The Sunset Bringers
"Long ago, before the banishment of the moon princess and before whales first returned to the sea our ancestors lived on the rough sandy shores to the east. Though we still ate mostly land food lost to legend and lore, the fruits of the sea tempted us more and more as time grew on. In the morning and eventually throughout the day our forefathers would wade out into the ocean and eat the sweet kelp and luscious seaweed, to the point where we rarely left the sea during the day. But we were all but forced to leave the ocean just an hour before sunset, and stay away all through the night; for as the sun set a horrific purple sea monster, with glowing yellow eyes, would arise from the depths and swallow anypony brave or foolish enough to linger in the dark waters. For many years we obeyed this law as best we could, but the temptation to linger in the ocean grew stronger with each generation.
One pony grew to resent the wicked dragon's rule, and every afternoon when all of the older ponies returned to the shore to rest and all of the younger, more foolish ponies remained to the sea to tempt fate for an extra bite of sea grass the young colt reluctantly followed his elders to the shore before tediously climbing the crumbling cliffs surrounding the beach overlooking the ocean. After many months of watching the days turn into nights and the frantic struggles of his comrades to escape the sea monster he began to understand the sea monster and the nature of the sea more: how the ocean at sunset concealed the sea monster in its purple depths, how the sea monster always swam towards the shore instead of towards the sunsets, probably due to its sensitive eyes, and most surprising of all that the sunset was not reflected into the waves below, while the sea monster's reflection absolutely did. These discoveries only took a few days to make; the majority of those months were spent by the colt studying all the colors captured in the sunset: the dainty purples, the airy pinks, the subtle blues, the vivid oranges, and most of all the smoldering yellows and blinding whites of the sun.
Once he knew the colors by heart he ventured farther into the ocean than anypony ever before, ignoring the bounty all around him to obtain materials as dazzling as the colors in the sky. He found purple seashells and pink coral which could be ground to dust for their respective pigments, as well as a rare orange seaweed that when minced took on a lovely irede- irededece-"
"Iridescent."
"Iridescent property. He found some light blue rocks near a tide pool to highlight the pink and bring out the pastel quality of the sunset. Finally, bracing himself for what he might find, the colt dove deep into a fissure, where no pony had gone before, to retrieve some phosphor- phospherio-phospha-"
"Phosphorescent microscopic plankton."
"Aye, those little buggers! These he used to reflect the blinding yellow sun, and later on the light white glow of the moon and stars. With his tools assembled, and after nearly starving himself to death to find them, the colt returned to the shore before sunset and called out to all the other ponies, both on the land and the sea,"
"My brothers and sisters, every day when we graze in the sea the sun above protects us from the beast that hunts us at sunset and into the night. The creature can only hunt in a world of darkness. I say we bring the light with us tonight." The old brown hippocampus echoed the words of the filly as she said them "go on lassie, carry on."
"The ponies took up the watery paints the colt had made and coated the water with the bright glowing colors of the sunset, with the colt leading the way. When the sea serpent came to the shore to hunt the light of the painted sunset blinded it, and the bright colors made the dark beast stand out, and before the sun had fully set the shadow beast had returned to the depths, waiting for darkness to arrive. It never did, of course, for as the other ponies slept in the shallows the colt painted the waves to match the bright night sky, and in the morning he painted the sunrise, just to be safe. Three days passed in this fashion, and the ponies never once returned to the shore, for all that they needed could now be found in the sea. And as the sun set on the final day and the colt put the finishing touches on the sunset, a great white pony with a horn like a narwhal and wings like a graceful gull approached the colt,
"Young seapony, you have impressed me these past few days," the young filly recited the words of the mythical princess eloquently, "your ingenuity and intelligence have allowed your herd to survive in a whole new terrain, and for that I shall allow you three gifts.' The colt thought for several minutes before replying,"
"Gift number 1: a city beneath the waves made of marble and containing several air pockets so that my ponies may live near the seaweed and kelp and amongst the fish and sea life," the old stallion finished, "gift number 2: may my herd never fear the wrath of the sea monster so long as I bring the sunset, the sunrise and the night sky to the waves above, and gift number 3: may I live long enough to see someone with the determination and gift of sunset painting to carry on my legacy, many years from now, so that my herd will never parish from the sea. And so,"
"So we developed fins like a whale, our back legs sunk into our body, our manes became spiny dorsal fins and our fur became sleek and waterproof."
"Not bad filly, not bad."
"So Mr. Carneighgie, do you think I can be your apprentice now, huh, do you?" the little green hippocampus filly swished around the old and wizened stallion.
"Go ahead and call me Brendan for now. Well, you know the history of sunset-painting, Atcampus, and the origin of Seapony better than all of the other applicants, save a few pronunciation errors. But is that enough?" Brendan leaned out of the window of his office overlooking a field of coral that was being harvested by the descendants of the descendants of those who helped him paint that first sunset so many years ago and rubbed his spiny chin, "You know, that princess gave me a specific time limit to find an apprentice before I die: 4000 years. Do you know how old I am, Kappie?"
"Huh-uh," Kappie replied, "Kind of a rude thing to ask, if you want my opinion."
"I'm 3,993 years old, and never once have I found somepony worthy of taking my place. This is a very serious job, one that requires constant work and a sharp eye. I'm desperate for an apprentice who will take this job seriously, and yet I'm running out of time." Brendan sighed, letting a few bubbles escape into the ocean, "How about this: you'll go up to the surface and paint something up there, it can be anything so long as it's impressive to me. I'll be watching from below. If it's up to snuff I'll have you help me paint the sunset. If THAT impresses me I'll make you my apprentice." Brendan handed over a set of professional watercolors, which now included twenty-seven colors.
"Thank you so much sir!" Kappie took the paints and swam towards the door, "you won't regret it!"
"Wait one more thing Kappie:" Brendan pulled out a bottle containing a tiny fish sleeping inside, "this Coelacanth guppy's been following me around all night lately. You might as well keep it to help teach you responsibility." He tied the bottle to her neck and held up a flipper in salutation, "Shoo-be-doo, lassie, shoo-shoo-be-doo."
"Shoo-shoo-be-doo to you too, sir."
"So I'm thinking of calling you Joey." Kappie began speaking to her fish, after many hours of looking for something to paint. Seagull flew too fast, clouds constantly changed form before she could capture their likeness, and forget about flying fish! Something would come along eventually.
"You know Joey, this is a lot of responsibility and all, but I'm ok with that. Anypony who can single flipperdly paint the evening waves is guaranteed to be famous enough for legends; not to mention I'll probably be granted another four thousand years to live, like Brendan, and I'll likely inherit his watercolor making business and all of his factories, meaning I'll be employing both of my parents, and I'll be rich and oh bother I'm just rambling now!" Joey stirred just a bit at her speech before curling his tail fin over his face and falling asleep again. Kappie scoured the area again for something to paint. The rocky grey shore might be nice, except she'd have to swim awful close to get it right and who wants to risk getting beached anyway? She could paint the evening sun, but it was soooo bright, how would she ever look at it long enough to paint anything more than a big yellow circle?
Kappie sighed and held her flippers together to pray, "oh great sky princess, I have no idea if you can hear me or if this'll ever work. This is all I've ever wanted to do since I was old enough to float. Every time I see a sunset, painted or real, I get this pang in my heart, as if you're calling out to me. I just need one, spectacular, very colorful masterpiece to reflect in the water and I know the deal is sealed! Please, sky princess, just one miracle and I swear I'll never ask of you anything else, amen." She looked up to the sun for a brief second, waiting for the miracle that may or may not come. Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked the waves and shook the rocks on the shore far away. Joey whimpered and tried desperately to escape his bottle, fearing the loud noise that awoke him; Kappie spun around and faced inland, where the explosion came from. There, in the sky over the world beyond the beach, she saw a miraculous glow; almost like a second sun. It was surrounded in ring upon ring of colors: blues, reds, pinks, greens, yellows, purples, too many to count, tailing off into a rainbow with two white contrails surrounding it. And at the very end of that rainbow, Kappie could swear she saw what looked like a blue Hippocampus, but with the wings of a gull. A familiar of the Princess! Kappie concluded, taking in all these details as fast as she could and going to work even faster. Using the horizon to the East as a reference point she mirrored the beautiful image in the water, painting in detail while making it realistically sized and working quickly and diligently. As a finishing touch, she painted a streak of blue with wings in the after-image of the Familiar. The entire reflection took her an impressively short minute to paint.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Brendan surfaced a few feet away from the masterpiece, carefully so as not to upset it, "you're lucky that rainbowy, explody whatever-it-was came along. I honestly started to get bored after the first hour of waiting for you to find something to paint a reflection onto."
"Sorry, it just had to be something-" Brendan held up a flipper.
"I understand. It's all in the details lassie. Aaaanywho, it's gettin' late; we've got maybe thirty minutes before the sunset. Why don't you start painting the sun and whatever other details show up while I go grab some paints?"
"All right Brendan!"
Brendan dove down into the water, only to re-surface a few seconds later, "one more thing: call me Brendan in private, but around Atcampus I'm still Mr. Carneighgie to you."
"Alright Mr. Brendan Carneighgie!" Kappie began painting the sun with a chuckle, reusing much of what she used when she painted the world's first sonic rainboom.
Frantically the two Seaponies painted in the sunset. Brendan couldn't help but notice how the lively filly's mane "fin" matched many of the colors they used to fill in the sunset, but for the sake of the job ignored it for the moment. Every few moment's he'd surface to tell her where to put what color and not to add too much, but for the most part she got the small details remarkably easily. They finished a few minutes before the sun actually set, something Brendan hadn't done in 900 years. "That's enough Kappie. Now come over here, this is the best part." Kappie and Brendan swam towards where the sun met the ocean and just behind their work, "Now you just put your tail under the water and- gently flick." Brendan demonstrated, causing a gentle ripple in the watercolors, "Now you try." Kappie flicked her tail a few times to get the same result.
"Like that?"
"Aye, that's perfect. Want to go see it from a distance?"
"Would I?"
"I can't believe we made that, using just a few paints!" Kappie and Brendan floated barely within the old shallows Brendan once called home. As night encroached more into day, Joey began to stir more. Kappie chanced at opening the bottle; Joey hesitantly swam towards the opening with Kappie coaxing. She slowly and quietly sang to him a song her mother taught her to sing to nervous fish, "Call upon the sea ponies, when you're in distress~ helpful as can be ponies, simply signal SOS~". Calmed by the simple melody Joey swam out and licked Kappie on the snout, "Bleah, Joey! Silly Coelie!" Brendan smiled at the little filly and her fish,
"Say, Kappie."
"Yeah?"
"If I remember correctly, this afternoon when you came into my office you were without a cutie mark. So what's that on your flank?" Kappie swiveled her head to one side and looked down at her flank, or at least where it would be considering hippocampi don't have hind legs. There, the image of a half-set sun on a pastel-colored ocean, "I knew my cutie mark would be a sunset!" Kappie swam about and whooped at her new mark.
"You know, the day the sky princess accepted my wishes I got a cutie mark almost like that one," Brendan turned to one side to show her his: a sun about to set on the ocean's horizon, "I guess it's a sign that I should make you my apprentice."
"Really?" Kappie threw her fins around his thick neck and crushed his red bowtie in a tight hug, "Thank you sir, oh my goodness this is the best day of my life! I can't wait until my parents hear about this!"
"Now calm down, there's one more thing I have to tell you," Carneighgie sighed, watching the sun set on his masterpiece, "odds are, when you take over my position, the sky princess will offer to let you live another 4000 years, or more if you request it," Kappie grinned at the idea of living for a million years or more, "I wouldn't if I were you, though. Four thousand years has done a number on me, as you can see." He gestured towards many of his scars and tears in his fins.
"And if she does, there's something you should know about pseudo-immortality: it has a messy end."
"Aww Brendan, you don't look that bad." Kappie noted his strong physique.
"I mean the very end! You see, after four millennia of holding your insides together your body can barely handle the strain. That's why, when I hit year 4-0-0-0, on the dot, I'm gonna collapse into a big, oily, greenish-brown wad of sea foam."
Kappie gasped, "Really?"
"Straight from the alicorn's mouth!" Brendan inappropriately chuckled, letting the ancient reference fly over Kappie's head, "and the same thing's likely to happen to you, except you'll be a green wad with tiny pastel bubbles."
"That's an awful way to die!"
"Aye, but you have to know it's nothing compared to living 4000 years. Kappie, if you take over after me and you're offered to live as long as I do you're probably gonna live though some heinous stuff. You'll outlive your parents, anypony you marry and likely all the children you produce. I know, I had three wives and I watched them all puff out their last bubbles. Worst of all, any friends you have will likely outgrow you as well and fade within a blink of your eyes. I haven't made a good friend in fifteen hundred years because I'm afraid if I turn around they'll be a broken-back old codger ready for the knackers!"
"I-I never knew. I always thought your life was one long amazing rollercoaster!"
"Even roller coasters get tiring if you ride one for long enough. So, do you still want to be my apprentice? This is usually the point where potential apprentices gently decline."
Kappie sat and stared at the shimmering sunset, the sun was barely showing now, and then she looked down at her cutie mark, then at Joey, who was nuzzling her fore-fin, and then finally at Brendan again, "Yeah, I still want to be your apprentice."
"I hope you understand the great responsibility you've just taken on. I didn't at first, but after a thousand years the reality began to sink in."
"Brendan, my cutie mark is a sunset. It's no longer a responsibility to me, it's my destiny." Kappie watched as the sun disappeared over the horizon, leaving only fading pastels in the sky and in the water.
"Right, well the first of the evening stars are showing up and they're a monster to paint, so we better get started. Plus there's a full moon tonight, those are the toughest to paint out of anything else in the sky. Let's get started."
"Yes, Sir!" Kappie took up her paint brush and began spackling the water with stars where Carneighgie told her to, Joey following along and occasionally gulping up a shrimp or a minnow as they went along.
Not knowing that they were being watched by a pair of Yellow eyes.