//------------------------------// // 19 - Clear Diction // Story: Fading Suns: A New World // by David Silver //------------------------------// Laud led the way with Lyra as his companion. "This is unlikely to be that interesting to watch, I warn. I simply need some assistance with something." "Something I'd like to know about, if it's not a big deal." She trotted along, tail swaying in obvious good cheer. "I mean, if you want to. I don't want to be a nosey jerk about it or anything." She was clearly nosey, but a jerk? "It isn't a secret. It certainly won't be if Starlight can do what I hope she can." He pushed open the door of the castle and passed inside, the mint green pony kept at his side as he began to hunt for Starlight. "Starlight? Miss Glimmer?" The castle felt at once massive and homey at times. Finding other ponies was usually when it felt at its largest. Laud suddenly realized what was missing. There were no servants to fetch the ladies and lords of the castle, help keep track of where they may be, or any of the other countless chores that needed doing to keep any castle running properly. It seemed like no small miracle that Twilight could keep the place going with her staff of one and a half. It was less than a skeleton crew. Starlight's head emerged from one door among many as Laud and Lyra explored. "Someone shouting for me?" "Ah, Starlight, good to see you." Laud approached her with purpose. "Do you recall the device I've left in my room, about this big?" He made the circular gesture by placing his fingers together from both hands to form a wide circle. "It's meant to make sounds outside the range that humans can normally make." Starlight tilted her head to the left, vanished, then just as abruptly reappeared, holding Laud's translator. "This thing?" Lyra grinned at the thing. "That looks pretty cool to me!" "It warms quickly." Laud missed the saying. "The problem is that it is not..." He did not know the word for 'programmed'. "It does not know the pony language, so it can't help." "Right?" Starlight turned it around in her magic's grip, eyeing it suspiciously. "So, what do you want me to do with it?" Laud pointed at Starlight's horn and its glow. "Lord forgive me, but your magic, or psionics, or whatever it ultimately is might be the key. Lady Sparkle said that you can influence the electronics inside it." Starlight's face brightened. "Right! She was going on about that, but even she can barely make anything happen, and she's practiced it more than I have, so far. Why are you asking me instead of her?" Lyra's tongue poked free of her snout. "Even I can answer that. First, our man Laud here tries to be polite, and Twilight is a princess, so asking her to do things isn't the first thing he'll think to do." Starlight quirked a brow. "So my time is less important?" "I do not mean to imply that." Even if was true, Starlight was a person of common birth so far as he could discern. "I am told by Lyra here that you enjoy magical challenges." Her expression eased from its wary edges as she smiled. "As it happens, I do." She brought the translator to almost touching her quivering nose as she turned it this way and that. "I'll do what I can. Is it safe for not-humans to wear?" "Entirely." Laud relaxed a little, knowing Starlight had accepted his reasoning. "It was originally meant for inhuman throats to make human sounds, so that those we met could speak with us." "Is that so?" Starlight opened the collar and slipped it around her own throat, turning it around until it felt right and closing it. "Test?" The device spat out a seemingly random word, as if it had noticed speech but was unable to figure out what was actually being said. Lyra looked quite amused by it. "That is just amazing! I'd wear one of those if it meant I could talk your crazy language. Speaking of that, could you say a few things in it?" "Such as?" "Oh, I dunno... how about a stirring war ballad. I bet you know a few of those." She swayed a little as she made her plea. "Or maybe a nice poem. I wonder if it'll sound right." Laud considered before he spoke in the clearest English he could, "We stand on the precipice of war. Though the sky may be stained red with those that may fall in the future, we must plant our feet on the ground and face the future with unwavering resolve." Lyra's cheeks went a deep red. "Nice! Was that a love sonnet? Was it for me? It sounded so romantic!" Starlight shook her head slowly. "I doubt that was a love poem. He looked a little too serious for that." She quirked a smile. "Besides, why would you want a poem from an alien anyway?" "Why wouldn't I?!" Lyra blew a raspberry at Starlight. "Can you fix that thingie." She pointed at the translating collar. "It's making all kinds of funny words, but I don't understand a single one of it. Laud, can you understand it." Laud made a single wave. "It's nonsense. My language, yes, but random nonsense. It does not understand what Starlight is saying." Starlight pulled it free easily with her magic and brought it to Laud. "How does it work when you use it?" Laud didn't fight her, so she slipped it on him and clasped it shut. "Alright, let's hear it." Speaking in the pony tongue would just get more nonsense. He reached up and fiddled with the settings. He knew how to turn it towards three particular languages it was programmed with, and turned it towards the equine sounds of the horses he knew previously, the shantor. He spoke in English, "This is a test." What emerged was equine snorts and noises. Both ponies looked appalled a moment before Lyra fell over laughing. "Oh wow! What a tongue!" Starlight looked away, her cheeks warmed. "I don't think you meant what you said, but please don't say that again." Laud frowned as he undid the clasp of the translator. "What did it say? There were no pony words that I recognized." Lyra rolled back up onto her haunches. "It has the thickest accent I ever heard, and it came out a bit garbled, but it sounded like you were making a very lewd proposal. I'm flattered, really, but we're still getting to know each other." Starlight reached with her magic, reclaiming the translator. "I see it already knows how to speak a little like we do. That should make this a touch easier. Look, I can't make any promises. What happens if I break it trying to make it do what we want?" "Then I will lose a thing that serves no purpose in its current condition." Laud shrugged. "Whereas if you do succeed, I will gain something valuable. It is a risk, but the benefit is worth it." Starlight slipped it away into whatever pocket space it seemed all ponies had. "What if I go the other way? I mean, if I teach it our language, there's no reason we can't make it so a pony wearing it can talk your language, just like you want to speak ours without your accent." "What's wrong with his accent? It's cute." Lyra sat up properly. "It's 'you'. No reason to rush to be generically good. When I hear that nasally pitch, I know it belongs to a brave human stallion." Laud did not like being referred to as nasally in any context. "It is better to be understood clearly. As for ponies speaking English, that would be great, but I only have one of those, and there are many more ponies than that." Starlight got the most wicked of planning faces an instant before she vanished away. Lyra peered at the spot she had once occupied. "That mare has something up her sleeves." "When does she not?" He turned towards Lyra, the only conversational presence left. "Do you think she can do it?" "With that expression? She'll keep trying until it explodes or she gets it, I bet. It'll be fun to see either way, but she ran off before we could." She rolled her eyes. "She probably poofed to one of the many labs hidden in this castle to get to work." It was all Laud could ask for. "I need to speak to Lady Sparkle next." "Lady Sparkle," echoed out Lyra with an amused tone. "I bet she looks flustered every time you call her that." "She does. Do you know why?" The idea that a noble would show any aversion to being addressed with a title confused Laud. "That's easy." Lyra stood up and began walking. "I knew her for the longest time, since before she had wings, or a crown. She was just a nerdy little unicorn, a runt really, but here she is now, bigger than most of us with a castle that dwarfs the town." Laud walked with her, wondering if she knew where Twilight was at that moment. "About that. You say she was purely a unicorn?" "One hundred percent." She pointed up at her own horn. "Just the same as me. She earned her wings, became a princess, pop, just like that. I was so excited for her! I couldn't stop giggling and bouncing for days." Laud had little issue imagining Lyra doing just that. "Was it a sorcery that allowed it?" "It was! She, what was it... She learned a new kind of magic, of friendship." Lyra nodded firmly. "Yes, that was it, for sure. That's why she's the princess of friendship." That idea was less easy to grasp. "A magic that forms friendships?" "Nah, we've had those forever, as lame as they are." Lyra waved that idea away. "More like... harnessing friendship, of making the strength of our bonds into a thing of magic. It's pretty special. I've seen her go all rainbow power with it, literally. It's a wild show. Her and her friends fwoosh around like a bunch of super-ponies." Friendship turned into arcane strength? It threatened to get close to the oddest concept he had heard on their planet so far. "Does it drain that friendship?" "Not that I can tell. I mean, they're all super close friends still. Bunch of oddballs, really. A fashionista, an excitable extrovert socialite, a reclusive introvert scholar, a hard-working laborer, an almost painfully shy animal expert, and a dare-devil athletic walk into a bar..." "Is that a joke?" "It is! I was wondering if you'd get it. Still, a crazy group that loves each other so very much. I get jealous at times before I remember I have my Bonnie and it's alright." She pointed up at Laud. "And maybe you, maybe. We're working on that, right?" They emerged into a small library where Twilight was poring over a book while taking notes on a floating piece of parchment, a quill that glowed with her magic scribbling on it quietly. She must have heard them enter and twitched an ear towards them. "Laud? Who's that with you?" "It's me," called out Lyra. "Which you'd know if you just turned around. What's up?" Twilight finished what she was writing and set it aside before she turned. "I heard Laud's shoes easily enough, but hooves are not as easy to identify from one another. Lyra, good to see you." Her eyes moved to Laud. "And you as well. How can I help either of you?" Before Laud could ask a question, Lyra jumped straight in, "He was wondering how you became a princess and got your wings. Knowing him, he probably wants to know what sort of strange magic was involved that made you get bigger and grow wings. Did that hurt, by the way? I bet it had to, I mean, how could it not?" Laud put a hand over Lyra's face. It was an inexcusably rude thing to do among humans, but he'd seen enough ponies do it to one another to know it was considered normal for them to cut one another off if two were familiar. "While fascinating, I have more pressing questions."