//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Sing the Song of a New Land 
// Story: Follow Her Lead 
// by Ice Star 
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I struggled to cling to the ice with my hooves, which slipped and failed, struggling to get any grip on the cold surface as I heaved myself onto its surface. The sound of my own frantic, rough gasps could be heard in my ears and I could feel the most biting cold rattle against my scales.

My head was spinning and I could only focus on gripping this ice and breathing in something other than choked swallows, but I couldn't. My heart was going faster than I had ever known it could, and these chilly white specks kept getting in my eyes and mouth. They tasted like water and dissolved when making contact with my scales.

The choppy waves surrounding this ice, as Adagio had named the floating chunk, were no longer above me. Instead, I looked up to see a spread of boring and ugly gray foam that hung in the sky and absorbed the sun's light as it fell into the deepest part of the sea. I drew away and looked down at Nata and Adagio, who had Surfaced as well.

Nata - Sonata - was lying on her side, eyes watery and breaths thin and squeaky, although she'd eek out a short cough every now and then. Her eyes were wide and she whimpered, trying to blot out the falling specks with her hooves. Did she think they were just as chilly as I did?

Next to her, Adagio sat calmly with her head lifted high and that dumb smile on her face. Ugh, I hated it! It almost looked bigger now that we were in the Overworld, and after all these years. I still wasn't used to the weird dizziness and light up here, so I had to look away from her bright scales and squeeze my eyes shut.

I was long past the age of Surfacing, since there had never been a reason to do it before. We had never been near any ponies.

Adagio said that. These past few years, everything centered around what Adagio said and what she did.

But I was still the leader. The game was still played.

Sonata followed my lead. She still did as I said, since it's not like she'd know any better. She's still so dumb, but I've stopped being the one to look after her ages ago, since Sonata is at least functional enough to not have to follow right behind Adagio at all times anymore. It's like she's finally grown up... at least a little.

The two of us are still gasping a bit as Adagio looks toward the Overworld continent in the distance. There's too much fog to see much, and it looks almost hostile and very barren and cold, but that's where the ponies live, so it's where we have to go no matter how much Sonata complains or how strange this place will be. This land before us is where her father is, and if he's not alive still, it's where her family is.

This is her home, and I guess it will have to be my home too.

It's too quiet as our small patch of ice drifts across the ocean waters toward the dull and rocky landscape in the distance.



...



With Adagio teaching us, Sonata and I didn't just become good singers, our songs had a magic to them that they didn't have before. I did have to struggle to come up with words that Adagio could produce easily. It wasn't my job to correct Sonata anymore. Practice wasn't a chore. 

I didn't even have to pay attention that much, all I needed to do was give half-hearted effort into singing a few easy tunes while Adagio taught Sonata small nonsense words put to the simplest of scales in order to make it sound like she was less stupid and wouldn't mispronounce 'strife' three times in a row before giving up and asking what it was, even though it had been explained to her before singing began.

Like all sirens, there is magic in our words. As long as we put our hearts into our songs and speech, magic will flow with all the fury of the ocean itself, so we could lead entire legions with nothing but the power of our song.

Part of that - something I heard long ago - just seems like poetic nonsense and something no one would ever say outside of a song. If you want to say something, why does it have to be embellished or elaborated?

Maybe that's why I can't ever sing much. All the words I pick are almost as simple as Sonata.

Even as I close my eyes, I can't envision a solid, seamless transformation. I can't see myself as a pony when all I feel is the gravelly rocks of the beach, and the chilly water that runs through them beneath my scaled stomach.

I can't find the right words to describe the transformation I need, I can't see myself becoming a pony and my song is useless without any heart.

I give a slight wheeze, tired of singing in this strange place where the cold hurt my throat and notes cracked in this strange, light air. I want only for the weight of the ocean to be all around me again.

There's the sound of Adagio clearing her throat loudly and I open my eyes. She's transformed from a shiny-scaled siren into a hornless and wingless pony mare. I forget what they are called, and I'm also pretty sure it doesn't matter since I'm once again pretty sure she didn't do the magic right. Her heart is still visible and there's a strange mark on her flank: an orange gem partly obscuring a musical note.

She stood on thin legs, colored a gold-yellow that seemed out of place in this bleak, stupid place. I was about to mention that her heart was still visible, which wasn't natural for ponies, and that since she was raised near the surface she should know that, but Adagio spoke first.

"Having trouble, are we?" she drawled, not bothering to hide her disgust at me being unable to sing nearly as well up here.

"Shut up, Adagio," I mumbled, squinting up at her.

Her stupid purplish eyes flicked over in a different direction as she flashed me the biggest smile she could at me, her teeth having lost all point now that she was a pony. "There's no reason for you to be rude, isn't that right Sonata?"

I was going to ask what Sonata had to do with this and then I looked to where Adagio was looking.

Sonata had either performed the spell on her own - which was unbelievable- or gotten Adagio to do it for her. It had to be the second one because there was no way Sonata was capable of doing any kind of magic like this on her own.

I saw my cousin nod her head - which was now that of a pony's- in innocent agreement with Adagio. "Yeah, ponies don't like it if we're mean! Being mean is bad 'cause it'll just make everyone sad."

"Everypony," Adagio corrects her in the same tone a mother might use.

Sonata nods excitedly, until she becomes dizzy and then she just stands about looking dazed for a while. One of her hooves - a pale blue like the ice we drifted on - reached up to play with her new fins, which fell around her face in long, thin, straight strands in two shades of blue. There was also a single fin near her haunches where her tail had been. It had been many years since I had heard the names for a pony's fins. A pony-heart with a blue note was emblazoned on her flank, I would have had the time to see what note it was too if she didn't start whirling around and trying to outrun the ocean as the water lapped the rocks.

Adagio quickly called to her, telling Sonata not to stray far before turning to me, looking down like she'd done something great. "You will need a disguise, but it looks as if I won't be the one to cast the spell."

I want to tell her to stop her bragging and just use her magic already, but Adagio has already known what I was going to do and opens her mouth, beginning her song.

Her melody is slow at first, I can hear a faint wobble and the notes stumble about briefly on purpose, before her wordless tune rises and words find their way into her song.

She sings of feeling something called grass beneath her hooves and cold veins of water that work their way across the land and running across this land.

I don't know what grass and running are, or what it feels like to have a stone caught in my hoof. I have no idea what it feels like to be a pony or to live in the Overworld, but her song makes me believe otherwise.

I had closed my eyes to listen, but when I opened them to see that the only thing to remind me that I was a siren was the heart I was born with.

Another call from Adagio and Sonata ran to her side and we looked at the mountains rising in the distance, Adagio's eyes shining with hunger that Sonata didn't see.

I would find her father, my uncle.

That's what I wanted.

But it wasn't what I should have been worrying about.