Aurthur visits Equestria

by James Fire

The Library

Grabbing a book at random, I open it and start attempting to decipher it. No such luck, their alphabet isn't related to any I know. Pulling my computer out of my saddlebags, I contact Alyr.

"Does this bear any resemblance to an alphabet in your database?" I continue looking while waiting, double-checking just in case. Still nothing. Grab another book, look through, find nothing. Why couldn't Celestia have given me knowledge of the alphabet too?

"No matches sir, or even close resemblances. None of the languages I know are even similar, or related." Great, so I can't do any studying without help.

Sighing, I decide that I might need Discord's help with this after all. Or Twilight Sparkle. This is a public library after all... I think, so she shouldn't be too unwilling to help. If I want help, I should probably go look for it. Leaving the knowledge behind, I wander the castle, looking for anyone that could help. I walk for must have been a few minutes before I find an interesting room.

The room is circular, sorta, there are eight pillars of crystal jutting out of the walls that frame the doors and ruin the circle, but circular aside from that. A large table dominates the centre of the room, with seven thrones place around it. Six of them are placed equidistantly around the table, while a smaller one is place next to the one with the starry mark. Each of the six larger thrones have a symbol on them, three apples, a trio of diamonds, three differently coloured balloons, three butterflies, a cloud with rainbow lightning pointing down, and a star overlaying a second star, surrounded by five other stars.

The table is currently showing a map of the country, as well as surrounding areas. It looks like part of the global map back in my cave. Only part. Oh well, I still need help to read their language.

Leaving the room, I continue wandering the halls until I come upon a stairway. Deciding to ascend, I quickly move up the stairs, my hooves clopping on the floor. Nice echoes around here. Coming around the stairs, I find another set of hallways. More walking, yay. Continuing in my wandering, I find what appears to be a dining room, with a kitchen right off it. There is currently nobody in the dining room or kitchen. I take a look around the kitchen to get an idea of the diet of everyone living here. I find fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs, no meat. No fish either, or at least, nothing I can identify as fish. Seems they are vegan. Hmm, I am currently a close species, and I ate meat just fine, must be a cultural thing. I do find something odd though. A box full of gems. Very powerful ones too, seems they have been collecting mana for a while.

Still not what I wanted, but nice to know. I leave the kitchen and dining room to continue my search. As I walk around, I run into Twilight Sparkle coming around a corner.

"Oof!" She falls over, probably due to not paying attention as she came around the corner, and as such, was not prepared to bump into something. She looks up from the papers she is carrying in her aura.

"You're back!" She then proceeds to tackle hug me, followed by dragging me to the nearest room. Which happens to be the dining room. Noticing the room we are in, she asks, "Do you want anything to eat?"

I answer with a nod, and a question of my own. "Can you help me?" Honestly, what she says next surprises me, but based on what I know of her, it was not unexpected.

"Sure, what do you need help with?" She stopped at my question, but continued into the kitchen as she answered. I heard some items being moved around in there, but I didn't see anything as I am currently sitting at the table, which doesn't afford a view into the kitchen.

"Well, I know how to speak your language, but Celestia neglected to give me the knowledge to read it. I tried reading some books in your library, but the alphabet is not similar to anything I have seen before, and as such, I cannot translate it."

"Of course I will help! I would love to get to know you better. Maybe even become friends." She comes out of the kitchen carrying a plate of sandwiches in her aura. It seems she left her papers in the kitchen. We eat in silence, with me inspecting the sandwich for the ingredients. Flowers. Of course ponies eat flowers. Enjoying the two sandwiches she made for me, I see that she has retrieved the papers she was looking at earlier, and is continuing to peruse them while we eat.

I eat slowly, thoroughly enjoying the flavour. Twilight Sparkle eats slowly too, but I think it is because she is focusing on the papers, not lunch. Once I finish, she is only done one of her two sandwiches, so I patiently wait for her to finish. While waiting, I plan out what I want to read first. I would read everything, but this body doesn't have the computer connection my human one does. Maybe I should put it in? Anyway, I probably want to read a tome on linguistics first. Hopefully there is one here. Fluttering my wings, I prepare to study now that Twilight Sparkle is done eating.

"So what do you want to read first?" She gets up and starts walking towards the door, presumably heading for the library.

"Well, I want to read something on the study of your language. You have linguistic texts, right?"

"I should. The only library better stocked than mine is the Canterlot archives. And that's only because it has the only copy of dozens of books. We should be able to find something for you." Arriving at the library, she makes a beeline for a specific set of shelves. I follow just behind her, and prepare to get reading.

"I'm assuming you also have a dictionary?" Having one would really help, especially if it also has the way to pronounce words, assuming that the sound letters are familiar. Even if they aren't, or it doesn't have the pronunciations, I can still learn much from it.

"Of course, it's that book over there." I look to where she is pointing, and see a massive tome, easily half a meter tall, just as wide, but only about half as thick. Good thing I have seen such books before. They hold no fear for me. I trot over and open it. There are lots of words I can't read in here. I'm not sure if it has the pronunciations, but if the layout is the same as other dictionaries I have seen, then it does indeed have what I need. Alright, now I just need to know which characters make which sounds, then I can figure out the rest.

"Found it!" She seems very excited about that. I turn my head to see her walking over to me and the dictionary. "This here is a linguistic study of the major languages that are used in Equestria. But since you can't read, I think you will need me to stick around."

"I need some paper, and a writing utensil. Also, this dictionary has the phonetics for each word, right? If it does, can you write down each sound, and say it? That would really speed things along."

"Of course! Well then, this says..." I don't really need to say all this, it is not very interesting to most people, and I don't feel like writing it all down, so let's skip to the part where I start reading on my own.

About two hours later

"Good! Now that you can read, how do you feel about trying a spell?"

"That would be great. I would love to learn how you cast spells. It looks similar to what I do, but I think there are differences."

"Great! And you can try to teach me your method?" She is very excited at this prospect, she seems to be a scholar type, wanting to learn as much as she can.

"Yes, I can teach you my discipline." She practically jumps for joy at this, but she visibly calms down after a few minutes.

"Then we better get started! I will get a book on the basics." While she is gone, I continue deciphering the books I already have. I make significant progress, including being able to read the entire dictionary, although slower than I normally read. Twilight Sparkle returns with a fairly thick tome, but still smaller than the dictionary.

"Here, this is the first book used to teach unicorns how to use their magic. It has all the basics, and some advanced items." Gratefully taking the book from her, I open it up and start reading.

Author's Note:

Longest chapter! And I hope to put out a few more of this length. Or maybe the rest, but probably not.

Comments

[Boulder]

We eat in silence, with me inspecting the sand which for the ingredients.

sandwich

I'm not sure if it has the pronunciations, but if the layout is the same as other dictionaries I have seen, then it does indeed have the pronunciations.

Too repetitive, maybe at the end then it does indeed have what I need.
Twilight, our favourite egghead.

[James Fire]

7790662
Typos finally banished.