Adventures in Atlasso

The unicorn awoke to darkness. She vaguely remembered something about a storm, and fire, but all else escaped her. The mare's ear twitched in response to a sound that seemed both nearby and distant at the same time. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, until the noise grew less distant and eventually turned into individual voices. Furrowing her eyebrows further, the mare concentrated on the talking until she could hear two distinct ponies.

"Where did you say you found her?" said the first voice. Judging from the pitch, it was a mare.

"She was sinking toward the city. I'd say she was about 1,300 feet below the surface," answered a second voice, a stallion.

"And she was still alive!? That's practically impossible!" The mare replied, surprise evident in her voice.

"She was surrounded by magic when we found her. I believe she used it unconsciously to protect herself from the pressure. She is a unicorn after all."

"She must be a strong one to have done that. We could use more unicorns like that," the first voice responded.

As she listened to these strange ponies talking about her, said unicorn was overcome by a wave of nausea. She rolled from her side to her belly and hung her head off the side of the bed, promptly vomiting up several gallons of water. Once her stomach calmed, she forced open her eyes to see the two ponies watching her. On the left stood the stallion, and to the right was the mare.

The stallion was covered from mane to hoof in golden armor, covering his white coat. A sky-blue mane poked out from a slot in the top of his helmet, while matching eyes stared at her. The unicorn only looked at him long enough to note his armor, colors, and the fact that he was a pegasus before his stern gaze caused her to move on to the mare beside him.

The mare was also a pegasus, but that was the only likeness between her and her companion. Unlike the stallion, the mare had no armor to speak of, and instead of a short blue mane she had dark green hair that nearly reached her knees. She looked upon the unicorn with bright golden eyes that were full of warmth and kindness, while her expression was one of worry. Upon her light green flank was a cutie mark that almost looked like a whirlpool.

"I'm glad to see that you've woken up. We were worried that you wouldn't make it," the mare said, the worry on her face showing in her voice.

The unicorn looked around in a daze, before opening her mouth.

"What happened? Where am I, and who are you two?" she questioned, before succumbing to a terrible pain in her throat and being reduced to coughs.

"You need to rest more. While you did survive, you still swallowed a lot of seawater. The nurse said your throat is still raw from the salt," the green mare warned, stepping forward to ensure the unicorn heeded her warning. "As for your questions, lets me explain.

"Without your input, we have no clue what happened apart from the fact that you were sinking to the ocean floor when my guards found you. Those guards were Triton here," she nodded to the stallion beside her, "And his brother, Trident, who's right outside the door. I'm SeaSwirl, and the ruler of the wonderful city that you're in. I'll leave the Triton here to oversee your recovery," and, with another nod to Triton, she walked out the single door and out of sight.

The unicorn glanced to the stallion, wondering if she could coax the answer to her second question out of him. The memory of his cold, hard stare made her decide against it, along with the realization that if his kind leader didn't tell her, then he wasn't likely to speak up either. With her unanswered question swirling around her mind, the unicorn laid her head on her pillow and drifted back to sleep.