Just below the foamy waves, a hunter prowls.
She is a born predator. Her long snake-like body undulates as she swims, while her powerful tail propels her through the water like a living torpedo. Muscle ripples beneath her hide. Metallic green scales catch the sunlight streaming through the water and turn it into a lustrous sparkle.
The Surface Dwellers call her a Siren; one of the many offshoots of the pony race. Personally, she doesn’t like the name; it’s so...uninspired. She definitely prefers her people’s name for her kind: the Children of the Waves. After all weren’t they born from the Great Egg, nurtured by the ocean's bounty, cradled in its deliciously cool depths? Forget the Sea Ponies, with their fancy castles and their petty little kingdoms; the Sea belonged to her Children.
Ahead, she can see the gentle tan slope that marks the shoreline, the start of the forbidding Great Rock. Most of her kind like to stay away from the shore: too shallow, too warm for their tastes, and of course there are those weird Surface Dwellers to deal with. Not her. She likes this strange, shallow place; you could find all sorts of interesting stuff there. Prey included.
One of her horse-like ears catches something: a slow, methodical splashing. With her sensitive antennae, she feels up a tiny, delicious trickle of electricity, the same spark that flows through all living things. Poking her head above the waves, she can see a small, pinkish figure floundering through the water. Pathetic: even the weakest newborn pup could outswim it.
Easy prey.
Carefully, she swims toward the creature, keeping her head just high enough to see her prey. It’s an odd creature: like a minotaur in appearance, though not nearly as muscular, and completely hairless save for a patch of brown on its head. Its legs are even stranger: bending the wrong way, with strange, flat feet.
She knows this type. They were newcomers to the Great Rock- “Hyoo-mans” was what they called themselves- visitors from a world much different than her own, incapable of using magic of any kind. Even with this crippling disability, they somehow managed to claw their way to the top of their world’s food chain.
Water flows through her gills as she slowly creeps up on the paddling primate, undulating like a ribbon of muscle and sinew. Human senses were dull compared to her own, but they could be surprisingly perceptive creatures. She had to be careful, lest she scares her adorable, handsome little prey off.
Carefully, ever so carefully, she approaches. The human's body grows closer, more detailed. With her sensitive nose, she picks up a pleasent musky odor that she’s come to associate with humans. Soon she’s so close she can see the floral pattern on those strange garments around its waist, can see what looks like a faded tattoo on its back..
And...Strike!
With a pump of her tail, the siren lunges forward and wraps with hooved arms around her prey, holding him tight. She giggles as the human squirms and wriggles in her grasp, he’s barely larger than a pup, but he can still tickle her. There’s no way he can escape.
With her human in hoof, she swims toward the shore and beaches herself on the soft sand, wriggling her way up. She pins him to the sand, licks her lips...and give him a big, sloppy kiss.
--
“Gah!” The human wiped gooey siren saliva from his face. “Mel!”
Melisma Pod Crescendo-White gave a sound like chiming bells, the siren equivalent of laughter. “What?” The Siren laid down on her back, dorsal fin pressing against the sand. “It’s not my fault my little Ricky is so cute and tasty!” She gave him a gentle nuzzle, followed by a lick. Like all humans, he tasted nice; sweet, with a hint of musk. Not that she’d ever eat him of course; eating a sapient being was one of the worst crimes a siren could commit. Besides, it was rather rude to eat your own husband.
Rick White’s expression softened. “Look who's calling who cute, ya big cuddly seahorse.” He said, climbing onto her soft, scaly belly and giving it a good rubbing. Meslima’s body turned to jelly. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth as her tail thumped against the sandy beach. Those hands of his were capable of so many wonderful things: ear scratches, snoot boops, and best of all, belly rubs.
“So did you have another super-duper busy day at work?” Melisma said, purring like a scaly, overgrown cat.
“You wouldn’t believe it”, he said, fondling the marriage rings dangling from her pony-like ears which she rewarded by brushing him with her antennae.
““Those new specimens you brought have us tearing our hair out. While they resemble terrestrial shellfish their physiology is…”
Melisma smiled. There he went again, using all of those fancy, boring words that the scientists at the Equestrian Oceanic Research Lab liked so much. Really, despite the, well, obvious differences, they weren’t all that dissimilar. Just like her, he’d had that insatiable itch: what was under that rock? What was that thing on the horizon? What’ll happen if I poke that with a stick?
It had been the same curiosity that had lead her to investigate these strange new beings and their Lab. In turn, Rick’s own curiosity had led him to try and contact the strange creature that was seen swimming around their facility. And the rest, as the human saying went, was history.
“And so…” Rick stopped. “I was rambling again, wasn’t I?”
“Yup!” Melisma ma said with a nod.
“Sorry, Melly.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “You know me.”
“I know, that’s why I love you, silly!” She gave her hominid husband a gentle nuzzle. Humans, so warm, so cuddly…
Of course, this marriage hadn’t been easy for both of them. Her pod had very nearly expelled her for marrying a “hairless Rock-dweller”; if she hadn’t been the Alpha’s daughter, she probably would have-and Rick’s parents had come close to disowning him. If it hadn’t been for Princess Cadance’s intervention, their marriage might not have happened at all. Even now, some two years later, there were pod members who wanted her expelled, and Rick’s relations with his parents were still frosty.
Neither of them cared.
Just then, Rick’s stomach gave a low, rumbling grumble, like a wild animal was nesting in his abdomen.
“Sounds like someone’s hungry.” She said, gently plucking Rich off of her belly and flipping herself over. “Come on, I’ll make dinner. I caught some fresh tuna earlier today!”
“You know that there’s a fish market in town, right?”
“I know. I just don’t care!” She gave another chiming laugh and began channeling the magic held within her gem. Her forearms became a pair of forelegs, which was accompanied by two hind legs. Her muzzle shrank, becoming more equine than piscine. Her dorsal crest retracted, becoming more mane-like, while her tail became stumpier, its flukes smaller. Soon, she could be easily mistaken for an unusually tall, unusually scaly pony.
“Come on!” She motioned towards the tiny beach house they called home. “Last one home is a lazy pup!” With that, she reared on her hind legs and galloped towards the tiny beach house they called home, with Rick trying in vain to catch up.
Another successful hunt.
Author's Note
Note: I know that the cover image doesn't match her description, but it was the best picture of an OC siren I could find.
