Fine Print

by Starscribe


Chapter 20

“Lyra?” Rose stopped in the doorway, eyes widening in surprise. Of all the creatures to visit early in the morning, she hadn’t expected one least likely to be awake. “You’re, uh… here early.”

“Yeah, I know.” She grinned, shifting under the weight of heavy saddlebags. Well, heavy to a unicorn. Rose could’ve managed those and a few sacks of cement and still had enough energy to run. “Your roommate should be expecting me. Tracy, I think is how you say it?”

Rose nodded, glancing over her shoulder. Her roommate had lingered in the kitchen after dumping his work stuff upstairs, rather than prepare for bed. She fought back the first wave of disappointment—some part of her had been hoping that it was for her.

There’s no reason for you to get jealous, Rose. This pony is already engaged and doesn’t like stallions anyway. “Tracy, Lyra is here for you?”


“Yeah, I’m expecting her.” 

He’d set up on the kitchen table, with a brown sack smelling of strange food and more of his unusual devices. But thanks to him that table wasn’t drowning in financial records of her dying company. She could accept that not everything weird he did was meant to bring an invasion of Equestria, despite what living in Ponyville could sometimes suggest to the contrary.

Lyra hurried past her in a blur, pulling over a chair and dumping the contents of her satchel onto the table. An oversized notepad by the look of it, along with one of those fancy new pens with an internal inkwell. “Thanks for seeing me, Tracy! I know you must be busy, living in two worlds the way you do. I’ll be as sparing with your time as possible.”

Rose caught him rolling his eyes as he fiddled with a strange metal cup. It clicked and hissed, then he drank with the relief of somepony starving having their first mouthful of oats. “No problem. It’s not about the time, really… it’s about my world and yours being opposites of each other. I just got home from work, and you just woke up.”

Rose pretended not to be paying any attention. She returned to the kitchen, but instead of the complex meal of crepes and hash-browns she’d been imagining, opted for a bowl of oats instead. That way she could sit on the other side of the table and keep an eye on things. Obviously it was nothing more than simple curiosity at work. 

“You remember the plan, right? I’d like to ask a few questions about the place you came from. Maybe take a look at it myself one day, when there’s an opportunity. But… from your face, I’m guessing that’s not easy.”

Tracy laughed, settling his weird metal container back down on the table. “Easiest thing in the world, you just walk through that door behind me. But I’m not sure what you’d think of it. It’s very different from Ponyville. It’s so different that I’ve spent the last three months never going into your world, because it didn’t make any sense to me.”

That was changing now, though. He’d already promised to join her at the flower stand tomorrow, to set up whatever a “POS” was. Rose didn’t really need to know, because he’d explained it would take care of all their records from then on. 

There’d been one less collection notice in the mail yesterday, one fewer loan. 

“We’ll have to talk more about that,” Lyra said, flipping open her notebook and sitting up in her chair. Tracy rested one hoof on the edge of his machine, closing it flat with a click and putting out whatever light was glowing from within.

“I hope you don’t mind if I eat dinner while we talk,” he said absently, dumping the contents of his bag onto the table. “You caught me before I could eat.”

Lyra shrugged, staring at his food in fascination. Rose felt herself doing the same, though it was mostly the smell. His bag wasn’t just strange, but it was turning her stomach upside-down. Bug stuff, probably. Though she couldn’t tell just at a glance. He had a basket of strange smelling hayfries, and a sandwich wrapped in silvery foil. What the buck smelled so bad?

“Why don’t we start with something simple then,” Lyra continued, obviously a little distracted by the smell. “Tell me about where you come from, in your own words. It was a revelation to me that there was more than one alternate world. But the reading I’ve done since then suggests there might be an infinite number.”

“If we were on that side, I’d tell you I’m from Ely, Nevada. Small town in the middle of nowhere. It’s a desert, so getting used to all the green is hard for me.”

“The other side didn’t look small,” Rose said, before she could stop herself. She covered her mouth with a hoof, realizing they were both staring at her. “Sorry, ignore me. Keep going with your interview.”

But Tracy didn’t. “Ely isn’t on the other side of that door, that’s San Jose. It’s a much bigger city in a much bigger state, with waaay more people. It’s a pretty nice place, way faster paced than anything I was used to back home. But I moved here for the change, you know? You get tired of everyone acting sorry for you wherever you go.”

Even Rose didn’t have a clue what he could be talking about there. There was pain in his voice, one he’d never shared around her before.

Tracy tried to brush it off, scooping up a hoof full of his curly hayfries. There’s no way there’s real hay in there. What kind of junk food are you eating?

“I think we’re getting a little off-topic,” Lyra said, her voice strained now. “So you were in a desert before and now you’re not. Why don’t we focus on the similarities, like your cutie mark there? That’s a… spark gap transmitter, isn’t it? You must have quite the story about getting it.”

Tracy raised a confused eyebrow. His ears flattened as he saw what Lyra was staring at—was he embarrassed? Why would you be upset about a mark as interesting as that, Tracy? You could be stuck with a flower.

“I think I’ve heard that word a few times now. But people always say it like I’m supposed to know what it means. Maybe you could tell me what a cutie mark is, just so we’re on the same page?”

He unwrapped the little bundle as he spoke, and the smell only got worse. Rose choked back a gasp, and her appetite vanished in an instant. 

Tracy hesitated, sniffing the air above his sandwich. It was a hayburger, though it smelled like none Rose had ever seen. Maybe it was bug that folded in sheets like that? But if it was, why did Tracy look as sick as she did?

He took a cautious bite, then nearly gagged, shoving the whole thing into the bag with horror on his face. “Oh god, that’s awful. I swear it didn’t seem so bad on the way here. I would’ve gone back for a damn refund.”

He stalked into the kitchen, tossing the sack down into the garbage. He yanked the window open for good measure, then took a long, relieved breath.

“Well, that nightmare’s over. So much for catching dinner on my side.”

He slouched back to the table, then pulled his mutant hayfries over and went back to munching them.

Lyra only stared, long enough that even Rose started feeling overwhelmed. But at least that awful smell was gone.

“You don’t know? You have a cutie mark right now, how could you not know where you got it? Why would you get it made into all your clothes otherwise?”

“I… don’t,” Tracy replied, scooting his chair slightly away from her. “I’ve never seen this mark before I came to Equestria. I don’t know how or why it’s on my butt, but at least everyone else has them, so I’m not alone here. I’ve never even seen whatever it is, so if you tell me it’s a transmitter, I believe you.”

“Cutie marks are fundamental to the way ponies see themselves,” Lyra said. “I would have trouble imagining a world without them, except we’ve had more contact with other cultures recently. It’s interesting that you didn’t become one of them when you entered Equestria. Either the portal you’ve found is less precise, or maybe it says something about how aware you are of your own talents.”

Tracy shrugged. “That honestly doesn’t tell me much about them. Rose, can you… make any sense of this? What even is a cutie mark?”

Apparently he hadn’t forgotten she was here after all. Rose twisted in her seat, glancing briefly back at her own mark. “Well, uh… ponies get them as soon as they discover their special talent. Most of us have a story about how we found it, and what we learned about ourselves when we did. Once you get a cutie mark, you’ll be gifted with that thing for the rest of your life. My sisters and I are all some of the best flower-arrangers in Equestria. We can find rare strains nopony else can, we can keep them fresh, and we have a sense for what ponies want without them asking. Lots of that came from the cutie mark.”

“Then our world doesn’t work like that,” he said, glaring at the empty paper tray. “There’s nothing to tell us what we’re good at, and I’ve never had a ‘special talent’ that I know of. People can figure out on their own if they’re good at something or not. And if they don’t, then… the world will tell them soon enough. Make enough bad art, and you’ll be hungry because no one wants to buy it. Or… well, you get the idea.”

“Fascinating.” Lyra’s pen flew across the page, scribbling things down far more rapidly than anything he said. How could she add commentary and listen to anything being said at the same time? 

She went through a few more basic questions, though none were as interesting to Rose as that first. The place he described hardly seemed like somewhere that would swallow Equestria like the Smooze and consume every drop of magic they had. They didn’t even believe in magic, if Tracy was right, wouldn’t have known it when they saw it. As for everything else, it mostly just reminded her of griffons. Creatures who spent their lives mostly alone, catching fish in the river and living generally grumpy lives without magic or cutie marks. Except instead of not having one king, they had too many.

But that was when she couldn’t listen anymore. While Lyra finished off her interview with questions about transportation and technology, Rose finished off her breakfast and prepared to set off for work.

Lyra looked like she could probably keep going for hours, but as she finally headed to the door, Tracy jumped to his hooves. “Wait, Rose! Don’t forget, I was going to, uh… put that stuff into the flower stand today, remember? Can’t forget about the sales terminal. Just, uh… let me fiddle with the box here.”

Rose hadn’t really paid much attention to the pile of brown boxes Tracy had gathered near his scrying panel. She hadn’t wanted to get much closer to that thing ever since her first experience and the purple monster it had shown her. 

That wasn’t supposed to be today. But one look at Tracy was all she needed to recognize the desperation. He was sick of the interview, and didn’t want to tell her. It wasn’t surprising—few creatures could handle Lyra’s intensity. “Yeah, sorry,” Rose added, dropping her saddlebags to the ground and flicking them open for him. “I do need to get to work.”

“That’s alright.” Lyra’s ears flattened, and she scribbled in her notebook for another few lines. She snapped it shut abruptly, tucking it away. “Thanks for sharing so much, Tracy. I would like to arrange a visit to your world, if it’s not too hard. Could you talk to the president and get permission for me?”

The bat choked back a laugh, burying his face in the cardboard. Finally he nodded. “That’s not really the way things work, but… sure. Assuming the door works the same way for you going to my world as it does for me going to yours. Otherwise… I just don’t think my world is ready for Equestria.”