North by Northwest

My parents told me of a past they shared in silence, before I had come and filled their heads with words. They commiserated with one another of a love and happiness that was shared in the sincerity of their moments spent both together and apart. They reminded me that, before I came into their lives, they were without fear, without shame.

They have even told me that I am not inherently bad. They told me that my coming into the world was beautiful, just as I am; they only wish my words were as beautiful as I was.

And my words are beautiful. I can write of the fantastic, of the wondrous. Likewise, my thoughts paint the vivid descriptions of all that I see and feel. I believe that, if they read what I write or they observe what I draw without first convincing themselves that I am just a teenage filly seeking attention, perhaps they will see the same intelligence in me that I do.

Maybe my life is wasted hoping they’ll understand me. I wish I could go. There’s no pony who would hire me with my problem, though, so I can’t earn the bits to leave. I don’t want to be homeless, but I have no practical means of changing my situation.

Go. Where are these ships going? Is there a city on the land which still exists? Even if there is, it is no place for a sea-pony to try to survive. I need water to keep my skin hydrated. I don’t have legs with which to travel. I don’t know the first thing about surviving anywhere but in the bountiful sea. Even if I were to follow them, only suffering and loss would come to me. I can’t abandon my home.

I guess, when it comes down to it, I will miss my parents, despite my constant disappointment in their eyes. I will miss Aquastria, truly an incredible kingdom to behold, and one that I know so well. I will miss the words of the elders, telling me against my better judgment to believe them and their world wisdom. I will miss the comfort of familiarity, of knowing what the day will bring and being able to prepare so thoughtfully.

In its place, I would live a life of chaos and uncertainty. There is no telling if I will wake up the next day, and if I do awake, if I will be able to make it to sleep for the day after. The elders have stressed countless times that the outside world is dangerous and unforgiving, that to stare it down is to stare death in the face. It will take me far from home, from all that I know and hold dear, and pit me against the unspeakable horrors that lie beyond the borders of Aquastria.

In the end, I guess, the choice is always easy. I only need to take the plunge.

I hide in the shadow of the ship on the right, following the sailor ponies as they skirt the border of Aquastria. Several eyes peer over the vast stretch of blank ocean that is—was my home. I see the now-familiar eyes of Cap as he murmurs to his crewmate, “Ye’re sure our ‘eadin’ ain’t off at all? I ain’t willin’a tempt fate this evenin’, Sextant.”

“Sure as the north star, Cap’n,” comes Sextant’s reply. His name recalls to my mind a history book that once mentioned a star-measuring device of some sort called a sextant. The book was only noting ancient, primitive devices, some of which made no sense. I reasoned that perhaps the early sea-ponies used to need to go to the surface to navigate, which would make the sextant useful, and that long-distance navigation, which is all but irrelevant now, had developed a more efficient means of navigation—I guessed sea-bottom sunbeams and moonbeams, which allow charting based on the positions of both objects, but also requires extensive understanding of solar and lunar cycles and how their position varies over a given period of time to project, based on the dappling on the ocean floor, how to reason the positions of the Sun and Moon, which in turn reveals travel direction. I just never understood why we couldn’t simply go near the surface and take note of the Sun’s or Moon’s position.

“Ah believe ya,” comes Cap’s reply. “Ah just got me a bad feelin’ ‘bout this.”

“Ah.” There is a short silence as Sextant considers Cap’s words. “Think we oughta alter course? Just so we don’t chance—”

I’m jarred away from listening to the conversation by something disturbing the space below the water. Something is coming toward us, and it’s big.

I submerge my head briefly, my ears picking up a whistling tune. Whistling... caused by battering ram-type weapons used in the Atlantean War. The whistling is caused by multiple holes perforating the device that allows it to travel through the water with less water resistance, therefore it may travel at greater speeds. At the end of most ramming mechanisms is a large horn taken from a now-endangered creature known as the narwhal, though some attempted to substitute this with large bones, or even coral, which would fracture and cause widespread injury to targets.

There is only one thing large enough to merit bringing a battering ram. I bring my head back above the water. “Aquastria is Equestria! The sea-ponies are unicorn Sweet Pea narwhal Aquastria! Narwhal! Narwhal!”

A pony’s head pokes over the railing and squints at me. “Oi, Cap! The sea-pony ain’t gone yet!”

Cap’s head pops up alongside the other pony’s. “’Zat so? ‘Ey boys, get a net! We’re goin’ fishin’!”

I stare incredulously as a group of ponies casts a net over the side of the ship toward me, then dodge effortlessly around its grasp. I try again to warn the oblivious ponies. “Aquastria narwhal unicorn! The sea-ponies unicorn is Aquastria! Coral Aquastria is narwhal!”

The sea-ponies only guffaw and attempt to throw the net at me again. I move away from it and back to a safe distance. Several moments later, there is a massive impact to the ship, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood and surprised shouts from those cat-calling me from the deck. There is a flurry of hooves, then silence.

As I knew it would, the battering ram whistles once again toward its target. I duck my head below to watch the collision, taking mental notes of the attack pattern. Reading of these things in books and seeing still pictures of them in transit to a battle doesn’t compare to on-the-fly battlefield tactics or the physics behind the device’s power. It spears its way into the underbelly of the great ship, causing another torrent of water to begin rushing in through the bottom. As it backs away once more, a lone pony carcass, affixed upon the tip of the ram, catches on the edge of the ship and slips off, his blood oozing into the water and setting a beacon for numerous predators. Their job done, the sea-ponies propelling the ram tow it off into the murky depths, back to Aquastria.

The ram performed its duty with ruthless efficiency. The ship quickly begins sinking, the two gaping holes in its underside completely jeopardizing the hull integrity. The crew assembles on the deck, attempting to escape the rising water.

The nearby fellow ship swings around to aid their comrades. A few sailors call out, asking for an explanation of what happened. Cap shouts back the attack from the ram, then several round flotation devices are thrown to the crew, who grab on and are pulled slowly toward the other ship.

The deck is abruptly splintered again as the battering ram rockets through the center of the sinking ship’s remains. It continues straight ahead, toward the second ship. There is a call from several ponies to brace for impact, then a massive gouge is run from end to end. Chunks of wood litter the water’s surface from the first ship, the second ship rocking to the side and nearly capsizing before correcting itself and taking on water faster than the first ship did. The first ship no longer has a solid surface, and the second ship is quickly turning to little more than a deck which can’t keep above the water.

The situation of these sailor ponies is dire indeed; there is, however, nothing I can do. Chances are that the elders already know of my presence here with these ships, which bodes torture for many long hours for leaving the borders of Aquastria... torture, of course, being the more optimistic of the two possibilities of punishment. If I so much as lift a flipper to aid them,  there will be no mercy.

Besides, trying to save them will only round them up so the battering ram will get another good shot at them. More will probably die, ponies that could have drowned peacefully without being gored by a giant tusk. It is the merciful thing to do to let them perish as they are.

It just... doesn’t feel right.

Before my parents pulled me out of school with the other sea-fillies and sea-colts, I was often beaten up. I was not a strong swimmer, nor was I very heavy, so the other sea-fillies would pick on me very often. They would rub me along the ground and chafe my skin, or put kelp in my hair and wrap it together and tangle my hair and the kelp together. I didn’t think I was unattractive compared to them, but the way I spoke made me an obvious target for their bullying.

To say that I tried to keep my head down would be an understatement. I was rightly terrified of what three or four of them could do to me. I felt absolutely powerless to stop them.

I forgot my fear when I saw them picking on a new girl. She was small and timid, and certainly wasn’t going to be able to stand up for herself. There was nopony around who would help her, of that I was certain.

What could I do? Stand by and watch six others beat on a new girl who’d been forced to move here with her parents?

So, I shouted at them. My words distracted them enough that half of them beat on me, and the other half on her. She cried, yes, but she wasn’t beaten unconscious. As she likely would have been, had I not shared her burden.

For the first time in my life after that, I was called “friend.” She also turned to ridiculing me the next day, when she was shown some small amount of attention by a filly higher up the social ladder. I didn’t blame her; were it not for the way I spoke, I’d have been given the same opportunity, and I haven’t the faith in myself to say I wouldn’t take it.

Here, now, it feels like similar odds. Even if it breaks my back to do so, I would rather share the burden with these doomed creatures and say I tried than idly watch them perish in an attempt to save my own skin that was probably doomed whether I involved myself or not. I would be better off dead if I don’t do everything I can to save these helpless Equestrians anyway.

My mind made up, I begin swimming speedily, gathering the shattered pieces of ship together. I dive briefly, bringing up pieces of seaweed, kelp, and giant bulba pods, arranging them around the wood and making a leaky but functional raft. I then swim in a large radius around the raft, picking up flailing ponies and towing them to safety, waiting until they grasp the sides and pull themselves over.

My heart is racing as I can feel eyes drawn to me. I haven’t even gotten a dozen to their temporary safety, but already I can feel my final moments creeping up on me. This shipwreck will almost certainly become my grave as well.

I am not afraid, but perhaps I am disappointed. This end is just so... anticlimactic. I guess my wish is for a greater life than what I had. Not glorious, or important... just more meaningful. I feel... robbed. Of martyrdom, perhaps. Or a life unfulfilled. It certainly hasn’t been the life I wanted.

I want... to be a revolutionary. A counteraction to what’s normal. I desperately want to learn that I am special. A realist expects such an end, though, do they not? That would be why I would rather die an illusioned dreamer than a pragmatic coward. Perhaps, when it really comes down to it, I am quite like my parents; I just manifest my sentiments differently.

In the end, I guess it could be said that I was the most special of my society... for that briefest of moments, that moment that I was truly selfless before being impaled on a battering ram and perishing, perhaps I could allow myself this one small admittance. No other I have met in all of Aquastria would even lift a flipper to help a stranger out of convenience, let alone save them with death a near-certainty as a consequence.

Besides, I would rather die a heroine than have everything I’d ever done be meaningless, even to myself. This is the armor I clad myself in.

I continue bringing floundering sailors to the makeshift raft I created, feeling an ever-closer impending doom for myself and those I am trying to help. There is only so much time before they are here. As if sensing my thoughts, I hear a whistling coming through the water, directly toward the raft. Ramming speed.

I begin to tick away my final seconds to live, starting at about seven and a half.

When I reach two, I hear a very loud crunch, as if the ram had impacted with a solid object. Confused, I duck my head below the water, but I can’t see anything. It is also getting very chilly.

Ice. That clouded stuff is ice. Somepony froze the water directly below me.

How? The only way that could be accomplished is with magic.

I toss my head confusedly back and forth, my eyes drifting over the raft, where I notice a glow coming from one of the sailors.

Not a sailor. Sweet Pea. Her forehead is glowing purple, particularly the horn coming out of the center. Come to think of it, none of the other land ponies had a horn coming from their head either. I hadn’t noticed this detail earlier... how strange.

I haven’t long to wonder about this oversight, as the water is swiftly losing temperature. I call out for help. “Aquastria is narwhal! Ram the Equestria! Sea-ponies is horn Equestria!” I take a deep breath, then call out to Sweet Pea as loudly as possible. “Equestria!”

Sweet Pea’s eyes open, and the glow dissipates. She gasps. “Seawinkle! Get over here, I’ll pull you onto the raft!”

I glance at her cohorts in uncertainty, then decide I would be better off abducted than frozen to death. I propel myself to the raft, where I am hoisted into the air by Sweet Pea, the strange glowing once again coming from her horn to lift me into the air. She... uses magic? I thought magic had lost its wielders long ago... another lie told to me by Aquastrian society.

Meanwhile, she is doting over me, thanking me for bringing her and so many others to the raft and asking for blankets or extra clothes to wrap me in. They are all soaking wet, which is a bonus for my skin, and the sun quickly warms the clothes I am swathed in. The adrenaline finally drains out of my body, and I am left exhausted. Blackness overtakes me before I have a chance to fight it.

When I come to, the sky is dark, and the mellow rhythmic singing of these sailor ponies is being done in time to makeshift paddles propelling the raft.

The ponies are likely making their way toward land; the raft, while leaky, seems to have been patched with assorted articles of clothing, leaving a relatively dry deck. There seem to be more ponies on the raft than I had managed to save; perhaps after I fell asleep, they rescued as many of their number as they could.

Snuggled close to my body, only a blanket separating us, is Sweet Pea.

I gasp, waking her up, where she adjusts the hat on her head that she appears to have salvaged along with her cape. Her eyes gaze into mine. “You saved my life. Did you hear me say that to you earlier? I don’t think you did. You seemed awfully tired.”

I look balefully at her, intending to say something along the lines of, “To what end?” Instead, it comes out as, “Narwhal horns and Aquastria.”

To my surprise, she giggles. “You seem to be thinking of narwhals a lot now. We never talked about them before. I bet it’s your code word for a battering ram or something.” I stare at her in silent amazement, prompting another giggle. “I think I guessed right.

“Anyway, we’re on our way back home to Equestria now. I wouldn’t mind having a travel partner.” Her eyes look into the distance. “Having a pony like you at my side, I can’t imagine—hey!”

Her eyes snap back as I wiggle my way off the raft and back into the water. I jet away before she can catch me in a magical net or whatever she was going to try to do and dive back into the depths of the ocean.

Lest I tempt myself further, I must go back to my own kind. Equestria is no place for a sea-pony who can’t talk.