Pandemic: What you are Meant to Be

by Halira

Chapter 25: Connections to the Human World

The two night ponies eventually retreated to the AV room as more and more ponies went to bed. Rosetta quickly booted up the computer and pulled up the messenger icon.

"Um, Sweet Flanks, I'm going to be messaging my family and with a pencil in my mouth I won't be able to do much talking to you for a little while. Maybe you could watch the news and get caught up with that while I do this?" Rosetta said.

"I could try to help you type. I don't mind just sitting and watching either," Remedy replied.

"Some of the talk might be a little private. I don't mean to keep things from you, but trying to work some things out and really rather not have you know about them yet. Do you trust me?" Rosetta asked in a worried tone.

"You're worrying me with all this, but if you say you will talk to me about whatever this is eventually then I trust you. I'll be right over here watching the TV when you are done," Remedy said with half drooped ears.

Rosetta leaned over from the chair and gave Remedy a kiss, which picked the ears back up.

"I really don't want you to worry, but I promise I'll talk to you about it soon," Rosetta assured her.

"Okay, just let me know when it is alright for me to come join you back over there on the computer. I'll watch the news until then. It is about ten and if I remember right the local news was still running right before me and my mom left the house," Remedy said as she turned towards the television.

It took a lot of fiddling with the television to get it on and to the right channel. The frogs on Remedy's hooves were actually very agile, but there were no helping the fact the buttons were too small for her to easily press without accidentally hitting others. Maybe with more practice, but at the moment it was just clumsy fumbling.

She eventually got the television to the right channel with a minute or two left before the news was about to air. The credits were running for some other show that she assumed to be a rerun, as there seemed no possible way any station was airing anything new at the moment. The humans probably appreciated it the presence of regular tv shows to pretend everything was still the same though.

The news started and Remedy's eyes went wide. Sitting at the news desk were two news anchors, one a human male, but the other a yellow unicorn mare with teal mane. She wanted to grab Rosetta to come look at their fellow pony that was still doing her old human job despite everything, but decided to let her marefriend get what she needed done instead.

"Welcome to a very special edition of your local ten o'clock news. I'm Paul Rutherford," the man said.

"And I'm still Carolyn Stafford," the unicorn said with bemusement.

"We will be covering a lot of important news tonight, but I would like everyone to join our team in welcoming Carolyn back to the work," Paul said as he clapped for his coworker.

"I appreciate that more than you'll ever know, Paul," Carolyn said, seeming to tear up slightly. She then giggled. "Our first story on the day is..well..me."

"Carolyn, for our viewers who don't know, had been doing field reporting about the ETS pandemic for the majority of the time of outbreak. Viewers may have noticed the clear signs of infection as time went on. We are overjoyed here at NBC that she has chosen to come back to us, despite her transformation. We will start off by having her tell her story. To you, Carolyn."

"Thanks, Paul," Carolyn said with a smile. She lit her horn up and levitate a cup of water up for her to sip from before putting it back down. "As it is very obvious to anyone looking at me, I am now a unicorn. I finished up my transformation the day before the cure for ETS went out. I can't even describe in words what the actual transformation was like, and I am glad I never have to deal with that again; and I definitely won't be as I have a cutie mark on my flank."

Carolyn then stood up in her chair briefly and showed her flank. On her flank was a microphone, a pencil, and a notepad. She quickly sat back down.

"That mark certainly seems to indicate you are intent on reporting the news," Paul said.

"I actually got it when I was told I would still be welcome to do so. I had been terrified to tell the truth that I wouldn't be allowed to," Carolyn explained.

"Well, we are all glad to have you back," Paul said. He then cleared his throat before continuing. "Carolyn, there has been a lot of talk about how the transformed seem disinterested with their human lives and have had radical changes in personality. As an insider to this phenomenon would you care to say anything about it?"

"I can't deny there have been a lot of changes in how I think," Carolyn said slowly. "You might notice I am doing fine with pronouns, but I have to consciously think of the correct pronouns to use them. Instinctively I will use pony terms if just talking quickly. I was always social, but I am much more social now. I have to remind myself too that most humans aren't as easygoing with physical contact as I am now. And of course I am as comfortable in my pony body as if it were what I was born with."

"You also seem to have no problem using that horn to levitate objects," Paul observed.

"Yes, it is impossible to describe how much things just come naturally to me now. Aside from the fact I am clearly shorter I have found I can do most tasks that I could do before along with a host of others I couldn't. The only thing that I can't seem to figure out is driving," Carolyn laughed.

"Why driving?" Paul asked.

"Hooves don't reach the pedals and I can't properly work the pedals with my magic without actually watching it. I kind of have to have line of sight to work, at least for now. I am trying to get better at it. Constantly applying pressure to the gas for extended periods of time by magic seems like it would be exhausting though," Carolyn explained.

The two continued talking on for several minutes, with Carolyn telling about life as a pony. Remedy just watched in fascination the unicorn that had just gone back to her old life and just reintegrated herself into human society.

She nearly jumped out of her fur when Rosetta came and cuddled up with her suddenly.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Rosetta giggled.

"My fault, just really focused I guess," Remedy said as she caught her breath.

"It's okay," Rosetta smiled. The dark blue mare turned her attention to the tv. "Seeing her do a job like that gives me more confidence that I can end up in that professor job someday."

"Hopefully this isn't something the station is just doing to boost ratings and use her," Remedy said glumly.

"No need to be cynical," Rosetta pouted. "But I hope not too."

"Did you get whatever you needed to get done finished?" Remedy asked.

"Yes, no, who knows. Family wasn't very helpful. Of course it's hard to keep up with their typing by tapping keys with a pencil. I think it kind of just drove in the idea that I have to figure this out on my own. At least that's what little I got from them," Rosetta grumbled.

"Oh," Remedy said. She wanted to ask more, but didn't want to press.

They sat and finished watching the news together. There actually was a good bit of news that was interesting. The gas stations, at least the majority of them, were going to be pushing to open again as soon as possible. Corporate offices of companies were making calls to find out who of their workforce were still present in the area. They were going to be doing everything they could to open again by the end of the week even if they had to bring employees in from elsewhere.

Most major utilities and a lot of the larger chains of companies that operated grocery stores had similar plans with less ambitious time scales. They did seem to be determined to all begin operating soon and would be hiring humans locally for temporary to permanent work as well, just as soon as they took assessment of the situation.

Some companies were even open to hiring ponies for some positions supposedly. Though they made it clear that in those cases unicorns would be preferred for many of those positions if they did. Humans apparently didn't have much faith in most of the pony types to be able to do tasks. Remedy could see the reasoning, but believed that many were still things any pony was still capable of doing.

She wasn't sure how many ponies would actually be interested. Ponies like this news anchor and Rosetta seemed a minority.

"Well, I had some very special research planned for tonight," Rosetta said as the news came to an end.

"What's that?" Remedy asked with curiosity.

"Luna said she knew a pony that shared my interests. I figured we might try to figure out who that might be," Rosetta said with a smile.

"Um, how're we going to possibly figure that out?" Remedy said in confusion.

"We can't for sure," Rosetta admitted. "But we might take an educated guess based on a few facts. We have to guess that if it is a pony from this world that he or she is likely at or near ground zero, Lazy Pines, if Luna has actually met them. My best guess is that if this all started there that the Equestrians made their first contact near there," Rosetta said in a slightly lecturing tone.

"That makes sense I guess. Not sure that is certain, but there is a certain logic to it. I'm not sure how helpful that's going to be," Remedy said uncertainty.

"It just takes a little bit of research to narrow down things down. Start looking on social media to find who had such interests in that area before everything started. It was a small town right? There can't be that many ancient history buffs out in it," Rosetta explained.

"That makes sense. So, we're just looking for anypony that posted up history stuff on social media or listed a job involving history from that area," Remedy confirmed.

"Exactly, not that big a place so should be a short list," Rosetta said happily.

In short order Rosetta was back on the computer with Remedy looming on as another set of eyes. Once the general search parameters were in Rosetta didn't have too much typing to do, and just navigated through sites with the mouse. After several minutes of searching Rosetta gasped as she seemed to hit the jackpot.

"This has to be her, Sarah Tanner. She has her own page for research and theories. They aren't exactly my type of history, as this is all pre-Columbian America stuff, but look at this stuff," Rosetta said with excitement.

"It is all kind of over my head. I can tell it is a history stuff. Is she an archaeologist or something?" Remedy asked.

"Archaeologist slash anthropologist from the looks of it. Her most recent stuff is the most interesting. See these?" Remedy said as she pulled up a recent article this Sarah Tanner had posted.

"Is she talking about Indians having contact with ponies," Remedy asked with wonder as she looked at the article.

"Native Americans, not Indians, but yeah, that's what it looks like. Do you know what this means? She could be like the most important archaeologist and anthropologist living today if she was looking at this stuff before ETS even broke out," Rosetta said excitedly.

"But these aren't exactly your thing," Remedy said.

"Oh, who cares about what my exact fields were up to this point? This stuff is big and a whole new field of history just opening up! And if this is who Luna was talking about I am so excited," Rosetta said in a near squeal.

"I can see why. This is like finding ancient pony history on Earth," Remedy said as she continued reading the page on the screen.

"And if I can get in contact with her I could be right there at the start of it. Like one of the first Egyptologists or Assyriologists," Rosetta now squealed on earnest excitement.

Remedy looked at the screen and just kept reading. It could definitely be exactly as Rosetta said, and definitely something they would expect ponies to be looking to get involved in. She would definitely have to ask Luna about this Sarah Tanner next time Luna visited.

Author's Note:

Thursday evening day 2 after counterspell.

Comments

[Prismfire Productions]

"Native Americans, not Indians

THANK YOU!

[badninja]

Don't worry about rushing out a chapter. If we get one in the morning after you where busy all day we will understand.

I do wonder how the ponies and humans will integrate in this city or will the signs that were talked about in the main story start showing up?

[MorningRose]

Awesome chapter my friend

[Chrome Masquerade]

Of course it's hard to keep up with their typing by taping keys with a pencil.

tapping

[Distressing Prose]

Dialogue these past few chapters has been much improved. I'm mildly impressed with your quick progress. Keep up the good work.

[blackrose499]

I love how phobia is sincerely helping Rosetta with her passion even if she worries that nothing will come of it she is extremely supportive though I really want to know what this thing Rosetta has to work out....