{*Omniscient point of view, Ponyville Library*}
She didn’t get it.
Twilight Sparkle couldn’t get it.
Fluttershy had come down from the guest room and told Twilight about everything she knew. About how Griffin, was in fact, an alien from a different world, and that he felt out of place and that he obviously wanted out of his prison. But the librarian just couldn’t get it. She had too many questions, and still considered him to be dangerous even though Fluttershy calmed him down. She was glad that there wasn’t a warning ping in her head for the damage to her shield every two seconds now, but he shouldn’t have been able to hurt the shield in the first place. It was too strong for him. It should have been too strong for him. And now, she found herself walking up the stairs to the guest room with Fluttershy leading the way reviewing her questions that she absolutely must ask the alien.
She just couldn’t get it, and she was fiddling with the two rings that she held behind her back, hidden from sight.
From the top of the staircase, Fluttershy turned the doorknob with care and opened the door a crack. She peeked inside and leaned against the edge of the entrance to support her balance.
“I’m back with Twilight. May we come in?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight could hear some kind of conformation inside the room and Fluttershy turned around to wave Twilight in. The two trotted into the room, and for the first time, Twilight Sparkle met the alien alive and awake.
He was sitting on the bed with his feet planted on the mattress and his knees tucked into his chest. He wrapped his arms around his shins and his hood was pulled down over his head. There was a bit of a dark blue mist coming out of his knuckles and Twilight had to hold her panic at bay when she spotted the neon coloured dents the alien made in her shield. Twilight could see a blue shine reflect in his brown eyes beneath the veil of darkness that his hood cast over him. It brought shivers down Twilight’s spine. He just looked so odd to her that she couldn’t shake off the feeling of dread and fright every instant her eyes were set upon his. His face was too flat, his eyes were too small, his lips were shaded with a murky red for some reason and the shape of his skull overall was simply too tiny. He most certainly did not look like he belonged on Equis at all.
But when things couldn’t appear worse, they did. Twilight’s ears folded back as her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates when she saw the colour of the flame on the candle that was next to the alien. It was a pure, liquid blue. Not a vibrant flicker of orange and red, but blue. The candle was giving off a clean, non-poisonous flame, clear of any extremities a normal fire would produce. But that wasn’t possible. Twilight was certain that it wasn’t possible, but here it was, right in front of her, in real life, proving her wrong. It danced upon the wick like a Waterbird in the moonlight, bending and twisting to the air pressures in the room. There wasn’t enough oxygen around the flame to warrant such a pure fire to appear. There was only one explanation, but Twilight didn’t want to believe it. It only solidified her paranoia even more.
The alien’s passive magical energies were so powerful that they were piercing through the shield and actively changing the composition of the flame in real time.
Not even Twilight could have predicted such a feat to happen.
This was why Twilight put the alien behind a shield in the first place. This was why she wanted to keep him locked up in the basement where she could monitor his magical energy levels. The first thing the noticed when she and Applejack got back to the library was that the alien had large quantities of magic coming off of him, so much so that it was off the standardized arcane charts. Twilight’s couldn’t put a number to his output without some assistance from tools and magical equipment, which she never got the chance to do. She never realized that he put off enough magic to bend the environment around him. She underestimated his abilities. The only other beings that Twilight knew that could do such a thing were Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Discord, and they were all known for their godlike strength.
He had too much magic pouring out of him. And curiously, he barely used any of it. Twilight then realized with all the power that he had, he could have easily leveled the street block and then some. The wimpy little shield Twilight put up shouldn’t have been an obstacle for him. The alien should have blasted that aside the moment he woke up. He barely would have had to begin a thought before the shield exploded into a million shards. But he didn’t. He chose to hit the barrier repeatedly instead, outputting the most miniscule amount of magic possible. Why was that?
“Umm, so Griffin, this is Twilight, Twilight, this is Griffin.” Fluttershy opened up with, gesturing back and forth between the two.
“Nice to meet you.” Griffin said in a gruff, not entirely honest voice.
Now that truly puzzled Twilight.
“Jesus, I know I look and sound weird to you, but would it kill you not make that face when I speak to you?” Griffin thought to himself as he witnessed Twilight’s bewildered expression.
“I… I can understand you.” Twilight pointed out.
“What?” Griffin uttered.
“What?” Fluttershy repeated as she moved to see Twilight’s face better.
“I can understand you. I can process every word that you say. Uh, say something again!” Twilight urged, stepping forward in a mixture of excitement and weariness.
“Uhh, banana, apple pie, coconut cream, pineapples.” Griffin recited, shrugging his shoulders.
Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Oh my goodness.”
“So Twilight,” Fluttershy began, hovering in place in front of her friend. “You’re saying that you can understand what he’s saying?”
“Yes! Yes I can!” Twilight exclaimed exuberantly.
“Wait, so we’re not supposed to be speaking the same language here?” Griffin asked. “’Cause I just thought you all spoke English. Somehow.”
“English? What are you talking about, we’re all talking in Equestrian–“
Twilight’s brain completely stopped at the implications behind what it all meant.
“Uhh,” Griffin uttered, pointing at Twilight. “Is she always like this? Making weird slack faces all of the sudden?”
“N-No, b-but everything just got a lot more complicated than I thought. U-Um, how can I explain?” Fluttershy said bashfully, losing focus in her courage. Twilight stood beside her like a doe caught in headlights. “Twilight wanted to come in here and meet you first when you woke up, but uh, I convinced her that I should go because I have a language affinity with animals.”
“With animals.” Griffin repeated.
Fluttershy nodded. “I live and take care of a lot of animals, and I’ve learned how to listen to them carefully and patiently, so that I can talk to them so that I know what they’re telling me. I hoped that my skill would help me understand you too.”
"Well now, I am insulted." Griffin chided with himself. He snorted. “That makes no sense!”
Fluttershy blushed. “I-I don’t know how it entirely works either. You just have to listen really really hard and the animals will start to make sense after a while.”
“Holy crap. This place is starting to seem less and less futuristic and more like some kind of weird magical wonderland.” Griffin noted, slapping his palm to his face.
“I-I’m not entirely sure, but I think that you were speaking Equestrian the entire time I was speaking to you and I wasn’t translating anything, b-but…” Fluttershy trailed off as she took a look at her stunned friend.
Griffin had a light bulb moment. “But that might not apply, because I recognize my language as English and you recognize yours as Equestrian!”
Fluttershy nodded, biting the tip of her hoof.
Griffin finally flipped his hood off his head, revealing his messy mane to everyone in the room. “But how does that work? How can I understand all of you and yet there’s still a weird sort of language gap between us?”
“It’s your magic.” Twilight said, surprising the two others.
“I’m sorry, my what?”
“Your magic. There’s a buffer floating around you from the energy emanating from your inner magicks that’s causing an automatic translation between us to happen.” Twilight explained as her horn glowed and she fidgeted with the rings behind her back.
“I’m not sure what kind of stuff you’re on, but magic doesn’t exist.” Griffin countered, lifting his hands up shoulder height and making a shoving motion. Then, he saw the blue mist coming out of them. He jumped. "Oh shit!"
“Maybe not on your world, it doesn’t” Twilight stated as she got closer to the bed, and the shield. “But on ours it most certainly does, and from the looks of things, your body’s full of it.”
“Twilight!” Fluttershy exclaimed. “I didn’t even realize! Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I didn’t completely realize just how dangerous he was.” Twilight answered, bringing out the rings into Griffin’s view.
Her statement made Griffin’s stomach sink. He found that once the subject of magic came up, the horn on Twilight’s head became alit and started glowing.
“Well that’s some funky-ass magic shit she’s got going here.” “What’s with the rings?”
“I understand that you want out of the barrier.” Twilight began, holding up the stone hexagonal pieces in her telekinesis. “But in order for me to do that, you’re gonna have to put these onto your fingers first. One on each hand.”
Griffin stared back at her cautiously. “Why?”
“These rings will inhibit your arcane energies so that you can’t use them. That way, you won’t accidentally set a book on fire or something when we go downstairs to talk more. Also, you need to agree to keep them on for the rest of your time on our planet, or else I’ll have to confine you in this room again.”
Griffin’s eyebrows rose at the bluntness of the statement. “O-Ok.”
Fluttershy could not believe this. “Twilight…”
Twilight turned around to address her fluttering companion. “Fluttershy, this is something that needs to be done. It won’t hurt him and it’ll prevent anything bad from happening in the library or to Ponyville. We can work our way up from there.”
Fluttershy nodded, but the tiniest hint of a scowl on her face did not come off.
“Now, I’ll send these rings through the shield. Once you put them on, then we can get downstairs.” Twilight instructed further.
“Ok.” Griffin said as he shifted his butt closer to the headboard of the bed.
Twilight slowly floated the rings towards the shield. As they touched the pink outline, ripples in the shield began appearing from the entry points of the objects, creating the illusion that the shield was made of liquid. Sounds of tiny bells rang out in the open air and a pleasant, lightly-toned hum strung in the wooden room. Griffin stared, searching for any sign of a runny pink substance on the rings. They were clean, but were still highlighted pink from Twilight’s magical grip.
“Now that’s just all kinds of freaky and wrong.” Griffin noted as he held out his hands. The rings floated above his palms and fell softly into his grip. He picked up one with two fingers and tested the texture of the object. It was ancient for certain, but was also a good size for his index finger. It definitely wouldn’t fit his middle and it would probably slide off his ring finger. He expected runes to be carved into the stone to indicate that magical powers were imbued in the object, but was disappointed to find none. Shrugging, he put one on.
The effect was instant. A thick fog around Griffin’s mind lightened up and suddenly he could observe his surroundings with more clarity. The lingering rage he felt before when he found himself in the pink cage weakened significantly and he found that he might be able to hold off a lot more rude quips this time around. His chest didn’t feel so tight and he could breathe a lot easier. He slid the other one on. The stress of being pulled to a different planet was lifted off his shoulders and he could finally rest easy again. The rest of the haze was lifted and Griffin could feel himself getting smarter by the passing moment.
“These things are actually pretty good.” he concluded, taking a deep breath in and out. "If only I had these a couple of weeks ago. Then maybe I wouldn't have gotten so angry at my dad for spilling our dinner when we went camping."
“These rings are normally for Unicorns only, but I noticed that the majority of your magic is coming from your hands and that the rings looked like they’d fit, so I thought that I would try them. They would still have the same principle of blocking out magic, so they wouldn’t have an adverse effect on you or anything. However, they won't prevent passive magical effects from occurring, such as changing the colour of flames around you and the automatic translation spell, but at least I'll prevent direct casts. If this didn’t work I’d have to disarm you myself, and that wouldn’t have been easy.” Twilight explained.
Griffin’s eyes met Fluttershy’s who could only give a sympathetic smile. Twilight’s horn began to glow and the sound of pixie dust sprinkling all around the room emitted from Twilight’s being. There was a sizable beacon of light coming from the tip of her horn and the shield around Griffin disappeared in an instant with a suction sound. Twilight opened her eyes and gave the first friendly expression Griffin had ever seen from her. He slid his legs to the side of the bed and got up, stretching his arms and ankles. Twilight backed up without realizing, but Fluttershy stayed still.
“Now, let’s go downstairs. There are a few more things I want to ask you. Would you like some tea?” Twilight asked as she began leaving the room.
“I hate tea.” “Yes please.”
{END OF CHAPTER}