//------------------------------// // Basalt // Story: Yellow Light Waves // by Comma Typer //------------------------------// When the seapony stranded by the water and the hippogriff standing by the sand finally saw each other, neither confessed that their wedding flashed back to them, back when they’d been human. Cameras had flashed, bouquets had flown, and a union had been made. But their minds pressed on to each other. Sky Beak had been filing papers and swapping books in the town hall of coastal Basalt Flow when he got word of strange magical events happening in Canterlot City. Time zones ahead of the Amareican metropolis, the clock here said six in the evening, closing time for his shift. For the past half-hour, the water cooler conversation had revolved around unofficial hearsay about Canterlot. Word of portals, unicorns, and princesses had been bandied about, taking his mind off of the cast wrapped around his broken leg, off of the fact that he would finally become a tour guide around here and show tourists what this out-of-the-way hamlet had to offer, then climb up from there. But while everyone was watching the TV for live Canterlot developments of magic turning people into ponies, the news feed exploded white. Sky Beak stood up, eyes shot toward the outside. The horizon stretched into the sea, which was just a short road away. When the sky burst into that blinding white, he screamed for everyone to take cover, but the great magical flash from Canterlot had reached them. When he blinked open his eyes moments later, he realized too late that he had fallen out of his chair. His arms reached for his broken leg, then saw the claws that replaced his hands. “Okay, everyone, do not panic!” shouted Kiting, the mayor, now a bird-horse thing. A hippogriff, it hit Sky. “Get your bearings and keep the peace outside! I’ll inform the shire president of our situation ASAP!” Sky’s eyes swept the reception to see all his co-workers no longer there. Other hippogriffs had taken their place. Stinger flapped her wings hard against the sky, and she ended up gliding into the night sky outside while screaming her lungs out. The rest, like a nervous Saltfog, stumbled on all fours before picking up speed and running out through the door. Numbness struck Sky’s leg, the one hoofed and cast. Miffed, he looked at where he felt his new limbs, his wings. Bandages bound them tightly. “What?! Why—?“ Pain shot him through the sides, like electric shocks against his torso; he fell back down, forcing his claws to bear the brunt of his collapse. “Sky Beak, are you alright?” asked the mayor, galloping over to him. Sky could only grunt at first. “I’m... just saw this out of nowhere!” “Would you need some help getting outside?” “I’ll be doing fine.Only just got well enough to get outside... yesterday...” After enough assurances for Kiting to feel alright, Sky Beak managed to walk his way out of the town hall, already drilling the pattern of four-leg walking into his head, though keeping his new horse leg in soft hooffalls. In the dim, cold blue of twilight, noise filled Basalt’s old brick houses and their stalls and stands, with feathers falling and silhouettes flying crazy in the dark twilight sky. Radios crackled in blank static and avian panic. Not a single car was in motion, and bedroom windows slammed shut. One griff crash-landed upon him from the sky, and it took all Sky’s strength to not yelp in surprise. “M-Miss, are you okay?!” “I-I’m f-fine...” “We... we need to get you to safety! I’ll take you to the clinic.” Her eyes fell upon him before she croaked, “Your... y-you need to get to a clinic, sir!” “Just some flesh wounds, that’s all!” he said before he busted a booming laugh out of his beak. “Wings... I’ve got wings… okay, now you stay there while we round up everyone else, make sure they’re safe...” Trapped so close to the beach that was Basalt Shore, Ocean Flow had to admit that it was tantalizing. She had just arrived at the local bungalow of a hotel, her car intact. Her mission: canvas the place. The reason: If Basalt Flow would qualify for the next stage of initiatives under the Kingdom of Aracea’s Tourism Board. Her rise through the government has been a nice deal, especially after her older sister Novo then got elected into the monarchy some years back, which made her officially royal family. A craven cousin or two had told her to just coast through the rest of life on the royal tax alone, but for the esteemed Ocean, small minds were not worth paying attention to. According to decade-old reports she could scrape together, Basalt Flow was barely a township on the far end of the nation and on the wrong side of the boonies, facing away from all the other major countries across the strait. The only unique attraction Basalt had for passers-by was a few stray news articles about a huge fishbowl; the humor, its creator said, was found in seeing a tiny goldfish swim in a big, empty “pond.” At the very least, she would complete a percentage of census work on the town. Dipping her hands into more than just tourism would be great for lucrative working positions in the government beyond the Tourism Board, despite Novo’s misgivings that they wouldn’t be needed for her, given her high status in the nobility and all. But that all vanished when her break at Basalt’s only beach turned her into some fish-horse monstrosity. Seeing everyone else on the sand, who had not been in the water with her, flail their new wings and limbs around, she quickly assessed herself. No hands but fins. Her legs were gone, but the water felt oddly liberating. No need for goggles to see underneath; thus, the bounties of the ocean open up to her, with an abundance of corals and reefs. A clam didn’t miss her sweep, though her fins gave her a hard time to pry it open. But the fantasy and her curiosity faded. Any thought that this was some hallucination faded, too. She bobbed her head above the water. Not too far off, creatures flew over the town, swooping down to save or lead others, while announcements were screeched across Basalt Flow. She’d heard only vague whispers of what might’ve been going on in Amareica, of some “vegetarian flu” infecting the city’s inhabitants, along with a crazed conspiracy theorist among them chalking it up to “a hidden unicorn cabal.” The air above-water blew past her head quite dry, too dry now, but she could still bear it in the chilly evening. The orange sky dimmed quick. It then dawned on her that her report wouldn’t be complete in time for tonight or for the foreseeable future. And it didn’t take her long to deduce that fish-based creatures never did well on land. With the beach cleared of scared visitors, she raised her fins and called for help. “Someone’s in the water,” said Stinger by a busy intersection. A wailing ambulance stood by. Sky Beak stashed a gurney back inside after the seventh time someone crashed into the ground yet suffered no broken bones. “It’s a seapony, isn’t it?” “Mm-hmm. Just the one, though.” That was what the national news were saying now; most native Araceans had transformed into hippogriffs, but if they were in the water, they were pinned to the ocean as seaponies. Footage from the capital had shown about a dozen quarantined to the piers, tended to by a tug boat. “I’ll go check.” Stinger tilted her head. “But your leg?” “I’ve played enough football and cricket to get my fair share of injuries.” After being sighed at, Sky Beak took stock of the food available in town, then began his short journey to Basalt’s beach. Past stopped cars, he passed the only gas station around for a dozen miles. A van had been parked there, where a unicorn and a deer listened to the car radio intently. The pony could be overheard saying, “Those high school girls better know what they’re doing.” Down a dirt path the length of a stone’s throw, he trotted down to sea level, claws roughing up the rocky sand. “Ma’am, don’t worry!” Sky Beak raised the sling bag around his neck, catching the seapony’s attention. “I’m here to help!” But his rescue stopped waving her fins. “Is... are you who I think you are?” Her voice stopped him. He swore that he had sunken in the sand just a tiny bit. Flowers thrown into the air, and a kiss that could’ve been a lifetime shot through his head. “Ocean Flow? Is that you?” Ocean sighed, and a cautious smile set on her lip-less mouth. “Well, this is a surprise.” “A surprise, indeed,” he repeated, before settling down on the sand, his first time sitting down as a hippogriff. “How are you still breathing, by the way? Your head’s all the way over the water.” “No idea,” she said, shaking her gilled head. “Magic, for all I know. Are those...?” “Food.” He unzipped the bag. “We don’t know what a seapony could eat, so I guessed. There’s some Neighponese seaweed, some kelp chips... and apparently, this place sells fish oil tea, too. Isn’t that a blast from the past?” “Imported from Skipjack about twenty klicks down the coast, most likely” she said, matter-of-fact. “Reports of this shire’s imports trace that yellowfin tuna is the big pull here, so no surprise there.” But she looked past his shoulder. “Did you get into an accident?” He felt his wings ruffle and ache against the bandages from who-knew-where. “Broke my leg when I got here, which meant my wings came in pre-injured. Obviously.” “Stupid magic, ruining our lives,” she muttered, slapping the sand with her fins. “Speaking of, what are you doing here?” “I could ask you the same question.” He patted his feathery chest. “Tour guide for Basalt Flow, or slated to be. Leg injury’s made me the government’s errand boy for the mayor. They pay me well, though now I’ve got three things to let heal before I’m back on track.” “You won’t get a lot of visitors anyway,” she said. “I’m from the Tourism Board, and the data I’ve got so far is, to put it simply, that Basalt Flow is a backwater that can’t even qualify for rural tourism.” “Oh come on, I get it, but Ocean, it’s just a stepping stone for me. Do big here, and I’ll be getting an offer from The Aracean Guild of Guides to hop onto Table Mount, then to Aris City—“ “I can help you there.” Sky blinked. “What?” “I’m scouting the place, asking questions, checking whether Basalt can qualify for a boost of tourism funding or not. I shouldn’t be writing full-on reports for what’s obvious to me, but it is what it is, and that’s what I should be doing over the week.” Ocean held up her fins. “But I can’t because no matter what I do, I’ll always be wet, and I can’t risk breaking my computer. Now, I hope the hotel receptionist will recognize that you’re my husband; when she does, she’ll let you into my room. You’ll find my laptop and my phone along with a portable desk. Get them here so I can get my work done and contact everyone about my condition.” Sky Beak took a step back. “Whoa, lady, you’re pulling my leg! And aren’t you supposed to be thinking about how we’re suddenly horse things?“ “Then we can make it even,” she said, now crossing her fins. “I have the pull to get some big shot looking your way, so you either help me get out of here and let me do my work—which seems to be a resounding no from you—or we can cooperate.” Sky Beak stood speechless at Ocean’s deal. “Finally, if you could, help me get out of the water safely. If you can’t, we’ll blame it on magic. Either way, once it’s all over—and hopefully those meddling Amareicans reverse this magic pronto—I can ping Novo about you, get her to pull in even bigger strings, fast-track your career.” “That’s...” Sky clapped his beak shut. “Okay, that’s generous of you, like always—“ “What do you mean ‘like always’?” “Come on, don’t you want to be complimented?” “You’re just—!” She crossed her fins, looking away. Sky did the same with his feathered legs and talons. He kept mum, still considering the offer. The crashing waves made the both of them ponder. A five-star restaurant conquered the skies in its own penthouse suite, smack-dab in the middle of the modern marvel that was Aris City. This is where Ocean Flow had suggested for their first date. Humility washed over him as he ascended the skyscraper in an elevator all alone save for an assistant sent from Ocean herself. Courting with Ocean Flow wasn’t exactly the far-off fantasy of, say, marrying Queen Chrysalis of Cambling, but Ocean had yakked about her older sister qualifying for Aracea’s monarchical election when the current king passes away. The elevator dinged. Balconies upon flower-blessed balconies scorched his eyes as the vast Silver Bay lay open to him in this sunset, with a flock of steel-glass high-rises and classic marble domes their audience. The intoxicating smells of truffle and caviar assaulted his nose. The staff themselves, even the janitor, dressed like royalty. While the assistant Seaspray yapped on about soon becoming an admiral, Ocean Flow stole Sky’s sight. She was indeed a looker, in full-on make-up and adorned in a dress that somehow made a bow tie look just right on her. “Oh wow, Ocean! You’re stunning tonight.” She stifled a laugh. “Hmm, you are, too.” Ocean had insisted on him just coming in “semi-casual,” which he later deduced to be a polo and some pants that weren’t blue jeans. He pictured, in his head, the news once they’ve done enough of these dinners—a skyrocketing family of scions coming down to earth, reaching out of the political sphere, declaring to the entire nation that the line of Novo wouldn’t be snobbish like the rest of them. And it was a sweet deal for Sky. True, trophies for his athletic feats in college as well as a couple stints in grade cricket got him more accolades. But she had picked him up, singled him out, when he’d told her just a little bit of his own story, his own life, in the suburbs, son of now-dead farmers from the sticks, only offering short backpacking trips and biking excursions from some local travel agency. So when he took a bite out of the medium-rare ribeye steak Ocean Flow had ordered for the both of them—all expenses paid by her—saying “I love you” was a no-brainer to him.