Chapter 9: Tours of Town & Troubling Transformations.
"Curses, we hast received the crone again!" Night Strider complained, causing me to chuckle, or rather giggle, my voice is to high for proper chuckling. Me and the pegasus filly were hanging out in the newly constructed gaming gazebo, it was a very simple design, but it has this awesome central table with all kinds of games stored within, and a glass roof. Apparently these Equestrians weren't very good poker players, even a child could spot their tells.
This last hand I had decided to take the obvious bait and held onto the old maid for the duration of the hand, till the last pair was to be made. At that moment I took my winnings. "Better luck next time hun~" I said mockingly.
"Didst thou just issue a challenge to us?"
"Dunno, did I?" I replied, a smug grin on my face.
Night Strider's wings bristled and she huffed. "Oh, tis so very on!" She retorted, slamming a hoof onto the table.
"Alright, Night Light, the usual stakes I presume?" Night Strider plopped a few gold bars onto the tables betting section, I placed the same amount. I shuffled the cards and put them in the special stand, it dealt them out evenly to us. I wound up with the old maid, but that wouldn't last long, I placed the first pair down, followed by the pegasus.
"We shalt aquire... this one!" She took a four of hearts from me and slammed it down with its partner.
Luna
Yond is't! We has't hadst enow! This filly shalt learn of our prowess at games! Luna vowed. She dropped the handicap she had given the child and played for real.
I'll just let her win this time. She wanted to use all this gold to make some pretty intricate decorations for her house, so it would be rude to just take it all, but I have to make her think she wins fair and square. I thought I purposefully retrieved the maid from my opponents hand. Oddly enough they still call them 'hands' of cards, wonder why.
After a few turns I noticed a major improvement in Night Strider's skills. I lost by a land slide. "So, you were holding out on me, eh? Didn't take you for a hustler." I said with a sigh.
Night Strider flinched. "We... We didst not aim to fell thee, or make the game unfun."
"You didn't, but next time neither of us will be pulling punches." I stated. Night Strider agreed to that and I put the deck away.
"So then, what activity shalt we partake in next?" She asked me. I shrugged, then remembered my shoulders aren't built for such an expression anymore and repeated the pony version.
"Dunno, up to you Night Light." I offered.
Night Strider pouted at me. "We wish thee wouldst not refer to us in such a way."
"Why not? It's just a nickname, friends give them to each other all the time. And with how much you hang out in my dream/our shared dreamscape, or what ever it is, I think I'm allowed to call you such." I countered.
"Fine then, we shalt dub thee Genta!"
I blanched at her choice. "What, why?"
"Doth thee like it?" I shook my head. "Then thee has't thy answer!" She finished.
"... Fine, its only fair I suppose. So Night Light, what game shall we play next?"
"How doest a game of War sound, Genta?" she drew out the Nick name. I could feel my ears snap in annoyance.
I retrieved the deck once more. "You've got yourself a game, Night Light." I returned.
After a few more games, we broke about even on the betting pool. Night Strider wound up taking the better half back to her miniature fortress of a build. I began the process of waking up and said good bye to her.
I was greeted by the sight of Twilight. She was scribbling down words into a notepad while running some kind of scanning spell over my hooves.
"Uhh, hi there." I started.
Twilight jumped with a gasp, dropping her clip board.
"Whatcha doin?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh..." She looked side to side nervously, "...hhhhhhhhhhhh..." she dragged on for far to long for her not to be fishing for an answer. "...hhhhh, nothing?" She wore the most forced smile in the world, and I say that sitting in magical pony land.
I mentally pinched the bridge of my nose, an expression I greatly missed, along with snapping, golf claps, and giving certain individuals the middle finger. I sighed. "Whatever, so what's on the agenda for toaday?"
Her expression brightened. "Well, you've been steadily increasing your skill with basic levitation, but learning some of the more advanced spells could speed that up, have you read 'Cosmo's guide to Magic for Foals' yet?"
Crap. "Uh, no. I still haven't read, any of them." I admitted.
Twilight deflated. "I see... I suppose you just don't find reading enjoyable?" She guessed at. I quickly moved to correct her.
"No! I mean, its not that its just that I-" I stopped short. Am I actually going to admit that I can't read any of them?
"That you what?" Twilight asked.
I took a breath. "I can't... I can't read them..."
Twilight looked to me, aghast. "You... you can't..."
"I just, never... It's not the language I-"
"You can't Read!?" she interrupted me. "Come with me, I am going to teach you."
"..."
"What?" she inquired, turning back to me.
"Nothing, just not the reaction I was expecting."
"Well I'm not about to just not let you experience one of the greatest pleasures known to ponykind! Now come on."
I nodded and followed her to the library. Dozens of books flew off the shelves, Twilight looked through each of them in a second. She piled up the ones that did not meet her standards. She sat me down next to her on some cushions. The book she had selected was obviously a children's story book, the cover art made it obvious. She also popped a chalkboard into existance.
"Now then the first letter of the alphabet is..."
"Why are there so many characters..." I complained, my forelimbs draped over my skull.
"Because the original script of ponies was lost during Discord's rule, he made a total of one hundred sixty three and a half different characters. One for every single different way a sound could be said, and different ways it could be read based on the rest of the context of the sentence." Twilight explained. "Furthermore, after his defeat, the princesses slimmed down and standardized the alphabet to a minimal forty two characters, and the modern version was slimmed even farther down to a simple thirty six."
"That was rhetorical..." I bemoaned.
"Oh, uh, sorry. Well anyway, now that we have covered the basic alphabet, we should move onto some basic words and spelling." Twilight cleared the board and began anew.
Learning Equish script took far less time than I thought it would, aside from the extra characters for sounds like 'th' 'sh' and such, it was only a matter of matching up the Equish characters to my native ones. It would take a bit of practice to properly memorize them all, and I was not exactly overjoyed to have to.
I was extremely thankful that the grammar was the same, given the shared spoken language it made sense, but given that an apparent lord of chaos overhauled the written language, I'm thankful that he didnt switch it to Spanish grammar.
I scribbled down notes on the Equish alphabet, matching each character to my Latin alphabet. With this I might be able to attempt reading.
"I can't believe your school never taught you how to read." Twilight sighed as she finished writing, "The filly played with her friends." "And whats even more confusing is that you seem to be well read!"
Eh, moderately anyway. "I just didn't learn Equish there, we didn't cover it in class."
"It's the most common language in the world!" Twilight stressed. A knock at the door drew the purple mare's attention. She looked back to me. "We will finish up the lesson later." The purple mare went to the front door, me on her heels.
Because I don't really have anything to do. It's not like I really know anyone in town, I thought. Another knock. Twilight magic-ed the door open a few paces before she reached it.
"Hi Twilight!" A familiar country voice said. "Is Argent home?" Apple Bloom asked. The filly peeked around Twilight's legs. "Oh Argent, hi!" She said, bouncing past Twilight and stopping in front of me. "Do ya wanna go play some more?"
I just had to say that... I shook my head. Child, playing, no thanks. I gave Twilight a look, look that says 'I really dont want to do this, help me!'
Twilight responded with, "hmmm, I dunno. We were in the middle of a lesson." My expression brightened immensely once Apple Bloom turned to face Twilight, with a look that was almost assuredly the opposite of my own. "But, I suppose we could just cut the lesson short, you girls have fun!" Mine and Apple Bloom's expressions flipped, and the filly started bouncing again.
"Alright! Hey Argent, where do ya wanna go? Do ya wanna go ta SugarCube Corner? Or the park? Maybe we could go down to the river?" She suggested in a rapid fire manner.
"Uhh." I looked to Twilight for help, but she had already left. Crap, I'm stuck hanging out with the child, aren't I. I sighed. "You pick, I still don't know much about Ponyville."
"Well alright! Follow me." We wandered around town, occasionally stopping so she could give me a bit of information on the stores we passed. We did end up going to Sugercube Corner, and Pinkie bought us each a cupcake. I'm not overly big on sweets, but I can't turn down something someone bought for me. The cupcake tasted largely how they did back home, but something about it was just, better. Can't really explain it.
Upon exiting the establishment we were nearly run over by an orange blur. The blur sounded nigh motorized and was definetly some kind of pony , but any further details were unreadable to me due to the high speeds.
We were left struggling to breathe in a cloud of dust. "Who, cough, who was that?" I asked my tour guide.
"I dunno, but they need ta watch where their goin!" Apple Bloom shouted after them, but the offender was far out if earshot by now. "C'mon Argent, we 're gonna find em and give em what fer!"
Why though? I thought these ponies were like, really friendly. "uhh, I dunno. They probably didn't mean to do that. I think we could just leave her be." Apple Bloom gave me an odd look that I couldn't quite place. "don't you have a few more things you would like to do today?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
Apple Bloom immidetly brightened. "Oh yeah! Follow me." The yellow filly lead me south west of the library, down the road to Sweet Apple Acres.
"We going to your house?" I asked. Apple Bloom shook her head.
"Nah, some place else." We turned right almost a minute into the trail, a red structure I had passed a few times on my way to Applejack's place coming into view. It was a simple rectangular structure, complete with one of the bells that old school houses had.
... Wait a minute! "Is this the school!?" I backed away. Hissing like a cat.
"Yeah, what's the matter?" Apple Bloom asked, clearly confused. "I know school ain't the most popular place an' all, but you're actin kinda funny."
"I served my time! No way am I going back to grade school."
"What's that supposed ta mean?" She asked me, clearly more confused than before.
I kept backing up till I bumped into something. I looked over my shoulder and up. I saw a moderate cerise coated mare. Her greyish harlequin eyes staring down at me. "Hello little pony, what brings you to the school today? Are you perhaps transferring in?" She asked.
"Nope!" I shot off like a rocket back into town. I nearly ran over anyone in my way, the fact that they were at least twice my current size didn't matter. I didn't stop till I was safely back inside Golden Oaks. I was breathing heavily while propped up against the door.
A confused Twilight came to the front door. "Argent? You're back already? What's the..." She locked eyes with me. "What happened!?" she shouted at me like I had lost an arm. I tilted my head to the side, catching sight of light blue flakes falling to the ground. I brought a hoof up to my forehead, feeling a rough stub rather than the three inch thing sticking out of my head. I ran past Twilight, looking for a mirror. Once I found one I was met with my visage staring back at me. I looked up to see that my horn was about half the size it usually was, and it was crumbling like dry crackers.
"I-I... what happened?" I asked the room. Twilight caught up to me, looking more worried than before. "I... I didn't even notice..m" I said, turning to face her. She put a hoof on my withers before pulling me into a bone crushing hug.
I don't feel particularly sad, and my reflection showed that I looked more surprised than anything, so why the hug? I blinked. Oh wait, is this because of that whole' magic is a unicorns birthright' thing? That makes sense, loosing ones horn pretty much stops any and all attempts at using magic ever again, but mine grew back really quickly before didn't it? "Is, is this permanent?" I asked her, my horn still sheading dead flakes.
"I'm not sure, but I'm going to figure it out." Twilight promised.
Once more I found myself in Twilight's basement lab, my horn the cause of both visits so far. A jar of my horn flakes – That sounds like some kind of cereal I could buy here, huh. – was going through the scanner. The decay of my horn had stopped, leaving me with a rounded nub that barely passed a quarter inch in length.
Additionally, I was stood in that same scanning machine I was in last time, it had finished it's pass over my horn region and had moved onto my hooves. "A Gaean Duct!? But, but, but..." Twilight trailed off.
Isn't that the thing she said I didn't have last time? "Does that mean I'm not a unicorn anymore?" I asked her.
She gave me a look before going over all her papers again. "It would seem... wait." She started the scanner again. It must have spat out different numbers because she stared at the results disbelievingly. She re-scanned me again and again. By the end of my fifth scan I was able to see the end of my horn poking into my vision once more, and the scan stopped coming back green around my hooves.
Twilight was comparing the veritable mountain of paper the overworked machine had spat out. "So, what's the diagnosis doc?" I asked, trying to put a bit of levity into the situation.
"You are still a unicorn." She assured me.
Oh good, well at least my body has finally settled on what it wants to be. Now the-
"But," she cut off my thoughts, "for a time you had lapsed into being an earth pony. Each time I re-ran the scan your tribal attribute for earth ponies shrank, and the one for unicorns grew." I looked up to my horn, it still wasn't full length, but it was still growing.
"Those would be my horn and this Gaean Duct thing you were talking about?"
Twilight nodded. "It would seem that, for a short time, you transformed back into an earth pony, but the reason why I am not yet sure of. Tell me what you and Apple Bloom did today, it could be the key to this mystery."
I put a forehoof to my chin in thought. "We didn't really do anything though. All we did was visit Sugarcube Corner and visit the school." Twilight was writing on a chalk board.
"There are no known spells for changing a pony's tribe, and illusions wouldn't show up on the scans so vividly, so it has to be some kind of unkown or new spell? Or perhaps it has to do with her origins?"
"Twilight?" I asked, but she wasn't listening. My stomach growled, and almost on cue, Spike descended into the basement, serving tray in hand.
"It doesn't make sense." Twilight muttered, tapping the chalk on her chin. "A pony's tribe doesn't just change, it woudnt be possible." She had absent mindedly picked a sandwich off the tray and was taking bites between thinking out loud.
Fairly certain I wouldn't be able to figure this out, I followed Spike back up the stairs. We had dinner and I worked on understanding Equish. "Just leave the science to the scientist, it would all just fly over your head, you are just an art student, one that nearly flunked out of the sciences at that." I said while staring at a page uncomprehendingly.
Despite my saying so, I continued to ponder the question. How could I not? I mean, it's a pretty big question after all, and it very much concerns me. I rolled onto my back, blowing the hair out of my eyes. All I did was hang out with Apple Bloom. Nothing else happened. Apple Bloom, I was around Apple Bloom, all afternoon, Apple Bloom, the earth pony... Can't be. Can it?
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I’m really curious what her wings would look like. Will they be crystal, or perhaps something more ethereal? Also if she hangs with alicorns for a while or with a mixed group I wonder if she will take on all aspects more permanently or if they would need recharging.
9680194
I was thinking the same question about alicorns :P
Luna completely forgot the reason she was visiting her, it seems.
On a side note, even with two editors there are quite a lot of typos. Ever thought of trying Grammarly?
9680167
Honestly I'm starting to think that the Friend = Species thing might be a red herring. It just seems too obvious and at the same time has a few holes in it. for example she spent basically her entire day at one point playing with Applebloom in an earlier chapter and didn't show signs of change, same goes for when she was helping Fluttershy with the bunnies. There's also the fact that no one said anything about it happening until after her freak out at going back to school. (not to mention as a side note the fact she spends all night with Luna every night)
All of this leads me to think that it may just be more of a case of how in tune with the Elements she is. So far she has not displayed Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness or Laughter to any notable degree. In fact, with the exception of Kindness (which only just began to show up this chapter) these are all conveniently the elements that have shown up in text color so far in significant amounts, something we can easily tell is forcefully controlling how she acts. Meanwhile what has she been showing naturally without any Text color forcing her to act that way? a strong interest in Magic and a growing Friendship with Luna (and to an extent Applebloom). Some could even argue that she is Generous considering she's willing to shrug off the control of the other elements to do things she'd otherwise not want to... These are both elements related to the Unicorns of the Mane Six.. And then consider this, her Horn started to disintegrate only after she completely abandoned her friend at the schoolhouse and acted purely selfishly due to her panic attack, and that the Horn started to regenerate once she was back to doing her usual thing with Twilight (learning about Magic)
Again with the doing things I don't see coming... dang, you're good. Applebloom, Scootaloo... all we're missing is sweetie, and the formation of a club. Plus Argent.
Next thing you know, a crusade will cause a royal problem. And Twilight is already reaching her limit... time for some Pinkie, if you ask me.
Did you mean to write: "...showed that I looked more confused than anything..."?
Characters.
9680194
Argent sounds like a blank state pony that absorb and change her status based on the surrounding energy. But does this only work with pony? Or does it also work with non-pony, such as changeling or kirin or seapony?
It could be she changes in proximity to the elements. Pinkie Pie being at Sugarcube Corner.
9680259
Hard to say, I would think he/she would have taken some of Spikes traits given exposure if that were possible, unless the author is limiting it to just pony species.
For some reason, past three chapters didn't show up in my tracking
9680250
I think she lost her horn because she was running really hard, a physical activity that an Earth pony would be better at.
So basically, the stuff that made up her horn turned into a Gaean Duct when she needed it to, then slowly turned back into a horn during all the applied magics and intellect-driven research of her physiology.
the horn flaking is caused by stress isn't it?
9680297
I don't know, if that was the case I'd have expected the same to have happened when she was helping Applejack on the farm, or when she was helping Fluttershy round up all the bunnies. Not to mention that the horn originally started growing before she even knew magic existed let alone had any reason to start considering anything that would require a horn.
How will the wings manifest?
9680263
Possible, but I personally believe the Elements of Harmony do not differentiate the species their Bearers are.
Still, if Argent can swap between being Earth Pony, Unicorn, and Pegasi, then somepony might get a strange idea that she is a secret princess or something.
I feel like the race she is, is the same race of the majority of the ponies she’s around. She was a unicorn when hit with the magic of Friendship, then an earth pony around the earth pony nurse, went back to unicorn when she was around twilight, earth pony around apple bloom, and finally unicorn around twilight. It also slightly hints at this in the ending.
P.S. sure she didn’t change around apple jack or rainbow, but maybe it has to be a certain amount of time, plus at one point she was with both and they are different races.
So is she gonna sprout crystal wings when she spends a weekend camping with Dashie and Scoots?
Science demands they Argent be taped to Rainbow for a week straight. If she gets crystal wings, profit!
9680835
Tape her to Luna, she should get wigs without losing her horn.
9681002
FLEX TAPE
Maybe she could try to write a phrase in her alphabet and ask Twilight is it's familiar to her
Ah like the dream stuff. Yayyy.
Not respecting personal space
Yeah, so ?
Hilarious
Probably is, and you bumped into the legs of an adult Earth pony as well
"...change, it woudn(')t be possible."
I'll bet you, it's which element that she's most channeling at any given moment that determines her tribe, except for honesty or laughter- then shell get either greater strength or "pinkie powers". Really curious as to what would happen if she started channeling Nightmare Moon.
Also, not a big deal, but:
Here's a quick reference chart:
thou - singular informal, subject (Thou art here. = You are here.)
thee - singular informal, object (He gave it to thee.)
ye - plural or formal, subject
you - plural or formal, object
9682468
but then during those loyalty sections trying to get her to help Applejack, she would've become a pegasus
I'm gonna admit, normally I find a lot of "Guy turned into a mare and dropped in equestria" stories to be kinda bland and uninteresting... but this one has quite piqued my interest. There's a few spelling mistakes that could simply use a run through of spellcheck (for example Invisible being spelled invisable and the same problem with Visible in the same chapter) but nothing that has really broken my immersion into the story. I'm honestly even enjoying the little minecraft bits because it gives the MC a chance to interact with my favorite princess.
I can't seem to find a description of her cutie mark. I'm curious. OUO
9689165
I described the characters physical appearance in chapter 2
Only best pony would think to have half a character.
I like this possibility better than my initial suspicion that Argent would just grow into a rather weak alicorn. This way it's based on friendship!
Well, that would be bad for Argent, but would actually be less chaotic. Spanish is actually one of the easiest languages to learn in general. On Earth, the pictorial languages are the hardest to learn. Slavic languages have some of the most tenses and fiddly grammar things to learn, but are very orderly languages in general, and not something I would see Discord making. English is the language that is a jumbled up mess of other languages, and has some of the most exceptions and irregularities.
So the fact that Eqqish (or Equestrian) has English style grammar does not surprise me in the slightest.
For a second we thought it might have been due to natural need to Earth Pony attributes but now...
Served your time? Pff, school is the most chill time
9820141
I'd love to go back to grade school with the mind of an adult just to mess with the teachers. Hahahahaha, oh I'm evil. I'd intentionally speak with perfect diction, and use terms that no child has any right to know, but flunk every test on purpose.
Holy 'QUACK' thats a lot for one language