For the first hour or so, Twilight was content with How It's Made. What they explained directly was already fascinating enough, but she was also able to learn a lot about the human world in general from things they said in passing and by reading between the lines.
For example, the video about copper which started off by saying humans had been making tools out of copper for at least ten thousand years. Even Princess Luna's banishment to the moon a thousand years ago seemed like an absurdly long time, but ten times further back? She kept needing to start videos over again because she would get distracted by these kinds of thoughts and stop listening.
A short while into her marathon, Twilight got her first glimpse into the humans' industrialization of living creatures when she learned they cultivated silkworms by the thousand in order to make some sort of luxury cloth. Then the show casually explained that the pupae were boiled alive so the cocoon could be used intact.
Twilight shifted uneasily where she sad and muttered, "Well... they are only insects after all..."
She shrugged to herself and continued watching for a while, and eventually came across a video about farming shrimp. Within the first few moments of the video, she learned that humans carefully cultivated thousands, maybe millions of these small crustaceans, simply to eat them later. Twilight shuddered as she realized that meant humans must be omnivores.
Yet as she continued to watch, it was obvious the shrimp were well taken care of, given a stress-free life, and got a perfectly balanced diet.
"These shrimp do have a pretty ideal life... until the end, at least."
Spike had always told her it was weird to talk to herself, but... well, he wasn't here now, was he? Besides, it helped her keep her thoughts in line.
"Maybe they have no choice? If eating other creatures is necessary to have a healthy diet, I suppose this is a good way to do it."
Once the shrimp episode was finished, she considered asking the tablet device about human nutrition, but decided to stick with How It's Made for now.
Then, just a few clips later, she stumbled onto hot dogs.
The introduction was innocuous enough, but as soon as it got to the processing plant, the narrator calmly explained that it was made of a mix of different meats, and although she didn't know what pork and beef was, there was no mistaking "chicken." Especially when the words were accompanied by the sight of hundreds, maybe thousands of mutilated carcasses being dumped into a large vat for processing.
If she hadn't been so horrified she might have stopped the video then and there but, too stunned to react, she simply watched in morbid fascination as that enormous mass of quivering flesh was mashed into a sort of paste, coming out looking more like wet clay than anything else. Oddly, that made the rest of the video almost bearable as the stuff looked far enough removed from any sort of animal that she could almost forget what it really was. Almost.
She finished the video feeling deeply uneasy and a little nauseous, but took a moment to collect herself and ultimately came to the same conclusion she had made from the shrimp video.
"They say variety is the spice of life... I guess I can't expect them to only ever eat shrimp."
She shuddered and quickly returned to the list of videos, but the mere image for the next video clearly showed strips of meat hanging on large racks, and that was just too much for her. With a convulsive shudder, Twilight backed out of the search results, closed her eyes, and took several deep breaths.
Once she had regained control of herself, she stared at the device and tried to decide what to do next. She was tempted by the "channels" Anon had pointed out earlier, but after a moment's consideration, she decided the most useful thing she could do with her time was to learn to read this strange lettering that she kept seeing everywhere.
She tapped the mic symbol Anon had showed her earlier and spoke clearly at the device, "How to read the human language."
It seemed to work, but after watching the beginning of the first few videos, she realized they all seemed to be about subtle body language clues. That might be useful, sure, but it wasn't what she wanted right now.
"Hmm... how about 'how to read for foals'?"
Just the images showed her that was wrong.
"Right, of course it wouldn't be 'foals.' Um... 'how to read for young humans'?"
That was a bit better, but more importantly one of the videos soon mentioned the word "children," so Twilight immediately backed out and tried again.
"How to read for children."
Jackpot. The first video was obviously an instructional video for very young humans and was quite tedious and boring to sit through, but it still gave her what she needed. After all, she already understood Anon's language--somehow--so all she really needed were the grammatical rules and which symbols humans used for which verbal sounds.
Unfortunately that plan quickly backfired once she learned that humans apparently used some ridiculous writing method where each symbol represents a whole group of sounds. That meant even the most basic of rules had countless exceptions and confusing overlaps. Not even the dragons' writing system was so convoluted!
Still, she soon learned yet another valuable term: alphabet. She couldn't help but giggle at such an odd name for your species' phonetics, but nevertheless it, along with a bit of experimenting with the search results, was the key to unlocking the videos she really needed. Now, instead of tediously simple videos designed for foals, she found more concise videos aimed at humans who spoke and wrote in other languages... though the very fact that not all humans spoke the same language was in itself a bit of a shock to her. Fortunately this "english" seemed to be one of the more common ones, so she set about learning it with a will.
Working out the needlessly complex and seemingly arbitrary laws of the english alphabet--Twilight giggled again at the silly name--quickly proved much more difficult than she initially expected. Still, this wasn't the first new phonetic system she'd learned.
By the Sun and Moon, she would make sense of this "i before e" rule or die trying!
* * *
Some time later, Twilight sat back with a satisfied smirk. Without so much as a glance at her meticulous notes or the faintest thought of falling back on voice-to-text yet again, she had successfully typed out her first complete sentence using the tablet's "keyboard."
"My name is Twilight Sparkle," it read.
With a dramatic swoop of the stylus, she pressed the "search" button and... well, of course the results were meaningless and unrelated.
"But still! SUCCESS!"
She could even understand some of the video titles! Once she had stumbled onto a video that simply read along with a bit of text on screen, she had improved dramatically, and she finally felt proficient enough to be useful, even if she was still slow.
Now it was time to unlock the full potential of these computers Anon had given her. Last night she had watched Anon ask questions on his phone, but he'd never needed to watch a lengthy video, so clearly there was a way to read the answers you needed. As she slowly tapped out her next search result, she once again silently praised whatever wizard of this world had allowed for this tablet device to make spelling suggestions. She was also starting to learn the "rules" of the search function as well, and was getting better at writing questions that gave her the results she wanted.
The back of her tablet said "samsung," so she tried "how to search on a samsung tablet" and was pleased to see a video titled "Samsung Galaxy Tab for beginners." The device looked slightly different from the one she was holding, but when she tried out the things it explained, most everything worked the way she expected. Thus, Twilight finally learned how to back out to the tablet's home screen for the first time... something Anon had forgotten to show her. Good thing she'd never needed to use that emergency contact he'd set up!
With a start, Twilight suddenly realized how low the sun was getting in the window and looked around for the watch he had left her.
He would be getting home soon!
Almost frantically she turned back to the tablet... then relaxed and giggled at her own silliness.
"It isn't as if I'm doing anything I shouldn't... why, Anon specifically said I could look up anything I wanted!"
Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had done something naughty and set the tablet down instead. Besides, she was now realizing how hungry she felt and probably wouldn't be able to focus on starting a new project anyway. Hunger in the middle of a project she was already obsessing over was a minor nuisance at most, but hunger at the start of a new project was an unbearable distraction--a fact that Spike frequently used to his advantage.
"Oh Spike... I do hope you knew to send for help..."
She cut off that train of thought before it began to depress her and rolled her little stool into Anon's kitchen. At first she was just going to munch on some fruit he had left out, but then she hesitated.
"He did make breakfast... maybe I should make him dinner?"
She didn't think he expected it, but it seemed like a good way to thank him for his hospitality. Sure she would be using his own supplies to make him a gift, but it was the thought that counted, right?
She quickly scanned through Anon's pantry and refrigerator--a machine which she would definitely be looking up later--and tried to find something she could cook reasonably quickly. Using her wonderful newfound skill of "reading," she was delighted to find a box of pasta noodles and a jar of pre-mixed sauce in his pantry. After a slight struggle, she managed to wrestle the jar open and the smell that wafted out immediately reminded her of something her dam used to make. All that was missing was...
"Ooooh, YES!"
Right there in the refrigerator door was a beautiful little jar of hibiscus flowers. She had always loved hibiscus pasta as a filly, and she immediately began to salivate at the thought of the subtle sweet and tart flavor complimenting the tomatoes and noodles.
With some effort, she climbed from her stool to the island counter which Anon had used as his makeshift surgical table for a better vantage point. Then she focused her magic, and the entire kitchen came to life.
Cabinets flapped and drawers slapped as she sought out what she needed. Water and noodles flowed into one pot, ingredients to the other, and burners flashed into life. A spoon started smoothly circling to stir sauce and syrupy hibiscus simultaneously.
It was a wonderfully intricate dance of ingredients and utensils with her at the center. Everything was going beautifully.
That is, until her forehead exploded with blinding pain.
"HNNNG!"
With a momentus effort of will, she managed to hold the magic just long enough to send everything clattering to the countertop instead of the floor, then she flopped onto her side with a pitiful whine, wrapping a fetlock around the base of her horn.
"Nonononononono..."
Clamping her muzzle tight against the desperate whimpering she couldn't seem to stop, she curled into a little ball, one hind leg kicking feebly at the air. She laid there for what felt like ages, head pounding furiously against the inside of her skull, hardly even aware of the tears leaking past her eyelids.
But, eventually, the pain began to fade and Twilight slowly regained her sense of self. She cracked open her eyes, sniffled a bit, then gingerly sat up and wiped her snout with a fetlock as she blinked away the tears.
Almost afraid of what she would see, she turned back to the stove... and let out a huge sigh of relief when she saw the noodles had only just begun to soften. It must have only seemed like such a long time because of the pain.
Twilight waited a bit for the noodles to boil and for the throbbing to die down some more, then very carefully tried a very tiny amount of magic to twist the knobs on the stove and lower the heat to simmer. She let out a sigh of relief when she felt only a faint echo of the agony she felt before. That meant she'd only strained the core, not damaged it further.
"Stupid... risky... should have known better..."
But she knew why she did it. She hadn't forgotten her injury, oh no. Never for a single instant could she forget what had happened to her dear and precious horn. No, she'd simply missed feeling like a powerful unicorn and gotten careless after spending the whole day floating that little stylus around.
It had certainly been fun for a little while, but she could have easily undone all the healing so far with that one stupid little moment of self-satisfaction. The mere thought of going without so much as a telekinesis spell for even one more day made her shudder.
Then, as she began to gently massage her forehead, she head a noise outside and glanced out the kitchen window to see Anon climbing out of a sleek grey vehicle. He could obviously see her in the window so she awkwardly raised a hoof in greeting, then carefully climbed down onto her little stool.
Why did she feel so nervous all of the sudden?
Trying to ignore the fluttering in her barrel, she rolled over to the foyer just in time to see Anon open the door and greeted him with a timid smile.
"Welcome home! I made dinner. Well, you can see that--or smell it, I guess--but I just wanted to, um... to show my appreciation. For you. For what you've done for me, I mean."
As she spoke, Anon dumped some things onto a little end table near the door, walked over and closed the kitchen curtains, slumped wearily against the counter, and stared down at her with a slight frown. Twilight couldn't help but droop her ears at this lackluster greeting, but she tried to hold onto her smile.
"Obviously you're tired, so that's good! Uh, not that you're tired, I mean. That's bad. But, um... well if you're tired then it's good I made dinner! Right?"
Anon barely even seemed to hear her, he just stared for a few more seconds, then pushed himself upright again and walked slowly toward her. Twilight was really starting to worry she'd done something wrong now and had to resist the urge to back away as he approached.
Yet Anon only walked past her, running his hand gently across her head and down her mane. Somehow, with that simple contact, Twilight immediately knew she'd done nothing wrong. So... was his gloomy mood because something happened at work?
She watched Anon walk out to the living room, then glanced at her food still simmering on the stove and let out a little sigh. Her rumbling tummy would have to wait. With a twist of a hoof, she dropped the stove to its lowest heat, then wheeled down the hall and saw Anon slump onto the couch, not seeming to notice her notes sprawled across the coffee table.
She rolled closer, climbed onto the couch, and sat awkwardly apart from him for a moment, simply watching his profile as he stared numbly at the floor. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what might be wrong and how she could help. She knew he was a veterinarian and that he had gone into the clinic for something important, and he didn't look angry, just very sad and tired.
Actually, he looked like he was grieving.
Everything clicked into place and, almost without thinking, Twilight lurched forward to wrap a hoof around his shoulders, gently laid her cast across his belly, and tucked her muzzle up under his jaw. He twitched in surprise and tried to look down at her, but that only made his chin press into her snout and Twilight responded with a little nuzzle.
"What--"
"One of my closest friends works with animals too."
She drew back her head so she could meet his eyes.
"I'll never forget the first time she... lost one."
He looked away sharply and she felt his body go rigid.
"Is that what happened? You couldn't save them?"
Anon crushed his eyes shut and said nothing, then he gave one tiny nod of his head.
For a moment, they just sat there, utterly still and silent. Then all at once something seemed to collapse within Anon and he slumped forward with a deep and weary sigh. She leaned across his chest to hug him properly and he slowly wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her mane as his breathing grew ragged.
The first time Fluttershy had lost one of her sick animal friends, she had become so depressed it had taken weeks of comforting before she was herself again. She doubted this was the first time it had happened to Anon, but she tried to imagine what it must be like to go through something like that, then come home to this big empty house in the middle of nowhere with no one to comfort you.
Twilight hugged him tighter.