The Song of the Sea
The rain finally began to abate as evening approached. Rarity and Rainbow watched from the safety of their shelter as for a moment, the skies grew lighter while the rains passed. Then the sun began to set, and once more, the dim twilight glow fell upon their sandy island.
When night truly fell, the two ponies started a fire, safe in the knowledge that the smoke couldn’t be seen under the cloudy sky. They threw the pot onto its stand above the fire and waited for the water to come to a boil, but more than that, they used the warmth to dry off. Though they’d tried to use some of their rags to dry off after grooming each other earlier, the air was simply too humid to get all the water out of their coats. Rarity hadn’t enjoyed sitting inside still damp for several hours, but she didn’t regret it. She felt like brand new, reborn through the rain into something cleaner and nicer. She felt like herself once more.
“I’d kill for some s’mores right now,” Rainbow muttered, staring into the fire.
Rarity felt a twinge in her stomach. How she missed food that she once took for granted! Finding the fruit on the south hill had been a huge break for her and Rainbow, as it promised them a steady supply of food, but even the taste of star and sugar apples was starting to grow old. She eyed some of the trees around her, their tops heavy with coconuts, and rubbed the end of her horn. In a few days, she was going to try to knock those down and break them open. At least it’d be something different to eat.
Rainbow sighed and rolled onto her side, immediately filling her clean coat with sand. It took all of Rarity’s willpower to hold her protest, because she knew Rainbow didn’t care, even if it bothered her. As for herself, she tried to sit as narrowly on her tail as she could to keep the sand out of her fresh and clean coat. She didn’t want to undo all the effort it had taken to clean herself during the storm earlier.
A break in the clouds offered a faint beam of moonlight that made Rarity’s coat almost glow in the pale light. She craned her neck back, eyeing the lunar body, counting its craters before the clouds covered it again. Though it brought up old worries and questions, Rarity didn’t bother to voice them again. Both her and Rainbow knew the stakes, and they both knew the same questions they couldn’t answer. There wasn’t much of a point in bringing it up again.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what things were like back home. “What do you suppose our friends are doing right now?” Rarity asked the night, without turning her head towards Rainbow.
“Probably trying to find a way to figure out what happened to us?” Rainbow suggested. “Twilight’s poring over every map of the ocean between here and the Confederacy, Pinkie Pie’s throwing parties or something to raise money for an expedition to find us, Fluttershy’s probably talking to fish or something to figure out what happened, and Applejack is…” Rainbow frowned for a moment. “I dunno. Apples?”
Rarity chuckled. “Hard to see how apples would help find us and get us off of this dreadful island.”
“I’m sure she’d find a way,” Rainbow said. “Maybe she’s building her own personal airship out of apple trees. They certainly have more wood than they know what to do with.”
“It’s powered by apples, of course.”
“Ha! I bet she could make the compass out of an apple core and some string, too!”
“And the only thing for the crew to eat would be apples and apple-based dishes.”
Rainbow stood up and mimed herself adjusting a hat. “‘I reckon the wind’s traveling northerly at seventeen apples per hour, y’all!’” she said, imitating Applejack’s country accent. “‘Quick, shift the ballast to starboard, move them apple barrels! What do you think, first mate Apple?’”
Rarity giggled and saluted Rainbow. “There be pirates in these skies, captain! Make sure that the crew polishes their swords with apple oil! The apple-blighted hooligans can’t stand the sting of it!”
Both ponies broke out in raucous laughter. “Oh man, if only AJ was here to hear this,” Rainbow said, wiping a tear from her eye. “She’d get all grumbly and insist that we’re stereotyping her.”
“It’s not stereotyping if it’s true, is it?” Rarity asked, earning another amused snort from Rainbow. “I think she’d be hard-pressed to convince us otherwise.”
“Watch, she’s actually going to be the one to find us in an airship made from apple trees. It’s totally gonna happen now.”
“If it means we can safely get home, then I wouldn’t complain even if the whole thing was made from apple peels!”
“Heh. True that.”
The pot began to bubble, so Rainbow stood up and kicked sand over the fire, smothering the flames and saving what was left of the fuel. “I bet we’re gonna have a ton of glass globs under this thing,” she said, eyeing the glowing grains.
“Maybe I can make jewelry out of them,” Rarity said. “A reminder of how we survived.”
“Maybe I’ll wear one,” Rainbow said, shrugging.
Rarity inwardly smiled. Getting Rainbow to wear any fashion accessory was a challenge in itself. She wasn’t going to squander this opportunity by calling attention to it.
Rainbow yawned and arched her back. “Why does sitting around doing nothing all day make you so tired?” she whined. “Seriously, I already want to hit the hay.”
Rarity stifled a yawn herself. “I know what you mean, darling.” She blinked several times to try to force back the tendrils of sleep. “I certainly haven’t exerted myself, but maybe it’s just our natural rhythm. I mean, we haven’t had any artificial lighting asides from a fire to keep us up, so…”
Her words trailed off when she saw Rainbow wasn’t listening; her attention was focused to the east, toward the shore. “What is it?” Rarity asked, looking in that direction. She held her breath for a moment to try to pick out the faintest of noises over the crash of the surf and the trilling of the tree frogs deeper in the island, but couldn’t hear anything different.
Rainbow obviously could. “It sounds like… singing,” she said, wandering over to the beach. “Sad singing. Don’t you hear it?”
Rarity stood up and followed Rainbow across the sands. Her ears pointed this way and that, but she couldn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. At least, not until she stepped past the trees and set hoof onto the beach itself.
Rainbow stopped by the edge of the water, her eyes staring out over the tumbling waves. As Rarity approached, she started to make out something different from the splashing of the waves. It was a pair of voices, soft, faint, and mournful, humming and sighing into the night sky. They were both female, and they sung a melody without words, only emotion.
“My,” Rarity whispered, standing still in awe at what she was hearing. “It’s… beautiful.”
It even left Rainbow speechless and jaw slightly slack. The two ponies listened as the voices climbed and danced their way around the register, never out of tune, never off-beat. A mezzo-soprano voice anchored the rhythm and flow of the song, while a much higher and livelier coloratura danced and played around it, almost like a happy child running in circles around her mother in the park. There were no true breaks or transitions between solos and duets; one voice would stop singing for a moment, letting the other shine, before joining in again and adding her melody to the song. To Rarity, who had attended countless operas while on social calls in the big cities, the voices were unlike anything she’d ever heard, and likely anything she would ever hear again.
“Are those sirens?” she asked Rainbow, straining to find the source of the voices in the darkness of the rolling waves.
“Do you know anypony that can sing like that?” Rainbow asked her.
Rarity shook her head. “Their singing is so magical. I could listen to it all night!”
She took a few steps back from the lapping surf and lied down on dry sand, Rainbow joining her a moment later. The song went on and on as they lied there, long into the night. Rarity didn’t know why the sirens were singing or how they could manage it for so long without wearing out their voices, but she wasn’t about to complain. The music was beautiful, but it was also sad. It stirred a homesickness inside of her. She felt out of place, lost in the sea. She wondered if sirens were ever truly at home when their home was the vast oceans; maybe that’s what they were singing about. Lost in the endless expanse, without someplace definitive to call their own, and only each other for company.
She was glad that there were two voices out there. If it had just been one, she might have wept from the loneliness.
Rainbow’s wing tightened around her barrel, and she nuzzled Rarity’s cheek. Rarity smiled and leaned her head against Rainbow’s neck. They didn’t say anything, for even speaking would ruin the beautiful duet sung by two souls somewhere deep in the black waters of the night. It went on and on and on, never ceasing, never pausing. The stars themselves were the audience, the moon a sad mourner observing from afar. Sometimes the song would fall into one voice holding a long, drawn out note, and then it would resume again with a different melody and a different rhythm. Rarity figured it was how they changed songs, but the whole thing blended together so perfectly that she couldn’t hear the difference.
“I wish I could sing like that,” she murmured. “Random musical numbers are great and all, but they don’t have anything on this.”
“It’s certainly pretty,” Rainbow agreed. “If only we had a boat or something. We could go out there and ask them for lessons.”
“Indeed.” Sighing, Rarity smiled and closed her eyes. “It’s certainly pretty, though. I hope they keep singing.”
And they did.
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And the moment is ruined by a curious fish pony hoping out of the water and asking about the weird dry ponies on land.
Still cute as hell, though.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
"We should thank Starswirl, it's sure great that Adagio's gone." - Sirens, probably.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
I LOVE IT!!!
Sirens, eh?
I'm going to say something completely unrelated.
Shoo-be-doo.
Aren't sirens sentient in this universe? I don't know if this was written before after Rainbow Rocks but I'd be trying to get their attention lol.
10951024
I know it's an old comment but if they managed to do something to attract the sirens' attention it would probably lure the minotaurs too