//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: Within the Ship's Bones, and Adagio the Surfacer 
// Story: Follow Her Lead 
// by Ice Star 
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Her name is Adagio Dazzle and she talks a lot. She swims more like an undersea predator than a siren: silent but with a deadly strength, so she must have been alone for some time. Her voice is like the sound of the waves far above: smooth and calm, with the easiest hint of turning violent, yet there's something hypnotic about the way she talks. She's older than me, but younger than Nata, but she sounds so mature, like she's the sort who doesn't get yelled at for getting into fights every other day. She's too well-spoken once she gets around to talking for more than a minute. I'm not sure if I like that.

It's like you can't help but listen to her, I keep having to remind myself what I'm doing every now and then, but Nata's practically drooling over her, and nodding to everything she says. She was real surprised to find us looking at her when she woke up. We were even more surprised to hear about her.

She didn't say where she was from or how she ended up messing with a shark, but she did tell Nata and I that she had Surfaced before. When Nata and I began to ask her a bunch of questions about what the Overworld was like, she told us both to be quiet. She'd tell us later, or so she said. Then she started talking about where she'd been staying recently.

I couldn't believe what I heard.

She lived in a boat. Adagio Dazzle, the strangest equine I had ever met, was living in a sunken galleon not too far from where we had been. When Nata and I still lived in the village we heard tales of the old ships that rested so far from our home, and how they were filled with treasure. I wanted to drag Nata off to go and explore the wooden bones that hold the gold that dazzled us more than any tale of how the Overworld structure had ended up there.

Aunty, who I alone still remember, but does not occupy my thoughts, told us not to and dragged Nata and I away as much as I wanted to go. We could never sneak past her or the village limits, and no matter how much I thrashed I could never escape the grip of her hooves. At least, not then. I'm far bigger than runty village Aria was, and Nata is growing and growing, even if I might still be small. I'm certainly smaller than Adagio. Sometimes, she eyes the scars on my forelegs, like they'll tell her something or they're strange to her. Those scars are all I can see about my hooves now. The deep sea does that. Learning to manage spears on my own does that.

Nata doesn't remember Aunty anymore, and for that I am glad, or as glad as I can be. When I asked Adagio where her mother was, Nata looked more confused at the question than Adagio pretended to be. I made my cousin forget her own mother. I'm not sure if I feel guilty. I am guilty, but I don't feel it, since I don't even remember my mother, or at least nothing beyond glimmers of memory and her name. I think her mane was like mine, and that my father had a loud voice.

The thought of forgetting someone who loved so much like Nata loved her mother, and not even remembering them might be scary for someone else who still had a village to call home and didn't hunt for food like her and I. I can't see why it would matter anyway. Nata would have been nabbed by a shark long ago if it weren't for Aunty's disgruntled, calm patience and my guts. Now there's only my guts.

In time, I try not to wonder what else my cousin will forget and who will make her do it. Perhaps they'll smile at her like I did.

It's an honest lie, and I wonder how easy it will be to say it to someone like her.



...



From a silent reef, the skeleton of a ship rises, even though it is rotted and plants try consume it. I'm not listening to Nata's babbling because scattered among the ruins of this old wooden thing were glittering gold coins that Nata and I grabbed excitedly. They had been lying there for gods know how long, and images of Alicorn gods were stamped upon them. Adagio kept swimming in relative silence, but Nata and I couldn't resist comparing the profiles we found on coins or picking up strings of pearls and other treasures. 

When Nata thought that I got the better coins, since the bust of Alicon King Neptune, Ruler of the Seas, appeared on mine she tried to throw the sparkling metal at me. She must not have been all that thrilled with who she got on hers, eh? I can't blame her if our god-king is better than the Two Alicorn Queens of the Overworld land of Al Far'iimbra, some crazy place with a crazier name. When that failed, Nata chased me around the abandoned wooden beams over and over until we were both laughing from dizziness.

Adagio frowned slightly upon seeing us act like the littlest of fillies, and looked away like our silly game was bothering her. It was kinda embarrassing, so I stopped and Nata, who was still squealing joyfully, collided with me. I admonished her with a quick shove before resumed our swim, even though it was uncomfortable to have Adagio take the lead, since it was I who was the leader. I'm not sure if she noticed me twitch, since I wanted to get back to the front. Sure, she may know this ship but this was technically my job, not hers, and I'd appreciate if she stopped doing it, at least once we were out of here.



...



With Adagio leading us through the spooky broken corridors with rotting door frames, I realized the only one left to rein in Nata as she tried to explore every room would be me. It took a lot of time, but we made it to whatever section Adagio had been staying in.

I'm not sure what the room was supposed to be or why you'd wanna walk on the ceiling of the room below you if you had four hooves like a pony. Everything was splintered and looked like it would collapse on us in a moment, and with Nata here I don't exactly think we'd be able to escape in one piece.

She's a great swimmer, but I'm still surprised when Adagio, who knows words longer than most of my thoughts, returns from the rubble with only a few splinters between some scales. She carries something in her hooves, its cloth. Not the special kind that come from Aquastria but the kind from the Overworld that gets all yucky in the water. It's wrapped in a ball and has all sorts of things tied to it in order to weigh it down and keep it together.

"What's that?" Nata asks.

Adagio gives this weird smile to us both. "Well, Sonata, weren't you and Aria going to find where all the little ponies lived?"

When Nata nods to this, I nod too.

"It just so happens," Adagio continues,"that I know exactly where the ponies live too, and that's where I'm heading."

"Yeah, but what makes us think we can trust you?"

"Aria, where do you think I'm from?"

"Aquastria? They have a ton of fancy cities there, and you act like you're from the court or something." Or at least, what I think court sirens would be like.

Adagio lets out a long sigh and brings her free hoof to her face. "I'm not from Aquastria, Aria."

"Then where are you from?" 

"Water?" Nata suggests, and her eyes tell me that was the best guess that she could come up with. Idiot.

Adagio jabs a hoof towards the waves far above and her weird, kinda creepy smile returns. "You two may have yet to Surface, but that's where I'm from."

Nata is confused by her statement. "But aren't you a siren too?"

"Yes."

"How can you be from up there if you're a siren?"

The gold filly's face looks like other adults when they are tired of putting up with Nata, and they think that I'm like Nata too and won't notice. Her tone is very dry too, like how the Overworld must be. "Sonata, whales can go to the water's surface as well, and even beach themselves upon the shores."

My cousin's eyes widen. "So... does that mean you're from the shores?"

Adagio shoots Nata a wide smile but it still feels like she's trying to be mean. "Why yes! I am, actually."

"I get it now!" Nata cries.

"Bravo!" Adagio says, still smiling funny and clapping. It doesn't feel right, is it possible to make fun of Nata by praising her? This isn't lying but I'm not sure what else it could be.

Nata smiles even wider than Adagio upon realizing something, and I guess nothing seems off to her. "You're a whale, Adagio!"