Author's Note

As the title suggests, this chapter contains blood, blood magic, and a large Lovecraftian fish horse. There's no gore, just blood. If that's not your thing, please don't damage your mental health by reading this.

Much love,
-Noobblue

Ocean Beach and Blood

Thursday.

Cadance was concerned. She'd kept her schedule clear still, just in case. She didn't know what Silver would try today.

It was almost comical. Cadance had gone from dreading their encounters, to a different kind of anxious dread, to enjoying them, right back to regular bargain bin dread. Cadance wouldn't let Silver trot all over her again, things had changed. Cadance was ready this time, if Silver even showed up.

Cadance wasn't sure what Silver thought of their last... conversation... argument...

There's a high chance that Silver will act like she doesn't care though.

Cadance was hoping she kept her schedule clear for nothing, Silver wouldn't show up, and she wouldn't have to deal with the genocidal maniac for the week. It was mostly the anxiety talking, and also, the fact that Cadance now saw the futility in their little meetups. At least... the futility Silver kept pointing out.

Everything's changed. Again.

If only it wasn't all so fast.

Cadance steeled herself as there was a knock on her door. It was past noon by a few hours, usually when Silver would show up. Not teleporting directly into her room as told.

"Heeeeeeey~"

Yup... That's Silver.

The mare pushed her way in through the door sideways, opening it as little as possible.

"I didn't invite you in."

"You never do." Silver countered, "How's it going Little Princess? I see I was right?"

Cadance followed Silver's gesture towards her stomach and its current size. She snorted. "We're not gonna talk?"

"I like your new look." Silver kept stalking forwards.

In Cadance's room. Towards her bed. The presence of the changeling behind her wasn't lost on her. It still bothered her. She had a killer in her bedroom, a pony who'd told all sorts of lies without words. Cadance had never felt so powerful, yet she still had no idea what to say.

"It's very..." Silver waved a hoof, "powerful."

Cadance stared and lit her horn as Silver came to a stop at the foot of her bed.

Silver stared back.

They both shared the same look. Determination, frustration; to an outsider, they were just blankly staring at one another. Not much of a confrontation, but enough for them. Cadance inhaled deep. Silver stopped breathing in response, her ear flicked.

The stare down shifted a few times. The tension melted and was filled with half rhetorical understanding. Then aggression, as the tension flowed back, a beat passed, and then Silver looked imperceptibly tired. It was a conversation Cadance knew she was having, but she didn't know the words.

"... Let's get some air." Cadance spread her wings, and used her magic to open the window.

It wasn't a balcony, Cadance wasn't sure she'd fit, but Silver quietly, no- silently walked to the open window. She moved like a ghost, and stepped through without fanfare. Cadance clambered down off her bed sideways, and made a far more serious effort to get out the window. Silver helped, guiding her out with a hoof, keeping her leveraged on the opposite side.

"There ya go." She said as Cadance spread her wings again and took flight properly.

The sky was open. At least until the shield, behind all the 'open sky' was a raging snowstorm that would do its best to smother her in cold and ice.

Needlessly poetic.

Silver made towards the southern end of the sphere, where the farms were, Cadance maintained her altitude on the band of air they were hovering on. "Feeling introspective today Little Princess? You're quiet."

Cadance rolled her jaw and continued to follow. Her horn stayed lit silently, the normal twinkling of the arcane didn't overcome the signal masking from the wind.

"I see."

Silver angled herself, Cadance watched the winds twist around and catch on Silver's wings. She felt the air move a few hooves from her side. Silver was coasting along in a stream of pegasus magic, how? She had no idea, but she knew she could flap a certain way, drop Silver out of the sky if she wanted to.

The maneuver left Silver closer to Cadance as they flew.

"I'm sorry. By the way." Silver whispered. Cadance knew Silver knew that she could hear it over the wind. It was acting, whether it was done to trick Cadance, or express what Silver was feeling, Cadance had no idea; she didn't try to figure it out either.

This time, Cadance listened.

Silver let a moment pass before continuing, "I didn't want to leave you alone in the street. After that bombshell. I knew how you were feeling, I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry."

You knew how I was feeling because you're millennias old, and you're about as much as an empath as I am.

That's why you left.

Cadance spoke at the same volume, knowing Silver could hear her even if she hadn't said anything. "I'm sorry for saying all of those hurtful things." Cadance exhaled and flapped into the wind for another breath of fresh air. There was nothing like the gust of cool air from the sky passing into her snout.

Grief.

Silver tried to chuckle, Cadance saw it in her lower jaw, and in her neck. Something else broke through the façade and stopped her, instead, Silver flapped and shook her head. "I forgave you already. You don't have to apologize."

I'm sorry.

Then Cadance felt something.

I forgive you.

Silver's ear flicked, and then she began to descend.

Cadance released her spell, holding Silver's curse at bay.

They both flew down towards a field and touched down gracefully. Silver was a bit more on the side of 'cannonball falling onto the ground' gracefully, but they both landed nonetheless. Cadance missed flying.

"So, you remember to bring some sea snacks? You don't get seasick do you?"

Cadance steeled herself and her mind. She remembered, but she was more concerned about Silver as a whole than where they were going.

Where are we going?

Of course, the main question was how they were going to get there.

Silver moved like a cat, stalking around in a circle around Cadance. It was her version of pacing, apparently. "I was actually going to teach you the secrets behind continental teleportation."

"I never figured out regular teleportation..." Cadance trailed off. How was that supposed to even work? There was a hard capacity to teleportation distance, even Cadance knew that, and she'd flunked the first class on thaumatic law she'd ever taken.

"Well, the good thing is that it's a totally different concept." Silver kept circling, "It has everything to do with what distance actually is, higher concept stuff, for creatures like us."

Creatures like us...

"Ageless creatures. So it goes without saying..." Silver trailed off with an inflection, prompting Cadance for an answer.

"Don't go talking about it." Cadance finished for her. "Are those pantheon rules? Is that what it's called?"

Silver tilted her head all the way to the side and smiled at her sideways.

Okay.

"Tell me, what is-" Silver paused for dramatic effect, and then pointed upwards, "The Sun?"

"The sun?" Cadance asked

"No. The Sun." Silver corrected

Cadance took a second to think about it. She wasn't really sure. It was fire, flame, heat, energy... She understood that implicitly, but to put it into words was outside her wheelhouse.

Silver's head returned to a normal position, and she started stalking around again. "Safe to say, you know that if you flew into The Sun, it wouldn't end very well, yes?"

Cadance let out an unprincessly snort at the question, "Yes. I know that, at least."

"So-it stands to reason that anything else near or in The Sun, not having a good time, yes?"

Cadance nodded.

"So, how close is The Sun, exactly, to Equestria?"

Hmmm...

"I'm not sure?"

Silver jumped up, "Bingo!" She spun and grabbed Cadance by the shoulder, "I'm surprised you got it in one guess!"

"Huh?"

Silver raised her hooves for air quotes, "Not Sure." then she stepped away, "That's exactly correct. The Universe isn't sure where The Sun is either. Blame Discord." Silver pointed up, "It's up there, that's for certain, and it's close enough that it can warm us during the day, but not so close that it explodes or consumes The Diamond Mountain."

The Dia-

Silver interrupted Cadance's thought. "The name for what you're standing on currently, as a reminder. The Mother, Gaia, to the Kirins, and an old cult of Nox-Cal on the other side of the world. Her title is The Diamond Mountain, Equestria."

"So... Equestria is..."

"One of the immortals? Yes, one of the first. Probably as old as Discord."

"Okay." Cadance smiled, "I'm not sure how that makes sense to me, but it does."

Silver shrugged and blinked, "It happens."

"What does that have to do with The Sun?" Cadance questioned, still only slightly following.

I'm glad you love teaching so much.

Silver stutter stepped. A sign she'd heard Cadance's thought. She ignored it though, and kept circling. "Distance, when you get into the nitty gritty of the magical sciences, doesn't matter." Silver stopped and made eye contact, "No really, distance basically isn't real." She broke and kept circling.

"In order to get from here to there, we're going to do what is loosely called 'stepping', thaumatically referred to as pysiofractal-astromanifestation. A mouthful, the most common name for it is translocation."

Silver side eyed Cadance as she chuckled internally. "That sounds like a far simpler name."

"It's a bit of a misnomer." Silver said, before resuming her pacing. It was starting to make Cadance a little dizzy. Every few moments Silver would pass in front of her again, elegantly moving a different way while talking. "And I've only known two ponies who can use it at will, one of which is Luna, she uses the Astral Sea to do it, the other one is dead."

Cadance kept her emotions in check, she didn't think about asking.

"Translocation for immortals is simple. You have to connect with what you're trying to get to. You understand that, you learned it a few days ago." Silver pointed at her mane, "Despite not knowing why, you now understand. Perspective is magic, understanding is energy, comprehension and experience fundamentally alter you. As an Alicorn, these things affect you even more so."

Cadance nodded.

"So find it." Silver stopped. "Reach out to the Ocean. Not the sea, the Ocean. Find it, and feel it."

Cadance questioned it. She wondered how such a thing was possible.

"You can feel emotion." Silver stated, "You can feel The Sun on your back. Start there."

Cadance did. She'd paid attention when Celestia was teaching her magic, Celestia was far more of a 'professor' than Silver was. Always encouraging Cadance to figure it all out herself, with only guiding nudges. Cadance felt The Sun. The warmth, the heat. There was a duality to it, the energy burned away at the hide under her fur, but it also warmed her wings, the air around her. It was...

"Change." Cadance said, "Energy."

"And emotion?"

"The same." Cadance answered. "It's all Change. Magic is Change."

Silver nodded, "The measurement of experience of Time. Follow it down from the top."

Trying to stave off the growing epiphany, Cadance continued to focus.

Ocean.

She inhaled, and let her senses roam. She ignored The Sun, she ignored Silver, yet she didn't close her eyes or feel the grass under her hooves. It all shifted. She felt the salt reach her sinuses.

She felt small.

Water.

Alien sounds reached out to fill her ears.

What kind of Change is The Ocean?

She took another deep inhale.

Air. Pressure. Water. Life. Waves. Weight.

Change.

What did it all mean?

Cadance blinked... "What..." She looked off to her side, and the setting sun. "When did..." She trailed off, then turned to look at Silver. "How long was I..."

"A few hours." Silver said. "That was fascinating to watch. I wish I had brought my tools."

That felt like seconds.

"What happened?" Cadance asked, slowly.

"You're an Alicorn, Little Princess." Silver responded with a smile, she stood from her spot on the grass, and began to circle again. "You're part of the world, and the world responds when you reach out to it. It was just a little more than you were expecting. The Ocean isn't quite the same as a psychic construct unique to life, it's...more..." Silver spun her hoof, looking for the word.

"Primal." Cadance offered.

Silver pointed, "Exactly."

"So..." Cadance struggled to remember why they were doing this in the first place.

"Translocation."

Cadance nodded.

Silver stepped up to Cadance. "Give me your hoof."

She did. Silver wrapped her leg around Cadance's and took a step next to her until their sides were touching. Silver got close. It was a little too intimate for Cadance's liking, especially when Silver buried her muzzle in Cadance's mane.

"Reach out again. Imagine yourself being there. Then stop letting it be your imagination. It's a different kind of magic. You'll feel it."

Cadance didn't try immediately, though she didn't push Silver away. "I'm worried about getting... sucked down... into that."

"That's fair." Silver said from over her shoulder, "And you'd be right to be worried. I wouldn't dare suggest you try this without me here. You could very easily become Lost among Eternity."

Cadance held her concern in place. She'd trust Silver again, on this.

"And I am here. If you take me with you, you can't get hurt."

Okay.

Cadance thought to her.

Then she reached out again. This time, she knew what she was looking for.

The Ocean crashed into her mind, and her horn sparked.

It was... wrath, but elegant with beauty and danger. Vibrancy without colour, infinity with ending, depth in existence, it pushed and pulled against what was possible, but deep on the inside, Cadance felt the presence brush up against something inside her. She felt her heartbeat.

Her wings snapped open, and she felt the cold Ocean breeze under her. She was flying. She was over the Ocean, feeling the sky and the reflection of her own form peered back up from the crystal water, staring into her own imagination, at her real self.

It was a glacier.

Flowing in infinity.

Ice, that knew where she'd return.

It was life in death. It was a cycle of existence. It was purpose. All of them.

She flapped her wings and felt the breeze and took a breath as the sensations ran over her body in her mind. It was exactly like the feeling of triggering the Heart. That threshold that bordered the impossible breaking open.

And then she stopped imagining.

"Whoah!" Silver fell, as there was suddenly no ground for her to stand on. She caught herself a moment later.

Cadance kept flapping her wings through her surprise. "I- I did it..."

Around them both was an expanse of water. The sun setting on the horizon glistened like fire on the side of the waters in Cadance's field of view. She was here. She did it.

"Yeah- you really did." Silver monotoned from beneath her.

"I did it!" Cadance yelled as her mind caught up with what just happened. "I did it! Ha-Hah!" She did a quick loop in the sky, there was a whoop, and she brought herself down to be level with Silver. "Silver!"

Silver was smiling, but held up a placating hoof, "Cool it hotshot. Where are we?"

Cadance tilted her head and gestured outwards, "Where do you mean? We're at the Ocean? Right?"

Silver's gaze followed Cadance's hoof. "Right." She said slowly. "I'm going to be totally honest, I was expecting us to end up at a beach or something." Silver looked up, "It's almost night, so I can figure out where we are by the stars in a minute, but..." Silver flew down towards the water. "Might as well do this now."

She dove straight in, and there was a flash of cerulean magic that Cadance had to look away from.

When she looked back, Silver was half fish. Her wings and back legs had been replaced by a thick tail of corded muscle.

"You can turn into a seapony?" Cadance flew down towards the water where Silver was floating.

"Not a seapony. Hippocampus, very different civilizations, remind me to introduce you to Queen Nova."

"Nova? Don't you mean Novo?"

Silver raised a brow and sent Cadance a cheeky smile, "Ooooh~! So you do know her?"

Woops. Probably wasn't supposed to let that slip.

Silver waved a dismissive hoof.

"Only in passing!" Cadance protested.

"Are you gonna keep yapping? Or are you going to join me?"

Just jump in the water?

"Our destination is down." Silver pointed, "So you'll have to get a little wet eventually."

Cadance hesitated, "I'm not a very good swimmer."

"Don't worry, I hear Alicorns float."

Cadance stopped flapping, and worrying at the same time. There was a soft splash as she hit the water and extended her legs to start paddling. It was open water as far as the eye could see, so the waves weren't nearly as bad as they could have been. Keeping her head above water was simple.

"I can get you an air bubble, or transform you. Whichever you prefer." Silver said, after swimming up to Cadance. She also held out one of her front hooves. Instead of being just matted silver in colour, her leg was now covered in tiny, almost invisible scales that shimmered in the setting sunlight.

Cadance kept her mind silent. "You pick."

Silver rolled her eyes and held out her hoof a little further, Cadance took it, Silver spoke, "This'll be flashy. Close your eyes."

Cadance followed the instruction. She still saw the magic outside her eyelids. The cerulean glow probably changed the colours of the water for quite the distance, but overall, she didn't feel any different. She felt the magic expanding and shifting around her due to how close it was, but that was it.

She opened her eyes once it faded to see her back hooves missing. Her wings had turned into elongated webbed fins that ran down her back and onto a tail of meat. Unlike Silver, Cadance was jagged at the edges, and her front hooves were thicker at the bottom, cloven with what almost looked like claws. Her teeth were sharp too, she was a predator.

"Oh." Silver said dumbly.

Cadance looked back towards Silver after her look over herself.

Silver was blushing.

"Let yourself breathe in the water, it's going to feel odd, but not like you're drowning." Then she dove under the surface.

Cadance wasn't sure what to make of that, but she dipped her muzzle into the water and inhaled.

Yup. That feels odd.

It felt like drinking water, but it... it was breathing. Like if air were viscous. The only difference from drowning was that her body didn't revolt against it, and she didn't actually start to drown as she breathed in the water and exhaled more from her mouth. In short order, her sinuses, throat, and mouth were filled with the salty substance. It flowed through her body the same way air would have.

Really odd.

She dove down too.

As she dove down, her chest began to shine with arcane shapes that twisted over each other. Silver swam around her swiftly, clearly she had plenty of experience. Cadance's descent was... poor...

"Wha-"

Oh, that's weird.

Cadance reached up a hoof to her missing ears, she pulled a hoof away as she brushed up against something that stung.

"Don't do that." Silver swam and hovered next to her, "Your ears are on the outside of your head now, so don't go bumping yourself into things."

"I-" Cadance felt more like what she was now. Moments ago, it felt like just an illusion strapped over her. Now, she could feel the flexing muscles under her front hooves where she could press claws out. She didn't have the phantom sensation of having ears, and she-

"Do I have two hearts?"

Silver reached a hoof out to Cadance's side and waited for a moment. Her head tilted, "Technically there's three in there, but yes, you have two. Funny, I didn't mean for the spell to do that."

"Is that a problem?" Cadance asked, sans worry, if it was Silver was right there. She'd... not leave her stranded in the middle of the Ocean to die.

Silver rolled her head in thought, and Cadance watched her mane drift around in the water. It was sparkly and metallic like her fur used to be. "The spell is designed to have a target form, and a deviation for the pony in question, it takes cues from you, for things like colour and fin shape. Apparently it took so much of a que that it transformed you into a hippocampi subspecies." Silver gestured between the two of them, "I'm sure you can tell the difference."

Taking another look, Cadance could tell the difference. If Silver had turned into half a fish, Cadance had turned into half a shark.

Silver shrugged, "Apparently this subspecies has two hearts."

Cadance filed the questions away and locked the cabinet. "Where to next?"

Silver looked up, "We'll have to wait until The Sun goes down. We really do not want to get lost out here."

Cadance stared, silently asking for an explanation.

Silver nodded, and her 'teaching' tone came back. "Distance is only kind-of real. Out here? So far away from Equestria? It's more of a suggestion. The further out you go, the more Space-Time folds over itself. You could take one step and end up fifty steps forwards, the currents could buffet you hundreds of leagues in just a moment."

"So stay close." Cadance affirmed

"Yes. I'd really like to not spend weeks finding you out here because you wandered off."

I won't.

Silver nodded and swam a little closer to look at the spinning magic over her chest. Cadance ignored the prompting to ask what it did and just let Silver work. She didn't end up doing much, Cadance watched her eyes glow as she drew out a new shape with her nose and then pushed it into the churning mass.

"There." Silver looked up again, then swam for the surface.

Cadance followed, albeit much slower.

Once she breached, Cadance got to experience the fun of 'having been breathing water' to going back to regular breathing. That being said, a little bit of her non-aquatic instinct was still present, and decided that the water calmly sitting in her lungs required violent exodus right that very moment.

"Swim with your back, not your tail. It's not like paddling, it's like flying." Silver said from the side.

Cadance sent her a glare as she finished coughing up water.

Silver giggled. It was an odd sound Cadance had never heard before, at first, she thought it was some kind of hippocampi noise. Cadance responded by splashing a wave of water at Silver with her hoof as soon as she was done hacking up a lung. Silver fell backwards into the water dramatically. Cadance didn't see why, until Silver's tail exploded out of the water and sent a tiny wave curving over Cadance's head.

After it happened, Cadance noticed the lack of dripping. Her... scales remained moisturized, but relatively dry. Her mane, of course, didn't care at all, and continued to wave around in the invisible power Cadance was projecting.

Silver surfaced again, slower, and stared at the sky. The Sun was almost past the horizon, Cadance almost felt comfortable looking directly at it. It was a nice moment, something Cadance tried not to overthink, she enjoyed it instead.

She had so many things to say. None of them felt right.

"There." Silver pointed up. "See V'df'ruris?" She was pointing at a star. One Cadance could see. "Responsible for viciousness in the blood. Violence in emotion." Silver began swimming towards it. Cadance was rolling the words around in her head when she remembered she had to stay close.

Silver was swimming slowly enough for her to catch up.

Swim with your back, not with your tail. Flying, not swimming.

Once Cadance started trying it, the instinct was there. She felt the water gliding over her fins like air flowing under her wings. She wasn't so much as pushing herself through the water as she was parting the water around her. Gliding forwards and making tiny adjustments for measures of extra speed. Silver equally paced herself up as Cadance got faster.

"You managed to get us pretty close by accident, this shouldn't take very long." Silver said, "Follow my lead, stay close behind me." Then she dove.

Cadance followed as instructed, carefully following in Silver's wake, it was exactly like flying in somepony's draft. The pressure was higher when she was too far away, but when she got right behind, swimming became easier.

The Ocean was beautiful.

Endless rays from the sunset sank into the waters and illuminated it all around her, cascading lines of darkness and light made the whole place a flowing kaleidoscope of oranges and blues. She could hear Silver swimming, but she could also hear the fluctuations of water from other fish moving around. They passed by a school that glistened like a disco ball with holes, and a few other larger sea creatures. A turtle, a lobster, some large fish, and they passed under a shark that was slowly relaxing near the surface.

It was a totally different world they descended into.

Cadance was broken out of her wonder by Silver spinning around to swim backwards. They made eye contact, and Cadance tried to silently communicate thanks for showing her this. Silver stared, and stayed silent for another minute while they swam down into the Ocean. It was getting darker, and the surface above still glistened with the light of the setting sun reflecting down into the waters.

Silver spoke, "This fish we're meeting down here."

Cadance wanted to perk her ears, but instead, she felt the instinct to flex a few fins down the side of her neck.

"She'll probably try to kill us both." Silver said, "Relax." She shifted into another backwards swimming position, "She'll go for me first when we get close, but it's important that you meet her, just like with Chrysalis."

Cadance nodded.

"Don't attack her." Silver commented as she began to turn around, "if she does get a hold of you, let her hurt you. Thrashing or fighting back will only make it worse, you won't be able to get away or fight back. You'll need to give me time to get her off of you, okay?"

Cadance nodded, though she felt comfortable letting some of her worry flow free.

They swam for another few minutes, until it was nearly pitch black.

Except...

Cadance could still see. It was like peering through static magic, there was a glow on everything, all greys and blacks, but she could still clearly see Silver in front of her, and the occasional fish that swam a little too close. Her own front hooves were dulled out, she could barely tell they were still pink.

Suddenly she spotted sand and rock. There was a floor to this massive bowl, and they were deep enough that Cadance couldn't see the surface anymore. Silver touched down with barely a sound, letting her front hooves grip into the sand and her tail float freely behind her. Cadance followed suit, her... claws came out when she tried to grip into the sand. She felt them push in, like she was stabbing the sand with her hooves.

Silver bit down, and Cadance heard a crack as a pinprick of cerulean magic passed over nothing, leaving an ornate gold needle in its place. There was a ruby sitting at the top of it, barely the size of an iris.

"Ready?"

Cadance wasn't. She wasn't ever ready for whatever hijinks Silver was about to pull. Cadance saw now that the question, and all the other times she'd asked it... It matched with her expression, Silver already knew the answer, it wasn't a question, it was a warning to prepare herself.

So instead of nodding, Cadance took a deep breath instead and nestled herself low until her belly touched the sand.

Silver pushed up and drifted until she was twelve or so hooves above Cadance, then she pricked her frog with the needle and left it there. The gemstone glowed, and Cadance felt a shiver run up her spine, which was ostensibly stranger than normal, as her spine had recently doubled in length.

Silver whistled a low irregular tune. It was ominous, and it bounced like classical cords, going from one deep note to the next with swiftness that made the hum in the water feel alive. The ruby continued to glow a deeper red than it would have if a light was merely shined into it.

Then Cadance, by virtue of having herself pressed against the sand, felt the ground shake.

Her head snapped in the direction of the vibration on instinct, and she caught a massive shape slip just out of her range of vision. It looked like a tentacle, or a hoof, it was blue but also red. She shouldn't've been able to tell through the darkness, but the colour was alien, it reached through the waters to her eyes.

Silver's whistle turned into a hum, as she swam a little bit closer to the shape. The red illumination from the ruby grew brighter, and Cadance saw the shape duck further away, and had to restrain a gasp at what she saw. Whatever it was, it was a monster, a twisted amalgam of flesh. Scales and muscle slid over each other like glass flowing down over a still living pony, but there was no shape, it churned like the waters around them.

Then Silver plucked the needle from her hoof, and the whistling stopped. The light went out, and there was silence for a split second before the water pounded against Cadance's ears with the sensation of something approaching. It was less time than Cadance had to recognize the sound of crunching bone on impact as she saw Silver's form disappear and twist into a storm of bubbles and water that nearly tore Cadance from her spot in the sand, her mane went whipping from the side and there was a scream like someone scraping their throat down the inside of a crystal berry grater.

Cadance clenched her eyes shut.

There was a struggle, and then everything went quiet again. She heard wheezing.

And then a feminine voice, far more pitched than Silver's. "You?"

There were a few coughs, and another identical call of, "You?"

"You?"

"You?"

It sounded like a record jumping. Cadance opened her eyes again and looked around for Silver.

She heard the coughing resolve into Silver's voice, "Yes, it's me. Hi Lyrane."

"Who's Lyrane?" The pitched voice asked, "You taste good, can I eat you more?"

"No." Silver responded and the other... the creature whined at the response. Cadance heard another cough, "You can't eat anything sapient. Remember?"

"OooooH!" There was another pressure wave as the massive thing moved, "You-You?"

"Yes, hi Lyrane." Silver said quieter.

"Who's Lyrane? Funny, that word... It sounds really important."

Cadance spotted them. Floating far further away than they were before, Cadance followed through the plume of sand that had been thrown into the air in their scuffle as it settled. There, Silver and another hippocampus, roughly three times the size floated, there was blood in the water, it pervaded the larger fish like the sand around their scuffle. It drifted away from her scales like she was constantly bleeding. It was magic.

Blood magic.

"It is very important." Silver reached out a hoof to tug at one of Lyrane's, it was like watching a toothpick grab a cart axle. "I have something else important too, would you like to see that?" Silver was speaking gently, and calmly. Similar to how she'd speak to Cadance while being demeaning, but with more texture to it.

"Is it food? I'm really hungry."

"No."

"Awww."

Cadance watched Silver tug the massive creature towards her spot in the sand.

"She's one of the new immortals." Silver said slowly, "Her name is Cadance."

"What's Cadance?"

Silver didn't answer the question. Instead, Cadance let go of the sand beneath her, and moved her tail to the side a little to move closer. The moment she moved, blood red eyes that glowed with invisible irises locked onto her from a distance. It was the only colour Cadance could see in the dark, eyes the size of her hoof, filled with... hunger.

"W-hat's Cada-nc-e." Lyrane said again, this time, it was accompanied with full body twitching. Half of her body looked like it tried to lunge, the other half resisted, and her eyes sparked as blood fell out of her mouth in plumes that mixed in with the water to add to her bloody aura.

"Say hello first, Lyrane." Silver said it gently, and then let go of Lyrane.

In an instant, Lyrane was nose to nose with Cadance. A mouth that could have bitten off her head opened in front of Cadance's face. "Hello. You smell wonderful, may I eat you?" The innocent question had a tiny tilt of the head to accompany it.

Cadance shook her head no. She was trying to keep the bloody water out of her nose and mouth, or at least to a minimum.

Silver swam up next to them, and Lyrane spun and went through another near spastic attempt to bite into Silver before stopping. "You?" She twisted around, "I remember you."

"Yes. Hi Lyrane. It's me."

Lyrane pressed her snout into Silver's mane and inhaled deeply. The crimson smeared Silver's body, but she didn't seem to care. She just lifted one of her hooves and patted Lyrane on the neck. As soon as Lyrane's eyes opened again, she twisted away from Silver and jumped back into Cadance's face.

"Hello. You smell del-" Lyrane twitched, and pain covered her features, she had half a seizure for a few seconds before resuming a normal float in front of Cadance and tilting her head again. "Can I eat you?"

Cadance's everything felt like iron. Her hearts were pounding, her limbs felt heavy but thick at the same time. The aura of this creature was energizing her, but making her feel lethargic. The blood in her mouth tasted wrong, that is, it tasted good. Her will fought against her senses, settling on disgust.

"No."

She hung her head, "Awww..."

"Lyra-" Silver started, only to be interrupted by Lyrane twisting again to bite Silver. Cadance caught Lyrane's maw this time, in her vision. Previously, it was too fast for her to see. This time, she saw the bone slide away, and the mouth unhinge and stretch open before hoards of razor sharp teeth were hidden again as her mouth snapped shut.

"You!" She swam closer to Silver and twitched again, "I remember you!"

She smiled.

Cadance's heart broke. She understood now what she was looking at.

Silver caught Cadance's eye and nodded. "Here. Lyrane."

"Who's Lyrane?"

Silver ignored the question. "I brought something for you?"

"Is it foo-d?" Lyrane twitched again.

"No."

"Awwww." The exact same noise from before. Like it was a recorded playback.

"Here." Silver pulled something out of nowhere. It was a... paper square, no... a photo.

Lyrane looked at it, and then held still. All of the twisting and blood flowing around her stopped as her massive bloodied eyes scoured the image on the paper. Silver swam away, towards Cadance, and grabbed her by the hooves and hauled her up and out of the sand.

"Let's go." Silver whispered.

Cadance didn't want to go, she wanted to help.

Silver was stronger than her in the water, so she was pulled away anyways. Halfway through the dark, Cadance gazed back down to where Lyrane should have been. Cadance didn't see anything through the dark, not even the ground was within visual range anymore.

Cadance had so many questions. She wanted to know what she just saw, but she already did. She wanted Silver to say she was wrong.

Cadance began to swim with Silver, and Silver let her go. Cadance's body started to return to normal as they left the aura and the trails of blood flowing off the two of them were cleansed by the waters. Her breathing came easier, her limbs felt less bloated with energy, and her hearts started to beat in rhythm again.

Cadance turned to Silver with her mouth open, intent on trying to say something, but she failed.

A few more minutes passed as Cadance followed behind Silver's winding path to the surface. Once they both breached, Cadance went through the whole process of coughing out the water before looking over at Silver.

Silver had waited until Cadance looked over before speaking. "Lyrane is my oldest friend. She taught me blood magic."

Cadance didn't have to ask her next question. It was written all over her face.

"What else? She kept going deeper. She was a master of the art, the only of her kind. I pale in comparison to what she could do with blood magic." Silver splashed her hooves in the water idly, staring out into the middle distance, "Then she tried to crack the code. She wasn't content, just being a master. The blood kept calling to her, and she kept answering."

Silver sighed.

"Is there anything left?" Cadance asked.

"There's something." Silver answered, "You saw down there. There's something in her resisting the primal nature she brought into herself. Some part of her that remembers. It must be agony."

Cadance took a deep breath. "Why show me this?"

Silver blinked, and looked up at the stars.

Cadance saw something beyond Silver. Behind Silver, maybe even in Silver.

"So you'll know what's at stake." She eventually said, "Next time you think about casting some emotion spell that comes to you, do not. I want you to think about Shining Armor looking at you like..." Silver trailed off, "Imagine Twilight wishing she could put you down to end your suffering, but she can't, because you're so far gone that you can't be killed. There's nothing left to die."

Cadance's thoughts churned over as Silver swam forwards and grabbed her by the hooves.

"No more corruptive magic, Cadance." Silver looked hard. "None."

Cadance continued to stare.

"Not at least until you have your baby." Silver pushed a little, "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good."

...

...

Silver let go of Cadance, and made some distance. "Some things are more important than revenge. Know this, I'll try all the livelong day to destroy the Empire, but no-one in the pantheon would ever try and end your life. We're all here together, no matter how much we hate each other's guts."

Cadance felt herself wanting to say something, but clamped down on the thought before it could become real.

Silver caught it anyways. "Celestia is... different. She shouldn't've done what she did... I wish I could have done more for them, but it was the only way to save her life, in the end... Infinity is a long time to justify a mistake."

Cadance didn't understand what was happening. She didn't try.

She flexed her tail and jumped Silver with her front hooves and wrapped her in a hug.

Silver sighed. "I promised I'd zap you if you did this again."

"Go ahead." Cadance did not let go.

Silver dramatically sighed heavier.

Once Cadance felt like she'd equally shown the required amount of affection, and bothered Silver enough, she let go.

Silver groaned, "At the very least, you can tell Shining that you won't be doing anymore dangerous casting. Then he'll stop bugging me about it." Silver waved a hoof, "Do me that favour, in exchange for letting you hug me."

"Careful." Cadance playfully warned, "Keep complaining and-" Cadance's mind caught up to what Silver said, "Bugging you?"

Silver raised an eyebrow, "Yes?"

Cadance matched her expression, "When would he have the time to do that?"

Silver's mouth turned into a neutral line, and then recognition passed over her features, "Ooooh. He hasn't told y-"

"Don't pretend like you didn't know that already." Cadance interrupted in a glaring monotone.

Silver's fake expression disappeared and she shrugged.

"When?" Cadance asked.

"Our training sessions, remember?" Silver made some gesture Cadance didn't know the meaning of, "Like you, you asked for every week."

Cadance's eyes opened wide, "Every week?"

Silver laughed, "Home then?" She said, tossing a portal coin into the air.

Cadance looked up into it as it opened up into her bedroom and startled the living daylights out of Shining Armor.

Cadance reached up for the rim and grabbed it with her clawed limb. "I best tend to my husband."

"You better."

Cadance pulled herself through, and the sensations of herself returning to normal surface pony mixed with the odd feeling of passing through folded space. The portal closed behind her, and only then did she realize that she was completely soaking wet. Her fur all pointed down, and she felt at least ten pounds heavier than normal. The sound of dripping from the water pouring down her legs covered the floor in a tiny puddle around her in short order.

"Cadance?" Shining exasperatedly asked as he got down off the bed. It was rhetorical, of course, and Cadance could have just used a spell to dry herself off.

Instead... "Wanna help me dry off?"

Shining smirked, "Obviously."

"Oh-ho, don't get too excited, we've got a lot to talk about."

Shining understood the tone of 'angry wife' and calmly walked into bathroom without taking his eyes of Cadance, lest she sense weakness and strike. Cadance followed, trying to slowly piece together all the smothered thoughts she had today.