Diary of the Yet Unknown

Chapter Seven
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Twinkle-Terrogations.

One of the things I've noticed since coming to Equestria is that some of these ponies are really rude. That, or they are completely oblivious to social norms. The latter point doesn't have much merit because the social norms I've noticed regarding not being rude are barely even there. But that only makes the former point more true.

The purple pony coming in was barely giving Applejack any attention. Not even bothering to introduce herself. She completely disregarded the entire room when she saw me. Next thing I knew, I was backed up against the table with lavender in my face. The pony not the smell.

“So you're the human.” She said about two centimeters from my face. “I have so many questions for you.”

“I hope these questions are original.” I pushed her away from my personal bubble. “Twilight, I presume.”

“It can speak!” Not liking that pronoun. “Spike, take note.” Twilight addressed someone behind her.

“Got it.” I heard a very prepubescent voice say from behind her. I craned my neck to see a little purple dragon scribbling something down on parchment.

Shit, an actual dragon? Dragons are awesome. Damn he's writing fast. I notice strange things at my own convenience.

I opened my mouth to speak but Little Miss Lavender beat me to it.

“Where did you come from? How did you get here? Where did you learn to speak? What do you eat? Why does your fur look so strange?” Etcetera. Etcetera.

I tried to stop the onslaught of questions, but Twilight was on a roll.

I tried again to be talked right over with the question 'What are those things on your hooves?'

Eventually I clapped my hands right in front of her, making her stop and blink.

“Twilight. You aren't very good at this interviewing thing are you?” I rubbed my slightly stinging hands. The fault of clapping at an angle.

“Sorry?” She smiled sheepishly.

“You're asking so many questions so quickly that I don't have enough time to answer them. Seems kind of detrimental to the purpose of an interrogation doesn't it?” She lowered her head, which was a little red. “And while I'm at it you should be a good guest and give your host some attention. Because you are not being a good guest.” I gestured at Applejack who was looking mighty disappointing at being disregarded.

“I'll say.” Applejack agreed.

“Sincerest apologies.” Twilight apologized. “I just got a bit overexcited when I saw...” She looked to me, unsure of my name.

“Applejack.” I lied. That got me a look from the real Applejack.

“Applejack.” Twilight finished.

I was still getting a look from AJ. “Well, I suppose it isn't something to get all riled up over.” Applejack said eventually. “If you're going to ask him a few questions could you do it outside? I've got the family coming in for lunch soon, I need the space.”

“That seems reasonable.” Twilight responded, her attention returning to me. “We'll get right out of you hair.”

Applejack just grunted and waved toward the door.

“Talk to you later. Sherry.” I said pointedly as I passed.

We walked through a few rooms before ending up outside. This place has goddamn cartoon logic, I swear. Pretty soon Twilight was back to asking me questions. I'll actually write these ones down. Crazy business this world is.

“So what are you exactly?” Twilight started the game. The purple dragon, who is called Spike, was trailing behind us with quill ready to write down anything I said.

“Long answer or short?” I asked.

“Long.” I raised an eyebrow. I suppose given what I'd already seen of her I shouldn't have been surprised. I resolved to only ever give her the short answer in the future.

“Homosapian.” I answered. Spikes quill started scratching. “Otherwise known as human. Descended from monkeys. Or apes. One of those.”

Twilight checked to make sure Spike was taking notes. He gave out an irritated sound but continued writing.

“What does Homosapian mean?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Probably something to do with shape. Never did science at school.”

“You have school? Spike, take note.”

“I got it!” The little dragon spoke out, a little more than mildly irritated. “Just, keep asking it questions and leave me be.” I didn't like the use of that pronoun.

Twilight disregarded Spike's outburst. “So what do homosapians learn at school? What are they like?”

Fucking stressful, that's what they're like. “You have school?” I asked twilight. She nodded. “Then I guess it's pretty much exactly the same but with humans instead of ponies”

“Spike-”

“I Got It!” The little guy was looking close to stabbing the parchment with his quill. I wanted to tell Twilight to lay off the guy but I wasn't sure it was my place. Either way she had more questions.

“You mentioned science.” I already knew I wouldn't be able to answer. “What do you know about science?”

“Almost nothing. I said I didn't do science at school.”

“Then what do humans in general know about science?”

“A hell of a lot more than me. Though I could drop the knowledge at a pindrop.”

“Applejack could you 'drop the knowledge' right now?”

Well I suppose that's a pindrop. “From what I gathered reading potential course outlines, Human sciences cover four main areas. These areas being biology, chemistry, physics and general sciences. Wait.” I realised I was being an idiot. “Scratch that we only have three, cut out the general. Spike's already taking note by the way.”

“Thank you!” Spike thanked me, I shrugged.

Twilight looked at me with confusion. “That was a shrug. Where are we going by the way?” We'd passed Big Mac a while back and had just left the front gate of Applejacks farm. I waved at him.

“Into town.” Twilight explained sounding a bit miffed. I got the feeling she wanted to be the one in control of the conversation. “There's a library there that has nopony living in it right now. So that's where I'll be staying for my stay at Ponyville. That's where you'll be staying too, until I can get permission to take you back to Canterlot.” Still don't like that name.

I stopped for obvious reasons. “Twilight, there are two reasons that I'm not going to go into town. First: You may have heard of Jim, he's the big monster that's been terrorizing the town.” She nodded her head. “Second: Screw that noise. Third: I'm perfectly happy with staying right here at Apple-Sherry's farm. Because Jim can't leave the town limits, even if Sherry's farm is technically part of the town.”

“That was three reasons.” Twilight pointed out.

“No it wasn't. And my name isn't Applejack.”

“I don't understand.”

“Don't worry. Half of what I just said was a lie.” She looked right confused right then.

She got over it unfortunately. “Argh. You're distracting me from what I want answered.” I smiled. “What do you know about science?”

“Didn't we just clear this up? I know nothing.”

“Then what about magic?”

“Myths and legends as far as humanity is concerned.”

“So you know nothing?”

“I know myths and legends. I actually studied a few.”

“What did these, myths and legends entail exactly?”

“All kinds of things. Ancient deities, forces of nature, straight up magic, lightning and most importantly, blood magic.” My hand moved to where I had hid the red vial I got last night. “Humans do some crazy things.”

Twilight was looking terrified. I decided that, even if I was never going to use the long answers, messing with this one going to be a lot of fun.

“Hey Twilight, those were just myths, nothing I ever dabbled in.” I attempted to comfort her. But I did research them.

I succeeded and Twilight got a grip on herself. “Please don't say things like that. Blood magic has a very bad reputation in Equestria. The last one in power had to be stopped by Celestia almost five hundred years ago.”

I really hoped that this wouldn't be information I needed in the future.

Oh that's definitely going to be information you need.

“Anyway.” Twilight continued. “We need to get to the library so I can start asking the real questions.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Not going into town. You must have a penchant for forgetting what just went through your head because I just explained why I'm not going in there.”

“Why was that again?” I could not believe this lady/Pony/Fuck it.

I sighed heavily and started to explain the why once again. Spike beat me to it though.

“Something about a monster called Jim.” He explained, tapping the parchment in his claws. I had a feeling I would like Spike.

“Thank you Spike.” Twilight said endearingly. It might have been just me but it sounded closer to dismissively.

Either way Twilight returned her focus to me. “If this monster, Jim, shows up, then I would like to study it. Even if that does happen, we're still going to the library.” Then her horn glowed purple and so did the entirity of my vision. I looked down to see that I'd been completely covered in a purple aura. Given the experience I had with Rarity and her magic, I did not approve.

“Put me down right now.” I told Twilight.

“Given what you've already said about going into town, this is the only way I can think of to get you to where I want you to go.” And with that the three of us were all happily walking toward Ponyville. Those of us that were walking at least.

“Applejack, don't stop talking.” Twilight was acting just a little stuck up. “I can still ask you questions while using magic, and Spike's writing down everything you say, so there's no reason to stop.” Spike was indeed writing down everything I said. Which, considering I was saying nothing, wasn't that much of a feat. “Could you tell me more about those myths of yours, or should we move onto a different topic.”

She was trying to do a sweet smile at me.

“Twilight.” I said at length. “What do you know of anger?”

She blinked. “It's an emotion that ponies feel when they have been wronged and is what guides them to retaliate, when put shortly. Why?”

“Humans feel anger Twilight. They feel a lot of it.” I let that sink in.

“Interesting. Spike?” Not the reaction I was expecting, or wanted.

“Got it.” Spike scribbled on his parchment.

“I just insinuated that if you do not return me to the ground and allow me free range of my movement I will find a way to hurt you.” I don't have much experience with threats, so this one definitely could have been done better.

Twilight snorted. Example. “How could you hurt anyone? You don't have hooves and you barely weigh more than Spike. You're more fragile than anything I've ever come across.”

“Spike.” I tried a different tactic. “Look me in the eye.” He did. “Will I hurt Twilight?”

Spike did a dragon gulp which was kind of funny. I didn't laugh though.

“Uh, Twilight.” He poked at her side. “I think you should let Applejack down.” Good to see someone can take me seriously.

“Oh, Spike. This is a delicate matter between Applejack and I.” Yep. Twilight just told Spike that the grown ups are talking. I'll just reiterate that Spike is a fucking dragon. “We should get to the library soon enough to spend most of today questioning Applejack.” She addressed that second half to me.

I remembered that I wasn't actually all that imposing. So intimidation attempts would just fly over everyone's heads.

“Fine, I'll go into town with you. But don't be surprised when an Eldritch abomination jumps out of the sky and lands on my face.”

“What's an Eldritch abomination?” Twilight asked.

“You obviously don't have the Old Gods.”

“The what?”

“More questions for interrogation time.” I waved my hand. “I have things at Applej-Sherry's farm. I'll need those if I'm going to be living with you for the long haul. Which sounds like something I don't have a say in.”

Twilight thought on that for a few seconds. “Yes, I do suppose you will need your things. Stay here Applejack. I'll get them for you.”

That raised a few questions. Like: How do you know what my things look like? You aren't going to find them without help, and I doubt you're going to ask for it. Why the fuck should I stay here? Your magic just dissipated and dropped me like half a meter onto my ass. And did you just abandon Spike?

These questions went unasked as Twilight had turned around and was off the way we came before I could vocalize those thoughts.

Also, Twilights magic dissipated and I fell half a meter onto my ass and Twilight up and abandoned Spike.

“Is she always like this?” I asked Spike, who had rolled up the parchment with question time over. Or, at least, delayed.

“Nah.” He 'nah'd. “She's just gotten a bit worked up since Celestia told her to stop reading so much and get some air.”

“This is the Princess Celestia I've been hearing so much about?”

“Yeah, I'd say so.”

“What's she like?” I wanted a gauge on what the ruler of the land was like before an unopertune meeting with her. A man's gotta prepare.

“She's nice. Always looking for what's best for her ponies. Almost more of a mother to me than Twilight.” Some questionable images just flashed through my mind. “She's also the most gentle and caring pony ever. Everypony loves her.”

I raised an eyebrow. This Celestia apparently cared for all her subjects. Yet she appeared to know one such subject, namely the dragon Spike, personally and had him speaking pronouns which by all rights did not apply to him.

That did not add up. And reminded me of something.

“Pronouns Spike.” I said.

“What about them?”

“I'm about to learn you about them.”

“I... What?”

And so I explained to Spike why referring to a he with 'it' was a bad idea. I may have gotten a bit hostile but I've learnt that people generally remember things better when they're under fire.

I finished just before Twilight got back with my stuff. But not my diary.

I sighed. “I knew this would happen, damnit. Twilight we're going back. You missed something.”

“No I didn't. I asked Sherry about it and she said that all your things were in these bags.” She was referring to the three bags she had in her magical grasp.

“Lady.” Should I even call you that? “I also have books. Books that you just left behind.”

“Ooh. Are they human books?”

“No.”

“Then they aren't needed for any of the experiments I'm going to be running. I'm sure there are copies of those books at the library.”

What now? “Hold up, Twinkle. If you're expecting me to just go along with you then you have another thing coming for you. And that isn't results or information. That's a slap.” She shrugged, not really caring. “Also, the books I got were all taken from the library so I'm not expecting to find anymore copies of those ones in particular.”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Probably because you're forcing me to do things against my will.”

“Then how can I get you to do what I want?”

“Try asking politely, don't go right up in someone's face one second after meeting them and don't use magic to get what you want.” Brute force never works. Except when it does. “Spike was doing that earlier and we got on fine.”

“But you got really hostile.” Spike pointed out.

“That's because you referred to me as an it. But that's beside the point, I was talking about after that.” I explained.

“I suppose...” Spike trailed off. Twilight looked like she was dealing with a headache.

“So can I go get my books now?” I asked Twinkle “I doubt you know what they look like.”

She sighed. “I think dealing with you will be a pain if I don't let you.” Got that right. “Fine. But you're coming to the library immediately after” Nice job listening to my advice.

“Sweet.” And we turned around and went back the way we came.

Applejack wasn't expecting me back, which kinda hurt my feelings. But I got my books without too much of a hassle. As I was leaving Applejack finished cooking lunch and offered myself and Twilight some. Twilight turned 'Sherry' down of course.

I asked if she had lunch to go and she tossed me a pre-made lunch to go. I don't know how she had the forethought but I wasn't complaining.

Anyway, Twilight didn't let anything else come in between her and her sweet interrogation time, much to my dismay. So we made it to the library in sweet time.

“Tell me about this 'Earth' you come form.” Twilight said as she closed the library door behind her. She had, of course, been asking questions the whole way to the library. The topics covered were my increasingly lack of knowledge about all kinds of things sciency and where I came from. Hence the question I had just been asked.

“Like this but with less colours and no magic.” I responded, looking for a place to sit down and start eating. Don't eat and walk kiddies. Terrible things happen. I found a couch that hadn't been there before and sat down. “Good enough or more detail?”

“More detail is always good.”

“We, as in humans, were many and everywhere. So our towns and cities were massive. I came from one such city.”

“Can you tell me about your city.” Twilight asked as she made sure Spike was taking note. The little guy seemed to be getting quite exasperated.

“Sure. It was like Ponyville only taller and with humans instead of ponies.”

“Were they really so much like this or are you just bad at thinking up answers.”

“When it's facts based on other facts yeah. Philosophy is where I shine.”

“Philosophy meaning?” Twilight checked on Spike again.

“Something I never bothered finding out. But it has something to do with speculation,” One would speculate.

“Sounds like something only old ponies would do.”

“It does indeed. Only for me it's old men. It's a Roman thing.”

“Roman?”

“Guess you could call it a sub-race of humanity.” I explained. “Look, I'll be honest. I've been rather simple up until now.”

“Yes, it's been getting annoying.” Twilight said rudely.

“I'll stop. But only because you got me onto a subject I like.”

“You say that as if you have total control over this conversation.”

“Conversation? This is an interrogation.” She blinked. “But yes, I have total control over this conversation and before you know it I'll be out that door and you won't be able to do a thing about it.”

“I'll believe that when I see it.” Twilight smirked.

“Good luck with that.” I said around a mouthful of the lunch I'd finally decided to eat. “The concept of a conversation is difficult to visualize so you'll have trouble seeing me wrestling control from it.”

“That's not what I- I meant you just walking out.”

“Eh. Were we just talking about something?” I had honestly just pretended to have forgotten.

“Romans I believe.” Twilight told me. “But first Spike, take note.”

“I am!” The dragon exclaimed.

“Not of what Applejack says, but what I'm about to say. Then record everything down from the questions and prepare to send a letter to the princess.”

“Well okay then.”

“Add to preliminary notes. The human is actually more intelligent than originally anticipated and is about as smart as an average pony.” I would beg to differ but then the game would be ruined. “He uses a technique to control conversation and send it in whichever direction he chooses. A technique that is now useless due to it's nature after being revealed.”

Unless I want you to know about the technique because your reactions to that fact are easier to predict than your actions otherwise and you're just playing into my palm.

I just realised I was playing intense mind games with a motherfucking pony. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Twilight continued. “The Human appears to eat many of the same things that ponies do.” I suddenly got self conscious about my weight. “He is able to eat an apple pie without any negative effects.”

“Not true.” I butted in. “This pie burns my tongue if I'm not careful.”

“Without any large negative effects.” Twilight corrected. “Now. Onto your Romans.”

“They're hardly mine. They're also dead.”

“They're what?”

“Dead. Well, most of them anyway. Before I explain that you'll need to know that the Earth was big. Real big. So we had a lot of land.”

“How would you compare it to Equestria?”

“Can't. I don't know how big this place is. Anyway, we had so much land that the people way back assumed that every new group of humans they came across was an entirely new race, so they gave them all their own names. Next thing you know there are hundreds of names that all meant human.”

“Were the new humans really entirely new races?” Twinkle interrupted.

“Psh. Nah. If they were then there was a lot of cross species breeding going on three thousand years ago. Either way the groups of humans I just told you about were called tribes. Sometimes these tribes settled down and formed nations in which all the humans would be referred to by their nation's names. One particular tribe made a nation called Rome and the people from there were called Romans.”

“That seems like an awfully complicated way to just name something.”

“That was just the abridged version. The Romans were actually descended from the remnants of another nation called Troy which, in itself was descended from yet another nation known as Greece. The supposed full story involves a guy called Aeneas going to all kinds of places and having all kinds of people tell him he's not gunna amount to much and spank him for not doing the stuff he was supposed to when he was actually doing it.”

“That was rather convoluted.” Twinkle commented. “Could I get you to tell me the full story now?”

I snorted. “Not if you want to do anything for the next forty eight hours. I wouldn't be able to remember the whole thing anyway. And there are other questions you could be asking. Like why we were just talking about the Romans.”

“And?”

I waved my hand. “There were a lot of Roman men that sat around thinking all day sometime between three and four thousand years ago and now they're all dead. Other humans killed them.”

“Other humans what?”

“Killed the guys. Pretty common theme for humans.”

“What?”

“I'll put it this way: dying of natural causes was the least common way to die for a human. Usually it was another human's fault.”

“Spike. Take note that humans are potentially dangerous.” Twilight seemed uncomfortable saying that. I decided to not let it get too out of hand.

“Relax, Twilight. Humans only get hostile if they have a good reason to. Have you given me a good reason to kill you?” I quickly realised that wasn't the right question to ask. 'Cause Twilight got real agitated.

“B-but I d-d-did.”

“Really?” I frowned. “When?”

“W-w-when I used magic to force you t-to come here.” She was looking at me like she was expecting me to suddenly get a butcher's knife and murder her.

“Twilight.” I sighed. “That was enough to make me belligerent. If you're expecting me to go on a murder frenzy then you'll have to try harder.” She still looked terrified. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Still terrified.

I didn't get this pony. She had disregarded my threats when I told them to her face. But now she was quite literally shaking in her shoes. I got the feeling that I wouldn't be able to figure her out for a while.

“Close your eyes and count to ten.” I instructed. She did so, mouthing the numbers quietly. Spike was concerned about Twilight but I don't think he registered me as a threat for some reason.

I waited ten before continuing. “Twilight. I'm not going to hurt you.” She nodded. “Now. Back to question time?”

That worked too well.

Hours of questions and... Stuff later, I was finally released.

The stuff I was put through were the assortment of bizarrely high tech machines that Twilight had put in the basement of the treehouse sometime between when she got to Ponyville in the morning and three hours later.

I would have questioned it, but I was still trying to figure out how I hadn't realised that the tree had a fucking basement. And recover from the many shocks I had been startled with during testing.

Of course, life sucks. So by 'released' I really meant that I could move between the first and second floors of the place at will. I did just that. When I left Twilight was dictating a prissy sounding letter to a very tired purple dragon, addressed to the ever so loving Princess Celestia.

I didn't really care about that so I went upstairs and did 'me' things.

Then I ate, showered and went to bed. Standard night.

Didn't sleep though. See, as Ponyville's resident human, I had duties I needed to fulfill. Namely suffering from Twilight screaming just as I was about to drift off.

The sleeping arrangements were as follows: Twilight gets the bed because unicorn privilege, Spike in the dog bed next to her and me on that brand new couch downstairs.

I didn't want to investigate after the first scream. Mostly because I'm bitter when things delay my sleeping cycle. But when the first one died and a second one took it's place I realised that I wasn't getting any solace until she stopped. And she wouldn't stop until I made her stop. So I got up and went upstairs.

When I passed through the door into my old-now-Twilight's-new-room, I remembered something important. When Jim was stalking ponies he caused them to have nightmares and scream.

Of course, I only realised this because Jim was standing real ominously over a restless Spike and screaming Twilight.

“Man. Would it kill you to give me a break?”

Then Pinkie jumped out of the bookcase yelling “Surprise!” and suddenly hundreds of ponies were all crowded around a screaming sleeping Twilight looking mighty confused. All kinds of confetti were falling from the roof. No Universe, that wasn't a challenge.

Next thing I knew I was crowded against good ol' Jim and a familiar blue-rainbow pegasus was vocalising discontent.

Shit.