• Published 27th Nov 2022
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The siren call of Sunset - Hope



Twilight, a mer-pony, finds a voice that draws her away from the troubles of her home.

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Shame

Twilight was again drifting on the surface, catching a moment of peace and quiet as the sun rose, the constant humming of Life below the waves again overwhelming her.

Why couldn’t she just be like Celestia? Untroubled, confident, the picture of peace?

Of course, Twilight knew the answer, Celestia wasn’t actually untroubled. She scheduled more than half of her time to herself. Noone knew where she went, but she made sure not to give her whole self to her city. She’d told Twilight as much, that no ruler could be the sole pillar of stability, that they must rely on their support network and the bureaucratic structure of their government to run the country without the ruler’s fin in every individual action and decision.

Twilight was just planning a coronation, and already she felt like she needed an army of assistants.

“No more…”

Twilight twitched and spun in place. She’d heard a voice to be certain, and though it had been far away she was confident after a moment that it had come from the direction of the beach. Well, the planning for the coronation could wait for a bit…

Twilight slipped under the water and swam with all her speed towards the coastline.

The massive ravine that held the Canterlot Reverie was made even more dramatic by being directly off of the continental shelf, closer to the beach here than anywhere else on the coast. So Twilight swam through the safe channel that circumvented the barrier reef, and over the many shipwrecks that had gathered in Maritime bay. Most merponies were terrified of them, but Twilight found them fascinating. Ancient sailing ships reduced to rows of cannon and anchors, small fiberglass boats full of holes and rusting boxes of cargo, and even a few steel ships that had gone down, one a container ship with containers scattered across the sea floor.

Soon, she was in the warm shallow waters of the bay, broken up by the occasional stone formations, ancient lava flows long cooled and decayed into rolling hills populated with patches of marine life. Kelp harbored fish and crustaceans in abundance, even though the new surface-pony town happily harvested every bit of marine life they could find.

Twilight’s attentions were fixed, however, and she soon slipped up to the surface to catch a glimpse of the sandy beach.

Standing on a rocky outcropping, like the beacon of a lighthouse, a single pony stood with her mane streaming in the wind. Her voice, strong and loud, was able to cut through the air with enough force that Twilight could hear her clearly from halfway across the bay.

“I’m just another face, in the crowd, in the days left behind, and all I can see is you!”

She stomped to emphasize her passion, as Twilight hid with only her head above the water, entranced by her lonely performance.

“I’d take a hundred hearts, take this brand new start, and throw them away…
Just one more lesson, just…. One more day?
Were there ever any answers to the questions on the tests you gave? Could I ever have been good enough?
No, all I have, all I am, is another face in the crowd…”

As her voice faded, Twilight found that she’d drifted much closer to the pony, and on her final note she looked down to lock eyes with her.

A sudden wide-eyed stare, and yet Twilight couldn’t move. She had to move, she was obligated to run, to hide herself and her city from the knowledge of the surface ponies, and yet…

“Don’t go,” the pony whispered.

Twilight ducked into the water, and was gone, speeding away as quickly as she could. Her heart was racing, her mind spinning, and yet all that she could see was that lonely yellow and red pony looking into her eyes and begging her not to leave.

She stopped, hiding in one of the kelp forests, looking up at the surface as though the pony would come in and grab her, drag her from the sea forever. But nothing happened.

As she drifted down to settle on the sand, Twilight remembered when she’d transformed into a surface pony… briefly, she’d been just like them, able to blend in, and able to befriend them. Unity had spread just as easily to those surface ponies as it had to merponies.

So why was she so afraid? Wasn’t it Celestia who had taught her that pre-judgement and assumptions robbed us of opportunities? That any creature could surprise us with new forms of Unity if given the chance?

And the loneliness in the pony’s eyes… The same loneliness Twilight felt, the future uncertain and her sense of Self coming apart at the seams.

She drifted back to the surface. That pony was still sitting there, a spot of gleaming gold on the gray rock.

Twilight swallowed her fears and swam closer, close enough for the pony to see her, and then closer still. Until they were facing each other, separated only by the height of the rocky outcropping. Maybe three times Twilight’s length at most. The surface pony and the merpony examining each other, trying to guess at the other’s intentions.

“You’re a merpony,” the one above said softly.

“And you are a… Corn.”

Sunset snorted, a noise that started Twilight and made her hide for a moment, before coming back to the surface to see that Sunset was shaking her head.

“Unicorn,” Sunset corrected.

“Yes, a single Corn,” Twilight said, somewhat flustered by being corrected, and wanting to prove herself right.

“Corn, in the ancient earth pony language, means horn,” Sunset explained patiently. “Single-horn is the name of my race. Unicorn.”

Twilight thought this over. One of the biggest gaps in her knowledge was knowledge of the surface world. Books dissolved in water, and fancier ways of storing knowledge still rarely lasted long enough for her to examine. Celestia, despite being a wonderful leader and extremely knowledgeable, professed a lack of knowledge of the surface world. Here, this opportunity would allow her to learn things that no one under the sea knew, as far as Twilight was aware. A precious opportunity indeed.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” Twilight asked, tilting her head to the side as she examined the unicorn.

“Well,” Sunset paused for a moment, coming up with a suitable lie. “Merponies are known for saving drowning sailors, and saving sea creatures. So since I’m not hurting any sea creatures, I figured that you aren’t here to hurt me.”

It made sense to Twilight. She had assumed that surface ponies would fear her powers, but what if they knew nothing of her powers to begin with? They likely couldn’t identify a queen from a normal merpony, and even then they probably didn’t see merponies at all except when a ship was sinking or a rare encounter such as this.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she offered.

“Golden Breeze,” Sunset lied easily, just in case her name had been spread among the merponies as a Siren to be wary of. “I live here in Maritime Bay, where do you live?”

“In Maritime Bay,” Twilight replied with a smile. “But in the water. There is a city…”

She finally hesitated. She couldn’t put her city in danger. She couldn’t just tell some random pony where the Canterlot Reverie was. So she gestured towards the South.

“Out there, several hours of swimming away.”

Of course, Sunset could guess at the lie, since she had lived in the Canterlot Reverie herself, years ago. Since Twilight claimed the city was nearby, that ruled out a traveler from far away. Twilight probably tutored under Celestia, or might even be one of her wayward children. Just by seeing her, Sunset could tell that Twilight was in the process of ascending to Queendom, with the unique antenna growing off her brow and the longer more brightly colored fins that trailed down her tail. A perfect little tool that had drifted right into her lap.

“It must be so beautiful,” Sunset sighed wistfully, looking off into the pale blue horizon where Twilight had pointed. “An underwater city, full of merponies, free of troubles and worries…”

Twilight chuckled nervously, rubbing her fins together.

“Yeah… Free from troubles and worries,” she said softly. “What’s it like living in a surface town? Being stuck to the ground? Always having to worry about whether it’s day or night?”

Sunset laid down on the stone, so that just her head and forelegs hung off the edge, looking down at Twilight, getting as close to her as she could.

“Can’t you just come up here to find out? Don’t merponies sneak up into our towns, disguised as normal ponies?”

It was a gambit to figure out if Celestia had taught Twilight about the Great Bargain, and the magic connected to it. But Twilight still had surprises in store for the disguised Siren.

“No, I mean… Yes, I can, but no, merponies don’t do that,” Twilight said quickly. “But… I suppose I… I could.”

She swam to the sandy beach and Sunset watched in wonder as a kaleidoscope of rainbow light flowed over the merpony, replacing scales with fur, and a tail with legs. Her antenna coalesced into a single horn, and her fins… Into wings.

Sunset immediately stood. This was new. This, she’d never even heard of. She trotted down the stone ramp, watching as Twilight stepped out of the water. It all dripped off of her in tiny beads leaving her mane and tail long, flowing, and dry.

“That’s incredible,” Sunset said, breathless and genuine as she looked at the pony that stood before her, winged and horned.

She was like a goddess of old mythology just stepped out of the surf, and all at the behest of a lying Siren.

She’d seen Celestia’s pony form. An earth pony, abnormally tall, but still an earth pony. But this Twilight… Despite her innocence and gullibility, Sunset saw more in her than just another soon-to-be merpony queen.

For the first time, as Sunset beheld Twilight in the rising sun’s light, she felt shame.

A beautiful, aching, wonderful shame.