//------------------------------// // One's Company, Two's A Crowd, And Three's An Interspecies Orgy // Story: Why Do You Speak My Language?! // by Soaring //------------------------------// “Rick, are you okay?” I could honestly crawl into a hole right now and start a new life underground, but I wasn’t wanting to tell her that. So, I shook my head and sighed. “Do you want me to give you some time alone?” I shook my head hard at that one. “Stay,” I murmured. “Even if I do speak English?” “Don’t remind me, horny. I’m still trying to figure out how that’s possible and—” “You will not call me horny!” Twilight’s voice reverberated in my eardrums, like if my head was a replacement snare for a drummer of a black metal band. I winced as I slammed my hands over my ears to hopefully protect them from the sudden increase in volume. Fortunately, Twilight saw my reaction and apologized profusely… at the same volume. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—” She gasped, sucking in more air than a vacuum cleaner before she continued at a bearable volume. “Sorry, I’m still not used to the royal voice after Luna taught me how to control it!” I let my hands fall to my sides. “Wish I knew that you could do that before I had to experience it. I’m pretty sure my eardrums just ran for cover behind my brain stem.” I could still hear the growl in her voice as it rattled in my mind. This could haunt my dreams… Hell, my nightmares would wet their pants, if I was in one, that is. Am I actually dreaming? Is this real? I pinched my cheek. Yep. It was. I waited for Twilight to say something, but she didn’t look so good. She had her head hung low, and her eyes closed.  So, I took the opportunity for once. “Say, Twilight?” “Yes?” she squeaked out, her gaze peering up at me. “What exactly are you? A horse, a mythical creature… a weirdly shaped fish that flopped out of water by accident?” That made her ears perk up too. She brought her head up to look at me truly. “Are you asking what type of pony I am?” “Well, yeah,” I began, holding out my pale hand. She looked at it like she just saw something that disgusted her, but when I brought it to see if her crown was actually glued to her head, she yelped when her crown clickity-clacked to the floor. “Sorry, I wanted to see if that was glued to your head. Guess I was wrong.” She giggled behind her hoof. “Rick, you are a very silly human.” She gave me a very soft smile, but one nonetheless. That, children, is what we call progress. “Well, I’m an alicorn, a pony that encompassed all three pony tribes in Equestria.” “Tribes?” I asked, brow raised. I patted her on the head as I spoke, “Sounds like there’s a long-winded and overly-complicated story to that.” “You could say that,” Twilight replied. She looked towards the door and sighed. “I could explain it to you once I go find Spike. I feel bad that we’ve been sitting here since…” her voice trailed off. She brazenly looked around the room, whipping her head back and forth. Why was she— Suddenly, Twilight attempted to suck all the oxygen out of the room. “Where’s Spike?! Did I unlock the door a couple hours ago so he could come in and give us some food and meet you? Oh, I hope he 👎︎✋︎👎︎☠︎🕯︎❄︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ 🏱︎⚐︎😐︎☜︎👎︎ 👌︎✡︎ ✌︎ 👍︎✌︎👍︎❄︎🕆︎💧︎!” Twilight kept looking at the door, while I agonized over the lack of air in the room. My breathing was fast, and my mind was racing at the thought of seeing five of her. I flailed my arm around the room, desperately trying to reach a window sill to bring some life back into the room. I felt like one of those used car lot balloon men being whipped about by the wind, throwing my arms out just to push a window open. Thankfully, I was somehow able to shove the nearby window open, letting a surge of air rush into the room. I panted heavily as I took in that juicy O₂ with glee. “Twilight, where are you—” “I’m sorry about taking your breath away! I’ll be back once I find Spike!”  With that, the alicorn mare flew out the door, leaving me with only my mind as a company while I had now slumped back on the ground. It’s a shame that my mind wasn’t more interesting. He’s one of those friends that only talks about himself and then cries like a bitch when we don’t invite him to future social gatherings. Maybe that’s why I decided to go to Turbo Virgin University: to see how far my social awkwardness could go before I turned into an Instagram model. Around me was that same library-thing. I was finally free from her questioning, her presence, and her complete and utter insanity. And yet, I found myself wanting her back already. God, I was becoming a character in an 80’s song. I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her walk away. I forcibly exhaled for the first time since Twilight took my breath away—wait why does that sound like she was trying to serenade me? I blinked before I slapped myself silly. Whoever approved of that thought needs to be sent to the slammer with no chance of parole. She’s a horse for crying out loud, one that, if she was a human, would be a certified psychopath back home. There’s no way she could think of me like that, let alone I with her. “Besides, she’s not my type,” I, the Turbo Virgin University attendee, said. “She’s royalty.” The words had flown out of my mouth before I could bring them back. Was I really considering her? I paused. “No, she’s a fucking horse.” “A what?” My gaze snapped to the door, seeing a new pony right in the doorway. A mare with a pink coat, purple-ish mane that had a light blue streak running down the middle of it, and a mark on her backside that looked like a star with a blue streak following it. The pony walked into the room, looking at me with a head tilt. “Who are you?” the pony asked. Her voice tickled my ears, something that I didn’t expect. I stayed where I was, even if my legs were begging to move—if anyone was in this castle, they must be like Twilight if they were living here. “Uh…” I said, before I brought myself back to reality. “Hey, I’m Rick. I’m Twilight’s new hostage.” “Hostage?” The mare’s ear twitched as she sat down in front of me, hoping that getting closer would change things. She let out a giggle. “Sounds about right.” She held out her hoof towards me. “My name is Starlight Glimmer, but call me Starlight. Anypony who uses the last half of my name is either Twilight when she’s disappointed in me, or my parents, who are always disappointed with me.” I laughed hard for the first time tonight. “My parents were the same way with me! Of course, they had two good reasons for it. My educational choices and general lifestyle were enough to wage war at the dinner table. So don’t feel like that’s what makes you you, Starlight.” “Alright. Well,” She began, before taking a moment to poke her chin with a hoof. “I’ll have to come up with a new way to introduce myself now that you’re here.” She paused to look me down. “So, what are you?” “A human,” I replied blankly, hoping she wouldn’t go to the lengths that Twilight did. “Have you ever heard of my kind?” Surprisingly, the mare shook her head. “Nope! I lived in the middle of nowhere long before I met Twilight. So if there was another one of your kind in Equestria, then I missed out.” I chuckled. “Well, Starlight. You haven’t missed much. Twilight’s the first one that discovered me after I conked myself out.” “Conked yourself out?” She laid down, splaying herself like a dog. She looked up at me with inquisitive eyes. “What does that mean?” “Out like a light?” Starlight stared blankly. “Knocked by a freight train?” Starlight cranked herself like Soulja Boy before she shook her head. “Got sent to Heaven and then back again?” She blinked. “Heav...end?” “Do you ponies not go outside?” Starlight chuckled. “Of course we do! But we have ⬧︎□︎♍︎♓︎♋︎●︎ ♍︎◆︎♏︎⬧︎ ⧫︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎■︎🕯︎⧫︎ ◆︎■︎♎︎♏︎❒︎⬧︎⧫︎♋︎■︎♎︎, so that’s why—” “Translate that for me, please,” I begged, praying for her to blink a short quick guide on this whole nonsensical version of English as well. She must’ve gotten the trick. “We have different social cues than you most likely.” “Yep,” I said bluntly. “And you skkrttt eeeeee differently than Twilight. What’s with that?” Starlight giggled. “Well, I learned how to do it differently than her. I don’t know why it was mandated across Equestria to use this, but each place has a different way of showing their emotions and thoughts.” I blinked. Wait, what? “You do this to show your emotions and thoughts differently?” “Well,” Starlight began, her muzzle scrunched up like an accordion. “It might be hard for you to understand this, but have you ever heard of a dialect?” I nodded. “Yep, got one myself.” “You don’t sound like you have one,” she said, searching my voice for anything that sounded like a dialect. “Damn, I can’t even win here!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms up. “I live in a state that makes it impossible for anyone to say, ‘Hey you’re from X location’.” She gigglesnorted as she scooted closer to me, her head close to my leg. “Well, I may have to retract my statement. You totally sound different from us.” “Nice.” I smirked. Street cred gained like a champ, the only cred I’ve ever gotten. Well, besides logging two-thousand hours into Skyrim on multiple consoles. Who needs cred when you are a level 100 Argonian Nightingale? “Anyway,” she breathed out, holding her head with her forehoof. “Why are you here?” I frowned. “Not sure. Woke up a while ago to see horny—I mean, Twilight, looking at me like a frog being dissected in Chemistry class while it’s still alive.”  “Pffft, Twilight does do that to ponies… and test subjects during experiments. I would know, I was one.” “Actually, you’re still one of my test subjects,” Twilight said as she pranced into the room. “You just so happened to be replaced by Rick here.” “Replaced?” Starlight mocked. She spared a glance over at me before she turned her head to Twilight. “I’m hurt by that, Twilight. I was a student after I was done being your test subject.” “Oh, Starlight,” Twilight said with a smirk on her muzzle. “You don’t stop being a test subject until you graduate.” “Graduate what?” I asked, before I looked over at what had entered the room. A small lizard with purple and green scales had walked in, its green eyes looking over at me with bated curiosity. It had this mohawk thing going on its head, and it had some fangs that the lizard was not afraid to show off to the room. It also had claws too, which were gripping onto a platter of different foods, some steaming up the room with a certain amount of angst that only Trapt could pull off, while others filled my nostrils with a sense of hunger that my stomach wanted to voice proudly for everyone to hear. “Graduate the School of Friendship, of course! Not that you technically had to go through the rigorous hours of lectures and—” Geerrrrgle. Everyone paused to look at me like I was more than just an alien. “Did you just—” “That food is distracting me so much that I’m losing focus on everything else,” I said, pointing over at the dish the lizard was carrying. “Could we pause on the introductions and what not to eat? My brain needs to recharge.” The three laughed at my dear agony. But I will not bow to their mockery.  “Not until you meet Spike!” Twilight exclaimed happily. She fluttered to the side to let me get a good look at the new guest, before she extended her wing out towards it. “Rick, meet Spike, my dragon assistant.” The dragon waved at me with his claw. “Nice to meet you, Rick.” I sighed and accepted the definition of insanity. “N-Nice to meet you too, Spike.” Why did I just stutter? The fangs stared at me intensely. The fangs. Oh. “Hey, Spike, do you mind if we talk after we eat?” “Sure,” he replied bluntly, waving a claw. He probably saw my expression, which was a cross between ‘about to post about my mid-life crisis on Facebook’ and ‘How I realized I was a virgin by looking at my own reflection: Part One, The Early Years’. “Don’t worry too much about us, Twilight only will bite you if she gets too anxious and Starlight will only bite if you took the last muffin off the table before she could.” “What does that mean?” Twilight said, her voice full of grit, while she glared down at the dragon. Starlight, on the other hand, simply shrugged. “I want to say something against that, but he’s not wrong. As long as you don’t take the last muffin, I won’t bite your hand off, Rick.” I laughed. I laughed at Starlight trying to threaten me for taking a muffin. I laughed at my fang-fear that I had. I laughed at how I was stuck in a world that spoke English but had a fixation on making sounds that could halt a fresh out of the box Karen on her way to the manager’s office in seconds. I laughed at my misfortune for ending up here. I had let it all out. I brought my arm to my face, wiping away a stray tear that had raced down my cheek. Man, was this one of hell of a day. Hopefully I can tackle this fear I had of Spike later because right now, my stomach was demanding me to chow down on whatever they were going to serve me, and I wasn’t going to deny it. Hopefully they won’t talk too much over dinner… ...right?