Deleted Scene: Mach's Accent · 12:23am Aug 6th, 2013
Okay, so I thought this might be a neat little thing to give you guys to chew on while I work on 28. This is a bit of a turn from where we are at the moment, a lighthearted little scene from before everything went to shit. I wanted to include it in the chapter, but I couldn't find a way to fit it in with all of the balls-to-the-wall action, so I cut it out of the final draft. The following scene takes place between when the party hops in the Vertibuck and when they touch down at the Sparkle~Cola bottling plant.
This scene contains end-story party spoilers. No important plot-relevant details are disclosed, but if you're not current and would like to avoid spoiling who Mach will have in his party by the end, I suggest you pass on this until chapter 26.
With that said, enjoy.
“So Razorbeak,” I called back from the cockpit, a smug grin I was sure he couldn’t see beginning to turn up the corners of my mouth. “What is it about Blackburn that has you so enamored? I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know a thing about what makes a griffon attractive, but I can sure take a guess.
“It’s the accent, isn’t it? I bet it drives you wild.”
“Shut up, Red,” Razorbeak growled back, his voice barely audible over the sound of the Vertibuck’s whining engines and thrumming rotors.
“I knew it!” I snickered. “Why else would you have a griffoness with a Germane accent under your employ? There’s no way speakers of the language are common enough these days for her to have picked up the accent in passing, her whole family must have been generations of descendants from native speakers. Maybe griffon immigrants were far more common centuries ago, but I seriously doubt that’s the case after the war. This goes far beyond coincidence.”
“Don’t judge me, you prick,” Razorbeak snapped angrily. “If you’re going to sit there and accuse me of preferring Raven because of her accent, why don’t we talk about you and the kid?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Don’t even try to hide it, Red. Greaser has an accent too, and if you ask me, you’re not really criticizing my preferences so much as you are projecting your own onto me.”
“What, so you’re a psychologist now?” I sneered. “I thought you didn’t know how the brain works, but you knew how to perform surgery on it well enough?”
“I call it like I see it, Red- you know that. …Hey, while you’re busy giving me shit about Raven’s accent, why don’t we take a minute to talk about yours,” Razorbeak prodded further.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said dismissively. “I’ll have you know that in the Enclave, my dialect is considered region neutral, which is to say, I don’t have an accent.”
“Oh ho, yes you do.”
“I do not!”
“Oh, yay!” Solara piped up excitedly from the troop bay. “Are we poking fun at Mach’s goofy accent? Which one? The rural hick?”
“Solara, shut up!” I snarled in a panic. She was going to ruin me! Why couldn’t she ever keep her trap shut?
“Wait,” Greaser said, clearly confused. “What do you mean, ‘which one,’ Solara?”
Beside me, Astral began to giggle softly to herself in the co-pilot’s seat, one hoof held demurely to her lips to stifle the noise.
“Solara…” I began, warning evident in my tone.
“Haha!” Solara laughed wickedly. “You guys haven’t heard it yet? I’m surprised, with all the drinking Mach gets up to! Whenever Mach gets completely trashed, he lapses back into his old accent; I’m sure you guys have heard it before. It’s that slow, backwoods drawl a lot of the ponies down here in the Wasteland have. That accent is common up in the Enclave too, in some of the lower-class areas, like where his buddy Duster used to live.”
“Can it, Solara!” I yelled, my eyes darting around reflexively in a panic. I was starting to sweat bullets, my heart was hammering against my ribcage, and the back of my head was starting to itch like crazy. “T-Trying to fly here!”
“Look at him, look!” Solara cackled wildly. “He’s twitching like a scared little rabbit!”
I turned to look over my shoulder and found that everyone had crammed their heads into the cockpit to get a good look at me, jittering in my seat from years of ingrained panic and terror.
“Y’all wanna hear muh stupid accent so bad?” I snarled angrily, falling back into it without missing a beat. “Open yer ears an’ listen good, then! Y’all best turn around an’ get back t’ yer seats ‘afore Ah bank this bird so hard y’ fall out o’ the doors! Ain’t no parachutes on this here ride, so Ah hope y’all know how t’ fly! Mah advice? Start flappin’!”
The minute I started speaking, everyone in the doorway cringed and grimaced. They looked back and forth between themselves before turning back to me, chest heaving in fury, the back of my head still tingling like it had been doused in itching powder. One by one they retreated back into the depths of the Vertibuck’s troop bay, and I looked over at Astral to see her shaking her head back and forth in amusement.
“It’s not funny, Astral,” I growled moodily.
“I didn’t say it was,” she protested innocently.
“You’re implying it! Wipe the smirk off of your face!”
“Okay!” Astral said, holding up both forehooves in peace. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
“You want to tell us what the bloody hell that was all about?" Greaser said, apparently to Solara, as that’s who answered.
“Well, Mach was sort of telling the truth when he said his dialect is region neutral,” Solara explained. “That’s how he spoke as a colt, but as he spent more and more time with Duster, he gradually began to mimic his speech patterns. When Mach started speaking like that in front of his father, he wasn’t too happy.”
I swallowed nervously and scratched at the back of my head.
“Mach’s family wasn’t exactly rich, but they were pretty well off. Upper middle class, I suppose you could say. Both of his parents were pulling in six digits a year, so… Yeah… Anyway, as a pony in a higher tier of society, Mach’s father expected him to speak the part. When he started talking like a country bumpkin, Immelmann wouldn’t stand for it. Every time Mach slipped up, he caught a hoof to the back of the head. After enough times, Immelmann finally weeded it out of him, and now he’s back to the way he was.”
“What does Mach being drunk have to do with anything?” Greaser asked curiously. “He’s been completely shitfaced a few times, but it’s never pushed him to start talking like a hayseed.”
“Was it hard liquor or just plain ol’ booze?” Solara asked.
“Wild Pegasus, mostly.”
“Oh, well that explains it,” Solara said casually. “He acts different depending on what he’s been slugging down. If it’s liquor, he gets stupid and grabby. If he’s had a few beers, he turns into a fucking cloud farmer.”
“Well, that sure as hell explains why he sounds like he’s a snooty fucking aristocrat all the time,” Razorbeak growled. “I’ll tell you right now, though- I’d much rather listen to a snob than a hick. I think I might actually be just a little bit less intelligent for having to listen to that accent. Fucking hell. Do us all a favor and promise us you won’t talk like that anymore, Red. Like, ever. I’ve got no problem picking up where your old buck left off, either. I’ll smack you in the head if it happens again.”
“Oh, well now that Ah know it irritates ya, Ah might just keep talkin’ like this fer a spell. Y’all don’t mind, right?”
“Red, I swear I have no problem making you slam this thing into the side of a mountain if it means I don’t have to listen to you,” Razorbeak said, and I heard his heavy bulk hit the floor as he slid off a crash seat in the back and made his way toward the cockpit.
“Wellllll,” I drawled, dragging out the word as long as I could, “there was a farmer who had a dog, and Bingo was his name- OW!”
My head pitched forward, narrowly avoiding the bullet-riddled windscreen, and I immediately stopped singing as Razorbeak’s large, open palm slammed into the back of my head.
“I said, shut it,” Razorbeak hissed sternly.
“B-I-N-G- OW! Damn it! Stop hitting me!”
“Then shut your cake hole!”
“All right, I’ll stop!” I assured him, massaging the back of my scalp tenderly.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Razorbeak said as he turned and left for his seat.
“Stars, everypony’s a fucking critic,” I grumbled sourly, looking down at the avionics to determine how close we were to our destination. “We’re almost there, everyone,” I called back to the team over the Vertibuck’s radio, my nerves, forgotten temporarily, now right back at the forefront of my mind. “Get ready, we’ll be in Vortex’s airspace in five.”
I just read all of that in Ellis's voice. 10/10 Mach needs a buddy named Keith.