The reaction to Albus' arrival was... mixed.
Quite a few of the ponies opted to simply ignore him, which he was more than fine with. A few of them, especially the really small ones (which he assumed were children... or would it be foals?), stopped to stare at him at least a little bit. None of them approached him, however, and really the only extreme reaction he got was out of a yellow pegasus when he caught it-, or, her, he would later know, eye.
More specifically, she fainted.
Other than that, he spent most of the time spent wandering through Ponyville observing the ponies, and trying to ignore his growing hunger. On the part of the ponies, he found that the stallions and mares had several distinctive features, like the stallions having broader shoulders and longer faces, for the most part, with the mares being.... pretty much the opposite of that. He also noticed that mares were quite firmly in the majority; by how much he wasn't sure, there were just a lot more.
Also on the subject of ponies, he noticed a few of the pegasus ponies flying around and manipulating the clouds; which were rather close to the ground, come to think of it. He assumed this had something to do with the whole 'ambient magic' thing, and wondered for a while if he could do the same thing.
On the matter of his hunger, he certainly didn't notice any fish stalls or butcheries, so it was safe to assume that he wouldn't be finding any meat anytime soon. He found it just dandy that he had to be dropped off in an herbivore society. Add that to the fact that he wasn't sure whether or not he could digest plants, and...
* GGRRRRRBRBLRBLRBLR.... *
He was practically causing earthquakes with his stomach at this point, and his miserable face and somewhat shaky legs only attested to his hunger even more.
“Ugh....”
The worst part about this was, even in the unlikely event that he could digest plant material, he didn't have any money to buy anything with! Maybe one of the restaurants around here would accept labor in return for food...
“Heeeey, Grumpy Beak!”
Oh dear god, not her...
Sighing, he replied as pleasantly as he could with, “Yes, Dash?” as the only pony he knew landed in front of him, this time sporting a rainbow colored scarf.
Quirking an eyebrow at him, Dash asked, “What's with the long face?”
His stomach was quick to answer that for him, Dash practically wincing at how loud it was, with a few passers-by actually jumping in surprise.
“Holy moly, dude. I don't think it's healthy to starve yourself...”
“I don't exactly have any way to pay for food, Dash. Plus, uh...” he trailed off, not really wanting to confess his lack of knowledge about his own body.
“Plus what?” came the obvious question from the colorful pony.
“I, uh....” he sighed, “I don't really know if I can eat plants like ponies can. We didn't eat much outside of meat back home.”
He was, of course, lying through his tee-, err, beak, about that, but he thought it was a reasonable enough venture.
Dash seemed a bit surprised though, “Oh, really? I thought that most gryphons got at least a few plants in their diet...” she frowned a little before muttering, “Or at least Gilda did...”
She took that surprisingly well. I'm better at this than I thought. He mused to himself, ignoring the comment about Gilda. Probably a gryphon she knows, if she's comparing them to me.
“Anyway,” Dash continued, “I suppose since you're new in town I could treat you to a meal, but you'll owe me.”
“I already owe you, I'd still be lost if not for you.”
Dash looked thoughtful for a little bit, “Oh, well, there is that, I guess, but that was more for my friend Fluttershy than anything else.”
Okay, now I'm confused.
“Flutter-who-now?” Albus queried, confusion written all over his face. He'd ignored the last couple of comments regarding names he didn't know, but since this involved him...
“Oh, yeah, you probably haven't met anypony in town; Fluttershy is a friend of mine. She said she had seen you in the forest in the other day, but was too nervous to ask if you needed help. Apparently she left you a fish or something, in case you were hungry.” Dash replied easily.
The gryphon's eyebrows – or whatever counts as his eyebrows, seeing as how he has a bird head – shot up in surprise at this news, and he quickly asked, “Really? That was her? Where is she now? Can I meet her?”
Dash seemed incredibly amused by his word choice, and he was confused why until she said, “Easy there, Hotshot, I don't think she's interested in gryphons.”
Interested in- what? What does th-... Oh. Oooooh.
After hearing this, Albus did the only thing he could think to do, and face-palmed.
“You would, Dash. That's not what I meant and you know it.”
This was apparently incredibly amusing to the pony, as she was soon rolling on the snow covered street, laughing her cutie mark off and getting a few strange looks from other pedestrians.
Rolling his eyes and giving a derisive snort, Albus decided to address a more pressing matter; that of getting food. “Good to know I'm so amusing to you, Dash. Although I suppose introductions can wait. You said something about buying me food, correct?”
Recovering from her laughing fit, the athlete soon responded with, “Yeah yeah, I'll feed you. I haven't eaten yet either, to be honest,” she paused, appearing to think about something, “Give me a sec, I gotta figure out how to fill your gigantic self up without going broke...”
Albus gave a small smile and a nod, willing to wait if he could eat his fill. Rushing wasn't going to get him anywhere.
In the small lapse in conversation, Albus pondered how strange it was that not too long ago they were yelling at each other in the woods -- hell, even just a little bit ago he wasn't all that fond of her -- but now they were cracking jokes and she was buying him dinner.
Well, that last bit is probably mostly pity, but still. It's nice to know I can sort of count on someone here.
He stopped at that thought; could he really count on this pony? He supposed yes, she seemed friendly enough when not interrogating him, and it's not like he knew anything about this place. He had to rely on someone until he got his bearings, he just hoped that he wouldn't be too much of a burden until then. He knew he was an ass, but he wasn't ungrateful, and he knew how much Dash had helped him; and she was still helping him, even! Were all ponies this generous?
Even if they aren't, they seem to grow on you pretty qui-
His thought process was cut short by a hoof prodding him in the chest.
“Hey, you still in there?”
Blinking in surprise, he cleared his throat and took in the situation: more specifically, Dash standing in front of him with an amused grin on her face.
“Sorry about that, I zoned out for a bit. What were you saying?”
Rolling her eyes, Dash gave a, “Yeah, I could see that,” before repeating what she said whilst Albus was in his own little world. “I said there's a buffet place little while away from here, it's all-you-can eat, and has a pretty decent selection. You should be able to find something edible there, plus I don't have to worry about The Beast-” by some cosmic chance, Albus' stomach chose right then to give one of its cataclysmic growls, as if to reiterate her statement; Dash gave a small snort of laughter before continuing with, “eating more than my wallet can handle.”
This proclamation made Albus give her a wide smile. This was a great plan, in his eyes; not only did he get to eat whatever he wanted without feeling bad about infringing too much on Dash's hospitality, but if he could only eat a limited selection of the menu, he could just get a lot of that, instead of accidentally ordering the wrong thing and having it go to waste.
“Sounds like a plan, Dash. Lead the way,” he chirped, quite happy with this turn of events.
Giving him a nod, Dash gave the universal 'follow me' motion with her head, before zipping off over the rooftops between them and their destination.
….only to come back a few seconds later with a sheepish grin on her face, before giving a nervous chuckle and saying, “Oh yeah, forgot about your wing. Sorry...”
To be honest, I completely forgot what my excuse not to fly was. Thanks for reminding me.
Regardless, the pigment-less former man merely gave a dismissive wave, saying, “It happens to the best of us,” before walking towards the street that he thought would take them in the direction they needed to go.
Dash once again taking the lead in a slow hover, Albus began reflecting upon his situation again, absentmindedly following the only pony he knew through the unfamiliar streets of Ponyville.
Huh, it's starting to get dark... Should probably make it a priority to get a place to sleep. After food, that is.
I'm taking this whole, 'surrounded by sentient pony-things' situation rather well. I suppose I've just learned to accept the situation, or something. It probably also has something to do with gryphons being a sentient race in this place too; they aren't freaked out by me, so I'm under less pressure from being different. It's definitely a good thing that there doesn't seem to be any tension between the ponies and gryphons, otherwise I might have made myself a target for stigma without even knowing it.
Speaking of gryphons, there don't seem to be any here. Then again, the country is named 'Equestria', so it makes sense it would be a dominantly pony nati-
Albus' thoughts were, again, cut off by Dash announcing, “Alright, this is the place!”
Ending his musings for the moment, he stopped himself from walking into Dash by inches, and backed up before she could notice.
The sign of the buffet proudly stated: “Silver Corral”.
Albus stared at the sign for a few moments with a blank look on his face, trying to make sense of the universe-spanning joke in front of his eyes without having an aneurism.
“Hey, Alby, you alright?”
Blinking his way out of the mind fuck that was the restaurant's name, he could only reply with, “Alby?”
Dash simply shrugged, “I thought it was fitting.”
Albus was going to assert that, no, it was most certainly not fitting, when a posh, feminine voice said, “Oh, hello there Rainbow, what a pleasant surprise!” from right next to his head.
Jumping and giving a rather undignified “Squawk!”, Albus reacted with more of those new-found instincts of his, and with a powerful flap of his wings he majestically catapulted himself into...
...the wall of the buffet, which was pretty impressive, given it was about 20 feet away at the time.
Sliding to the ground with a pained groan, he remained there for a second or two before raising himself and shaking himself, much like a wet dog.
The new arrival's apologies were cut off by Albus' pained yelp, followed by him clamping his beak shut with a talon to keep from shouting the plethora of obscenities that threatened to violently escape from him.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!
Upon launching himself into the rather hard exterior wall of the eatery, he smashed the 'shoulder' of his wing into the wall, and it in fact took most of the impact for him. Which, as you may or may not know, is quite bad for the health of your wing (if you have one), and caused him quite a bit of pain when he jostled himself so violently when standing up.
“Oh, dear! I'm ever so sorry, my good sir! Are you alright? Do you need medical attention?” the posh voice said worriedly, sounding rather genuinely apologetic.
Thankfully, Dash saved him from having to reply when she gave a gasp and said, “Oh man! He said he sprained his wing sometime ago; it must've still been injured and when he flapped his wings like that...” she trailed off, not really needing to finish that train of thought.
Not quite, but it gives credence to my story. I'll work with – ow, ow, ow – work with it.
His unintentional assailant gave a gasp of her own and was probably about to go off on another apology spree when Albus cut her off, clearing his throat.
Now turning his gaze to where he had flung himself from, he saw the pony that had, quite embarrassingly, startled him so badly.
A quite pretty snow white coat and horn adorned the small unicorn, as well as a meticulously groomed, styled, and incredibly eye catching deep amethyst mane and tail. To top it all off, her cutie mark was a trio of diamonds.
All in all, she most certainly looked the part of the refined lady; that is if she wasn't near tears with guilt.
Whoa.
Albus didn't know what to expect, but he most certainly didn't expect anyone to be so shook up about an accident like this. Feeling kind of sorry for her, and wanting to discourage the few bystanders this little scene had brought on by disarming any drama, he quickly followed up on his harrumph with, “It's quite alright, ma'am; these things do happen. I bear no ill will towards you for something that was quite obviously not your fault, though your concern is greatly appreciated.”
Dash looked dumbfounded, apparently she didn't know that he was capable of any sort of polite eloquence. The small gaggle of drama-hungry ponies around them mostly dispersed at this point, all the gossip-worthy parts apparently being over with.
The other pony, however, looked quite relieved, if a little bit surprised at the lengths he went to suspend her guilt, and replied with, “Oh, goodness, thank you,” before blinking and carrying forward with, “Oh, dear me, where are my manners today? My name is Rarity, my good gentlefowl, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Gentlefowl? That... works, I guess... I guess it's better that I know to distinguish before calling a bunch of guys 'men', which would make no sense, obviously.
Putting on his best smile, though it was ruined somewhat by the occasional grimace of pain, the 'gentlefowl' continued his polite semi-façade with a little bow (at least, he thought it was a proper bow) and, “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Rarity. You may know me as Albus, Albus Vires.”
Rarity beamed with pleasure at the exchange, but before it could continue any further Dash cut in with a rather conspicuous cough.
“Oh, my apologies Rainbow, I didn't mean to steal your date from you!”
This statement sent Albus and Dash sputtering, a blush playing across the latter's face.
Before either of them could protest her word usage, Rarity concluded with, “I'm afraid I must cut our conversation short, Rainbow, Mr. Vires, I have an important order I simply must get done by tomorrow; I have little time to lose. Have a pleasant evening, you two!”
And with that, she was off, leaving the feathered pair dumbfounded in her wake.
* GRRGBLGBLGRBLRGBLRGB *
Albus took this moment to agree with his stomach, “Hey, uh, I don't wanna sound ungrateful or anything, but can we hurry up and eat?”
Jumping on the opportunity to avoid the awkward note Rarity had left them on, Dash responded with a nod and a simple, “Right.”
Quickly walking into the Silver Corral (Don't think about it, don't think about it...), they were assaulted with the scents of cooking food and the sounds of a buffet's worth of conversation filling the air. Well, not so much the smell bit on Albus' part.
“Welcome to the Silver Corral!” a cheery pony greeted them from behind a counter, next to a cash register.
Albus watched as Dash paid the pony, and as they were being led towards the tables by the host asked, “Hey, how does the currency work in this country?”
Dash gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes jokingly, “Geez, you're like a little foal, I have to explain everything to you,” giving a small chuckle, she expanded upon that with, “I keep forgetting you're a foreigner, I guess not knowing how Bits work makes sense, though.”
Bits? They call their money bits? Is everything here some horse pun, or what?
Thankfully unaware of his internal tirade, Dash explained how bits worked. What Albus got from it was this: a copper bit was 1 bit, a silver bit was 10, and a gold bit was 50. And that was pretty much it.
After securing a table for themselves, they split up, walking about the buffet area to get their own food. Unsurprisingly, everything was vegetarian, but that didn't exclude baked goods such as bread, pastries, and the like from appearing on the menu, so he knew he could probably at least eat something. He immediately avoided things that were inedible even as a human, though, such as the 'Hayburgers' they had somewhere in the lineup.
Upon returning to the table, Dash was still absent, so he decided to just start eating. Not being able to chew made eating some things awkward, or downright impossible, and he noticed that he couldn't really taste anything he was eating. The reason for this, he recalled from one of his random biology lessons, was that your sense of smell constituted a large part of your sense of taste; which he had always found odd since dogs apparently couldn't taste for crap, despite having incredibly strong noses (which was the only reason he remembered that fact).
He found himself getting seconds, and thirds, and fourths, much to a rather shocked Dash's wonder. It was actually a bit intimidating, the metabolism and appetite of a fully grown gryphon. On his way to leave for a fifth helping of food, Dash stopped him with a somewhat sheepish smile on her face, “Hey, uh, Alby... I don't want it to seem like I'm ditching you or anything, but, I uh... I have to get up early tomorrow and...”
Seeing where this was going, Albus stopped her there, “Not a problem, Dash. If you've gotta go, that's fine. I owe you one for the food, eh?”
Looking rather relieved, Dash couldn't resist the urge to poke fun at her newest companion, “Yeah, I'm lucky I chose a place where they can't charge extra for eating the entire stock of food, huh? Anyways, thanks. I'll see you later, Alby!”
And then there was one.
Albus quickly fetched and finished the fifth course of his impossibly large meal (one of the chefs had given him a funny look when he took half of an entire cake onto his plate), and decided to call it quits.
That was ridiculous. I hope I don't get fat from eating all of that... Plus there's the whole nutritional value thing, I can't live off of breads and veggies forever, I need meat. Maybe I can exchange some work for some fish with... uh... what's-her-face... Butterfly or something.
As he was exiting the rapidly depopulating Silver Corral, he could swear he heard somepony say, “Did you see how much he ate?”
Chuckling to himself, he stepped out into the cold night air, giving a small shiver when the comparatively sensitive pads on his hind feet met the snow.
Stretching a bit, he gave a start at the shock of pain that ran through him from his still tender wing.
Ugh, that's going to be annoying. I hope that doesn't keep me grounded for too long, learning to fly could be pretty useful. And would probably burn enough calories to justify eating so much...
Regardless, he had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment, such as finding somewhere to sleep tonight. Though, come to think of it, his body seemed pretty damn well insulated against the cold, so it was entirely possible that he could just find a tree or something to sleep in and he'd be fine.
Looking around, he noted that he was right near the town square, and other than a random weird looking giant tree that somehow still had leaves despite the whole 'Winter' deal, there wasn't really anywhere to sleep nearby.
Giving a yawn, he started walking towards the strange tree, gradually noticing different things about it, like a balcony, darkened windows, a door, and a sign that read 'Ponyville Public Library'.
Huh.
The whole thing made no real sense, so he chalked it up to magic and decided to call it a day. Well, once he climbed up the thing, at least.
Flying was out of the question, but he knew he could jump pretty high, so he figured he could make it. Maybe. The bigger problem lied in his unfamiliarity with the local laws, and he wasn't sure sleeping on public property was socially acceptable. So, after making sure nopony – When did I start using that term? Whatever. – was looking, he crouched low, tensed his legs, and jumped for one of the lower branches, which was a good 10 feet off of the ground.
That's when he realized he had just jumped past the balcony. Which was at least 18 feet off the ground. Now was a good time to try and land on that balcony, actually.
And he did just that, landing gracefully in a heap with a grunt from his throat and a loud thud from the rest of his body. At least he didn't land on his wing that time.
Wait, loud thud. Crap, I hope no one's in the-
He froze as a light turned on in one of the windows, and quickly jumped to a higher branch and maneuvered himself to get nestled into a rather convenient pile of snow resting on top of the main trunk, where it branched off to the sides; it made a convenient bed, actually. Though it could stand to be a bit warmer.
He was quickly reminded of why he was hiding by a unicorn stepping onto the balcony, looking frazzled and bedraggled. She looked around a bit before shivering visibly and walking back inside, the sound of a lock engaging standing out in the increasing silence of the town.
Sighing in relief, Albus pushed most of the snow out of his new perch before curling up in the nice little bowl-like shape it made.
Let's hope I can get out of here tomorrow without anypony noticing I slept on top of the library...