Language Theories, Bathroom Hauntings and Hope
“So why do English and Equish share such similar writing systems? I mean, it can’t be a coincidence, right? Even Luna agreed that it couldn’t have been.”
That was one of many thoughts going through my mind as I took a shower. I first figured out how to use it yesterday morning, after getting over my initial surprise that this place had modern plumbing. Like, come on, it’s a ten-century old castle! How does it have modern plumbing?!
“This is a lead pipe situation, isn't it?” If it was, that did not bode well for my physical health. “Am I showering in contaminated water right now? Wait, no. It’s only dangerous if I drink it. I think.”
I stood there for a brief moment, trying to see if I could remember the symptoms of lead poisoning off of the top of my head. As it turns out, I couldn’t because I never looked into it in the first place.
…
“You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, rich Romans used lead pipes to get drinking water into their homes. Why shouldn’t pony royalty?” Add that to the ever growing list of parallels between Earth and Equis. It only seemed to get longer and longer the more I got to think about it.
“And there aren’t any temperature controls on this thing. Are they getting it from an underground reservoir? Perhaps there’s a river or lake nearby that it’s taking the water from? My foot did break through some ice into a body of water of some sort yesterday.”
Turning off the water and stepping out of the shower, I grabbed the towel that I had found hidden in the cabinet under the sink yesterday and began to dry myself off. That shower was way too low. I had to crouch down at an uncomfortable angle just so I could get the water on myself.
“Fuck, what was I thinking about again?” … “Right, the alphabet thing. That implies that there must have been some sort of contact in the past. Is humanity an extinct species here? Or did humanity never have a chance to exist, and we instead got a precursor race of some kind developing intelligence and language?” Stopping myself before I started veering into Ancient Aliens territory, I took a mental step back so I could reevaluate my thought process. All the while, my hair was becoming even more of a wild and untangled mess as a side effect of me rather aggressively drying it off with a towel.
“I really need to trim this down at some point.” I didn’t usually let my hair grow past my shoulders and down to my upper back, but I will admit that I had been slacking off in terms of keeping it short in the weeks leading up to me landing in Equestria. I usually try to keep it at about the shoulders.
“And I’m getting sidetracked again. Language. What do I know about it?” Admittedly, not much. I read a lot back home, but I never really studied the evolution of language. Never did well in language classes either. Had to retake Spanish in ninth grade because I failed it the first time around, and the second time around I barely got out of it. All I learned were who to introduce myself, the word piscina, and how to read the twenty-four hour time format. The third one always seemed very random to me, but our teacher insisted that it was important.
“Maybe it has nothing to do with humans at all, and a completely different intelligent race just so happened to create a similar writing system to both Equish and English?” Nope, that has the same exact issue as Unicorns developing this worlds version of the Latin Alphabet completely independently from humanity on Earth.
“Oh for fucks sake, the ancient alien theory actually sounds semi-reasonable now.” Ok, so did humanity come down to Equis on fancy spaceships, give ponies the alphabet, and then fuck off?
…
I mean, it is another dimension. Just because my version of Earth is stuck with Mars bases being nothing more than some Twitter buying billionaires pipedream doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have been some space faring homosapians who-
“Wait, no. That’s not it either. Some humans are greedy bastards, and they would’ve taken the chance to exploit this worlds resources. Maybe ‘relocate’ the natives as well.” That statement did not describe humanity as a whole of course, but I still have to hesitantly and sadly acknowledge the fact that those people do exist. And plenty of workers would just do what they were told so they could get their paycheck and make an honest living. “Even if that didn’t happen, I’m sure there would at least be a human settlement or two scattered about.”
“Is humanity an extinct species here, only ever existing in ancient times?” That seemed like the most likely possibility to me. “Alright, after I learn how to speak and read in Equish, I am looking into this. But how? Luna admitted that she had never seen anything like me before.” I took a moment to think about this, and it was as I was finally finishing up drying myself and putting the clothes back on the lower half of my body that I came up with an idea.
“Back home, legends would be passed down throughout generations. Those legends would always have an inkling of truth, no matter how small. Maybe Equestria has legends of strange, hairless bipeds scattered throughout their history?” It could also explain how Luna might not have known about humans before. She simply isn’t aware of the old legends that contain descriptions of humans, or human-like, figures. “I would need to account for how the descriptions may have changed over years of being retold, but it might just be my best lead so far.
“Religious texts as well.” My thought process continued as I put my belt on. “The Bible may be a purely religious text, but some events depicted within it do have some basis in historical reality. Surely there’s a religion of some kind, in practice or not, that may have some events involving humans that were simply exaggerated or justified as the ‘divine wrath of the gods’ or something, right?”
I was never a religious man by any means, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t sometimes fascinated by The Bible and some of the stories it told. Especially if those stories were confirmed to have some basis in real world history. My brothers may have loved the stories themselves, but I was always entranced by the story you could find between the lines and with some cross-referencing of history books and academic sources. A true history of the world at the time of The Bible’s publication, hidden beneath the already masterfully told stories of Noah’s Ark and David’s battle with the famous Goliath.
I may be an atheist, but I can at least respect Christianity for having many generations of excellent writers and storytellers.
I would still much prefer a book entirely based upon facts if writing an essay or document about a historical event, of course, but…
But…
…
Fuck, I just lost my train of thought again.
After trying, and failing, to regain it, I took a long look in the mirror, my hazel brown eyes staring back at me.
“I really should write all that stuff down.” I suddenly said aloud, pulling my shirt over my head and looking around for the brush I had used yesterday.
“Goddammit, which drawer did I put it in yesterday?” After another minute or so of rooting around, I found it. “Ok, this time, I’m leaving it on the counter. That way, I know for a fact where it is tomorrow morning.”
“You really shouldn’t leave your personal care items lying around everywhere.”
“Well I would much prefer to not spend several minutes looking for my brush every morning, thank you mysterious voice in my head.” … “Wait, mysterious voice?” It was then I finally noticed a very odd sensation. It was almost as if my body wasn’t entirely mine anymore. I still had full control, but it felt like I was now sharing my body with something else.
I looked up at the mirror and, for a split second, I saw my right eye had turned a brilliant amber. As soon as I noticed it, it returned to its normal color. The sensation of sharing my body left at the same time, leaving only me, staring at the mirror, with a brush in my left hand.
…
...
...
“What the fuck was that!?” I yelled out after a moment of silence.
That’s when I recognized it.
“The voice… That’s the voice from before. The crossbow… That was her.” But who is ‘her’? What does she want with me? Why did she possess my body but make no effort to take control? Am I just going crazy? Did I just have a schizophrenic episode?
“No, I didn’t. Or at least, I don’t think I did. I don’t know. I’ve never seen or experienced a schizophrenic episode before, so I wouldn't know what one feels or looks like. Besides, it’s a lifelong thing. You don’t just suddenly develop it overnight without warning.”
Firmly putting the question of if I have schizophrenia in the ‘no’ box of my mind, I started doing what I was originally going to do before that happened; comb my hair. As I did so, something Luna mentioned last night resurfaced.
“If a spirit were to possess you for a short amount of time and was either too weak or unwilling to take control of your body for themselves… Yes, that could explain the voice from within your own mind.”
All she’s done so far is help me and violate my personal space with her split-second possession right there. “Could she be a guardian spirit of some sort? Meant to protect me during my time here?” If that was the case, then why the secrecy? Why hide her identity? I’m thankful for her help yesterday, don’t get me wrong, but she is acting very shady right now.
I want answers. I need answers. Maybe she’s still in the room with me? Maybe…
…
…
“Who are you?” I questioned aloud, speaking to no one in particular.
No response.
“What do you want?”
Still no response.
“Why did you help me yesterday?”
…
Nothing.
Not a single fucking peep.
Either she’s gone, or she’s ignoring me. Both are possibilities at this point, and both made me varying levels of pissed off.
"First, she possess me. Now, she ignores me. Talk about fucking rude."
I finished brushing my hair and, just as I said I would, I left the brush on the counter. I stepped out of the bathroom shortly afterwards, grabbing the spear Shining had given me to use as a walking stick to keep weight off of my ankle. I was spared feeling any significant pain thanks to the fuckton of painkiller spells they used on me, but I knew I still had to keep as much weight off of it as possible to ensure that it healed properly.
I think they were overreacting with the painkillers, but it wasn’t like I could stop them. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I told them not to do it in the dream realm. I mimed to them that it wasn’t necessary in the waking world when they let themselves into my room this morning. Both times I was ignored.
On the brightside, the magic they used on me yesterday means that my ankle should be fully healed by tomorrow afternoon. A whole lot better than last time, if I say so myself.
I made my way to the small desk next to the window, settling myself in the too short chair. As it turns out, ponies tended to sit in a chair like dogs, with all four legs on the seat. Why they have backrests if they don't use them, I have no idea.
"Is it a status symbol of some kind? A way of saying 'I'm rich and you're not'?"
Yeah, no, that's just ridiculous. There's no way they could've turned chair backrests into a status symbol. That's just idiotic on so many levels. Then again, I guess there have been dumber trends in history.
Taking a look at the items that were thrown haphazardly onto it, I made sure that everything was here. Then the box cutter caught my eye.
"And here I thought you were supposed to be my good luck charm." I said to the inanimate object, not expecting a response. It was a gift from a coworker, back when I first entered the workforce as a stocker at Dollar Tree. It was my first day. The manager on duty didn't want to deal with training me, so she dropped me on another employee named John, but everyone called him 'Old Man John'.
It wasn't meant to be a rude or offensive nickname. There were just three different John's working there at the same time. Original John, Manager John and Old Man John. "The Three Johns", as I called them.
I still remember that day. And when he gave me the box cutter.
"Are you sure, man?" A sixteen year old me asked my coworker.
"I'm sure. I've still got plenty of them from when I used to work at Walmart." Old Man John replied. "Like you said, you don't have one of your own. Figured I would do something nice for you."
"You really don't have to-"
"Relax, kid. You're acting like I just bought you a new car." He interrupted me. "Look, you said you were saving up for college, right?" I nodded my head. "Then think of this as a way of making sure you don't have to waste any of your college money on buying a box cutter."
"You know that would barely make a dent, right?"
"You're a bit of a smartass, you know that?" He shook his head while laughing quietly. "Alright, just think of it as an act of kindness. From me to you. Besides, you've already been using it all day. It's basically yours now."
He would be quick to turn me down anytime I tried to return it to him over the next week.
I'm not sure what happened to him. He disappeared into thin air two months later, never to be seen again. I still remember that act of kindness though.
As for his gift, I haven't had to use the box cutter for actual work in years. Got switched over to register duty about three weeks in, and when I got hired at 7/11 they just threw me right back on register. Sure, I would help with stocking shelves whenever I got the chance, but that wasn't very often. For the most part, I only carry it on me because I see it as a sort of good luck charm. A gift from a man who had been in the workforce for decades to a teenager who was just starting out. I never knew John well, but I do still cherish his gift.
Setting the box cutter back down on the desk, I picked up my phone to check the time and battery.
59%
8:57 AM
Even after turning on every battery saving feature I know (short of shutting it off completely) and using my phone as sparingly as possible, I'm still losing power at a concerning rate. "Just keep conserving it as much as possible. That's all I can do right now."
Turning off my phone and placing it back on the desk, I leaned back in the chair as comfortably as I could manage. I closed my eyes and just… sat there. It wasn’t any longer than five minutes, yet it felt like an hour at least.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something… Right, I said that I was gonna write all that stuff I thought about in the bathroom down somewhere.” Looking through the drawers of the desk I was sitting at, I finally managed to find what looked like an old journal. After checking to make sure I wasn’t about to steal someone's diary, and seeing that it was completely empty, I began writing down my theories on the first page, making sure to keep the lead pipe and schizophrenia things out.
“Right. So the most logical theory so far is that humanity did exist at some point here, and had some sort of interaction with the unicorns at the very least. These interactions lead to the Unicorns adapting this worlds version of the Latin Alphabet into Unicorn Script. That's the working theory, at least. I don’t exactly have any way to prove it at the moment.” Still, it’s a start and a start is better than nothing at this point.
Note: Need to look into Equestrian folklore and religion. Potential leads could be found there. I wrote that note down right at the end. As I said earlier, the moment I learn how to read and speak Equish is the moment I start looking into this stuff.
“How would a religion work when the goddesses of the Sun and Moon are government bureaucrats?” I remember that Luna mentioned she had a sister. Celestia was her name, and her job was to rule the kingdom during the day. She could also raise the sun, while Luna could raise the moon. While I am very skeptical of those claims, I’ve already acknowledged the fact that anything is possible here through magic. Still, I’m gonna wait until I see it for myself before forming a final opinion on the matter.
“And knowing my luck, my opinion will be ‘magic is bullshit’. Wow, maybe deciding a box cutter would be my good luck charm wasn’t such a good idea.” Still smarter than most of my ideas recently. I’m convinced my little stunt of intentionally falling on the ground is what caused me to twist my ankle in the first place.
“Note to self: Don’t use death animations from mobile games as inspiration for plans that need to get me out of a life or death situation. It barely worked the first time, but that’s just because I got stupidly lucky with two shields and a ghost giving me advice.” Looking back towards the bathroom door, I let out a small sigh. “What the hell has my life come to? Talking ponies, ghosts, magic, evil demon kings from a thousand of years ago? It feels like I’m in a cartoon.”
Maybe that’s the true explanation to everything? I’m trapped in a cartoon world, with no way to return home. It would explain so much…
…
The fact that sounds semi-reasonable is both depressing and infuriating.
“Best not to dwell on that possibility. We don’t know if sending me home is a lost cause yet, just that I’m going to be stuck here for a long, long while until we figure out if it is or not. Just gotta be optimistic.”
Deciding that I’ve spent enough time at the desk, I grabbed the various items scattered about the top of it and stuffed them haphazardly into my pants pockets, the sole exception being my headphones, which I left there for the moment. Walking over to the bed, I looked over the remaining clothes I hadn’t put on.
“One hoodie, one pretty badly torn up jacket…” With how many new holes and cuts were in that thing, you would think someone tried to recreate the whole ripped jeans trend but for denim jackets and went just a little bit overboard. “... and one missing beanie. I know I was wearing it when I got here yesterday, and it was sitting here this morning, so where did it disappear to?”
That’s when the knock on the door came. “Eh, I’ll figure it out later.” I threw on the hoodie and, after moving some stuff from my pants pockets to the hoodies only pocket, as well as remembering to grab my new weapon/walking stick, I stepped up to the door and opened it, finding Cadance standing on the other side, wearing a dark green beanie.
“Oh, that’s where it went. At least it’s in safe hooves.”
“Morning again Cadance. I hope you're enjoying the stolen property.” I joked, motioning towards her new piece of headwear.
(Cadance’s POV)
"Joking tone, relaxed posture, a gesture towards his hat. Good, he's not mad about me stealing his beanie." I was worried that he was going to be mad about me wearing it. I always had a secret love for them, one I was never able to indulge in due to the fashion scene and rumor mills of Canterlot. I gave him a nod and a smile, which he reciprocated with his own smile. "How did I not notice those canines before?"
Putting that thought aside, I decided to inform Jack of the reason I was here. Levitating the small plate into view, I saw Jack eye up the two waffles with the same surprise Shining gave his pair this morning before he went out on patrol. "Just because I'm a princess doesn't mean I can't cook." My half-joking scolding of my husband from earlier this morning echoed in my mind. I picked it up as a hobby after Auntie Celestia suggested it and gave me a few pointers. I haven't stopped since.
"Thank you." Jack said while reaching out for the plate, pulling me out of my thoughts. I playfully pulled the plate a little further out of reach with my magic.
Jack responded to this by holding one finger up, then pointing at his hat. Next he held up two fingers, and used one of them to point at the waffles. He finished his performance by putting his hand to his chest and giving me a facial expression faux offense. I responded to this with a roll of my eyes while moving the plate closer to him. He grabbed it in his free hand and I released the hold my magic had on it.
Seems his grip with only one hand wasn't as strong as the two of us originally believed, since the plate slipped out of his hand almost immediately after I released my magical hold on it. Reasserting possession over the waffles and plate before they hit the ground, I looked over at Jack to see him nervously chuckling while rubbing the back of his neck with the hand that was previously holding the plate.
"That's odd. I don't think his hand was injured yesterday." Performing a quick diagnostic spell confirmed my suspicions. "No hand injuries, and I know his grip is stronger than that." That's when I noticed him looking around briefly, as if he was searching for something. "He seems distracted. Did something happen?"
I tapped his knee with my hoof to get his attention. When he made eye contact with me, I cocked my head slightly to the right, allowing a look of concern to show on my face. He just chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll tell you later." He said. He then nodded his head in the general direction of the kitchen before starting to make his way there, closing the bedroom door behind him as he did so.
"Something is clearly bothering him. I'll ask him tonight." With a new goal in mind, I followed him down the hall and to the kitchen. The whole way there, I heard him humming a song I had never heard to himself.
"Something from his homeworld, I assume." Another thing I'll ask him about tonight.
The rest of the morning went by without incident. At around one in the afternoon, Jack left the castle to take a walk around the city and I decided that I would join him. During this walk, I noticed that some of the crystal ponies had started to make their way into the streets, and more than a few of them were looking at us. I wasn't very surprised. In fact, they reminded me of many of the stares I used to get around Canterlot after I first moved there.
The murmuring was new though. Well, not the murmuring itself, but rather the content of it.
"Is that the creature?"
"Why is it so tall?"
"I heard it survived a fig…"
"What happened to its crossbow? Didn't it ha…"
"Did it really have an encounter with him?"
"Did they really hear about that so soon?" I guess somepony must've seen what happened and spread the word of Jack's antics. But who? Shining and Jack both said there wasn't anypony around while Jack was running from Sombra. "Was it whoever cast the first shield spell?"
"Um, excuse me, sir?" A stallion asked, glancing nervously between me and Jack as we stopped and looked at him. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"
"Jackson doesn't speak Equish." I answered him, causing his nervous gaze to land squarely on me. "Maybe I can answer whatever questions you have?" I added.
"I-I was just wondering if the rumors were true." This caused me to tilt my head in confusion.
"Rumors?" I repeated.
"Did he really survive a fight against… him?" The fear in his voice was clear as day with that final word. Jack seemed to realize who he was talking about sooner than I did. He tapped me on the shoulder and, once he had my attention, he pointed towards the general direction of the border with his thumb. I looked back to the crystal pony to give my reply, only just now noticing all of the eyes on the three of us.
"Sombra, you mean?" He flinched for a fraction of a second, and then nodded. "He did, yes."
"How? Nopony who crosses him ever survives."
"A well placed arrow and some very fast legs."
"He… he outran him? How? He only has two legs!" Before I could answer, I looked over to Jack and non-verbally asked for his approval. "This is his story, after all."
He seemed to understand the meaning a lot better than I thought he would, and he nodded. Before I could turn away, he pulled out his phone (to the amazement of the surrounding ponies) and, after tapping the screen a few times, he showed me the screen.
He had pulled up his music player, a song whose name I couldn't read outside of the numbers '1800' at the end being shown. The album art was of another human, standing on top of an incomplete star on a golden background. According to the small white bar, he was about halfway through. Then he took his finger and moved the bar back, rewinding the song to the beginning. After doing so, he carefully lowered himself down into a sitting position in a way that would put as little weight on his ankle as possible. I got the meaning almost immediately.
"Start from the beginning."
The beginning… I guess I'll start with that morning. It's as good a place as any.
"So it all started that morning when Jackson received a visit from a strange shadow creature…" As I continued on with the story, I noticed that the ponies around us began with faces of curiosity, then fear, and finally a look I had seen back on my wedding day. Just after the Changelings had been banished from the city.
Hope.
They had looks of hope.
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I love it good super nice more
11701142
I laughed way more at this joke than I should've.
hearts and minds gentlemen
this time not like in the middle east
and Jackson really needs to look into language lessons, even if it's just slogging through basic phrases until some level of understanding happens
11701173
Or Vietnam.
All in good time, dear reader.
is this box cutter the same blade as the aforementioned Duluth?
11701318
What do you mean?
like.. the fruit?
Royalty used to boast about how seldom they bathed and would instead dust themselves with powder. So, it’s possible that chair-backs could be considered a status symbol.
This ghost is a curious anomaly.
There is a biblical account of a talking Donkey. Not sure if MC is aware of this, but maybe there’s a connection there. It’s something of a sad story, unfortunately. Maybe there’s some records of G1 Megan Williams somewhere out there to find?
11701316
It is not, no. The boxcutter and the pocket knife are two separate things.
11701444
The fig is the most dangerous fruit in all of Equestria. It is known for its aggressiveness and its ability to quickly kill any who attempt to eat it. Some legends even say that it can take down Celestia herself.
In all seriousness, no. I was going for a "Cadance walked out of earshot before that pony finished" thing. The full word is "fight".
Probably the most logical explanation for the alphabet similarity is a pony/unicorn/pegasus/dragon visiting our world the same way he visited Equestria and bringing it back with them.
Unicorns and dragons were in myths up through the middle ages. St George presumably fought one. While it would not be *modern* english, or our fully modern alphabet they would write in, it would probably be close enough. If nothing else the Roman alphabet could have been lifted from that time period.
Oh, and : Original John, Manager John and Old Man John.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. :) God has granted you this holy blade, Durandil, to serve you in your time of need. No, don't give it back. Stop that. Sheesh. Heros need extra work these days. Imma just going to leave stage left so he can't give it back... :D
11701545
I'm glad someone noticed the parallel I was going for there. I was afraid it might go right over readers' heads.
Found a small typo in the text here!
Other than that, very great chapter! Hoping that the ghost wandering around Jack has no ill intentions in the long run...
11701548
Had you not gone into such detail about the box cutter, or made it a lucky charm, or had the atheist/bible discussions, it likely could have gone unnoticed. :)
But, you pretty much announced, in a big booming voice "The lucky box cutter has entered the room." One tends to look around when that happens. ^^
11701559
Typo has been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out!
11701479
Considering that Equestria was born from an apocalypse.
I doubt that records of humans survived there but the Crystal Empire didn't suffer the windagos killing everything and the entire population having to pick up and run for their lives.
History books and other objects are dead weight in every sense of the word dead in that case so they'd get left behind in the original pony homeland.
There was store Mike, crazy Mike, and game Mike... Oh damn it Spoony. I've made myself sad now. 😔
11694227
There's a story called Hold it together by another author recommended reading it then you will understand the reference.
I like these kinds of musings, because it is interesting to note how similar Equestria and our world can be.