Chapter 55: Kaelynn
Kaelynn tried to focus on the water around her. There was another creature here, one that was bigger than she was. That explained why she'd never smelled this particular scent before—that was a male seapony. Ryan could copy her, but he hadn't been able to create anything truly new.
Yet for his size, the moonlight did a poor job illuminating him. Or maybe it was just that her eyes were slow to adjust. And apparently his weren't, because nothing had actually touched her yet.
"Who are you?" she asked. Well, sang. Hearing another voice was like a reminder of all the senses she had ignored. She couldn't conceal her emotions, no matter how much she might want to. Her anger, fear, and nervousness all found their way into the song, just like her hostility had been there in her first words of argument.
The water rustled around her, and the shape moved away from her. Even without much vision, she knew where it must've gone—through the opening, down the tunnel into parts unknown. He didn't reply.
She followed, at least as far as the tunnel's edge. Then she smacked her head against the stone, and thought better of it at first. Beyond this dark chamber was a tube of absolute blackness, with an unknown creature lurking within it.
"Hello?" she called again. This time a little shyness and embarrassment found their way into the tune. "I'm not mad at you. If you heard me yelling—it was at the unicorn. The one who locked us here. If you're a prisoner here too, you're on the same side."
More silence. Kaelynn lingered near the opening for a moment longer, feeling it with one foreleg. A square passage cut in the rock, about the size of a pony. It was covered with something tough—a rubber sealant maybe, one that would stop her from giving the tank a slow leak.
Not that she had any intention to. Sabotaging her tank without an escape plan was as good as throwing a toaster into the tank with her. No thanks.
She grunted, then followed. She swam slowly through the tube, running one hoof along the side the entire time. Without any vision of where she was going, she could rely only on her hoof to make sure she didn't smack into something.
Except no, there were ways to deal with the dark. Spells that her book had called songs. The one for the dark was only a single sentence long, more of a little melody she could hum.
It had never done anything before, granted. But she probably hadn't managed to capture the “bleak confusion” required to properly sing it. Kaelynn needed no acting to feel that emotion right now.
"Together we can see the path before us, lighting up as our friendship grows!"
A spark appeared in the water before her, a little flicker that matched the highlights on her scales. It lit up the tunnel around her—which only continued for a few more feet. She twitched her head to one side, and the little light followed her. It wasn't much, maybe the size of a phone flashlight.
First try. Maybe this musical magic stuff wasn't so bad. It wasn't the words that had ever stopped her, or being in the right key. It was the feelings that came with them.
The tunnel wasn't long, really, maybe one body length. The tip of her tailfin probably still extended into the first chamber.
A face appeared in the opening ahead of her, unmistakably a seapony. He was... well, a he. Stockier than she was, with a thicker build and stronger-looking fins. His tail was longer and thicker at the same time.
Maybe it was the magical light, but the first thing she thought of was her own experience being stuck in a tank across the desert. He looked a little sick, his scales pale and his eyes unfocused. "How long have you been trapped here?" she asked.
The male darted away again, though this time he didn't have as far to go. She followed to the edge of the tunnel, then realized why it was so dark. A set of curtains hung here, made of something sturdy and waterproof. Privacy?
The space beyond was several times larger than the other room—a round cavern, big enough to be a swimming pool. She could see strange shapes on the bottom near the curtains—was that furniture?
She swam through, down towards it, causing the outline of the other seapony to flee before her. But he didn't get very far, hanging in the water within view.
Yes, this was furniture—a whole bedroom by the look of it, though not all of it was equally resilient to the water. Plenty of wood was warped here, the cloth looked wispy and frayed, or coated in green.
What good is this stuff if it's dark here all the time? Her little orange spark couldn't even light the whole space—there were other shapes in the water further away, though none of them moved.
At least, she didn't think they did. "You can't keep ignoring me forever," she sang. "We're in this together now. Might as well introduce yourself."
He approached a little closer, hanging in the water in front of her. It was deep enough for him to stretch to full length, though not by much.
There's no way this whole room drains in thirty seconds. That unicorn was full of crap. Maybe she was, but she wasn't stupid. Kaelynn couldn't be sure in the dark, but it did seem like the floor in here was level with the tunnel, above the level of the drains. In fact, the entire chamber seemed to tilt slightly in one direction, towards the tunnel.
It probably would drain, and had been built specifically to do exactly that. It just wouldn't be an Indiana-jones style trap. But how literally would her companion interpret that threat?
"I am Tellin Shell," he said suddenly, swimming around her in a slow circle. He still kept his distance, as though he expected her to turn and attack him at a moment's notice. But she remained in place, and the slower and more gradually she moved, the calmer he became. "Who are you?"
"Kaelynn," she answered. She spun slowly in place as he circled her, so that she could always be looking directly at the person who was speaking. Despite his best efforts, there was something confident and in-control about the way he swam. This was a creature who actually owned the water, instead of just impersonating it like Ryan could.
"How long have you been trapped in here?" She let herself drift slowly down towards the bottom of the tank, resting the edge of her fin against the swollen wood of a desk. "Does she keep you in the dark all the time?"
"Oh, no!" He seemed to grow a little more energetic at her question, circling quickly around her before flying straight over to one wall, and touching a little crystal there.
In an instant, the whole room turned deep blue, as though they were hundreds of feet down. The light came in an even curtain from a set of crystal studs. This isn't a jail, it's a habitat.
The huge space wasn't empty, either—there were other objects spread throughout. Large tires connected by ropes, probably meant to be used for exercise. Cabinets and storage against one wall, and a bookshelf including strange slabs of metal—seapony books?
It was more than she would've expected from most 4-star hotels in major cities, with only one exception. There were no windows, no doors, no entrance or exit except for the tunnel.
"Woah."
"Yeah, isn't it awesome?" He circled once around her, then zipped over to one of the toys. A huge wheel, which he rolled along the stone floor with obvious effort for a few seconds, before letting it fall and zooming over to something else. He carried the box over to her in his hooves, holding it out so she could see inside.
It was jewelry, the kind she might've expected to be worn by island cultures in her own world. Mostly shells, though there were also bits of worked metal mixed in. But how had a culture that lived underwater forged steel?
She chose this single piece from the box, lifting it out with one hoof. A hat of some kind, maybe a crown, with a ring of silvery metal that somehow managed not to rust or corrode. Stainless steel maybe? Pearlescent shells ran around the outside, and the crown held a single small diamond.
Far from putting it on her head, Kaelynn turned it over in her hoof, studying the tool marks along the metal ring for clues. She could see tiny marks, like this had been worked with an actual hammer. Not cast or magically molded then.
"It's really great, and maybe even safer than the ocean!" He settled the box onto the desk beside her, before swimming around again. All the fear was gone from his song now, which was thoroughly transformed to excitement. "I wasn't sure I'd ever see another fish. Years and years Morningtide said she would try and save someone else... that must be you! What ocean were you lost in?"
Oh shit.
Kaelynn reclined up against the desk, pulling the tip of her fin against her chest. "I wasn't lost, Tellin. Morningtide you said her name was? She... captured me. She stole me away from my friends. But don't worry... they're smart, and brave, and very dangerous. They'll get us free."
"Free?" He repeated the word several times, in a different key each time. "How can you get free from..." He swam up to the roof, smacking one hoof against the stone. "There's air up there. And if you make it back to the ocean, there's... monsters. The ones that killed the others like us."
He hummed a few notes of pained melody, discordant and confused. "There's nothing there for us. But Morningtide said she wants to save us! Don't you want a new colony of seaponies, far away from danger?"
Kaelynn should probably be delicate with him. He might be bigger than she was, but he still sounded so... naive. He'd probably never talked to anyone who wasn't his kidnapper for years. She might not be able to judge pony ages very well, but he didn't seem that much younger or older than she was. That probably wouldn't make telling him this any easier.
Trouble was, Kaelynn wasn't a terribly delicate person. Politeness was for someone else. "Let's not talk about that right now. Maybe we can... you can show me around the prison?" She tossed the crown onto the table beside her, then lifted off to swim past him.
"This is your home, so... does she give us anything to eat? I find myself... really hungry all the sudden." She glanced down briefly at her smooth scales missing their spots. Then she blushed—all those weeks getting used to being naked all the time were getting a thorough testing.
"Oh, yeah! That usually comes in through the front room, that's when ponies come to talk to me, and hear me sing and stuff. But I put things away, so I can have snacks for later."
He zipped around the room again, swimming right under the bed. It didn't look like he actually used the thing, judging by the faded strips of cloth drifting in the water. But as she'd already learned, sleeping like a person just didn't translate to the water.
But there was a little box underneath, made of more heavily worn wood. Inside was... another smell, one she hadn't been able to enjoy since leaving Mount Aris. Fish.
"Here! You can have some of mine... just not all of it, okay? I didn't eat much last time."
He held the box towards her, though without half the enthusiasm as the jewelry. His hoof twitched once as she removed the lid, but he didn't take it back.
Storing anything in water left certain limitations. Mixed with the freshly cooked smell, there was also something foul about the odor drifting up from that box.
He must've been using it for a while, saving food with each meal.
She chose the freshest-looking pieces, removing them before he could change his mind. As usual, for her, there wasn't a lot of chewing involved—she was fairly certain she could swallow an entire fish, bones and all. Unfortunately, that also meant less time to appreciate what she was eating.
He snatched the box back after less than a minute, zipping away to replace it under the bed. "You feel better now, right?" he asked nervously. "Now you're not gonna try and run away?"
"Not right now." She gestured around the tank again. "How about you show me your home?" So I can start looking for a way out of this prison.
She could keep bluffing that her friends could solve any problem all day long. Maybe they would find her. She didn't doubt that they would want to.
But Kaelynn wasn't the kind of fish to curl up and wait for rescue. If one didn't come, she'd make her own.
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Hmm. So not so much a prison as much as a giant fishbowl (sure, maybe one and the same, but at least there are accommodations). This is going to be an interesting origin story to tell for someone who isn't good at being delicate...
I feel like Kaelynn's best strategy might be to do a hunger strike. Morningtide is motivated from a misplaced sense of humanitarianism, a hunger strike could make her and/or her partners realize their cruelty. Plus, it is not as risky as a breakout.
Tellin is rather naive but that's probably Morningtide's intention. Kaelynn is probably going to be as uncooperative as she can with Morningtide just to spite her. I doubt Tellin will believe Kaelynn since he probably doesn't even know about the worldgates.
Hmm. Onlookers Kaelynn can communicate with could prove useful... but I'd think Morningtide achad counted for that. Either she only brings in other true believers who are convinced this is for Kaelynn's own good, or she's so deluded that she assumes everyone feels that way. I get the feeling it won't be as simple as shouting "The crazy witch abducted me! Call the guard!"
Poor kid must've been living there for a long time. Still, his very existence opens up the possibility that there's a viable population out there somewhere. The chances Morningtide managed to capture the very last is very low.
No doubt the environment is not healthy for seaponies.
I'm guessing he did live in a community. Though there's no way to know its current status. He would have been fed lies about his kind, but Morningtide hasn't been successful in capturing another. It's either very protected and isolated or it actually is in decline.
Were you promised new friends or were you promised a mate and a family? Neither will be found here.
Even if he actually is the last and the plan was viable, it would not be ethical. Perhaps nature has to take its course and the seaponies have to end here. Though given the properties of the gates, you might be able to "de-extinct" them through immigration. A new population will and won't be seaponies at the same time.
She might have to escape on her own. Tellin seems too broken to want to leave willingly.
That unicorn would be real screwed if Kaellyn started singing a song like that although I don't think it'd be worth what it'd take to feel that kind of emotion.
And since this seems to be less of a prison than a habitat with Tellin's attitude escape certainly seems possible.
It's a nice jail, but it's still a jail.
INB4 the kid is the lost, kidnapped prince of the sea ponies.
This seems weird, I wonder what he's up to. He does not seem like he's interested in any sort of escape plan, but that might be a front.
Very good. Don't be a damsel in distress, rescue yourself.
That's some serious motivation right there.
Man, this would have been a much shorter story if I were in Kaelynn's place. And probably would have ended with me suffocating after calling Morningtide's bluff.
She's a fair bit more sensible, hope it serves her well.
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Couldn't u sing to be a pony underwater then break it or trip the wire so u have air to breath .
"Morningtide" still needs to be dismembered and gutted.