Love on the Reef
by D. G. D. Davidson
“My horn,” he had told Twilight Sparkle, “is too silly to be seen by beautiful mermares.”
Of course, when he said that, he had a particular mermare in mind.
Now Nar Wally the narwhal lay across a flat rock in the midst of the Sea Grass Forest and gazed through the water. Around him, the seaweed curled and waved as if in a slow and intricate dance. Tiny fish swam together in schools, darting back and forth as they avoided predators or hunted food. Little starmice skittered over the white sands, and water weasels gamboled on the boulders. Everything shifted back and forth in keeping with the water’s currents, and the light filtering through to the ocean floor shifted too in keeping with the tossing and turning of the waves. Ordinarily, Nar Wally loved the forest’s silent but lively and colorful beauty. Now, however, even the playful crabbits couldn’t cheer him up.
He thought back on the Aquastria Race and sighed. He’d rescued Arrow the sea pony from a dangerous whirlpool and even advised Rainbow Dash on how to outpace the mermares in the relay’s most treacherous stretch through Crabbit’s Canyon.
After the race, for the first time in his life he had entered the warm light of Nautilus Hall. The fluttering jellyflies flickered overhead as he floated before the throne of King Leo, who with a jovial laugh hung a badge of honor around his neck in thanks for the quick thinking and bravery that saved Arrow from a horrible fate.
But as he received that badge and bowed his head toward the king, all he could think about was Electra the mermare, who hovered just above him with her wild blue and crimson hair zigzagging through the water. He could feel her eyes boring into his back. But when he tried to talk to her at the celebration that followed, she turned, flicked her tail, and whisked away without a word. He had merely floated there, awkwardly tugging at his own blubber and watching her retreating tailfins.
Fortunately, the water made it impossible for anypony to detect the tears that had sprung out of his eyes.
Those painful memories almost brought him fresh tears. Nar Wally flopped over onto his dorsal ridge and stared upward toward the waving tops of the seaweed and the lighter blue of the upper ocean. Electra really was beautiful, and he really did look silly. Why had he ever thought that she might want to speak to him?
His pet crabbit Goldy, her shell sparkling, hopped onto his belly and dug at him with her nose. He halfheartedly patted her shell with a flipper and thought about the faint burning sensation in his lungs, which told him that it would soon be time to trek to the surface for another breath.
“Way up high, Goldy,” he said, “there’s a line where the world stops. Above it, everything becomes too thin and too warm, and my eyes go blurry. The water turns into little beads and buttons that roll off my fur. My horn feels funny and makes my head buzz. Down here, the sun is mellow, and it dances with the waves. But up there it becomes a hard circle too bright to look at. All I can do when I go up there is take big gulps of air—fill my body right up with it—and dive back down. But up there, someplace, the land ponies dance and play in that hot sunlight. Even though they don’t have any water to live in, they don’t dry out. I can’t help but wonder what life would be like if I had legs and could walk with them.”
He closed his eyes and waved his horn back and forth. Actually a tooth rather than a true horn, it was full of sensitive nerves with which he could precisely gauge water pressure and temperature, the location of nearby creatures, and even the amount of plankton floating around him. It was a useful thing to have, but it embarrassed him anyway, and it couldn’t give him the information he really wanted: he couldn’t sense where his new friends were or what they were doing, and he couldn’t sense what Electra was thinking.
He hadn’t heard from Rainbow Dash, Spike, Fluttershy, or Twilight Sparkle even once since their return to land. When he met them, he thought he was finally making friends, and he thought he might have the chance at last to get to know Electra, too.
But here he was again, still a loner, still awkward and foolish. Slowly, with a great groan, he put Goldy down, heaved his big body up, and flapped his flippers to push himself toward the sunlight.
It was time to breathe.
“I am sick to death of this place,” Electra declared.
She floated in the lair she shared with her sister on the Great Reef above Aquastria. A mile high and made of living coral, the reef was full of nooks and crannies and caves in which all kinds of colorful sea life lived. Most of the mermares dwelt here, where they could remain secluded from the sea pony city that sprawled across the rocky seabed below. The mermares wove cloth out of the silk of delicate spiderfish and used it to line their caves; the silk turned different colors depending on how the light struck it, so the gently waving walls of a mermare lair were an ever-changing kaleidoscope of reds and golds and blues.
Tossing her head to get her long, unruly mane out of her eyes, Electra stroked a fin across Bubbles, her pet pufferfish. Then she blew into Bubbles’s mouth to inflate him and bounced him against the wall.
Across the room, Electra’s sister Boomer lounged in the open mouth of a giant clam and munched finfuls of shrimp. “Maybe we need new furniture,” Boomer suggested.
“That’s not it.” Electra kept bouncing the pufferfish, letting him strike the wall and then return to her fins, over and over again.
“Perhaps we need some brighter jellyflies?”
“No.” Electra stopped bouncing Bubbles. She seized him in her fins, squeezed the water out of his stomach, and roughly petted his yellow-and-blue-speckled back. “No, it’s not furniture. I’m not sick of the lair, Boomer.” She scowled toward the middle of the room where the enormous and perfectly round Purple Pearl sat on a golden stand decorated with spots of paste glowing blue with bioluminescent algae. “I’m sick of Aquastria. Ugh, I don’t understand why we have to share the Purple Pearl with those darn sea ponies.”
Boomer laughed. “Because the winners get the Pearl for one year, Electra, but the race was a tie.”
“They cheated!” Electra shouted. Forgetting to inflate him first, she flung Bubbles away. With a faint groan and a slapping sound, the pufferfish stuck against the wall. “If King Leo hadn’t let Rainbow Dash enter that race, the mermares would have won!”
Boomer’s eyelids fell halfway down her eyes. “If Rainbow Dash hadn’t entered the race, she wouldn’t have been able to rescue you from that cave.”
“Hmmph.” Electra floated on her back and stared up at the waving silk of the lair’s ceiling. “Land ponies in the Aquastria Race. It’s just not done. Why, if a pegasus can join the sea pony team, what’s next? Will I have to compete against a leopardfish next year? A racing whale?”
“You’re being silly,” said Boomer. “It was a one-time thing. King Leo has to keep on good terms with the landlubbers.”
“It’s because the sea ponies are the land tribes’ cousins. That’s why they’re suck-ups.”
Boomer laughed. “What does that make us, then? We mermares are the sixth tribe, aren’t we?”
Electra harrumphed. “We’re not actually related to the ponies, you know.” She floated to her writing desk and added, “Where’s the mail?”
“In your top drawer, as usual. And we might not be ponies in truth, but we are by law, so we should make the best of it. You don’t want to go back to living like our ancestresses, do you?”
“Maybe we should.”
“Ha! We’d have a hard time of it now, since the landlubbers’ boats can fly these days. And even if your voice could carry all the way up to one of those contraptions, your sailor would be dead when he hit the water. He’d die from the jump.”
“Not all Equestrian boats fly, Boomer.” Electra pulled open the top drawer of the desk and found inside a scroll of stretched seaweed skin. She unrolled it.
Because parchment would disintegrate underwater, the Pony Express office in the Sparkling Sea Port at Vanhoover employed a copyist who with indelible ink transferred the content of letters from the surface world onto seaweed. The scroll Electra held was printed in the copyist’s blocky and impersonal style:
Hey, Electra!
How’s life in Aquastria? Don’t get caught in any cave-ins while I’m not there!
Things up here are crazy. The Everfree Forest tried to take over, but we kicked its hindquarters. The Equestria Games are coming up, and they’re going to be so awesome! They’re in the Crystal Empire this year! You should rent one of those tank thingies and come. I’d totally show you around. I know mermares don’t like to leave home much, but you shouldn’t miss this. We could hang out.
Oh, and Twilight’s a princess. Did I mention that already? I’m teaching her to fly. Her wings are huge, and she’s gonna be awesome, but I think she’s been slacking off on the wing-ups.
Don’t forget, next time I come to Aquastria, you and me are having a rematch!
Your flying gal pal,
Rainbow Dash
P.S., Twilight wants to add an Aquastrian section to her library and wants to know if you can recommend any books.
P.P.S., Applejack used to say she hated seaweed, but since we visited you guys, she can’t get enough of it! It’s hilarious!
“Uh oh,” said Boomer from the other side of the room. “You look like you’re getting angry.”
Electra’s face heated up. “She wants me to come to the Equestria Games with her.”
“That’s nice.”
Electra crumpled the seaweed scroll and waved it through the water. “Do you seriously think I want to spend a week in a glass tank like some . . . some goldfish?”
“All right, calm down. This Rainbow pony probably just doesn’t know any better.”
“Well, she should!”
Boomer shook her head and clucked. “There’s no point in getting mad. You know you’re going to write her a nice letter back after you calm down. Oh, and by the way, Coral’s stopping over later to pick up the Purple Pearl. It’s her turn to have it for a week.”
Electra grumbled. She peeled Bubbles off the wall and roughly petted him again, but Bubbles squirmed from her grasp and darted away when Boomer thrust a bouquet of sponges and feather duster worms into Electra’s fins.
Electra stared down at the arrangement of brightly colored animals. Fully extended from their tubes, the worms waved orange feelers, seeking food. “What is this for? Is this supposed to cheer me up?”
“Nothing could cheer you up, you grouch,” said Boomer with a chuckle. “I want you to take these to Arrow. He’s injured, remember? Injured from the race he was supposed swim against you. He would have died if it weren’t for that narwhal, what was his name—?”
“Nar . . . Nar something.” Electra snorted a jet of water from her nostrils. “Do you really expect me to visit a sea pony?”
“Yes. It would be the sportsmarelike thing to do, since he was your competitor, or was supposed to be. And I know you want to visit him, too.”
Electra’s cheeks warmed, and that only heightened her annoyance. “I really don’t think—”
“I do. I’ve watched you eyeing him. He’s supposed to be the fastest swimmer in Aquastria, no?”
Electra waved her tail back and forth. “You honestly think that I . . . that I would . . . for a sea pony—?”
“Stop arguing and go see him. You have an excellent excuse. Besides, then you won’t have to be here when his sister shows up to take away your precious Pearl.”
Muttering under her breath, Electra swam to the opening of the lair and gazed down at the twinkling lights of the city stretched out far below.
“Someday,” she said, “I’m getting out of this place.”
Boomer’s explosive laughter followed her as she dove downward. “Where will you go?” Boomer called. “Into the Wild?”
“Maybe I should,” Electra whispered. “Maybe I should.”
Sea ponies, when recuperating from injury or illness, wrapped their slender tails around stalks of seaweed and allowed their bodies to drift with the current. After many hesitations, inner arguments, delays, and detours, Electra at last found Arrow with his tail coiled around some seaweed at the city’s edge. He had his eyes closed, and he hummed tunelessly as he drifted. A sling held his torn pectoral fin against his side.
Electra watched him in silence for half a minute. His body was striped yellow and indigo, and he kept his unruly blue mane combed back from his crest in a series of spikes. The sea ponies were less than half the size of the mermares; they were significantly weaker, too, and they were more homely besides, but Arrow was nonetheless an impressive swimmer. During practice for the Aquastria Race, Electra had often watched him: she admired his determination and his grit, for he had often continued long after the rest of the sea ponies were exhausted. If he hadn’t torn his fin before the race, Electra knew he would have stood a fair chance of beating her.
Her heart thumped steadily in her breast and her swim bladder cramped uncomfortably. That always meant she was nervous. She coughed once into her pectoral fin to gain his attention, and her heart skipped a beat when he opened his dark blue eyes, but that only served to deepen her scowl.
“Electra,” he said, “how nice to see you. It’s not very often that the mermares come all the way down here—unless they want to show us up at something, of course.”
She clenched her jaw and flicked her tail. “Sea ponies are lazy. If a mermare tore a fin like that, she’d work through the pain.”
“And she’d take twice as long to heal, assuming she healed at all. What brings you around?”
Electra swallowed, looked away from him, and held out the bouquet of sponges and worms. “Best wishes,” she muttered.
Still clinging to his seaweed stalk, Arrow leaned his head over to look. The feather duster worms, startled by the movement, ducked down into their tubes, but, after a moment, thrust their feelers out again and waved in the water.
“What a lovely arrangement, Electra! It’s very kind of you to come see me.”
“Yeah. Um, get . . . get well soon.” Electra struggled to stay calm, but felt a blush rise in her cheeks. Intending to set the bouquet down near the stalk, she lowered herself toward the seabed.
“Oh, the injury’s not too serious,” said Arrow. “I’ll recover quickly. But I expect I’ll be here anyway until I give birth.”
Electra paused, and a shudder passed through her body from snout to tailfin. Slowly, she raised her head to look at him. “What did you say?”
“Birth.”
“You . . . but, I mean, you . . .”
“Seashell and I were married right before the race.” He glanced down at her and frowned. “I guess you didn’t know, did you? Goodness, the way you mermares keep to yourselves, I suppose you don’t get much news.” With his good fin, he patted his brood pouch, which was beginning to protrude. “You can call me lazy if you like, but we’ll have lots of little ones soon, and then I certainly won’t be getting much rest. Stop by sometime and I’ll introduce you to the wife. I told her you were my best match among the mermares, and I think she’d like to meet you.”
Electra felt as if she had a barnacle stuck in her throat. Swallowing hard, she rasped, “Best match . . . yes, I might do that. Thank you. Goodbye, Arrow.” She spun around and flicked her tail.
“So long. I hope we’ll be able to race each other next year!”
She choked out, “I’d like that.” Then she swam away as quickly as she could.
Undulating her long body, Electra dodged around the waving seaweed at the city’s edge. “Honestly,” she muttered, “getting married right before the Aquastria Race. No doubt interfered with his training! Probably why he hurt himself in the first place. It was ridiculous of me to think he could have offered me any serious competition.”
She paused, stilled her tailfin, and looked down at her pectoral fins, which still enwrapped the bouquet. She had been so shocked by the news of Arrow’s marriage and impending fatherhood that she had neglected to leave it.
With a glum snort, she tried to pet one of the worms, but it quickly dove back into its tube. Snarling, she dropped the bouquet to the seabed and shot upward, scattering a school of dottybacks as she rose out of the twilit hollow where Aquastria nestled and entered the lighter blue of the upper ocean.
“I’ve gotta get out,” she muttered to herself as she caught plankton in her snout and sucked it down. “I’ve gotta get out of this place—”
Rising just above the water’s surface, the Great Reef had long been a hazard to pony sailors. In former times, mermares had often lounged on this reef to sunbathe and brush their long manes. But since King Leo had ended the war against the mermares, and since Princess Celestia had declared the mermares the sixth officially recognized tribe with the same rights and privileges as sea ponies or mustangs, they rarely broke the surface. There was no longer any need.
Deep under the ocean, the reef was bright pink, but here above the water it was bone white. The sun sat on the horizon; the sky above blazed coral, and the ocean below shone purple and red like rich wine. The reef itself, drenched with spray and speckled with gleaming pools, glistened like a pearl.
Electra pulled herself up onto the reef’s surface. After spying a tide pool dotted with starfish and clams, she pulled a few clams out, pried them open, and scooped out their insides with her sharp tongue. She cast the shells away and then settled her tailfins into the lapping water so the sea spray could keep her from drying out. She propped her body upright and, with a shell comb, brushed out the long, disheveled locks of her blue and crimson mane.
In the old days, Electra knew, her ancestresses had done this for hours in the hopes of spotting a passing ship. And when they found one—
The first stars came out in the reddening sky overhead, and an airship with billowing sails and lazily spinning rudder propellers appeared on the horizon. It looked like one of Equestria’s square-rigged royal cutters with a rigid-frame dirigible. It was flying low, no more than a hundred yards above the water, and looked to be no more than a couple of sea miles distant.
Electra’s heart began to pound. She felt her mouth go dry, so she dipped her head to the water and drank. In her breast appeared a burning desire, like a single live coal smoldering in her heart. She looked around furtively, and then she sang quietly, barely above a whisper—
“Shoo be doo. Shoo shoo be doo. Shoo be doo. Shoo shoo be doo.”
Her heart pounded harder and her face flushed. She glanced around again to make sure she was alone. If anypony had heard her, the consequences could be dire. She peered at the distant ship, too: there was no way her voice could have carried so far, but she nonetheless watched to make sure she could see no forms of ponies hurling themselves into the sea.
“Electra.”
She jumped and nearly slid off the reef. Flopping her great pectoral fins into a tidal pool with a loud splash, she rolled onto her ventral side and tossed her head. “Who’s there?” she shouted.
She heard a splash and turned to spot a white mound jutting from the water and looking almost like part of the reef. Set into the mound and fixing her with a stare was an enormous pair of blue eyes.
Electra’s stomach sank, and her swim bladder cramped up again. “Nar . . . Nar Wally, right?”
Nar Wally’s eyes blinked and dipped up and down, apparently in a nod. His mouth was still under the water, but he spoke through his blowhole, his voice sounding high and nasal. “Electra? I . . . I heard you sing . . .”
Oh. Oh no.
Electra turned from him. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think anypony was around.”
Nar Wally blew water from his blowhole. It turned to mist and floated away on the breeze. She wondered why he didn’t lift his face out of the sea and talk to her properly, but he appeared to be trying to keep his horn hidden under the surface for some reason. “Electra?” His voice trembled. “I . . . I mean . . . I’ve wanted to tell you for some time that I . . .”
She sighed and stared up at the stars winking in the purpling sky. “No you don’t, Wally.”
“But—”
“You just heard me singing siren song, that’s all. It’ll wear off. You’ll get over it completely in a few days.”
“But—”
“Just go away, Wally. I need to think.”
Nar Wally’s big eyes, wide and morose, gazed at her for a minute more, but then he sucked in a deep breath and slowly sank until he disappeared beneath the shimmering surface.
Electra returned to combing her hair. The sun sank out of sight, and only a light patch of hazy yellow remained on the western horizon. The moon, heavy and full, rose above the sea, and the glinting waves shone deep blue and ghostly white. The ship, now a dark blot against the twinkling stars, drew ever nearer as it tacked against the evening breeze. Soon it was close enough that Electra could hear the brass notes when the ship rang out eight bells, indicating the beginning of the night’s first watch. She could even make out some of the ponies on the deck and in the rigging: as she had supposed, this was a royal ship, for the pale moonlight glinted from the crewponies’ barding.
The ship was no more than a furlong distant now. Her heart again pounding and her swim bladder again cramping, Electra ran her hard tongue across her lips and silently worked her toothless jaw as she sang under her breath, her voice just a little louder than before—
“Shoo be doo, shoo be doo, shoo be doo be doo!”
When she sang, something tipped over the bulwark of the starboard side and plummeted toward the water. Reflected moonlight shone from it.
Electra heard a splash, but she heard no cry of alarm from the ship. Perhaps it was a coincidence, perhaps the ship was throwing out trash, perhaps it wasn’t a pony at all . . .
Or perhaps it was a pony, and his fall had gone unnoticed in the darkness.
Oh no.
Clad in his platinum night barding, a stallion stood at the starboard bulwark amidships aboard the E.A.S. Wind Whistler and gazed over the calm ocean. The sun had set red, which hinted at smooth sailing tomorrow—as the saying went, “Red sun at night, sailor’s delight.” And it was an airpony’s delight, too. They were over the Rim now, where the weather was wild. They had plenty of pegasi aboard to beat back bad weather systems, but not even an entire platoon could fight off a major storm front if one came upon them.
The stallion flexed his wings. A night flight would certainly feel good, but there would be no time for it: they were tacking against the wind, and in a minute he would have to fly up and join the other topponies on the mizzenmast. Ironically, he’d had no chance to do any extended flying since they’d taken to the air.
A cool breeze blew into his face. Near the captain’s cabin, the bosun’s mate rang eight clear notes from the ship’s brass bell. That meant twenty hours, the end of the last dogwatch, and the beginning of the first watch of the night. It was time to get to work.
He turned his head toward the rigging he was soon to ascend, but his left ear caught and swiveled toward a sound blowing in from the sea on the evening breeze. He could barely make out the faint notes of a lilting, feminine voice breathing sweet nothings.
And in the next moment, he lost his mind.
The hard, cold strike of the water against his face brought him sharply back to his senses. He sank swiftly, but had the presence of mind to hold his breath and kick off his platinum bell boots. He tossed his champron from his head and kicked as hard as he could with his back legs as, with his front, he first ripped away the girth from his saddle and then struggled with the laces of his peytral.
His lungs felt like burning cinders in his chest, but after he lost most of his armor, he managed, by pushing downward with his wings, to force his head above the surface. He swallowed a mouthful of saltwater by accident and gagged.
The peytral wasn’t coming loose. On dry land, he could don or doff his armor in a matter of seconds, but the seawater had soaked the laces and swelled them, and the knots were stuck tight. He managed to lift his wings above the water. He tried to flap, but succeeded only in slapping painfully at the ocean’s surface. He couldn’t lift enough of himself out of the water to take flight.
Most of what he had done so far had been a matter merely of his training and of instinct, but now his head cleared and he recognized the real danger of his situation. Unless somepony had seen him go overboard, he would be dead soon. Even if somepony had seen him, it might not have occurred to most that a pegasus such as he was in any danger if he leapt over the side of a ship.
He realized, too, that he was soon to be attacked. He had an idea of what sort of voice he had heard: he knew the old stories, though he had never imagined he might find himself living through one of them. After all, the mermares had been tamed, or so everypony said.
To his mind came the legends of the Sparkling Sea his granddam had taught him when he’d sat at her hooves and gaped in wonder or fright. “When a mermare’s got a sailor in her clutches, there ain’t no hope for him,” his granddam had cackled. “The mermare drags ’im down into her undersea cave, where she keeps ’im alive with her kisses as she does unspeakable things. And once she’s had her way with ’im, she casts ’im off to drown. Ain’t no stallion can resist her voice or the song she sings unless he thinks always of the mare he loves.”
He hated himself for having been drawn down by the deceptions of siren song. There was a mare he loved, a mare he loved very dearly, but he had not been thinking of her when he’d heard that voice. Perhaps if he had been, he wouldn’t be treading water in the drink.
Cursing himself for a weakling, he tugged at the laces of his armor as he brought to mind the bright eyes, warm blush, and kind smile of the loveliest pony he knew. That image was, perhaps, all that could save him now.
And then the mermare was upon him.
Right before his eyes, she breached the surface, her body three times the length of a full-grown stallion. She tumbled him over and clamped her great, broad pectoral fins about his barrel. In the dim light, he could make out her comely muzzle, her flashing green eyes, and the wild halo of her sapphire and crimson hair. She was beautiful enough to take his breath away, but her flesh was the blue of a corpse, and she was clammy and cold.
He struck at the fins encircling him, but they were tough as bands of steel. He had no leverage with which to push her off, and she outweighed him by several hundred pounds. He snarled and champed at her, trying to catch her throat in his teeth, but her thick, rubbery hide merely slid out from between his incisors. Desperate, and certain she would soon subdue him with more siren song, he cried out the name of the mare he loved, but the ocean flowed into his mouth, and he fell to choking.
The mermare reared and hauled him up out of the water. He retched, coughed up sea brine, and inhaled a deep, ragged breath. The mermare bent her head down and, with a few flicks of her hard, sharp tongue, slashed the laces of his armor. His peytral fell away and tumbled into the deep, where it would join the many other treasures littering the floor of the Sparkling Sea a full mile beneath the surface.
The stallion’s heart clenched tight in his chest when he realized that his bones, bleached white by the brine, would soon be littering that floor as well, but only after this mermare had misused his body in the manner dictated by her gruesome appetites.
With a loud battle cry, the stallion pounded his hooves against her. Hard as he struck, his blows merely bounced from her scales, but he saw her face twist up in pain. He managed to pull his right front leg free from her grip, and with it he buffeted her back and forth across the face.
She opened her mouth, and he expected more siren song, but instead she only shouted, “Stop! Stop it! I’m trying to—!”
She fell backwards into the water and her fins loosened their grip about his middle. He kicked downward with his hind legs and then swam. He didn’t know where to go, and he had no hope of escaping her, but still he swam into the dark sea.
In a moment, she was upon him again.
“You’ll die!” she shouted into his ear. “Come—!”
“I’ll die alone without your help, you sea witch!” he shouted back, and he kicked her again.
With one fin enwrapping him, she dragged him through the water, no doubt toward her lair, though he could not understand why she hadn’t sung again to drive him wild with passion for her, or why she hadn’t kissed him to keep him alive underwater, or why she was dragging him only across the surface.
He pulled one hoof up into the air and brought it down at the spot where the fin connected to her body. She groaned, so he did it again, several times, until she released him.
He swam away from her again, hoping that perhaps she had given up pursuing such recalcitrant prey. But then something huge and heavy landed on his back, forcing his face under the surface. He tried to rise again, but that great thing was still upon him, and then it spun, buffeting him, driving his senses from him.
He had annoyed her, so now she had him in a death roll.
He could no longer tell up from down, so when that vicelike fin encircled him again and hauled his head above water, all he could do was gasp and choke as saltwater stung his eyes and ears.
“Stupid pony!” he heard the mermare cry. “Stupid, stupid landlubber!”
Something hard like stone crunched under his right hip. His blurry vision cleared, and he saw before him the broken lip of a reef. So this was where she intended to have her way with him.
He tried to take to his hooves, but slipped. The fight had drained his strength. He heard the mermare dragging her body out of the water behind him, so he spun and, hard as he could, kicked her in the face again, but the effort caused him to lose his footing. He fell on his side and felt the jagged edges of the coral dig into his flesh.
“No!” the mermare shouted. “No!”
So she didn’t want him wounded, at least not yet. Then he could easily frustrate her purpose: she would have killed him in the end anyway, he knew, but at least now he could die without letting her have what she wanted from him. He took to his hooves again, though his new wounds seared like flame and his whole right side felt numb. Steeling himself and once again bringing to mind the mare he loved best, he prepared to cast himself down and tear open his underparts on the reef.
She grabbed him from behind and, cushioning him, rolled over onto her side, holding him close and breathing in his ear. He was already shivering, but her flesh somehow made him colder. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “I’m trying to save you.”
Struggling to hold the vision of his beloved before his mind’s eye, he shouted, “You sang me down!”
“I know. I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
“An accident?” He considered for a moment, and then he relaxed in her grip. Warmth began to spread through his limbs. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Her voice in his ear was husky and sweet. “Because if I was going to do anything to you, little pony, I would have done it already.”
He swallowed. “You know you’ll see a dungeon for this.”
“I know. The penalty for siren song is quite severe.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know.” She paused for a long moment and then added, “I was angry, I was upset, and . . . I was tempting fate.”
He let his head drop against her breast. He laughed. “That is something I believe I can understand.”
“If I let you go, will you stop fighting?”
“Yes, unless you give me a reason to continue. I don’t believe there’s much fight left in me.”
Her fin slid away from his middle. He turned to look at her and saw her propping herself upright with the rear half of her enormous body submerged in the lapping ocean. Her full, thick hair enwreathed her face, and the stars in the sky behind glistened through the translucent strands as if they had been entrapped in her wavy locks. “You put up a good struggle for a landlubber.” She probed gently at the gashes along his side. “You’ve cut yourself badly, and you’ve injured your wing.”
“I thought I might have.”
“Your wounds will fester without the right treatment.”
“There’s a surgeon on our ship.”
“Lime juice will stop the infection. I can get you some.”
“I think peroxide and iodine might be more effective. Can you hail my ship?”
She raised her head and slowly turned it. “I cannot see it. It must have moved on.”
“I know her course. If you head southeast—”
“It might be faster and surer to get word to Canterlot. King Leo can send messages instantly to Twilight Sparkle. She gave him the spell when she was here.”
The stallion paused. The warmth spreading through him receded slightly. “Princess Twilight?”
“Yes.”
He licked his lips. “I’m not sure. I don’t—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. A balloon could get here from Las Pegasus in less than an hour. I can swim straight down to Nautilus Hall and tell the king.”
He bit his lip and paused a moment longer before he nodded. “I suppose I shall trust your judgment.”
“You’ve stopped shivering,” she said.
He smiled. “I feel strangely warm.”
“That’s not good! And you’re still bleeding!” Her green eyes reflected the moonlight as she gazed down at him. Her sharp tongue darted out from between her lips, and then she swiftly bent her head down and, before he could react, pressed her mouth against his and poured ambrosia into his breast.
She tasted like fish and brine, but her kiss was nonetheless pleasant. A new kind of warmth spread through him. His muscles released, his aches ebbed, and the wetness of his coat ceased to irritate him. The sting left his wounds.
She lingered perhaps a little longer than she had to, but at last she pulled away and whispered, “That will keep you alive. And you can go ahead and hate me for it if you want to.”
“No, madam, I cannot.”
She caressed his face with a fin before she slithered into the sea. Yet, after a moment, she surfaced again and said, “I forgot one thing. Names. Mine’s Electra. Please tell me yours.”
With a faint smile, he answered, “Flash Sentry.”
Electra was no more than a few hundred feet under the water when everything turned pitch black. Now that the sun was down, nothing shone in the upper ocean. But still she knew where to go: she stayed close to the Great Reef, and soon the lights of the bioluminescent fish, bacteria, and jellyflies shone from the great city of Aquastria clustered in the canyon a mile below. She sucked plankton through her snout to get a little extra energy and flicked her tail as she shot straight toward the brightest of those lights, the vast Nautilus Hall where King Leo presided at a perpetual feast, and where he kept a box given him by Twilight Sparkle, a box that could burn letters in potassium, after which, by some strange means, those letters would appear in Twilight’s library on dry land.
Twenty dark shapes rose out of the city and sped toward her. She could see from the way they moved that they were sea ponies. At first, that didn’t concern her, but then she noticed that they were strangely bulky. As they drew closer, she realized they were Leo’s royal guards, clad in turtle shell armor and carrying spears tipped with sharpened murex shell barbed with urchin spines. With them, trailing slightly behind and with his broad forehead wrinkled in a worried frown, was Nar Wally.
Soon, the group of sea ponies reached her. She thought to shoot on past as if she didn’t notice, but they formed a sphere around her and blocked her path. Directly before her hovered Coral, Arrow’s sister. The shell over her breast was etched with the mark of a captain.
Electra glanced around at the other sea ponies, all of whom were stallions. It was customary in the sea pony guard to use stallions as grunts and reserve the higher ranks for mares, a practice that had been in place even in the old days, during the war: because of their peculiar biology, sea pony stallions were, among rational creatures, the only males immune to the mermares’ wiles.
Coral, her bright orange scales glistening in the dim light, doffed her shell helmet and let her long pink mane flow free. “Where is he?” she demanded in a stern voice.
Electra glanced around again at the stallions surrounding her. All held their spears at the ready.
“Where is who?” Electra asked.
Coral inclined her head toward Nar Wally, who, red-faced, dipped his head and rubbed his flippers together. “Nar Wally says he saw you sing down a land stallion from an airship, Electra. Where is he? Have you killed him?”
Electra hissed, “You make an accusation like that on the word of one witness?”
“Do you think Nar Wally would lie about something like that?” Coral snapped.
“Do you think I would really sing down a stallion?”
Coral wrinkled her snout and turned her spear in her fins. “I don’t know. Did you?”
Electra closed her eyes and turned away from her.
“I saw you!” Nar Wally cried. “I . . . I heard you. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what I . . .”
Electra glanced at him: his eyes were red, and though it was impossible to tell underwater, she supposed that he’d been crying.
She felt a twinge of jealousy. Mermares couldn’t cry.
“His name is Flash Sentry,” Electra whispered. “He’s on top of the reef. And he’s hurt. I was going to tell King Leo.”
Four of the stallions moved in and flanked her.
“The king will throw you into the locker for this,” Coral said.
“He’s hurt!” Electra shouted. “And I think he’s hurt more badly than he’ll admit! I can keep him alive until Equestria sends aid. Tell King Leo to get a message to Twilight Sparkle, and let me go back to him!”
Coral shook her head. “You’ll keep your fins off him.”
“Coral, don’t be ridiculous! I didn’t—”
“Take her away,” Coral said.
One of the guards prodded at Electra’s dorsal fin with his spear. “Come with us, ma’am.”
“Oh, for the love of Leo!” Electra raised her head and sang, “Shoo be doo! Shoo shoo be doo! Shoo be doo! Nar Wally, fight for me! Shoo be doo, shoo be doo, shoo be doo!”
With a loud cry, the enormous narwhal swam into the midst of the sea pony guards and scattered them. Snarling like a wild manta hawk, he struck at the stallions with his great horn and battered them with his flippers.
“Don’t hurt him!” Coral yelled. “He’s bewitched! Nar Wally, snap out of it! Electra, you’ll pay for this!”
“I’m sure I will, Coral. Now go send word to Twilight, and send somepony for limes! He’s cut himself on the reef!” As Nar Wally roared and lashed the water to swirling foam, Electra flicked her tail and shot upward.
Electra threw her pectoral fins onto the top of reef and, writhing her long body, hauled herself entirely out of the water. Clumsily, she dragged herself to Flash Sentry, who lay on his side, shivered, and gasped shallowly.
“My kiss wore off, I see,” she said.
He offered her a weak smile. “I think perhaps I’ve lost more blood than I realized.”
“The coral is poisonous, and your cuts look deep.”
“Ah.”
Gently, she picked him up in her fins and rocked him as if he were fry.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“But I can still warm you up.” She dipped her head and kissed him deeply. “If I stay here, you can live.”
“How long can you stay out of the water?”
“A few hours. And the sea ponies can’t reach me here. They can’t climb out.”
He frowned.
She smiled and stroked his mane, which was blue and, now that it was drying, stood up in spikes like Arrow’s. “I’m afraid I’m in some trouble, but the sea ponies will send a message to Twilight Sparkle. Help will come for you.”
Flash looked away from her. His eyes narrowed, as if he were peering into the distance. “Princess Twilight? Hm.”
“Ah, yes. I keep forgetting to call her princess. I met her when she was just a unicorn.”
“I never did,” Flash said, his voice as far away as his gaze. “I only knew her . . . ah, never mind that. I hardly knew her at all.”
Electra kissed him again. “Are you feeling better?”
“I think so. It looks as though the bleeding’s stopped.”
“We’ll have to open that wound again to clean it out.”
A weak smile cut across his features as he closed his eyes and lay his head against her breast. “It seems you are bent on opening all my wounds tonight.”
“I? But—”
Something out to sea made a high-pitched trill. Electra peered into the dark.
“What was that?” Flash asked.
“Narwhal,” she answered.
A long ivory horn, glinting in the moonlight, thrust out of the darkness. Hanging from its end was a woven basket full of limes.
Electra smiled. Leaning over, she took the basket from the horn, picked out one of the limes, broke it, and, still cradling Flash Sentry, pressed the pulp against his wound and began to rub.
He winced.
“It will sting,” she said, “but the juice can dissolve coral and even urchin spines. It will stop infection and destroy any poison.”
“A real wonder drug,” he said with a chuckle, and then he winced again. His wound opened, and his blood mixed with the lime juice, turning it pink.
Slowly and carefully, Electra worked, kneading the lime pulp into Flash Sentry’s gash. Every once in a while, she paused to kiss him again in order to deaden the pain and restore his strength. The sticky juice, mingled with his blood, trickled down her scales. The muscles under his skin tensed and quivered from the pain. He wrapped his fetlocks around her and pressed his face against her side.
Although it was dark, Electra was aware that, all the while, Nar Wally was close by, silently watching, though he had pulled his horn back under the water.
“Thank you, Nar Wally,” Electra said. “You may have saved his life. That’s two lives you’ve saved.” After a pause, she added, “I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, and I’ve misused you.”
He didn’t answer.
“I assume the sea ponies let you go after the siren song wore off. I’m glad.”
Still he didn’t answer, so Electra worked in silence. There was no sound except the lapping of the water and Flash Sentry’s muffled groans.
With his heart sitting in his breast like a lump of lead, Nar Wally floated near the reef, kept the top of his head above the water, and waited as he watched the mermare he loved.
He didn’t know what to think or how to feel. After the effects of Electra’s song had faded from his nerves and he had come back to his senses, he had fled in shame from the sea ponies and swum to the nearby Sandwich Island, where he had awakened the surly komodo dragons to beg them until they had agreed to bring him a basket of limes.
Now he simply floated near the reef and watched as Electra, her silvery blue scales bathed in moonlight, cradled a wounded stallion in her fins. She was achingly beautiful, but after all that had happened this night, Nar Wally was too disquieted even to feel jealous of the pony she caressed.
What he wanted more than anything was to retreat back down to the Sea Grass Forest where he could cuddle Goldy, give vent to his sorrows, and be alone, but something, some feeling of anticipation, some tightness in his chest, held him at the surface.
With his horn dipped in the water, he could sense many things happening below. He could feel the armor-clad sea ponies encircling the reef with their spears at the ready. They knew where Electra had gone, and they knew they couldn’t follow, but they were ready to apprehend her as soon as she slipped back down.
Silently, the crest of Coral’s helmet breached the surface at Nar Wally’s side. Keeping her gills under the water, she whispered, “Nar Wally, I want you out of here. She has to come down eventually, and when she does—”
Nar Wally glumly twisted his mouth. “You don’t want me to attack you again.”
“Exactly.”
“She hasn’t hurt him.” He inclined his heavy head in the direction of the reef.
“Can you see her? I can’t make out anything in this air.”
“They’re blurry, but I can see.”
“Go home, Nar Wally. Go back to your forest. You’ve done your duty, and we’ll take it from here.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Nar Wally—”
Both of them winced as a hard beam of light struck the reef from above. The reef’s surface glowed as if white-hot, and Electra and Flash were outlined starkly against the black sky.
Blinking back fresh tears, Nar Wally looked up to see a dark shape blotting the stars: an Equestrian airship had slipped in silently on the night winds.
Another shape, also dark, leapt from the ship’s prow. It spread vast wings, turned a wide arc in the air, and dropped toward the reef.
“Careful!” Electra shouted. “Land on your hooves! The coral can hurt you!”
The flying shape passed into the beam of light, which changed it from black to violet. It proved to be Princess Twilight.
As Twilight alighted, Nar Wally, sucking in his breath, swam closer. He had met Twilight Sparkle before, but she had been smaller then, and wingless, and she’d had gills in her neck and fins growing from her hooves. In the water, she had been clumsy, awkward, and comical. Now she radiated somber majesty.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Twilight folded her wide wings and walked toward Electra. Nar Wally thought he saw her knees tremble.
Electra dipped her head. “Hello, Twilight. Ah, I mean Your Highness—”
“Twilight is fine,” Twilight replied.
She stopped a few feet away from the towering mermare. Nar Wally couldn’t quite make out Twilight’s expression, but, when she spoke again, he detected tension in her voice.
“Electra, if you just put him down and back away—”
Electra cut her off with a tinkling laugh. “You’re an alicorn, and you’re a mare. I have no power over you, and you can do anything you want to me. Don’t sound so nervous.” She bent down to kiss Flash on the mouth again, and Nar Wally thought he saw Twilight’s ears tip back.
But now Flash stirred in Electra’s grasp and placed a hoof against her snout. “I think I’m getting better. You can put me down, please.”
Electra shook her head. “But—”
“No, I mean it.”
Electra bent over and spread her pectoral fins. Though he shook, Flash clambered from her grasp, climbed to his hooves, and gave Twilight a weak smile. “Your Highness—”
With that, he collapsed, but Twilight ran to him and grabbed him in her front limbs. She cast a sharp glance at Electra and said, “What did you do to him?”
Electra turned away and said nothing.
“I think there’s been some misunderstanding,” said Flash as Twilight lowered him gently to the ground. “This mermare saved my life.”
Now Coral launched herself forward and swam past Nar Wally. Planting her fins on the reef’s lip, she cried, “Your Highness, she used her siren song on him! There’s a witness!”
Nar Wally swallowed a lump.
“Coral?” Twilight walked to the edge and craned her neck. “Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me! Electra sang him down, and—”
“I fell,” said Flash. “Haven’t yet gained my airlegs, I suppose.”
“But you’re a pegasus!” Coral shouted.
“It’s quite embarrassing,” Flash replied. “Couldn’t see a thing as I tumbled in the dark, and I smacked straight down into the water. Once I’d done that, of course, taking off was impossible.”
“But—”
“It’s a good thing a mermare was nearby, or I’m sure I’d have drowned. She even pulled my armor off.”
Twilight’s ears flattened again, and she snapped her head around to look at him. Nar Wally saw him answer her gaze with a small, lopsided smile.
“What of your injury?” Coral demanded, pointing a fin.
Flash nodded. “I fell against the reef when she pulled me out. She’s been working to nurse me back to health ever since.”
Twilight looked back and forth between Flash and Coral. “But I got a message that—”
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Flash.
Coral turned to Nar Wally and hissed, “Say something! Tell the princess what you saw!”
Nar Wally looked up at Electra, who hung her head in silence.
He said nothing.
“This mermare saved my life, and that’s all that matters,” said Flash quietly. “I’m sure this won’t happen again. I think a lesson’s been learned.” After a pause, with a widening grin, he added, “I won’t be getting too close to any ships’ bulwarks in the dark, that’s for sure.”
Coral sharply shook her head. “That’s not good enough. Even if she didn’t sing to him, she sang to Nar Wally. I was there. I saw that myself.”
Now, after a deep sigh, Nar Wally swam forward and spoke. “She only did that to save him. You know that, Coral.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Coral cried. “The law—”
“The princess,” said Nar Wally quietly.
Coral glared at him. Though his throat felt tight, Nar Wally asked, “Can’t Twilight decide, now that she’s a princess?”
Twilight started. “Oh.” Looking back and forth between Electra and Coral, she said, “I . . . I don’t—”
She paused and looked in Nar Wally’s eyes. “I mean, I guess . . . if she was really trying to take care of Flash, maybe we can let it go. This time.”
With a scowl, Coral lowered most of her face below the water.
“Well, if that’s settled, Your Highness,” said Flash, “I would most appreciate it if you would take me back to my ship.”
Twilight stepped to him and lowered her head over his wounds. “I don’t think you’ll be going back to your ship with this—”
“It will knit, Your Highness.”
“Flash, don’t be silly—”
“We have a surgeon aboard ship.”
“I think you need stitches.”
“I’m sure I shall get them before I return to duty. You must forgive me for inconveniencing you—”
“Flash!”
Now only inches from the edge of the reef, Nar Wally was close enough to make out Twilight’s face clearly. Her brow was knit, and her jaw was clenched. She looked like somepony trying to mask a deep pain.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Flash,” she said, her voice low. “There never was. That’s what you didn’t understand.”
With eyes wide and moist, and with mouth falling slack, Flash raised his head to meet her eyes, and the two held each other’s gaze for a few heartbeats before he looked away and said, “I have my duty, Your Highness.”
“But you’re injured.”
“Even so.”
She stamped a hoof, and the coral crunched under her foot. “I can dismiss you from your duty! I can tell your captain you got hurt, and he won’t argue with me! You could come back to Canterlot right now, and then you . . . and then I—”
She bit into her lip as if to stop her own words.
He kept his eyes on the ground as he replied, “What my princess commands, I of course will do.” His voice had become cold, mechanical, hard.
Twilight turned her back on him, and Nar Wally thought he saw a tear, round and perfect as an ocean pearl, rolling down her cheek.
She raised her head, and her horn flashed three times. Two armored pegasus stallions descended from the ship with a stretcher in their front hooves. They gingerly picked up Flash and laid him on it. As they flapped their wings and lifted into the air, Flash raised a hoof toward Twilight in a stiff salute.
At Nar Wally’s side, Coral murmured, “She thought she was going to have to negotiate for a hostage, so she came down alone. She kept her stallions back until she knew it was safe.”
“No,” Nar Wally answered quietly. “She came down to help a dear friend.”
At that, Electra at last raised her head and looked Nar Wally’s way.
Twilight opened her wings and ascended. The ship turned off its beam, revved its propellers, banked, and headed east, once again allowing the stars overhead to shine down clear and unobstructed. After a minute, Coral, with a frustrated snort, tossed her head and sank back down into the sea. Nar Wally could sense the sea ponies beneath him dispersing and receding toward the city on the seabed. Soon, he and Electra were alone. She sat atop the reef and continued to gaze at him as the breeze twisted her long, unruly hair.
For a minute, there was no sound but the wind and the waves. Then Electra spoke.
“Those two,” she said, “won’t say to each other what they need to say. If they go on like that, then someday they’ll find out it’s too late. The chance will have passed. Then there’ll be nothing to do but live on in silence and let missed opportunities and might-have-beens gnaw at them for the rest of their lives.”
She paused, looked up at the stars, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
Nar Wally gulped seawater because his mouth had gone dry. Then, trembling, he lifted all of his face out of the water. His ivory horn glimmered in the starlight, and rivulets ran down his gleaming white fur. Clearly and loudly, he said, “Electra, it’s not because I heard you sing. It’s because of who you are. I love you. I have loved you for a very long time, and nothing can ever change that.”
For a long while, Electra held perfectly still. But then she nodded once, closed her eyes, and threw herself backwards into the sea.
