“So, what’s your name?”
She looks at the green entity. That’s an open-ended question- and while she can understand it perfectly, she can’t yet speak a response. She smiles and takes another bite of her cake.
The cream one speaks up next. “Where are your parents?”
Parents? She’s not sure what that word means- but it’s something she doesn’t have. She shakes her head.
Neither of them seem to like this answer. They proceed to ask her a bunch of questions.
Somewhere near the beginning, they asked her if she could talk. After she shook her head, they gained somewhat of an understanding expression and started asking only simple questions.
She’d had to tilt her head inquisitively when they asked if she was an orphan. She’d then been able to confirm she has no parents- though what a guardian is, and why she’d need one, she doesn’t know.
Towards the end, she’s not just listening to the words spoken, but watching them speak, as well. Watching them form those words, while she continues to eat the treats they keep putting in front of her. Even one she had to suck on. They’d stared at her for almost a full minute when she’d tried to take a bite of it; apparently, liquids are difficult to eat. They’d called it ‘drink’ instead.
When the pink one shows up to drag her away to ‘pin the tail on the pony’, she’s fairly certain she can duplicate the mouth motions required to speak, but isn’t sure how to make the noise to begin with. However, she does find that her sense of down is rock-solid, and she has absolutely no trouble staying upright as the pink one drags her through the crowd faster than she could run.
Her other senses have also sharpened up to a level she’s familiar with. Why it’s familiar, she doesn’t know; she only knows it’s too sharp for her to process everything at once. Those two had been worried when she had confirmed she doesn’t remember much of anything.
This includes her sense of… Left? She’s not sure exactly what to call it- but even after the pink one puts something around her head- over her eyes- and spins her in a circle, she still knows exactly where everything is. It probably helps that, with her eyes closed, she can process her other senses so much more thoroughly. As such, she can hear where every entity is, where the walls and ceiling are, where even that drawing on the wall is. She can’t hear the drawing itself, though- just the piece of something that it’s on. Her memory serves to position the drawing on the white thing, if she wishes.
She tilts her head slightly. If she remembers what the pink one told her correctly, she’s been selected to play a game called ‘pin the tail on the pony’. The drawing down the mostly-clear aisle from her is shaped much like a side-on view of some of the entities around her. Are they ponies? She doesn’t know- but figures it’s unimportant. The drawing is missing the colored part hanging off their backs, behind their hind legs; if she recalls correctly, the purple thing the pink one had given her looks somewhat like an artificial version of that part. Is that part called a tail? Again, she doesn’t know, and it’s unimportant.
She replays the pink one’s instructions in her mind. She’s the pinner- her job is to find the drawing and attach the purple thing- which she had called the tail- to the right spot.
The rest of the participants, lining her path of advance, take turns guiding her to that spot verbally.
In her mind’s eye, she projects the image from her memory onto that thing on the wall. She’s certain she can accomplish her part without their help- so why are they supposed to guide her to it…? Perhaps that’s why the pink one wrapped something around her head and spun her in circles.
She decides to pretend she hasn’t a clue where the picture is- and pricks her ears for the first clue.
“It’s, uh, forwards,” the first one says.
Forwards. On her current heading, she’ll end up next to the drawing… But if she understands the rules correctly, it’s their job to correct that kind of mistake. She starts walking.
“Turn to your one o’clock,” the second eventually states- the green one that gave her the cupcake.
While she doesn’t understand the reference, some part of her mind understands the named direction… She makes the described turn, thirty degrees to her right, and continues walking. She’s destined for the right side of the image now- and, if they stop her before she hits it, she’ll be in range of the target zone… though only barely.
“Back to Eleven on my mark,” a third states. The cream one.
She draws her mouth into a smile. This one is planning on timing it right. That same part of her mind understands the specified angle- thirty degrees to the left- and she estimates how far away- in time- the optimal ‘mark’ would be, to put her on a direct course for the target zone. From that point, at her current pace, she would be walking for no more than four seconds before someone calls ‘stop’... or she crashes into the wall.
“Mark!”
She turns on the spot, resuming her speed. The cream one missed the optimal spot by about half a second.
“Aaand, stop!” another says. She stops- but the picture is just out of reach.
The fifth- the brown one she’d seen eating that first cupcake- tilts his head. “One more step.”
She takes one step forwards. She’s now in range of the target zone.
“Okay, you’re at the drawing. Hold it up for the pinning!”
She raises the leg with the purple thing on it, orienting the pointy bit towards the drawing.
Next, it’s the purple one’s turn- the one with both wings and pointy thing. She waits several seconds while the purple one scribbles on something, mumbling to herself about angles and distances.
“Twilight, hurry up!” someone complains.
The purple one sighs. “Okay, okay!” She reduces back to her mumbling. “So if I only calculate to one decimal place…” Silence- save the involuntary noises, the scratching of her feather, and her mumbling, holds for another four seconds, before she goes full volume again. “Okay! So then… On a plane perpendicular to a line twelve point seven degrees to the right of your previous course but even with the pin, the target is eighteen point seven centimeters to the right, twelve point nine up, and four point two out, away from you.”
“Twilight!” someone complains. “She’ll never get that!”
On the contrary, she understands that perfectly. Though, she must disagree- the plane of the picture is twelve point eight degrees to her right, not point seven. Plus, her specifications would actually place the pin just outside the target zone; it’s sixteen point seven to the right, not eighteen. Regardless, correction isn’t her job- so she obeys the instructions literally.
This, of course, could be a problem. In order to perform the exact motion that’s been asked, she has to make an exact motion with these limbs of unknown dimensions.
So she estimates. She reanalyzes what she remembers of herself. She compares to those of similar size to herself, estimates exactly what angles each bone must be at to reach the desired position.
While she considers, someone sighs. Sounds like she drove her leg into her face. “Perhaps you should take your turn, Fluttershy.”
“Not yet!” the purple one- Twilight?- responds. “Not until she… uh…”
She’d finished her consideration, and moved her leg. The pin landed just outside the target zone, pressed halfway into the material behind the drawing. Figuring the game is over, she presses it in the rest of the way and lowers her leg to the ground.
Everyone is silent for several seconds.
Then the door bangs open again.
“I made it!” It sounds like the entity that helped her escape the… place. She can’t sense any pains- nor anything else. She uses one front leg to lift the thing off of her eyes, pushing it up and over her head, as she turns to look.
Yes, yes it is. She hears the thumping of more entities outside, probably on fast approach.
“Rainbow?” Twilight asks. “Didn’t you have a broken wing?”
The blue entity shrugs. “I got over it,” she boasts, sticking her chest out.
She leaps into the air. She spreads her wings immediately, flapping firmly; her muscles had been unwilling to offer her the speed she’d asked for. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to rely on her rear legs for the entire jump. She soars briefly overtop the room full of entities, before dropping to a stumbling landing in front of her friend and smiling up at her.
The entity- ‘Rainbow’, apparently- seems taken aback by her sudden appearance. Come to think of it, that’s probably a good name for this entity, given the rainbow of colors in her hair.
And tail.
On that thought, she finds that she can feel one of her own, behind her hind legs. She’ll have to look at it sometime- or find a mirror. Or both.
But that’s later. Right now, Rainbow seems to have recovered from any shock- and reached out a leg to… Ruffle her hair? She’s not entirely certain- but she knows she feels the leg between her ears, while Rainbow talks.
“Eager to see me, huh?” she asks.
She widens her smile, looking up into Rainbow’s face. She senses a dull ache in Rainbow’s knee go away. Then she pauses- once again sensing that one last sharp wing pain. It’s not nearly as bad as it had been- but it’s certainly still there, and certainly still a problem. Fortunately, it goes away quickly as well.
“She’s mute,” the green one says, walking up behind her.
Rainbow blinks, looking up at the green one. “What?”