Won’t the water get… stale?”
“Yes,” she said. “Not from oxygen, they’re designed to exchange it faster than we breathe. But it catches dirt from the air, and particulates from your body, so… every day would be ideal. Seapony houses have saltwater baths, either individual or communal. We… probably don’t have the gold to get our own to start, even with most fish going back under the ocean these days.”
“But we’re going to change that,” he said. More to himself from the sound of it. “Lord Volant isn’t going to push us around.”
“Not for much longer,” she agreed, wrapping a foreleg around his shoulder and giving him a friendly squeeze. The suits didn’t even leak, or at least not enough to see on the already soaking-wet floor.
Outside, the windows now showed something she’d never seen so untampered before—sunlight. There wasn’t much, a single opening in the misty morning air. It seemed to shine down on the dock district, where many fish worked and lived. Though for every fish she could make out through the glass, there were twice as many ponies. Four legs, lungs—everything she’d heard about since she was just a guppy.
“We’re actually doing it,” Cascade said, walking clumsily over to the exit doors, and waiting as they were cranked upward towards the train station. “Cascade and Arcane Song, together in the high-and-dry.”
She followed him, wanting to feel the touch of something familiar against her. They were about to face terrible opposition, in a city that hated and feared them. “Just think about what Princess Stormwater will say. We’ll swim back to her a century from now, and tell her that we’ve reopened trade with the surface. Land ponies will be visiting again, and we’re building new neighborhoods for fish to live. You know how proud she’ll be. Proud of us!”
“Proud of you,” Cascade countered, ruffling her headfin with a hoof until she squeaked in embarrassment. “You’re the one who wants to be the big important ambassador. ‘We should sing together again.’ ‘Think of how much better our spells will be!’ ‘You know you won’t have any fish to trade to Griffonstone without us.’ Your ideas, not mine.”
“Maybe they’re my ideas, but I wouldn’t be brave enough to go out there on my own. High-and-dry ponies, still fresh from thinking we’re trying to invade their world… think our princess is some evil monster and start going crazy whenever we talk about home. You can’t fight myths that strong in a day. And I wouldn’t be able to face them alone. But with a stallion at my side… maybe I’ll manage.”
Cascade reached out beside her, extending a wing of clear water. His real fins were visible within—strong enough to make him blazing fast under the waves, but not do much for him on the surface. Their suits would hold them “floating,” but that didn’t mean they would be flying. “We still might get harpooned on our first day. Lord Volant doesn’t exactly have a reputation for treating seaponies like we’re friends.”
It was hard to argue with him. She’d heard the same songs he had—stories of fish with their necklaces stolen left out to dry in the sun. A warning against those who “trespassed’ into the high-and-dry.
She’d heard all those stories, but that didn’t mean she was convinced. Her memories of lives past were stronger than Cascade. She didn’t keep her old selves sealed away in jars the way most fish did. There were some things she needed to remember, in order to appreciate what she had. She knew Volant Word couldn’t be as evil as all the stories suggested. She hadn’t written him that way.
“We’ll figure it out,” she insisted. “Besides, you’ve got me! I’d like to see some ‘pony’ sing spells better than mine. Not even possible.”
“End of the line, Wintercrest Dock Station.” The doors swung open, squeaking slightly in their brackets. A good half-dozen fish crowded right on the other side, eager to get in. They had to shove through fish twice their size to make it onto the platform before the doors closed, dragging them back for another circuit.
A fish old enough for half his scales to turn white grasped her foreleg as she tried to pass, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You sure you aren’t lost, guppy?” he hummed. “No place for little fish like you in the high-and-dry. No place for anypony soon.”
“We heard,” she said, prying her foreleg free. Her suit was better than his, and so her legs were wet while his were dry. It was easy to slip free, stepping across the doors. “That’s why we’re here. It’s not going to get better unless somebody sings something new.”
“Bah,” he said, exasperated. “Can’t eat idealism for breakfast, guppies. Hope you bought round-trip tickets.”
They hadn’t—they hadn’t brought very much at all. Just some old gold jewelry Cascade had inherited from his highborn parents, with images of the princess wrought in precious stones and pearl. All tucked away in the bag over her shoulder, where she could best protect them if anypony decided to steal.
A few moments later, and the doors swung closed. She heard a muffled voice through the wall, and the massive iron crank began to lower the train back below the surface.
All around them—the high-and-dry, Wintercrest. Some of the ancient stone buildings remained, where earthquake and landslide had been kind. Much of the rest was taken over with a growing favela of scrap metal and wood, homes stacked upon each other without any real reason. A single wide boulevard left over from the days of peace quickly splintered into a thousand winding alleys, weaving into the shadowy streets. Streets they would have to traverse in only two dimensions.
“We’re here,” Cascade hummed, his song much more subdued this time. “You sure you don’t want to hop back into the water and swim after the train?”
“Positive,” she lied. “Some fish has got to come up with a new song, or we’ll be at war by next generation. We’re the fish for the job.”
“I know,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “Just thought I’d offer. Living with the land ponies it is.”