I, for one, would like to see this brought to fruition.

This... is a pretty good idea.

Curious

It came to me while I was going through my hiatus list, but this story could work very similar to "The Legend of the Arachnapony".

Dude/Fugue (for some reason I keep on thinking that should be his "Siren Name") manages to get Sea Apple to safety, but in the process the word gets out about this strange gargantuan pony that came from the sea, Celestia investigates, discovers the truth but agrees to leave Fugue and Sea Apple to their own devices. Meanwhile an order of monster hunting nobles (think Big Game Hunters in the vein of Allan Quatermain, slash religous zealot who think that only Celestia's solar ponies should be allowed existence under her sun) also investigate, discover s/he's a siren, and believe that Dude/Fugue used her mind controlling song on Celestia to make the Solar Alicorn leave her alone to conquer the town where Sea Apple actually lives (most likely Tall Tale or Vanhoover), kick starting this long hunt of the Most Dangerous Game. All while Fugue and Sea Apple are just trying to live their own lives.

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Dude/Fugue (for some reason I keep on thinking that should be his "Siren Name") manages to get Sea Apple to safety, but in the process the word gets out about this strange gargantuan pony that came from the sea, Celestia investigates, discovers the truth but agrees to leave Fugue and Sea Apple to their own devices. Meanwhile an order of monster hunting nobles (think Big Game Hunters in the vein of Allan Quatermain, slash religous zealot who think that only Celestia's solar ponies should be allowed existence under her sun) also investigate, discover s/he's a siren, and believe that Dude/Fugue used her mind controlling song on Celestia to make the Solar Alicorn leave her alone to conquer the town where Sea Apple actually lives (most likely Tall Tale or Vanhoover), kick starting this long hunt of the Most Dangerous Game. All while Fugue and Sea Apple are just trying to live their own lives.

I've got this habit of using really piss-poor place-holder names while I'm trying out a concept.

Tim, Bob, Max, Sam, Alex... and yeah, Dude. Sometimes I'll outright number the characters instead of name them.

(#431 and her brood of siblings being the so far only example where it actually turned out so well, that it reached and shaped the story proper. I wanted a sci-fi sounding 'serial number' as an easy to type place-holder, but on actually seeing somebody being 'the fourth-hundred and thirty first' just tickled my imagination so much that I kept it.)

No insult intended for any 'Bob's' out there, of course. It's just a combo of being fast to type, letting me save brainpower on trying to think up a fitting name...

And to be honest? There are so many Chosen One—He/She Of The Most Special And Profound Name—out there, receiving aid from Mighty Wizard—Ancient One of Power—getting aid in stopping Evil Bastard—Primal Dog Kicker Supreme—that it tickles my funny bone having , say, Jim helping Tim stop the dread evil known as Bob.

That type of humor.

Speaking off, that's why Sea Apple has a more detailed name. The idea for bringing some actual conflict into the whole story post the 'Boy meets Ghoul' stuff the above covers.

*Black-ish sheep of the Apple family that's never as much as reared a dandelion actually attends the next reunion, because Dude (at this stage dating Sea Apple) is feeling homesick and wanting a 'family fix.'
*Dude tries, in general making a decent impression, but also pushes every 'I was raised by alien wolves!' button there is. Culminating in a fight breaking out when she's encouraged to 'show her special talent,' when the siren without a clue about her power-set has a mike pushed into her hooves.
*The brawl is blamed on bad cider, but Applejack is getting a bad feeling. Twilight imminently figuring what's going on when she hears about how the new girl had a ruby in her sternum.
*The Mane Six, lead by a furious AJ, go gunning for the happy couple.

And that's about as far as I developed that arc in my head before abandoning the concept, but thought I'd mention it since I forgot to add it earlier above.

I do like your take on it, however, though I'm personally very of 'The Cult of Vagueness Against X' type plots. Sure, you have a stream of foes for your hero to overcome...

But how come a, say, solar immortal and pacifist that's older then most hills haven't dismantled a murderous band of racists already?

Stuff like that. Now, I will admit I've seen it work, in for example False Masks, but on the whole I have to admit I find the idea a very poor fit for...

Well, such a peaceful setting as MLP: FiM.

You are 100% right that the mind-control song is some potent paranoia fuel, though. Even in a land as sunshine and rainbows as Equestria, that's something that's going to be a serous hurdle. Something I'll admit I hadn't thought about (being more intrigued with the whole Power of Hate/Anger thing).

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No insult intended for any 'Bob's' out there, of course. It's just a combo of being fast to type, letting me save brainpower on trying to think up a fitting name...

I know that pain, the problem being that I really cannot write a character until I come up with a name for them, it's almost legitimately part of their very fabric of being to me. This rings double for horse words.

*Black-ish sheep of the Apple family that's never as much as reared a dandelion actually attends the next reunion, because Dude (at this stage dating Sea Apple) is feeling homesick and wanting a 'family fix.'
*Dude tries, in general making a decent impression, but also pushes every 'I was raised by alien wolves!' button there is. Culminating in a fight breaking out when she's encouraged to 'show her special talent,' when the siren without a clue about her power-set has a mike pushed into her hooves.
*The brawl is blamed on bad cider, but Applejack is getting a bad feeling. Twilight imminently figuring what's going on when she hears about how the new girl had a ruby in her sternum.
*The Mane Six, lead by a furious AJ, go gunning for the happy couple.

This entire series of events reminds me very much of "Last Call" where something poisons Mac's Beer (the Greatest of Sins) in orde rot turn the people who drink it into violent psychopaths.

But how come a, say, solar immortal and pacifist that's older then most hills haven't dismantled a murderous band of racists already?

Asking this question led me into thinking the process through entirely (I wish I could spend more time on my D'n'D societies, when these things take up my brain-meat space, But hey-ho).

So they didn't start out this way, originally, at the very dawn of Equestria, they were monster hunters, Manticores, basilisks, tazlwurms, all that jazz. The survivors got better at their job, and after a particularly nasty wave of the Secratarial Comet (spiders, giant magic using spiders) Celestia and Luna granted the memebrs of the organisation both noble titles and a banner (The Celestial Hunters).

These families continued their jobs even as Equestria turned more peaceful, but Wildlife still existed, and occasional pony-eathers would show up, and so they'd pass their skills and positions down along their family lines, eventually turning the entire thing into a coalition of certain old families.

Until Nightmare Moon.

(HEADCANON) When Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, she enacted a ritual that turned the guards/soldiers/servants loyal to her into their Lunar equivalents. (HEADCANON PART OVER)

After Celestia's victory over NM these families found the Lunar ponies to be a blight and a schism was formed in the Celestial Hunters, some of them declaring the Lunar breeds to be just as monstrous as NM (The Solar Knights), while others felt that this was exactly the wrong outlook to take, and following it would eventually lead to another Windigo incursion (The Harmony Guard), and the two sides fought, while Celestia ignored the world around in her mourning.

Eventually, after a massacre of the Lunar Unicorns, wiping their breed out beyond a couple of interbred noble houses, Celestia was brought into the conflict and brought the Solar Knights to justice, imprisoning all their members she could find, save for the leader who she personally petrified.

This led to the Harmony Guard crisis, they were now seriously undernumbered, underequipped, and most of the pony population could only see them as members of a knightly order that had personally wiped out one pony tribe (Lunar Unicorns), and come close to doing the same to another two (Thestrals and Arachnaponies). While Celestia, and most of the noble house knew the truth of the conflict, Equestria was too shattered for them to take any action other than publicly disbanding the Celestial Hunters, and removing most of the members from the ranks of the nobility. Publicly being the key word here.

The order still existed in an unofficial sense, with most members being retained in high paying governmental jobs, and those who couldn't be fitted into the beauracracy were folded into the E.U.P whose job now included dealing with monster attacks as Luna and the Celestial Hunters were out of commission.

Nowadays, Celestia has slowly raised most of the still extant families back to their original nobility, and they still take their jobs very seriously, but with the rarity of monster attacks the younger generations have been slowly shifting to a more thrill seeking, big-hunter mindset. Taking safari trips to places like the Badlands, the Everfree or Zebrica to hunt the real big monsters that could be a threat "one day".

And that's the state they're in at the moment. They still do a necessary job, but there isn't much demand for it, and the majority of their membership is itching for a chance at some validation. Genuily somewhat good ponies, who do a messy job, looking for a pat on the head.

Could probably make some good tension between the old guard and the young blood on that level of "Trust Old Sunbutt, she knows what she's doing" vs "This is our chance to prove ourselves who's with me?!"

Of course it would also lead to a good chance to use this.

PS: Got lost in the shuffle, but the name came from what Siren names have already shown up are musically based. (Sonata, Aria, Adagio), Fugue does sound similar to Dude, is connected to Toccatta & Fugue in D-Minor, and for the final kicker, it has two dictionary definitions.

1. Music - a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
2. Psychiatry - a loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

PPS: Second response to the actual chapter, I keep on forgetting about that programming quirk.