A sandy shoreline by the equestrian bay city of Neughgunquit - mid autumn

The waves caressed the sandy beach beneath his hooves as the stallion went step by step down the ancient northern reaches of the bay. He can see the brackish off flow of the estuary further north beyond the tree lined cliff barrier barely visible due to the concentration of ocean mists. This location is one of the rare areas where the great river leading to the inner grand lakes meets the sea, its majesty is one older than the rulers of the land. He feels the beat of the waters cresting rhythm against his skin as it moves up and down the beach where it merged its edges into the sea. The guise he has worn so long shimmers in the early evening light as the sun slowly dives beyond the horizon into the sea.

“Clip skoosh plop”

It is not yet night, nor is it truly still day, but nearing that peripheral time known as twilight. The time the stallion feels most comfortable, his deep blue fur shivers as his pale gray mane and tail fly to and fro on the ocean winds. As he walks in the nearing twilight along the shore, one would not be wrong to say he resembled a cresting wave made flesh. If only it were that he were such a thing, then he would feel calm and at peace at all times; regardless of storm or surge. If he were such a being, then perhaps he would not have needed to move to a place such as Neighgunquit to escape the old and live a new life as a free stallion.

“Clip skoosh plop”

His hooves leave tracks in the wet sand that are slowly washed away by the incessant blue waves that keep to a time old rhythm. Beach wood and fragments of stone from storms of old and new litter sections of this time lost shore. But the path he treads is clear of obstacles save the odd shell or stone. Further to the south and west lies his new home town, a place far from the events that rocked Canterlot a few years ago. Though he has heard of changes made since, of new leadership rising up and a new way of life; the stallion prefers to live as he has for the past few years since he escaped. In his quaint home in a small seaside town, walking as he is now every evening along the border of sea and land.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop.”

Pausing by a particularly old, etched, and weathered boulder with a concave bowl shaped like a window bored through it likely by storms and time; he gazes out upon the sea. His mane and tail settled upon his neck and draped still from his rear towards the sand below. Unlike most of his family, the stallion Shore Crest has ever loved the sea and shore. They long preferred the inland valleys and mountains, or forests and canyons. But to him the only place he felt at home was along the beaches and shores by the sea. Perhaps that is why Shore Crest was able to get away from them after Canterlot, after all he wasn’t exactly wanted before the disaster. Some of his family had called him mad, claiming that one of them who stays too near the sea is inviting things best left unseen to visit. Such superstition however, would never quell the stallions yearning for the deep blue waters as they reached upon the ever changing shore like a lover.

Another chill sweeps over him, his fur ruffling as the salty winds break him from his stupor of deep thought. Glancing once more through the window, the stallion can swear he sees the motion of creatures beneath the waves despite the late hour. How he wishes he could know what they are, what they have known, their stories and tales of the realm below the waters he loves so dearly. But tonight, as all nights before it, he sighs in acceptance of his fate to live upon the land. With practiced steps he continues on past the ancient marker of stone, whose window he has stared through hundreds of times.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop, plish”

A window through which another has often, unbeknownst to him, stared back.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop, plish, clip, skoosh, sigh”

Mists begin to encroach upon the beach, rising up from the ocean as the different currents of air merge creating a surreal effect of dancing wisps and shapes. The stallion does not quicken his pace, he merely walks at his leisure unafraid of the fading twilight and coming night. In some ways he anticipates it, for the night is the time in which he can be truly free of all his burdens and run upon the shore without fear of discovery.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop, plish, clip, skoosh, plop, plish”

The mists grow closer, shifting like waves of their own variety around him; whispering in his ears promises of freedom and joy. A cold breath flows over his right ear as the sound of hoof steps in the sand echo in the waking night. A sense of companionship akin to the sea, a soft brush of cold upon his back. The Stallion’s sea green eyes begin to widen as he realizes something is amiss.

A cold breath that feels very different from the wind of the sea he knows and loves continues to caress his ear. Whispers that Shore Crest has never heard before, whispers that sound like faint far distant words. That brush upon his back when there are no trees or vines, no pieces of fabric free to cause such a touch. No leaves still fly in the air this far north, the trees long since shed of their red and gold bouquet of fall.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop, plish, clip, skoosh, plop, plish, sigh.”

The stallion does his best to stay calm as he walks on, his pace increasing ever so slightly as he makes his way though seagrass and shells that the waves have brought to shore. Come morning beachcombers shall delight in the treasures the sea has given to the land, but that is yet far away. Few, if any, in the town of Neighgunquit walk the shoreline at twilight or night. Until this moment, the stallion never understood the reason why they would not allow themselves to bask in this time in the presence of the sea and shore. Why they would stay within the borders of their town, and wile the time away in pubs and home instead of watching the waves dance upon the sand.

“Clip skoosh plop, clop, plish, clip, skoosh, plop, plish, sigh, clip.”

The mists grow yet closer as he continues to walk south, towards the town he calls home. He can see the lights in the failing twilight, brilliant beacons of starlight so close and yet so far away. Shore Crest continues to slowly increase his gait to a slow trot, something deep within him urging him on and towards those lights in the distance. The air has changed, the light has shifted, he can feel in his skin beneath his skin that something is very off. Though for some reason, he does not feel fear as he should. The cold breath has moved to his neck, the whispers becoming slowly more clear.

The ocean is still beautiful and beckoning, but something else is here. The mist that has now grown close around him seems to glow a light blue and silver in the almost gone twilight. The shapes it makes can no longer be called random, yet remain indistinct. A Timberwolf there, a old sailor there, and as he casts his gaze to the sea his eyes go wide in awe and fear.

Far out upon the waves, within the mist borne from the depths, a vessel of transparent sheen through which the night itself and sea beyond can be seen is at sail. Her great mast half broken, and sails in tatters yet she sails on. Shore Crest cannot see what kind she is, though her form seems like an older type galleon he has seen statues and murals of about town. The impossible vessel does not come about to face him, but sails onwards past the cliff to the north and out of sight; fey-light figures scurrying about her deck.

As the vessel fades from sight, Shore Crest turns his head slowly back towards his home and goal beyond. However, from the corner of his eye he notices something in the sands. The breath has continued to move about, his attempts to ignore it do nothing to make it stop. But as he turns to get a better look at whatever his sight overlooked before, he can swear he feels something push against him. A cold yet weightless force trying to stop him from turning.

His hooves complete the circle, and he gazes down at his trail that has been worn into the shifting sands. A trail of eight hooves, two sets side by side. Shore Crest freezes, the chill from earlier rushing over his entire body. The second set of hoof prints can be seen in the light of the foggy sea mists, beginning far back by the boulder window to the sea. They have no source, they have no owner; yet they are distinctly dainty and feminine in nature.

A sense of something not unlike fear begins to tingle at his senses, as Shore Crest notes that the dainty hoof prints have gotten closer and closer to his set the further he walked from the window stone. Until they were close enough that, had a mare truly been there, she would have been brushing against his side and be close enough to whisper in his ear.

Slowly, as he turns himself back to face the town to the south, the stallion feels a cold sensation ripple over his fur. He glances out of the corner of his right eye at the sandy beach beside him. Right beside him, are a set of hoof prints, the end of the ones he alongside his trail behind. Within the glow of the mist, he can almost see the sand shift as if the one making the prints is kneading their hooves in the sand.

No, he does see it shift. The prints are indeed moving with tell tale motions, shifting, just like ones made by a flesh and blood pony who is incredibly anxious. In the light of the glowing sea mist, he also spots something that sends an uncontrollable shudder down his spine. A wispy breath, visible in the chill of the night and ghostly lights, right along his side. He feels it tickle his neck, and suddenly awareness strikes him as he recalls all the little things that seemed off this evening.

“Sigh”

The chill ruffling his fur.

“Sigh, ah, s..”

The feeling of something brushing up against his side, what he thought was the wind.

“Sigh, ah, stttt”

The breathe that began on his ear and now has moved down his neck, eerily like a mare would do for one she desires.

“Sigh, wwwhhhhh, sigh,stttt”

The feeling as he tried to turn to look behind him of a cold presence pushing back, as if to keep him from seeing that other set of hoof prints. A cold, weightless presence that was distinctly not the wind.

“Sigh, sss, stttaa”

The hoof prints that began by the great marker stone. The second set that has walked beside him, pressed against him, no hoof prints cannot press against a living being. Whatever made them though...

“Sigh, ah, sttttaa..staaa”

Then it hits him like a storm surge on a clear day. Dawning on Shore Crest slowly, as his mane continues to move about in the glowing ethereal light of the mists. As the breath goes from soft against the skin on his neck to a harder moister sensation; the kind one gets when a lover has their mouth or lips almost upon the neck. As the sea breaks upon the shore and the whispers get more distinct, the stallion realizes with great terror one truth of this night.

Though only thing he can do will verify it to be so.

As he sticks his tongue out past his lips, he tries to taste the wind. The wind he feels flowing around him, the wind that blows his mane and tail about. The ocean breeze that ripples upon his skin and fur. That beloved sensation that he has believed to be around him this evening as the twilight fades into the dark of night. His tongue licks the air, and his heart fills with fear.

There is no wind. There is no breeze, not a single disturbance in the air can be felt or tasted. He has spent years walking this shore each night, Shore Crest knows the taste of the breeze of this shore and sea like a lover. He knows what it feels like, what it sounds like, but most importantly what it tastes like. His senses that the family he fled use to feel for love, he can use to feel and feed on the ocean wind. It is the one thing he knows better than any other, that one sensation he would feel no matter how wane the breeze.

He cannot taste that sensation. It is not in the air, not a trace of it. The stallion’s mind panics as he thinks back over the course of his evening; the final revelation of the horror and truth of his situation hitting him. Though the waves had crested as they always had, their tidal movements regular and smooth, the wind had settled and died to nothing shortly before he approached the marker stone.

The ocean wind, the sea breeze, had died and not returned since.

Yet his mane and tail had still moved, his fur had still rustled, his body still chilled despite the lack of a breeze. Or it had after he got to the marker stone with the window to the sea. That first shiver, that cold chill from earlier comes into clearer focus now. The fog and mist had begun to move in shortly after he walked past that point, he had neglected to notice how odd this seemed. The conditions were not right for fog nor mist, yet it had come, glowing a sea blue and silver as fog is not want to do.

His tongue retreats quickly into his mouth as his jaw clenches shut in fear.

The moist breathe has quickened upon his neck, and tales the locals tell flit through the stallion’s mind. The reasons, seemingly mad, as to why they never walk the shoreline at night. Why they avoid it at the twilight hours. Why they never look through he window of the marker stone when the time of darkness and stars grows near. At the forefront of his mind though, memories of the reason his family told him he was mad echo quietly yet like a torrent through his mind.

“Those like us are on the boundary, we exist between pony and fey. There are areas we must not go, lest we bridge the gap between here and realms beyond. We may feed on the hearts and feelings of others, taking their strength as our own. But we ourselves be weak to those who desire to cross over. There are creatures, entities, within the waters and depths of the ocean Waterstrider; who can take more from us than we take from ponies. If you insist on this obsession with the sea, it may well doom you in the end.”

The voice of the eldest scholar of his old family is blended with the myths and lore of his new one. Tales of beings who walk upon the shore in veils and pools of water. A ship that repeats its doomed voyage once a year, ending in a phantom fiery doom far to the north as it plunges beneath the waves. Menfolk, sea monsters, ghosts and more fly through Shore Crest’s mind as he begins to panic. His mind over run by terror, the prior calm replaced by an intense urgency to flee.

The stallion makes to bolt, only to find something holding him still. Something that he can feel as more solid than before, yet it is the same cold presence that has been by his side since he passed the marker stone. The one that mimicked his beloved ocean wind, the thing that made hoof prints in the sand. As he flexes his legs to try to break free, his prior terror and panic is shattered by abject horror as he feels what holds him.

The sensation of fur and scales coiled around his legs, invisible to the eye except as mist that glows in the night. Weightless yet solid. And as the horror coalesces in his soul, that cold sensation upon his back comes to fore. It feels akin to a limb, ending in a pronged hoof; resting and pressing him gently downwards.

And as he feels a scream building within his chest, he sees the greatest terror of the night. For where that breath has quickened upon his neck, the mist has coalesced into a form. It’s mane billows and shines like the caps of wild waves. And though indistinct in shape, Storm Crest can make out two glowing orbs the color of which is best described as the burning light within the fathomless depths of the sea. Those orbs stare into his own eyes, burning deep into his soul.

The entity then says one word, like the sigh of the sea after a storm, that the stallion can feel upon his skin as well as he can hear it within his ears.

“Stay”

The moist breathe is replaced by lips the texture of his beloved ocean waters for which he has longed for. The stallions eyes scream as his throat is frozen in fear, or by some power the creature holds as it embraces him, his body frozen still upon the shore. A dark sensation flows from where it rests its phantom lips upon his neck, one that causes ripples upon his guise, cascading down his form as Shore Crest melts away to reveal Waterstrider beneath.

His chitin trembles at its touch, one Waterstrider can now tell is that of something else. Something powerful, otherworldly, and truly fey. Most of all though, he can now sense what it desires; the longing and hunger in its core of whatever the eternal thing it is calls a soul.

That hunger and longing is the last thing the stallion known as Shore Crest, the changeling known as Waterstrider, senses before the fangs break his chitin.

Author's Note

Alas poor lover of the ocean waves,
You called to you a fiendish fey,
Or perhaps a spirit god of old,
A monstrous beauty of which the legends told.
Fear not readers this take is not done,
There is an epilogue concerning the fate of this one.

Glen Gorewood