Twilight, a mer-pony, finds a voice that draws her away from the troubles of her home.
This is an entry to (and just crowned first place winner of!) Nitro Indigo's 2022 November Species Swap contest. This fic was written in less than a week, because I wanna have fun too!
In this story, Twilight Sparkle is a mer-pony that has recently earned her ascension to become a Queen, but is struggling with her place in the Canterlot Reverie. Meanwhile, a tantalizing voice is calling to her from the surface, giving her rare moments where she can focus on something besides her changing body and life.
High tide always woke Twilight up. She had a theory about the pressure change in her home, the water column above her increasing in depth so that even a merpony such as her felt the slight discomfort of being too deep. But the theory couldn’t really be tested, there wasn’t a need. She instead scheduled her life around the tides.
So Twilight swam out of her kelp bed and over to the sheet of cultivated mother-of-pearl that served as her mirror.
She was too deep to use the moonlight to see by, so instead she found one of her pearls and gently touched it to bring a soft purple light out of the sphere.
Her room was a mess, really. She was grateful that she had a place to rest away from the others, especially now.
In the mirror, her new antennae were the first things she saw. She could have brought light through them, probably. She could do amazing things now that her body was changing, and she was becoming a Queen. Yet… it terrified her.
“Hey… Twilight.”
Spike, her sea serpent friend, poked his head in through one of the doorways, frowning when he saw her fixated on her own reflection, paralyzed with fear.
“Twilight, come on, it’s ok,” he said as he gently slithered in and put a clawed hand on her shoulder, shaking her just a little.
“I know, I know,” she snapped. “It’s fine. Everything is fine, I’m… I just… It takes some getting used to. I never wanted to be a Queen!”
“Twilight, you love leading merponies!” Spike objected, frowning. “I know it’s a bit of a shock, but I thought you’d be happy!”
Twilight shrugged off his clawed hand and quickly brushed her mane into shape, before putting on a gleaming gold necklace and belt. She shrugged on a gossamer cloak and shook her head, not meeting Spike’s eyes.
“I’m… You wouldn’t understand.”
Then, in a rush of motion she was gone, speeding through the water and out into the gloom of the Canterlot Reverie.
Fifteen thousand mer-ponies, a scattering of sea serpents, and many other creatures all residing in the cliff wall city of an underwater ravine. It all glittered gently from magical lights and bioluminescence. A faint trace of moonlight made its way down this deep, to make occasional ripples of light across buildings.
Of course the city never truly slept, but her appointments and obligations now felt hollow after running from Spike. She couldn’t explain herself, these feelings tearing her apart, she couldn’t even put words to her fears.
So for now, she swam up to the surface. It was always so much quieter than the endless humming of life in the city, the singing and the magic always tugging at her, muddled with so many overlapping that it made it hard to even focus at times.
Breaking the surface, the moonlight lit her face in silver, and though she was rocked side to side by the waves they weren’t high enough to bother her.
After all, it was here on the surface that she’d earned her ascension. Whether that was a good thing… Well, she still wasn’t sure about it, but below the stars she’d found the magic needed to transform into a true pony, to trick some surface ponies into letting her friends go after capturing them in a fishing net.
The first mer-pony in a thousand years to be able to change her shape. A power she’d used once, and that now she couldn’t stop thinking about.
While Twilight floated there in the moonlight, a distant sound reached her. Not from below, but from the air. A warbling note that caught her notice, and then dwindled to nothing.
She perked up, turning to try and figure out where it had come from. But it didn’t return. Twilight settled slowly beneath the waves, deciding she might have imagined it, and returning to her underwater world.
Accepting her new status as a Queen was the most difficult personal revelation she’d ever faced. Not just the way other creatures treated her, and not just because of the physical changes she was facing. No, the most terrifying part of it all was the responsibility.
Descending into Canterlot, she swam to one of the most decorated homes in the Reverie. A rusted and rotting carousel formed the roof, strung with bioluminescent moss strands. Below that, glass windows of varying sized and shapes allowed passer-by to catch a glimpse of Rarity’s latest creation, bathed in the light of enchanted pearls.
Of course, it was a royal diadem, celebrating Twilight’s newly announced royal status. Hammered bronze with a drape down the neck of the rock-carved model, and a specially grown cone-shaped pearl on the forehead, imitating the antenna of a Queen.
Her heart leaped into her throat, and she turned away to calm herself before diving another level down to the entrance to the Carousel Boutique.
Rarity was hard at work, as she usually was in the night hours, using her skills as a Selkie to weave and shape materials like only surface ponies seemed capable of.
Selkie in the Canterlot Reverie looked much like mer ponies, but with a smooth coat of fur instead of scales, clawed hands instead of flippers, and they wore necklaces adorned with pearls of breath, so they did not have to return to the surface every hour.
Of course, Rarity glanced up and gave a toothy grin as Twilight entered her shop, before swirling through the water in a smooth flipping motion to embrace Twilight in a hug.
“Good night, Twilight, what brings you to my humble little shop?”
Twilight sighed, leaning into the hug and laying her head on Rarity’s shoulder.
“I came for an outfit I suppose, but I’m feeling terribly melancholy,” Twilight mumbled, enjoying the rare warmth and softness of her friend in a land of cold-blooded creatures.
“Well, clothes I can provide of course,” Rarity said in a gentler tone. “But melancholy… That seems most often to come from the heart, not from the things we wear. Talk to me, Twilight, while I finish this up.”
Twilight nuzzled Rarity’s cheek before letting go so she could return to her weaving, as Twilight browsed the shop for a lack of anything better to do while she spoke.
“Why does everyone believe I can do this?” Twilight asked softly as she unfolded a dress to admire it before folding it again in exactly the same way.
“Why wouldn’t they?” Rarity replied easily. “You’ve risen to every challenge laid before you, my dear. You united the Elements of Unity, you defeated the Dark One, and you saved every creature in Merville before it fell into the depths. I'd say that from the outside it seems there’s little you can’t do. Perhaps color matching, but that’s hardly a talent needed to save the world.”
Twilight arched an eyebrow and shot a tame glare at Rarity, who was smirking gently.
“Thanks, I’ll remember next time I think I can wear white that you’ll never forget it. But seriously, being a Queen, it’s more than just making good decisions or being a ruler, it’s…”
Twilight fell silent, and Rarity went still, listening intently.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to be a mother, Rarity,” Twilight whispered before hugging a winter shawl to her chest, scowling at the table full of clothes in front of her. “I’m not ready to make the same mistakes my mom–”
In a rush of motion, Rarity pulled Twilight around to face her again.
“Stop,” Rarity hushed, taking the shawl out of Twilight’s fins and tossing it onto the table. “Stop it. You are not your mother, and you are not Celestia either. You are Twilight Sparkle, and when some day you have your first clutch, your friends will make absolutely certain that you have all the help you need to be the best mother you can be. Not absent on the surface, not too busy with ruling to spare them a glance, no. You will be better.”
Twilight shook her head sharply, curled in on herself and huffing softly in sorrow.
“How do you know?” she whined. “How do you know that I won’t run away? I don’t… I don’t even blame my mom! It’s too much! It’s terrifying.”
“I know you won’t for the same reason that I knew you would bring me back from the Dark when Dythcordia claimed me. Twilight Sparkle, you always do the Right Thing, the best that you possibly can.”
Twilight kept sniffling and softly crying but she embraced Rarity and let the crushing fears fade to a more manageable level, before nuzzling Rarity again, letting her go to swim back to her workbench and resume her delicate weaving with perfectly trimmed and sharpened claws.
The mer-pony settled in a corner, watching her work, hugging her tail. It didn’t take too much longer for Rarity to finish her weaving and set the rough outline of a vest onto a shelf set aside for works in progress.
“Well now,” Rarity said gently. “I cannot measure you if you’re hiding.”
“You already know my measurements, Rarity,” Twilight muttered, like a petulant child.
“They might have changed,” Rarity shrugged, smiling again. “Come on, on the table.”
As Twilight swam over and laid down, she remembered old stories of the time before Unity. When Selkies would hunt and eat Mer-ponies. When Sea Serpents were treated like unthinking animals. When Dolphins weren’t allowed into Mer-pony settlements because of their warlike and thoughtless instincts.
But she didn’t fear Rarity, as the Selkie measured Twilight out and gently touched her to note the location of her dorsal and pelvic fins. Her claws didn’t draw blood, even though they were certainly sharp enough to do so, and the streaks of Tyrian purple that colored Rarity’s head and tail in brilliant swirls were new synthetic dyes from the surface, not the traditional dye made from boiling hundreds of animals. Twilight could see the same gentleness and thoughtfulness in Rarity’s eyes that she saw in any mer-pony, and she trusted her. Old stories held no sway here.
“You’ve grown a full finger-length in the last week, and your fins are longer,” Rarity commented with a curious smile. “I wonder if Celestia grew so quickly when she ascended. Normal mer size and then shooting up to being twice my length. I would think you’d have an academic curiosity in all this!”
Twilight rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
“It’s much harder to be academic about it all when it’s my body that is being changed. By magic I don’t understand, on top of that! Did you know that the magic of Unity still isn’t sourced? We know where Pearl magic comes from, we know where Selkie and Mer-ponies gain their abilities, but Unity? It’s just… There. Which makes no sense, it has to come from somewhere.”
Rarity just listened, amused, as she draped a bolt of kelp-fabric across Twilight. In the water, the fibers that had been extracted from the kelp stalks and wound into thread and then fabric had a soft gossamer texture, with tiny knots holding trailing threads in place so the whole sheet seemed to trail a ghostly aura around it.
It had been dyed a pale blue, and as it settled on Twilight she could see that the dense plastic that it had been wound around had “Twilight” carved on the end.
“You made this fabric just for me?” Twilight asked as she touched it gently, watching it flow in the water.
“You should see what I had to make for Rainbow,” Rarity said with an exasperated sigh. “She seems determined to shred anything I put on her, so I’ve resorted to using eel skin.”
Twilight chuckled a little as she kept admiring the fabric.
“I was going to ask for something simple, but… Maybe a full dress?” she proposed.
“I wouldn’t have settled for anything less, darling,” Rarity said fondly. “I’ll try not to overdo it on the decorations. We don’t need you looking gaudy.”
Twilight slipped out from under the fabric and wrapped Rarity up in the tightest hug she could manage.
There was no one to hear her honeyed words. Noone to respond to her pleas.
The yellow and red pony sitting on the beach reached out, watching the waves lap up the sand to touch her hoof, and…
She couldn’t even remember the moment, or experience the pain as she recoiled and came back to consciousness with stars in her eyes and a headache.
Her home, the sea, now forbidden to her. She grit her teeth and rolled onto her stomach, facing away from the waves. Damn them. Damn them all.
But she couldn’t abandon it. So she calmed herself and turned to face the sea again, before beginning to sing. A wordless tune, sung with all her heart and energy, roaring out into the sea strung wind with wild abandon, before slowly trailing off into nothing.
Shaking with emotional release and anger, she turned and trotted away from the beach, up into the streets of Maritime Bay.
A flourishing young coastal town, Maritime Bay got by on shipping, fishing, and the sale of salt that dried in the tidal pools of the bay’s northern edge.
“Hey Sunset!” an earth pony called out from the door of one of the shops. “Apple juice just came in if you want some.”
Sunset slowed and gave him a sad smile.
“I appreciate it, Quick Oat, but I’m running low on bits just now…”
“Oh…” his ears drooped a bit, looking deeply sad for her plight. “Well… I suppose… If you want a taste, I don’t mind giving to charity, you know? Just a bottle!”
She sauntered over to him and put a hoof on his cheek.
“I’m so very grateful,” she said softly, as his eyes became a little vacant to the sound of her voice.
“Grateful…” he whispered, drifting off into his shop and bringing a bottle back for her.
After that, she trotted away, through the bustling town.
As was normal for the last few years, her reception was sharply divided. Most of the stallions and a small number of mares greeted her like their dearest friend, while the rest held her at a slight distance with an air of suspicion and annoyance.
After all, when their spouses and significant others were absolutely smitten with Sunset the moment she said hello, it was only reasonable to be a bit unhappy with her.
So she didn’t blame them. It was her nature to entrap those that were attracted to her, and it was in their nature to reject her for that.
So she collected a few more snacks on her way home, and slipped inside before dropping them all on a countertop.
“Welcome home, Sunset!”
She almost cringed at the adoration in the voice of her ‘landlord’.
“Hey Gilda," Sunset sighed.
Gilda, a griffin that in public gave a persona of being absolutely callous and uninterested in anyone, was hopelessly in love with Sunset. She'd instantly offered her a place to stay when Sunset first arrived in town, and seemed willing to give her anything she wanted. It was miserable, like living with a too-large puppy. And the entire time, Gilda insisted she was fully heterosexual.
"Hey yourself! I've got asparagus and potatoes for dinner and I was thinking that we could listen to the radio, maybe you'll hear a song you like!"
Sunset closed her eyes, leaning against the counter a bit as she buried her annoyance.
"I don't want to sing," Sunset lied, her voice low and angry. "Just make dinner and let me know when it's ready."
Then she stomped off into her room, ignoring Gilda's hurt look.
Her room, at least, she could exist in comfortably. A bed. A dresser. A backpack with all her important worldly belongings in case she had to leave abruptly.
Staying in one place for too long never worked out. It had been true beneath the waves and it seemed to be just as true above them.
She had thought about becoming a sailor until she'd learned just how brutal her banishment was. So instead she was thinking about leaving Maritime Bay soon, if only to put some distance between herself and the waters she had once roamed freely.
So she checked her bag yet again, adding a few coins to the hidden pouch within, making sure everything was ready, that everything was fine. As long as she could leave whenever she wanted, as long as she was free, everything was fine.
As she repacked the bag, a large pearl in a soft pouch fell out and rolled a bit away. Her journal.
She picked it up and took the pearl out of the pouch, letting the sunlight touch it and show shimmering after-images of letters dancing across the pink surface.
Numbly, she shifted to lay with her back against the wall, and tapped the pearl.
Pages of words shimmered into existence, in Sunset’s writing.
“Princess Celestia is an imbecile of the highest order. Not only has she ignored every suggestion I’ve made to improve her pathetic city, but she has shown repeatedly that she will never see me as anything but a Siren. Fine. If that’s how she wants to see me, then that’s what I will be.”
Sunset looked away from her own words, and swiped a hoof, scrolling back and back through so many pages to find the first. The writing was much neater, softer at the edges, when she’d first learned to write. After all, what use did Sirens have for written language? Song was all that mattered.
“These mer-ponies are remarkable.”
So naive, so easily drawn in by supposed unity.
“They’ve turned pearls, an accidental byproduct of clams treasured by surface dwellers only because they cannot dive deep enough to find them easily, into magical conduits. In all my experience, I have only seen gemstones and glass used like this, but now this pearl can record my words in physical form. I wonder how many other creatures could have passed on their wisdom using this. My sisters, my ancestors, could have passed along their songs, their experiences, their thoughts. I miss them. That is strange for me to write, isn’t it? That I miss the cruel and heartless–”
Sunset dismissed the page, and stuffed the pearl back into its pouch.
She understood her sisters more than ever before, now. She understood how cruel they could be, because the world would not listen to a Siren, no matter how much it begged for her voice.
So a choice had to be made. Either to give and give and give until there was nothing left, or to finally treat the rest of the world as it treated her.
Twilight was again drifting on the surface, catching a moment of peace and quiet as the sun rose, the constant humming of Life below the waves again overwhelming her.
Why couldn’t she just be like Celestia? Untroubled, confident, the picture of peace?
Of course, Twilight knew the answer, Celestia wasn’t actually untroubled. She scheduled more than half of her time to herself. Noone knew where she went, but she made sure not to give her whole self to her city. She’d told Twilight as much, that no ruler could be the sole pillar of stability, that they must rely on their support network and the bureaucratic structure of their government to run the country without the ruler’s fin in every individual action and decision.
Twilight was just planning a coronation, and already she felt like she needed an army of assistants.
“No more…”
Twilight twitched and spun in place. She’d heard a voice to be certain, and though it had been far away she was confident after a moment that it had come from the direction of the beach. Well, the planning for the coronation could wait for a bit…
Twilight slipped under the water and swam with all her speed towards the coastline.
The massive ravine that held the Canterlot Reverie was made even more dramatic by being directly off of the continental shelf, closer to the beach here than anywhere else on the coast. So Twilight swam through the safe channel that circumvented the barrier reef, and over the many shipwrecks that had gathered in Maritime bay. Most merponies were terrified of them, but Twilight found them fascinating. Ancient sailing ships reduced to rows of cannon and anchors, small fiberglass boats full of holes and rusting boxes of cargo, and even a few steel ships that had gone down, one a container ship with containers scattered across the sea floor.
Soon, she was in the warm shallow waters of the bay, broken up by the occasional stone formations, ancient lava flows long cooled and decayed into rolling hills populated with patches of marine life. Kelp harbored fish and crustaceans in abundance, even though the new surface-pony town happily harvested every bit of marine life they could find.
Twilight’s attentions were fixed, however, and she soon slipped up to the surface to catch a glimpse of the sandy beach.
Standing on a rocky outcropping, like the beacon of a lighthouse, a single pony stood with her mane streaming in the wind. Her voice, strong and loud, was able to cut through the air with enough force that Twilight could hear her clearly from halfway across the bay.
“I’m just another face, in the crowd, in the days left behind, and all I can see is you!”
She stomped to emphasize her passion, as Twilight hid with only her head above the water, entranced by her lonely performance.
“I’d take a hundred hearts, take this brand new start, and throw them away… Just one more lesson, just…. One more day? Were there ever any answers to the questions on the tests you gave? Could I ever have been good enough? No, all I have, all I am, is another face in the crowd…”
As her voice faded, Twilight found that she’d drifted much closer to the pony, and on her final note she looked down to lock eyes with her.
A sudden wide-eyed stare, and yet Twilight couldn’t move. She had to move, she was obligated to run, to hide herself and her city from the knowledge of the surface ponies, and yet…
“Don’t go,” the pony whispered.
Twilight ducked into the water, and was gone, speeding away as quickly as she could. Her heart was racing, her mind spinning, and yet all that she could see was that lonely yellow and red pony looking into her eyes and begging her not to leave.
She stopped, hiding in one of the kelp forests, looking up at the surface as though the pony would come in and grab her, drag her from the sea forever. But nothing happened.
As she drifted down to settle on the sand, Twilight remembered when she’d transformed into a surface pony… briefly, she’d been just like them, able to blend in, and able to befriend them. Unity had spread just as easily to those surface ponies as it had to merponies.
So why was she so afraid? Wasn’t it Celestia who had taught her that pre-judgement and assumptions robbed us of opportunities? That any creature could surprise us with new forms of Unity if given the chance?
And the loneliness in the pony’s eyes… The same loneliness Twilight felt, the future uncertain and her sense of Self coming apart at the seams.
She drifted back to the surface. That pony was still sitting there, a spot of gleaming gold on the gray rock.
Twilight swallowed her fears and swam closer, close enough for the pony to see her, and then closer still. Until they were facing each other, separated only by the height of the rocky outcropping. Maybe three times Twilight’s length at most. The surface pony and the merpony examining each other, trying to guess at the other’s intentions.
“You’re a merpony,” the one above said softly.
“And you are a… Corn.”
Sunset snorted, a noise that started Twilight and made her hide for a moment, before coming back to the surface to see that Sunset was shaking her head.
“Unicorn,” Sunset corrected.
“Yes, a single Corn,” Twilight said, somewhat flustered by being corrected, and wanting to prove herself right.
“Corn, in the ancient earth pony language, means horn,” Sunset explained patiently. “Single-horn is the name of my race. Unicorn.”
Twilight thought this over. One of the biggest gaps in her knowledge was knowledge of the surface world. Books dissolved in water, and fancier ways of storing knowledge still rarely lasted long enough for her to examine. Celestia, despite being a wonderful leader and extremely knowledgeable, professed a lack of knowledge of the surface world. Here, this opportunity would allow her to learn things that no one under the sea knew, as far as Twilight was aware. A precious opportunity indeed.
“Why aren’t you scared of me?” Twilight asked, tilting her head to the side as she examined the unicorn.
“Well,” Sunset paused for a moment, coming up with a suitable lie. “Merponies are known for saving drowning sailors, and saving sea creatures. So since I’m not hurting any sea creatures, I figured that you aren’t here to hurt me.”
It made sense to Twilight. She had assumed that surface ponies would fear her powers, but what if they knew nothing of her powers to begin with? They likely couldn’t identify a queen from a normal merpony, and even then they probably didn’t see merponies at all except when a ship was sinking or a rare encounter such as this.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she offered.
“Golden Breeze,” Sunset lied easily, just in case her name had been spread among the merponies as a Siren to be wary of. “I live here in Maritime Bay, where do you live?”
“In Maritime Bay,” Twilight replied with a smile. “But in the water. There is a city…”
She finally hesitated. She couldn’t put her city in danger. She couldn’t just tell some random pony where the Canterlot Reverie was. So she gestured towards the South.
“Out there, several hours of swimming away.”
Of course, Sunset could guess at the lie, since she had lived in the Canterlot Reverie herself, years ago. Since Twilight claimed the city was nearby, that ruled out a traveler from far away. Twilight probably tutored under Celestia, or might even be one of her wayward children. Just by seeing her, Sunset could tell that Twilight was in the process of ascending to Queendom, with the unique antenna growing off her brow and the longer more brightly colored fins that trailed down her tail. A perfect little tool that had drifted right into her lap.
“It must be so beautiful,” Sunset sighed wistfully, looking off into the pale blue horizon where Twilight had pointed. “An underwater city, full of merponies, free of troubles and worries…”
Twilight chuckled nervously, rubbing her fins together.
“Yeah… Free from troubles and worries,” she said softly. “What’s it like living in a surface town? Being stuck to the ground? Always having to worry about whether it’s day or night?”
Sunset laid down on the stone, so that just her head and forelegs hung off the edge, looking down at Twilight, getting as close to her as she could.
“Can’t you just come up here to find out? Don’t merponies sneak up into our towns, disguised as normal ponies?”
It was a gambit to figure out if Celestia had taught Twilight about the Great Bargain, and the magic connected to it. But Twilight still had surprises in store for the disguised Siren.
“No, I mean… Yes, I can, but no, merponies don’t do that,” Twilight said quickly. “But… I suppose I… I could.”
She swam to the sandy beach and Sunset watched in wonder as a kaleidoscope of rainbow light flowed over the merpony, replacing scales with fur, and a tail with legs. Her antenna coalesced into a single horn, and her fins… Into wings.
Sunset immediately stood. This was new. This, she’d never even heard of. She trotted down the stone ramp, watching as Twilight stepped out of the water. It all dripped off of her in tiny beads leaving her mane and tail long, flowing, and dry.
“That’s incredible,” Sunset said, breathless and genuine as she looked at the pony that stood before her, winged and horned.
She was like a goddess of old mythology just stepped out of the surf, and all at the behest of a lying Siren.
She’d seen Celestia’s pony form. An earth pony, abnormally tall, but still an earth pony. But this Twilight… Despite her innocence and gullibility, Sunset saw more in her than just another soon-to-be merpony queen.
For the first time, as Sunset beheld Twilight in the rising sun’s light, she felt shame.
Sunset twitched a little and blinked, looking away from Twilight while her mind tried to catch up with her emotions.
“Sure, yeah, I just… We’re going to need to hide your wings,” she finally decided.
Twilight opened those wings, turning her head to examine them, trying to find something wrong with them before shaking her head.
“I don’t understand. Why? Surface ponies have wings.”
“But not when they also have a horn,” Sunset insisted, trotting to her saddlebags and finding a rain jacket that she pulled out with her teeth and draped across Twilight’s back. “I haven’t heard of any modem ponies having wings and a horn, it just doesn’t happen. So, to blend in–”
“Why don’t you use your magic?” Twilight interrupted as she used her own magic to adjust the jacket a bit, clasping it around her neck.
Sunset hesitated yet again. Everything Twilight said took her off guard, interrupting her smooth and easy attitude. Normally, Sunset could lie for days on end while barely thinking about it, but even the simplest questions from Twilight made her mentally trip. Thankfully, this lie was one she’d practiced.
“An accident when I was young,” she said, zipping up her bags and clasping the belt around her waist manually. “My horn took a blow, and my magic hasn’t worked since then. But it’s fine, I get by without it.”
“Okay,” Twilight accepted the explanation and started walking towards the stairs off the beach.
Normally, Sunset was used to ponies offering apologies, groveling for Sunset’s forgiveness for even bringing up the topic. But Twilight just accepted the explanation and moved on. Sunset didn’t know whether to be grateful or infuriated, as she followed the transformed merpony up onto the street.
Through Twilight’s eyes, the town of Maritime Bay wasn’t just a small town. It was a town built like a fortress. Every building had a door, every door had a lock. Every window was a solid pane of glass, instead of a curtain or slats. Heavy carts transported heavier goods from and to dense single-story structures made of stone block or brick. Every bit of the town was overbuilt and hostile to her, but also fascinating. Here, a simple fence post was carved elegantly with flowers. There, a sign had swirling delicate paint that would decay in hours if underwater, brightly colored declaring Posey’s General Store and the hours it was open to all the world. An entire stack of newspapers inside of a covered container were whole and legible, available to anyone with a bit to pay.
In this surface world she saw the dichotomy of everything being harder, but so many more possibilities.
“Do you want one?” Sunset asked, after Twilight had spent a few moments trying to squint through the newspaper box to read the front page.
“Yes! Yes please,” Twilight replied immediately.
Sunset inserted a bit, pressed a button that checked for the presence of a bit, then dropped it into a holding container and allowed the newspaper box’s front cover to swing open.
“How do they ensure that each customer only takes one?” Twilight asked as she floated one newspaper up to open it in her purple magic glow and begin reading the obituaries with incredible interest.
“Well, it’s an honor system,” Sunset shrugged, remembering stealing a whole stack when she’d first arrived, and using them as bedding.
Twilight paused her reading to look at Sunset incredulously.
“You surface ponies can’t trust each other not to enter buildings you should not enter, but trust a stranger not to take a single extra newspaper?”
Sunset smiled a little, shaking her head.
“Newspapers just aren’t that useful for most ponies. So they don’t need as much security.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and went back to reading, frowning as she kept going.
“Why do they have to list all the ponies… All the creatures,” she corrected herself, noting a griffin among the list. “That have died in the last month? Doesn’t everyone already know?”
Sunset laughed softly, closing the newspaper box and walking slowly enough that Twilight could follow even while reading.
“We ponies,” she said quietly enough that passers-by wouldn’t hear the strange conversation. “Don’t know everyone in our communities. We might know some, but word also takes a long time to travel between towns and cities. That paper is from Manehattan to the North, we aren’t a big enough town to have our own paper.”
“I see, so this is a regional death listing,” Twilight muttered, flipping past the obituaries and finding the advertisements, puzzling her way through goods and services for sale which she had no context for.
“Hey Sunset!” An earth pony called out from the door of one of the shops.
Sunset almost responded, but realized very quickly that she’d told Twilight that her name was Golden Breeze. She kept trotting, leading Twilight deeper into the town instead of towards Gilda’s house or the other beachfront buildings that Sunset frequented.
“Sunset?” The voice was faint enough that Twilight didn’t seem to notice, focused intently on her paper.
“What is an ‘agriculture worker’?” Twilight asked after a bit more walking.
“A pony that harvests food, usually grains, vegetables, and fruit,” Sunset said simply as she shifted their path to steer clear of a music shop whose owner might recognize her. “That’s all that most of us need. Though Pegusi and griffons eat fish, and sometimes unicorns or earth ponies will eat fish, it’s just that it can upset our stomachs more easily since we aren’t used to it.”
“So gatherers,” Twilight nodded. “You have hunters too, right?”
“No,” Sunset said quickly. “All the land animals have flesh too similar to ponies for us to process. It’s also considered immoral, the animals can provide milk, or other byproducts, but it’s very rare for ponies to kill and eat surface animals.”
Twilight huffed, scowling. “I see. So it’s just our animals, our fish that are considered acceptable to eat.”
“Do you not eat fish?” Sunset asked, feigning surprise.
That gave Twilight a bit of pause.
“We do,” she admitted. “But it’s odd that you surface ponies are so morally righteous when dealing with surface animals, but accept harvesting our animals without pause. Especially with drag nets! They should be banned, absolutely heinous methods.”
Of course, Sunset agreed in part, but she was playing the role of a surface pony with no experience in life beneath the sea.
“I don’t even know what a drag net is,” Sunset said with a huff. “I’m not exactly a sailor. But I don’t have any power anyway, I can’t change laws. I’m just a citizen.”
“Then maybe I can make them change the laws,” Twilight said darkly. “Who leads your society? Who makes those laws?”
Sunset, in a dark way, wanted to see just how much trouble Twilight could get herself into. At the same time she figured that the soon-to-be-queen, literally out of her depth, wouldn’t get too far.
“President Novo Sumera was elected to her position a year and a half ago. She is the head of state, but she doesn’t have complete power. She’s part of the Hoof party, traditionally in line with earth pony interests, though in the last twenty years the Hoof party has shifted into much more isolationist and regressive policies, using budgets and austerity as an excuse to starve their political opponents of resources. Chancellor Cosmos is the head of the Council, from the Horn party, a progressive party that usually has their interests so grand and extravagant that they never finish a project or follow through on their promises. The Prime Judge is Clapper Crimp, also from the Horn party, but everyone says that he’s actually just a third party patsy that is there to make the Horn party look even more inept than it already is.”
Twilight had stopped walking, staring at Sunset in horror.
“Golden Breeze. Are you telling me that… your entire society is built on divisions and opposition? That even your political organizations are divided on tribal lines?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, no,” Sunset smirked. “The Wing party collapsed decades ago from infighting. And anyone can join the Hoof or Horn parties, not just earth ponies or unicorns.”
“I hardly think that disproves my objection,” Twilight snapped.
“Then yes, that is what I’m telling you,” Sunset shrugged. “Our society up here is built on division and conflict. Why, what wonderful system do you have under the sea?”
Twilight hesitated, a bit confused by the question.
“Well… We have Queens, that are biologically selected by the magic of Unity to become queens, and they rule over the cities that they were born in.”
“I see. We had queens once, hundreds of years ago,” Sunset said sourly. “They ruled with an iron hoof. Nopony could tell them they were wrong, nopony could stop them when they were determined to ruin the world around them. They had absolute power, and those who lived under them were forced to bow to their whims. Are your queens like that, Twilight?”
Twilight took a step back at the sudden anger emanating from the small pony, struck by the way that ‘Golden Breeze’ had been so calm until now. How deeply she was opposed to the idea of absolute rule by a monarch.
“I… I’m…” Twilight stuttered, slowly shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll think on that question. I’ll… try to find an answer for you.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” Sunset said, her bitter voice bleeding anger out of her until she just sounded tired. “Come on, I wanted to show you a cafe, if you have time.”
Twilight had read the same block of text from one of the pearl-recordings five or six times before she finally gave up and looked away, using a fin to massage her eyes.
It was midday, the day before her coronation, but all she could think about was Golden Breeze.
Every time they spoke, it felt like the unicorn was hiding a hundred secrets, yet Twilight trusted her just enough to keep going back. Four meals together. A week of conversation ranging from political to personal. She still hadn’t told Breeze that she was a Queen, or about to be one. Yet she felt like Breeze was hiding just as much from her.
She floated back to lay on a cushion, looking up at the ornate carved crystals that formed the chandelier in the Canterlot Castle. Celestia’s home for… how long? She said a thousand years, but it was well known that ‘a thousand years’ was a cultural idiom, meaning more accurately ‘since long before records were kept.’
So how old were those crystals? That was easier to answer. They had been installed two hundred and fifty one years ago by one of Twilight’s ancestors. Dusk Gleam, a legendary enchanter that had discovered permanent light spells and helped improve the longevity of pearl enchantments.
How old was this castle? Construction had begun seven hundred and eighty years ago, and it took almost twelve years to be completed, the largest underwater structure built by merponies without using surface pony materials or fallen ships.
How old was Celestia?
Twilight looked at the pearl again, focusing as hard as she could on the text.
“Eftsoons, delate un Nebeski Al Ria Kor ascend Queen, clepe Celestia. Bruit anent baseborn levant er gehenna.”
She diligently translated each word to the modern version, step by step.
“Once again, we report the offense of ‘Nebaski Al Ria Kor’s ascent to Queen, to be named Celestia. The rumor is that she is born of low standing and has left without paying her debts to…”
Gehenna. The word didn’t appear in any of her translation sources. It didn’t even appear to be one of the four surface pony languages that merpony text had been developed from. This was the only pearl she could find that contained it, and the only one that mentioned Celestia’s ascent. It had been filed as being fifteen hundred years old, at the advent of pearl-enchantments, one of the oldest in Canterlot.
Twilight put the pearl back into its storage cubby and left the Assemblage room, swimming out into the rest of the castle as she thought over what Golden Breeze had asked her the first day they had met.
‘Are your queens like that, Twilight?’
Celestia… Celestia was unapproachable. Powerful and beyond question. Was it because she didn’t allow for dissent? Or was it, like Twilight had grown up believing, because she was so wise and so intelligent that she truly did know best? Learning more about Celestia’s past, not just her rulership but whatever came before, was essential to understanding if Celestia was the kind of ruler that denied the claims Sunset had levied about monarchs.
She stopped at a junction, and decided that, as she was ascending to become a queen herself, it was time for her to stop assuming things, and assert herself.
She swam down the vertical shaft, instead of up. Down, into the lowest levels of the Canterlot Castle, where Celestia kept her chambers. It was not visiting hours, so that was most likely where she was. Down, down, until the light-gems set into the walls were dim and the water had the pressure that made it impossible for any sea creatures but merponies to descend so far.
Selkies would be crushed, sea serpents were too buoyant, barely anything came down this far but merponies.
The guards outside of Celestia’s chambers floated forwards as Twilight approached.
“Is Celestia available?” she asked simply.
“She will be available shortly, if you don’t mind waiting,” one of them offered.
Twilight had practically grown up in this castle. She knew most of the guards well, including these two. She felt comfortable asking them possibly uncomfortable questions.
She settled down on her tail and thought about how to phrase it before nodding her head a little.
“Do either of you know how old Celestia really is?” Twilight asked. “I was writing my coronation speech and I wanted to be as accurate as possible with how long she’s ruled Canterlot and the surrounding areas.”
The guards shared a hard to read look. Some small amount of fear and apprehension mixed in with more.
“Twilight… part of training as a royal guard is a list of questions not to ask,” one of them said gently. “Questions that cause more trouble than they’re worth, or that are secret for a reason. That is one of them.”
Twilight was immediately disturbed by the idea. Celestia had always encouraged her to be curious. To learn, and find real answers to the questions she had. The concept of Celestia refusing to answer or allow questions like that… Maybe because of security, that was acceptable. Not every guard could know every detail of a Queen’s life and goals. But surely Celestia would be willing to tell Twilight. Her protege, her only student.
“I’ll be gentle when I ask her then,” Twilight decided.
She was well known for being stubborn, for sometimes having a one track mind when it came to knowledge, so the guards settled in without argument.
A short time later, the doors opened and a maid swam out with a trash bag and some cleaning supplies, giving the guards and Twilight a small bow before going on her way.
“Princess Twilight to see her Majesty,” one of the guards said softly into the crack in the door.
The doors then opened and the guards waved her in.
Twilight had been here before, but it was always a wondrous thing to behold. A spherical room carved into the stone, the walls enchanted to show the true positions of every star in the sky above, even when they couldn’t be seen due to the sun.
In the center of the room, a three-layered living space hovered, fixed in place with thin stainless steel rods at the top and bottom, giving the appearance of being free-floating.
The bottom layer was heated by a hydrothermal vent that opened into the bottom of the sphere, which could be opened or closed with a lever. The chair and cleaning implements were coated in a thin sulfur dust, while the steel supports closest to the vent opening had thick built-up deposits of the stuff, apparently not something that troubled Celestia, even if Twilight was always bothered by the appearance of contamination.
The middle level held a nest of finely woven mosses and kelp, a comfortable place to sleep for any sea creature. Next to it there was a small rack of pearls and a bedside stand carved from stone, on which a few unique magical items rested. Only the Crown meant anything to Twilight, the Crown of Canterlot, it gave Celestia power over many of the enchantments in this castle, and protected her from certain magic.
Then on the top level, there were many more shelves of pearls surrounding a desk and reclining area, where Celestia floated.
Her pure white scales gleamed in the dim light, while shimmering fins and frills drifted around her, bringing to mind a rainbow, or maybe an oil spill if someone were being particularly uncharitable.
“Twilight,” she said softly, watching her approach with a smile. “It’s been a while since you’ve visited me personally. I’ll admit I missed it a bit.”
If there was one thing about Celestia that had always made Twilight slightly nervous, it was her eyes.
Unlike a normal merpony, Celestia’s eyes were slitted like a sea serpents, and around her purple iris her sclera, which would be white on a normal pony, were a bright green.
“I’ve missed it too, Celestia,” Twilight said softly, drifting into an embrace and hugging Celestia close. “We’ve both been so busy haven’t we?”
“We have,” Celestia nodded. “Which… makes me a little worried when you go missing for hours at a time…”
Twilight froze. She hadn’t thought anyone noticed her slipping away, but of course they would, and of course Celestia would be the responsible one, making sure that Twilight was safe whenever she could.
“Calm yourself, Twilight, I’m not making accusations,” Celestia whispered, petting Twilight’s frills to calm her down.
“But I… I just…” Twilight whispered, her tail twitching back and forth as though she was caught in a trap.
“Queens are allowed to have romantic interests too, you know,” Celestia said with a coy smile, slowly letting Twilight go.
Romance. Celestia thought that she was sneaking off to have a romantic tryst with someone. This was so much better than the truth. Twilight didn’t even know how to explain the truth, or what it was. Was it really a romance?
“I’ve never dated before,” Twilight said sheepishly, blushing as she stopped trying quite so hard to escape.
“You’ll find as you ascend, that your interests change quite a bit,” Celestia said gently, taking her fin in her own and squeezing it. “You might find that romance is a new fascination for you, or you might toy with it and then get tired of it. But you must not punish yourself for being yourself, Twilight.”
Twilight nodded. She could use this. This was a good way to get to the topic she was interested in.
“What was it like for you, when you ascended?” Twilight asked.
Celestia looked off into the illusionary night sky, her smile fading a little as she thought.
“Well… I wasn’t in a nice city near the coast,” Celestia said softly. “I was in the Grogar Depths, and I had just escaped from… an even worse place.”
“Gehenna,” Twilight breathed.
Celestia’s head whipped around, as she stared at Twilight with wide eyes, horrified, or possibly terrified.
“Where did you hear that word?” Celestia demanded, her voice sharper than Twilight had ever heard.
Twilight swam back a little, away from Celestia in fear and confusion.
“I was doing research, and–”
“Research on what, Twilight?!” Celestia demanded, her purple magic blooming and bubbling around Twilight to pull her closer.
“You’re scaring me, Celestia,” Twilight whimpered as she felt herself being drawn in.
But Celestia didn’t stop. She didn’t hurt Twilight but she restrained her, seething, panicked as she repeated her demands.
“What were you researching, Twilight? What were you trying to do? Did Sunset Shimmer put you up to this?!”
That name… Twilight didn’t know that name, but it sparked in her memory somewhere…
“No! I wanted to know more about you! About how old you were, and where you grew up!” Twilight cried.
Immediately, Celestia’s magic faded, as she wilted in the water, realizing how much her anger had taken control. Her worst fears hadn’t come to pass.
“I’m sorry,” Celestia whispered. “Twilight, I’m so sorry, I owe you an explanation.”
“No, it’s fine,” Twilight sniffled.
“It’s not,” Celestia insisted. “I acted in anger, and fear. It has been a very long time since I’ve done that. Please. Sit.”
Twilight slowly drifted closer, still trembling, and settled on a soft seat of moss.
“I was once a surface pony,” Celestia said softly. “At least four thousand years ago, though I’m not certain. I was a passenger on a vessel sailing across the ocean, when the ship was sunk by a monster. The Kraken Discord.”
“Discord… The Discord that my friends and I fought? Who is friends with Flittershy?” Twilight asked, as her heart started to calm down a little.
“The same,” Celestia nodded. “He used to be much larger, empowered by his greed and the evil he consumed. When the ship was torn apart, I fell into the ocean, and I should have died there. But… A being of great power instead seized me.”
It didn’t escape Twilight’s notice that Celestia had switched to much vaguer terms all of a sudden.
“That being lived in a place called Gehenna,” Celestia continued. “And it brought me there, reshaping me, using me as… a plaything. Entertainment. But eventually I escaped, and when I escaped, I… saved some of the other beings that had been captured. In the process, I started my ascension. I grew larger, more powerful, even more powerful than I am today. That is when I settled the old War of the Seven Seas, when I forced unity between the rulers of each Sea, and I constructed this city in memory of my sister, Luna, who perished in that ship when I was saved.”
Twilight nodded, listening intently. She loved learning and she loved history. Here, she was drowning her fear and confusion in those loves. Of course, a student often asks a question that they maybe shouldn’t.
“Who is Sunset Shimmer?” Twilight asked.
Celestia again looked away, but this time in Shame.
“When I told you that you were my first student, I wasn’t being entirely honest with you, Twilight,” Celestia admitted. “I tried to have one student before you. A powerful siren who had turned her back on other sirens for their cruelty, and I thought could embrace Unity like you have. But… in the end, the lure of my past, the stories of power and secrets hidden in the depths… Those were too much for her. She tried to blackmail me into doing what she wanted, and for that I banished her to the surface.”
All of a sudden, many many things made sense to Twilight Sparkle, and in that moment she wasn’t sure if she was heartbroken, or blind with rage.
“So how is everything underneath the sea?” Sunset asked with a carefree smile.
Twilight did her best to smile in return, but it was a struggle. She sat down on the cafe cushion and accepted her tea from the barista with a nod, mindlessly stirring it.
“I… I’m a queen now,” she said simply.
Sunset took a moment to take in this supposed revelation, and decide on an appropriate response.
“That’s… That’s really cool, so you’re in charge of your city?” she asked.
“Not really, I’m now co-ruler with Queen Celestia,” Twilight said, glancing up to take in the ever so slight expression of annoyance or disgust on Sunset’s face before the supposed unicorn could hide it.
Twilight looked back to her tea, adjusting the thick cloak she wore to lay more comfortably over her wings.
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Sunset sighed. “Regardless of how it is all set up, it sounds like you’ve come a long way. You told me about your mom, that she didn’t exactly help you out growing up, so you’ve made it a long long way on your own.”
Twilight looked up at Sunset, studying her, trying to understand the angle. Why was she saying all of this? Just to make Twilight like her? Was this all manipulation, top to bottom? Or was there something more to it?
“Did I say something wrong?” Sunset asked, stiff and uncomfortable with the way Twilight was staring at her.
“I don’t know,” Twilight whispered, shaking her head before sipping her tea.
In the sea, there was just food. Drinks had no meaning, and the only thing that might be hot was vent-water, toxic at best and deadly at worst if you soaked in it too long. But here on the surface, there were all sorts of ways to prepare water, to turn it into something new and exciting. Food took on a new meaning and a new range of possibilities.
Sunset kept thinking over Twilight’s behavior, trying to figure out what she knew, if anything. After all, if Twilight knew who she was, why would she have come back at all? Did she really enjoy Sunset’s presence that much? Or was this a trap?
Sunset shifted on her cushion, looking around a little. There were a few ponies she didn’t recognize in the cafe. Maybe they were also merponies, disguised as surface dwellers. Maybe she was about to be dragged back to Celestia to be executed.
Sunset swallowed her fear. Why was she afraid anyway? She’d already lost everything.
Yet, Twilight’s grim expression hurt more than being banished. She had a choice now. Not knowing how many threats were raised against her, she had a choice, whether to keep charging on as a liar and a thief, or to try to make amends with the one being that had truly captured her attention.
“I’m a siren,” Sunset said firmly.
Twilight slowly looked up, one eyebrow raised.
“I know,” Twilight whispered.
“My name is actually Sunset Shimmer,” she pressed on.
“I like that name better than Golden Breeze,” Twilight admitted, smiling a little as she looked back at her tea.
Sunset laughed, a sharp honest laugh that forced its way out of her, as she shook her head.
“I um… I… Celestia banished me,” Sunset finally stammered out. “And… I really like you.”
“Non sequitur.”
Sunset blinked, and cleared her throat. “Pardon?”
“That was a non sequitur, I know Celestia banished you, but I don’t see what that has to do with you liking me,” Twilight said, settling with one elbow on the table. “Those are two different things.”
“I was under the impression that Celestia hating me would sort of put a damper on us… liking each other,” Sunset said hesitantly, squirming on her cushion.
This conversation wasn’t going where she thought it would.
Twilight smiled a little and reached into a pouch hidden under her wing, pulling out a coral rod, bleached white and inscribed with a legal proclamation.
“This is the record of your banishment. I… wanted to talk with you to figure out how you actually felt about me. About… Us. Because Celestia won’t undo the banishment, at least not yet, but she’s willing to let me hear you out. It would be my first act as ambassador to the Surface.”
Sunset stared at the coral rod, somewhat terrified.
“Does that say… why I was banished?” she whispered.
“It says that you threatened to expose state secrets,” Twilight nodded. “But my guess is that you threatened to tell the public that Celestia was slave to a Deep One. Infected by their magic. You were going to make the public believe that she was corrupted and irredeemable.”
Tears gathered at the corners of Sunset’s eyes as she slowly nodded.
“Really… a low blow from a redeemed Siren.”
Twilight nodded a little in reply.
“It wouldn’t have gone well. Unity has shown xenophobia rarely stays focused at one target for long. It would spread to all non merpony races fairly quickly. You would have been driven out too, sooner or later. I’m glad you didn’t succeed. But… When you got to the surface, you kept us secret. You could have brought the wrath of the surface down on us, or even just told them about our magic and our resources, making us an easy target.”
Even without meaning to, Sunset had made choices very early on. Had it been just habit, keeping the secret? No, as a Siren she’d lured sailors to their deaths. She’d exposed monstrous undersea creatures to the surface before. But when she’d been banished…
“Unity,” Sunset said bitterly. “I got up here, and I found… unity was a joke here. Nopony really cared about it. Nopony saw it as having a chance, to change the world or to even be a part of our lives. It was… a child’s story, nothing more. I think… No matter how angry I was with Celestia, I couldn’t let the small bit of unity in the Reverie be wiped away.”
Twilight smiled a little, nodding.
“You know, I did a lot of research on Sirens, when I found out who you were. I found out that there’s a spell to tell when a siren has used their magic on someone. This whole conversation, in fact this whole day, you haven’t used it a bit.”
Sunset blinked, surprised herself by the revelation. She thought that at least some of Twilight’s interest in her must be magical. That the barista was particularly nice to her because she enchanted her.
“In fact,” Twilight said, tilting her head. “I think that you barely have any magic left at all, except when you sing.”
Immediately a memory came to the forefront of Sunset’s mind. Gilda, when they’d first met and she was still cold and distant, jeering at Sunset as they got drunk at a bar with a group of mutual friends, and bullying Sunset into singing. The only one who had been sober enough to actually listen. The only being in all of Maritime Bay that she’d sung directly at.
“Oh. I think… I think I enchanted someone, a griffin I’m living with,” Sunset said, going to stand before Twilight stopped her.
“Maybe,” Twilight nodded. “But before you run off to try and free them, I want to point something out. I’ve… been worrying about whether you had good intentions all day. I think that your reaction right here speaks volumes.”
Sunset took in the statement and reflected on her feeling. Not shame, but something simpler than that. She had never intended to ensnare Gilda. She had thought all the ponies and creatures in this bay were nice to her just because of her magic, so she couldn’t help it. But knowing that she had a choice…
Well, once she had a choice, she had to do the right thing.
She smiled, and leaned in to give Twilight a first soft kiss, before walking out into the street and heading home, to put something right.
Twilight looked and acted so much older and wiser. Had it only been a year? Disgusting pretense. Damnable ego. Rip a tooth from that perfect mouth for every wretched word.
"It's difficult, Twilight," Celestia said softly, from her position laying in her bed. "I've kept the royal secrets to myself for... A very long time."
Twilight lit her antenna, bringing a warmth to Celestia's bed even though the geothermal vent below them was inert and cold. That false care, how disgusting, how self serving. Hold our comfort hostage for our praise She doesn't know us!!! She does not know anything, child! Infant! Wretched curr! Boil her alive!
Celestia smiled gratefully and shifted to look at her more directly.
"I am not a mer-pony queen, Twilight," she said softly.
Celestia's mind ached with the enraged screams of her own Id.
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, holding her fin.
"I was turned from an earth pony into a creature called a Titan. Infused with dark magic, the Deep One kept me as a pet, and toyed with me for decades... But I wasn't alone."
Twilight went still, confused.
"My sister, Luna, was with me," Celestia whispered in shame.