I was starting to worry about Smiley. Purplesmart didn’t seem to read the other mare and just kind of asked her to take care of me… Oh dear, I was probably the source of all her overtime right now. We came into her house, her head low as we walked, and then she sat on the worn couch and continued with her half-eaten breakfast.
*Hungry?* She asked, pointing at her food and then at me, smiling for a moment.
*No, thanks.* I smiled back and sat on the opposite side of the couch.
She resumed eating in awkward silence for the rest of the time. When she finished, she went to the bathroom and groomed herself with a brush. The fact that she could grab it with one single hoof was one of the most curious things to watch. I already knew the trick of the slightly flexible underside of their hooves though, but still…
*… Stay… me go to… you wait. Did you understand?* Smiley said. Some of the meaning of her song was lost on me, but the ‘Did you understand?’ despite being a complex phrase for my level, she had been using it so many times during her class yesterday that I had figured it out. And the rest of the talking/singing was easier to get as she pantomimed with her hooves.
*Okay. Me stay* I answered. At least this pony was easy to read by her gestures, not as easy as Yellowings, but a far cry from how awkwardly Purplesmart seemed to pantomime.
She got some books and study material from a few different places and went through the door that led to the school. And just like that, I was left relatively alone.
If this was something like how it was with humans, she would be away for at least a couple of hours until the playtime for the foals came. I had absolutely nothing to do, and I kind of felt bad for the poor Smiley, so I decided to help her somehow.
The house was slightly messy, but not overwhelmingly so. It was more like the kind of messy that comes because of a busy person that didn’t have enough time to clean up properly. I could help with that.
After some minutes of exploration, I found some cleaning supplies. A broom, a bucket and some pieces of cloth. I started brushing up the whole house. I kept finding pink hairs in the dust I swept, and I found it kind of adorable. Taking one of them and examining it closely I found no dye marks, it was completely pink from root to tip. It felt unnatural, yet I couldn’t find any evidence of it. Natural pink hair, huh…
It took me around half an hour because apart from the school, the house wasn’t very big. I had a lot of time left.
Smiley had left in a hurry, so the dirty bowls, dishes and silverware were still on the table. I took them away to the sink, where I found some more dishes to wash, and then I busied myself with that. The stuff for cleaning them was easy to find, it was just in a cabinet near the sink.
Apart from that, I thought about cleaning up in general and organize the papers and books, but as I didn’t understand them, in addition to not knowing how she liked to organize her stuff, I decided to leave it as it was and just took a look at them. They were mostly what looked like simple math exercises. Despite being simple, they were in base four, therefore I didn’t understand them right away. I needed to practice a little bit in that base.
I sat on the couch again, with nothing else to do, so I decided to look for a pen and paper and practice some. These simple operations were perfect to help me getting used to this base. As I was going to attend to Smiley’s class, I had some paper and a pencil with me that I got from Purplesmart.
Suddenly, something silvery caught my eye at the bottom of my backpack. Could it be? After some rummaging, I got it, it was a fountain pen. I liked those pens and used to carry at least one around all the time. Maybe it was silly to carry one of those for hiking, but probably I put it in there sometime I used the backpack for something else and then forgot.
It was something cheap, nothing too fancy, and I liked the stainless-steel ones because they were durable. This one in particular was dried out after being forgotten there for so much time, but it seemed that it would be functional after a proper cleaning. I knew ponies used bottled ink and quills, so I could look for an appropriate ink to put in this pen.
Because of not having ink, I set on using the pencil and started working in some math operations. It was actually pretty simple, I just needed to count in base four and I had the solutions because the exercises were already done.
When the panting mare came trotting into the room I was immerse in the simple calculations and already had a good grasp on the concept. She came to a stop and looked around, then back at me. By the uncertain expression on her face, there was something odd for her. Finally, she realized it and pointed at me with a hoof and said something that I didn’t understand.
“Uh… what?” I asked in my own language.
*You?* She pointed at me and then at the clean dishes in the kitchen. *Dishes?* Then she gestured around. *Floor?*
So… I guess those rhythms and tones meant ‘dishes’ and ‘floor’ if her pointing hoof was something to go by..
*Yes.* I smiled, understanding that she was asking about the chores I had done for her.
The mare suddenly blushed… Through the fur… looked down and pawed the floor with a hoof, her ears flip-flopped, like they were unsure of what to do.
*How… Are you?* I asked a little bit concerned.
*Fine! Fine! Thank you.* Smiley looked up, almost startled by the sound of my voice. Then she looked around and her ears went flat, again with her weird behavior.
*Thank… you…* She said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile. She looked angry… she snorted and turned around, mumbling something in her language. She looked back at me from time to time, blushed, made a frustrated stomp on the floor with her hoof, shook her head and continued.
Weird pony girls…
She took an apple and drank some water before darting away again to keep an eye on the pony children. I spent the rest of the time doing some math. Despite not being the best entertainment, I kept telling myself that this could be useful in the future and was part of my training.
Luckily, I brought my own food, something that Purplesmart had packed before we came here. My lunch consisted on some apples, bananas and baked goods, and I even got enough of them to share with the teacher mare in the lunch break just in case. Huh… yep, the same bag Purplesmart teleported in front of the teacher while they were having their little conversation, for some reason.
All the baked goods were made with integral flour, they looked like cupcakes and other desserts, and had a taste that screamed ‘homemade’. I almost thought that they were even healthy for me, because of the large amount of dietary fiber they contained. I had no idea where they were made, but I needed to find out. The kind of baked goods that you could find in a local bakery in little towns but with a slight pony style aftertaste. Probably they had some hay in them.
When the children went back to their homes, a very tired looking mare came to the living room and kind of crashed on the couch. After a few seconds she yawned and stretched a little, but perked up immediately and looked at me. Despite her cheerful appearance, I knew it was a professional mask and that very mask was starting to crack already.
I had a little stack of papers with their base four math already finished, and those caught her attention. She went through them quickly, stealing glances in my direction from time to time. I had a part of them in their own pony numbers, in addition to a few of them, which were the first ones I did, done with conventional 0, 1, 2 and 3. Those ones got her to scrunch her face in confusion, although after going back and forth she realized they were my numbers.
After that, she brought a stack of papers and started to check them. I paid close attention to what she was doing, and that caused her to take some awkward glances at me from time to time. By the look of how she was going through the papers and occasionally writing down some corrections I deduced those were some kind of exam. I found adorable how she put the marks in base four and they were graded from 0 to 4, which resulted in that very mark looking like it was graded from 0 to 10. I ended up helping her correcting the exams.
Once the job was done, we relaxed a little on the couch. It would be a good moment for an idle conversation, but I lacked the language skill to do so, therefore she settled for teaching me whatever word came to her mind in order to communicate simple things. She said, for instance, that indeed we were correcting a math exam for the pony children, and then I learned the words ‘wrong’, ‘right’ and ‘exam’.
Purplesmart came to pick me up in the afternoon with her little lizard assistant. I had learned basic math and some additional sparse words today, not bad at all despite the relaxed class on the couch. Of course, the purple menace wanted to know everything I had learned today and asked a lot of questions. Most of them didn’t make sense to me at all, but I did my best to answer them with simple words while we walked our way back to the tree castle. She got half confused because she wasn’t understanding and half frustrated because I wasn’t getting most of the stuff she said.
And… The tree castle was kind of a mess.
I had no idea where all the water came from. Was the plumbing broken or something? The whole castle was wet and inside something like a dark cloud. In addition, the furniture was out of place and some items were broken. A nasty smell was coming out of the kitchen and the icing on top of the cake were a few random animals wandering around. It was the perfect mess by definition as it was described in some children stories. Whatever happened in here, I was glad I wasn’t there when it happened.
Purplesmart seemed upset and scowled at Smartylocks, they exchanged some conversation, way too quickly for me to get any meaning from it. Then, she gave instructions to the small lizard and he took Smartylocks and me back to the library.
Yep, it was a mess. I had to carefully avoid stepping on anything. Really, how did they manage to turn the fricking stairs into a swallow waterfall? Was it raining inside? Yes, yes it was. There was definitely a mist, like a fog all over the place. From the outside it looked like a cloud had collided with the castle and stayed there, filling it all with moisture.
We got into the library and sat down on the available furniture. The little lizard grabbed a broom and started to panic-clean the place in hopes of being able to make any difference, but the scale of the task was beyond him.
After half an hour, Purplesmart came back and had another conversation with Smartylocks, then she pointed at me and I flinched. Sorry, but no, I had no idea what was going on.
But the purple unicorn then went to me and called for my attention with an expression of a mix of sadness and regret. She put a hoof on my shoulder again and asked something that I didn’t understand. After an awkward pause, she looked frustrated, got up from the spot she was sitting on and began to pace back and forth, deep in thought.
*Angry, scared* She said those words, then he got the pictures she had used previously from the library and pointed at the corresponding ones to help me understand. Then pointed at me, then pointed at her horn, and then made a gesture resembling a reverence.
“Uh… what?” I asked in plain English.
*Scared, angry* Then her horn began to emit light and she pointed at it, then pointed at me with a hoof.
“Oh, the thing you do with your horn.” I pointed at my head.
She pointed at her horn, then at me, then she lowered her head and made sure to let me see a sad face. Then she put her front hooves together and made a reverence in a kind of pleading gesture.
“What is this all about?”
*Day, neigh* She said, but the second sound was unknown to me.
*Day?* I asked.
*Day* Then she gestured like she wanted me to look behind her.
“The day… behind… Oh! You mean yesterday!”
She tilted her head. Of course, she didn’t understand me.
*Day back, you, angry scared, me* Then she pointed at her horn and then at me again and repeated the pleading gesture.
“Oh… you are… You are sorry about what you did the other day with your horn!” I finally understood.
I grabbed one of her hooves and lifted it from her pleading gesture and gave it a gentle pat with my hand. “Now I understand. Okay, I forgive you. I suppose you don’t understand me, but…”
She smiled timidly, almost hopefully. I smiled back and nodded. Nodding seemed to carry the same meaning to them. She seemed to understand, because she cheered up immediately.
And just like that, we were cool. And Purplesmart was hiding in a corner, taking notes of the whole ordeal. Seriously, what’s going on with that girl…
Purplesmart said something to the lizard and he took me back to my room. I got a little wave of apprehension as my solar pannel and charger were still on the windowsill, but the window itself was closed, and the room locked. Apart from a little bit of moisture coming from under the door, the place seemed intact. The power bank was fine and still recharging slowly. I left my backpack with all the important stuff and relaxed a little on the bed, but I got bored and the sun was still up in the sky, it was too early to go to bed. I considered the possibility of taking a shower, but decided against it. I ought to help those poor ponies a little to clean the castle. After all, I was living in here for free.
I went downstairs and helped with what I felt comfortable. Mostly cleaning up the soiled floor, and there was enough floor to clean to get floor-bored. Luckily enough, there were a lot of ponies helping and, in the end, it wasn’t that hard.
Apart from that, I had a weird encounter with Yellowings. I was delighted to see her again, but she kind of backed away from me. When I waved at her she waved back with a shaky hoof and a blush, and then the rainbow one came flying lazily around and snorted in amusement. Whatever it was, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Yellowings ran away.
Squiggletail, the pink one and an orange one were there too. Thanks to the cheating ponies with their ridiculously small wings and the wingardium-leviosa-ing of the unicorns and the PPC (Perfect Purple Cheater), the job was done surprisingly fast and we still had some time left before sunset.
All the ponies who took part in the cleanup gathered on the top floors of the castle. It was a nice balcony with a little Jacuzzi of some sort with a weird fountain that made water go up and down in a circle, the droplets making a rainbow effect with the sunbeams. It was strangely warm and the skies seemed to be clear in a specific location as to get the sun beams directly at us. I tested the water and it was slightly warm, so it was comfortable to take a bath, and it felt like the right thing to do after the cleaning.
I got back to my room and changed into my summer clothes. When I arrived again in the balcony, I took off my t-shirt and took a bath wearing my shorts. That got me a few weird glances and a scowl from Squiggletail, but I didn’t care.
It would be lovely to have a conversation, but I didn’t know enough of their language to understand, and we all kind of fell into a comfortable silence, listening to the murmur of the water.
Today was a weird day, but I got to learn many things, and interacted a lot with the locals. That seemed like progress to me. As I went back to my room, I got ready for bed while the sun was doing its thing of suddenly hiding behind the horizon (Still in my book of grudges for that). As I wouldn’t get any more charge today, I turned on the phone and checked it. For the surprise of absolutely no one, still no signal.