Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Seafood Buffet

After leaving the temple behind, Rarity and Melody briefly stopped back at Melody’s cave to make sure they didn’t need anything. Rarity didn’t know what exactly a siren could own that they would need, but it turned out that Melody simply wanted to eat some more fish while it was still fresh instead of letting it go to waste. Though Melody offered some tuna to Rarity, Rarity declined for the moment, trying to ignore the slowly growing emptiness in her gut. Shredding flesh with her carnivore teeth was… not something she wanted to rush, if she could help it.

Even though Melody was the one who wanted to eat, she spent a lot of the brief stay back at her cave talking. Listening to the siren happily talk about whatever was entertaining at the very least, especially when she’d go on brief tangents about some facet of siren culture. Rarity imagined she’d have a lot to tell Twilight when they finally reunited, though sometimes Melody would stray into awkward topics simply in her desire to talk about anything. For instance, Rarity learned that there were no male sirens, and mothers used a special song to have children. Rarity quickly cut Melody off before she could mistake her shocked and confused face for interest on the topic—the details of siren reproduction were not something she really wanted to hear.

Eventually, Melody steered the conversation into something more pertinent to Rarity. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back to Equestria?” the siren asked.

The simplicity of the question amused Rarity; even between wildly different species, girl talk was still girl talk, and she felt like it wouldn’t be long before gossip would start to pass between the two of them. Still, it was something she, admittedly, hadn’t given much thought to. “I don’t know, to be honest,” Rarity said. “I’ve been stuck on these islands for a month and a half now, I believe. I’ve been here for so long I haven’t exactly given it much thought. Or perhaps I haven’t been trapped here long enough, like you,” she said, conceding the obvious point to Melody. “I’ve been so preoccupied with survival and actually finding a way to get home that I haven’t given much thought to what I would do afterwards.”

“I can understand that,” Melody said with a nod of her head. “I’ve obviously had a lot more time to think about it. Sirens don’t really have a home or a civilization like ponies do; we’re very nomadic, so leaving permanent structures behind isn’t something we do. But I think I’ll see the world after I’ve had time to catch up with my choir. I’ve been confined to one place for so long that I feel like the only way to appropriately counter it is to see as much of everything as I can and experience as much of everything as I can.”

“But what is there to see underwater?” Rarity asked. “I know the seaponies had communities, but I think they’re being abandoned as they return to life as hippogriffs. For as good of friends as I am with a mare who likes to know everything, I’m afraid I’m not that well versed in the life of the aquatic sapients on the planet.”

“Oh, well then you’re in luck, because you’re talking to one,” Melody said with a toothy grin. Her green tail fin splashed the water a bit as she wiggled her tail in something almost like a foalish giddiness. “There’s actually a lot of cities and settlements under the sea, though siren choirs usually don’t visit them. We make the other species wary just because we’re large carnivores. But there are a lot of awesome, wonderful places, like the Reef.”

“The Reef?” Rarity asked. “Is it as obvious as its name implies?”

“No, not really,” Melody said. “It’s a city. The largest one there is, I think. It’s probably larger than any of your pony cities, to be honest.”

“I’d find it hard to believe there’s a city larger than Manehattan,” Rarity said. “Nearly two million ponies live there. The thing is practically sprawling across all the countryside it can gobble up!”

“The Reef’s been around for much longer,” Melody said. “I got to visit it once when I was twelve or thirteen, I think. Still a small siren pup. But it’s been around for as long as life has lived in the oceans. And its grown and grown and grown continuously since then. If you can imagine something, anything, you can probably find some corner of the Reef that has it.” She smirked at Rarity and added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a corner full of ponies trying to do trade down there.”

“Huh.” Rarity idly fidgeted with her hooves. “Maybe seaponies need dresses as much as ponies on the land do. Perhaps this siren body wouldn’t be as much of a hindrance to my craft as I thought.”

Melody giggled. “That’s the spirit,” she said, lightly brushing Rarity’s shoulder. “So you’re enjoying it, I take it.”

“It’s been a very… different experience, I would say.” Rarity looked her scaly limbs over and felt the powerful muscles coiling in her tail. “Obviously, I have concerns about how such a body would interfere with my normal life and routine. But, all things considered, it’s not too bad. In all honesty, I’ve quite enjoyed my brief time as a siren so far.”

Melody snickered and smirked. “I told you, sirens are better than ponies.”

“Maybe one day I should find some way to transform you into a pony and then you could experience the marvels of equine civilization,” Rarity said, sticking her tongue out through her beak. “Life on land is a magic all its own.”

“I might take you up on that offer one day, should you find a way to do it.” Melody looked at the tuna between her hooves and shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want something? You’re probably hungry after everything we did down below, I would think.”

Rarity eyed the fish warily. “I’ve eaten fish before as part of a cultural thing,” she said. “But I’m still wary about it.”

“Why?” Melody asked. “You just said that you’ve eaten it before.”

“It’s less the food and more the situation,” Rarity said. She pointed to some of her numerous fangs. “I don’t know how you live with these things in your mouth all the time. They just feel… I don’t know. In the way. All the time. And their purpose… specifically designed to shred flesh?” She shook her head. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, we wouldn’t get very far with flat pony teeth,” Melody said. “There isn’t a whole lot of plant life to eat down beneath the water. Most everything eats something else that swims or crawls or whatever. As sirens, we’re just the top of the food chain.” She held out the remains of a tuna to Rarity, offering the juicy underbelly. “Take a bite. I guarantee you’ll like it. Tuna’s a siren’s favorite.”

“Not ponyflesh, as sailors would like to believe?” Rarity quipped. Swallowing hard and feeling her stomach rumble, she reluctantly took the tuna from Melody’s hooves. Grimacing at it, she hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to close her eyes and get it over with. Her sharp beak sliced through the flesh of the tuna like a hot knife through butter, and immediately the juicy and fatty meats began to swarm over her tongue in a sensation of flavor.

“Well, what do you think?” Melody asked, excitedly watching the white siren. “It good or what?”

Rarity locked in place as the savory tastes rolled up and down her tongue. She felt almost ashamed of how delicious the tuna tasted. At the very least, she could blame it on having a siren tongue… but that didn’t make the gutted fish she held in her hooves any less appetizing at the moment.

A few minutes later, and Rarity had reduced the tuna to its core skeleton, her teeth and beak crushing whatever bones she accidentally bit off to tiny splinters she could swallow without any problem. Her pointed tongue ran over the edges of her beak, and she blushed some under Melody’s amused stare. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll admit… it was very good.”

Melody chuckled and scooped up a few clams in her hoof, popping them into her mouth like candy. “I told you you’d like it,” she said.

“Oh, do be quiet,” Rarity said with a huff. Eying some more of the seafood Melody had left on the stones, she gently shouldered her way closer to the harvest and started scooping up some fresh catch with her hooves. “This is my siren body doing this, not me.”

The green siren laughed while Rarity quickly set about filling her gut with seafood. “Right… I’ll be sure to let everypony know if they ask.”

Comments

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

cute.

[Eroraf86]

I’m starting to wonder if Rarity will ever change back now. I hope Twilight can figure something out.

[Snowdrifter]

Why do I want to make Siren-ity puns? Probably a fluke, since they won't be finny. I should probably clam up now. Sea ya!

[Merula]

Here, fishy fishy...

[PonyDragon]

Eventually, Melody steered the conversation into something more pertinent to Rarity. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back to Equestria?” the siren asked.

: "Easy: Once I get home I'll look the door and never leave my house again."

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