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Chapter One: Into the Depths1,923 words
Chapter Two: Reunited1,735 words

Chapter Two: Reunited

Kelpie Cove was a circular cavern that burrowed straight down, down, down until Featherwisp couldn’t tell how deep it went. There were hundreds of holes along the sides, most likely leading caves that burrowed far into the rock walls of the Cove. Below her, she could see kelpies of all colors, usually blues or greens, swimming around and going about whatever it was kelpies did on a daily basis. There was no sign of the scouts that Queen Serpentine had aforementioned.

Feather took a deep breath, then coughed and spluttered. Even though she found that she could breathe through the water, it still burned and tickled in an unpleasant way. When she looked down again, she nearly shrieked in terror as a kelpie swam upwards straight towards her!

She raised her hooves in front of her to protect herself, but the blow she’d expected never came. When she opened her eyes, a very friendly, very electric blue kelpie was hovering in the water in front of her.

“Hello!” he said brightly. Well, she thought it was a he. Kelpie anatomy was quite different from ponies. “I’ve never seen you before!” The strange kelpie swam in a circle around her, leaving a trail of bubbles in his wake.

Feather had no idea how he was talking, or how she could understand him. She was underwater. “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice came out as a spurt of bubbles, which floated away from her mouth and up towards the surface.

The kelpie smile brightly, revealing his sharp, fish-eating teeth. “My name is Wave Watcher. Your scales are fantastic! How did you get them that color?”

Featherwisp glanced down at herself and her new pale pink scales, the same color as her pony coat. “Oh, um…I was born like this?”

“They remind me of pearls!” he exclaimed happily, swimming another circle around her. “What’s your name, fishy?”

She hoped that ‘fishy’ was a friendly term and didn’t mean that he wanted to eat her. “Featherwisp.”

He wrinkled his snout. “That’s a weird name. Are you from around here?”

“Um, not exactly.” She laughed nervously, which sent a cold, unpleasant wave of water down her throat and out her gills. “So…I was wondering if you had heard anything about...ponies being taken from the surface into the Cove?”

Wave Watcher swam backwards in surprise. “You mean the freaky things without tails? They were so weird! They had FOUR LEGS!”

Featherwisp found herself smiling at this strange, excitable kelpie. “Do you know what happened to them?”

He nodded his scaly head. “I saw them taken down to the holding caves. They’re not that far down, if you want to go see the weird creatures yourself.”

“Oh, please! I…want to make fun of their weird legs! I’ve only ever heard about them in stories, you see.” She smiled, hoping this was a good enough reason for him to show her.

Wave Watcher nodded and flapped his fins. “Well, come on!” He swam in a somersault, then dove downward.

Featherwisp dove down after him, finding that her new fins were very good at scooping water and propelling her. She was almost as fast as Wave Watcher.

The kelpie led her down past levels and levels of caves to a larger opening with pointed rocks poking out from the top and bottom. It looked like a toothy mouth. Watery, fluorescent light glowed dimly from somewhere deep in the cave.

Wave Watcher shook his head. “No way, I’m going in there. Nuh uh, you’re on your own, fishy.”

Feather turned towards him and smiled. “Thank you so much. This means everything to me!” She swam into the tunnel without looking back.

The tunnel was longer than she had imagined; it had to have wound all the way around the cove at least twice. The light was coming from alcoves in the walls where glowing jellyfish were kept in large glass jars. She wanted to free them, but then how would she be able to see?

After a while, the cave turned slightly upwards. The water rippled above her. She put on a burst of speed and surfaced with a splash.

Feather found herself in a cave with a small lake taking up most of the space. There was an air pocket here, she realized. Her eyes explored the rest of the cave, but she froze when she saw the outcropping of stone where five ponies stood staring down at her with wide eyes.

“Featherwisp!” Dynamite cheered, flapping his wings and soaring towards her. He flew in small circles just above her head. “How did you get here? Are you alright? What happened?”

She found herself tearing up at just the sight of her friends. They were okay! She had found them, and now everything would be okay! All they had to do was find a way out of here. But she knew she could do anything with the help of her friends.

Featherwisp sank lower in the water self consciously, trying to hide her fins.

“Feather?” Lemon-Lime called from across the cave. “Your mane looks weird. Are you alright?”

She sighed and swam towards the shore, pulling her scaly body up behind her on the rocks.

All of her friends gasped.

“It’s just a transformation spell,” Featherwisp explained quickly, “It’s reversible!”

Sugar Spice smiled sweetly. “I think you look lovely.”

“Yeah, Wisp,” Dynamite agreed, landing beside her. “You don’t look any less pretty.”

She beamed at her wonderful friends, wanting to wrap them all in a hug.

Cobblestone and Thunder Strike trotted down from the large rock and closer towards the group. They both smiled at her.

Feather glanced towards the water. “Wait, there aren’t any guards?”

Thunder followed her glance. “It’s not like we could leave, anyway. We can’t breathe underwater and we’d never make it out of the cave and up to the surface without the speed of the kelpies. We’d drown before getting halfway.”

Lemon-Lime pouted. “I hate when he’s right.”

Featherwisp lost herself in thought, trying to picture any spell that might be of use to them. An awful thought popped into her head; she couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized sooner. “I don’t have my horn,” she whispered, horrified.

Her friends all looked at her.

“I don’t have one in kelpie form!”

“Don’t panic, Feather.” Sugar Spice nuzzled her shoulder. “We can find a way out of here without magic.”

“But she might be stuck in that form,” Thunder Strike worried.

Lemon-Lime flicked her tail in annoyance. “C’mon, Thunder, try and find the joy in something for once in your life. You don’t always have to be the worrywart.”

Featherwisp was beginning to panic. She was a unicorn, she had never not had a horn before! She felt limited, defenseless, and weak. Who was she without her magic?

“Wisp.” Dynamite pulled her away from the group and flapped down to stand right in front of her. “Look at me. You’re with us. It’s okay. We’ll figure out how to change you back.”

She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Alright. Okay. I’m okay. Let’s just figure out how to get out of here, and then worry about me.”

Thunder began listing off possible ways to escape. “Swimming is out of the question. That leaves digging a tunnel upwards through the rock or teleporting.”

“Of which we can do neither,” Lemon pointed out, sprawling out on the rock. “This is hopeless.”

“I could teleport,” he muttered to himself.

“It’s not hopeless now that Feather is with us,” Cobblestone piped up. “We can do anything together.”

“Even if we get out,” Thunder continued, “how do we stop the coming war with the kelpies?”

“I’m sure Wisp can figure it out!” Dynamite assured.

Featherwisp was not so sure of that. She didn’t have a clue how to get out of here, let alone how to stop a war. She was grateful for her friends’ faith in her though; nopony had really had any faith in her before she met these ponies.

“Well, isn’t this sweet?” a cold voice echoed around the cavern.

The group of ponies gasped and turned towards the water. Queen Serpentine herself was splashing up onto the rock to join them.

She smiled with her razor sharp teeth. “The gang’s back together again, hmm? And Featherwisp, you seem to have changed a bit since we last met.”

Featherwisp felt very uncomfortable in her new scales. “I-I’m not afraid of you, Serpentine!”

The Queen only smirked at her, then glanced over her shoulder. “Bring the traitor above the surface.”

Ripples spread out across the lake, making the water lap against the rocky shore. Three heads broke the surface. The two on either side belonged to deep green kelpies with narrowed eyes and grim expressions. The one in between them had unmistakably electric blue scales. He was breathing heavily. A gash above his right eye was dripping blood down the side of his face.

“Wave Watcher!” Feather gulped. “What did you do to him?”

“What I do to all traitors to my kingdom,” Serpentine sneered. “He can rot in here with the rest of you for all I care now.”

In response to her words, the two kelpies flanking Wave Watcher shoved him towards the shore and the smaller, weaker kelpie slid himself onto the rocks and collapsed beside Featherwisp.

She stared at him in shock. The gash above his eye was not his only wound, his body was covered with bleeding scratches. A wave of guilt washed over her and she turned to glare the kelpie Queen.

“How could you do this to one of your own kind?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Serpentine regarded her, a question in her eyes. “Do you really care for this pathetic creature?”

Feather’s eyes turned up. “How could you hurt him? He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know what I was doing. He did nothing wrong!”

The Queen laughed darkly. “I’ll be sending word to Princess Canary. You better hope that she cares about you, or you’ll be spending the rest of your lives in a watery cave.” She disappeared under the water, her guards following.

Featherwisp rushed over to Wave Watcher’s side. “Thunder, do you know any healing spells?”

Her unicorn friend shook his head hopelessly. ‘”I’m sorry…”

She looked up at the ponies crowded around her. “We need to get out of here. Now. Before Serpentine can use us as bargaining chips.”

Author's Note:

I really hope you liked chapter two!
I started this story three years ago, and it's grown a lot since then.
Please leave me a comment if you like it, it means so much to me!

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