"Momma, momma, mommy! Look, lookit! You're not looking!"
The chilled waves of Equestria's Western Coast gurgled and churned in foam-crested swirls around the rocks of the shallow tidal pools that sporadically dotted the beaches. Spots such as these, where life flourished within the seclusion and shelter of the calm waters, were rare. Once found though, they could offer a rare glimpse into a world few ponies visited.
Today, three unicorn mares were exploring the tidal shallows. Two lavender filly sisters worked their separate ways around the unsure landscape, splashing through tiny rivulets and leaping from rock to rock as an older mare looked on. One of the siblings hung especially close to the third, a mare whose pelt matched the more cautious filly's mane. Though the filly's mane was two-toned, it melted perfectly into her pelt where it reached her nape. Despite her bravado at the family cottage earlier, her steps were careful and her movements unsure.
The other sported a blue to purple mane that was soaked from the splashing water and sudden dives into pools to investigate anything that caught her interest. Her little horn radiated a deep blue aura as she used her magic as a third hoof to pick up spiny urchins or squishy slugs. Floating along beside her was a dull red bucket that had seen much use creating sand castles, but now housed a mini ecosystem of seaweed, crabs, and fish no larger than the young filly’s snout.
She dunked her head into another pool, the salt water stinging her eyes as she flitted her gaze back and forth. A brightly colored flame-orange shell sat in the deeper waters, tantalizing her. Reaching in with her little hooves the shell sat just barely out of reach. She pulled her head out of the water, shaking like a dog to get some of the water out of her eyes. Her horn glowed brighter as she pulled at the shell with her magic.
"Sea Swirl, it's time to go!" Sea Swirl looked up, her concentration broken by her mother's interruption.
"Okay, Mom, I'm coming!" The little filly checked her bucket one last time, smiling into it as she watched her finds swim back and forth in the placid waters it contained. Her new friends secured in her mind's eye, she dumped the bucket's contents into the flame shell's pool and trotted off to join her mother and sister.
The mare smiled as her children joined her. "Okay, Sea, Amethyst, let's stay together and find your father, mind where you place your hooves."
Sea Swirl wrinkled her nose at her mother in distaste. "But Moooom, I'm fine! You let me wander off earlier!"
"Yah," Amethyst Star, Sea Swirl's twin sister interjected her thoughts "and you came back soaking wet with seaweed in your mane!"
"At least I didn't get scared by some kelp!"
"It looked like a fish, and it was gross!"
"Oooh, a big scary gross fish that's gonna jump up and EAT'CHA." Sea Swirl feigned a pounce on her sister, who responded by ducking behind an outcropping. A giggle of triumph escaped the wet filly, who indeed had seaweed in her mane.
"Moooom, Sea Swirls making fun of me!"
"Sea Swirl, stop that." The purple filly stuck out her tongue at her sister behind their mother's back. "Try to stick close to me, okay? I know you think you're all grown up, but you'll always be my little fillies to me, okay?"
"Okay, Mom." The two little fillies exchanged looks of mutual dislike outside of their mother’s gaze, neither wanting to be the first to break eye contact.
"If you know so much about fish and kelp, why don't you go live with them!" Amethyst's whisper was masked by the crash of waves from her mother, but Sea Swirl heard it loud and clear.
"Oh yah? Well, I bet I'll get my cutie mark if I do! So maybe I will! AND it will be for something totally cool and unlame!" Sea Swirl poked her sister in the flank where three diamonds glittered in the afternoon sun. "You know, the opposite of rock collecting."
"Jewelry and gem carving is NOT lame." Amethyst hissed at her sister through clenched teeth while poking her back in the same spot. "Blank flank, blank flank, has to live out in the park. Blank flank, blank flank, never got her cutie mark!"
Nettled by the school yard rhyme, Sea Swirl flushed red. "Oh, yah? Just watch me! I'll," Sea Swirl looked around her surroundings, trying to find something that she would like as a cutie mark. "I'll swim out to sea and get it right now!"
Amethyst's face turned from lavender to pink at the gutsy declaration. Checking to make sure she wasn't being overheard she leaned in close to her sister and whispered: "Mom would KILL you."
Sea Swirl checked her mother's location, probably just out of reach of a stone's throw from where she was, the sea was much less than that. She'd make it. She could do it. All she had to do was just... run "Let's see her try and stop me!"
With her challenge to the world shouted out for all to hear, she turned and galloped full pace over the slippery tidals towards the sea foam that she was named for.
"MOM! MOM! SEA SWIRL'S GONE CRAZY!"
She reached the drop off where the rocks suddenly gave way to the chilly waters of the coast, the bottom barely visible beneath the waves. Okay, Sea Swirl. You ran all the way out here to prove a point. And you just proved it. The little filly gulped and checked her footing, before a large grey silhouette in the water caught her eye.
Is that a shark? Oh barnacles, this was a bad idea. Retreat! Sea Swirl backed off from the precipice, the descending water sucked at her hooves, drawing her in. She could hear her sister and mother shouting at her, but their voices were drowned out by the rush of water that filled her ears. She heard the wave before she saw it, but when she did see it she started a mad dash for safer ground. Her scramble backwards was stopped when the wet and wild terrain proved traitorous and a slick of flotsam sent her tumbling onto her behind.
It wasn't the largest wave she had ever seen, but it was the first she had seen from beneath. The crest peaked far above her, devouring the sky as it grew taller and taller. All the little filly could do was seal her eyes and pull her hooves in close, hoping that she would be alright.
The wave hesitated for a moment, surrounded with a faint lavender glow. Amethyst Star had been the closest to her sister, and her little horn glowed brightly as she channeled all her will into this single spell of holding against the wave. Her teeth ground together in a determined grimace as her hooves sought purchase against the terrain that had already claimed her sister. But not even the strongest Alicorn can tame the sea, and the rush of water overpowered the filly's magic when a second wave crashed into the suspended water.
The combined tide swept up the terrified Sea Swirl into the ocean's dread bosom, her tiny lavender form descending beneath the waves as her sister and mother looked on.
Amethyst ran to where her sister had just been. She has to be here! Where is she! She's the best swimmer I know! She's fine! Her mother slammed to a stop beside her, pulling her away from the same edge that had just swallowed up her twin.
"This is all my fault!"
"AMETHYST!" Her mother's voice was loud, strong, and blasted full force directly into the little pony's face. "Go get your father." Amethyst nodded wordlessly and galloped off, slipping along the rocks and sending up sprays of sand and water under her hooves.
The purple mare looked out to sea. In times of great need, earth ponies could call upon insane feats of strength, bending mountains or throwing around boulders as if they were pebbles. Pegasi could call upon the fury of the storm itself, summoning great clouds, rainstorms, or even the death brought forth by lightning. But the Unicorn was blessed with a magical state that few had ever experienced, and fewer still could control.
It was known as the Flow; when a Unicorn tapped directly into the magic of the universe to draw power from the very essence of Magic itself. It was beyond dangerous, but it was also beyond powerful. A Unicorn entering the Flow would be filled with unimaginable arcane power, their eyes would burn with blistering light and their bodies would glow with aura.
The purple Unicorn looked down at the sea once more. Her eyes were reflected perfectly as the waves calmed. Two perfect orbs of white, brilliant light lit up the now placid waters. Her mane moved to the currents of some unfelt silent wind that only blew in places ponies were never meant to go. Stepping out onto the water, it supported her weight as if it was as sure as the rocks she had hewn her home from. From her hooves veins of ice shot down through the water, searching, feeling for her child. When it encountered a fish or coral it spiraled out from first contact, freezing the poor creature in the grasp of inescapable ice.
RETURN MY CHILD.
The words were not said, but the command was heard by all things, living or otherwise on the beach that day. Her frozen tendrils continued their search, now hitting the floor and spreading out, forming a deathly cold web that shot up to sources of warmth, seeking for that small form of a filly.
"Frost!" The Unicorn did not acknowledge her name. A maroon-red Unicorn had arrived with Amethyst. He had partially understood the situation from the babbling and sniffling of his daughter, but when he saw the ocean perfectly still and his wife standing in a now frozen pool the severity fully hit him.
"Frost, it's... Did you find her?" With a crack the mare freed her hooves from where the ice had sealed them to her work and returned to shore. As her mane settled the frozen waters behind her cracked and began to melt. Her eyes dimmed from the shine of power which marked her as one with the Flow, back to the tear brimmed eyes of a simple pony. A pony that had failed.
She just shook her head in reply and fell against her husband. They held each other close and watched the waves undo her work. The sounds of the cracking of the ice and the crashing of the waves was muffled to their ears. But somehow through that thick haze a small voice penetrated.
"Uh, Mom, Dad, I think she's fine."
Disguised by the gurgling of the tidal pools, a giggling like the tinkling of a tiny bell reached them from far out to sea, farther even than Frost's magic had reached. There in the distance, a small lavender filly rode on the back of a dolphin, its pod pirouetting and leaping through the air around the pair. They chirruped and squeaked at the filly and she cheeped and clicked in return. A mark of two dolphins had appeared on her rump and radiated light and magic into the now sparkling waters.
The dolphin mount splashed happily along the waves as the pod danced back and forth along Equestria's Western Coast, the filly astride it laughing all the way.
" Momma, momma, mommy! Look, lookit! You're not looking!"
"Abacus?"
"Got it."
"Calendar?"
"Yes, I saw you pack it."
“Books?”
“Stacked, packed, checked, rechecked, and sorted according to title, author, weight, color of dust jacket, and number of times the index references itself.”
“Parchment?”
“You’ll get that when you’re there.”
“Quills?”
“Same.”
“Bedding?”
“Amy, you wrote a list. Ask it, not me.”
Overlooking Equestria’s frozen northern coasts, the hamlet of Frieggan sits quiescent between snow-brushed peaks. Flanked by sheer cliffs, the ponies of the valley had long since learned to live a vertical life: their homes sitting atop the surrounding mountains, their jobs and business at the river mouth. Finally, the docks, the town's lifeline, jutted into the oft-frozen bay where river met ocean. These distinct environments: the rocky, wave-lashed tidals, and the gale scoured arctic plains, existed in a temporal state of back and forth; connected only by the ponies that made it their daily purpose to travel between.
Atop a particularly high cliff sits a seastone and pine cottage reminiscent of a very short lighthouse; on the second floor, two ponies wallow in a cluttered bedroom. The first, a purple and violet-maned unicorn with matching pelt and triple-gem cutie mark, read aloud from a lengthy scroll of parchment, held aloft in a glowing wreath of magenta magic. The nearest end was suspended at eye level by the unicorn’s influence, while the other disappeared into the detritus that coated the floor. The other occupant of the room lazed on the bed as if she was the subject of a particularly obtuse Dali painting. Her pelt matched her friend’s, but her mane was tinged a dark blue and her mark was of two circling dolphins.
The first pony began again from her list, a quill summoned to re-check the already checked checkboxes. “Starting again then, first is clothing. Swirly, do you have the bag?” The other pony pulled a large suitcase toward her, a magic ward of sealing glowed bright on the jute as the original straps had long decayed.
“Clothing, yes, you have clothing.” Swirly, given name Sea Swirl, undid the case's seal, assuaging sister’s unfounded and frequent fears of forgetting something. “Not that you’ll need any of this in Canterlot, Amy. You know, it doesn’t even snow in August there.”
Amy, given name Amethyst Star, trotted over to the bed, her movements marked by the tinkling of small bobbles launched by her stride. A particularly unlucky piece failed to escape and instead was crushed underhoof; the miasma of childhood relics carpeting the wooden floor growing no smaller with the trinket’s passing. “I’ll read the item aloud and you’ll tell me if I have it, okay?”
The other unicorn did not reply, her head resting inside the case. “Look Amy, your worrying has caused the suitcase to come alive and eat me!”
Amethyst simply rolled her eyes, readied her quill, and started down the object list as she had done so many times before. “Sweaters?”
“Four. The orange one, the ugly orange one, the passable one you stole from me, and the red one that was dad’s.” The unicorn not currently beheaded by luggage made a note on her scroll and continued.
“Saddles?”
“Warm and cold versions, frilled and unfrilled, you even packed the one with the bits of lace that make you look like a doily.”
“Hey, I like that one!”
“Remember when Gran-Gran put her tea on you that one time?”
“That was a joke.”
“It was also true.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t bother telling me what’s next, I already know, and yes you packed your stockings.” Finally the unicorn freed herself from the predatorial clutches of the inanimate suitcase and furrowed her brow at her sister. “Why do you need twenty pairs of stockings anyway? I know Canterlot is a wild and crazy town but do you really think you won’t be able to do the laundry between visits from your colt friend?”
Amethyst bristled at the remark, the hair on the back of her neck sticking straight up as the worried frown on her face turned to a scowl of annoyance. Coltfriends had been a major point of contention between the sisters since they first discovered that colts were not composed entirely of cooties and boogers. It wasn’t an issue of one stealing the other as it was growing up in a small town where everypony knew everypony, and talked about them to anyone that stood still long enough to ask if they had heard the latest about the “Purple Terror Twins.”
The main point of contention between the sisters on the subject of romance however, was the proper mate. Sea Swirl preferred her colts brawny, steadfast, and usually slower than aged glass. Amethyst preferred her colts quick witted, petite, and female.
Amethyst ignored the jab and redirected the conversation back to the pony who had broached the subject. “How are things with you and Flotsam anyway?”
“Pah.” The sister on the bed fell back and crossed her hooves, a sour look darkening her complexion. “We broke up.”
“Oh,” the smile on Amethyst’s face was wide enough to embarrass a cat and her intonation oozed gloating like honey, “that’s too bad. You two were such a perfect couple.” At her words Sea Swirl rolled away from her sister, obscuring her face. “Oh, come off it, old Floaty wasn’t that great a colt anyway.” Amethyst sat next to her sister and gently massaged between her shoulder blades while making quite ‘cooing’ noises, a trick she had learned from her mother.
“Come on, Swirly, you can’t lie to me, what happened?”
The moping unicorn pulled one of her sister’s pillows over her head, muffling her reply. “Aye on wfahna alk abou ih!”
Amethyst rolled her eyes and continued rubbing along the spine of her oldest compatriot. “Look Swirly, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to.”
A hoof nearly matching hers in color reached around and half-heartedly batted at the comforting touch, pushing it away from the still body. The hoof moved back up and tugged at the pillow, revealing the face beneath. “I thought he was the one, you know?” Sea Swirl’s eyes were unfocused, her snout mere centimeters from the wall. “He was so nice to me, and we had so much in common.”
The other pony draped her list over her sister’s reclining form as an impromptu blanket and pulled her quill to her. “Yes, yes, it sucks and stuff, but get over it. Besides, now you can go out and find the mare that’s right for you!”
“Ha!” Swirly scoffed at her sister’s comment and shoved Amethyst off her and the bed, upsetting the clothing suitcase in the process. This sudden flop sent garments scattering everywhere to form a new layer over the already heavily stratified debris. “Maybe I’ll get a marefriend when you get a coltfriend!”
Amy stuck her tongue out at the tease. “It’s not my fault that you’re the weird one of the family that only likes guys.”
“What!?” Sprayed Sea Swirl, faking shock at the oft repeated jab, “look here, Amy, You’re the only one in this family who likes mares!”
“Oh?”
“Dad doesn’t count!”
“And what about Mom?”
This brought Sea Swirl’s usually fast flowing mind to a completely placid stand-still; in the past nineteen years she had spent under the same roof of her mother she hadn’t ever honestly considered her sexuality. She was her mother, she didn’t HAVE one. Her words came out full of dark suspicion as if the concept had been pulled from the abyss itself. “What ABOUT Mom?”
“Did you know that she had a marefriend when she first met Dad and dumped her for him?”
Clearly taken aback, Sea Swirl elongated her next word as her mind both adjusted and recoiled at the thought of her mother liking a mare. “…Noooo.” It was her mother, if she had a sexuality at all, it was dadsexual. “Can we NOT talk about this now, or later, or ever?”
“Aw,” Amy got back on the bed, allowing herself to lie next to her sister, “What else do you want to talk about?”
“Anything else, like how you’ll miss the train if you don’t finish packing in the next five minutes.”
Amethyst Star bolted from her position to the clock on her nightstand. Her magic grabbed it before her hooves did and she let loose a primal growl when she saw the exact time. The horn that was holding the clock dropped it uncaringly to the ground with a heavy thud as metal met the only bare patch of floor.
A voice boomed from below, startling both unicorns in their attempt to speed-pack what remained. “What’s going on up there?”
“Nothing, Dad!” Amethyst Star lied as she consulted her list, eyes blazing up and down the checked and rechecked boxes, looking for anything she might have missed or forgotten. Her sister wrestled shut the clothing bag once again and triumphantly sat upon it, rebinding it with her magic. Amethyst licked her lips as her eyes started darting from list to her baggage, marking off each one as she made sure she was ready.
With a relieved sigh of finality the violet aura surrounding the list rolled it back into a scroll and tucked it away neatly in a saddlebag. Said bag was then picked up by a dark blue aura and deposited on the back of Sea Swirl.
“This is it, isn’t it?”
Amethyst scoffed at her sister’s expression. “Not even close, Canterlot’s great! You can visit me anytime!” The sisters smiled. The two were twins in everything but birthday; one had long mirrored the other in sensibility, taste, and friendship. Only now in their nineteenth year had their paths diverged.
“Amethyst Frost Star,” Amy’s full name indicated that her father was annoyed, or worried; or apathetic. It was hard to tell with him. ”You have thirty seconds to get down here or by Celestia’s barnacle encrusted beard your mother will give you such a talking to!” NOW he was annoyed.
“Gah!” The two sisters pooled their magic together and lifted up the mass of bags, saddles, and suitcases that made up all the worldly possessions that Amethyst was taking with her to Canterlot. The larger pieces were marked with the symbol of the Royal Academy, Collegiate Division to ensure they got to their final destination. In the mass of containers the two ponies rushed out the door and made their way into civilization proper.
In a town like Frieggan, the antics of two ponies like Sea Swirl and Amethyst Star became infamous quickly, and reached legendary status within the month. Thus, the scene of the two rushing over the frozen ground of the plaza square with a cloud of bags floating behind and above them stirred little comment from those who were fortunate enough to catch the spectacle.
Two ancient stallions watched the two stumble, lose control, and fling bags throughout the train platform from their veranda. The first stallion creaked back and forth in his chair as wisps of shouted conversation reached them from across the square, “Looks like the Frost’s eldest is leaving.”
“Yep.” The second stallion agreed.
“Least I think it’s the oldest one.” The chairs beneath the stallion creaked dangerously as he leaned forward to try to make out what was happening in the mess of magic and suitcases. “Is the older one the splashy one or the gem one?”
“Yep.” The second stallion replied.
“Right, right.” The stallion leaned back as a cold wind blew through the square, catching a floating suitcase and slamming it through a train window, saving the sisters the trouble of finding a home for it in the luggage car.
“Yep?” The second stallion asked.
“I don’t rightly think so. Last I heard the other one’s staying here.”
“Yep.” The second stallion confirmed.
With a final curse that echoed across the square the last rebellious parcel was lodged into place on the train and the two sisters faced each other as the whistle blew; one on the steaming engine, one on the platform.
Sea Swirl spoke first. “Hey, Amethyst, good luck, and stuff.”
Amethyst leaned out, pulling her sister in for a hug. “Love you too, Swirly.”
Sea Swirl squirmed in her sister’s grasp, unwilling to escape but she couldn’t exactly breathe. “When you get to Canterlot, kill ‘em.”
Amethyst pulled away, eyes glittering at her sister’s familiar misuse of the term. “It’s knock ‘em dead, Swirly.” The train whistle blew again, forcing the two apart. As the cars started to move Amethyst waved and shouted at her sister: “Come visit me soon!”
“I SAID knock ‘em dead!” Sea Swirl’s final complaint to the disappearing train was lost in a burst of steam as the locomotive left the station. All she could do was wave back as the train started the ascent into the mountains surrounding the fishing village. Within minutes even the steam had been obscured by the poplar and peaks. A final whistle blast echoed back through the pass, and she was gone.
