Chapter 15
Apparently, getting your phone to function had been such a driving force for Lavender that with her task accomplished, she promptly faints, forcing you to catch her in your arms. You adjust your hold, pick up the little pony and run upstairs to get her some air. The round library room is now no longer empty: that blue daredevil pegasus with the technicolor mare is lounging on a pile of books, reading casually.
Seeing Lavender in your arms, she rolls her eyes, leaves her page bookmarked and flies out of the nearest window. You want to see where she's gone, but decide that caring for the passed out pony is the more pressing matter. You notice a messy bed on the second floor and quickly sprint up there, your large feet jumping over every other step. There, you gently lower the purple pony on the mattress.
"Okay, uh... think, think, think!" You rub your temples. Medical emergency, medical emergency, what do you need in a medical emergency? Those salt sniffy things? Fuck that, where the hell am I gonna find one of those? Uh... glass of water! That's better! "Glass of water, glass of water..." you mumble, hurrying back downstairs and into the kitchen, where you grab the nearest cup, fill it with cold water and return to the bed. Lavender's not moved.
You bite your lip. Check for breathing...? "Oh, shit!" You lick a finger and hold it over the pony's mouth. Sure enough, a cold wind blowing out of her muzzle hits your finger almost immediately. So she is just unconscious.
This pony needs you. This is it, this is real. THINK! Think, think, think! You slap your forehead and curse your lack of expertise in treating someone. Maybe I should adjust her head or something... NO, you idiot, that's for gunshot injuries. I think. Something to do with bleeding, anyway. Fainting, fainting, what do you with fainting... ? Fuck if I know.
Feeling a tugging on your pants, you look down to see mr. Gecko. He points at Lavender and then gives you a knowing smile and a thumbs up. "She's fine?" You release a pent-up breath. "Ohhh, thank Jesus... fuck!" You sit down next to the bed, grab the glass of water from the nightstand and take a big gulp. "... sorry, Lavi." You leave the half-empty glass next to her.
As you wipe the sweat off of your forehead, mr Gecko smartly opens up a window, and you notice something blue whizz by, similar to a shooting star. Curious, you stand up and peek out of the window. To your amazement, you see that same blue streak disperse the storm clouds above the library like fancy laundry detergent in a commercial.
Feeling slightly responsible, you decide to stay in the library for the rest of the day and help the little reptile clean up the mess left behind in the laboratory. Fortunately, aside from the broken equipment, there really isn't much to do as some sort of magic erased all the natural filth that would build up over time. You also can't help him restock the library due to your continued language barrier so instead, you take advantage of the contents of Lavender's fridge and make a huge plateful of fluffy pancakes for the three of you.
After taking your two on a separate plate and sprinkling an unhealthy amount of white sugar on them, you return to the snoring unicorn's side and pull out your notebook(now somewhat mucky and deteriorated after your little dip into Sweetheart's pond the other day).
*Check Lavi to make sure phone is intact. ✓
You also add a favor to Lavi in addition to the favors you still owe to your host, your frenemy the bunny and that fabulous dressmaker pony.
Skipping a few pages ahead, you start a new drawing and at the same time, roll up your first pancake and munch on it, enjoying the gritty sugar. First, that slightly curled snout... those cute ears... the crooked horn... the deer horn... the sharp tooth... "Come to papa." you mutter under your breath. This is definitely gonna be the one you nail.
It isn't.
You've never had an artist's obsessive eye, but even you can feel a certain... offness about your attempts at depicting the hated bizarro creature. One drawing's too childish, the other too complicated and unappealing, the third's just, well, dull. Thinking back to the beautifully carved statue you saw back at the castle, there was a giddy bounciness to it, if that was possible with a figure comparable to Hitler. You then realise how dumb your train of thought is and derail it there and then. I've got better things to do than draw fucking goat-snakes anyway.
What else to do?
You'd left your chess set at home and you didn't think rummaging through someone else's drawers to find another game would be the most polite thing to do. "How did people survive in olden times? ... Oh yeah, lots of stabbing."
The thought of a violent encounter reminds you of the last one you had, your near-fatal fight with the magically animated wooden wolf, as well as one of the tasks you've listed in your notebook.
*Return to forest for new clues.
Notably unchecked.
"Gotta do it smart this time, Anon-boy. Not gonna waltz into the evil cursed woods like an idiot." You were hoping to find a job and earn some real money to buy the things you needed to make the trip, but after your visit with the princesses provided definitive proof that the supposedly most powerful ponies in the land couldn't properly access your mind, you'd decided otherwise. Heck, even your attempt to buy things independently had been proven idiotic.
The simple fact was that you didn't belong. Maybe I should just quit playing pet, grab all the tools I need and skedaddle.
But what then? You could probably track down the place you landed in the forest (provided you made it there in one piece), but the chances of finding something there were still minimal.
"Stuck." You affirm to yourself. "Stuck like the bloody pig from Lord Of The Flies."
A moan from your violet companion interrupts your miserable thoughts. Lavender Lady lifts her head from her pillow and looks upon you with bleary, unfocused eyes which then snap wide open as she remembers what happened. Without warning, she jolts upwards into a sitting position and you grab onto her shoulders. "Whoa, hey, hey, chill! Chill-chill-chill! It's okay, phone's working, we're good."
Your words may not reach her, but their meaning does and she slowly relaxes back onto the mattress, rubbing her face. You let her recover and jog back downstairs to the kitchen to get her some of the pancakes you made, but when you make it downstairs, you find the plate already glowing in a purple haze and floating in the air, followed by a jar of honey. They fly by you and up to the second floor.
Damn. Either her magic's way more powerful than I thought... or she's got great nostrils.
Feeling a bit useless now, you follow the food up the steps and smirk as the pony gleefully catches the plate between her hooves and slips one pancake off with her teeth. It reminds you that you still haven't finished your own and so you roll up the second pancake and sit down on the back end of her bed to enjoy it. "Mh. I oughta get a gold medal for these. What do you think, Lavi? Gold medal?"
"Mmmmm!" The unicorn hums appreciatively and strokes her velvety belly with her hoof.
"Yeaaaah! Gold fuckin' medal."
Once both of you had finished your delicious breakfast, you rest your back against the wall, right next to the window and fall to silence. It wasn't uncomfortable dead air as it sometimes could be with these ponies, but rather basking in the satisfaction of success. You had your phone and Lavender had an awesome alien gizmo to play around with.
But siesta comes when siesta comes.
So for a while, the two of you just lounge. Eventually, you sneak a peek at Lavender, who's been looking at you this whole time. Caught, she blushes and looks away. The little unicorn's front hooves are folded on her chest, under her chin in a rather demure position. Once again, you are struck by the charm of these delightful little ponies, their... openness and simplicity when compared with the spiderweb of human society. Sure, you knew not all ponies were kind and sweet and honest, but they were still straightforward in their behaviour, lacking the manipulative cunning of a predator race.
Here is this unicorn and she's happy to just sit on this bed with you, an unknown alien, just because you seem nice.
She deserves boops.
You press on Lavender's snout, slowly, making her go cross eyed. The offending hand glows purple and vibrates slightly, but is otherwise unaffected. She grasps your hand in her hooves, still encased in magic and studies it intently, holding it close to her face. As she does this, your eyes drift across her living space and you notice a grubby-looking old cardboard box on the verge of collapsing, crammed away into a corner behind the bed and a flowerpot. It's an old collection of what must be Lavender's childhood toys - wooden cars, colorful plastic mini-ponies, that sort of thing. But what really gets your attention are the word-spelling blocks, those old wooden cubes with letters printed on each side.
Written language may be somehow encrypted to you, but individual symbols...!
You pull your hand out of Lavender's grasp and kneel down right next to her to pull one of the worn blocks out of the box. The unicorn gasps as she realises what you're doing.
Moving to the window, you hold the cube in the light and focus on the symbol. Your theory is proven correct - to an extent. Separated from all other letters, the symbol is indeed more than just a wavy streak. In fact, it's quite complicated, with several interconnected lines and dots. The problem is that somehow, the symbol shifts in front of your very eyes like a lenticular picture, never staying constant long enough for you to get a fix on what it looks like exactly. Every time you focus on one aspect of it, the rest squiggles around. You turn the block to its side, revealing... the same. The same thing on all sides. Or at least that's what you see. Feeling your eyes hurt, you bitterly toss the block back into the box.
So much for the pony alphabet.
And now you're getting another bloody headache! Feeling tired, you lie down on the floor. The unicorn joins you, hopping off of her bed to flop onto her belly next to you. She also lends you her pillow, which you appreciatively accept. Lavender rests her chin on your chest, making note of your facial reactions. You don't feel offended, though. Comforted, more like. And after fixing your phone, you felt the slightly wacky unicorn was welcome to most everything. You close your eyes and let the pain in your head slowly subside.
A rogue hoof boops you.
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hahahahha love that ending
There's not enough good ol' fashioned and fun hangouts with Twiggles anymore.
Yay.
9461232
What do you mean?
He got Ninja booped
9461238
I mean that it's nice to see some laid back interactions with Twilight Sparkle; it doesn't happen a lot anymore in fan fiction.
9461293
Really? How come?
9461296
Heck if I know. I just don't seem to run into it very often.
9461209
That ending, booped by an adorkable bookpony! I need a few minutes to scrape up my exploded heart.
I'm still waiting to see what the phone does after Twilight did something unspeakable to it in the name of MagiScience. I don't expect it to jump up and start dancing or playing annoying random music at inappropriate times (that's Discord's shtick) but it'd be awesome if it had a permanent charge.
Gah! So close! Even the blocks are working hard against them.
9461238
It's been awhile since the stories here had pre-princess Twilight just hanging out with the OC/main character. Those innocent lazy Summer days of adolescence where every day was gloriously unproductive-- except for the tree fort from scrap wood or weeks long D&D campaign. Twilight would be too much of a busybody to be as expertly lazy as a man but I think RD could do it. Heh.
I wonder if Twilight, or the other ponies, would be jealous of Derpy getting all the heavenly scritches when she delivers the mail?
9461298
I'm sorry Anon, I'm afraid I can't do that.
usercontent1.hubstatic.com/5984504_f520.jpg
well... I ship it!
Boop da boopee!
Yey
Can't wait to see what they think of his phone and him once he shows them the contents... or not. I had nothing on mine till I got to the smartphone age.
The boop wars have begun.
Classic boop-back. Very nice.
Also it'd be interesting to show Twi that phone if it has anything on it, like music, videos or photos. Sufficiently advanced technology and all that.
I mean, for pity's sake, I remember tube TVs and VHS and cell phones the size of bricks. Now there's a solid-state piece of plastic and silicon that makes ENIAC look like a tinker toy. That's gotta impress even a magical bookhorsicorn.
9461306
They probably would, if they knew of it.
I'm assuming that (for the moment at least) it is a closely guarded secret of Derpys (and now Time Turner, too).
In other news, this is an adorkable little story, and I'm loving it. And the Language barrier issue provides just enough friction between Anon and the world to bring the sense of conflict, without actually needing confrontations. It will be interesting to see how that resolves eventually, but for now I hope it stays in play for a little while yet.
Honestly, I don't feel like you need to add the characters to the chapter titles, unless you want if for yourself to quicken your own reference material. Even then, however, I'd just do that with my gdocs, or word doc, of the chapter, and leave the final product, here on fimfic, just the title.
That's my two cents, though.
9461478
Remember it? I live in it. I still use my old CRT with rabbit ears for television. I do still have VHS tapes and a VCR, but I have to admit the DVD is a lot better. Once more, because I keep destroying smart phones, I'm currently using my ten year old flip phone, a Casio Boulder. Because it still works...
9461581
How's the battery life?
9461621
So I'm on its third battery. The first year it lasted, from full charge, six to seven days. Now, a couple years later, I get three to four days on a full charge, depending on how many texts I send or phone calls last.
The phone is still very popular in China, so they still make batteries for it.
Why would their letters be magic? Would the ponies have the same trouble looking at english letters? Would the obvious text in his phone spur them on to try and translate?
9461695
Anon wrote down a bunch of words for them when he first arrived, and yes, they were unreadable to ponies.
9461538
I dunno about overcoming the language barrier. Pretty much every simple step has been tried, right down to letter blocks (blocked by blocks, eh? Not even a grin? Oof, tough crowd) and that darned Equis magic still confounds it. I too enjoy the trouble it causes, maintaining a slow burn to keep readers hooked (beyond ponies being lethally adorable when you least expect it).
He should also get out more, or follow Twilight around town anyway. Meet new ponies and
bare his pointy predator teethsmile at them.9461773
I know exactly how the language barrier will be broken.
9461754
lmao I don't get it, but it's cute to the extreme.
"
First, that slightly curled snout... those cute ears... the crooked horn... the deer horn... the sharp tooth... "Come to papa." you mutter under your breath. This is definitely gonna be the one you nail."
Anyone gonna talk about how wrong this sounds? Is he gonna nail the chaos noodle? :'D
Double meanings aside, I really loved this chapter. I am curious why even the blocks seem to be against him. Why would magic go out of its way to make the written alphabet change while he is looking at it?
9461581
Captain: It's you !!
9461868
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/179/333/tumblr_lrfuciqxct1r2av34o1_500.gif
Is spoken Equestrian the same kind of magical, or is it just written Equestrian that does that?
If not, there's only a few ways I could see the language barrier being breached:
1: Maybe other human languages don't suffer from this effect. Depending on what he has on his phone, that could be really great.
2: He could learn something like Griffonish, assuming there are languages other than Equestrian, and that they aren't also full of magical bullshit.
3: Sign language. If it doesn't exist, nothing's stopping them from inventing it, I presume.
4: Morse code, assuming it exists, or something similar.
9461954
Yes, spoken Equestrian too. Besides, Anon can't do horse sounds accurately anyway.
1: All human languages are non-magical, and therefore cannot be interpreted by magical creatures. Vice versa with Equestrian languages.
3: They could create a simplistic language, but I doubt anyone would actually learn this besides Twilight and maybe Pinkie. And even then, slowly building an alphabet based on horse or human noises the other species can't do(which would be a necessity to convey more complex words) would be far too much trouble. And make for an excruciatingly boring read for anyone apart from linguists. I ain't Tolkien.
4: Anon doesn't know Morse code, and as for something similar, I refer you to number 3.
Quick question. have you read the lord of the flies recently? because I noticed the reference.
Can Discord speak to him?
9461797
The only means of coherent communication will be through... heartsongs! (Oh god, please kill me now! No, not another! Auuugh!)
[Colors fade to black and white, a serious pony steps out to address the viewer]
Here, in the Twilight Zone...
9462164
I have read Lord of the Flies and seen the 1963 movie, though not recently. It was just the first thing that popped into mind with the word "stuck".
9462581
Discord is a frozen statue, so that's a negative.
Unfrozen? Maybe...
9461979
As someone suggested, sign language might work.
reasoning:
They understand the same gestures.
They seem to think in similar concepts, even if not in similar ways (predator/prey, ...)
they interpret visual cues, and "comic strips the same"
You don't even need it to be complex. And no need to actually create it, just (if you do go that way) keep in mind bodily limitations of either ponies (if they have a sign language already) or both humans and ponies if they make one up for him. By using already used gestures (like me, you, small, big, later...) you can have others understand most of what he is trying to say without any effort on their part. Only potential problem is ponies communicating back, but that gets aleviated to some degree again by using already established gestures. Most problematic would be numbers (critical for shopping, work...) and complex ideas (less of an issue, at least initially).
If you wanted to go this way and make at least a core of he language, feel free to PM me. I can offer help and or pointers on creating languages
If you already have a way to cross the language gap, also feel free to ignore me and go ahead with it. I'll be looking forward to your solution!
Best of luck with the story!
9462787
Thanks for the offer, but yes, I do already have a way in mind that will allow them to communicate normally.
Hnng! I can't wait for the next chapter!
You have mastered cute! I have to put my phone down every so often because I can barely hold in all the cute that I read. It's like I need to let the cute work its course through me before I read more.
9462681
I was just wondering why he is obsessed with drawing Discord. Maybe he should talk with him mentally or something.
I need to tell you that this story is comfy as frigg and I love it. Thanks
9461478
There are computers smaller than a grain of rice, which make ENIAC look like a tinker toy!
(one is so small that a grain of rice looks enormous by comparison)
9463692
how do you even build a computer of that size?
9464468
nanotechnology. the guys in the labs have done it again
9464468
same nanotech which they use to build your mobile phone processor, and very steady hands.
icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/computer-smaller-than-rice-grain-720x720.jpg
9464468
Will Twilight look inside the phone? Inside like, truly inside, at the circuits in/on the silicon crystals. Maybe she already have and that is how she figured out how to charge it? Or she just used some super overpowered magic and forced the magic to figure everything out (likely from how you describe it)?
In the show it is hinted that they know and use electricity. But it seems a relatively new thing. Twilight also at least knows basic quantum physics (she mentioned it once), so she may be able to figure out how integrated circuits work.
Or she started to figure it out that is why she is utterly fascinated by it? Because as complexity goes, a regular smartphone is a mindbogglingly complex piece of hardware, not mention the software which runs on it. Hundreds of billions of transistors, at least 70 different elements from the periodic table. The total engineering years spent on just the CPU may be millions.
9464766
yeaaaaah I'm going with "weird Frankenstein magic got it working again"
Just binged all the chapters in one go and can hardly wait to see where this goes