“Scorch… I’m very afraid.”

Celestia’s confession told Scorch everything. He turned to look at Celestia. Her usually formal speech had even been marred by a contraction. He changed shape, not even realising he had done so, becoming a sleek looking pegasus.

“Tell me that I did the right thing Scorch, I cannot bear this,” Celestia said, her voice little more than a whisper borne of fear.

Scorch stomped his hoof. “No.”

He could see the hurt look on Celestia’s face. It pained him more than he cared to admit.

“No?” she asked.

Shaking his head, Scorch replied, “No.”

“No I did not do the right thing?” Celestia’s face was one of confused fear.

Seeing that Celestia was on the verge of tears, Scorch stepped closer to her. “No, I will not tell you that you are doing the right thing. I raised you with a fine set of morals. I raised you to think for yourself. I showed you how to strive towards the greater good and how to follow the path of the least amount of harm. At some point, you stopped trusting me, me, the one that actually raised you, fed you, wiped your far too white bottom, kept you safe, free from harm, and taught you how to hold back your power so that you could preserve life rather than destroy it. You turned away from me and chose to listen to him instead. He messed with your head. You got all turned around. You stopped listening to me. So no, I will not tell you if you are doing the right thing for the sake of your comfort at this particular time. What I will do is stand beside you and let you make your own choices and then be there for you come what may.”

Celestia stood in stunned silence and her eyes flooded over with tears.

“You’ve had enough of your paternal figures telling you what to do I think. Time for me to step back and let you fly. I am confident in how I raised you,” Scorch said.

“Thank you Scorch… I think… I think I am going to go find Tourmaline and allow her to cheer me up.” As she was speaking, Celestia began to turn to leave.

Watching her go, Scorch smiled. Muttering to himself, he said, “They grow up so quickly.”

Thistle, down deep below the surface, floated with effortless ease in the depths. Derpy and Bon Bon had been by earlier, she had been happy to see them, and they had told her that Bucky now had two eyes once more.

This news made Thistle ecstatic.

A school of fish swam past. Thistle could not see them, but she could sense them. The lake was a living thing now, an extension of her will. Even with the griffons, there were more than enough fish just so long as the balance was maintained. The water was clean, it was good water. Thistle had cultivated plants. Thistle had brought balance.

Reaching down, she rubbed the rounded place between her barrel and her tail section.

The fish departed, leaving in a hurry. There was a disturbance in the water. With a flick of her finned tail, Thistle shot off towards the source of the disturbance. Something was swimming in her lake. It was far too cold any normal creature to swim in this water. Thistle hoped that somepony or somebirdy had not fallen in.

She moved upwards where it was light now and she started to be able to see again. Ahead of her was a dark shape. Something… curious was swimming towards her. Thistle had trouble believing what she was seeing.

There was another kelpie in her lake.

It was moving right for her. Thistle froze in panic. Her whole body jolted when she felt the touch of the other kelpie. She felt two forelegs wrapping around her and pulling her close. She felt another tail wrapping around her own.

It was Bucky.

Throwing her forelegs around him, Thistle squeezed back. Try as she might, she could not get close enough to him. Much to her amusement, Thistle realised that she was larger than Bucky in this form. She entwined her long supple body around his and kissed him upon his cheek. One kiss, then another, and then one more. Those kisses weren’t enough. She sought out his lips, locking down upon them, her aggressive kelpie nature took charge and began to work out her frustrations.

After a passionate exchange, Thistle pulled away. “How?”

“How are we talking?” Bucky asked.

Thistle giggled. “Kelpie magic… but how are you a kelpie? Male kelpies don’t exist.”

“I’m clever.” It was all Bucky felt he needed to say. It was Bucky’s universal explanation.

“You have two eyes.” As she spoke, Thistle coiled herself around Bucky a little more, her instincts taking over. She applied a bit of loving constriction.

Female kelpies coiled around their captives until they got what they wanted from them. Their long supple bodies were ideal for underwater copulation and they had the useful ability to allow their victims to breathe. Or not breathe if they wanted to take the fight out of them.

Thistle wrapped her forelegs around Bucky’s neck, pressed her snoot against his, and then just held him close. She could feel him against her belly. As she clung to him, she felt Bell Heather begin to flop around inside her.

“The foal feels excited,” Thistle said.

“I can feel her…”

Bucky’s body flexed against her own and Thistle shifted her mass to press her belly against Bucky. Bucky’s kelpie form was smaller, slender, and his tail felt a little scrawny.

“How did you become a kelpie?” Thistle asked.

“I became a freshwater merpony.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth and then Thistle ran her hoof through Bucky’s long weedy mane that was very much like her own. “Oh you are a clever pony.”

“I wanted to spend some time with you before I left. I wanted to make sure my wife and my foal are well. I’ve been worried. I thought maybe we could have a nice meal together. I just woke up and the magic took quite a bit out of me,” Bucky said.

With a coquettish giggle, Thistle rubbed herself against Bucky. “I’m sure I could come up with something for you to nibble on.”

Not requiring her body to swim, Thistle willed herself upwards. She rose, taking Bucky with her, reveling in his closeness, glad for the temporary reprieve in her sometimes lonesome existence in the lake. After a moment, Thistle broke the surface. She and Bucky gasped, now breathing air. She kissed him once more, then pulled away with a wet slurp.

“How is the water not freezing cold?” Bucky asked.

A thoughtful expression settled over Thistle’s features. “It just isn’t. I don’t know how or why. It feels cold sometimes if the loneliness becomes painful. Sometimes it feels so cold that I just have to get out.”

“That makes sense. Probably some means to motivate a kelpie to go and find a mate,” Bucky said.

Thistle pressed her cheek against the good side of Bucky’s face. “I’ve already found a mate. I have no desire to find another. Just you. I can’t believe you came to me.”

They bobbed together on the surface, holding one another. The chill wind blew and Bucky could feel it upon his soaked pelt. There was a soft bump against his stomach and he realised he could feel his foal thrashing around inside of Thistle.

“I know you felt that,” Thistle said.

“I sure did.”

Nosing Bucky’s mane, Thistle snorted. It was a strange greenish black. The plants were long and instead of flowers, there were broad leaves. She looked into his eyes. This form was pony-like enough to reflect his true self. One eye, his left eye, was Tainted. His right eye, now restored, was a strange shade of purple blue.

“Well, at least now you have no excuse not to catch your own fish. You have a fine body for swimming,” Thistle said.

“Before I do anything, I don’t want to do anything that might offend you. I’ve never been a kelpie before. There are some questions about being a kelpie I feel I need to ask.”

Rolling her eyes, Thistle heard mischief in Bucky’s voice. “Yes Bucky?”

“Well, bodily functions. How do you manage them in the lake?”

Without warning, there was stinging fire upon Thistle’s cheeks. “Oh… oh my. Okay. For um, liquid waste, I tend to just, um, let go wherever. Kelpie urine isn’t like other creatures and their urine. We, um, we pass fresh drinkable water. The doctors were quite surprised at the hospital to discover this after they requested a urine sample. For the, um, solid waste, I have several places down in the depths that have plants that need nourishment and I place my leavings there. It keeps the lake healthy and in balance. Between the clams, the bottom feeders, and the plants, the water stays clean and pure.”

“So everything exists in balance. Fascinating.”

“I will show you places where you can go. I don’t know how your urine will come out though.” Thistle felt hot flush travel through her body.

“Oh, that’s not a concern. This body can eat and take things in, it just goes to my real body, which is somewhere else. That body has to deal with the waste. I just wanted to find out how you do your business in the lake because I am nosy, that’s all.”

More heat flooded through Thistle’s body. A searing sensation crept over Thistle’s face. “You… jerk.”

“I know.”

Thistle felt Bucky’s forelegs shifting around her, one was moving up her back and along the base of her neck. She pressed her lips together into a flat lined pout. He was touching all the right places… rubbing all the right things. It was difficult, if not impossible, to remain angry with Bucky. She closed her eyes and then felt two lips nibbling upon her own. She tried resisting this time, tried to pull her head back, but Thistle didn’t want to resist. She had been so lonesome. In a while, Bucky would be leaving, and Thistle knew she would be lonesome once more.

“Bucky… mmmm… Bucky darling… Bucky, love, stop for a moment and listen to me.”

Thistle felt Bucky pull away. She opened her eyes and looked at him. His snoot was scant inches from her own. She took a deep breath. “While it would be very easy for us to do things here with one another in the water, the doctor told me I can’t do anything. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it would be a problem. Usually we just fool around and you kiss me down there and then you scratch your own itch with somepony else. But with these bodies, we could certainly have a go at one another I think. My womb is placing pressure on stuff and parts of me have been shortened. I really didn’t understand it and I didn’t ask because I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

“I understand Thistle… I would never want to hurt you. I could never live with myself if I did,” Bucky said.

“But after I have this foal and I am healed, I am dragging you down into the depths to have my way with you,” Thistle promised.

“So a meal then, followed by a nice afternoon together.”

Again, Thistle felt her whole body flush with heat. “I would like that. And maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to make each other feel good…”

“Would the lake still have drinkable water if we did that?” Bucky asked.

Thistle could hear the teasing tone in his voice. “Bucky, you should never drink water. Fish screw in it you know.”

Bucky nodded. “Which is why it is safer to drink booze.”

Pressing her lips against Bucky’s, Thistle pulled him down into the depths, glad to have his company. If he had to leave her, Thistle intended to give him a reason to want to come home. Her lips parted and she tapped the tip of her tongue upon Bucky’s lips, as if she was knocking to seek entrance. When she was invited inside, Thistle lost herself in his embrace.

Author's Notes:

Sixty nine paragraphs. Two hundred and six sentences. Five adverbs, done in speech. Six uses of passive voice. Total time spent writing: almost eight hours. Less than two hours of typing followed by about six hours of editing and completely rearranging everything to make it legible and well written. Over one hundred adverbs slipped out, almost all of which were trimmed away, and almost sixty instances of passive voice, most of which were chopped out and replaced with something active to make things more compelling.

Alas, I suspect that typos have still managed to escape me, which drives me barmy just thinking about it.