Chapter VII: Enter the Twilight
That morning, in a small town a few hours’ train ride from Canterlot, or half that as the pegasus flies, a purple unicorn with a lavender mane and tail was reading in the tree house known as the Golden Oaks Library. A loud belch suddenly broke her concentration. She turned away from her desk to find a small green and purple dragon waving a scroll in her face. “What is it, Spike? A letter from the princess?”
“Yep!” He tossed her the scroll before trotting off to return to his reshelving (a typical activity after one of Twilight Sparkle’s book binges). Using her magenta magic, the unicorn unrolled the scroll to find that it contained a most unusual request:
To Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student,
I am writing on behalf of my sister, Princess Luna, who has run into quite a quandary that she believes you can help solve. You see, she has taken charge of the many petitions from ponies asking for amnesty for non-hive changelings living in Equestria that have been brought to our attention and are being kept under guard. However, it seems that she has hit a stumbling block when it comes to interrogating these changelings. Apparently, a changeling can only speak Equestrian in a way that ponies can understand if they are in pony form. As we are loathe to remove magical inhibitors at this time, we need a way to understand changeling speech.
Because of this, Luna has requested that you see if you can find or construct an appropriate spell for this purpose. It would need to be able to not only interpret Changeish to modern Equestrian, but also both lower the pitch of the speaker’s voice to an understandable level and make it slow enough that it can be understood (Luna told me that one of her guards likened it to Pinkie Pie after drinking a pot of coffee and mountain of doughnuts, then inhaling several balloons’ worth of helium gas. It even stretches my imagination!) I know that if anyone can come up with an acceptable solution, it would be you. Best of luck Twilight!
Your proud mentor, Princess Celestia
P.S. Luna’s secretary says to ask you to ask Pinkie Pie for a recipe for Schwartzwalder kirschtorte, whatever that is.
Twilight Sparkle looked up from the letter. “Spike!”
“Yes?”
“Bring me whatever books we have on speech interpretation, sound modification, voice modulation, and changelings. I have a research project to do!”
“Right away, Twilight!” The little dragon bounded off as quickly as his short legs could carry him towards one of the shelves. Twilight was glad he knew the organizational system of the library so well, probably even better than she did herself. Within half an hour, four neat stacks of books of varying sizes were piled around Twilight’s desk. Once Spike had finished delivering the books, Twilight sent him over to Sugar Cube Corner to ask Pinkie Pie about the recipe. Twilight efficiently sorted through the books, pulling out the ones that she thought would be the most useful.
The pile sizes did not take long to dwindle to only a few selected volumes. There was quite a lot available on speech and language interpretation spells as well as voice changing spells, all temporary. Twilight Sparkle secretly wondered if that was because past librarians had also had to deal with some pony like Pinkie Pie in the past. On changelings, the available information was much more scarce. Eventually, Twilight was left with a single tome, which turned out to be the journal of a pony who had traveled Equestria and written a series of travelogues about her journeys. This one was entitled My Year Among the Changelings. Twilight leafed through the pages as the author discussed the hive structure, status of the queen, changeling feeding habits, and numerous other subjects. Near the back was a section on the Changish language. Jackpot! Twilight immediately began reading:
Within the hive, spoken language is quite uncommon, as the hive mind is the primary modus of communication. However, when communicating with other hives or with non-hive changelings, it is necessary for there to be a universally spoken language. This language, known to outsiders as Changish, sounds to pony ears like a high pitched buzz or whine. Few not taught the language from a young age learn how to speak it and it utilizes sounds that ponies can not make. However, there are ways to be understood. One of my informants, who asked to be referred to as “Bzzt”, told me that he had met ponies that could comprehend his speech when in changeling form. He told me though, that the most skilled at this were the ponies with bat wings and ears, as they needed only language interpretation spells to understand changeling speech. As long as Bzzt spoke slowly, these bat ponies could understand.
Most changelings who live among ponies learn Equestrian, but it becomes much more difficult to understand if the changeling is not in pony form. Consonants that require heavy lip motions, such as B, M, and P, are almost impossible to make out, due to the different mouth structures of our species. Although Bzzt was in pony form in order to interpret for me during my stay, he was kind enough to teach me some phrases that a pony could use and be understood…
What followed was a short glossary of Changish words, along with phonetic pronunciations. Twilight Sparkle flipped to the author page in hopes of finding out more from her. Unfortunately, the book was old enough that “Story Chaser” was, at best, retired from her profession, though listed as living in Canterlot. Ever thorough, Twilight searched through first a Canterlot phone book, then a city directory, then, hesitantly, the necrology listings for the Canterlot Star-Herald. There was no mention of the book’s author. The unicorn was perplexed, but decided to let it go for now. Story Chaser’s book had at least given her a starting point.
Half an hour later, Pinkie Pie came bouncing into the library with Spike in tow. “Hi Twilight! I did a lot of looking and looking and looking and I think I found that cake recipe for Princess Luna! It is this really really really yummy chocolate dessert with lots of cherries and a few secret ingredients that make it especially splendoriffic!” With every two syllables, she hit the ground for a new bounce.
“Great! Do you want Spike to send it for you?” Twilight asked.
“Silly Twilight! I can't do that! How would the secret ingredients stay secret? I made a Pinkie Promise that I would never ever ever give this recipe to any pony or changeling without Cookies N Cream’s permission! And you know that I can never break a Pinkie Promise!”
Twilight facehoofed. “So there is no way we can send that recipe to Princess Luna?” She asked.
“Of course there is, Twilight!” Pinkie answered mid bounce, “All we have to do is go to Trottingham and get it!”
Twilight groaned. “Can you do it?”
“Not by myself! You see, my mane has been going all zing! Zowie! Kapow! Woink! And you know that means that I am going to go away and take a friend with me who can help with a problem that another friend was having and when I thought of the most problem solvingest pony I knew I thought of you!”
Trying her best to shrug off the randomness of her friend’s Pinkie Sense, Twilight asked “is that all?” while raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yep. So come on! The train to Trottingham gets to Ponyville Station in a little while. We can go there and talk to Cookie and be back by tomorrow morning at the latest! So come on! Let's go!”
Twilight had Spike pack her saddle bag with pen, ink, and parchment and followed Pinkie to the train station. Pinkie was still talking. “I think you'd like Cookie, Twilight. He is so nice and friendly and makes the most wonderfullest chocolate cookies and scones and other coffee shop goodies around! And his wife makes really yummy hot cocoa and other stuff that she will not let me have, but her place smells sooooo good! Oh my gosh Twilight this is going to be so much fun!”
After a while, Twilight began to tune her energetic friend out. She was still pondering Story Chaser’s words about and from changelings. One pony lost in her academic pondering, the other in her blissful anticipation of meeting up with an old friend, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie barely made it to the station in time to catch the train to Trottingham.
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5366319
Then you might want to change the status to "Incomplete" instead of "Complete" .
Also, consider adding the story to some groups so potential readers will be notified if the story is something they're interested in.
5366403
The author isn't the only one who can add stories to groups. Hopefully this will be a good start.
This word SERIOUSLY doesn't fit here. This would be much better:
This story has been quite a pleasant read so far. My mind keeps trying to whine that Twilight's an alicorn now and then it remembers the time frame of this story. Duh. Lol. Following and looking forward to more. Have a happy Twilight!
Fun is fun?
Keep going! ;)
I think "loathe" fits fine. Excellent word choice.
Fun story so far. Onward.
Awwww, I only just started reading and already hit the last (for now) chapter. But there is more to come, so yay! Definitely waiting for more
5367927
True. But I saw the Romance tag and I didn't want to guess what the pairing(s) would be.
Something tells me Cookie or his wife is a changeling...
THAT COOKIE IS A SPY!!!
5369100 the plea for amnesty stated that the sarge retired last summer. The sarge explained that he didn't marry the nurse until after he retired. I uh, I didn't say anything about the changeling. It said something about her being an unofficial member of the guard for three years, but its plausible that she was around before that.
5369331
Sigh. -_-
Interesting premise, and a pretty decent execution of it, too. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes.
I'm sorry, but... this joke is just so not funny. This is the 3rd or 4th time it's been in this story and it gets more annoying every time it's mentioned. I don't know if that's because it's just so damned cliche or that it keeps trying to be funny when it's just not.
There it is again!
(Or a variant thereof.)
our*?
0:17 Dunno if that's a reference, but I do know that Young Frankenstein is the first and only place I've ever heard of 'schwartzwalder kirschtorte.' And a dessert, coming completely out of nowhere and becoming a major plot point, whilst having the randomest name... well, I can only assume that its existence in the story is a reference to something.
MMM!
Yeah, Twilight. Obvious answer is obvious. Have Pinkie Pie listen to the Changelings! She'd be able to hear fast enough!
Can't the Changelings write Equestrian?
Or is illiteracy in Equestria so rampant that the inability to read and write unremarkable?
This would place to break the paragraph.
____________
You got a problem with bulky paragraphs. But this is a good story so far.
5381546
With how many ponies avoid the library like the plague, and the difficulties of mouth writing (not to mention how horrible mouth writing looks), I wouldn't doubt that Changelings would be in the majority that either can't write, or does so rarely with a type writer, and several gallons of Mountain Dew.
Black Forest cake is wonderful, especially if you can get it legit in the Black Forest
I wonder what that... "Other stuff" is.
>>re-reads the story
>>hits chapter 7
“Silly Twilight! I can't do that! How would the secret ingredients stay secret? I made a Pinkie Promise that I would never ever ever give this recipe to any pony or changeling without Cookies N Cream’s permission! And you know that I can never break a Pinkie Promise!”
"no pony or changeling"
How did I and Twilight Sparkle miss THAT
??
5426467
You forgot "telekinesis", which would be denied the prisoners due to the block on their magic. Basically, if all they know is hornwriting, they are all SOL.
5687974 I'm quite sure listening to Pinkie requires to skip part of the words lest the listener drowns in her speech.
Another nice chapter. And I like they Twilight didn't hesitate at all with helping.
Cya
Raziel-chan
5687974 Lol, I became suspicious that Cookies and Cream was a changeling even without noticing that.