Hippocampus: The Rebirth

"What in Poseidon's seas" Keira asked with astonishment.

"I am The Forgotten, and my name is Saris" Saris bellowed but not in anger. He coughed "Sorry that was how I and the other immortals addressed our citizens, it was tradition, but I see no reason to use it in this situation."

"So you are the reincarnated soul of the last immortal Hippocampus?"

"Yes the terms of my punishment, were that I could only be free if the third son, of a third son, of a third son was crowned king. It was no accident that my name was Saris beforehand. I knew it was this vessel that would be crowned king of my empire, I wish I had known that it was going to be in tatters like this when I got crowned."

"So you knew your entire life that you were going to be King!" Keira shouted in anger.

"Yes and no “he answered cryptically, this caused Keira to give him a look of irritation "That is to say, I knew that I was going to be king, but with each reincarnation I forget everything I knew until I was freed or died again, however I could set a goal and try hard to achieve it." he explained.

"Well couldn't you have just taken power before Discord's army destroyed ninety nine point nine, nine (however many nines I need to add)  percent of our population!?!"

"As terms of my punishment I cannot take power it has to be thrust upon me, any time I tried to take power I died in the attempt." He explained to her.

"Great, so you come to..."

Saris cut her off "Hail a new age for the Hippocampus race, now that I think about that it seems like they meant that a little too literally.

"You keep saying you were serving a punishment, what crime did you commit?" Keira asked, wondering what crime he could have committed.

"I committed no crime, save one of bringing life to this world." he said bluntly.

"I don't get it. What's so bad about that?" She asked puzzled.

"There is nothing bad about creating life now, but I was the first to do it, and when I did it the other immortals were terrified of it." He explained to her, annoyed at the reason he was punished.

"What did you create?" Keira asked hesitation seeing the annoyed look on his face.

"I created the Kraken, the hippocampus know it as the creature that sleeps for eternity in the abyss waiting for its masters call. I also created the first Alicorn."

"Then why don't you appear as an Alicorn?"

"This is where I spent three hundred years hiding from my fellow immortals, I fell in love with the Hippocampus, simple as that."

"And now you have returned to godhood?"

"Hardly, I am as powerful as the first Alicorn who lived, I believe, five thousand years. But back to the point, I had to release a lot of my power into the sea so they couldn't find me. That's the reason that the sea is self sufficient, and I cannot take that power back for fear my creations will die without it."

"How about this, are you the life giver Saris or the Prince Saris?"

"Technically I am both, but I am Saris, I loved my wife and children, all this life's relations matter to me. But on the other hoof I remember my life as an immortal and I find I have the same personality."

"So, let me get this straight. You are that thirty two year old that we all knew, but you are also the immortal that created the ponies in general?"

"Yes" he said clearly board with the conversation.

"So what do we do now?" Keira asked him.

"Quite simple we begin looking for other ponies to and wake them up. We need to find them all."

"But there are only two of us." she stated.

"Yes and when we wake up another we will have three, then four, then six. It's called exponential growth." he said agitated. I suggest we start in the Palace here then work our way out."

"OK, so which direction are the servant's quarters?" she asked stretching he tail.

Saris thought for a moment, then pointed to his right "If there is any pony still alive they would be in the west wing." he stated seriously.

"Got it lets go." Keira said swimming off. Saris smiled and dropped his brother's old trident and swam after her. He was surprisingly fast considering he was wearing a cloak and he was swimming with one hoof because the other was holding the white gold trident Octotear.

The two of them spent many hours just looking for the Hippocampus that had been able to survive this whole time. In the entire palace staff that had gone to sleep, only five of them woke up. This brought a great joy to Saris's heart but for every pony he managed to wake up, there where fifty three bodies that needed to be buried (Keira did the math) and the kicker was that those were just the staff that had gone to sleep, if he incorporated the full staff of this palace had once had then it was close to a one to four hundred and thirty two, survivors on top.

It had been getting dark by this time and there was a matter of food and sleep to be dealt with. Fortunately for Saris seaweed was in the plenty at the top of the palace and he simply went up and garbed some of it to bring down to the others. As for bedding that was going to be harder, then he got an idea. There was a set of rooms reserved for dignitaries should they want to stay the night, it had several beds and was kept via magic airtight. A Hippocampus can and when necessary stay on land so they were just goanna have to suck it up and sleep in there.

And they did the five servants insisting their new king spent the night in the master bed room why they stayed in the dignitary's servant quarters. Keira got the secondary dignitary's quarters.

It was a fitful sleep; filled with the images of the loved ones that he lost and their remains in their rooms.

When he awoke he found that they all didn't sleep well. Three of the servants had lost lovers and the other two had lost their entire extended families.

"Was that not the second worse day in our history!?! Right after the day we went to sleep!" one of the servants had shouted at him once seeing his king.

"Well if you take all of our history into account I'd say the third." he had retorted.

He had meant it as a sort of joke but the servant wanted to know what he thought was worse. To which he responded "Our war with the flame ponies" he was sounding grim as he remembered his incarnation who had died during the final battle. "They dried out the ocean and if the Pegasus hadn't helped us we would have burned.

"How do you..." the servant trailed off remembering the story that his new king had told him and even offered proof of in the form of raw magical power directed at a statue.

"So what's on the agenda today" a maid asked him.

"Well we go out into the city and start looking for other survivors, tell them what to do and send them to look for more. I want to get at least a  sixteenth of the inner circle done. But we need to be prepared for night as well he said looking at the three stallions sitting in front of him. "You need to start moving and cleaning tubs so every pony has a place to sleep. Well we're burning daylight lets hop to it."

They spent about four hours searching before they found another living Hippocampus, It was Saris who found him.

"Wake up!" he shouted shaking the sleeping Hippocampus.

"What the!" the Hippocampus said waking.

Saris got a satisfied look on his face, "Welcome back to the land of the living Eel." he said ominously.

"What? Do I know you?" the Eel asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I would hope so Director Felis, I was the one who funded your program"

"Saris! Your king?" he asked seeing the crown on his head.

"I'm much more then the king now, but that's beside the point. You need to go fetch your changling skin and infiltrate Equestria, that is if it is still there."

"Once a Crimson Eel always a Crimson Eel." Felis said with a smile, he quickly swam off to the surface.

As he swam away Saris shouted to him "I expect monthly reports!!!"

Felis shouted back "Got it, the usual!"

Saris needed to know what had happened on the surface, surly the Elements of Harmony had destroyed Discord. That should have set them free. Celestia surely couldn't have let him live this entire time, surely. He thought.

It was another two hours before they found another living Hippocampus, this time Keira found him.

"Please wake up!" she shouted shaking him, she knew him.

"Where am I?" the grey hippocampus asked with a look in his eye's that suggested he was hangover even though he wasn't.

"Wait you’re the Architect! What's your name? Don't tell me, Teneve! was I right"

"Yes I am Teneve, Architect of our great city. But tell me how long were we asleep?" he asked looking at the tattered remains of his house.

"All we know is that it has been over five hundred years"

"From the clock tower?"

"Yes, but come I need to get you to our new king you will be invaluable to the restoration effort."

"The king wants to restore the city?"

"Well as much as can be salvaged once we have woken every pony who survived after all this time".

"Do the air breathers still call us Sea ponies?"

"We've had no contact with the surface, we've only been awake a day ourselves."

"My king you won't guess who I found!" Keira shouted to saris as she swam with Teneve in her wake.

"Kalil?" he guessed at random.

She hadn't expected him to actually guess and lost her train of thought. She quickly got it back "No, the Architect Teneve"

"Good he will be invaluable when we start restoration." he said bluntly "Now put him to work finding and waking other hippocampus."

"Yes my king." she said then took Teneve's hoof and swam away.

On that day they found all of twenty three hippocampus. They spent a month searching for the other survives. Only to find that of the Fifteen thousand hippocampus that had done to sleep only two thousand had survived this long. That had taken them a month.

"There is no fate worse than finding yourself in among the remnants of your once great empire. Knowing that if you fail your people will be destroyed" Saris said grimly.

"Nice piece of old world poetry" Felis said, surprising his king. "I'm here for my report." he was wearing the pelt of a changeling.

"And that is?"

"Equestria tribes, Celestia and Luna rule, and Discord lives."

"What!?! They didn't kill him?"

"No, the Elements apparently can't destroy, he was imprisoned the whole time".

"If Celestia lives then did you find out how long we were asleep."

"No, my king. But you won't like the next part of my report."

"Nothing news could hurt me now."

"They send boats across our territory" Felis said wincing.

"WHAT!!!! THIS IS UNEXCEPTIONABLE!!!!!!!!!! THE PACT WAS ETERNAL, NEXT YOUR GOING TO SAY THERE IS PEACE WITH THE GRIFFONS!!!!!!!!!!" he bellowed literally steaming.

"Yah about that"

"NO!! This is the last straw, get to the griffons land, infiltrate the court and do what you do best, standard reports."

"And what will you do?"

"Me? I'm going to Equestria and fixing this problem, even if it means I need to wake the Kraken to stop this betrayal."