Pinkie Pie takes Earth

by Goldstar

12. Maud’s First Full Day on Earth

Earlier in the day, long before Pinkie was to return from work, Heather listened to Maud a lot. “I didn’t know rocks could be that interesting,” Heather commented. Her and Maud were sitting on Heather’s bed.

“Yeah. Most ponies don’t see the value in rocks like I do. The only rocks they like are gems.”

“I dare say it sounds like a special interest. In fact, you ponies seem to have those a lot more than humans do. But I’m still hardly interested in rocks myself even after those amazing facts you listed. But then there’s a few things I’m really into.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m still not used to making small talk with people.” Heather barely made eye contact with Maud. “I mostly find small talk pointless and something I rather not engage in. But these past several days have really changed everything. Even when Pinkie arrived, I didn’t think I would be casual talking to one of her sisters. Another thing is that I’m the one doing the majority of the talking here. If I talk with Pinkie, she has far more to say than I do.” Heather pointed to her Switch and TV. “So, here’s what I’m most interested in, video games. I know Pinkie got into it when I introduced her to this, but I don’t know if you will as well. I’ll turn the TV on.” Heather did so and Maud had the same visible expression that she almost always does. “I can’t tell if you’re interested or not.”

“You sure Earth has no magic? Because it looks like magic with these moving images.”

“No magic, it’s all technology. I couldn’t tell you in details how this works. It seems electricity is a really special element that somehow makes all of this stuff possible. I could just look it up online if I really cared to, although that doesn’t mean I would understand it. School sure didn’t go into many details with this. In fact, school after the first few grades seems to mostly teach specialized knowledge that most people really don’t need to know. But it’s not like many will take me seriously since I’m still a teenager.” Heather signed, “But once that magical eighteen years of living happens, suddenly everything changes.

“Anyway, I’m rambling on a lot. I’m not used to having someone just listen to me rant and rave about things. I want to introduce you to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Right off the bat, there isn’t any characters that heavily relates to rocks, but there are dozens of playable characters. So...”

Heather explained the same things that she explained to Pinkie a while ago about the game. Hours passed as both played the game while Maud, who picked Yoshi, very quickly picked up on how to play the game. “Whoa, how did you beat me?” Heather asked.

“I learned,” Maud replied.

“Can’t say I know where that comes from, but you already improved at much quicker rate than Pinkie did. And it didn’t even involve any blue shells. Anyway, I just remembered. So, my hair is supposed to be red, not this weird blue and green that it currently is. These are not natural hair colors for humans to have. For hair, we basically have different shades of warm colors and black. White is for when you get old. If you learned about humans from anime, you’ll think that any hair color is normal for humans.

“Pinkie says Equestrian magic leaked in when she teleported. I’m affected because I was near her when she teleported in.” Heather then frowned. “I hope I don’t turn into a pony. I won’t have fingers for a bunch of stuff or the diet to eat meat and fish. Human tools are designed with fingers in mind. Considering this has been my entire life up to this point, a suddenly change like this would be quite unwelcomed. How would this even work anyway? I get whatever pony powers and then have to deal with being the only magical pony on Earth? Any chances of a normal life go completely out of the window after that. I feel I would have to hide here to avoid the public at that point.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maud added, “The hair color may be the extent of your changes. And if this does happen, we’ll deal with it, just like anything else. You have me, Pinkie, your father, and your other friends.”

“Thanks Maud. Anyway, dad isn’t home yet. I’ll call him just to make sure things are going okay.” A few seconds later, Heather did so. “Hello? What’s up dad? You okay?”

“I’m fine Heather. I just need to take care of some extra business for the Pies before I get home.”

“Ah, good. I got a bit worried there.”

“Please Heather, I’m not letting something bad happen to me, because you need me.”

When Logan returned home later than usual, he had something for Maud. “This is your ID card and a smartphone. You’ll want to always hold onto both, not literally, but like in your pockets. I figured I would get a phone case with rocks as the graphic design. In fact, it looks like a stone with a screen on it.” He handed out both to her.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Maud dully replied.

“I also finally have a smartphone for Pinkie. I’ll give it to her when she’s back and then I’ll explain how they work to both of you at once. Meanwhile, let’s get you a mining job. Actually, before we do so, you never been in an automobile, have you? I know Pinkie mentioned carts, but they’re probably not like the cars we have. Depending how you got here, you probably seen these moving metal boxes on wheels already.”

“I have, one almost ran into me.” Logan looked concern after Maud revealed that.

“Wow, I sure hope that didn’t scare you too much. You’ll very quickly adjust to staying on the sidewalks and only crossing the street when you must. On that note, I’m not sure if you or Pinkie will be here long enough for me to get you two hooked up with a driver’s license. That’s a process that involves several driving tests, including parallel parking, that thankfully you’ll almost never have to do.

“And it’s not just the license, but also having something to drive. I can’t easily get you two used cars to drive. So, like with Pinkie, you’ll probably need to use the Taxi to get around the city. Then again, Pinkie, according to Heather, seems to be using speedrun tactics to get around the city these days. I’m not sure how much that’ll apply to you, but I’m guessing you can’t quickly backwards long jump across the city.”

“I can run fast for a while.”

“Must be that earth pony stamina that carried over to your human body. I can only wonder what would happen if a pegasus or unicorn arrived here if they would have wings or a horn or be able to fly or use magic without either. Anyway, we’re leaving soon for the mining site. Get ready.”

Fifteen minutes later, Logan got in his truck with Maud. “Make sure to put the seatbelt on, it’s the law and supposed to help protect you in case of a crash.” Moments later, Logan started to drive. “You’ve been on a train before, right? So, I guess this isn’t completely new for you.”

“Yes, this is somewhat familiar.”

“Here’s what you might not know. We have plenty of signs and traffic lights to direct how we drive.” Logan would go onto explain in many details about driving before they arrived at the mining site. Once there, Logan and Maud met with the mine foreman. “You’re going to really like her,” Logan bragged. The foreman did a double take.

“Seriously? She looks like she’ll have trouble operating the tools for long. Don’t waste my time.”

“I’m not, trust me.” Logan replied with confidence.

“Fine, I’ll give her a chance, but I highly doubt that she’ll be up to the standards of the other miners. I’m not lowering the standards to be inclusive to everyone who wants in. The standards exist for reasons, often important safely reasons.”

“I can handle them,” Maud said.

“Okay. See that rock over there? Grab a pickaxe and break it. Sure, we have drills, but I want to know if your physical strength is there, which I highly doubt just from looking at you if I’m being perfectly honest.” Maud went over to the rock without picking up a pickaxe and used her hands to drill through the rock in a matter of seconds. The foreman’s jaw dropped and so did Logan’s, as he did not witnessed Maud doing this before despite somewhat expecting this.

“Taken care of,” Maud said with a slight smirk. Several seconds passed before the foreman replied.

“H-h-how?! That’s... I barely have words. I’m so sorry I ever doubted you, but I had no way of knowing till now. I need you! My mining operation will skyrocket in production. I don’t know where she came from, but you sure know how to pick them Logan. Let’s just get some paperwork done and other legal junk. You sure you’re not a superhero or the world’s strongest human? What a day, I sure won’t forget this one.”

---

After Logan got home, he called Heather to his room. “As I said before, this week off school isn’t just going to be a vacation. Now is the time for me to go over the chores and other responsibilities I’ll be expecting out of you. We’ll start with laundry. You’ll be responsible for taking care of your own clothes for now on. I will show you how after dinner.”

“Dad, I did an online test, I’m autistic.” There was a delay before Logan replied.

“No, that is not how this works! You’re not self-diagnosing yourself, okay? There are so many problems with that. I don’t want you getting into the mindset that you’re a helpless victim who can’t improve her situation. An online test is not a replacement for a doctor.”

“But I fit the syndromes to a tee.”

“As I said, I’m not treating online tests as the end all, be all of who you are, and neither should you. I don’t want you falling into the trap of deciding you can’t overcome your struggles because of a disability or disorder. I’ll attempt to get you a visit to a doctor who would be able to know for sure sometime this week.” Logan sighed.

“I want to prepare you for social situations like the ones at school without having a meltdown anytime something goes wrong. Yet something like this will be a long-term goal and certainly not as fast as I want it to be, with you being able to handle whatever comes your way next week at school.

“Which brings me to one more thing. I want you to focus on positive relationships with the people you do have in your life like Pinkie, Maud, Gracie, and whoever else attempts to be friendly to you. This should be a huge help in breaking your funk with wanting to distance yourself from most social situations. I’m not expecting you to become friends with anyone like Pinkie seems to do. But I do want you to value the friends you’ve made. I know you don’t want a repeat of what happened with Trevor and Britney and neither do I. But I trust that at the very least, the Pie sisters won’t be like that to you. It’s too early to say for sure with Gracie.

“But that’s how life is. You think you know someone for years, even a couple of decades, and suddenly they’re a much worse version of themselves. I don’t have a functional crystal ball to say for sure that this will happen. It’s just a harsh reality of life. Although I suspect you won’t develop relationships that close for me to worry about that.”

“What do you mean? Like I won’t fall in love?”

“Perhaps. I won’t say it’s impossible, but I haven’t gotten any vibes with you falling in love with someone and wanting to marry them. At the very least I don’t think it’s going to happen for your remaining time in high school. Being perfectly honest, I’m glad, not because I don’t want to see you happy, but because you won’t have the many problems and stress that comes with relationships like this. You not caring about prom was a relief for me.” Logan set up from his bed. “Anyway, that’s enough out of me for now. Dinner time soon.”

---

Later that night, Heather got a phone call. Who would call at this hour? She thought. Annoyed, she picked up the phone. What number is this? Better not be a telemarketer.

“Hello?” Asked an older woman’s voice.

“Mom?!”

“Hi Heather. I think it’s time you know what’s really going on.”

“What do you mean? Why did you leave me and dad?!”

“I’m in the hospital, have been for a while.”

“What?!”

“It’s terminal. I’m not going to make it.”

Author's Note:

Writer's block hit again and me just plain spending a lot of time gaming led to this being the longest delay yet between chapters. In fact, at one point I thought this would be the final chapter as I have nearly ran out of ideas of where to take the story next, so I was prepared to wrap everything up. However, I have a major new idea that should hopefully keep the story going on for a bit while longer. Not to drag things out for the sake of doing so. It's not like I'm getting any money or anything for a longer story. But rather to keep on going as long as I think I can hopefully keep things interesting.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

and you did well! interesting take on heather's condition. Also, i am still here to help you out if needed

[MarlonCalpe4000]

Is Logan really written to be as unlikable as possible? Like one minute he would act like some kind of goody two shoes but then the next, he's harsh to his daughter with saying something like I'm glad you didn't do prom?! What kind of parent would say that to their child?!

[Goldstar]

11354221
Is there anything else you would consider unlikeable about him aside from that line? I do intend to show a major flaw of his next chapter. The prom line was not meant to be it. It wasn't meant to be a negative line. It's more so he knows his daughter would have had a lot of trouble if she did do prom. Prom is also something she doesn't really care for herself, at least for the time being. It is somewhat based on my own experiences, in which I didn't particularly care for prom, nor did I really have an option to join in the first place.