North by Northwest

There is a recurring dream that I have. I stand before an assembled crowd of sea-ponies, smiling and waving as I approach a podium with a microphone. Into the microphone, I speak clear, concise words that are exactly what I want them to be. No longer do I offend the crowd with a deluge of garbage; I am charismatic, powerful... a pony worthy of love.

Somewhere in the attic of my home, there exists recorded footage of myself as a foal. A happy, carefree tiny filly, one that didn’t even come up to the base of the tail on her parents, who didn’t even know how to swim, let alone speak. The story told in the eyes, not only of the tiny me, but also of my loving mother and father, is of a cherished, beautiful creature brought into this world, the epitome of their happiness and my own.

Those very same eyes haunt me. Ever since the first words I began to speak, their eyes lost such luster. Just as the crowd in my dream once had eyes that shone with admiration, my parents once had eyes that shone with love; it’s all gone now, their love as dead as the hope they’d instilled in me. They didn’t understand it, how such a beautiful sea-pony, so talented and gracious, could be so ugly on the inside.

To be honest, I don’t understand it either.

The words all make sense to me, in my head, before my mouth opens, but from the moment I begin speaking to the moment I stop speaking, nothing makes sense, not even to me. It’s all garbled and nonsensical.

There has been no small amount of deep discussion on my problem and how to remedy it. My parents have looked into all the speech therapy they can imagine short of brain surgery, but none of it helps even the tiniest bit; they are convinced that I continue my speech problems completely on purpose. They don’t understand, nor do they want to understand; they just want their daughter to be as perfect as they imagined her to be.

I wish just as greatly for a voice that is my own, thoughts that speak their own mind. I am not as blind as my parents; I know better than any how torturous it is to speak gibberish. They simply don’t understand that it is not my choice, that it has never been my choice.

Why, then, am I coming home, after essentially being offered a chance to journey with Sweet Pea?

Fear is the tail-jerk reaction. Fear of the unknown. Fear of danger. Fear of coming to rely on others.

Fear never stayed me from exploring the surface above Aquastria. There is more to this, far more. What caused me to dive overboard? I like Sweet Pea. She is far more pleasant to me than my kind ever was.

Do I feel a sense of duty, perhaps? I... have always known the risks of law. I willingly break them, but I don’t turn myself in every time. That certainly cannot be it.

I don’t know. I just don’t know why I did it.

I know how this will end, though. I’m certain of it.

I want to be a martyr. Although none will notice my passing, I still want to be rid of this world with a specific purpose. The only creature whom my passing would matter to is myself. Shouldn’t my sentiments on how I die be the only ones that matter?

My life up to this point has been meaningless, anyway. Ponderance has no purpose if there is never any action taken. I have coasted for far too long. Now, just before I die, is the only time I will have lived.

My mind is cold as steel in this twilight of my existence, but my heart still calls for much more. There is a life that is missing, a part of me that is not ready to lie down and accept that everything is over for me. Still, it fights on doggedly, determined to prove something to somepony.

It is my heart which leads me home, to see my mother and father once more. I know not where I will be after this, but I know I must give them their happiness, if only for a brief few moments.

Perhaps my special talent ought to be melodrama. If I could speak properly, perhaps that would be it.

I come into the house, saying nothing. My mother’s eyes immediately snap to where I glide toward the staircase to the attic. “What? Seawinkle! Where have you been!” Her big blue eyes narrow into slits of anger, her pink body quivering as her face immediately morphs into an ugly visage of contempt. “Where did you go? Did you break any laws? You know you’re not welcome here if you do.” Her voice betrays her hatred of me, her judgment. She knows my voice is ugly, so I am an ugly pony.

I open the door to the attic and swim in as my mother calls, “Dear, your daughter is home!” I pointedly ignore the bustle of sound down below as I rummage through several old boxes, eventually finding the old tape. I come back out of the attic, brandishing it to the both of them, who stare at it blankly. Only I would remember a time when I was beautiful, after all.

The tape inserted into its player, we gather around the screen to watch what is on the tape. The first image is of me, recently born, perhaps a week or two old, as my mother holds her tail over me, which I wrap my fins around, then she lifts me off the floor, then sets me gently back down. I laugh in enjoyment, prompting her to lift me off the ground again, then a third time, a fourth time. She is smiling broadly, unashamed of her daughter. After all, what reason could she have to be ashamed?

After the final tail lift, I begin wriggling on the floor in delight, my fin coming into contact with a rattle. I squeal and pick it up and begin shaking it maniacally, my mother’s smile never fading as she watches me play. The tape cuts suddenly, changing the view to night, the tiny lump of baby Seawinkle curled up under the covers. The camera is set to the side, filming my mother and my father as they watch me blink sleepily. My mother sings a soft song to lull me to sleep.

“Tiny horns and tiny wings,

And other little tiny things,

Give tiny fillies tiny dreams,

Of tiny little sunbeams.

Tiny lives and tiny brains,

Tiny hopes and tiny trains,

Tiny smiles on tiny waves

Of tiny ponies hiding in caves.

Tiny moms and tiny dads,

While fighting off the big and bads,

Keep tiny babies safe in their beds,

So they can rest their tiny heads.

One day tiny will be big,

Fatter even than a pig,

Dancing happy silly things,

While—”

My mother is interrupted by the radio crackling to life. The voice of an Elder I don’t recognize breaks through the static. “This is an emergency broadcast from the Elders of Aquastria. There was an attack today on—”

The film ends abruptly, my parents shutting off the camera before anything else can be said.

There is a drawn silence with the conclusion of the video. I still don’t know what I came back for, and I don’t think I will realize it for a long while yet. Their faces register only pain, as if they cannot believe I would be so heartless as to show them such fond memories in light of who I have become.

I cannot leave like this. They don’t understand. I’m not even sure I understand.

I snatch a piece of pressed coral and a coral marker. I would be yelled at if there wasn’t something in the air, since pressed coral wasn’t cheap. I just knew I had to say something, but opening my mouth would ruin what I was trying to impress. For once, I was terrified of what might come out.

Several seconds later, my message is written upon the coral. My parents stare at it, then at me, in shock. I leave the house without saying anything. They watch me go as well. No more words need be said; they know as well as I that this is most likely the last time they will ever see me.

I leave the house and set off toward the town center; I’ve no idea what I will do once I’m there, but I am prepared for anything.

Two paces later, I am acutely aware that I am being watched.

Me? A subject of interest? Only if the elders reviewed the tapes and set out a bounty on my head or something. I can’t imagine I would be that interesting; I am only one pony, after all. I shake away my crawling skin as jostled nerves and continue.

As I near the buildings of the city, two sea-ponies in dark sunglasses come up on both sides of me, grabbing my fins. I look at the both of them. “Aquastria is foal? Coral ships is magic narwhal?”

I cannot see the expressions in their eyes; their mouths twitch, but do not change from the firm, impassive lines that they have taken.

A carriage rolls up directly in front of us, the door opening. I immediately know what it is for and struggle to escape. “Coral Aquastria! Seawinkle is Aquastria! Narwhal ships to Seawinkle!”

The ponies strong-fin me into the carriage, closing it behind me. I fall silent and realize that there is no sound from the outside. We’re in a soundproof carriage. None can hear me. There is only me and whoever else is in here.

“Well, hello there, young lady. And how are you today?” Apart from the two ponies in sunglasses who haven’t said a word, there is an elderly pony—I recognize him as Crazy Kelpo, one of the residents of the retirement community near my house. He served in the Aquastrian-Atlantean War and talked about how he defeated 30 Atlanteans with a torn fin (evidenced by the scar tissue on his right fin) and a broken sword. Nopony ever believed him, just as nopony believed him when he said that there were no more Atlanteans, that there were only Aquastrians now. To be fair, his words were interpretive—perhaps he was being patriotic, saying that Atlantica is now Aquastria—but it seems the Elders heard and decided this voice be silenced as well.

I don’t reply to Kelpo, instead keeping my eyes downcast, unwilling to look any of these ponies in the eye. Kelpo doesn’t seem to mind, continuing to ramble. “You know, this carriage ride reminds me of this time I got to pilot an Aquastrian Battle Tank. Now, mind you, I wasn’t stationed in an armor division, and I had only had the same basic training that all Aquastrians did in armored vehicle combat, but Great Elder Lion, was it somethin’ else. I swear I blew up three of those Atlantean tanks and dozens more troops . See, the driver, he’d been taken out by a saboteur who’d snuck on top the tank and jumped in, since we’d developed our vehicles to have no gaps in armor, not even to see out of, so not even snipers could get at him. Their saboteurs were all they had. Anyway, he opened the hatch, and I thought to myself, ‘Now, that don’t look like one of ours,’ and so I hopped up the tank and saw the saboteur stabbing our tank driver in the back! So’s I hopped in there and knifed him in the throat, m’self—now, what species was he, a stingray? Yeah, I’m almost certain he was a stingray—so it was a bit of a challenge, but I sliced him from gill to gill, so it’d be like a throat, right? Eeeehhhh, the details aren’t important. So I sliced this stingray and killed him, but now nopony could pilot the tank, so I decided to shut the hatch and drive it m’self. We needed this armor if we were to break that Atlantean defensive line, so failure wasn’t an option. So, there I am, rolling over the trenches—”

I pointedly ignore the rest of Kelpo’s rambling, working up the courage to look at my guards. I have better things to do in my final hour than listen to an old stallion ramble about some bygone war story. They watch me just as closely, their eyes never coming unglued from mine as I shift warily between the two of them. If these are to be my murderers, I want them to remember me as much as possible.

Suddenly, the carriage grinds to a stop, the turtles pulling it being restrained by the driving mechanism. Kelpo’s story stops abruptly: “—and you never know how attractive a fish woman can be until you’ve met one on the battle—oh, have we stopped? I’m about due for a vacation!”

The two guards open the door and clamber out, then Kelpo leaves, and I follow right behind him. He floats out, then stops abruptly, his body rigid as he stares out over the scenery. I lift my gaze to see what he sees.

In front of us is a sprawling ruined city, its buildings covered in algae and assorted sea-bottom creatures, crumbling back into the stuff it was created from. The ridge line is a sickly green color, certainly not how natural water looks; there is some kind of chemical in it. Throughout the city, there are polished white skeletons of various aquatic creatures dotting the landscape... I would imagine citizens of Atlantica, killed by the poison cloud that had settled over the city.

Beneath our tails are many more skeletons, these of Aquastrian sea-ponies. Their skeletons are unmistakable, the signature curled tail bone and pony-shaped head. We are standing on a battlefield graveyard, and the victors didn’t see fit to bury the dead on either side.

Kelpo suddenly speaks gravely, seriously. “I had a feeling this city would be the death of me. Let’s finish it quick, then. The less time I have to spend looking at this mistake, the better.”

The guards seem to oblige at first, but instead of killing him outright, they take their knives and slice his fins apart. The webbing between them torn, the fins are no longer able to keep Kelpo upright and he falls over, into the bones of his comrades. He flails his fins briefly, then cries out in pain, his tail no longer propelling him. He comes to rest.

He sighs. “I guess I’ll have to relive this one more time, then.” He closes his eyes, a single tear tracking down his cheek, then he seems to lose himself in some old war-time memory.

The guards then turn to me. I look resignedly into their eyes, then they take their knives to my fins and slice them apart as well. Like Kelpo, I fall to my side, landing in the pile of long-dead sea-ponies.

The guards look at Kelpo, lost in his memories, then they look back at me, lying helpless on the ground. They nod to one another.

I... sense something. They aren’t going to just leave. I attempt to get Kelpo’s attention. “Sea-pony Seawinkle. Aquastrian Equestria! Ships of sea-ponies narwhal Aquastria! Atlantican Kelpo! Seawinkle of Equestria! Sea-ponies! Narwhal! Ships of Aquastria!”

Kelpo, still seeming to be lost in his own mind, pays me none.

One of the guards pins my tail on the ocean floor while the other floats down on top of me. I recoil from his body in disgust, attempting to wriggle out from under him.

There is no escape. My fins are cut, my tail is pinned, and the only pony who could stop them is completely crazy.

I let out one final, piercing scream of frustration. It rings pure and true through the silent ocean, the final call of some misguided illusion that a hopeful pony once held of a better world. The scream contains all my knowledge, my certainty of a corrupt and dictatorial leadership over a weak and powerless populace. The kind whose police force would commit rape and murder while upholding “justice” for that leadership.

The ponies in dark sunglasses care not for my own feelings; they have only one sentiment. I await the inevitable as I feel the pony on top of me re-position, then holds himself rigid as a small pop-pop sound is heard.

Time stands still for a few moments, then I hear a gurgle of pain. A few drops of blood come out of the mouth of the pony on top of me, pit-patting on my face.

With a wrenching motion, Kelpo is revealed, his teeth sunk into the back of the neck of the pony who was on top of me. My aggressor’s limp body is dragged off of me, quickly followed by my tail being freed by the second pony, who turns to face Kelpo.

Kelpo releases his grip on the other pony’s spine and smiles, blood coating his teeth. “I’ve been taught a hundred different forms of unarmed combat, you Elder-damned terrorist. Let’s see you stop me.”

Seizing my opportunity, I begin flailing my tail wildly, flopping along the sandy ocean bottom as I make my way toward a small forest of nearby plants. With any luck, maybe I’d be able to hide in there and die peacefully. It seems to be the most I can hope for.

Behind me, I hear the sounds of a struggle. Kelpo seems to be holding his own against a trained killer with both fins slashed and old age certainly his enemy. Were I so lucky to see him in his glory days, perhaps his stories wouldn’t be so farfetched after all.

When I am about halfway to cover, I hear a gunshot ring out. I glance behind me and see Kelpo sagging over, a harpoon wound through his chest. The guard then moves the gun to Kelpo’s head and pulls the trigger a second time.

I squeeze my eyes shut just in time, my mind barely slipping past the permanent scarring such a sight would cause. Let my memories of Kelpo keep his brain intact and his actions as a savior to not be ultimately for naught.

I continue my flail as quickly as possible, frantically wanting to get out of eyesight. The remaining pony in sunglasses wipes some blood off his body, then seems to realize that I am crawling away. He immediately begins chasing me, calling, “Hey, you! I’m not done with you yet!”

My struggles become more frenzied, fueled by fear and anger. I would not let him take me as well. I could not.

When I am perhaps a foot or two from the edge of the forest, the pony in sunglasses flops atop me once more. My tail no longer pinned down, I am able to continue flailing myself toward the cover, but it’s too late; I cannot hide, nor can I escape. I am stuck right where he can get me.

I cease struggling briefly, looking at the forest that I got so close to, yet could not have rationally hoped for some help therein. In all likelihood, he could have followed the blood trails left by my fins, or the giant stamped spots in the sea grass, or the sounds of a thumping sea-pony trying to struggle her way along sand and rock. I had no hope to begin with.

Blinking my eyes, I have a sudden idea.

The pony flips me over onto my back, breathing onto my face. “Lemme have a good look at your pretty face, won’t ya, sweetie?”

I whip my head downward, where he has a belt around his waist. There, his knife is tied; I grip it in my jaws and attempt to pull it out. The guard reacts too late to my actions and attempts to pull my head away, but only succeeds in helping me rip the knife free. He registers quickly that I now have a weapon to stab him with, so he leaps backward, getting some distance between him and me.

I  flip back over and flop once, twice, thrice toward the forest, to the plants along the edge.

I hear a small amount of fumbling behind me; the pony is probably panicking about now. I whip the knife through several of the strands of plant right next to me, then grip them in my teeth.

Below me, I hear a shot fired. A lancing pain slices right through my tail, causing me to cry out between my clenched teeth, but I do not let go. I am rising up, up, out of harm’s way. I hear three more shots ring out, the tiny harpoons zipping all around me, but I am getting too far away. He can no longer hit me.

In my mouth, I am gripping the strands of three young bulba pods, which drag me upward toward the surface and possibly safety.

I drift along the surface of the ocean, the bulba pod strands gripped in my mouth. Hours, maybe, is how long I have been doing this. I’ve wanted to let go many times, but I want to live. I have lost lots of blood, my tail that is alleviating some of the weight on the pods is injured, and my jaw aches more than any other part of my body. It has had to hold firmly to these strands, not too strongly so as to cut through them, but not too loosely so as to slip off. Thankfully, a large number of activities done by sea-ponies is performed with the mouth, so the muscles in it are fairly well-built, or I’d have slipped off and fallen to my doom long ago.

My very existence at this moment in time is nothing short of a miracle. I cling desperately to life, much unlike how I had felt earlier today. Something in my struggle, the part of me that didn’t want to just roll over and let what would happen to me simply happen, renewed the fire inside me. That same fire that I felt when I decided to help other ponies, regardless of the consequences. I just couldn’t let myself die.

If I had never existed, what might have happened to the ships then? Would the ponies have all drowned?

I was their savior. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to help them. That was what I lived for, in that moment. I just forgot that for a little while.

If I was gone, they would all be dead. Every last one of them. How could I want to believe that they would be better off without me?

Perhaps my parents would have been happier had I never existed, but there are two shiploads of sailors who are glad that I do. I am... happy, at least, for that small consolation.

Perhaps this is how I will die, letting go of these bulba pods and falling silently to return to the bottom of the ocean. At least it won’t have been without a fight.

My exhausted body bumps a sandbar, grinding into my torn fin. I let out a hiss of pain, then begin lashing my tail, attempting to struggle onto whatever this obstruction is. My jaw, suddenly not holding any weight, spontaneously lets go of my bulba pods, which speed away on the currents, no longer burdened by my weight.

Why didn’t the pony in sunglasses chase me? Was he so sure I was going to die?

The saying goes that, even in total darkness, light can still be found. What he did was unforgivable... but he let me live. He tried to kill me, but he didn’t. I think... he did it on purpose.

Maybe he didn’t think I was worth the bother. Maybe he saw something he was afraid of. Maybe it just didn’t register that he could probably swim faster than I was rising—or he could have at least gotten another few good shots if he’d chased me.

Something stayed his fins. Luck, fate, or whatever... I wasn’t going to just give up and let this life go if I could help it.

I’m abruptly jolted awake—wait, I’d been asleep?

There is a stick being jabbed into my side, near my fin. My eyes flutter open, and I blink rapidly, clearing the fogginess from my eyes so I can see clearly. I begin to make out the familiar shape of a hat.

It’s Sweet Pea.

“Aquastria!” I yell.

“I, uh... hey, Seawinkle.” She smiles, her eyes focusing on my wounds. “I noticed you don’t look so good.”

My mind registers where I am. I am on a sandy beach in what almost looks like a wasteland. I can see partially destroyed buildings in the distance, but here, where I am, things are much prettier. My fins are still torn to shreds, and there are certainly no splints to let them heal properly. There is still an awfully painful hole in my tail made by a well-placed harpoon. Some of the sand around me is tinged red.

I groan, then flip from my side onto my back, looking up at the sky. I commiserate with my friend. “Ships of Seawinkle the narwhal foal. Sunglasses of Kelpo the Aquastria narwhal. Sea-ponies to bulba fins and Aquastria.” I look at her unhappily.

“That’s, uh... interesting and all. I still can’t imagine how you got up here with fins like those, though. Nopony could work with damaged gear like that.” Her hoof rubs my skin, hurting it and causing me to yelp. “Oh, that feels pretty dry. Here, I can help.”

Her horn glows, then a large amount of water hovers into the air, seemingly held by a bowl. It positions directly over me, then a funnel in the center of the magic bowl opens, causing all the water to funnel onto me.

After the stream of water stops, I look back at Sweet Pea. “Affirmative.”

“I’m guessing you meant thanks.” At my nod, she smiles. “So, what are we going to do with you, Seawinkle?”

I stay silent, staring at her, while she thinks. Her face screws up in concentration, attempting to discern a solution to the situation. Finally, a light bulb seems to flicker to life above her head as she swiftly becomes excited. “Ooh! I know how to help you!” I nod encouragingly, so Sweet Pea continues. “I know a spell that can help you, but I haven’t gotten to practice it yet. I only read how to do it once or twice. I can’t imagine it would be that complicated, though. Here we go!”

Her horn immediately erupts with power. I start squealing in terror, afraid that she’ll blow me up or something. I’m wrapped in a magic cocoon, sealed away from the outside world briefly, before I am set back upon the ground. The cocoon leaves me lying on the beach, gazing at Sweet Pea in confusion.

“Well?” she asks. “Do you, uh... whoa. I didn’t expect that to happen.”

I look in panic down at the rest of my body, noticing four legs that I didn’t have before sprouting from the front of me. They remind me of a shrimp’s legs with how they’re positioned and how they bend. I attempt to put some kind of energy into moving them, succeeding in wiggling one of the hooves around like an anemone tentacle. I then put the same focus into my other three appendages, succeeding in wiggling them as well.

I then try to move my tail, and find that there is one affixed to the bottom of me. I command my legs to hold themselves rigid, then move my tail below me to give myself leverage to rise. The tail, instead, lifts me briefly before giving out on me, its strength spent.

I frown in confusion, then move the hooves flat on the ground, then try to use my tail again to leverage myself up, tensing my legs perhaps out of instinct. The action pays off, my tail powerful enough to raise me on these new legs, the way I see Sweet Pea standing. I look to her for approval, seeing yet another smile. She seems to smile a lot.

I take a step with a shaky hoof, then another. I am unsure of myself, but the action seems quite natural. I could easily get used to this. My tail swishes back and forth as I canter forward, keeping me on-balance and swaying left and right with the air currents. They are quite unlike ocean currents, which are typically much longer to rise and fall.

My life changed forever, I now have no choice but to follow Sweet Pea. I find I cannot help but smile, too. I don’t hurt, I’m alive, and I am with a friend. Perhaps things will turn out all right, after all.

I find myself silently thanking the pony with sunglasses for letting me live, whatever his reasons may have been. I thank old Crazy Kelpo for sacrificing his life so that I may keep mine, and I thank the ship of Equestrian ponies for coming when it did and inspiring me to leave Aquastrian waters. I thank the battering ram for forcing me out of my shell, and I thank my parents for hating me so that I may leave without fearing they would miss me. I even thank the Elders for their bigotry and their espionage; if it wasn’t for their awful leadership, perhaps I would have had some faith in the nation of Aquastria.

Most of all, I am thankful to Sweet Pea for saving me. I tell her in the only way I know how. “Affirmative.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

At Seawinkle’s old home, her parents sat upon the couch. A pony in dark sunglasses had told them their daughter was dead.

They sat mournfully together, their daughter’s imperfections finally realized. They had driven her away. They had lost her. And now, they missed her.

They gazed together at her final words to them, spoken so clearly, so concisely, that their meaning would never be mistaken. Clear as day, etched on the pressed coral.

I remember when I loved me, too.

Perhaps if they’d seen through their own disappointment, they’d have found some reconciliation. It was too late now, though; she was gone, and they’d never see her again.

That much, at least, was enough for them to mourn over.