"Lyra, it's time for supper!" Bon-Bon called at the base of the stairs in her house. There was no sound of acknowledgment from the mare lodging upstairs.
"Come on, you've already missed lunch! Are you all right up there?"
She made her way up to the floor above. Two doors, each leading to one bedroom, stood in the wall ahead of her. The one on the right was cracked slightly open. The mare could see the mint-green unicorn, hunched over a desk, massaging her forehead just below the horn. Despite the obvious headache she had, she wore a mask of determination, concentrating on a scroll and a couple open books.
Bon-Bon made her way into the room. Trying to open the door fully, she was met with unexpected resistance. The door gave way with more force, and one look explained that it has been blocked by a pile of haphazardly placed literature. Upon closer inspection, they mostly contained information on underwater fauna.
The effort went unnoticed by the other mare, so the earth pony had to call on her again. But it took a few more attempts until Lyra took notice.
"Oh, good morning, auntie!"
"Morning? Gracious, Celestia will be lowering the sun in less than an hour! Don't tell me you've been at that through the whole day!"
"Uh, well, it's not easy," Lyra smiled awkwardly, after checking that indeed, the sun was on the opposite side of the sky than it was the last time she took notice.
"Did you even eat?" A suddenly rumbling stomach answered that question. Bon-Bon facehooved. "At least tell me you didn't forget to drink."
The ongoing silence was enough of an answer. The mare facehooved harder. "What am I going to do with you? This can't go on. I won't let you get yourself in a hospital when your parents expect me to watch after you. Tomorrow you'll go to Twilight Sparkle, return all those books and enjoy a day out with her, or some of your other friends."
"No!" Lyra quickly objected, "I still need those! I am on the verge of discovering the secret civilization of Aquania!"
"Listen, you can't go and dehydrate yourself just because you think you're going to find seaponies. There's no-"
"Of course I'm not going to find seaponies! They're just a cover-up myth to distract us from the real truth!"
Bon-Bon knew she should not ask, but it still happened: "What?"
"I knew it the moment I saw the cover of this book!" with a slight wince caused by her slight headache, the unicorn levitated a seemingly random book from the pile by the door. It's cover depicted a sea creature with a horn protruding from it's head.
"Narwhals! They are the unicorns of the sea! They are the ones who do all the magic underwater. But everyfish else is way less obvious. I believe the pegasi equivalent, instead of moisture in the air, handles bubbles of oxygen in the water. I would think squids might do a good job, not to mention there's one just in the dam outside of Ponyville. Seriously, why else would it be there? To scare off fillies? But then, I am stumped about what would take the role of the earth ponies. It's very troublesome, because almost all marine life is actually fauna, there's just algae and seaweed they might farm. Then I had the idea that it's them who cause high and low tides, before I imagined that would be more the task for alicorn-like fish. Oh my! I completely forgot about those!" she paused for a moment. "Yeah, I can see I need a break. I don't even know what led me to consider sponges or starfish for that position right now."
"Why?"
The one word snapped Lyra's tangent. "Huh?"
"Isn't it important to know why? What good would it do to anypony to keep it secret?"
"Well, duh, they don't want to shake off the image of ponies being the highest form of life!"
"Where did you get that idea from? Of course ponies aren't..."
"Really? Look around you! There are earth ponies growing enough food for themselves in harsh conditions like Appleloosa! Pegasi control the weather! For Faust's sake, the princesses move giant celestial objects! Nopony is saying it, but if somepony were to reveal that there's a fish society just as important as ponies, it would shake the foundations of ponies' perception!"
Bon-Bon was left speechless for a moment. "You sure put a lot of thought into that one," she finally reacted, hoping her sarcasm wouldn't hut her niece's feelings. It didn't seem to have any effect. "I really don't see why anypony would think that your assumptions are plausible."
"Yeah, you're right."
While Bon-Bon would have felt happy about hearing those words, she caught the tone that made her frown.
"I mean, look at it!" Lyra was pointing at the narwhal horn. "It's so big, compared to the rest of it's body! And they can swim, that's like flying in the water! It's the narwhals that are the alicorns! And perhaps swordfish- Wait, no. Those swim too. Maybe swimming is a bad trait to consider? Ugh!" She tapped her hoof. "Sea urchins! Can you have a unicorn with more than one horn?"
"You know what? Let it slide. Just forget about it, sleep, then get some fresh air out tomorrow. It will come to you on it's own."
"Hey, that's a great idea, auntie. Tomorrow, I will go out. They have an aquarium in Manehattan. It might actually be a government facility made to keep them under careful watch and control! I'm sure I can find some definite information there."
Bon-Bon facehoofed for the third time. She idly hoped that so much facehoofing didn't lead to face deformation.