Bon Bon has been hired to build and monster-proof an underwater habitat. The hippogriffs have given them necklaces to allow them to transform into sea ponies, but Lyra is a musical pony, and deep under the sea, other creatures love musci too.
When Bon Bon and Lyra get to have a busy little getaway deep under the southern ocean, they think it'll be a lot of work and a good amount of alone time together. What they don't realize is that they're sharing this deep, dark section of the abyss with creatures that enjoy music, and now that they've heard Lyra, they don't want to let her leave...
The hippogriffs had been accommodating enough. They had given the ponies amulets that allowed them to change from pony to seapony at will. They could investigate whatever they wanted whenever they wanted on the sea floor, without worrying about specialized equipment. What they hadn’t foreseen, however, was the absolute plethora of strange creatures down in the deep water. Queen Novu had warned, them, but actually getting there and seeing them was, to say the least, disturbing.
“Why did you insist I come along, Bon Bon?” Lyra said as she looked out of the glass dome into the pitch-black water beyond. There were a few magical lights outside, but they illuminated precious little of the water.
“Because,” Bon Bon said. “A unicorn will make my job a lot easier, and a unicorn who’s my best friend—” she grunted as she pulled open one of the waterproofed crates. Foodstuffs spilled out in a mess on the floor. She sighed. “—will make being down here bearable.”
Lyra turned and walked away from the glass window. She shut the door behind her and started cleaning up the mess Bon Bon—or Special Agent Sweetie Drops, depending on who you asked—had made. Her magic enveloped most of it and organized it into a nice, neat pile.
“Case in point,” Bon Bon said.
Lyra touched a hoof to the amulet around her neck. “That’s all well and good, but how long are we supposed to be down here? Didn’t they build it all up before we arrived? You haven’t fully explained your job down here.”
“My job is to both establish a roster of creatures that might be a threat to Equestria and the hippogriff kingdom, and finish assembling a neighboring habisphere.”
“At the same time? Why not send mechanics and engineers?”
“Because most mechanics and engineers don’t know how to fight as well as I do.”
Lyra grabbed Bon Bon’s face in concern. “Is there really going to be that much fighting?”
Bon Bon grabbed her partner’s hooves in her own and smiled reassuringly. “No, not at all. They only encountered one belligerent creature while making the first habisphere. They don’t expect anything else, but they sent me because it makes the brass feel good about themselves.”
“Okay, okay.” Lyra let her hooves drop. “I guess that’s fine. I’m just worried about what’s down here. It was hard enough getting into the water without coming this deep. Now that we’re down here… eugh.” She shivered. “It’s so dark!”
“At least you have your horn. I have to rely on things I can potentially drop that take up valuable hoof space.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to never leave me alone, won’t you?” Lyra said with a grin.
“Only when we’re building. I can study the local wildlife alone.”
“Why? Because it’s dangerous?’
“You know that’s precisely why.”
“I can help!”
“Oh, really? What about that adorable little octopus that swam by?”
“Adorable? It had hooks on its tentacles!”
“And that one glowing eel?”
“It had teeth the size of my horn!”
“And that crab just outside the habisphere?”
“What crab?”
Bon Bon pointed to the glass dome Lyra had been in. Through the sturdy window, legs twice as long as she was covered the glass as a giant crab crawled slowly over the habisphere. Lyra shivered as she looked, but she didn’t make a noise.
“You were brave coming down here, but I don’t need you to cause an disturbances while I’m studying them. Just leave them to me, okay?”
“Fine, fine. But everything else I’m coming with you!”
“I can agree to that.” Bon Bon hugged Lyra, and she hugged her back. They stayed like that a minute before Bon Bon let go. “Come on. Let’s get the rest of this stuff unpacked. This is supposed to last us the month, so let’s ration it out and make sure it will.”
“How exciting.”
“It’s necessary. It won’t take us very long,” said Bon Bon.
“Fine.”
They counted through it all. Bon Bon called out the list and Lyra checked it all off. With the arrangements being handled by Princess Twilight Sparkle, she had sent along an exhaustive list of everything they were expected to do while they were down here, and measurements that detailed how they were going to do it. Each item had a following check box, and they were ordered in the way the princess expected them to handle it all. It was a little boring, and a little grating. It was convenient, though, they had to admit.
When they finished, Lyra rolled up the scroll and tossed it back into the pile. The habisphere wasn’t very big, but the storeroom where they were now was packed full of crates and things, all slid in through a magic wall that only opened with one of the amulets. There was an exit that anypony could use if they didn’t have one, so that the seaponies could come and go if needed. It was set in one of the room off to the side in the floor. A big hole in the ground that led to the dark waters. Lyra hated that hole.
“So now what? Can we eat? I’m hungry.”
Bon Bon checked her waterproof watch. “Not yet. In an hour. We need to ration.”
“Ugh, fine. What else?”
(Dark waters)
“Now… we can read if that pleases you. I’m going to double-check a few things, but we’re free to get accustomed to the place. Find out where things are.”
“Well, alright. I’ll go take a look around. Maybe I’ll find something fun.”The two split up, with Bon Bon staying behind to go over some of their supplies, and Lyra investigating the rest of the habisphere.
It wasn’t large, by no means, but there was enough to accommodate six ponies, easily. Lyra and Bon Bon were going to be the first to live in it for any length of time, just to test it. The hippogriffs weren’t willing to hand out the necklaces for free. Two was all they got, so they needed to prove the place could hold and survive the rigors of the deep before they started transferring ponies down here without them.
Lyra walked through the living quarters. Six spheres built off a central sphere that housed entertainment, each one had the same dimensions and the same amenities. The entertainment area housed exercise equipment so they would have a good way to blow off steam while spending time locked up underwater. There were belts on the walls any pegasi could use to hold themselves still while they flew in place, stretching their wings, and the weights on the exercise machines went up high enough that even an earth pony would strain. Unicorns like herself could just use the weights to “stretch” their horns, as it were. It had everything they would need.
Lyra continued past the living quarters to the labs. There were three; one for biology, which could house any deep-sea creatures they might want to study (up to a certain size, of course), one for examining minerals and substances found in the deep, or extracted from the creatures, and one for any magical or theurgic studies of the strange essences deep underwater.
Past that, there was an engineering section, with a wide-open door at the bottom of a sloped incline that led out into the water. This was for building new habisphere parts and taking them out into the water. It served a functional purpose, and in general, anything that might swim into the wall and examine it wouldn’t be able to survive out of the water, but still, looking at that dark, yawning portal, with only two magic lights down on the ground underneath it made Lyra uncomfortable. She could imagine the strange animals swimming out there in the dark, and she didn’t like the thought. They were all teeth and danger. No beauty was allowed down here because it served no function.
As she hurried past, something glowing caught her eye. Swimming past the open doorway, Lyra stopped at the edge of the doorway and watched as something glowing in myriad colors idled along. In the lights outside, and the light cast by itself, she could see it was all feathered fins and strange lights. The lights were moving in a soothing pattern, and Lyra had to blink. She might have almost said it was hypnotic in a way, likely used to get the attention of prey.
That made her take a step further out the door. Only something that was confident in its ability to kill other things would advertise its presence so blatantly. She reminded herself of that fact as she watched it swim past, then unlatched the door and slipped through.
The doors were all hermetically sealed to prevent water getting into one from leaking to the next, and Lyra double-checked the one she’d just passed through to make sure it was latched and sealed shut. She wasn’t taking chances. She barely wanted to admit that thing that she’d just seen was beautiful. As she trotted away to the library, she reminded herself that everything down here was vicious.
Bon Bon, meanwhile, was checking the boxes for all the requested supplies, making sure there wasn’t a single thing missing. If she was going to build the barest basic habisphere, she needed specific parts. She double-checked the checklist twice, and somewhere, Twilight Sparkle was shedding a single unknown tear of happiness, she was sure. If the princess wanted this to work, she had damn well better hope she had everything in order. Unfortunately for her, it would appear they were missing something. A single crate of beams was nowhere to be found. Even after the double double-check, there was nothing. That was unfortunate.
Bon Bon sighed as Lyra walked back around the circle and through the doors. She was in time to hear the sigh.
“What’s up?” Lyra asked.
“We’re missing a crate.”
“What?”
“Yeah, one of the crates of support beams is missing Can only put up half the habisphere without them.”
“Well, that’s no good. What do we do?”
“Well, we have a month to wait before the next check-in. We can either leave and ask for another one, or we can check the ocean floor nearby, see if it was just lost in the shipping. Since we came straight down, I’d assume it’s either on the boat still, and they’ll be coming to us with it soon, or it’s on the seafloor somewhere nearby.”
Lyra looked wary. “So… you’re suggesting we should… go find it?”
“We may want to. We can assemble some of it, but we won’t be able to finish or get it in place without that last crate,” Bon Bon said.
Lyra sighed and flopped to the floor. “Damn. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to go out in the water so soon.” She tapped her necklace with a hoof, reassuring herself it was still there. “Did you want to go now?”
Bon Bon looked at Lyra and smiled. “We don’t have to go out there immediately. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Ugh. Let’s just get it over with sooner rather than later. I don’t want to have to agonize over it for long.”
“I find that’s usually best. Come on.” Bon Bon walked over to the magic wall keeping the water at bay. She held up her necklace and grinned at Lyra, who followed her. The two of them looked out into the dark waters beyond and Lyra took a deep breath. “You ready?” Bon Bon asked.
Lyra held up her own necklace and shivered. “As ready as I’m gonna be. Let’s just do this, get it over with, and come back so I can look at what terrible books Twilight saw fit to fill the library with.”
“Then let’s go.” Bon Bon held up her necklace, then touched it to her flank. Her body shimmered and her back half changed into that of a seapony. Her rear lowered to the ground and she flopped over to the water and dove on it. She floated outside in the dark, waiting for Lyra.
Lyra touched hers to her back half and dove into the water, not waiting for the transformation to complete. She closed her eyes as the abyss closed over her head and held her breath until she felt her gills working against her will. She opened her eyes when bon Bon grabbed her hoof and sighed.
“Where are we looking?” She lit her horn and illuminated a wide area around them. The light didn’t penetrate far, but it was enough to make her slightly more comfortable.
“They dropped everything off just in front of the habisphere, but if anything went amiss, one of the crates would have been swept a little bit with the current. The currents in this part of the ocean flow south, so we’re going to check just a little bit south.” Bon Bon pulled a compass out of her saddlebag and turned until she was facing south. She tugged Lyra along, who stayed as close as possible while they swam through the darkened waters.
They swam close to the seafloor, but not too close. Bon Bon knew some creatures lived in the sand at the bottom and wasn’t willing to take the chance with Lyra that something might jump out from below and cause her a fright. Nothing came, however, and they swam in silence, only the distant sounds of sea vents and other strange things hitting their ears through the water.
“I think, if something fell and we didn’t get a report of it, or if the water pushed it off course, it should have ended up over here. Unless, of course, the currents changed. We’re not going to go far, we’re just going to make a quick circuit, then we’ll head back. Maybe come out again later.”
“Okay.” Lyra wasn’t comfortable, but she kept the light going and held on tight to Bon Bon.
They swept around in a quick circuit, but after all that, all they found was a lot of sand and a fallen whale’s clean-picked corpse. There were some rocky hills off to one side, but Bon Bon didn’t take them outside their predetermined course. When they found nothing, she just made a note of them and turned around to head back.
When they got back, Bon Bon shook her head sadly, then rapidly shook herself to dry off. Her back half changed back to a pony and she sighed. Lyra dove in, scrambled further away from the door, then shook herself. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sorry we didn’t find the crate, Bon Bon, but I’m glad we’re done.”
“Ah, well. We’ll find it later. Not like anything down here is going to eat it, and it’s waterproof. It’ll last for a week or two. We can go look later, after we’ve eaten and had time to relax.”
“Yes, please. I’m gonna go sit and look at the books after I dry off. I need someplace with no windows and a touch of surface, even if it’s a book about the ocean.”
“Hah! That’s fine, Lyra. Thanks for humoring me. I’ll bring in the rations in a bit.”
“Thanks, Bon Bon.”
The two of them touched noses and Lyra disappeared into the halls. She was trotting a little faster than normal, but after being out in the pitch-black abyss, all she wanted was to hide and feel like she was back in Ponyville. She hurried to the bathroom, rinsed off and dried herself, then rushed back to the study.
The room was lit with lamps like Ponyville, and it had no windows. Thankfully the creators of the hab had decided they, too, would like someplace where they didn’t have to look at the darkness surrounding them at all times. She thanked her lucky stars, curled up on the couch and pulled a book out of the bookshelf nearby at random, hoping it was good.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. After about five minutes of reading, it was clear this book was another long, drawn-out treatise on something called “electricity” some pony from a few years back had written about. Lyra had heard of it, but why would you rely on some external power source when you could just use magic? It seemed dumb. She put the book aside and waited for Bon Bon.
Bon Bon came in soon after bearing a small plate of food and a package. She sat next to Lyra and they ate happily and quietly. Bon Bon finished first and looked at the book.
“Anything interesting?”
“No. Something about electricity. I don’t know anything about it, but why would the princess think anypony would want to read it about while down here in the ocean?”
“Well, she is a princess. Who knows what goes on in their heads. I didn’t even understand Twilight before she got her wings. Now she’s even worse.”
“Yeah, who knows.” Lyra chewed her food slowly and leaned on Bon Bon. “At least we get all this alone time.”
Bon Bon rubbed a hoof in Lyra’s mane and kissed her on the cheek. “Not too much. There’s work to be done, remember?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. I just got done outside in a pitch-black abyss. At least let me have a few minutes.”
“Of course. We’ve earned it.” Bon Bon leaned back and let Lyra rest. Her hoof had ruffled the mare’s hair and it stuck up in places. She smoothed it out, then reached over and picked up the package. She held it out to Lyra, who took it and sat up, confused.
“Is this what I think it might be?”
Bon Bon nodded. “I thought the dismal darkness could do with a little bit of music from my very own siren, don’t you?” Bon Bon smiled innocently.
Lyra tore into the oiled paper. When it came away it revealed a brand-new lyre, made in the traditional manner out of a tortoiseshell, with seven strings. She gasped at the sight and lightly ran a bit of magic across the strings. It was slightly out of tune, but she could fix that easily enough. She turned to Bon Bon and leaned up to rub her nose on the mare’s cheek.
“This must have been expensive! Where did you get it?”
Bon Bon looked sheepish. “Admittedly, it wasn’t. I got it for free from somepony I helped a few weeks ago. I was going to give it to you sooner, but when I got permission to bring you down here I thought I would present it to you as a thank you, and apology at the same time.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts. This is a well-made chelys, no matter how you got it.”
“I thought we could use some music down here, and I know you didn’t want to bring your other lyre, for fear of losing it, so I brought one for you. Special shipping of course. I’m just glad it didn’t end up in the lost crate.”
“Yeah, we’re still going to have to find that, aren’t we?”
“Eventually, but not right now. Play me something, would you?”
“Of course.”
Lyra took a moment to tune the instrument, strumming each string in turn and adjusting the strings accordingly. Bon Bon sat in silence, looking at the titles of the books next to their seat while Lyra occupied herself. When she finally had the instrument tuned properly, she rand her magic across the strings and began a song. The music wafted through the room, bouncing off the walls in a pleasant, echoing tune.
Lyra lost herself in the music, able to forget that she was deep under the ocean in a part of the land outside Equestria. All her worries and cares disappeared one after the other as she played a song about the rolling fields of their homeland. She sang along, voice quiet and soft as to not take away from the music itself. She recited it like poetry as she played, her voice lilting up and down with the music. Bon Bon closed her eyes and listened like she always did; with rapt appreciation. When Lyra finally stopped playing, she clapped her hooves.
“Thank you, Lyra. Lovely, as always.”
“Hah. Thanks, Bon Bon. The acoustics of the room do me no favors, but if I play quiet enough, it’s not so bad.”
“I don’t think these rooms were built with an orchestra in mind. You’ll just have to make do.”
“I know. But thank you again, Bon Bon. For a little while I was able to forget where I was. It helps a lot. This will help a lot.”
“You’re welcome. But as much as I hate to ruin it, we’re going to have to go unpack some more. Think you can stare at the dark water a bit?”
“Yeah, now I can.”
“Then come on.” Bon Bon stood up and Lyra followed. They returned to the shipping room where all the crates and boxes waited for them. Bon Bon went to one and started pulling out the pieces of the next habisphere, and Lyra dragged them with her magic to the assembly room. The gaping holes into the ocean stared at her, cold air wafting off the water and through the magic field to chill the air. She shivered, and she wasn’t ever sure if it was the air, or the water. She didn’t really care which. She misliked them both.
After they had moved some things and unpacked more, Bon Bon decided it was time for them to head to bed. There were clocks everywhere throughout the habisphere, and Bon Bon kept very strict track of the time. For Lyra, this was pretty normal. There were always periods where Bon Bon would get a lot more strict about time and the keeping of it. Now that she knew what Bon Bon did for work, she understood it a lot better, but it was still strange to be there for it when it happened. She knew she was just trying to keep her superiors happy, but going to bed at 9:00pm? Lyra usually wasn’t usually required to join her, and only did so for intimacy. Today, she found herself lying awake in bed with Bon Bon next to her.
Bon Bon was asleep, as soundly as could be. Lyra looked at her in the darkness, unable to see many of her features in the near pitch blackness. They had minor lights to provide a simulation of starlight, but it was still dark. She didn’t, however, light her horn as she slipped out of bed, until she was out of the room and in the hall with the door shut behind her.
Lyra trotted slowly down the halls, passing by windows looking out into darkness. She studiously avoided looking at them as she went. She opened the door to the library and shut it quickly behind her. She trotted over to the seat where she and Bon Bon had eaten supper, and picked up her new lyre. In this strange place, the instrument was comforting. Like a piece of home that made her feel at ease. She picked it up and strummed a few notes, closing her eyes with a sigh.
She played, then. The music lilting away from her was calming. She sang sweetly along with it, letting the sounds fill the room until the creaking and straining of the habisphere were drowned out. She trusted the building, and even if it broke, they had the necklaces to allow them to survive. It was the anonymous darkness outside that scared her.
While she sang, Lyra heard another sound creep into her music. At first it wasn’t very loud, but the longer she sang, the louder it became. It didn’t ruin the song, in fact, it improved it, but it didn’t sound like her voice. Had she woken Bon Bon?
She stopped suddenly, pressing her magic against the strings to stop them. The sound stopped as well.
“Bon Bon? Did I wake you?” Lyra asked. There was no response.
Lyra put it up to her own fear of the darkness and ocean and plucked at her lyre once more. She sang along, and it wasn’t long before she heard the same strange voice singing along with her. She stopped again, and the voice stopped, when she started, the voice started, without fail every time.
Lyra stood and walked around with her lyre, playing her song the whole while. She heard the voice singing along, and wondered if it was perhaps the acoustics, so she left the room, moving down the hallways of the habisphere. She went into the storage room and listened while she played and heard the voice even louder. She stopped without warning, pressing the strings to halt their strum, and listened. The echo of the extra voice came from the water nearby.
Lyra felt a chill, and not from the cold.
“Hello?” she said into the darkness.
A whisper answered her. “Hello?”
Still trying to convince herself it wasn’t an echo, Lyra plucked a few strings and sang a few notes. When she heard the voice singing along with hers, she stopped singing, but kept strumming. The voice continued without her.
It was beautiful. Hauntingly so. Without her voice to cover it up, she could hear it singing, wordlessly, but utterly on key and on time. It was a high alto, rich, but filled with feminine beauty. It knew where she was going with her music, and while at first it followed her, eventually it was leading her along, taking her lyre with it as it sang up and down. Lyra continued, despite her misgivings. She wanted to believe something so beautiful could only be good, but with the darkness waiting just outside the magical gate of the storage room, her fear got the better of her. Eventually she stopped, and the voice stopped soon after.
“Why?” the faint voice asked.
“I… I’m scared,” Lyra managed to answer. Her eyes were locked on the dark gateway.
“More,” the voice said. Lyra shook her head. “Please?”
Lyra watched the darkness. The lights outside were magical and secure. They likely wouldn’t go out anytime soon, if at all. If they remained unbroken, magical lights could continue for years. The immediate area outside the gateway was well-lit, and there was nothing outside. She should have been fine.
“Please?” Something moved just outside the gate, beyond the limits of the light. She only caught a glimpse of it, but Lyra immediately jumped in panic. She dropped her lyre and ran, slamming open the door to the hall and tearing down it. She slowed as she reached the bedroom, and shakily trotted up to the bed. She slipped in next to Bon Bon and pulled the blankets up. She tried to forget.
The next morning was difficult for Lyra. Bon Bon woke her up when she shifted out of bed. Lyra jumped in alarm and rolled out of bed herself, startling Bon Bon.
“Geeze! Good morning to you, too, Lyra!” Bon Bon said.
Lyra looked around, confirming that things were normal and safe, and that she was in the bedroom with Bon Bon. “Sorry… I didn’t sleep too well last night.”
“Being in the deep sea’s getting to you, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess. I knew it would.”
Bon Bon looked at her with concern. “You didn’t have to come. You can leave if you want.”
“No!” She said vehemently. “I’m fine staying! I want to stay. It’s just going to be tough to get used to. I just need time.”
“Okay. I understand. We’ll take it slow, but let me know if it ever becomes too much for you, okay?”
“Okay…”
“Now, let’s get breakfast and get assembling! We won’t go outside today, just to make it easier on you.”
“Alright. Thank you, Bon Bon.”
Bon Bon trotted over and rubbed her nose on Lyra’s. “Anything for my little sweet.” Lyra laughed and pushed her away, and the two went out to the assembly room.
They worked hard. Lyra spent her time in the room following the instructions to piece together the pre-assembed chunks of the habisphere. She knew it was just supposed to be a basic starting room and they would replace it with a better one later, but she worried that her work wouldn’t be good enough. She painstakingly checked each piece she fitted to each other piece to make sure the rubber was in the right spot, the screws were tight, and everything else was neat, tidy, and functional. The further she got into it, the more convinced she was she had ruined it, but Bon Bon reassured her she was doing just fine.
Breakfast was simple and almost tasteless. It consisted of granola bars with some oats and processed wheat chunks. Also tasteless, but filling at least. She hadn’t expected gourmet meals, but she had hoped for some flavor. Still, she ate, and worked, and the day went by. When they had done enough, as judged by Bon Bon, they retired to the entertainment room and relaxed after supper, with Lyra playing her lyre for Bon Bon again.
“I found your lyre in the storage room, today.” Bon Bon said. Lyra froze in her playing. “I didn’t want to bother you about it during the day, but did something happen last night?”
“Oh… I… couldn’t sleep. I thought a little walk and some music might help. I guess I left it in there when I was done.”
“It was just laying in the middle of the floor, though. Do you really not want to talk about it?”
Lyra sighed. She didn’t know how much she could tell Bon Bon without making her worry, but she knew keeping it a secret was doing her no favors. “I… thought I heard something.”
“In the storage room?”
“Well, I was in there when I heard it. A singing voice, singing along with my music.”
Bon Bon pursed her lips in thought. “Could have been a siren. Strange that you should hear it even inside. The thing would have to have been inside to hear its voice, right?”
“I… don’t know? I don’t know how sirens work.”
Bon Bon stood up suddenly. “Come on. For safety’s sake, I want to make a run-through of the facility before we go to sleep. We don’t need to take chances.
Lyra put down her lyre and followed. Bon Bon was intense sometimes, but she knew her stuff. She could fight off a bugbear, beat up a timberwolf, and subdue a cragadile. She was tough, and if she was worried about sirens, it was a good idea to let her be worried about sirens.
The two of them wandered from room to room. Bon Bon checked the barriers in the storage room and assembly room. She studied the seals between the doors, making sure they were watertight. She checked the locks, checked the handles, and checked the handles in the door to seal them against water. When they were done, they had found nothing out of the ordinary. The only water on the floor was spread by themselves the other day when they had come in from outside. The bathroom was wet, but that was to be expected. They bathed in there. There was no signs of anything else having come into the habisphere. They were alone. As alone as they could be, isolated deep down underwater with curious creatures swimming about.
“I don’t know what you might have heard, but it sounded like a siren. If it was a siren, then we need to worry, but it’s not inside the habisphere. Only those with a necklace or accompanied by one should be able to get through, but it still worries me. I wonder what it was you heard and how you heard it.”
Lyra shrugged. “I don’t know, but it didn’t do anything. It just wanted me to keep playing.”
Bon Bon nodded as if that made perfect sense. “That does sound right for a siren. I just wonder where it came from. Tomorrow I’ll go have a look around. We don’t need that kind of strange magic affecting us while we’re trying to work.”
When they went to bed, Lyra once again lay awake, though not for lack of exhaustion. She was tired. She and Bon Bon had been working all day, and her exhaustion was expected. No, this time she was lying awake in bed out of worry about the supposed “siren” she had heard. With how nervous she was, she wanted to play her lyre for comfort, but now she couldn’t even have that without worrying about whether she would hear some strange voice talking to her. She stared over at the door for a while, then made up her mind.
Lyra crawled carefully out of bed and trotted purposefully down the hall to the entertainment room. There was no window, but it felt like there were eyes on her just the same. From Bon Bon’s earlier concern, she almost believed somepony was in the room with her, but she was reassured by the magic barriers only allowing ponies wearing the necklace inside. They could stare through it, but nothing and nopony could enter without the necklace.
Lyra played, softly at first, but as she played and heard nothing, she was reassured by the silence. Once she began singing, she heard it, and she stopped immediately. The voice was back. She took her lyre and went back to the bedroom. She set it down next to the bed, crawled back under the covers, and covered her head with the blankets. Bon Bon’s smell helped her fall asleep as she hid and waited for her to wake up.
In the morning. Lyra stuck with Bon Bon as they got breakfast and checked the facilities. Everything was functioning the way it was supposed to, everything was where they had left it, and a quick run through the place found nopony in the building save themselves.
“I’m going to go check around the hab for any signs of sirens,” Bon Bon said. “Do you want to come with me?”
Lyra stopped chewing and looked at Bon Bon. She turned to look at the door out of the entertainment room. They’d taken to eating in there for every meal so Lyra wouldn’t have to be reminded of the yawning darkness staring at her while she ate. She had to deal with it when she was working and that was bad enough. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered coming down here. She hated it. Still, she wanted to help.
Lyra took a deep breath, chewed, swallowed and nodded. “Yes, I’ll come. I can’t hide in here the whole time. This way you’ll have both hooves free.”
Bon Bon hugged her tight. “Thanks, Lyra. It means a lot that you’re standing up to your fear of the ocean. Just stick with me. We’re going to look, not touch.”
“Okay.”
Once they’d finished eating and gone to the wall in the storage room, they tapped themselves with their necklaces and hopped outside. The cold water closed over them, mitigated only somewhat by their seapony forms. They floated for a moment, adjusting to the new sensations and breathing through gills, then Bon Bon took Lyra’s hoof.
“Okay, quick circuit around the hab, with light on every nook and cranny you can see. Look for anything strange and listen for anything strange. Silence at all times. We’re listening for music, even if it’s bad music.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be bad music. Her… it? Its voice was beautiful.”
“That’s how sirens get you. They sound good, but without magic they can’t sing. Not like us, anyway. It’s terrible music, but magic makes it sound like it’s good.”
“Okay, I get it. Any music out of place.”
Bon Bon nodded fiercely, grabbed Lyra’s hoof tight, and swam. They went around the hab, swimming close to the ocean floor. They investigated coral formations, rocks, underwater caves (those were terrifying, especially after Bon Bon explained that sometimes eels lived in those caves and would jump out at anything that got close. Lyra had refused to go close to any others, even after Bon Bon explained this one wasn’t full of an eel because of sand or something. Lyra wasn’t interested in hearing it. The mere thought of something living inside the cave had her terrified.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll check it out. Just stay some distance away and point the light inside, okay?”
“That I can do.” Lyra stayed a healthy distance away from the hole and turned her horn light to the cave. It spilled inside and Bon Bon swam in after it. There was no eel that Lyra could see, but her light would only go so far. She had to hope Bon Bon didn’t get herself in too deep. In addition, she was waiting outside the cave in the dark. No matter what she did she was uncomfortable. It was a losing game down here.
While she waited, Lyra listened in silence to the sounds of things swimming about in the dark. Some distant rumble of volcanic activity. Some deep, mournful warbling of a whale. The shuffling of other things moving about on many legs or just a few, and some… voice?
The faintest sound of singing reached her ears. It was coming from all around her, enveloping her. “Play for us.” It begged. She couldn’t, because she didn’t have her lyre, but the voices kept begging, asking for music. For lovely, lovely music.
Lyra wasn’t interested in playing music for the voices. Not out here where she might draw them closer. She’d seen something moving near the habisphere when she had played the last time, and although she couldn’t confirm that what had moved was the source of the voice, she was worried.
“Bon bon?” Lyra asked quietly. Too quietly to be heard. She got no answer.
The voices continued pestering her, begging and pleading for more music. “Show us your instrument!” “Teach us!” “Give us more!” “Please!” “Please!” “Please!!”
“Aaaaaaah!” Lyra screamed, clutching at her head. Bon Bon came racing out of the cave at the sound, but there was nopony there but Lyra, screaming and grabbing her head in her hooves. She grabbed hold of the mare and tried to comfort her, but Lyra was panicked as the voices assaulted her ears. Her horn light went out.
When Next Lyra opened her eyes, she was back in the hab in bed. Bon Bon was sitting next to her, calmly reading a book. When Lyra shifted, Bon Bon immediately put the book down and turned her attention to Lyra.
“Good morning, sunshine. How are you feeling?”
“Fine, I guess. I’m fine. Just fine.” She wasn’t really fine, but she didn’t want to worry Bon Bon anymore than she already had. Her head was spinning, and she felt like there was something pressing against her skull. Some insistent pressure, not painful, but worrisome. Like something was trying to get in.
“You’re clearly not fine. Can you tell me what happened?”
“It was the voices again. A bunch of them this time. They wanted me to play music for them, and they were insistent. I told them I didn’t want to, but they kept begging and begging and begging.” She said. “Then I woke up here.”
Bon Bon nodded again as if it all made sense. “Okay, well, we know what’s out there. There’s multiple sirens, and I was sent to take care of stuff like that. They haven’t contacted me, so it must be your music drawing them to you. I don’t want to hurt them if I don’t have to, but we can’t have them causing trouble.” She looked at Lyra intensely, brow furrowed. “What are you thinking about right now?”
Lyra was surprised by the question, but she took a moment to reflect. She found that she was thinking about her lyre, the instrument popping in and out of her thoughts as she sat in bed. Her desire to play, while normally high enough, was the pressure she was feeling. It was intrusive, as though she needed to play it and sing. “Music?” she said, unsure.
Bon Bon nodded yet again as though it made sense. “Okay, I know this is going to sound a little weird, and maybe frightening, but can I have your necklace?”
Lyra was shocked. “What?”
“I need your necklace so you can’t leave the hab. The sirens are after you, and if they get into your head, you’ll head out into the ocean. Without the necklace, you can’t leave without me. Please?”
Lyra clutched at her necklace. If she took it off, she’d be trapped down here. If anything went wrong, she’d be stuck, dependent entirely on magic and Bon Bon. But…
She did trust Bon Bon. She trusted her with her life, and Bon Bon knew about monsters. If the sirens were after her, keeping her in a prison of some kind was the best way to ensure she would be safe until Bon Bon could take care of them. She slowly pulled it off.
“Okay, but you gotta promise you’ll get rid of them!”
“You know I will. I’m just concerned about your safety right now. I need to know you’re safe while I do so.”
“I know. I’ll be fine. I’m stuck here now, right?” Lyra held out the necklace and Bon Bon took it. She stowed it in her bags and stepped back.
“My first priority is making sure you’re safe. The assembly of the hab can wait. You wait here and I’ll go take care of them, okay?’
“Okay. I trust you. Be safe, okay?”
“You know I’m as safe as I can be.”
“I know.” Lyra leaned out of bed and Bon Bon leaned closer. They touched noses, wiggled, then Bon Bon pulled away.
Bon Bon left the room, and Lyra listened to her hooves disappear down the halls. Then she was alone. Again. With nothing but her thoughts, and that pressure from the voices to play music.
The first thing Lyra did was get out of bed, grab the lyre Bon Bon gave her, and lock it in a locker. She grabbed one of the padlocks that was unused and slapped it on in an attempt to protect it. The passcode was still hidden somewhere, but she didn’t’ know it off the top of her head, and she didn’t know where the codes were kept. Bon Bon handled most of those, Lyra just did as she was told. Before coming here she knew nothing about building a habisphere, and so she’d defer.
With her lyre locked away, Lyra had nothing to do. She was worried she’d get idle, so she tried to read some of the books in the library, but they were all terrible. She busied herself trying to build some of the hab, but she didn’t really know what she was doing. She was bored very quickly.
Desperate for some entertainment but not willing to try and unlock the locker with her lyre in it, Lyra instead began singing. It was quiet and wasn’t a particular song, but she hummed along a little tune and sang about how annoying it was to have to be down in the hab without a necklace and without her usual entertainment.
“This song’s about the worstest thing, requiring me to only sing, instead of play my lyre sweet, I hope those sirens can be beat!” she sang. She giggled at the end, amused by her own cleverness. She continued to hum and sing as she went into the exercise room. She started working out, grunting while she sang in an effort to keep her mind and body busy.
It wasn’t enough. Even breathing hard between verses of her new song she was going to call “Stupid Sirens Ruined my Vacation” she couldn’t stop herself from being bored. Now she was just bored and tired. She showered, granting herself a brief reprieve from thinking about the sirens and her boredom, but when she was done, all that was left was eating, which Bon Bon wouldn’t be happy she’d done, and thinking about how bored she was.
So Lyra sang more. Eventually she got so into it she started singing louder, and louder, until she was belting out her song alone, having forgotten why she had been so quiet in the first place. She got a rude reminder when she heard the voices singing along with her. She stopped, fearful, but the voices kept singing. They began making up their own lyrics to her song, adding to the verses she’d already made.
“The ponies won’t party with us, they hang out inside their big bubble! What they don’t realize is the fuss, when they came here both looking for trouble!”
“I didn’t say I wanted trouble. You’re the ones who tried to make me play music!”
The dull thump of something hitting the hab echoed through the halls. Lyra didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t strong enough to damage the building. It was just the sound of someone or something swimming into it.
Was it Bon Bon? Were the sirens throwing her into it? Was she chasing something? Was it the sirens themselves, congregating around the outside of the hab? Surely Bon Bon would find them and stop them if they had come so close.
The thumping moved down the side of the building. It bounced along the outside of the hab, thumping down, down, down to the magic wall blocking the assembly room, then it stopped.
Had it gotten inside? Bon Bon and the sea ponies insisted that only a pony with the necklace could get through the door. They needed to be accompanied by somepony with one, or they had to have one themselves.
What if Bon Bon had been killed! What if they’d caught her, and had taken her necklace?! Worse yet, that meant Lyra’s necklace was gone! What if she was stuck down here alone, trapped for weeks in the dark until they sent some other ponies down to see how things were going? What if Lyra was alone in the dark in the water at the bottom of the sea by herself for a whole month!
Lyra saw spots and realized she was hyperventilating. She had to calm down. The worst-case scenario hadn’t happened. Bon Bon was the best agent S.M.I.L.E. had. There was a reason she had been sent. She was fine. She was perfectly fine.
Lyra slowly calmed down. The thumping had stopped, and the voices were quiet. They couldn’t get in without a necklace, and Bon Bon was the best agent ever. There was no way something had gotten—there was a thump in the hall—in.
Lyra slowly turned her head, the chills and hyperventilating were back. Something had moved, and it hadn’t been her. Was Bon Bon back?
Lyra walked slowly to the door of the entertainment room. She put her ear to the door and listened. The thump had come from the hall, but there had only been one. It wasn’t the same as the wet thumps from outside, slapping against the hab. This was a clatter and a bump, like something had been spilled. There were plenty of boxes out there to spill, but Bon Bon surely wouldn’t have been that quiet. She would have announced her presence. They knew each other too well.
When Lyra heard nothing, she cracked the door open. She peered out into the lit hall. The lights followed the sun on the surface, so they knew when it was daylight and when it wasn’t. It was well-lit right now, but in the hall, Lyra saw nothing. There was no upturned box or crate or other item. Nothing to indicate something had simply fallen. Likewise, there was nopony in the hall, so nopony was here.
Unless they had gone around the hab the other direction. If they wanted to distract her and sneak up behind!
Lyra spun around, looking over at the other door. She waited, but there was no sound, and the door didn’t open. She turned back to the door she had cracked open, and was met with a garish, toothy face with an ear-splittingly wide smile grinning at her. A light dangled off its forehead, and it was baring its teeth! She screamed and fell over, smacking her head on the floor. Everything went dark.
Lyra heard something sweet and melodic. She listened with rapt attention as it wafted through the air to her ears. She heard the sound of the ocean and a sweet voice graced her ears as she lay in… something? It wasn’t an uncomfortable something, but it felt fluid, like it was moving in place. It was warm, and comforting in a strange way. She lay in it and allowed it to carry her along, until she bumped into something. Lyra opened her eyes and saw the toothy face looking down at her, and she jumped in surprise.
When Lyra pulled herself to her hooves, there was nothing there.
No warm water greeted her, no strange, toothy creature, no nothing. She was alone, like before, in a hallway of the habisphere.
She touched a hoof to her head. She felt a bump and winced. She’d smacked her head on the floor harder than she thought. Then she remembered the face she’d seen. She looked back at the half-open door and saw nothing. No face, no signs of wetness, nothing. Lyra sighed in frustration and concern. What time was it? The lights were still on, but Bon Bon was nowhere to be found. A quick circuit of the hab revealed nothing was out of the ordinary still, and Lyra was alone.
A thumping came down the hall behind her. The door back down the hall shook with the sound, and squeaked as it opened. A rush of ocean water poured in and Lyra shrieked and covered her eyes… but nothing touched her. She opened her eyes to see the door shut, with no water coming in. She breathed and tried to calm down.
“Bon Bon! Come back! Something’s happening! They’re here!” Lyra shrieked. Only the cold walls of the hab spoke back, echoing her words and muffling them with thousands of tonnes of seawater pressing in on all sides.
The thought of all that around her, combined with the darkness and the voices, had Lyra’s breathing shoot up to hyperventilation almost immediately. Spots filled her vision as she tried to calm down, but she could hear banging from all sides, voices from all around, and through it all, a faint voice singing, singing, singing. Lyra pushed her back up against a wall and tried to calm down. She needed something to help occupy her mind. She needed a distraction.
She needed her music.
Lyra crept her way back through the hab, the sounds beating down on her from all sides. She needed to drown them out with something else. Something musical. Something better. If she could get rid of the sounds coming at her from all sides, she would be fine. The whispering voice behind it all would be drowned out by the music and she could stop listening to it. The sirens would leave her be if she could please them. Please them and get them to stop. At least provide a distraction until Bon Bon could stop them. Something, ANYTHING, would be better than listening to all this banging and clanging and shouting and bashing. And then the visions would go away! The water would stop trying to flood the hab, and the doors would stop opening. She had bashed her head on three doors while trying to get through the hab because the voices had convinced her the doors were open and leaking. She wasn’t sure what was what anymore.
Lyra groped at the locker with her magic. She yanked and pulled, but the lock wasn’t breaking. Her Lyre was inside and she needed it! She needed it to get them to stop! She punched it, kicked it, bashed at it with her hooves and head, but she couldn’t get it open! She ran for the office where the codes and keys were kept.
She tore through the cupboards and shelves. She ripped open the desks and scrabbled through the contents, all the while screeching about how much she needed some different sound.
“I need to hear anything else! ANYTHING ELSE! You can have your music, just stop! Please stop! Leave me alone!”
Lyra was so involved in her search she didn’t at first see Bon Bon come on. “Lyra? I heard something and I came to make sure you were okay… what are you doing? Are you alright?”
Lyra looked up at Bon Bon, panic in her eyes. “I need my lyre! I locked it up so they’d leave me alone, but now they’re just louder! I need it! I need to make them stop! Help me find the key!”
Bon Bon came over and tried to hug Lyra, but she pushed her away. “No! I can still hear it! It’s whispering. The water’s been coming in for hours but it hasn’t gotten any deeper… the sounds… they’re pounding on the hab. They can’t get through, but they’re still pounding on it, trying to get in. If I play for them, maybe they’ll leave.”
“Lyra, you’re not okay. Come on, you need to calm down. Stop… stop messing up the desks! Please! Come sit down, tell me what’s going on, I’ll help, okay?” Bon Bon grabbed Lyra tight. She struggled at first, but she stopped and calmed down, though her ears were still flat against her head.
“Okay… okay…”
They talked about what she had heard. Lyra told Bon Bon what she’d seen, what she’d heard, and everything that had happened. She told Bon Bon about the toothy visage that had appeared during the sounds, and Bon Bon accepted that to be the vision of one of the Sirens.
“It’s probably the leader, if they have one. The siren of the deep sea.”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t say anything. It just looks at me and smiles while the water’s rising…” Lyra mumbled.
“How… how deep is the water right now?” Bon Bon asked.
Lyra looked down, head swaying. “It’s at my knees. It’s not cold… it’s actually rather warm. Comforting, even.” Lyra leaned on Bon Bon, putting all her weight on the earth pony mare. Bon Bon hefted her up and draped her over her back. She carried Lyra back to the bedroom and tucked her in. The unicorn was exhausted, but despite her apparent weakness she still struggled while Bon Bon tried to put the blankets over her. She complained about the noise, the water, and the hooves touching her. It took some time, but she eventually settled down and fell asleep, with Bon Bon brushing her mane.
When she had settled, Bon Bon left her. She shut the door to the room and lamented the lack of locks, but she had to accept it. Locks on an underwater habisphere were senseless at best, and deadly at worst. While you wanted the doors sealed, you didn’t want them to prevent ponies from getting place to place. The magic should have been enough security, even with sirens and seaponies all around. She just had to be better at hunting down anything dangerous. For Lyra’s sake.
Bon Bon crept back to the magic wall in the storage room. It shimmered at the back, locking out the seawater. The floor was still wet from her entering and changing from seapony to pony, but there was only the one set of tracks. Nothing else marred the floor with its trail, and no water entered the room in even a trickle. Whatever was affecting Lyra, it was doing it from outside, and she’d have to take the battle to it. She sighed, touched her flank with the necklace, and jumped in.
The dark waters were cold at first, but the further she changed, the easier it became to handle. She struggled while the changes finalized, then her hind became fins and she propelled herself easily through the dark ocean. She held a lantern clasped tightly in her teeth, the light not nearly as effective as Lyra’s horn, but she had to make do. She swam, ears pricked to pick up the slightest noise as she made yet again another circuit of the habisphere. She’d done this several times throughout the day already, but there had been no signs of ne’er-do-wells or monsters anywhere to be found. The ability of everything down here to float made tracks impossible to find, and without a nose or mouth that could smell or taste the trails of any creatures, she was running on sight alone.
When another circuit raised no alarms, she decided to follow the outside shell of the hab. She swam up and down, flipping her tail as she went around the spheres, hunting for anything out there. She started low on each spherical room and worked her way slowly up, and up, and up in a circular pattern. The first few revealed nothing, but the sphere of the entertainment room, much to her surprise, had a trail of slime on it!
Bon Bon reached out and touched it with a hoof. It was viscous and slightly sticky; unusual for underwater, but not super rare. Many sea slugs and bottom-feeders were known to use it as a form of self-defense, or to create nests in sand. Bon Bon didn’t know all the creatures that would do such a thing, and certainly didn’t know if sirens were known to do it, but it was something, and she had nothing else to go on, so she followed it.
The trail led down off the hab and into the sand. It disappeared, seemingly invisible, which would have been why she couldn’t find it before, but a quick touch of her hoof to the sand and she found where it was all clumped together. Other small creatures were there, feeding on it, which she found disgusting, but it was the ocean. Anything could be food. She kept a hoof on the sticky trail and swam into the wilderness, passing over sand, crabs, starfish, and up and down craggy portions of the ocean. She kept an eye on her compass as she went, until she found herself near a dark, craggy bit of rock and reef. Her pitiful lantern made an attempt to dispel the black, but its efforts were weak and hopeless. Her ears were tuned and she listened for the sound of swimming. She tried to appear tough for Lyra’s sake, but Bon Bon had to admit that even she was frightened by the dark of the ocean. Even moreso now that she was here, at the edge of visible and safe sandy landscape, looking into a craggy cave that could be filled with any number of ocean creatures. She was afraid, but for Lyra’s sake, she swam forward.
Inside the darkness, there was a rushing sound. It was like the sound of a waterfall hidden deep under the ocean, pushing at her ears and invading her space. It got louder the deeper she went inside, the light pushing back the darkness bit by bit. She watched to all sides, keeping an eye on the walls of the hole for any branching paths that might be used to attack her. When every direction was dangerous, Bon Bon had to watch every direction.
Inside the hole, Bon Bon felt the water around her tug on her. It was a light, but insistent pulling, like there was a current. This deep underwater, Bon Bon knew it had to be volcanic activity. The magma would heat the water, causing it to rise, which would pull water in, but the water didn’t feel warm, and she couldn’t see any light. She followed the current, tracing its trail to where it might be coming from. She came to an open space and followed it (quickly) to another hole. She kept careful track where she was going, but her first goal was to ensure Lyra’s safety. She would worry about getting out when she’d dealt with the slime-creature.
She thought it might go on for some time, digging deeper into the reef and rocks, but Bon Bon eventually came to the end of a path and heard singing. She was immediately wary, and pulled out her earplug, but she didn’t feel any different. She got the feeling the singing wasn’t for her, but for Lyra. She swam closer, peering around the reef to find the creature, and saw what she could only describe as “horrible”.
It was a siren, of that she was sure, but this deep-sea siren was unlike the ones she’d heard about and seen picture of further above. It was slug-like, that was her first thought. The trail of slime she had followed came from the creatures disgusting lower body It had no shell, just an amorphous mass as its lower self. It’s limbs were fins it used to hold itself mostly upright, and its head was that of an anglerfish, all teeth and mouth, with a little lamp dangling in front of its face.
The water around was warm, Bon Bon noticed. There was light coming from one side of the room the siren was in, so she assumed that was where the magma was hidden. Her own lantern didn’t make much of an impression on it, but she kept it hidden and covered anyway. She was going to have to fight this thing, and she couldn’t risk losing it. She needed to make it back to Lyra safely. Was there more than one, though, she wondered?
As if to answer her question, something heavy landed on her back. She was pushed down to the ground and felt something stick to her fin. She turned and swung at it, and her hoof struck the glowing light of an angler fish. It screamed melodically. Her punch didn’t do much damage to it, she couldn’t get a good swing going underwater, but she was no slouch. It must have hurt.
The singing from the room ahead—which had been incredibly beautiful—stopped, and Bon Bon knew the second one was coming to help the first. They were bigger than her, so she didn’t think she could take them both on at once, but she wasn’t going to give up. Bon Bon had tricks upon tricks, and had prepared for the worst the ocean had to offer. She was ready.
She reached down to her bag and pulled a knife off the side. She slashed at the slug on top of her, hearing it shriek in its weirdly musical voice. It released her and threw her away toward the other one coming from behind. Bon Bon spun in the water and swung at that one, and it balked. She kept them both at bay with a constant barrage of desperate swings. They stayed back, but she was trapped between them.
Her bag was filled with tricks, and the knife wasn’t the only one. For underwater missions S.M.I.L.E. had taken a page from every evasive and dangerous sea creature they could imagine. Bon Bon pulled out a black orb and squeezed it, it burst into a concentrated cloud of ink. The ink blocked the light from her own lantern, and the siren’s glowing lights. She felt the movement in the water as they lunged at her, but she’d already swum to the side. She pushed off the jagged walls with her forehooves and swam for the lit room ahead. The water got warmer still when she burst out of the ink cloud. The room she entered was chewed or cut out of the surrounding coral and stone. It was uniform in shape, and true to her expectations, ahead of her, flush with the stone and spouting out of it in little rivulets and traveling to the top, was magma.
The heat was feeding myriad creatures, the shells and husks of which littered the floor of the chamber. The sirens here were well-fed, and had nothing to do but eat and sing, which is where their idleness and interest in Lyra and the hab must have come from. Unless she could get rid of them, they might need to abandon the hab entirely!
The beautiful scream came from behind her and one of the sirens came floating out of the ink cloud, mouth wide-open to try and catch her. Bon Bon swam to the side and slapped it with her tail, sending her into the coral wall. The other one crawled underneath her and reached up, snagging her tail with one of its claws. Bon Bon pulled away, tearing her fin slightly as the claws ripped through it. Bon Bon swam up into the center of the cave and dug through her pouch. She pulled out a miniature crossbow and aimed at the one below. She fired, and the bolt pierced the rear of the beast below. A faint stream of green blood spilled out of its slug-like tail, and it cried out in melodic pain.
The siren on the wall opened its mouth. Bon Bon reloaded, waiting for it to jump at her, but it didn’t. It sang instead, a beautiful tune issuing from its mouth, piercing her mind like her bolt had pierced its friend. The second siren took its cue from the first, and sang out as well, adding to the music assaulting Bon Bon’s head. She had the crossbow reloaded, but though she tried to aim she found her vision swimming. She fired, but it went wide, ricocheting off the coral.
Bon Bon felt their wordless song burrowing deep into her mind, and against her judgment found herself wanting to put down the crossbow. Her training was enough to defend her for now, but it wasn’t going to help for long. Sirens were magic, and mental acuity only helped for short durations. She dropped her crossbow and reached into her bag, pulling out a wad of gum. She squashed and split it, one bit for each ear.
She smelled blood before she noticed the siren below was holding on to her. Her hooves hadn’t gone to her ears and she recognized, dimly, that it shouldn’t have worked this way. She should have already had the gum in place. She struggled, but the siren’s slug-like body was stuck to her, and its hooves were tight against hers, holding her still. The music penetrated the deepest parts of her mind and she couldn’t bring herself to fight it much longer. She had failed. Oh, Lyra…
Lyra’s eyes opened. She was tired, she was sore, and she felt irritable, like a hangover without the headache. But, she noticed, there was no music. No voice, no singing, no sounds, no nothing! Despite how crappy she felt, she smiled. She lay there in bed, enjoying the silence. Bon Bon must have succeeded. She couldn’t wait to give her the biggest hug ever when she got back. Lyra curled up, enjoying the softness of the bed for a while.
A gurgling in her stomach rudely roused her. She’d need to eat. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, and she’d also need to use the toilet, get a drink, and probably shower. It wouldn’t do to smell bad when Bon Bon got back. Thanking her while stinking wouldn’t be a good welcome. She tossed the covers aside and rolled out of bed. She washed up, relieved herself, and grabbed a small bite to eat. Bon Bon wouldn’t mind, especially since she’d been out of it for a day or two? She wasn’t sure how long. After she’d eaten, she tried to entertain herself. She rattled the dented locker where she’d tried to get her lyre back from, but it was locked tight. She’d have to go get the key, but it was too soon after the problem to leave her feeling comfortable. She left it there for now and waited for Bon Bon.
The sound of a door slamming had Lyra on edge at first, but she couldn’t hear the voices or music, and was happy that it meant Bon Bon was back. She trotted happily out of the entertainment room and through the halls to the storage room. Standing at the end of the hall, inside the doorway to the storage room, Lyra saw Bon Bon. She rushed up and hugged her, despite the seawater.
“Welcome back, Bon Bon! You did such a good job, I—” She stopped and stepped away. Bon Bon wasn’t hugging her back. “Bon Bon?”
The sound of something wet slithering by made Lyra look past Bon Bon. The door at the far end was open, and there was water on the ground besides where Bon Bon had walked. She felt a chill. She looked back at Bon Bon, who was just standing there, staring straight ahead. Lyra felt the water on her hooves, and was disturbed to notice it was slimy. In addition, Bon Bon was missing her pack, which was where she was supposed to be keeping Lyra’s necklace!
“Bon… Bon?” Lyra asked.
“Yeah?” Bon Bon said, slowly blinking, but still not looking at Lyra.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything is… fine.”
Everything was not fine. Bon Bon wasn’t herself. Lyra’s head snapped back to the trail of wetness and open door on the far side. Something had come with Bon Bon, and Lyra knew it was sirens. No wonder she couldn’t hear the singing anymore! Bon Bon was under their spell! She left Bon Bon and ran. If the sirens were here, they were coming for her lyre, and if they wanted it, she couldn’t let them have it!
Lyra raced for the office. It was closer to her door than the other, with the lockers on the far side. She had separated them specifically so she couldn’t easily get inside and play to draw their attention, but now she was grateful she’d done it for a different reason. If they were banging on the locker, they weren’t in the office. It wouldn’t make it easy for her to get inside the locker, but she would handle that problem when she came to it.
The office was empty when she burst inside. There was no trail of wet or slime outside, and nothing dangerous waiting for her. She trotted in and rummaged through the already strewn-about desks, looking for the key. Despite her search, just like earlier, she couldn’t find it. She had papers, instructions, booklets, security information, magic information, checklists, and even a list of incoming supplies that they had already checked off. Despite that, there was no key.
The sound of slithering outside drew her attention to the door. Lyra had left it open for a quick escape, but now something was coming in! She ducked behind the desk and waited, holding a pair of scissors and a letter opener in her magic. The moment she saw the thing come around the corner, she’d hurl them! When it finally hove around, unfortunately, she halted, stunned by its appearance.
It looked exactly like she remembered in her vision. It had a mouth full of angry, dangerous teeth and a little light dangling from its forehead. It had dark, bulbous eyes and a pair of forehooves that transformed into a slug-like body the further down it went, until its hind hooves were nothing but an amorphous, slimy mess. Lyra choked in revulsion, unfortunately, the sound drew its attention, and it focused its beady, ugly eyes on her.
It opened its mouth and a single note came out before the letter opener stabbed into its face. It shrieked a melodic shriek and Lyra was up, over the desk, racing for the door! She hurled the scissors into its torso and jumped over its head, cantering down the hall. She couldn’t find the key, but she didn’t need it. For Bon Bon’s sake, she was going to rip the thing off its hinges and they were going to leave. They would deal with this some other way, some other day, bringing far more horns and many more earplugs!
A musical note came from behind her, worming its way into her ear. Lyra hummed as loud as she could, drowning it out. It was still there, underneath her own song, but it wasn’t dominating her mind.
Ahead of her, inside the assembly room where chunks of the next hab were put together, Lyra saw trails of slime covering the hab. She looked down at her hooves to follow the trail the first one had left, but it didn’t look like they matched up. Either the trail had been cut off somewhere she couldn’t see, or there were multiple sirens. The latter would be terrible.
She ran through the room, giving the partially-assembled hab a wide berth. Thankfully, her caution paid off as another siren leapt out at her from behind it. It had probably heard her coming, but she wasn’t going to ignore the possibility that they communicated by magic means. She slapped it away with a magic hand, summoning multiple fists to pummel it into the ground, her anger at the sirens manifesting with her spell. Only two of the fists hit it before a clear note rang out, shattering her concentration and dissolving the fists.
The siren from behind her was singing and the one next to her joined in. The music was forcing its way into her head and ruining her spells. She hummed as loud as she could, but it wasn’t enough. She could still hear it behind her. She needed to get her lyre! Then she could play along with it! She ran.
She was faster than them, thankfully. Their slug bodies weren’t fast enough to keep up with hooves. She wondered idly if they could transform, since they appeared to be fine out of water, but if they could, wouldn’t ‘they have done so inside the habisphere? She shook her head and ran, focusing on her target. She couldn’t afford to speculate at the moment.
With the music and sirens following her, she continued down the halls until she came to the lockers. Standing in front of hers, where she was keeping the lyre, hunched a siren. This one was silent, and even when it turned to look at her it made no noise, despite having its mouth open. Lyra deduced that this one was the one keeping Bon Bon in check. She narrowed her eyes and grabbed a nearby selection of several books.
“You let go of her right now, you bitch!” Lyra screamed. She hurled the books in quick succession, only the first one hitting its target. Despite the creature’s bulky body, it was surprisingly nimble. It slithered back and forth, dodging the projectiles. When Lyra ran out, she picked up one of the tables and wrenched the leg off, then threw the table at it, holding onto the leg for a club. “Give me back my Bon Bon!”
They battled, the siren in the room with her continuing its open-mouthed stare while it dodged her swings. It lashed out with its own hooves, keeping her away while it waited for its friends to come help. Lyra knew she didn’t have much time, so she swung rapidly, driving it away, then grabbed the dented locker. She wrenched at it, humming as loud as she could to drown out the sounds behind her that were steadily rising in volume. The siren nearby kept back, out of easy reach, knowing that its friends were on the way. If Lyra got the locker open and all three were there, they could jump her all at once and take it, and have her.
“Arrrrgh! Give it to me!” She rattled the locker violently, then screamed and dropped the club to rip at it with her magic. The door squealed as it tore off its hinges, and the lock gave way.
Lyra reached in and grabbed her present from inside. The tortoise shell built in traditional style calmed her nerves as she held it in her hooves. She backed away from the locker and turned to see all three sirens staring at her, smiling with gaping maws and sharp teeth. Their high-pitched singing still tugged at her mind, but she could ignore it now. They stayed a fair distance away while they sang, louder now, the music hitting her like lead. The calm, cool feeling of her lyre kept her grounded. She stared at them and backed away, horn lighting up. She took a deep breath and took it in her magic, then strummed.
It was fitful playing at first. She flubbed one of the notes and the sirens moved closer, the volume of their singing rising with their confidence. Lyra backed away, shuffling toward the door to the hall while she tried to get her bearings. The notes of the siren’s music confused her, directed her magic, but she pushed, thinking about Bon Bon.
When she hit the first notes of the chorus of her song, the sirens balked. For a split second, there was no sound, and she heard a cry from Bon Bon for the moment the sirens all stopped. It disappeared, and Bon Bon didn’t come running looking for her, but it was there! Bon Bon would be okay! She just had to keep playing!
One of the sirens lurched forward, forehooves and teeth flashing at her. She danced away, continuing the song. She strummed louder at a portion of her own song and kicked the siren in the face. A tooth broke, but it didn’t slow. The second one joined its sister and they pushed her down the hall. They went back and forth, the sirens and Lyra attacking each other in turn, but Lyra was losing ground. She was pushed all the way back to the storage room where Bon Bon stood still. Lyra looked at her with a pained expression and opened her mouth to sing along with her music. Bon Bon shuddered, but didn’t say anything.
Heartend by Bon Bon’s movement, Lyra sang louder, played harder, and put all her effort into her music. She drowned them out, pushing them back, back away from Bon Bon, and away from her. Bon Bon moved!
Then the third joined in.
It had let go of Bon Bon to help its sisters, and the song, pushed by all three of them, ugly, toothy, and slimy as they were, struck Lyra and tore her own song away. It crashed upon her, beautiful at first, but it soon became cacophonous, terrible, and discordant. It hurt her ears and made her forget herself, stripping her songs away from her.
She was caught by Bon Bon.
Warm hooves grabbed her. She felt them pull her away from the sight of the beautiful creatures before her. She felt a hug grip her tight, and a kiss on her cheek, and words she couldn’t quite hear tickled her ear. She knew she loved those words. With them came a single song, dredged out of the screeching noise filling her head.
“Remember this, remember me…” she sang. It was their song, written early in their relationship. Short, simple, but theirs, and about the two of them together.
“Remember what we’re meant to be,” Bon Bon sang with her. The sirens stopped, their noise quieting.
“Through thick and thin, and bad and good,” sang Lyra, playing the notes along with it.
“We’ll fight for ‘us’, we know we should.”
“We’ll argue, yes,”
“We’ll even fight,”
“We’ll both think that our side is riiiiight…” they sang together, leaning on the other one for support. They held the note and Lyra strummed a build-up to the final line. Their backs were to the barrier, and Bon Bon held up the single necklace. Lyra nodded.
“But know, my dear, that though I’m mad, the one thing that will make me glaaaad…” The sirens squawked nearby, trying to drown them out, but their song couldn’t be silenced. The three sirens couldn’t beat the two of them when they stayed together.
“I see your face, and feel it too…” Lyra looked into Bon Bon’s eyes as their hind legs changed into fins.
Bon Bon looked back with a loving smiled and finished, “I’m happy just to be, with, you.” The sirens screamed. Blood poured out of their gills as their own song was ruined. Lyra and Bon Bon dove into the abyss and swam away, propelling themselves from the habisphere, not looking back.
Lyra waited on the beach until Bon Bon came out to meet her. The mint-green mare held her lyre in her lap until she heard her voice.
“We’re done. I’ve told them everything,” Bon Bon told her.
“Are they going to make you go back?” Lyra said as she stood up.
Bon Bon shook her head. “No, they’re done with it until they get help with the sirens. We’re free.”
Lyra sighed and strummed a few notes. “I’m glad. I like being able to sit under the sun.”
Bon Bon nodded. “Me too. I was happy to help, but it was clear you didn’t like it, and those sirens were unexpected.”
“It’s my fault for being musical. I drew them in.”
Bon Bon pushed close and rubbed her cheek on Lyra’s. “Don’t you ever apologize for being musical. It’s what saved us, too.”
“Only cause I had you with me.” She shoved back against Bon Bon.
“It’s true. I’m helpful.”
“Why don’t you help me get something to eat then?”
“Sure! How about… escargot?”
Lyra smacked her and ran away down the beach, blowing a raspberry at Bon Bon. Bon Bon laughed and chased after her.
“It’s delicious! Like music in your mouth! Trust me!”
