Turning Human

by RB_

Turning Away

“Here.”

Adagio wasn’t sure how she knew the point where they needed to leave the boat. She just—

Come home.

—knew.

Come home to me.

“Here?” Sunset asked. “Like, ‘right here’, here?”

“That’s what I said.”

The two of them were back by the railing, though the sun was up this time. It was around noon; They’d left the human world three days ago.

Adagio smirked. “I guess I’ll be going on alone from here. Unless you like drowning, that is.”

“Hey, wait—”

But she didn’t wait. In one smooth motion, Adagio leapt over the side of the boat and dove into the water.

It was cool, the water, in spite of the sunlight overhead. She slipped gracefully beneath its surface, falling into the sea’s comforting embrace.

With a moment’s hesitation, she tried taking a breath. No problem; her gills worked fine. She breathed a sigh of relief at that.

She was home.

And then she heard something else hit the surface of the water.

She spun about. It was—

“Last time you checked was hundreds of years ago. A few things have changed in the meantime.”

One long, scale-ridden tail. Two forehooves, laced with fins that dragged along lazily in the current. A set of gills on the neck.

She almost looked like—

She almost looked like a siren.

And with that colour…

Adagio’s mouth hung open. “How did you…?”

Sunset held up a piece of jewelry, one of two that had been hanging around her neck. “It’s a fragment of the Pearl of Transformation. It allows its wearer to transform into a seapony. I asked Princess Twilight if I could borrow it.”

“You weren’t supposed to tell Twilight Sparkle what we were doing.”

Sunset held up a fin. “I didn’t tell her why I needed it.”

Adagio looked at her in surprise for a moment more, then her face morphed into a scowl.

“You are impossible, Sunset, you know that?”

“Sorry,” Sunset said, shrugging. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

Adagio sighed, resigned herself to the further company, and turned.

“Alright, Ms. Clingy,” she said. “This way.”

They swam for days, the time only marked by the dimming and brightening of the sunlight that filtered beneath the waves. When they tired, they would stop, rest, but only to sleep and to allow their fins to regain their strength. Adagio led the way, that voice echoing on the edges of her mind. Come home. Come home to me.

Eventually, things started to look familiar to Adagio. The world above the waves may have changed, since she was banished by that infernal sorcerer, but the world beneath them still bore some resemblance to its past self.

Emboldened, Adagio swam on, and soon a great shadow began to loom before them in the distance. As they grew closer, it became apparent what it was: a great spire of rock, one that rose from the very depths of the sea and broke the surface, jutting out into the sky above.

“There it is,” she said, continuing to swim towards it. Sunset drew up alongside her.

“What is it?” she breathed.

“The Spire of the Ancients,” Adagio said. “My old home.”

They came close enough to touch it, the two of them dwarfed entirely by the spire’s enormity. From here, Adagio swam upward, and the two of them broke the surface. There was a small beach, carved into the spire’s side; they headed there.

Adagio climbed out of the water and onto the rocks, carefully; they were sharp stones. Sunset undid her transformation and did the same. They found a place where the ground was smooth, and there they settled. They rested there, for a time, until the sun was directly overhead.

Adagio let out a long breath.

“Alright,” she said. “I’m going.”

Sunset stood up, but Adagio shook her head. “You’re staying here.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “You know that’s not happening. Chaperone, remember?”

Adagio grit her teeth. “No.”

The other mare circled around, standing now between Adagio and the water.

Adagio took a deep breath… let it out slowly.

“Please, Sunset,” she said, trying her best to look sincere (not something she was used to doing). “Just for a little while. Until I… until I get what I came here for.”

“So it’s here,” Sunset said, and had she been human, Adagio imagined her arms would have been crossed. “Whatever it is.”

“Yes. It’s down below us, at the bottom of the sea.”

“And you expect me to stay behind.”

“Look, don’t make me say it again,” Adagio said again. “Please. I’m… I’m asking you. Just for this.”

Sunset laid a hoof on her shoulder, looked her straight in the eyes. Again, Sunset’s eyes seemed to flash white, and a faint tingle ran down Adagio’s spine… but then Adagio blinked and all was normal, leaving her wondering if it hadn’t just been the sun reflected in the mare’s eyes.

“Okay.” She dropped her hoof, but her eyes didn’t waver. “Just until you get what you came for. Then you come straight back here.”

“I promise.” It wasn’t one she necessarily intended to keep.

Sunset looked into her eyes a moment more… then sighed. She stepped aside.

Adagio moved forward, casting Sunset one last side-glance as she passed, before making her way to the edge of the water. Her heart hammered in her chest.

She lifted a hoof, moved it forward, touched the surface of the water, hesitated… and then, steeling herself, walked forward and dove beneath the waves.

Sunset looked on, as the ripples in the surface from Adagio’s entry dissipated.

“Be careful,” she said, even though it was too late for anyone to hear.

---

Down, Adagio went. Down further, and further, until the light faded. Further, and further more. Adagio was thankful that whatever curse had been wrought upon her, it had not yet taken her sight from her. She could still see, down in the murky darkness, if only barely.

Come home.

The call was shrill. It echoed in her mind—

Come home.

—louder—

Come home.

—and louder—

COME HOME.

—and then it stopped, abruptly, the silence deafening, and Adagio knew she had found what she had come for.

And there, in the murky shadow of the Spire of the Ancients, Adagio opened her mouth and announced:

“Siren-Mother! I have returned!”

Silence, for a few seconds, just long enough for Adagio to begin to second-guess herself. Had she not come to the right place? Had she not gone deep enough?

And then the spire began to move—only, no, it wasn’t the spire itself that was moving, no; it was that which had wrapped itself around it: vast, snake-like coils a mile thick and many, many long, which slid and slipped over each other lazily as the creature moved.

This was the Siren-Mother, and she was great and terrible and enormous, Adagio a mere speck before her.

A head emerged from the coils, and with it, a faint light, which hung over it like an anglerfish’s lure. The face was eel-like, with needle teeth, thousands of them, that could have swallowed Adagio without notice, and the eyes… Adagio felt herself being drawn into those eyes, great and deep, like whirlpools of endless, bottomless grey. And yet it moved with such grace…

The being did not open its mouth, but Adagio heard her words all the same, echoing through her mind just as that simple command had since she’d arrived in the land of magic, or perhaps even before it.

“My dear child… It’s been so long…”

Adagio clenched her jaw. It felt like her mind had just been wrenched open… like a drawer, which was now being rifled through.

“I had wondered… where you and your sisters had gone…”

Adagio tried to speak, but her lips would not move.

Those great eyes narrowed. “You went among the land-things.” It was said with suspicion, and derision. Land-things.

Now, Adagio could speak. “We went among the land things, yes,” she said. “To conquer! The land-things were weak, and we thought—”

The great serpent’s eyes narrowed. Adagio’s voice caught in her throat. “T-the land things were weak, so we—”

“You thought they would be easy to control.”

“And they were,” Adagio said. “But—”

“And yet it was you who were conquered, it seems.”

“I—”

“Twice conquered. Twice humiliated. By land-things.”

Adagio clenched her teeth. “Yes, but—”

“You were foolish,” the Siren-Mother continued. “You were weak, my daughter. You and your sisters.”

Adagio swallowed. Part of her wanted to argue. The sensible part of her was too afraid.

“Yes.”

“And so you come back to me,” the Siren said, “tail between your legs.”

“No,” Adagio said.

“No?”

“I came to ask for your forgiveness,” Adagio stammered. “And… for your help.”

The Siren-Mother’s eyes narrowed once again, and her great coils slithered around the spire.

“Please,” Adagio said, “Siren-Mother, you must help me, I’m—”

“You’re becoming a pony,” the Siren-Mother observed. Her great nostrils flared. “No… something else. A human? A land-thing, either way.”

“Yes,” Adagio breathed. “Yes, and you’re the only one who can help me. You need to change me back—”

“I need to, do I?” the Siren-Mother said, some amusement in her voice.

“No,” Adagio breathed, “N-no, of course you don’t need to! I, I’m just asking… I’m begging you… change me back into a siren! I can’t… I can’t bear to be a land-thing!! I don’t know how!”

The Siren-Mother said nothing.

“Please! Change me back! Give me a second chance!” Adagio begged. “I’ll do anything you want!”

Silence.

“Please,” Adagio said, her voice faltering. “I’m your daughter… aren’t I?”

There was a long moment, where the only sound was the currents.

“No,” the Siren-Mother said, at last, and something in Adagio died. “You are a land-thing now. You are no daughter of mine, not any longer. You stopped being my daughter a long time ago.. little pony. Some lessons must be learned.”

“No,” Adagio said. “No, please—”

The Siren-Mother’s eyes glowed a sickly yellow.

Adagio shrieked. Her body began to burn, red-hot pain covering every inch of her. She screamed as her gills burned off. She screamed as the fins on her hooves boiled away. She screamed as her bones shrank and her skin tightened, until she was the height of a normal pony, she screamed as scales fell out and hair grew in. Her teeth dulled, her eyes grew wider, her snout grew smoother.

Water rushed down her throat, her nostrils. The pressure made her feel like her head was going to burst.

She got one last look at the Siren-mother.

“Now you truly are a land-thing.”

She was smiling.

A flash of orange passed Adagio’s eyes…

And then…

Black.

---

“Adagio…”

Black. Nothing but black.

“Adagio!”

Adagio’s eyes fluttered open. Stones bit into her back. Memories flooded in, and she gasped for air.

“Easy!” Sunset said. She was cradling Adagio’s upper body in her hooves. “Easy. You’re safe now.”

They were on the beach, where the Spire of the Ancients pierced the water’s surface. Where Adagio had left Sunset behind, before leaving to see the—

Adagio sat up, her head spinning. She looked down at her hooves. They were just normal hooves, now. No fins. She reached for her neck, for her gills, but there were none there. Her coat was smooth, and soft, and dripping with water.

Adagio screamed, a loud, wailing yell that quickly turned to sobbing. She buried her face into Sunset’s chest. It didn’t matter that it was her. It didn’t matter at all, anymore.

“Hey,” Sunset said, and she began to stroke Adagio’s mane with her hoof. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

They sat like that, for a long time Adagio weeping and Sunset comforting her, until Adagio’s sobs turned to whimpers, and finally to mere murmurs.

“Don’t touch me,” Adagio mumbled. Sunset paid her no mind.

Eventually, Adagio felt well enough to sit up by herself. She dried her eyes on a fin-less hoof.

“Are you okay?” Sunset asked.

“No.”

They sat in silence, for a time.

“I figured something like this might happen, you know,” Sunset said, at last. “Deals with ancient elder beings don’t, uh, don’t usually go well, in my experience.”

Adagio’s head shot up. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew what you were up to,” Sunset said. “It was obvious… even if I couldn’t read your mind. Which I did, before we left.”

“You what?”

Sunset tapped the gemstone that hung around her neck, right next to the shard of pearl. “Read your mind. Being an extended Element of Harmony has its perks, sometimes.”

“So when your eyes flashed…”

“Yeah. Sorry, by the way, but I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”

She let out a long breath.

“So I guess you’re fully a human now, huh. Or, I guess, a pony?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Adagio mumbled. “‘A land-thing either way’. Why? I was her daughter…”

Sunset sighed. “I guess that wasn’t as important to her as you thought. Some mother she is.”

There was a pause, in the conversation.

“Y’know, time is like a one-way street,” Sunset said. “So is change, most of the time. It’s inevitable… and irreversible.”

Adagio looked up at her.

Sunset continued. “Even if you weren’t changing into a human, you’re still not the same person you were when Starswirl threw you into the human world… and you’re not the same person you were at the Battle of the Bands, either. Neither am I. We’ve all changed. We’re all changing, all the time.”

“So you’re saying this was going to happen either way.”

“The way I see it? Probably.” Sunset laughed, weakly. “Well, I guess. I can’t see the future… yet.”

Adagio looked down at her hooves again.

“I don’t know how to be a pony… I don’t know how to be a human.”

“You’ll learn,” Sunset said. “I had to, and it was hard, but I got it down eventually. I’m sure you will, too… and, unlike me, you won’t be alone.”

Adagio looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Who do you think I mean?” Sunset said. “Sonata and Aria. You’ll always have them. You’re sisters, remember?”

Adagio looked up, at the pale, blue sky.

She smiled. Just a little bit.

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I will.”

Comments

[gapty]

Love the conversation with the Siren-Mother. Has a certain charm to it—portraying in an, I guess, interesting(?) way both the relationship and the mother. The decision made certainly led up naturally to it