“I thought we’d start with the river,” Lucky said as they trotted away from Paradise Estate. “I know you’ve already seen at least part of it, but the waterfall is really pretty early in the morning.”
Pearly nodded her agreement to his suggestion -- and Sebastian, carefully concealed within her mane, felt himself getting dizzy from the shaking and hoped she would keep her head relatively still for the rest of the day.
There were already several ponies playing and bathing in the water when they reached the falls. Lucky called out hello to everyone, then informed Pearly of their identities one by one. “That white unicorn sitting by the shore is Moondancer, and the pink pony beside her is Parasol. The yellow pegasus sneaking up on them is Skydancer. Over across the river, that little green pony with the butterfly wings -- ouch, the one that just flew into a tree --” Lucky winced, “is Cool Breeze. And the pink unicorn that just winked in to see if she’s all right is Twilight. I don’t know a lot of the sea ponies too well, but I know that white one near the waterfall. That’s Lil Dipper. The ponies splashing each other over there are Minty, Bubbles, and Tex, and...” Lucky went on naming pony after pony.
Pearly listened intently, but she was soon lost and couldn’t remember any of the names she had just learned. Still, it was interesting to see this part of Dream Valley, where she had spent so much time as a MerPony, from the shore instead of from the water.
In the river, a little yellow head popped up from the waves. “Any nuzzling yet?” Flounder called quietly.
“Not yet!” Sebastian hissed from inside Pearly’s mane.
“Oh.” Flounder grimaced and swam away.
Next, Lucky led her to the nursery and introduced her to a number of baby ponies -- more names to try and remember! -- and then on to the stable and the Pretty Parlor. At the Parlor, Lucky introduced her to Peachy, who generously gave her a new blue ribbon for her tail.
Eventually, their wanderings brought them back to the stretch of shore where they’d met yesterday, and they walked side by side on the sand and admired the beautiful afternoon. Neither of them noticed Duck Soup and Flounder watching them from the river.
“Nothing is happening!” Duck Soup exclaimed. “This calls for a little vocal romantic stimulation!” He took wing and landed on a rock near the strolling ponies. After clearing his throat, he began to quack and squawk an off-key, sour ballad.
“Whoa,” Lucky said with a chuckle. “That Duck Soup. Someone should put that poor bird out of his misery.”
Pearly smiled, but she felt like smacking Duck Soup.
From under her mane, Sebastian groaned. He covered his ears with his claws and growled, “Ugh! Amateur! If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.” He dove into the river and motioned to a few Sea Ponies, turtles, fish and sea birds who happened to be nearby, and then began to direct them in a song.
Just look at her
Smiling at you -- she’s so sweet,
The day would be much more complete
With this one small addition.
She loves you, you know,
But she can’t tell you so
Until you nuzzle her!
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
Dear oh dear,
He just ain’t getting near
Enough to nuzzle her.
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
What a shame,
Don’t even know her name
And he won’t nuzzle her.
Pearly scowled and shook her head. Whaley, indeed!
Lucky chuckled. “Okay, sorry! Um, how about Splash? Or... Waves?”
Pearly shook her head at each guess.
From the water, Sebastian broke free from his song for a moment and chanted, “Pearly! Her name is Pearly!”
Lucky’s eyes lit up as another name came to him, seemingly from nowhere. “Pearly?”
Pearly grinned and nodded. The two ponies stopped trotting and turned to face each other.
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
Don’t be shy,
You’re gonna make her cry
If you don’t nuzzle her!
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
She can’t speak,
You’d make her life complete
If you’d just nuzzle her!
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
She’ll go to
The big Spring Dance with you
If you just nuzzle her!
Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo,
This can’t wait,
You cannot hesitate,
Go on and nuzzle her...
And a huge thunderclap cracked down from the sky, jarring both of them back to the real world. They looked up to see that gray clouds had quickly formed over their heads, and before Lucky could even suggest that they try to make it back to Paradise Estate before the storm, rain began pelting down on them in a torrent. Sebastian barely had the time to hop back into Pearly’s mane before she followed Lucky through the downpour to the Estate. The mood that the crab had worked so hard to create was gone in a second.
He never noticed the two gray-blue sea ponies who had been monitoring the situation from the river for a certain Sea Witch, who had just conjured up an afternoon shower to dampen the romantic scene. From her crystal ball, Ursula watched the two ponies run off. She frowned. “Ugh, that was close. Two close! That little charmer. She’s better than I thought. It’s time Ursula took matters into her own tentacles!” Angrily, she hurried to a cabinet and began tossing ingredients for a spell into her cauldron. “WaveRacer’s daughter will be mine,” she muttered, floating over the cauldron as her magic began to take effect. “And then I’ll see him writhe. I’ll make him wriggle like a worm on a hook!” She cackled as she transformed herself from her normal, ugly form into a deep lavender baby pony with a jet-black mane and an octopus symbol. Then she hung the leathery pouch around her neck, and her raspy laugh turned into a soft, pretty giggle as she began using Pearly’s beautiful voice as her own.
Lucky stood in the grass, bathed in moonlight, midway between Paradise Estate and the shore of the river. He was torn with indecision. Part of him wanted to gallop back to the Estate, knock on the door to Pearly’s room, and invite her to join him at the Spring Celebration Dance that was being held the following evening. However, another small but insistent part wanted to continue his search for the mystery pony with the lovely voice who had rescued him. He had vowed to ask her to the dance... Should he now give up his search and settle for Pearly? Not that he’d really be settling; she was sweet, and pretty, and her eyes were amazing... He shook his head and sighed.
“Lucky?” Clever Clover had trotted up behind him. “I’ve been looking for you. No one at the Estate knew where you were.” His friend turned to face him, and he instantly knew what was wrong. “Thinking about your phantom rescuer again?” he asked gently. “If I may say, Lucky... Far better than any ‘dream girl’ is one of flesh and blood... One warm, and caring, and right within your reach.” Clev lightly tossed his mane, gesturing back toward the Estate, then trotted away to leave Lucky to his thoughts.
He was right; Lucky knew it. The time for him to give up his search had come; he would go to Pearly now and ask her to the dance, and if she agreed to accompany him, he’d be the luckiest pony there.
He had only taken one step toward the Estate when a willowy voice, carried on the wind from the direction of the river, reached his ears and made him pause. The voice was singing a wordless, familiar melody, and it struck his heart like an arrow. It was That Voice. Not daring to breathe, he turned back toward the river.
Walking slowly toward him was a purple baby pony. Her black hair danced in the breeze and glistened in the moonlight, and she was singing. It was her voice he had heard. She wore a small pouch around her neck, and he was so entranced with her voice he didn’t notice the yellowish mist that the pouch was emitting. The mist swirled toward him, encircled his head, and disappeared into his eyes. Suddenly, his stare became dull and unfocused. He was under her spell.
Pearly opened her eyes halfway, yawned, and considered using her other pillow to smack Duck Soup back out the window.
Seeing that she was awake, the duck grabbed one of her front hooves and shook it. “Congratulations, kiddo, we did it!”
Pearly sat up and stared at him in confusion, and Sebastian groaned from his place on the pillow and sighed, “What is that idiot babbling about?” Pearly shrugged.
Duck Soup chuckled. “As if you two didn’t know!” He elbowed Sebastian with one wing, and continued. “All of Dream Valley is talking about Lucky finally finding a date for this afternoon!” When he saw that his audience was still bewildered, he added, “You know, for the Spring Celebration Dance.”
A dance? Pearly blinked her eyes and tried to get her brain to wake up completely. She remembered Lucky mentioning something about a big dance coming up, once or twice.
Duck Soup was still babbling, even as he headed back toward the window. “I just wanted to wish you luck, Pearly! I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it!” He fluttered outside and was gone.
Wish me luck? Pearly thought. Then her mind cleared and it struck her. Lucky must be planning to ask her to the dance! She gasped and her face stretched into a grin. If he did that, it would mean that he felt about her the way she felt about him! Unable to contain her joy, she leaped out of bed, paused at the mirror to fluff up her mane, and ran out of her room to find Lucky.
She heard his voice coming from the main entryway of the Estate, and she was about to burst in when she realized Clever Clover’s voice was present as well, as was North Star’s. Not wanting to intrude, Pearly peeked in through the doorway. There was Lucky... But who was that purple pony standing next to him and smiling? Must be one of his friends. A bit concerned, she decided to listen to their conversation for a moment.
North Star was speaking. “Well, I’m certainly very surprised. I never thought...”
Clev joined in. “Yes, Lucky... It seems that your ‘dream girl’ does, in fact, exist. And a lovely pony she is, too.”
Pearly frowned. Dream girl? What had Clev meant by that?
“What’s your name, dear?” Asked North Star.
Lucky spoke up. “Her name is Coral. And I’ve asked her to the Spring Celebration Dance today.”
Pearly had to cover her mouth with her hooves to keep herself from crying out in shock. She turned, ran back to her room, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Out of the four ponies in the entryway, only Coral noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the little pink pony who had been eavesdropping. When she saw Pearly’s shocked and devastated expression following Lucky’s announcement, a slow smile of satisfaction had crept across her own face. Everything was working just perfectly.
It’s as if he’s forgotten all about me, Pearly thought hopelessly that afternoon. She was outside, near the shore of the river, watching the final preparations for the Spring Celebration Dance. It was to be one of the biggest events of the year for the baby ponies, held in the middle of the river on Salty’s huge (and extensively spiffed up and decorated) ship. It was scheduled to start in the late afternoon so that the guests could admire the sunset and then dance under the stars.
Pearly was right about Lucky; he hadn’t had a single thought about her all day. Ursula’s magic had taken complete hold of his heart, and all he could do was concentrate on Coral, his beautiful “dream girl.” They had spent the day on a tour of Dream Valley, just like the one Lucky had treated Pearly to the day before.
Now the sun was sinking ever closer to the horizon, and pairs and groups of baby ponies were making their way toward the ship. Most of the girls wore colorful ribbons on their manes and tails, while many of the boys were squirming in their bowties. Several of the ponies she’d met the day before stopped to say hello to Pearly, but they all knew what had happened with Lucky, and they always looked past her and hurried on their way as quickly as they could.
When Lucky and Coral passed by, neither even glanced at her. Brandy was following them; she stopped and whined at Pearly, then continued on after Lucky.
Tears rose in Pearly’s eyes as she watched them board the ship. They were the last couple to arrive; the gangplank was then taken in and the ship set sail for the deeper parts of the river. That’s it, then, Pearly thought. It’s over. She sat down on the riverbank and began to sob.
Duck Soup, meanwhile, had spent the day on the far side of the waterfall and was oblivious to the situation. When he noticed it was almost sunset, he decided to fly on over to the dance and see how Pearly was doing. He circled over the boat, wondering why he couldn’t pick out the little pink pony in the crowd on deck; then he spotted Lucky standing next to a purple pony, and he frowned. Who was she? Where was Pearly? He watched as the purple pony excused herself for a moment and disappeared below deck to check her mane in the dressing room that had been set up in what was usually Salty’s navigation quarters.
There was a port hole on the side of the ship that looked into the dressing room. Duck Soup swooped down next to it so that he could peer inside at the purple pony. She was fixing a few stray hairs in her mane, and laughing triumphantly all the while. Then, with a sly smile, she began to sing.
Then she again laughed, and as she admired herself in the mirror, her reflection began to shimmer. Suddenly, she was no longer looking at herself, but at the Sea Witch. Duck Soup gasped, but this phenomenon did not seem to alarm the purple pony in the least. She only flipped her tail confidently and left the room.
For once, everything became clear to Duck Soup. The pony was actually the Sea Witch, and she was using Pearly’s voice! He flapped away from the port hole in a panic. “It’s the... I gotta... I gotta tell... PEARLY!” he quacked as he flew off in the direction of the Paradise Estate, as fast as his feathers could carry him.
Still sitting on the shore, Pearly stared dejectedly down river at the distant ship. Beside her, Sebastian was similarly moping, and Flounder was watching the two of them from the shallows of the river, wishing he could give his unhappy best friend a hug. All three of them heard a desperate quacking in the sky, and they looked up to see Duck Soup soaring toward them. He crash-landed almost on top of Sebastian, shook his head from side to side to clear it, and waddled up to Pearly. “Pearly, kid, you gotta listen to me! I was flying... Of course I was flying, I’m a bird, what else would I be doing, dancing the hula?... Oh, I was flying, and I saw that the Watch -- the Witch! Was watching herself in front of a mirror, and she was singing with a stolen set of pipes!” When his audience didn’t react to his tale right away, he grabbed Sebastian by the claws and began to beat the crab against the sand in desperation. “DO YOU HEAR WHAT I’M TELLING YOU?” He tossed Sebastian over his shoulder and continued, trying his best to phrase it in such a way so that Pearly would understand. “Lucky’s date for the dance is the Sea Witch in disguise!”
Pearly’s mouth fell open. It couldn’t be... But it made such sense! And leave it to the Sea Witch to not play fairly.
“What are we going to do?” Flounder cried from the water.
As far as Pearly was concerned, there was only one thing she could do -- fight and refuse to give up. Without another thought, she marched into the waves and dove under the water in the direction of the ship. A moment later, she resurfaced, choking and gulping. She’d forgotten that she didn’t know how to swim without her fish-tale.
Suddenly, two Sea Ponies surfaced, one on either side of her. “Shoop-bee-doo, shoop-shoop-bee-doo!” they sang as they handed her a turtle-shaped tube. “Here, use this!” the one on the left instructed. “We heard what Duck Soup said. It’s horrible what has happened. Good luck, Pearly!” Pearly squirmed into the tube, and she and Flounder took off in the direction of the ship.
Sebastian was pacing back and forth on the sand. “I must get to the Sea King. He has to know about this!” he exclaimed.
“What about me, what about me?” Duck Soup demanded.
“You and the Sea Ponies, go and find a way to disrupt that dance! Don’t let Lucky fall any deeper under Ursula’s spell!” Then he dove into the river.
“You heard the crab!” Duck Soup called to the two Sea Ponies. “We’ve got an emergency here! Go get your friends, and let’s go disrupt a dance!” He flew off toward the ship while the Sea Ponies swam off to raise an army. In no time, they were amassed around Salty’s boat. And they didn’t have much time -- the sun was already touching the horizon.
The baby ponies on board the ship all stopped moving and looked at each other in confusion. They had been dancing, but their music had been drowned out by another song -- a loud, harmonious “Shoop-bee-doo! Shoop-shoop-bee-doo!” coming from the water. Several ponies looked overboard and were shocked to see the hordes of Sea Ponies who bobbed in the waves around the boat. Salty peered down from his post by the ship’s wheel and yelled, “Hey there, Sea Ponies! What do you think you’re doing?”
“We’ve just got a little surprise for the guest of honor!” announced the Sea Pony who had earlier spoken to Pearly. Then, one by one, each Sea Pony leaped up from the river and spit a stream of water at Coral! Instantly, the party dissolved into chaos.
From the sky, Duck Soup could see that Pearly and Flounder had reached the side of the ship, and that several Sea Ponies were getting ready to hoist the princess up to the deck. Quickly, he looked down at the drenched Coral, who was screaming over the side at some of the other Sea Ponies. Now, where could she be keeping Pearly’s voice? His eyes focused on the tiny bag that hung around her neck. That had to be it. While she was still distracted by the Sea Ponies, he swooped down from the sky, grabbed onto the bag, and tried to snatch it away. At the same time, Brandy ran from Lucky’s side, barked happily, and bit Coral on the leg. She screamed and lurched toward the dog, and the bag came free and flew across the deck, right to where Pearly was now standing. “No!” hissed Coral when she saw the princess. The other ponies all stopped what they were doing and watched.
Pearly stared at the bag as it began to glow. A tiny, sparkling orb freed itself from the bag and danced in the air like a golden soap bubble toward her. It was singing a beautiful, wordless song -- in her voice! It got closer and closer, and then she suddenly realized that the song was no longer coming from the orb, but from her own throat. Her voice was back.
Lucky shook his head, and the yellow light in his eyes disappeared. The spell was broken. “Pearly?” he asked, trotting toward her.
“Lucky!” she exclaimed, joyful to finally be able to speak his name.
“You... You can talk! It was you all the time!” he said, looking into her eyes.
“Oh, Lucky, I wanted to tell you...”
The sun disappeared, dipping below the horizon. Lucky was about to nuzzle Pearly, but before he could, she cried out in dismay and slipped down onto the deck as her legs returned to their original, fishy form. Lucky stared down at her in confusion.
“Too late!” Coral cackled in Ursula’s voice. “You’re too late!” Lightening flashed in the darkening sky, and she turned back into the gruesome Sea Witch. She slithered across the deck, wrapped a tentacle around Pearly, and dragged her over the side. Both of them disappeared beneath the waves.
“Pearly!” Lucky cried, staring over the rail after them and still trying to grasp all that had just happened. He glanced at Clever Clover, who was standing nearby. “Clev, tell Salty to get this boat back to shore immediately! This could turn dangerous.” Then he galloped over to the nearest lifeboat, jumped in, and lowered himself to the surface of the river.
“Lucky, where are you going?” Clev cried.
“Clev, I lost her once. I’m not going to lose her again!”
Under the surface, Pearly fought against Ursula’s iron grasp, but it was useless. The Sea Witch was much larger and stronger than she was.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” Ursula smoothly reassured her as she tugged her toward the bottom of the river. “It’s not you I’m after. I’ve much bigger fish to fry--”
“Ursula, stop!” ordered a grave voice from just ahead. Pearly looked up to see her father blocking their path, with Sebastian standing importantly nearby.
“Why, King WaveRacer!” Ursula purred. “What a surprise!”
“Let her go,” WaveRacer growled, pointing his trident at Ursula.
The Sea Witch only cackled. “Not a chance, WaveRacer. She’s mine. We made a deal!” The contract appeared in front of her; WaveRacer stared in disbelief at Pearly’s tiny hoofprint at the bottom. Then his eyes flashed, and he blasted the piece of parchment with a beam from his trident. The contract remained unscarred. “You see?” Ursula exclaimed. “It’s legal, binding, and completely unbreakable! Even for you.” Then she shrugged. “Of course, I always was a pony with an eye for a bargain... The daughter of the Sea King is a very precious commodity, you know.” As she spoke, the contract started to glow with a shimmering green light. It elongated into a ribbon shape, which snaked through the water and wound around Pearly. Slowly, the MerPony began to shrink to the size of the toy ponies littered in the Sea Witch’s lair. Ursula continued. “But... I might be willing to exchange her... For something even better.” Then she rose her eyebrows and looked questioningly at WaveRacer, and the contract reappeared in front of him.
He understood what she meant, and he didn’t even have to pause to think about it. He would do anything to save his daughter. Shaking his head, he placed his own hoofmark on the contract over Pearly’s.
“Hah! It’s done, then!” Ursula crowed. Instantly, Pearly returned to her normal size, and the green light instead encompassed WaveRacer. By the time he touched the sandy ground, he was nothing more than a blue-violet bit of plastic.
Sebastian stared in dismay at the toy. “Your Majesty.”
“Daddy?” Pearly cried. This was all her fault... Then she remembered her decision earlier, to fight and to never give up. If ever there was a time for that, this was it. She glared up at Ursula, who had eagerly picked up WaveRacer’s crown and trident as her own. “You monster!”
Ursula snarled at her. “Don’t toy with me, you little brat! Contract or no contract, I’ll--” She was interrupted by the painful feeling of someone’s hoof smacking the back of her head. She whirled around to see Lucky, who was now swimming quickly back toward the surface of the river. “Get him!” she ordered Flotsam and Jetsam. They were only too happy to oblige, and they both clamped onto Lucky with their tails to keep him underwater until he drowned. Pearly screamed and tried to help him, but Ursula held her back with one tentacle.
“Come on!” Sebastian called to Flounder. “We’ve got to help him!” The crab clamped his claws onto Flotsam’s muzzle, while Flounder slapped Jetsam with his fins. Lucky was able to fight his way free, and he continued his ascent.
Ursula growled; then a sly grin spread over her face. “Say good-bye to your sweetheart,” she chuckled to Pearly, aiming the trident at Lucky.
Fight and never give up. Pearly managed to free herself from the tentacle, and with all of her strength, she grabbed Ursula’s mane and pulled it, just as the trident’s beam went off. The shot went wild and exploded into Flotsam and Jetsam instead, blasting them into thousands of tiny bits and pieces of grisly Sea Pony confetti. In shock, Ursula sobbed. “Babies! My poor little poopsies!” Then she looked up to where Pearly and Lucky were treading water on the surface. It was time to put an end to them. Summoning her new magic powers, she began to grow. She became bigger and bigger until she broke the surface, and she towered over Lucky and Pearly like a mountain in the middle of the river, with the water churning violently around her. The wind was picking up, and flashes of lightening were spangling the dark sky.
Pearly stared up at the monstrous witch in fear. There was perhaps a chance that she could outswim Ursula’s wrath... But what about Lucky? He was a good swimmer, for an earth pony, but he was already struggling in the rising waves. “Lucky, you’ve got to get away from here!” she implored him.
He shook his head and spat out a mouthful of river water. “No. I won’t leave you!”
A rumbling voice erupted from high above them. “Now I am the ruler of all the waters! The waves obey my every whim!” No sooner had Ursula said this than a tidal wave rose out of nowhere and struck Pearly and Lucky, separating them and pulling him far away. “Lucky!” Pearly cried.
But Pearly soon had enough problems of her own. Ursula was creating a giant whirlpool in the river, and the MerPony felt herself being caught up in its current. Desperately, she grabbed onto a rock and scanned the choppy water for Lucky. He was nowhere to be found.
Ursula’s whirlpool, however, was having another, unexpected effect. The same current that threatened to suck Pearly away was also causing something to rise from the river’s sandy bottom.
On shore, the situation was being fearfully watched by the group of ponies who had earlier been at the dance. Clev squinted at a dark shape that suddenly appeared on the waves. “What’s that?”
Salty was standing beside him, and he also looked. “Why... I don’t believe it. It can’t be... That’s my old clipper ship. She went down years ago in a horrible storm.”
And as the long-lost ship had surfaced, one soggy blue baby pony had managed to clamber on board and to take the wheel.
Ursula noticed Pearly’s perch and nonchalantly blasted the rock to pieces, sending the MerPony tumbling down into the whirlpool. Then she carefully took aim with the trident at the princess herself. “So much for true love!...”
Pearly cringed and closed her eyes. Everything would end here, this way?...
But before Ursula could fire that lethal shot, she looked up and saw a decrepit old clipper ship barreling down on her, with Lucky at the helm. He was grateful now that he’d spent that day on Salty’s ship, learning a bit about boating. He aimed the ragged, sharp helm of the ship squarely at the Sea Witch, and it impaled her. She screamed as huge, billowing clouds of gray-green smoke began to rise from her. Her tentacles snaked around the boat in a death-grip, and she sank into the river. Lucky jumped into the river and swam for shore before he could get dragged down with the ship.
Underwater, Ursula seemed to disintegrate into nothing. She was simply gone, forever.
Within her lair, the dozens of tiny pony toys transformed back into the MerPonies they had once been, and they cheered with joy and swam away, heading for their homes.
On the river bottom, one more toy changed back. WaveRacer smiled and picked up his crown and trident from where they had fallen.
Lucky made it to the riverbank. He crawled up onto the sandy shore and collapsed from exhaustion.
Several of the pony onlookers noticed his appearance far downshore, and began to gallop toward him. But a call from Clever Clover held them back. “Look,” he said, gesturing toward a rock out in the river but close to where Lucky lay. On it was perched a little pink MerPony, who was watching him with tears in her eyes. “Let’s leave him be for awhile,” Clev said sadly. “He’ll be fine, and the sooner he wakes up, the sooner he’ll realize that his ‘dream girl’ is far out of his reach.” The other ponies nodded, and they all headed back to Paradise Estate.
The waves died down; the river calmed. The lightening ceased and the clouds lifted, and finally, the first light of dawn began to glow in the east. Pearly sat on the rock for hours, not moving, just watching over Lucky and wishing she could help him. It was hopeless now; her one chance was gone. She breathed a long, shuddering sigh as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Down river, a king and a crab were watching her. WaveRacer shook his head and smiled. “She really does love him, doesn’t she, Sebastian?”
“Well, Your Majesty,” Sebastian replied, “it’s like I always say. Children have to be free to lead their own lives.”
“You always say that?” WaveRacer questioned him.
Sebastian just looked up at him, grinned, and shrugged.
“Well,” the king remarked, “then there’s just one problem left.”
Sebastian’s smile faded. “What’s that, Your Majesty?”
“How much I’m going to miss her.” With that, WaveRacer sent a golden beam across the water from his trident to his daughter. The sparkling gold ran over the rock and onto Pearly’s tail, and by the time she noticed and looked down, she had turned back into a Little Pony.
For a moment, she stared at her legs in disbelief. Then she looked up and saw her father, and she grinned gratefully.
When Lucky regained consciousness and stumbled to his feet a moment later, his first thought was that he was still dreaming. Here was Pearly, the MerPony, trotting out of the shoreline waves toward him, a four-legged Little Pony again. But it wasn’t a dream, he realized when she reached him. It was real, and this time there would be no meddling witches to deal with. Happy, he leaned down so that his muzzle and Pearly’s were touching, and he nuzzled her.
The Spring Celebration Dance was rescheduled for the following weekend. Salty’s ship was decorated more extravagantly than ever, the sunset was promising to be a beautiful one... And Pearly and Lucky were ready to board, together this time.
“Have a good time, dear!” NorthStar said, straightening the ribbon she’d put in Pearly’s hair.
The baby ponies all parted to let Lucky and Pearly pass. They were truly the guests of honor of the evening. And tonight there were even more guests than there had been at the original dance, for as the ship set sail for the middle of the river, dozens and dozens of MerPonies surfaced to swim beside it. Pearly laughed when she saw them. She could see her sisters and all of her friends, and of course, her father.
But now that she was a Little Pony, there would be some good-byes to say, wouldn’t there?
Flounder was first; two of the larger Sea Ponies lifted him up long enough for Pearly to nuzzle him and tell him to take care. She waved to Duck Soup, who she would still see around, of course. And she thanked Sebastian for all of his help during this grand adventure.
Then WaveRacer rose from the river to say farewell. Pearly smiled at him with tears in her eyes. He could see that she would be happy in this world, and that was enough for him. Behind her, Lucky bowed to him, and he nodded.
Then Pearly threw her front hooves around him. “I love you, Daddy!”
When he returned to the waves, he lifted his trident and caused the most beautiful sunset ever seen in Dream Valley to light up the sky in every color of the rainbow. The entire crowd, both MerPonies and Little Ponies, murmured in surprise at the spectacular sight.
Then Clever Clover put on some music, and the baby ponies began to dance.
Lucky smiled. “May I have this dance?”
“Of course,” Pearly said. Now that I’m part of your world.