As Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike splashed around on the surface under Princess Luna's full moon beaming down on them, Shimmering Sea and Coral Blossom sat on the roof of the cave-house, silently contemplating the events.
Shimmering Sea was still completely shocked by the events of the past day... then she realized that if she didn't do something soon, her land family would really start to worry about her. She levitated a blank scroll & piece of charcoal from her saddlebags and started to write a quick note:
Dear Mom, Dad, & Granny Rose,
I'm so sorry to keep you up waiting so long...
With help from Princess Twilight, Lady Fluttershy and Spike, I've managed to find my birth mother and we'll be staying with her for a few days. Please don't ask where because I can't explain in a note. I will tell you absolutely everything when we get back, I promise.
Your daughter, Shimmering Sea
Shimmer rolled the scroll, tied it with a piece of boot-string (1) kelp and teleported the note to her parent's living room. She knew that her dad would read the note out loud for her mother's sake.
Her mother....
No.... her adoptive mother.
Because her birth mother was sitting beside her. Shimmer's necklace & transformation had been a shock but she had come to terms with it already. Especially the part about being able to turn back to land pony as soon as the pearl was out of the salt water. That little tidbit from Tide Glider on their swim back was very helpful. She had just found out she was a merpony - albeit slightly feared because she was a uni-mer - and her mother and her father and the Bone Caves and Princess Aqua and now this mystery....
Shimmering Sea shook her head in disbelief at this whorl-wind of a day. Coral Blossom could see the gears turning in the pony's head, and thus said nothing. She merely enjoyed the company of the daughter she had prayed for years to be able to see again.
~*~*~
They all slept underwater with Coral inside the borrowed alcove in the Bone Caves. Twilight, Fluttershy and Shimmer found it a very interesting experience to sleep underwater; Spike noticed nothing due to his breathing bowl. Shimmering Sea had not a single nightmare; only the sensation of floating.
The next morning, after waking in a moment of sheer panic by Twilight and Fluttershy, Tide Glider offered them all breakfast in her home; Shimmering Sea accepted. TG gave them a salad very similar to the one Coral Blossom had served the previous day. However, in Spike's there were little chunks of fish meat; he gobbled them up as Fluttershy went pale. Twilight tried a piece when Spike offered but she almost immediately spat it back out in a piece of cloth napkin. TG took no offence. "It's an acquired taste," she said as she loaded her own salad down with more.
Over breakfast, Shimmering Sea filled Coral in on what they had learned about the deforestation while still being able to leave Princess Aqua out of the discussion. "This could be the reason why myself and Fluttershy were sent here. I won't be satisfied heading home until we get to the bottom of this," Twilight put in. Fluttershy and Spike nodded determinedly; Coral was surprised to see Shimmering Sea nod as well. "Mom, if I go and I help figure what's going on, the earth-mers might come to accept the other tribes." Coral blushed at being referred to as "Mom" but she saw the determined look on Shimmer's face and knew that there was no hesitation there; only determination.
"Very well, Shimmering Sea. You go with your new friends and solve a mystery...." Pause. "But please at least come back with me so I can properly provision you for your journey!" she said excitedly.
TG had already provided special merpony saddle bags for Shimmer and a few food items but it was very little that she could spare. They wholeheartedly agreed. "Are you coming too, Tide Glider?" Spike asked of the peg-mer. TG shook her head. "I can't, Spike. I need to stay here and look after the Bone Caves and check in with our mutual friend."
Shimmering Sea knew TG was referring to Princess Aqua but could not with Coral present. Suddenly, Twilight got the best of herself. "Oh for Celestia's sake! Just tell Coral about Princess Aqua already! She's going to find out sooner or later," she burst out before swimming outside in a huff. "Princess Aqua?" Coral asked timidly. "Oh my! I haven't seen Twilight like this since that time I took Princess Celestia's pet phoenix without permission and tried to nurse it back to health," Fluttershy said before dashing outside after Twilight.
Shimmering Sea face-hoofed before turning to Coral Blossom. "Remember how the town elders did that magic yesterday? Well, there's an alicorn merpony who can do that too but a thousand times stronger. Her name is Princess Aqua Marina. TG is one of her lieutenants and Aqua was the one who we met with last night... she's the one who told us about this problem. I'm sure that the elders are helping some but its not enough and we want to figure out why. If we can help save the oceans, the earth-mers might be more trusting to us."
Coral Blossom stared at Shimmering Sea like she had just turned purple or something. Shimmer saw the disbelief on Coral's face. "TG, while we are gone, please take my mother to meet Aqua. They could keep each other company until we get back," Shimmer said blankly before also going outside, with Spike at her side.
~*~*~
The swim back to Coral's place was stony, at best. Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike swam together as Coral led and Shimmer followed behind. Neither Coral or Shimmer took any notice of the few earth-mers who followed at a distance; they were all stallions, carrying spears of some kind. At some point, when they stopped to let a huge school of fish to pass by, Spike tapped a claw to Coral's shoulder and pointed to the mers. Coral looked at them mildly before looking back to Spike. "Oh, don't worry about them. They're the earth-mer city guards... the council would have told them of Shimmer's return by now and to keep an eye out for her trying to sneak back into town. But since she's with the lot of you, they won't approach."
"Kind of like diplomatic immunity by association," said Twilight in her Lecture mode voice. Spike scratched his head in confusion. "Uh... bless you?" This elicited a giggle from Fluttershy and Shimmer but nothing more.
Arriving back at Coral's home, Twilight and Fluttershy retrieved their own saddle bags from where they got left on the three seat couch. Coral told them to take anything they wanted from the kitchen while she went into the storage room for some equipment. Shimmering Sea found the salad that Coral had made for them the previous night, minus the fish meat, and a small wave of guilt washed over her. "If we can find a way to pack it, we can take it with us," softly said Fluttershy as she came into the kitchen. Shimmer nodded and looked over her shoulder. Twilight was experimenting with the scroll papers that Princess Aqua had given while Spike was digging in the fireplace for more sticks of charcoal.
Coral came back carrying smaller squares & rectangles of canvas for them to use as bedrolls and/or tents, various lengths of rope, a gathered net and a pair of old shortened spears. Fluttershy offered to carry the net if Shimmering Sea took the spears; Shy was just not comfortable carrying weapons... they tended to scare off the animals. Shimmer did not mind at all and the shafts were barely six hooves long; they were not too cumbersome. Twilight agreed to carry the food supplies; Coral had shown them the bleach-white canvas bags that were used in food preparation & storage. Shimmer used her levitation to pour the salad into one of the bags while Coral looked on, fascinated. She then pulled out small jars with sealed lids; she said they contained stuff like kelp tea, preservatives of sea apples, pears, peaches and strawberries; each jar was labeled in the merpony runes but Shimmer could read them just fine. Coral hoofed over a special water scroll that listed the safe-to-eat water plants of the oceans; Twilight pretty much grabbed it and squeed with glee, making the rest of them laugh a little. Coral also gave Shimmer a map of the near by mer-pony cities before giving a large billowy dark cloak made of a thin canvas.
Shimmering Sea took the cloak in disbelief. "Is this what I think it is?" she asked. "Yes... this is the cloak I wore to conceal my identity when I dropped you off at the orphanage," Coral said, gazing at it sadly. "You might need it if you require to go into an earth-mer city for any reason." Shimmering Sea understood and nodded her thanks.
"One last thing...." Coral said, snapping out of her thoughts. She went back into the bedroom and returned with what looked like a backpack, similar to the one Spike owned back home. This one was shaped like the food bags with the draw string at the top but still had the vertical straps on one side and had Princess Aqua's cutie mark on the back. The second bag she carried was one of the food ones filled with a variety of ocean gems... mostly sapphires and diamonds.
"Whoa whoa what!? How did you come to possess a backpack with Princess Aqua's cutie mark on it??" Shimmer asked, completely confused. Coral, looking equally confused, looked at the backpack and then to Shimmer. "I have no idea what you mean. I got this bag in a trade from an uni-mer who wished for my recipe for the fish salad you now carry in Twilight's bags." "Ooooh! So this uni-mer probably met Princess Aqua, liked her cutie mark and copied it for an ocean themed decoration," Spike said excitedly as he practically snatched the backpack and tried it on for fit. He then proceeded to fill the bag with his small bag of snack gems, the new bag of ocean gems, the fireplace charcoal and Twilight's special parchment and then tried to suck on a shard of ocean sapphire all at the same time.
Shimmering Sea could not hold back any longer. She burst out in hysterical laughter. She leaned on the kitchen counters and continued to just plain laugh until her eyes watered.
"Um... I think we broke her," Fluttershy whispered.
~*~*~
It took Shimmering Sea about a good ten minutes before she finished laughing. The whole thing was just too funny. And it was not just the backpack either. I mean seriously... what uni-mer sews a backpack really only good to be used on a bipedal creature? And what were the odds of Coral Blossom getting her hooves on it? But also the experience as a whole for the past 24 hours. It was all just getting too weird and she felt like she just had to break the tension somehow. And the laughing fit had done it for her; she figured that it was either a laugh or a cry but suspected that a cry might have scared them more.
When Shimmer had calmed down completely and they all had secured their belongings, Coral Blossom saw them back to the Bone Caves but they were not to enter; they were to go left and into deeper water. But from inside the Bone Caves, three merponies swam out to meet them. One was a mare uni (medium grey body, similar freckles to Shimmer's but in grey and with blue neck-long mane), second was a stallion uni (dark blue-purple body, even darker mane with streak of pale neon green) and third was a stallion peg-mer (bright neon green body, kite shape of dark green on forehead and grey/black streaked mane plastered back) and all three of them lacked any cutie mark. (2) The stallion peg-mer introduced himself as Warding Wave ("Ward"); the stallion uni as Lance Legend ("Just Lance is fine,") and the mare uni as Armored Splash ("Amie for short,"). "We are here because we heard from Tide Glider of your mission, Shimmering Sea. We want to help," said Ward. The three of them looked determined and Shimmer did not wish to offend them.
Coral saw that they were all hunters; merponies extremely experienced in dealing with the ocean and its dangers. She told this to the group and encouraged them to accept. Knowing very little themselves, Twilight and Fluttershy seemed almost relieved to have protection. Shimmer agreed.
Turning back to the trio, Shimmering Sea approached them, watching for their reactions. "We will gladly accept those who wish to help on what could be a dangerous mission," she said casually. "We want to help you help Princess Aqua," said Lance. "And maybe a chance at finally earning our cutie marks," said Amie, with a little blush. Coral whispered something to Shimmer; "She's one of those animal experts I told you about... those that accompany the hunters." Shimmer nodded acknowledgement. "Your families will not miss you if you leave?" Twilight asked curiously, swimming forward. The trio bowed respectfully. "No your highness. They were the ones who encouraged us to join you," said Ward. "They will help each other until our return," added Lance. Amie took up a pleading stance that rivaled even Rainbow Dash's during cider season.
Shimmering Sea took a deep breath, feeling the weakness of the oxygen and wishing she had learned that spell before leaving Aqua, and nodded. "Very well. You shall join us," she said.