Chapter 4
When I woke up in the morning, I found a letter that had been slipped under my door. It was the hospital bill. Somehow they found me, just as promised. I sighed and put the envelope aside. There was no way I could pay it off immediately, although maybe in a few months.
I sought out Jenna’s picture. It had become a bit of a morning routine for me. It was an old photograph. I didn’t remember when I had started carrying it. It was nice to have something to remind me of her when we weren’t together. I wondered what she was doing, with me missing for a few days. What would she think? She had to know that I wasn’t gone because of any fault of my own. I trusted her to believe that I would have done everything I could not to disappear.
I gritted my teeth but managed to put the picture down gently. It was unbelievably frustrating to be a pony when you weren’t supposed to be. It may have been risky, but I resolved to work as hard as I could on the problem of going home. I decided that the first step was talking to Vinyl. For some reason, she struck me as being open-minded.
Down the hall, I knocked on her door. It took perhaps thirty seconds to get a reaction. She answered the door looking bleary-eyed. Behind her, the apartment was dark. I could make out vague shapes that appeared to be music equipment.
I was probably a little early, but Vinyl didn’t seem to mind. After retrieving her sunglasses, she joined me in the hallway. As we walked, I asked, “What do you know about magic?”
Vinyl’s expression was hard to read behind those purple lenses, but I guessed she was confused. She asked, “What do you know about flying?”
“Not much.”
“You just do it, right? Well, unless you come up with specific questions, I don’t know what to tell you about magic.” She shrugged. “Okay, so I’m a unicorn. Doesn’t mean I know how it works.”
“Nothing?” I said, disheartened.
“I never had to learn anything special about magic. I just do it when I need to.” Vinyl leaned her head to the side. “There are lots of ponies with music as their special talent, I just happen to be one of them with a horn. I guess maybe I shouldn’t take it for granted.”
I nodded. I would never take fingers and walking on two legs for granted ever again. Questioning further, I asked, “So what can you do with magic? I mean, do you have a lot of it? Is there some way to measure ability in that regard?”
Vinyl laughed. “Well, I’m no Twilight Sparkle, but I’ve never really encountered anything I couldn’t handle. Then again, all I do is spin records all day, so it doesn’t take much effort.”
“Do you record in your apartment?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t do lots of that because I’m a DJ, not a studio producer, but yeah, all my stuff is at home. I don’t have a separate place because while I’m pretty good at music, I’m not so awesome at making money.” She laughed. “Don’t worry, I put a sound-deadening spell on the walls.”
We exited the building and turned towards the café. It may have been prying, but I asked, “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to make your own breakfast every morning?”
“Well, I’m also not so good at cooking,” Vinyl admitted. “What about you?”
“I…can break eggs.”
She nodded.
“Sometimes I do it on purpose.”
We held our expressions for a moment before both of us cracked up laughing. Vinyl’s expression abruptly sobered as she spotted a grey mare coming towards us. The earth pony’s coat and mane had almost exactly the same coloring as my own. Her eyes were light purple, and she wore a white collar that supported a pink bow tie.
“Hi, Octavia,” said Vinyl.
“Ms. Scratch,” said the other mare, nodding. Her voice was well enunciated, and she sounded like a British person faking an American accent. “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it? The end of the month is coming, however, so it should be changing soon.”
In reading a few books about Equestria, I’d discovered that autumn was scheduled to begin next month. That was the way it had been for years. The pegasi changed the weather, the earth ponies began to harvest the crops, and the unicorns assisted any way they could. It was kind of interesting how most ponies were happy to come together and cooperate. I didn’t know very many people who would do the same.
“Will the cooler weather be starting as planned?” Octavia asked, looking at me.
“Don’t mind the wings,” I said. “I spend most of my time on the ground. My name’s Miller.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said. I offered a hoof and she touched it gently. Vinyl began to subtly edge forward on the sidewalk as if she was impatient.
“Sorry to run,” I said. “I have to eat breakfast and get to work.”
Octavia gave me a pleasant, if small, smile. “Goodbye.”
I went into the café with Vinyl. She said, “I don’t like her.”
“She seemed pretty friendly to me."
“Octavia’s my landlord. Our landlord, I guess. Paybooks is just the manager.”
Concerned, I asked, “Have you had problems in the past?”
“Did you hear her mention the end of the month? That’s when rent’s due.” Vinyl sighed.
I looked at her and lowered my voice. “Are you in trouble?”
“No, not really.” She smiled, although it looked forced. “Hey, did you see the special this morning?”
Our talk of music, Octavia, and rent had distracted me from the magic problem, and by the time I remembered we were in a crowd of breakfast patrons. I decided not to talk about such things in public.
When our food came, we ate quietly. Afterwards, I said goodbye to Vinyl and we went our separate ways.
I didn’t immediately see Bend when I got to the shop. He came in a few minutes after opening. I thought his eyes were a little bloodshot and he didn’t talk except in grunts. Then a customer came in and put my mind on other things.
I ended up spending all day working on his project. He didn’t know exactly the whole design of what he wanted, but after talking to him and (poorly) sketching, we worked out a design.
He needed a perfectly round table. Anything would do, as long as it was a circle. When I asked why, he said that it would be used at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.
“Oh really?” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“My name is Spangles,” he said. “I’m charge of magical supply procurement. This table will be used for basic spellwork. You build it, we’ll handle enchantments.”
I nodded. “I don’t really know much about the school. How complicated does the magic get?”
“Pretty complicated,” he said. “We’ve graduated lot of good unicorns.”
This was clearly a stallion I wanted to talk to at length. If he couldn’t help me with magic, maybe he knew somepony who could. “Do you have a business card or something I could use to contact you?”
Spangles gave me his card. I said that I would get back to him when the table was finished. Because I wanted that to be as soon as possible, I quickly set to work.
Steelie helped Bucket cut the material for the circular tabletop. The unicorn’s precise magic and the earth pony’s deft metal-working hooves were able to create something nearly perfect, even with a simple blowtorch. A computer controlled waterjet cutter was about the only thing that would have been better, but those didn’t exist in Equestria.
Bucket hadn’t gone to the Gifted Unicorn school, but he briefly explained how crafting tables worked. They were an aid to spells, their shape helping to contain magic and allow the caster to expand their capabilities.
I had heard of various kinds of magic using circles before. Not that I’d ever believed them, because magic hadn’t existed on Earth. At least I thought. The possibility that magic did exist, but was not openly practiced like it was in Equestria gave me pause. Perhaps it was something to be investigated when I got home. No, maybe not. I had grown to dislike magic.
I rolled the steel disk over to a work area and carefully ground the slag and burrs off the edges. I might still be a little clumsy with hooves, but this I could handle. The rough grinding wheel gave way to a finer one as I gradually smoothed the edges. A couple of times I stopped to roll the tabletop across the floor to check for irregularities in the edge.
When the circular shape was as perfect as I could make it, I used a chop saw to cut angle iron for legs. Spangles had said that these were not as important because they weren’t part of the crafting surface. We’d decided to go with six legs in a hexagonal pattern for extra stability.
Since nopony would care what the underside of the table looked like, and we didn’t need super strong attachment, I was able to handle the welding myself.
The basic arc welding procedure was simple—electricity melted metal together. There was usually a filler material to aid in the process. In the case of a shielded metal “stick” welder, a metal rod was slowly melted into the weld.
I preferred the faster process of MIG welding, which used a spool of wire instead of a rod, but that hadn’t been invented here. Equestria’s sophistication level was somewhat inconsistent. They had plastic bottles and some primitive computers, yet no diesel trains or ink pens. I guessed pony technology was overall approximately equivalent to early 1900s Earth.
I welded each of the legs on, being careful not to distort the surface of the table with too much power. As the welds cooled, I found a hammer and chipped the excess slag from them. I was careful to keep eye protection on. From previous experience, I knew fresh slag was not something I wanted in my face.
I saw Duster come through the door late in the afternoon. He talked with Bend for a while. Meanwhile, I wiped down the table with a degreasing cleaner and painted it with primer.
Duster gave Bend something. It looked like a small cloth bag. I supposed it could have been payment, but the shape of the bag didn’t look like it contained heavy coins. With the apparent illness Bend had showed that morning, I wondered if it could be medicine. Duster certainly didn’t look like a pharmacist.
I went home that evening with a plan for the next day. Spangles’ table should be ready to go by next morning. I would volunteer to deliver it and hopefully talk to him about sending me home. He was a complete stranger, but I couldn’t think of any other place that would be better than a school of magic to find a solution to my problem. I just wished I could tell somepony that I was a little better aquainted with the truth about myself. It would probably be easier speaking to a familiar face, but none of them seemed to know how to help me.
I stopped by a grocery store and got a few things to eat. I would have to stop going to the café if I wanted to save as much money as possible. Hopefully I would be on my way back to Earth sooner rather than later, but assuming that I was here for the long haul, eventually the hospital bill would have to be paid.
I prepared to make myself a lettuce and cheese sandwich. I had looked and looked, but there was no meat to be had in pony grocery stores. Just as well, I guess. Our digestive systems probably couldn’t handle it.
Our? Good Lord, I had to get out of this place before I assimilated completely.
Before making the sandwich, I paused. Vinyl had said she wasn’t very good at cooking. I hadn’t had much trouble putting together a sandwich, so I wondered if she would be interested.
Leaving my dinner sitting on a plate, I went down the hallway. There was no response to my first knock. “Hey Vinyl!” I called, tapping on the door again.
She yanked it open, a grin on her face. “Hey dude, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I just got some groceries, and I was hoping you might be able to show me a few Canterlot recipes,” I said.
She laughed. “The only thing I’m capable of making is either burned or raw.”
Surely she couldn’t be that bad, but I went along with it. “Well, maybe I can show you a thing or two, then.”
Vinyl agreed and followed me back to my apartment. She looked at the things I had bought and shook her head. “Sandwiches? I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad about my lack of cooking skills.”
“We could have spaghetti,” I said. I had bought both a pot and some noodles. “It’s not that hard to boil water.”
“What about the sauce?” she asked.
I shrugged. “It’s not that hard to crush tomatoes, either.”
We began working together. Vinyl wasn’t quite as bad as she had claimed. I hummed a little as I worked, tending to the cooking spaghetti and the sauce preparations.
The unicorn cocked her head. “What is that song? I think it’s the same one I heard the other day. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”
“Huh?” It was then that I realized what I had been humming. We all live on a yellow submarine...
Vinyl looked at me, waiting on an answer.
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Woo new chapter! Keep it up!
Oh dear.
Awaiting further releases.
Love it. <3
Keep them coming!
This is a really good moment to go "I'm not a pony, Scratch".
This is great work.
She knows too much! O_O
*Chick Click!*
We must dispose of her... >:(
I don't know how he's going to ask for help. " I'm an alien please help", that might work
Well anyways, another great chapter and keep them coming.
MOAR
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MOAR
This ^^^
What the hell is he gonna do now?
1676787
Alright you do the snuffing and i'll work on the cover up. It won't be easy considering she's famous but with a good amount luck we can pull it off.
1684147
I can bride a changeling for 50 bits.
The only problem is,
Do you have 50 bits???
1684492
S@#%!!!
I must complement your knowledge on manufacturing processes. Most people don't know the difference between "stick" and MIG welding. (Although gas metal arc welding is more widely used that MIG.)
>Preparing a meal with a marefriend who's interested in me
>Whistling a tune happily as I work
>It's "Yellow Submarine," a song from Earth
>Mare asks what it is
>I don't know what to tell her, she could find out I'm human
>Suddenly, spaghetti falls out of my pockets
>I was keeping that spaghetti in case of spaghetti emergency
>Mare is shocked by spaghetti, realizes I'm wearing pants but no shirt
>She backs out of the room, a look of horror and bewilderment upon her face
>I collapse to the floor in shame
Okay, now before I go further, he's just going to be smart and say the song was catchy, right?...
RIGHT???
1727819
1727819
10/10
Thanks 4chan
I suspect I speak for a lot of people outside America when I say that this story is beautifully immersive, despite its fast pace... until mention of hospital bills comes up.
Canon Equestria comes across as being on the progressive end of contemporary societies, despite mostly being late Victorian Era technologically, and seeing something so regressive (and alien to a non-U.S. citizen) as being forced to pay for non-elective medical care is as jarring as seeing a horrendously OOC character. (Because it's a little grain of grimdark that doesn't fit with the rest of the society being described.)
7955226 You'e probably right. I needed something to have hanging over his head.
If we want to justify this, maybe they only charged him because they couldn't find his proof of citizenship and therefore taxpayer status.
We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine~