His lips moved, subvocalizing the words as he went over them, shuffling from one page to the next. Neither of them were unicorns, so hooves used carefully were all they had to read by. "I can feel the fatigue of the dig reading this."
Amy inclined an ear, hidden by her hat as it was. "Is that good?"
"I think it is." His eyes darted left and right, not stopping. "You paint a reasonably accurate picture of life in the trenches, working for what could be nothing, or everything..." He rolled a hoof softly. "You're a little too angry at the academicians. They're not trying to take our thunder, just doing their own jobs. I doubt they're even thinking about it, other than maybe being stressed about deadlines for their papers."
"They have deadlines?" She raised a brow, one hoof on her glasses. In her mind, visions of lazy and rich scholars enjoying exotic drinks danced.
"You think they have no responsibilities? I've met more than a few, good ponies as a tendency. The places they work for keep them quite busy, and the journals that publish them have rigorous demands and criteria. They would have a party much like we just had whenever one of them managed to get published in any journal truly worth the paper it's printed on." He flipped to the next page, still reading along. "Though it's true they take home more bits in the end, they do have to earn it."
"I see..." She didn't, not entirely, but the hint had been given. "Writing isn't... easy, I suppose." She shook her still throbbing head from her night's binge of 'easy' writing. "Maybe I should rewrite this."
"You could, but most of it is good. Don't redo the whole thing." He tapped at the paper with a hoof. "Just tone down the vitriol towards the paper pushers. Without them, we wouldn't even get the bits we do get to keep doing what we love."
"I thought the... They cover that?" She put a hoof to her temple, rubbing at where the pain was coming from. "I'm a little tired, so I may be just forgetting a thing or two, but that feels wrong."
"They do not pay us directly," he assured, reaching to pat her shoulder. "But the ponies that do are doing so because they hope those same ponies will get to write something new and profitable. Princess Celestia reads those, and rewards the organizations when notable things are discovered, which then empowers those same organizations to pay us." He set the papers down to spread his hooves wide. "We are both cogs in the same machine."
Amy's eyes widened slightly. "Do you think she'd read this? Maybe she could... insist a larger portion of the credit, and bits, went to us in the field. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"It would." He nodded softly, reaching to finish up the papers. "My train will be here soon, but I'm glad I ran into you. Yes, this is good stuff. Do send me the second version."
"I'll do just that." She took the papers from him when he offered them and tucked them away securely into her bag. "Thank you for giving me your view; it's really transformed my view on it. I'll have to do some more research before I put this out."
"And now you're getting a feel for what they have to go through. It's always easy to say the other pony's job is simpler." He hopped down to his hooves and started to trot away. "Travel well, Miss Yearling."
She waved one last time before turning her vision to the clock. Her own train would be along shortly. Grabbing its handle in her teeth, she slipped from the bench and made her way towards the platform it would arrive on. "Home... Sleep... More work," she sighed out to herself.
Amy hadn't even noticed she was sleep until she was waking up, ponies pushing past her to get on the train. She joined the crowd and jostled her way aboard, and to an available seat to crash on. "Conductor?"
"Ma'am?" He tipped his hat politely towards her. "We'll be moving in just a minute."
"Yes, thank you. If you would, let me know when we reach my stop. I am going to sleep." She surrendered her ticket to him.
He looked at it just for a moment before handing it back. "Go on and enjoy your rest."
With a weary but thankful smile, she sagged against her bag and closed her eyes, surrendering to the siren's call of sleep.
She stepped from the train with a faint hint of a smile. "It's good to feel alive again." Sure, her sleep schedule was mildly ruined, but there was plenty of time to really get in some solid sleep on the way home. Amy trotted away from the platform, retreating towards her trusty cottage. "My old home..."
It wasn't often she got to sleep there, she thought. She would usually be out on a site, not there. She had the door open, not that she had bothered to lock it, and tossed her bag to the side. Her home was a bit of a mess, but it usually was. "It's hard to get excited about cleaning a place you won't be in for long," she sighed to herself. "You really should stop talking to yourself." She kicked the door shut and made for the kitchen. "Maybe after getting some tea going."
She had the pot over a little fire when a knock came from the door. "Who is it?"
"Ah ha, I did see you," came a young male voice from outside. "Paper, Miss Yearling!"
Amy rolled her eyes and strolled to the door. "How is it you always spot me coming and going?" She grabbed the knob in her teeth and pulled the door open to reveal a colt with a paper held in a wing. "Today's?"
"Of course." He held it towards her. "I know you aren't always here, Miss Yearling, but I keep an eye out so you get your subscription's worth."
"You are simply the best." She leaned forward and took the rolled paper in her teeth. "I'll go read this and be happy that I'm still a subscriber." She set it aside for a moment. "That does raise a question. Do you have other ponies on your route or am I it? There aren't a lot of other houses around here."
The colt rubbed behind his head as he looked left and right. There certainly were no houses to be seen there. "My route's kinda... big. I get about twelve ponies all together, and I fly a big circle, looking for them. A lot of them are recluses like you, um, ma'am. Sometimes they're not home, and they don't like it neither none when I pile the papers in front of their door."
"Neither none," she repeated with a faint smirk. "Well, thank you. I wouldn't be happy with a pile of papers on my step either." A shrill whistle caught her attention. "Would you like some tea? The water's just ready."
"Thank you, ma'am, but I really should keep going or I won't catch the next pony who's ready for their paper." They traded a little salute before he took to the air, flapping away with his bag of papers swaying, slung over his shoulder.
Amy kicked the door shut behind her, returning to the kettle and getting a proper cup of tea created. With tea and a newspaper, she settled at her little table. "I'm starting to feel like a real pony again..." She unfolded the paper and began to read it as she sipped carefully from the hot cup. Her favorite team won an away game, that was nice...
Weather, looks clear, always good...
Princess Celestia cuts the ribbon on a new art museum, how lovely...
Doctor Caballeron making splashes in archaeology.
She tilted her head. That was not a name she knew. "Who?" She leaned in for a better read.
Doctor Caballeron, freshly crowned with his title, took on the head of digging at the famed Tutanhoofen site, where it is said that all who disturbed it are cursed for a thousand moons. "I am not scared of local old mare's tales," he told our reporter. "I will see this dig to the end! We will unearth all the treasures of the pharaohs! We will be rich!"
When pressed about becoming rich, he quickly demurred, "I mean, we will turn it over to the museum for study, of course. We diggers are on the front line of archaeology!"
With a roll of her eyes, she flipped to the next page. "Another young hopeful that doesn't realize what he's stepped into. I hope you enjoy your wakeup call." Which brought her mind back to her own papers. She pushed the newspaper aside for a moment and left her cup on the table, going and retrieving her stack of papers. One more trip had the typewriter sitting on her table beside the cup.
"There's work to do." Sure, she wasn't entirely recovered from that night full of working... "Let's set a timer this time." She reached for a clock and gave it a twist, setting the alarm. "Go to bed, young filly!" she nagged herself in a concerned parental tone of voice. "You sleep responsibly or I'll ground you, don't you test me!"
With the alarm set, she got to the task of re-writing a portion of her fiery tempest of a work, bringing down those fires she had directed at the scholarly sorts. "You're right," she muttered to herself, leaving most of it alone. It was a perfectly reasonable depiction of their life in the field. "I don't need to drag others down while I'm saying this..." She clicked and clacked at her typewriter busily, working the binary that created the letters and punctuation she needed.
"And they made fun of me. What does a field archeologist need with a typewriter?" She leaned in, watching the words appear under her efforts. "Why would one need to know how to type decently? Why not just use a quill like everypony else?" She wrinkled her nose at her imaginary detractors. "Look who's laughing now..."
She had to type the entire thing over again, of course. She couldn't just magically erase the parts she wanted to change and add the new parts to the paper as if they would spill over somehow onto the next page. How absurd. She typed the entire thing from start to end, with her new parts and edited parts done in.
A loud ringing bell brought her upright with a start. It was her alarm, reminding her to go to bed on time. She wasn't quite finished. "Almost..." She almost shivered in place, wanting so badly to complete it, but she sagged and sighed. "No, not twice. Alright, alright, to bed." She turned away from the typewriter.
"I'll get this done tomorrow, then..." She began going through the motions of putting herself to bed. "Then..."
What did a pony do once they were finished writing something they wanted everypony to see?
It only hit her then that she had no real clue. Sure, she had the vague notion that she wanted it 'published', but how did one actually go about doing that? "Then..." She kept repeating the phrase, as if she could force her thoughts forward past the block, to find the answer that had to be there.
She slipped into bed, pulling the covers up and blowing out the flickering light. "Then I sleep. It'll make more sense in the morning." She hoped, but she didn't add that part out loud, instead closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep.
Alas, it rarely worked that way, and she had spent a good portion of the day sleeping. Getting to bed at the right time came far more slowly, but with enough tossing around and mumbling, eventually she found at least that respite.