A horrible thing had been done, several horrible things, Eighteen horrible things. Eighteen lives had entered Reinshore and been ruined.
A horrible plague of misfortune has swept the coastal town of Reinshore. With its passing no less than sixteen ponies have died and two more are left broken. However, amid the horrid events, one pony feels compelled to ask why. She may deeply regret this decision. Answers come in many forms when discussing Reinshore, but often they raise other questions in their place. Why did they do it, what exactly did they do, and why can you hear the breath of three ponies in a room with only two?
Eat not my wings, so that I may still fly. Eat first my soul, so I’ll be ready to die.
Spare not my heart, it aches for a rest. Spare but my words, for surely I jest.
“In the back of one’s mind, a strange feeling can often be found. A shrill silence that creeps upon the basest tendrils of thought. It is a constant lack of something, some quality poorly defined with words. Never vanishing, only suppressed, it hides from the happiest of thoughts, but diligently plods along until it can again return to the center of attention. Dread it is called, or unnerving, or strange. But oh, how none of those can give it justice.” a sickly voice rasped from behind the bars.
A small unicorn, layered in a dour grey coat huddled tighter against herself. Her attempts to shiver the cold out of herself ended in but a small chattering in the dark hallway she listened from. With a slight lessening of her shivering she attempted to speak only to be cut off.
“Without much warning, this feeling can vanish, but again it returns ever faithful. This feeling knows it is unwelcome, and relishes in that knowledge. Ravenous towards the idea of being unwanted, it surges forth for that final bit it needs to grab one fully in its grasp. One could almost take comfort in knowing about its constant companionship, if not for the desire to make them unnerved.” The sound of scraping followed the words, as if some sorry mess was lumbering closer.
“Are you going to ask that question now? That one that's making your teeth rattle more than the cold? Or are you experiencing that feeling right now? The same as I?” a scarred chitinous face pressed against the bars, cracks gleaming with a sickening shine under the pale torchlight.
“I… wanted... “ Her speech stumbled as her shaking intensified. “I wanted to know why.” she finally managed.
“Why what? Why did i do it? Why did she do it? Why Reinshore? Why is there the sound of three ponies breathing in room with two ponies?” the questions came quickly sounding as if they tore out of the prisoner’s throat with malice.
“What? I uh, no, wait three ponies breathing?” the hurried looks around the room brought nothing but frustration to their owner.
“Exactly, can’t you hear that, the sound of breathing, light and raspy from myself, quick and worried from yourself, and lastly the one that sounds like it’s behind you, slow, and steady, driven yet patient.” a small fit of coughs from his speech gave her all the time she needed to glance behind herself in panic.
“There isn’t anything there, you know there isn’t anything there!” she replied more to herself than anypony else.
“But now you keep listening for it, and what’s worse, now that you know it’s not there, you can hear it can’t you?” The perverse grin that slipped past the cracked chitin made her fur stick up on end.
Terror would serve as all the fuel she needed. No other emotion could cull her other senses, her vision swimming, the stone beneath her feeling like mud, the dryness of her mouth replaced with the sour bite of iron, or the scent of decay, so stifling it made her eyes water. But that paled in comparison to her ears, their screaming of heavy breathing behind her, breath that only became louder the more she turned her ears away from it. Panic clear on her face the prisoner settled down against the bars.
“We haven’t long now, and you had a question to ask before you noticed, what was it miss?” the harsh voice twisted into a perverse sweetness that only served to make her more terrified.
“I want to know how this all happened, the deaths, all of them. And, why.” Her soft quivering voice caught the attention of her audience. His form shuffled for a bit, the long soiled bandages not hiding the great sores that lay beneath. Finally his movements settled and in the silence she swore she heard the breathing behind her growing closer.
“Tell me miss, what is your name, tell me your name and I will answer you, but I need your name for when she gets here.” He seemed to be perking up, but could he be toying with her?
“D-Dust Cover. I’m here because of my brother, he-”
“Don’t care Miss Cover, I don’t need to know why you are here, you want your questions answered, and I don’t have many for you.” She bristled at the interruption and looked about ready to lash out in anger.
“Don’t be surprised Miss Cover, we did what we did because we wanted to, we didn’t care about them like that. But I can guess we claimed him, or are you holding onto hope we missed him, and he’s just somewhere out there, among the waves waiting to come back home?” the changeling in the cell sneered for a moment before his vision softened. “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t meant for you, now, I imagine you’re very upset by the loss, did you want me to answer your question still?”
Biting back tears, from her emotional distress or perhaps they still watered from the dull stench that permeated the air, Dust Cover slowly nodded before setting out a small journal and lifting a quill to write in it. “I… I need to know.”
“Even if it destroys you, leaves you unable to feel anything after knowing how ruthless somepony could be?” He took a sitting position shakily.
With steel behind her tear filled eyes she nodded again “Yes, how did my brother and the other fifteen die, what led to this?”
“Alright miss… This won’t be easy to hear. If it helps at all, I am a monster, and I helped kill sixteen ponies because I could, and we wanted to, and because she was beautiful. So very beautiful to me, she loved me like no other, and I hated her as much as I loved her.”
Call not my name, it has no sway. Call not for mercy, lest I answer neigh.
Fear not my steps, I swear they are light. Fear not my visage, darker than the night.
“When it comes to first impressions Reinshore made quite a large one on me. Not the postcard overview of their Seapony’s Seaboard, nor the picturesque olive shingles they shelter their roofs with. No, the biggest impression Reinshore made upon me that first visit was that it was most certainly not canterlot, not the city we had besieged, not where I was supposed to be.” The prisoner started only to be interrupted by his audience’s mumblings.
“Wait the wedding? This has been going on since the wedding?!” Dust Cover stomped her forehooves looking every bit the angry mare. Her gaze hardened at the less than subtle roll of her unwanted companion’s eyes.
“Were you expecting ‘On a dark and stormy night’?” the sarcasm cut her from her rage. “It may bring you some satisfaction that the impression I made on Reinshore was in the form of a ditch eighteen times my length that was only brought to an end due to it reaching the edge of a cliff. The sea below swallowing my broken body more readily than the hard rock I had come across. I would later come to find out I had come across the stones of Widow’s Watch, the most cursed place in Reinshore.”
“Widow’s Watch, where twelve of them disappeared!” Dust Cover interjected, a hoof raised in an almost comical fashion.
“Yes, I see you have heard, and i guess I can’t fault you from not containing your outbursts but again I shall continue… Unless of course you have anything else you’d like to add?”
It took a moment of contemplation, Dust Cover sitting there as the changeling before her stared with his large pupiless eyes. “What can I call you?” she finally offered.
Two slow blinks served as the beginning of her answer. “I am a monster, a changeling, my designation in the hive is not important and you wouldn’t understand it anyway. Why would you want to know the name of a monster?” the puzzled tone of his was the first change from cold and raspy Dust had managed to extract from him.
“You are almost certainly a monster, but I’m not, and i want to know. Maybe just to try and understand why, but i can’t wrap my head around it while you stay so noncommittal. What can I call you?” She tried to ignore the sound of breathing behind her as she awaited her response.
“Call me Prisoner, it is the most fitting name you could come by.” With his tone shifting lower his head followed, and Dust could feel the sad motivations behind his words. “As I impacted the sea, salt stinging the cracks along my every inch, I was surprised to see three suns. Surely I had heard of seeing double but the idea of three puzzled me. Limp, I fell deeper into the abyss, knowing that maybe I would find a nice firm rock to hold me as I drowned looking up at those three suns. But as my vision swam, so did two of the suns, growing closer and gaining a form behind them. They heralded a lithe figure the likes of which I had never seen. Surely my imagination, some hallucination as I slipped towards the Final Clutch.”
“The Siren was real then?” Her whimpered words and darting eyes gave the familiar spike of fear he had come to know so often.
“She was more than real, she was beautiful.” A sigh passed his lips before a smile graced them. “I awoke in a cage, what I would later learn as a lobster pot from long ago she had found while circling a sinking boat. The thick dripping stalactites and faint glowing mushrooms made me think I had somehow made it home to the hive. I wanted so badly to be at the hive, to have made it back, the confusion of Canterlot to be over, and everypony celebrating. Instead I saw her eyes, two suns blazing in a dimly lit cave, somewhere below the waterline.” His breath hitched for a moment, as if he has just seen the most ghastly thing behind her.
Dust’s head snapped around before she could think more on it, but all that stared back at here were the stairs she had descended to get here. “T-tell me more about the Siren, and don’t freak me out like that!”
His laughter started low in his throat, sickening sounding gurgle that only made him hack and cough as it grew louder. “If that much alone unsettles you, you might want to run sooner rather than later miss.”
“J-just get back to the siren!” she demanded thought it may have been more a demand to herself than anypony.
“As you wish. I was rather surprised to see this creature, and she never explained where she came from, just that she had always been there. The Siren of Reinshore. It was several weeks later that I would learn her name was Serenade. Serenade she, she kept me as a curiosity at first. Prodding and poking me, never saying a word to me for that first week. Finally I felt my chitin healing, my reserves doing their job. I made my escape, waiting till she had dove into a pool from what sounded like it was around the bend. Too long it took me to find it, too long did I wait to set out. I had done no more than submerge my neck when she slowly slid along the surface towards me, her eyes holding mine.”
“And?” she had gone back to writing, letting her curiosity distract her from the darkness of the cell. He wondered if she could still hear the breathing.
“She spoke to me, soft sweet words the likes of which i would have sworn were as convincing as the Queen herself.”
“‘Do not leave, I am so very lonely, and you are hurt. Do not leave.’ her words were simple but effective.” he mused. “Every thought I had of leaving, my duty to the hive, my urge to return slipped from my mind. She led me back to my cage, gave me some wet plants to pad it with, and retreated to a small wading pool below the mushrooms. Her dark blue scales caught the dim light just perfect, making the entire cavern seem brighter. I wanted nothing more than for her to speak to me again, something burned at my mind, begging for her words.”
“She stared back at me, her eyes seemed to lazily run over me for a minute before she sighed like a small tea kettle. ‘You were at this Canterlot weren’t you?’ she asked me. ‘You attack ponies, make them angry and scared?’ I thought back to my training, I knew to divulge nothing, admit to nothing, give her nothing, and yet, those eyes. I don’t even recall putting up a fight, I just had to tell her, it was so important she understand.”
“She enamored you, without a song?” Dust looked skeptical but attentive, she might as well have forgotten she was sitting in front of a jail cell.
“Not yet, her song came after just a moment, but between those eyes and her voice, she might as well have. But, and I’m sorry to interrupt your notes, have you noticed the breathing lately?” her reaction was instantaneous, she whirled to look behind her hoping again that she could find nothing there.
Ask not for help, I’m afraid you’re alone. Ask for my company, and I’ll take you home.
Feel not the dread, I’ll wash it away. Feel just my touch, and swear you will stay
Dust Cover gasped quickly, pulling every last bit of air she could into her lungs. Each tiny bit of air ready to be converted into an ear piercing scream. But it never left her lips. A cold hoof pressed against her muzzle, pushing her back until she slid into the bars behind her. Slitted eyes peered out from amidst deep blue scales. “Breath not a word, or I’ll steal it from you. Breath not one breath, you’re mine that’s true.” the words softly fell from the siren.
“S-Siren…” Dust’s resolve began to melt away.
“Serenade” breathed Prisoner, his eyes rapt on the creature behind the softly squirming mare. “I did so enjoy your song.”
With a sinister smile, and a melodious laugh, Serenade glanced at her captured changeling. “Oh Prizzy, you were so helpful distracting our little treat here. I owe you so much for your help, be a dear and finish the story. I do so love your stories.”
Prisoner visibly shuddered his horn glowing and his chitin starting to work it’s way back together. “I know you can still hear me darling Dust, the song controls you, but doesn’t blind you. You get to enjoy every precious moment that you’re joined with Serenade.” Prisoner almost cooed as he ran a hoof along Dust’s spine, her body not even able to flinch away.
“Sirens are almost emotivores, not too far from changelings to be accurate really. But where as we require love to sustain ourselves, a siren can go for years, decades, centuries without a meal. They age all the same, but let one feed properly and they snap back to their true youthful self. The shined scales, the trim fins, the hydrodynamic lithe figure, it could make a pony drool.” His hoof swept forward and wiped away the spit dribbling from the corner of her mouth.
“Yes, a good meal does wonders for the complexion, everything from laugh lines to a saggy plot just zaps away with a little hatred, or envy, or anger.” Serenade punctuated every emotion with a sharp snap of her jaws. “A simple melody, almost breathlessly hummed is all I need to harvest, but it is so rewarding to wait for things to ripen.”
“Serenade wasted no time with me, telling me of my failure, how every last of our swarm had been repulsed. Everypony along the Seapony’s Seaboard was talking about it, not knowing just below the pier she had been listening, waiting, and learning. ‘You are a failure, your only hope is to flee back to your home and try to seek forgiveness… is that what you want?’ she asked me, her loving eyes so full of hope I felt it deep inside me. ‘Yes, I need to go!’ I cried out making a break to move past her.” Serenade leaned against Dust, pushing her harder against the bars, pinning her.
“That’s when I grabbed him, told him I’d be lonely and that he couldn’t go. I wouldn’t let him. He got so confused, demanded to be let go, or at least know why. I lied to him, boldfaced and paper-thin. He knew I was lying, and it angered him, oh how it angered him when I told him he couldn’t leave me alone.” Her finned tail played lightly along Dust’s side as she began to rest her head on the captive mare’s chest.
“The next day I tried again, and the reason changed, she mentioned how there were guards hunting for us, everypony would see me and I was hurt still. I asked if there were guards here, in Reinshore and she smiled when she said no. So I asked again, and she answered no, I couldn’t leave. That was my clever darling hard at work, ripening up my frustrations.”
“It was so tempting to sing him a lullaby and take it all right then, but I knew if I wasn’t greedy now, I could be very, very greedy soon.” Her sentenced ended with her teeth gently nibbling at her captive’s shoulder.
“This went on for months, each time I tried she had a new reason, just as obviously a stalling tactic as the last. And my hatred grew to a righteous fury, every negative thought I could have was directed at her. It had been a full season, four months of no emotional sustenance, I was at my limit, I couldn’t last another day. And I spat at her, for being so cruel as to let me starve. Do you know what she did to me then miss Dust?”
The mare in question didn’t answer, he eyes vacant and staring ahead as hooves ran over her body.
“She sang me a lullaby, the sweetest song she could, one that welcomed me and thanked me for hating her. She stopped lying, and in that brief second, as my hate and anger fueled her, she smiled at me. I lay on the floor, un-moving, the shallowest of breaths all that was left within me. And then the song stopped, she slowly crept up to me over what felt like days. Her scales glistened like I had never seen, shining brighter than the sun and more regal than even my queen.”
“I leaned down towards him little dear, I bent over his form, feeling his emotions run wild with my magic. He hated me more purely than anypony else ever had. Centuries of drownings, of luring sailors, of hiding what I was so no archmage would banish me like our strongest long ago. He was the best. So I kissed him, something I had never done while they were still alive.”
“It was glorious, like an oxygen starved mind taking its first breath as a pony reaches the surface, I gorged on that small affection. But it broke me from my stupor, and I felt revulsion, she was feeding from me, and I hated it. Finally I asked if she was just teasing me with life so I could hate her more. And then it grew, that idea I had unknowingly planted gave her a rush of inspiration, and as the scenario played out in her head, I felt it for the first time since I had crashed.”
“Prizzy had a lovely idea, in more ways than one. I had been taught long ago not to play with my food, but Prizzy here, he made it so rewarding. I grew stronger, and younger, and more beautiful with each passing bar that left my lips. And not to be shown up he hated me more and more, giving his all into wishing me dead and more. I knew I shouldn’t play with my food, mother always told me I would get attached, but mother never knew a changeling.” her grin was back in full sway as Dust began to gain more control of herself.
“W-w-w, why?” she choked out
“Don’t you see now dear, she appreciated my work, she more than basked in it, she came to love it, and love me. She fed me, and I grew stronger, and I demanded revenge, letting myself keep feeding her in turn. Oh, we thought it could go forever, us endlessly supplied the other with all we could ever dream of.” Prisoner sneered as he felt the last of his chitin stitch itself back together.
“You doing alright now dear?” Serenade called back to him a the changeling caught his breath.
“Yes, yes, my reserves will just be empty for a small while, but you’re oh so helpful my darling Seafoam.” Prisoner couldn’t help but reach through the bars and stroke at his lovely siren’s face.
“S-s-sick” Dust Cover managed, her hind legs squirming but finding no purchase on the now slick stone.
“No, no, no, dear Dust Cover. Sick isn’t even close to what we have. But sick is close to the reason Prizzy asked you that important question. Do you remember what it is?” Serenade held her up by her hoover, the fight starting to return to the mare before her. “Why can you hear three ponies breathing in a room with just two ponies?”
Dust Cover felt her stomach fall out, dread spilling from every pore in her body as the next new voice of the evening reached her ears, a voice she never thought she’d hear again. “It’s ‘cause they got you a present squirt!” A deep voice happily sounded from behind her.