Having chained your right hand to the pipes, Flamethrower rests her front hooves on the edge of the pipe and gives you a firm look over. Unsure of what to do, you simply sit there until the pegasus motions for you to get up and bellows out a sharp, commanding whinny that instinctually forces you to comply. Flamethrower jumps into the tub and sniffs you over with a suspicious look in her captivating orange eyes. Eventually, she seems satisfied and floats over to you to pat you on the head reassuringly before nodding and flying into the other room.
"What the hell?" You mouth. Probably one of those that thinks I'm an animal.
You look around, trying desperately to find a way out of your new conundrum, but quickly realise there's little to no chance of escape. Not just because of the handcuffs, but because of your continued inability to walk safely on clouds. For now, the metal tub is the only thing keeping you from smashing into the ground underneath the city. So you are stuck as flame pony's guest. Hearing the rustling of clothes, you move as far away from the pipe as possible and peek through the slightly ajar door, where you catch a glimpse of your captor pulling up the zip of a familiar blue spandex outfit with her teeth. The sports team from the advertisement!
She must be a fan or something. Would be nice if she got me some help before cosplaying, though.
Without further ado, the wild-looking pony speeds out of the window, leaving you alone. In desperation, you pull a pen out of your pocket, break the casing and fruitlessly jam it into the keyhole of the cuffs, but end up accidentally cracking the plastic container, spilling ink over yourself. "Bah! Fuck!" you exclaim and toss the ruined thing away, inadvertently causing it to disappear into the cloud. "... okay." You look around the bathroom incredulously. Who the hell decided 'oh yeah, we're gonna live in the fucking clouds where all our shit falls down to the earth when we're not looking?'
After washing the ink off as best you can, you pull at the pipe with your imprisoned hand, clanging the cuff against it. Seeing that the pipe extends into the cloud, you stand up in the tub and extend your arm into the white ceiling, directly above the pipe. At your touch, the cloud briefly flashes an odd pink color and the pipe immediately comes loose with a snap and hiss, your hand having apparently severed the magical connection holding it there. You drop the now leaking pipe onto the tub and pull the cuff off of it, leaving the latter idly hanging on your arm.
"I should be an escape artist." You mutter. Now what? Loose or not, you still had the itty-bitty problem of being stuck high up in the sky on clouds you couldn't walk on. Maybe if I can at least get out of here, I can find help.
Very carefully, you step onto the edge of the tub, praying that it doesn't flip and leap onto the toilet bowl. Once you regain your balance there, you reach over to the hanging towels and grab all of them so you can tie them together along with the rags of your cloak. You tie the makeshift rope to the lever controlling the toilet flush and climb down through the cold, wet cloud to the floor directly under you.
You find yourself hanging above a fairly opulent living room. Well, opulent to you, maybe. Given the Roman trappings you'd seen everywhere when you rode in on Daredevil's back, the giant fireplace, expensive-looking portraits of ponies in heroic positions, gold chandeliers and fluffy cloud armchairs were probably all par for the course. The winged ones are quite literally upper class, you realize.
Unfortunately for you, the only non-cloud substance in your immediate vicinity that you can land on is a glass reading table. Your raggedy cloak rips a little, nixing any ideas you might've had of returning to the bathroom upstairs.
You swear loudly and lower yourself as much as possible before swinging back and forth. "Okay... come on... I can do this." You mumble, feeling cold sweat on your forehead. Forwards. Backwards. Definitely on the next one! NO, wait, not ready yet! Okay, and... jump!
Letting the tied up towels go, you land straight onto the glass table with a loud thunk and stand tall, beaming and correcting your black bow-tie like... a... boss.
Crick. Criiiiiiiiick.
You freeze and, moving your head with the gentlest of motions, focus downward where you see slowly expanding lightning bolts emerge in the glass from under your feet. The table keeps creaking as your body weight sways on it, ready to shatter any second and send you falling through the cloud city to your death.
In a last ditch attempt, you try to jump off the cracking table and onto a shiny green carpet, though you're only able to grasp onto the edge, the rest of you dropping into another cold, unpleasant cloud. This one's a lot thicker than the secondfloor, however, and you end up surrounded by damp, thick mist, unable to see or even breathe very well. A magical force prevents the carpet from falling through the cloud with you, making it seem stiff and unyielding under your fingers. At least it helps you to hold on.
You hang onto the carpet for your life, not strong enough to pull yourself up. "H-help!" You finally sputter, not caring if you're gonna be sold to a zoo at this point. "Somebody... help! Help!"
Almost immediately, you feel a warm pair of hooves wrap tightly around your midsection to your immense relief. You release your grip on the carpet and let the pony pull you out of the cold, thick cloud and onto Flamethrower's carpet. As the hooves pull away, you get a good look at your savior and gape.
"What the heck are you doing here?"
Shaggy the bat pony just cocks his head to the side and looks at you fondly, as if his sudden appearance to save you was not ridiculously convenient at all. You notice a glinting silver medallion around his neck, with the emblem of the curved white moon on a black background, aka Princess Luna's butt symbol.
After a moment passes, he walks closer and sits down next to you to nuzzle your hand a little, with a wide smile on his furry face. Unable to resist the cuteness, you rub his back. "Yeah, I guess it's good to see you too. Well, it actually kinda literally is, since I was about to die and all..."
Remembering that you still need to find your friends, you stand up. "Hey, Shaggy, you mind giving me a lift?" You do mimic the Superman takeoff with your hands, hoping to get your point across... somehow.
The bat pony pointedly lies down onto the carpet like a sleepy dog, licking the sharp canines that jutted out of his mouth.
"Okay, no lift." Sighing, you relax next to him and absent-mindedly scratch behind Shaggy's pointy left ear on instinct. "Guess we'll just hang out here." As the two of you sit and wait, you pull out your worn notepad to doodle, only to realise you'd destroyed your pen. "Aww, man..." you whine. "And I just had to leave the cards home."
You drop the notepad on the floor, catching Shaggy's attention. The pony pulls it over to him with his hoof and opens it up, revealing your alien lettering. As his blood-red eyes widen, you wonder what they look like to him. Also indefinable lines? Or maybe blocks? No way to know. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but this word problem is really annoying." You quip.
Curiously, Shaggy lifts page after page, eventually opening up on your very first attempt at drawing that legendary creature of contradictions. Well, those are some good words. I'm really underappreciated as a poet.
The sight of the thing you'd nicknamed Bizarro seems to catch the bat pony off guard as he drops the pad on the carpet and immediately shuffles behind you, peeking out as if expecting the picture to come to life and start chasing him. "Now, now, don't be like that!" You pat the overly nervous bat pony's mane. "I know I'm not a professional, but there's no need for that sort of behaviour." Is Shaggy actually Luna's guard, or just some special case of hers who keeps following people around?
To prove there is no threat, you pick up your pad and go through the pictures, one by one. Shaggy doesn't appreciate it, however, and jumps off the carpet and onto the cloud floor, eyeing the drawn pictures. You roll your eyes at his childishness. Fortunately, the slam of a door interrupts your silent artistic stand-off and you stuff the pad into your back pocket as three winged ponies speed into the living room. All three of them are dressed in that same blue spandex and pilot goggles you'd glimpsed earlier, with drawn white bolts circling the hooves and a bigger one running down the chest. In the center was the fiery pony you were already familiar with. On the left was a stallion with a very deep blue mane color and a baby blue coat. The last one, a mare, had a slightly darker blue coat than the stallion, and a magnificently bouffant white mane that was whipped backwards much like Flamethrower's, giving you the impression of a polar opposite.
Speaking of the devil, Flamethrower whinnies loudly and points at you aggressively. The other two try to move towards you, but Shaggy blocks them off, rearing in front of you. As you'd noticed before, his words were all inaudible, but now his red eyes were angry and burning. You had no idea what the argument was even about, but at one point, the bat pony held up his moon medallion with the frog of his hoof, obviously invoking Luna's authority for... something. This quiets things down a bit and before you know it, Shaggy wiggles underneath your legs and stands up tall to take flight with you on his back. Surrounded by the sports pegasi, you fly out of a window, heading towards the marshmallowy Colosseum in the distance. Unlike your traffic jam experience with Daredevil, however, the winged ponies seem to instinctively move out of your way. And why wouldn't they? One's a fierce as fuck bat and the other's a bona fide alien with wiggly fingers.
You take a deep breath as the five of you approach the arena, not knowing what to expect when you got there. One of those days, Anon. One of those days. Again.
I wonder how grief-stricken Fluttershy is and how panicked/devastated Twilight is, both thinking that their poor human friend fell to his demise.
The language barrier usually is a hindrance in most fics but i occasionally find one that makes it fun and interesting. This is one such work. I am ebjoying the story and love the soft of the interactions.
Aww I wanted Annon to experience the bunkers
9596407
The what now?
9596293
And how ticked off with Rainbow they will be for zipping off in the first place, and then dropping him.
9596412
I mean like going to prison, jail or the bunkers some sailors say
I wanna chapter from the other side of the story so we can get a better understanding of the language barrier
9596492
Without Anon knowing his rights, Spitfire cannot arrest him. Plus, it wasn't even his fault he fell through her roof
9596591
I mean they could arrest him, they just wouldn't be able to use anything he said as evidence against him in court.
So clearly that'd be an important element.
9596604
Even if he's incapable of learning their laws or communicating?
Edit: Magic being a factor, I'd say Equestrian laws differ from US ones anyway.
Shaggy for the rescue, nice! Wonder if Luna assigned him as some kind of guardian angel for Anon, hmm...
Major fails for RD, the others must be worried sick. Thanks for another great chapter!
9596614
Well, yes, I imagine their laws would be different, but Miranda Rights not being said don't make you impossible to charge, it just prevents the police from tricking you into saying something you don't know you have the right not to say(and then, only after you've been arrested- if the police come to apprehend you and you're yelling "I killed my girlfriend", miranda rights don't apply to that).
Honestly it's entirely possible their culture doesn't even have Miranda Rights, considering that's basically an offshoot of 'Innocent until proven guilty' which was a direct and almost aggressive departure from 'old world law' where you were required to prove your innocence. If they use any system other than ours directly, there'd be no reason to use Miranda Rights, and in a world where breaking the law can go so far as 'personally on your own tried to destroy a city with that thing on your head', I can easily imagine them not giving the presumption of innocence.
9596293
Not for long when there's no body to find. And the hubbub of a batpone flying the human to the arena, the most populous place, word should spread quickly of where "Growly McGrowls" is. That and Spitfire will probably want someone to pay for the plumbing and table he broke.
...and possibly to pay for the cloudworks he's about to break (disperse?) when he starts touching stuff-- voluntarily or not.
9596339
Kind of the opposite for me. We've hit over forty thousand words and what little progress has been made at this rather glacial pace is constantly undermined such as this latest bit with him losing the cards.
It's an awesome story and not leaving my favorites list anytime soon, but I'm seriously hoping something happens soon.
9596791
The answer is in the description. Slice of life fluff. I planned this story to be just something fun I could write on my downtime. Innocent wholesome human/pony one-offs.
So rather than just go straight from point A to point B, it's basically Anon living his life, meeting new fan favourites and learning more about Equestria, bit by bit.
Not to mention, the one time I seriously deviated from that with the Chrysalis arc, it didn't come out very well so I am slightly wary of pushing the story into brand new territory too fast.
That being said, I do have some cool stuff and revelations planned. I think once the Cloudsdale arc is done and dusted, you'll like the next storyline significantly more.
9596656
Celestia has been proven to have absolute authority over the land. She has erased events from the history books, raised others to positions of authority without committee, and regularly imprisons her enemies without due process of law. Not saying any of this is bad, but she is more of an absolute monarch than a constitutional monarch, if not outright (benevolent) dictator.
Add to that the fact that you never see any police force, only royal guards and military ponies like the Wonderbolts and the E.U.P., the presence of a rich, powerful noble class, AND the fact that Celestia's sister can literally enter your mind through your dreams, and you're looking at a very harsh legal system. Something like Miranda's Right's is probably 200 years or more away.
9596912
Oh! I'm sorry, I must not have been very clear; I'm more than fine with slice-of-life, and in fact I feel like you do a wonderful job with it! I was referring to the communication issues. I'm hoping that issue can get some good progress going while still keeping the slice-of-life tone. Though maybe a bit of shipping would be fun too.
9596933
Eh, I'd say you're overthinking things. Of course it doesn't have any of that, because that's not even remotely the sort of thing that would fit the show. It's a light-hearted show for younger audiences with a clear fantasy/adventure/slice-of-life tone, so none of that would fit.
Using the lack of heavy politics and court cases and that sort of thing as an excuse to say Equestria is harsh and unforgiving is... well pretty ridiculous.
9596951
Ponies are just naturally more trusting and co-dependent creatures than humans. Their politics are based less on law and more on pure faith.
9596791
It's not like cards and pens are irreplaceable artifacts. Well, the pen won't be replaced by something as convenient, but still.
9597101
Pens exist in the MLP universe(I specifically made sure to see a photo of one in the show before writing it in). Anon did not bring it with him from our world.
9597106
Then better still. This is a setback to the tune of like 3 bits, NBD.
9596952
Interdependent? Co-dependent is a relationship failure mode.
More please!
So I hope Anon is going to torture Dash for the rest of time for dropping him. She had literally 1 job and failed
I like the bat pony, it reminds me of my boxer.
Shaggy hides behind a veil of cuteness! Though his reaction to the depiction of Discord is interesting. He's seen things...
And anon gets effectively a police escort to the show! How jealous! Rainbow is in big trouble...
Keep going! ;)
"There's no rest for an Anon."
Never
I'm thinking Shaggy, or which ever pone you've nicknamed shaggy, I don't remember what the case was, just figured out that the resident man-creature is indeed very sentient. If I'm using the correct word there.
Also, if they collect a bunch of his writing, couldn't they get some codebreakers or whatever and try and learn his written language? I don't know much on the subject of translating unknown languages, but from what I remember mentioned in a few Vsauce episodes, there's a certain technique to it that, I think, works on all currently known languages.
No offense, but does Equestria's official language use the Perso-Arabic script?
And what is their official language, anyway?
9598773
The Equestrian script that Anon sees isn't necessarily the actual Equestrian script. Anon being an unmagical creature by nature makes him incapable of processing anything that's magical. That's why all spells just die out when they come into contact with him.
9598804
So what language are they speaking that Anon can't understand? And how did that language get its history, evolution, etc.?
9598817
It's not that he's incapable of understanding the language from an educational perspective, it's that the language itself is imbued with magic and his brain cannot process it correctly. So all he hears are horse sounds.
9598826
Imbued with magic... how is a language imbued with magic so that only certain people understand it?
9598903
Magic.
9598956
So if humans learned the ponies' ways, could humans use magic to encrypt a spoken conversation and have it sound like complete and utter jibberish to anypony or anyone within earshot?
9598970
If they found a way to adapt to magic and also a way to harness it a la unicorn horns, then yes.
9598972
So another question: the answer is likely to be "it's in a separate canon", but how did Sci-Twi understand the ponies in "EQG: Spring Breakdown"?
9599130
I've never seen Equestria Girls
but I'd say that the EqG universe might have a very low-level magic field.
(Also, Sci-Twi is a rubbish name, whoever came up with it needs to be fired)
You know, the fact that Anon can write does beg the question: if he can't learn/use pony language/writing for himself because of magic, why haven't any of the ponies attempted to learn his own language/writing? I mean, you CAN use language without magic. We're living proof of that.
Hmm. So the pen falls through the floor, but the notepad doesn't... did it get dropped on the carpet?
9599952
Anon never drops the pad
9599773
Because something devoid of magic is as alien to them as something magical is to Anon. That's also why they can't levitate items that he brought with him from the human world.
9599695
If you were a unicorn and mastered magic, then yes.
9599973
Yeah, but written language is nothing more than symbols. Any intelligent person would eventually be able to comprehend it, magic or no. And Twilight Sparkle is a freakin' genius, or so it looks like.
I'm just saying, I get that the language barrier is the whole shtick of this story, but it seems like a silly thing to have the ponies be so incomprehensible despite the fact that they clearly act and think in familiar ways. I dunno, just that it might help out to have writing as a conduit for communication so that Anon won't go batcrap insane and can occasionally explain things or have them explained to him without guesstimation.
I dunno, just sayin', either that or maybe start moving to wrap it up? It feels like there either needs to be a (natural) escalation of the story, or a conclusion as the premise is getting a bit long in the tooth. But that's just my two cents, I'll read it anyway.
9600243
They're not incomprehensible. Apart from the highlighted bits like the Diamond Tiara incident and Chrysalis' scheme, the ponies and Anon don't really have a struggle understanding one another on a day to day basis, especially with Fluttershy mediating. As you said, they act and think similarly, and both Anon and the ponies are passive enough where the absence of direct communication doesn't bother them enough to work on it 24/7.
I get the desire to have things escalate however.
EDIT: As for the written symbols part, I've already said that perception plays a big part in this. The magical and non-magical worlds operate on a different set of metaphysical rules even if the concepts are the same, and it would take an enormous amount of magic (a la the power of Luna as a dreamwalking alicorn) to break through that even temporarily.
read 24 chapters today, hope to see more soon, really good story.
there ain't no rest for the wicked.
Wasn't his very first attempt to draw Discord were ripped off the book by Luna after she doodled Hitler's mustache there?
HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS BEFORE?!?! HOw did I miss such an amazing pun!?!