Yeah I guess maybe it sorta is. But hey people seem to like the Philosophy at least.
But yeah it probably is. This is going to be my take in the Generic Anon in Equestria trope, freestyled from the beginning of Bridle Gossip at the request of the purchaser. Shennanigans shall most likely ensue. Contains excessive philosophical discussion, pseudoscientific worldbuilding mumbo jumbo, and a light dash of casual humor.
Cover art by Twitter artist Andaluce!
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Featured seven fucking days running since 2/13/2021 holy shit you guys this is insane :0
Check out a sweet audiobook reading of the first half of the first chapter here, by a wonderful fan ^^.
“...Now, girls, I am sure that there is an explanation for everything Zecora does,” Twilight said to the other six mares huddled together in the dark room with her. She and her five friends, along with Applebloom and Spike sat in the unlit kitchen of Sugarcube corner, trying to avoid drawing the attention of the strange zebra in the town square, much like everyone else in the area. “And if anypony here was actually brave enough to-”
Suddenly, Applebloom chimed in “Hey! Looks like there’s somepony else out there now!”
“What!?” They all said in unison as they rushed over to the window where Applebloom was peeking out, Applejack piping up “Now who in tarnation would be brave enough to-gasp-”
The girls and spike joined her in her drawn breath as they saw the large, bipedal figure that was approaching Zecora. It appeared to be wearing clothing over most of its body. Its top half was covered by a dark-colored turtleneck, with a loose fit around the wrists and waist and the neck itself. The sleeves going over the ends of its forelimbs and obscuring them. Its bottom half was obscured by a set of equally dark-colored pants made from denim and a set of somewhat clunky-looking black boots. The only hair they would see on it was shoulder-length, and black in coloration, and fairly fluffy with slight curls. It had a flat face with small features and a set of glasses large, round glasses. Over its shoulders, there was some sort of saddlebag of a similar color to the rest of its outfit.
“What in the world is that?” Rainbow Dash said, being the first to resume speaking. “Looks like some kind of monkey.
“I ain’t ever seen a monkey like that before.” Applejack responded as she squinted her eyes trying to get a better look before turning to Fluttershy “What about you, shy, you ever seen anything like it?”
“No...but I think Rainbow Dash might be right, it does look like a primate…” she said softly as she tilted her head slightly in thought.
“Whatever it is, are you seeing its outfit?” Rarity cut in suddenly “I mean, the sweater is nice but the boots are absolutely atrocious!”
“Oh! Oh ohhhh! What if it’s one of Zecora’s eeeeeevil minions” Pinkie said dramatically, waving her hooves over her head as she did so. “I bet it’s telling her that it finished some sort of dastardly scheme!”
“It doesn’t look like It’s telling her anything, Pinkie.” Twilight said softly as she took a notepad from the countertop and took notes of what she was seeing, even including a small rudimentary sketch as a pencil moved across the paper in an arcane blur. “if anything, it looks confused. It might be lost. Let’s see what it does…”
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Ten minutes earlier
Anon, sighed softly as he made his way into the small, rural looking town. He had been walking for some time now, at least a few hours. He had no idea how he had managed to get himself into this predicament, one moment he had been on his way home from college, and the next he had found himself on a dirt road in the country instead of turning down the alleyway he used as a shortcut to get home.
Right now, he was simply operating off of the assumption that he had slipped and hit his head and was experiencing a lucid dream of some sort while either dying of exposure outside or being brought to the hospital, but the longer he kept walking, the less he was able to cope by using that as a flimsy excuse not to panic. A fair bit of time had passed, and he had been getting fairly nervous until he had been distracted by the sight of a town of some sort on the horizon. So naturally, he had taken the opportunity at face value and increased his pace, hoping to get there a bit quicker.
A bit later, he finally found himself walking through the town pepper. But there did not seem to be anyone around, strangely. The doors and windows of just about every building seemed closed and shuttered with the blinds drawn where not shutters were available.
“Hm...real warm welcome around here. I wonder what happened…” He said to himself softly as he looked around and continued to walk, coming to a clearing where there seemed to be a large variety of (still empty of course) shop stalls. It seemed to be a market of some type.
However, the only living thing in the market seemed to be….a horse?. A very small one at that, with stripes. So a very small zebra. That only raised further questions as he slowly approached. It was cloaked in some sort of hooded garment draped over its entire body to boot, only the lower half of its front legs visible as it pawed at the ground.
It seemed to notice his presence, turning around quickly, the hood falling off to reveal its face. It certainly did not look like a normal zebra. The proportions were all off...a bit more humanoid than one might be comfortable with. Personally, he thought it was sort of cute. That is until it started speaking.
“A strange new creature dressed all in black. What are you doing approaching my back?” it said calmly in a feminine voice as he observed it with wide, shocked eyes. It...she, apparently, was intelligent.
“O-oh erm, I am sorry, I was just curious is all, I have not seen something like you before, you look a lot different to the zebras where I am from, a lot er...smaller…” he said, tilting his head slightly as he put a hand to his chin.
She seemed to find this amusing, chuckling softly as she looked up at him and smiled, stepping a bit closer. “Perhaps it is not I that is so small, but rather you, my friend, who is very tall.” she said as she looked him slowly up and down. “But perhaps both perspectives are one and the same, now what exactly are you, and do you have a name?”
He smiled in return and gave a small laugh, he liked her little rhyming scheme. “My name is Anon, and I am a Human. It’s nice meeting you, ma’am,” he says as he gets down on one knee to be eye level with her, extending a hand in greeting.
She seemed to understand what she meant and reached out with her hoof and shook it. She shuddered softly as she withdrew her hoof, giving a slightly unsure look before returning to a more warm general demeanor. “The pleasure I’m sure, is even, I would say. What exactly, may I ask, brings you out this way?” she asked, continuing her line of questioning.
“Well, that’s the thing, really. I’m lost. Lost as a motherfucker, to be honest.” he said with a small shrug and a mildly worried expression “I really have no idea where here is, nor how I got here. One minute I was in my city on my way home then BAM, out in the middle of the sticks talking to a small equine.” he said with a small hum as he considered what he was saying before giving an exasperated chuckle.
She seemed to pick up on his anxiety on the matter and gave a small, warm smile “I am sure there is a good reason that you are where you are. Wherever your home is, I am sure it cannot be far.” she said, trying to make him feel a bit better about his situation.
“I appreciate that. Do nice little zebras such as yourself have names?” he asked her as he stood back up and dusted off his pants with a small hum.
“I would say that they do, lucky for you, and mine is Zecora, so you may know mine, too,” she said as she looked around with a small sigh of her own. “But it seems my name is all you can get in this place. All of the sales ponies seem to have evacuated this space.”
“Hm, yeah, there doesn’t seem to be any other zebras around here to operate these carts…” he said softly, getting a surprised look from her as he walked over “where is everyone, do ya think?”
She blinked slowly and looked downtrodden for a moment “it is ponies, not zebras, who would man these stalls. They fear me as different, and sequestered behind their walls.” she said, pointing to a gaggle of ponies looking through a window of an establishment which resembled a mishmash of baked goods in design.
He looked over at them and waisted an eyebrow, waving and giving them a small, prompting a muffled kerfuffle on the other side of the window as they seemed to all fall over one another as the curtains closed. “Ponies huh…?” he said as he started walking towards the building. “Hold on just a second, please, Zecora.” he said as he approached.
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“What are they doing out there now? “Rainbow Dash said as she slowly picked herself up off the ground alongside the other girls.
“I don’t know, I can’t see em anymore, but Zecora is looking over at the door now.” Applejack said as she stepped away and closed the curtains again.
Knock knock knock
The girls all jumped slightly and gave a collective gasp as they looked towards the front door in the dining area as they heard the knocking ring out loudly in the darkness.
“Nobodies home!” Pinkie Pie cried out loudly as she started to busily push a rather large rolling trolley towards the door, intending to block it off. She was stopped by a purple aura surrounding the trolley and dragging it back to its previous position, and Pinkie along with it as Twilight trotted towards the door, rolling her eyes with a small sigh.
“Come on girls, I’m sure it’ll be okay, let’s just try to be reasonable about thi…”
As she opened the door, her eyes slowly widened, her face paled as she felt an overwhelming sense of...dread, as if something was fundamentally wrong with what she was seeing in front of her. The human had looked relatively normal from a distance, but up close…
Up close the very sight of them seemed to make her want to scratch at her face with her hooves. She felt...empty, like something vital was being sucked out of her simply by him being so close to her. Even light itself seemed to eschew contact with the creature before her, rendering them a thing-shaped void in the doorway, save for the bright gleam of their glasses, by contrast, round portals of pure white, save for her own reflection staring back at her in wide-eyed horror. Even the air around the thing seemed to darken slightly, it's aura was absolutely...menacing.
And then, it extended its hand towards her, fangs bared.
---------------------------
“Hello the-” he managed to get out about half of the two words he intended to speak before suddenly, the little purple unicorn in front of him screamed and fainted with his hand still extended to offer a shake. “Oh...oh shit…” he said softly as he dropped down slowly to one knee, his hand sliding along her neck to see if he could find a pulse. He hoped he had not given the poor thing a heart attack.
“H-hey! Get your paws off of Twilight!” One of the other ponies in the group, a blue pegasus mare said as they dashed towards him. “Why don’t you pick on somepony with...some...g-guts?” She finished weakly as her running swallowed until she was within a few feet of him. She was not quite outright terrified the way that the purple one had been, but she was certainly not terribly keen to be around him it seemed.
He frowned and backed up gently, raising his hands “Hey now, I’m not trying to cause a problem, aight? I just wanted to know why everything is closed while she’s here.” he said, pointing over at Zecora, who was watching all of this play out with mild concern showing in her eyes.
Rainbow dash started backing up slowly at the slight hint of irritation in his voice “What do you work for her or something? Are you her familiar or something, her evil witch doctor assistant?” she said, trying to continue to put on a touch face as she looked up at him, failing pretty spectacularly.
He sighed and shook his head “No, actually. I just got here, I’m actually lost as hell. I was just asking because this all seems sort of mean to do for no good reason, so I was hoping there was some reason I shouldn’t be upset with you for being on this stupid shit.”
The others are looking at the blue one sort of funny as the two of them speak, seeming confused by her reaction. “Hey, are you alright, Rainbow Dash?” The orange one in the stylish hat asked as she came closer, starting to slow down her own approach and take on a look of horror as well, a bit closer than when the one she called Rainbow Dash had approached, and not quite to the same degree. She seemed more deeply perturbed and distressed than Actually terrified. “Oh dear Celestia that’s not right..” she said, slowly backing away a bit again. “R-Rainbow Dash, get her away from that big fella. I don’t think he’s very good news, somethin about him don’t feel quite right from here...” she said softly.
“You felt it too, huh, Applejack?” Rainbow Dash answered as she dragged the one they called Twilight away from him with some effort, seeming a bit surprised by her own difficulty with moving her. She tried to grasp her with her hooves at first for some reason, but when that failed she simply pushed Twilight with her head away from him, sliding her across the floor.
“You know, I am still here, could you tell me exactly what the problem is?” he asked them with a small scowl, crossing his arms as the trio finally rejoin their friends.
The three of them seem confused when they look back at him again, though still disturbed. “What are you talking about? You mean you aren’t doing that on purpose?” Rainbow Dash asked, seeming to get some of her prior attitude back as the color returned to her face.
“Doing what exactly? Breathing? Existing? Do any of us exist on purpose? He asked before trailing off a bit, looking down at the ground and rubbing his chin “Hmmm...shit…”
“Hey! She was talkin to you!” Applejack said with a small stomp of her hoof. “That thing you did where you made yourself feel wrong! Why did that happen?”
The other three seem just as confused as he does at that question, the white one with the purple mane speaking up. “Applejack, Darling, could you clue us in on what you are talking about?” She chimed in in a soft, refined accent of an English bent as she and the other two who had not approached him went to go check on the unconscious one.
“When we got close to em, somethin happened, the closer we got, the more...wrong he felt…” She said with a small shiver “It was like goin into the Everfree, but way way worse.” she finished as she stopped down to start gently prodding and skating Twilight with her hoof “Twilight here must have felt it too, she took it way worse than we did though from the look of it…”
His face dropped a bit, and he resisted the urge to go and help when he heard it may have been his fault “O-oh shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would happen. It’s never happened to me before. Then again I don’t think I’ve ever met a talking pony before, so maybe it’s just you guys?”
They did not seem to be paying much attention to him at this point though. They were more focused on their friend coming around. A small purple reptile of some sort ran over on two legs to place its claws on her side as it gave her a concerned look. The man wasn’t sure where they came from. He must have missed them in all of the excitement.
“Twilight, a-are you alright?” the little scaly one asked softly as the unicorn got back to her hooves, shaking her head groggily before looking over at them and nodding slowly.
“Y-yeah, Spike, I’m fine…” She said as she looked back over at him, her eyes widening slightly in fear as she took another step back. “What exactly are you?” she asked as her eyes locked on to his softly.
“Well, finally, a question that makes sense!” he says with a small sigh. “I am a human, the name is Anon. I would say it is nice meeting you, but I honestly feel sort of bad about whatever just happened to you, so I’m on the fence about whether I would call this even remotely pleasant,” he said as he took a seat at one of the cramped little Pony-sized tables in the dining area, a distance away from them as a courtesy. “Anyway, Like I was saying, I was just wanting to know why you were all being really racist against Zecora out there for no reason. I just met her and she seems really nice.”
Twilight at least had the good grace to seem embarrassed about this. “I was actually just telling my friends here something very similar actually. And Applebloom was actually on the same pa-...” she paused her response as she looked around, seeming confused “Has anyone seen Applebloom?”
As if following a silent prompt, a child’s laughter can be heard alongside chuckling from Zecora. They all turn and look outside to see Applebloom giving Zecora an apple, the both of them seeming fairly at ease and happy as the transaction occurs with Zecora handing her some currency in exchange. Zecora smiles over at Anon and waves as she walks off “Thank you for speaking with me today, it seems you have shown somepony the way.” She said as she trotted off back towards the path leading out of town and out towards a forested area.
The one they called AppleBloom walked back inside, seeming pleased with herself, giving a shiver as she passed a bit too close to the human before rejoining her sister. “See, Ah told you she was a nice pony!” she said triumphantly as she held out a few small gold coins. “She even bought some apples and said i could go to her house and learn how to brew potions sometime if you said I could, Applejack. What do you think of that, huh?” She asked with the adorable smirk of a child who knows they are right when an adult is wrong.
Applejack snorted and gave a little adamant stomp as she looked down at what appeared to be her...kid? Her sister maybe? Probably sister, Applejack seemed a bit young for kids that age. Unless ponies aged really fast or something. “Ah will most definitely not be giving permission for any such thing to bad little filles who can’t even follow simple directions and stay in the building!” she said as she gave them a small disapproving scowl.
The Human gave a small sigh as he was once again ignored. One moment they were terrified of him, the next they had bigger problems, Fair enough, he supposed as he licked a fingertip and flipped to a new page of the book.
“Now Applebloom, you stay right here with Spike while the rest of us go and have a word with Zecora.” Applejack said with a small huff. “C’mon girls!” she exclaimed as she trotted out the door, the other five older ponies in tow, all making sure to avoid passing too close to the human on their way out.
“Hey! Hyoo-man, don’t try anything funny while I’m gone, Spike over there may not seem like much, but he's still a dragon!” She says as she dashes out, with him simply raising a finger at her at this point, the back of her hand facing her while he did not even take his face out of his book. She took that as a sign of understanding what she had said and the lot of them dashed out, slamming the door behind them.
The three of them sit in silence together like that for some time, the rest of the ponies coming back out of their buildings seeming quite relieved. Applebloom had the good sense to turn the lights back on at least, and Spike was helping himself to some cupcake while glaring over at the human warily.
Applebloom was the first to break the silence, she trotted over, stopping and shuddering when she got to within about fifteen feet of him and sitting on the floor as she asked “H-hey mister, whatcha readin there?”
He peeked over from the top of the book and gave her a small smile. “Oh, just a personal favorite of mine, here, you can look if you want. I have more in my bag, just be careful with it.” he said as he tossed it onto the floor in front of her gingerly. She manages to catch it in one of her hooves, fumbling for it before managing to secure it between the flat of both of them, squinting as she read the spine. “The Ego and His own… What’s it about?”
“It’s a book about philosophy. It’s a bit of a hobby of mine.” he said as he pulled another book casually out of his bag, opening it and removing the bookmark within.
“Whats a philosophy?” She asked, tilting her head and looking up at him curiously. He smiled a bit wider down at her. She seemed like a fairly tolerable child. Polite, and inquisitive.
“It is just asking questions about life, mostly. Like what is it for, what should you do with it, why you are living it. Stuff like that for the most part.” he said with a little shrug.
“Why would you need to figure out how to live your life when you’ve got a cutie mark!” She said, seeming even further confused, her wide eyes betraying her genuine curiosity.
“A...cutie mark? Anon asked softly as he rubbed at the stubble on his chin “Alright, what is a Cutie mark, and why would it mean I did not need that question answered?”
She smiled wider, happy to be able to explain something to him that he did not know. A cutie mark is what a pony gets when they discover their special talent, they get a mark of it on their flanks and they usually just do that!”
His nose wrinkles slightly at this, seeming to find the concept distasteful. “No, humans do not get those, We just sort of do whatever we end up doing based on a number of factors. And Honestly, that sounds sort of awful no offense.”
She gasped, her adorably wide eyes somehow managing to get an uncomfortable degree wider with shock. “No cutie marks! I’m sorry mister but why wouldn’t you want a cutie mark! Not havin one sounds awful to me!”
“I guess it would for someone who has the idea ingrained into their culture like that. You probably don’t know what you would do without it. But have you ever stopped to ask...why?”
She seemed vexed by his question, cocking her head off to one side slightly “Whaddaya mean why? It’s just how it is!”
He gave a small sigh and put his book down to look at her properly again. “Well, Why is it the way it is? Has it always been that way? Did it happen one day? Is the origin of cutie marks recorded? If you don’t get one do you not have a special talent? What defines a special talent? Are special talents pre-determined by some form of pre-ordained fate or can different life experiences for the same pony in different situations result in different cutie marks? Do you get a cutie mark in something you end up liking doing or if it is pre-determined are you compelled to be inclined towards the thing you will eventually get your mark in?”
He stopped talking for a moment, watching the poor thing try to keep pace with all of his questions, her eyes spinning a bit in opposite directions until she closed them and rubbed her head “O-oww, too much thinkin at once…” She said softly as she re-opened her eyes. “Are ya sure your special talent ain’t for askin questions or uh, philosophy?”
He gave her a warm little smile and shrugged deciding to humor her “You know, maybe it is, little filly.” he said with a small sigh as he stretched out and relaxed a bit in his chair.
She carefully picked up the book he had passed her in her teeth and walked closer, seeming of course, uncomfortable, maybe even scared as she got closer before spitting it out and backing away again. “C-could you maybe read to me?” she asked softly as she sat back down where she was.
Spike decided at this point to come and join the two of them, sitting next to Applebloom “Oh, are we getting a story? That sounds like an okay way to pass the time.” he said as he finished one last cupcake.
He shrugged again and nodded, pushing up his classes as he opened the book front the beginning “I suppose I could do that for you. Sorry, this one is kind of dry, I hope it isn;t to boring, stop me if you have any questions..-ahem-”
All Things are Nothing to Me
What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost, the Good Cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. “Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!”
Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns — they for whose cause we are to labor, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic...
Sometime later, the gaggle of mares returned from their quest of admittedly mildly humorous blatant discrimination, the door opening and the lot of them streaming back into the building. Twilight was in the lead, looking back to speak to the others, “Girls, I keep telling you, there’s no such thing as curses. I’m pretty sure you all just misunderstood her because we all kept trying to talk over her.” she said with a disapproving, somewhat tired tone as the rest of them filed inside after her.
“And I keep telling you, she’s gonna put us in a big tasty stew if we aren’t careful! I even said it in song, so you know it’s true!” Pinkie Pie said in a somewhat defensive, insistent tone as she walked through the door after Twilight.
“Ah don’t know if I’d go that far with it, but somethin’ is awful off with that mare, Twilight. Livin’ out in the forest like that, it just ain’t natural. No offense Fluttershy.” she said quickly as she entered and Fluttershy followed behind
“None taken, The Everfree is a lot different than the Whitetail Woods. Even I won’t usually go in there unless there’s an animal in trouble…” The meek pegasus muttered as she slipped inside. She looked a bit uncomfortable, shaken even by whatever had gone on out there.
“Yeah, living in there must take some real guts and know-how.” Rainbow Dash said as she trotted inside, looking a bit excited. “She may be kinda creepy, but I bet she’s a real badflank. The stripes are pretty cool too.”
Suddenly Pinkie appeared in front of the blue pegasus, with a playfully stern look on her face, causing Rainbow dash to give a small startled noise and fall back on her flanks as the pink pony spoke. “Hey, watch the language Dashie, there could be foals listening!” She said before looking off into the distance deeper into the store.
“What are you talking about Pink- Oh yeah, Applebloom and Spike are still over there with that Hyoo-man, aren’t they?” She Said, prompting the rest of the group to pick up the padre and trot over to where they had left the lot of them earlier.
They all came upon a fairly calm scene. The baby dragon and little earth filly were both listening to the strange creature, the hyoo-man read to them, from a book, his bag open next to them as he smiled down softly at the two.
“...They say of God, “Names name thee not.” That holds good of me: no concept expresses me, nothing that is designated as my essence exhausts me; they are only names. Likewise, they say of God that he is perfect and has no calling to strive after perfection. That too holds good of me alone.
I am owner of my might, and I am so when I know myself as unique. In the unique one, the owner himself returns into his creative nothing, of which he is born. Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it Man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only before the sun of this consciousness. If I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say:
All things are nothing to me”
And with that he closed the book and set it down, giving a small yawn as he leaned forward a bit. The six older ponies coming a bit closer, stopping about fifteen feet away, similar to Applebloom. Spike, he had noticed, seemed a bit more comfortable to be in his general vicinity, sitting about ten feet away. He smiled at the returning group softly and gave a small wave “Well, about time you got back, I was about to send these two home and come look for you myself.” he joked as he stood up, stretching with a soft groan, his hands clasped over his head before he relaxed again.
He was certainly quite a big one, standing a bit over half again as large as the lot of them. He crossed his arms and looked down at them, smiling softly “So, am I free to go now, or did you need me to stay for the lynching?”
Twilight gave a small frown and shook her head “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I was hoping you could come with me and answer some questions.” she said politely as she met his eyes, looking somewhat anxious. Not that he could blame her, she had passed out from coming within three feet of him. Anyone or well, anypony would be a bit skittish after that around the one responsible.
He gave a small sigh and shrugged. “I guess I could. As long as you compensate me for it. Like I said, I’m sort of in a tight situation here, not knowing where I am and all, and I can’t spend time volunteering myself for free.” he finished, crossing his arms.
She smiled softly and gave a nod “I can see to it that you are given proper compensation for your time and your apparent distressing situation. And I may be able to help you if I know more about you.”
“Hm, alright, I suppose doing as you say would be in my best interest,” he said slowly as he thought before giving a small nod of affirmation. “Fine, I’ll play ball. But if I find out you aren’t going to pay me, I’m going to stand outside of your bedroom window. Menacingly.” he said firmly, seeming satisfied by her response as she gave a displeased grimace.
“I assure you, we will make sure you get the help you need if you give us the help we are asking for, Hyoo-ma-”
“And another thing, stop calling me that. You aren’t even fucking pronouncing it right. My name is Anon. or do you want me to start calling you Purple Smart Horn Horse instead of Twilight?” he said, giving her a flat, somewhat impatient expression.
Pinkie seemed to think this was an appropriate time to cut in, interrupting the conversation. “Oh! That sounds like fun, do me next, what are you gonna call me if I keep calling you hyoo-man? Oh! how about ummmmm…..Fluffy Pink Happy Thick Flank Horse!” She said excitedly as she bounced up and down a bit, a sparkle in her eye.
The man raised an eyebrow slowly as he looked over at Twilight again. “Is….she alright?” he asked slowly as he ran a hand through his hair “She seems awful er...chipper there for no real reason.”
Purple Smart gave a small sigh and nodded “She’s fine, that’s just how Pinkie is, hyoo-um, Anon.” She finished sheepishly, looking a bit apologetic for her slip up.
Rainbow Dash looked over at Pinkie, elbowing her softly and whispering “Thick Flank horse?”
“Well, if you’ve got it, own it!” Pinkie said as if it was obvious, rolling her eyes a bit before she struck a little pose.
A small cough rang out through the room, and all eyes turned back to Applejack as she spoke. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of Y’all, but I’ve got things I gotta do back at the farm now that that’s all over and done with. C’mon Applebloom.” She said firmly, motioning with her head as she trotted back off towards the door.
“Awwwwe, do I have to? Anon was gonna tell me another story!” She said with a sweet little pout as she looked over at the older pony with large, soft sad eyes that only a foal could pull off to such a devastating effect.
Before Applejack had a chance to answer, he cut in “Applebloom, it’s fine, here you can borrow one of my books. Just make sure to bring it back here when you are done, alright? I’ll grab it from whoever’s working that day.” he said gently as he took a book out of his bag and slid it across the floor towards the filly, who stopped it with her hoof and picked it up to look at it. “Anthem...okay, thanks anon! I promise I’ll bring it back!”
She smiled up at him before placing the book in her mouth and trotting off after Applejack, who gave him a small scowl and closed the door behind herself.
“Actually, I gotta go too, guys.” Rainbow Dash said as she headed towards the door as well. “I’ve still got cloud clearing to take care of.”
As it turned out, it looked like everyone had somewhere to be, and a few muttered excuses later, everyone save for Pinkie Pie, Anon, Twilight and Spike had somewhere else to be and saw themselves out of the building. It looked like Pinkie actually worked there, unsurprisingly enough, and was cleaning up the mess left by Spikes’ cupcake binge as they left the building.
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Several minutes later, they arrived back at Twilight’s home. It was a small library located within the trunk of a massive tree, dubbed “Golden Oaks Library” if the sign was anything to go by. Twilight allowed him to enter and chose a place to sit down before following behind at a safe distance, eventually taking a seat across from him at a large table in the sitting area of the library proper.
Spike followed shortly after, coming over carrying a small stack of papers, a quill and a small inkwell, setting them onto the table next to the unicorn. “Thank you, Spike, I can take it from here.” she said, dismissing him, He gave a small nod and stared at the human questioningly for a moment before padding off to go do...something or the other, presumably.
Twilight turned back towards anon, smiling softly as she used her magic to smack the bottom of the stack of papers against the desk to neaten them a bit before setting them back to one side and pulling one off of the tip, her quill dipped and ready floating in her magical aura, a feat which got a slightly wider eyed expression than normal from the man across from her.
“So uh...you can do telekinesis or something with that horn then?” he asked, scratching his chin in mild amazement at what he was seeing.
She snickered softly and nodded “and a lot more than that! Unicorn magic is very versatile. What, don’t tell me you have really never seen magic before.” She said in an incredulous tone as she raised an eyebrow and leaned in a bit, seeming a bit more interested herself now.
He shook his head and then thought about it, then shrugged “Nah, not what I would call the real deal anyway. The most you’ll generally see where I’m from are really good illusionists. Or else just technology that sorta feels like magic if you don’t really understand it.”
“Really now? So you are saying that you consider your place of origin to be relatively technologically advanced? Not really what I’m curious about right now, but still interesting thank you…” she said as she scratched away at the paper in front of her with the floating quill. “YOu also seem to speak and write in the same language as we do despite having never come into contact with or heard of ponies, which is very peculiar….and from what I am led to believe, you have not had the...anomalous effect you are currently displaying before you arrived here earlier today?”
“Yeah, that’s about the long and short of it, to be honest. I’m awfully sorry about that by the way. Of course I wasn’t expecting to make first contact with a species that has an episode if they get too close to me.” He said as his eyes trailed over the stack of paper. “Hey, would you mind passing me some of that? I think I have a pen in my bag. I kind of want to take a few notes of my own.”
“Hm? Oh, sure.” she said as she looked up from her furious scribbling and attempted to levitate a paper over to him.
The keyword, of course, being attempted. As soon as the paper got a bit closer to him, the aura around it began to flicker and the paper fell back to the table. A vexed expression crossed her face, “Oh dear, how clumsy of me, I seem to have not used enough power. Hold on…”
She tried again, her horn glowing brighter this time, while the glow around the paper stayed about the same, maybe a bit weaker than before as it floated towards him once more. When it got a bit closer than before, the same thing happened, much to her visible frustration “Well that just isn’t right! What’s going on…?” She said with an irritated tone.
The pattern repeated. She channeled more magic, got it a bit closer to him, and it dropped again. More magic, closer, drop.
After about a minute of this, a bead of sweat was coming down her brow as her horn glowed rather brightly, the paper not even lighting up anymore about three feet away from him as she breathed more heavily than when she started.
He Spoke up, motioning with a hand out to stop her as he reached with the other to grab it “Twilight, it’s fine, really. I’ve got it, see, you can stop now.” He said gently, looking slightly concerned by her behavior.
“Alright, then, but…” she squinted as she looked down at her paper pile, picking another sheet up and floating it away from her in the opposite direction as before, then trying to float it back towards him. As she brought it close to him again, the paper fluttered uselessly back onto the table, the same as before, and her eyes widened.
“Anon, I think that the effect you displayed earlier is not just some sort of aura of intimidation. I think you may be negating magic in an area around you,” she said, picking up her quill again and resuming scribbling far more furiously than before. “I am going to need to run some tests to be sure, but it seems as though your presence is somehow negating the flow of arcane energy in your immediate surroundings.”
He seemed a bit concerned by the news, scratching at the back go his head as he watched her take notes “So, is this like...dangerous to you ponies? You aren’t going to like...die or something if I get to close to you, are you?”
“Probably not, But I would recommend staying out of range of other ponies until we determine the extent and intensity of this phenomenon. We ponies use magic for well...basically everything. Appliances, manufacturing processes, military applications….Oh Celestia my appliances. I’m going to take it out of your payment if you break anything in the kitchen.” She said in a slightly exasperated but excited voice. “The rest of my questions can wait. This requires immediate elucidation!” She declared as she put down her quill. “SPIKE!”
As she yelled, the little dragon from before came running back in, looking worried, then slightly annoyed when everything seemed to be okay. “Yeah, what is it, Twi?” he asked as he crossed his arms, looking around as if searching for anything out of place before settling down as Twilight handed him the paper with her notes from a few moments before, now rolled up. “I want you to send this to Princess Celestia Immediately. Our guest here appears to be the epicenter of an unknown arcane or er...anti-arcane phenomenon. I’m going to have to take them to Canterlot to use my old work area. The equipment I have here at the library isn’t reliable enough for something like this. I don’t trust it for something this important after the...Pinkie Sense incident…”
She finished the sentence with a small shudder of remembrance. “I don’t think I am going to be able to fly by carriage, so I’ll be bringing the subject by train, I’ll be gone with Anon here for about a week at least. I’ll send you an update three days from now to let you know If I will be there for longer.”
She’s already trotting up to the loft above the library and packing her things as she speaks, her tone of voice clearly indicating that she feels that there is no room for debate on whether he is going with her.
From what he saw a minute ago, he could probably get away with telling her no. but he probably wouldn’t get paid. He also was unsurprising, not keen to piss off the sovereign of a foreign nation with whom he was presumably the only avenue of diplomatic relations in...ever.
Spike nodded to her and gave a little salute and...set the note on fire. Green flames erupted from his lips and charred the note to nothing, the embers flying quickly out of the window, passing through it ethereally as he gave a small nod “Sent! But is it really that important, Twilight?” He asked sounding...unconvinced as he looked back over at Anon again. “I mean, this guy can’t be too big a deal, right? He can’t be too dangerous...”
“He might be, and he might not be, but if he is the signs are pointing to it not being deliberate on his part. I need to figure out exactly what is going on with him to make sure that his proximity doesn’t present a danger to other ponies.”
“Uh...I’m still getting paid, right? I didn’t sign up for any clinical trials or studies or anything, that’s going to run you extra.
Twilight stepped back down the stairs, giving an exasperated sigh and rolling her eyes. “While you are staying at the castle in Canterlot, you will be provided with all of your essential needs and comfortable living quarts free of charge, and I will personally compensate you once we have determined whether or not you are a walking talking arcana-hazard.”
“Geez, alright! I get it, this is a big deal.” He said, giving a flippant gesture with his arm before crossing them both in front of him and looking down and away with a small scowl. “There better not be any weird alien probing shit…” he said under his breath as he kicked the table leg softly a few times.
A few minutes later, an important-looking document with a wax seal erupted in green flames from Spike’s mouth, which he quickly opened and read “Looks like the princess says you are good to go, Twi. She’s cool with bankrolling this operation. About time she took you at your word about something being dangerous...” he said in a slightly bitter tone that made it sound like there was a story there.
But before Anon had the opportunity to ask, Twilight was heading for the door. “Alright Anon, grab your things, and let’s get going.”
He got up and rubbed at his side a bit, straightening back up and grunting softly “alright. You’ll let Applejack know what’s going on right? Applebloom might end up wondering where I am when she goes to return my book and I don’t want her to worry about it.”
Twilight seems genuinely surprised that he seems to care at all, nodding and giving him a small, somewhat approving smile. “I’ll make sure to send Applejack a letter after we arrive there tomorrow letting them know what’s going on. I was planning to do something along those lines anyway to let my friends know what was going on.” She said before turning back to the purple dragon. “Spike, you are in charge of the library while I’m gone. Try to keep things orderly until I return and please don’t let the Cutie Mark Crusaders try to be librarians again,” she stressed gently but firmly.
Spike gave a little salute again and nodded. “You can count on me, Twilight!” he said before trotting off back towards the kitchen, giggling with all of the mischievous intent of a child who’s going to do something naughty while their mom is out of the house.
Twilight gave a small, resigned sigh and opened the door, beckoning for anon to follow behind, which he did at a reasonable distance. He looked up at the sky as they exited the building, silently hoping that, whatever bullshit was about to befall him, the pay would at least be decent.
Actually getting onto the train was relatively uneventful. Twilight made sure to purchase them a car all to themselves, in the back of the train to make sure that whatever phenomena was going on with Anon wouldn’t cause problems with any magical components of the train itself.
At least that was her reasoning as explained to him. Personally, he was pretty sure it might also partially be so that he didn’t freak any of the other little ponies out too much. Not that he minded. Not having to share a train car with a bunch of loud-ass little pastel ponies who would probably be whispering about him the whole time sounded pretty good.
They boarded and took their seats, giving each other a wide berth and sitting about twenty feet away from one another.
As the train began to move, it was not long before Anon found himself a bit bored, deciding to bother Twilight for a bit. “So uh….Twilight, right? You seem to have gotten what you wanted from me, so mind if I ask you a few questions of my own?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, Anon.” She said as she sat up a bit, looking a bit perked up at the prospect of getting to teach someone.
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice you seem to use a lot of nonferrous alloys and metals in your machinery. I saw what looked like a lot of brass and even a bit of aluminum. Is brass really a good choice for uh...stuff like this? I mean last I checked brass was pretty malleable and had a low melting point. What am I missing here?”
She smiled and shook her head “You are pretty close to the answer already really. Yes, normally brass would be an awful choice for something like building trains or railroads, but this is not regular brass. Ponies have developed a method of using specialized alchemical transformations to alter the properties of alloys like brass and bronze to make them substantially more resistant to corrosion, oxidation, and also greatly increase the amount of pressure they can bear before deforming. Alchemical brass is actually a fairly common material used for day-to-day industrial purposes, and aluminum is generally used for constructing appliances or reducing weight in what would otherwise be fairly heavy machines, like this train!”
He nodded slowly and rubbed his chin “That makes sense I suppose. But wouldn’t it make more sense to use a more commonly available and naturally well-suited metal, like iron? Or steel if you know how to make that?”
Her brow furrowed in slight confusion as she tilted her head “I think you have that backward. Aluminum. copper, tin, and zinc are all way more common than any sort of iron ore in Equestria. Iron is mostly found in incredibly small trace amounts in the soil, and then only in certain regions, like the Everfree. And even if we had enough of it to smelt into a usable amount of metal, it would be basically useless in day-to-day construction or industry. Iron negates magic, and as I think you are able to guess by now, magic is sort of important here.”
His eyes widened slightly as he felt a spark of realization “so twilight, how much iron does it take to effect magic?”
“Typically, a tenth of a gram per cubic meter is enough to cause disruption locally. The Everfree is actually about in the ballpark for moderate magical disruption. That’s the forest next to Ponyville where Zecora lives. The concentration is low enough at the outskirts for magic to permeate the outer area of the forest, which allows certain species of mightly magical plants to still grow without being totally neutralized, which is where Zecora gets most of her potion ingredients. But the inner part of the forest is almost totally non-arcane in nature and full of all sorts of terrifying ungovernable flora and fauna. The weather even generally operates outside of Pony control, because pegasi have a hard time getting back off the ground if they land too far into the forest.” she explained, starting to on a tangent as he simply stared at her with mild concern. He let her prattle on a bit longer before deciding he should probably interject.
“Twilight, how does your blood carry oxygen if iron in such small concentrations negates magic?” he asked, seeming quite incredulous at the idea. “I mean, how do you make hemoglobin?”
“Don’t you mean hemocyanin, anon? Ponies don’t have iron in our bloodstreams, that would be ridiculous! Almost all animals use copper as the oxygen-binding agent.” Twilight gave a soft little laugh at the thought. “Can you imagine if we had iron in our blood? at the required concentration to carry sufficient oxygen, a unicorn would...pass...out…” Horrorified realization filled her eyes as she looked over at anon again, mixed with disbelief. “Anon, are you...you aren’t being serious are you?”
He shook his head, looking apologetic. “The average human male has about 4 grams of iron in his body at any given time. It’s how our body transfers oxygen. Twilight, I think we may have a possible lead on why exactly my presence is so anathematic to you ponies.”
“Anon, Anon I know you aren’t informed about these things so I can’t blame you for being calm but you are an actual walking arcanohazard,” she said, smacking the bottom of her hoof on the armrest of her seat. “Your presence is physically disruptive to Pony anatomy. Several of our physical bodily processes are aided and enhanced by magic, like cognitive and circulatory function,” she said, hovering a paper and pencil out of her bag, scribbling furiously again. “That actually makes perfect sense based on the symptoms I experienced from close proximity. Feelings of lightheadedness, dizziness, impairment of cognition leading to significantly enhanced feelings of paranoia and a heightened fight or flight response. I even ended up simply passing out once my heart rate got too high….”
“Wait wait, so you’re saying that I could kill someone just by getting close to them?” he asked, scooting out of his seat and sitting back down another few rows down from her, seeming quite alarmed at the prospect.
“No, you should be able to be near most ponies just fine. I just have an exceptionally high level of magic in my body at any given time because I am a very powerful unicorn. Since my body has so much natural ambient magic, my internal systems lean on it more because it is more efficient than allowing my physical processes to take place the mundane way,” she explained gently, trying to reassure him. “The worst you’ll do to anyone who isn’t a unicorn is give them a good scare, maybe make them feel a bit scrambled, but other races should simply feel uncomfortable and mildly confused in your immediate proximity. Creatures with natural Anti-magical adaptations like dragons should be just fine. Even a normal, healthy young unicorn should only become extremely cognitively impaired and panicked. The only things you would need to worry about are creatures that entirely require magic to sustain themselves, like timberwolves, or other ponies that have very high levels of magical...power…”
Her face fell slowly, and a very long string of soft “oh no”s crossed her lips as she looked over at him, then back down at her notes, then towards the large mountainside city looming over them in the distance out of the window. “Anon, we have to make sure you do not get too close to the princesses. The results could be utterly catastrophic.”
He raised his hands up defensively, waving them in front of him “Alright, I got it, no need to panic! I’m assuming these princesses of yours are very powerful? Magically I mean, not like the political kind.” He said, quickly correcting himself just to make sure that she understood him correctly.
She nodded and gave a small exasperated sigh, putting a hoof on her chest as she tried to slow her breathing, clearly agitated. “Y-yes, the Princesses are both extremely powerful. They are responsible for raising the sun and the moon, and if something were to happen to them, the results could be incredibly catastrophic. “ she said as she seemed to get a grip on herself again.
Anon, however, was just beginning to have his own little moment. “I...I’m sorry. Did you just say that they “move the sun and the moon?”
She looked over at him and raised her eyebrow slowly, nodding “Yes, Celestia raises the sun in the mornings and lowers it at night, and Luna does the opposite for the moon. Sometimes they even do it at the same time.”
He slumped slightly at this, rubbing the bridge of his nose and grumbling softly “dear fucking lord Plato would have a fucking field day with you people. That motherfucker would be cumming in his fucking bedsheet dress if he knew about this place…”
“What? Who’s Plato? A friend of yours?” She asked with a curious tone, the notepad and pencil coming back up as her ears perked a bit.
“Hah. No, not a friend of mine. A teacher. A teacher who lived a really long time ago. He was one of the first people in my race’s recorded history to meaningfully ponder the big questions about life. Some people call him the first proper philosopher, but I feel like that might be a bit much personally.”
“Oh! Are you a philosopher of some sort? I heard what you were reading to Applebloom when we got back, it sounded kind of strange, but meaningful.” She said as she wrote down something in her pad, presumably about what he had just told her “I would really like to get to know more about the way your species thinks, both in a psychological sense, and a cultural sense, and since we are going to be here for a while, this seems like a good time if you don’t mind?”
He gave her a long, unsure look, and seemed to actually think about this rather hard before giving a small, resigned sigh and shrugging. “alright, but I don’t think you are going to enjoy this very much, as a disclaimer. I am going to need you to understand that nothing I am about to say or do is personal, and is simply my best attempt to fulfill your request, are we clear?”
She nods and smiles a bit wider over towards him, seeming quite eager even with that disclaimer in mind “Of course! This is all purely academic. I am more than capable of separating my personal feelings from the subject at hand in order to record accurate data.
“Very good….” he said as he leaned forward a bit in his seat. “let me start where I started with Applebloom. What are those marks for on your flanks? The uh...Cutie Marks, right? She explained, but I think it might make more sense if someone who is a bit more knowledgeable and mature tried to explain it to me.”
“Those are my Cutie Marks, yes,” she said with a small smile as she looked down at her own flank with a hint of pride. “When a young colt or filly discovers what they were meant to do, they appear on their flanks to represent their special talent. Mine is supposed to represent that I am a magic generalist. I am talented at all forms of magic” she explained carefully to him.
He nodded and rummaged through his bag, taking out a hardcover notebook and a pen, uncapping the latter, and opening the former as he started to take some notes of his own. “Mhmm...I notice that you used the phrasing ‘what they were meant to do.’ To me, that implies that your definition of what a cutie mark is involves some level of pre-ordained fate or destiny, is that a correct assumption?”
“Well, I suppose that it would be, yes? Why do you ask?” she inquired, tilting her head slightly as she gave him a questioning look.
“Alright, now, is a Cutie Mark something that is set in stone as soon as a pony is born, or does a pony have some amount of leeway in what they will become talented in? Does environment and rearing have any effect on the development of a cutie mark?” He asked as the pen danced across the paper in front of him.
“That is a very complicated question, Anon. I am not sure how one would be able to ascertain whether or not a pony would have gotten a cutie mark for something aside from them actually getting it...” She said, thinking about it now and seeming a bit unsure judging by her expression.
“Mmm...hmm...alright, let me ask a different question in the same vein. Let us say a pony was to get a cutie mark in drawing. If the pony had instead, decided to dedicate themselves to say, baking, and genuinely was fulfilled by doing so, could they have instead gained a cutie mark in baking, or would they have inevitably say, doodled on a paper one day and gotten their cutie mark from that experience no matter how much they wanted to become a baker?”
She gave a vexed look to him and shook her head “but that makes no sense, why would they want to be a baker if they are naturally good at drawing!?”
He smirked softly “That question was actually helpful, thank you, Twilight. As for why? Perhaps baking is a family profession? Or maybe they wish to pursue baking because doing so presents incentives outside of initial satisfaction, like baking being a more sustainable profession in their town than art. Anyway, another question. Is a pony satisfied by what they are allegedly destined to do, and therefore gain a cutie mark in it, or, because as you have stated is likely the case, cutie marks are to some extent pre-ordained by fate, does the magic behind the cutie mark enforce satisfaction onto the pony it manifests onto?”
She almost seemed a bit offended by the question, scowling softly. “Why of course a pony isn’t forced to enjoy what their cutie mark is for, it simply always coincides with their special talent! Why would you think they are compelled to enjoy it?”
He gave a small patient sigh “Because if they are not only pre-ordained but also always in line with what the pony is allegedly destined to enjoy, that means, as far as I am able to tell, that the pony has no choice in being inclined to enjoy the task that they are essentially assigned by the marks on their flanks. As you said yourself, why would they want to be a baker if they are naturally inclined to draw! Even if you do not want to think of it that way, your own thoughts on the matter betray that at some level you do think that cutie marks are enforced, rather than simply the culmination of a ponies genuine interests. According to your understanding of how these marks work, ponies are essentially bound to a certain line of work unless they want to suffer reduced satisfaction, and judging by your reaction to the concept of a pony going against their destiny, social ostracization. I can certainly imagine that a pony who does not have a cutie mark, whether through the inability to access the materials or circumstances they need to learn their special talent or from a desire to pursue a different calling, would be looked down on as lesser by certain elements of society.”
She gave a grimace as she realized he had a point. Ponies who didn’t have their cutie mark often got a lot of flak from certain kinds of ponies. Ponies about who she felt she felt that the world would be better off if they did not act that way, but they did exist nonetheless.
But still, she felt obligated to play Tirek’s Advocate. “Such a thing is very rare! I only know of one or two ponies past adult age who don’t have a cutie mark in all of Equestria. They usually get case studies done about them due to the rarity! And even so, the benefits far outweigh the potential downsides, if you could even call them that.”
“And there I think we have one of the fundamental differences in thought between Equestrian culture, and at least, modern human culture” Perhaps post-modern was a better moniker, but he did not want to confuse herewith things they had yet to even crack properly yet. “Personally, I subscribe to a worldview where there is no pre-ordained fate, and people or in this case, ponies, are free to choose their destiny as they will, shaping it entirely through their actions and of course, involuntary exposure
To events outside of their control, brought about by other people or ponies doing the same and the natural processes of the world around us.”
Her face looked honestly fairly horrified at the prospect, and he noted this and continued to speak “I suppose that in the context of a world where magic exists, there may be some underlying force dictating the fate of those ensnared by it. Fortunately for myself, as far as I am able to ascertain by my own observation, no such force held sway over me before I arrived, and I seem to be immune to the forces that would do so in this world that I am aware of that did not exist in my own.”
Come to think of it, he if was immune to the effects of magic, how did he get here in the first place? What sort of phenomenon would have allowed him to be transported here? Thoughts for another time. He had other matters on his mind for now.
Matters such as the very anxious little unicorn now scrambling for a good answer to what he had said. “Well, what is wrong with having a fixed destiny!? That does not make the journey of experiencing it any less, meaningful unless you decide that it does!”
“That is just the thing, you do not get to actually decide if it does if it is preordained whether or not you will make that choice. The choice you think that you are making is an illusion, a fake. The outcome is already decided and the only reason you would or would not find meaning in it is due to the fact that you would have already. Without the freedom of true self-determination, any peace or harmony that might be derived from such a system is fundamentally meaningless, the same way there is no meaning in the side a coin lands on when flipped because it’s path was pre-determined by the forces previously applied to it.”
Twilight appears to be getting a bit upset now, despite herself, she frowns at him firmly as she speaks again. “That seems like an awfully cynical way to look at things, Anon. I do not think you are going to make a lot of friends with that sort of attitude.”
He shrugged and gave her a cool, noncommittal look. “Hey, I’m just doing what you wanted me to. You wanted to pick my brain, right? It is in no way my fault that you didn’t like what came out when you rummaged around. If you want we can drop it for now and talk about something a little less depressing for you?”
Seeing that he did not mean any harm, her expression softened and she gave a small nod, rubbing her hoof against her forehead just under her horn. “That would be nice, yes thank you,” she said, putting away her notepad and looking over at him with a small smile.
“Excellent,” he said, clapping his hands together and smiling over at her in return. “How about something a bit lighter, tell me how you got your cutie mark, I am sure it was a very interesting story...”
All was quiet aboard the Friendship Express. Our two intrepid traveling partners had long since retired for the evening to cash in a good night’s rest.
Anon sat reclined in his chair, a book open in front of him, presumably abandoned in favor of sweet dreams some time ago. He had lasted longer than Twilight had, at least. She had keeled over some time before him, likely tired from the excitement of her own day. After she had gone to bed, he had decided to pull out his phone and put on some music for himself, and a pair of headphones covered his ears, gently pouring relaxing, familiar music into his ears as he enjoyed his own slumber.
All stayed quiet this way for some time until the first rays of light peeked through the window and beat at his eyelids. He gave a small groan and slowly woke up, stretching in his seat and sitting up, looking around a bit groggily. He closed the book in his lap and put away his electronics, silently thanking himself for deciding to buy that Battery Pack on his last camping trip. It had saved him from more than a few cold nights trapped on the stoop of his apartment block with a dead phone, and it, presumably, would save him from plenty of long boring trips in the future.
After he put away his things, he closed his backpack and slung it back over his shoulder, making his way up a few seats to get a better look at Twilight where she seemed to still be fast asleep. “Hey Twi, you uh….awake…?” he asked as he approached, his words trailing off as he got a better look at her.
Or rather, at her horn.
Her horn seemed to have, over the course of the evening, become quite hilariously floppy, and was covered with blue spots. He stifled a chortle behind one hand as he slowly reached back, pulling his phone back out of his backpack slowly and using it to snap a picture before stuffing it back into his bag quietly.
As amused as he was, he was fairly sure that this was not a natural occurrence, and that he should probably wake her up and let her know about her horn’s severe erectile dysfunction. He cleared his throat and proceeded to speak up loudly “EY! Purple Smart, wake up!” He demanded firmly, thumping his hand on the back of one of the seats.
Twilight awoke with a start, managing to fall out of her comfortable perch on one of the seats and onto the floor with a dull thud before she collected herself and managed to stand up, looking quite miffed. “W-what!? What was that for Anon? Is there an emergency? There better be an emergency.” she said as she gave him a small, displeased pout.
“Well, I suppose that is dependant on what you define as an emergency. Does your horn do that normally, or should we see about getting you a doctor once we get to Canterlot?” he asked, barely suppressing an amused smile as he pointed to the wilted, spotted extremity.
“What are you talking about? I feel perfectly fine.” she said as she took a mirror from one of her saddlebags, slowly levitating it towards her face, “What do you mean, what’s wrong with my- OH DEAR MERCIFUL SISTERS THAT IS NOT CORRECT!” She screeched as the mirror dropped from her arcane grip, thankfully not shattering on the carpeted floor of the train. She looked up at her horn with a pitiable, deeply upset expression, waving her head back and forth in a way that made it incredibly difficult for Anon not to start laughing out loud at the way it wetly slapped against her own forehead.
Thankfully for us all, Anon was the hero she needed, if not the one she deserved, bravely steeling his will against the endless sea of low-hanging fruit that dangled from her cranium as he said with a straight face, “I am going to assume that is not normal. Okay. I think we should see a doctor about it.”
Twilight did not seem to be listening to him at the moment though, understandably focused on her problem, maybe a bit more than was healthy. “Oh no! What if the girls were right?! What if they all got cursed by Zecora, and now they are all back in Ponyville without me to help them figure out what’s wrong?!”
Her train of thought was clearly steering into unhealthy territory, so he got down on one knee to meet her eyes from a ways away. “Twilight,” he said in a firm, even tone, getting her attention. As she looked over at him unsurely, he gave her a knowing nod. “You know, we can test to see if this is a magical phenomenon or not. Just come closer to me, and if your horn goes back to normal, then you are having magic used on you actively to cause this. If not, there may be some other, more reasonable explanation than Zecora living up to your honestly sort of offensive racial stereotypes Seriously, it feels like you guys use slurs in private with the way you act over her.”
Twilight’s eyes widen, and her face flushes slightly darker as she shakes her head at the accusation “No! The girls and I would never call Zecora the...the z-word”
As Anon visibly lost a bit of his faith in equinity, Twilight sheepishly continued. “But you’re right. I was chastising the girls over this yesterday! I won’t let myself fall prey to easy stereotypes as an answer instead of actually trying to figure out what’s happening for myself. Even if finding out might be… uncomfortable…” She said with equal parts gratitude and discomfort as she started edging towards him. “Y-you’ll catch me and put me somewhere soft if I pass out again, right?” she asked, looking up at him with a set of soft, worrying eyes.
He gave a small sigh and got on both knees, sitting on his feet as he looked into her eyes. “Twilight, I promise, I will make sure to put you down somewhere comfy if you have another episode. But maybe just don’t get that close to me again? I mean, three feet or so should be enough to effectively nullify any magic from what I remember of when you passed me that paper in the library, so just don’t get any closer than that.”
She gave a small nod and took a breath before looking back over at him, more determined as she slowly walked towards him.
Each step closer took greater force of will to commit to with the foreknowledge of what the effects might be. Her hooves felt heavy under her as she demanded her body continue to move against the urges of her instincts. “I-is anything happening?” she asked shakily as she continued to slowly make her way closer to him, that looming feeling of dread getting more potent, more overbearing, as she slowly trudged across the train car towards the other.
“Hmmm… no, not even a twitch…” he said as he watched her come closer, seven feet, five feet…. “Hey, maybe you should uh, stop? I think we would see some changes by now if it was something that was active.”
She gives him a thankful little look and nods, quickly dashing away from him and into a seat, looking over at him from behind one of the seatbacks somewhat fearfully. “Oh, thank you. Sorry, I just… sort of lose the ability to think clearly when I get too close, so I just kept going,” she explained as she shuddered a bit. “Uuuuugh...no offense meant Anon, but being around you is quite literally not a good time.”
He gave a small laugh at that, giving her one of the more warm, genuine smiles she’s gotten out of him. Of course, the canines certainly did not help her discomfort initially, but as she saw that he was in fact, actually happy, she relaxed a bit. “Hey, people disliked my company way before I had a fuck off anti-magical no-no-square around me. This just makes my uncomfortable social presence a bit more literal than before, is all,” he said as he got up and sat back down in one of the seats as well. “So uh, think we can maybe find you a doctor before we go running around screaming about being cursed?”
“Yeah, that sounds like the appropriate course of action, Anon,” she said as she reached up to fiddle with her limp little horn a bit more, giving a defeated sigh. “At least it still works…”
Anon chuckled softly at this and nodded. “And hey, if it isn’t reversible, look on the bright side. There is a very high chance that this is totally somebody’s fetish.”
“ANON!”
“Hey, flaunt it if you’ve got it. Or I guess flop it in this case.”
“Ughh…”
-------------------------
As they pulled into the station and started getting off of the train, they had relatively few complications. The way seems to have been cleared for them in advance, since Twilight had alerted the local royalty as to the nature of her precious cargo, presumably to prevent any innocent bystanders from unknowingly wandering into the area of effect for his anomalous properties.
Speaking of the local royalty, unless Anon’s eyes needed to be checked again, which was, to be fair, a distinct possibility with the thiccness on those bad boys he wore on his face, they were here awaiting Twilight’s arrival! Two very tall, very regal-looking ponies with wings and horns and lustrous, flowing manes stood before them, wearing armor of gold and… wait, what was that metal? It was a bluish hue, certainly not silver by the looks of it. Whatever metal it was, the shoes on the latter one were quite nice looking, by Anon’s reckoning.
The taller of the two stepped forward to speak as they got off of the train. She was a creamy white in color, with a hint of soft pink to her coat, and bright, warm, magenta eyes. Her mane flowed beneath her golden crown in an array of dazzling colors that, to Anon, resembled a majestic aurora. “Welcome home, Twilight,” she said as the little purple pony dashed towards her, stopping to give a proper and respectful bow to both of them before nuzzling against the Princess’s neck softly as the larger pony put a foreleg around her and hugged her gently.
After greeting her student, she turned her attention to Anon, regarding him in a less familiar, but no less respectful and warm manner. “And are you the unusual one my student informed me of?” she asked as she looked him slowly up and down. “I was honestly expecting you to be a bit more… imposing, judging by the notes she sent me.”
Anon gave a somewhat nervous smile to the Diarch, shrugging and giving her a polite nod of recognition, not making any move to bow as he spoke to her. “With all due respect, ma’am, I think it is for the best that your perception of me remain as nonthreatening as possible. I would come closer to greet you more properly, but I think we both already understand why that is a bad idea,” he said with a hint of humor in his voice.
The Princess gave a small nod at this, looking down at her student and slowly rubbing her back. Man, Twilight really seemed to be all over her. Anon supposed that after getting close to him like that again, being so near her teacher, who she was very familiar with and who was like a font of magic, was like a reptile basking under a cozy sunlamp, soaking in all of the good horse magic vibes. Or something. He certainly wasn’t any sort of expert on the subject, considering until yesterday he was unaware the subject existed.
The moment passed as a small cough issued from the slightly smaller, midnight blue alicorn with the mane that seemed to hold the night sky itself. She walked forwards and raised a hoof to her chest, speaking in a clear, firm cadence. “We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Hyoo-man. Our name is Luna, and we command the moon and stars, as our sister, Celestia, commands the sun.”
She seemed to think her intro was impressive, giving him an expectant look, to which he simply replied, “It is nice to meet you, too, Luna. This is a very nice place you have here, by the way, love the architecture, very whimsical,” he said as he looked around, rubbing his chin slightly “ a bit too many swirls and patterns for my taste but hey, what are ya gonna do?” he said softly before turning back towards Celestia. “Oh uh, by the way, can we get Twilight to a doctor? She seems to have developed a rather glaring issue with her horn.”
Celestia blinked as she looked down at Twilight, actually paying proper attention to her now it seemed, rather than placating her in the more automatic sense she had been a few minutes before. “What do you mean by- LADY TAPDANCING FAUST, WHAT IN TARTARUS IS THAT?!” Celestia asked as her eyes widened.
“Yeah, I guess it’s one of those things where if you aren’t thinking about it you might not notice. I mean, it strikes me as odd to go around staring at someone’s horn if you don’t need to be, right?” Anon rambled as he watched this all play out with mild amusement.
Celestia and Luna are, of course, substantially less amused. The former mentioned of the two gestured with a wing for a guard, who saluted her silently as she started to speak. “Please escort my student to the castle’s medical wing and have our horn specialist look her over.”
The guard gave a nod and another salute before gesturing for Twilight to follow, who gave Anon a slightly apologetic look before allowing herself to be led off.
“Bye, Twiggles!” he said with a small smile as he waved at her as she walked away from the train station. “I’ll see you after you get your horn all straightened out,” he said, finally no longer able to suppress a chortle which broke out into full laughter as she left audible range, looking visibly embarrassed by his parting comment.
His laughter was cut short by the two princesses looking down at him with mild disapproval. “And what exactly is so humorous about our sister’s student’s predicament, Hyoo-man?” Luna asked with a small scowl.
He managed to get his titters under control, wiping away a tear. “Hah… heh… okay, first off, I’m going to need you to stop calling me ‘Human.’ Yes, that is how that’s pronounced. Human. Not ‘Hyoo-man’.” he said as he waved a hand while he spoke. “Second off, I have a name, and unless you want me to start calling you both Sunbutt and Moonbutt respectively, you should start using it. Again, my name is Anon.”
Celestia’s jaw was more or less on the floor as Luna steadily became visibly more and more irritated by the way he was speaking. “And what, prithee, do you feel gives you the right to address us in such a disrespectful way as to bestow unto us a title referring to our hindquarters?” “A better question is, what gives you the right to act like you are exempt from getting roasted over your bad manners,” he said with a small shrug, smirking at her now. Despite them being taller than the other ponies, he still had a good head or two on them and looked down at them with a smug expression, crossing his arms.
“W-what do you mean?! We are the Princess of the Night! We are one of the Eternal Rulers of this Realm! How dare you mock us so flippantly?!” she demanded, stomping the ground firmly as she stared back up at him firmly, unwaveringly in challenge.
“Eternal ruler, pah, I didn’t vote for you. I’m only here because Twilight promised I would get paid for letting you get scientists to study me,” he said, tilting his head and giving a small, noncommittal shrug.
Celestia decided to cut in and speak as well. “One does not vote for a Princess, Anon. That is not how that works,” she said, with the tone of a mother whose patience is still hanging in there but is expected to be run quite thin by the end of the day.
“Alright then, how exactly did you become Princesses?” he asked almost rhetorically as he tapped his foot, feeling a bit frisky now. Yeah, he had been on the fence about it, but seeing them act this way had sealed it, he was going in.
Celestia smiled almost fondly as she recalled the memory, looking up more at the sky than the strange creature she found herself inexplicably defending her right to rule to. “It was a very long time ago. After we had managed to defeat the spirit of Chaos, Discord, with the Elements of Harmony, we took the burden of lifting the sun and the moon from the poor, overworked council of unicorns who had been performing the task for years. After our act of supreme benevolence, all three kingdoms surrendered their right to independent rule over the next few years and we became the rulers of a united Equestrian Kingdom.”
“What? That’s… Listen. Attractive female equines slaying monsters and moving celestial bodies is no basis for a system of government,” he said flatly, much to the apparent horror of the two Diarchs. “Authority is derived from the continuously affirmed consent of the governed, not from some farcical Arcane Ritual.”
“Okay, I think that is quite enough…” Celestia said in a much more irritated but still patient tone as she looked up at him, narrowing her eyes slightly.
“I mean, you can’t expect to indefinitely wield supreme executive power just because you defeated some villain of the week ass motherfucker with a magic MacGuffin a thousand years ago and decided to ease the burden of the general populace in doing a necessary celestial function.
“Be Silent, Whelp!” Luna demanded more assertively, raising her voice slightly and stomping the ground, cracking the floor under her.
“I mean if I suddenly decided to declare myself God-Emperor just because I kicked some evil dark god in his bits and started moving Mars around with my mind, they’d fucking put me away!”
At this point, Celestia could take it no longer, she roared and leaped forward, rearing up on her hind legs, as she hugged Anon around his waist and started aggressively shaking him. “SHUT UP SHUT UP I ORDER YOU TO SHUT UP!” she screamed into his ear in a voice far louder than should have been able to come from her little pony mouth.
“Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system!” Anon said as he was shaken back and forth like a box of particularly cynical Tic Tacs. “Everyone, come and see the violence inherent in the system!’
Sadly, before anyone had a chance to come and see the violence inherent in the system, Celestia’s vehement shaking slowed and stopped. A soft, dry groan could be heard from her as her mane faded in color, then receded into her head as her youthful visage gave way to the wrinkles and roughness of age in a matter of seconds. Her very eyes seemed to dry and shrivel slightly as the sun began to dim and swell and redden until with wide-eyed horror, she realized what was happening and pulled herself away from him while pushing him away, her face absolutely alight with what could only be described as higher-level existential terror.
Anon suddenly found himself surrounded by at least two dozen very displeased-looking guards, all poised and ready to strike if provoked or ordered. Celestia neighed mindlessly in sheer terror repeatedly as her withered body stumbled away from him and slowly began to recuperate. As her physical body recovered, the sun returned to its former brightness and size and hue, her mane returning to its former splendor as the terror more slowly left her face, replaced by wide-eyed shock. “Y-you were right… I-I mean to say that T-Twilight was not exaggerating…” She said softly, her voice hoarse (tee hee horse) from all of the screaming.
“Yeah, she really wasn’t. Are you okay? That looked incredibly brutal,” he said as he brushed himself off and straightened out his clothes. “And you might want to call them off? I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job some more, but I don’t think any of us wants to find out what happens if one of you ponies gets my blood on you. We figured out on the train that the reason that happens is because my species’ blood is iron-based instead of copper-based.”
“Iron….Blood?” Celestia’s eye twitches slightly at this, her guards all taking a notable few steps back, looking at each other unsurely. It was safe to say they were not getting paid enough to deal with this bullshit. “...Okay, guards, back to your posts,” she said flatly, giving a small, defeated sigh as her guards all quite happily scattered and went back to their previous posts around the building.
Celestia gave him a long-suffering, deeply unamused look. “I apologize for my outburst. Though your behavior was most atrocious, I am a Princess, a ruler of this realm, and as the only member of your species in our land, you are, technically, the sole representative of your species and therefore a valued guest of the crown. I should have conducted myself more properly and been less… forthright in my objections to your assertions.”
He shook his head and raised his hands. “Hey, it’s no skin off my back. A big portion of my species has an ingrained problem with authority, to be honest. Long story, we can get into it later if you want.” This was of course, not a good time to bring up the guillotines. “I can only speak for myself, and if you treat me with the respect that you would treat one of your equals, I will treat you the same, otherwise, I’ll treat you with however much respect you treat me with. I just want to be super clear about the fact that I do not see monarchy as a legitimate means of governance.
The two of them shared a mildly surprised, confused look, Luna deciding to chime in this time. “It is most… forthcoming of you to admit that so freely in front of us, Hyoo—Anon. Do you not worry for your safety, so brazenly declaring yourself an enemy of the state?”
He gave a small shrug. “Eh, honesty is generally the best policy in situations where your power over your situation is limited, I have found. I am here for a specific purpose. After I have fulfilled that purpose, I have no intention of doing anything but living my life in whatever way satisfies me the most at any given time. I have no plans to violently overthrow your government,” he said truthfully as he looked down at the two of them softly. “If I am upfront about my feelings on the matter now, it will avoid any potential comical series of misunderstandings later on. You ponies seem really susceptible to that sort of thing from what little I have observed of your student with her friends.”
Celestia gave a small sigh, planting a hoof on her face. “That observation is… unfortunately correct. If you wish, we can have a serious discussion about the legitimacy, or lack thereof of our right to rule later, Anon. It could be a fun exercise in philosophy, and I would enjoy trouncing you in measured debate. But for now, while you are a guest in our castle, could you please, as a favor to Twilight, who has an immense amount of respect for us if not to us directly, refrain from questioning the legitimacy of our crowns openly? It is, as the ponies in the media are wont to say these days, ‘bad optics’.”
He resisted the urge to shit talk to her on the subject of her beating him in a debate. She might very well, to be fair. She is apparently over a thousand years old. He rubbed at his chin for a few moments, seeming to think about it. “I suppose as long as things remain cordial between us during my visit, that could be an acceptable compromise, though could I add one more request to it?”
Celestia’s eyebrow raised slightly, Luna also seeming to lean in a bit with mild interest. “And what, prithee, might that be?” the Princess of the Night asked with a still notable, though more reserved disapproving tone.
“Could you guys take me somewhere to get something to eat? All they had on the cart on the train were little bags of nuts and apple cider.”
Celestia gave a small sigh and shook her head, looking back at him and giving a tired, relieved smile. “That sounds acceptable, Anon. I think we can do that. Please follow us. The Guards will escort us all to the dining hall back in the castle.”
“Bitchin,” he said, smiling a bit wider as he followed behind the two princesses who were already turning to walk away, himself followed by some of the guards from earlier, all a respectable distance away from each other.
Twilight was practically foaming at the mouth as she listened to the recent escapades of her test subject. She had been released from medical care after having the symptoms she had been displaying identified as a reaction to Poison Joke. Apparently, it was a fairly common plant on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest and had a tendency to release spores on contact that were known to cause minor to moderately severe transformations akin to the results of a practical joke.
Since the effect was transfigurative and the spores in the infected individual’s system become inactive after the reaction takes place until the antidote that causes the spores to release a sort of antitoxin to reverse the transformation, Anon’s magic nullifying properties were of no use. Twilight had noted that it was good to know that he was only immune to actively occurring magical phenomena, and not able to reverse the effects of events simply caused by magic at some point.
And of course, as soon as she got out of there, she had found her way to the room he had been assigned and questioned him about how his chat with the princesses had gone. The answer he gave, by her reaction, was less than ideal.
“I told them I did not view monarchy or er...diarchy as a legitimate form of government. What about it?” He said with a small sigh as he waved a hand at her to try to signal her to cool down. They were sitting in chairs on opposite sides of a long table, which had been provided to facilitate face-to-face conversations of this sort comfortably.
“Anon, they are the absolute rulers of the entire country, they could have had you sent to the dungeons, or banished!” She said, clearly on the edge of an anxiety attack. He honestly looked like he felt pretty bad about it.
“Look, Twilight...if it makes you feel any better, I promised not to do it again in public, and the Princesses and I seem to have come to an...understanding that my values are quite literally foreign to them.” He said as he placed his hands in front of himself, clasped together atop the table. “I was fortunate that the Princesses did, in fact, restrain themselves when I made those comments. If I had to make a guess as to why it was because I am your guest, and I was, and to some extent still am, an unknown entity with anomalous abilities that pose an indeterminate level of threat to my immediate surroundings and they presumably did not wish to take the chance of harming me in a way that might cause harm to themselves or others.” A good thing too considering what had happened. From what he had heard after his dinner on the way up to his room, the news about what had happened with the sun was already all over the gossip rags that afternoon. Fuck, the ragspinners work fast in ponyland.
He continued to speak. “And of course, there is the obvious reason that responding to what I was saying with physical force would have, of course, proved me right to some extent. By using diplomacy rather than force to get me to stop denouncing them in public, they were able to make a small but notable assertion about their capabilities as a ruler without having to stoop to my level.” aside from the part where they had stooped to his level, but he had at least been decent enough to simply politely omit the part of the story where her esteemed and cherished mentor had rattled him around like a fresh pack of cigarettes and then almost fucking died. Though if she did not know about the latter part already, she certainly would sooner than later at the rate the papers were going.
“Alright yes, I suppose that does make...some amount of sense…” she said, rubbing her face with her hooves “but was any of that really necessary? You had me worried about you there for a minute, Anon…” She said as she glared at him with just the cutest little purple pony pout.
He caved and shook his head, how is a guy going to just up and stonewall a face like that? “Alright. I’ll tone it down a bit for your sake. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. It wouldn’t be right in my view anyway, you’re basically the only pony who has been decent to me aside from Zecora, who gets it worse than I did when I showed up, and Applejacks little sister who isn’t old enough to be indoctrinated into ‘knowing better’ yet. So I guess Uh...thank’s for being the most tolerable pony?” He thought about it and shook his head “Sorry no, that isn’t a good way to put it.”
Twilight smiled and chuckled softly “I think what you are trying to say is ‘Thank you for being a friend?’”
“Traveled down the road and back agaiiiin~” Anon snapped back melodically before he could stop himself much to the confusion of the unicorn mare as he giggled at himself “Sorry, just a reference to something where I’m from, sort of slipped out. But yes, I supposed that is what I am getting at. I know I may come off as abrasive…”
She simply raised an eyebrow at him.
“Okay, extremely abrasive, and maybe confrontational. But That is just sort of how I am. I am just really skeptical of things in general. It’s just sort of the way I am, I question things, and if I don’t like the answers I just sort of say so. You were uh...right earlier by the way. This sort of behavior doesn’t net me a lot of friends.” he continued more sheepishly. “And I suppose what I am getting at is uh, thank you for being in my corner even though I am not a very nice guy. I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll try not to make it so that your trust was misplaced.”
She looked away, rolling her eyes slightly before looking back at him giving him a warm, gentle smile. “Anon, I appreciate that you are willing to confide in me like that. I can tell that it’s not an easy thing for you. I don’t think you are a bad pony or a, er...bad person…? No, that doesn’t sound right. I don’t think you are a bad pony.” Ah well, baby steps. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you aren’t exactly a paragon of the Harmonic Values, but well….I saw how you were with Applebloom, and you wouldn’t have stood up for Zecora either if you were a bad pony. I think you just have different priorities than most ponies do, and you express how you care a bit more er….roughly.”
Anon gives a slow nod as he fights the building urge to ruin this wholesome one with a lazy, half-assed reference to media no one in this godforsaken world will understand but him. His normal reaction to sincerity would typically be to deflect in some manner but well, he was feeling a bit vulnerable after the events of the last few days, and at any rate, Twilight obviously meant well. As he was now, he really didn’t have a lot of options in the way of people who were willing to put up with him, no use in alienating any of the three people or er...ponies, who could tolerate him. “Thanks, Twilight. So uh...when are you guys going to get to the poking and the prodding and whatnot? Last I checked you guys wanted to study me?”
She smirked and waved a hoof nonchalantly, shaking her head “Princess Celestia is having a team of specialists in a few fields assembled for me to head up, it will take a few days for the letters to go out and for them all to arrive. In the meantime, I feel like our time would be much better spent actually talking to one another so I can get a better idea of how you think and suss out any other cultural differences that might come up at an otherwise inopportune time.”
He titles his head slightly and placed his hand underneath his chin, propping it up with his elbow on the table. “So, you are just going to talk to me and take notes for a few days?”
“Oh no, not only that! I also have a few tests of my own I can run that arent as invasive about other things,” she said as she gestured to the saddlebag she had at the side of her chair, resting on the floor. ”I brought everything I would need to run an intelligence quotient test as well as a questionnaire for the Neigher-Brays personality matrix test. I was hoping that you could oblige me and then we could have a nice afternoon chatting over tea and snacks.”
“Well, since you put it that way, I guess that sounds like a pretty good time, yeah, let’s go for it. I’m down to be psychologically profiled,” he half-joked as the unicorn slid a few packets of paper over to him.
Over the course of a few hours, the two of them made small talk while Twilight ran him through an array of tests and asked him a series of questions. It all seemed like pretty standard stuff, nothing too personal. Nothing particularly all that interesting.
She spent another hour after this quietly mulling over the tests and comparing the results she had recorded to a couple of papers from her bag. After a while, her eyes widened slightly. “Ah yes, Personality type INTP. Not surprised. That’s a fairly rare one among ponies. More common to see it in other species. I’m ISTJ myself.” She said as she set the first paper down and kept looking at the second. “And according to these preliminary results your intelligence quotient is…oh...well alright then…” she said evenly as she put the papers away in her saddlebags again neatly, turning her attention back to him and coughing softly into one of her hooves.
Anon shrugged, not particularly bothered. “Well, now that that is out of the way, I think I actually have some questions for you again, if you don’t mind,” he said as he leaned forward a bit in his seat.
Twilight perked up slightly at this, one of her ears flicking above her head as she stared up at him with more intent focus than before. “Oh! Well, by all means, I will be happy to try to answer them for you. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, you were talking earlier about something called Harmonic Values. What are those, exactly? Is it some sort of code of conduct or set of moral guidelines?” He asked as he leaned back a bit again, settling into his chair to prepare to take in whatever answer twilight was about to give him.
“Why yes, as a matter of fact. The Harmonic Values, or as some call them, the Pillars of Harmony are the core values by which the bulk of ponies live their lives, as well as the foundation of the most powerful magical forces known to all of ponykind. There are five Primary Values: Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, and Laughter. And then there is Friendship, or Magic interchangeably, which represents understanding the importance of upholding all of the core values to the best of your ability. Whenever the Core Values are upheld, they create the conditions for Friendship to manifest, and Friendship in this context is Magic. The more in tune with Harmonic Values a pony is, the more any inherent magical ability they have will be amplified.”
He nods, and slowly scratches his chin as he listens. “I see, so, inversely, the more out of tune with these values any creature is, the weaker any inherent magical power they have is if I am understanding correctly?”
Her eyes light up a bit and she smiles wider up at him, nodding “Yes, that is an astute observation, anon. Very good. Ponies who hold darkness in their hearts, as a rule, are generally defeated by those who value harmony because no matter how powerful they are individually, their discordant nature weakens them, with some...notable exceptions. But generally, Harmonious ponies who work together strengthened by the magic of friendship are able to trump them far more often than not if they have the resolve to see it through.”
“I see. And does these er, harmonious forces have anything to do with the way ponies get cutie marks?” he asks as he leans in a bit more, resting his arms both on the table in front of him crossed now, tilting his head.
“The exact mechanism is not really understood, but it is generally accepted that Cutie Marks are a phenomenon that occurs as a result of the interaction of the primal forces connected to the Harmonic Values and Equine physiology. Zebras are also known to get cutie marks, according to academic papers, and Zecora does seem to have one. I am not sure about other species, there is not terribly much research on the subject outside of ponies.” She explains as clearly as she can, seeming pleased as the human across from her listened attentively.
“Alright, so would you then say, based on those two factors, that creatures which have a substantially higher average affiliation with the Harmonic Values, and therefore more connection to magic as a whole, are impacted by the apparently deterministic effects of those forces more readily or more intensely than creatures with less affiliation with them?” he proceeds to ask, leaning back a bit again, noticing he was starting to look like a bit of a goober with how close he had been leaning in from his increasing interest.
She seemed a bit confused for a moment, slowly nodding “I suppose that I would agree with that supposition, Anon. There is really not a lot of study on that sort of topic. It is generally considered to be a fairly...esoteric field of study by most scholars.” she said somewhat unsurely as one of her hooves slowly rubbed along the top of the table. Before speaking again. “Anon...if you are immune to magic, and friendship is magic, how do humans form relationships?”
He chuckled softly at this, shaking his head as if deeply amused by the question. “I mean, fair enough. Really, it is quite simple. Humans have always been fairly social creatures, from an evolutionary standpoint. It just isn’t the norm for a human to see another human right next to them suffering and not at least feel bad about it. Just because we may not have magic doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to work together, care for each other, form deep bonds…” he trails off for a moment, running a hand through his hair before continuing.
“Honestly, across the board, humans tend to value the same things that you ponies do. Honesty breeds trust and trust is good. Laughter helps to ease one’s troubles for a while, Loyalty is an extremely valuable commodity if you can get it. I am sure most people would rather be able to operate under the assumption that the person to either side of them will be there when things get rough. And Kindness and Generosity are the backbones of voluntary cooperation between people. All of these things have inherent value to individuals who are on the giving and receiving end of them and are in my opinion, worth doing for their own sake by that metric.”
Her eyes widen slightly as she listens to him speak, nodding along slowly “That is actually a pretty nice sentiment, Anon. I was not expecting that from you if I am being honest.”
“Hey, just because I am skeptical of institutions and abstracts does not mean I cannot analyze them from a critical standpoint and decide for myself if they have any value and proceed to incorporate them into my worldview. The important thing is not taking the value of such things for granted, and always being critical of their flaws, understanding that they are simply part of a framework that allows individuals to come together meaningfully and achieve their goals and live satisfactorily, fulfilled lives.” He shrugged, standing up and stretching out a bit, pulling at his collar. The sweater was honestly a bit stuffy in the warmth of the castle in the midst of late spring to summer. He made a mental note to see about using some of his guinea pig money to get some more breezy outfits.
“Well then surely you can see how beneficial the benevolent rulership of Celestia and Luna is to Equestria right? They are incredibly ancient and wise and truly love Equestria and its people with all of their hearts. Why would you challenge them the way you did?” She said, looking a bit agitated, a bit sad as she said it.
“Of course I can!” he exclaimed, waving a hand at her the other now on his hip. “Those two act like Plato’s wet dream of what rulership should be. But you misunderstand. I was not lambasting them as rulers per se, I was simply questioning the legitimacy of their manner of rulership. I am sure they could easily win any election by a landslide. But the fact that the princesses and their citizens simply take their benevolent rulership, and by extent, the prosperity of their kingdom for granted is what bothers me.” he says, running his hands through his hair slowly and letting them fall back down to his sides.
“Perhaps it would be a largely symbolic affair if it was carried out, with a mostly certain outcome. Perhaps some of my personal biases come into play on the matter. In fact, I am almost sure that they do! Perhaps in a world where forces like the ones you have described are a factor, absolute rule by benevolent god-kings or er...god-princesses is a feasible or even desirable practice. But the fact remains that I am not from any such place, and it is their prerogative if they have the desire to do so, to convince me that their rulership is good and just.”
Twilight sees his mild agitation and gives a small, sympathetic smirk “well, I would say that by the fact that you are not currently a smoking crater or the newest resident of the Canterlot dungeons, the princesses agree with you about that. I’m glad that you can admit that you might be wrong though, Anon. not everypony can do that.”
“Hey, I never claimed to have all of the answers. Quite the opposite, really. All I have are questions. Lots and lots of questions…” he said, chuckling softly after as he sat back down, calming himself a bit. “So uh, do you have any board games or anything around here? We still have a bit until your team gets here, I would say. Do ponies have chess by any chance?”
Her smirk widened into a propr smile as she nodded quickly. ”I still have my old Unicorns Chess set in my old room. I can go get it and we can play a few games if you would like.”
Anon gave a small, slightly tired sign and nodded, giving her a grateful look “That sounds pretty nice as a matter of fact, thanks, Twilight.”
She got out of her seat and gave him a pleased, satisfied look as she trotted off towards the door “of course Anon, that’s what friends are for after all.” She said as she exited, the door closing behind her with a soft click to leave Anon alone with his thoughts for a few minutes.
A good thing, all others considered, he certainly had a few zingers to sort through after that conversation.
"Rockhoof to A6, Checkmate!” Anon said with a smile that ran a bit too wide. His hair was a bit of a mess, moreso than usual, and his glasses hung low on his nose as he beamed down at her from across the board with an almost ecstatic expression!
The board sat between them, with twilight closer to it than he was of course. The actual board was a small box with a crystal inside of it, projecting the game board in a holographic fashion above itself. On the board, one of Anon’s Rooks, Represented in this version of the game by a very large, bearded earth pony had Twilights King, represented by Celestia, at...shovel point.
Twilight gave an exasperated sigh of defeat as she hung her head and rubbed her hooves through her mane in an exasperated fashion “Ugh, that’s….another tie-up…”
She looked back up at him, a similarly anxious, excitable look on her face, eye twitching slightly as she pressed a button on the side of the box to reset all of the pieces to their appropriate place on the board,
They seemed to have been at it for some time, the room littered with the debris of several rounds of snacks and refreshments on either side of the table, both of them looking as if they have not gotten much rest. The sun is peeking over the horizon slowly now, beams of sunlight entering the room through one of the open windows.
“Look, maybe we should pack it up and try to grab a nap before the research team gets here. I think ten rounds is enough.” Anon said as he gave a yawn and stretched out in his chair, rubbing his eyes slowly.”
Twilight looked like she wanted to argue, but seeing how tired he was, and seeing the mess that they had made after getting so deeply entrenched in what they were doing, she gave an embarrassed look over to him before she sighed and nodded “I think that might be for the best. We can always play more another time, good game, Anon.” she said as she pressed the second of the two buttons in the side of the magical device to deactivate it, the hologram above the fairly compact arcane device dissipating.
Anon sighed softly and got out of his chair, starting to pick up some of the trash in his immediate vicinity in an attempt to make his immediate surroundings seem a little less like the aftermath of a heated 8-hour chess binge. Twilight did much the same for the half of the room her own chair was on, using her magic to make the task considerably easier. “You know Anon, I could just do it myself if you wanted to move over a bit, it would not take very long,” she said as she watched him bend down to pick the little scraps and bits of snack wrappers and cans of drink off of the table and the floor.
“I appreciate the offer, but I helped to make the mess, So I would not feel comfortable if I did not help to clean it,” he said as he continued “and besides, it’s not that much, honestly. You should see my room after a real gaming binge. It makes this level of cleanliness look like a freshly prepped operating room.”
She gives a small grimace art the thought of considering this tidy and clean. “Fair enough, I suppose,” she said as she finished up, with him having a bit more to go.
Once the both of them finished cleaning and he brought his half of the mess to the pile Twilight had made before backing away, her horn lit up and in a flash, the small pile of refuse was incinerated, not even leaving a spot on the floor where it had been. The only sign anything had been there was a small poof of smoke rising from the space the trash had previously occupied.
“Huh...yeah, I gotta admit that seems pretty handy, not gonna front,” Anon said as he rubbed his chin slowly, looking down at where the trash had been. “Honestly, I’m pretty hyped that that doesn’t work on me.”
“Yeah, the amount of energy needed to superheat the air to that extent while only able to directly heat an area outside of a fifteen-foot perimeter of you effectively without letting any escape outside the desired area of effect and possibly harm other ponies would make it pretty hard even for Celestia…” Twilight said softly as well, leading Anon to give her a quiet ‘hey what the fuck’ look before shrugging and waving it off.
As the two of them stood there silently, Princess Luna Opened the door to the room and peeked inside, looking fairly tired herself. “Our sister has asked Us to check up on you since We did not see you in the dream realm last night, Twilight Sparkle. The Researchers will be here soon and We wish to escort you to the laboratory area. I hope that the Hyoo-man has not been too....oh dear, you both look worse than I do…” She said, her eyes widened as she looked at the two of them. They really must look quite a pair, frazzled hair, wide, slightly bloodshot eyes, mildly anxious, disposition. All Excellent signs of someone who is in dire need of a long and fruitful visit with MIster Bed.
Anon resisted the urge to make good on his promise to call her Moonbutt if she used that term again and responded “Yeah, we’ve been up playing chess and talking all night. That was my bad. I asked her if she wanted to play and well..we started at best of three but we kept tying up for about...ten games or so. We actually just finished and cleaned up a bit before you came to check up on us. My name is Anon by the way.”
She seemed to ignore the last part of what he said as her eyes widened in slight surprise “You play Regicide? We are strangely not as surprised as We would expect by that.” she said with a hint of irony as she slipped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Though We are considerably more surprised you managed to tie Our sister’s student. She rarely struggles against opponents outside of Ourselves and Our Sister.”
Anon tilted his head slightly, his own curiosity piqued. “Regicide? I suppose that’s a fitting name. I’m going to assume that is what they called it back in the day? Or erm, when you were younger, a few centuries ago. Perhaps we could have a game sometime. I would certainly enjoy the novelty of chess with Royalty. Hopefully, as much as you might enjoy the novelty of chess with an endangered species.”
“We would hope that the novelty of Regicide with the inventor of the game would be a more suitable offering to Our guest,” Luna said, snigging softly as she gave a faux, disinterested look, rubbing her hoof against her chest plate. “Though we suppose that we might find the prospect of another passable opponent worthy. It has been so difficult to find good challengers since the game fell out of favor in Saddle Arabia. All of those Germane and Prench colts who keep coming to challenge me are so dry and boring. And don’t even get me started on the dead-eyed little whelps from Stalliongrad.”
Now it was Anon’s turn to stop paying attention halfway through when someone was talking. “You invented this game here? Now that is quite an accomplishment. I’m man enough to admit when I find something impressive, and that certainly fits the bill. I’d be honored to play a round or two sometime in that case.” he said, giving her a genuinely mildly excited smile.
Luna seemed to puff up slightly, standing a bit taller. She certainly seemed to appreciate the praise. “We are pleased that one as...cynical as yourself would still have the proper appreciation for such an invitation.”
“Well, I am certainly glad to hear I am still capable of pleasing a woman. So you said that you wanted to bring us to the lab?” he asked as he walked over to grab his bag, sliding it over his shoulder.
Luna’s eye twitched slightly and her cheeks darkened only slightly before she shook it off as nothing but coincidence, Twilight doing a substantially worse job at concealing her mortification. “We-ahem...that is to say, yes, We would, follow us please.” She sputtered out with as much dignity as she could muster before she opened the door and trotted out with a small sigh of resignation, with Twilight quickly following behind her and Anon trailing from a safe distance from the pair.
They arrive a short walk later in a rather spartan, clean room in the castle. There was an array of equipment Anon would have described as somewhat...antiquated would be a polite way to put it. However, Once again, he had to remind himself that he was in a different place, with access to different resources and a different way of doing things and not to jump to conclusions.
There was also, a small menagerie of middle-aged to elderly-looking pony gentlemen, all grouped around Celestia, who seemed to be listening to each of them carefully before she looked over to see the three of them enter. “Ah! Gentlecolts, it seems that your test subject and my student have both arrived.” She said as she slipped between a few members of the small crowd to approach her sister.
“Indeed, sister, We have just dragged these two rapscallions out of an eight-hour Regicide match. We do hope that whatever these stallions of...science have planned for today will not be overly strenuous for either of them.” Luna said, shooting the both of them a mildly amused look as they both gave a somewhat sheepish, apologetic look to Stallions who would be working with them.
One of them, a greyish-colored older-looking stallion with blue eyes and a white mane that seemed to be barely tamed into a manageable, combed back style approached alongside Celestia and spoke as well “Oh no worries. We will simply be taking some baseline measurements. Heart rate, blood pressure, taking some blood samples, and perhaps a few tissue samples. Of course, assuming the subject will allow it. We will also perform some routine cognitive tests and ask them some questions about themselves and where they come from to try to glean some information about their origins.”
Anon yawned softly as he looked over at the little professor pony and stretched out a bit. “Well, that all sound’s fine if you can manage it, considering my er...condition. But maybe we could study sleep patterns first? I don’t mean to be a downer but I don’t feel like you are going to get the most accurate metrics if you take them while I’m sleep-deprived.”
The gentlecolt scowled softly as they looked down and thought about it for a moment, nodding “I suppose you are right, for the sake of having more accurate initial data, we should give you some time to rest. Do you have a name by the way?”
“Oh, Did Celestia not tell you? My name is Anon, and before you say it, it’s pronounced human, not hyoo-man.” Anon said as he gave a small polite nod of greeting to the stallion before him “And do you have a name?”
“My name is Doctor Neigh. I am a mathematics professor at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Celestia offered me the opportunity to lead this project with Twilight based on the fact that as her former teacher I am familiar with her way of doing things, she wanted me to help Twilight decide what data was and was not relevant to the questions we are trying to answer about you.” he said, placing a hoof on his chest as he spoke, smiling up at his soon to be test subject politely.
“Hey Bill, get over here with the subject so we can all say hi!” Another one of the stallions said in a good-natured tone.
Anon’s eyes widened slightly as he heard the name of the pony professor called aloud.
“Bill…Neigh,”
Bill
Bill
Bill
Bill
His eye twitched as the chant began in his head and he did his best to resist the siren call of his childhood, fist-clenching tightly. “Mphhh...perhaps we should humor them? I would prefer to get to know the ponies I will be working with.”
A short meet and greet session and a nice long nap later, Anon was given one of those embarrassing little hospital gowns to change into, made more embarrassing that the thing was barely long enough to conceal anything worth concealing on his large bipedal frame. He sat on a comfortable enough-looking sterile cot in a clean, simple room. It contained the few things you might expect, some cabinets, a closet for storage. There was a countertop and a table and a few chairs as well. his things sat in a locker next to the cot. He had been told this is where he would be staying for a day or two while they take his vitals and do some initial observation, and to just do whatever felt natural whenever he was not being directly questioned or prodded at.
The research team would require at least one day out of his week a few months in order to monitor him for any changes in physiology or behavior, and in return, he would be compensated with a monthly stipend, on top of royalties on the profits for any books or papers written on the topic of him and any research pertaining to him within the borders of Equestria by order of the crown.
Speaking of which, the first of his visitors was arriving soon. Today they would be focusing on the very basics, taking samples and vitals, and the like to set a baseline for future tests.
There was a knock on the door and after a soft “come in” from Anon, it opened to reveal a relatively tall, sleek-looking unicorn. He had a slicked-back blonde mane, a white coat, and dark, blue eyes His cutie mark was of a serpent in a jagged s sort of shape winding crookedly around a staff.
“Good evening, Herr Anon. I am Doctor Mangle. I am ze Chief Researcher for Non-Equine Medicine and Physiology at ze Equestria Institute for Health and Wellness.” he said in a thick, german sounding accent as he slowly trotted a bit closer to his subject, stopping at almost exactly 15 feet away from him.
As Anon was silently noping about every part of this he could wrap his head around, the doctor levitated a clipboard that was hung from a peg next to the door over to himself, humming as he read it. “Now, if Miss Sparkle’s observations of your...anomalous properties are to be believed, it will be a unique challenge to properly conduct ze requisite tests to measure your vitals…” he said, tutting softly as he looked over the clipboard back at his subject. “Is it true zat Spells are unable to operate within a certain radius of your body, Herr Anon?”
The human nodded slowly as he gave the doctor a cautious, unsure look, as if weighing up the benefits of continuing to be here versus the possible risks of trying to leave. “That is correct, yes. The only pony who did not seem to experience any adverse up to the distance required for physical context was Zecora. ”
“Ah yes, ze zebra. Professor Liber Novus gave Fraulein Sparkle quite ze tongue lashing after he heard about her uncouth assumptions on ze train. But enough small talk, for now, we can dispense with ze pleasantries until after our tests are done. In any case, fortunately for us both, I do happen to have one zebra on staff who was free to assist us with ze procedures. Please come in , Fraulein Rooibos.”
At his call, a stocky, somewhat stern-looking zebra walked into the room, holding a bag with a red cross over the front by the handle in her mouth. She set it down on the counter and nodded to the doctor, speaking In a soft, but firm tone, her voice rich and a bit on the deep end. “Is this the subject, Doctor Mangle?” She asked in a slightly stilted cant as she looked Anon up and down slowly.
The human looked back at her, offering a gentle smile which was not returned as she gave a curious sort of squint and walked closer., the doctor chiming in as anon was being...observed. “Zat is correct, Rooibos. Zis is er...Anon. He is the one I was telling you about with ze anomalous arcane properties. Apparently, he has a high concentration of iron in his blood, which serves as ze primary method of transporting oxygen through ze tissue as opposed to using a copper based compound.” He said, before addressing Anon again, looking over towards him “Herr Anon, you are in good hands. Zebras typically have much higher than normal tolerances for anti-magical effects. She should be able to assist me in running ze tests we need without accidentally harming you or herself.”
“Well, that makes sense. I remember the Zebra I met did not seem quite so...uncomfortable in my direct vicinity.” Anon said as he recalled meeting Zecora. He wondered what she was up to right now. He would have to go and pay her a visit once he got out of this place. “It’s nice meeting you, Miss Rooibos. I hope we can have an alright time working together.”
The zebra mare got a bit closer, leaning in before retreating again and humming “You certainly are a very strange creature. You feel...different. Very different.” She said as she resumed standing a reasonable personal space allowing distance from the mildly confused human.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Very good, now, if ze two of you would be so kind, I think we have some samples to take. Anon, I will need you to sign zese documents giving me permission to perform ze medical procedures required to take zese samples, if you would be so kind?” he said as he flipped through the clipboard he was still hovering in front of him and placed it on the table neat the cot at the correct page.
Anon nodded and looked over the paperwork carefully. Just some very normal-looking stuff about requiring his permission to acquire samples of his various bodily fluids and some of his tissue. Once he was sure that there were no shenanigans at play, he signed the waiver and slid it across the table towards the doctor, who took it and looked it over with a small nod. “Excellent. If you do not have any questions, we can begin. If at any point you wish to ask about the purpose of a specific procedure, please do not hesitate to ask me, I will simply be overseeing the procedures while Fraulein Rooibos does her job and will be able to answer to the best of my ability.”
Anon, for once, did not in fact have any questions. At least not any relevant to the upcoming tests and sample taking, and allowed them to proceed. They tested an array of things you might typically see at any doctors appointment. Reflexes, blood pressure, temperature, the works. The doctor and the assistant alike both seemed fairly surprised at some of the results. But after confirming with Anon that to the best of his knowledge they ran within the average range of what was expected of a healthy human male, they seemed content, if still a bit surprised.
As they prepared to draw a blood sample, Anon seemed a bit apprehensive. “Now, are we absolutely sure this is safe? I mean, what if this gets into the hands of someone who doesn’t mean well. I mean, you could really give someone a bad time if you inject them with this, I would think.”
As Rooibos pulled her teeth to tie off an elastic band around his bicep, the doctor spoke reassuringly. Or at least, as worryingly as he could manage “Herr Anon, I assure you zat your bodily fluids will be treated with ze utmost care. Zey will be stored in an Annulment Container so zat zey do not pose a health risk to those assigned to guard them until they are used for analysis and testing purposes.
“An Annulment Container. Would you mind explaining that?” Anon asked, perking at the sound of something that could negate his effects on other creatures.
“Oh yes, of course.” The doctor said readily as his assistant began to swab the area the needle would be used on with a ball of cotton and a bit of alcohol. “You see there are certain materials, such as silver, which while zey do not negate ze effects of magic, zey are able to stop the flow of arcane energy from one point to another. I am not an expert on Arcane theory though, you would have to discuss ze matter further with somepony more qualified, such as Fraulein Sparkle.”
Anon sighed softly and nodded, leaning back again and relaxing as Rooibos prepared the needle. As much as he was excited by the idea that there might be some materials which could insulate those around him from his unfortunate properties, it seemed quite impractical to wear silver over his body all of the time, assuming complete coverage was required. And ingesting silver was right out, he wasn’t about that smurf life.
As he was pondering, he was brought back to reality by the slight sting of a needle being removed from his arm and a bit of gauze being secured over the small opening. “It is done.” The zebra mare said as they tossed the medical waste into a bin.
“Ah yes, very good, we will have to make sure zat is incinerated later.” The doctor said as they watched the zebra carefully place the sealed vial of blood they had retrieved into a padded, small silver box. “In any case, zis will be the only sample of zis sort we will be taking until we have secured a method of acquiring sufficient dietary iron to make taking further samples feasible without posing a risk of anemia.”
Anon was surprised but tried to hide it. “Oh well uh...thanks for the concern for my health doc. I really didn't think of that until you said something, actually. While I am thinking about it, I don’t think that all of the copper that is probably going to be in my diet is going to be incredibly healthy for me either. Humans can die pretty easily from the buildup of certain metals in our systems.”
“Hmmm, yes I can see how excess metals your system is not used to would cause some health problems. Lucky for you a simple bit of transmutative magic on analyzing what you eat should keep you from ingesting too much until we can find a more sustainable long-term solution. It sure is lucky zat you are in ze good graces of a powerful unicorn, ja?”
Yeah come to think of it, that was fairly lucky, all things considered. Especially taking into account his somewhat abrasive way of handling people, or in this case, ponies. He might be really dangerous in some ways here, but in others, he was coming to find that he was fairly fragile. He would do well to try to make sure that he did not put himself into a regrettable position.
“Yeah, yeah I guess I am, Doc,” he said as he rubbed at his arm, giving a small sigh. “So uh, are we good to go here?”
The doctor nodded as his assistant began to pack things back into the bag they had arrived with. Pulling out a smaller purple cloth sack with a small sun and moon embroidered onto it, letting it land on the counter with a soft clink.”I think that is everything, Herr Anon. We will be sure to inform you of ze results of our analysis. Zis is your first payment,50 bits, with another 50 for every subsequent appointment you attend. Professor Allgood will be observing you overnight via a one-way mirror.” He said as he gestured over at the wide mirror covering one side of the room. “And Professor Liber Novus will be coming in tomorrow to ask you some questions and to ask you to talk about yourself and your life in greater detail.”
Anon cringed slightly at the idea of being watched all night while he did...whatever it was he did when he was alone. He did already sign up for it, however, and they had already watched him sleep, so it was not that bad all things considered, so he simply decided to accept it. “Alright. I will try not to stay up too late partying into the night,” he said with a gesture around the room, getting a chuckle out of both the doctor and the otherwise fairly stoic zebra mare.
“Excellent, We will be taking our leave now. Fraulein Rooibos will be on call if you require anything or wish to go anywhere, she will simply stay close by and observe your activities and take notes of zem later, I assure you you are not simply trapped here. Zough I will admit staying where we can observe you firsthand is, of course, ideal for the time being. We can see about a properly monitored outing later on, once we have finished our preliminary testing.”
Anon was fairly sure the main reason he was allowed to come and go as he pleased was because they could not stop him without substantial effort and risk, but he was still appreciative of the relative degree of freedom and simply waved his hand and shook his head “Nah, it’s just a day or two right? I can go out and see the sights after we wrap things up here.”
The doctor smiled a bit wider at this, seeming appreciative “Zank you, Herr Anon. I am glad you are understanding of ze situation. And worry not, rest assured zat you are making a substantial contribution to Equestrian science, ZE GREATEST SCIENCE IN ZE WORLD!” He said as he stuck a hoof out in front of him slightly above chest level as if...posing? Anon was going to do the healthy thing for his mental health and assume that they were simply posing dramatically and not...something else.
A little while later, the two of them finally got out of his hair, with Anon being instructed to pull a string with a handle next to the countertop if he needed any assistance. He changed back into his usual clothes and laid back to relax for a while, simply enjoying having some peace and quiet to reflect He took out his headphones and his phone and took some time to himself to listen to some music.
Sadly, his alone time was interrupted a while later by Rooibos knocking on the door and opening it, peeking inside. He removed his headphones as she started to speak “Mister Anon, Miss Sparkle is here to see you.”
He gave a small sigh and nodded, sitting up in his bed and stretching out a bit, letting his headphones hang around his neck as the unicorn made her way inside past the zebra, who closed the door behind her, allowing the two of them some semblance of privacy.
“Heya Twilight,” he said as he stretched out a bit more, looking down at her with a gentle smile. “Is it visitation hours already? I was expecting them to take me out to the yard for a workout first.”
She gave a small chuckle at this and took a seat at one of the chairs at the table, with him doing the same at the opposite end “Oh hush, anon. You and I both know you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to be. I know that much about you from the little time we’ve spent together, at least.”
He thinks about this and nods “Yeah, honestly, it sort of feels like we have known each other a bit longer than a few days huh? I mean, here we are bantering after an evening of heated gaming, you’d think we had known each other at least a week or two. I guess ponies really are talented at making friends, when they want to be.” he said as he checked the time on his phone.
Twilight it seemed, could no longer resist the siren call of the small sleek technological elephant in the room and decided to pipe up about it “so Anon, can I ask what that device is? There seems to be music coming out of it.”
“Oh, this?” he asked, shrugging as he held it out for her to look at from across the table. “It's just my phone. It's primarily for communication, but it can also be used to play music and take photographs, and has a number of other functions.”
Her eyes widened considerably as he listed the functions of the device, her ears flicking excitedly. “You mean to tell me you have had that sort of data from where you are from this entire time and haven’t bothered to tell anypony!?”
“Oh...well yeah, I guess when you put it that way I sound like a real fuckin goober, huh?” he asked as he rubbed at the back of his head chuckling. “Really, I'm just so used to having the thing on me I didn't think about it that way,” he said as he opened the lock screen and scrolled through his playlist. “You wanna uhhh...listen to some music or something? We can look through the other stuff on company time, right now I just sort of want to relax if that's alright with you.”
Twilight gives a series of exasperated huffs and assorted noises, trying to piece together a response to this level of willful carefree stupidity before finally stopping, collecting herself slowly as she rubbed her face with a hoof and answered tiredly “Sure anon, that sounds pretty nice, let’s listen to some music, I came to visit anyway, I shouldn’t be trying to intrude on your leisure time with non-leisure activities.”
So they listened to some music together for the rest of the evening and just sort of talked. Not about anything in particular, mind you, just sort of shooting the breeze in that way that two people who are enjoying each other’s company are wont to do. He mostly sat there and listened while twilight told him about her family, her schooling, her friends, occasionally interjecting where he felt appropriate. Most of his contributions were about the actual music being played whenever Twilight asked a question about the lyrics.
Eventually, he ended up laying on his bed again, with Twilight just sort of asking questions now and again while they both enjoyed the music. Eventually, she did ask one that struck some proper interest from him.
“Hey, Anon. Some of this music is really beautiful, but some of it is...a little concerning. I know you don’t really want to answer a lot of questions about where you're from right now but just one? What kind of place is it?”
He gave a small sigh and ran a hand through his hair as he lounged on his cot “Twilight, that is a very complicated question. Personally, I would say that the world is what you make it, especially when it comes to my world, but that might just be me speaking from a position of relative privilege as someone who comes from a nice part of it.” he said as he rolled onto his side to look at her. He looked serious, but not serious enough to get up from such a comfortable position.
“Honestly, if I had to give my opinion on the living conditions of the average person, it’s pretty dismal. I haven’t seen enough of Equestria to make an educated statement about which one I would consider to be better, but I will certainly say that Equestria is treating me a lot better than I would expect the people in charge where I am from the treat a pony if the situations were reversed.”
Twilight winced slightly as he spoke, seeming to feel almost sorry for him. “Oh, dear...I am sorry to hear that Anon. would you say that you are glad you are here instead?”
“Hell no!” he said, sitting up, looking almost offended “Twilight, you realize I had friends back home right? Family too, coworkers as well, all people who depended on me for various things, and now, as far as I know, I have vanished off of the face of the earth with no discernable trace of where I went off to, and I’ve gone and left them all hanging! I honestly feel like shit about it and I’ve been trying not to think about it too hard.” he said before flopping back down onto the bed, his hands covering his face as he took a deep breath.
Twilight was taken aback by this, giving him a sympathetic look, reaching out towards him before remembering that getting too close was probably not a great idea. “You know, as much as you come off as gruff and a bit aloof, I think you really care a lot more than you would willingly let on in most cases. I know I sort of made the same point before but you really aren't as different from ponies as you might think you are. At least not in the ways a pony would think counts.”
“I guess the parts we think count is what makes the difference in some cases then, Twilight, because most humans would say that I am very different in the says that count,” he said, seeming at least mollified by her attempt at consoling him with praise in her way. “Look Twilight, you know I love talking to you about this sort of stuff, but I’m feeling pretty tired after everything from today. It’s been sort of a long one.”
She blinked as she gave him a look that was somewhere between surprised and pleased. “I do? I mean, you do? I mean, er...yeah, that sounds fine anon, sorry to keep bringing you back around to it. Would you mind if I stayed a bit longer then?”
“Hell, if you want, I can have Rooibos bring us another mattress and we can make this into a slumber party. I mean, I don’t think it’ll be much of one, but it’s better than being alone all night if you wanna hang around.”
“Huh...you what anon, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” She said, smiling slowly a bit wider as she gave him a nod. “Yes, let’s have a slumber party! I mean, it has to go better than the last one I had with Rarity and Applejack.”
He smirked at this and tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, I didn’t get the sort of vibes from those two that would lead me to believe they would click well in an overnight setting. Wanna tell me about it?”
Twilight grinned as she scooted just a tad closer in her chair, leaning forwards with a bit of excitement visible in her eyes “Oh, I would love to, let me give you all the juicy details. It all started when I invited them inside to get out of a storm that the pegasi scheduled to make up for a missed light downpour earlier in the week…”
The morning sun rose on the next day, and the two of them seemed to still be chatting. They looked tired, but in great spirits, Twilight even seeming Excited. The topic had swung back to music after a while, and the little unicorn was wearing his headphones, bopping her head slightly as she held his phone in her magical grasp.
“And you are saying that the Life Sequence is called the Fibonacci Sequence where you are from?” she asked with one ear exposed to open air to hear him, the other covered as she took notes in a writing pad, also floating in her aura as she indulged in a bit of cultural exchange.
“Yeah! And these guys incorporated it into the song, pretty cool right?” he said with a small smile as he watched her enjoy a small slice of his home, feeling….at ease as he observed her indulgence.
Her face lit up and she smiled a bit wider “I think I hear where they were doing it! That’s really clever!” she said as she set her notepad and pencil down and simply enjoying the music.
Anon simply contentedly allowed her to continue enjoying herself for a while. Honestly, she was sort of...adorable when she was like this, and not being a massive pain in his ass.”Alright, go ahead and pass those back over, I am going to need to make sure to get them charged later, but there isn’t really any sunlight in here for me to do it. I want to make sure it stays on so I can take like, pictures and stuff, ya know?”
Pictures of what?” she asked, reluctantly pulled the headphones off and hovered his things back down onto the table, where he walked over to pick them up as she gave him some space before returning to his cot, raising the phone and smirking as he captures a shot of her pouting. “Oh, you know, just...stuff,” he said as he turned the phone around to show her the picture, prompting her to pout all the harder and eliciting a snicker from him.
Though it seemed that their revelry would be cut a bit short, there came a knock from the door, and in stepped two ponies.
One was a unicorn stallion, A dull grey in coloration with a grey mane and steely grey eyes. He had a cutie mark depicting a red book,p wearing a pair of small, round glasses and sporting a white bowtie and black collar.
The other was a pegasus mare, light blue in her coloration with a long blonde mane and warm, green eyes. Her cutie mark appeared to be a smiling head of a monkey, albeit cartoonishly depicted, she wore nothing, save for a band to hold her hair together in a bun.
The male was the first to speak. “Greetings Fraulein Sparkle, Herr Anon,” he said in a significantly less thick Germane accept than the last fellow to walk into the room with one. His voice was clear and deliberate, but also quite warm. He gave them both a genuine small smile as he walked forwards with his compatriot in tow “I am Professor Liber Novis, I am one of the leading experts in psychology in Pferdeland. I know that you are not er...well, a pony to be blunt, but sadly, we seem to be fresh out of psychological specialists on species that only have one known member for the time being.” he said in a half jovial, half sympathetic tone as he looked the human up and down. “I shall allow my compatriot to introduce herself and stop making so much hot air now. Fraulein Allgood, if you would?”
The mare came forward, ruffling her wings slightly, seeming quite excited, beaming at anon with a wide, eager smile, speaking in a soft, gentle English sort of accent. “Hello, my name is Doctor Allgood. I am the leading Primate Behavioral Specialist here in Canterlot. I am here to try to assist Professor Novis here in analyzing your behavior and working his way through this unfamiliar territory. I was selected based on Miss Twilight’s description of you pointing towards primate ancestry.”
“Huh, well yeah, at least they got that pretty spot on,” Anon said softly as he looked down at the two of them. “I appreciate your interest, But I am afraid that I may provide a rather...poor control to compare any future subjects of my ilk to. Honestly, I’m...sort of a big weirdo,” he said with a small apologetic chuckle.
The good Professor chuckled softly and gave a small shake of his head “Nein, nein, you will make a wonderful subject Herr Anon. Outlier or not, this is the career opportunity of a lifetime for most of us on the team here, so many discoveries wait to be made!”
“Right you are, Professor,” Twilight said with a small yawn, stretching out a bit and rubbing her eyes with her hooves, sliding out of her chair and trotting towards the door. “I’ll get out of your manes for now. Try not to be too rough on him, we spent all night, er...talking.” She said as she slipped out of the door with a soft click as it closed.
The two scientists turned to watch her leave, then turning to face him, both giving slightly amused looks, Doctor Goodall speaking up first “Well well, someone seems friendly with you. I was watching the two of you overnight you know, it was quite adorable, really.”
Anon kept a stone face, though he could feel the tips of his ears and his cheeks turning slightly hotter. “W-well erm...yes, exactly, friendly,” he said as he tugged at his collar slightly. “We are simply good friends. Nothing more,” he said more firmly, standing up from his cot and stretching out slightly with a soft grunt.
“Oh yes, sure. I am very sure,” she said, smirking softly at him as her compatriot also gave a knowing, slightly amused glance his way before clearing his throat.
“Now now, no need to tease the poor colt, Allgood. We have a job to do here. Herr Anon, please go ahead and lay back down on that cot for me. I am going to ask you some questions.”
“Oh god…” Anon said softly as he slowly laid back down onto his cot and gave a small sigh “Alright doc, do whatcha gotta do, I guess.” he said, running his hands through his hair.
“Hm...quite…” The doctor said as he took a seat in one of the chairs near the table, bringing it as close as he dared before settling in and taking out a notepad and a pen. “Let us begin, shall we?”
--------------------------------
“Okay, we are going to start with some simple word association. I will give you some words, and you will tell me what the first word you think of is, no matter what is us, okay?” He said softly as he leaned in slightly, pencil and notepad once more at the ready.
Anon gave a soft sigh and nodded, humming as he rubbed his face “yeah, alright, go on doc, hit me...:”
“ahem...Life”
“Death”
“Gem”
“Stone”
“Play”
“Work”
“Feather”
“Weight”
“Filly”
“Hood”
“....” The doctor gave him an odd look, one brow raised.
Anon responded confused, unsure what was so odd about it. “What? Like, a childhood, when you are young?” He explained more. “Is that not the word for it? Sorry, I do not know the etymology at play yet.”
“Ach, Nein, you are right, that is a word for it,” he said, sounding oddly relieved at the other’s explanation before continuing.
“Cupcake”
“Muffin”
“Hayburger”
“Hamburger”
The Professor paused again. “Context please?”
Anon’s eyes widened slightly at this “O-oh erm...sorry. It is a burger made from beef or pork, depending on who you ask…”
Novis’ eyes widened and he seemed mildly upset by this for a moment before regaining his composure and resuming his course.
“Bright”
“Light”
“Sapphire”
“Ruby”
“Taco”
“Bell”
“Oh come on!” he said, sounding slightly exasperated as he sets his pencil down again.
“Sorry, sorry! It’s a er...restaurant where I am from. Not amazing, but good enough for the cheap price point.
The doctor gave a soft sigh “it is fine, I suppose being from elsewhere, you might have associations that would not make immediate sense, let us continue. Ahem...Ear”
“Phone”
“Map”
“Map”
“.....Zero”
“Hero”
“Water”
“Fire”
“Dirt”
“Worm”
“Book”
“Read”
“Harmony”
“Unity”
“Town”
“Ship”
“Covenant”
“Arc”
“Reborn”
“Return”
“Chill”
“Burn”
“Stallion”
“Man”
“.....Tragic”
“Magic”
“Hm...interesting….very interesting…” The Doctor said, putting away his notepad. “I am not sure how to approach you as a client just yet, so I will start simple. I want you to keep a...journal of sorts. I want you to write about your daily interactions with any ponies you might spend time around that stick out to you, and how those interactions made you feel and your thoughts on them. If you happen to have any revelations in regards to said interaction that you wish to share, please do not hesitate to do so as well. Fraulein Sparkle can have them sent to me via her assistant with little difficulty if I remember correctly. We will go over them on your next visit, Ja?”
Anon gave a small noncommittal shrug and nodded his agreement “I suppose that works for me. I would be fine with doing that if it would make your job a bit easier.”
“And of course, Doctor Allgood here will be observing you from a distance on and off as well, so as not to disturb your natural patterns of behavior and taking notes, which she will be discussing with you during your visits as well.”
“...I’m sorry. For a moment it sounded like you said this nice Mare was going to be routinely stalking me.”
“Ja, that is what I said, silly, do you need a q-tip?” he asked as he looked over at the mare in question, who waved to him kindly
“I am very sorry if it poses any sort of inconvenience, of course, anon, but it is best if I allow you to proceed about your day as naturally as possible so that I do not influence your actions when interacting with others in the moment. I promise you will never know I am there.”
“Yeah, sorta what I’m worried about, to be honest. I swear that if we have an incident I am going to be very cross with you.” he said, grumbling and crossing his arms, looking away as he gave a small pout.”
“Then it is settled!” Professor Novis said, standing up from his chair. “Anon, I will allow you to gather your things. The Princess’ Student should be waiting for you outside in the hallway. We should have a rough compilation of all of the data we have acquired so far available to be sent to you and her within a few days if you would be interested in looking over it yourself.”
“...You know what, fine. That sounds like an interesting read. I’m sure Twilight would also enjoy giving it a lookover..” he said, grabbing his things and preparing to leave.
The Stallion and mare shot each other a small, knowing look just in time for him to look up and see it and be fairly embarrassed about it, rubbing the back of his neck. “Would you please stop that! Interspecies Relationships are very taboo in my culture, for the most part, I will have you know. She is my friend. I can’t even hug her or she might have a heart attack or something!”
“Yes, and I am sure that it must be very difficult for you…” he said, raising an eyebrow as if stowing away that little nugget for later. “But we are, how you say...off the clock. Go and enjoy your day, coin your blessings. You have a big bag of bits to spend, and a friend who cares about you very much. All things considered, I would say you are quite the lucky fellow, eh?”
Anon stopped for a moment, nodding and smiling at them with a small nod “yeah, yeah I guess I am, thanks, prof…” he said softly as he marched his way out of the room and down the hallway, where Twilight did in fact, seem to be waiting for him. Somewhat anxiously in fact. As he approached she smiled up at him, seeming glad that he was there. “Well, about time they finished with you. Anything interesting happen?”
“Nah, not really. I’m hungry as fuck though, haven’t had anything to eat since last night. You wanna go grab something? I’m buying.” he said, gesturing to his backpack, currently containing his bag o’ bits. “After that, we can mill around a bit unless you wanna head back to Ponyville? I think I’m gonna look for a cheap place out there. It’s really nice.”
“Psh, nonsense, you can stay with me. You’ll need me around to detoxify your food for a while anyway if what Dr. Mangle told me is anything to go by. No need to run the risk of you getting into a bad situation, especially when you’re so valuable to me- I mean erm, to my team, scientifically. And er...as a friend of course…” she said, realizing that her initial correction might have been a bit overkill and conceding a bit of ground in favor of looking like a fool over an asshole.
Anon for one, seemed to appreciate the attempt. “Well, alright, I suppose if that is what you really want, I can shack up with you for a while. But how are we going to cohabitate when I erm...ya know.”
“I can just move the machines in the basement back to my Canterlot Labspace and let you stay down there for now until we can figure out something to insulate ponies from your anti-arcane properties.” she said, starting to trot off towards the exit end of the hallway, seeming satisfied enough with her conclusion as anon followed behind “So then where do you wanna go? Donut Joes? MacDonkeys? Burger Princess?”
“Ehhhhh, I think I’ll let you pick this time, go nuts,” he said softly, giving her a gentle smile from behind her, hoping she didn’t see how pleased he was with the idea of their little outing.
Anon issued a soft, contented sigh as he relaxed into his seat at the greasy pony burger joint they had settled on for their evening meal. They had commandeered the large central table usually used whenever there was a large group of ponies all together, sitting far enough away from each other to be comfortable.
He was about finished with his own food, admittedly a fairly large serving for him. After having had blood drawn, he was pretty hungry. But his was nothing compared to the rather hefty allotment Twilight had ordered for herself. He watched in amazement as the mare cleared out her third plate and started on a fourth. “Wow uh, you really love the food here, huh?” He asked softly, more in awe than disgust as he looked on, fascinated.
Twilight paused mid-bite, a burger levitating half-eaten in her aura as she looked over at him, blushing and slowly setting the burger down as she realized how she must look right now. “Eheheh, uh...yes, yes I do Anon, thank you for letting me pick where we came, I always love a good dinner at McDonkeys.”
He nodded and gave a small smile as she sheepishly set down her food, rolling his eyes just a tad. “Well yeah, I guess it’s alright. I’m Just glad they had nonhay options. I was going to have a fit if you dragged me to a place that only serves grass.”
He leaned back slightly in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment as he let his body loosen, giving a small huff and rubbing his face. His behavior caught Twilight’s attention and instead of resuming her ravenous consumption, she tilted her head slightly and questioned him. “Anon, are you...are you alright?”
He seemed to catch himself and quickly sat up again with a soft grunt, nodding at her as he tried to give a reassuring smile “Oh uh, yeah, totally fine, why do you ask?” He said somewhat less than convincingly as he took a sip of his Colt-A-Cola, looking away softly.
Twilight leaned in just slightly, giving him a soft, concerned look as she slowly cast her eyes over him. “Anon, you know you can tell me if something is bothering you right?”
He sighed as he looked back over at her, seeming slightly pained. “Yeah, I know but...look, maybe we can talk about this later? I don’t really feel comfortable discussing it with all of these peo- or er...ponies around.”
Twilight seemed to understand and gave a small nod, smiling at him kindly. “Of course, anon. We can talk about it back on the train tonight if you want?”
Anon shrugged noncommittally, looking down at his drink again. “Yeah, I guess we can, if you really want to…” he said softly, not seeming terribly enthused at the prospect.
A few hours and a bit of sightseeing later, they were back on the train, heading for Ponyville. They had again settled into a car just for them to prevent any incidents, especially now knowing that there was definitely good cause to do so.
Twilight was sitting a ways away from Anon, who was currently sitting in a reclined seat, a book open and over his face as he tried his best to relax, waiting for the inevitable moment when the little unicorn would ask-
“So, Anon. Now that we are all alone and away from any prying eyes, I would like to ask you what, if anything is bothering you.”
He gave a long, drawn sigh as he slowly sat back up, removing the book from his face and putting it away. “I was afraid you might say something like that,” he said as he turned to look over at her, seeming visibly troubled, a look that did not suit him in the slightest.
“Anon, I promise that whatever it is, you can tell me, I am not going to judge you over it,” she said sincerely, emphatically as she leaned forward a bit, eyeing him up with a slightly worried look of her own.
It left Anon to wonder exactly why she was so worried about him. After all, they had only known one another for a few days if you wanted to be generous.
“Well...I guess, a lot of stuff,” he says as he rubs his arm, looking down at where his hands were working as he spoke softly. “Sorry, I’m not..great at the whole ‘feelings’ thing, to be honest.”
“Well, sometimes it’s helpful to break problems down into smaller or more immediately evident ones. What is something that you feel is really bothering you right now?” She asks him gently.
“Well...I’m worried about what I am going to do for one,” he said slowly, looking back over to her, though his gaze was a bit...shifty, as if looking at her was making him uncomfortable. “I mean, sure I have all of my needs taken care of in theory, and one could argue I am being productive simply by cooperating with the ongoing scientific research that will be performed with and on me. But that just isn’t well...good enough for me, i don’t think. That’s more just me being acted on, I’m not really doing all that much. What’s my day-to-day going to be like here, when I can't even get close to people. Twilight, I literally can’t get close to anyone.”
Twilight attempted to interject, raising a hoof. “Anon, I don’t think-”
His speaking pace and tone become more frantic and unsettled as he continues to speak. “I’m probably going to live the rest of my life being unable to be around the majority of creatures I meet unless I move to wherever the hell zebras are from here. In a single day, I have had effectively years of schooling and education that were meant to prepare me for life on my own rendered effectively useless in terms of day-to-day application. History, Language, Philosophy, hell, even the physics here seem off.
“Well, I-”
“All of it is basically rendered moot except as a potential novelty to capitalize on by the inhabitants of the world I now find myself in. I mean fuck, I’ve probably been so calm because I’m sort of shell shocked, now that I’m actually saying it all out loud and making myself deal with it I won't be surprised if the first thing I do when I end up alone is curl up in a ball and cr-”
“ANON!” Twilight shouted, giving a carpet-muffled hoof stomp to accentuate her outburst as she finally managed to get him to stop speaking. As he shut up, he couldn't help but notice that his heart rate was elevated and he was taking more shallow, quick breaths than usual. Damn, he must have really just let it out once he let out a little bit.
“I know this must all be very hard for you. But I want you to know that you do not have to deal with it by yourself. I don’t know how things were for you back where you came from, but in Equestria, we help our friends through their problems.”
Anon could not help himself, responding. “That’s another thing. Like, don’t take this the wrong way..” There really isn't a right way to take it in all likelihood, but hey. “We just met like, a few days ago, and I haven’t really done much aside from being a general nuisance. In three days I have managed to paint myself as virtually diametrically opposed to your entire worldview, insult and assault your country's benevolent god-rulers, and extrapolate at length about my gripes with your culture, what little of it I have been informed about. There isn't really any reason you should tolerate me, let alone actively encourage me to stick around and worry about me! What’s the deal here?”
He didn’t mean it in a cruel or dismissive way of course. He seemed genuinely curious as to what she was getting out of helping him.
Twilight seems to understand the implication and seems almost...offended, hurt even, by his question, wilting slightly “Anon, I want to help you because you need help. I want to be your friend because you need a friend. It’s not because I benefit from it, it’s because helping others just comes naturally to me, like questioning things seems to come naturally to you. Nothing is motivating me to help you outside of the fact that I see you, and I see that you need help and I want to give it to you.” she said imploringly as she looked up at him with those big, soft dark lavender eyes of hers.
Anon gave a long, hard look at her. Not a harsh one, just intense, searching, before he closed his eyes and sagged slightly, exhaling as he allowed himself to go lax. “Yeah, I guess I figured that was the answer I was gonna get. Sorry…” he said softly as he ran his hands slowly over his face.
“It’s alright Anon, I know you must be really out of sorts right now. We don’t have to talk about this if you aren’t comfortable.” She said gently. “I’m not expecting you to just open up right away. I just want to make sure you know that if you want to, I’m here.”
“Yeah...yeah, that’s...that’s fine, Twilight. That’s just fine. I appreciate it. I think I would prefer it if we just...sort of let it be for now.” He said slowly as he rubbed at the back of his head. “I appreciate you asking though, really.”
Twilight nodded, and the two of them sat in silence for a long few minutes, before she decided to break it one final time. “You know, Anon...if you would like, you could always...stay with me? At the Library I mean, you could help me keep things in order. I could even probably convince the Mayor to pay you a salary. I know you don't need it but it might help you feel like..uh…”
“Like I have a purpose?” he posits gently as he stretches out slightly in his seat, starting to properly feel a bit more at ease now.
“What! N-no, I didn’t mean-”
“Twilight, it’s fine really,” he says, cutting her off with a slow hand wave, smiling at her thankfully. “I appreciate the thought, I do, I’ll be happy to help out around the house, but only if you need the help, ya know? I wouldn’t wanna step on any little scaly purple toes.”
She gives a small, relieved chuckle and shakes her head “Oh nono, Spike is my personal assistant. He helps me all around town, what I mean is more just keeping books straight, some light dusting, watching the place, and keeping it open when me and the girls are out doing things. Besides, Spike seemed to tolerate you well enough when you were watching him and Applebloom. I’m sure you’ll get along fine.”
“Well, alright then. I guess if you really want me around that badly, I can stay at your digs for a while,” he said, seeming to gain back what precious little good cheer he had on offer, grinning at her cheekily as he dug through his pack to pull out his phone. “Now, how about we check out a little bit more of what’s on my phone huh? You know I have books on this thing too…”
From there, the topic previously at hand (or hoof) was as good as forgotten, as the two of them stayed up together well into the night just sort of...talking. Sometimes not even about the material in question, sometimes about nothing in particular. It was good. Good enough, for now, and that was what mattered.
A few days had passed since Anon had arrived back in Ponyville and things were going….suprisingly well for him. In his opinion at least. He certainly didn’t have many complaints. Aside from the occasional (if someone uncomfortably frequent) looks he got from the townsfolk while dusting the shelves or going out for an errand, he generally felt quite at ease just living his life as he saw fit.
And that was more or less what he had been doing. One of the first things they had done when they arrived home was, of course, discuss the...mechanics at play with their new living situation.
Anon walked through the door of the library and looked around, whistling softly before pulling up a woefully undersized pony chair and taking a leg off, setting his bag down next to him on the ground. It seemed like Spike was off somewhere, doing his own thing for the time being. “Huh, nice place you’ve got here, and the Mayor just lets you live here for free?”
“Well, technically, Princess Celestia issued a decree that I would be allowed to reside here without cost during my time in Ponyville. I’ve just sort of been acting as the librarian since their last one had retired about five years before I showed up.”
Anon scoffed softly at this, cocking his head to one side and giving a small smirk “So what else do you like to do when you aren’t using government tax money to larp as a librarian?”
Twilight squinted at him and walked past, giving him a berth as she wet to set her bags down on the upper portion of the library, where her bedroom seemed to reside in a sort of loft configuration. “As it just so happens, I have several interests that do not relate to books on a direct basis.” She says, notably not naming any of them or answering his question. “Which is why I am hiring you as my Librarian’s Assistant.”
“Oh, is that why? I was sure it was because you found it difficult to resist my passable good looks and adequate levels of charm and charisma.” He said, grinning at her as he unzipped his backpack and dug through it as Twilight rolled her eyes in response.
“Trust me, I definitely have better reasons.” She said as she walked over and ran a hoof over the covers of a few books on the shelves, grimacing as she sees a coating of dust on her hoof, which she awkwardly rubs on the floor, then cringing when she sees she has only made the mess more spread out. “For one thing, I just don't have the time to manage everything here with going out on adventures and solving problems so often. I need someone who can keep the place functional. And while I cannot vouch for your good looks and charm…”
“Oh, ouch, I‘m wounded.” Anon interrupts playfully, feigning offense as he drapes a forearm over his forehead before she continues to speak.
“...I can vouch for your excellent mind. I am sure that keeping everything in order and giving appropriate recommendations should be easy for you, especially if you familiarize yourself with the building's collection as quickly as I am anticipating.”
“So what, you’re saying that you think I’m some kind of shut-in who won't bother going out to make friends so I’ll read all of these books really quickly?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow and leaning towards her direction.
“Of course not!” she said, trotting back over towards the kitchen area. “I know you’re that kind of shut-in. Now, do you want a snack or something while I’m in here?” She asked as she busily hustled together a sandwich with bits from inside of the fridge.
Anon sighed and gave a small nod before rememberings he was out of sight, clearing his throat and calling out. “Yeah, just a glass of milk thanks, I’m not very hungry. So uh...I think there might be some...unavoidable difficulties that come from me attempting to interact with the townsfolk that we need to discuss.” he said softly, walking over and joining her in the kitchen, grabbing the glass of milk she seemed to have left for him at the other end of the table, pulling up another chair.
Twilight turned to face him, a flower-ridden sandwich floating before her. She took a bite of it and hummed softly, thinking as she chewed before swallowing to answer. “Well, as long as Ponies know that you are around, they can avoid getting too close. Maybe we could put a bell on a collar for you.”
“I'm going to pretend I didn’t hear the second half of that suggestion,” Anon said in an unamused tone, crossing his arms and looking down at Twilight, who seemed mildly embarrassed by the implications of what she had said after thinking on it for a moment. “How about we just sew some onto my clothes instead? I feel like that might be an easier and less...objectifying solution.”
Twilight lights up a tad at this suggestion, quickly nodding “That sounds like a good idea! I’m Rarity would be happy to help once we explained the situation to her.” She said, taking another bite of her sandwich and excitedly chewing.
Anon gave a small grimace at her table manners, sipping at his milk and then scratching his chin contemplatively. “Alright then, How about we go and see about paying her a quick visit once we finish our snacks and uh...wash our faces.” He said as he watched her tear that sandwich up. Did she really eat like that all of the time?
He was leaning towards a solid yes on that last question after seeing her prepare and devour another sandwich the same way before they finally left the library again. As they walked down the street, he caught a couple of odd looks here and there, a few dirtier than others, but nothing too unpleasant or out of the ordinary by his reckoning. He did occasionally get the feeling he was being watched by someone outside of his periphery, Occasionally catching a small glint of blue near bushes or around corners. But he didn’t think terribly much of it. After all, there was admittedly supposed to be somepony stalking him, so why worry about it?
They arrived at The Carousel Boutique, which was apparently owned by the snooty purple-maned one. Rarity, Twilight had called her. She was inside when they walked through the door, humming softly to herself as she stitched together a rather ornate-looking saddle-like outfit strapped to an equine dummy, a pair of red glasses perched on her snout as she delicately and quickly fed the needle through the material again and again.
She gave a small start at hearing the chime of the opening door but did not turn around just yet. “Just a moment, darlings, I’m caught up in a delicate operation. I’ll be right with you!~” She called out in a kind, almost sing-song voice.
Anon looked over to Twilght, who gave a small shrug and sat down in one of the comfortable chairs on offer, Anon took a seat on a couch, looking down at the accompanying coffee table. He rifled through the reading material on offer there.
There were some fashion magazines, some high living periodicals, and...a tabloid with his face plastered on it or rather, a somewhat crude character. It depicted him with beady eyes, large teeth, and hair that was significantly messier than he normally had.
Anon did not seem terribly upset that the ponies seem to have reimagined him as a Reddit moderator, if anything he was quite tickled, laughing softly to himself, one hand covering his mouth as he got twilights attention “Hey, Twiggles, check this shit out.” he said, tossing the rag to her, letting her catch it with her magic to look at the cover. “Looks like Rarity keeps up with the goings-on in Canterlot.”
Twilight sighs as she sees the paper, she had seen this same story printed everywhere after their arrival and his...disagreement with the Diarchs. “Yeah, she’s pretty invested in that sort of thing. It’s a bit part of getting a leg up in the fashion industry to keep up with the trends, apparently.”
Before the conversation could continue much further, Rarity finally emerged from behind her counter, walking out to greet them properly. She sees Anon and cringes just slightly before seeing he is with Twilight and doing her best to put on a pleasant, welcoming demeanor “O-oh! Anonymous, Twilight, what can I do for the two of you?” she asked as she gracefully sauntered over towards them, keeping her distance.
Twilight seemed not to immediately notice her discomfort, beaming at her friend as she gestured over at Anon. “Good Afternoon, Rarity. We were just wondering if you could do us a favor and sew some bells to Anon’s Sweater here. It turns out him getting too close to ponies causes them to lose their magic for a bit, so we need a way to make sure everyone knows he's around so they can give him some room.”
“Hmmm, I suppose I can help you with that easily enough. Are you sure that you don’t want to put a collar on-”
“Rarity I have the requisite amount of respect for you as a person that comes with being mutually acquainted with Twilight, But I will not hesitate to say something very hurtful if you make a statement that insinuates I am a housepet again.” Anon cut in politely but firmly before she could finish her thought.
Rarity looked over at him with mild surprise, Opening her mouth, then closing it again, then pointing her hoof at him and opening it again before closing it and shaking her head. “Fair enough. My mistake, Anonymous.” She said, acknowledging her faux pas if not outright apologizing, which was reasonable enough by anons reckoning, he had been fairly snippy with his reply there, so it evened out.
She continued on, unphased once more. “I could also make a few copies of his ensemble if you would like. Maybe in some brighter colors so he will stand out more. I do have to say, darling, that is a bit too much black for my taste, maybe something green to bring out your eyes might be nice…”
“I like black, it's slimming and simple,” he said a little defensively, tugging just a tad at the collar of his sweater. Fuck him if he was going to let this little equine diva turn him into some Blues Clues looking ass...
But that wasn’t a productive train of thought. He was being offered something and he should try to be a bit more graceful. “I appreciate the thought, But I prefer to keep my clothing reserved and functional, thank you.”
Rarity seems a little saddened by his request, but nods. “I suppose that is fine, Anon. Spike, could you come here for a moment, darling?” She called out in a pleasant tone, the little scaly simp in question trotting out, a few pins sticking out of the back of his head here and there and a measuring tape in his claws.
“Yes, what is it, Rarity?” he asked, smiling a bit dopily at her, obviously down bad for the mare in a way Ann felt may not be entirely appropriate for the age gap. But it wasn’t his place to tell Spike who he should be tier three subbing to.
“Spike, I need you to please take Mister Anonymous’ to the back and record the measurements so I can make a few copies with some -ahem- slight modifications.” She said, fluttering her eyes at the little dragon, who nodded readily and trotted over towards Anonymous, gently grabbing his pants leg and dragging him towards the back. Anon took notice that the little dragon seemed to be unaffected by his anti magical properties the way the ponies had been, and as they walked behind the counter he pondered about what might be the cause, perhaps he could ask Twilight later.
As he was measured up and down by the little dragon, the physical contact was uncomfortable enough to distract the human from the feeling of being watched that had been bugging him since he got back into town. It certainly kept him too occupied to notice the pair of red eyes staring him down through the window from below a curly crop of blue hair, silently waiting, scheming...
Anon gave a small sigh as he trudged his way down the street back towards The Golden Oaks. a few bags of groceries in hand. It had been…a fairly big pain figuring out how to get the task done with minimal complications, but after a bit of back and forth with the vendor they had figured it all out and Anon was able to snag what he needed.
As he walked, the silver bells embroidered into the cuffs of his sweater sleeves jingled with a merriness that contrasted the dark colors of his outfit in a way Anon might have found humorous, were he not being subjected to the constant sound of jingling bells as a result.
But it was a small price to pay for the safety of the ponies in his immediate vicinity, who were able to move out of the way before he got close enough for his anti-magical properties to begin affecting them. It had been about three or four days, and everyone seemed to have gotten with the program by now.
Did it make him feel like some sort of leper or plague bearer? Yes, frequently. But it was better than causing fainting spells and mass hysteria every time he accidentally strayed too close to a gaggle of ponies for longer than a few moments. Besides, even if he wasn't an active arcanohazard, they’d probably still want to steer clear anyway. Racist ass little horses and their hyper-nationalist insular tendencies…
He tugged at one of his sleeves, more from slight nerves than discomfort, and looked down at the color of his new sweater rather than meet the curious, occasionally fearful eyes of the townsfolk. After a bit of convincing, he had decided to allow Rarity to make his sweaters in a few different colors aside from back, so long as they were not too bright and eye-catching. He was wearing one of them now, a very sophisticated shade of deep, regal purple.
He had drawn the line at including Twilight’s Cutie Mark as part of the design, however. As much as he enjoyed the company of his newfound and steadfast equine intellectual companion, he certainly had no desire to go gallivanting about with her soulbound iconography plastered across his person.
His brooding on the topic was interrupted suddenly when he felt himself stumble and almost trip as something collided with his shins. A small, adorable squeak could be heard followed by the sound of someone hitting the ground.
He looked down quickly to see he had accidentally bumped right into a little filly. A pegasus, with light pink fur, and a light blue mane, with a Rook as her cutie mark.
“Oh shi…oh man, are you okay?” he asked quickly, kneeling down and crouching near her out of instinctual concern as he helped her get to her hooves. It took him a moment to stop and realize what was wrong with what he was doing, and a sudden pang of guilt struck through his chest before he realized that the filly seemed to be, well…totally fine actually.
Not just uninjured, but also unbothered by his antimagical effect as she smiled up at him sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him “Well golly mister! I’m sorry about that. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Thanks for helping me up!” she said in a borderline saccharine tone, swaying slightly from side to side.
He seemed taken aback by her lack of fear, or really any of the other effects he would normally see take root after spending a bit of time in his presence, but pondering on that could wait. “It's uh…it’s alright little filly. I should have been watching where I was walking, I’m so used to these bells letting people know I’m coming that I don't really bother, but that doesn’t excuse-”
“It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it,” she said chipperly, cutting him off before he could continue to apologize. “You can make it up to me by letting me be your friend. How does that sound?”
Anon raised a brow at this, but shrugged with a small smirk “I mean, hey, if you wanna be friends with a freak of the week like me, I’m not going to try to stop you. But say aren’t you uh…uncomfortable being so close to me? I usually have that effect on ponies because being close to me sort of juices all the magic out of them.”
She shook her head, only smiling wider. “Not at all! I mean, I feel a little funny, but it’s like, a good funny! And who needs that silly old magic anyway. We’d be better off if we didn’t have any!” She said, kicking at the ground a bit to drive her point home.
Anon thought about this for a moment, raising an eyebrow. “Huh, that’s an unusual take for a pony. Not that I’m saying you’re necessarily wrong…In some respects, I might be inclined to agree with you.”
She did a double-take at this, seeming caught genuinely off guard before recovering. She shook it off and smiled broadly again “Wow, really mister? You sure must be really open-minded, huh?”
He shrugs and continues to speak “Eh, I guess. I don’t really have much expertise in the field. Or er…really any, but I have a few opinions here and there based on my limited personal experience in the matter. If you want we could maybe sit at the park and chat about it a bit before I head home, You play Ch…Regicide right? I’m guessing that mark isn't strictly symbolic.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by that mister, but yeah, I play!” she says, seeming taken just a bit off-kilter again if her tone was anything to go by.
Anon chuckled, but decided to let it slide, for the moment anyway. He’d circle back to it in a bit when the time was more…opportune. “Nothing kid. Cmon, I’ve got a set in my bag here, we can play a match or two before the sun starts dipping down. My roomie can wait on her veggies a bit longer.”
—---------------
The two of them had been at it for about forty minutes at this point, and the game was shaping up to be an interesting one. Anon was relaxing, occasionally glancing down at a book he had pulled from his bag and sipping from a bottle of water while he waited for the little filly to pick her next move and they shared some conversation.
“So kid, you said you think that everyone would be better off without magic right? Can I ask why?”
She looked up from deliberating her move, answering quite happily. “Well, I just think we could get on just fine without it. I mean, you were saying a bit ago how everyone where you’re from doesn’t have magic, and you guys have all sorts of cool stuff that we couldn’t even think of making even with magic!”
She seems to finally settle on a move, taking a pawn with one of her knights. Two moves to check.
“So you’re saying that magic holds you all back from achieving greater significant technological advancement and from generally bettering your society if I am understanding you correctly? Please do tell me if I am misunderstanding.” Anon said as he glanced over at the move she had made, thought for a brief moment, and offhandedly moved a nondescript bishop into what seemed to be no particular position.
“No, that sounds about right! Ponies can already get so much done with the power of friendship, even without magic. The magic part of it just sort of keeps us from achieving real power when you think about it!”
She smiled a bit wider, moving her knight closer to his king giddily.
He did not even look at the board this time, reaching over and now nudging a rook just so and turning the page on his book. “Hm, and you feel like real power lies in friendship right? And what would you say friendship is, kid?”
She seemed confused by his move, and by his question, flusteredly moving her knight again. “What do you mean, everyone knows what friendship is! C-check!”
Anon smirked softly, taking the bishop he had moved previously and now drawing it back down to snipe their knight from them, leaving the filly’s king vulnerable in check. “Please, humor me. Knowing what you think it is will help me understand you better, so i can decide if i think you are correct in your assertion. Check.”
“Well, all of my friends all really like me, and they are happy to do what i say and they always look out for me, so I guess that’s what friendship is.”
She sounded more unsure now, moving her king out of the precarious position and biting her lip slightly as the wheels in her head turned faster.
“I see…” He said simply as he moved his queen, for the first time of the game, in fact, putting her right back into check with a small grin. “And these friends of yours. How do you treat them?”
“I mean, I guess pretty well, Mister. I always make sure to be polite and nice to them, and than them whenever they do things for me…”
She huffed softly in consternation as she moved her king again, closer, ever closer to the middle of the board.
Anon slipped another bishop into place without hesitation, boxing her in again, cutting off her escape. “Mhm, and what about you? What do you do for them? If one of them was in trouble, what would you do to help them? What if one of them needed you to help them with a project, or needed to be defended against a bully.”
Her smile began to crack more as she quickly moved herself out of harms way once more. She knew he was toying with her, but she didn’t know why. Did he just enjoy seeing her squirm, what did he have to gain from this!? “I mean, I don’t think I’d want to get involved in other ponies problems that way. They can take care of themselves.”
“I see…” he did not move his piece just yet, looking up from his book and meeting her eyes with a slightly more serious expression. “Kid, I’m going to level with you. While you might have a point about magic as a concept hampering the development of your society to some degree, I don’t think you understand friendship very well.”
He put his hook down, and she seemed to be about to rebut, but he held up a hand to stop her, continuing. “I mean, granted, I’m pretty rusty myself, but even I know that friendship is at its core a symbiotic, nurturing phenomenon. You give a little, and you get a little. Not because you expect it, but because you want to help each other out. If you find yourself not wanting to help the people you surround yourself with then to put it bluntly, I wouldn’t call them your friends.”
He moves one of his knights in a surprising mirror to her earlier move, finally finishing her. “Checkmate.”
For a moment, a look of pure, unequivocal rage crosses the features of the little filly, but then she seemed to be struck with realization, then acceptance, then sorrow as her eyes began to well with tears as she looked up at him “H-how could you say something that mean to a little filly!” she said, drawing a bit of attention from some of the park goers as she started to softly sob.
He clicked his tongue, kneeling to be at eye level with her and patting the top of her head. “Because a real friend tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear,” he said gently, offering her a small, reassuring smile.
Her sobbing seemed to recede at this a bit, and she wiped at her eyes to look up at him, slightly confused. “W-what do you-”
“I mean that, if you want one, you have at least one real friend now, little filly,” he said as he took his hand off of her head and offered it toher to shake with a warm, gentle smile. “What’s your name anyway? I got so excited about our chat that I forgot to ask. Mine’s Anon. I’m uh, new in town…”
Her eyes widened at his offer, and she seemed to consider for a moment before sniffling and giving a little nod, taking his hand in her hoof and shaking it. “C-Cozy Glow. Nice to meet you…” She said as she let go of his hand and got to her feet.
“Well Cozy, if you want to talk some more, and get your little flank whipped again, meet me here at the same time tomorrow and we can hang out for a bit and shoot the breeze. I’ll bring some snacks if you bring some drinks.” He said as he put away his chess set in his backpag and grabbed the bag of vegetables before heading towards the library again. “See you around, squirt.”
“Y-yeah, see you, Anon!” She said softly as she watched him leave. She felt a very..unfamiliar warm sensation in her chest, and a more determined look burned in her eyes as she watched him vanish around the corner. “I’ll definitely beat him next time!” She said to herself with an eager, mischievous little grin as she went on her way in the opposite direction. She had some thinking to do, and a strategy to plan…
