Drip. Drip. Drip.
She stared lethargically up at the ceiling, trying to see where the dripping water fell from. There were cracks all over it. It was still too blurry to make out where there were water droplets forming.
She looked down at the pool, where it dripped into. There were tiny ripples running across it from the very slight disturbance to the surface of the water. At least she assumed so; it was like that the last time she looked closely at it.
She looked around where she laid. At some point she had gotten the courage to move a few feet over. It was still incredibly painful to move around, but it was worth it to get out of the reeking puddle of filth she had been squirming around in for hours.
She looked down at her scales. When she had first examined her new form, they looked shiny and smooth. Whatever that water had done, they were no longer; they were now matte and dry. It would be a long time before they gleamed with a healthy shine again. She had figured that whatever had happened to her, it had done damage to her lungs and — wait... 'Lungs'? 'Gills'? She wasn't even sure of what they were called, but that and her skin had been burned.
She looked at the cat. He was lying beside the dishes he had brought, grooming himself. She was thankful that he had done that for her, but couldn't bring herself to express it. She was in a really bad state. Crawling over and petting him? Out of the question. Cooing? Her throat still hurt.
A tear rolled down her cheek. There wasn't enough love in the world.
She shuffled a bit. Her skin got irritated, chafing against the concrete. She looked over at the pool room doorway and sighed. She needed to leave at some point. She just couldn't bring herself to face the pain of sliding across the hard floor underneath her to get there.
⇣
...Fins forward. Snout forward. Tail curled up.
Lift torso. Push forward and drop.
Lift tail, pull in. Lift fins and snout.
Fins forward. Snout forward. Tail curled up...
⇣
Cala dashed out of the bathroom. She was gasping for breath, rolling around and twitching spasmodically. Her head was wet, a sheen of moisture dripping off of her, while the rest of her body remained bone dry. She looked down at the plug she held in her muzzle.
Totally worth it.
She dropped that and shuffled across the damp — but no longer flooded — floor and went over to the refrigerator. Facing one's fear is tiring work and she was feeling decidedly... thirsty. She shuddered at the word. She reached in and pulled out a pitcher. She popped off the lid and looked in at the purple fluid. She gulped, took a breath, and plunged her muzzle in. It was elongated so it could submerge into the juice, and she sucked it up greedily; making sure that she was drinking it, not breathing it in! She pulled out and breathed heavily, looking down cross-eyed at her purple stained snout.
Yup, totally worth it.
A beat. She broke out into a terrible coughing fit, spilling the pitcher all over the ground and roiling under the terrible pain in her lungs. It kept happening. She always felt horrible when it did, and hoped that that agony would go away in time. After a minute she stopped, and looked back up at the fridge to consider if she wanted anything else.
The filly leaped up onto the counter to dig around in the cupboards for a can of tuna. She knew they had some, somewhere...
↷
A red bed was occupied by an exhausted Cala, facing the wall. The sheets were slimy, but she no longer found that to bother her. It soothed her sore skin. The orange tabby was curled up on the bed next to her. She smiled and curled her tail around it, pulling it up to her belly.
She closed her eyes and thought for a while. She thought about Brooke, she thought about school. Thinking of more recent things made her frown, and she thought a bit about what had happened throughout the day. She hadn't seen anybody else. Nobody was there. Maybe tomorrow she would go looking for... her mom, and sister. She had never gone out into the city on her own before.
She looked out the window. Lightning flashed. She could see the droplets of horrible water on her window from where they ran down in terrible rivulets.
No, she thought, I could probably stay inside for another day. And so, there in the apartment...
Thunder boomed.
That was where she stayed.
⇥
End of Part 1
A rather odd and dark place to end act one...
Still, I'm quite curious where this story is actually going. Just a small observation that our tiny heroine has put near titanic effort into a hard to learn lesson about fresh =/= salt water, gotten a new taste in cat food, and a pet.
So... yeah, she rather summed it up herself.
6071424 At least in G1, the sea ponies seemed equally at home in both fresh and salt water. To say nothing of their ability to breathe air. I'm pretty sure Cala's trouble was entirely due to the chlorine in the pool, not the lack of salt.
6072726
True, but so far in G4 we've only seen them in the sea (and in one book, at that).
derpicdn.net/img/2012/11/20/158289/full.png
So could go either way, and it all depends on if you consider that one book to count or not.
6073493 Ha, that book looks awful. Don't worry, I don't consider... any of that, canon.
Not to say anything about the seapony that Cala is of course. You'll learn more about her physiology as the story progresses. But there was one heck of a lot of chlorine in that water, probably more than most pools.
so she slept in a tub full of water, rolled through a rainstorm, flooded an apartment complex because wet carpet felt better to flop against, then got chlorine burns on her gills from jumping in a pool, and her conclusion is that
water
is evil
oh no, better not go out into the rain, you remember how awful rain felt the last time you did it.
and what's with the sadistic unicorn who's keeping her alive for no explicable reason other than amusement at her suffering? a survivor? where did he even come from?
6075823
woah, woah, no the IDW comic on seaponies, er, "mermares" was freaking gorgeous. you do not want to miss it.
derpicdn.net/img/2013/3/12/269142/large.jpg
though to be fair mary jane begin's expressions are a bit unsettling... okay a lot unsettling, and andy price did most of the pages (I think) so you see stuff like this:
derpicdn.net/img/2013/12/29/509298/tall.png
still not something lacking in merit though.
6075823
Actually, I've heard it's quite good for a children's book. It's just considered a bit of a mean tease by Hasbro by sea-pony fans since it's the only semi-canon use of them in the whole FiM continuity.
6077160 I sense your suspension of disbelief has reached a tipping point. Sorry you couldn't hold onto it much longer; this story is pretty crazy.
6077201 6077364 I'll take your word for it
So, I just finished reading through part 1 of your story, and so far it seems pretty well written. At first, I thought that it was odd that the chapters were broken up into such small sections, but they took longer to read through than I expected. I think this was because your prose tends to be dense with imagery and descriptions. I'm not sure how much I'm missing from not being familiar with the universe, but the story seems to make sense so far, so I don't think anything vital is being lost there. Overall, I'd say you did a pretty good job with this story, and I'll try to read through the rest of it when I have a little more time.
6077160 I think that's the unicorn toy that was in the first chapter.