//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: When There Are No Other Fish in the Sea 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

	With the morning came an unnerving sense of calm. After an almost sleepless night, Riptide faced with the morning with a resigned acceptance. Today, he would face the surface world. Today, he would see Equestria. Today, he would swim past sharks, octopi, and kraken. 

Today, he might even face seagulls. Riptide wasn’t sure if the giant birds who ate sea ponies existed, but he was going to find out. Today, he was going to be a glider sea pony. 

Riptide left his apartment and closed the door behind him, leaving his apartment behind. Also left behind was his information packet, something Riptide failed to think about as he departed. With a flap of his wing-like fins, Riptide shot away from the domed roof of the building where he lived and headed towards the sunrise community garden. 



 

When Riptide approached the sunrise community garden, he knew something was wrong. There was no sign of Squall, the sea shaper also known as Stormy. There was a couple, a coral sea pony stallion and a sea shaper mare. Riptide watched them as they slowly drifted around the large glowing spire of magical coral. In the morning, the spire of coral glowed at the bottom, a bright rosy glow that filled the entire city with light somehow. Riptide had no idea how it worked. As the day progressed, the glow rose up the spire, until around noon, where the glow reached the point. After the noon had passed, the glow would travel down the spire, until it last reached the bottom again. When it went dark, it was nighttime. 

The small park at the bottom that circled around the base was known as the sunrise community garden and it was a quiet place of rest and relaxation in the city of Fathom. 

“Riptide?” 

With a flick of his fins, Riptide turned about. He saw a glider approaching. A stranger. Coming closer. His long tail twisted and curled around itself as he steeled his nerves. 

“Riptide… I am a courier sent by Squall. He was at a party last night and he ate something that did not agree with him. He is quite ill. I have instructions for you. You are to continue upon your mission. I was also told to wish you luck… so good luck… I guess.” 

Having trouble believing what he was hearing, Riptide snorted out an angry stream of bubbles. “I am supposed to go off and play the hero and I don’t even get a proper sending off?” 

The courier shrugged. 

“This is unbelievable!” Riptide’s tail unfurled and whipped about in the water. It was rare for him to feel angry, but he was feeling anger now. 

“We do what we are meant to do. Each to their own ability, each of us does their job, each of us fulfills their purpose, and if everypony does what they are supposed to do, we continue to survive. You expect too much. This is a job like any other. We live a precarious existence. If you will excuse me, I have other messages to deliver,” the courier said as he turned and went swimming off, his large fins slicing through the water with ease. 

Looking all around him, Riptide came to the slow conclusion that everything depended upon him and him alone now. There was a distinct feeling of being alone. Riptide was a pony that was used to being alone, but this was the first time that being alone bothered him. There was no one to turn to, no one to ask for advice, there was nopony at all, period. He turned and looked at the couple enjoying the morning, feeling an odd sense of longing. 

There was nopony to say goodbye to. There would be nopony to welcome him back. 



 

Near the edge of town, Riptide paused. The current was stronger here. Ahead of him was the open sea. East of him was Vanhoover. There was a trench, a reef, a ridge, and then a place called The Narrows. Many ships had crashed into the rocks and had sunk in The Narrows. The information packet said that there were things called lighthouses now in The Narrows and no ships had sunk in a long time. 

A whale went swimming past. It was easy to see that it was injured. There were visible bites along the tail. It had come to Fathom for help, to seek refuge and healing. Riptide shuddered. Anything that could bite a whale’s tail could chomp him down in one gulp. 

As Riptide watched, a lone glider swam straight up, no doubt heading for the surface. Some gliders went topside, to swim in the sun, and glide just above the surface of the water. Nopony stopped him. Gliders were free to come and go. Only the sea shapers and the coral sea ponies were stopped, a measure for their own safety. 

Letting out a nervous laugh, Riptide tried to comfort himself. “Well… I am off to find my porpoise.” He shook his head. “Riptide, that was awful. Maybe this is why you have no friends.” 

Spreading his fins wide, Riptide left the city of Fathom behind him as he set off to find the city of the land ponies, Vanhoover. The stronger currents took him, they swirled around the city, and while he was fearful for a moment, he found that he could swim through them with little effort. His fins wanted to slice through the water. A strange new feeling overtook him as he headed into the open ocean. 



 

Vanhoover was but a short distance away and Riptide knew that he could reach the city by late afternoon, if the information packet could be believed. The ocean around him was dim. Only a little light came down from the surface far above. Seaweed was all around him, an entire forest under the sea. On the jagged rocks protruding up from the seaweed there were all manner of mollusks and sea life. 

Riptide went from outcropping to outcropping, trying to watch the water around him for things that would find him to be a delicious meal. He watched the fish, knowing that they would be the first indicator of something wrong. 

For a moment, Riptide wondered how he knew which direction was east. He had no answer. He just knew. 

Ahead of him was an open area with no rocky outcroppings, just the waving strands of seaweed, swaying back and forth in the current. He dove low, swimming just above the tops of the broad green plants. His only means of protection were his front legs. He could kick with them he supposed, he had heard stories. Gliders were powerful kickers. The only things Riptide had ever kicked were stuck doors, cabinets, and drawers that refused to open. 

Surprised by his own speed, Riptide had no idea that he was capable of swimming as fast as he was. He was moving. A giant oarfish swam past, going in the other direction. It was scary looking, but seemed to have no interest in stopping. 

More rocks ahead. The current was stronger here. Riptide wasn’t sure, but it seemed as though the light from above was a little brighter. The seaweed became became clumps, clusters, and the bare seafloor was visible in places. 

Wedged in between the rocks was a sunken ship. Riptide, filled with curiosity, wanted to have himself a look, but he wasn’t sure if there was time. He paused, looking ahead in the direction he needed to go, and then he looked at the ship. 

This was an adventure after all. 

With a flick of his tail, he changed direction and headed for the ship. It was not wood, like ships were said to be made of, but metal. It was rusting. Riptide had no idea what had caused the ship to sink. Anemones grew along the wreck. Wild coral grew along one side. 

Riptide had never seen a ship before, but he had seen pictures. Swimming along one side, Riptide examined the rusting hulk of the ship. It was long and had some sort of building built along what Riptide assumed to be the top. It has sunk to the bottom and landed upon its side. 

The front end, or at least Riptide believed it to be the front end, was pointed. It came to an edge. The rear end was somewhat squared. Swimming along the front, he spotted what he thought were letters. The letters were odd, strange, but also familiar. They looked like an old language that Riptide could not recall the name of. Being an archivist, he had experience with old languages, alphabets, and words. Reaching out a front leg, he tried to wipe away some debris and then waited for the water to clear. 

Bermuda Buster. 

Together, the words meant nothing to Riptide. Bust meant to break. The letters were odd and the formation of a word that he understood might have been coincidental. Below the words, there was a large triangle. 

How curious. Whoever had the ship also used shapes as a means of communication. 

That made sense. Shapes and mathematical concepts would be the same anywhere you went, or so Riptide believed. He swam along the side, moving towards the large building that came up from the ship’s main body. There was a window with no glass beside a window that still had some broken glass. It was easy for Riptide to slip through the window. Inside, there were things, objects, stuff strewn along the wall that was now the floor. Faint light from above made everything somewhat visible. 

Riptide had no idea what any of this stuff was. 

Something caught Riptide’s eye. Bones. Laying in the silt, bones protruded. They were covered in something odd, something that Riptide had never seen before, he did not know the name. It was flexible and crusted over with sand. A strange skull was visible. The lower jaw was gone, at least Riptide assumed it had a lower jaw. The skull itself was bulbous, strange in shape, almost round. It had two small eye sockets. 

It was a grim reminder of his own mortality. 

Feeling melancholy, Riptide decided it was time to go. He slipped out the window and resumed his trek, thinking about how much better it was to be alive, something he had never given much thought to before. Riptide had always just sort of existed, going from day to day with no real thought about why or what his purpose was. His assignment mark was a book, a rare and precious thing here in the depths. He had never questioned his place in life. When his mark appeared, he transitioned from being in school to being an apprentice without a second thought. He never refused or begged for something else, like he had seen others do. 

The only thing that Riptide ever contemplated upon throughout his adult life was the fact that he was a glider with a book assignment mark. He was the only glider he knew in the archivist wing. All of the rest were sea shapers. He was good at his job and he worked hard, so there was no complaints from the others. 

Riptide existed. For a moment, as he swam, he wondered if his coworkers even realised he was gone. He never left his office to socialise, seeing it as a waste of time. He was there to work, to be productive, to get things done. It had always irritated him to hear the others laughing and carrying on when there was work to be done. Riptide had to work hard. He didn’t have shaper magic. He had to do everything the hard way. 

Or did he? 

He asked himself this question as he swam. He could have asked for help. For assistance of some kind. No longer focused on books, on reports, on data collection, Riptide’s mind was free to wander, and he did not like the questions that appeared inside of his mind. 

He did not like doubting himself and everything he had worked for. 

Swimming between two large jutting rocks that seemed to almost stretch up to the surface above him, Riptide realised two things. 

The first was that the feeling of the water against him had changed. The water was not so difficult to swim though. Which meant the water was getting shallower and that he was getting closer to the surface. 

The second was that he had wasted his entire life up to this point.