Welcome To The 'Verse

by Jinxed

Our Miss Sparkle

Within what seemed the blink of an eye, the pale female had crossed the gap almost immediately and very slowly started to crouch down in front of her just enough to be subtly out of place. Her posture was also very odd, with her knees pressed up against her chest as she hugged herself closely. She wore a nice red dress and went barefoot, which was a distinction between this species and minotaurs, who had hooves. Twilight had only ever seen some types of bird or reptile with feet, and those were usually webbed or clawed, and these not-minotaurs had soft looking rounded digits on their feet as with their hands. She had been curious as to the strange shape of the boots the other two had worn. Now she knew why they were the way they were, it was all quite fascinating to discover.

Twilight smiled towards her kindly, and the pale one smiled back. It was the innocent smile of a child. She’d say a filly, but this was a not-minobous. It was a tad strange as this female didn't look like a pre-teen, the smile not seeming quite right on her features. The female raised her hand, outstretched in a friendly manner, and didn’t break eye contact.

Thinking the female definitely wanted Twilight to come over, the thought came that the female also wanted to shake Twilight's hoof, so she walked over to greet her but was instead surprised when the hand moved in a blur as she came near and stroked through her mane, around her ears, and around to the back of her neck. The action gave her immediate pause at the oddity and sent a jolt down her spine, while it was incredibly bewildering it hadn’t exactly felt bad, just… different, it had also made her leg kick involuntarily… oops.

She didn’t want to be rude, so she smiled.

The male behind her had said something, the pale female responding while still looking at her, but whatever had been said stopped the female from continuing to stroke through her mane and she got up, gracefully slinking down the metal gangway and into another room.

This wasn’t goodbye however, as it seemed that was where the two adult not-minotaurs wanted her to go anyway. She felt herself smiling as this was going so well, she was already technically making friends with this new species despite the language barrier and they seemed more than willing to do the same, if their genial attitudes were any indication.

With them following close behind, she trotted lightly in that direction and curiously stepped through the large metal doorway into a rather comfortable and evidently lived-in living space that exuded the very feeling of home. Like the bedroom, it was vastly different here than in the cold-feeling hallway she'd just come from. There was a minimal amount of angular metal and much more nice varnished wood, the floor and walls being made from it or at least having panelling to look as if it was. In a corner there were plush looking cushions and a full surround settee off the main area, of which included a small table with some kind of game unfinished atop it. A large table with plenty of mismatched chairs around it sat near the centre, it was the sort of set-up a family home would have.

It was really very pretty, she mused as she looked around. This must have been a dining area as well, going by the layout of cupboards and counters on one side of the room, with a sink and what looked to be additional storage built into the other side. It was a strange set up in the kitchen, with the cupboards behind the pillars looking more like storage boxes than anything else. It was a simple added touch of homeyness that the entrance ways, upper walls, and the supportive pillars of the room were all lovingly engraved with floral patterning. She wouldn't be surprised if this was a room they spent most of their time in. The most mesmerising aspect of the room for her was the ceiling though, which made her wonder if these creatures had magic after all.

There was a large row of windows on one side that had a beautiful star patterned blackness in them, and it was moving around as if the night sky itself was pressed right up against the glass, it was almost like looking through her telescope up at space. She gazed wonderously at it for a few moments before she felt a light pat on her back.

Turning her head, Twilight looked up to see the handsome ─at least by minotaur standards─ male one again, and he gestured for her to sit down, pointing to the small section off the main area in the corner. Nodding, she examined everything as she went on over and got comfortable on a cushion. It was a little threadbare, but soft. It made her smile a bit to see the slender pale one was sitting just across from her with her knees drawn up against her petite chest again, as if it was a favoured position to be in. The female watched her silently with curious green eyes, utterly curious and full of wonder.

She followed the male's movements with her eyes as he leisurely walked to another of the small white boxes built into the wall and spoke into it just as he had in the bedroom, noise coming from it when he stopped, and then he talked with it again in turn.

Interestingly, the noise had sounded like his own sounds.

It seemed like it was a communication device utilising technology, if indeed these not-minotaurs didn't possess magic they'd have to create and expand through wholly technological means, much as minotaurs or gryphons themselves did.

She startled a little as there was an audible crackle overhead from a source she couldn’t pinpoint, and more of the language she didn’t understand was spoken into the air, almost as if from nowhere but at the same time all around her. Again, this seemed to calm or placate the not-minotaurs who then started to seat themselves, until the male paused halfway through sitting with a pained grimace on his features. What was that about, she wondered? Was he injured? Slowly, he got back up after looking at her and moved over to the strange lockboxes in the kitchen, tracing a finger until he found the one he wanted.

He pulled out something in silver packaging and quickly unwrapped it, and from where she was she could definitely see carrots. He grabbed a small bowl and put an assortment of what were also certainly vegetables into it, smiling as he brought it over to her and placed it down. He gave her a nod and stood with his hands around his suspenders.

Oh, this was for her? That was kind.

Her stomach did growl at that moment. It had been quite a while since she’d eaten, she always did forget to take care of herself when doing large projects, even with Spike dropping her off meals she sometimes forgot to eat properly other than just pick at them. Smiling at him and nodding her thanks, she leant down towards the table and looked at the food. It was all vegetables she knew, so that was both interesting and a good sign. There was carrot, celery, cucumber, lettuce, and beetroot. She decided on the carrots first.

She glanced up, noting the pleased expression he wore.

Clearly he liked being a good host, and it was nice to see that even if she had accidently forced her way into his home without even trying. She would really need to fix that spell once she got back home to Equestria, she didn’t want this same thing happening again even if it meant meeting another entirely new species, they might not be as friendly as these ones were.

Perking up at the sound of footsteps she and the male looked at the direction they were coming from, and she saw more of the not-minotaurs! They hadn’t seen her yet so she got down and started to trot to them, before a hand rested gently between her shoulders. Looking up she saw the male hold up an index finger. From what she knew of minotaur mannerisms with their digits that meant he wanted her to wait for the moment. Nodding, she sat on her haunches and looked at the newcomers starting to come in.

The first one she saw was very large and imposing as from what she would have expected of an actual minotaur, muscle plainly on view for intimidation purposes unlike the others with the sleeveless shirt he wore, and she had to admit it was slightly unnerving. A few seconds after came more hoofsteps and in came another male ─smaller than the other two males in terms of muscle─ wearing a floral patterned shirt, who immediately saw her and baulked, quickly shouting out in surprise.

That was at the same time the really big one noticed her as well.

She couldn’t help but laugh a little when he, this massive imposing creature, jumped out of his seat he’d just sat in and nearly fell over it in confusion from having seen her, a small little pony. It was exactly like an elephant's reaction to a mouse, she felt wicked for laughing at his discomfort.

“Hello,” Twilight said, stifling her giggles and waving to them. It felt nice to greet them verbally despite the clear communication issues presented. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A new observation arose from all this however, as she noticed very apparently that all of them were looking to the male next to her as he was currently speaking. Which actually gave credence to the fact that he was in charge and that he was their leader. It could have been that they were paying attention to him as he was the one talking, but the idea that he was the boss was solidified when the larger not-minotaur started to talk very aggressively and pointed at her in a manner which she didn’t like. However a few short stiff words from this male next to her immediately gave the big one pause to his angry actions, and he sat down like he’d been told he wasn’t allowed his favourite toy, the leading male next to her staring him down into submission.

That was absolutely fascinating as that meant these creatures didn’t operate on the basis of pure strength being the ruling factor in who was in charge like a majority of non-pony species. It seemed to her that the big one would be much stronger than the one she stood beside. Ponies were somewhat the same, even if the Princesses were immortal rulers that controlled the stars themselves, pony societal norms still mainly went with a pecking order based on brains and skill over brawn.

How many other similarities would she find among their species?

Twilight very much wanted to try using magic around them but for now she would refrain until everypony here, well, everyone here, was a little more comfortable with her. Soon she'd see if she was able to communicate about going outside, as space in here was rather limited as it had been back in the male’s bedroom. She'd spend so long in her basement that she really had that natural urge all ponies got to stretch their legs under the open sky. She wondered what it was like in this part of the world? Would it be a sort of desert or tundra, filled with the same sort of metal structures as this house? It would have to be quite a harsh urban area to warrant such high levels of metal housing, surely? Her drive to know these things only deepened when she glanced up at the windows, the night sky was so very close and she wanted very much to go outside, to see this world and breath its chilled air.

She looked back to the group of not-minotaurs, only to start a little when she saw she was almost face-to-face with another female, this one with tousled mousy-brown hair just going past her shoulders and a wide grin on her flat muzzle. Her clothing looked like gardening overalls and she even had a belt with tools in it, but that didn’t matter so much as Twilight felt this creature was overly happy to see her, more so than the pale one had been.

The creature spoke to the Alpha ─as Twilight felt she should call him for now─ much in a manner that sounded like a child asking their father for something, and Twilight couldn’t help but giggle into a hoof at the display. The second the Alpha had finished his response though, this female was upon her with a pure look of awe in her eyes.

Twilight knew what was coming next.

She braced as the female started petting her, like she was one of Fluttershy’s animal friends that enjoyed that sort of attention. It wasn’t to say it was unpleasant, the running of the female's hands along her back and neck felt comfortingly nice, and maybe that scritching behind her ears did give her warm fuzzy feelings in her chest and send a shiver down her spine like it had earlier with the other younger female, but it wasn’t to say she actively sought this type of thing. She cleared her throat as a means of getting the creature to stop what she was doing when Twilight involuntarily felt a hind leg kick again, backing off a step and blushing.

That seemed to amuse the female a great deal.

Then Twilight found herself being hugged. The female was very considerate to not try putting arms under forelegs, that would have been a problem. It was just a simple movement of her arms around Twilight’s neck and resting her head against Twilight's withers. The female's hair smelled like… this home, and something that was heavily chemical? It wasn’t unpleasant per se, but it was as if she worked in a factory, maybe greasy would be the term but her hair was fairly clean, and that probably wasn’t the best word to describe it.

She was only a bit scruffy, in any case.

She pulled back after less than a minute, likely wary from being stopped once already.

Twilight looked up to see the Alpha was speaking, so she waited for him to finish. When he had, she got back on her hooves and made to follow him until she saw nearly all of them, including another pale not-minotaur that had come in, were looking at her. She gave them all a quick nod in lieu of anything else to do.

At that point the newest male she’d seen swiftly came over, but was far more removed and cautious than the female with the overalls had been. Despite that, he politely stuck his hand out for a hoofshake, which Twilight happily met. He started talking to the Alpha while looking back at her on occasion, examining her features with a healthy interest and gesturing or pointing to parts of her every now and then, conversing with the others from time to time before looking back at her. She guessed him for an intellectual type based on his clothing in comparison to everyone else, as it was far more neat looking than all of theirs, especially since what he was doing was clearly describing her in an academic manner given the scene of everyone paying attention to him like he was a teacher. She had to say it was also just in the carried himself, he somehow just looked smart, as Rainbow Dash would have said she looked when she was doing anything nerdy.

She followed him with her eyes as he quickly went to the table and grabbed a piece of paper off of it, turning it over as it already had things written on it, and took what she had assumed was a writing implement from his waistcoat pocket. Twilight could hardly contain her excitement when she realised what he was doing a few seconds into him drawing on the paper. He was writing down numbers and basic dots to indicate the numbers, and there were even sums! He was trying to communicate via mathematics!

Once he passed it to her, she eagerly took it from his hands using her forelegs and quickly scanned the paper with a greatly animated interest. She nodded and held her hoof out with an equally returned polite smile, her hoof unmistakably pointing towards the writing tool. He carefully placed it in her upturned hoof ─annoying to write with, but she'd had practice for times when she suffered a magic burnout─ and she started writing the Equestrian Ponish equivalent of the numbers he’d put next to each dot that represented a single increment, up to ten dots. After burning through the various sums she even did him one better by putting dots all the way up to one-hundred. She passed it back to him, barely keeping herself from bouncing on her hooves. Writing without using magic was always a challenge but this was great!

This was unprecedented! This was amazing and exciting! Aaaaah!

She was waiting with bated breath just in case he started writing down their version of an alphabet, that would be the start of true communication if he pronounced the sounds. She’d hoped this would happen the second she realised they were a new or sub-species likely unencountered before, but she hadn’t expected it so fast!

Comments

[Kosmosu]

Keep going this is excellently detailed.

[Starlight Nova]

Is the fact that Twilight looks like she did in the movie in the picture meaningful?

[Jinxed]

9058726
Not particularly, I just like how she looked, and this is after the MLP movie so I thought it fitting.

[Batling]

So I guess they are going to do language and communication the hard way - guess Twilight doesn't know any "communication" spells off-hand, or is too skittish to use them at the moment.

Can't wait until Twilight shows magic around them and the reactions - should be good (And once they realize that telekinesis - the first thing they are likely to see - is positively mundane compared to some of the stuff in her arsenal )

[PaintedPony]

I like this. Following and a thumbs-up for you. Firefly + MLP = Great Potential

[Jinxed]

9059957
I've never been fond of the 'Oh hey we have the same language' trope or easy to do magical solution, never as fun.

[Jinxed]

9060010
Cheers.

[DualKitsune]

I think they would be more surprised by the fact she used a pencil. Hooves should not do the things they do in the show.