A Look Back - 1
Language check. All in English.
"You're one of the kids from the local school, right?"
The voice caused Rose to lift his head. He had been taking a break after the little ceremony at the school for their graduation in the playground/park, when the interruption came. Lifting his head from where he lay on the merry-go-round, Rose saw Paul Harrison. "Uh. Yeah."
Paul stumbled a little on his partly transformed legs, but managed to find a seat on a big frog mounted on a stiff spring. "Well, I guess the whole town knows about me and Porcelain by now."
Rose just nodded, a smile playing on his lips. "I was at the meeting, remember? You were cute together."
"She is that." Paul misinterpreted Rose's words, but it didn't seem to faze either of them. "What I want to do is treat her to a special night out. Make her a meal, get someone to look after Ball, and treat her like a queen for just a night. But I need to be able to understand a little more Equish than I do right now." He rubbed the back of his neck with one almost-hoof.
For a while (when she was younger) Rose had dreamed of finding a handsome guy and being swept off her feet. It had been the dreams of a teenage girl who still believed in the Disney ideal. He might not have those dreams anymore, but that little girl was still there, and he pictured a candle-lit dinner for two. Rose gave a sigh and smiled. "What ya need?"
The look on Paul's almost-pony face was stark relief. "Well, I need some basic stuff. Here's your drink. Would you like some more. I love you. That kind of stuff."
"And a babysitter?" Rose spotted a look of surprise on Paul's face. "I got you covered there, too."
"Thanks. Rose, isn't it?" When Rose nodded to his question, Paul smiled. "I talked to the doc a week back, she seemed to think I might be changing everything. What's it like?"
The sudden shift in topic stole Rose's thoughts for a few seconds while he caught up. "It was tough on me. I liked guys, still do, and my boyfriend became a mare. She had the same problem. Then there was all the mess with actually changing the bits. But you get used to it, I guess."
"Porcelain knows about it, the change, but it's still kinda freakin' me out. Will I stop likin' cars and working on engines?" Trying to distract himself from the conversation, Paul rocked a little on the play equipment.
Rose shook his head. "Nah. You'll still be you. I still love working at the mine, messing around with friends, all that stuff. Still like guys, too. You just get a bit more than the basic change to a bat pony." He let that sink in for a moment, then continued. "Now, about payment for the babysitting…"
"Smart kid. How much do you normally charge?" Paul reached for his wallet.
"I don't want money. I want you to tell me how you two even met, let alone kept yourselves secret from this tiny town nearly a year." Stretching out one wing, Rose flapped it slowly to turn the merry-go-round slowly.
Paul blinked in surprise. "Really?"
"Yeah. I have a guy I kinda-maybe-sorta like, and want an idea of how to do things properly." The slow turning of the ride kept Rose's melancholy smile mostly hidden—until the ride turned around enough for Paul to see it. "So spill, and I'll take care of everything."
I couldn't help myself. If curiosity killed the cat, then, meow. Ever since hearing the rumors about "little people" around town, and then helping Dave out fixing a water pump at the mine—where I had first caught sight of them—I had been intrigued.
Nearly every family in the area traced at least half their ancestors back to Ireland, but not a lot of them followed any of the old ways. Nothing crazy like ritual sacrifice or any of that, but I always cooked two meals at dinner time, and I always carefully buried one (minus the special offering-plate of course) by the big mound of dirt in my backyard.
So when I saw one of the brownies with my own eyes, I had to go and see for myself. I waited for a day I knew Dave and Steve would both be away from the mine (they had told me in the pub that they had to sell more of their stuff), and grabbed what I needed.
I packed myself lunch, and twice that—to be sure that if I ran across one of the fey that was hungry, I could leave it casually behind (I wasn't stupid enough to put them in my favor). Dinner, for those of the mound in my backyard, was already safely buried, so I headed off.
It felt like an adventure, like what my ancestors would have done. Visiting a fairy mound, having my faith affirmed, it was pretty heady stuff.
The tunnel was well-lit. I walked through casually, but I kept my eyes open. There was a point, though, when I knew I had entered the fairy mound. From one step to the next, the world changed. I could feel life bubbling around me, and more than that, all the electric lights had been replaced with oil lamps.
I thought the tunnel would keep going down, to the heart of the mound, but instead I was walking back up. When I saw light at the end of the tunnel, I actually broke into a jog. Needless to say, stepping out into hot, midday sunlight was not what I expected.
The sunlight was most of the reason I was confused. It was afternoon when I started into the tunnel, on one of the colder days of winter. I looked around, trying to get my bearings in an odd-looking place.
Around me looked like a dry plain. Turning, I saw hills leading up from the tunnel. I gazed upward, seeing a tall peak above.
A soft, feminine voice spoke, and seemed to come from low behind me.
I spun around, expecting to see one of the little folk. So when I saw a little horse, I was confused. I glanced around, looking for who was playing a prank on me, when she spoke again. This time I got to see the little mare's mouth move, and my ears told me the sound came directly from her.
"Uh. Hi!" Why is it, at the pinnacle moment of your life, you say the dumbest stuff? And to a pooka no less. Her words hadn't made sense to me, but they had sounded inviting enough.
She replied again in a pleasing, sing-song tone, but I couldn't understand a word of it.
I smiled at her, and she delivered back a huge smile as well. "Uh, my name's Paul. Paul." As I repeated my name, I pointed to my chest. She blinked up at me with her big eyes, and shrugged.
Then she lifted a hoof up, murmured some words in her strange language, and poked her own chest. "… <Porcelain Clay. Porcelain Clay>."
Either she was the stupidest pooka ever, or she wasn't one at all. I crouched down and held my hand out. To my surprise, she put her left forehoof in it, and we shook a greeting. "<Porcelain Clay>?" I saw the spark of recognition a person's name should elicit.
She started babbling, all at once, and pointing behind her emphatically.
When she turned, I stepped after her. This was why I had come, after all. I couldn't balk at the adventure just because I didn't understand a lick of their language. <Porcelain Clay> trotted along, and glanced back to me every now and again. She seemed to realize I couldn't understand her, and instead of long, complicated bursts, she only gave me shorter, encouraging sounds.
I realized she was probably luring me to be cooked in a pot, buried up to my neck, or something, but there literally wasn't anything else I could do. "Wish I could understand you. What's so urgent that—" I shut up, realizing she had led me to a little town.
Walking along the main street, I realized I was completely surrounded by various pooka. Most of them spotted me first, but when they saw <Porcelain Clay>, bright smiles would burst forth. I even waved to those who dared to wave at the giant monkey.
<Porcelain Clay> led me to her home, or what I assumed was her home. It was a low building (obviously, from its size and design, made to suit her kind), and more than a third of it was devoted to pottery. There was little, pedal-operated wheels, mounds of clay under sheets of tarpaulin, and what I was sure was a kiln.
My granny had been a potter. She made the plate I always served the mound from. So without even thinking about why, and with memories of sitting on Gran's lap clouding my eyes, I walked up to one of the wheels.
I didn't hear <Porcelain Clay>, even if she said anything. My hand reached down to the covered, damp pile of perfect clay to the side of the wheel. A plate. The clay I picked up told me its desired form as my hand sank into it.
Putting the clay on the wheel, I had to hunch into an awkward position to both peddle and shape, but in moments I turned out a plate. It was round, it sloped inward, and for some reason it gave me more joy to make than the last engine I had built for my car.
I barely noticed <Porcelain Clay>'s hooves reaching out with string pulled tight. She cut the base of the plate off, and with an excited chatter, lifted the completed piece free of the wheel. She carried it over to the kiln, and when she opened the door on the front I felt the heat of the furnace inside despite being a few meters away.
When she turned, I saw raw excitement in her eyes. She raced the short distance back to me, reached down for more clay, and dumped it on the wheel with (I realized) expert practice.
I was fascinated by her hooves. I peddled the wheel at a constant speed, and her hooves pressed, pinched, and shaped the clay into a perfect duplicate of the plate I had made. I don't just mean a bit like it, I mean perfect recreation.
<Porcelain Clay> cut her plate free of the wheel, and just as the string finished cutting it off, a clunk came from the peddle I was working. "Oh crap." While the mare lifted her plate from the wheel, I bent down to take a look at what had broken.
Before I knew what was happening, <Porcelain Clay> had come back (after apparently putting the plate in the kiln), and bent down beside me. She muttered something, and plucked up a small wooden pin from the ground—there was a small pile of them.
The pin that secured the pedal to an arm that reached up to run the wheel was missing, and I soon realized why: <Porcelain Clay> worked the little wooden pin in. "That's awfully temporary. I could get you a split-pin that would fix that, you know?"
She looked at me with confusion on her face. I let out a sigh. Of course, language barrier. Well, the only thing for it was to show her I could do it. I stood up and brushed off my pants. "I'll run back to my shop and get—" I had been gesturing with one hand, back the way I had come from, but she grabbed my other. For such a little pooka, she had a lot of strength.
She was tugging me toward the back door of her house, and there was nothing else for it but to drop to my hands and knees. Crawling after <Porcelain Clay>, I wasn't prepared for the nicely decorated home I entered. I couldn't even hope of standing, but settling back on my rump was more than okay. "This is amazing."
The place was, despite my estimation that it was nicely decorated, a bit of a mess. There was toys scattered about, and a small pile of cracked plates sitting on the kitchen table. I realized, however, that the plates hadn't even been glazed. Curtains hung from every window, and everywhere I looked, I saw little knick-knacks made from fired clay.
I watched the pooka make a sandwich with her hooves. She looked up at me and made a questioning sound. I shook my head. "No thanks. I've got my own." I reached to the battered old backpack and pulled out a trusty Tupperware container and pulled out my own sandwich.
We ate together in relative calm, until the front door of her house banged opened and closed again. Panic gripped me. I didn't know if <Porcelain Clay> was being attacked, or if it was some ghost. I started to shift, when I spotted a foal bounce their way into the kitchen.
The foal froze, looked between me and <Porcelain Clay>, and his (he just had a feeling of boyishness, or is that coltishness?) eyes widened like saucers. "H-Hi."
I looked to <Porcelain Clay>, then back to the colt. "Hi. Uh, you speak English?"
<Porcelain Clay> let loose with a rush of her own words, but none of them were understandable. I looked at the confused expression on the colt's face as he took it all in.
The colt said something back to <Porcelain Clay>, and then the two of them had a furious little back and forth for a few minutes. I waited until finally he said something that I assumed was, "Alright! I'll do it," and turned back to me. "Mum says thank you for teaching her an interesting new plate design."
"Can you tell her: it's one my grandmother showed me how to make. I'm glad she likes it." I waited for him to pass the information on, before something struck me as odd. "Sorry, but what's your name? And how did you learn English?"
"School." The colt shrugged his shoulders just like a human would. Then he puffed his chest out a bit and lifted his nose into the air—trying to pose. "I'm Ball Clay!"
His hoof shot out, and I reached to shake it, but instead he just caught my knuckles with a tap. "G'day Ball."
"What's a 'pooka'?" Rose had waited, patiently, for Paul to finish his tale. He hadn't finished the story, but he had stopped talking for a while.
"They're not pooka, I know that now. Just another kinda people." Paul wore a lopsided grin. "Spent some time chatting with Ball, he's a good kid, and he filled me in. Oh, and a pooka is like what you'd call a werewolf, but instead of human they're fey, and instead of wolves they are whatever they please. Gran said they were pretty amiable, so I guess that is why I was so relaxed."
Rose narrowed his eyes and then slowly raised an eyebrow. "You're leaving a lot out."
Of course, I went back the following day. Dave and Steve were at the mine, but neither raised so much as an eyebrow at my approach. I was a lot more concerned than they were. "Just heading through," I said. "Need anything from the other side?"
My question got more attention than I did, and I cursed myself for asking it.
"I think we're good, right Steve-o?" Dave's look of humorous curiosity was something I had felt myself, when I planned the second run.
Steve, who was carrying a huge roll of air-hose (something I could recognize no matter where I saw it), shook his head. "Nah. But seein' you headin' over there, Paul, with a tool chest: it makes a bloke wonder."
"Just doing some handyman work. They were using wooden pins to secure a hand-crank, and the thing was breakin' every other time you worked it. Figured I could spare a split-pin to do the job proper." It was the honest-to-goodness truth, and that is probably what made both the miners shrug. "I'll catchya later."
"Yeah. Catchya Paul." Dave gave his workmate an elbow, and as I walked away I could hear them muttering something.
This time, when passing from the real world to the strange one on the other side of the tunnel, I stopped at the midpoint and examined it. The crossover was exactly like an invisible mirror. The world I stood in was reflected in how the rest of the tunnel looked, but stepping through revealed the change.
Leaving my investigation of the veil behind, I made my way further through the tunnel, and soon came out in bright sunlight on the other side. It was stark, shocking. In the real world it was winter, but here it was summer.
Porcelain wasn't waiting for me. I still didn't know why she had been at the tunnel the previous day. Lifting a hand to shade my eyes, I started walking toward the little town.
The same ponies from the previous day waved, and called out to me. I made sure to wave back, but there wasn't much I could do for a verbal greeting. I froze as my eyes fell on Porcelain Clay. She was in her work area, turning a plate from clay, and as I watched the wooden pin in her treadle broke, ruining a half-formed plate.
"Porcelain. I've got just the thing!" My call got her attention, despite her not understanding a word I said. Her face lit up, and the frown I saw initially—likely the result of the wheel breaking—turned into a huge smile.
I made my way closer, and listened to the way Porcelain's voice rose and fell as she spoke. She knew I couldn't understand her, but I could tell she was venting her frustration with her equipment.
I held up a placating hand, and walked past Porcelain to her potter's wheel. Crouching, I pulled out some pliers and pulled out what was left of the wooden pin. Grabbing the plastic packet of steel split-pins from my pocket, I assembled the treadle properly, and put the pin through. Curling the legs around locked the little pin home.
"That's how it should be fixed, ma'am." I started to turn, only to have a pony crash into me.
I had no idea what was happening at first, until her forelegs squeezed me a little, and she murmured something. Awkwardly, I put an arm around her and hugged back, but after a minute I realized the hug was something a little more.
"Are you alright, Porcelain?" I pulled back a little, and saw she was crying. "What's wrong?"
My tone must have conveyed my question quite well. Porcelain gestured behind her, and I saw the ground had a half-dozen of the broken, wooden pins—they hadn't been there the previous day. Her art, or livelihood, had been suffering for the lack of a few bits of metal.
"It's fine now. Look, I have enough to fix your other wheels." I revealed more of the pins to her—that had cost me less than five dollars—and earned a little giggle from her. Rubbing her shoulder, I pointed the hand holding the pins toward the other wheels. "Come on. I'll show you how to put these in."
"You fell in love because of a split pin?" Rose couldn't help but scoff a little at the story.
"What?" Paul shook his head and waved off the question as silly. "Nah. But it was a good start. I started taking weekends off to visit, and together we would make things from clay. I even brought her the offering plate I use, the one Gran helped me make."
Sounding shocked, Rose waved a hoof at Paul. "And you still can't even talk to her?"
"Some things don't need translating." Winking, Paul puckered his lips and made a kissing sound. "Now, when we had that first town meeting, about people getting pony bits, I had to keep my cool. Didn't want to let on to everybody that I was perfectly fine with getting a few fuzzy bits, but I also didn't want to sound like yer mum."
"Hey, don't look at me like that." Stretching his wing out, Rose gave a lazy flap, sending the merry-go-round moving. "I've had to come to terms with the fact my mum's a bit of a bitch." There was a difference between thinking it, and saying it, or so Rose realized. "So how far have you gone?"
"Ain't you a bit young for that kinda question?" Paul gave Rose the best raised eyebrow he could.
Rose scoffed. "I'm eighteen. This is crazy, everyone is looking younger. I mean, look at you, how old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
"Well, you don't look much over twenty right now. And, by the time you're finished turning all the way, you'll be a cute, teenage mare." Rose had intended to rebuff Paul with the description, but all the words did was earn a laugh from Paul.
"You think it worries me? It didn't worry Porcelain, and she is the pony who has to put up with me most." Just as he finished speaking, Paul froze.
Rose and Paul both were equally unable to move or talk: they were both suddenly fast asleep.
The dream hit Rose like a rush of wings. Bat wings. There was a vague familiarity with the thoughts and notions.
He needed to get a more bat pony appropriate name.
He needed to be friendly.
The world, at least Australia, was changing.
The people of Australia would change, too.
All the ideas that poured into Rose's head were from a single point of view. He could feel a connection with the bat pony who was living through the same problems he was. She felt young, but full of so much promise and potential that it almost overwhelmed Rose.
Among the information, Rose kept catching flashes of his own friends: Mike, Robin, Joyce, even Rose himself (or herself at the time). Then things changed, the flashes showed each of them growing into the ponies they were now.
There was a pony missing from the flashed memories, and Rose knew exactly who it was.
Startling awake, Rose let loose a few curses before he realized the intense headache was fading. Ears tucked back, he kept his forelegs and wings over his head to protect him from the world that seemed far too real.
"What the fuckin' hell was that?" Paul's voice cut through Rose's headache, the soft tone of it belying the harsh words.
Slowly opening one eye, Rose looked at where Paul's voice had come from (or rather, the lighter-than-Paul's-voice). A bat pony mare lay on her side, the playground equipment having summarily ejected her the moment Paul wasn't paying attention. "I think it was a wave. And I know who to ask about it." Rose tried to stand up, but even with four legs planted firmly down, the world still seemed hard to walk on.
It took Rose far too long to realize that it was because every time he moved, the roundabout turned a little more.
Stumbling free of the ride, Rose was just in time to see Paul rising on unsteady legs—pony legs. "Where are we going?" Paul shook her head in confusion.
"We're going to talk with Dream Thunder. She knows what's going on. I just know it." Getting his bearings more surely, Rose pointed a hoof toward Joyce and Candela's home's direction. "And I bet she's that way."
"You… bat… she's that way?" With a silly grin on her face, Paul stretched out her new wings and gave them a few, weak flaps. "Not sure why, but this doesn't feel as crazy and bad as I thought it would. I just changed species and sex, and I feel… grape."
"Why are you making bad puns?" Rose started walking, and had mixed feelings about Paul coming, now.
"Puns?" Paul laughed. "Don't know, but they just feel—right to say." She tucked her wings back in. "Race you, pear!" With no more warning, Paul spread her wings and took to the sky, flying like she were an expert.
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We're going to take a look back at some events that happened over the last year, that wouldn't have been important to the core story. So relax, and listen to how Paul met the pooka of her dreams.
Aww that was cute!
The sign has been given, and maybe with luck the residual magic will have belayed the impending panic.
To Tufts: is nap time over already?
Keep going! ;)
8719262
I, for one, approve of learning how Paul met Porcelain. And I want more.
8719343
8719391 Thanks!
So were all thebat ponies force fed the pun-ch?
8720208 You'll have to keep reading to find out!
a vary soft and caring chapter that is perfectly written.
for some reason i would have made the title for the chapter for the love of clay.
8720751 I wanted the title to stick out, and to make sure people knew there would be more of these.
8720757
makes since.
I hoped for them to go anthro, but this worked out great. I'm sure the magic won't stop at the coast either.
8729120 I never stop halfway!
fruit puns really?
9002288 Eeee~
9002288
Well they've officially gone batty.