//------------------------------// // Songs and Suspicion // Story: Displaced // by LeafBug //------------------------------// A tired eye cracks open, leading to a loud yawn not long after. An albino gryphon attempts to slowly extricate himself from his covering blanket, but only ends up with himself on the floor in a heap. At least he left the blanket on the couch this time. Giving another yawn, Albus stretched and elicited a series of loud pops and cracks from his back. Making a lazy smile at the relief of tension from his back, he trudged slowly to the bathroom to relieve himself further. Past that, he found himself aimless for the time being. He noted that the foyer that he had used as his sleeping chamber for the night was still dark, and that the sun still had yet to rise. Regardless, he found himself a job soon after that realization; a hungry stomach waits for no one, after all. He wandered into the kitchen (after having to check a few doors), his stomach angrily gurgling at him for taking so long to feed himself. And even still, it would have to wait for a while yet; he still had to make something, after all. Then again... he thought, I don't know if Twilight would appreciate me raiding her pantry to feed my gargantuan appetite... Another angry growl from his stomach made up his mind for him. I'm sure she won't be too mad. Taking a look around the small facility he was in, he took in his options. Poking around a bit led to the discovery that apparently ponies had refrigerators – how they were powered was beyond him, as there was no apparent cord or source of electricity – and the reminder of the fact that Twilight had recently gone shopping. Her pantry and fridge were decently stocked, though he did notice about a fourth of her pantry was devoted to storing various gems and the like. Albus wasn't sure whether or not the jewels were even valuable here, given the fact that they weren't exactly hidden away; though the urge to take out a gem or two and admire them proved to be too great for a moment before he got back to the task at hand. Of course, as a pony's supply of food is wont to do, many of the things available to him for use were, in fact, unusable. He was sure that the package of 'Fiery Hot Hay Fries' would have been delicious had he not been incapable of digesting (or tasting) them, though. Thankfully for him, though, he found a package of eggs in her fridge; curiously enough labeled 'Baking Eggs'. I suppose it makes sense; ponies wouldn't likely eat eggs for any other reason than if they were in a pastry or something. Which makes me wonder how exactly the use of eggs in baked goods would have come about for them, given that they probably wouldn't be too fond of the idea of consuming the unborn offspring of another species... Regardless, he simply shrugged and counted himself lucky that he knew how to make omelettes. Let's see, eggs, olive oil... cream cheese? That's surprising, but it works... And... wait, crap... I have no ham... Oh well, I- Damn it, can't use dairy products, that's cheese and the like out... Thus went his thoughts as he attempted to find the proper ingredients for his omelette, and seeing as how he had no meat-stuffs to decorate his breakfast he settled for a simple meal of egg and chives. Of course, there would be a lot of these ingredients. Where he would normally use only two eggs, he would be using five, and so forth. Throwing a pan onto the stove, the gryphon began to play a song in his head, which quickly turned into humming, which quickly turned into singing. “Les rêves des amoureux, sont comm' le bon vin, Ils donnent de la joie, ou bien du chagrin, Affaibli par la faim je, suis malheureux, Volant en chemin, tout ce que je peux, Car rien n'est gratuit; dans la vie...” It was originally sung by a woman, yes, but he didn't really care at the moment. Swaying about the kitchen in time with the song, he performed the tasks necessary for cooking a meal like the one he was at the moment. Beating eggs, chopping the chives... for a moment he forgot the world and his troubles and simply did. The funniest part about this moment, he would later observe, was that the manager at the orphanage had taught him Italian, not French. “L'espoir est un plat bien, trop vite consommé A sauter les repas, je suis habitué Un voleur solitaire, est triste à nourrir A un jeu si amer, je n'peux réussir Car rien n'est grat-” “Albus?” came a voice from the doorway, bringing his song to a screeching halt as he almost spilled the eggs he was attempting to pour into the pan. Shit. Forgot about Twilight and Spike... Looking back, he noticed two things: one was that the sun was now up – though barely – and the second was that Twilight looked incredibly confused. Taking up a nonchalant tone, he quipped, “Your mane looks better without bedhead, dearie,” and turned back to what he was doing before saying, “I hope you don't mind that I raided your fridge; I'm pretty hungry and, maybe it's just me, but waking up your host to force them to make you food seems terribly ungracious; though I seem to have accomplished the former with my terrible singing. Sorry about that, by the way.” He continued with his meal-making in silence for a short moment before Twilight gathered her bearings and responded in a slightly flustered manner, “I don't care about the food, I just went shopping the other day, so it's not a problem. Although I am curious...” she trailed off, apparently not knowing how to voice her question. Albus picked up on it for her, however, “I'm making an omelette right now, and the song I was singing is called Le Festin, does that sate your curiosity?” “Erm, uh... Yes, I suppose. Sort of. Though I have to ask, what exactly is an... omelette? Is that what smells so... odd?” she asked, seemingly even more confused than before. Albus paused; he hadn't taken into consideration that ponies may not exactly find the smell of cooking baby chickens to be appetizing. Flipping the omelette in thought, he responded with, “Yes, I suppose it would be. I'm sorry if you find the smell unpleasant, I didn't really think about it. As for what it is...” he trailed off for a moment before smiling devilishly. Wiping his face clean of emotion, he turned to Twilight, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “It's a meal made by whipping the unborn fetuses of chickens into a sort of flurry, then cooking it into a kind of egg patty.” The way he worded it was intentionally grotesque – at least the 'unborn fetuses' part was – and he found it hard to keep a straight face as he watched Twilight's face turn from purple to green. “I... I'll be right back,” she said in a tight voice, promptly leaving the kitchen in a hurried trot; Albus' boisterous laughter following her. “Sorry Twi', I couldn't resist!” He called after her, letting out a yelp and a quiet curse as he burned his arm on the stove in his distraction. Grimacing, he finished cooking his incredibly large omelette – which almost didn't even fit in the pan – before folding it over the chives which he had chopped. Scooping it onto a plate, he placed the confection on the table. He nearly knocked the plate on to the floor when Spike's incredibly loud laughter burst out from upstairs, followed by what he could have sworn was Twilight shouting “It's not funny!” Grabbing one of the few forks in the silverware cabinet of the kitchen, Albus realized something. ...how do they hold these? He was getting tired of chalking things up to 'magic' and leaving it at that; he was a very inquisitive person after all. However, holding silverware – and anything else for that matter – was pretty much impossible without magic if one had hooves. He'd have to look up the specifics later, he supposed. Settling down and starting on his massive omelette, the gryphon thought, as he is wont to do when given the opportunity. He thought about how normally he didn't always want to start tearing his hair out in frustration while trying to figure out how the world worked. He thought about how he no longer had hair. He thought about how while he accepted and even embraced this new form of his, he couldn't deny that he missed his old one; to an extent, at least. He was honestly surprised he had been able to adjust so well to the one he had now, actually. Honestly, I'd like to think that I'm taking this rather well... This whole situation, really. Being stuck in some alien world, surrounded by talking ponies that... really don't look all that much like ponies... Come to think of it, why am I taking this so well? I'm the only human on the planet, as far as I know! Well... former human. Regardless. Continuing to think much like this, Albus became more and more confused and irritated by his apparent apathy. More so, however, was the gradual realization that, yes, it was entirely possible that he was the only one of his kind here. This troubled him, and troubled him even more with his constant self corrections; no, he was not a human anymore. And he wouldn't likely see another human ever again. Even if the human race left much to be desired, the thought of waking up day after day and never seeing one of his own put one hell of a damper on his mood. He frowned at the plate in front of him, the food having long been devoured. Absently remembering that it needed to be put away, he did just that. It wasn't until five minutes of rumination and depressing thoughts later that he noticed that he had wandered into the living room where he had slept for the night. And that Twilight was apparently talking to him. “Albus? Did you catch that?” Blinking away his all-consuming reflection for the moment, he replied, “Erm... No, no I didn't. What did you say?” Twilight cocked an eyebrow at his absentmindedness, but didn't question it. She instead repeated, “I said that Spike and I were going out for lunch, would you like to come with us?” “Uh... Twilight, I just ate...” he reminded her dryly. She paused for a moment, muttering, “Oh yeah,” before shrugging and saying, “Oh well. We'll be back in a while then; feel free to make yourself at home.” At this, Spike came running down the stairs, clutching satchel of some sort. Albus was about to comment on it, but was utterly dumbstruck when Spike slung the bag over Twilight's rear end; Albus could only watch in bemusement as Spike then clambered up onto Twilight's back, riding her much like a horse. It was only Spike's “See ya later!” that snapped him out of his confusion fueled reverie. Once again, Albus found himself alone, and once again his thoughts returned to the depressing chain that had occupied his head earlier. He grimaced and muttered, “Damn it...” before deciding to go for a walk of his own. Something to clear his head, maybe. Exiting the library much like his hosts had done naught but a minute before, he began wandering listlessly about the town. Unfortunately, this did nothing to snap him out of his thoughts, and he barely avoided running into a few ponies during his meandering. Although, some amount of time later, he came across a building that made him pause. It was... a theatre, if the sign was anything to go by; namely that of the black and white masks often used to signify live theatres. Strangely enough, that was the only defining outward characteristic of the establishment; in fact, it didn't seem to be in use. Maybe it's abandoned? It doesn't look like it's in disrepair or anything... Successfully distracted, Albus made his way into the building, noting idly how the front door stuck a bit. Upon entering the foyer, however, he saw that the building was indeed in disrepair; just not on the outside. Various dilapidated stands and counters – both those for tickets and treats – decorated the room, a somewhat thick layer of dust covering everything. Walking over the worn and faded carpet, Albus frowned, Why was this place abandoned? It should have been reclaimed by the state or something if it had been abandoned for long enough that it looked this bad. Why... His thoughts slowed to a halt as he beheld something that he had... not expected in a world like the one he currently resided in. Maybe the one he hailed from, but... Inspecting the scene before him, he could only set his face into a deeper frown. That was a depressing reminder of his previous equally depressing thoughts. What was he observing, you may ask? A simple thing, really; not something one might not give much meaning to if they didn't know what it meant already. A short section of rope, frayed and worn with age, was tied around one of the support beams on the ceiling. Carved into the wood next to it with a scrawl was a message, partially obscured by the heavy dust that had accumulated over some period of time. “...was here.” The name was illegible, having been scratched out by someone at one point, most likely. Albus couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing. He stared at it for a small amount of time before filing it somewhere in his mind and continuing on with his inspection of the building; he was somewhat glad that the media had desensitized him to things like that to an extent. Regardless, given the circumstances of this world, it seemed to have more of an impact than he thought it should have; and it didn't seem to want to leave his mind's eye. Continuing into the theatre proper, he noted that it was about as run down as the rest of the place; if not more so, it honestly looked pretty crappy. He weaved through the aisles, occasionally coughing or sneezing from the dust he was picking up. Eventually, he stepped up on to the stage, and something caught his eye; a dust covered grand piano. His mind didn't seem to want to process this new discovery for a while, but slowly he was able to form a coherent thought: I haven't played piano in forever... You see, reader, there were only two extracurricular activities that the staff at his orphanage ever really tried to push onto him. One was speaking Italian, courtesy of the manager; unfortunately, his skills were pretty rusty after not using the language for anything for something close to two years. The other was playing the piano, which he picked up at the suggestion of the part-time counselor. He found it somewhat therapeutic; it was one of the few good suggestions that the man had made, now that he thought of it. Again, though, he was about as out of practice with the piano as he was with his second language. This didn't deter him, though. Walking over to the large instrument, he sat down on the uncomfortable bench like he had many times before; he vaguely remembered the mint green pony and her friend for a moment, sitting as he was. Flipping up the key cover, he was pleased to see that they were mostly lacking the dust that plagued the rest of the establishment. Brushing the keys off gently, he ran his claws over the ridges and bumps of them. Pressing each of the keys firmly, he listened for any off-tune notes; as far as he could tell, though, the thing was still tuned. Odd, given how long it had probably been here... Regardless, he shrugged, and tried to see if he could remember any songs from memory. This turned out to be fruitless for a time, until he remembered a melody that he had heard some other person listen to on their MP3 a few times. He had never figured out what exactly the name of it was, but he did remember practicing the song quite a few times to get it right. He was glad that the song had no lyrics; it would have made it just that much harder to get it right. Pressing a few keys tentatively to get a feel for it again, he played a random string to try and figure out how to play with the same dexterity that he once had. After all, he didn't only have three fingers last time he had tried this. Starting to get the hang of it, he began playing the first measure or so before pausing, trying to remember how it went. After playing various parts to try and get the order right, he began with a bit more confidence. Though, to be honest, he wasn't really sure about all of the parts of the song; there was a part or two played primarily by a string quartet, or something similar to that. Playing the unnamed (as far as he knew) song, his thoughts began drifting back to what they were before. Again. He frowned as his mind made him painfully aware of his circumstances yet again, I don't want to have to deal with this... So much for therapeutic. He stopped playing abruptly, sighing heavily and resting his head on the piano. I can't even enjoy this, geez. Why do I keep thinking about this? It's like something's making me! Curiously, at that, his mind went suspiciously blank. He sat in silence for a moment, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The irritation at the thoughts resurfaced all at once two-fold; only this time is wasn't directed at himself. What. The. HELL? He quickly hopped off of the piano bench and began pacing about the stage, brainstorming. After a moment, he stopped. Magic. That must be it. That's the reason for all the other bullshit that's happened to me that doesn't make sense... but why would magic make me think about things like that? I doubt it would be a side-effect from some ambient source of magic... but it could be a side-effect of... ...a spell... Growling deep in his throat in anger, he quickly turned his attention to the piano. No, too big. Wouldn't want to break it anyway... then he focused his sights on the bench next to it. Within the next three seconds, that bench was hurtling at the wall at a blistering speed; upon hitting the concrete wall of the theatre, it splintered magnificently. That didn't really help. He forced himself to calm down enough to think rationally, going into a berserker rage would get him nowhere. Still growling quite loudly, he smoothed down his feathers – which had puffed up sometime during that little incident with the bench – and thought, I can't play the blame game yet, but this just reeks of foul play. It could just be me being a paranoid human, though. Given what I've seen, ponies don't seem like the type to tamper with someone's mind. That thought made him pause, Maybe not a pony, but that doesn't mean that something else isn't trying to screw with me... Only problem is, I don't know what other species use magic; assuming that magic can do this at all. Thoroughly defused – though still a bit grumpy – Albus began making his way out of the theatre; quite intentionally ignoring the rope this time. Upon walking out of the dilapidated building, he filed away the fact that the sun was almost equidistant between its zenith and the horizon. That, however, was not the main focus on his mind at the time. Nor were the ponies giving him strange looks for having just exited an abandoned building. No, he had only one thought on his mind as he began winging his way back to the library, and that was; I need answers.