Sweetcream Scoops hated many things about ice cream. She thought this as she carved out the blueberry spiral Stormy Seas, making sure she got enough chocolate seaponies into the cone. She didn't know why anypony would want to combine rich chocolate and blueberry with frosting-pink strawberry cake, but then she didn't really see the appeal of taking an already sweet flavor and mixing it up with a bunch of syrupy sticky things to compound the error. She hummed the Lost Verse from the sailing-songs of Smart Cookie.
"Come into the water, come into the water, come and drink our bitter beer."
"Did you say something Ms. Ice Cream Mare?" Ruby Pinch asked.
Sweetcream shook her head. Birds left the branches overhead, shrieking at nothing. Hooves on the job, eyes on the customer echoed in her head.
She forced a smile and dug out two scoops of birthday cake flavor for Ruby Pinch. She hated all the different flavors, most of them just separated only by a small difference in hue or a different kind of candy mixed in. How many times had she mixed up mocha chip and rum raisin?
"It's really my birthday today!" the bright-eyed filly squealed.
"Happy birthday," Sweetcream said mechanically. She levitated the topped-off cone to Ruby. She grasped it with both hooves but didn't lick it yet.
"I'm turning five years old," she whispered. She tapped her stubby horn. "It's less than four months after my Cutecenera!"
"Ah." Sweetcream said. The little filly continued staring up at her. "That's nice."
"Momma and mommy were going to take me out to Chez Pom De Ter for the surprise dinner I wasn't supposed to know about, but Colgate's going all over trying to find her, and she gave me a few bits for ice cream. She says momma just had enjoyed herself too much last night and wandered off somewhere to rest, but she didn't sound like she believed it. I don't get why she always drinks out of bottles that smell like the stuff Cheerilee uses to clean desks. Momma never misses a birthday party. Pinkie Pie wanted to plan it for me, but she had to go off to Appleoosa with Applejack and the other elephants of harmony. I like your hat."
That was another thing about working for her parents. Sweetcream didn't exactly dislike children, but she didn't know how to deal with them. She pawed the grass, then re-hitched her ice cream cart and headed down the empty street. Better to leave before she said something inappropriate or scared the filly.
"Bye bye!" Ruby called, waving after her. Sweetcream heard the soft splat, and then a loud shriek. She turned her harness around.
"Oh horse apples!" Sweetcream swore. She remembered there was a child present. "Nightmare Moon damn-it. Oh, pony fea-oh darn."
The filly hadn't noticed. She was too busy keening over the mess of shattered waffle-cone and sunbaked frosting.
"No, no don't cry! Please! Oh sh-sugar." Sweetcream put one hoof in her mouth. She could almost feel dad shaking his head and sighing, or worse, giving her a pathetic, condescending word of encouragement. She should have served it in a bowl. She should have realized a wee filly wouldn't have the magic to lift a single-scoop cone or the common sense to not wave goodbye while holding an ice cream cone.
Sweetcream levitated three perfect spheres of cake ice cream, smacked them into a cone, and shoved them in front of Ruby's face. "Here!" she shouted. "Take it! Free food! For free!"
Ruby stopped crying, possibly out of shock . Red-rimmed green eyes stared at the cone as if they'd never seen a mixture of dairy product, frozen water, and rock salt before.
"Happy birthday?" Sweetcream suggested. The silence seemed thicker after her too-loud outburst.
"Thank you Ms Scoops," the small unicorn said gravely. Ruby added, absently, "you have the best job in the world." Sweetcream nodded, watched her take the first few licks without mishap, and then hurried on down her route.
Belately, Sweetcream remembered she'd already given away some maple-cranberry swirl to put out Derpy's mane fire. She'd have to explain to dad why she was short of ice cream. If she worked through break, she might earn enough to cover the "lost" supplies.
Sweetcream wiped sweat from her brow. She heard the soft trickle of the saltwater spring on the edge of town. Later, she thought to herself. She hummed the soprano death aria from The Last Flight of Commander Hurricane and trundled off into town.
"That's a pretty good haul for early spring!" Double Scoops said. Her father's voice was bright and cheerful. It was the same tone he used to congratulate Sweetcream as a filly when she managed to eat waffles without getting syrup in her hair.
"Darling," Vanilla Scoops said, patting her curly green hair. Sweetcream had worn her hair short after the Brunch Incident.
" Yeah, well, I could have done better," Sweetcream Scoops mumbled. She yanked off the ice cream mare uniform with a burst of orange magic. It didn't matter how much money she pulled in. She only had a part time wage, and most of that went into rent. Of course, she didn't really have to pay rent to her parents, but that would involve admitting that this she was going to live here, not just take a break while she sorted her life out.
"That's the spirit!" her father said, giving her a kidney-jarring pat on the back. "Always striving! I tell yah, girl, in a few years you could be running the front room of the parlor!"
"Darling!" Vanilla Scoops said fondly.
Her blood turned to water at the word years. She could feel her smile freezing into place.
"This one's on the house," her dad said. He dug out a woven hay cone with two scoops of mint chocolate chip.
"Thanks dad," she said, grabbing it with her tail. The words turned to salt in her mouth.
"By the way, did you see Rarity about a new uniform? No offense, but that thing's getting a little small for you."
"She's out west, doing something for the god-princess Celestia. She doesn't have time to restitch my soda-jerk outfit. " She mumbled the second half, but disapproval registered on her father's earnest piebald face.
"Darling," her mother tisked.
"There's no call to get smart with me. I was just trying to be helpful," her father said, with gentle reproach.
"I'm sorry. Thanks for the ice cream. Sorry. I’m just a little tired," She walked up the stairs, closed her door, and set down the cone. She bit her lip hard and breathed in and out through her nose.
They had a saying in Manehattan, "What have you done for me recently?" That's how everyone treated the ponies who wielded the elements of harmony. Sure, they defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord. They'd saved Equestria twice. But there they were, every day, clearing clouds, leading ducklings, selling apples, and somehow they faded into the foreground and background of daily life. Bubblegum Berzerker had dismembered the mutated wyvern terrorizing Cloudsdale with her bare hooves, then ate its still-beating heart with lemon frosting and a side salad. Princess Miamora Cadenza and Shining Armor had pulverized the changelings with magical force. Prince Blueblood had renegotiated the peace treaty with Gryphonia, turning a looming war into a favorable trade agreement. Other heroines and heroes arose to fill up the headspace that six little down-to-earth and up-to-sky ponies occupied.
Sweetcream Scoops tried to remember that. She'd tried saying "Thank you for saving the world twice" whenever she went to check out a book or buy zap-apple jam, but it felt awkward and weird, so she stopped. She tried to forgive Pinkie Pie in her heart for throwing her a welcome-home party on her return from Canterlot.
Sweetcream Scoops stared at her signed woodcut of The Colt with a Thousand Names. It was the only thing she had to show for months of networking, burning away savings, and trying to become a lead singer in the Trans Equestrian Orchestra.
Beneath it, next to the Prehistoric Ponylands book and the skull-shaped candle, was a sheet of music for the bimonthly northeast ponyville quartet. She had plenty of time left to learn it, and anyway their music didn't really need much memorization. She sighed and thought longingly of the death song she'd memorized for her Canterlot audition. They didn't have any high notes, anything to challenge her vocal range.
Sweetcream levitated the ice cream cone inches from the ceiling. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream was her favorite flavor because dad decided it was her favorite flavor, and he'd looked so sad when she'd tried to change her mind. She hated the taste of ice cream going down and the bloating pains it gave her and the fact that after eating it she had to be very careful when she sat down or stood near a lit candle. Even if it didn't trouble her digestion, she felt something was intrinsically repulsive about eating dessert made with cream, because cream was a refined sort of milk, and Daisy Cow was a regular customer. She hated the headaches it gave her. Most of all, she hated the fact that her parents refused to believe anyone could dislike ice cream.
She threw open the window and floated the hay cone out through it. She concentrated hard. The ice cream began to melt, then bubble. The hay cone burst into flames. She sighed.
Still leaning over the window, Sweetcream Scoops levitated over tin flask filled with something the element of Honesty was named after. She drank deep. Fireflies danced outside her window. Fluttershy's chorus of tiny frogs peeped out their high-pitched tunes, although their performance had deteriorated without her constant attention.
Sweetcream whistled a few notes, and the amphibians found the melody again. Her eyes drifted towards the old Saltwater Grotto on the edge of town. To Double Scoops it was just a source of rock salt with lots of family history. For Sweetcream, it was a place to share secrets or play pirates with Berry Shine and Golden Harvest. Later it became a place to hone her pitch and measure, while the distant echoes almost made it feel like she was singing in harmony with somepony. It also had served as an exciting place to kiss boys. Most of all, it was a refuge from the demands of the world. The bitter salt spring was sweeter than any cow-filth confectionery her parents served up.
She waited until her parents were asleep, and then headed out for the bar. Night breezes whistled through the grotto's mouth, almost like a lonely spirit keening.
Long Shadows and Siren Songs
Sweetcream Scoops leaned back, titled her head, and belched. The blast of air extinguished the flaming torch set into the bar wall.
Mares and colts pounded their hooves on the floor and whinnied approval. An unidentified voice from the back shouted "that was so hot".
Sweetcream turned to Derpy Hooves, blood pounding in her ears. "Pay up, filly."
Derpy flapped her wings and giggled. "Okay Sweetcream. You can ask me any question."
Sweetcream struggled to think through the haze of bloody Mares, Gin and Herbal Tonics, and Local Star Cluster Gargleblasters. There were lots of questions about singing celebrities and private addresses, but then, spacy though she may be, Derpy would never break the Mail Mare's confidentiality. Her pickled attention wandered to Blues kissing another colt to the delighted squeals of the crowd. Such an attention horse. Such a lithe, attractive, attention horse. Of course, she had formed a complex friends-with-benefits arrangement out in Canterlot, but that was Canterlot, and it hadn't seemed worth putting down roots again for a "temporary situation."
"Why were you on fire today?" slipped out of her mouth.
"Oh, that," Derpy said, with a dismissive flick of her blond tail. "That was my crazy roommate."
Sweetcream shook her head and signaled for another pair of Bloody Mares. "What is Golden Harvest up to now?"
Derpy looked ashamed for a moment. She pawed the floor while staring at the ceiling and regarding her own hooves. "It's actually really nice. She means well. I told her about how the pegasi have to import all their food, or train harvester finches, and well, she started mumbling about bromiliads and how corn can extract carbon from the air…"
Sweetcream leaned closer, and then found herself banging Derpy's nose with her forehead.
"Oh I'm so sorry, continue," she said, rubbing one of the ice cubes on the spot, then dropping it and grinning sheepishly.
"It's okay," Derpy said, with true understanding in her voice. "Anyway, she gets so excited about hybrid projects. I think it's because her parents talked about how," Derpy assumed a tone of constipated authority, "'we have farmed corn the same way for seventeen generations, and we're not going to change just because you have a few things to learn!'"
Sweetcream laughed loud and high enough to rattle nearby drinks. In her peripheral vision, a pale-blue unicorn with paler-blue hair and a false moustache offered to buy Big Mac a drink.
"But anyway, she wanted the pegasi to have fresh food too, so she tried to make a carrot that could glow, I mean, grow in the clouds."
Sweetcream snorted.
"No, I'm serious. The seeds germinated in a cloudpatch and everything. It's blue and a little too sweet, and it gives me gas, but it's not too bad. The real problem is, er, buoyancy."
Sweetcream tilted her head, sipped her drink, and waited for the world to slow down.
"In order to keep them from falling through, she gave them hydrogen-producing cells. And well, she was baking some as a surprise for me and Dinky…" Derpy gave a helpless little grin and shrug.
Sweetcream tried, and failed, to stop from laughing.
"No, I thought it was really sweet, and I'm sure the feathers will grow back," Derpy said. "There weren't anything worse than second-degree burns."
"So, is she still working on them?" Sweetcream said, in a forced, serious tone of voice.
"…I don't know. She didn't meet me at the spa today," Derpy mumbled. "She never misses her spa appointments. I think she's really upset. She said something about damping the combustive tendencies with seaweed secretions, but she still should have come back hours ago."
Derpy drained her glass and chewed up the celery pensively.
Sweetcream Scoops listened to the music of the bar. The laughter was thinner. The flirts and murmurs were sparser. There just weren't enough people around.
She blinked. The scene refocused in her mind's eye. There was a huge, sucking, void, in the shape of a wild, purple earth pony.
Berry Punch was missing. At the bar. After eleven at night.
Sweetcream slid from her stool.
"Do you need some help?" Derpy Hooves asked.
"No, no, I'm much more comfortable here," Sweetcream said, staring up at her own flank. "It helps me think."
Lyra trotted in. Normally she'd down four shots and brag about how much she ate for dinner that night to nopony in particular, and act really flattered when somepony teased her for being a pig, or she'd complain about Bonbon's creepy obsession with "humans". Instead she stood up on her hind legs and put down a leather mug.
"Applejack," she said, in a thin, shakey voice.
"She's out on some kind of mission with Pinkie and the others," Fizzy Cocktail said.
"Fermented apple liquor with grain-neutral spirits containing no less than thirty percent apple brandy. Start pouring." Lyra said in a dry, threatening monotone.
The bartender poured for some time.
Lyra drank deep, and her grim face sagged.
"She didn't even say goodbye. She didn't tell me she was moving. She just said she had a surprise, and, and Bonbon left me." Lyra dragged out the words between gulps and shudders.
A chill ran down Sweetcream Scoops, from her hind hooves to the tips of her ears. All of this was happening when the most powerful magic known to ponykind happened to be occupied elsewhere in Equestria.
She rose to her feet. "I'm going to figure this out, by Celestia."
She charged off to find clues and embedded her horn in the wall.
Perhaps her quest could wait until the morning.
Five days later, Sweetcream Scoops reluctantly looked out her window. Some of the ponies who disappeared had shown up once or twice for short periods of time.
Changelings? Evil enchantment? Nightmare Moon?
All the changelings had been driven off by Shining Armor and Princess Miamora Cadenza. But then, that was the phrase, driven off, not imprisoned or destroyed. Would ponyville be a comfy place to sneak in and lick your wounds?
The mayor hadn't found anything worth investigating. She'd sent a few town guards to the salt grotto and found nothing more than salty water and old left-overs from the prohibition days when it was a secret salt-lick smuggling center.
The logical answer was that this was because there was nothing to find. The answer creeping up from her tail to the back of her neck was that whatever was there to find was smart enough to hide.
It wasn't her problem. Somebody else would surely figure out what was going on. But then, the disappearances had been slow, and limited. A few days ago they'd stopped. The streets she looked on where bright and busy, full of apple selling, chatting friends, and a badly injured pear salesmare lurching out of town.
It was all normal except for Ruby Pinch. She wasn't crying, Celestia knew that little filly was quite a bawler. She was just trotting around in a vague circle, looking lost and dull. Come to think of it, Sweetcream hadn't seen Romana Colgate recently either.
The brave thing to do would be to charge in and explore the cave's darkest recesses, calling out her challenges to whatever menace lurked there.
On the other hand, Colgate was better at magic than her, Berry Punch had more raw endurance and a higher pain threshold, and Golden Harvest was more vicious in a bare fight (she'd seen all these traits on display in a tangle with some timber wolves last autumn).
So maybe "courage" wasn't the area to focus on.
Sweetcream Scoops thought back to the swarms of parasprites eating the stairs beneath her as she ran up away from them. She remembered watching birds scatter before a terrible shadow, and then realizing that shadow was a giant dog's leg. She remembered turning on the water faucet during Discord's Reign and getting part of her hoof burnt off by sticky green fire. She remembered the stories she'd heard of changelings crashing down like thunderbolts, of the hydra on the edge of town, and all the other things that six magical heroines were far more qualified to cope with.
Sweetcream spent the next few hours strategically assessing and singing to herself. She headed downstairs, called for her parents, and fixed herself a daisy sandwich. She kept looking out the windows. Any moment now, the Elements of Harmony would come charging in to save the day. Or maybe Celestia would bring down the full might of the sun against whatever fell power might have snatched away people she knew. Or the Mayor and the royal guards would take care of it.
Her special talent wasn't fighting monsters or creating sonic rainbooms or magic itself. She found her cutie mark by pretending a strawberry sherbet cone was a microphone and singing even higher than the birds could.
As the sun sank and shadows crept, the god-princess, the elements of harmony, and the royal guard failed to arrive or do anything.
Sweetcream realized she hadn't heard her parents downstairs for a while, or seen them this morning.
Sweetcream Scoops grabbed a silver photo frame and hammer. Then she went back under her bed and strategically analyzed while trying to control her bladder.
Outside, she saw, Ruby Pinch was still wandering around in a vague circle. An old brown colt walked up and asked her something. Ruby shook her head, and the colt walked on.
Music drifted in through Sweetcream's bedroom window, calling to her.
Sweetcream Scoops trundled towards the grotto with a flare pistol, silver picture frame and a wooden pendant of Celestia's cutie mark hidden in her salt cart, just in case. Maybe there were Prannic Vampires involved, creatures of dark magic with a pony shape that sucked the energy out of young unicorns through a kiss. If that was true, the holy symbol of Celestia would repel them, right?
Sweetcream passed the low limestone walls, veined with blue slate, edged with ferns and green slime. She took in a deep breath and gripped the big, bronze hammer used for breaking up salt chunks in her mouth.
She saw the anemic waterfall bouncing down, with jagged stalagmites of salt forming along its sides. Rims of salt lined the still, small pool near the entrance of the cave. Trickling water echoed down the many narrow little corridors at the back of the grotto.
She did not see any luminous dark energy monsters, any cackling changelings, any mad cultists of Discord or ravenous four-headed hydras. The cave floor was littered with a total absence of skulls. Nothing leaped out of the deep shadows to rend the meat from her bones and drag her living essence, naked and bodiless, before a dark throne.
Sweetcream relaxed a little, but only a little. The air on her neck felt too cool. The song of trickling water was slightly off-key. There were fewer little fish and tiny white crabs nibbling at green slime on the edge of the pool.
Sweetcream took out her scoop and set about the work of collecting salt, which was definitely the reason she had come out here. She broke up beautiful tapestries of salt crystal and scraped up the shards into her cart. She did all of this to get more salt for the ice cream machine and not at all to look casual to some score of unseen watchers with glowing evil eyes.
To ease the pounding in her chest and push down the taste of bile in her throat, Sweetcream sang.
They say the sea is green and dark, where mares can lose their souls
I have never ventured past the forest and the hills
Yet I can hear the ocean waves that beat upon the shoals
When dark winds brush the forest leaves with artistic skills…
Her skin tingled as sweat dried out. It was an old, familiar tune with a sad ending. The echoes of it rang above and below her, boosting her energy as she worked.
Sweetcream Scoops noticed how different in tone and timbre the echoes in this grotto were than the echoes anywhere else, in the cathedral of Celestia or the quarry valleys. It sounded richer. There were inflections and harmonies in her echo that she had never put there.
She'd never questioned it as a child, because the grotto had seemed such a magical place, like a slice of some other world transplanted into ponyville. Now that she thought about it, long and hard, her perception widened by shapeless fear, it didn't sound like an echo at all
.
Her magic flickered and the scoop fell to the ground. Salt rolled down an incline of rock and splashed in front of a little fish. It darted away through a hole in the stone.
Sweetcream lifted up the scoop again. She scraped with more urgency and fumbled a bit. She stopped singing in the middle of the chorus.
The echo caught up with her words. Then it continued on after her. It finished the entire chorus. Then the "echo" started the next verse.
Sweetcream resumed her singing, taking her cue from the voice in the cavern's depth. Her voice cracked a little, but she managed to keep pace. The voice came from the seventh hole on the left, the one that lead straight to the half-submerged chamber where she'd hidden her "pirate booty" as a little filly, and then spent half the night crying because said "booty" had been ruined by the damp.
It was a place that an adult pony could just squeeze past the entrance. As she wriggled her way in, she reflected that a figure which looked voluptuous and feminine on Mrs. Cake just made customers ask her if she'd been eating half of her supplies.
After much grunting and struggling, Sweetcream emerged in the quartz-rich chamber. The raised mound of frosted stone met her eyes, unchanged over the years. Just beyond it, water lapping at their hooves, were all the missing ponies. She froze. She blinked.
Nopony moved. Berry Punch was leaning down, mouth open for a big gulp. Colgate leaned down with a silver comb raised to her hair. Her parents stood hoof in hoof, admiring a rock formation that brought to mind a giant vanilla sundae. Golden Harvest and Bonbon knelt in a flourishing mass of kelp and seaweed. Flitter and Cloud-Kicker stood on a ledge almost touching the ceiling. What was going on?
Relief shuddered through Sweetcream's body. They were only statues. She recognized the light glinting off the crystal glaze and the utter stillness of eyes and lungs. Nothing had really happened to them.
Before she could finish slowing down her heart, a new unease crept in. Who would make perfect statues of these ponies and set them all up in a dark, hidden corner of a cave? And how could anypony make statues this detail-perfect, right down to the tiny scar on Cloud-Kicker's flank, or the swelling from ingrown hairs around Golden Harvest's muzzle?
"Do you like them?"
Sweetcream gasped. The voice was bitter as salt-water, beautiful as the crystal caverns, and deep as the ocean itself. The long, sorrowful face it came from was noble. The sensual lips shaping every word begged to be kissed.
It was a figure a lot like Lyra, the same mint-blue color scheme, but the horn was longer and sharper, the figure handsome and manly, and instead of hind legs, it paired down to a long, sleek, flipper-tipped tail.
To her credit, Sweetcream Scoops didn't run or scream. She overrode her instincts and cleared her throat. "They're very…life-like."
The seapony smiled. It wasn't a bloodthirsty leer or an ear-to-ear psychotic grin. It was the tight little smile of an artist who is flattered by another artist's praise and trying to stay modest.
"I tried to capture their essence," he said. He flicked his tail in the direction of Berry Punch. "That one could use work, I know. It's so obvious. Berry Punch, the lush, drinking something. She should have more suggestion of energy, motion stilled, something that says she's about to start humping your leg or throwing lanterns at the moon."
"Nobody's perfect," Sweetcream said, shrilly. "I mean, it's still quite good." She remembered, belatedly, that she'd left the silver, the holy symbol, and her big, trusty hammer back in the main chamber. Her throat tightened while her bladder relaxed.
"Oh go ahead, don't hide your feelings. I'm open to criticism. What, do you think I'll turn on you in a narcissistic rage and petrify you?" he said, laughing.
Sweetcream Scoops shifted her tail to wipe away the spreading pool of warmth and wheezed out a ghastly parody of laughter.
The seapony's smile evaporated. She saw her tight, terrified face reflected in his deep, pure-blue eyes.
"Oh no, no!" His voice trembled with hurt. "How could you even think that?"
"Er?" she squeaked. Her hooves backed towards the entrance of their own accord.
"No, I'd never hurt you. Or freeze you in crystal. I mean, no. This is all about you."
Sweetcream Scoops blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
The seapony shimmied through the shallow water, tail beating the pool into a froth.
"I won't hurt you because I care about you more than anypony. You're the one who brought me here. You're the one who sang to me ever since I was newly hatched. Your voice was the thread I followed when I got lost in the dark catacombs beneath the cave, too far in to ever find the open seas again. When the changelings drove us out of the underground caves, your old stories gave me hope."
The light intensified in his lidless, pupil-less, white-less eyes.
"And now I've found you." His voice trailed off. "And, um, I'm just realizing how creepy and desperate and stalkerish that sounds."
The world shifted beneath her hooves. Sweetcream Scoops remembered all the songs she'd sung here, all the secrets she'd confessed. She blushed and squirmed. She thought of the night she'd spent, shortly after returning from canterlot, when she'd caught a performance of the Trans-Equestrian Orchestra on their world tour, and her friend Lemon Hearts had said "You could join them if you tried." She'd retreated into her cave and spent hours drinking and sobbing, and then a few more hours weeping and retching. All that time, there had been another lonely soul on the other end.
It was a little creepy, yes, but also a little sad, and sweet. She didn't see a magical monster or a figure out of folklore and legend before her. She saw a lonely little colt who thought he'd just blown his one, big chance.
One. Big. Chance.
"I don't think it sounds horrible," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But, er, why did you do all of this?" She waved her tail around the chamber. "For art's sake?"
The seapony sighed with relief before answering. "Well, not just for the art. I would have starved to death here without the Earth Ponies."
He winced and waved his hooves as she flinched back. "No no, it's not like that. We don't eat landponies. I just needed their natural magic. It helps the kelp grow faster in shallow water." He plucked off a strip of seaweed and crunched it to prove his point.
She covered up a giggle and snorted. There was just something about his flailing, terrified awkwardness that amused her. Multi-colored light flickered at the other end of the tunnel, and the cave rattled in sympathy with some loud sound. It wasn't just his awkwardness and infatuation, or his handsome looks. It was his voice. Every word had a deep resonance that ran shivers down her spines, mostly in a good way. She could listen to it all day and night.
"it's simple really," he babbled on. "I just pulled them in with a low-effect siren song and then hit them with my crystal casing spell. I can use the pegasi weather-magic to help shape the sea currents, and the unicorn magic, which comes naturally anyway for me, is something I can channel to break through the cave and open up a path for my colony to follow. I still don't understand landpony culture, but you don't seem to value art the same we do." He blanched. "I mean, no, that's not what I meant at all. I know you really care about your art, but the others around you don't seem to recognize it, or support you. I know in my colony nobody would expect a great singer like you to shovel out ice cream."
The seapony's eyes blazed, and she could see in that icy wrath a tiny portion of her own hate. It was dulled, and she had worked hard to bury it, but it was still there. He was right. This world in the land was so unfair, and everyone had bad priorities that stacked the deck against her.
"You could be a queen," he whispered. "I mean, everyone would treat you amazing, especially since the warm seasons have turned most of us male, so there's a lot of competition. Not that I'd get possessive," he said hastily. "I mean, if you want to have a modest harem of twelve or twenty colts I wouldn't have any problem with that. Er, not that you'd necessarily pick me first for your harem. Oh Dagon damn-it. There I go again, making assumptions and sticking my hoof in my mouth."
Sweetcream Scoops swayed on her hooves. Twenty. Twenty. She pictured a vast coral concert hall, with a crowd of a hundred, a solid fifth of which would be cuddling up in her bedroom to celebrate. No, it wouldn't be a hundred. It would be thousands. Her songs would reinvent seapony culture. Statues would rise of her. The promise was all there, hovering in his words and blazing blue eyes.
Berry Punch would be so jealous when-
Her eyes drifted to the frozen figures. She wondered if Ruby Pinch had found a place to sleep yet.
"It sounds like a great idea," she said, careful not to let her voice change. "Do you need any more for your collection?"
"Oh, don't worry, I won't try to freeze the whole town," he snorted. "I'm not some megalomaniac who thinks he can get away with everything. I'm just picking two or three more before I open a way. If the other seaponies want some commissions, well, that's up to them." He shrugged. "Speaking of which…"
He raised a hoof for patience, then hopped onto the stone and wriggled over to the cavern entrance. The seapony sang low and high, a swaying tune with no beginning or end, full of longing. Tears ran down her cheeks. Her heart ached, literally, and her breath caught. The song played on, until the familiar bulk of Big Mac struggled at the chamber entrance.
With a grunt, the vast earth pony widened cracks in the thin limestone and shrugged his way inside.
The dream of an entire adoring species of fans flared bright in her mind, but it struggled for space with an image of little Apple Bloom and old Granny Smith straining to buck a fruit-laden tree.
Sweetcream Scoops smothered her dreams with self-loathing once more. She reached down into her lungs and sang a sharp note of discord, interrupting the seapony's song.
Big Mac hesitated. The seapony glared at her, annoyed, and then renewed his song with doubled intensity. His horn flashed, and the water in the center of the pool glowed white. Tiny crystals coalesced on its surface. Big Mac puckered his lips, ready to drink.
The song had no words, but Sweetcream could sense the shadows of words behind it, and make out the familiar strains in that rich, alien tune.
Come into the water. Come into the water. Come and drink our bitter beer.
Sweetcream drew a deep breath and belted out Commander Hurricane's death aria. It was a song of rage, and passion, and futility. It was the commander fighting to the last breath, with broken wings and broken limbs, and the stage directions would have the actor coughing out fake blood at every pause and rest in the words.
I am invincible because I wish it so. My body may break, my mind may crumble, but you cannot touch the heart and soul of me. This blood is victory. I can hear the storm chanting my name.
Big Mac swayed back and forth. The clouds lifted from his eyes. He turned around, covering his ears, and trotted back the way he came.
The seapony stopped singing and frowned. "What did you do that for?"
He still didn't get it. Good. Then he wouldn't expect this.
Sweetcream Scoops filled her lungs, prayed to Celestia this would work. She hit the highest note she'd ever struck.
Crystals shattered. The roof trembled. Berry Punch, Golden Harvest, and all the other statues burst free and fell to their hooves, gasping and shaking.
She expected the seapony to scream like a quarry eel or turn on her with eyes full of hate. He didn’t. He just looked hurt and shocked. His eyes brimmed with tears.
Meanwhile, the ground beneath him rumbled. She remembered something about "the rest of my colony."
"Run," Sweetcream Scoops said. Berry Punch looked around and groped with her tail for a bottle.
"But I've got some very important specimens--," Golden Harvest began.
Sweetcream took another big breath. She could hear rushing water building force, see cracks in the rear wall, and sense the thumping of distant hooves.
"RUN!"
Sweetcream decided to lead by example. She heard her friends and neighbors pounding after her. On her way out of the cave, she saw Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Twilight heading in.
Sweetcream collapsed when she felt she was a safe distance away, and when she'd crashed into a wall. She heard sounds of rage and pain from the seapony and his comrades. Bits of frantic words echoed out to her.
"If I can just channel the elemental power into a--" Twilight's voice began.
"Looks like Sushi's on the menu!" Rainbow Dash cried, preceding a loud chomp and another scream of pain.
"You dirty little mother-buckers, if I see any of y'all in my town again I'll use your cloacas for--"
Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie were heading upstream in a sailboat, powered by Rarity's Dramatic Breeze spell. Sweetcream Scoops had seen it used to show off capes and similar items in ponyville fashion shows.
The next day, Sweetcream resolved to offer free ice cream to any of the element-wielders if she met them, but their paths never crossed. She was a bit relieved by that. She wouldn't have known what to say.
She went back into her room at lunch break. She counted up her savings, and found them to be much higher than the cost of a trip on the Canterlot express, and maybe even enough to cover four months of rent at a low-scale apartment.
"Darling!" her mother squealed, tackling her in a smothering embrace when she headed downstairs.
"Your mother and I are so proud of you! I know you're singing gig didn't work out, but really, you're amazing. Didn't I always say you'd grow up to be a great ice-cream salesmare and save us from a half-pony monster out of myth and legend?"
Sweetcream laughed as she squirmed out of her mother's vice-like grip.
"About that," she began.
"I always said you had it in you. You've really been moving the surplus rum raisin today," Double Scoop said with conviction.
"No. No I don't have it in me," she said in soft, precise words that carried more than a shout.
Her parents frowned. "What are you talking about, sweety-cream?"
"I hate icecream and I hate this job. I love you both, but I hate living under your roof. I'm going off to Canterlot."
"But you'll never make it there!" Vanilla Scoops shrieked. "You tried that and we both agreed it wasn't the right choice for you, remember?"
"No, you agreed and then let me know I'd agreed," Sweetcream said, struggling to keep her voice level. A spark of magic shot into the nearest tub of wildberry swirl. "I'd rather be a failed musician than a mediocre ice-cream mare. So maybe I can't be the lead singer of the Trans Equestrian Orchestra. There's lots of bands and concert halls in Cantlerlot. I'll work on my lower pitches and timing. I'll see if there's an opening in the indy bands, or in the classical ensembles, or maybe even get back into opera. I'll keep trying until I run out of rent money, and then I'll sleep under rocky overhangs and eat grass."
Her mother stammered. "Darling!"
"We love you," her father yelled, foam spraying from his lips.
"I know," Sweetcream said. "That doesn't change anything. I've packed my bags and promised Golden Harvest and my other friends I'll write. Goodbye."
She sighed. "I love you too, but I'm still leaving. I might visit home for hearth-warming eve if you can get used to the idea."
She turned, pushed open the doors, and charged away.
A few minutes later she turned around and galloped back, because she'd forgotten to ask for her security deposit back. But after she weathered out another argument and struggled to keep her temper by imagining all the good uses her mom and dad would be put to if she'd left them behind in the cave, she got it from them.
Then Sweetcream Scoops galloped off into the horizon for good.
