Playing Around
Language check. Anything wrapped in < > in this chapter is spoken Equish, everything else is in English. Mostly human interaction, and Pinkamena is working on her English skills.
The little bell at the front of the classroom chimed, but none of the children moved; they knew it was more of an advisory. Besides, everyone was having fun. Mike let the girl in front of him hide the book again. "Okay, so it was…" His hand worked, writing the short sentence out in Equish. "<Dear Princess Celestia, I am writing to you to tell you that I wish to visit your city>."
"I guess that's right." Rosetta looked a little blankly at the Equish Mike had written. "How you pick this up so fast I don't know." She shrugged.
"It's cool Rose, you will get the hang of this." Mike smirked. "Besides, I cheated; Candela was giving me a lesson on writing over the weekend. I really want to get this right because Limestone—that's Pinkamena, Marble, and Maud's big sister—said she would take me to visit Canterlot, and I want to write a letter first, asking if it'll be okay."
"You got it right, Mike." Candela looked down at Mike's work. "But you might want to make sure this line here," she gestured to one with a wing-tip, "is a little longer." Raising her voice, she looked around at her students. "Okay, that will be enough. You can go now, my foals."
Everyone was used to Candela addressing them as her "foals," and it seemed completely normal to them. Mike turned a smile up to his teacher. "Thanks. Think I will be good enough at writing to be able to write the letter fully by… not next weekend, the weekend after?"
"With some more work you can." Candela beamed in pride. "How is your mathematics work going?" She knew what Mike's weakest subject was, just as well as Mike did.
Not wanting to interrupt her teacher, Rose held back replying to Mike until after Candela had spoken. "You are?" Rose looked at Mike with an incredulous look on her face. "Hey, I could help you with that, if you want to help me with my Equish?"
"Hey, that would be awesome." Mike started folding his books closed. "When do you want to do that?"
"What about tonight? We could…" Rosetta trailed off at the look on Mike's face. "Uh… When would be good?"
"Sorry, I already promised to help with teaching some friends to play guitar." Mike blushed a little. "But if you're cool with Friday that would be—"
"Friday would be great!" Rose blinked after cutting Mike off. "I mean, really great. I need some help with this, and you need help with that," she gestured to Mike's mathematics book, "so it'd be silly not to help each other."
"Hey Mike!" Pinkamena bounced up to the pair. "Are you ready for my lessons?" When she realized that Mike and Rose were talking, Pinkamena ducked down beside Mike, half hiding from the girl.
"Yes, Pinkie." Mike reached a hand down to rub the pink filly's shoulder. "Sorry Rose, she's still a little shy around new people."
"I wish mum would just settle down. Can you believe I spent one week in my new school back home before we moved here? I don't even know who this 'Dave' is, but apparently mum remembered him from high-school, and they're trying to get back together." Rose shook her head. "I'm oversharing, sorry—"
"No, it's cool." Mike kept rubbing Pinkamena's shoulder. "You sound like you need to really unload a bit. So Friday it is." He stood up, hefting his bag onto a shoulder. "Catch you around, Rose."
The moment Mike and Pinkamena were out of the schoolhouse, the pink filly started bouncing. "I'm gonna learn guitar! I'm gonna learn guitar!" She stopped. "Oh yeah, Limestone wants to talk to you."
Mike had to squint to look around in the dimming light. "Where is sh… Oh! <Hi Limestone>!" He grinned all the wider at seeing her scowl. "<What's up>?"
"Stay off Holder's Boulder." Limestone kept her frown up, right until the moment Mike realized she had spoken in English and started laughing. "<Don't get your hopes up, that's all Maud could get me to remember>."
"<That's cool, I'm glad you're trying>." Mike crouched down to be nearer to Limestone's level. "<I hope it's not a problem that I kidnap Pinkie for a bit? Did she tell you about the guitar lessons>?"
"<Yeah, that's why I wanted to talk to you. Can you escort her to the mine yourself>?" Limestone glared into Mike's eyes.
Shivering at the coldness of the look, Mike nodded. "<You know I can. I wouldn't leave Pinkie without somepony to keep her company>." Holding out one hand, Mike clenched it into a fist.
"<You're a good pony, Mike>." Limestone lifted a hoof and thunked it against Mike's fist hard enough to push him over backwards. "Stay off Holder's Boulder." She turned and walked off, leading Maud and Marble home.
"<So, guitar>." Mike stood up and took a step towards his house; Pinkamena moved at his side, her legs gliding in the most adorable trot he had ever seen. "<So what exactly do you want to learn? Just how to strum a guitar? Or how to really play it>?"
"Can we stick to English? I need to practice." Pinkamena kept to her friend's side. "And play! I really want to play, like you did!"
"I'm not going to lie, Pinkie, it is going to take quite a while to play well. But I'm happy to teach you." It wasn't far to his house, so Mike kept up the conversation. "Does Marble still want to learn too?"
"You betcha. She's just as excited as I am! And—" Pinkamena shifted and pressed her side against Mike's leg as someone walked past on the road. Only after they were gone did she continue. "Sorry. You're right, I'm a little shy still." Squealing, Pinkamena wriggled all four legs as she was lifted into the air.
"Shy huh?" Straining a little under the filly's weight, Mike laughed and carried her along under one arm. "We'll see how shy you are when you see our new house guest."
"<Put me>," Pinkamena tried to hold back her giggles—unsuccessfully, "<down now>!" He finally did, just outside his front door. "Meanie!"
"And yet you keep hanging around me." Mike opened the door and lifted his voice. "Mum, I'm home!"
"We're in the kitchen, Mike." Joyce's voice held a note of surprise when she saw Pinkamena walking at Mike's side. "Oh, having a friend over?"
Spotting the sling hanging from his mum's neck, Mike tilted his head a little. "Yeah, guitar lessons. What is…" He trailed off a little, until he spotted a little red fur. "Oh, the bat."
"Tufts is his name. Looks like he is staying a while, poor thing has a few nasty tears on his wings." Joyce was busying herself making dinner for her extended family. "Pinkamena, would you like something to eat?"
"No thank you Miss Robertson." Pinkamena was staring openly at the little creature bundled up at Joyce's neck. "You said he was a bat? He doesn't look like bats from Equestria."
"He's a flying fox, right mum?" Mike took a step towards his bedroom, but noticed Pinkamena was more interested in the bat. "You want to start on this lesson, Pinkie?" Everyone was surprised by the pink blur that rushed past Mike and shot into his bedroom. Following along in Pinkamena's wake, Mike stepped into his room and closed his door behind him. "That's a yes?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" Pinkamena was bouncing in place.
"I have no idea how this is going to work, but I can show you how I was taught to play." Mike walked over to his wardrobe, pulling out his old acoustic guitar.
"Aww, what about the noisy one?" Pinkamena pointed to Mike's bass. "I want to learn to play that one!" She climbed up on his bed to be better able to see it in its stand.
"Pinkie, this one first." Mike sat down on the edge of his bed and held the guitar up for Pinkamena to see. "Okay, so we have a guitar with six strings. The way it makes music is vibrations along the strings. You make those vibrations by strumming," he strummed, "plucking," he plucked a string, "or by tapping." Mike tapped a string so that Pinkamena could hear the difference between the three.
"And that's all? I saw you do a thing with your other hand." Pointing at the neck of the guitar, Pinkamena wiggled her hoof.
"That's going to be the tricky bit. Holding the strings with my fingers," Mike demonstrated, "limits how much they can vibrate. I control the sound each string makes with that." He passed the guitar to Pinkamena, and was thankful it was a smaller one for teaching youngsters.
Sticking her tongue out of her mouth—at an angle of course—Pinkamena sat the guitar in her lap and stretched one foreleg out to curl underneath the neck and press to the strings. "Which ones do I need to hold down? All of them?" She looked at Mike and giggled at his confused look. "What?"
"N-N-Nothing. I really have no idea if you can do this, but first just hold down the second and third from the top, in the first fret… gap… down from her head." Mike described an E minor as best he could. "Got it?"
"Yup!"
"Now strum down once." Mike figured this was the best test; if she couldn't make this chord work then she wouldn't be making any of the more complicated ones. He froze when she strummed, hearing most of a good E minor, but there was something off. "You might be touching the others too."
Pinkamena pulled her hoof away and sighed. "Silly me. I was. Give me a second…" Swapping the side her tongue was hanging from, Pinkamena lifted her hoof back up and pressed just the two strings with her frog, and strummed a perfect E minor. "Ooo, that sounded nicer!"
"That's how it works when you play an actual chord." Mike got up and rifled through a box of his old stuff. Plucking out a thin book, he carried it back over to Pinkamena.
"What's that?" Strumming the E minor a few more times, Pinkamena pointed to the book.
"I had to learn how to play too, you know. Okay, next chord is C, and will be a bit more tricky." Mike took the guitar and showed the three-finger pattern for a C major. "Hold the second-top, third-top, and second-bottom strings," Mike tapped each, "here, here, and here. And when you strum, don't hit the top string." Holding the chord he strummed down, fingers brushing and missing the thickest string.
Pinkamena's eyes were like saucers. She stared at the finger placement and reached for the guitar. "My turn?"
Mike passed the instrument back over and watched as Pinkamena wrapped her hoof around the thing again. There was no way to tell what strings she was pressing down, and he knew if it was a full-sized guitar her hoof wouldn't cover enough of the fret-board. "Everything but the top one."
"Got it." Pinkamena strummed down and drew her hoof back up. "I hit the top string." She tried again and, again, hit the top string of the guitar.
"Try this." Mike held out a guitar pick. "Hold it…" Mike froze for a moment, trying to figure out how a pony could hold anything under their hoof. "Just hold it, and use it to do the strumming." Surprise was no longer possible, Mike watched as Pinkamena held the pick and strummed.
"That's so much easier. Why didn't you give me that to start with?" Pinkamena just strummed happily a few times.
"Slow down!" Mike laughed and reached for the guitar. "Okay, you have those two all sorted out, huh?" He sat the guitar over his knee and started strumming it, slowly, and changing the chord every second strum. "Like this. Can you repeat that?" He had a moment to wonder if he had been as eager to learn guitar as the pink filly was reaching for his guitar.
Mike waited for Pinkamena to try a few strums, before passing her the book. "You know what they sound like now, you will know when you're messing up. Do you want the case for the guitar?" When Pinkamena looked up at him with an incredulous stare, Mike couldn't stop himself from reaching a finger out and booping her on the nose. It was silly, but both of them giggled.
Recovering from the poke with a giggle, Pinkamena watched as Mike got a guitar-shaped case from beside his wardrobe. "You really mean I get to take it with me? But this is your guitar."
"And it still is my guitar. But you need to practice, and that means you need it more than I do." Mike opened the case and held it out. Pinkamena dutifully set the instrument in the case. "But you need to let Marble borrow it for her nights, and she needs to practice too."
Pinkamena nodded and watched how Mike latched the case closed. "I need to practice it every night?" Mike nodded and passed the guitar case over. "And the book?"
"When you can do that strumming without mistakes, there are other parts in the book for you to learn more." Mike opened a little pouch on the front of the case. "And you can put the book and pick in there for safe keeping."
Once she had jumped down to the floor, Pinkamena settled the guitar case on her back. "It is Marble's lesson tomorrow?" Mike nodded to her. "Okay. I better go home."
"Hold on." Mike opened the door. "I need some fresh air, and a walk." The lie was as unconvincing-sounding to him as it likely was to Pinkie. "Your sister made some demands."
Pinkamena giggled and stepped through the door. "Was one 'Stay off Holder's Boulder'?"
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I'm always happy to see another chapter of this. I've just some minor nits to pick:
I can't tell to what she's responding. There don't seem to be any statements made to which that would work as a response.
Possibly, he wouldn't.
Limestone "Stay off Holder's Boulder" Pie, can give Rainbow Dash and Applejack a run for their bits.
8060170 First one, Rose is replying to Mike's conversation with Candela, and the revelation that he is going to visit the capital of Equestria. The second was a mistake, fixed!
8060249 Well gosh-darned ain't you just 20% cooler?
translation issue or delete?
Should that be 'aren't'? Assuming he's saying 'If it's not OK then yata yata yata' to give her an opt out.
Hypothetical shame Maud didn't trick her into saying 'Stay off my boulder holders'
poor lad would freak.
8060810 Fixed them, thanks!
Ponies and their magic, we tell you! Pinkie's got natural talent for sure.
And just like that, Limestone got memed!
Keep going! ;)
8060320
I keep looking at that and thinking there must be something missing right before "You are?" -- something said by Mike that Rose is responding to, something which would actually be a response to the teacher's question (whether or not it answers the question). Rose asking Mike "You are?" definitely doesn't make sense as an immediate response to Candela asking Mike a question like that.
8092978 She is trying to cut in on the conversation without talking over Candela (her teacher and authority figure). This tends to happen quite a lot in multi-way conversations. Essentially what happened is Mike said something to shock her, but Candela spoke before she could get a word in. She was focused on Mike the whole time, but didn't want to speak over Candela.
8092986
Okay, I guess that just wasn't clear... But in that case there's a couple other issues I see. It appears like he simply ignored the teacher's question, with no reason given for that, or like Rose stepped in before he had the chance to answer the teacher, who for all we know is most likely standing there waiting for an answer -- but the story just kinda stops talking about her without resolving that, as soon as Rose speaks up, leaving me wondering if she just walked away, or maybe vanished into thin air, and the narrator just forgot to tell us about it.
The other is that after re-reading the preceding conversation with Rose, trying to figure out what she's asking, I still had no idea exactly what she was referring to. "You are?" only seems like it could be interpreted one way here -- as a surprised or uncertain request for confirmation that he really is doing something that he said he would or might do, but it leaves ambiguous what statement she's questioning. The last thing he'd said to Rosetta was about writing the letter, and before that, wanting to visit Canterlot, and taking extra writing lessons, and so on... The only clue is that it's something she wants to help him with, but she's asking him for help with Equish, so it can't be about writing the letter or the writing lessons, and his trip to Canterlot isn't something she can help with. His response to her offer of help doesn't hold the answer either, and I'm left asking, "He is what? Help him with what?"The only other possibility I could think of (and after starting the next chapter, this turned out to be the right one) is that she's offering to help him with math, but at that point where she makes that offer, nothing has yet been said about how he's doing in math. Candela asked him about it, but not in a way that reveals any clues to his skill level. (And certainly not in a way to which "You are?" is a sensible response.) The narrator then states that he and the teacher both know that it's his weakest subject. And then... Rose either hears the narrator, predicts the future, or reads their minds, because she acts like she's just heard someone saying he's bad at math, even though no such words have been spoken.
This is why I initially thought there's a bit of dialogue (if not something about the teacher as well) missing from between those paragraphs, and highlighted those two lines in the previous comment. I've seen weird things before like lines accidentally deleted or left out during editing or never quite making it from thought to page, even done it myself!
Anyway. I'm enjoying the story so far, definitely going to keep reading. :)
Contractions suggested.
It's a little unclear what she's responding to.
laughed
8469485 All fixed, and also found a lowercase "mike" nopony had caught!
8469769
If you mean for the character to say "you are" then don't bow to pressure from anyone to change it to "you're", and such.
Everyone speaking perfectly all the time just isn't something that happens. I'm not perfect so I don't expect characters I'm reading to be perfect.
10774447 Back when I started this, I was getting over an addiction to not contracting anything. I'm doing much better now, and always appreciate all suggestions.