Come here, you two. Give your uncle a hug. I got you a present!

Yeah, I know Hearth’s Warming was last week. I… hadda go away for a while.

Here. It’s that Daring Do action figure all the kids are talking about.

That was last year?

Look, her leg kicks when you turn her head behind her.

Well, it’s supposed to. Lemme see that.

Huh. Guess I shouldn’t’a put it at the bottom of my saddlebags. It needs some glue, is all.

What? What’d I say?

I didn’t mean “glue”. I meant “paste”. Slip of the tongue.

I’ll fix it. I’ll use some… special paste. Bring it back good as new.

Dammit, kid! Don’t give me that look.

I am not shouting. Just gimme the lousy toy already.

Get back here, you two! Sweetie, tell your kids they’re acting crazy.

Forget it. Keep the toy. Keep it, throw it out, I don’t care.

Hey, I’ll tell you a story. I’ll sit right here in this chair. If anypony came in here and sat behind me, they’d hear a story.

I’m starting the story now.

This is the story of the sea pony.

He wasn’t always a sea pony. At first he was an earth pony like you and me. Nothing different about him. That was his problem.

He had a job figuring how much money the rich ponies had and how they could keep more of it. If he did something clever, his boss took the credit, but if he messed up, he took the blame. Mares wouldn’t give him the time of day. They were all down at the docks, ogling the sea ponies.

Look across the bay on a calm day, you’d think you never saw nothing more peaceful. But the sea ponies were there, underneath. On stormy days you’d see their heads bobbing between the breakers, them smiling like those big widow-makers were a kiddie ride. At night they’d roll in on the waves, shake out their flippers, toss their stringy seaweed manes back, and stride into town like they owned the place, which they did, at night.

They were mean, ugly, sharp-toothed bastards, but they got respect.

So one day our hero finds himself in an alley with a guy knows a guy knows a sea pony. He forks over a month’s bits for a tarnished gold chain. “Just put it on and wait,” the guy says.

“What’s the catch?” he asks.

“Why should there be a catch?” the guy says. “Anytime you want out, take it off and throw it away.”

So he puts on the chain. Nothing. Weeks go by. Then one day he sees somepony stare at him and look away quick. He reaches a hoof to his neck, finds slits there.

His hooves stretched out into claws. His hair stiffened and turned to scales. Soon he was riding the waves and rolling into town at night himself.

He’d never felt so alive. Mares loved him. When he finally found the one he wanted, she took him, teeth, scales, and all.

But he started biting her. Couldn’t help himself. Those long needle teeth, they had to bite. Then he’d run back to the water, and she’d follow, wading in after him until he disappeared under the waves.

One day she bit back. Took him by surprise. He looked at her neck, saw a gold chain and a baby set of gills.

“What,” she said, “you thought there was only one magic chain in the world?”

So they went into the bay together, and that was okay, until one day she took up with a shark with long black teeth and swam off.

By now he’s buddies with the sea ponies. They’re okay guys, mostly, but like I said, they bite. They drift. After a few years he’s surrounded by strangers again.

So he climbs back onto shore, shakes the water from his mane, and reaches for the gold chain.

But his scales had grown over it. He clawed at his neck until it was bloody, but that chain was in too deep. So he went back to the sea.

But every Hearth’s-Warming Eve, he comes out. His gills don’t work right in the air. He blinks in the sunlight, lurches around on webbed feet, dripping marsh-water, and looks in the windows of the ponies he used to know. So he can still recognize them. So he can keep them away from the water.

Yeah, Sweetie, I know they wasn’t listening. It’s okay.