The siren call of Sunset

by Hope

Yearning

High tide always woke Twilight up. She had a theory about the pressure change in her home, the water column above her increasing in depth so that even a merpony such as her felt the slight discomfort of being too deep. But the theory couldn’t really be tested, there wasn’t a need. She instead scheduled her life around the tides.

So Twilight swam out of her kelp bed and over to the sheet of cultivated mother-of-pearl that served as her mirror.

She was too deep to use the moonlight to see by, so instead she found one of her pearls and gently touched it to bring a soft purple light out of the sphere.

Her room was a mess, really. She was grateful that she had a place to rest away from the others, especially now.

In the mirror, her new antennae were the first things she saw. She could have brought light through them, probably. She could do amazing things now that her body was changing, and she was becoming a Queen. Yet… it terrified her.

“Hey… Twilight.”

Spike, her sea serpent friend, poked his head in through one of the doorways, frowning when he saw her fixated on her own reflection, paralyzed with fear.

“Twilight, come on, it’s ok,” he said as he gently slithered in and put a clawed hand on her shoulder, shaking her just a little.

“I know, I know,” she snapped. “It’s fine. Everything is fine, I’m… I just… It takes some getting used to. I never wanted to be a Queen!”

“Twilight, you love leading merponies!” Spike objected, frowning. “I know it’s a bit of a shock, but I thought you’d be happy!”

Twilight shrugged off his clawed hand and quickly brushed her mane into shape, before putting on a gleaming gold necklace and belt. She shrugged on a gossamer cloak and shook her head, not meeting Spike’s eyes.

“I’m… You wouldn’t understand.”

Then, in a rush of motion she was gone, speeding through the water and out into the gloom of the Canterlot Reverie.

Fifteen thousand mer-ponies, a scattering of sea serpents, and many other creatures all residing in the cliff wall city of an underwater ravine. It all glittered gently from magical lights and bioluminescence. A faint trace of moonlight made its way down this deep, to make occasional ripples of light across buildings.

Of course the city never truly slept, but her appointments and obligations now felt hollow after running from Spike. She couldn’t explain herself, these feelings tearing her apart, she couldn’t even put words to her fears.

So for now, she swam up to the surface. It was always so much quieter than the endless humming of life in the city, the singing and the magic always tugging at her, muddled with so many overlapping that it made it hard to even focus at times.

Breaking the surface, the moonlight lit her face in silver, and though she was rocked side to side by the waves they weren’t high enough to bother her.

After all, it was here on the surface that she’d earned her ascension. Whether that was a good thing… Well, she still wasn’t sure about it, but below the stars she’d found the magic needed to transform into a true pony, to trick some surface ponies into letting her friends go after capturing them in a fishing net.

The first mer-pony in a thousand years to be able to change her shape. A power she’d used once, and that now she couldn’t stop thinking about.

While Twilight floated there in the moonlight, a distant sound reached her. Not from below, but from the air. A warbling note that caught her notice, and then dwindled to nothing.

She perked up, turning to try and figure out where it had come from. But it didn’t return. Twilight settled slowly beneath the waves, deciding she might have imagined it, and returning to her underwater world.

Accepting her new status as a Queen was the most difficult personal revelation she’d ever faced. Not just the way other creatures treated her, and not just because of the physical changes she was facing. No, the most terrifying part of it all was the responsibility.

Descending into Canterlot, she swam to one of the most decorated homes in the Reverie. A rusted and rotting carousel formed the roof, strung with bioluminescent moss strands. Below that, glass windows of varying sized and shapes allowed passer-by to catch a glimpse of Rarity’s latest creation, bathed in the light of enchanted pearls.

Of course, it was a royal diadem, celebrating Twilight’s newly announced royal status. Hammered bronze with a drape down the neck of the rock-carved model, and a specially grown cone-shaped pearl on the forehead, imitating the antenna of a Queen.

Her heart leaped into her throat, and she turned away to calm herself before diving another level down to the entrance to the Carousel Boutique.

Rarity was hard at work, as she usually was in the night hours, using her skills as a Selkie to weave and shape materials like only surface ponies seemed capable of.

Selkie in the Canterlot Reverie looked much like mer ponies, but with a smooth coat of fur instead of scales, clawed hands instead of flippers, and they wore necklaces adorned with pearls of breath, so they did not have to return to the surface every hour.

Of course, Rarity glanced up and gave a toothy grin as Twilight entered her shop, before swirling through the water in a smooth flipping motion to embrace Twilight in a hug.

“Good night, Twilight, what brings you to my humble little shop?”

Twilight sighed, leaning into the hug and laying her head on Rarity’s shoulder.

“I came for an outfit I suppose, but I’m feeling terribly melancholy,” Twilight mumbled, enjoying the rare warmth and softness of her friend in a land of cold-blooded creatures.

“Well, clothes I can provide of course,” Rarity said in a gentler tone. “But melancholy… That seems most often to come from the heart, not from the things we wear. Talk to me, Twilight, while I finish this up.”

Twilight nuzzled Rarity’s cheek before letting go so she could return to her weaving, as Twilight browsed the shop for a lack of anything better to do while she spoke.

“Why does everyone believe I can do this?” Twilight asked softly as she unfolded a dress to admire it before folding it again in exactly the same way.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Rarity replied easily. “You’ve risen to every challenge laid before you, my dear. You united the Elements of Unity, you defeated the Dark One, and you saved every creature in Merville before it fell into the depths. I'd say that from the outside it seems there’s little you can’t do. Perhaps color matching, but that’s hardly a talent needed to save the world.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow and shot a tame glare at Rarity, who was smirking gently.

“Thanks, I’ll remember next time I think I can wear white that you’ll never forget it. But seriously, being a Queen, it’s more than just making good decisions or being a ruler, it’s…”

Twilight fell silent, and Rarity went still, listening intently.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to be a mother, Rarity,” Twilight whispered before hugging a winter shawl to her chest, scowling at the table full of clothes in front of her. “I’m not ready to make the same mistakes my mom–”

In a rush of motion, Rarity pulled Twilight around to face her again.

“Stop,” Rarity hushed, taking the shawl out of Twilight’s fins and tossing it onto the table. “Stop it. You are not your mother, and you are not Celestia either. You are Twilight Sparkle, and when some day you have your first clutch, your friends will make absolutely certain that you have all the help you need to be the best mother you can be. Not absent on the surface, not too busy with ruling to spare them a glance, no. You will be better.”

Twilight shook her head sharply, curled in on herself and huffing softly in sorrow.

“How do you know?” she whined. “How do you know that I won’t run away? I don’t… I don’t even blame my mom! It’s too much! It’s terrifying.”

“I know you won’t for the same reason that I knew you would bring me back from the Dark when Dythcordia claimed me. Twilight Sparkle, you always do the Right Thing, the best that you possibly can.”

Twilight kept sniffling and softly crying but she embraced Rarity and let the crushing fears fade to a more manageable level, before nuzzling Rarity again, letting her go to swim back to her workbench and resume her delicate weaving with perfectly trimmed and sharpened claws.

The mer-pony settled in a corner, watching her work, hugging her tail. It didn’t take too much longer for Rarity to finish her weaving and set the rough outline of a vest onto a shelf set aside for works in progress.

“Well now,” Rarity said gently. “I cannot measure you if you’re hiding.”

“You already know my measurements, Rarity,” Twilight muttered, like a petulant child.

“They might have changed,” Rarity shrugged, smiling again. “Come on, on the table.”

As Twilight swam over and laid down, she remembered old stories of the time before Unity. When Selkies would hunt and eat Mer-ponies. When Sea Serpents were treated like unthinking animals. When Dolphins weren’t allowed into Mer-pony settlements because of their warlike and thoughtless instincts.

But she didn’t fear Rarity, as the Selkie measured Twilight out and gently touched her to note the location of her dorsal and pelvic fins. Her claws didn’t draw blood, even though they were certainly sharp enough to do so, and the streaks of Tyrian purple that colored Rarity’s head and tail in brilliant swirls were new synthetic dyes from the surface, not the traditional dye made from boiling hundreds of animals. Twilight could see the same gentleness and thoughtfulness in Rarity’s eyes that she saw in any mer-pony, and she trusted her. Old stories held no sway here.

“You’ve grown a full finger-length in the last week, and your fins are longer,” Rarity commented with a curious smile. “I wonder if Celestia grew so quickly when she ascended. Normal mer size and then shooting up to being twice my length. I would think you’d have an academic curiosity in all this!”

Twilight rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

“It’s much harder to be academic about it all when it’s my body that is being changed. By magic I don’t understand, on top of that! Did you know that the magic of Unity still isn’t sourced? We know where Pearl magic comes from, we know where Selkie and Mer-ponies gain their abilities, but Unity? It’s just… There. Which makes no sense, it has to come from somewhere.”

Rarity just listened, amused, as she draped a bolt of kelp-fabric across Twilight. In the water, the fibers that had been extracted from the kelp stalks and wound into thread and then fabric had a soft gossamer texture, with tiny knots holding trailing threads in place so the whole sheet seemed to trail a ghostly aura around it.

It had been dyed a pale blue, and as it settled on Twilight she could see that the dense plastic that it had been wound around had “Twilight” carved on the end.

“You made this fabric just for me?” Twilight asked as she touched it gently, watching it flow in the water.

“You should see what I had to make for Rainbow,” Rarity said with an exasperated sigh. “She seems determined to shred anything I put on her, so I’ve resorted to using eel skin.”

Twilight chuckled a little as she kept admiring the fabric.

“I was going to ask for something simple, but… Maybe a full dress?” she proposed.

“I wouldn’t have settled for anything less, darling,” Rarity said fondly. “I’ll try not to overdo it on the decorations. We don’t need you looking gaudy.”

Twilight slipped out from under the fabric and wrapped Rarity up in the tightest hug she could manage.

“Thank you, Rarity. Thank you for everything.”

Comments

[Mystic Sunrise]

“Stop,” Rarity hushed, taking the shawl out of Twilight’s fins and tossing it onto the table. “Stop it. You are not your mother, and you are not Celestia either. You are Twilight Sparkle, and when someday you have your first clutch, your friends will make absolutely certain that you have all the help you need to be the best mother you can be. Not absent on the surface, not too busy with ruling to spare them a glance, no. You will be better.”

I swear to Twilight that if you don't explain any of this, and a bit more of what was said, this story is a bust. I'm assuming Celestia isn't Twilight's mom. Twilight's change says, Queen Novo. But who knows...