“I hear tell you two mares are good at taking care of problems,” the brown stallion said. He sat behind a desk littered with invoices and paperwork. An old, dented filing cabinet occupied one corner, and a clock ticked on the back wall. There was barely room for the three of them in the shack that served as the office of the harbormaster.
Plainity blew a bubble, the pink gum expanding from her lips before she thought better of popping it and chomped it back into her mouth. “We do this and that, I suppose,” she answered. Beside her Eyepatch nodded.
The harbormaster grunted. “Well, this is what I need; for you to get rid of that!” He pointed one hoof toward the window behind him. Beyond the glass (in some need of cleaning, Plainity noted) was the town of Hoofport's harbor.
“The pier?” Eyepatch asked.
“No, not the pier. Past that,” said the harbormaster. Plainity stared out into the water and saw a craggy rock jutting from the water near the harbor entrance. Perched upon it she could make out the silhouette of a vaguely pony-like figure.
“Is that a pony out there?” she asked.
The harbormaster made an exasperated noise. “It's a siren. There's a colony of sirens out by the reefs to the south of here. They don't bother us and we don't bother them, but about three weeks ago this one started hanging about that rock and singing.”
Eyepatch raised her visible eyebrow. “Singing? Is that a problem?”
“Yeah it's a problem, she sings spooky songs. It creeps everypony out. Half the fishing boats are refusing to go out, and now that word's gotten out, we've had two cargo ships divert over to Coltsbreath Harbor.”
“I see.”
“We hate Coltsbreath Harbor.”
“I... see...?”
“My mother-in-law lives in Coltsbreath Harbor.”
Plainity and Eyepatch exchanged glances. Plainity rubbed her scalp, adjusting her hat, and said “Well, I think me and my pegasus companion could see what we can do for you, but there remains the matter of payment...”
“Thousand bits,” said the harbormaster.
“Fifteen hundred,” snapped back Eyepatch. “Your fishing fleet is stuck in port. You can afford it.”
“They're not so much stuck as a little shy,” said the harbormaster. “Twelve hundred,” he added.
Eyepatch pursed her lips. “All right,” she said. “We'll need a boat to get out there, though.”
Plainity jumped as the harbormaster slammed a hoof onto the top of his desk and bellowed out “Anchorweigh!”
An instant later a gangly youth stuck his head in the cabin door. “You called, sir?”
“Get these ponies a boat! They're going to deal with the d****d siren!”
“Yes sir. You did the thing with the asterisks again, sir.”
“Shut up about the d**n asterisks!”
“Yes sir,” he said. He looked at Plainity and Eyepatch. “This way, please.”
They followed him out onto the docks, their hooves clomping against the wood with muffled thuds. “Don't mind him,” said Anchorweigh, “he's just a shouty type of pony.”
“I nearly swallowed my gum,” Plainity complained.
Anchorweigh glanced back at them. “Say, you two look familiar,” he said. He seemed to mull it over for a minute as he led them, then suddenly jerked his head up. “Oh yeah! Las Pegasus. I was on vacation in Las Pegasus last month and I saw you there!”
Plainity shuddered. “You most certainly did not! I have never been and will never go. Such a gaudy, glittery place! It makes me sick just to imagine it.”
Anchorweigh frowned. “Are you sure? I could swear—”
“It wasn't us,” said Eyepatch. “Maybe you mistook someponies?”
He seemed dubious, but let it go. He led them on, looking back at Eyepatch from time to time. Finally he asked, “Why do you have a picture taped over your cutie mark?”
“My name's Eyepatch,” Eyepatch said. “I have an Eyepatch.”
Plainity snorted. “I think it's her idea of a joke. She has an eyepatch over her eyepatch cutie mark.”
“Oh,” said Anchorweigh. “Uh... I don't think I get it... but here's the boat, anyway,” he said awkwardly.
It was a rowboat, tied up along the dock. It had seen better days, the wood sun-bleached and showing spots of obvious repair. Plainity hopped down into it, keeping her balance as it wobbled underneath her in the water. Eyepatch gave it a doubtful look and gingerly stepped in as well.
Anchorweigh said “So, come back if the water starts getting choppy. And, uh, try not to lose the boat, ha hah.” He smiled awkwardly. “Bit of dock humor, there. Where would you lose the boat, right?”
Plainity sighed. “You'd be surprised,” she said, recalling prior mishaps. She stared out at the harbor rock, then turned to Eyepatch. “Well, time for you to do your earth pony stuff.”
“Ugh,” said Eyepatch. She sat down in the boat and grabbed up the oars. “Just because I'm an earth pony doesn't mean you can just make me do all the physical labor, you know.”
“Onward!” said Plainity, pointing toward the rock and its siren. Eyepatch hauled at the oars.
* * *
The clean ocean breeze filled Plainity's nostrils as they approached the siren's rock. As they drew closer, they began to hear her singing. Her voice was pure and crystalline, cutting through the distance with ease. But the things she sang were another matter.
“Sailing ships so soon to founder/Never again to see the ground or/Set your crew above the wavies/Instead they'll be sea monsters' gravies.”
Eyepatch looked at Plainity. “Did she just try to rhyme 'wave' with 'gravy'?”
Plainity nodded. “But she has a nice voice.”
“It's literary vandalism!”
“It's not that bad.”
As they drew closer, the siren saw them and waved.
“She seems a friendly sort,” Plainity said.
The siren burst out with a fresh song. “Hungry fishes in the sea/Yummy ponies come and swim/Help those fishy bellies feel/Full up with your meaty vim.”
“Yes, very friendly,” Eyepatch said. “Such sweet lullabies.”
“You're always so snarky,” Plainity groused.
Now the siren was trying to get their attention. “Hi!” she cried out. “Hi! Hi hi hi hi! Ponies, hi!” She waved both of her legs and smiled.
Eyepatch brought them in closer. “Um, hi,” Plainity called back.
The siren clapped her finny hooves together in delight. She was a big creature, twice the size of a pony. She had a barrel of a chest that slimmed down to a powerful tail which she had wrapped around the rock to anchor herself. Her front legs were pony-like, more or less, but her hide was covered in a glistening layer of scales, colored a pleasant shade of green. Her neck arched long and graceful, with a tall set of fins sprouting from its back; and though her teeth were sharp and jagged, she did seem to have a friendly smile, if one could read anything into a toothy species' smile. “You came!,” she said. “You came to see me! I'm so happy! You ponies were lured by my songs!”
“Erhm,” said Plainity, “Yes. We'd like to have a word with you about your songs.”
“They've caused quite a stir onshore,” Eyepatch added.
The siren brought her hooves to her mouth. “Ponies like my singing that much? This is so exciting!” Her tail shifted along the rock and gave it an eager slap.
Eyepatch's eye twitched. “Well, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a like versus dislike sort of thing—”
“Oh, but I have to finish my task now that I've lured you out here.” She cleared her throat, and began to sing once more. “Little ponies tempting fate/Be wary of whatever you doing/Ask a siren on a date/She'll bring you to a watery ruin!”
As the last note passed her lips she lunged from her rock, propelled by her strong tail. In an instant she sailed across the little boat, hooking the two ponies with her legs. Plainity yelped as she was bodily slammed into the creature's chest and pushed from the boat. Her gum went shooting down her throat. Before she could understand what was happening, the three of them hit the water, and she was being carried down into the depths.
“HWLBLBGHT!” she shouted. The water pulled at her, forced its way into her nostrils. She clamped her throat shut, holding onto the precious air in her lungs, and beat at the siren's leg wrapped around her.
It was no use. The creature raced through the water, a pony clutched in each foreleg, quite oblivious to their struggles. Plainity had lost her hat somewhere, but that was the least of her worries as the pressure in her lungs began to build. She needed air! The sandy sea floor sped by beneath her, and the rush of water pulled her ears and her mane flat to her body. She craned her neck upward, looking to the silvery rippled surface of the ocean, but it was already so high above she wondered if she could even swim up to it before drowning if the siren were to let her go. Was this going to be her end?
She felt a tingle of magic ripple across her face. Some part of her wondered if drowning felt like magic, because that would be a strange thing for it to feel like. But then she felt the water drawing away from her face, a bubble of air forming around her head. She gasped, gulping in draughts of air for her starving lungs. She looked across the siren's broad chest and saw Eyepatch, horn aglow, her own head also encased in a bubble of air.
That would be a good spell to learn, Plainity thought. Now that she could breathe easier, she gave thanks that she was traveling with another unicorn, especially one as magically gifted as Eyepatch. Plainity's own talents were nothing special by comparison, though she did have a knack for precision object levitation.
The siren skimmed along the seafloor, still holding Plainity and Eyepatch tightly. It really was a remarkable landscape, Plainity thought. The sands lay beneath them, scalloped by the hidden currents that flowed. Outcroppings of rock were scattered about, providing shelter to schools of silvery fishes which darted from their path. Among the boulders she occasionally saw larger beasts, shadowy predators hunting and prowling. To one side the seafloor rose up into a high ridge that pierced the ceiling of water, and she realized they were passing the mouth of the harbor and entering the open sea. Everywhere the blue glow of the water settled through the phantasmagorical landscape.
Before long, they came up to the wreckage of a ship. Its broken masts jutted at an angle, and as they drew closer Plainity could see the hull had broken into pieces and spread across the seafloor. The siren carried them along one curving flank of the wreckage and brought them to a gaping breach. Various unidentifiable bits of wood and corroded metal were strewn along the seabed.
The siren let them go abruptly, and Plainity pawed at the water to keep herself from tumbling. Her clothes dragged at her, caught in the currents of her own motion. “See?” the siren said, her voice muffled and distorted by the water, but still audible. “I brought you to a watery ruin!”
“Ah, so you did,” Eyepatch said. Her gaze scanned the wreckage and settled upon a semi-collapsed chest, half buried in silt. She started swimming down to it.
“Oh!” the siren exclaimed, “I haven't introduced myself. My name is Rhapsody. I'm a siren.”
“Uh, right,” Plainity said. “I'm Plainity. That's Eyepatch.”
“I have an eyepatch,” Eyepatch added, as she dug at the chest and surrounding sands.
Rhapsody hovered by Plainity, scrutinizing the bubble of air around her head. She poked at it with one green hoof, and the appendage entered the bubble easily, brushing at Plainity's cheek. Plainity had a moment of panic then, afraid the magic would be dispelled, but it seemed quite unaffected.
Rhapsody suddenly drew her hoof back, holding it to her mouth. “Ponies can breathe water, right?” she asked in a small voice.
Plainity glowered at her, all the answer that was necessary.
Rhapsody's eyes went wide with mortification. “OhmigoshI'msosorry! No one said ponies couldn't breathe water!”
“Luckily I'm a unicorn with some useful spells,” Eyepatch chimed in. She turned up some metallic coins from the sands and grinned.
“What did you even drag us down here for?” Plainity snapped. “We just wanted to talk.”
“I'm not allowed back to the chorale until I bear a pony down to a watery ruin,” the siren answered. “Elder Madrigal got mad at me and kicked me out. I had to sing until some prey came to me.”
“'Prey?'” Plainity asked.
“Elder Madrigal said I had to think about where I went wrong.”
“You did something wrong?”
“I did not! I danced like my heart told me to! He's the one who stifles every-ren!”
Eyepatch paddled over, hind legs churning at the water while she held the coins between her front hooves. “Are you sure this shipwreck tour was what leading us to a watery ruin meant?”
“Eyepatch!” Plainity hissed. The other pony's penchant for asking just the wrong question had gotten them into trouble before, and she certainly didn't want Eyepatch giving the siren the idea that she had been supposed to drown them.
Rhapsody tapped at her chin thoughtfully. “A shipwreck should be all right. I mean, it'd take weeks to swim to Coltlantis, after all.”
“Coltlantis?” Eyepatch said, ears perking up.
“Coltlantis is a myth,” Plainity objected.
Rhapsody laughed. “Oh you ponies, just because it sank doesn't make it a myth. Although there's a big chorale living there, so does it really qualify as a ruin?”
“A corral?” Plainity asked. “A corral to pen up ponies?”
“What? There aren't any ponies there, unless you count the skeletons scattered around Coltlantis. It's a chorale. A siren village is a chorale, but only if the sirens maintain the Dance. Otherwise it's just a village.”
Eyepatch settled beside Plainity. “So Coltlantis is a siren village.”
“No, I just told you it's a chorale.”
Eyepatch frowned. “Huh.” She slipped the old coins she'd gathered into one of Plainity's pockets. “Say, you don't mind, me gathering a souvenir or two, do you? Just a little something to remember our sojourn by.”
“I hope those aren't yucky gold,” Plainity muttered.
“Would you relax?” said Eyepatch.
Rhapsody furrowed her brow. “You ponies sure like to carry things around. It's weird. Anything you need, you can find in the sea. Just snap up a fish if you're feeling hungry.”
Plainity made a face. “Ponies aren't big fish eaters, as far as that goes,” she said.
Rhapsody thought about that. “Oh!” she said, “You don't have fish on the surface, do you. But fish are great, you should try them.”
Plainity grimaced. “Yes, well, moving on. I was wondering, if dancing makes a village a chorale, what's so special about dancing?”
To the extent that eyes could sparkle in the ocean's depths, Rhapsody's eyes sparkled. She clapped her hooves together. “It's the Dance! The Dance is a song, and the song is the Dance. It's our special duty in the ocean. We make the ocean lively. We dance and sing and keep the waters circulating, and sometimes send up a really big wave or a waterspout. All across the oceans there are groups of sirens who keep the waters wild.” She paused. “Of course, some keep the waters more wild than others,” she said, a trace of bitterness tainting her voice.
“Hmm,” Eyepatch said, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “It's a bit like pegasus ponies controlling the weather, maybe?”
Plainity studied the siren. “Are you not happy with how your people do this Dance?”
Rhapsody grimaced, her teeth gleaming whitely. “I love the Dance. But Elder Madrigal says I'm too rambunctious. I don't swim according to his precious traditional forms. I can't help it; the ocean speaks to me! When I jump I want to really leap! Now and then I know it will sound better if I harmonize instead of singing the usual notes. If I'm supposed to spin, sometimes the ocean feels like it wants me to do a loop instead.” She shimmied before them, as if barely holding herself back from demonstrating. “I know! Why don't I show you the Dance?”
“Well, I—” Plainity tried to prevaricate—they had gotten the siren to abandon the rock, so their contract was complete, after all. But before she could get any further, the creature once again scooped her and Eyepatch up in her legs and surged through the waters.
This time the creature angled up instead of down. The seafloor fell away, and bright schools of fish scattered before them. The murky water gave way to the brightness of the upper realms, and then they broke through into the air. Plainity felt her breathing bubble dissolve into the atmosphere, the magic dispelled.
“The air is better for you, right?” Rhapsody asked. She began to lash her long tail, propelling the three of them south. The water foamed against Plainity's chest. She could see the shore, rising far off to her right.
Without waiting for an answer, the siren burst into song once again. “Ponies bold, as bold as horses/Setting forth on dangerous courses/To the spooky sirens' lair/Seen again? Perhaps not e'er!”
“Um,” said Plainity. “Those lyrics...”
“They just come to me naturally,” Rhapsody said. “I have a talent.”
“I suppose it can't be denied,” Eyepatch agreed.
“Music carries farther in the water, but sounds sweeter in the air,” the siren added. “Even though I was in exile, it was so much fun to share songs with the shore ponies from that rock. I felt like I was one of the Siren Sisters from the legend.”
Eyepatch raised (at least) one eyebrow. “What legend is that?”
“Don't you know the Siren Sisters? Three sisters who sang songs so beautiful that sailors passing by would fling themselves from their ships to show their appreciation. They visited pony lands too, you know.”
Eyepatch shook her head. “I can't say as I've heard of them.”
“Well!” Rhapsody huffed. “I can't believe ponies don't know of them. They're famous!” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I know! It will take a while before we get to my chorale, so why don't I tell you the story of
THE THREE BEAUTIFUL SIREN SISTERS AND THE NOT VERY NICE BEARDY BELLHAT
Once upon a time there were three beautiful siren sisters who swam through the waves, singing songs so lovely ponies would fling themselves from passing ships to show their appreciation. Though they lived in a small chorale, their reputation soon came to be known throughout the oceans, and sirens began to come from afar just to hear them sing.
Now, the oldest of the sisters was called Adagio the Brave. One day she said to the others, “It is well and good that sirens come from all over the ocean to hear us, and the chorale has even built us a theater to showcase our art. But is it all right to be content treading water in one town and barely flipping a fin to share our talents with the world?”
The middle sister, who was known as Aria the Forthright, said “We should swim through the oceans and share our music with others.”
Adagio nodded her head, but the youngest, who was called Sonata the Clever, said “No. Other sirens come to hear us, but sirens know our siren music. If it's true that we should share our music with the world, we must leave the ocean and explore the mysterious surface.”
The other two nodded at their little sister's wisdom and promptly agreed. They would venture to the mysterious surface world and share their music with whatever creatures dwelt there.
So they bid farewell to their chorale, made their way to the shore, and air swam inland. Now, the inland world is a strange and dangerous place. There are great stands of seaweed, but if you air swim through them you will bump your snout, for the stalks are hard and unforgiving. If you wonder what the ponies make their sea ships of, it is this seaweed. And there are no giant mollusks to leave behind shells suitable for comfortable homes, so the surface dwellers huddle in miserable piles of rocks and leftover bits of their hard seaweed. If you've seen seagulls, you know what air fish are like, but there are more varieties of them than you could imagine. But just like seagulls they have things called feathers instead of scales, which get caught in your throat if you get hungry and try to snap one up; assuming you can even catch one, for they are very quick.
But if you grow too lonely for the ocean, well, it turns out the land itself is lonely for the ocean, and it draws little patches of water called lakes and rivers across itself. So if you feel a little homesick, you can take a swim in a river and comfort yourself a little. The only thing is, the water on the land doesn't have the nice salty flavor water should have. It's so bland! Most land creatures insist on drinking it because they don't know there's much better water in the ocean. Ponies do know, but they're stubborn and still drink their land water. They're so stubborn about it they go to great trouble to bring it with them on their ships even though they're surrounded by perfectly delicious water on the ocean. Ponies are a little silly.
But anyway, these were all things the sisters had to learn on their own as they explored the untamed wilderness of the surface. They sang to any creatures they encountered, and to be honest, often they might as well have been singing to a hagfish or a lobster. But when they discovered ponies, then things began to look up.
For ponies were enthralled by siren music. The three sisters sang to ever growing crowds, their fame spreading among the ponies. Whenever they sang, ponies would be so taken with delight that they would kick and stomp and throw one another about and tear apart buildings to celebrate. With the energy of the audience, the sisters felt their own energy grow, for that is the magic of live performance! Truly, it was a wondrous adventure as the sisters moved from town to town, their course marked with a path of celebratory wreckage.
But one of the ponies was jealous of their fame and success. He was a sour old pony called Beardy Bellhat because he had a hat with bells, and also a beard. He thought walking around with a hat that jingled was all it took to make music; but now the siren sisters had come to show ponies what real music was like, and his heart was filled with ire. He used to jingle his hat and fill ponies with awe, but now they saw through him and he only earned sneers. Boo!
Now Beardy was one of those ponies who can do magic, so he came up with a plan: his pony magic against the pure-hearted songstresses.
When next the sisters performed, he created a wicked bubble around them of sound-blocking magic. Inside the bubble they did not realize anything was wrong. But their crowds weren't feeling the music. No pony kicked, no pony stomped, no pony snarled and ripped the door from a neighboring building. Meanwhile, Beardy laughed and jingled his silly hat.
This happened in one town, and then another. The sisters gnashed their teeth and wondered why their audiences drifted away. “Have ponies lost their taste for our music?” asked Adagio? “Let's tie up our audiences so they can't wander off!” said Aria. But Sonata wisely stroked her snout and said, “No... let's think about this, girls. Something is preventing our songs from connecting with the hearts of the ponies. So what is the one constant at all our concerts since we started having problems?”
Sonata did not know the answer to the question, but with the three of them thinking together, she hoped something would occur to them. They thought about the time of day they sang, and the stage lighting magics, and the way they announced their concerts. But nothing seemed to make any sense until Aria started talking about tying up the audience again, and Adagio remembered “that beardy guy!”
Sure enough, as they recalled their audiences they remembered that grumpy old Beardy Bellhat had been to every one of their recent concerts. “But he says we suck!” Aria complained.
Sonata said, “Maybe he's a tuna-deary,” (which is some-ren who says they hate tuna, but if you give them a hunk of it they'll become all sweet and dear to you because they secretly like tuna after all.) “But, I think maybe he's up to something instead.”
Aria and Adagio began snarling and vowing vengeance upon Beardy Bellhat. Sonata frowned, trying to think of what was to be done. Were they to be stymied by the obnoxious pony? Was this the end of their musical efforts? Were ponies to know no more the delights of siren song?
But no! Sonata refused to be the sort of siren who lost heart in the face of adversity. She took a deep breath and set aside that sense of helplessness. Her mind raced, and then she smiled. “Wait, sisters. I think I have a plan.”
Now usually when the sisters came to a new town, they would promote themselves and get ponies excited for their concert and make sure they all knew about it. But this time, Sonata told them to keep quiet. “We're going to take it to the streets!” she said.
So they found a busy square in the city one day, and while ponies rushed past them they began to sing. With no warning of when they were going to sing, Beardy was caught limp-tailed. And sure enough, very soon ponies began to gather, drawn by the siren music. They started to stomp! They started to kick!
But Beardy was not to be taken lightly. As soon as he learned the sisters were singing, he came rushing to the impromptu concert, prepared to deploy his anti-musical magics.
But that was where the other part of Sonata's plan came into play. For as soon as she saw him reach the edge of the audience, she pointed at him and started to sing: “Hey! There's Beardy!/He's so weird, he/hates our music!/So kick him out super-quick!”
The ponies heeded Sonata's call. They came rushing at Beardy, their hooves stomping and their legs kicking, and Beardy realized he was not going to be able to play his naughty tricks on the beautiful siren sisters that day. He ran off to hide in a cave somewhere, and the sisters went on to rouse the audience until they brought the city down!
And that's how the dazzling Siren Sisters taught ponies what music is.
* * *
“Did they, though?” Eyepatch asked.
“Ooh, we're here! I have to show you our chorale!” Rhapsody said. Suddenly she pulled them underwater, and Plainity found herself panicking once more as water filled her nostrils. A beautiful coral reef surrounded them, covered in multicolored plants and home to all manner of sea life. Brilliant patches of yellow and red and green grew across the rocks, a profuse and riotous explosion of color which glitteringly-scaled schools of fish darted among. Plainity would have taken it in rather better if she weren't being drowned.
But then Rhapsody changed her angle, streaking back up to the surface. They erupted from the water, droplets spraying about them in profusion as they shot up into the air. Islands of coral surrounded them, mere hints of what lay below the waters. “Ponies breathe!” Rhapsody said, and then they were arcing back down. They plunged into the water again, this time shooting deeper into the colorful maze of reefs. Now Plainity saw enormous spiral shells, glittering in rainbow shades, placed about the coral massifs. A siren came swimming from the mouth of one of them, and Plainity understood these were their homes.
Again they shot up. “Breathe!” said Rhapsody, and then she shouted out “Woohoo!” in joy as they shot back into the water. They plunged deeper into the siren settlement, and Plainity saw many more of the shell homes, as well as several startled sirens who stared at them with almost as much surprise as Plainity had for the village.
Rhapsody brought them up once more, shooting into the air and shouting “I'm back!” before executing a backflip Plainity was very unhappy to be carried along with. They splashed back into the water, but this time Rhapsody didn't dive deep, and instead carried them along the surface to a coral outcropping, which Plainity grabbed onto thankfully. Eyepatch found a spot next to her, gulping in breaths of the sea air.
“Welcome to my home,” Rhapsody said.
“It's amazing,” said Eyepatch. “A feast for the eye. What did you think of all that color, Plainity? Quite a change from the shipwreck.”
“Bleh,” said Plainity, still catching her breath. “Bit too tryhard, don't you think? Excessive.”
Rhapsody gestured out across the water before them. “Behold, the Dance!”
Plainity saw that there was a wide space of open water, circled by the little islands of coral the siren village was built among. In the middle of it a pair of sirens were swimming, circling, their motions a stately dance in perfect synchronization. Their heads raised high, and then they dipped into the water to flash their tails in the air. Plainity inhaled and then put her head beneath the surface, peering through the blurry distance. She could see them spiraling about each other underwater, then breaking away to return to the surface. She popped her head back above the water and realized one more thing—they were singing.
“Our music is part of the Dance,” Rhapsody explained.
It was an eerie sound, a melody in a strange, lilting tongue she could not understand. In the air it was a high, crystalline sound, but she soon realized they sang beneath the water as well, the song dropping into heavier, lower tones. In fact, the transitions between surface and underwater were themselves a part of the melody. The music called to her, yet filled her with unease; the ageless, ancient song of the sirens.
“There's always some-ren carrying the Dance,” Rhapsody said. “Often two or three of us. Our part of the ocean depends on us. The whole ocean stays healthy and vigorous because there are chorales of sirens all around it carrying their Dances like we do.”
“Well, well, well,” came a voice from behind her. “I hope you've learned something.”
“But not exactly like we do,” Rhapsody muttered, lips curling into a frown. She spun in the water, her face lifting into a bright, if not entirely convincing, smile. A yellow siren whose tall neck fins had seen better days came swimming up.
“Elder Madrigal,” Rhapsody greeted him.
He glanced at the ponies. “These the corpses?” he asked.
“We're not dead,” Eyepatch said.
“Yet,” muttered Plainity.
His eyes widened at their words. “Oh!” he said. “How... durable of you.”
“They're my guests,” said Rhapsody. “I lured them with my singing, and I decided to bring them to see the Dance.”
He looked down his snout at the two ponies, as if they were stray bits of flotsam. “Hrrmph. And did you meditate upon your misbehavior? Do you respect the forms of the Dance now?”
There was silence. She drew her head down to her chest. “I always respected the Dance,” she said softly.
“The forms!” Madrigal snapped. “The forms, taught me by my grandmother, taught her by her grandfather, and him by his grandfather! There is a proper way to swim the Dance! Not whatever whim flips your fins.”
Plainity saw Rhapsody drawing further in upon herself. Around them, other sirens poked their heads from the water, drawn by the disturbance.
“Your mother danced the Dance beautifully!” Madrigal continued. “Why you insult her memory with your watery japes and clowning is beyond me. Do the sacred traditions of our chorale mean nothing to you?”
Rhapsody's voice grew even softer. “My mother said I should dance with my heart—”
“What's that? Excuses? Excuses to wreck the hard work of other dancers with your own selfish ideas? And now you use your own mother as an excuse to insult my ancestors, and the work of every-ren who takes the trouble to dance properly!”
“I... I don't...”
“You were supposed to think about the trouble your dancing causes and learn to act like a siren while you were away, but all you did was collect a few ponies no-ren asked for and come swimming back without a care in the world. How disappointed your mother would be. You're a siren who refuses to respect the Dance or her chorale. Time and time again you've made a mockery whenever you've joined the Dance, and time and time again you've ignored my efforts to guide you in the right direction. You think you know better than your elders, yet you barely think at all. A siren who won't take the Dance seriously shouldn't join in the Dance at all!”
Rhapsody was silent, her lip faintly quivering. The only sounds were the background melody of the Dance itself, and the lapping of the water against the coral islets.
Very quietly, Eyepatch murmured, “How sad. Looks like Sonata doesn't have the heart to beat Beardy this time.”
Rhapsody snapped her head around to stare at her. Plainity could see the color building in the siren's cheeks.
Madrigal forged on. “Your punishment seems to have been a waste of time. What did you learn, but that—”
“I learned nothing!” Rhapsody screamed. She leaped into the air, shedding droplets of water from her tail that shone like silver in the sunlight. “I learned ponies don't like to breathe underwater!” She landed with a tremendous splash, disappearing into the depths.
Madrigal stared at the spreading ripples with a look of shock on his face.
“Can't,” Plainity muttered. “Can't breathe underwater.”
Rhapsody exploded from the water behind Madrigal. “You turned the Dance into a prison!” she shouted at him. “You and your forms!” She splashed back underwater as he spun to face her.
An instant later she came back up, this time to one side of him. “You think the other elders agree with you? They remember a different Dance!” Again she splashed back into the water, knifing under him and coming up on the opposite side. “They remember the Dance being wild! They remember the Dance being joy!”
“Now see here!” he snarled back.
“Your Dance is tired! It's not lively at all! What kind of ocean do we make?” she spat. She dove once more. He spun about, angrily seeking her.
This time she came up directly in front of him. Her eyes flashed with passion, and the fins on the back of her neck stood tall. “Your ocean is... is...”
“Jejune?” suggested Eyepatch.
Plainity gave her a withering look. “Boring,” she offered.
“Stagnant!” Rhapsody yelled.
“Enough!” Madrigal shouted back. “You dare? You dare to—”
“I dare!” she interrupted. “You bet I dare! You know what? Here's what I dare: I dare you to Dance with me!”
There was a gasp from the onlooking sirens. Madrigal stared back at her, eyes blazing beneath his thunderous brow. He set his jaw, lips snarling back from sharp teeth. “Very well,” he said. “Let us Dance and let the ocean have its say, and be done with this foolishness.”
(“He means 'foalishness,'” Eyepatch whispered to Plainity.)
(“I know what he means,” Plainity whispered back in irritation.)
Without a word, Rhapsody leaned back and slid into the waters gracefully. She took the place of one of the Dancers, picking up the song seamlessly. The other Dancer ceded his place to Madrigal as he swam in. All around, siren after siren appeared, encircling the Dance area until it seemed the entire chorale was watching.
Plainity held her breath and shoved her face underwater, to see the paces of the Dance below the surface. The two sirens matched one another, singing the melody and swimming a smooth circle. In unison they rolled, in unison they dove to a lower level, then surged back up. Rhapsody's movements seemed tight with anger, while Madrigal swam with practiced assurance.
Then they shot upward, jumping straight up until for an instant they were suspended atop the water, as if balanced upon the very tips of their tails. Rhapsody gave a slap to the surface in time with her vocalizations, while Madrigal sank back into the water with barely a ripple.
The Dance continued. It seemed to Plainity that as they went on, the angry tension in Rhapsody's body gave way to a greater concentration and unity with the Dance. The rage she'd challenged Madrigal with had been a righteous fire that she had needed in that moment. But it was also a hindrance to her ability to dance the Dance she believed in. Her movements became easier as she let go, and it seemed as if at some point Madrigal ceased to be the object of her ire and truly became her counterpart in the Dance.
Madrigal himself was consistent. Where increasingly Rhapsody added flourishes to the motions, rolling through a turn or flicking the end of her tail, Madrigal executed the figures of the Dance with cool precision.
The other sirens watched with rapt attention. Plainity wondered at how much more of what was happening they were able to appreciate. She tried to follow what was going on underwater, but was much happier when the Dance took the two sirens to the surface, leaping into the air or cutting braided trails across the water, their voices ringing out clearly.
“You're a pegasus,” she said to Eyepatch. “I bet you'd be able to see better if you hovered up above all this.”
“My wings are kind of waterlogged. Iiiff you haven't noticed.”
“Well, I mean, ideally.”
“Pegasi and underwater adventure don't mix that well.” She gave a wet flap of her wings against the water's surface.
Plainity turned back to the Dance. Rhapsody and Madrigal were back underwater now, swimming a large figure eight. Plainity had seen this from the previous Dancers, but instead of both sirens executing the movement in tandem, Rhapsody was corkscrewing around Madrigal. The older siren had a grim expression on his face, but Rhapsody had a faint smile, her expression tightly focused.
A surge of ocean current tugged at Plainity's legs. She clung to the coral outcropping, and gave a sudden gasp of surprise as she felt a rush of magical power sweep past her.
The sirens leaped from the water. Rhapsody's voice was a high and joyous sound, harmonizing against Madrigal's and slipping in grace notes and flourishes. He rolled and darted back into the sea, while she flipped her body and lunged to the water.
Plainity felt more magic surging about her. “Eyepatch,” she said, “you can't feel this, but there's a whole lot of magic being stirred up by this Dance.”
Eyepatch nodded. “Plainity, I actually can feel it. I'm an earth pony. We can sense ley lines in the ground. Good for planting and so on. And I'm getting the same feeling here. Like ley lines, but running through the ocean. A whole bunch of them meeting right here.”
“It's a place of power,” Plainity realized. “That's why they do their Dance here.”
“And whatever Rhapsody is doing is lighting everything up!”
As the Dance progressed, the waters too seemed to join in. Currents pulled at Plainity, circulating through the space and echoing Rhapsody's movements. The very level of the ocean bulged up in the Dance arena, the tension of magic thick through the water. The ocean answered to the Dance, grown lively thanks to it, just as Rhapsody had said. The the rest of the sirens watched intently, focused on Rhapsody's Dance. They trilled counterpoint to the songs, and batted at the surface of the water to boost her splashes when she jumped and smacked at the water.
And then the water began to swirl through the arena, circling and building even higher. The sirens swam along with it on the perimeter, pulled into its pattern. Plainity and Eyepatch clung to their crag and watched wide-eyed as the waters rose into a waterspout, filling the air with mist.
Rhapsody and Madrigal swam in the walls of the waterspout, dodging in and out of the air, towering over Plainity. Rhapsody belted out the music, her voice carrying strong and proud, but Madrigal seemed to be faltering. The manifestation of the waterspout seemed to have caught him by surprise. His face was lined with stress as he swam through the walls of water, seemingly on the brink of losing his balance and being flung from the Dance.
Plainity held her breath as Rhapsody's singing raced to a climax. The force of magic was palpable in the air, and the rushing water thundered alongside the song. Rhapsody emerged from the cyclone of water, one leg stretched out and threw her head back, her voice a pure expression of joy as the music burst from her, the song reaching its terminus.
For a moment she hung in the air. Then the waterspout fell back to the sea, the water crashing down. A powerful wave rushed upon Plainity, and she grabbed Eyepatch while trying to keep her hold on the coral. For a moment she was submerged, clinging desperately as the water tried to seize her and carry her off. Then the pressure receeded and she was back in the air, breathing and looking around at the aftermath.
Sirens were shouting and laughing and slapping at the water. Not far off, Plainity saw Madrigal floating, a stunned expression on his face, his yellow scales decidedly pale. Beyond him, a dozen sirens were picking up the Dance (for the Dance never truly stopped), throwing themselves into it with happy abandon, no longer constrained by the rigid forms of Madrigal's teachings.
And then Rhapsody burst from the waters before Plainty. She was glowing, her smile infectiously wide. She grabbed up Plainity and Eyepatch into a broad hug and squeezed. “Did you see? Ponies, did you see? That is the Dance of the Sirens!”
* * *
It was good to be out of the water, Plainity mused as she paused on the road from Hoofport and stopped to look back over the town from the vantage of a tall bluff. She adjusted her hat, which had mercifully fallen into the boat when Rhapsody had first whisked them into the water. The boat had been recovered, although the harbormaster hadn't really had time for much discussion when they presented themselves to be paid. A waterspout had come roaring into the harbor and torn up a section of the docks, and he was urgently needed.
So it was that Plainity and Eyepatch trotted out of town, scarcely noticed. “We can get those coins from the shipwreck appraised at the next town, I suppose,” Eyepatch had said.
Plainity let the breeze from the harbor tug at her clothes, which were already easily almost half-dry. Down below, she could see ponies running about in consternation as an exceptionally large wave rolled into the remaining docks, shoving the moored boats into disarray. Excited shouts faintly made their way to her ears. She glanced out to the harbor mouth just in time to see motion at the siren's rock. “Eyepatch, look,” she said, pointing. An old, yellow siren was clambering up onto the rock and settling into place, no doubt for a long session of introspection and singing. Also, another waterspout seemed to be forming.
“This town seems to have a lot of issues,” Eyepatch observed.
“Mmm,” Plainity agreed. “Looks like a lot of bother.”
With that they turned their tails to Hoofport and headed down the road, looking ahead to whatever fresh vistas would greet them around the next corner. The bag of bits from the harbormaster settled in one of Plainity's pockets, and the old coins from the shipwreck in another. Come to think of it, she hadn't had time to take a good look at those. They'd better not be gold! It would be just like Eyepatch to slip something gaudy in her pockets as a joke.
