Notes on a new world day 4
My hosts, who I've taken to referring to by their color, have proven intelligent and generous. Purple seems to be the smartest and has subjected me to a battery of simple tests, some physical, some magical, and recording volumes of data on me. Sadly, dispite our best efforts we have not been able to comunicate verbally. Purple is some kind of writer, but he has a tendancy to use his little dragon to burn letters he doesn't like. I wonder what the criteria is for burnable since he clearly throws away a number of pages in the trash can.
Blue is the most athletic and is somehow in charge of the weather. I was amazed to see him pushing around clouds the other day. He seems most interested in physical comparisons and the least patient when trying to bridge the comunication barrier. There are times where, when I have not wanted to test my strength against his, I have been intentionaly unhelpful with comunication.
Orange is warry of me, more so than most of the others. I suspect something in his past prejudices him against either outsiders or the unusual. Not that I blame him. I still refuse to take food from him on principal, often swaping whatever I am given for what he is eating. I do it randomly though, so as to prevent a double swap.
Pink is..... energetic. He bakes, something I have learned to love in the last few days, but is more social than I can normally deal with. I get the impression he is suggesting something to Purple about me, but Purple keeps shooting him down. Strangely though I have even less ability to comunicate clearly with Pink he is the one most likely to understand my requests. His giberish and my giberish must mix in his head and come out making sense somehow.
Yellow is shy, but friendly. He takes care of animals, and brought a few over for me to meet. Most are nice, but that rabbit has a bad attitude. He is startlingly quiet, and more than once I have be startled by his appearance when I thought I was alone.
White is a tailor. He was more interested in my clothing than me. I get the sense that, next to Purple, he is the most frustrated by the language barrier. Once or twice he has shown me fashion magazines, but I don't know if he wants me to dress up in his fashion or give him tips on mine.
Finally there is the dragon. Young, childish, a little chubby, and tough. Purple seems to use it to burn up documents he doesn't like.
ItShe seems very attached to White, though White is somewhat oblivious to her advances. She is the most like me in structure, posessing dexterous claws and a non-vegitarian apetite. That last bit is something I'll have to broach sooner or later, one can only eat so many eggs.Without written or verbal communication things have been going slow. I've managed to work out a few simple pictograms for food, water, rest, etc, and carry a small chalkboard, chalk and eraser with me everywhere. I've proven to the ponies that I'm not a threat, at least when I'm not threatened, and today they are going to show me around town.
I put up my journal and gave Purple the thumbs up. He had been impatiently waiting for the last twenty minutes for me to get ready to go. He and the lizard were escorting me around town, hoping to keep me out of trouble and safe from ponies who jump to conclusions.
First was the market. I was a pretty big attention draw, standing nearly a head taller than most of the other ponies. The conversation around me made me feel more like a pet being shown off than a friend, and I glared at one or two ponies who tried to pet me. From the way Purple was talking I got the sense he was repeating the same story over and over again.
Not able to communicate very well, I settled into the fallback of diplomats everywhere: smile and wave.
I did get to see at least one friendly face. Orange's sister, a large red mare that I wanted to call Big Red, was minding a cart full of apples. The little brother was there too, and he ran up to say hello. He offered me an apple, first taking a bite out of it.
"<Apple Buck, why did you take a bite first?>" Purple asked, watching me accept the apple and eat it easily. "<Whoa, I thought he was always wary of food.>"
"<I visited him the first night and he showed me. I think it's a custom where he's from.>"
"<It might have more to do with Applejack and Macarenia drugging him the first night>" the lizard chimed in.
We went by the more permanent shops after. Bookstores, clock makers, the works. I pointed curiously to a shop that seemed to sell sofas and quills, and nothing else.
"<Yeah, it's a bit of a mystery how it stays in buisness.>" Purple said, as I conveyed my confusion over how such a store could stay open more than one week.
The blacksmith proved to be quite a learning experience as I watched a burly pony operate the forge without the aid of magic.
Next stop was White's home/ buisness, a three story botique. Inside was filled with what I could only assume was high fashion for ponies. Having seen the more rural life many lived here I didn't think there would be much call for such extravagent garments around town. Then again, most of the ponies I'd seen walked around completely naked.
White was there, and even had a timid little brother to introduce to us.
"<Sweepy Belle, go say hello.>" White instructed. The little one edged closer and made soft greeting sounds, so I smiled and waved. At that point I noticed something. While White had a tattoo or brand of some kind, this younger one did not. I pointed to the three blue diamond's on White's side, making an inquiring motion.
"<My cutie mark? It's about finding the hidden value in things. More specifically it's about finding gems hidden in the earth.>" White said.
"OK, lets try that again but with more gestures." I said, gesturing as I spoke.
"<Oh, right, language barrier.>" White said. His horn lit up, and he pointed at a bowl nearby that was glowing. I went over and found the bowl filled with imitation precious stones. Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and more I couldn't guess at. They were all roughly cut but none were smaller than a marble.
I picked up one and looked at it closer. It was filthy, with dirt stuck in the nooks and crannies. I had to wonder if she just salvaged them from somewhere. But that didn't fit the rest of the shop's style. Everything was shiny and fresh and obviously of the best quality. And how would you get dirt into the crevice like that? It was almost like a real diamond.
It felt a lot like a real diamond too, but I knew better than that. No one would leave a real diamond the size of my thumb just lying around. I pulled out my screwdriver and ran the blade over the gem.
Not a scratch.
OK, so it's a good strong fake. I dragged a sharp edge along the screwdriver's shaft, making a short screech. There was a notch on my tool.
"Holy shit this is real?!" I asked, boggled by the concept. I looked at the bowl and realized I didn't have the knowledge base to calculate it's value, but it was obviously worth more money than I'd ever seen.
"<Hey!>" the purple lizard said, walking up and taking the stone from my hand. "<Don't do that, you'll ruin the taste.>"
Then she popped the gem into her mouth and bit down, crunching it into pieces. This taught me two important things. One: dragons in this world eat gems. Two: if her teeth could bite through diamond like it was nothing, then I never ever wanted to get bitten by a dragon.
"I think I've wondered from the point." I said. I pointed to Purple's mark and made a questioning gesture.
"<My mark means I'm good at magic.>" Purple said. He lit his horn and levitated several things, turning some different colors or changing them entirely. "<I'm not sure if I conveyed that very well.>"
So each mark had something to do with their abilities. I nodded and pointed at the young foal, making the questioning motion again.
Almost instantly I realized I had touched on a sore subject, the young buck shying away and hiding behind White. White and Purple alternated between kind noises at the young one and gestures to me. As near as I could tell, the young one was not big enough or old enough to have such a tattoo. It would certainly be interesting to see how they got them.
White tried nudged me onto a stand and began chattering at me while he measured. He had already poked at my technicians jumpsuit a couple of times, looking through the pockets and remarking on the cut and style. I didn't have any real way to tell him it was just utilitarian.
He and Purple had also failed, once by coersion and once by force, to remove me from my clothing. I think Purple was more interested in my anatomy while White wanted to exampine my clothing better. They had made enough gestures and pleasant sounds to convey what they wanted, and became more and more insistant when I shook my head no. By the time Purple grabbed me to try and strip me I had a hostage and a weapon.
Well, a journal he had been writing in and a pot of ink, but it's the same thing.
I noticed that the little one was watching me with curious eyes while White bustled around me.
"Sorry if I struck a bad chord earlier." I said, smiling. He smiled back. I wondered what to call him, maybe Little White?
It was almost two hours later when we left the shop, and only after I'd given the go ahead on two roughly sketched out garments White wanted to make for me. Hopefully I can find someplace to work at where communication isn't needed, otherwise I have no idea how I'm going to be paying White back.
Purple and the gem eating tiny dragon guided me back through town, pointing out other places and trying to convey their importance or purpose. One particularly large building had Purple excited, and given it's centralized location in the town I took it to be either a town hall or the local ruler's home.
A white cloud floating over the town had the appearance of a house, and I was only a little surprised when Blue poked his head out of the cloud door at Purple's calling.
"<Dusk! You brought the thing!>" Blue shouted down cheerfully. "<Can we race? Do an athletic challenge? Test it's stamina?>"
"<I'm just showing him around town Blitz.>" Purple said, trying to calm Blue down. Blue was having none of it, and pointed to me, then a tree, then back to Purple.
"What?"
He made a jogging motion, then to the tree and back to Purple again.
"I really don't know what you want." I said, making confused gestures with my arms.
"<Dusk, this guy is dense.>" Blue said.
"<You just aren't explaining very well.>" Purple responded with a smirk. "<Here, race me real quick.>" He made 'stay' motions with his hoof at me and then stood next to Blue.
"<Ready. Set.>" Purple said, he and Blue taking up poses that looked like they were going to pounce.
"<GO!>"
The two raced out, Purple doing his best to keep up to the more athletic Blue. They raced around the tree and returned to where I was standing. Purple was panting a bit from the run, but Blue just looked warmed up.
"<Right! OK, let's try you now!>"