104: Field Re-derp-ch
Derpy entered the room to find Karyn poring over a long list of paper. She recognized it at once.
“Is that the list of ponies who are coming to Earth?”
“It is. I don’t know how everypony is going to feel about altering the list to bring Bon-bon ahead of schedule.”
Derpy ran her hoof down the paper. “Didn’t it already get messed up when Pinkie Pie couldn’t come?”
“Yes, but that was for Lyra’s wedding. Everypony knows about that now. This was more for one pony’s sake. We’ll have to see how forgiving they all are.”
“A lot of ponies keep a flexible schedule. Me, for one. Other than the mail and feeding the cat, there’s nothing that can’t wait a day. Of course, this was a week. Maybe we should hustle.”
Karyn was hoping to be made to feel better, but if Derpy was going to be no comfort, she would have to hope. She mounted up, made it to Equestria, and started jogging to keep up with Derpy’s pace.
She found herself catching up, and soon pulling ahead. Worried that Derpy was losing energy, she said, “Is everything all right?”
“We’re getting close, and I don’t think I want to go in.”
“I made it with Pinkie Pie, and you can make it with…oh, that’s why. It’s not the pony you have a problem with. All right, I’ll go get her.”
They reached the building, and Karyn knocked on the door. When she got the “Come in!” she creaked the door ever so slightly, lest Derpy see in. She slipped in and slammed it behind her.
“Are you ready to go, Scootaloo?”
“Sure am! Where’s Derpy?”
Realizing that the actual reason—not wanting to see Scootaloo’s messy office-cum-laboratory—might be a little insulting, she said, “She’s outside enjoying the sun. Let’s go.” It was technically not a lie.
When Scootaloo opened the door, she did not do so as softly as Karyn had, and for a moment exposed the office and its mess to open view. Derpy’s eye twitched, but it went no further.
“Hey, Derpy! Thanks for inviting me along!”
“No problem. We’re sorry that it had to get pushed back a week though.”
Scootaloo scratched the back of her neck. “It actually works out well for me.”
“Really? Do you want us to delay more?”
“No. At some point you have to just throw your hooves up and go, right? But it gave me an extra week to prepare questions.”
Derpy and Karyn simultaneously cocked their heads and said, “Questions?”
“Research questions! I’m ready to go to a whole world of blank flanks. There’s so much there to see and learn. But when you’ve only got a day, it’s like an astronomer getting her equipment set up and her notes together before some event like an eclipse or a meteor shower or such.”
Karyn held up her finger. “Remember, you can’t interact with anyone. You have to stay invisible.”
“I understand. Again, it’s just like astronomy. Observe without experimenting. But invisibility? Talk about a blank flank!”
Scootaloo chuckled at her own joke, but then got serious as Derpy went over how the interdimensional spell worked.
Karyn realized that they could be about to commit a major faux pas. Scootaloo was a pegasus who couldn’t fly, and no one wanted to bring that up. Should they just start for the clock tower? Should they mention it to her and hope it didn’t devolve into a flying conversation?
Derpy was having the same conundrum, and the way she dealt with it was to fly to the proper height and say, “You have to be this far up before you use it. That’s very important, or you’ll wind up in the ground.”
“I’ve got it!”
Karyn was still unsure of what to do until Scootaloo ran around the back and emerged, this time not around but up. She was seated on a chair that ascended skyward, driven by a telescoping piston. Karyn got on Derpy, and they caught up.
“What is that?” asked Karyn.
“I had this put in because a lot of pegasi prefer to stay in the air when they come over to visit. Oh, not you, Derpy, and not Fluttershy either, but Rainbow Dash does, and she’s important to me. I think a lot of ponies would like to have one of these in their homes to be nicer to pegasi, you know?”
To that they could say nothing.
When the chair reached the right level, they used the spells. Derpy hoped that the chair would be in the same place so that Scootaloo didn’t have to have a crash landing. Karyn gave her usual tour of the apartment.
“But I’m sure that you don’t just want to stay in here. Unless you’re planning to do all your research over the Internet?”
“No, I don’t. At least not now. Maybe later I can figure out a way to bridge an Ethernet cable across the dimensions.”
Derpy’s mind boggled. “You know about Ethernet?”
“Yes. You’ve written and spoken about them from time to time. I’m probably just paying more attention than most. Anyway, what I’d really like to do is to see people. We’re talking about a whole world where no one has a cutie mark. How do they know what their destinies are? How do they know what they’re meant to do? It’s one thing to try things, but how do you know?”
Karyn opened her mouth to explain, but Derpy cut her off. “It’s no good to just say it. It took me a long time to get my head around a blank-flank world too. It was only by watching people that I came to understand. Scootaloo should do the same.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But where? Where can I find people who know their destinies without cutie marks, or who are trying to find them out?”
This time Karyn got to speak. “Well, the school that I go to is a little ways down the road. Humans generally get a lot of schooling, and often they find what they want to do there.”
“Cool! Let’s do it!”
Karyn prepared to go out. “There won’t be classes today, or if they are they’ll be very specialized and we probably won’t find them. But Derpy can tell you that on Sunday when everyone’s off, there are always activities and general milling about. You’ll be able to see a lot of students but still have room to breathe.”
“I’ll make do.”
They left the apartment and started the walk. Scootaloo was still laden with her papers and effects, but Karyn was wearing her handbag as though it was weighing her down as well. As such, it was at a steady pace that they walked, and Derpy pointed out some of the sights.
“You’ll notice how when we get to the school everything gets fancier. If you got a job as a researcher here, you would be set for life.”
“I don’t know how true that is,” said Karyn. “Research professors generally have to spend a lot of time angling for grants. Teaching professors do a little better, but only once they have tenure.”
“I’m definitely no teacher.” Scootaloo huffed as the weight of her bag got to her. “Not to sell teachers short. If it hadn’t been for Miss Cheerilee, I’d have never started on my cutie mark research.”
“I remember watching you in that lesson.”
“You did? That’s…kinda weird. But not as weird as Miss Cheerilee’s cutie mark. She gave an explanation about seeing her flowers bloom and enjoying the smiles on our faces, but is her cutie mark really about teaching? Anyway, that’s what I started thinking about and it led to the general field of cutienomics. So, as much as I want to see students, I want to see teachers as well.”
Karyn smiled. “Less likely, but we’ll see what we can do.”
“What does that mean?” Derpy’s tone had just the tiniest bit of hostility.
“You can tell when I have an ulterior motive, can’t you? Well, yes, I have a paper that’s due tomorrow. I’m going to drop it off in my professor’s mailbox. Probably he won’t be there, but he’ll get it on time.”
“Why not just e-mail it?”
“Once in a while I like to pretend that I’m still an old-fashioned college student who has to walk the campus.”
Now it was Scootaloo whose tone was suspicious. “Really? And you with a cutie mark that represents computers? Are you sure that’s what it’s for? Let me see it again.”
“I am not going to drop my pants and show you my butt in public!” Karyn was approaching the college grounds, and as she emerged she thought that a few people might have heard her outburst and turned their heads, despite her wearing her Bluetooth. But she decided to ignore it. Besides, she had said that she wouldn’t.
Hustling through the quad, she led the ponies to her professor’s office. To Derpy’s eye, this was a much older building than the ones she had been in on the campus. The paint showed the warps and bumps of being several coats thick, and the windows and doors were heavier and out of style. It also appeared to be deserted as they entered.
As they made their way down the empty halls lit only by the sun filtered through decades of dirt on the windows, the hoofbeats of the mares echoed like a drum. Karyn found her professor’s office, dropped her envelope in the black plastic bin outside, and beat a hasty retreat back to the fresh air.
“Now that that’s done, we can work on your research. Do you want to head over to the student union? Last time we found a brony there who got to meet Twilight Sparkle. We could try that again.”
Scootaloo thought about it for a while, then said, “No, while I’d like to talk to a professor, even that wouldn’t be perfect. I wouldn’t be speaking the same language to them, talking about cutie marks. Let’s go back to plan A. Just show me some humans interacting.”
“All right. Let’s go down toward the sports fields. Those are usually busy.”
Again she led; again Derpy and Scootaloo followed. Derpy’s direction sense could have shown her the way, but she was content to let Karyn run the show. Once they could hear the sounds of the practice, she quickened her pace.
“We can go sit on the bleachers and watch the practice,” Karyn said.
Scootaloo hopped up toward the top. “Suits me fine.”
When they reached the top, Derpy said, “Ooh, these are comfortable for ponies. Long benches with plenty of room to stretch out on, and no backs to mess with us. Why aren’t all of your seats like these?”
“Derpy, don’t put Karyn on the spot like that. Humans are obviously more comfortable on a chair with backs and sides. Which raises the question: why do you have these here?”
“Because they’re easier to fit a lot of people into, as the people who run sporting events do. The participants like a big crowd too. This of course is just a practice, but come game time, they’ll want to pack them in.”
They watched the practice, which was for a girls’ lacrosse team. Karyn and Derpy shuddered at the intensity of the physical play, but Scootaloo took a detached and scientific view. But then she burst out with a cry that Karyn was afraid would be audible.
“Hang on! I thought you said that Karyn was the only human with a cutie mark. But there’s one right there!”
“Where? I want to see!” Derpy was almost as excited.
“I’ve got to look closer. Let me just get my binoculars.”
After some fumbling, Scootaloo said, “That’s definitely a cutie mark. Karyn, look for yourself and tell me it’s not.”
There followed one of the oddest moments Karyn had in her friendship with ponies, as she took hold of a pair of invisible binoculars. The lack of a black border to put things in perspective made the magnified parts especially disconcerting. Before she could wonder how the optics of such a device worked, she saw the girl that Scootaloo had alluded to, at which point she burst out laughing.
“Here, Derpy, go ahead and take a look.”
“Where? Where’s the cutie mark girl?”
“On the far side. The one who just got rid of the ball.”
Derpy paused, her voice moving as she scanned. “I see her,” she said, “but she’s facing the wrong way. Turn around, girl!”
A few more seconds passed before their target presented the appropriate part of her body to Derpy’s eyes, then she gave a chuckle herself.
“So, does somepony want to explain things to me?” Scootaloo was getting impatient.
“I will,” said Karyn. “That’s not a cutie mark; it’s a tattoo. It’s artificial body art done with ink and needles. Don’t ask me for more details because I don’t know myself how they do it. But she had to choose to get that mark there and pay someone for it. It has nothing to do with anything magical or with her destiny. Well, maybe a little with her destiny.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, a tattoo in that particular place has some unflattering names, but it implies that the person is somewhat…”
She trailed off, trying to think of how to explain the connotation to the ponies. Derpy tried to finish the sentence. “morally loose?”
“You could say that.”
“Oh.” Scootaloo stretched out the word. “You mean she could be something of a bully, like Diamond Tiara?”
“Not quite.” Karyn racked her brain, but the concept of promiscuity seemed foreign to the ponies. Either they were faithful in their marriages, or were unattached. If there was a seamier side to Equestria, then it was kept well hidden, and it was none of her business.
“Darn. And I thought for a moment that human cutie marks were a thing after all. But if they’re not, then I’m still at a loss. So explain to me, Karyn. If you didn’t have your mark, would you still be here at the school?”
“Definitely. See, when you’re a younger human, you don’t know what you want to do, but you’ve got to do something. So you take some schooling or a job and hope it works out right. Sometimes it’s not till later in life that you really find what makes you happy. Sometimes it never happens.”
Scootaloo was silent for a long time, and Derpy recognized that kind of thinking silence. She tried to help her along. “I know it’s not right, but such is life on Earth. They manage to be wonderfully creative even without that particular advantage.”
“But to spend your whole life not doing what you want…”
“That’s easy to say,” said Karyn, “but doing what you want doesn’t always pay the bills.”
“You should be able to do that whatever you do.”
Derpy took a deep breath. “I don’t think either of you are really understanding the other. Let me try to explain.” Karyn expected her to start by talking to Scootaloo, but by the direction of her voice it was plain that Derpy was addressing her. “To a pony, happiness means doing things for, or with, friends. It’s not always a job like, say, Applejack, who makes food for everypony. She just loves bucking trees and making apple foods. Pinkie Pie probably spends a lot more than she earns, but everypony helps her because they love the parties and so does she.
“But,” Now she turned to Scootaloo. “Here on Earth, a lot of people don’t want to do things like that. They want to finish their job and leave, go on vacations and holidays, even retire. Do you ever want to give up researching cutie marks?”
“No! Not as long as there’s more to find out!”
“But, and this is why I worry about you sometimes, Karyn, humans wouldn’t answer that way. They want to give it up and just relax all day. You have your cutie mark, but are you really going to be happy fixing computers every day?”
Karyn had thought her part in the conversation was done. “I think so. But I know what you mean. For a human, a career is a journey, not a destination.”
“That’s something that I understand, but most ponies don’t. Partially because of the time I’ve spent with you, but also because carrying the mail isn’t something I would choose to do. My father loved it more, but even he said that it hurt his wings sometimes. So he relaxes, and I relax. I hoped Dinky would be more like other ponies, but she’s the same way.”
They all watched the practice for a while longer, then made their way back from the campus. A bank of low clouds had rolled in, and it matched the mood of the girls.
At last Scootaloo had had enough. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t live that way. If I wasn’t happy doing this, I’d be finding out what did make me happy and trying everything to get there. Just like when I was young and wanted to be Rainbow Dash…”
“All right, fair enough,” said Karyn, “but isn’t there something you want to accomplish in researching cutie marks? Some discovery you want to make? If not for yourself, then for other ponies?”
“Yes, but it’s an ongoing thing. I want to make sure that the foals of tomorrow don’t go through what I had to, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom as well. There shouldn’t be a need to try everything and fail so often, when that time could be spent doing what you love!”
Derpy reached out a wing for her. “I understand. But not everypony is like you. I know how much waiting ground on you, even though you kept a brave face through it. I wasn’t like that. I got my cutie mark young. Sometimes I wish it had taken longer.”
“Maybe there is a little human in you after all. You’re right. Some ponies are like that. Even some I know. Maybe I don’t have to go to another world to find my answers. Maybe they’re right at home.
“At the same time, I still wish that I could do some kind of magic to give humans cutie marks. Maybe then they wouldn’t be looked down on and pressured if it turned out that their destiny was, for example, just some bubbles.”
“Come on,” said Karyn. “Let’s get back home.”
“Why in such a rush?” asked Derpy.
“So I can see your face and how you react when somepony says something sweet like that.”
They sped up, both because of Karyn’s sentiment and because the first raindrops were beginning to fall. By the time they reached the apartment, the ground was spotty. The heavy clouds were no longer ominous, only a cooling spring squall.
Visible at last, the ponies were all smiles. Scootaloo took copious notes as she stacked her papers high in her saddlebag. She looked as if she was about to lose her balance as she stood on three hooves and pawed the spell to bring her home.
“Thanks for everything, you two. I’m sure that I’ll make an exciting paper out of this.”
“I’m looking forward to reading it,” said Derpy.
“Don’t worry. I’ll include a short version at the beginning. Even if you get bored reading through it, you’ll know what it’s about. So long!”
Derpy had a soft laugh at Scootaloo’s estimation of her attention span, but an even bigger one came a moment later when some scraps of paper near the ceiling turned visible and flitted down to the floor.
“What happened?” asked Karyn.
“Looks like we finally found the range of the teleportation spell. It cut these clean off. I’ll bring them back to her when I get home.”
“This was a fun day. There’s one thing that we didn’t get into with Scootaloo in all our friendly debate about what people do with their lives.
“What’s that?” asked Derpy as she packed up.
“Part of the reason that humans like me want to have time when they’re not working is so that we can have days like this, where you relax, spend time with friends, and talk about the mysteries of life.”
“That’s true. But speaking of spending time with friends, today was another day when we didn’t have a human guest. Just like when Pinkie Pie showed up a few weeks ago, it was just us walking around.”
Karyn sat down at her computer to check her class schedule. Another weekend was coming to an end, and it was time to get back into her routine. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Just like I still want to have an occasional week where it’s just us, sometimes it’s good to bring a pony here and just let her observe.”
“But aren’t you worried about not having enough human friends?”
“No. Take that girl we saw today with the tattoo. Between that and being into sports, we don’t have much in common. Now, we don’t have magical friendships here that are ordained by destiny. But we do have a lot of people, and I’m still young. In all sorts of ways neither of us can imagine yet, I’ll make more friends. I just know it.”
Derpy shouldered her saddlebag. “And even if I’m not young—“
“Which you are.”
“Says you. Even if, I know it’s never too late to make friends.”
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Coco Pommel is the pony. As for the human, I don't have a guess.
Pity working with induvidual electrons is so tricky, or Id say use the minimum teleport spell on half an electron and wiggle it at each end. One way would be to use a very specially grown pair of geodes, but no idea if Twilight, Starswirl or anyone else currently has any spells, ideas on the methods.
Im trying to remember where Ive seen Scoots high altitude chair. Bugs Bunny I think it was.
4463701 The Doctor, as best I could make him, was in the clip show. I can't do more than that. For Albert...patience, patience.
Dangit stop keaving us wondering who's next!
Plz?
Thinking up on it, we don't really know that many Earth ponies not from Ponyville... Maybe Maude?
Keep going! ;)
I wonder if you'll ever run out of puns to use for the titles
I have a feeling the pony is Octavia...(female, Earth, not of Ponyville...)