//------------------------------// // 21- They realized! At long last! // Story: Still No Signal // by Axel Azabash //------------------------------// Ugh… My head hurt… I tried to move, but my back hurt too. And I was being restrained by something. Breathing in some crisp cool morning air got me a little bit less sleepy. It was kind of cold, but I was comfortably warm despite the sheets not being that thick. I snuggled my face into the pillow, trying to avoid the light coming from the windows… a fuzzy, warm, surprisingly heavy and dark pink pillow that just groaned and… shifted? My pillow opened up her uncannily big emerald green eyes and looked at me. She had bags under those eyes and couldn’t fully open them because of the light of the sun. That situation made me do a double take and became aware of my surroundings. I was lying on the couch with my back pressed against the sofa pillows, my legs dangling from one end, covered with a thin blanket and with the Cheery mare being halfway between being the little spoon and being on top of me, supported between the back of the sofa and my chest, bending her neck to look back at me with her head upside down. She said something that I didn’t understand, shook her head and rubbed her eyes with a foreleg. She frowned at herself in a mix of tiredness, disappointment and frustration. “So… that happened… We got drunk, went to sleep, tried to be polite to each other, ended up in an argument over who would take the bed and we ended up sleeping on the sofa together. We are so smart…” I said in plain English. Cheery started to say something in Horseish, sounding very sad and disappointed on herself, if she lightly tapping her head with her hoof had something to do with what she was talking about. Her eyes started to water and she sniffled, so that was it… “Shhh… it’s fine, it’s fine…” I said in her language while I started to run my hand along her barrel, combing her fur and chest fluff a little with my fingers. My head still hurt a lot and I couldn’t think about a better way to cheer her up. She tensed up, immediately perking up her ears and neck, then the next stroke she lowered her head a little bit, then more, and more until she rested again her head on the real pillow, beside my head. She flattened her ears and looked at me from her peripheral upside-down vision, still frowning in an expression that shouted ‘I hate you and this is so wrong… please, don’t stop’. I chuckled and she snorted at my amusement, but she wasn’t running away. “No children today?” I asked. She looked back at me a bit confused until she figured it out. “Oh… no… no class today, weekend.” “So, we sleep morning.” I responded. We stayed like that for a few minutes, Cheery blinking drowsily with her eyes not being more than half open. Eventually, the mare shook her head and rubbed her eyes again. “I make breakfast.” She stated as she got up and stretched on the couch like a cat, only to realize a little too late that she wasn’t on her bed and had a limited space, with me taking most of it too, so she tripped over the edge of the sofa and tumbled, almost falling off, but I grabbed her in the last second to avoid the fall. We stared at each other wide eyed and I carefully let her on the floor. That incident made the mare even more crestfallen, and I had no idea what was going on. I crouched near her and put a hand on her back. “How are you?” I asked, feeling a little worried. “I am… Stupid.” She said, but I didn’t understand the word. “Stupid? What is ‘stupid’?” I asked. “Stupid… we sleep on sofa, no bed, I fell from sofa… Head hurts, back hurts, (unintelligible sound)… stupid… I’m stupid.” She pointed at her at that last part, making a silly face. Then she looked down again. Yes, the situation was kind of silly. But I didn’t get why she was being so harsh to herself, that was not healthy at all. “You no stupid…” “Me no…” She looked up at me “…But I…” “We stupid!” I proudly pointed at myself, earning a snort from her. “We did same thing. We stupid.” She finally smiled a little, although she still looked down and was… blushing? Through her fur? Nah, it was probably a trick of the light, maybe because she was already a reddish shade of pink. “Okay, breakfast.” She stated and headed to her little kitchen. “I help.” I said, coming after her. She looked back at me and rolled her eyes. “Of course… males…” “What?” “Nothing! Fine! Let’s make breakfast.” *** We were figuring out how to say ‘planet’ and ‘star’ when Smartylocks came back to pick me up. I put on my ‘I’m a normal person’ trademark face but forgot that ponies probably had a really keen sense of smell. After a couple of whiffs and sniffs, Smartylocks scrunched her face in an adorable way that got a little chuckle out of me and then looked at Cheery with a flat stare, then back at me. “Really?” “Yeah, really!” I responded. “Really! New word! Good job!” Cheery cheered and snickered afterwards. “Lessons are going fine, I see…” Smartylocks added. “Yup!” Both Cheery and I responded at the same time. “Okay… time to go home…” Smartylocks said some more horse words that I didn’t understand and took me home. Back to the toy castle made out of shinny Chinese cheap quality plastic… I mean… arcane crystals. *** I felt surprisingly well this morning. The slight headache was nothing compared to the realization that finally, someone understood my problem. That Cheery teacher mare finally realized what kind of situation I was in, and tried to help and showed some kind of empathy that was in some way helpful. We drank together some alcohol and she told me her problems, even though I didn’t understand most of it, it was comforting and in some way felt like talking to another human being. Finally, Purplesmart came back from whatever she was doing with the Rainbow one and Smartylocks reported to her. The purple winged mare looked a little worried and the other one sounded a little alarmed at the situation. Yes, we drank a little, that’s not a big deal. I spent the afternoon going through some textbooks for children to further learn the language, and I started to make progress on my own as I understood a little bit the explanations given with the help of the copious amounts of illustrations. But when the general time in the day when they took me to the teacher was getting close, the actual teacher came to them instead. I wasn’t expecting her to come, as I had just been there this morning. *** It was weekend, so Cheerilee was supposedly free, and Twilight was having some trouble believing what Starlight Glimmer had told her. She had some talking to do with Cheerilee after knowing the teacher and the student had been drinking alcohol during their lessons, something completely outrageous from Twilight’s point of view. But then, Cheerilee came into the map’s room where they were gathering. “Uh… hello Miss Cheerilee. I actually wanted to talk with you.” Twilight greeted the mare a little awkwardly, not expecting her to come. “Good evening, Princess Twilight. I actually came to talk with you indeed.” Cheerilee replied way too calmly in Twilight’s opinion. “I have been reported that… You and your student… were… drinking during the lessons, I hope it’s a misunderstanding.” Twilight said, not really sure how to word the problem without sounding too rude now that the actual teacher was in front of her. “The student was too tired and depressed to continue with the lesson, so I decided to finish it early and relax.” Cheerilee explained. “But… you… and… alcohol? Really?” Twilight stuttered, unable to cope with how casually Cheerilee had just explained the situation. “Really!” The apetaur decided to just intervene, causing an eye twitch from Twilight and an embarrassed smile from Cheerilee. “A teacher offering alcohol to her student is unacceptable.” Twilight frowned at Cheerilee. “Yesterday I had a depressed stallion in my house, the least I could do is to offer him a drink.” Cheerilee countered. “A deprr… le what?” Twilight malfunctioned for a moment. “I have discovered somehow the origins of this creature while teaching him our language. And in the process realized that he is not only as intelligent as anypony else, he misses his friends and family, that’s the cause of his depression and weird behaviors.” The teacher explained. “But that doesn’t mean that you can… Alcohol… and… but…” “And the only reason why nopony knew anything about this is because nopony tried to really communicate with him as the intelligent creature he is.” Cheerlilee continued. There was a pause while Twilight processed all the information. She already had some clues, but in reality, she had treated the apetaur like a test subject and research of her own for the most part. She blushed a little as she realized she could have paid more attention to him. She could have prevented him being depressed if she had paid more attention. The maps and diagrams he drew came to mind. “He actually drew a few diagrams, but they didn’t make any sense. The Sun and Moon were all off and the maps were wrong…” She muttered. “That’s because those maps and diagrams aren’t about Equus.” Cheerilee said. “But then…” “I believe he is representing another world or realm where things work differently.” Cheerilee explained. “Those diagrams were quite well organized for being made up now that I think about it…” “My theory is that he is from another world, realm, dimension or whatever in which things work differently. I remember you told me he has no magic. Probably magic doesn’t exist at all in that realm and they made up for that with… I don’t know, but he seems quite intelligent and his knowledge of his own world is impressive. I would say they are quite advanced.” Cheerilee exposed. “Magicless advanced aliens from another planet, told ya!” Spike interrupted.