Author's Note

I won't promise I'm back or that this story will be completed or anything, guys. I wrote this up on a whim over the last two or three days and it didn't feel right not to post it, so here it is.

Chapter 19

Before Rarity or Applejack knew it, they were asleep once more, having drifted off watching the sun fading over the horizon. They'd both stared, enthralled with it, for so long that Rarity had sworn she could get lost in the soft, rolling waves and sparkling points of light. More than once, Applejack could have sworn she heard Rarity whisper something to her, but she'd written it off as being such her imagination playing tricks on her, allowing her to slide off into slumber.

It's a shame, she'd thought to herself just before drifting off, I could sit and look at this for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Unfortunately, the pair didn't have forever—they were supposed to load up into the bathysphere by the light of dawn and head down to the mysterious city beneath the sea Blink had been telling them about. However, sleep hadn't been easy on Applejack—she'd been tossing and turning most of the night, kept up by a terrible, vivid nightmare.

In it, she was chained to a wall in an extremely dark room, dark enough that she couldn't see more than maybe a foot or two in front of her own face. She couldn't tell whether she herself had been hurt, or whether she was simply sore from hanging there from an indeterminate amount of time, but she knew that she was in extreme pain—every part of her was filled with a seething, persistent ache which refused to let up no matter how she twisted, turned or flexed.

The air was unbearably thick here, even moreso than when she'd been deep in the Shetland swamps with Rarity, and she almost found herself struggling to breathe because of the conditions. She panted softly, looking around, trying to make out anything that could tell her where or even when she was—it was like she'd lost a massive span of time and couldn't remember what had happened.

Then, her blood ran cold at the sound of a soft ticking, echoing off in the distance, followed by a poorly-tuned string instrument of some kind. The ticking seemed to work alongside the instrument in rhythm, both proceeding at the same pace, and in her muddled state Applejack took a good while to piece together just what it was.

It was a funeral march.

Her mouth dropped open, the orange pony wondering why in the world she was hearing it—she'd recognized it as the same tune played for her great grandmother, whose funeral she'd attended when she was little. It continued on, floating through the icy air before suddenly coming to an abrupt stop, the sound of a bow screeching along a set of strings filling the air.

The moments that passed in the wake of the unsettling song were horrible for Applejack—there was nothing but the impenetrable darkness on all sides, and no matter how much she wanted to get away from it, it seemed impossible with her limbs and even her neck anchored to the...well, she had to assume it was a wall behind her, considering she couldn't crane her neck to see. Finally, the earth pony managed to find her voice.

“Rarity?” she called into the blackness, “Rarity! I think I need a little help over here, if ya would?” Her heart hammered at the lack of response, nearly a full minute passing before she heard anything back, and it wasn't what she wanted.

It was that impossibly unsettling ticking noise again, only this time it was closer. It seemed to be emanating from directly under her chin, like something making the noise was pressing into the soft flesh directly underneath her jawline.

“Rarity?” she said, softer, frailer this time, “If you're trying to scare me, uh...it ain't gonna work, you hear me?” Her own voice sounded as brittle as dried leaves in the middle of autumn, and she felt like she could blow away just as easily.

Suddenly, her entire field of vision was filled by what could only be described as some kind of mechanical nightmare vortex. The darkness stretched out before her and warped, streaks of purple lightning crackling between massive pylons extending down the length of a brass tube. The entire thing was impossibly large, and Applejack felt something in her mind snap just looking at it for a moment, like it was mind-bending just for something like this to exist in the first place.

She felt the chains jerk, the cuffs rubbing harshly against her limbs, and the ticking filled the air once more, now at fever pitch as she found herself moving. She tried to look around, see just where in the world she could be, but when she tried to process the machinery around her, her eyes blurred and her brain refused to work correctly—instead, she was getting flashes of her family back home, of good times with her friends, anything to avoid a mental break.

With everything swirling endlessly around her, her eardrums exploding with the crackle of lightning around her, and the incessant ticking, Applejack shut her eyes tightly, feeling a flood of something that certainly wasn't tears running down her cheeks, mixing with a similar liquid flowing from her ears and nose.

And then, just as violently as it had begun, it was over. The crackling, the ticking, the blood shooting from her orifices...it was over. And all she could see was Rarity. Every part of her vision was filled with the mare's beautiful face, and her aching, half-dead body washed with relief.

That is, until she realized how much bigger Rarity was than her, and how muffled her speech was. Feeling the cuffs on the chains release, Applejack tried to run to her, but slammed into something hard and cold, the scale now truly overwhelming.

“Rarity!” she screamed, heedless of the dry rasp in her voice as she pounded on the glassy surface, “Rarity, please, you gotta hear me! I'm right here!” She rammed with her shoulder, bucked, and screeched until her voice was gone, then degenerated to slumping against the surface, lamely thumping it with one of her hooves and trying to ignore the tears streaming down her face at her own impotence.

Then she heard another voice. She couldn't make out what it was saying, but she could tell it was upsetting Rarity. She could feel a hot fury building in her chest at the way her nose crinkled and her lip quivered, and it gave her a second burst of strength. She took a few steps back, pawing the ground, and snorted a jet of steam from her nostrils, making one last, desperate run at the sheer, glassy surface. It gave under her shoulder, and she fell...

...directly into consciousness. She awoke with a snort, looking around, feeling an unfamiliar heat under her cheek. She took a moment to look around, bloodshot eyes scanning her surroundings, and saw only waves of white on all sides. She worked her jaw a little, seeing the outline of Rarity's own jawline above her, steadily becoming aware of the thumping of her friend's heart in her ear.

The earth pony breathed a sigh of relief, turning her head a little to re-position herself—while Rarity's heartbeat was comforting, in a way, the body heat in the already-warm warm making her outright uncomfortable. She was moving her head off to the side when she felt Rarity's arm around her neck.

“Just stay there,” she said, her voice a little raspy and thick at whisper volume—it made Applejack's cheeks flush to hear it. “We still have maybe an hour until sunrise, dear...and if I had a hundred years I wouldn't be ready to move.” Applejack thought for a moment, a smirk crawling across her face as she saw Blink, already up, sitting across from them at the shoreline, eyes narrowed as he watched for the sunrise.

“Yeah, alright,” she replied, laying her head back down and doing her best not to disturb Blink or Rarity. Sleep was significantly easier on her this time, though it didn't last for nearly as long as she wanted to.

Within the hour, somepony shaking her shoulder woke her back up, and her eyes felt like they were on fire when she rose up, rubbing a hoof into her messy hair. Rarity stood over her, a mix of excitement and worry on her face.

“Applejack, you must see this! It's unlike anything I could have imagined in my wildest dreams!” Applejack licked at her lips, trying to stop them from feeling dry—a futile task, with her mouth feeling utterly desiccated as well. She pushed a hoof into the soft sand, a deep crack emanating from her shoulders and back, and forced herself to stand, looking over at the shoreline. Immeiately, she could see that Rarity was correct.

She'd been expecting the bathysphere, but what she got was a positively opalescent sunrise. She felt a heave in her chest and swallowed back the urge to cry at the mere sight of it, her bottom lip quivering.

The entire sky was lit up in a mix of rose, pink and orange layers, cutting through a light blanket of clouds tapering off into a deep darkness at the opposite end from the sun, and even with the light being so fragile and dim, Applejack could feel the warmth inside her, cutting the tension in her muscles like a knife through butter and bestowing an immediate wash of relaxation to her tired body.

However, her eyes fell next on the sea, twinkling and sparkling as the sun played over it. Applejack didn't have much to equate the sight to—there were some colors in the mix that she'd never even known existed. She stepped forward, stopping alongside Rarity, standing there with her as they admired the sight, Blink still holding vigil over the sea to their right.

“L...land sakes,” was all Applejack could manage. Rarity was opening her mouth to say something when a metallic creak broke the silence of the scene, and the water near the shore began to bubble. Immediately, Blink shot up, teeth clenched and body shaking.

“That's it,” he said, voice dead serious, perhaps even carrying a twinge of anger, “it's the bathysphere.” He moved closed to the shoreline, the ocean water lapping at his hooves as he made his way closer. “Come on, you two,” he said, motioning for them to follow, “it's not going to be on the surface long.”

Rarity barely had time to ask just how long they had before he shot them another look, the water frothing rabidly behind him. This was enough to get the pair moving, and they were standing side-by-side with him before long.

Finally, the swell and bubble of the water was broken by a massive, turquoise-colored ball emerging from the depths. Applejack nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of it, but Rarity could only stare in awe.

The surface was reflective, and as the white-tipped water washed down the sides of it, Rarity could see her reflection in the slick surface—she looked disgruntled, disheveled, tired and at the end of her rope. To be fair, she supposed it was how she was feeling, but to look it was a shame.

The hull of the vessel was adorned with all manner of ticking meters and whizzing dials, and the top of the sphere was adored with three pipes—upon closer inspection, Rarity could make out what looked like incredibly fine-woven, thick metal screens at the mouth of each pipe.

She'd been expecting something relatively small, but this vessel dwarfed the one she'd been imagining by a good margin—six to eight ponies could have fit comfortably inside, perhaps ten if they were willing to squeeze together. Blink's voice cut the stillness before it could settle, the stallion spinning the door to the bathysphere.

“Inside, let's go.” The door whirred and spun on a series of grooves carved on the inside ring, flying open once it was finished. Hurrying inside, the pair were once again surprised at the state of it—the place seemed fit to accommodate ponies on long journeys, indicating that the vessel didn't move quickly. But then, it had taken nearly thirteen hours to arrive in the first place, so it was to be expected. Neither noticed Blink closing the doors behind them as they surveyed the inside of the sphere.

The air was thick and heavy, and the inside of the sphere was much darker. Most of the light not let in by the glass porthole on the door was a dim, ugly yellow, cast from a string of lights which ringed their way around the top of the sphere, as well as a mild electric lamp on the center table of the sphere.

Off to the side was a small room with what looked like a toilet of some kind, a large pipe running from the center of the bowl out toward the wall, likely to let off waste. It wasn't lit at all, which made Rarity's hair stand on end, but Applejack didn't see much of an issue—after all, the outhouse on her farm had never been lit when she'd had to go at night.

The center table was adorned with the single yellowish lamp, sticking up from the center and wired into what seemed to be an electrical hub inside the belly of the craft. However it worked mattered little to the pair, it only mattered that it did work. The piping on the ceiling groaned as air flowed through it, and off to one side, a set of troughs had excess water blown into them.

Applejack wanted to ask Blink how all this stuff worked, and what it even did, but he was bent over the main panel of the craft, near the back and away from the porthole. He was turning knobs, flicking switches, yanking levels and mumbling to himself, a sheathe of sweat gathering on the back of his neck as he worked fervently.

All in all, she decided it was likely better for everyone if she just left him alone.

“Applejack,” came Rarity's voice, at a whisper, “just look at all this! I've never seen anything like it even in the most lavish locales of Canterlot!” The earth pony couldn't hide a frown.

“Yeah, well, I'd just as soon have never seen it. I can't make heads or tails of anything in here, and the clicking and buzzing...nothin' in here that speaks to me as a country girl.” She walked over to the center dais, resting her hooves atop it.

“Could one of you close the door?” Blink asked, his voice a little more even than it had been moments ago, “We're just about ready to get rolling here.” At his command, Rarity turned and, with surprisingly little difficulty, closed the hatch, sealing the bathysphere in tight. “Alright,” he continued, eyes on a glass-domed compass adoring the display, “hopefully neither of you get seasick. Unless they've improved the design, this isn't going to be especially pleasant.” He grabbed a large pulley attached by a chain to the ceiling, pulling down on it.

The entire craft shuddered and shook angrily at his urging, and a whoosh filled the air as steam rushed through the forward panel and jettisoned into the water, making it froth and bubble. The pipes above whizzed as filters clanked shut over the entrances and partitions with which to boil the seawater shut inside the structure. The display beeped a few times, and then the craft shuddered hard and jerked from the coastline, sliding into the water. Applejack hurried to the porthole to catch her last glimpse of the shoreline before the bathysphere slipped under the water with a muffled bloop.

She turned back to find Blink standing over the central dais, catching the lamplight across his slender chest.

“Three hours to go from here,” he said, voice now without a hint of waver, “I guess we have time to talk for real.”