**Thirty-Thirty**
The purple one with the wings and horn is the leader then, if that little display is anything to go on. So what does that make the others with one or neither? Maybe the horn's like eye or coat colour, or a gender thing, but an extra pair of limbs ain't exactly in that category.
As the small fillies moved closer and began to examine him, Thirty realised he didn't actually have any reason to assume they were all fillies - maybe they just looked like fillies to him, and the horns were the difference between them. But that still didn't explain how some of them had two more limbs than the rest. Lacking wings could be some kind of disability, but it didn't look like the ones without wings were treated any differently. They didn't have any signs of traumatic injuries, or any vestigial or half-formed wings either.
The three winged ones seemed to differ vastly in their use of their extra limbs as well. Although they had all stayed on the ground during the awkward greeting - presumably to stay in a group with the others - the rainbow one took off almost immediately after they had all calmed down, and hadn't touched the ground since as far as Thirty had noticed. The other two didn't seem to fly at all, and the purple pony seemed to be just as interested in his legs as Thirty was in the way the rainbow one was drifting and hovering around his head. Their wings were far too small for them to be able to fly, and yet that didn't seem to stop them. The rainbow pony had seemed pretty boisterous when she had approached him a moment earlier - she had bumped his hoof with hers, hard, rather than shaking it the way the others were doing. Either she was good at hiding how much it had hurt to punch titanium alloy, or she was tougher than she looked.
Thirty got another quick glimpse of whatever magic it was that ~Fluttershy~ used when it was the yellow filly's turn to greet him. While the meaning behind the gestures of all the members of the small herd was obviously some kind of greeting, what ~Fluttershy~ said felt different. He hadn't just guessed her meaning from the context like with the others, somehow he knew, for certain, that she was trying to make him feel welcome. And a whole bundle of other things as well - a little bit of fear, an earnest hope that everyone could get along, worry about his shoulder, and the expected heap of curiosity.
He'd certainly encountered his share of magic on New Texas - both friendly and hostile - but seeing it used as casually and naturally as this effect seemed to be was definitely a new one. The stallion had travelled to his own past, run on smoke, been struck by hurled lightning and seen BraveStarr throw punches that levelled buildings all with the aid of magic - but those things had been flashy, temporary effects. Only Shaman's magic really came close to something this subtle, but for all its lack of obvious power the tiny pony's ability to communicate basic meaning across a language barrier was amazingly useful. Thirty wasn't sure if the filly even realised that she was doing it - the group didn't seem to be making any effort to use her to try and communicate.
Having been at least partially introduced to the six fillies, Thirty-Thirty decided he needed to come up with some temporary names for the five he didn't know. He had intended to stick with the marks the ponies bore, but there was no way the pink one was ending up named Balloon instead of Pinky. Star, Diamond and Apple would all work, but he was still undecided about the rainbow one. Bolt or Lightning weren't as awful as Balloon, but like Pinky she had a really distinctive colour scheme.
Rainbow could work I s'pose, but Bolt's shorter. Rainbolt? Ugh, heck no. Guess size wins if I'm just nicknamin' 'em.
It was only when Star's horn started glowing that Thirty began to put some pieces together. The notepad and pencil from his shelter floated over to hang in the air next to the pony, encased in the same pinkish glow that covered her horn. The stallion carefully extended a hoof and poked the floating notepad, causing it to wobble a little in the air, and looked from it to the pony that was apparently holding it there. She spoke a few words to the others while apparently studying his reaction to what she was doing, and a short conversation started up.
That explains how they get things done without hands. At least for the ones with horns anyway, don't exactly seem fair on the ones without. Two of 'em have wings I guess, but Apple and Pinky don't have either.
None of them were acting like this levitating notepad was in the slightest bit strange, Thirty realised. Presumably that meant magic was much more common among these ponies, similar to the Prairie People of New Texas - almost all of the little furballs had some magical ability, but only a few could manage something like this. He eyed the tentatively-named Bolt suspiciously, wondering if her flying ability had anything to do with magic. Thirty was fairly sure hovering was beyond most birds, never mind something the size of these ponies, but that apparently didn't stop Bolt from doing that or any number of other impossible things.
The ponies seemed to realise that he was examining the differences between them, and after a brief discussion separated into three groups by body type. There was a little more discussion, seemingly centred around Star and where she should be standing, before she removed herself from the groupings in front of the stallion entirely and went to stand off on one side. The other five stood in a line in front of Thirty-Thirty; Diamond alone at one end, then a small gap before the two winged ponies in the middle, followed by a second gap before the line ended with the hornless, wingless pair of Apple and Pinky at the other end.
Star reintroduced herself to the scene as the animated conversation between the six continued. Rather than joining any of the three groups she stood in front of them, a small stick encased in a pink glow following along through the air next to her.
"Looks like every day is a school day," Thirty commented quietly, sitting down on his haunches to watch whatever it was the ponies were trying to do.
Star seemed to be acting as the closest thing the ponies could get to a lecturer through the language barrier, serving to direct attention to particular things with the stick she held. Where she fit in to the arrangement herself was a mystery to him; there didn't seem to be any reason not to create a fourth group for ponies with both wings and a horn, but they hadn't done it. The white unicorn was pointed out with the stick first, at which point her horn also started glowing - pale blue rather than pink, Thirty noted, although he didn't know if that held any significance. Several small stones from the ground around Diamond sprouted blue glows of their own and popped up into the air for a short time, before dropping back to the ground as the glow faded.
The two horned ponies exchanged a few words, Diamond seeming a little put out or frustrated by something. Then, after a moment her horn started to glow again. This time, the glow didn't spread to anything nearby - instead it simply got brighter, although it was tough to guess how much light it was producing in the daylight. It wasn't uncomfortably bright to look at, but it probably would have been useful in the dark.
"So... it's not just moving stuff around?" the stallion mused, "You can do lights as well?"
The ponies' ears twitched as he spoke, but other than that they seemed to ignore him as his new teacher moved on to the pair of winged ponies in the center. Bolt said something loud and cheery, and immediately shot off into the sky. To Thirty's amazement the flying pony returned pushing a small puff of cloud through the air in front of her hooves, as if it was a floating cotton ball. After placing the cloud just off the ground next to ~Fluttershy~, she even stood on top of it as she spoke to her timid companion.
"Now that's weird," Thirty said, as ~Fluttershy~ was coaxed into stepping up onto the cloud alongside her friend. After the stick had been pointed to their wings and then their hooves on the cloud beneath them, the two ponies hopped off their impossible perch onto the ground. Then, the rainbow one kicked the cloud sideways towards the normal-looking ponies on the far end of the line. Apple examined the small cloud as it slid to a stop in front of her, as if considering what to do with it. Before she could come to a decision however, Pinky leapt into the air above the cloud with a squeal. Rather than landing on it like her winged companions, she fell right through and smashed headfirst into the ground beneath. The seemingly ill-advised move left her neatly bisecting the small cloud, hindquarters sticking up through it while her head rested on the floor.
Apparently Bolt didn't approve of having a hole punched through her small cloud. Dashing across to the pink pony, she yanked the cloud higher up into the air with an annoyed comment before landing on top of it and pushing the wispy white stuff around with her hooves until the hole was filled in. At a comment from Star, the winged filly protested and gripped the small cloud protectively in her hooves.
When Star repeated her demand, accompanied by a hoof stomp and what sounded very much like a "don't make me come up there", Bolt acquiesced with poor grace. Grumbling under her breath, she carried the cloud over to Thirty-Thirty. Standing up on top of the cloud, using it to get her rose-coloured eyes on a level with his, she stared at him and delivered a stern warning of some kind.
"Okay, I'll be careful with yer cloud," the stallion said, grinning at the small pony, "I promise."
Thirty-Thirty raised a hoof to poke at the cloud supporting Bolt. It was, as he expected, cold and damp - and definitely not solid. There was something nagging at the back of Thirty's brain about the cloud not being right somehow, even disregarding the whole standing-on-water-vapour thing, but clouds weren't exactly common on New Texas and he'd never seen one close up before. And to be fair, even the cloud walking bit wasn't entirely alien to the stallion - it had required Shaman's magical assistance, but he had galloped through the air held up by only the smoke from a campfire himself.
It was looking more and more like these small creatures had an inherent magical ability similar to the Prairie Folk, but it was much more deeply woven into them - only the two ponies with horns seemed to have any active spellcasting-type ability like the Prairie Folk wizards, leaving the other ponies' abilities as more of a passive effect. It wasn't even consistent between the winged ponies either. ~Fluttershy~ was somehow capable of communicating meaning despite the language barrier, but that wasn't true of the other two - despite how much they talked compared to their yellow companion. Bolt could obviously fly, which the other two didn't seem to do, and he had no idea what - if anything - Star could do. She had been excluded from the group with the other winged ponies, so there had to be some sort of difference. Standing on clouds at least looked like a shared trait, especially as Star had explicitly pointed it out.
It was only shared by the winged ones though - which brought Thirty's attention to the normal-looking ponies at the end of the line. He pulled his hoof back out of the cloud, absently wiping the condensed moisture off on his chest, and Bolt immediately took off with her prized possession. After hauling it back to the line above ~Fluttershy~, she briefly plumped up her perch before flopping down onto it with a happy sigh. In the meantime, Star had moved down the line to stand next to the last two ponies - Pinky and Apple. Pinky was casually bouncing in place again, as if she didn't realise she was even doing it. Thirty briefly pondered if her boundless energy was some sort of magical ability too, before deciding it was just the hyperactivity typical of children.
Apple had a short conversation with Star, both of them seeming a little uncertain. They cast their eyes around as if looking for something briefly, but didn't seem to find whatever it was they wanted. Star began to grow visibly worried, babbling and gesticulating wildly until Apple placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder. ~Fluttershy~ said something to the agitated pony, and Thirty-Thirty noticed that he could hardly understand any of it this time - just something about the notepad. Star suddenly turned sheepish and began searching the ground around her, presumably for the notepad that had been discarded next to where Thirty sat when the impromptu demonstration began.
Thirty-Thirty fumbled a little at the pad with his forehooves before managing to pick it up. He offered it towards the group, balanced on an upturned hoof, but to his surprise the ponies turned him down. The stubby pencil that went with the pad floated over, suspended in a pink glow, as Star pointed a hoof towards the pad, and then his chest.
"Ya want me to have it?" Thirty asked, confused. "What for? I guess I could try drawin' some stuff, but I ain't much of an artist. 'Specially with these, and I'm pretty sure y'ain't gonna like me shiftin' none," he said, glancing down at his hooves. "Y'all're jumpy enough as it is."
Another worry sprung unbidden into his head - he hadn't voluntarily shifted back when he was thrown through the portal. He just woke up back out of Fighting Mode. For all he knew something in him was broken. He felt a rising anxious desire to try shifting, just to make sure he still could.
The ponies all listened as he spoke, ears attentively pointed in his direction, but as expected just glanced at each other in obvious confusion. As Thirty returned the pad to the ground in front of him, along with the pencil now dropped on top of it, he heard ~Fluttershy~ hesitantly say something to the group. Whatever translation effect had been working earlier seemed to be broken now, and he didn't get anything about what the timid filly had said this time. Whatever it was, however, it seemed to be a surprise to the rest of the group. All of them responded with obvious shock, aimed not just at ~Fluttershy~ but apparently Thirty himself as well.
When the initial round of exclamations had died down, Star said something to ~Fluttershy~ while pointing a hoof towards Thirty-Thirty. ~Fluttershy~ fixed her eyes on the ground, and mumbled something that, based on the reaction it got, was as unintelligible to the other ponies as it was to him. Then ~Fluttershy~ cowered a little more and repeated herself only slightly louder, accompanied by a nod. Bolt said something and then burst out laughing, almost rolling off her cloud, as Star covered her face with a hoof and Apple pulled her hat down over her eyes. Suddenly Pinky was all over ~Fluttershy~, throwing a truly impressive barrage of high-pitched speech at the poor filly.
Diamond and Apple shared a look and seemed to come to some sort of agreement. Diamond moved to speak quietly with ~Fluttershy~ as Apple grabbed her pink compatriot's voluminous tail in her mouth and dragged her away. Pinky didn't seem to notice, and continued in her babbling tirade that now seemed to be directed at the world in general rather than ~Fluttershy~ in particular.
"Alright, just what in the heck is goin' on?" Thirty-Thirty asked of the chaos erupting in front of him. Some of his frustration must have carried over into his volume and tone, because the ponies all stopped what they were doing and turned wide-eyed gazes on him. Then Thirty realised that he'd stood up without thinking about it, and was looming over the group in what probably seemed like a threatening manner.
Oops.
"Uhh... pardon me. Didn't mean to scare ya," the stallion offered, making an effort to keep his voice quiet and non-threatening as he sat back down slowly.
While her fellow ponies glanced at each other nervously, seemingly unsure of what to do, ~Fluttershy~ strolled up in front of him in a manner completely at odds with her friends' reticence. The cowering filly of a moment ago seemed to have been replaced by a confident pony that knew exactly what she was doing. The small winged pony smiled up at him, and asked if he could understand her.
"Well, yeah, kinda," Thirty-Thirty replied, taken aback by the sudden display of confidence. "I'm not gettin' the words but I just seem to know what ya mean anyhow. An' it's only real clear when you're talkin' to me, instead o' someone else."