Daniel's heart thudded in his chest. His brain was working overtime trying to process what he had just witnessed. Each consecutive theory seemed more ridiculous than the last. Maybe he was just delirious. Perhaps he hit his head at some point, causing him to see things. The creatures could be genetically engineered to have psychic powers. Or they could be hyper advanced extraterrestrials sent to scout out Earth as a possible colony. And he had hit one with his car! Or maybe he was just going crazy. Whatever the case he needed someone else's opinion, to tell him that it would all be okay and that he wasn't crazy.
"Stephanie! Stephanie, please come quick we might have a serious problem!" Daniel yelled.
Stephanie rushed out of their room with Buldger in tow.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure, but it's weird, and I need you to tell me I'm not crazy,"
"You're not crazy,"
He smiled, his eye twitching a bit. "Thanks but maybe you should hear what I have to tell you before you say that."
"Alright, let's go sit down and you can tell me what happened. I'm assuming it has something to do with our guests?" she asked, getting a little concerned.
He nodded. "Okay let's go," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the living room and plopping down next to him on the couch. Buldger jumped up into Daniel's lap, probably crushing several of his organs in the process.
"Oof! Jeez Buldger, I swear it's like he thinks he's still a puppy or something," he said gently patting him on the head.
"Okay, so tell me what happened."
"Well, when I first entered the garage everything was pretty normal. The animals were awake and they started to watch me once they heard me come in. That's when things started to get strange."
"What happened?" she asked listening intently.
"The purple one walked up to me, got on one knee, and bowed its head,"
"That's a little strange, but not X-files worthy," Stephanie commented.
"Oh just wait, it gets better. Then it started to make a bunch of horse noises like whinnies and stuff, but it sounded more organized somehow. It was almost like it was speaking another language," he explained. "I didn't really know what to do, so I just started talking to them. I placed the bowl on the ground and the purple one came up and examined it. It seemed excited and made some more noises while looking at the other two before returning its attention to the vegetables. That's when it happened. The purple one's horn began to glow magenta, and so did one of the carrots before it levitated out of the bowl!"
"What? What do you mean it levitated?" she asked.
"Exactly that, the carrot started to hover in midair! It was just floating right in front of the purple one's face as she scrutinized it, still covered in that weird glow," Daniel continued.
"So what did you do?" Stephanie asked.
"To be honest, I sort of panicked. When I realized that the carrot was floating it spooked me. Looking back on it now it doesn't seem scary at all, but at the time I guess I just didn't expect it. Anyways, after I jumped back, both the creature's horn and the carrot stopped glowing, and the carrot just, sorta, fell back into the bowl. I didn't know what to do after that, so I got out of there and locked the door behind me for good measure," he concluded.
Stephanie just starred at Daniel with a look of severe puzzlement after he had finished speaking. She didn't say anything and it was starting to worry Daniel just a bit.
"Well, are you going to say something? Do you think I'm crazy?" he asked, a bit worried that his wife did in fact think so.
She looked him in his eyes, and smiled. "No, I believe you, I'm just trying to come up with a theory, any theory, that might explain what happened. I mean I've never read about any animals doing anything even remotely close to what you described, at least outside of mythology. Then again our guests are certainly not like anything I've ever seen either."
"I know what you mean," he grumbled.
"So what should we do now?" Stephanie asked.
"I don't know, what do you think we should do?"
"You said that they seemed intelligent, right?"
Daniel nodded in affirmation.
"Maybe there's some way we can test that," she said letting a smile creep onto her face.
"But how?" he asked.
"We could go back in there with some pens and paper and see if they can understand simple pictures or words. Oh! And some books! Books with lots of pictures," she said, the excitement in her voice clearly showing.
"I don't know if we should do that, especially after what just happened," he suggested a little hesitantly.
Her smile faltered a bit "But Daniel, if you're right, and if they are intelligent enough to develop a language, then it could be the first species ever discovered to have achieved sapience besides humans!"
"I still don't know about this. I'm just trying to remain cautious," he explained.
"Come on what's the harm in trying?" she asked.
"That's exactly the problem, we don't know what the harm would be! I mean these are living beings that are intelligent and can control things with some kind of psychic power. What if their intentions are hostile?" he asked.
"Part of me feels that way too, but don't you think that leaving them locked in our garage might hold the same risks as trying to establish communication?" she asked.
"I suppose you're right, but if we're going to do this, then we need to do it the right way."
"And what, exactly, is the right way?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We need to be calm and careful, and we should try to plan ahead in case something should happen," Daniel told her.
"Well, yes, I understand that, I mean did you think I would just run in there without any thought as to what I was doing?" she asked with a smirk.
"That's true, but I also know you have an adventurous side that often leaves you quite careless of your actions," he replied with a deadpan stare.
"Hmm, touché!" she grinned. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go prepare for first contact!" she chirped, springing up from the couch.
"You're such a dork."
"I love you too," she sung, kissing him on the nose before she ran ahead of him, into the bedroom, to plan.
* * *
Twilight paced around the room anxiously. Now that she had eaten something, she was able to think more clearly, and she wasn't liking their situation.
"I just don't know what to do! I tried to establish communication, and only managed to scare him off! Ugh! This would be so much easier if I had a checklist!" she shouted.
"Twilight, I'm sure everything will be fine," Fluttershy whispered.
"How will it be fine? I may have just single-hoofedley ruined our chances of finding our way home! Or establishing peaceful relations with a new species......" she pouted.
"Well, we could always just try to escape," Applejack suggested.
"That is beginning to sound like the most logical option.... Maybe we should just get out of here,” she thought aloud.
"We can't just leave! We're responsible for the damage we've caused, and I can't just walk away from that," Fluttershy responded, a little angrily. "And umm, I'm not even sure I could escape in my condition."
" Alright then, we should come up with a plan ta get home with them there critters' help or wait 'til Fluttershy is healthy enough for all of us to escape."
"We have to show them that we just want to try and communicate, and that we mean them no harm," said Twilight "Then we can work our way up from there... So that means that we must be as non-threatening and as cooperative as possible. Do you both understand that?" Fluttershy and Applejack nodded.
"Alright, now I think that we should work o-" Twilight began before being interrupted by the creaking of the door as it was slowly opened.
The ponies watched as not one, but both creatures emerged from the doorway carrying various things.
"Remember girls, be calm." Twilight whispered.
The two creatures approached the three ponies slowly and deliberately, keeping an especially close eye on Twilight. The unicorn felt quite intimidated by the presence of both creatures, but remained calm. The two creatures sat down across from the three and began to lay things in front of them. The first object was a pad of very white rectangular paper. The next set of objects was several cylindrical tubes that looked almost like plastic pencils, and finally, a book with a very carefully drawn tree, surrounded by various animals.
After the creatures had laid everything out they stopped moving and looked at them. They seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps some sort of acknowledgment. Not knowing what else to do, Twilight slowly nodded her head. The two creatures looked at each other and said something in their language before returning their focus to the ponies. They were apparently satisfied with Twilight's answer because they began to do something else. The more muscular of the two creatures picked up one of the cylindrical tubes and removed the top of the cylinder, revealing a pointed tip. Twilight briefly considered the possibility that it might be some kind of weapon, but immediately relaxed once it placed the tip on the paper.
'So I was right, it is some kind of writing instrument,' Twilight thought.
The creature drew a very simple and neat picture. It was a dot with a line underneath it. It looked up at Twilight for a response. When she did nothing it continued. The second drawing was of two dots with a curved mark with a line under it. It continued drawing very similar drawings to the previous ones. It wasn't until the sixth drawing that Twilight understood.
"They're numbers...."
"What Twilight?" asked Applejack.
"The markings underneath the dots, they must represent numbers. They're trying to teach us their numbers!" Twilight exclaimed excitedly.
"Are ya sure? They just look like squiggles to me." Applejack said, scrutinizing the shapes being written down upon the paper.
"And shouldn't there only be four?" Fluttershy asked.
"Oh I'm almost certain that they're numbers. It's possible that they use a number system greater than base four! I'll admit it's strange, but it's totally possible," Twilight explained to the two.
They stopped when they noticed the creatures were watching them with amusement.
"What are ya'll lookin' at?" Applejack threatened, snorting a bit.
Immediately the creatures stopped smiling and returned to writing out the numbers.
"Applejack! That was rude. There's no reason to behave like that," scolded Fluttershy.
"Also, we're trying to be on our best behavior around them, remember?" Twilight reminded her.
"Sorry, ah just don't really trust them is all."
"Don't worry about it Applejack, nothing bad has happened yet. Just try to stay calm and remember it's not their fault they can't understand us," said Twilight.
Applejack nodded in understanding and Twilight returned to the paper. The creature took the paper and slid it across the floor, along with the writing cylinder, towards Twilight. Twilight looked up at it and watched as it motioned towards itself, then the paper and then began to motion towards Twilight and the paper.
"You want me to write out our numbers?" Twilight asked, making motions with her hooves to hopefully convey writing.
When the creature nodded Twilight began to reach out with her magic to grab the writing utensil, but stopped when she remembered the creature's previous reaction to magic.
"Applejack? Will you write out the numbers for me? I don't want to scare the creatures with my telekinesis and, well, my mouth writing is rather sloppy," Twilight asked, a little embarrassed of her poor, non-magical, writing skills.
"Sure, ah can do that. Just make sure that they don't try anythin' while ah'm writing."
"Don't worry AJ it'll be fine, we're right here for you," Fluttershy offered.
Applejack approached the creature before reaching down and grabbing the writing utensil. The creatures watched intently as Applejack wrote out the regular numbers underneath the creatures' numbers. After she was done the two began to converse amongst each other.
~"Oh my God! You were right! They are intelligent, they understood the numbers!"~
~"I know, it's amazing, they even wrote out what I assume are their own numbers."~
~"It looks like they use a base four system, that could get confusing."~
~"It'll be fine, we just have to move on to the next test."~
~"Oh this is so exciting! This could be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time, another species that is sapient!"~
~"I know, it's incredible!"~
The three ponies watched as the two creatures before them excitedly chattered away in their harsh language.
"What do ya think they're talkin' about?" asked Applejack
"Do you think we did something to offend them?" Fluttershy asked, worriedly.
"No, they don't sound angry... I think that they're excited that we understood what they were doing," said Twilight.
"Why? They're just numbers," said Applejack.
"No they're not just numbers, they're proof that we're intelligent and that we understand that they are as well. It's the first true communication we've had with our friends here. After all, math is the universal language," Twilight beamed.
"If ya say so,” Applejack grumbled, rolling her eyes, remembering a certain family member back home, who was always going on about his fancy mathematics.
By now the creatures had finished talking, and had started writing out something else. It was the symbols for what Twilight assumed was a two followed by a cross and then the symbol for three. After that was a pair of horizontal lines and their symbol for five.
After that was the exact same thing except there was no five symbol.
"Oh, they want to see if we can do arithmetic, that cross must be their symbol for addition, and the horizontal lines must mean equals," Twilight deduced.
"Well then what should ah do?" asked Applejack.
"Answer it of course," Twilight replied eagerly, hoping to get a better challenge afterwards.
Applejack returned to the paper and wrote a five in the blank. When the creatures saw this they were ecstatic and had big smiles on their faces. The larger one wrote out more problems, and the ponies answered them accordingly. They continued to answer the math problems until early evening. By that point they had learned the symbols for subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root, while the creatures, in turn, learned theirs. The math lesson ended when the two bipeds excused themselves, and left the room. They took the pages with the math problems with them, but left the three with some paper and the writing cylinders.
"I think that was very productive," Twilight said, a smile upon her face.
"It had a little too much math for my taste," Applejack grunted.
"Come on Applejack, wasn't it exciting learning math in a different language?" Twilight asked imploringly.
"Hmm, nope," said Applejack.
Twilight frowned and huffed at Applejack, while Applejack just giggled.
"I'm just glad that nopony got hurt," said Fluttershy.
"Ain't that the truth."
"You know this isn't that bad," Twilight considered aloud.
And for once, they all agreed with her.
* * *
"That was, wow!" Stephanie exclaimed.
"I know, I feel the same way. It's amazing." Daniel beamed.
"At first I was skeptical, but now I don't know what to think."
"It is a lot to take in," Daniel agreed.
"We need an expert, or at least someone more competent than us," Stephanie said.
"You ready to call Marcus and get him in on this?" he asked.
She nodded "Yes, I think it's time we gave Marcus a call. But not right now, I'm starving."
Daniel laughed, "Alright dinner first, then we inform someone official about the sapient multicolored ponies in our garage."
"It's a deal," she smiled as she once again ran ahead of her husband, into the kitchen, to start preparing a meal for themselves and their guests.