Why Do You Speak My Language?!

by Soaring


Magic Makes Strange Bedfellows

With her gone, my mind had begun to drag, and my heart whirred to a slow, rhythmic beat. Before, each thought was rampant like an angry ocean crashing against a coastline. Now, the only feeling I had bubbled like a very long-winded boil. I stayed upright, yet propped up against the headboard of my bed, once again wrangling with the world around me. My fingers re-enacted the mental gymnastics of my mind as they danced together in a constant lull that helped cultivate distance between me, the world around me, and the door that had been flung open, which was thankfully closed for the time being. It gave me time to shakily breathe in the noise, one that whisked forward like that boiling pot of anxiety, as white clouds fizzled into nothing.

Why? Why was I like this right now? A mess of words that I normally don’t use? Anxiousness was to blame for this one, mostly because Starlight had become a permanent resident in my mind, living rent free like your average every-day redditor, who lives in his mom’s basement well past the age of forty.

Something else is interfering with this...

What did she mean ‘with this’? With me? With us? Our interactions?

I felt my anxiety burst as it crawled up my spine and into my brain, where it took my thoughts and scribed them on a page:

I know for a fact I only tapped you with a pillow.

I only tapped you with a pillow.

I only tapped you.

You’re a virgin if you think I’d tap you and—

Wait, Starlight didn’t say that, because if she did, I’d have to do the sign of the cross while reciting my Hail Marys.

As if on queue, the door magically creaked open. It only was open enough for the expectant pink fur ball with a horn to peer her muzzle in like a groundhog poking its head out of its hidey-hole to check the weather. 

“Rick, are you alive?”

I took a deep breath and frowned. “Unfortunately. I live in a constant state of existential dread and—”

My words were derailed as the mare slinked back behind the door, quietly shutting it with a rather anticlimactic click. I sighed very briefly, wondering if I just escaped Equestria’s version of hell. Once again, my thoughts were SLAMMED with the sound of a door literally shattering against its frame. The noise reverberated in my ears, and I was helpless to it. I closed my eyes and held my hands over my ears, yet I could still get lost in the echo, rendering my hands useless.

Then, as quickly as it came, it had left just the same, leaving me to take my hands off my ears to check if I could still hear.

“Sorry,” Horny said. “Magic malfunction.”

I opened my eyes again. The door was somehow not in pieces as Starlight returned with Twilight in tow. The two mares gave me some space, venturing to the end of the bed before plopping down on their keisters. Their glares burned this moment into the retina of my eye, the damage breaking through my cataracts with complete disregard for personal property, yet they treated it like this was normal, like nothing was wrong with this situation.

I blinked away the pain, before closing my eyes. The burning sensation began to fall away, and it left me no choice but to open them again.

So I did.

Their glares were no longer bearing down on me. They had disappeared, both replaced with mirrored expressions of worry.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” I said, stuttering. I cursed myself inwardly, wondering how I could let that anxiousness slip, but I didn’t want them to think otherwise, so I added on, “Just worried about what you’re thinking, Starlight.”

“Oh. Well, let me elaborate, then,” the mare began. She huffed out the exhaust in her throat. ‘“You know how yesterday you told me about your dream and how the only thing that stuck out to you was that ring Luna told you to put on Twilight’s horn?”

I nodded… slowly. “Yes, why does that—”

She threw a hoof in my direction, and waved me off, effectively saying ‘shut up for a sec’. “It matters, Rick, because it’s not exactly about Twilight. I think it’s about just us in general.” She gave me a soft smile. “You know how you’re an alien, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Aliens are not prone to what we have, just like if I was an alien in your world, you would think that hearing ‘♌︎♏︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♐︎❒︎♓︎♏︎■︎♎︎⬧︎ ⬥︎♓︎⧫︎♒︎ ♋︎ ♌︎♋︎♎︎ ♋︎♍︎⧫︎□︎❒︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ♋︎ ♐︎♓︎♐︎⧫︎⍓︎📫︎♐︎♓︎♐︎⧫︎⍓︎ ♍︎♒︎♋︎■︎♍︎♏︎ ♋︎⧫︎ ⬧︎♒︎□︎□︎⧫︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎❒︎⬧︎♏︎●︎♐︎ ♓︎■︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♐︎□︎□︎⧫︎’ is a bit weird, right?”

I blinked. “Well, in general, that sounds like you just drank five gallons of gasoline with a bit of charcoal to salt the rim and you were reciting your own Miranda Rights before you eventually—”

“Great! Uh—I mean, I’m glad that you think that’s weird, Rick. Point being is that, since you’re so unfamiliar to our world, you are very susceptible to the Harmony surrounding us.”

“I don’t get it,” I said with a shrug. I scooted a bit closer to the two, the sheets wrinkling as I slugged forward. “What does sounding like a straight-to-DVD Pitch Perfect sequel have to do with this?”

“What?” Starlight groaned, facehoofing. “Harmony isn’t whatever that is! It’s… a fickle thing. It’s an entity that helps guide everypony, and it gauges how often we listen to it, or rather if we listen to it at all. That’s why Twilight is an Element because she buys into harmony more-so than others—not that those that do in that same level of adoration do not deserve the right to be an Element but—”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “What Starlight is trying to get at is that the Elements of Harmony chose me and my friends to bear them. They had given Celestia the opportunity to choose, but she ultimately listened to them and had each Element given to us, Rick.”

I felt my body chill at the sound of Twilight’s voice stuttering over my name. I took a deep breath before I spoke, “I can get that. I mean, you didn’t choose the Harmony life; the Harmony life chose you.”

Twilight gave me a bright smile. “Exactly! See, Starlight! I knew Rick was smart!”

I blinked away my hopes and dreams to register that one. Was she calling me dumb? I sighed. “Okay, so how does Harmony’s version of ‘BMT’s Gangsta Life’ relate to me?”

Starlight’s horn suddenly burst into color as a blue flame danced before my very eyes. It drifted ever-so-cautiously to the cart, before it went behind it, never to be seen again. Or so I thought, as it overwhelmed the cart. It dragged it toward the mares, before stopping just behind them. Starlight turned around and looked inside, her muzzle looking into what probably was the cold remains of breakfast.

She shocked me when she pulled out a ring.

“But—”

“Magic trick. See StarSwirl’s Beginners Guide to Magic: Volume One for the juicy details. Not that you’d be able to read it. It’s written in Equestrian.”

I rolled my eyes. “Very funny, Starlight. It’s written in your version of English, which looks like someone who was drunk out of their mind tried to recreate the Egyptian Hieroglyphics with nothing more than an Associate’s in TikTok Dance Theory, but failed immensely.”

“Egyptian what? And what’s this about ticks? How does that relate to dancing?!”

Twilight’s little questioning session fell on deaf ears, because I was not wanting to go into human history just to make sure she laughed. “Nothing, Twilight.”

“Oh,” she said softly as her muzzle wrinkled in time.

Her ears fell splayed against her head, and Starlight couldn’t give any care to her friend. She was too busy sliding the horn on her own head and— 

“Wait, why are you putting it on your head? You still haven’t explained why this correlates whatsoever!”

I pointed a finger at her and watched as she just gave me a grin. A cute one, not one that creeped me out like Twilight beside her, who had her head hung low, and her lips curved downward into a frown. I felt like I needed to cheer Twilight up somehow, but Starlight was about to say something, so I focused my attention on her.

“Since you’re not from here, you don’t know that magic becomes part of us. We absorb it every day.”

“You absorb it? What are you, a walking solar panel?”

“That depends. What does a solar panel do?”

I rolled my eyes. “Absorbs the sun’s light to create electricity, essentially.”

Starlight tilted her head. “Really? You can do that?”

“How are you shocked by that when every single pony on this planet is an embodiment of that concept!”

“Figuratively, yes,” Twilight butted in, her voice sounding like she had just lost her puppy. Her words whispered anxiety through a funnel that tickled my ears. “But we don’t conduct magic, Rick. We just use it.”

Starlight turned to her friend, and shook her head. “That’s a good point, Twilight. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Through the softness of sadness came a crack in the façade: a soft smile that drifted toward Starlight and I like a faint reminder of what could’ve been. “That’s because you were an alienated delinquent who was hyped up on communism and snorted pixie dust, Starlight.”

“Exactly, Twilight! I am hyped up on equality. Aren’t you?”

The mare shook her head.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but scratch my head. What the fuck was happening here?

“Uh… what are you two talking about?”

Starlight raised a brow. “What do you think Twilight said, Rick?”

“She just said you were an alienated delinquent that’s hyped up on communism and pixie dust.”

As those words left my mouth, I kept my eyes glued to the two mares. Twilight looked absolutely miserable. Her eyes were widened, her gaze darted to-and-fro. Her mane looked suddenly out-of-whack, like someone went up to frazzle her hair and make it look like a pigsty. Her wings were sagged next to her, while her lips licked up nothing but the dryness of the room.

“I didn’t say that, Rick!” Twilight said, rattling off the words. “I said she was focused on making ponies equal, not anything that you just said!”

While Twilight made her point clear, Starlight, on the other hand, looked like she was a bit worried. She didn’t capitalize on that worry though, only sparing a glance at the disgruntled friend. Starlight only sat there, only sparking her horn enough to let a little blue essence flow.

I sighed. “Twilight, I’m glad. Because if you were trying to say anything else, I’d get a bit worried too and—”

I shut my mouth when I saw another ring blink into existence and slide right down Twilight’s horn.

It was like night and day. The depressed view of Twilight was replaced by a more, happier version of the alicorn. She wasn’t looking lost anymore, only puzzled. She also wasn’t looking like a mess, her mane not in a state of emergency any longer. What the heck happened?

“You’re probably wondering what the heck happened.”

I bobbed my head rapidly. “Do you read minds or do you just live in them rent free?”

“Actually, I just sell them on the market,” Starlight said with a sheepish smile, before she giggled to herself. “Look, have I done anything super weird this entire conversation?”

“Not exactly. I mean, you kind of do stuff a bit spontaneously but I’m not going to judge.”

“That’s because she’s like me, Rick. We’re pretty similar in that regard, although she doesn’t plan nearly as much as I do. Meticulous testing and reporting leads to discovery,” Twilight said with a smirk.

“Exactly, except you’re the only pony in Equestria that I know would fit the dictionary definition of meticulous, Twilight.” The two mares giggled away, leaving me to stare at them like I was a deer in headlights. Starlight was the first to calm down, giving her full access to the floor. “Anyway, let’s not get off track. Rick’s health is important here, and if there’s one thing you taught me, Twilight, is that we need a pinch of friendship to make any hypothesis worthy to test. Just make sure to grade me accordingly if you feel inclined.”

A burst of purple stuff exploded an inkwell and its partner into existence, while a pad of paper floated into the room. They hovered in front of Twilight as she smiled at her friend. “Starlight, I thought you’d never ask. I’ll make sure not to curve it this time, since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity where I’m asked to grade something. Not to mention that curving grades are only for Calculus classes, so I’d rather be more accurate and give you my criticism would be printed in triplicate. Sounds good?”

I sighed as I tried to unhear Twilight’s teacher-isms. “Sounds… great, Starlight. I’ll leave the grading to Twilight, though.”

She smiled at the two of us before she began, “Ponies naturally possess magic, meaning that they can do whatever they want with it, whenever they want with it. It’s pliable to us, while to Rick, it kinda stays there and bubbles up. You are able to absorb it somehow, Rick, except you can’t use it because you don’t have the attributes necessary to utilize it. This all ties into my hunch that you are experiencing possible symptoms of magic overload.”

“Magic overload?”

Starlight frowned. “Let’s just say, you’d most likely explode from the magic inside of you if we don’t get it out of you… in…”

Twilight hummed to herself, scribbling whatever she was scribbling onto the page. She, then, set it aside and said energetically, “One week!”

“What?!”

My lungs felt on fire as I screamed out that word. My heart was racing. My head was spinning. The room felt so much smaller. I looked like someone who’s seen some shit, heard some shit, left a shit in a toilet and forgot to flush, and an all-encompassing view of what the word ‘shit’ is in the dictionary—I was shitting myself and was not proud of it.

I scooted back the headboard again, wincing as pain slammed into my spine. “Am I going to die?”

Starlight shook her head. “If you keep doing that, you might! But, no, not exactly. All we need to do is find a way to test this hypothesis and find out whether or not you’re actually experiencing this. We just need a control group and an experimental one.”

Twilight tapped her chin. “Maybe Starlight and I could be the experimental group, while…” The mare’s eyes bugged out when she gasped. “While my friends could be the control group!”

The mare trotted in place all cutely as she squee’d high enough to crack my eardrums.

“She gets really excited when somepony offers her the ability to practice science,” Starlight put it lamely. She rolled her eyes at her friend’s antics, only to shake the hyperness out of the alicorn.

Twilight looked like she saw stars above her, her eyes spinning in her noggin. She shook her head to reset them, which cost her balance, her hooves giving out to make her lay splayed on the ground. I creeped close to the edge of the bed and looked over to get a better view, only to see that she was looking up at me, giggling to herself.

“I probably look really stupid right now.”’

“Yeah, yeah you do.”

“☠︎⚐︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎, ☼︎✋︎👍︎😐︎!”

“Translator?”

Twilight just neighed at Starlight, which prompted the pink mare to sigh. “It’s not important. Just know that she’s not thrilled by your answer.”

I chuckled and propped myself up. “So, let me get this straight. I am basically absorbing magic without being able to control it.”

“Yep. And we don’t know how much you’re absorbing, but judging by how you came into Equestria, along with all the other variables we will have to test…” Starlight’s voice trailed off, looking over at her friend, who was smirking like she knew something again.

And as soon as I thought that, Twilight let it rip. “You are probably full of magic, which is why the week estimate I provided wasn’t too far off. We’re going to need to help you find a way to fix this, and fast. Luckily for you, I could easily persuade my friends to help, since they really want to meet you anyway. I hope Pinkie isn’t going to be disappointed since we’re not going to be able to get a party for this one, especially since we’ll need to put them in this room one-by-one to make sure you don’t overload yourself!” Twilight chuckled to herself. “So I’ll try to get my friends and—”

“Twilight, are you sure we should do this experiment here?” Starlight asked, her head tilted a bit to the right.

Twilight mirrored Starlight’s expression. “What do you mean? Of course we can! It’s perfect because it’s away from everypony in the castle, meaning that nopony would just stumble in here unless they knew Rick was in here. Plus, we can easily set this room up for testing. We’ll try to minimize the amount of magic we use around you for now, Rick. Hopefully we’ll find a solution soon so you don’t die!”

All I could hear was the ever-emo music of fate in my ears as I slapped myself silly.

How could this happen to me? I made my mistakes...