//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 The Library and Home Again  
// Story: The Seaponies 
// by opuscon789 
//------------------------------//

The eight friends swam toward the library. The library was just a couple blocks away from Town Square.  Once they got there they looked down. The library was eight floors high--or deep rather. Underwater buildings were built down instead of up, since they didn’t want to be any closer to the surface. So the library was built down underground. If other land ponies knew of their existence  well, it wouldn’t be too good. 

“Wow, this is a big library,” Twilight said. “I wish I had a library like this,”

“Here, let me give you a tour of this large underwater library,” Numeral offered.

“Ooh, do you guys have Daring Do here?” Rainbow asked excitedly. 

“What’s Daring Do?” 

“You don’t have Daring Do?!” Rainbow said, clearly shocked.

“Daring Do is a popular book series up on the land. It’s about an adventurer named Daring Do,” Twilight explained.

“Well, we do have a adventure of a seapony that sounds like that. Her name is Brave Bo,” Numeral shared.

“So it’s pretty much the seapony version of Daring Do?” Rainbow wondered.

“You might like it,” Twilight said. “I mean, if you like Daring Do, Brave Bo should be just as ‘awesome’, as you’d say.”

“Fine, Numeral, give me the book,” Rainbow said. Numeral looked around the corner and found the book on one of the shelves. He showed Rainbow the book. She reads the title. Brave Bo and the Quest for the Golden Shell.

“Why don’t we leave you to that as we continue on?” Twilight suggested.

“Yeah, whatever,” Rainbow said, cracking open the novel.

“Okay, this first floor is information and Alantores history and some fiction books not a lot of them. The second floor is my personal favorite floor, the architecture and engineering floor. The third floor is the seafilly books. The fourth floor is the Genealogy floor and the Census records. The fifth floor is the Seismology floor. The sixth floor is where most of the fiction books are. The seventh is the fiction books. And the eighth and final floor is reference,” Numeral explained.  

“I want a library like this now,” Twilight said.

“Maybe while we are at the library, I’m going to go get some new designs for my dresses.” Rarity swam off.

“Y'all have fun, I’m goin’ to wander around for a bit.” Applejack said.

“I bet they have a lot of interesting books on the animals down here. You don’t mind if I leave too, do you?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not at all, go on,” Twilight said, smiling.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy said, swimming off. 

“DO YOU HAVE ANY BOOKS ABOUT PARTIES?!” Pinkie yelled.

“Shhh... Pinkie... this is a library. You can’t yell,” Twilight reminded.         

“Oopsie daisy!” Pinkie said, then she stopped herself, realizing she was still loud. She whispered, “Silly me. Well, do you?”

“That’s better, now keep that whisper,” Numeral said. “And yes, I believe there’s some party books that way.” Numeral pointed at a bookshelf in the distance.

“Okay,” Pinkie whispered.

“I think I’m going to go research sea serpents,” Spike said. 

“Go ahead, Spike,” Twilight said with a smile.

“What where you were going to research on?” Numeral asked.

“I was going to research if seaponies originated from land ponies,” Twilight explained.

“Follow me, Twilight,” Numeral said. The two ponies went down to the genealogy floor. 

“Wow, there’s so many aged books here,” Twilight noted.

“Indeed, there are,” Numeral said, looking around.

“I want to live here now. I’m so jealous.” Twilight imagined herself in living there. She was a seapony. She was reading nonstop. Spike was a sea serpent. Rainbow Dash had no wings, Pinkie was happy (as always), Rarity would make dresses out of seaweed and come up with new designs. Applejack’s family would work on a seaweed farm. Fluttershy would take care of all the sea animals. Yes, Twilight could totally picture herself living in the aquatic world.

Numeral picked out a book and handed it to Twilight. “Here you go, Twilight.”    
“Thank you, Numeral,” Twilight said, returning to reality. She sat down on a nearby couch and levitated the book before her. She flipped through it to see if she could find the answer to her question. She eventually found it, and what she saw surprised her.

“It is said in scientific theory that the pony race came from the sea. Even land ponies started from the sea. There is a story that goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a seapony. A storm came and the seapony was washed onto the shore. Unable to return to the water, he lay there on the sand. His gills grew used to the air surrounding him. 

More seaponies came onto land due to the storm. Over time it is assumed they evolved to grow legs and eventually they formed towns. These cities are:

Manehatten
Baltamare 
Vanhoover
Fillydelphia
Los Pegasus 
Waterhorse

The Seapony Empire is bigger than Equestria. We have cities that are right under Equestria because of the aquifers underground. To make the aquifers habitable, seaponies dug through to expand their space. Although it was not an easy process, now it is the home to a couple thousand seaponies. 

Today the land ponies still don’t know we live under them. During construction of the tunneling there was fracking so Equestria suffered some minor earthquakes. Equestria was going to investigate but they never found the cause. This is for the best, since if land ponies did find out about seaponies, those curious creatures would probably experiment on us. However, we are ponies too and know of safer methods of experimentation. We just discovered them a long time ago but we still don’t know much about them. Mainly seaponies observe though, it is in our nature.

“Seaponies are curious just like we are,” Twilight said to herself. She continued to read.

Eventually, wells were built by the land ponies and they came close to discovering us, but they never dared to dive in and see for themselves. At some point they will find out, which scares some seaponies. Only time will tell what happens.

Twilight closed the book and stood up. She really wanted to read more of it but she felt like she heard enough. Numeral looked back at her. “Did you enjoy the book?”

“Well, it was interesting. I learned new stuff. I’m going to get my friends and then we should head back to Ponyville,” Twilight said, the last part regrettably.
“I’m going to miss you... a lot.” Numeral started to cry. Twilight couldn’t help herself and she teared up too. She pulled her seapony friend into a hug.

“I’m going to miss you too.”

They broke apart and stared at each other sorrowfully for a moment.

“Well, I’m going to go find Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said as she swam up a floor. Once she looked at the floor there were lights everywhere. There was a cake in the middle of the floor. Confetti was everywhere and music playing throughout the floor. The seaponies were constantly trying to stop Pinkie.  

“PINKIE PIE, THIS IS A LIBRARY. NO PARTYING IN LIBRARIES... Unless its my library!” Twilight yelled.

“Sorry Twilight, I got bored of reading that party book so I started one!” Pinkie yelled over the music. 

Twilight facehoofed. “You can always do that somewhere else that’s not in a library!”

“Does that mean I have to stop?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes!” Twilight said.

“Okay...” Pinkie pulled out her party cannon and sucked the party back into it. Twilight didn’t even question how as she dragged Pinkie along to find the others.

Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep. It looked like she’d finished the whole book, Brave Bo and the Quest for the Golden Shell.

“Wake up, Dashie,” Pinkie said as she shook her back and forth. Rainbow slowly opened her eyes. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’re about to go. How was the book?” Twilight asked. 

“It was awesome! Just like Daring Do,” Rainbow replied.

“Well some books can be the same but a little different,” Twilight said.

“Yeah, totally,” Rainbow said. Twilight found Rarity behind Rainbow Dash a couple shelves. 

“Hello darlings,” Rarity greeted. “I just found the most marvelous design books. I’m rather eager to try some of their ideas. An underwater themed dress line, can you not just picture it?” 

“I think you should do it,” Twilight said encouragingly.

“Thank you, darling,” Rarity said.

Fluttershy was on the fourth floor reading sea animal books. She was reading about the green sea turtle.

“Hi girls, and Numeral,” Fluttershy said, looking up. “I was just reading about the sea creatures that live here, it’s so amazing!” The girls smiled at their usually timid friend’s excitement.

“I’m glad you're enjoying it, but we need to go now, Fluttershy,” Twilight said.

“Okay, Twilight,” Fluttershy got up and stood right next to Numeral. 

Applejack was reading on underwater farming. She looked up and noticed the girls and Numeral.  

“Well howdy y’all. Time ta leave, huh?” Applejack asked.

“I’m afraid so, Applejack,” Twilight said.    

“Well I sure learned somethin’ down here,” Applejack said.

Spike was in a section alone because all the seaponies around him were scared.

“Get that sea serpent away,” one of them said.

Twilight swam over and levitated him. “Time to go, Spike.”  

The friends swam out of the library.

“I guess this is goodbye,” Numeral said.

“I suppose so, but it’s definitely not permanent, right?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, we must visit each other soon,” Numeral said.

“I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE!” Pinkie cried.

“Neither do I...” Twilight said with a tear joining with the water particles around her. She was underwater after all.

“I wish I was a seapony. I would live here,” Rarity said. 

“Yeah, I mean even though I wouldn’t be able to fly, water’s pretty sweet,” Rainbow agreed.

“Maybe doing some farmin’ with seaweed would be a good experience,” Applejack said. “Although then my name would no longer be relevant.”

“Oh yeah! You’d be Seaweed Jack or something then!” Pinkie Pie laughed.

“It would be nice to take care of all the animals down here,” Fluttershy said.

“Come visit again anytime you like,” Numeral said, “Maybe I can visit since I have the same spell Lyra has.”

“Definitely,” Twilight said. She looked up at the surface where the land was and back at Numeral.

Twilight activated the portal spell. Everypony said goodbye and jumped in. Before Twilight jumped in Numeral called her over.

“What is it?” Twilight asked. Numeral pressed his lips against Twilight’s lips. Twilight smiled back at him before crossing over back home.

“Twilight, what took ya so long?” Applejack asked.

“And why are you smiling like that?” Rainbow added.

“Yeah, I thought you were sad about leaving,” Pinkie said.

“What? Oh yeah, I am sad about leaving...” Twilight said, looking back at where the portal disappeared. However, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

“Ah, I believe a certain somepony received a special farewell present, hmm?” Rarity said knowingly.

“What do you mean by that?” Fluttershy asked.

“She means that Numeral kissed me...” Twilight explained, beaming.

“Aww,” everypony sighed, except Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah yeah, Twi’s got a special somepony and all that mushy stuff,” Rainbow said.

“I suppose this means we’ll have to return to Atlantores soon, huh?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes...it does,” Twilight replied.

“But you have to ‘Pinkie Promise’,” Pinkie demanded.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my eye,” Twilight said, signifying her promise.

Twilight soon wrote a letter to the Princess.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned a very valuable lesson in friendship. I look at my friends. Rarity and I are unicorns, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are pegasi, and Pinkie Pie and Applejack are earth ponies. We are all different, yet the same. We are all ponies. Despite our differences, our friendship will always come out on top. It doesn’t matter the way you look. You never know if the pony might be cool. So next time I see a pony that’s alone because of the way they look, I should spend time with them. You might learn something from just spending time with them.

Your faithful student
Twilight Sparkle

Twilight smiled. She knew that her letter was referring to seaponies, but she decided Princess Celestia didn’t need to know that just yet. Plus Luna could have told her anyway. She sent it and then looked out her window, wondering when she would next get to visit the wonderful world that was Atlantores.

THE END