The Call of the Waves

by Mystic Mind

Part 2

“So, what’s our goal for today, Captain Sandbar?” Silverstream asked with a quick salute. Sitting down on the steering platform’s edge, they flipped through their notebook until they reached a fresh page, resting a pencil on their ear. “There’s so much about the Equestrian seas I wanna learn about, but since it’s your trip, I’ll let you pick first!”

“No worries there, First Mate Silver,” Sandbar chuckled, his elated grin still etched on his face. “Did you bring another magic necklace?”

“You bet I did!” they flashed him a quick thumbs up. “And believe me, you are going to love being a seapony.”

“No doubt about it,” Sandbar peered over his map through the wheel, pinning the edges beneath his hooves. “We should be able to spy the reef any minute now. Once we drop anchor, we’ll begin our search for any signs of sea dragons. Think you can heave the sails while I go check on Yona?”

“Of course,” Silver’s expression dropped. “Will she be okay? I know Yaks don’t do oceans, but…”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Sandbar replied quickly - almost too quickly. “The waters around here are crystal clear. And with the reef dead ahead, she’ll find something to enjoy, I know it.”

“Here’s hoping.” Despite their optimistic tone, Silverstream couldn’t stop themselves from tapping their talons together, betraying their true emotions. “She won’t know what she’s missing!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that you care for her, I really do. But it’ll be better for her to go at her own pace with big phobias.” Turning the yacht to starboard, Sandbar stretched his legs and hopped down from the steering platform. How in Equestria could he be so calm about his lover’s anxiety? “Do you remember what to do? About the sails, I mean?”

“I… think I do?” Silverstream blushed, fidgeting faster. “But, um, could you remind me anyway? Just in case.”

“It’d be my pleasure!” Sandbar clopped his hooves together. “It’s quite simple, actually. Now that I’ve turned us against the wind, all you need to do is let the sails hang loose. That’ll slow us nicely until we’re ready to drop the anchor. It works ‘cause the sails act like a wing when tight, but loose they’ll just—”

“I... got the picture, thanks,” Silverstream rubbed the back of their head, their grimace as awkward as a misshapenly baked cake.

“Oh, sorry!” Sandbar blushed. “I’ll, um, let you get on with that.”

Trotting off down the stairs, he gently rapped on the cabin door. “Hey, Yona! It’s me. Can I come in?”

“Yona not feel well,” she grumbled. “But Sandbar can come in.”

When he opened the door, he saw Yona had come out from her little pillow fort, only to hang over the bed with a bucket directly below her.

“Let me guess - sea sickness?”

“Yona not like water roller coaster. It goes up and down, up and down, and make Yona feel dizzy.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen without a solid horizon to look at,” Sandbar leaned in and kissed Yona on the forehead. “We’ll be stopping soon. Maybe you could come up top and get a bit of fresh air while the water’s still shallow?”

“Yona heard Silverstream and Sandbar talk,” she looked up tentatively, her face coloured an unpleasant shade of green. “Yona not know what Coral is, but Yona happy to try and stand on deck. Can’t promise Yona do it for long, though.”

“Sweetie, any length of time is good enough for me.” Taking Yona’s hoof, Sandbar gently rubbed it against his cheek. “Even if it’s just a couple of seconds.”

A weak smile grew across Yona’s face, her shoulders relaxing. “Yona loves Sandbar, very much.” Rolling off the bed, she took a few unsteady tries at standing up before finding her hooves and returning Sandbar’s kiss.

“And I love you, too,” Sandbar let out a contented sigh. Even while ill, Yona’s eyes were still as bright and beautiful as the corals he was about to show her.

---

After two minutes of carefully walking up the stairs, Yona made it to the top, and then was immediately ambushed by Silverstream.

“Oh, my gosh, Yona!” they yelled, their wings flapping hard as they grabbed Yona’s hoof, pointing over portside. “Come look, this is so totally amazing!”

“Steady as she goes, First Mate Silver,” Sandbar giggled, barely able to contain his own excitement. “Let Yona breathe a little, first.”

Yona did as instructed. The air was salty, and the harsh sun bore down on her unrestricted. With no clouds in the sky, it was as blue above as it was below – or so she expected. She closed her eyes for a moment, preparing for the shock of the endless expanse that no doubt surrounded her.

But when she reopened them, that wasn’t what she saw. Just below the crystal-clear surface, there stretched a huge rainbow array of organisms. Most looked solid, and often sharp, yet they weren’t exactly rocks, either. She knew they were called ‘corals’, but the name did little to tell her what they were in the first place.

No two corals looked alike, displaying a range of shapes, sizes, and patterns that were as diverse as they were colourful. Some had long, cylindrical arms, while others looked rounded and fuzzy. The more she thought about it, the number of different coral types exceeded the number of words she had to describe them.

And this was just what she could see shimmering below the water’s surface. She could only imagine how far the reef stretched, sinking down, further down, deeper into the crushing, lightless depths, beyond the faintest hope of coming up for air…

“Yona?”

Yona snapped backwards, feeling her heart almost leap out of her chest. Her head spinning, she lost her balance as she tried to scramble backwards, her hooves slipping on the deck as her mind screamed at her to get away from the water.

“Woah!” Silverstream leapt to Yona’s aid, but Sandbar got there first, catching his partner mid-fall.

“Hey, Yona, over here,” Sandbar spoke softly, though it took a moment to pierce through Yona’s mental alarms. “Focus on me for a minute. We’re not sinking, and you’re safely on deck. You remember the feather technique I taught you?”

Feather. That one word shone through her mental haze like a lighthouse in the distance. She closed her eyes, conjuring the image of a golden feather being whipped around by her emotional storm.

Feather… Sandbar… Yona tensed her muscles. Staring into the aquatic abyss made her feel like she was drowning, but deep down, she knew she wasn’t. So, she took a long breath, sucking in the emotional weather before exhaling it in the form of a calming breeze. She repeated this motion over and over, settling her breathing into a series of predictable movements.

Rise... fall… rise… fall…

When Yona finally regained her situational awareness, she noticed that she was lying on her back. Both Sandbar and Silverstream stood over her, their faces taught with worry.

“Yona sorry…” she sniffled, her eyes tearing up. “Yona not help being afraid of big water, but Yona trying.”

“It’s fine to take baby steps, my love,” Sandbar pulled Yona into a tight hug, rubbing his cheek against hers. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for.”

“Yona would like to go back below deck now,” she looked down at her still shaking hooves, her ears falling flat against her head. “If that okay.”

“Of course it is,” he nodded, then looked over to Silverstream. “You go on without me, Silver. I’ll catch up soon.”

“Are you sure?” Silver started fiddling with their talons again, their beak pursed. “I haven’t shown you how the shell’s magic works.”

“I’ll figure it out.” Sandbar stared out over the water. Though he tried to sound optimistic, Yona still noticed the slight hesitancy in his voice. “Don’t forget I’ve got experience with diving, as well as swimming.”

“Alright…” Silver said with a hesitant sigh, then pushed themselves to smile at Yona. “Rest well, buddy. Like Sandbar, I’m also super proud of you for coming this far.”

Grasping their necklace, Silverstream transformed in a flash, swapping their hind quarters for a long, fish-like tail. From there, they shuffled over to the edge of the boat and flipped backwards into the water.

“Silverstream amazing,” Yona chastised herself under her breath, slowly pacing her way back to the cabin. “Unlike Yona. Yona useless.”

“Hey, that’s enough self-hatred for one day, okay?” Sandbar gently patted Yona on the back. “You’re trying so hard to challenge your phobia, after all. For now, let’s focus on getting you back to bed, ‘cause I’ve got a boatload of cuddles with your name on it.

---

To some ponies, swimming in the ocean was a unique, novel experience. Merely a decade prior, seaponies were thought to be a myth, an impossible creature from the time before Equestria. For Silverstream, most of their life had been spent beneath the ocean waves, hiding away from the Storm King’s wrath.

For them, walking on land was a novel experience. They remembered the ecstatic feeling upon first encountering stairs, a simple, yet obvious solution for flightless ponies to ascend. By comparison, swimming in the ocean was as easy as a duck quacking. Quack.

They supposed it was an apt metaphor for their gender: an ever-shifting scale ebb and flow of the tide. They were both seapony and hippogryph, yet simultaneously neither. Some days, they enjoyed the firm security of land, while on others, the freedom of the sea held a greater sway – though neither were ever absolute.

Diving deeper along the reef wall, Silver’s thoughts turned to their changeling friend, Ocellus. Sandbar had considered inviting her along, too, but with the combination of family obligations and minimal cabin space, she politely declined. It was a shame, too, as with her greater transformation powers, she would have felt right at home among the ocean creatures.

How ironic, Silver chuckled to themselves. Ocellus can change her body on a whim, but I’m the one who’s genderfluid!

They supposed it was just another part of their aquatic affinity. Whatever their shape or gender manifested as today, Silver knew they would be happy. They had some of the best friends a pony could ask for, giving them the space to truly flourish as themselves.

With Sandbar still tending to Yona, Silver decided to relax a little and observe the abundant wildlife of the reef. On their right, they saw a small school of slender fish, green in colour with long, horizontal white-stripes. Just above that, they spied a couple of slender, arrow-shaped fish, their thick, vertical black-and-yellow stripes contrasting the fish below.

Then, a short distance below that, they spotted a larger, white fish with alternating black stripes, reminding Silver of Zecora. Unlike Ponyville’s local zebra, however, the back of this fish was lined with long, dangerous-looking spines, which Silver knew were highly venomous. Using their fin-like wings, they decided to paddle back a little and give it a wide berth. In doing so, they caught a fleeting glimpse of a long, slender eel, poking its toothy jaws out from a small crevice.

It was a shame Yona had such crippling thalassophobia. It was obvious from the way she looked at the coral that she appreciated the beauty of aquatic wildlife; it just wasn’t enough to break through her anxiety over drowning. Even if the seapony transformation worked on Yak, her inability to swim would leave her paralyzed – or worse, panicking.

Maybe I could find a fancy pearl or shell for her? Silver pondered. Give her something pretty to help her relax a little. I hope she’s okay.

After a few more minutes of exploring, Sandbar at last plunged into the water, though he didn’t transform right away. Instead, he took his time swimming down, gently stroking his forehooves outwards as his hind hooves kicked in a rhythmic fashion. By their estimate, he swam to around twelve metres down before he activated the shell’s magic.

“Impressive!” Silver exclaimed, flicking their fluked tail back and forth. “Not many ponies can dive like that in one breath!”

“Not to brag, but what did you expect?” Sandbar smirked and cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t get my cutie mark for nothing.”

“Good point,” Silver chuckled. “How’s Yona holding up?”

“She’s calmed down for now,” he let out a small sigh. “I love her with all my heart, but I can’t lie. Her phobia is a struggle to deal with. I knew from the start that it’d be a problem, but… I don’t know.”

“Is it putting a damper on our voyage?”

“I guess,” Sandbar gave a reluctant nod. “I hate feeling like this. I’m supposed to be her supportive boyfriend, but here I am, complaining about a fear I knew about for years.”

“Would you like a hug?” Silver held their arms open wide.

Sandbar nodded again, swimming into Silver’s embrace.

“If it makes you feel any better, I knew you loved the ocean from the day I met you,” Silver made eye contact with Sandbar, their infectious smile already transmitting. “Everything from your cutie mark to your mane colour screams ‘surfer pony’ to me. I’ve had so many dreams about you as a seapony, and hey, guess what? You made that dream come true!

“I know we’re not, like, romantic partners like you and Yona – and don’t get me wrong, it’s totally cool we stay friends. But you’re still special to me, and your feelings are valid. So even if you can’t do stuff you love the most with Yona, maybe I can, like, fill that gap, or something, if it makes sense?”

“Yeah, it does,” Sandbar blushed. “I’ve always felt safe with Yona, and, well, I guess I feel safe in the ocean with you, too.”

Silverstream opened their beak to reply, only for something behind Sandbar to swim their way.

“Oh. My. Gosh!”

Sandbar titled his head, but before he could think to respond, Silver had grabbed his hoof, pulling him straight down into a dive. It had only been visible for a second, but what Silver had seen filled them with such an overwhelming sense of joy, they had to confirm that it was real.

So, they pressed on, past a school of black-tipped sharks, past the bottom-feeding rays, right along to the opposite side of the ring reef some two hundred metres away. What they discovered was something straight out of Silver’s foalhood dreams.

There, sheltered below a hard coral overhang, was a tiny village built from an assortment of seashells. This was the home of tropical seaponies, though besides the name, they looked almost nothing like Silverstream.

Whereas their tail was closer to a fish’s, the tails of these ponies were curved into a little spiral, used more for grasping in lieu of arms. They used the tiny little fins on their backs to propel them forwards, and instead of a beak, they had a long, thin snout akin to a snorkel.

“Are those…?” Sandbar began, but words failed him. To see a race of ponies he had never known existed was simply enchanting. The tropical seaponies, however, were not so ready to make chatter. At the sight of the two large ponies, the citizens swam away as fast as they could, fleeing back to their homes.

“Um, it’s okay, little seaponies!” Silverstream said, trying hard to contain the excitement in their voice. “We won’t hurt you. We’re also seaponies— well, kind of.”

“Could we maybe speak to—?”

“Stay where you are!”

Before Sandbar could question who was yelling, a group of two-dozen seaponies burst out from the corals above, riding on the backs of stingrays via reigns made of kelp. Soon, the two friends were surrounded, held in place by the long, barb-ended spears pointed at their heads.

“Who are you? State your business!” snapped one of the guards, thrusting their spear at Sandbar. Though it was small, Silver recognised the weapon for what it truly was: a venomous barb from the back of a Zebrafish.

“We’re not here to hurt you, honest!” Silver exclaimed, clasping their talons together. “It’s just… I’ve never seen another type of seapony before – ones not like myself. I didn’t know there were any!”

“Well, now you do,” said the guard, narrowing their eyes. “So, if you would be so kind, leave us alone.”

“Wait a minute!” Sandbar interjected. “Do any of you know of Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

Something clicked in the minds of the guards, straightening out as if they’d been shocked by an electric eel. For a moment, they hesitated, almost pulling back their weapons. From what Silver could see, a few of the seapony citizens poked their heads out from under their shells, cocking their ears toward Sandbar.

“She’s the reason why we’re here,” Sandbar continued. “Do you think you could help us?”

At first, the guards remained quiet, with a few murmuring in another’s ear. Then, at the far back of the village a clam shell slowly popped open. The seapony it revealed was bright yellow in colour, and had a short, fringe-cut emerald mane. At first glance, she could’ve been mistaken for any other random citizen. She wore no crown or other decadent jewelry, and instead sported a small bowtie of kelp around her neck.

“Guards, you may stand down.” She spoke in a regal accent that reminded Silverstream of Princess Luna. Though her tail was coiled tightly against her chest, she seemed to look upon Silver and Sandbar with a cordial gaze.“My name is Princess Sandy Shoal, pronouns she and her. Surface ponies are hardly regular visitors down here, as by your own admission, few know we exist. You two, however, both look to be seaponies of the northern variety. What exactly do you hope to achieve this far south?”

“Hello, Sandy,” Silver introduced themselves with a small bow. “My name is Silverstream, pronouns they and them. Me and my friend Sandbar, here, are on a voyage, looking for sea dragons. The only one we know is named Steven Magnet, and he prefers freshwater to salt. We figured the coral reefs were a good place to start looking for others. It’s not a problem, is it?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Sandy relaxed a little, though she still maintained a defensive posture. “But you must understand, we’re not exactly top of the food chain. For the sake of our survival, we are wary of outsiders, and take great care as to who we trust.”

“I understand,” Silver nodded briskly. “What can we do to earn your trust? Do you have anything in mind?”

“Actually, I have an idea.”

When Silver looked back at Sandbar, their jaw dropped. He had undone the seapony transformation magic, and now floated in the water with puffed out his cheeks, holding his breath and triggered the transformation magic – an act that garnered a surprised gasp from the gathering crowd.

Seconds ticked by, and Sandbar didn’t move. His eyes were shut tight, and he held his legs crossed, striking a meditative pose. For Silver, it was as fascinating as it was nerve-wracking. Until now, the irony of an earth pony being at home in the water had been totally lost on them. They dared not even blink, for fear they’d miss their chance to help should something go wrong.

Despite the water pressure, and despite him holding his one, single breath for over a minute, Sandbar remained the epitome of relaxation. Even so, Silver knew he couldn’t hold it forever. All they could do was hope it was enough to convince Princess Sandy.

Then, Silver’s ears pricked up to a faint, but distinct, sound. Was it… laughter?

Princess Sandy Shoal was bellowing with a grand, triumphant fit of laughter!

“Well then,” Sandy said once she’d regained her composure. Looking back at her guards, she straightened her tail and puffed out her chest. “What do you say, friends? Think we should stand down before this earth pony goes blue in the face?”

The guards looked at each other. “Yes ma’am,” they grumbled.

Only once Sandbar had re-transformed did Silver realize they’d been holding their own breath. After letting out a long sigh of relief, they pulled back their arm and gave Sandbar a heavy thump in the arm.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“That was a gutsy move there, dude,” Silver snickered. “You had me worried!”

Sandbar folded his hooves over his chest. “Hey, it went well, didn’t it?”

The sharp sound of Princess Sandy clearing her throat grabbed the two ponies’ attention back.

“I will admit, I’m impressed,” she rubbed her chin with her tail. “You, earth pony. Your name is Sandbar, yes?”

“At your service,” Sandbar twirled in the water and made a lavish bow. “My pronouns are he and him, by the way.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Princess Sandy bowed in return. “It’s clear to me now that, despite your tribe’s name, you have a grand affinity for the sea.”

“What can I say?” Sandbar grinned. “It’s been part of my home ever since I was a colt. I love the ocean with all my heart and soul!”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Sandy gave him a warm smile. “You wish to know about sea dragons?”

“Oh, yes! Absolutely!” Silverstream nodded vigorously. “It’s part of Princess Twilight’s mission as new ruler of Equestria. She wants to unify as many non-pony races as possible, which she’s been trying to do ever since she started her School of Friendship, where me and Sandbar are students.”

“Well, I can see you’re certainly enthusiastic about the cause,” Sandy’s smile grew into a grin as she stifled another chuckle.

“Oh, sorry,” Silver blushed, twiddling their talons. “Did I get carried away there?”

“It’s quite alright,” Princess Sandy flicked her tail downwards, which Silver took as a dismissive wave. “I will admit, our knowledge of sea dragons isn’t much greater than yours, as they are rare and elusive creatures indeed. However, I can still provide you with a valuable clue.

Comments

[Charlie_K]

I had to go back through and read the prequel story to understand why this was a Pride and Positivity entry in the first place. I wound up misreading thalassophobia as something else. But then again thalassophobia is a fear of the ocean specifically. If Yona can't swim in general, is that even the right definition?

[Mystic Mind]

10886131
It's specifically a fear of deep ocean. Yona not being able to swim justifies it *somewhat*, but her being on the boat at all is still a struggle.

[Charlie_K]

10886221
Frankly Yona is far braver than I am in that regard. I won't set foot on a boat at all.