//------------------------------//
// 3 - Tides 
// Story: The Young Filly and the Sea 
// by Georg 
//------------------------------//


The Young Filly and the Sea
Tides





A light breeze blew along the beach, carrying the sounds of laughing children far beyond the crowded area of sand where families were vacationing in the warm sunlight.  Two children in particular stood out, as they raced down the beach in a veritable storm of flying sand.  The first was an older filly with a mane that flowed in the wind like waving wheat, her oversized hooves plowing along at the highest speed she could possibly go and still remain on the ground.  Wings of the purest seafoam green spread on either side to balance her headlong gallop, and a fluted spiral horn glowing a soft blue supported a thick cord that extended over her back and up into the sky.

At the other end of that cord was a laughing pegasus colt, barely able to keep his mouth clamped down on the handle of the cord as his sister towed him back and forth along the sandy shore.  Small wings of the deepest blue stretched as far as they could possibly go, catching every single updraft he could in an attempt to reach for the sky while his muffled voice could be heard calling out, “Hi’r, sis.  Hi’r!”

“Clover!  Be careful with your brother!” called out Princess Twilight Sparkle, sitting on a wide violet towel with her husband at her side.

“Yes, mom!” drifted back along the breeze as the two young ponies pelted away and Rex leaned up against his wife.

“They’re too much like their father,” he complained with a smile.  “Once little Hurricane gets his wings going, he’ll never land.”  They both sat and watched their children in the distance as the little colt managed to drop his tow rope and come gliding back down to the sands, landing in a huge poof that was going to take hours to get combed out of his tangled mane.  “Having second thoughts?”

“Yes,” said Twilight, resting a hoof on her round barrel and rubbing to relieve a cramp.  “I’m still going to do it, but I still get this creepy feeling sometime that all of the wonderful things of the last years will all go away when I do.”

“Then we’ll just have to do them all over again,” said Rex with a light kiss to her cheek that turned into a longer and more loving kiss before the royal couple had to stop to spit out sand.

“Worth it,” said Twilight.  “Better than our first kiss by far.”

“All too true.  Speaking of which, I think we may want to get going before something like that happens with our daughter.”  He pointed down the beach where Clover had tripped over a young colt, and the two of them were brushing each other off while Hurricane made faces at them and waved the tow rope.

The royal couple got up in a manner more appropriate for older ponies, Twilight having to take two attempts before getting to her hooves and blowing out her breath in a whoosh.  Their basket and towels folded themselves up in a mixed purple and silver magic before being tucked onto Rex’s back and Twilight produced a small object.

“Go on, dear,” whispered Rex.  “It already brought us as much of our heart’s desire as it can.  It’s time for somepony else.”  He kicked a small hole in the sand with one oversized hoof and waited as Twilight held the glittering blue crustacea over it.

“Go.  Find someponies who need you as much as we did.  Show them how happy their lives can be together.  And when the time comes, let them pass the happiness along.”  She dropped the fossilized shell into the shallow hole and with a small twitch of her magic, covered it with a thin layer of sand.

Rex moved close and put a hoof over his wife’s shoulder.  “Dear?  Are you okay?”

She sniffed.  “Just hormones.”  The two of them waited just a little longer before Twilight looked up and tossed her mane back with a defiant grin.  “Now.  I’m hungry.  We’re hungry.”

“The beast within hungers,” said Rex in a rumbling undertone.  “Run, little ponies, for she seeks to feed.  It’s only been an hour, dear.”

Happy laughter broke out between them as they trotted back to the crowded area of the beach, shoulder to shoulder in the warm sunshine while behind them, the tide began to ever so slowly cover their trail. 







Silhouetted by the evening sunset, two young ponies walked shoulder to shoulder down the beach, exchanging kisses and kicking at the damp sand as they passed.  Until one of them spotted a glint of purest blue…