//------------------------------//
// Historical Tangents 
// Story: Behind the Shower Curtain 
// by 6-D Pegasus 
//------------------------------//

Ryan returned to his apartment with a cheerful smile and a half-eaten breakfast sandwich in his hand. He checked his phone for the time and, as expected, it had taken about nineteen minutes to depart, order a quick meal, wait for its completion, and return home with his prize in hand. The walk back had caused the sandwich to lose much of its heat, but food was food, and this morsel was just enough to restore his energy for the morning. Besides, at least it wasn't cold or anything.

As soon as he laid his eyes on the interior of his humble abode, he spotted the still-open bathroom door and remembered that he had someone waiting for him. Quietly, he closed his front door as to make as little sound as possible. With the ambient sounds of the city no longer pouring into his room, he could hear the faint sounds of his favorite cello piece echoing out from his bathroom. He recognized the notes as belonging to the last part of the cello suite, meaning he had returned just in time before the piece could loop.

After silently kicking off his shoes, Ryan held his breath and began tip-toeing carefully to his bathroom. Thankfully, the few days he had spent living there had taught him what specific parts of the floor are most likely to creak, and he made an effort to steer clear of those. Upon reaching the bathroom, he peaked inside. Everything was exactly where he had left it; his laptop sat on his work chair which remained in front of the shower, its curtain still safely draped across the splash area.

Ryan leaned forward towards his laptop and brushed a finger across the touchpad to turn on its screen. Sure enough, the video was still playing with about twenty seconds remaining on the music. He stood there quietly for the remaining duration, enjoying the final notes in the piece until it got to a final, drawn-out chord. Once the final note concluded, he reached over and gently pushed on the space key, pausing the video before it could loop. With the music no longer filling the bathroom air, he focused on his hearing and was able to make out some faint breathing noises coming from the shower curtain, confirming the presence of his mysterious companion.

Not wanting to leave his precious laptop in such a precarious spot, he carefully picked it up off the chair and carried it back over to his work desk before closing it. He thought about bringing his chair back out, but realized it might make too much noise if he hit a wall or so much as scraped the tiled floor with it. Making his way back to the bathroom, he placed both his hands on chair's back and leaned forward as much as he could, turning his head so right ear pressed against the shower curtain. Sure enough, he could hear soft, slow rhythmic breathing on the other side. Despite the absurdity of the situation, he couldn't help but snicker a little.

So... she fell asleep to it again, huh? Ryan recalled that Twilight had supposedly dozed off during his experiment yesterday involving that same cello piece. And after only a couple minutes of it no less. It seemed she was no match for a full nineteen minutes of it. A small grin made its on his face as he took a step back to fully face the curtain. This is for knocking my sense of reality on its feet yesterday.

"TWILIGHT!"

"Gaahh!!" Ryan heard a loud crash on the other side of the curtain, accompanied by a pained yelp and followed up with a soft groan. "Ughh... Ryan, wa- was that you?"

Ryan covered his mouth with his hands and tried his best to remain quiet, but to his dismay a small snicker sneaked through his fingers.

"Wha- it was!" Twilight's voice took on a tone of expected indignation. A couple of angry stomps resounded through the curtain."That wasn't funny, you made me knock over my trash bin!"

Oh I can't anymore. Losing all composure, Ryan keeled over in laughter and almost lost his footing on the tile floor. He heard an annoyed huff, which made it even harder to stop laughing.

"... Are you done yet?"

After a few more seconds of mirth, Ryan finally closed his eyes and breathed deep, holding it in for a little before letting it all out. "Wooooooo. Yep, yep I'm done. Sorry, I just couldn't resist haha. Wow, you fall asleep really easily to this piece! You really love it that much?"

Twilight let out an embarrassed laugh. "Well, yes actually! There's a pony who lives near the outskirts of Ponyville named Octavia who plays the cello. She's part of the orchestra in Canterlot, which hosts concerts of solo performances every so often. I used to attend those a lot when I used to live there, and occasionally I still do if it happens to be land on a day and time that my schedule is free."

There's another name... Ryan leaned against the wall. "Octavia, huh? Is she one of your unicorn friends? I'm guessing my music sounds a lot like hers, right?"

"Nope, she's an Earth pony." 

Ryan went over his memory of Twilight's explanation of the different pony races. Earth pony... that's the one with... no wings and no horn! Wait, no horn? His eyes furrowed in confusion. That means no magic. How the hell does she play a cello then?!

Twilight hummed in thought. "And yes, that cello piece sounds exactly like the kind of music she usually composes! Her concerts are the only time I can listen to it though. They only make a limited number of vinyl records for each performance, and every time I've never been able buy one before they run out of supplies." There was a pause, followed by a quiet, annoyed grumble. "Though sometimes it feels like those richer, Canterlot nobles are somehow reserving records before the actual performances..."

Geez, the rich elite having advantages over others? Guess her society isn't that much different from ours... Well, minus the flying, magic, and who knows how many other fantastical species exist there. Ryan laughed. "So I take it you can't really listen to music like that whenever you want then? Or wherever you want for that matter?"

Twilight hummed in thought. "Well, that sounds a bit like a music box. Those are these wooden, mechanical instruments using a metal cylinder and comb that-"

"-plays music when a crank is turned?"

A second passed. "... yes! Precisely!"

Ryan blinked in surprise. "Yeah, we... have those, too. Same name and everything. Though we have these things called phones that can hold a lot more music than the one piece a music box can play, among other things."

"Wow, really?! This is incredible, I didn't realize just how many terms are shared between our worlds! I've got to write this all down."

Yeah, this is getting weird... Ryan listened to what sounded like mess of hooves clopping and paper scattering. A thought crossed his mind. "Wait, that reminds me... Do you still have that list of those other species you wanted to ask me about?"

There was a brief moment of silence. "Yes, I still have them on hoof. Did you want to check those out now?"

Ryan chuckled inwardly at the horse puns of 'on hand' and cracked his knuckles. "If that's alright, yeah. Something just occurred to me."

"...what was that?"

Ryan blinked. "What was what?"

"That sound you just made. It sounds awfully familiar somehow."

He pondered for a moment what she could possibly be talking about when it hit him. "Oh! Yeah, I was just cracking my knuckles. Sorry, it's a bit of a habit of mine, I probably shouldn't be doing that when talking to someone anyway."

There was a pause. "Knuckles? Wait a minute, that sounds like... oh my gosh, I can't believe I forgot about that!"

What is she on about? Ryan furrowed his eyes in utter confusion. "Forgot about what?"

"Your anatomy!"

Ryan's eyes widened in realization. "Oh, I-, uh-, I mean yes, I guess I never-"

"Do you have claws? Paws? Hooves? Talons? How many limbs do you have?"

"Hold on, wait a-"

"How many eyes? How tall is your species on average? What about average weight?"

"Wai-"

"Where do humans usually live? Or what do you eat? Oh! What about your-"

"Twilight!"

"...oh. Sorry!"

Ryan couldn't help but laugh a little. "No, you're fine, that was just... a little too fast for me to process. I did catch your first few questions though. First off, we typically have four limbs: two legs and two arms."

"Two legs? Oh, so human are bipedal!"

Ryan blinked. "Yyyyyyyyyes. Yep! I'd imagine this is different for your world, where you said is filled with quadrupeds?"

"Mhm, most sentient races in our world are quadruped, but there are definitely exceptions like with Minotaurs and juvenile dragons.

Juvenile dra- you know what, nevermind. "Gotcha. Also no, we don't really have claws on our arms. We call those hands."

Twilight hummed in thought. "Hands, hands... Hmm, that's very interesting."

Ryan tilted his head curiously. "What is it?"

"Well, it's something I've never really thought of before. But as far as I'm aware, of the few documented sentient species here that use the term arm for their upper limbs, none of them use the term 'hand' for the extension of the limb. However, it's used universally as a verb for giving or passing something. There is also the expression of giving or lending a hand, which is interchangeable with 'lending a hoof', but I've never really questioned it until now."

"Really? We use 'hand' for all the same expressions here."

There was a loud gasp, followed by the rustling papers and the sound of scribbling.

"Wha- Twilight, are you really taking a note of that?"

Twilight stammered. "I-, of course I am! Proper research requires thorough documentation!"

"Wowwww, glad to know I'm just your research topic."

"That's not what I meant!"

Ryan let loose a snicker. "Pfft, I know, I'm just messing with you." He swore he could hear a muffled exasperated growl.

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. You and Rainbow Dash would get along veryyyyyy well."

Rainbow Dash, huh? "Let me guess, Rainbow is a pegasus pony?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, that's correct. How'd you figure?"

"Rainbow... Dash? The name just feels a bit... self-intuitive."

"What do you-... oh, hmmm... I suppose so!" Twilight chuckled. "Anyways, sometime later I'm probably going to do some research on the origin of that 'hand' word. It does perplex me how that word exists for us when, well, none of us have any hands."

Ryan laughed. "Alright then, let me know how that goes!" He took a bite out of what remained of his breakfast sandwich, noting most of its heat had long since dissipated during their talk. "Soooo, before I left, you mentioned something about asking me more about those... 'mythological creatures' of your world?"

"Okay, sure! Just lemme..." There was some more rustling of paper. "Here we go! Yes, there are many sentient species spread throughout Equus, most of which are somewhat documented, but there are many of them that likely remain elusive to us."

Dang, not all sentient species are accounted for over there? That's a lot of interesting first encounters just waiting to happen. "How much of your world has been explored already? Here on Earth, almost every strip of land is mapped out and then some! We still know pretty little about our oceans, though."

Twilight gasped in shock. "The whole world mostly mapped out?! That's amazing! I mean, most of Equestria itself is roughly mapped out, but I can't say the same for much of the surrounding nations' land."

Ooooo yes, politics. Must be worse than ours then. "How come?"

"Well, long before the First Long Night, during Equestria's expansionsist era, no official borders formally existed. Scribes and cartographers would travel outwards from Canterlot to map out the surrounding land, both for documentation and to scout out potential locations of settlement. Because there were little to no larger pockets of sentient species on the mainland, Equestria expanded to cover most of the continent, stopping just short of the Frozen North. When we tried expanding overseas however, we came across much larger regions occupied by other sentient species like dragons, griffons, zebras, or yaks, with established systems of rule."

Ryan hummed in thought. "Yaks? Griffons are also part of mythology and legend here, but we've got yaks."

"Oh! Sentient?"

"Nah."

There was a soft sigh. "Right. If I ever saw your world, I already know that sight would be pretty... upsetting, as much as I'd still want to witness that for research purposes."

Haha, we got Planet of the Apes for that. "Yeah, I get what you mean."

Twilight cleared her throat. "Anyways, after several months of back and forth negotiating, the first of many treaties was signed between the two Princesses of Equestria and the known leaders of the other species that established a formal committee for international affairs. Well... calling it a formal committee might be pushing it. The main accomplishment was recognizing each other as separate nations and establishing official borders for the Dragon Lands, the Griffon Kingdom, and Yakyakistan, and to make sure no one tried expanding into another's land. The dragons stubbornly remained hostile to anyone who crossed into their territory, agreeing to maintain nonaggression when on foreign land. Of course, there's been a few... isolated incidents, but for the most part nothing major."

Ryan scoffed. "So basically, 'we won't go out of our way to screw with you, but all bets are off if you make it easy for us'?"

"I- ," Twilight chuckled. "Yes, I suppose that's a way to put it. In any case, they weren't very open to ponies trekking across the border to survey their geography. Griffons were more tolerant of visiting creatures, but made it clear mapping attempts were not welcome.  The yaks stated they wouldn't stop anyone who wanted to try, but back then the storms in the north were far harsher, so it was not worth the risk to most cartographers when most ponies didn't care much for exploring beyond our borders."

Ryan pondered the implications. "So... do maps of the world just leave the areas like the dragon kingdom as like, some mysterious region? 'Here there be monsters'?"

"Griffon Kingdom," Twilight corrected. "But no, there's a rough approximation of foreign geography used in modern maps. Around a century ago, international trade became more common, and the hostility from griffons and dragons had settled down enough to where scout pegasi could fly the outskirts of the borders to map the regions leading into their lands. For the griffons, this included the west-most city, Griffonstone, in its entirety. Ponies rarely venture further east of Griffonstone, so maps just cut off there. The dragons, as far as we know, don't have individual cities, but we know so little about them and their history and culture to begin with. The few stories of ponies being... eaten by dragons in old history scare most ponies from even thinking of getting close!"

Dang... well, at least dragons being generally scary is consistent between our worlds. Ryan thought about this information for a bit, poking the shower curtain absentmindedly. "Dragons in our legends and myths vary a lot. In some, they're sentient and can talk, but in others, they're just mindless beasts. They're used in a lot of stories and movies nowadays. There's even a whole book and movie franchise around a character learning to tame and ride a dragon!"

"What?!" Twilight exclaimed, before giggling. "We definitely don't have something like that around here, but it sounds like something Spike would find funny."

Spike... Spike... Oh, her dragon assistant, right. "What, the whole 'riding a dragon' part? Is that concept no-"

"Oh no, that's a thing here too in some stories or comics. It's the 'taming a dragon' part since, you know... they can talk?"

Oh. "Ah! My bad." Ryan scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Yeah... that'd be pretty weird. Anyways, didn't you also mention zebras?"

"Oh, oops.  Like I said, zebras were among  the many sentient species Equestria encountered during its expansion and are also among the committee, but unlike with the others, first contact was very peaceful, mainly in that the scouting party wasn't attacked on sight. They were very welcoming and open to exchanging information, though at the time none of it could be understood as every species had their own native language. A prominent sorcerer, Starswirl the Bearded, helped alongside the zebras to create the first universal translator spell, which would be why Princess Celestia would even be able to negotiate with the griffons, dragons, and yaks."

Holdddd up. Ryan's jaw dropped. "No way, a universal translation spell? That would be a breakthrough if something like that was developed here, and you're saying this has been a thing over there for centuries?!"

"Yep! Anyways, back to what I was saying, once stable communication was established, a lot of information was exchanged, including a good chunk of the geography for the zebra homeland. Once the rest of the land's geography was recorded, a consistent trade route was established, though this shrank following the First Long Night and only Canterlot directly trades with them currently. For the rest of Equestria, zebras gradually became enshrowded in mystery, and their cultural tie with nature spawned many unpleasant rumors about them. It doesn't help that zebras never venture into Equestria, save for one who actually lives near Ponyville in the Everfree Forest, named Zecora."

Twilight stifled a snort. "All those rumors must have really gotten to the ponies here when Zecora began making regular surprise visits looking for certain herbs or flowers that she hoped might grow here. They even started to get to me, despite me knowing they weren't true. That was a... very interesting experience for me and my friends that I'll have to tell you another time."

Ryan chuckled. "I mean... I don't have anywhere else to be right now."

A soft hum of contemplation bounced around the bathroom. "Hmmmm, I suppose so... wait. Oh my gosh. Oh no."

"Huh?" Ryan asked worriedly, backing up slightly. "Is somethingggg wrong?"

"I can't believe I forgot, I promised to help one of my friends with revising their speech for presenting her new fashion line, and her speech is in thirty minutes!" There was a groan of exasperation. "I didn't even get to most of the questions on my list, I got myself in a tangent answering yours!"

Ryan shrank a little. "Oh. Sorry."

"Nonono, you're fine, Ryan, I know you probably have as many questions as I do, I just realllyyy enjoy explaining things. I'll be back in maybe an hour or two, will you still be around by then?"

Ryan did a brief mental check of his completely empty schedule for the day. "I... should be, yeah."

"Perfect! I'm so sorry, I didn't want to just cut off our talk like this but I lost track for time and-"

"Twilight!" Ryan interjected. "It's alright, I've done this sort of thing tonssss of times before, you're fine."

Twilight let out a relieved laugh. "Haha, well alright then, thanks. I'll be back soon!" 

"See ya!" Ryan listened as Twilight's galloping began to fade away, only to quickly return.

"Oh! Also! If for whatever reason, you hear Spike enter the bathroom, pleaaaase try not to make any noise. I don't want him becoming suspicious."

Ryan nodded to the curtain. "Okay, I'll try. Um... what does Spike sound like?"

"Young and male. You know what, scratch that. Just apply that to anyone you hear who isn't me!"

Ryan laughed. "Alright, got it!" He paused. "And good luck with that speech!"

"Thanks! Bye again!"

Before Ryan could respond, he heard the bathroom door somewhere on the other side of the curtain slam shut, further muffling the waning sounds of Twilight's hooves. 

After a few more seconds, the bathroom fell utterly silent once more. Ryan reached up and gently brushed the otherwise normal-looking shower curtain aside, revealing a completely ordinary shower.

Of all things... how did this?... He stared blankly at his porcelain tiles before letting the curtain fall back into place. Anyways, what was I doing before I came back here? I swear I'm forgetting somethi-

His stomach rumbled, and he glanced to his left hand which still held his cold, half-eaten breakfast sandwich.

"Oh. Right."