“Two guards? Two guards?” Twilight looked at the two guardsponies, her eye twitching slightly. “I have the single most important being on the planet in my home, and Princess Celestia sends me TWO GUARDS?”
“Princess Twilight, it was only under the council of Princess Luna that any guards were sent at all.” The guard’s impassive voice betrayed none of the feelings in the pony. “It is my opinion that the creature should be taken to the dungeons beneath Canterlot, but in this matter my opinion has been disregarded.”
“Twi, maybe you should calm down some.” Applejack put a hoof on the lavender mare’s shoulder, gently pulling her back from the guard. “He ain’t done anything to you. If you’re going to be mad with somepony, be mad with the Princesses back in Canterlot.”
“I’m angry with them too, AJ.” Twilight took several deep breaths as she strived to regain her composure. After a moment, she looked back at the two guards. “The two of you are to remain on premises for the duration of your stay. Work in eight hour shifts. Since the creature is safely locked inside a room within the heart of the tree there is no real chance of escape through anywhere but the main room. So, that is your position.”
The guards snapped quick salutes before one of them moved into position, and the other trotted out of the library, the tent they had brought acting as their de facto home for the duration. Twilight let out a long groan as she made her way up to her room, Applejack following behind her. “Twi, maybe you should get some rest, and see about trying some tests, or something, tomorrow. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and we both know that neither of us function at all well when we’re tired.”
Twilight stopped at the door to her room, her head resting against the cool wooden surface of the door. “I know, AJ. It’s just... It’s hard for me to think straight when I’ve got a carnivorous... Thing... In my home. I know it can’t get out, but that doesn’t seem to do anything to alleviate my concerns. Not only for myself, but for it.”
The farmpony placed a hoof on the door, gently easing it open and helping the alicorn to her bed. Twi barely resisted as she was put in bed by the farmer, and soon she was watching as Applejack blew out the few candles that dotted the room. “Twi, I’ll come by tomorrow morning, and we’ll see if we can’t make some progress. But apple season’s starting soon, so this’ll probably be my last free day...”
“That’s fine, AJ. Spike and the others should be able to help. And from what they’ve said, Dash should be fine soon. The wound wasn’t as bad as we all thought.”
“That’s good, sugarcube. Now, get some sleep.” With that said, Applejack gently closed the door to Twilight’s room, gently making her way down the stairs to keep the noise to a minimum. Once she reached the bottom of the stairs she found herself torn for a moment. While she wasn’t normally one for going with the hype of a situation, she couldn’t help but realize just how right Twilight was about a few things. The creature really was the first alien contact for Equestria, and it was less than a minute away from her right now.
The guard stiffened a hair as Applejack trotted past, his eyes roaming over her for a split second before his gaze returned to the front door of the library. When the mare reached the opening that led to the creature’s room, she stopped, and just looked in. At some point it had moved from the floor to the bed, but it’s long frame made it look awkward on the bed. It’s face was shaped strangely, in Applejack’s opinion, and she rotated her head so that she could see the face as it would be when the creature was upright.
As she looked at the creature she felt a tiny shiver run along her spine, and she whirled in place to see the guard just behind her. “Miss Daniels, it’s getting late. Perhaps you should consider returning home.”
“I will. Just give me a minute.”
The guard nodded for a moment before he looked at the creature, a frown forming on his face for a moment. “I’ve seen my share of bizarre creatures, but nothing quite like this.” After that, the guard returned to his post, leaving the mare alone once again. Applejack’s gaze returned to the creature after the interruption, and she let a frown come to her face. The guard was right about how it looked. It seemed to have some similarities to some of the monsters she’d seen in some of Twilight’s books, but it still seemed distinctly alien to her.
It’s eyes opened for a moment as Applejack looked at it, and then they widened when it looked directly at the mare. Applejack met it’s gaze evenly, her fear being outweighed by her determination not to be cowed by the predator. A tiny tremble shook the creature’s frame, and it was in that moment that Applejack realized how things must be for the creature.
What Applejack didn’t realize, though, was just why that pang of sympathy ran through her, and how it was able to outweigh so many variables stacked against it. The pony mind is built solidly around an herbivorous diet. And, as such, it tends towards avoiding confrontation, and possible predators. The fear that surrounds these predators is so instinctive that few things are able to overwhelm it. One such thing is empathy. A wounded creature, no matter how fearsome, often instills a small measure of sympathy from an observer. While the creature isn’t mortally wounded, it is far from home. So far, in fact, that common measurement ceases to have real meaning anymore. This mental connection to home is something that all beings have, and is something that we radiate outwards.
A pony, without leaving the planet, cannot be further than eight thousand miles from home. Abderus, conversely, is presently 6.572 times ten to the fifty seventh miles from home. Give or take a bit.
8,000
vs
6,572,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Think about that for a moment.
That rationalization was forced upon Applejack as her mind attempted to reconcile that kind of empathic impact. Luckily for the mare she was made of tougher stuff than most, and the only outward sign of her sudden mental challenge was a sharp intake of breath.
“You really are a long way from home...” The mare was the first to break eye contact with the creature, and she quickly fled from Twilight’s home as she continued to try and understand what just happened to her.
Abderus woke slowly at the faint sounds of activity within the prison that contained him. Consciousness and the human had been only distant friends since the crash, rather than the best of buddies as was the norm. Still, he was awake now, and the pilot was determined to make some progress today. Even if it was nothing of consequence, he wanted to try and establish relations with his eventual consumers. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince them to kill him first, rather than just eat him alive.
After last night’s midnight encounter with the orange horse, and that realization of just how ‘not at home’ he was, he didn’t want to spare a thought for how alone he now was. His body still refused to function smoothly after the brutal landing, but it was working well enough for him to crawl out of bed and to his feet. After a few painful stretches the human started taking stock of his rather restrictive environment. Despite the stature of the horses, the room Abderus was in had a remarkably high ceiling. He didn’t even have to hunch over to prevent himself from gaining another concussion.
As he continued his observations of the room he felt a tingle run along his spine and a subtle change in the airflow caused the pilot to whirl in place. Standing at the entryway to his cell, where once had been an iridescent field of energy, now stood one of the horse things. It seemed eerily familiar, and Abderus sought to put distance between himself and the creature, lest it seek to gore him with it’s unsettlingly sharp horn.
It made no moves to pursue him, though, and when Abderus came to that realization he stopped moving. All manner of idiotic ideas flew through his head in that moment, and, for a fleeting moment, he considered the possibility that if he didn’t move the creature wouldn’t be able to see him. Following that was the assumption that if he moved slow enough he could get past the creature, and escape the cell he was in.
The horse’s eyes followed his every move, though, and the human simply sat in place, resigned to his fate. No amount of screaming would change what faced him, and so he resolved to deny them whatever sick pleasures they might seek to gain from his plight. He looked right back at the eyes of his captor, his defiance shining brighter in his eyes than the fear he felt. The creature’s horn began to glow softly, and several objects levitated past her, and onto the floor between the human and the horse.
The first of those objects was a glass of water... Unless it wasn’t water. The human wanted to think it was water, but there were too many possibilities to mention. The second object was easier to identify, if not a bit confusing. The small mouse seemed totally at ease within the grasp of the horse’s telekinetic grasp, and when placed on the floor simply stared around, content to sit there between the human and the horse. The third, and final, object was a plate covered in a small array of seemingly recognizable fruits and vegetables.
Abderus made no move to grab any of the objects, his caution outweighing any desire to investigate the newfound sources of information. The horse continued to look at the human intently, following each of his motions with poorly concealed intrigue. After nearly an hour of uncomfortable silence Abderus finally crumbled to the curiosity within. His hand slowly wrapped around the glass of what was, hopefully, water, and he brought it closer. He dabbed a finger in the liquid, testing to see if it would react unfavorably to his skin.
When no reaction was forthcoming he shrugged, placing the glass down beside himself as he looked at the finger that had just been submerged. He sniffed it, examined what had beaded on his finger, and spent far too long looking at it before he downed the glass, praying to whatever deity was present on this planet that he didn’t just ingest some horrible concoction that would turn him inside out, or anything unpleasant like that. The liquid was room temperature, and fairly tasteless, acting as a small reassurance to Abderus. It didn’t really mean anything, though, as it could simply be some tasteless poison, or something to that effect. The mouse-thing still sat in place, looking at the human with eyes that screamed the purest innocence. An innocence that almost seemed to be more than any creature like that should be able to show. The plate of veggies seemed promising, and yet Abderus didn’t yet trust that it was really edible. Perhaps a quick test...
A thin orange vegetable, that Abderus decided to call a carrot for simplicity sake, was soon proffered to the mouse, and it gladly took it, quickly starting to eat the food. The horse let out a gasp at this behavior, and the human immediately froze in place, his gaze coming to match the horse’s. After a moment, the horse shuffled in place a bit, and the human threw himself back at the wall, afraid of what consequence he had brought on himself with his seemingly innocent action.
Twilight looked at the creature with amazement. Sure, it had just had what looked like a panic attack, but it fed the mouse! It didn’t try to eat the mouse, or the fruits and vegetables, for that matter, but at least it had shown some sort of mental capacity beyond simple violence. For several long minutes the mare just watched the creature, trying to see if there was any reaction provoked by observation. After an indeterminate period of time it seemed to relax some. With agonizing slowness it approached the plate once again, this time snatching the remaining carrots off the plate, and then quickly moving back to it’s previous position.
Twilight remained seated, her mind racing as she thought of some way to further establish some measure of the creature’s intelligence. Suddenly, a spark of inspiration hit, and she summoned from her room a piece of parchment and a quill. The two items floated delicately before her for a moment, and then she lowered them to the floor, watching as the creature almost imperceptibly relaxed some at the cessation of magical ability. The mare made a quick mental note of that before she grabbed the quill in her mouth, several quick strokes bringing some lines to the page. She looked at it for a long moment before she smiled, and then prodded the parchment towards the creature.
Twilight moved back from the parchment some after a moment, waiting to see if the creature would see, and understand, what she had written down. After several long minutes the creature finally advanced to the parchment, its eyes looking at it for a few minutes before it took the quill, and wrote something down. It spent several long minutes writing before it finally looked back at Twilight. It didn’t move as far back as it had before, and then it just let its gaze flit between the paper, and Twilight. What Twilight saw on the parchment, after her approach, nearly made her jaw drop.
Just below her own simple mathematics was a long string of more advanced equations. Some even displaying more complex operations than the simple addition and subtraction she had performed at the top of the page. As she continued roaming her gaze down the page she suddenly found herself looking at some mathematics she had never seen before. The symbols the creature had used were much the same as her own, but she found herself unable to make sense of what she saw. Still, this alone was probably the most promising thing she had yet to see.
For a moment Twilight remained silent as she contemplated further development on what she knew of the creatures mental capabilities, before she realized that not only was this creature intelligent, it was also capable of communication. Twilight slowly approached the creature, several new pieces of parchment in her possession. Once she was about six feet away from the creature, she placed the parchment on the floor between them, the quill quickly moving down to start writing.
She counted to eight on the paper, a matching spelling for each number going onto the paper beside the number. Math, Twilight knew, was universal. The creature had just displayed a knowledge on the subject that surpassed her own, assuming that the creature wasn’t making it up, and so there had to be some basis for what was going through the creature’s head.
At that thought Twilight realized that referring to it as a simple creature was a bit... degrading. It was far more advanced than her initial reaction had prompted, and she was determined to find out as much about it as she could. Within a few minutes, Twilight had completed her writings, and she had written out the first two couplets in the Equestrian standard base eight counting system. Below that was Twilight’s name, the name of her species, her gender. She hoped this would be enough to establish a more formal dialogue with the creature, but she was also wondering whether it would understand.
Abderus noted what looked like happiness on the horse’s face as it looked at what he had written. Following that she had moved a bit closer, which at first made Abderus nervous, but then she had just started writing on the page, her gaze roaming over the pilot’s form every so often. Eventually, though, she stopped, and just looked at the page she had written, and then she slid it over to Abderus. As he looked over the page he realized that he had just been given a veritable trove of information about the creatures with little more than some numbers and a bunch of gibberish at the bottom.
The numbers were far more interesting to Abderus, though, since he could make sense of them. There were sixteen lines on the bottom most number, so, clearly, that was where the horse had stopped counting. As he looked along the symbols next to the numbers he quickly understood why she had only counted to fifteen, starting at zero. The symbols repeated themselves after eight, and Abderus rationalized that they must use a non-ten base counting system. Although using eight seemed just a bit arbitrary. Unless they counted two on each hoof.
Nothing about the bottom gibberish was decipherable, so Abderus decided to ignore it for now, and, perhaps, try and communicate with the creature. Before he could get started with that, though, one of the armored horses came in, his brow furrowed. It spoke quickly to the lavender horse, its tone clipped and harsh. It’s gaze never left Abderus, though. When the ‘guard’ finally stopped speaking, the horse in front of the pilot let out a sigh, and then it shook its head. It nodded, and then the ‘guard’ turned to leave.
Abderus slided the page back towards the horse, and he pointed at the first collection of gibberish. The horse looked at it for a moment before she said something, and pointed at herself. She repeated the motion again a moment later, saying the same thing. Then she pointed at Abderus, her expression happy. Abderus said the same thing as the horse, and pointed at himself, but the horse let out a quick laugh, and then pointed at itself and said the same thing once again, pointing at herself.
The connection was made, and Abderus placed one hand on his chest. “Abderus.” The horse’s eyes widened, and she nodded quickly. Abderus repeated the motion, and the horse seemed far happier with the results. However, after a moment, she stopped, and then pointed at the next piece of gibberish. She said it aloud, and then, for just a moment, she looked stymied. She let out a sharp cry, and the armored horse from before rushed in, its eyes locked onto Abderus. Its horn had a sharp glow surrounding it, but, after a moment of speech from the lavender horse, the armored one allowed the glow to dissipate.
The horse repeated the words again, and she gestured from herself to the armored one, and back again. Then, she pointed at the last piece of gibberish, and she pointed at herself while speaking. She pointed at the armored one for a moment, and she said a slightly different word. When she pointed at herself she said one thing, and then when she pointed at the armored one she said something else.
Abderus placed his hand on his chest, and he spoke once again. “Human. Male.” After a moment, he figured that perhaps he could use their terms for male and female, if that’s what they were saying, and try to make things clearer. Abderus figured that the one in armor was a male, simply because the role of guards is usually one given to a male in his own society. Not the strongest jump to make, but one he was making nonetheless. He repeated his motion from before, substituting the english version of male for what he hoped was the horse language for male. The lavender horse’s eyes widened, and she nodded.
Before Abderus could have a moment to enjoy the first human contact with another sentient species a new horse entered the room, this one covered in a coat of pink fur, and with pink hair on both head and tail. This one was, like the lavender horse, a female. Assuming, of course, that Abderus’ initial suspicions held true. She locked eyes with Abderus for several long minutes before a smile spread across her face. She spoke rapidly to the lavender horse, and then the lavender horse offered a smile to the pink one. The lavender horse’s response was much slower and Abderus clearly heard his name in it, as well as the term for male.
The pink horse nodded quickly before she turned her gaze on the human. She took a few steps closer to the pilot before she matched the lavender horse’s sitting posture. She tilted her head to the side just a tiny bit, and then her eyes widened. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Equestria, Abderus!”
Twilight looked on in apprehension as Pinkie sat herself before Abderus. She knew that Pinkie wouldn’t do anything to hurt Abderus. At least, not intentionally. When Pinkie spoke to Abderus his eyes went wide, and then he fell backwards, his expression one of shock and awe. Pinkie looked from Abderus to Twilight, and then she frowned. “I just wanted to say ‘hi.’”