2: Literacy
When I woke up, I could hear two voices talking.
"...and when I looked back, he had fainted."
"Okay..."
"So I tried to wake him up, and when that failed, Jack and I brought him here."
"That makes sense, ignoring the fact that you cooperated with a timberwolf."
"And that's how Nightmare Moon was defeated."
"..."
"Hold it! I think he's waking up!"
I sat up and checked out my surroundings. I was, as far as I could tell, in the waiting room of a hospital. Fairly nondescript. There were only two other beings in the room with me: the pink pony I had been conversing with before my talk with Azrael, and a white-coated earth pony with a pink mane and tail, a nurse's hat, and a mark on her flank consisting of a red plus sign and four pink hearts. I guessed that this was Nurse Redheart. Shortly after registering that, I realized a major difference between the two. Pinkie Pie looked, for want of a better term, cartoonish. She essentially looked like she did in the show, just in three dimensions. Redheart, on the other hand, actually looked somewhat realistic. She still looked like she did on the show, but I could pick out individual hairs in her coat, mane, and tail, and her eyes reflected light in a realistic fashion, rather than simply having white spots. When I looked closely, I noticed that her cutie mark moved. The four tiny hearts moved toward and away from the plus sign on a steady rhythm, each with slightly different timing. Once I noticed that, I couldn't look away. My focus was locked on like a-
"Excuse me!"
I was shocked out of my trance. "Huh? What?"
"I've been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, mister 'Peter.'"
"Oh, sorry. I was mesmerized."
"Haven't you seen a Cutie Mark before?"
She must have followed my eyes. "No, I've never seen a cutie mark in person before. Well, aside from Pinkie's, but hers didn't move."
"I'm an oddity."
"I can confirm that. I gave up trying to figure out what's up with her a few years after she moved here. Longest headache I've ever had."
"... Not surprising." I stood up. "Well, unless y'all actually need something, I'm gonna take off. I need to figure a few things out." 'Starting with when I am relative to the events of the show. I can't believe I forgot to ask Azrael about that.'
Redheart stopped me. "Before you go, I should make sure you're alright."
"Do you know anything about my kind's biology?"
"... Fair point. Not even sure what you are, really."
"I fainted because I was overwhelmed by the situation I was in. I should be fine now that I've had time to pull myself together."
"If you say so. But if something feels wrong, come to me immediately."
"Whatever you say, ma'am. Now, where's Jack?"
Not much later, Jack and I, followed by Pinkie for some reason, were standing outside the Golden Oak Library. 'So I can't be any later than season four, then,' I thought. 'I can probably narrow that down a bit.' "Hey, Pinkie?"
"Yeah?"
"Does anypony live here?"
"Nope. Why would someone live in a library?"
"I can think of a few reasons. Love of books, hatred of noise, sheer novelty of living in a library, things like that." 'Shoot. That means I could be at any point in time before the show starts. Although, I guess I can't be too early. Since Pinkie's here, I have to be within around ten years, and I'm probably closer than that. Unless I'm in some weird alternate timeline where Twilight never comes to ponyville for whatever reason, and therefore the events of the show never take place, but what are the odds of that? ... Knowing my luck, probably pretty high. S***.'
"Huh."
"What is it?"
"Look over there, by the library."
"We have a library?"
"Carrot, we've always had a library."
"Oh."
"Just look by the giant tree."
"... Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
"Only if you think you're seeing Pinkie Pie, a timberwolf, and what looks like an ape with very little hair.
"Oh, wait. I was looking by the wrong tree. Okay, now I see it."
"What were you-?"
"Unimportant. I think the ape's going into the library."
"I'm not blind, Carrot."
"Pinkie's following it."
"I can see that, Carrot."
"I think the timberwolf started to follow them, but the ape made a gesture and it stopped."
"Carrot. Stop."
I figured that the best way to know everything I could about my situation would be to read the library. The whole thing, or at least the whole nonfiction section. Unfortunately, I quickly determined that that would be impossible. Apparently, despite our languages being similar enough for us to communicate vocally, their writing system consisted mostly of squiggly lines, with a few pictograms here and there. "Welp, that's a problem."
"What is?"
"I can't read this."
"Why not?"
"Squiggles."
"Writing's too different?"
"Exactly. So far, our languages seem to be identical when spoken aloud, but your writing looks like squiggles to me."
"That's a problem."
"There goes that plan."
"I'm gonna go over there."
"Why?"
"I'm curious."
"Curiosity killed the cat."
"I'm not a cat."
"That makes almost no difference."
"Still going."
"There's a timberwolf there, and we don't even know for certain what that tall thing is."'
"And yet you followed me over here."
"What do you- ... S***."
"Well, this was fruitless. Not really sure what that would have done for me anyway."
"Are you okay, Peter?"
"Hmm?"
"You're crying."
I wiped my eye. Tears. 'Why only now?' "I'm fine. Let's go." It was a lie, given my situation, but there wasn't much that could be done about that.
"Okay..." She sounded unsure. "If you say so."
I went over to the door and opened it.* As I did so, a pair of ponies fell in, as though they'd been pressed against the door. One was purple with a darker purple mane and a cutie mark consisting of a strawberry and some grapes, which shook back and forth. The other was yellow with an orange mane and a cutie mark of three carrots, swaying side to side. I quickly recognized them as Berry Punch and Carrot Top, excepting one detail: they seemed younger than I would have expected. If I were to guess, I'd say they were in their mid-teens, about the same age as me. How I could tell, I had no clue.
"Hiya, Berry Punch and Carrot Top!" At least I was right about that.
"Hi, Pinkie," they said simultaneously as they got up from the floor.
"What were you two just doing?"
"Uhh..."
"Eavesdropping," Carrot Top said casually, immediately getting a hoof to the head from Berry. "Ow!"
"At least you were honest."