There is one thing that you should never ever do. As bad as your situation is, never ever say to yourself that at least things can’t go worse, because the universe has a really nasty, sweet way to prove you wrong every single time.
Just as that very thought came to my head, I tried to chase it away, but it was too late. Just before I could thing about anything else, my door burst open in an explosion of noise and confetti. A very energetic pink monstrosity came inside bouncing and singing in an annoyingly high-pitched voice that made my head hurt. I locked the door last night, didn’t I?
While the pink mare was performing her dance and singing her annoyingly high pitched, loud and silly song, a few other beings from this damned place peeked at me from the door sporting wide hopeful smiles on their faces. I retreated back under the blankets and tried to block the sound with the pillow. It worked for a while, until I noticed the bed shaking.
The pink mare jumped on the bed and started to bounce up and down, making it slightly unstable. In my dazed state, I couldn’t manage to stabilize myself and fell to the floor just as the song came to an end and my face was hit by something, then I found myself rubbing my eyes to be able to see through a mass of what looked, smelled and tasted like cupcake icing, only to be greeted by the crazy smile of my attacker a few inches away from my nose.
Now that I thought about it… I needed a shave, and this cupcake cream would be a perfect substitute… all I needed now was a razor… a very, very sharp razor to… to…
I stopped my brain as I started to hyperventilate with murderous desires towards certain pink miniature horse. I stayed like that for a few seconds until the mare got tired of smiling at me and went out of my sight. I was left there, staring blankly at the wall.
Logic thinking.exe stopped working and emergency autopilot turned on. I got up and dragged my feet towards the bathroom as the ponies were arguing with the offending mare. I only got a glimpse of Purplesmart telling her something and an adorable sad puppy face from the pink one. I didn’t care.
I removed the icing from my face with water, then got more or less decently clothed and took a long look at myself. There I was, the same as always but in dire need of a shave. I didn’t pack a razor or any other shaving device, and the ponies didn’t look like they needed to shave, it didn’t make any sense at all. There were scissors at least, so I used those for some minutes with very limited success because my beard was long, but not long enough. Now I was looking like a castaway too.
The pink monster was waiting for me in front of the bathroom door. I was half expecting another assault, but she looked up at me with those puppy eyes, said something that sounded apologetic and offered me a box that I took. Then, she walked away and said goodbye to all the other horses.
I opened the box and discovered a bunch of cupcakes. They looked and smelled delicious, but I wasn’t in the mood for them. As usual, when I get extremely stressed or worried, I lose my appetite. The pink pony was watching from the door with expectant eyes. I suppose that she was trying to apologize with her gift and was expecting me to enjoy it or something, but I wasn’t up to it. I closed the box, gave her a sad smile and put the present on the night stand for later. She visually deflated and pouted, her curly hair and tail became limp and straight, like if someone had just poured water on her (the heck!?), but the others took her away and closed the door.
Once I was alone, I checked the phone for the last time. Still no signal… then I turned it off, gathered all the knick-knacks and put them away in a drawer. There was no need for them anymore.
***
“It didn’t work…” Twilight said.
“But Twilight! He is sad! I have neglected my duty! We need to throw him his welcome party! He will feel better! He will cheer up… He has to… I… we…” Pinkie tried to convince the rest of them, but she was deflating as she was talking.
“We had to try, but Pinkie, remember Cranky Doodle… He needed his personal space. A party isn’t always what somepony needs to cheer up.”
“But I… he was sad… I didn’t throw him a welcome party, my pinkie sense was telling me there was somepony new in town, but I didn’t realize it was him until it was too late! This is all my fault!”
“Aww… don’t be so hard on yourself, sugarcube. You tried to do the best you could.” Applejack tried to comfort the pink mare.
“I also love your parties, Pinkie, but they are not for everypony. Different ponies have different tastes and like to spend their time doing different things, you can’t be besties with absolutely everypony.” Starlight Glimmer interjected.
The party was something Pinkie Pie has pulled out of the blue. Her emergency supplies and hidden stashes of party material were gathered to put together the apetaur’s welcome party, but it seemed to the pink mare it wasn’t enough.
Sadly and slowly, they tidied up the small mess that was produced as a result, and all the confetti, streamers and balloons were put away. A very sad looking Pinkie Pie left the castle. Twilight hoped no more shenanigans would happen, but with Pinkie Pie you never knew for sure. For the time being, she decided to take care of the apetaur’s needs and give him some personal space to sort out whatever had come to his mind that got him all depressed. She wanted to ask, but she thought she would give him some time to recover. He wasn’t fluent enough in Harmonian to really explain his feelings, that was a huge setback, as his language skills were limited to simple words and concepts for now. She still kept watching over him and came back every couple of hours to check how he was doing, but with no apparent improvement.
Probably she could spend her time picking up again her investigations about the apetaur while she was watching him from a safe distance, that could probably help finding something that would help.
***
After that, I kind of lost track of time. I ate when it was time to eat, though half the amount of food I usually eat due to my lack of appetite. I slept a lot and only got up when the ponies came to visit, or when Purplesmart wanted to talk to cheer me up, but I wasn’t up to it.
I got to enjoy the cupcakes the pink pony brought me, they were really good, as I knew they were from previous experiences with the pony baked goods, but it was more like comfort food I ate, it felt good. Maybe the pink pony did something right after all.
I also entertained myself with my fountain pen. I always found it relaxing to use and tinker with it. I managed to make it work properly, adding some water to the ink for the quills because the original was kind of thick. I started to write some gibberish, took some books from the shelf and tried to imitate the symbols. Although learning to write is kind of though without a teacher, it served me well to distract my mind from the real problem.
Speaking of teacher… I should be going to Smiley’s classes, but today I didn’t feel like it, and Purplesmart didn’t press the issue, she just came, asked if I wanted to go, I told her no, and that was it. Probably a good thing for the poor teacher mare, she needed a break quite badly.
***
Fluttershy showed up and gave Twilight some suggestions about meals and ways to cheer the apetaur up, but when Twilight asked for help, she shied away and refused to meet the creature. By the look of it, Rainbow’s jokes had a greater impact on the timid mare than Twilight thought they would. It was a shame, they were such great friends. Maybe when the apetaur got better at speaking, and recovered from whatever he was going through, he could pay her a visit.
Speaking of his mental state, the sudden change in behavior happened after the conversation about planets and stars. By the look of it, the creature knew something about astronomy, but the information was all wrong. Probably somepony had tried to teach him some hard orbital mechanics and he couldn’t grasp it because his civilization wasn’t as advanced as Equestria, or he had some strong mythological believes or non-scientific traditions to explain things, so he was frustrated, or angry like the yaks when she showed him the truth. The globe of Equus was the element that had triggered the whole episode; therefore, it was related in some way…
Maybe she had just unintentionally shaken the foundations of his civilization’s beliefs and he was deeply in shock. She checked again her material about the way the different known cultures on Equus portrayed the universe, then looked back to ancient civilizations, but she couldn’t find anything relevant. Almost all of them weren’t advanced enough to care, or were battling to get the sun and moon under their control before the reign of Discord, and then, after that came the reign of the two sisters, Nightmare Moon, then her return… Nothing that could be relevant for her line of investigation.
Other races had slightly different visions, but nothing that was similar to what the apetaur has described. A spiral? An orb-world that orbited the sun, and the moon orbited the orb-world? This was unthinkable!
All the discrepancies about the universe different cultures and races had revolved around how to control the sun and moon, not questioning where they were, or how they moved, or what lays beyond them…
“Twilight…” Spike mumbled, but the alicorn was too deep in thought to acknowledge.
“Twilight?” Spike tried again a little louder with no response from the mare.
“Twilight!”
“Uh… huh… in a minute…” Twilight responded, but she continued reading and going over and over the same loop of thoughts as before.
“TWILIGHT!” Spike shouted, startling the alicorn out of her trance.
“Spike! You startled me! There is no need to shout!” Twilight scowled at the baby dragon.
“No… really there wasn’t…” Spike rolled his eyes, mumbling for himself sarcastically.
“What was that?” Twilight inquired, a slight eye twitch and a lock of her mane sprang out of place.
“Err… Nothing! It’s time for dinner… and you skipped lunch after all. I’m starting to worry about you. Is everything okay? You should take a break.” Spike explained.
“Oh… that…” Twilight’s stomach decided that it was the perfect moment to say its opinion on the matter, and she blushed a little.
Twilight and Spike had a late dinner in the library. A couple of sandwiches and a relaxing blend of tea, something easy and simple the dragon put together for them, as the rest of the castle was already asleep. It was well past Spike’s bed time, but he had been too worried about Twilight.
“Have you discovered something interesting, Twilight?” The dragon asked half-heartedly.
“No, Spike… It makes no sense, this line of investigation seems to be a dead end again, I couldn’t find any culture that remotely matches him.” Twilight responded in a sad and slightly frustrated tone.
“How is he doing?” Spike asked, more out of politeness than true interest, but it seemed the right thing to do.
“His mood is not getting any better, I’m thinking about sending him back to Fluttershy…” Twilight answered.
“Any idea about what’s the problem?” Spike asked after taking a bite of his sandwich.
Twilight explained in detail the theories she had thought before Spike interrupted her, how she thought it could be some kind of cultural shock because of his beliefs in how the universe worked and how primitive his attempts at giving her an explanation were in comparison to her astrology studies.
“Uh… maybe he is from the past…” The dragon theorized.
“Believe me, I have checked. From the first defeat of Discord to nowadays there aren’t any records of a civilization like that.” Twilight answered.
“And before that?” Spike asked.
“We have little to no records of the Pre-Discordian era, and those are typically legends, traditions and orally transmitted stories from pony to pony. We have the three pony tribes, some names and some approximated dates.”
“Aaaaand… before, before that?” Spike insisted as he started to clean up the leftovers of their late dinner in the library.
“We have some clues about how life was back then. Ponies lived in the wild and there were no such things as civilizations…”
“And… before, before, before that?” Spike smiled awkwardly.
“Really, Spike?” Twilight arched an eyebrow.
“I don’t know! I was just trying to suggest something.” Spike looked away. “It would be awesome anyways…”
“It makes no sense. In that period of time there were absolutely no records because ponies couldn’t even write. If they couldn’t write, how would it be possible for them to keep records of anything?” Twilight answered.
“But there are ponies who investigated and wrote books about them.” Spike walked towards the shelves and retrieved an old book. “Like this one!”
Twilight took the book and started to scan the pages, more out of habit than real interest, it was the thing she did every time a book landed on her desk. In a few seconds she went through all the pages, just deciding if it was worth reading or not.
“Hmmm… Archeological Discoveries about the Primordial Era… Not much here… It is just a catalogue of fossils and some findings. There are no records of ancient civilizations here, Spike, and ponies hadn’t developed any written language yet…”
“But they wrote something, look!” Spike pointed at some random cave paintings that the author of the book had replicated in the pages.
“Those are rock paintings, not really something written. Simple figures that kind of represented animals, creatures or just something they drew for fun.” She said as she flipped through the book. Suddenly, her brain made her stop and go back through the pages to a particular rock painting representation.
The brief explanation of the picture above was: ‘Nº 41 The Cave of the Primordial Friendship: A crude representation of various creatures of different nature sharing the same shelter. Archeologists have agreed on the identity of some of them, although there are other figures remaining unknown. Among the characters, a yak, a cow, a dragon and a primordial pony can be differentiated, whereas there are two of them that remain a mystery.’
Twilight looked at the picture with mild interest. True to the description there was a vaguely Yak shaped stain, a cow, a dragon and a pony, then another quadruped figure and a… biped one.
The biped one was what called Twilight’s attention. It had the right proportions and was carrying what appeared to be a stick in one of its upper limbs… How peculiar… Fluttershy had described how the apetaur used to grab a stick when he felt threatened… Very peculiar indeed.
Twilight turned the page and froze. There, marked as ‘Nº 42 Unknown claw marking’ was the exact shape of the apetaur’s claw. It was like if he had put his claw on the wall and somepony had sprayed that brownish gunk all over the place, leaving a cloudy stain except for a clear shape in the center of the image.
“Spike! I’ll need all the tomes of this collection and some ink and paper. I think I’ve found something important…”
Snores could be heard in the background. Turning around, Twilight found the baby dragon asleep on the floor. “Yes… I should take a break…” She said chuckling to herself as she yawned.