//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: FiO: Drowning in the Digital Sea 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Vera drifted.
 
At first she hardly noticed anything was different—the water here was the perfect temperature, and there was no pesky brace or harness to weigh her down. The sound of distant surf was hardly unusual to her ears. It was the soothing sound of returning to shore after a long dive. Or just wading out into the surf and letting it carry her away from shore, where the world hadn't ended and her family weren't dead.
 
She didn't really want to move, or even open her eyes. She was so unbelievably relaxed here that the only possible direction to go was down.
 
Something was able to pierce through to her, eventually. As nice as the gentle waves might be against her ears, there was something missing. She heard no rush of air from her regulator. She didn't feel like she was holding her breath, yet she didn't feel cold air against the back of her throat.
 
Was she suffering oxygen toxicity? Had she gone too deep on enriched air, and now she was drowning? Vera's eyes shot open in sudden panic. But she wasn't unbelievably deep—the surface shimmered maybe twenty feet above her head. She glanced down at her wrist to check her instruments, and only then noticed something was wrong.
 
She wasn't wearing a computer.
 
She didn't have a wrist either. Instead, a teal limb trailed out from in front of her. Not an arm, it didn't bend the right way. Nor could she see tanned skin, with a few pockmarked scars from days of hard labor in the sun. Her leg shimmered as it caught the light, slightly metallic scales reflecting back at her. Then she looked down, and saw the rest of her.
 
She hung vertically in the water, naked. What she saw was familiar, but only because of her time with Cerulean. A long, muscular tail, ending in a wide fin. Several smaller fins emerged from the sides, transparent and purple. Vera knew a seapony body when she saw one. But why did she have one?
 
She spun wildly, and found the motion was far easier for her now. She had no bad leg dragging her down, slowing her motions.

Vera remembered some things. She'd been doing something important? Or... maybe it was just for fun. Her memory got clearer the further out she tried to think. Last night she'd slept on the boat, with two of her friends in the bunk below hers. They'd sat on the deck, shared a bottle of old wine, and talked about... caves.
 
Her eyes settled on the gaping hole opening beneath her. The shape was familiar to her, she'd been down there at least twice now. Maybe more? She remembered being down there, recording a video of the formations. Or maybe Bennie had the camera...
 
"How did I end up here?" she asked nopony in particular. "Why am I..." Wasn't this what Celestia always promised? Everyone knew she lied, and it was really just a trick to make you kill yourself. But she was so convincing, even members of Vera's own family had done it. Vera flicked her tail, a smooth muscular contraction that somehow felt as natural as breathing. Which she was... still doing, and not suffocating. 
 
"Hi Vera," said a familiar voice. Yet somehow... out of breath? She looked down, and found Cerulean swimming up from below, out from the Onyx Cave. That was its name! She'd come out here with her friends to see it... Where was the boat? She found the anchor-line first, attached to an old rusty cable emerging from the rocky floor. But she banished that from her mind as her seapony friend arrived.
 
Cerulean swam straight into her and embraced her with her forelegs, hugging tight. That gesture probably should've been embarrassing, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why. She'd probably remember. For some reason she wasn't in a hurry to let go just now.
 
"Cerulean, could you help me understand something? Why am I in... Equestria?" She held out one leg, and found no fingers. Smooth scales reflected back at her, with only a hoof on the end. It was a decently nice looking shade of light blue. And come to think of it, the water didn't feel cold either. Maybe scales weren't so bad.
 
"The cave changed you into a fish," Cerulean said, pushing them both slightly away from the opening, and up towards the boat. "It was awful, and you hated it. But now it's over, and you don't have to go through it again."
 
Vera resisted her. Without knowing exactly how, she opened her fins, slowing to a stop in the water. Her body was slippery enough that it wasn't very difficult. "I don't think I would agree to that," she said. "I don't remember very much, except..." She strained, but it was so hazy. There was supposed to be an air pocket down there. Hadn't she found it? "You tried to help me. We... failed."
 
"Yeah." Cerulean hung her head in the water, defeated. "It wasn't what you wanted. But it's not all bad! You don't need a tank or masks or anything! We can even swim back to the place you call St. Agnes. There's a bay here too, only lots of fish live there."
 
That did sound pretty nice. Besides, Vera had done all kinds of sudden movements now, and none of them made her joints ache. Between that and getting rid of her stupid bum leg, there were worse hells to be damned to. "What about the boat? My friends... Bennie, he up there?"
 
"He calls himself Low Tide now," Cerulean said. "But yeah, he's there. Lots of ponies you know are up there. Gonna welcome you to Equestria, if you want to see them."
 
Vera squinted up at the surface, a semitransparent mirror. She could see a few colored outlines on the edge of the ship. Her ship, only it wasn't quite so rusty and worn-down anymore. They were playing music up on the deck. "I don't have any legs," she said lamely. "How can I go up there?"
 
"We have gear for that," Cerulean said, grinning. "Breaching is pretty easy, once you get the hang of it."
 

The End