After a time, Hope finally stopped making so much noise, but she utterly refused to let go of her mom, snuggling her while the party got to the meal and then birthday cake. One of the unicorn parents even had to levitate the candled cake down to Hope to blow out the candles because she wouldn't let go of her mom. The rest of the cakes on the table were then declared open and the rest of the kids were allowed to dig in as Pinkie and the Cake Twins served the cake. The twins were guests, but given their family's ties to baking, they were patient enough to help out and get their cake last. They weren't exactly desperate for more cake to eat, being bakers. There were a lot of kids even with many not showing up so Pinkie was grateful for the help.
With Hope's mother even kneeling down to feed her daughter so that her daughter didn't have to let go, the clingyness getting slightly cringe but with her mother just as happy and going with it. Meanwhile, Hope's father and Dawn Seeker stepped aside from the festivities, choosing to join me in the more brooding zone of the outskirts of the party.
"Alright, that out of the way, I got business with you, Moss." Dawn Seeker said to me. Turning to face me, he brought forth a small crystal ball like bit of glass, but smaller. "Before she declared she never wanted to see your face again, Princess Luna was entrusted with this for when the time came. It's a message in a bottle that she entrusted to my sister, and then them to me for when I would see your dreams indicate certain events had passed. Those events did pass earlier this week, but you needed to focus on the party. It will make more sense when you listen to it. It's designed to run off the levitation energy of a unicorn, but I think your mage hand cantrip will do the same trick."
With a quick lifting of the small orb in my mage hand via my substitute glove, I found a message playing. I knew it was a message because it was Speaks with Talons, my late battle brother who was shown in the orb.
"I am told this device will allow me to leave a message for you, Beast-kin. I am leaving this message because of..."
I could see him hesitating, choosing his words carefully. "Because I have reason to believe I will pass from this world at some point before you will, and I... get the feeling you will be troubled by my passing. Our bond as battle brothers has not been the most traditional, but from the first time... one of us called the other brother I knew our bond would run deep. I want you to know that if you felt my meeting you causes my death, should it do so, I do not want you to fret. We all have our battles, both of the talon and bow, and of the mind and soul. I have seen you struggle with these, fighting to stay true to yourself. Though we do not serve the same master, I am proud of your struggles I have been able to... witness and have no regrets in being your battle brother.
"If it should come to pass I die in a way that you feel you are to blame, know that I go to that death of my own choosing, dying the same way as I live. You will not be the one that killed me, but the one that made me know what it feels to be alive before my time to die. All will die, and it is a part of life, so I do not fear it. My death happening before yours is no tragedy in my eyes, for I will surely go down fighting, either through defense of my beloved from a talon, or fighting a spiritual fight, I will go out on my own terms. Do not let my death of flesh be the end of your fight of spirit. I wish I could say more, but I do not know what that death will be, nor can I predict when it will come. Simply know I fought to my last breath, and I expect you to do the same for your struggles."
With this he turned to the side. "I believe that's all I can think of, Princess Luna. How do we shut this..." and the orb went dark, the message finished.
Dawn Seeker then came up and said, "Normally these are given shortly after a funeral service, but as you know, Princess Luna saw Speaks with Talon's memories, including... that one time you met him with Time Turner. We had to let those events play out from your-"
I cut him off, bringing Dawn Seeker into a hug as I quietly cried so hard I gave the birthday girl's tears a run for their bits. "Thank you."
The party was just about to end when suddenly all the attendance started hearing a noise in the distance coming closer. Soon enough we realized it was musical troop.
Then we saw several ponies singing as they marched up and around the park singing in unison seemingly random lyrics of "Oooooh! Our passion burns through day and night!"
"Pinkie, I think you over did it with the marching band." I heard Pumpkin Cake call out over the music of the ponies marching.
The mood suddenly shifted as Pinkie was looking anything but happy. With her guard up, she was more akin to a bull ready to charge than her normal self. "I didn't order any marching band and besides, this isn't a marching band."
It was then I realized they all had a piece of sirenite on their necklaces, but before I could act, they finished their music based spell, singing "Oooooh! Our vengeance on Seaquestria starts now!"
Before I could reach them, the entire birthday party was suddenly encased in a magical barrier being maintained by the sirenite users' musical rhythm.
"If all of you will stop screaming!" A voice called out from the edge of the barrier. A lone aquatic looking pony with a notably larger piece of sirenite approached, the only sirenite wielder of this new group inside the barrier around the party.
Not many were too panicked, but none the less she had their attention.
Discord shot out and aimed to defend the party goers, "I don't think so!" darting forward to the aquatic looking mare.
But he never reached her. The aquatic looking mare called out a rhythmic "Oh I do think soooo!" With a magical looking jar, promptly sucking him up in side almost like a genie being shoved into its lamp. "I know your weakness, chaos spirit. I mastered weaving my dedication into my voice centuries ago and even my grandsons can weld enough quintessence into their barrier to keep a creature crippled to its use in check." As she popped the cork onto discord's face, finishing his transference into the bottle, she simply let it dangle to her side. "You're no threat to me, nor is anypony here, save potentially one."
With everypony promptly scared of her, she looked out to the party goers. "Listen up, I'm only after one thing and I don't care how much or how little I have to destroy to get to it. I'm not actually interested in the land. As you can see, I am a pure bred siren, Queen Coral of the sirens in fact, or I would be if I still had a kingdom. Long story short, I don't give two shits about life on land. You can have it. I'd be more than happy to go back under the waves and leave you to your pathetic little lives up here on the land, but there is one thing standing in the way of that."
She paraded around the group, calmly continuing her monologue in sheer confidence, the crowd moving to stay clear of her, even Pinkie Pie.
"A prophecy of a champion that can match my power, even in my domain under water. If I were to take Seaquestria, they would just call upon Equestria for aid, and that champion would arise. Even if I win against them would decimate my kingdom in the battle. I don't want that. So I have painstakingly kept track of the movements of agents that could threaten me up here when I'm out of my element. There aren't many, but some. The Pillars of Light, the elder Alicorn sisters Celestia and Luna, and the fairly recent history of the modern Element Bearers even show potential for a threat if they are all together."
She then looked directly at Pinkie Pie. "Which is why I made sure only one was present and the others would be too far away to join her. Even the spirit of chaos Discord has been neutralized and yes—even the Time Guardian's gadgets. You know who you are and I know you're here, Doctor! I have separated you from your blue vessel and your little sonic device is powerless while inside the sonic field created by my grandsons' barrier. I don't want war or devastation on the surface, I just need one thing and I'll leave your precious ponies in peace, never to see me or my kind above the waves again. Giving me what I want is your most practical move because you have nothing else to pull against me, Time Guardian!"
She had kept marching with a regal prominence. "I will get what I came here for, young ponies. I will eliminate the one prophesied to be able to defeat me before they can enter their prime. I know not what this little foal looks like, but I do know they are present because this party bears their name. You can sacrifice this one and the rest of your nation will live without any more trouble from me. Or you can do it not and many, many more ponies will die trying to defend them. Bring me the one known by 'Hope Bittersweet' and I'll be on my way, never to be heard of again above the waves or I will systematically kill every single living thing inside this barrier one at a time!"
With Hope and her mother and father behind me, I had to fight with every fiber of my being to not shift my posture to guard them, lest I accidentally signal where, and more practically what, Hope was. The Siren believed Hope to be a foal, not a fawn. That was something we needed to keep secret for as long as we could.
"No volunteers to squeal and save themselves then?" The Siren Queen rolled her eyes. "I was told ponies and creatures that live among them were known for their loyalty. Oh well. Time to just do it the old fashioned way. But by all means, fight if you think you can. Bring a champion so I can crush them beneath my song. Maybe then you'll have wizened up. If not, I can just keep killing one at a time until none are left. I've trained my grandson's well. Their barrier will easily last all day."
"Don't do it! Don't challenge her, anypony!" Time Turner called out to the crowd. "I know of Siren magic! She'll only grow stronger with each challenger she defeats! We can only beat her if we give her our best chance right out the gate!"
The Queen Siren looked at Time Turner, here eyes squinting in recognition of who he actually was. "Oh, there you are. And yes, by all means, bring me your best shot and let me crush them! Might save us some time if I just get that out of the way, knowing I'll only get stronger while your options only get weaker. No normal mage can match a master user of sirenite. None of you have the sheer power to match it save the united efforts of the element bearers and the rest of them aren't here. Not even that imitation of a siren fish monkey that uses our signature crystal to perform his poultry imitation of song-craft can match the potency my sheer royal righteousness!"
She was pulsing with her song-craft's power while looking directly at me and my adapted necklace of Equine Tongue as she said this. Her sheer self-convicted belief that she had some royal right to do what she was doing was fueling her quintessence, like an impure quintessence user akin to the paladins in DnD. Or like the native quintessence users known as the element bearers... but with the self serving negative emotions of her royal self righteousness instead of harmony driven ones.
In short, an absolute queen bitch with nobody able to challenge her sheer magical potency present or in range to get there in time.
"Think. Think, think think!" Time Turner said as he was looking at everybody, seeing what they had. He went to several before sifting through Dawn Seeker's cloak pockets, finding my large music box device. "Wait... This couldn't be..." he said. Prodding the large crystal within with a stick. "But it certainly looks like... But how... unless..." He looked at the augmentations I did to my amulet that let it play music. Of course! The music box as a delicate read-write style can't, but the amulet as read only can! Oh I'm very good!"
He got out a notepad and quickly jotted down a note. "Just reminding myself to do something later so we can do this now. Moss, You can pay me back later for this little power boost but-"
I cut him off. "Ummm what are you talking about, you owe me big from earlier this week. Don't you remember? There were two of you for a brief time too."
He looked up as if remembering, then gave a seemingly fake "Ah yes I remember, with the... thing right!? Just one more note for later real quick." he wrote down an item on a pad where I could swear I saw the words "Have Moss help earlier in week of-" in Equestrian then flipped it closed before I could confirm the odd message.
"Alright, don't have much more time to explain, Moss. This crystal in your music box is a powerful artifact, like we shouldn't have it powerful, but it is also filled with your energy from the last... how many years have you had it?"
I just stared at him blankly. "A little over five years. You gave it to me as a hearthswarming gift saying Keen Wit and I could make a much smaller music creation box out of it. Why don't you remember this?"
Ignoring my question, he continued. "If we can just get it out of here and into his amulet that can draw out energy, then disengage the flow regulator, Moss will have quite the supercharge of magic harmonized to his emotional feelings stored in the crystal. He'll be able to fight her on even ground despite his relative inexperience. Only she's used to fighting smaller opponents, while Moss is used to being the underdog, so he may even have a slight advantage. It's the only shot we have. Otherwise little Hope dies and likely all of us with her."
He was wrestling with the music box, trying to get the crystal out. "Blast! It's welded. Why'd you have to go and weld the thing!?"
The Speaker shook his head and grabbed the music box, "You need the crystal out, unharmed, yes?" He turned to Time Turner, whom gave him a nod. He then jumped up to my chest, landing as soft as he could and grabbed my mistletoe, speaking his spell/prayer to the Animus Mundi in the ancient servant language while holding the music box out in the other. "Surrogate Mother, I beg, help the Beast-kin protect Hope."
As he finished, I heard the spell bring forth several vines. The vines struggled under the aura, their magic quickly fading against the pressure caused by the siren queen, but they managed to break the weld of one of the pillars that held the box's crystal secure before withering. With the opening, the crystal fell out and Time Turner caught it. The Speaker then looked at me in the eyes and said. "I don't care about our differences or the song you stored in that crystal, Beast-kin. Do what you have to do, but above all else: Save. My. daughter." in the servant language to keep the siren queen from hearing it.
As the Speaker hopped off, Time Turner said. "Look, I have to disassemble your amulet, so you're going to lose translation when I do. Just run the song you've been practicing at full power and imagine it fighting her song! It's a literal battle of the bands situation. You have to put more feeling into your song than she does hers, or she wins. Got it?"
As Time Turner worked my amulet's crystal loose and fit the larger one in, the siren queen saw us. In raw Equestrian, I heard her, "So you're going with the would be imitation of a siren fish monkey after all? I've heard of his exploits and he's a total pushover, sappy soft and never angry, never joyous. How could that thing ever have the emotions to deal with me? This will be too easy. Once he's defeated, you'll either bring forth Hope Bittersweet or I'll just stop wasting time and kill all of you, knowing Hope Bittersweet is among you."
"Good luck Moss, she means it." Time Turner said in his universal tongue, easily translating to English via devices of his I still had yet to discover. "She doesn't have the power to kill us all guaranteed yet or she would have already. But after fighting a champion, she'll have that last boost she needs if she wins. Bitter on the tongue as it may be, you're our last hope. Knock her out!" He passed me the amulet with the large gem crudely fitted into it.
As I approached Queen Coral, she smugly took her place several yards back from me, set for a duel. "Let us see what you have. It will not be a worthy challenge to my royal fury, but I'll respect the right of champion none the less. It will fuel my power all the same when I win."
I took my place and saw Hope and her parents huddling together in my peripheral. I dare not look at them lest it alert her to her intended target. But I could see they were cheering me on with the rest of the party goers.
I slowly used my controls on my amulet, adapting it to the larger library in the larger crystal to find the one song I felt had a chance against her. The song I had never intended on sharing. The song I had poured five years of grief and guilt into, hoping Time Turner was right about this crystal being some kind of artifact that could store it. With it selected, I had my spell slot ready to cast it, and looked at her.
"You wield your righteous royal indignation in your song?" I said in raw Equestrian to her. "Well lets see how your royal indignation sizes up against the energy of-" I disabled the flow regulator, knowing this was surely going to hurt, poured in my largest spell slot and pressed play, "-My crowning sin!"