Missionary
Thaddus was having the worst day of his life, which was unfortunate, because it was one of the most beautiful days he had seen in a long, long time. He had just finished a 42 day stay at his uncle’s house, which he normally would have enjoyed, except that the reason he was staying there was his mother was sick, and his father needed him out of the house so that he could take care of mother. If that hadn’t been bad enough, it had started raining the day he arrived at his uncle’s, and he hadn’t seen the sun once since then. It didn’t rain every day, but when it wasn’t raining, it was overcast. His uncle assured him that the weather wasn’t usually this gloomy, but with his mood and his uncertainty about his mother, he felt depressed; then, by the end of it, practically suicidal. He went about his business as usual, of course, but with a feeling that he was being tested and that he was not passing the test. Along with his depressing thoughts came a deeper and deeper dread, as if the end times were upon him.
Sometime after sunset—or at least what he assumed was sunset, since the sky got darker and then thick fog rolled in—his uncle knocked on the door to his room and said that he had just heard from Thaddus’ father that his mother was better, and that he should come back home, and there was a train leaving in a couple of hours, if he wanted to leave tonight. He should have said no; he could have stayed one more day, but his spirits were beginning to buoy with the thought of actually being home and out of this wretched rain, so he quietly gathered his things and stuffed them into his bag, then walked out into the rain. The station was only a few blocks away, if he cut through the park.
But somehow he had gotten turned around in the dark and the rain, and walked for what seemed like hours in the darkness, sinister trees lurking out of the mist. The streetlights he had been able to see across the park had vanished long ago, either swallowed up by the thick fog, or else brought down by a power failure or something. The strange but comforting sounds of the city had faded into a more ominous silence. Finally, he had tripped over a root and slid down a small ravine, and just lay there miserably for a while, feeling as if he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
He couldn’t say when the mist cleared, but there was a bright full moon above, and the sky was covered with more stars than he could remember ever having seen. It was comfortably warm, and his clothes were mostly dry. He picked up his bag, and decided that he would follow the ravine until he came to a bridge. He vaguely remembered that there was a road that crossed the ravine on the south end of the park. He couldn’t remember the ravine having been this deep, but to be fair, he hadn’t been in it before, either; besides, everything had taken on a kind of spooky aspect it seemed. He chalked that up to his mental state.
When he finally reached the bridge, it was cut stone, although he was sure he had remembered it being concrete. Then, he got another surprise when he crawled up to the road and discovered it was dirt, not the asphalt he had remembered. I must have walked father than I thought. He brushed a little dried mud off the knees of his pants, and looked around to get his bearings. He could make out a small village off in the distance, so he headed there.
When the sun rose, and he saw just how strange things really were, he fainted.
He came to on the grass just outside of the town proper. It was just after dawn, and the streets were deserted. As the sun rose over the horizon, he felt a sudden invigoration. Perhaps he was here to share the faith in this strange village. He thought back to the stories of brave missionaries, taking their faith into the oddest corners of the world. Yes, this was surely his mission. Emboldened, he took out his book of scripture, and read through a few comforting passages, then adjusted his tie, gave himself a critical once-over, and walked up to the first house and knocked.
As soon as the front door opened, he gulped, but he had been greeted in English, as strange as it seemed, so he launched into his spiel. “Good morning! I am Thaddus, and I am here to offer you—“ The door slammed in his face.
It didn’t improve from there. Closed doors were about the kindest greeting he got. At one home, the welcome mat was pulled from under his feet before the door was slammed. At another large home, all the time he was speaking the occupant appeared to eagerly be examining him with the look that suggested she wanted to pull him into the house and take his clothes off and then…well, he wasn’t really sure what would happen next; blushing furiously, he ran away as she called out after him.
He finally ended up in front of what looked for all the world like the tree those weird cookie elves lived in. He pounded on the front door in desperation; the harlot he had encountered earlier was out in the street, looking for him, and he saw her blue eyes suddenly lock on him. His brain was rapidly processing the age-old fight or flight debate, when the door opened.
Not waiting for an invitation, he bolted right into the room, shouting on the way past, “Hide me, she’s trying to take my clothes or something.” Then he ran up a flight of stairs and crouched behind a small bed that looked over the main room. He had a moment to ponder how strange that arrangement was, before his pursuer arrived at the front door and demanded to be let in.
“Where is he? Ooh, the moment I saw him I just had the greatest inspiration! He looks just like a Diamond—“
“Rarity.” Twilight looked at her friend with a calm, yet slightly chilling gaze. “He just ran in here, saying that he thought you were going to take all of his clothes and—“
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well, of course, darling, how else could I get proper measurements? But I would fairly compensate him for his time and trouble, you can be sure.” She tilted her chin up and closed her eyes. “Can you imagine how much of an honor it would be to be the inspiration for an entire new line of clothing?”
“Well, that may very well be so, but for right now he seems scared. Perhaps you could calm yourself, he and I could have a rational discussion, and you could go back to the Boutique, and, if he is interested, he could come over on his own terms.”
Rarity pouted. “I suppose that will have to do.” Her expression brightened. “Oh, darling, I don’t suppose you know, um, what he is?”
Twilight pondered for a moment. “He ran by so quickly…I’m not really sure. I suppose I will have to ask him. Perhaps I should write a letter to Princess Celestia, as well.” She clapped her hooves together. “And to think that when I woke up this morning I felt as if something exciting were going to happen. Perhaps I’m getting a little Pinkie sense of my own!”
“I believe that is very unlikely. Ta ta, please do let me know if he shows any interest in coming over. Perhaps you could come with? Oh, and please do extend my apologies. I might have been just a trifle overbearing.” Rarity bounced her mane for a moment, then walked off towards her home.
For his part, Thaddus hardly heard the conversation. He suddenly realized that he was crouching behind a woman’s bed, in her bedroom, and that somehow seemed indecent, although he couldn’t really say why. The sheets were rumpled, as if she had just gotten up to answer the door, and he was certain that if he were to put his hand on the bed it would be warm, and that thought brought a blush, and he backed away until he hit the wall behind him, bringing a bottle of perfume or something crashing to his head.
He fumbled it around between his hands, feeling that if he broke it he would be committing an awful crime, and set it on the floor just as she came up the stairs, looking completely nonplussed about the fact that he was in her bedroom with a bottle of her perfume in his hands. She looked vaguely curious, but that was all. She jumped onto the bed, folding her legs under herself, and looked at him intently. His blush deepened, and he set the perfume bottle down.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said calmly. She was unaware that her demeanor almost perfectly matched that of Princess Celestia, a mannerism she had picked up through the years of watching her mentor calmly handle whatever Equestrian society happened to throw her way. She looked at him carefully. “Who are you?”
Of all the things that had gone wrong this day, at last he was on slightly familiar ground. Sure, he was suddenly and inexplicably in a quasi-medieval village that appeared to be filled with what looked like a cross between a horse and a St. Bernard, some of whom were apparently unicorns, and they all spoke English, and all of that was a lot to take in, but at least here was one who didn’t slam the door in his face, or try to undress him, one who was simply interested in a pleasant conversation (he hoped, oh how he hoped).
“I am Thaddus O’Conner, ma’am,” he respectfully replied.
She nodded thoughtfully, and he relaxed a little. It seemed like a long time before she posed the next question, but the calming half-smile she had adopted relaxed him a little more. “And, if you may forgive my asking, what are you?”
“I am a missionary,” he stated simply, having decided this morning that was clearly his calling; else why would he be here?
“I see.” There was another pause. He realized that her look seemed almost maternal. He couldn’t really describe it, but he felt oddly comfortable. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.”
He nodded. He had expected this. While his understanding of medieval villages wasn’t very comprehensive, and he certainly had never imagined one filled with little pastel horses, he vaguely remembered something about how they all had a church as their central point, at least in Europe, and he certainly hadn’t seen anything like that here, or at least nothing that appeared to be very church-like. But that was just fine; after all, wasn’t the whole point of being a missionary to bring the scriptures to those who didn’t know what they were? “I would like to explain it to you,” he offered.
“I would like that,” she admitted. Her eyes widened as he pulled out a thick book and flipped it open with the familiarity of a scholar.
* * *
Hours passed as he explained the scriptures to her. At first, she seemed confused, but as time passed she seemed to be understanding more and more. There were concepts he had great difficulty getting across, of course. The biggest difficulty, it turned out, was trying to relate concepts that she seemed completely oblivious to, as he had great difficulty in trying to come up with a cultural example, knowing nothing of their culture. He had a brief moment of panic when she levitated a cup of tea over towards him, because he was pretty sure that there was something about witches being bad, but then he thought that if she didn’t know she was a witch (if she was), than maybe she wasn’t sinning after all, and would stop her witchy ways (if her ways were witchy) when she realized that she was sinning. Oh, it was so complicated. Thaddus was wishing that there were an elder with him to explain all this.
It wasn’t that he had never done this before, but every time in the past, he had been talking to people of a similar culture who at least understood where he was coming from, even if they did slam the door in his face.
* * *
The day passed mostly uneventfully. For Thaddus, the only awkward moment was when he had to have the unicorn explain how the bathroom worked; he had never seen anything quite like it in his life, and the unicorn seemed more curious about his bodily functions than he felt was proper, asking him far more questions than he felt were strictly necessary in order to use the facilities, as it were.
Twilight, on the other hoof, had a million questions she wanted to ask, but she had sensed this creature’s fright—in a way, he reminded her of Fluttershy—and felt that pressing the issue might lead him to clam up. She hoped that if she made this thing that called itself a missionary comfortable, it would eventually give a better account of itself. While its explanations of its book of philosophy was interesting, and gave her all sorts of cultural insights, it still didn’t explain to her satisfaction what the creature was, nor how it had gotten here.
While it was using the bathroom, Twilight wrote a quick letter to the princess, although with Spike being gone with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she had no quick way to send it. Although it was a disappointment that she couldn’t immedeatly communicate with Celestia, given the skittish nature of the creature, she was actually grateful that he was absent. She put the letter in the mailbox instead, trusting that the industrious mailpony would get the letter to Canterlot quickly. For all her clumsiness, she was absolutely devoted to her job.
The afternoon passed quickly, and Twilight suddenly realized that she was starving, and assumed that the creature must be as well.
“Are you hungry?” Twilight asked.
“Actually, yes,” Thaddus answered. He hadn’t really thought about it, he had been so wrapped up in trying to explain the scriptures to this willing listener. “I’m so hungry I could eat a . . . lot.”
“What do you eat?” Twilight was hoping to get an idea of this thing’s digestive system.
“I can eat a lot of different things,” he replied, suddenly thinking that he might offend her with his diet.
“Such as?” she pressed.
“Well, why don’t you tell me what you have?” he replied, unwilling to offend.
Twilight sighed. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “I have hay, alfalfa cubes, fresh daisies, carrots, apples, oats, bread, a couple of cupcakes…” she thought for a moment over whatever else might be in the cupboards. “Hmm, topaz, I think there are still some sapphires, oh, and lettuce, tea, ferns….”
“I think carrots and apples would be fine,” Thaddus replied. “Do you eat gemstones?”
“No,” she said, walking to the kitchen to get the apples and carrots. “My assistant does, though,” she said without thinking.
“Your assistant?” Thaddus paused. “What kind of creature is your assistant, and what does he do that you can afford to feed him semi-precious stones?”
Unseen by Thaddus, Twilight facehoofed. She shouldn’t have mentioned Spike’s eating habits; but since she had broached the subject, she supposed she would have to explain. And, even though she hadn’t meant to bring it up, it seemed that wherever he came from sapphires and topaz were rare enough that one wouldn’t eat them. Yet another reason to keep him away from Rarity for a while, she decided.
“Spike, my assistant, is a baby dragon,” she explained. “Right now, he’s away with the Crusaders, a trio of fillies.”
Thaddus was silent for a moment, pondering this new information. Dragons were apparently tame enough that they were used as assistants, and they ate gems, which must be common enough here that they could be eaten—or perhaps his manner of assistance was sufficient enough that gems were kept as treats for particularly good behaviour. Still, if they kept dragons, then they probably weren’t squeamish about carnivourous behavior…but perhaps that was too much to assume.
As for Crusaders, he only knew the term in the sense of soldiers trying to free the Holy Land from the infidels, but if fillies still meant young ponies here, then why were they sending children? Although he seemed to remember one of the Popes had done that once. He wondered if perhaps this was a parallel, horse-centric, historical Europe. “What is it they are Crusading for?”
“Their cutie marks,” Twilight explained, as she levitated a plate of carrots and apples on the table. Seeing the blank expression on Thaddus’ face, she realized that this was no explanation at all. I suppose that the exchange of information is a two-way process, she thought. I guess if I want to get more out of him, perhaps I should give him a little.
“A pony’s cutie mark appears when she or he discovers the special talent she has,” Twilight explained. “In my case, it was magic, and it appeared when I hatched Spike out of his egg.” She pointed with her horn at her flank, but the blank look suggested he still wasn’t getting it.
“It’s the stars on my flank,” she said.
Thaddus nodded slowly. “So, you had that, um, put on, when you realized your special talent was magic?”
“No, it just appeared.”
“Like magic? Poof, tattoo?”
“I don’t know what a tattoo is,” Twilight said. “But, if it is a marking on one’s body, then yes, just like that.”
Thaddus thought about that as he started chewing on a carrot. “Is it there forever?”
“Unless my fur falls out, yes.”
“Does that happen?”
Twilight thought about the answer for a moment. She had never heard of a pony losing her coat, although she supposed such a thing was possible. Snips and Snails had lost part of their cutie marks when they had pulled out their fur when they had somehow managed to stick themselves together with chewing gum, and she had seen one pony in the hospital who had had to have her flank shaved for a medical procedure, but in both cases when the fur grew back, the cutie mark had reappeared completely unharmed. “Not that I am aware of,” she finally replied.
Thaddus continued eating carrots, while Twilight watched him, trying not to be obvious. She noted that he didn’t eat the carrot greens, which she thought was the best part, but didn’t press the issue. When they had finished, she looked at him carefully. “I don’t wish to sound too forward, but do you have a place to stay? For the night?”
Thaddus blushed. “Um, no, not really, but I really don’t know if—“
“I have a guest bed,” she said, cutting him off. “I’d be happy to set it up for you.”
“Oh, well, that would be all right, then.”
“If it’s not too much to ask,” Twilight said a little awkwardly, “I think that we both have very many questions about each of our cultures. I wonder if we could perhaps spend the rest of the evening studying?”
Thaddus looked at her thoughtfully. “What do you mean?”
“Well, this is a library,” Twilight said. “There are a few good books on Equestrian culture here, perhaps you could indulge your curiosity—that is, if you are curious, but I get the sense that there are a lot of questions that you have that you are too polite to ask—and perhaps I could read through your book of, um, scriptures, and we could take notes on what we’re curious about, and maybe in the morning, we could kind of compare notes?”
Thaddus thought about that. He had so many questions—the most pressing of which was ‘why am I here,’ something he suspected that no book in the library would be able to answer—and it would surely be to his benefit to gain an understanding of their societal norms. He had already decided that this unicorn was an exception, in that she hadn’t kicked him out, and she seemed quite willing to learn and understand.
“That seems like a good plan,” he said, blinking as she suddenly popped out of the kitchen, then back in with several books hovering around her head.
“These three should get you started,” she said. “A brief history of Equestria, Etiquette for Mules, and Why does the Sun Shine?”
[somewhat later]
Thaddus looked at Twilight intently, almost maniacally. “Do you ever wonder where you came from?”
Twilight frowned. “No, not really. I mean, after my parents had Shining, they decided they wanted another foal, and—“ her eyes brightened “—are you curious about unicorn mating habits? Because I know all about them!”
Thaddus blushed. “No, not that. I mean, do you wonder why you are here?”
Twilight looked around at the library. “Well, the Princess wanted me to go to Ponyville to make some friends, which was really important, although I didn’t realize it at the time, because the five of use needed to work together to use the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon.”
Thaddus rested his face in his hands. His head seemed to be unusually heavy, and it seemed like the beginnings of a headache were forming.
“Perhaps I am approaching this from the wrong angle. What do you feel your purpose in life is?”
“Well, as a librarian, of course, I have to take care of the library, and check out books and help ponies find the books they want. To do that efficiently, I need to have an understanding of each book, which, of course, means that I have to have read it. To be honest, I’ve only skimmed over some of the foal’s books, though. And, in my free time, I study the magic of friendship, as well as magic in general. Princess Celestia says I’m the most powerful unicorn since Starswirl the Bearded,” she said proudly.
Thaddus frowned. This really wasn’t going where he wanted to go, so he decided he’d pop the big question. “What do you think happens after you die?”
Twilight didn’t answer for a moment, pondering the question. “Well, I suppose my relatives and children if I have any will be sad, and will have a funeral for me, and then they will bury me. After that, I’m not sure, because magic has a way of affecting the biology of unicorns, sometimes preserving them in a relatively, um, complete state for a considerable amount of time.
“No, I don’t mean physically.” Thaddus traced his finger over the table. “I mean, what do you think happens to your soul?”
“My what, now? Is that something like Starswirl glands?” Twilight levitated a book on unicorn biology over to the table and flipped to the index.