Chapter 11: Hype
Onto the Pony Planet
Admiral Biscuit
Twilight quickly got down to business. She turned to Lyra and asked a brief question—Dale had noticed that just like in English, the pitch of the last word was raised when a question was asked. Lyra nodded and moved her papers out of the way, while Twilight pulled a scroll out of her bag, and slid it across the table until it was in front of Dale.
He looked down at it in puzzlement. It was a cartoon story like the one that had apparently offered him the ambassadorship, but longer and much more complicated. Details were drawn in that seemed to have no purpose, and many of the dialogue bubbles were filled with painfully tiny script—words which he had no hope of deciphering. At the same time, the artistry was much cruder. It began with a drawing of a large brick building with a white cross in front of it; he assumed it was the hospital. It’s interesting that they have the same symbol for hospital, Dale thought. The only difference is the four hearts in the corners. It was almost like the ponies had invented a compromise symbol between the six-pointed Star of Life on ambulances and the Red Cross.
The second panel was a map, with a dotted line leading from the hospital through the town and ending at a tall round building. After that, a sun, crescent moon, and another sun.
Next, a pony bearing a mark like Lyra’s drawn oversized on her barrel was beside to a humanoid figure—he assumed it was supposed to be Lyra and himself. As before, he’d been drawn nude, although this time the drawing lacked any embarrassing anatomical details. Arrows indicated that they were walking together; in context it looked likely that they would be going from the hospital to the round building.
He looked up from the drawings at the sound of Lyra’s voice. She had moved next to him, her pointing stick floating obediently beside her. Clearly, she’d noticed his confusion.
“Dale here,” she said, pointing to the first drawing. “This. . . .” She paused, her stick touching the sun. “This now. Later—” she pointed to the moon, then her face brightened. “Day! Here day, then not-day, then there day. One there day away.”
“Tomorrow,” he suggested. “One there day away is tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed. “Dale, Lyra tomorrow go Ponyville.”
“Ponyville?” he asked, pointing to the round building. Was that what the building was called?
“No.” She drew her stick in a circle, surrounding the town. “Ponyville, is . . . all. Is Lyra house, Twilight house, is all house.”
“Dale, Lyra go Ponyville tomorrow,” Dale confirmed.
Lyra nodded and pointed to the next picture, which showed several ponies with speech-bubbles above their heads, the bubbles filled with more of the tiny, obsessively neat script. It would be nice to know what they were supposed to be saying—it was strange that this had obviously been drawn for him, yet included language that he couldn’t hope to understand. “Dale make friend all Ponyville,” she said confidently.
If only it was that easy, Dale thought, remembering the pink pony who’d been tending the garden.
“Then Dale go Dale now home,” she said. “Dale, then Ka-th-rin. Twilight make Dale home.”
She pointed to the next picture. It showed a half-timbered house surrounded with flowers, just like all the other ones he’d seen around town. He’d expected something kind of fancy, maybe with marble columns and a few statues out front, and dozens of flags—that was how embassies always seemed to be drawn. This could have been any house. Maybe that was the idea.
“Lyra help Dale there,” she continued. “Help Dale make more words.” She squinted down at the paper, trying to see if there was anything pertinent in the dialogue bubbles. “Dale . . . Dale, all ponies make friends, make words. Dale tell other mans, womans later.”
Dale nodded. More words would be helpful. It was discouraging how few he knew. In a movie, he’d have already been fluent, but it really wasn’t that easy. Especially when there wasn’t a handy translation phrasebook or linguistic software available. He’d heard ads for Rosetta Stone—did it really work? And if it did, how soon would they be offering CDs in the ponies’ language? Did the ponies have their own version? Maybe they did—that one book Lyra had given him had what looked like a bunch of different languages. Would he be expected to know all of them? He hoped not. Maybe Lyra was a linguist; she was picking up English well enough.
“Dale help Ka-th-rin make words,” Lyra suggested. Dale snorted. Do they really expect me to be able to teach their language to someone else? But the look on Lyra’s face was quite sincere.
He was saved from having to make an awkward explanation of how unqualified he was to teach a language by the arrival of lunch.
It was wheeled in by the chef herself, who Dale remembered from his tour of the kitchen. She grabbed the plate covers in her mouth and pulled them off the serving-dishes as if she were revealing a masterpiece. Twilight helpfully levitated the dishes over to the table, neatly setting places for all three of them before floating the serving dishes to the table.
For a moment, Dale could believe he was back at home. The meal was like something he could have been served around the family table so many years ago. There was a big bowl of salad, with a smaller bowl of dressing beside it. A pair of wooden tongs was laid next to the salad.
There was a giant tart on one tray, already cut into twelve slices, while a second tray held stuffed green peppers. Aside from the shredded yellow cheese on the top, the filling was unidentifiable. Dale was amused to note that the peppers were smaller than those he was used to seeing at the supermarket, and he briefly wondered if pony crops were smaller than their Earth equivalents. That can’t be true, though; the apple was huge. A nagging thought was going through his mind that there was no reason to assume that their crops were identical to Earth’s, but he pushed it aside. They looked the same, and he could eat them . . . besides, most of the food in the kitchen had been recognizable.
A fruit salad was also included, containing apples, blueberries, raspberries, and raisins. Next to that, Twilight set a large pie with a beautiful lattice crust. Small strips of cheese were stacked beside the pie on a serving dish, while a loaf of bread and bowls of butter and blue powder rounded out the mix.
Without even thinking, Dale bowed his head and said grace. “Dear Lord, thank you for this food. Bless the hands that prepared it. Bless it to our use and us to Your service. And make us ever mindful of the needs of others. Through Christ our Lord we pray.” When he didn’t hear an amen, he looked up, his cheeks reddening at the mystified expressions on the faces of the two unicorns.
“Dale not happy food?” Lyra asked. She studied the table, looking for the item which had displeased Dale. Meanwhile, Twilight and the chef were exchanging confused glances.
“Yes, Dale happy,” he began. Did these ponies have some kind of religion of their own? They probably did, but it was far beyond the language they shared thus far to meaningfully discuss. “Dale make happy words. Dale make words from Dale home.”
Lyra nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Twilight writing something on a sheet of paper.
He wasn’t sure what their etiquette was when it came to meals, but in most cultures he could think of, the guest served himself first, and while that might not be the rule here, he noticed that neither of them had made a move for the food, either for themselves or for him.
He began with the salad, opting to pass on the dressing. He’d always been picky when it came to salad dressing, preferring to eat it dry if bleu cheese wasn’t available.
One forkful of salad later, Dale was beginning to regret his decision. The salad mostly consisted of dandelion and kale, both incredibly bitter. He took a spoonful of dressing and poured it on his plate, dipping the next bit of salad in it before bringing it to his mouth. There was an unmistakable hint of maple syrup in it. For just a moment, he’d been feeling like he was home again—but the dressing was another forceful reminder that he was in a totally alien place.
The maple dressing didn’t entirely mask the flavor, but it added a little sweetness, which helped a great deal. As he chewed on the tough leaves, he was conscious of the azure eyes of the chef watching his every move. She never said a word, but he could see her alertly watching as every forkful of salad made it to his mouth.
Once he’d finally finished his salad, he moved on to the tart and stuffed peppers.
The tart was sweet and buttery, loaded with finely-chopped vegetables. Dale wanted to get a closer look at them, but the watchful eyes of the cook prevented him—he was sure she’d be insulted if he started to disassemble his tart and inspect the ingredients. He chuckled to himself—here he was trying to act like one of the judges on some cooking show, when he really should have been grateful that they were actually putting forth the effort to make food that he might like, rather than giving him bland energy bars or rehydrated spacefood or something like that. This was certainly better food than he could have made on his own.
He glanced across the table. Both Lyra and Twilight were eating their own tarts with a fork. He’d seen Lyra eating on the beach, too; there, she’d just floated the food in front of her face and eaten it that way, but apparently that wasn’t how food was supposed to be eaten. Dale looked over at the chef—how would she eat the food? She couldn’t float it in front of her face, nor could she use a fork—or could she? Until yesterday, the idea of a pony cooking hadn’t been something he could have imagined, yet he’d seen several ponies working in the hospital kitchen as efficiently as any chef on Hell’s Kitchen. Did she eat with utensils, or did she just stick her face into the plate and chow down that way?
He finished the last bite of his tart, still deep in thought. I haven’t seen any of them eat, besides the . . . well, unicorns, I suppose. I’ll have to pay attention the next time I’m eating with plain ponies. Dale cut off a slice of stuffed pepper and brought it to his mouth, trying to ignore the hopeful look on the face of the chef. Does she wish she had a horn so she could lift things with it, or is she happy the way she is? He took a bit of the pepper and chewed it thoughtfully. He could taste beans and nuts in it, both flavors almost overwhelming the slightly bitter taste of the pepper. A hint of strong cheese complimented the flavor—it wasn’t quite as strong as feta, but close.
He finished chewing before taking another sip of his cider. He’d been surprised to discover that it was fizzy and slightly alcoholic, which seemed like a very odd thing to be served in a hospital. Of course, if they were planning to move him out tomorrow, that meant he was cured. If he was cured, that he ought to be able to eat what they normally ate—at least that was the logic he assumed the hospital would use.
He waited until both unicorns had finished their meals before reaching for the pie. Without even asking, he took the knife and cut the pie into eight slices, serving each of the unicorns. They could have cut their own slices, as they had done with the bread, but watching them eat with floating forks had been weird enough, and Twilight hovering a bread knife had been kind of alarming. It was too easy to imagine it going off course and stabbing him.
He furrowed his brow as Lyra took several pieces of cheese and placed them neatly atop her pie. He wasn’t the only one who thought her behavior odd; Twilight was giving her a strange look as well.
Dale noticed that both Twilight and Lyra put their heads down and did . . . something to the pie. Their horns both glowed briefly, surrounding their slices in auras of colors. As before, Twilight’s was magenta and Lyra’s was golden. Further observation was still needed, but every unicorn had had the same color no matter what they were doing, so there was no way to identify what kind of ability they were using by horn color.
He watched carefully, drawing in a breath as the cheese on Lyra’s pie softened and melted before his eyes. A sudden scent of fresh-baked apple pie filled his nostrils. Did they just reheat their pies? Dale looked down at his cold pie, an experiment forming in his mind. He grabbed a slice of cheese and stretched it across his pie, then waited. It didn’t soften at all, which wasn’t surprising.
He took a bit of pie, eating it slowly. It was cold, which was to be expected. It had sat for however long it took to get the food from the kitchen to the table, and then the whole length of the meal. Dale glanced at the chef, then back at Lyra’s pie. She didn’t act upset when both unicorns did something to their pies, he concluded. So she shouldn't be angry if I do the same. He pushed his pie towards Lyra.
“Lyra make Dale—” he pointed to his pie— “Lyra.” He pointed to hers.
She looked at the two wedges, considering what he was asking her. Then, with a nod, she tilted her head down and lit her horn. A moment later, the slice of cheese on Dale’s pie slumped and began flowing towards the edge of the crust. The glow around the pie vanished, and she looked back at him with a smug look on her face, like she’d just performed a particularly clever trick. He took the pie back, feeling the slight warmth radiating off it—as far as he was concerned, she had just performed a clever trick. Sooner or later he was going to find out how they managed to do all those things with their horns. What limits do their horns have? he wondered.
Once they’d finished eating, Dale picked up the diminished tart and carried it over to the lunch cart. When he turned, he was nearly assaulted by the rest of the dishes; each one encased in a lavender glow. It was the largest display of telekinesis he’d seen thus far, and Twilight didn’t appear to be concentrating overly hard—in fact, she was covering a yawn.
Dale watched as the chef rolled the cart out of the room. He hoped she’d been satisfied with how much he’d appreciated the meal.
Lyra began re-arranging her study materials on the table when a soft knock sounded at the door. Dale turned his head to see a light green pony with a blonde mane enter the room. Both Twilight and Lyra clearly recognized her, although Twilight had a brief look of distaste on her face, which was quickly masked by a welcoming smile.
The pony spoke to Lyra, then took a pencil in her mouth and began writing down her response. Is she somehow related to the pony who was taking pictures? Dale wondered. She acted like a journalist. Maybe that’s why Twilight doesn’t like her. But she hadn’t protested right away when the pegasus had started taking photographs, so maybe it was something deeper than that. Perhaps they were some kind of rivals.
She kept glancing nervously in his direction, and he wished he could say something reassuring to her. The nurses didn't seem bothered by him, but if they behaved anything like the Catholic nurses he knew when he was growing up, they’d be very protective—almost maternal—towards any patient under their care.
He looked over at Twilight. Her head was bobbing slowly up and down, and her eyes were half-closed. She looked like a child who was up past his bedtime in the hopes of something interesting happening. He wanted to try and engage her—maybe it would help alleviate the sinking feeling he had whenever he thought about trying to befriend “all Ponyville.” Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything to say—just her name would exhaust a good portion of the words he knew in their language.
But he suddenly had an idea. “Twilight Sparkle,” he said carefully. She looked up at him. “Where?” he asked, pointing to his glasses.
She started to say something, paused, and picked up her quill. After a little sketching, she passed him a drawing of a rowboat on the water, and a tethered pony in a diving suit.
So they fell off in the water, he thought. That had always been one of his fears—losing his glasses while canoeing. He’d even taken to keeping a second pair in the glove box of his Accord, just in case—he probably could drive without them, but it didn’t seem wise.
His watch had been wet, too—now that he thought about it, that was odd. Yesterday, he’d still been pretty disoriented, but he didn’t remember being in the water. Of course, he’d gone from being on an island to being in a hospital with no clear idea of how he’d gotten there.
“Dale happy,” he told her again. “Twilight?” he asked, pointing to the diver.
She shook her head and reached for the paper. “Sea Swirl,” she informed him, pointing to a pair of dolphins drawn on the diving pony.
“Sea Swirl,” he repeated. He should have made the connection sooner; they like to associate the names with the marks. They might have some kind of hierarchy, where the mark symbolized the rank, or perhaps the skill. Dolphins were appropriate for a diving pony, after all. And the cook had some kind of food on her hips—maybe a casserole, or maybe it was supposed to be a cake.
What did the presumably-a-journalist have? He wasn't used to looking for marks—it hadn’t really registered when she came in. He’d have to get a look when she left. It might be a newspaper, or maybe a notebook. It was such a non-earth thing to do—he’d have been slapped if he looked at a woman’s hips instead of her face, but the ponies seemed to use these marks for identification, to the point where it was apparently expected that they would be scrutinized. That could be why the two doctors didn’t cover their hindquarters, so that anyone could recognize their specialty.
He looked back at Twilight. It would be fair if they took turns with question, he decided. How to communicate that?
He looked down at the paper. He could write it down! Dale drew a quick cartoon—a stick-figure for himself and a stick-pony for Twilight. He made sure to include her mark, although it was pretty crude. He couldn’t remember how many stars surrounded the big one, and settled on six. He was sure she’d get the idea. The first panel had him asking her a question, then he answered. Next, she asked a question and he answered.
She looked at the paper curiously, and for a while, Dale wondered if she didn’t understand. He had put a question mark in the speech bubble, but that might not mean anything to her. Or worse, it might mean something else entirely. There had been question marks in the Dick and Jane book—he and Lyra had gone over them—but had Lyra shared their meaning with Twilight?
Apparently, she had, because Twilight turned and opened a drawer, selected Kate’s radio, and set it on the table.
Dale looked at the radio in horror. How on earth was he going to explain a radio? If he’d had a pair, he could have demonstrated, but one would only produce static, unless there were some kind of radio transmitter operating on the same frequency. Based on his earlier experiments with the color-changing hair from the tall white leader-pony he’d found on the island, it was pretty unlikely there was.
Nevertheless, he turned it on, adjusting the volume until he had a soft static hiss. Unsurprisingly, changing the tuning knob only produced channel after channel of static. That was too bad, but if it had produced results, she probably wouldn't be asking about it.
He didn’t know what kind of communication devices they had, so he could hardly explain it by drawing a picture of a telephone or tricorder or anything else. He had to do something, though. She might think less of him if he didn’t at least try to answer.
He picked up the quill and began drawing. When he’d finished, he slid the paper towards her, halfway across the table. This was going to require some charades to explain.
“Radio,” he began, pointing to the device. He gave her time to try and pronounce it, before spelling it out for her. “Dale make words there.” He pantomimed speaking into the microphone. “Radio make words there.”
Now for the more complicated part of the explanation—the communication aspect of a radio. He pointed to the drawing of him moving through town. “Two radio,” he said, pointing to the hospital and the round building. “One there, one there. Dale make words one radio, Lyra hear words there one radio.” He paused for a moment, thinking of how he might clarify. “Now. Make words now, hear words now.”
Twilight looked at the radio skeptically. He couldn’t blame her. It was a pretty lousy explanation, and if their wireless lamps were anything to go on, they probably had far better communication equipment. He imagined proudly showing off an old bag phone to a kid with an iPhone. She probably wouldn’t be impressed even if it did work—he wondered what she’d thought it was for. He left it on and motioned for her to try it. As soon as she picked it up, the soft static became much louder, disappearing only when she pushed in the transmit button. She muttered something into the radio, and Dale smiled, imagining her voice suddenly being broadcast all over the Coast Guard’s radio channel. It was impossible, of course—there was no way the radio had that kind of range—but it was still an amusing thought.
She turned off the radio with her field, silencing the static. She seemed satisfied with his explanation—at least, satisfied enough to take the radio off the table and put it back in the drawer. “Now Dale,” she told him.
What to ask her next? He really wanted more of an explanation of the marks, but he and Lyra had already tried that on the island and hadn’t really come to an understanding. Or the horns, or even wings . . . but none of those things would lead to a short explanation, either. He could ask her about her hoof, but she’d already been uncomfortable with him holding it before, and what question might she ask in response? Lyra had been quick to learn what made him uncomfortable; he wasn’t so sure about Twilight. A thousand questions in your mind, and you can’t think of a single one, he lamented.
Her quill was still hovering next to the inkpot, and she was just looking at him, waiting for a question. Well, hopefully she’s more interested in technology than anatomy, he decided. Maybe I’ll just take my chances. How to word it?
“Dale hand,” he said, pushing his hand across the table and wiggling his fingers. “Twilight no hand.” He pointed to the hoof-area of the pony in her drawing. “Twilight?”
“Hoof,” she told him.
“Dale examine hoof?” he asked.
She looked at him blankly, before turning to Lyra and saying the word examine. Lyra nodded, then turned to Dale. “Dale examine?”
“Dale examine Twilight hoof,” he said.
Lyra nodded, and spoke briefly to Twilight. The lavender unicorn’s face reddened, and she looked down under the table, then muttered something under her breath to Lyra, who replied with a fairly short sentence and an amused twinkle in her eyes. Meanwhile, the journalist was scribbling down the whole exchange, much to Twilight’s obvious mortification.
Finally, Twilight shrugged, and glanced down under the table. Dale saw her horn flash briefly, before she looked up at him with a resigned expression on her face. She tentatively stretched her right foreleg across the table, her hoof in plain view.
Dale was suddenly regretting his impulse, but he was committed now. It was odd how they had no concerns about being nude, but were bothered by showing the bottoms of their hooves. Whatever the reason, it was probably hugely socially complicated: he’d seen Lyra point with a hoof, he’d bumped hooves with the wall-repair pony, and the nurse had touched him all over with her hoof . . . he might as well learn from his impulse; this was likely the only chance he’d get.
He knew better than to touch or grab it, but he still leaned close to get a good look. She was wearing a shoe, very much like the ones equines wore on earth. There were grooves where nails might be pounded in, although he didn’t seen any nailheads. It seemed like he ought to, but he’d never paid that much attention to the shoes on Earth horses. Anyway, it would stand to reason that the ponies would have had more incentive than humans to improve their own shoeing techniques.
The hard, bone-like part of her hoof was a whitish-grey, while at the heel there was a dark-colored heart—almost the same color of flesh he’d seen under the nurse’s tail. His cheeks burned at the memory, and he covered his embarrassment by leaning closer, seeing small chips in the purple above Twilight’s shoe. Underneath was the same white-grey color as on the bottom of her hoof, and he realized it was some kind of paint or hoof-polish, which explained how their hooves were nearly indistinguishable from the rest of their coats—they clearly painted them to match.
That led him to wondering about the magenta stripe in her mane and tail—were they dyed, too? Even Lyra’s windblown look was multi-colored, but they might have been aspiring to a standard of beauty—to them—that didn’t come naturally. That maybe wasn’t so odd—he remembered that archaeologists had discovered containers of kohl eye makeup from the ancient Egyptians, and they probably weren’t the first humans to use makeup. And there had been a lot of beauty supplies in the bathing room at the hospital, and the white unicorn who brought his mended clothes was wearing eyeshadow and had permed hair. Really, it made a lot of sense that they’d spend a fair amount of time on personal beauty, especially since they didn’t wear clothing.
Unfortunately, it didn’t answer the question of how they picked things up, but at least he now knew that they did wear shoes—a useless bit of trivia, to be sure, but it was a nice bit of grounding in this crazy world. Later, he’d have to name all the parts of the hoof with Lyra, but he didn’t think Twilight would be up for it. He nodded his head, and she pulled her leg back off the table a little too quickly.
Just as he’d guessed, Twilight picked another item out of the drawer, this time choosing Kate’s gun.
Dale nodded, and began sketching. This, at least, was easy enough to describe. He began with a sketch of a cartridge. Unlike his earlier drawings, he was at home making sketches of machines; his only difficulty was using a quill as a writing implement. He drew both an unfired and a fired cartridge, with a dotted line and arrow to show the motion of the bullet.
Next, a sketch of the magazine to show where the ammunition went. That, in turn, was shown to fit into the handle of the pistol. He wasn’t sure if the ponies had ejected the magazine, but Twilight had seen him do it, so she’d understand the concept.
He finished that series of drawings with a sketch showing the bullet coming out of the barrel of the gun. He thought about adding the spent casing, but decided that would complicate the image. What happened to the shell casing wasn’t really important in understanding what the gun did, after all.
So far, the series of pictures showed only what the result of pulling the trigger was. The next series of drawings was likely to be a little more complicated, but he really needed to get the concept across that the gun could be dangerous, if it were treated like a toy.
Given that one of the first things Lyra had shown him were weapons, and that the guards had spears, he knew that the ponies had the concept of ‘a tool which is meant to wound or kill.’ Not wanting to appear overly hostile, he drew a sketch of a pony sticking a spear into another pony—it was crude, but Twilight seemed to get the idea. It might have been his imagination, but she seemed a little queasy at the thought of actually stabbing a pony with a spear, which made him wonder how she’d been chosen as a leader. On the other hand, maybe it was better that the apparent local commander of the military forces was against bloodshed and death: it turned out that replacing the eyes with exes was a universal sign for dead—another handy bit of knowledge.
Nonetheless, the concept had been illustrated, and it was a simple matter to make another, similar sketch, replacing the spear with the gun. This time, he chose to use two stick figure humans to represent the shooter and victim, to avoid giving her the impression that the gun was created to kill ponies—that might not be unwise.
To further demonstrate the function, he picked the gun off the table—first making sure that it was unloaded—and pointed it towards the wall. He gripped it tightly in his right hand, wincing slightly at the pain from his injured shoulder. Dale rested his elbow on the table, which helped alleviate the pain. Then he walked Twilight through the motions of firing the gun, squeezing the trigger and drawing the imaginary path of the bullet with his left index finger.
Finally, to make sure that Twilight had a concept of the range of a gun, he drew a quick sketch of the room, marking off the distance between her and the door with a single hash mark. Next, he pointed to the dotted line between the barrel and the bullet, and began filling in dozens of hash marks, remembering as he drew that the ponies crossed them off in sixes, rather than fives. He didn’t count how many he used, so he was probably over-estimating the range of the pistol, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
He was just finishing up when the journalist pony stood. Dale looked over at her hindquarters intently, observing that she had three green-frosted cupcakes on her hip rather than the journalistic mark he would have expected to see. Now I’m really curious about what the marks mean.
Lyra and Twilight held a brief conference; when Twilight raised the radio and the gun, he assumed that Twilight was giving Lyra a briefing of what they’d discussed. He just watched them patiently, waiting for Lyra to address him.
“Cheerilee make learn Dale more words,” Lyra finally said. “Not now, not tomorrow . . . one, now; four, tomorrow; Cheerilee two.”
“Cheerilee?” Dale asked. Twilight was sketching a symbol, so he assumed it was probably another name. What had she meant with the numbers? They must be indicating a period of time—and one was closer to two than four. So, she would be coming soon, maybe. “Dale, Lyra here then, soon eat. Lyra, pony make words; Dale, Twilight soon make words. Now, soon, later, tomorrow.”
“Soon,” Lyra agreed. Twilight showed him a sketch of three smiling flowers. He furrowed his brow. What on earth did smiling flowers have to do with language lessons? Well, he’d know soon.
• • •
As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait too long. After a little bit of pantomiming and sketching about his mission tomorrow—in which he mostly learned that he was the worst artist of the three when it came to drawing ponies and people—the door opened to admit a plum-colored mare with the three smiling flowers on her hip that Twilight had sketched, and a matching grin on her face. It faltered a bit when she saw him, but quickly re-appeared.
She reached her muzzle under her belly and tugged the straps on her saddlebags loose, shaking her hips to slide them back to where she could reach the back-strap with her teeth. She set them on the table, and spoke briefly to Lyra, who nodded.
Cheerilee went back into the hallway and returned with a wheeled chalkboard. Dale smiled. He hadn’t seen one of those in years. She wasted no time in writing the alphabet across the top of the chalkboard; by the ease with which she worked with a mouthful of chalk, he guessed that she must be an actual teacher. Lyra didn’t appear to be upset that her duties were being assumed by a more qualified pony.
His thoughts were interrupted by the door again. His white nurse—Redheart—poked her muzzle through the door, and was followed by a shorter grey pony with a curly brunette mane and tail. It was also wearing a nurse’s cap, and had the same markings on its hindquarters as all the nurses he’d seen so far. Is that the white one’s child? he wondered. If it was, he wasn’t sure if he should be troubled that it was here, or inspired by the fact they didn’t think he was a threat.
It kept close to the white nurse’s heels, peering around her legs for the longest time before it finally got enough confidence to come out, no doubt encouraged by the nurse’s gentle voice. Redhart finally moved close to Dale, and touched his arm with a hoof, a clear indication that he was not a threat. Still, he sat as motionless as possible, not wanting to frighten the small pony.
It moved forward slowly, frequently looking at the nurse for reassurance. Finally, it was right up against his leg, and it reached out a hoof and touched him, jerking back almost as quickly as it had made contact. Dale fought back an urge to reach down and ruff its mane. He was sure that the rest of the ponies in the room were watching his every move quite intently; perhaps this was a sort of trial run for tomorrow, or perhaps the nurse just wanted to give her child a first look at one of the monsters in the hospital. He was probably a safer choice than Kate—they had every reason to be confident he wouldn’t do anything crazy.
It moved its face close enough to sniff his leg thoroughly, before looking up and saying something to him. He shook his head—it sounded like a greeting, but he couldn’t be sure. To his surprise, Cheerilee answered, speaking with a quiet confidence. The foal put great credence in what she had to say, going as far as to nuzzle Dale’s leg.
Dale smiled. Maybe he could win over Ponyville. He was two-for-one with strangers so far, not a bad average. The nurse said something to him—it sounded like she was thanking him. He smiled and nodded, watching as she led the foal back out of the room.
Cheerilee didn’t seem upset at all by the delay in her lesson. He’d noticed that all the ponies he’d met so far didn’t get impatient when things took a while. There were a lot of people back on earth who could learn a valuable lesson from them.
Twilight and Lyra both got up from their seats, moving to his side of the table. Lyra sat on his right, while Twilight left an open spot between Dale and herself as a personal buffer. She was having trouble focusing on the blackboard, and he could see her head nodding down as she tried to concentrate, while Lyra was as bright-eyed as ever. She gripped a book with her magic and pulled it across the table, placing it right in front of Dale. A second volume was moved in front of the empty seat.
A minute later, Kate came in, flanked by two guards. She had her hand lightly resting on the back of one and a zonked look in her eyes. The guard guided her to the open seat, which she took, protesting as the guard moved away.
He looked back at her with a small smirk on his face—the first emotion Dale had seen one of the guards show—and tilted his head meaningfully towards Twilight. Kate looked over at the unicorn and her eyes lit up.
Twilight jerked her head up as Kate’s hand found her mane, and she muttered a brief protest, but as soon as the girl’s fingers were scratching behind the unicorn’s ears, she laid her head back down on the table with a contented sigh. Cheerilee glared at the pair before returning her attention to the chalkboard.
• • •
By the time the cook brought in dinner, everyone in the room was exhausted—except for Twilight, who was still fast asleep. Cheerilee cleared her teaching materials off the desk, placing them neatly back in her saddlebags. “Goodbye, everypony. Dale, and Lyra, I will see you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, Cheerilee,” Dale replied. She’d taught him a handful of greetings, some pronouns, and how to say “I don’t speak your language,” as well as a few more basic verbs. The book she’d been teaching out of appeared to be their equivalent to the Dick and Jane books, but her lessons had been much more focused than Lyra’s. It was obvious that there was more to teaching than the brute-force method he and Lyra had been using on the island.
Dinner was largely leftovers, although the chef set an extra bowl of some kind of bean casserole in front of Kate. It didn’t look terribly appetizing, but Kate seemed to like it. She got her own drink, too—a tall glass of greenish water—while Dale and Lyra drank fizzy alcoholic apple juice; Twilight alone drank tea. She ate her meal in silence, a slightly guilty look on her face. Whether that was a result of sleeping through the language lesson, or enjoying the petting, Dale wasn’t sure. It might have been a combination of both.
“How come we’re here?” Kate asked around a mouthful of her casserole.
“I think we’re supposed to be some kind of ambassadors,” Dale told her. “That’s what they told me, anyway.”
“Oh.” She looked around the room. “How come we’re here, and not in a fancy building in a big city? This town looks pretty small.”
Dale frowned. He’d already wondered the same thing. He was sure they had their reasons—this might very well be a big town for them—but so far they hadn’t shared those reasons with him. What if they want to start off small, with something simple and familiar? he wondered. It might be overwhelming to be in a bustling city with hovercars and millions of ponies all living together—here, it’s peaceful and laid-back. At the same time, the ponies hadn’t seemed quite prepared for their arrival. What if they were just bad at first contact? Dale laughed. That notion was ridiculous.
He turned as the door opened again. This time, a familiar moustached muzzle poked in—it was the pony which had been talking to Lyra when she’d been sad. What was his name again? The three crowns didn’t give Dale any clues, except that this guy was important. He heard a brief commotion off to his side, and turned to see Twilight swatting away Kate’s hand.
The stallion looked slightly uncomfortable with the arrangement—Dale wasn’t sure if he was unhappy to see them, or if he was upset that he’d interrupted dinner. He tugged an attache case—which was a particularly useless item for a pony to have invented—into the room behind him, and then set it on the table, next to Lyra.
She said something to Twilight, who got out of her seat and went to the door. A moment later, two guards entered and stood on either side of Kate. “Tell Ka-th-rin go . . . home,” Lyra told him quietly. “Dale not go, Dale here with Lyra.”
“Kate, could you follow the guards and Twilight back to your room?”
“But I’m not done eating yet,” she protested.
“I’m sure they’ll take your food up to your room,” he assured her. “Kathrine take food home,” he told Lyra, who nodded and passed the suggestion on to Twilight. The unicorn picked up Kate’s dishes in her aura, yanking them away from Kate’s grabbing hands. She quickly trotted towards the door, waving the plates slightly in the air, in much the same way Dale had enticed dogs to chase sticks and balls. It had the desired effect; Kate got out of her chair and headed for the door, the two guards trailing behind her.
If the fancy white stallion was perplexed by Kate’s behavior, he had the grace to not show it. His face remained neutral.
Once the door closed, he took notebooks and pens out of his bag. Dale looked at the pen with interest—so far, he’d only seen pencils and quills being used as writing implements, but this was a fairly traditional felt-tip pen. The barrel was metal, but otherwise it was much like the Flair pens he had at home.
The stallion stuck out his hoof and shook with Lyra, and then Dale—three pumps, just like Lyra had shown him yesterday. As soon as he’d accomplished that bit of pleasantry, the stallion got down to business, asking Lyra dozens of questions. It was like the interview she’d had earlier, except she looked a lot less comfortable talking to him. He wasn’t hostile, but he was aggressive, and he was clearly asking questions that Lyra didn’t want to answer. Dale put his hand on her shoulder, hoping that the touch would be reassuring.
The stallion seemed taken aback by the behavior. He asked Lyra another question, and she shook her head, a blush forming on her cheeks. He didn’t appear entirely satisfied with her answer; he was tapping his pen against the paper. Dale wasn’t sure what kind of body language that was—it seemed like an awful lot of effort to write with a pen telekinetically, so what was the point of the tapping motion? Unless it was somehow symbolic. Finally, he wrote down a few notes on his paper. Dale glanced at the page—the unicorn was writing in some kind of cursive: the letters were entirely different than the ones he’d been learning so far. That was just what he didn’t want to have to deal with—a second alphabet that they used.
Finally, the stallion pointed to him, and asked Lyra a question. She turned to face Dale, before attempting to explain what the stallion wanted. “Dale make write there. Before here, Dale, Lyra there—at Dale not-home. What did Dale see? What did Dale do? Why did Dale do? What did Ka-th-rin do? Why did do?”
Dale looked at the notebook dubiously. That was going to be difficult to get across in drawings.
“Lyra not mean take Dale, Ka-th-rin,” she told him. “Dale, Ka-th-rin stay their home, Lyra stay Lyra home. Take is not good. Lyra make bad, not know why. Dale help Lyra know why. Help Fancy Pants know why.”
Dale looked back at her earnest face. All of a sudden, pieces were beginning to fall into place. If they hadn’t meant to bring him or Kate here, it made a lot more sense why they were so ill-prepared to deal with them. Something must have gone terribly wrong, and they were trying to rectify their mistake as quickly as they could. They must have meant for the meetings to go on for a long while, slowly exploring each other’s culture and language; to have it all blow up in their faces this quickly had sent everyone chasing their own tails.
On top of that, they probably hadn’t gotten any of the groundwork done before he and Kate had arrived. How chaotic would it have been if the first lunar mission had not only found aliens, but those aliens had hitched a ride back to earth on the Apollo? The ponies must have been terrified that they’d do something else wrong, and perhaps further injure their unwitting visitors. No wonder Twilight was so exhausted; she’d probably been frantically preparing things for the last couple of days, waiting for the cavalry to arrive.
They’d no doubt brought in the best local experts they could find. In hindsight, it was obvious that they had never intended Dale or Kate to be here—that was why they hadn’t had the anatomy book at first. The doctors had probably been improvising their treatment from the very beginning, doing the bare minimum to keep he and Kate alive. It was probably painfully obvious to them that whatever painkillers they were using on Kate were having an unintended side-effect, but they were too scared to risk changing them.
His respect for them increased immeasurably. Years from now, no doubt they’d look back on all the mistakes they’d made with shame, but looking at it in the present, they were quickly adapting to a rapidly-evolving situation with at least as much grace as Americans would have, perhaps even more.
With a new resolved, he put his pen to paper. He was determined to do whatever it took to make sure that Lyra didn’t get blamed for any of this.