Anon's Detour

by NeonDF

Chapter 12

Anon twirled a blade of grass in his fingers as he thought back to the encounter. Perhaps he was a bit hasty storming off like that. True, he was extremely upset over the broken phone, and it was downright insulting for the pony to rub it in like that, but he had to keep in mind that for the moment, the ponies were his only lead to figuring out what had happened to him. He had to deal with them if he wanted to ever get back home, and so he had to tolerate their behavior, however rude, inconsiderate or degrading it was.

He also had been woefully underprepared for his self-imposed task of getting answers. Namely, he had failed to even ask the questions. Language barrier or not, the ponies were capable of communication, at least between themselves and whatever that lizard creature was. And if they could communicate, they could answer Anon’s questions – he just had to come up with a proper communication strategy first.

What if he started with the basics? Back in school, on the first lesson of Spanish the teacher had them introduce themselves in both English and Spanish. What if he tried something similar with the pony? He would introduce himself, then ask for her name, accompanying it all with exaggerated hand gestures. She wasn’t a human, but maybe she’d understand? Some of her gestures and actions had been surprisingly human-like. It would’ve helped if she had actual hands though, and perhaps it would've been wiser to try and approach the lizard creature instead as it had similar appendages, but after the last encounter Anon still felt a little queasy about the creature, so he wasn’t about to approach it while he had a better alternative.

What else could he try? Usually when he went to a place where people didn’t speak English, he’d just whip out his phone, type the phrase into the translator and have it speak out loud the translated sentence. With the phone gone for good, that was no longer an option. Could he try mimicking her sounds? It was unlikely to work, as he would have no idea what he would be saying, but it was worth a try. Maybe the mare would help him there, once she understood what he was trying to do.

Anything more complex would probably have to wait. Baby steps, after all. First they’d introduce themselves, then they’d figure out most necessary words and phrases like “food” or “water” or “I want to eat”, and then it’d be clear how to proceed from there. Overall, not the greatest plan, but better then nothing.

Anon threw away the crumpled blade of grass he’s been holding, rubbed his fingers together to get rid of the green stains and got up from the grass. Time for attempt number two.

He found the mare right where he had left her – in the basement. This time, she was standing near the desk and peering intently at a glass flask that was filled by two thirds with some yellow solution. Her ear twitched as Anon closed the door behind himself, but she didn’t react otherwise as he approached and stopped beside her.

This close, Anon could make out a lot of details regarding the knick-knacks cluttering the desk. What he thought before as bits of colorful rocks were actually semi-transparent crystals. They ranged from tiny shards barely an inch long to fist-sized clusters, and rather unexpectedly each and every one had unnaturally deep, even coloring and no usual imperfections such as chips or fractures. Overall, they had an artificial look to them, like something you would see as a reward in mobile game rather than from behind a glass pane in a geology exhibit.

But more startlingly, the desk was covered in papers that actually had something written on them. Despite the fact Anon had seen the mare use magic to levitate and move quills over papers, he didn’t realize until that very moment that she had been actually writing with them. It also dawned on him that the entire house was filled with books, so of course the ponies were capable of writing, and by extension reading, and it was silly to consider otherwise since they’ve built themselves such an advanced civilization.

On one sheet, he could spot a paragraph of text and a table, and there was what looked like a flowchart on another, and a third one had a few schematics full of hexagons that looked suspiciously like structural formulas of organic molecules. Unfortunately, the writing itself was completely alien to him. It resembled Arabic script, but blocky and with less dots, and as much as Anon stared he couldn’t recall seeing a language quite like that before.

It was then that the mare turned away from the flask she’s been watching and glanced at the desk. A quill suddenly rose into the air, dipped itself into an inkwell, then flew to the papers and touched down at the one that had a table on it. It left a short squiggle in a blank cell, then hopped back into the air, flew back to the same spot it started from and laid down to rest, as if it had never moved. Done with the task, the mare looked at Anon.

Put on the spot, Anon fumbled for a second before collecting his wits and raising his right hand. It was a bit late for introductions, come to think of it, but better late than never.

“Hello. I am Anonymous.”

He tapped his chest with his index finger for emphasis. The gesture captured the mare’s attention for some reason, and she switched to watch his hand instead and kept track of it as he extended his arm and pointed at her chest.

“What is your name?”

The pony blinked, then looked up at his face. An awkward silence ensued. Anon decided to try again. He kneeled so they would be at the eye level, moved his hand back, tapped his chest with his finger, said “Anonymous” and pointed at her. The pony blinked again, glanced between his face and his hand, then tilted her head, but nothing else. Well, third time’s the charm, right?

Anon once again tapped himself on the chest, said “Anonymous”, extended his arm and pointed closely at the mare, nearly touching her chest fluff.

The mare stood still for a second, looking down at his hand, then slowly lowered her muzzle and sniffed at it in curiosity. Then, faster than Anon could react, her tongue darted out and took an experimental lick.

The sudden feeling of warmth and wetness made Anon yank his hand back with a yelp, but he quickly caught up with what had happened and pursed his lips in annoyance. He wiped the tiny damp spot off on his pants, and resolved to try again. Fourth time the charm, then?

He brought his hand up and tapped himself on the chest, spelled out “A-no-ny-mous”, then slowly moved it towards the mare and pointed at her chest, which he mimed tapping, and asked, “What. Is. Your. Name?”

The mare watched him go over the ritual, keeping an eye on his hand, and once he was done, simply blinked and looked back at him. Anon waited with baited breath. A second passed, then another, then the mare replied.

Snort. Nicker, snort.

Anon almost shouted with joy. He had actual progress there! It wasn’t much, but she just told him her name, which is more than he had before! Now he would only have to show her he understood.

Unable to contain his smile, Anon brought his hand back, vigorously tapped his chest, said “Anonymous”, pointed at the mare and attempted his best to repeat the sounds.

“Frrr. Huh-huh-huh-huh. Frrr.”

The mare’s muzzle suddenly scrunched up. He couldn’t have butchered it that hard, could he? Anon tried again.

“Frrrr. Huh-huh-huh-huh. Frr.”

The scrunch intensified. Alarmed, Anon made another attempt, this time taking a deeper breath and trying to make the nicker part sound more guttural.

“Frrr. Huph-huph-huph-huph. Frr.”

The mare’s face relaxed. She let out a nicker, then tilted her head in apparent curiosity and silently stared at Anon. Feeling somewhat encouraged, Anon pointed at the mare once again and repeated his latest attempt.

“Frrr. Huph-huph-huph-huph. Frr.”

She gave no reaction. She must’ve considered it good enough, Anon thought, so he opted to move on and try to have her repeat his name in turn. He brought his hand back, tapped his own chest, and waited.

Nothing happened. Anon tried again. He pointed at the mare, repeated the sounds that made up her name, then pointed back at himself, and spelled out “Anonymous”. Then he again pointed at the mare, pronounced her name, pointed at himself and silently waited. It felt like a full minute before the mare straightened her neck and replied.

Snort. Nicker, snort.

Anon signed in exasperation.

“No, not your name. My name. It’s Anonymous. A-no-ny-mous. Repeat after me: Uh. No. Neee. Mos.”

He accentuated each syllable with a tap on his chest, while looking the mare deep in the eyes and wishing with all his might to impart the meaning across the language barrier and right into her brain.

Alas, his telepathy skills failed him. The mare let out a snort, turned around and walked away, leaving the human pointing at himself in solitude and wondering what went wrong in the conversation and when.

The pony didn’t walk for too far though. Stopping near the metal table that held various machines and equipment, she reared up on her hind legs and put her front legs on the table top. Then she reached with her hoof towards an apparatus that resembled a coffee machine, pushed on a small handle at the side, and with a soft click the bottom part of the machine opened up, revealing a small compartment. The mare then pushed herself off of the table and with a soft double clop landed on the floor, then turned back and trotted to Anon. As she approached, a familiar rectangular object emerged from the aforementioned compartment and trailed through the air after the mare. Anon cringed.

The pony stopped in front of him, letting the smartphone hover halfway between the two, looked him in the eyes and let out a nicker. As if sensing what was expected of him, Anon grabbed the smartphone out of the air. There had been a slight resistance which had momentarily disappeared, and he was left with the device in his hand. Thinking quickly, he brought it up and pointed at it with his free hand.

“Smartphone. Smart. Phone.”

She didn’t seem to be impressed. He shook the thing for the good measure, and that caused a reaction. The mare’s attention snapped at the device, her entire body stock still, her eyes staring unblinkingly and her ears standing straight and pointed forward. Surprised by the change, Anon almost missed how the mare took a cautious step forward without breaking her pose. He frowned.

“Don’t get your hopes up, it’s broken now.”

He tried to feel up for the power button to demonstrate, but the plastic had been warped so badly he couldn’t even tell on which side the button was supposed to be. Still, she didn’t seem to react to his words, so Anon tried again.

“It’s broken. Fried. Dead. It won’t work anymore.”

To back up his words with some action, Anon let go of the smartphone. It fell down a few inches, then froze in mid-air. At the same time, the mare scrunched her muzzle. The smartphone reversed its movement, floated back up to his hand and nestled itself in his palm. Startled, Anon grasped the device and felt the same weak resistance for a split second before it disappeared. He stared owlishly at his hand, then it clicked.

“No, I can’t turn it on. It’s broken. Completely.”

He made a show of shuffling his fingers over the edges, then just held the smartphone in place. The mare waited for a full minute, her entire posture exuding attention, and right as Anon began to worry she finally seemed to have realized nothing was going to happen. Her ears splayed back, she swished her tail, shuffled her hooves, then tucked up her hind legs and settled down on her croup, all without taking her eyes off the phone.

Anon decided to capitalize on the situation. He brought up his other hand and pointed at the smartphone, and said “smartphone.” Then he pointed at the mare, who broke off from watching the smartphone to watch him instead, and pronounced her name. Then he pointed at himself and said “Anonymous”. He repeated the cycle two more times, and on the third repeat when it was his turn, he simply pointed at himself and stayed silent. It was now or never.

The mare kept staring at him with her giant magenta eyes. Anon could almost see the mental gears turn in her head, the pony furiously trying to work out the meaning of his gesture, running countless calculations and building convoluted theories based on her experiences and observations of him. Then, there was a spark! The mare blinked, and Anon smiled. She tilted her to the side… and stayed silent.

Anon let out a dejected sigh. Either he was doing something wrong, or he was stuck with the densest pony in this entire world.

He got up from his knees and dusted off his pants. There was a strong urge to be somewhere else at that moment, caused in part by the stuffy basement air and in part by the sheer disappointment that his best attempt at communicating had failed little less than completely. He turned to the desk and put his phone next to some crystal. The burned plastic had left black stains on his fingers, which only added to the annoyance, so he spared a last glance at the mare who kept silently watching him, turned away and went to the door.

Comments

[NeonDF]

11582400
Currently 12, they're posted as they're written.
I don't know how long the story will end up (no idea how to estimate things like that), but there will be an ending.

[Booster Spice]

Theres something wildly different in the vocalisations between the species, as if Twilight and Spike sound so different to Anon, then someones messing with Bablefish or other 3rd party intermediate translation, either symbiote, paracite, innate or innoculation spell or Harmonic crystal field etc?

Maybe its like to Twilight, Anons voice only has the envelope and not the carrier of the signal, or she is only picking up the AM or the FM, not both? but wouldnt that make Maud closer to speaking like Anon? Fluttershy cant pick up on his approximate meanings due to simian relations, which seems to be closest match is Storm Kings Yetis? Which no equine except Tempest can understand?

[StarzGecko]

11588319
Fluttershy hasn’t meant him yet. But I agree I think the sounds between Anon and the ponies are so different that Twilight is having a hard time picking it up?

I definitely wonder what Twilight is thinking… sadly I don’t believe she fully understands that Celestia fried the phone and it’s completely broken… can’t wait for more

[Booster Spice]

11588324

Especially if he turned out to be a chip design engineer, knew exactly how that chip worked at the transistor level, and then had to try and point out to Twilight that he literally couldnt draw it up, because it would take longer than his lifetime to do so, and the area needed to diagram it up using a one millimetre pencil lead, would be larger than the Mountain that Canterlot is sat on. In that small square block in that device. amongst other parts of similar complexity such as the micro SD memory card?

[Harsen]

11588335
Don't forget the software...the program code that would take as much space on paper and the compiler to translate the program into firmware for the chip (unless he writes it in binary, compiling it in his head)... Oh dear... Also knowledge of the manufacturing process of all tooling for boards and chips....

[Booster Spice]

11588726

If it was just a maatter of duplicating lots of near identical things a vast number of times, there was something from 50 years ago that Is aw 30 years ago and though, that could be intresting.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2373859-sound-vibrations-can-encode-and-process-data-like-quantum-computers-do/

Due to Surface Acoustic Wave filters in TV, but applied to 3D gemstones. Especially when combined with peizoelectric and optomechanical properties of rubies etc letting them blend and mix different energ forms.

Sometimes, all it requires to set off an explosion of creation, is the spark of inspiration.

[duckmagee]

derpicdn.net/img/view/2023/5/5/3119638.png
twilight trying to investigate the smart phone

[rikithemonk]

11588319

Theres something wildly different in the vocalizations between the species

Thats really what Im thinking. If the ponies talk using nickers, neighs, and huffs, that tells me they probably wont be able to produce vowel and consonance sounds. To expect them to be able to pronounce a human name was a mistake. Basically The guy is a complete goof up. He has gone about this entire thing in the worse way possible. If you want to prove that you have a language, you just don't keep tapping yourself then the other person, repeating it over and over. What you do is go around the room, tapping multiple things and giving the word. Table, chair, crystal, quill, ink. Then if you want you can repeat it. It would have gotten the point across better, in my opinion. Drawings would have been best way to communicate.

Monk
"Giggling like a manic schoolgirl, Celestia runs up and crushes her sister in a six-limbed hug, levitating the pair around the room like a retarded crane operator." -Some Dickhead (No, that's the Authors name)

[Davenfjeld]

Right, I can't take it anymore so I'll comment. Anonymous, you're an idiot, but you're an idiot with good intentions trapped on an alien planet.

Lucky for you, these horses seem equally stupid. Neither of you appear capable of fully understanding the variety in the sounds your counterpart is producing. This is perhaps a similar phenom to how many speakers often fail to parse syllables not present in their own language.

Since the Lavender Equine, when attempting to understand Anonymous, rabbited back something parsed as "Frr Huph Huph Huph Frr" we can deduce that nickers, ("frr") function perhaps as affixes, although their tonality appears unparsed by Anonymous. That will prove an issue, as tonality is likely key to whatever language a horse uses, due to the limited produceable vocalisations.

So far, horses have used these vocalisations:

Neighs, Nickers, Snorts, and Whinnies.

That's a rather limited pallet. Assuming this is mostly due to Anonymous' deafness to syllables not present in Human speech, we can assume that there are a variety of inflections on these sounds which Humans do not understand. Similarly for the Drake, which communicates through what sounds like a low growl - but anonymous has found it easier to parse tonally the meaning of his speech. Most of this speech has been correctly interpreted as variations on "Fuck off" "That's mine" and "Get out of my fucking kitchen". Exasperation however is not conducive to healthy interspecies communication, so both parties have a way to go on that part. It is, however, better than whatever is going on between Anonymous and the Horses.

The Horses appear incapable of parsing basic human emotions, such as rage and grief when the White Equine melted his phone. They also lack empathy for other creatures, not at all attempting to aid the Human after severely burning it's skin. They also will just, take an alien's property, from its pocket, without permission. For fun.

What is wrong with these horses? I'd honestly rather they'd have done what any human would have done, which is catch the thing and tie it up for study, or - if humans are American - just have shot it. That would have made the whole situation way easier. Instead they've chosen to recognise it as attempting to communicate, and then destroy its possessions. Neither side ks any good at first contact, but the ponies have done worse. Due to outside knowledge, we lnow ponies communicate with a variety of other species regularly, and easily show them compassion. Why one earth is it somehow so different when the creature is new? One can only assume this to be a classic case of –

Okay this rant is beginning to appear nonsensical, exam season is clearly getting to me. Either way, jeseus fuck can someone pleas just go and get a damned linguist, or at the very least someone skilled at animal husbandry to try and communicate with the gangly ape that just appeared? And also a nurse. Or preferably vet, to help deal with it's injuries. By now I'd have offered it food six times and dragged it to a veterinary clinic for nore information, because if I didn't recognise it I'd assume someone else might. Hopefully a horse goes and retrieves someone who knows something about wild animals. Maybe a zebra, or yellow equine? Please?

This comment is really messy, isn't it. Dont comment sleep deprived kids. Goodnight, cool story.

[Shadowflameking]

This story is somewhat interesting, though I do wish we had a POV from the ponies end to actually get an idea of what they're saying or thinking, even if anon can't comprehend it. Or while they're in another room an it switches POV's, as for the phone, if magic could fry it, its likely a few complicated spells could reverse the damage done to it, depending on how you have magic work in the story, since everyone does somethin a lil different, may I ask when the next update will be?

[NeonDF]

11612652
Yep, that's it. I originally wanted to write something spoiler-y, but then figured someone is bound to go through the trouble of deciphering it.

11622773
>next update
Not sure, hopefully within the summer. My current job has made a turn for the worse in the last month, so now I'm looking for something that either sucks less or pays more. Between working overtime and working on the portfolio I don't have as much free time and energy as I used to have, and unfortunately irl has to take priority over writing horse words.

[Shadowflameking]

11626225
sadly, but understandably, jus remember to give me a message when ya do update it, because I have the memory of a goldfish an forget stuff fast, which is why I can read a story, read another, then go back to the one I read less than 2 days ago an forget half the stuff in it, so I reread it XD

[Username_Unknown]

Is this still alive?