//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: Off Duty // by awf //------------------------------// It was simply astounding just how many clothes humans went through in a week! Celestia watched the overflowing laundry basket with a critical eye. She had changed all the sheets on the beds, but this was still ridiculous! No way could she be expected to wash a whole basketful every week. "Wait a minute!" The mare twirled around and looked at the large, rectangular machines. Washing machines. The clue was in the name. She sighed, rolled her eyes - this time at herself - and went to look for her owner. "Gregory!" The alicorn found him on the couch. "Come and show me how to use the machines for washing laundry!" The human blinked at her. "Wait, didn't you already wash a load last weekend? I thought you'd figured it out." "I did it by hoof. You weren't home." "Oh," was all her owner could say. "See? I do go above and beyond for you. I think I deserve at least an hour in the sauna!" It didn't hurt to try, did it? Rawsthorne chuckled and stood up. His hand went automatically for her ears and the mare leaned into his touch. It was surprisingly addictive, she had found. "Okay, do tonight's laundry and you can have thirty minutes," her owner graciously allowed. "Yes!!" The mare pumped a hoof in triumph. Her owner led the way to the basement. "Come on, I'll show you." "You know, I've also been doing the dishes by hoof all this time." "Fine, fine. Forty-five minutes." Celestia couldn't help herself prancing a few steps in delight. Her thoughts went back to the car ride and her promise to turn Rawsthorne's life around. "Care to join me?" It was a most gracious offer for the lonely human! Rawsthorne had no call to nearly trip over his feet and splutter incoherently like that! "Come on, It'll be fun!" Now she was doing it purely out of mischief, just to see how red she could make his face. "I'm not like some of the other owners!" Rawsthorne said when he could talk again. Celestia froze in mid-prance, all traces of mirth instantly gone. "They force themselves on ponies?" Her owner caught the dangerous gleam in her eye and held up a hand to calm her. "No," he explained, "nothing like that, I don't think. I watched them with their ponies as they were leaving. I think it's consensual." "But they are slaves. They don't have a choice." "I know," Rawsthorne acceded. "I meant as consensual as it can be in that situation. Listen, I handled cases like that with kids, back in the day. It didn't look like the ponies are suffering. At worst it's an annoyance." It placated Celestia somewhat. Besides, the mare remembered and did her best to suppress the blush, she also sometimes fantasized about her owner that way. Maybe, sometimes, it could be consensual, even between a master and a slave? She decided to give the humans the benefit of the doubt. Her new pony friends have seemed cheerful and happy. Surely she would have spotted if any of them were being abused? "Okay, but that reminds me: You promised me an 'eye pad'. And a Skype. Glitter Dust is probably still waiting for my..." She tried to recall the word, but gave up and used another which came to mind. "Instant something. Spider." It made the human laugh and pat her head. "Do you want it before your sauna or after?" Celestia couldn't help fidgeting a little as Rawsthorne was unpacking the 'eye pad'. She liked the pure white box, but a detail caught her attention. "Why is 'eye pad' spelled with just the letter 'i'? And it's not capitalized properly. There's not even a space!" Rawsthorne paused while pealing the clear plastic from the screen and glanced at her. "This is how they named it. It's a trade mark. Spelling doesn't matter here." "Oh. Weird." Of course, she didn't mind. It was a shiny new toy. More importantly, it would help her stay in touch with her new friends. That brought to mind Glitter Dust, which in turn reminded her of another detail. She concentrated and her stylus stick floated from the kitchen. Now it was extra important she didn't lose it! The human turned the thing this way and that. Finally, he found the switch. Both of them watched as the screen flickered to life, showed a blinking red symbol, then died. "Needs charging," her owner muttered and went to rummage in the box again. Celestia didn't understand, but Rawsthorne obviously knew what was wrong. She watched him pull out a small, white lump and a length of string. One bit went into the 'iPad', then Rawsthorne stood up, walked to the TV and pushed the lump into the wall. "Let's leave it to charge until morning," her owner said. It was disappointing, but Celestia didn't argue. She lifted her rump from the couch. "Breakfast will be on the table at five-thirty. Good night, Gregory." An iPad was an amazing device! Rawsthorne had been kind enough to finish setting it up for her and the mare was now tapping her stylus on absolutely everything. 'Icons', he had said they were called, and yes - she could try each one. He had scribbled a 'pass word' on a piece of paper, in case she needed it, then left for work, while the pony was engrossed in the colorful little pictures. It was so easy! It gave you instructions on how to do everything right there on the screen. She had used the 'App Store', like Glitter Dust had taught her, and found Skype. She even managed to create a- "What was it again Glitter called it?" -account! That was it! Celestia felt a tinge of pride that she had remembered to use 'Supple Branch' as the name. Then it asked her to think up a password for herself, so nopony else could pretend to be her on the Skype. It was brilliant, even if that part had caused her some trouble. 'Luna' apparently wasn't a good password, despite the fact that nopony whatsoever would ever connect the earth mare with the alicorn Princess of the Night! It wasn't a problem. The thing wanted her to use numbers in her password, so Celestia had opted for 'Luna123', which was apparently fine. As an added bonus, now it was even harder to guess. She added Glitter Dust as a friend, using the nonsensical name the pegasus had written on a piece of paper: 'ticklefeather'. That one had given her a nice chuckle. It looked like Glitter Dust was not at her Skype right then, because it said it would ask for her approval when she came on the line. While she waited, Celestia went to explore some other icons. She grinned as she thought the word. Soon, she would know as much as Glitter Dust about this new toy! One thing in particular caught her eye: a symbol of a musical note. It said 'iTunes' underneath. She tapped the stylus on that out of curiosity. It took her some time to figure out what it was. The thing showed her a list of strange names. At first she thought they were books, but it turned out it was music. All of human music, in that one little place. It was amazing! She tried to listen to a few songs and found she liked them. But then the thing asked for a password and wouldn't take 'Luna123' as an answer. It was frustrating, until the alicorn noticed it wanted Rawsthorne's password. It was right there on paper and she easily typed it in, letters, numbers and punctuation. The 'iTunes' asked her a few more questions she didn't understand, but it was kind enough to offer to remember the password so she wouldn't have to type it in each time. It wanted her to agree with something, but the alicorn was impatient for her music and simply stabbed the word 'agree' with the stylus. It worked and the music resumed! She was so focused on the work that she almost entirely ignored words like 'purchase' or 'buy'. The mare had no money, so if the thing thought she was buying music, it was just plain wrong! Celestia suppressed a whinny of excitement as she realized that she could choose any music at all. No longer would she suffer the whims of the TV, with its poor, repetitive selection of songs! Now she could truly explore human culture! It didn't sound as good as the TV. Celestia decided to ask Rawsthorne when he came home - maybe there was something she was missing, but despite that minor annoyance, the mare was happy. The housework passed much more quickly with the musical accompaniment. She explored all that 'iTunes' had to offer. She liked Jazz, it turned out, and Rock wasn't bad. Pop was a bit juvenile and Classical way too stuffy - it reminded her of the diplomacy and meetings and agreements. She didn't care for Metal; that one was too angry, and Hip-hop didn't suit her at all, despite the amusing name. The real treasure, however, was the way the device suggested more songs based on her taste. Soon, the house was spotless, dinner was made and ready for the oven an the laundry was dried and folded and put away. Celestia felt pleased with her progress and was having a celebratory ice cream. By that time, she had over eighty different songs in her 'play list'. Suddenly the iPad made a new noise. She glanced over, but everything looked normal. It did it again as soon as she looked away! The pony floated it over for a closer inspection. For a moment she could see the words 'ticklefeather' and 'u there?' Glitter Dust was trying to talk to her through Skype! Celestia panicked and stabbed the stylus at the screen at random. All it did was make Mr. Elton start singing again. "No, not that!" She stopped it and tried again. Another noise binged at her and a message flashed across the top of the screen: 'Ok, write back when u can. ill b around" Glitter Dust was giving up! In a flash of inspiration, Celestia pushed the Home button. Then she saw the welcome blue Skype icon. She tapped it quickly. There it was: words from the pegasus, like magic. "How do I- what do I do now?" The mare poked at the white box which read: 'Type a message here'. She found the letter-icons! It took a bit of hunting, but the alicorn painstakingly tapped out a message: "Im here" A surprisingly short time later, Glitter Dust answered: "great! did ur owner let u use his pc?" Celestia didn't know what a 'pc' was, so she typed back a little uncertainly: "I have an iPad" She noticed something and added: "Hey its fixing my capitalization" It took a bit longer for the reply this time: "heh yeah. thats autocorrect. itll bite u on the ass sooner or later." Celestia didn't know what to say to that, but luckily Glitter Dust was typing more. It said so right there on the screen. She waited. "so u got an ipad too... u should ask him to buy u some music on itunes" The alicorn felt proud of herself. She smiled and giddily tapped out her reply: "I already did it myself he left me the password and I put it in" "what? he left u his credit card?!" It made Celestia frown a little. "no just the password it didn't ask for credit or cards" The conversation was kinda slow, but Celestia didn't mind. It meant she could walk around and do other things and only check on the iPad every now and then to see if there was a reply. It was marvellous! She began washing the dishes and looked back when the iPad made a noise again. It hadn't done so for Glitter Dust's other messages. What had changed? Well, the pegasus would certainly know. She turned it back on and read the latest message: "guess his card was already in there. listen im playing this clash of clans game and need a few bucks. do u think ur owner would mind if u loaned me his password?" The words made her forget what she was about to ask. "Bucks?" She needed a bit of time to figure out how to type a question mark. "bits. money. ill pay u both back when i get my allowance" That was fine. Celestia was okay with it. She wanted to ask what deer had to do with human money, but decided against typing up something that long. Maybe once she'd had a bit of practice with the stylus. "Yeah sure what do you need?" Glitter Dust gave her a list of instructions. It resulted in getting Rawsthorne's 'email address', then his password from the little paper. Then the pegasus thanked her profusely, enough to make Celestia blush. "Don't mention it its fine" She didn't wait for more replies, just went straight to the question which had been pestering her: "Tell me about heavy hoofs situation" There was a long pause, before Glitter Dust typed some more. "no its not right. ull have to ask him urself" The alicorn sighed. It seemed there was no way to get past it. "Does he have Skype" "yes but hes not on rigth now. his nick is hotstudd23" It figured. Celestia found herself rolling her eyes as she jotted it down on paper. She looked over to the dishes, then at the clock. It was getting close to the time her owner would be coming home. "Listen I gotta go its almost time to make dinner but I'll talk with you more later okay" The next message surprised her: "okay" It was followed by a yellow symbol and when she peered closely at it, Celestia saw that it was a little smiling face. "How did you do that" There came another smiling face, followed by the instructions: "write : ) only without the space" It didn't make much sense, but a lot of things about this toy were nonsensical to the alicorn. She tried and giggled a little when her symbols turned into a smiley face. She sent a bunch of them to Glitter Dust. "Anyway gotta go now nice talking to you" she wrote. Then, after a brief thought: "Oh you can give me the Skype for others later okay" Her friend finished up with: "okay. bye" Celestia wondered if there was something she should do - some button she should press, but she had said her goodbyes. She just hit 'Home' and opened up music again, so she had something to listen to while she finished cooking. After a short while, the mare started singing in tune with the music. It was quickly becoming her favourite song and she almost knew it by heart already.