//------------------------------// // 36: A Derp By Any Other Name // Story: Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human // by pjabrony //------------------------------// Across the table, electricity arced. Derpy focused, one eye pointing down, the other looking straight ahead, neither blinking. A bead of sweat formed on her brow. The air hung silent and tense. Knowing the gravity of the situation, she used all her concentration. With her wings folded tightly and every muscle tight, she opened her mouth, licked her lips, and spoke. “Nines.” Karyn, whose gaze had never left Derpy’s, let the moment pass. With the commitment made, everything was determined. It only remained for the result to transpire. With the slow precision of a surgeon, she reached her right hand toward her left. As it made contact, Derpy started to grin, but cut herself off with a sharp intake of breath. Karyn merely pushed her other hand down. Then she sat back, breathed in through her nose, and said: “Go fish.” “Oh, come on!” The tension was broken as Derpy reached for the card pile. The overcast sky and layer of snow on the ground outside Karyn’s dorm gave them a closed-in atmosphere. “It sucks that the weather’s so bad,” Karyn said, “but on the other hand this is just what I like to do on these days. Just stay in and veg out, right? Any twos?” “Go fish,” said Derpy, rearranging her cards as she held them in her hoof. “And I don’t know. It seems like whenever we start out that way, something always happens to us. Aces?” Karyn passed over a card. “But it’s not always bad, what happens. Nines?” “You sneaky human!” said Derpy, throwing the nine on the table. “No, it’s not all bad, but if a lazy Sunday is what you’re looking for, you might not get it.” They played a few more hands before Karyn picked up the thread again. “And conversely, bad things that do happen to us don’t always come on lazy days. Remember when your spell failed and you were stuck here? That happened after we were at the carnival all day. Any jacks?” “I do rememfer,” said Derpy. “Ho fish.” “Beg your pardon?” “I said, yeah, I remember it. I had to stay an extra two days. And no jacks.” Karyn shook her head as if trying to clear it of water while she picked up a card. “At least it hasn’t broken since then.” “Huh?” Karyn repeated herself. “That was weird, it sounded like you had corn popping in your mouth,” said Derpy. “Very whoor-sounling sheeth.” “What?” “A seh, a hoonen oinan smangoo” Karyn put the cards down and stood up. “Derpy, stop that. Are you doing it intentionally?” Derpy spoke again, but it was even more difficult for Karyn to make out anything. It was clear that Derpy was talking, but it sounded more like a horse’s whinnies and neighs. Still, there was the definite structure of a language, and Derpy’s eyes and gestures showed how distressed she was. “You can’t understand me either?” said Karyn. “Is that what you’re trying to say?” She realized how silly this was as they both talked over each other. Karyn put up her hand. “If you can understand me, nod your head and flap your wings.” Instead of any physical response, Derpy gave more of her whinnying language. “I don’t understand what’s going on. You always spoke English before. But maybe you didn’t. Maybe you’ve always spoken like this and it’s part of your magic that I can understand you.” She got up and went to Derpy’s saddlebag, which was routinely hung on Karyn’s coat rack. She pointed at the bag, then brought her hand to her mouth, opening and closing it in a charade of talking, then pointed alternatingly at Derpy and herself. Derpy, meanwhile, had had an idea of her own. Flying to Karyn’s desk, she picked up a pen and paper and wrote a note. When Karyn looked at it, her face fell. There were a few marks she could recognize as letters like H or V, but for the most part it was gibberish. She shook her head and pointed at the spell again. To her surprise, Derpy, instead of agreeing or nodding, opened the bag and took out the return spell. She held the bag in her mouth and put her hoof in the spell. Before Karyn could say anything, she was gone. “What? No! I didn’t mean, ‘Go back home,’ I just meant that the magic was what was the problem.” ****************************************** When Derpy reappeared in her house, she sniffed the air. Most winter storms didn’t carry lightning with them, but with the drier weather there was more static, and Derpy thought that might have caused the spell to degrade, but as she was only a pegasus, and not versed in the ways and means of magic, all it could be was a guess. In any case, her immediate mission was to find somepony who was expert in magic. In the few months since the science of spellcrafting was invented, few unicorns had taken up the vocation, and fewer had produced results, although she heard that Zecora had taken to using crafted spells with her potions. For her immediate purposes, Derpy was forced to choose between Lyra and Twilight. Lyra was closer. She ran over to her house and knocked on the door. Bon-bon answered. “Hi, Derpy. Good to see you again. Isn’t today your Earth day?” “No, Earth Day is in April. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, that’s what I need to talk to Lyra about. Is she home?” “Somepony call my name?” The unicorn stepped into the vestibule. “What’s wrong?” “Every time I’ve been to Earth and seen Karyn, she—and every other human—speaks good, proper Equestrian. And then today, all of a sudden, she gradually started sputtering and popping and I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.” “Hmm. . . wait, you said it was gradual, but it happened all of a sudden.” “Yeah, but it started all of a sudden,” said Derpy. “That’s true of everything that happens gradually.” “I suppose, but this is no time to be quibbling over semantics!” Derpy had her meanest face on, and Lyra said, “I’m sorry, Derpy. I didn’t realize it was so serious to you. I figured that I could fix the spell fairly quickly.” “And I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m just worried, is all.” “Come on in and I’ll get to work.” Derpy went over to Lyra’s desk and put the transportation spell on top. Lyra looked at it, frowning, and her horn glowed with magic, but there was no visible effect. Derpy just watched, not knowing if she was going through a planned process or just trying to think of things to do. Finally, after fifteen minutes of staring and prodding and muttering, “Well, what about this. . . “Lyra said, “Part of the connaissance module has, for lack of a better word, burned out.” “What’s that, then?” “It’s hard to explain. Magically speaking, your body and your consciousness are separate, which is not true in pure physics. Magic cares a lot about your consciousness, and can do some non-physical things to it. But they can also break in non-physical ways.” “I think Dinky was talking about that at one point,” said Derpy. “She might be able to make you understand better.” “But can you fix it?” Lyra thought. “I could make a new one, but that would take a while. Fixing this one would be easier if Karyn were here with you. I could do it with my human, but you have a special connection with her.” “I’ll go bring her back at once!” Derpy picked up the spell. “It’s not going to break any more if I use it, will it?” “Not for two trips.” Derpy grabbed the spell back and warped to Earth. She was in the same position she remembered leaving, but immediately noticed something was wrong. She had expected to find Karyn right where she had left her, but time had clearly passed. Karyn gave a sad smile and said something in the popping language. “But why did you move this time?” Karyn gave a little tilt of her head, and Derpy said, “Right, you still can’t understand. Come on, Lyra’s going to help us.” She walked over and got on all fours. Karyn gave her a gentle pat on the head, but didn’t get on her back. Derpy persisted, poking her with a wing and arching her back invitingly, but still Karyn didn’t mount. Defeated by emotion, Derpy nuzzled her neck the way she would with Dinky or some other pony she was close to, and then just looked in her eyes. Again she circled and kneeled. For a moment, she felt that there was no way they could be separated. “Get on,” she said. Karyn had a quizzical look, but she walked up and threw her leg over Derpy’s back. Feeling her comforting weight, she zapped them back to Lyra’s house. “Oh, good, you got her here.” “Yeah, but it wasn’t easy,” said Derpy. “And there’s more that I don’t get. Last week, I came to Equestria and spent a while here talking to Applejack and her cousin. When I went back to Earth, no time had passed. Just now, though, the time I spent finding you did pass on Earth. It seems very inconsistent.” “Well, like I said, magic is very much dependent on your consciousness. Humans, who link themselves so closely to points in space-time, find continuity there. Ponies who cross the universes, either in body as you do or with spells as I do, are more able to detach themselves. So last week, it’s likely that both of you thought that you would be in and out of Equestria quickly. Today, on the other hoof, she, unable to understand you, must have concluded that you were leaving for a long time.” “Oh, you’ve just got to fix the spell!” Lyra put a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We will.” ****************************************** Karyn listened as the two mares whinnied and brayed at each other. It was actually nice to listen to once she stopped trying to decipher their meaning and relaxed. She thought that she had almost understood Derpy back on Earth. She had said something like “Heth ung,” which might have been “Get on.” In any case, there she was in Equestria, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like a foreign land. Derpy tapped her on the shoulder and led her over to a couch. Lyra sat Derpy across from her, and they were sitting just as they had for playing cards. Then she whinnied something at Derpy and gestured to Karyn. She pointed her hoof at her eyes and then at Karyn’s, then at Derpy’s. Karyn nodded. She stared at Derpy. Lyra held up a picture of Princess Celestia and pointed at Derpy. “Whooreenhesh Shelelwhee,” she said. Derpy repeated and pointed at Karyn. Karyn understood that they wanted her to try. “Princess Celestia,” she said. Lyra’s horn glowed a little, but no result was seen. Next, Lyra pointed at her directly. “Wheelahng,” it sounded like. “Karyn.” More horn glowing, and then pointing at Derpy. Karyn decided to go first this time. “Derpy Hooves.” “Hooves?” Derpy smiled broadly. She said more, but Karyn shook her head. She pointed at herself again. “Thelwhi Hooves.” “Hooves! Hooves!” Karyn smiled back. They hadn’t fixed anything, but apparently the word hooves was a cognate. She sat up to give her friend a hug, but Lyra pushed her back down magically. She had a cross look on her face and pointed at the chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I had to sit still for this to work. If we could talk to each other, you could have told me. Of course, if we could talk to each other, you wouldn’t have to be doing this in the first place.” Lyra covered Karyn’s mouth with a hoof, and she realized that she was probably screwing her up even more by talking. As they brought out more pictures of ponies she knew and had her speak the names, questions ran through her head. What did she sound like to the ponies, if they sounded like whinnies to her? And why was Lyra only giving her proper names to work on? Wouldn’t it be useful for her to learn normal words in Equestrian? Maybe, she thought, Equestrian was like that language on Star Trek where everything involved proper names, and she would need to know the history of Equestria to communicate. Lyra and Derpy might be describing the current situation by saying “Discord and Twilight at Ponyville,” or some other reference to something messed-up. It also irked her a little that they weren’t giving her a chance to really learn the words they were teaching her. She was only allowed to say each one once. She tried hard to repeat them in her head and understand when the same sounds came up more than once. ****************************************** “How’s it coming along?” Derpy asked. “It’s getting there, but try not to talk outside of identifying the pictures. I’d probably be done by now if I could get her to sit still.” Derpy obeyed, but still wished she could ask Lyra more questions. How did Karyn know her surname when every other word had been lost? And how exactly was Lyra trying to fix the spell? As if sensing her confusion, Lyra said, “I’m trying to build a universe of phonemes that will give the spell all the information it needs to translate one into the other. If I knew every word that existed in her language, I could set it up that way, but I don’t. Instead what I’m doing is taking words where I know how they’re structured in Equestrian, and trying to see how she does it. “And it’s tough going. Her language must be a hodgepodge of many others. Words like princess, Celestia, and Lyra all had similar derivations, but Pinkie Pie for example came out completely different. And Derpy had almost no magical profile at all.” Derpy was grateful that she was explaining, but still confused. After more time spent repeating words, Lyra said, “OK, I think I’m ready to try a new translation spell. If this works, I can spend next week reintegrating it into the transportation. Hold onto your wings.” Lyra grabbed the table with her hooves and bit down. To Karyn, it looked as if she were straining on the pot. But a spherical glow came from her horn and charged the air with static. There was a sound like an explosion, or more strictly speaking like a thousand voices each mimicking an explosion. “Did it work?” asked Derpy. “Yes it did!” said Karyn. “Lyra, how did you fix it? I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to learn all those Equestrian words. Did Derpy learn English?” “Don’t talk, either of you, for a few minutes.” “Why?” said Derpy. “Is it going to fail again?” “No, but right now I have got the worst horn-over of my life. That was a tough spell.” Derpy helped Lyra to the couch while Karyn ran into the kitchen and asked Bon-bon to pour her a glass of water. After she had drunk it, she sat up in her awkward human-style way. “Ugh. No, Karyn, I wasn’t trying to do it manually.” She explained again about how she was trying to get enough sounds to make a translation spell of her own. “I should have taken more time and gone through every word in the dictionary. Actually, what I should have done is to have Twilight do it for me.” “I didn’t even know that could happen to unicorns. I’m so sorry.” “Don’t be. It was a little fun. Reminds me of my old days at school when I would burn out my horn on studying all night.” From the kitchen, a sputtering cough in Bon-bon’s voice could be heard. “I mean, from casting party spells all night,” Lyra said sheepishly. Karyn wondered briefly about what sort of spells one cast at a party, but she was distracted by the euphoria of being able to talk to her friend again. “So can you explain to us what went wrong with the spell?” asked Derpy. “Was it just another one of those random spasms of magic that happen to break things? “I hope it is,” said Lyra. “Huh?” “Well, that’s a better alternative than having something coming between you two that’s causing it to fail.” Karyn was deep in thought for a moment. “Lyra, suppose someone else found out about Derpy. Would that cause a problem?” “Why? Did someone?” “No way,” said Derpy. “No other humans have seen me.” “Remember that detective student from a couple of weeks ago?” “Oh, right, but we fooled him.” Karyn took a deep breath. “I know, but there was still the threat. And he thought he heard you. What I’m asking is if letting out the secret would break the spell.” “Hmm. . .” Lyra thought. “Not to my knowledge. But that’s the original spell that Twilight helped with. I wouldn’t put it past her to include a few fail-safes.” “But it’s not a fail-safe if I can’t talk to Karyn!” Derpy hovered in anger. “That’s a fail-rotten or a fail-stinks or a fail-fail-even worse!” “It’s all right,” said Karyn. “She didn’t know it at the time. She was afraid of humans.” “That’s right,” said Lyra. “Not all the way, but she didn’t have the same love for them that I do.” “Maybe we can talk to her, and explain how it is, and get her to remove the safeguards. If they’re there.” “She might not, though,” said Derpy. “You know how she is when she obsesses over something.” “Well, then we’ll have to be extra cautious. In the meantime, now that it’s over I can look back on the experience as interesting. The language you speak is very different from mine.” “I’ll say.” Lyra got back on her hooves and started putting away the chairs. “Your language was very discordant. Not like the draconequus kind of discord, but not euphonious. Unpleasant to the ears.” “I get it,” said Karyn. “And I kind of understand. In the first place, we have bigger lips and smaller teeth, so we would tend to use b’s, f’s, and p’s more and less th’s and n’s. Plus, your ears are larger and more sensitive than ours, so a mellifluous speech would be more important for ponies than for humans.” “I think that makes sense,” said Derpy. “When the magic failed, I heard so many pops and buzzes from you that it sounded like a drum solo.” “Just be glad I wasn’t speaking German. All the humans say that it’s the worst sounding language. I actually like hearing it, but there’s definitely a lot of throat in there.” “Out of scientific curiosity,” said Lyra, “What does Equestrian sound like to you?” Karyn wanted to answer her question without being insulting and comparing them to Earth horses. “It was kind of the opposite of what you heard from me. Basically no plosives at all, just a lot of tongue action. Oh, that didn’t sound right.” They laughed. “The other interesting thing was that written language failed too. What did that look like?” “Well,” said Karyn, “It actually had many of the same letters, or ones that look almost like them. But I couldn’t tell if they matched. Like, what you thought was an A might be something else.” “Interesting,” said Lyra. “Well, I’m going to write this up as a report and give it to Twilight. She’s always interested in new developments in magic.” Derpy looked askance. “Really, Lyra? You’re usually not one for writing reports.” “It’s true, but if we do need her to take any restrictions off of your spells, buttering her up with knowledge is always a good idea.” “And we should be getting back to Earth.” “Is there anything really that important there?” “I’ll say there is,” said Derpy. “What’s that?” “I’ve only got two cards in my hand! I have a chance to win!” And so Karyn and Derpy found themselves right back where they were when the trouble began, tossing out ranks of cards and hoping the other one had it. “Some day, huh?” said Derpy. “Yeah. Maybe I should try to learn Equestrian, in case this happens again.” “Lyra and Twilight will make sure it doesn’t.” Karyn reached for a card. “Even so, I’d like to. In the first place, it’s a nice sounding language. In the second, having our own secret way of communicating would be cool, and advantageous when dealing with other humans.” “Maybe so.” “Don’t you want to try to learn English?” Derpy boggled. “I’ve got no head for languages. I tried to read something in old Equestrian once and it came out as ‘My cloud is laden with sea cucumbers’.” “Yeah, I can see how that would be wrong. But come on, teach me some Equestrian. Here,” she said, holding up a face card. “What’s the word for ‘queen’?” “It’s ‘queen’.” “Really? The same word? Just like ‘hooves’ from before?” Then Karyn understood. “Oh, the spell’s working now! You can’t teach me Equestrian because it’ll just change it. We’ll have to get Lyra to cancel the spell.” “You go ask her that. I’d rather not be run through with a mint-colored horn.” Karyn sighed. Learning Derpy’s language would have to wait.