//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: Washed Up // Story: The Manehatten Project // by Ddraigtanto //------------------------------// Paver had sunk into the ocean, deeper and deeper, the shoes locked to her hooves dragging her down with a weight one could liken to a hand tightly grabbing her legs and pulling her into the dark, cold abyss; a rose floated above, the flower had been placed on a maneclip next to her ear: It was a new piece of jewelery she'd gotten for her birthday that night, and now it was breaking apart in the water. She'd be crying in fright, as she'd been on her boat once the shoes had sprung their trap, had she not been completely engulfed in Manhatten Lake. She'd held her breath and struggled to hold onto what air remained in her lungs. There was a quiet, muffled thump as her hooves hit the floor of the river, what little light Luna's sky offered fracturing and dimly descnding down from the like surface. This was it, her panicking mind concluded: This was how she was going to die. Drowning at the bottom of a lake, in her favorite dress, after some horrible pony decided to curse her hooves with magic shoes... No. Becoming Manehatten's mayor was not an easy feat, especially for a mare as young as Paver Goldstreets. And contrary to popular belief, Paver was not a weak pony. She was prone to silliness, as a young unicorn would be, but she'd studied through school, magic academy and university to get where she was: She was NOT weak, and she was NOT going to let a pony kill her like this! This was cowardly! This was evil! She was shivering, partly from cold, but partly from adrenaline: She HAD to get out of this before either cold or drowning took her. Think, think! All the magic books she'd studied and all the lessons and lectures on magic, there had to be something!! Her horn glowed with newfound determination, and she felt a burning pain on her neck, as if the flesh was reshaping and being pulled open: Gills sprouted! Of course, Shoobeedoo's Seapony Spell! The waterbreating magic had bought her some time; it wasn't permanent, and if she didn't hurry up and find a way out of the lake, she'd either freeze down here in the deep, or exhaustion would end up taking her. She tried to swim back up, but she could not. Her dress was not light, and furthermore, each of the horseshoes on her feet were like anchors, and she could not lift them so much as a inch from the lake bed! She was pinned, and couldn't move. Panic started to seep back into her mind. She tried to use telekinesis to levitate herself from the bottom of the lake, but to equally vain results. She felt the gills on her neck begin to recede, she was running out of time! Paver had only one chance left, and it was the most difficult spell of the lot: Teleportation. She hadn't time to contemplate where she wanted to teleport to or if it would work: It HAD to work, and she had to try! If she didn't, she was going to drown; if she tried, and it didn't work, she was going to die, but at least she'd fought for her life rather than allow her murderer to succeed unchallenged. Her horn glowed even brighter; there was flash of bright light, and the spell sapped what little was left of her energy, and she blacked out... * * * Celestia's sun was slowly beginning to rise over the horizon, it was the morning after Paver's party, and the lake's little glistening tides lapped merrily against a sandy beach. There was nopony on the beach. In fact, there was nopony around for miles. And so, nobody saw the wet, unicorn-shaped lump wash up on the beach. Paver's body lay there for a time. Her dress was soaked through and battered by the lake's currents, the pretty red pearls which had been sown into the coffee-cream and pink dress had come loose and fell from the threads which held them, some remained on her dress, while others now dotted the sandy shore. The fabric of the gown was water damaged and tatty, torn by rocks on the beach and stained by soggy seaweed. Her mane was a knotted, damp mess on her head and her fur was flattened with moisture. Her hooves were still clad in the red horseshoes, their soles caked in sand, the red leather scuffed bare in places, and slightly squishy with water as her hooves moved slightly within them, though they defiantly held their shape and their hardness nonetheless, albeit with the hardness of new shoes which had only been broken in recently. However, she was still, and she was alive, just. She shivered with cold as she returned to consciousness, only her back was warmed slightly by the morning sun, but the rest of her body was frozen from her near-drowning in the lake. She was exhausted, and didn't move for a while, even after waking, not caring if the waves continued to strike her hind legs and flanks, making her tail look like golden seaweed for how wet, slimy and drenched it was. She lay there, her chin sunk slightly into the lake-darkened sand, her eyes tiredly peering at the stretching beach, then at her nearest hoof and the magic shoe upon it: It was still, though her leg lay sprawled out and her hoof was not upright on the ground. An even colder sense of dread passed through her as she theorized the shoes couldn't make her dance if they weren't flat on the ground properly, but wondered if they would make her stand if she chose never to move again. She didn't expect their magic to have gone, and she lacked the energy of body or magic to see if she could remove them with hoof or horn. She'd happily chew off her own hooves if they were to make her dance forever even after all of this. Chewing... Oh, she longed for some breakfast. By this time in the morning, she'd normally be nursing a mild hangover, trotting down to breakfast, possibly having some daisy toast and a bowl of oaty porridge with the appetite she had right now. Her mother would've likely rang up by now, doting on her as usual, and she'd have happily shrugged her off; she ate healthily, she studied well, and she was mayor of Manehatten, and her life couldn't have been better for it. Tear formed in her eyes: Everypony's going to think she's dead now, and she could only wonder as to what Manehatten was going to do; perhaps they would hold an emergancy election, and get a new mayor up as soon as possible. Could they do that? She knew only of a few ponies who'd even be able to handle a job at such short notice. Otto was the first pony which came to mind, he had the experience of age, and the skill to manage Manehatten, and he'd always had so many plans for making the city great... She couldn't just stay here, she needed to get back. She needed to try to set things right, and let everyone know she was okay. "Please, shoes..." She spoke weakly. "Please just let me find somepony to help me..." Shakily, and with aching limbs, she rose to hooves, shaking off some of the water which hung on her fur and clothes. Immiediately, she felt her hooves begin to tap in the sand, as though tapping along to a silent rhythm. After her first step, the shoes instantly began to take over... Except, less. When they first took hold of her body, it was like an invisible force was shaking her around; the shoes were so fast, so fluid and so energetic, she could barely even stay on the ground as her shoes bounced her around. Now, they forced her steadily along, but the dancing was slower, weaker, almost more like a magic skipping with the occasional bit of flamboyance or a slight hop to her step. A flicker of hope sparked inside her, even in this dire state: The water had damaged the shoes! The spell which made her dance had weakened with her near-drowning! What's more, the shoe's had lost their grip on navigating her as well. So long as she allowed them to dance, or even willed her legs to dance in step with her hooves, she had some slight control over her own movement, if only the direction in which her legs took her. She considered trying to use this to kick the shoes off and possibly free herself, but before she even tried she knew it was a folly: She could feel them cling onto her in their snug tightness; whatever magic was keeping the shoes stuck on her feet was far stronger or better cast than the magic making her dance. Her head hung low with exhaustion and her dress and hair hung limp as she made her way off the beach, leaving hoofprints in the sand, heading east as the shoes continued their perpetual dancing. She saw moutains in the distance, and she gulped in fear: If they were the mountains she thought they were, this was once a home to a large dragon, and beyond that was Froggy Bottom Bog, and then, if she could somehow survive all that, Ponyville...