Silverstream took a single rune in her fins and tried to speak the proper words. A spear thrust towards her—she swam to the side, glaring at the ugly, sharp-toothed creature that grinned back at her. She thought he had missed, until she tasted a metallic brine across the side of her body. Her gills were taking in her own blood.
The creature screeched, trying to stab her straight on. Silverstream dodged again, dropped the rune, wrapped the spear in her fins and tried wrenching it from the creature’s grip. It struggled, tugging the spear back towards it desperately, but she was stronger. When it was hers she snapped it in half.
She drew back, expecting the next attack to come from its teeth, but the creature instead swam away into the darkness and disappeared.
Silverstream would not die in water. She had spent too much of her life without the sky. No. She was going to die somewhere nice—on land, by a beach, with the sun setting as she closed her eyes. She was going to die surrounded by her friends and family. She was going to die a good death.
The Naga: a primitive, sapient tribe of sea monsters that lived in Seaquestria’s waters. The current theory was that they were descended from ancient sharks, or something like that. They looked like it, at least. Sharks with arms and legs and bipedal bodies the length of two ponies standing in a line. Intelligent thoughts were not visible in their eyes. They were supposed to be completely harmless—their spears only meant for hucking at schools of fish. Apparently the arrival of giant sea monsters in their territory had turned them aggressive.
Silverstream was breaking all kinds of Navy records today: concrete sightings of Kelpies, gargantuan kraken-thingies emerging from nowhere, Naga turning into big jerks…
Silverstream’s sailors swam in place, breathing hard, and always, always checking their surroundings. Many of them held runes in their fins, but none of them dared start their incantation. The Naga swarmed them like piranhas whenever they tried to place a rune, as if they had money riding on the kraken-thingy obliterating Seaquestria.
“Everyone in one piece?” asked Silverstream. She suddenly remembered the rune she had dropped, but it was already lost to the darkness below. Here in the deep water, they couldn’t see more than a few metres in front of them. But the Naga didn’t seem to have that problem.
There were no words. Only nods and murmurs. The water had gained a soft tinge of red from all the blood. No grave injuries yet, thankfully, but they were hurting.
“I’m going to try the amulet again,” said Silverstream. “Prepare yourselves.”
Her sailors mustered enough energy for a loud “Yes, Captain!”
Silverstream took the amulet around her neck with both fins.
Please, Amy. Please work this time.
She closed her eyes and asked for light.
The amulet shone, illuminating the water around them with brilliance for at least a fifty metres out, and in that moment, Silverstream saw them all.
She and her sailors were completely surrounded. There were at least fifty Naga. Maybe a hundred. And they were all...waiting—heir spears at the ready, cold eyes trained and watching. But even as the light from the Amulet of Aurora flashed, Silverstream saw no visible reaction on their part. Like they were mannequins, cast adrift from some flooded department store, floating motionless in the water. They didn’t even shield their eyes from the light.
The amulet’s glow receded. Silverstream and her squad were surrounded by darkness again. She wished she hadn’t looked.
It was hopeless, anyway. The amulet drove back dark magic. It seemed that the Naga had none of that influencing them. Why were they so aggressive? What was blocking the communications orbs? None of it made sense.
“Anything, Captain?” asked Whirlpool. She was treading just above her, her rune clutched to her chest.The goggles they wore protected them from the amulet’s light, but only the one holding the amulet could actually see.
“No,” said Silverstream. “They’re just...still.”
“Should we try setting the runes again?”
“No!” Silverstream blurted.
“Then what?”
I don’t know, Silverstream nearly said. I have no idea. But she didn’t dare speak it.
Silverstream had hoped that her presence would keep her sailors safe, but so far, she was just as useless down here as she would have been on her ship. She was just another seapony stuck in the depths of the ocean.
They couldn’t leave without being attacked, and they couldn’t finish their mission without being attacked. They were sitting ducks. Outnumbered. Tiring.
She hadn’t smiled for a while. She thought that might help, but that thought broke in under a second.
“Movement!” Whirlpool’s voice thundered. The sailors readied themselves as the whistling sound of the Naga shooting towards them became louder.
Silverstream’s eyes closed. They hadn’t done anything this time. They barely even talked about the runes.
Whirlpool roared. “Naga incoming!”
Gallus slipped into a stream of magic. As the current coursed around him, the stream turned into a river, and then an ocean. His eyes were open, but they felt closed. He could see beams of blinding light, but it didn’t hurt to stare. Colors and colors and colors swam into each other and out again. Vastness left him profoundly small and hugged him tight at the same time.
He floated, never touching any of the webs of light. He floated past them, between them, searching for what he needed to find.
A minute passed before he found her. He heard her calling in the distance. And what was more, he heard the voice of the amulet.
He didn’t know how he knew it was the amulet. He just did, and its voice was beautiful. It sang to him in gentle tones, saying things that he struggled to understand but that he knew were heartbreaking. He swam towards the silver light it cast.
As he got closer he could see something underneath the amulet’s light, a color—light blue, the same as Silverstream’s mane. It seemed to be flickering. Fading. But as it receded, the amulet shone twice as bright, and the song that it sang to Gallus became more urgent, more alluring.
She needed him. He would go to her.
He was so close now. All he had to do was reach out.
The core tenets of themselves came trickling in, uninvited, like a castle moat overflowing, the water creeping under the walls of stone that were supposed to keep them out. They smelled white sand and sandalwood and strawberry rhubarb pie. They saw the sun rise on land for the first time, felt its rays on their face. They had their wings broken. Stomped on. No one came to visit them as they lay in the hospital. They buried their father. Surprise-kissed Professor Fluttershy on the cheek on a dare.
They became two again after one of them realized what was happening.
Silverstream caught her breath. She had been holding it for a long time. A spear flew towards her.
Move. She moved. But it wasn’t her own voice that she heard in her mind.
Gallus?
With a thought, he curled one of her fins into something resembling a fist. Whoa, fins are weird. Um. I’ll try not to move your body.
The crown, she thought. I thought...
She didn’t need to think anymore. She already knew. She just had to grab the memory that lay in her mind’s reach. She saw Gabby in a red dress. Watched Terramar and Harvest walk away. Felt her heart break for the three of them. Then the four of them.
“Gally,” she sobbed aloud. An apology was on her lips.
You’re not the one who should be saying sorry. Watch it!
A Naga shot through the water towards her, graceful in its movement like an arcing arrow. She could just barely see its empty eyes in the darkness.
She swam under it and then rose up just a few feet away. The naga raised its spear and charged. Silverstream dodged and grabbed the spear again, this time rolling into a backflip and pushing her tail against the creature’s chest, sending it tumbling away, unarmed. When it rounded on her again, she held the spear up to its throat. It stopped, raised its arms and slowly backed away.
Nice moves.
Who, Gally, me or you?
I think that was you.
Thanks!
Now stab the bastard.
The spear lunged forward suddenly, but she stopped it just as the point pricked the naga’s throat. It yelped and swam away.
No! We can’t hurt them.
Beg pardon?
They’re being controlled by something. It’s not their fault.
She heard Gallus sigh from inside her head. That same sarcastic sigh. You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?
Yes!
Another sigh. Alright. I have an idea. You ready for this?
Silverstream could tell she was ready, because Gallus was too. This was a level of sync they had never felt before. Not even in their younger days. Gallus had a plan. He didn’t know if it would work, but Silverstream cast away the doubt as soon as it materialized. Of course it would work. Of course it would!
She swam down, sinking beneath the battle.A quick check behind her told her that she had three bogeys on her tail. She didn’t have time to check on her soldiers. But they were doing fine. They were agile. They’d be—
She heard a rasping groan. From the corner of her eye, a seapony went limp.
Mourn later. Gallus brought her back to the plan. You’re too easy to distract.
Was that concern?
About the mission. Not about you.
She was glad to know that he was lying to himself, but her heart still stung. She could smile later.
Yes. Smile later. Fight now.
She swam through the battle and flipped herself so she was facing everything from underneath. Two more naga had joined the three pursuing her. Behind them, she could see her sailors fighting them off. Protecting her. From here, their odds didn’t look good.
We are the odds. Silverstream relished in his flow of confidence. She opened her fins wide.
“Shine,” they said. And the amulet did.
Its light blossomed outward from the base of her neck, silver-white. Her sailors paused their movements and covered their eyes, curling in on themselves. The naga—every single one—turned towards her, transfixed.
Gallus gave her his strength. She felt like she was flying high, towards the moon. She could reach the stars beyond.
The light from the amulet cooled into a light blue that made the both of them want to laugh in euphoria. The naga swimming towards her stopped.
No, ‘stopped’ was wrong. They froze. Stilled in time. If Silverstream and Gallus focused their sight, they could see that the naga were all held in place by a telekinetic grip. They could see the beasts’ mouths opening and closing, their eyes blinking, unsure of what was happening.
This is new, Silverstream wondered.
I know.
Her sailors couldn’t move. They would be blinded. They didn’t have her eyes.
They don’t, but they could.
“Gallus?” Her eyes widened.
Instead of answering, he acted.
A deluge of thoughts poured into her mind, thousands of them, thoughts she didn’t recognize as her own or Gallus’s, but they weren’t overwhelming. They didn’t quite meld into her.
We’re not going to sync up with them all the way.
Silverstream was amazed. We can do that?
Her sailors opened their eyes, unbothered by the blinding light. Silverstream took a collective gasp with them as their intentions were shared, their feelings suddenly were understood, and they were suddenly more. They became one mind, but at the same time maintained their own, individual thoughts. A perfect team.
“I’m gonna guide you home,” said Silverstream. “We’re gonna win.”
They believed her.
They held onto that feeling and swam towards her, ducking under the frozen spears and weaving around the frozen bodies of the naga, who could only stay where they were and follow them with their eyes.
Silverstream’s sailors came to her, pulling their casualties with them. She didn’t need to order them into formation. They did so on their own, swimming in front of her, and making the rough shape of a shield with their bodies.
The naga glared unblinking at them.
We can’t hold them there forever. Every moment she could feel a strain on her entire body, and she knew that if she gave into that exhaustion, the naga would get free.
We don’t need to. They’ll come to us and we’ll be ready.
They exchanged thoughts, trading feelings back and forth, a quick argument without any words.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
They both suppressed a laugh.
But there was no time for thinking any more. They had to adhere to a theory and hope that it was true. The plan was formulated quickly and passed on to every sailor present in less than a second. There was a brief barrage of objections, but Silverstream and Gallus won out. They were the leaders. What they said, went.
We should do this more often, Silverstream thought.
Don’t press your luck.
The group split into two halves. The first half readied themselves.
Silverstream let the naga go. They wasted no time in swimming towards them, sharp teeth bared and spears primed for bloodshed.
The first half, the combat half, swam to meet them. The second half waited until they were ahead, then swam forward as well. Silverstream stayed back to watch. Her heart was racing.
They’re gonna be fine.
She hoped so.
Stick to the plan.
It wasn’t long before the combat portion of the team met the naga, and the naga attacked. Silverstream lifted her amulet slightly.
Now.
Blue light poured out of the amulet and grabbed hold of the naga again. The sailors in their reach swam effortlessly under the frozen spears, adjusting themselves so not one of them was vulnerable to attack. Silverstream could see through all of their eyes, leaving her with no blind spots, and she adjusted their positions accordingly.
Silverstream shut off the amulet.
The naga attacked empty space. Roaring, they all turned to their closest targets, moving to attack once more, only to be held still by the Amulet of Aurora again. The combat half adjusted again, putting themselves out of harm’s way. Evasive maneuvers only. No more casualties today, seapony or otherwise.
Silverstream released her grip, waited for the naga to attack, and froze them in place yet again. It was a dance. The naga would step, and she would hold them still while her sailors took their step, avoiding the sharp spears..
Remember that rave that Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie threw for us? Gallus mused. Junior year.
Of course I do! Silverstream had always loved strobe lights.
The second half of the team, led by Whirlpool, swam around the frozen fray. Whirlpool knew the coordinates, and she could navigate the sea like no one else could, and thus, so did the rest of them. She led them through the cluster of allies and naga, gliding freely through the array of bodies until her team was finally out.
Phase Two—the runes. Not wasting any time, the second team released the triangular carved stones in their fins and began their incantations.
Silverstream took a deep breath. She was beginning to feel a strain on her body, but it was now up to her to start holding the naga for longer periods of time. Pretty soon they would figure out the plan, and stop wasting their time attacking moving targets. The rune team couldn’t be interrupted, let alone stabbed.
You’re fine.
Stay here and I will be.
I’ll stay, but you don’t need me.
But she did. She began to grimace under the pressure building in her muscles. It was like she was back at training camp.
Silverstream upped her output, begging the amulet to hold the naga still for longer. Two more seconds. Three. Six. Fifteen.
Thirty seconds. Fifteen seconds. Seven. Eighteen. Ten. The combat team would be on their metaphorical toes if it weren’t for their pooled minds. They dodged and swam and pushed and pulled. But the naga were inching closer.
Panic. Silverstream felt it in one of the younger sailors. A new recruit. Slippy. This was only his third mission and he wasn’t ready for any of it. He thought he was going home today! Nothing had prepared him for any of this.
Nothing could have prepared you for this shit, kid.
Gallus had terrible bedside manner, even when he could read minds.
The panic was going to spread. It was only logical. Their entire plan hinged on this mission, and this mission was now relying on weird magic that none of them had ever heard of and an old, washed-up Royal Guard.
You’re not that old, Gallus.
Silverstream refused to let the panic spread.
I’m gonna guide you home, she whispered to Slippy, to all of them. Those weren’t empty words. She opened herself up further, reaching each of their mindsShe held the naga for longer. Twenty-five seconds. Then twenty-two. Thirty. The combat team began to catch their breaths. They felt her reassurance. The naga inched closer to the rune team, but just barely. They wouldn’t make it before they were done. When the runes were ready, there was no way the naga could stop them except for setting them off. Silverstream just had to hope they were smart enough not to.
Stick to the plan.
That’s the spirit.
She didn’t have to wait much longer. Whirlpool was coming to the last words of the incantation. The combat team prepared to either retreat or keep fighting. The rune team prepared to swim back, closer to the surface, past the first set of runes, where the shamans waited and prepared their spell.
“Ilios brenner am bryllo eali,” Whirlpool chanted, waving her fins over the thirty rune pieces she was charging. The rest of the rune team did the same.
The runes came alive. The writing on them glowed orange, and they came together, holding fast against each other like magnets. Magic swirled around them, crackling dangerously as the triangular shapes shot away from the seaponies to the proper coordinates. They froze there, each completed rune a few meters away from each other, a clusterbomb of magic waiting to do some serious damage.
Silverstream watched the naga with wide eyes. She could feel Gallus’s heartbeat sync with hers, she felt the both of them racing. She released the grip that the amulet had on them.
The naga turned to each other, growling softly. Unsure of what to do. That was a good sign.
Then they dove towards Silverstream. She almost panicked, but realized they weren’t looking at her. In a powerful current they flew past her and disappeared into the darkness.
Silverstream almost exhaled. Then she remembered the kelpies, suddenly leaving only to come back with reinforcements.
Everyone waited, casting each other pensive, frightened looks. Even Gallus was tense.
Going once...
Silverstream dared to look over her shoulder at the depths below.
Twice...
She listened with all of their ears. Looked with all of their eyes.
Gone.
Silverstream hollered. Elation spread like fire amongst them, and they all swam together. Silverstream hugged, shook fins, and endlessly praised her sailors who were so brave, so amazing, she couldn’t have done any of this without them and… and Gallus was just as relieved. The realization gave both of them a shock, and Silverstream stopped swimming. Suddenly, the both of them felt so much more exposed than they should have, escaping death at the hands of scary feral shark people.
Well, you escaped death. I would have been fine.
So you were being selfless.
I thought I told you not to press your luck.
Gallus and Silverstream laughed, then suddenly realized they had an audience. Gently, they lessened the connection between themselves and the sailors.
We… have some things to talk about. Silverstream felt Gallus scratch the back of his neck.
Silverstream touched the back of hers, feeling the tips of his claws against her scales. He came back for her. He really did.
Like I said: you’re not the one who owes an apology.
I’m waiting.
I want to say it to you. You know… out loud.
She could have just reached for his regret. Felt all of it. Understood it completely, as if it were her own.
“Captain?” asked Whirlpool. She was just a few meters away. “You feel that? In the water?”
And suddenly Silverstream could. She could feel the slight waves. The disturbance in the flow of the sea. The thing, the giant, probably a kraken, thing was swimming against the current, towards them.
Gallus’s voice echoed all around them.
Leave.
The growl rolled over them like the winds of a monsoon. They were passing the second batch of runes on their way to meet the shaman team, but the sound made Silverstream and the rest of the sailors stop what they were doing to turn around.. They could see it now. Far off in the distance, a shade of darkness too opaque to see through, growing steadily larger as they stared.
Gallus became frustrated, wanting to ask why they stopped moving if they were so scared, until he saw a memory of Silverstream’s. It was from her childhood: her father’s chest and the comfort it provided her, her mother singing gently, and her brother cowering in a corner. All of it was set to the tune of battleships and cannons in the distance, searching for the hippogriffs who had somehow escaped their grasp. Stay quiet now, he heard her mother whisper. Terror bled out of her voice.
Gallus understood. Learned fear was hard to get over. He could feel it grabbing her by the mane, felt its claws working the ends until it had a firm grasp on the top of her head, worming its nails into her skull, warning her to stay still.
After giving her a moment, Gallus reached up and pressed his crown onto his head.
Silverstream felt like cold water had been splashed onto her face, despite being completely submerged in it. She shook her heard. Right. They still had to get to the shamans.
Let’s finish this, she thought. Her sailors caught their collective breath. She smiled at them. I’m getting you home. She asked them to remember that. All was fine. They just had to trust her.
The soft orange glow of the shamans’ communal magic was the first thing she saw as they got close. There were sixteen of them, gathered in a diamond formation. The murmuring of their incantations drifted through the water until Silverstream and the rest of the team were close enough to make out the ancient words.
“Is the pacification spell ready?” she blurted at them.
None of the shamans paid her any mind except for one. A mint green seapony at the closest point of the diamond, four gold chains wrapped tight around his neck, engraved in runes. Terramar’s old teacher, Nubis. He gave her the slightest shake of the head before refocusing on the ritual. They were all pressed for time. No interruptions.
Does it look like it’s ready? Gallus snarked.
Silverstream ignored him and turned to her team. She gestured for them to move an appropriate distance away, so they wouldn’t interrupt. When they were far enough, she called for a check on the communications orbs.
A pastel purple sailor came to her, presenting a glowing orb.
“Rune Team?” came Brine’s voice. “Come in.”
Silverstream laughed. “Finally!”
“Captain,” said Brine. In her mind’s eye, Silverstream could see her lieutenant’s expression glimmer ever so slightly in relief. “Good to have you back. Did everything go well?”
“No,” said Silverstream. “Well. No and yes. We had an aggressive encounter with the naga, if you can believe it. Something about them was causing the orbs to die. Like when the kelpies came on board.”
“Naga?” Brine replied. There was a pause. “You’re breaking all kinds of navy records today, Captain.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ll send a report in. Any casualties?”
“Four.” Silverstream grimaced. “We’ll send them up now.” She signalled to Whirlpool, who wasted no time gathering the troops needed for the trip.
“Roger,” said Brine. “Anything else to note, Captain?”
“Gallus,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
Yeah, that’s right. Me.
“He came to my aid,” Silverstream said. “All of our aid. He used the Crown of Grover to sync all of our minds.”
“Again?” Brine asked. She clicked her tongue. “Sorry, all of you? As in the entire team? All twenty-six of you? I thought the most he had ever managed in the past was five.”
No need to act so surprised, Gallus grumbled in her head.
Silverstream smiled. “He broke a record for sure.”
“Interesting. What are the advantages?”
“We can discuss that on the ship.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
“I wanted to know the creature’s status.”
A pause.
“Brine?” asked Silverstream.
“What the…” said Brine quietly. She sounded like she was across the room. “That can’t be right.”
“Brine,” Silverstream said, raising her volume. “Lieutenant, report!”
“Captain!” Brine yelled. “The creature’s—”
The communications orb went blank, leaving Silverstream to gawk at her own reflection. She looked scared.
The sailor holding the orb’s eyes widened. “Captain?”
Silverstream panicked. And that meant the whole team was panicking. What was going on? They did everything right. They did everything they were supposed to.
The water pulsed below them, so rough and fast that it knocked each of them out of place. The shamans struggled to keep their ritual going, and looked like they succeeded.
Silverstream turned in time to see the flashes of light fading down below. Nothing more than specks. Glittering dots in her vision that could have been sun rays. The runes had detonated. Silverstream could only hope they had slowed the creature down.
That’s fine, isn’t it? Gallus thought. We expected that.
Wasn’t that too fast?
No.
Because that seemed too fast.
Silverstream, calm down. Think.
The next set of mines were thirteen hundred metres below them. The border of the deep sea, where her team fought the Naga not even an hour ago, was two thousand metres below. The creature was moving at a serious speed, and it was less than two kilometers away.
“Whirlpool?” Silverstream turned towards her subordinate. Her eyes were wide. “You’ve seen this ritual done before, right?”
“Um… Yes, Captain.”
“How much longer do you think it’ll take?”
Whirlpool took her time before answering, scanning the diamond of shamans as they chanted away. “I think… half an hour,” she said. “Give or take ten minutes.”
Silverstream winced. The shamans weren’t going to be ready in time. They were finished. This was always a shoddy plan, a stupid gamble. They knew it from the start. Seaquestria was doomed, and they were all going to die.
Will you Stop?! Gallus shouted in her mind. Everything’s fine.
Then what was Brine worried about?
Brine worries. It’s what she does.
Silverstream guffawed internally, and her mirth poured over the caustic burn in her belly left behind by her earlier despair. She does not.
A second tremor pushed its way up through the water. Silverstream’s entire body shook. Panic bloomed in all of their hearts, spreading like fire. They could see tiny explosions appearing below them, then snuffing out in an instant.
“It’s almost here,” whispered Whirlpool.
Okay, yeah, Gallus muttered inside Silverstream’s head. That might be a little too fa—
Her skull split into a thousand pieces. She howled in agony, and to her horror, the rest of her sailors did as well.
The connection was broken. Suddenly she felt more alone than she ever had in her life.
Gallus?
No answer. But he wasn’t gone. She could hear him, the buzzing cadence of his voice, somewhere far away. He was still hanging on, but he didn’t know if she could sense him.
“Oh, gods,” Silverstream said. She shook her head, eyes wide.
Gallus? What do I do? Answer me, please!
She heard him call out for her. She called back. She felt him hear nothing. She shut her eyes.
“Oh, no. No, no, nononono—”
“Captain?” asked a sailor. She wasn’t sure what her name was. “Do you have orders? A plan?”
“Give me a second,” said Silverstream. “Just...just hold on!”
Gallus! Gallus!
What was that game that they used to play in school? The one that Professor Twilight would have them try?
She breathed deep. In, then out. She honed in on her memories.
Gallus. The Royal Guard. Her friend. She thought of the good times, of the feel of his wings around her and his smile when she gave him her leftover food. She thought of the way he laughed when Sandbar or Yona would smother him in hugs, or the passion in his voice whenever he got into an argument with Ocellus or Smolder. She thought of clouds. Of afternoons spent lounging around with him after class, trying to study but always going off on a tangent.
It was thirty seconds before she realized that she was doing absolutely nothing. Two minutes wasted while a giant sea creature was bulldozing its way through the water towards them.
She gave up on trying to find Gallus. She was the captain. She was still the captain as long as the mission was ongoing. She needed to stay strong, even if she was alone again.
Whirlpool was still at attention, ignoring the rest of the team’s nervous chattering around them.
“Captain?” she said.
“Do you have any suggestions?” asked Silverstream. Her words came tumbling out of her mouth.
“I…” Whirlpool looked around. “I’m not sure, Captain.”
“That’s okay,” said Silverstream with a nod. “That’s fine. I’ve got this. We can swim up to the surface, and come back with as many runes as we can gather. The second that this thing hits anywhere near here it’s going to get blown to smithereens.”
Whirlpool furrowed her brows. “But—”
“I know that it takes time to make runes. I know that we need the sea shamans to do it, but if we send a small team up, they can contact my brother and he can teach them how to use magic well enough to make more so we don’t lose any shamans here. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we’ll be fine!”
“I don’t—”
“Look, I’ve been in plenty of these situations before. I can work something out. We got this! Time be damned. Screw time! We’re seaponies. Time isn’t even real under the sea. Gather some volunteers for the team. That’s an order.”
“Captain.” Whirlpool raised her volume. “Nothing in that plan is realistic.”
Silverstream laughed monotonously. She turned back to the shamans, who were still chanting away at their spell. The magic in the midst of them glowed warm, b ut not warm enough. They weren’t going to make it.
She turned back to her team, looking past Whirlpool at the wide eyes of the seaponies who had followed her here, who had believed that this shoddy plan was ever going to work. They weren’t going to make it.
She looked down at herself. She had several cuts on her scales, but she was fine for the most part. She had survived the naga and worked with Gallus again. She thought that…
It didn’t matter what she thought. She wasn’t going to make it either.
“Captain,” Whirlpool whispered. “Please.”
Silverstream looked at her. The current carried her tears away.
Whirlpool deflated. “It’s okay,” she said. She smiled softly. “We tried, didn’t we?”
“We aren’t going to save Seaquestria,” Silverstream whimpered.
“Seaquestria has plenty of time to prepare. They’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry…”
“No, Captain, don’t be.” Whirlpool swam closer and put a fin on Silverstream’s neck, stroking it softly. “Don’t be sorry, Captain. Our people will prevail. We spent years and years under the sea preparing for war. We’re tougher than some kraken.”
Silverstream shrank into herself, but not enough to pull away from Whirlpool’s touch. She didn’t dare look at the rest of her subordinates. She didn’t want to see the pity and the disappointment and the anger. “I failed you.”
“You didn’t,” said Whirlpool. “Captain Silverstream, you were only doing your job.”
“My job is to keep you safe.”
“Your job is to do your best, and you have been. I’m honored to have been in your service.”
Silverstream curled in on herself, burying her face in Whirlpool’s chest. It was as good a place to wait out the time as any.
Gallus was scared.
Something was wrong with Silverstream, with the mission, with the crown.
He couldn’t find her. He could find everyone else on Mount Aris and Seaquestria. He could find any hippogriff he wanted except for the one he needed right this moment.
Gallus brought his hands to his crown and gripped it hard, knowing full well that he wasn’t doing anything to help. The metal points of the crown dug into his claws. He welcomed the pain, squeezing harder.
Silverstream. Silverstream. Where are you?
She could be dead.
No. Gallus grunted. He shut his eyes harder. That couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t go out like that.
There would be a beach. A sunset. Her friends and family. And if he was still alive by the time then, he would be right there beside her, holding her claw.
Hot tears spilled down his cheeks. He didn’t bother to wipe them away.
Come on. Silly, answer me.
His heart felt like it was splitting open slowly. His blood burned and his ears roared with white noise.
Then he found her. Huddling for comfort inside of herself. Broken and bruised. Feeling useless and sorry for herself. Scared. Wishing that someone was there for her. She failed to see that he was right there.
Silverstream had never looked more familiar.
Gallus roared in triumph. He fell into her headfirst.
So anyways, the plan.
Silverstream’s heart jumped. But she didn’t want to hope.
You’re not hearing things.
Silverstream began to cry harder.
Stop feeling sad. It hurts and we have a kraken to stop.
Was it really him?
Yes. We don’t have much time.
They didn’t. That was true. Below them, the darkness was growing. Silverstream gathered herself, with his help. She wiped her tears away with her fins.
Whirlpool tilted her head. “Captain?”
“I can fix this,” she said.
“What?” Whirlpool asked.
But Silverstream didn’t respond. Instead she began to swim. “Stay there!” she ordered, looking around at the rest of her sailors. “Stay right there and I will make sure that this mission succeeds! Just let me know when they’re ready!”
Whirlpool saluted unsurely, and Silverstream plunged into the depths.
She hadn’t noticed through her tears, but the currents were changing, swayed by the swimming of the approaching creature. She swam toward the chaos. She could feel the water brush over her scales like wind. It was like it was giving her a trail to where she needed to be.
Gallus said nothing, but she could feel him over her shoulder, hear the rush in his head and his heart. He was with her.
Her muscles ached, her eyes were tired. But Silverstream grit her teeth. Accounting for the time that she spent in despair, the creature was no doubt minutes away from reaching the final wave of runes. She had to get there first. She had to get in range.
The Amulet of Aurora weighed heavy on her neck. If only she could take it off…
Don’t joke about that.
She nearly laughed. She would have if she wasn’t busy exhausting herself.
The water grew dark. That wasn’t right.Silverstream looked up. The surface was no longer in easy reach, but that didn’t explain the sudden darkness..
How near was the kraken, now? Was it a kraken?
She looked forward.
Holy shit. Gallus’s eyes widened with hers.
It was close.
Silverstream could see a body. It was too large to take in all at once. She lifted her head and slowly lowered it, following its body and noting any details that might come in handy. Its head was triangular, its body oblong, branching off into tentacles. Definitely a kraken, but there was something wrong about it. Darkness spread out from its core like a cloud. It was inky, but there wasn’t any ink. It exuded the absence of light, and now that she realized she was in range of it, Silverstream felt a jolt of hollowness in her chest. There was something unreal about this creature. Corruption, but not dark magic or chaos. Something else entirely.
Whatever it was, Silverstream knew it had something to do with the naga. Something to do with the kelpies. Something to do with this whole mess. She just didn’t know how something so big could be taken down.
It’s going down all the same.
“Right,” said Silverstream. “So, this plan. I’m ready for it.”
The plan is to stop it.
“That’s it?”
It’s the best I could do.
Silverstream was about to snap at him, but the full scope of Gallus’s intention suddenly became clear. The Amulet of Aurora floated into her vision, like it had a mind of its own.
“Oh,” Silverstream said. She grabbed the amulet in her claw. “Stop it. Right.”
She swam further towards the kraken. The runes were becoming visible, floating in clusters. The kraken was approaching, its tentacles swaying as it swam, graceful like a flower under the wind but so, so big. She doubted she was taller than...than any part of its body that she could think of. What was she to it? Did she exist? Did anything exist to it that wasn’t itself and other kraken?
“Gallus,” she said, words shaky.
She felt his claws on her shoulders.
Just a little closer. Get in range.
“I’m scared.”
Good. At least I’m not alone.
His words didn’t dull her fear, but they made it feel like it had thinned out, spreading over her entire body and not just a single spot in her brain. She was plain terrified. But she would let that fear travel beside her instead of trying to bat it away.
She knew when she was close enough when she could, just barely, start making out the runes.
The Amulet of Aurora began to shine pre-emptively. Maybe it knew what she was going to attempt.
It would be like holding a jigsaw puzzle together in the midst of a tornado. It would be like hauling cinder blocks over a freshly frozen lake.
The kraken was approaching. She estimated a few seconds until it reached her.Now or never.
She held the amulet away from her chest.
Aurora once used it to guide the entire hippogriff people through thousands of miles of darkness, not a single light in their way. It was their sun and moon for sixty weeks. It led them to the continent that they ended up settling on. And now Silverstream was going to use it to protect their people once again.
She hoped that Aurora would be proud. She hoped her father would be.
Ready, Silly?
Gallus’s voice was the push she needed. She asked the amulet to shine, reach as far as it could, and when its light touched it, hold the kraken in place.
Gallus lay sprawled on the dirty tiled floor of the train station bathroom, his crown hanging over his eyes, his claw hanging on the edge of the sink. He still reeled from the feeling of the kraken in the amulet’s magic. Even now, an hour after he’d disconnected from Silverstream, he could recall with perfect clarity the way that it felt to hold something so gargantuan in their magic. He could barely stand, and he knew that Silverstream was probably feeling twice as tired.
The light had swallowed the kraken up like it was the water itself. Gallus had the benefit of Silverstream’s resistance to the brightness, and through the light he saw how the kraken struggled like a bug caught in a web. It thrashed in the amulet’s magical grip, twisting its head and trying to wrench its tentacles away, but to no avail.
The pain was excruciating. For five whole minutes they were there in the water together, roaring in agony as they struggled to hold the creature. Had Gallus heard it talk at some point? Had he seen something sober in its body language, felt it looking at him curiously? It was all such a haze now.
Whirlpool had let them know they could stop, just as Silverstream ordered. At this point the connection was beginning to fail, so Silverstream heard Whirlpool yelling that everything was ready before Gallus did.
She had let the kraken go with a sigh, watched it blow past her towards the shamans. At that point, her body was numb from the pain. All she really felt was that she was being pushed away by the water.
Gallus could see the shamans’ light, coming to the kraken in ribbons, piercing through its head and making it glow softly. That was the last thing he saw before he passed out, his concussion given to him on The Coralvreckan returning in full-force.
He saw things in his sleep: tentacles tensing and relaxing, and slithering away; chests rising, falling; tears carried away by the current to the sound of soaring cheers.
But he knew it wasn’t a dream. Mount Aris was still standing. Seaquestria was safe.
And so Gallus limped out of the bathroom, ignoring all of the grumpy hippogriffs that tried to stop him with questions and mean looks. His mind was blank, focused only on getting to the docks. Getting to Silverstream.
When he arrived, he nearly passed out again, but he was caught by a pair of hippogriffs from the Navy, who were clearly unsure of what to do with him. Gallus couldn’t blame them. He let them hold him up until he felt well enough to stand, and then he did, and nearly fell over for a second time.
A single hippogriff caught him this time. He smelled like coconuts. Coconut shampoo bought from the farmer’s market every three months on the dot. Gallus tried not to looked too shocked as he turned to Terramar.
“Hey,” Terramar squeaked. His eyes were sorry. His beak was a smile ready to wilt into a frown.
“Sorry,” Gallus said.
“What?”
“I said—”
“No, I mean, why?”
“Everything,” Gallus said, looking away. He leaned against Terramar, finding comfort in the familiar curves of his body. There was something like a star in his chest, and he struggled to keep its astronomic heat from bursting out of him. “Just...everything,” Gallus said again.
Terramar held him tighter. “I forgive you.”
Then the Coralvreckan appeared on the horizon. Behind it was the rest of the fleet. Gallus heard cheering across the water. Saw hats being thrown in the air.
Every minute of waiting was agony.
Gallus had a thousand words stored up in his mind and even more ways to try and make things right, but when the ship finally docked and the ramp was rolled out he forgot every single one.
He walked first. Some of the sailors who were waiting on the docks went to stop him, but they themselves were stopped by Terramar. A group of sailors whom Gallus recognized from their little tango with the naga saluted him as he came onboard, and they brought him to Silverstream’s cabin.
He didn’t have to be told that she was still in there, resting in bed, awake but not wanting to leave the warmth of her sheets.
Gallus considered knocking. Before he did, he heard her voice asking him to come in. He entered without hesitating.
“Hey,” she said. She was on her side, across the room, facing him from under a thick blanket. She looked like hell.
“Hey,” he replied. He looked twice as bad. He probably looked older, too.
She reached a claw out for him. Gallus’s heart soared, but there came a familiar awkwardness with the sight of her that he was surprised to feel. He walked to the bed on shaky legs and sat on the end.
Silverstream smelled like the ocean, but also like roses. She must have had some really great shampoo.
“I’m sorry I left you behind,” he said.
Gallus felt something break. It might have been all of his ribs at once, or maybe it was simply his heart. He began to cry.
Tears rolled out of his eyes softly. Silently. He stared down at his lap, his entwined claws.
“I should have…” he began, but didn’t know where he was going. It took another minute for him to try speaking again. “I don’t know why I left. I mean, I do, but I don’t know why I let myself leave. I should have been here for you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—” He swallowed hard and pressed his tongue onto the roof of his mouth. He didn’t want to sob.
“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” said Silverstream. Her voice was toneless.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I shouldn’t have.”
He turned. His breaths were coming short. His back was heaving.
Silverstream was looking at him with all of the love he figured she threw away. Her eyes were soft and her beak was quirked into a smile that understood how he was feeling.
Gallus felt nothing but fear. The walls of the cabin were slowly becoming indistinguishable from the closet he had accidentally locked himself in as a chick. He felt like he was squirming on the floor of Canterlot U, his wings freshly broken. But he lifted his arms anyway and he smiled a frail smile. He knew that Silverstream would want a hug.
She raised a brow and offered him a claw.
Gallus’s arms fell back to his sides. He stared at it, eyeing it like it was something venomous. But it didn’t bite.
Silverstream let him take his time in reaching out, and they grasped each other’s claws tight and shook once. Then she withdrew.
Gallus laughed weakly. He wondered if he was in a dream.
The bed shifted as Silverstream shifted, sitting up, scooting up beside him so their shoulders touched but nothing else.
“I…” Gallus whispered, “I missed you.”
“That’s good.” Silverstream laughed.
And then suddenly they were both laughing through tears. They stayed in place, shoulders pressed urgently against each other until their tears ran out.
“Are you staying this time?” she asked when they calmed down.
“Forever,” he said. She looked at him in shock. “Probably,” he added, grinning. Her smile was better than any sunrise, any hoard of gold.
Silverstream has joined the party!