Author's Note

Slow chapter, no gore.

Pleasure Cruise

Misty Skies woke up the next morning with the breakfast bell, feeling well-rested and refreshed. The morning air as he stepped out to stretch on the deck was cool and the sun was just coming up over the horizon. It would be a warm but pleasant day.

Breakfast was two hardboiled eggs, tomato on toast, and a small fruit salad with milk and coffee. Mist had his coffee black and took it over to an empty table. He was joined shortly after by Siren Song, who Mist quickly noticed had sought him out instead of going to the other researchers. This seemed odd, considering they were likely going over preparations for the day’s dive and he should have joined them.

But the look on the unicorn’s face made it apparent why before he spoke. “I wanted to check up on you from last night. About the horror thing.”

“Well, I seemed to have been okay,” Mist said. “Probably because of the joke you made before bed.”

“Good to know it could be solved that fast.” Siren Song deshelled his hardboiled eggs as he took a bite of his toast. “Well, shouldn’t run into too many more of those before the end of the trip.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mist said. “I just don’t have the stomach for them.” He smiled conspiratorially. “And, of course, we can blame the Princess for the request.”

Siren Song merely gave a chuckle in response. “So, you ready for your first dive?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Well, as ready as I’ll ever be, I think. One last equipment check before we go in, I presume?”

“Yeah. We’ll probably also go out in shifts. Or, at least, only two of us researchers at a time. I’m okay with you coming with me, but it’s advisable you stick close at all times.”

Mist stayed quiet as Siren Song continued going over diving protocol. Mist would be given a set of diving fins for his back hooves. The unicorn would jump in, make sure the coast was clear, and then Mist would come in after him. Mist was to stay close, within a few meters of Siren Song, and constantly check on him for cues. Green meant he could touch the fish he was near, red meant danger, even just from small bites, and Mist would not be able to touch them.

After breakfast, Siren Song and Mist did not go up to the deck, but went with the other researchers plus Twilight Sparkle, the medic, and the lifeguard down to the equipment bay. Out the back of the frigate was the heavy iron door Mist had seen earlier, which one of the researchers opened up to reveal a step onto a small platform and ladder jutting out into the ocean. A nearby scanner noted the bottom was just over forty feet below the ship, though it occasionally fell down to nearly fifty if it got pushed far enough.

The diving equipment was distributed. Coral Reef, Pacific Skies, and Twilight Sparkle each had their own set of equipment, which included a set of flippers, a diving suit, a helmet, rebreather, and oxygen tanks. Mist only had flippers. Most baffling of all, Siren Song had nothing.

The expert swimmer part Mist could explain, but not having air? Even the best swimmers had to come up for air after five or so minutes, perhaps less if they were continually moving and in deep water. And what about equipment of his own if he was supposed to dive? Not only was he inadequately suited for much more than a few meters from the ship, he would get cold fast if he didn’t even have his own suit.

None of the other ponies seemed to have a problem with this. There he was, almost ignored, as Pacific Skies suited up and walked over towards the small dock at the back of the ship. After Coral Reef checked over his diving equipment, Pacific Skies hopped over with a splash and was soon in the clear and calm blue waters.

Siren Song turned to Twilight. “You have the spell I asked for ready?”

“Yes. But, are you sure you don’t need two casts? One for Mist and one for yourself?”

“I’ve done enough training and swimming in these waters I could do a marathon and be alright. Only one is needed.”

“Very well.” Twilight turned to Mist. “Come over here, Mist. You’re going in a little differently.”

Mist sighed with relief. At least he wasn’t being totally ignored. Mist walked over to Twilight, who was forming magic on her horn, a swirling purple aura that was strange if only because not too many others had so rich a purple.

“We’re going to cast a series of spells on you, Mist. I can’t do it for everypony, and neither will Siren Song’s work on too many, but it cuts down on cost if we don’t need to provide you with a full set of equipment. But what I’ll do for you is place a warming matrix that will prevent your body temperature from falling more than about two to three degrees than the normal, active for an hour at a time. Siren Song will have one more, but I’ll let him explain that one. Are you ready?”

Mist was dubious about the exact nature of the spell, but Twilight’s smile was reassuring and he nodded confidently. Besides, this seemed like a mare who knew what she was doing.

Twilight’s horn flared brighter and a small orange globe formed at her horntip. She pointed it at Mist and the orange glow slowly seeped into his body. It felt like sitting next to a warm fire, and soon Mist’s whole body was covered in a faint orange shine and he felt impervious even to the sea breezes.

“Okay, that was pretty cool. That explains why I don’t have a suit, too.” He turned to Siren Song. “And what are you going to do?”

Siren Song said nothing. He merely smiled, then smirked, then grinned as his horn lit up with a surprisingly bright aqua aura and his magic hummed and sparked. A mischievous glint appeared in his eye and he began to chuckle low and steady.

It was a look Mist didn’t like at all. Twilight’s was fine, but whatever the purple unicorn had in mind for him was another thing entirely – speaking of which, why wasn’t she doing anything!? Mist squealed and attempted to run away from the open door before he could find out what was going to happen.

He didn’t get too much of a chance. Siren Song fired off his magic and Mist was suddenly flung out the door screaming. There was a loud crash as his body hit the water and he realized he forgot to take a breath of air before getting pushed. He closed his mouth as soon as possible as the bubbles from his impact began to clear.

He was nearly at the surface again before he realized he had a bubble around his muzzle that was staying pretty solid. Tentatively and without surfacing, he breathed outwards through his nose. Instead of blowing into the water and creating more bubbles, he saw the bubble over his muzzle moving around but otherwise staying put. Freaking out but not quite on the verge of panic attack yet, Mist opened his mouth to check something.

No water. No water came into his mouth. Mist reached a hoof up and tapped the bubble. It jittered and jiggled around a little but didn’t move.

“You can breathe, you know.”

Mist looked up from the bubble on his muzzle and realized Siren Song was swimming in the water not too far from him. He had a bubble around his own muzzle and his own breathing seemed to be almost measured, like someone doing yoga and quite trained at keeping themselves steady.

“You might want to, considering you’ve been holding it in for almost two whole minutes. Come on, follow my lead.”

Mist wasn’t sure about it, but gently began to breathe in time with Siren Song’s more audible breathing. It was tentative and shallow at first, but soon Mist realized he was floating underwater, a few inches from the surface, and breathing in clean air.

“To answer the questions that inevitably come to mind, the airsack over your face functions much like a fish’s gills. It’s a filter; carbon dioxide leaves and it’s recycled with clean oxygen and nitrogen from the ocean. Lasts a few hours, too. As to why I also threw you out the door, I got the feeling you wouldn’t believe me if that wasn’t the case, and of course, learn by doing.”

“But, how come I can hear you clearly?”

“Let’s just say the magic used to create the air sack is a complicated piece of work intertwining three spells in one: shield spell, filtration on the atomic level, and telepathic communication vaguely equivalent to a phone line. The farther we are, the more of a delay there is in when you actually hear me speak.”

“…whoa…” Mist said. “Missed out on something not being a unicorn, I think. I’d love to do this.”

“Well, are you ready for your first dive?” Siren Song reached out a hoof to Mist. “There’s a lot to see down here.”

Still in awe, Mist reached out a hoof towards the unicorn and let him gently lead him down into the ocean, further away from the surface.

It was like a whole other world, at once alien and extremely beautiful.

They’d come across a small patch of coral reef, where the water was just warm enough to support a more diverse spectrum of life. Siren Song gently led Misty Skies down towards the most shallow portion of the reef, still almost forty feet below the surface, and the water went from blue to bursting with color almost like a rainbow before Mist’s own eyes.

Almost immediately, the two were met with a school of bright red fish with blue tips that Siren Song called a Flame Angelfish that barely even paid attention to them. Siren Song even stopped for a moment and gently raised a hoof, cradling one or two fish as they passed and encouraging Mist to do the same. Mist was speechless and managed to do little more than gasp in awe and wonder, though when one fish came up and gently nuzzled his hoof before moving on, he even gave a little laugh.

They slowly kicked over the shelf of the reef by a smaller group of squarespot anthias, small rectangular fish with red and pink patterns, flitting in and out of a group of rocks. After that came a lone black-and-white saddle grouper that tickled Mist with his yellow fins when it swam underneath him. Siren Song pointed out a purple starry blenny eating algae off a bit of coral, while yellow and white raccoon butterfly fish flitted just over the anemone, followed shortly after by a blue and orange saddle wrasse.

Down in a nook in the rock, a cinnamon clownfish darted in and out of a particularly long and wavy anemone, while a group of blacktail dascyllus hovered in a circle above them. Siren Song gracefully maneuvered them through the center just so Mist could see the swirling vortex of black and white, before coming up to a group of brighter blue and black sergeant major damselfish. Siren Song spun them around and headed for a hole in the rock that soon revealed itself as the home of a watchful zebra moray before watching a large manta ray come and snatch up a dot-and-dash goatfish.

After a while, it wasn’t so much the fish that were amazing and wondrous to Mist as it was Siren Song himself. The unicorn moved swiftly and gracefully through the water much like a fish himself, guiding Mist around the reef effortlessly. At times, he would take Mist almost on rollercoaster rides through the reef, diving downwards and moving like a snake through the tight confines of the reef before coming up into a graceful loop-de-loop around some school of fish. Then they would go around another school in a gentle spiral before lazily drifting on the heels of another for a while before Siren Song would make a sharp turn and dive right up towards another fish. All of this was even more surprising whenever Mist remembered he had no diving apparatus whatsoever, not even flippers.

A short ways away, Mist could see Pacific Skies applauding his antics and could see him smiling through the mask and rebreather.

Siren Song also seemed to have a way with the fish that was quite unusual, but allowed for some rather closer encounters than might have been if it was just Mist. He was able to coax an otherwise flighty orange-and-black Achilles tang into basically sitting in his hoof just so he could point out the distinctive markings to Mist, and often had a group of electric orange and blue Carpenter’s flasher wrasse around his head almost like a crown. And once, when a clownfish came by, Mist thought he saw a small trace of magic come around the unicorn, and suddenly his purple body was covered in white and black stripes similar to the orange fish; but it disappeared before he could ask about it.

Siren Song even managed to get a blacktip shark almost as long as Mist was to come over them. He then stroked the creature with a hoof until it was calm enough to flip it over and open the mouth to show Mist the teeth, before flipping it right-side-up; the shark circled them once then went on its way without bothering them at all. Siren Song even got Mist to pet the shark, which was just about the last thing Mist wanted to do.

After the shark, Siren Song asked Mist if he was ready to go back to the ship. Breathless from their adventures and still gaping at everything that was happening to him, Mist merely nodded his response. And so Siren Song gently took him back to the ship.

They spent long enough that Pacific Skies finished his own time diving down below and had switched out for Coral Reef by the time they surfaced. Siren Song hopped out easily and helped Mist, warm but soaking wet, onto the short dock and into the storage bay. The lifeguard brought over large towels for Mist and Siren Song and they dried themselves off before Siren Song helped Twilight with her own suit.

“Did the spells work out okay?” Twilight asked. “You spent quite a while down there.”

“I was getting a little cold at the end,” Mist replied with a large grin on his face, “but thank you very much. It was quite an enjoyable experience while it lasted, though getting some sun on the deck sounds nice about now.”

Siren Song chuckled and put a hoof on Mist’s shoulder. “I’ll join you in a minute to ask what you thought of that little experience, but I’m going to spend just a few minutes with Pacific Skies updating our maps and taking note of a few species of interest. I won’t take too long.”

Mist finished drying himself off and took a bottle of water from the lifeguard and made his way up to the deck. His legs were worn out but not terribly so, and he felt invigorated but peaceful after the bracing swim through the reef, and it felt good to lie on one of the lounge chairs in the pavilion. He opened the water bottle and drank nearly half in one go, then proceeded to sip the rest of it while relaxing.

Siren Song came up shortly after he had finished off the water bottle, carrying two more. He unscrewed the cap off one and offered it to Mist – who took it gratefully after suddenly finding himself very thirsty – and sat down on the chair next to Mist as he opened up his own and took a few sips.

“So, what did you think of your first underwater dive?”

Mist whistled as he looked out to sea. “That was fantastic,” he replied. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Certainly wasn’t expecting the whole breathing underwater thing, but… after getting thrown in, the whole experience was absolutely amazing.”

“And you didn’t do too bad for somepony going in for their first time.” Mist looked over to the unicorn for a moment; Siren Song had his smirk on again. “Sorry again about throwing you in like that, but I had the feeling you wouldn’t believe me.”

“And you’re probably right,” Mist agreed. “If someone told me you could cast a spell to let a pony breathe underwater like a fish, I wouldn’t believe them.” Mist looked over to Siren Song; the smirk had softened to a smile that was almost sweet and his shimmering aqua eyes. “Now I do.”

Siren Song put a hoof under his head and rested on it, still looking at Mist. “I’m guessing you’ve probably figured out how I earned my cutie mark by now.”

Mist nodded. “I still can’t believe you ----ing pet a shark. I still can’t believe I pet a shark.”

“Show them you mean them no harm and they don’t usually bother you. Most of the smaller fish and even smaller sharks around here aren’t too volatile. It takes time, but eventually you understand they’re just trying to protect themselves and they understand you aren’t a threat.”

They were silent for a while, Siren Song still lying on the chair and Mist just sort of staring at him, with Mist realizing his admiration of the other stallion’s physique was quite more than just staring at his ass. Siren Song was quite attractive, with a handsome face framed by his aqua mane and a full-bodied chest and yes, a good-looking behind. The stallion looked like he might swim quite often, his entire body rippling with finely-toned muscle, and yet his every movement was so graceful and precise that Mist had the feeling of him being quite delicate and tender.

More than that was a peculiar feeling of safety around the unicorn. The stallion had been nothing but kind and friendly to him, and there was a certain extra feeling of protectiveness during their swim that made Mist feel like no harm would come to him around Siren Song. This was paired with a certain element of trust towards the unicorn, Mist had let himself be guided around by Siren Song and, even before that, agreed to come on this trip with a stallion he barely knew.

There was also a slight undercurrent of possessiveness, of feeling like he wanted the majority of Mist’s attention. Not all of it; he’d allowed Twilight to speak and was quite fine conversing with Gunport at the harbor and was willing to talk to Hurricane. It was a want of approval, of doing things to steadily impress him and zealously making sure Mist enjoyed his time around him. And even just a few moments ago asking him about the dive, it was not about what he learned but about what he enjoyed.

Mist was startled out of his reverie by Siren Song suddenly reaching a hoof over and gently pushing away a piece of the Earth pony’s mane that had fallen into his face. It was small, but rather sweet, and Mist could see Siren Song looking at him almost with adoration.

“What about you?” the unicorn asked, almost a whisper. “How did you get yours?”

Mist smiled. “Got lost one day. Went shopping with my mom in some fog and we somehow got separated. She couldn’t find me, but I walked through the fog and found her. It was like the fog was barely even there.” Mist chuckled and looked away from Siren Song. “Not really fantastic, I know. But remarkably useful.”

“Given your profession, I can imagine so. Speaking of which, how long ago did you start doing shipwork?”

“Well, I worked at the harbor soon after I got out of school,” Mist said, now more comfortable with the reminiscing. “I got a degree in cartography while I was working, and eventually combined it with my cutie mark and got on-board a few ships as an apprentice. Took five runs over the course of six or seven months and eventually got hired as a main navigator for three ships: the ‘Atlantis’, the ‘Great Eagle’, and the ‘Dreamweaver’. That was my usual for just about four years until the ‘Dreamweaver’ sunk.”

Siren Song may have been a bit on the possessive side, but he seemed genuinely interested in Mist describing his own life. He listened attentively and didn’t interrupt him until he was sure Mist was finished. “What was it like? Doing the navigation work for the trading ships?”

It was hard to concentrate with Siren Song rolling around on the chair next to him. The unicorn had changed positions so his head was now lying on his hooves, still looking at him, but with his body stretched out behind him in an almost provocative pose. But Mist endeavored to continue.

“Well,” he said, mildly flustered, “much the same as this. But here we’re going in a straight line, while often I have to check on currents, air flow, storm temperature, and so on and so forth. It’s more work, and I’m often corresponding with both the Captain’s cabin and the engine room to make sure we stay on-course.”

“So this is a pleasure cruise for you, then?”

“Yeah, kind of. Definitely less work.” Mist thought it a good time to divert the conversation away from him. “So… what about you? How did you get into marine biology work like this? I mean, seems kind of obvious, but, what about the specifics?”

“Nothing much to speak of. Went through college in Vanhoover in six years, got both the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Marine Biology, started doing field research in conjunction with the aquariums there. Even managed to help them update their aquarium, if you’ve been there in the last two years.”

“Haven’t had much time, lately. It sounds nice, though. Probably won’t compare to the experience I had.”

Siren Song smiled proudly and shook his head. “Never in a thousand years.”

There came the sound of a bell tingling over the radio and the other research team members came up from below deck and started heading for the kitchens. Siren Song finally clambered up and resumed a normal, but relaxed, standing position, beckoning Mist with his head.

“Come on; I think that means lunch is ready.”

Lunch was daffodil and daisy sandwiches with a poison oak and clover salad. The cool and fresh food felt good after spending a fair portion of the morning out on the deck, as well as feeling a little dried out. Misty Skies took a short rest in his room after lunch and Siren Song offered to take him on another dive, which he eagerly accepted.

Siren Song was much gentler the second time going down. Twilight Sparkle did her warming spell on Mist as before, then Siren Song did his water-breathing spell in a similar fashion, simply tapping Mist’s head to activate it instead of pushing him into the ocean. They went to the dock and Siren Song dived in first, surfacing a few moments later to give Mist the okay.

Mist dived in and grabbed Siren Song’s hoof as before and they descended into the reef. More fish were active than before, and they even got to see a slow-moving sea turtle flapping over the reef. Siren Song went slower and explained about more fish and Mist became a more active participant, asking questions and having more of a dialogue about the fish.

Even so, there was something about the languid and lazy but easy movements that once again intrigued Mist more than the actual fish. Siren Song swam underwater as gracefully as a pegasus could fly and moved almost sensually as a Saddle Arabian dancer. Mist felt rather clunky alongside him, but he slowly found himself more accustomed to the unicorn’s groove and as willing to engage in some of the simpler acrobatic movements. He could participate in the gentle downward spirals around some groups of fish, could slip through some portions of the reef like Siren Song could, and wasn’t as dizzy as he thought he would be if the unicorn ever spun him around.

By the time the second dive was finished, Mist was worn out and gracefully excused himself for a short rest in his room. He ended up falling asleep for an hour and a half while Siren Song and the other researchers worked on the map of the reef and organizing the boat’s sample containers hidden in the storage bay.

Mist slept until dinner, when he was awoken by a servant calling him down to eat. He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face to wake up before heading down to the kitchens. Siren Song called over to him and had reserved a place in line for him. Dinner that night was much simpler, and Siren Song discussed the following day’s collection over hayburgers and fried potatoes with salad; Mist was allowed to watch Twilight, who would be staying on-board to label and properly store samples, but Siren Song would be busy the whole day with helping the other researchers and wouldn’t be able to take Mist with them.

Mist was half-disappointed and half-relieved at the same time. Disappointment came because of how much fun he was having with Siren Song and how much he enjoyed swimming underwater and looking at the fish and the reefs. Relief came after realizing he was still worn out, and he probably hadn’t got that much exercise for quite a while. Nearly three hours was quite enough; he was thankful for a day of rest, and mollified by Siren’s explanation he would be take him out again during the next day’s exploration phase.

Coral Reef asked for the card table to be brought out again after dinner and she taught them all bridge, and a radio was brought out and they listened to music. Mist was a quick learner at bridge and quickly won quite a few games at bridge, while Twilight, Pacific Skies, and Siren Song got into an argument over the finer points of jazz music.

They switched over to Hearts as the station switched to Motown around nine, and Twilight and one of the engineers who had come out after hearing the music switch started dancing; Twilight wasn’t too good, but the engineer had some decent moves and even got Twilight, Mist, Siren Song, and the other engineer to join her in learning some modified line-dancing. Mist found himself laughing and having quite a bit of fun and quite a bit more than he’d expected from Siren Song plus a bunch of what he thought would be stuffy researchers.

After which, Pacific Skies ended up quite nearly sweeping the board at the Hearts games except for one game where Siren Song started humming and distracted him into playing in his favor. There were cries of Siren Song turning into a dirty cheater before the table broke out laughing when Twilight explained about a hagfish shooting some goop at Pacific Skies earlier that afternoon after lunch.

The cards went on until almost midnight. The card table and the radio were put away and the group slowly went back to their rooms one by one.

It was the most fun Mist had had for a long time. He decided to invite Hurricane, Gunport, Siren Song, and two or three of their other friends for a poker tournament at his place sometime. He wrote a note to remind himself of this before climbing into bed and reading for a while before dozing off with the light on.