A Fourth Hour to Learn
"And what does this mean, Twilight?"
"That? It says 'finite'. See? The letters here... read slowly with me. Note the placement of the marks. Fuh-Ei-Nie-T."
Come the evenings of two days a week, Twilight Sparkle and myself arranged to meet at her library for lessons. Though first a request by the Princess of the realm, Twilight took it upon herself to better tend to my needs as an outlander, teaching me not just the language I could not read, but what life in her land was like and how it could be lived.
"Could you read everything in that novel you borrowed the other day?"
We sat at the desk in the tree library's middle, texts and notes piled up at the sides of our workspace. The evening's cool air could be felt even inside, keeping my attention fresh and alert. Not that there was much need for that. Over the past weeks I had been delving more and more into knowledge of Equestria, not relying just on Twilight's tutelage.
"Mostly, yeah. There were still a few sentences I couldn't fully understand, but I more or less got the idea from context."
"We can look it over when we're done here! Finished yet?"
Twilight had me do a series of tests. Comprehension passages, like how one would be tested in English back home. The texts used were all derived from other books, some stories and others essays that could about anything from the nature of magic to how much a pony just loved having candy. I learned about a lot of nice books that way, Twilight was more than happy to accommodate me. 'The library hasn't had a lot of visitors lately', she said. 'It's fine to take however much you want!'
"Right, and... very interesting. I guess that counts as correct too... are the pencils too small? No offense, but your handwriting is kinda hard to read..."
I winced a little. I thought I was trying to make it neater.
"Hmm... perfect! I'd answer a little better in some places, but you did it! I had planned to spend most of this evening with this passage, but I guess there's no need! You did well!"
Twilight's praise put a bit of warmth in my chest.
"Guess you can go home, now. Unless there was anything you wanted to take out or return?"
I reminded her about the book I wanted to discuss. Besides, it was still pretty early. I wasn't ready to leave so soon.
"Oh, right, right. Hmm... why don't you come up to my living room? We'll both be comfier there."
I knew Twilight lived in this library, but I had never seen where she actually, well, lived. I did wonder what a pony's home would be like. My own room was kept sparse, only a few bare essentials and an ornament here or there that came with it. I'd never seen how a pony lived in their own homes. I thought of stables and hay bales, but that thought was becoming more ridiculous. Many differences I thought I'd have difficulty adjusting to turned out to never exist at all.
Twilight led me up a staircase to the back, brining me to a large room on the second floor. The floor and walls were the same, they still had shelves line with what were probably Twilight's favourites. References on plant life, essay collections, 'Dark Desires after–
"Here! Take a seat! Want some tea?"
Just as I was getting to the interesting part, too.
Twilight seated me opposite her over a table, opening my book between us. She offered me an armchair, resting on one herself.
"Oh, right! This one is a favourite story among a lot of mares. I know Rarity's a huge fan, but I haven't read it myself. Let's see..."
Twilight went through the text where I had noted places difficult to understand. All with bits of paper placed between the pages, of course. I didn't like to imagine what should we probably do to me had I tarnished the book in any way.
"This one? It's another word for friendship. It describes friends who met recently but aren't so close. Not just acquaintances, it's a bit more, when they want to be closer friends and aren't quite there yet."
"Huh, Twilight. Looking at the context of all these, most of them seem like they'd be words for friends."
"They are! Like Princess Celestia said, it's a very important thing to us. Studying it was why I decided to stay here. Did I ever tell you I was from Canterlot?"
Twilight beamed in pride.
"Yeah, I remember Whatever made you decide to come here? It doesn't seem like it's someplace you'd get to study magic a lot compared to there."
"Oh, it wasn't me! It was the princess' idea, actually. Remember when I told you it was the Summer Sun celebration and I figured out that Nightmare Moon would be freed that very day?"
"Yes, the demon and all."
"Right, I did! And–"
"–then when you were proven right, you led your comrades to victory over her and used the Elements of... of–"
"Harmony!"
She seemed eager to have the story she liked to tell so much repeated back to her, with that big grin.
"Harmony, right. Then she was restored and you decided to stay here. I never got why, though."
"Well... ahahaha..."
Twilight's grin melted into a nervous laugh.
"Uh... you could say Ponyville is a better place to learn about friendship than Canterlot for me. That's also why Princess Celestia assigned me to stay here. I... didn't have a lot of friends back in Canterlot. I was quite a shut-in."
She looked about sheepishly at everything except me. For the briefest moment, I felt a twinge of weakness in my chest, amid the understanding.
"Then through your first adventure you made friends whom you've stuck with ever since, right? I'm still not sure how my friends managed to get me among them. Must have been a miracle of some sort!"
I laughed, easing Twilight as she joined me.
"Wonder how they're doing now. I was supposed to meet them..."
I counted the days since everything started. Twenty. Today was Friday. Conveniently, the days of the week were exactly the same as home, like many other things.
"...Today. Huh. Hope they're taking the news alright."
I kept up a weaker smile, thought Twilight discarded hers so I wouldn't be forced to freeze it.
"Can you remember more about how you got here now?"
"Some more, yeah. I was moving to university. I was really excited about starting a new life, you know? Learn new things I never thought about, meet new people... I guess I sort of got what I wanted." I shrugged, relaxing as I thought of the good things that happened at the very least.
"No wonder you were carrying so much with you. Turned out pretty useful, huh?"
"It did. I think I had even more, I was moving after all. Wait..."
My head still hurt to even think about that day, but over time it was at least getting easier.
"Did you get something else? What was it?"
"Right. I was driving. I was on the road, then suddenly I was... somewhere else. The car had run out of petrol by then, somehow. That's when I got out to find help, and packed a backpack in case I needed to be away for long. That's how it all started. Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital."
Twilight nodded slowly as she thought over it.
"Maybe we could go find your things tomorrow! It was just you with your carriage, then? No wonder you were in such bad shape. How much were you pulling? You must be pretty strong!" Her voice brightened up, probably interested in the otherworldly artifacts she could spend all her time studying.
"No, not a carriage, Twilight, I said car. Uh... it's pretty much a carriage that provides its own power, like a train. Except you don't need rails, you control it completely from inside."
"Oh."
Twilight took a brief pause.
"Well, either way, we should look for it! That sounds like something really fascinating. I'd like to see all the things you were carrying with you, too!"
A bit more chatting and we agreed to go look, though no one else was free as far as we knew. Slowly, conversation shifted back to the books, as it was supposed to.
"This word? It's the name of one of the rituals to generate rainclouds. Pegasopolis loanwords were always difficult to read."
I had read enough about Equestrian history to know that the nation was founded by the merger of three civilisations, but wasn't aware of...
"Rituals that generate clouds? So the weather is always controlled?" I was quite puzzled.
"Yeah! Though we actually use machines now. There's actually a schedule posted around town. There's no need to bring out an umbrella if no rain is planned. No wonder I see one in your bag all the time."
No wonder everyone seemed to know just when to get ready for rain, save a few who forgot and had to run to shelter with me. It never did seem to rain much on Fridays either.
"Nice place, your Equestria."
"It might be a bit silly to be proud of just where we're born, but I'm pretty proud of our accomplishments! O-of course, I'm sure yours would be just as advanced! I mean, it is, from what I've been hearing from you."
"Nice to hear you say that. I mean, I've always been proud of our achievements. I could recount the growth of our race since we first learned writing over and over. And now I've got a different perspective agreeing!"
I leaned backwards, trying again to think about just where I was. As the days went by it seemed less and less likely that I was even still anywhere near Earth. Yet looking around Twilight's house, everything seemed remarkably similar. I briefly thought about some sort of convergent evolution, but looking at the powers these ponies had, that was also unlikely.
"Actually, why don't you tell me about your history? Try to use as many Equestrian words as you can, it'll be good practice!" Twilight grabbed a notepad and pencil, then shuffled in her seat to get herself more comfortable.
"Right... uhm, actually, I'm not sure where to start. Let's see... you know a place called Africa?"
"...I don't think so. Zebraca, you mean?
"No, Africa. It's this place that's full of hot, dry weather all year round. A lot of big, rolling plains with animals like Lions, Giraffes, Zebras–"
"Wait! Zecora's a zebra! Maybe she could help you out?" Twilight almost flew out of her seat as she leaned forword, eyes wide.
"Maybe. She... doesn't look much like the zebras I know, though. " I had seen this Zecora around town before, but never thought of her as a link back home.
"Wouldn't hurt to try, right?" Twilight was insistent. There was a lot in it for her, too.
"I guess not. Another time, alright? Anyway,, it was in this hot land where we first came about. We don't really know much about how we lived, we fought to survive like any other animal. About... maybe a hundred thousand years later, we spread out to some cooler lands to the North. There we found animals and plants we could domesticate, like dogs and grain, and for the first time we didn't have to spend every waking hour worrying about food anymore..."
Twilight stepped in to tell me to replace a word every now and then with one of those I had been studying, but after some time she stopped and just listened, leaning against the side of her chair as I spoke about as much as I could remember about ancient history.
"A lot of it sounds pretty sad, though." Twilight sighed, sitting up to face me. She had been leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed as she imagined the great cities I described in great detail. The notepad and pencil were left to the table, abandoned after a long time spent on her lap.
"What does?"
"Your history. So much conflict and tragedy, so much lost..."
"Well, maybe. What matter is that we moved on past those and became stronger for it. We fought our way to where we are, and I always believe that we'll keep progressing. I've got so much more to tell you, though most of it's not too clear till much later." I puffed my chest out and sat up straight as I spoke, locking Twilight's eyes filled with wonder onto mine. It was a long while since I had a nice listener to tell a good story to.
"Where was I? Right, the seas were low then, so a lot of land could be reached just by walking. That would have been about twelve thousand or so years before what we call the common era..."
It was another hour before I noticed Twilight hadn't moved much since she last closed her eyes. She didn't answer when I called out, when I looked at the clock I realised she was doing what she probably should have far earlier tonight. As quietly as I could, I packed away my belongings, though truth be told I couldn't help but spend a few moments now and then to look at her. She did look quite cute like this.
It was probably best to leave a note as a goodbye for tonight. Her pencil and notepad were right there next to her, it was a simple matter telling her what a nice evening it was and that I hope we could meet up again soon. She sighed a bit as I left the note on her table... the nights were getting a little colder. Not really thinking about what I was doing, I walked over to her bed and took off the blanket. The star patterns were like my own favourite blanket, I chuckled to myself as I put it over her on her armchair. She sighed again, this time sounding far more comfortable than before.
I left the library feeling rather pleased with myself. I didn't hold my book so close as before, but repeated that scene of Twilight happy over and over.