Where I Belongby TehSamuChaptersChapter 1 - Marveling MagicChapter 2 - Dining DiscussionsChapter 3 - Extending explanationsChapter 4 - Nighty nightChapter 1 - Marveling MagicMorning seems so far away, come to think of it. So much has happened during the past a little over 12 hours that I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it through myself. This morning had started as any other normal morning: I'd woken up a bit early, at 6AM, to get a chance to surf on the internet before heading to breakfast and shower. School would start in about two hours, but I had thought I had enough time to browse through some images on some humor site. I had eaten some toast and drunk a cup of coffee while rather unamusedly browsing through the images, landing to the ones I'd seen the morning before rather quickly. I had heard some faint humming and wondered who would vacuum this early. I had had a short inner battle about whether I should check my Facebook and e-mail or head to shower. Shower had won and I had taken a rather quick shower, coming out in roughly five minutes. The humming had grown louder while I was in the bathroom, but I had decided not to pay attention to it too much. While I had been putting some clothes on, the humming had slowly grown into a roaring sound surrounding me. At that point ignoring the sound had become impossible. I had thought it'd be some twisted joke of my neighbors living in the apartment below mine - they did have the weirdest timings for playing loud music - but the annoyance brought by that thought had quickly been replaced with slight panic as the booming sound had suddenly been accompanied with a quickly brightening purple-ish light. I had only gotten out a short yelp before the light had suddenly formed a purple bubble around me, which immediately after forming collapsed on me, disappearing into a tiny spot in my room, with me in it. The next thing I had felt was a wooden floor beneath me. I had laid there for a moment, before starting to slowly push myself up. My ears had suddenly unlocked from the lock the booming noise had caused them to go into, allowing a female voice to flood in: "...so sorry, I didn't mean to bring you here! I must've made an error somewhere in my calculations, the spell I was using wasn't supposed to be able to transfer fauna of any sort on the power level I had planned! Oh, I'm terribly sorry, this is entirely my fault..." I had lifted my head as I had propped myself up to sitting on the floor, seeing a purple unicorn mare pace back and forth in front of me and levitating books off the surrounding shelves by glowing her horn. The most bizarre of sights, I had thought. "The spell I was using was originally designed for transferring flora samples from far away places for botanists' needs, without forcing them to actually go out to collect the samples by their hooves, but was later developed to answer the needs of other biologists too. I must've made some error in my calculations, but it seems all fine to me..." She had stopped her pacing in front of a blackboard and started analyzing the seemingly complex calculations written on it. "I'll have to analyze them thoroughly later. Oh, I think I'm being a bit impolite here: I never introduced myself. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am Princess Celestia's personal student studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville. Wha... *ahem* Who are you?" I had been dumbfounded by the flood of information I had to process. Spells? Princesses? Ponyville? I had opened my mouth to answer her question, closed it and opened it again, finally getting the words out: "Um... My name is Nico, I'm a human from the Earth and..." I had paused for a moment, trying to gather the pieces of my slightly blown mind, "I have no idea where I am and what am I doing here. You said something about a... Spell?" "Yes, as a unicorn I'm able to perform magic. This spell in particular was meant for, as I said, getting samples for biologists without them having to go out to look for them. I think I made a mistake in my calculations and used too much power, thus bringing you here. Again, it was an accident and I'm terribly sorry" She had spoken slowly and clearly, obviously realizing I'd have no clue of what she'd said if she had spoken in a normal manner. The look on her face had been sincerely apologetic, with a smidge of confusion alongside. "I... Guess that's... Cool? Um... Do you know of a way to send me back?" I had replied, hoping she could send me back right away. She had frowned and replied: "I'm afraid not. Reverting spells is slightly difficult in itself, but this spell has clearly broken some boundaries it wasn't supposed to, as I have never heard of a place called 'Earth'." "Well then, what am I supposed to do? It's not like I can stay here, I have duties back home!" I had said, beginning to panic a little. She had probably picked up my panic from my tone, since she had tried to calm me down: "I'll try to find a solution from my books; I think there might be something useful in them. It may take time to find it though; as you can see, I have quite a few of them. I guess you can stay here at the library while I look for a solution." "I'll help you with that" I had said and walked to the nearest book, opened it and started reading. The following few hours had passed in silence as we skimmed through the numerous books of the library. This might seem a bit odd; you'd think Twilight Sparkle would've grabbed a long sheet of parchment and her quill and started bombarding me with questions about my home, but she was so focused on helping me get back home she refrained from doing exactly that, which I later became very thankful of. At that point, though, I hadn't known anything about her curiosity for everything new - I'd get a hang of that later on. After browsing through what felt like 9001 books (that number might actually be pretty accurate if you were to combine how much we both read added together) in a time span of about five hours, I had come to realize I had become quite hungry while reading all those dusty tomes. My body had been sure to voice this with a huge growl emanating from my stomach. "You found anything?" I had asked Twilight while standing up from the floor and flexing myself. "Absolutely nothing", she had said with a slightly sad tone. "I'd never have guessed my books would fail me. I've always found a solution to any kind of problem from them!" She had groaned, standing up as well. "I suppose I have no choice but to try and revert the spell..." "I guess that means I'll have to stay here a bit longer then?" I had said with a flat tone. The idea of being stuck in an alien place, no matter how nice my hostess seemed to be, was slightly depressing. "Yes, unfortunately that does", she had replied with a voice filled with sympathy. "Well then, I could use a good lunch right now", I had said, my stomach letting out another groan. "I may have something in the kitchen", she had replied, trotting to one of the two closed doors on the opposite side of the library. The door had lead to a nice kitchen big enough to fit a four-seated table in it, along with the standard kitchen cupboards, fridge and a stove. She had walked to the fridge and opened the door with a flare of her horn. I had looked a bit stupidly while she had searched for food in the fridge, since I was still trying to get used to her being able to do things with a mere flash of her horn. "Wish I could do that, too. Life would be so much easier", I had thought. "All I have is some leftovers from last night - Caesar salad - and a bag of hay fries... And some bread", she had said, with a slight frown. "Would that do?" She had asked, turning to look at me. "So... Vegetarian only? No meat?" I had asked, looking past her into the fridge. Her slight frown had vanished, being replaced with a look that was a mix of disgust and horror: "Dear Celestia, no! What kind of a pony... I mean, creature are you?!" She had exclaimed, taking a step back. "You mean, eating meat is some sort of a moral crime here...?" I had asked, dumbfounded that carnivorism seemed to be strongly frowned upon, if not illegal, here. "Of course it is! No sane pony would go ahead and slaughter an animal to eat it!" She had answered, taking another step back as if she feared I would try to eat her. "Alright... I guess I'll have to settle for the vegetarian diet then" I had said, reaching out to grab the salad bowl from the fridge. She had taken another step back once I had done that, her face expressing deep horror and her rear bumping to the wall, making her let out a small "Eep!". I had chuckled at that and said in the most comforting tone I could: "Relax, I have no plans for eating you. For the record, I have never eaten unicorn meat and I am not tempted to try it, at all. Normally I would eat pork or cow." She had relaxed at that, audibly letting out a sigh. A moment later, her ears had perked up and she had asked: "Pork? Cow? Do you mean you have pigs and cows back where you came from?" She had picked up the bag of hay fries with her magic while asking, not even looking while ripping the bag open with a flare of her horn, placing a pile of fries on a plate she had summoned from a cupboard and seemingly frying them with another, this time brighter, flare of her horn - all the while looking expectantly at me. I could only stare at the plate of cooked hay fries on the counter with my mouth slightly agape, at a total loss of words. She had followed my gaze to the plate, blushing slightly and saying: "Uhm... It's not really anything special... I mean, I have practiced a lot. Hay fries are my favorite after all." I had still been dumbfounded by the magic show I had just witnessed. She had carefully asked: "Um... Nico? You alright?" I had shaken my head a little, turning my attention into the purple eyes looking at me a little worriedly. "Uh, yeah. It's just... That's like the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And believe me; I have seen a lot of amazing things." Her blush had deepened and she had had to clear her throat before saying: "Thanks, but it's nothing special, really. It's just the result of years of practice." "Amazing all the same. But, enough chit-chat, I'm starving!" I had said, walked over to the table with the salad bowl in my hands, sat down and started piling up the salad and the steaming hot hay fries on the plate that had glided in front of me in a flare of purple light. Chapter 2 - Dining DiscussionsThe lunch with Twilight had been rather interesting. I had immediately gotten a glimpse of her ever so curious attitude on anything new she encountered as the first thing she did after we had sat down to eat was to pull a long piece of parchment and a quill - seemingly an eagle's tail feather - from somewhere, scribble something on the very top of the parchment and start bombarding me with questions: "Do all humans look like you?"; "Can all humans speak Equestrian?"; "Who is the ruler of humans?"; What kind of cutie marks do humans have?"; "Do all humans eat meat like you do and wouldn't that be bad for the animal stock of Earth?" She had blurted out without taking a breath in between. I was staring at her for a moment, trying to make out anything of what she had just said. "Um... Come again? And please, one question at a time!" I had said, slightly taken off guard. "Whoops! I guess I'm being a little too eager to know more about your culture", she had said, blushing slightly. "Let's start over. Umm... Do all humans look like you?" I frowned, thinking for a second. "No. First of all, there's a clear difference between males and females..." "I should've known that!" "... and also between those from difference parts of the world." I had finished my sentence. She gave me a puzzled look. "What do you mean with that latter part?" She had asked, leaning slightly forward with her quill hovering in a magical glow right above the parchment, ready to take notes. "Well, you can pretty easily tell I'm fairly light-skinned, right?" I am a bit tanned, especially in my face and arms because my summer job last summer had involved quite a bit of outdoor work, but my skin isn't necessarily brown. A lighter shade of brown, maybe. Even more puzzled look. "Anyway, there are people whose skin is a darker shade of brown than mine; some are so brown it almost looks like they are black, especially in dim-lit rooms", I had explained, trying not to sound like I was being racist. Now that I think of it, she couldn't possibly have taken it as such, since she is unfamiliar with the whole concept of racism. Or at least at that point she was. "So, you're telling me that human skin colors vary?", she had said, still looking puzzled. "You know, that's the case with ponies, too, except that with ponies the color of their fur can be any color of the spectrum", she had explained as she had scribbled something on her parchment. Now it was my turn to look puzzled. "You mean, I could run into a bright pink pony or a unicorn if I were to go outside for a walk? I had asked slowly. The idea was both absolutely bizarre and unbelievably amusing. "Yes, you could run into a pink unicorn or a pegasus..." "There are pegasi here, too?!" "... but most likely you would run into a friend of mine, a pink earth pony called Pinkie Pie", she had finished. "If you were to go outside that is. I don't think that would be a wise idea, though, as other ponies might get really frightened by you." "I figured", I replied. She had finished writing down a sentence on her parchment. "Anyway, moving on. You for some reason seem to speak perfect Equestrian, is that the case for all humans? I hope it is, as that would mean my spell didn't break anything else than... Than the boundary between two universes", she had continued on with her questioning, her voice fading out a bit during her last statement. She had frowned. I smiled weakly. "No, I'm afraid not. No human can speak a language called Equestrian", I had replied. Her ears had flopped and her gaze had dropped towards the floor. "I mean, I'm speaking a language I call English now, but it seems to be an identical match to your language", I had continued. "No need to worry about broken things", I tried to comfort her, smiling empathicaly and reaching out to gently stroke her forelock. To my amazement, she hadn't shuddered at the touch or tilted her head away, but rather leaned slightly towards my hand. "That's something human girls would've never done", I had thought a little confused. I seemed to have had some success in my attempt to comfort her, though, as she had slowly raised her head to look back up to me again. I had given myself a mental pat on the shoulder as I had drawn my hand back, but I might've had done that a bit early. She had still looked worried. "What if that is just the spell having broken things up? What if you think you speak your own language but actually speak fluent Equestrian to me?" She had said with an audibly worried tone. I had frowned again, thinking for a moment. "I may know a way to see if that's the case. I have studied some foreign languages back home, we could see if you understand me when I speak some of those." Her ears had slightly perked up and she had sounded a bit hopeful as she had said: " That might actually work! Give it a try!" I had taken a moment to choose the language and think of a short phrase to say. I had landed in Finnish (I had studied that quite a bit after hearing that it had had a heavy influence on the language of the elves in Lord of the Rings) and the phrase: 'Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?' "Hyvä on, Twilight, ymmärrätkö minua nyt?" I had said, trying to articulate the best I could. It wasn't like she would notice it if she were to be right, or care about it if she were to be wrong, but I had this slight tendency of being overly critical about myself when speaking foreign languages which always forced me to reach out for perfection. In theory that would be a good quality, I guess, but in practice it often resulted in me correcting what I just said if I noticed an error afterwards and losing my trail of thought in the process. She had looked up to me in confusion before breaking into a wide smile. "I couldn't understand a thing, it seems you actually were right! What was that you just said, anyway?" She had added, readying her quill for another quickly written note. "I said 'Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?' in a language I call Finnish" I had replied. "Obviously you didn't", I had chuckled as she wrote another note on her parchment. She had chuckled too. "Could you write down what you said? I don't think I can", she had said in an amused tone, turning the parchment to face me and hovering the quill over the table for me to reach. "Sure thing", I had said and smiled brightly at her. I always love to share little trivia like that one, as I know quite a bit of trivia about various things; most of which I never get to say out loud because no situation ever gives me the opportunity to. I had happily written the phrase down and handed the parchment back. Before handing it, though, I had taken a quick glance at what she had written so far. Two thirds of the notes - which basically were just slightly abbreviated quotes of what I had said during the conversation - had had a 'needs further research' tag after them. I had smiled shortly at that and taken a look at the headline of the parchment before handing it back to Twilight. The headline had simply been 'Humans', which for some reason had amused me quite a bit; I, by all standards an average person, would be the main source of information about my own species for a purple talking unicorn in another universe or dimension or whatever the hell I was in at the moment. "If I didn't know better I would say I'm pretty damn stoned", I had thought after realizing that. Now that I think of it afterwards, I do make a great source of information after all, because I am an average person, and because I'm reasonably well educated and willing to share anything and everything I know by nature. You could say I'm ideal, even, but let's refrain from too much self-praising. Anyway, I had handed Twilight her notes and she had proceeded with her questioning: "Now, I think the next thing I asked you was: 'who is the ruler of humans?" "By ruler, do you mean a political leader or a religious one? I mean, all humans have neither in common, but still?" I had askes her. "Humans have no common political leader nor a common religious leader? Wow, I would've never guessed that", she had said, looking pretty amazed. "Well, how do humans work things out in a common world, then?" She had been scribbling notes furiously while asking that, but still keeping her gaze pinned to me. I couldn't help but just look at her doing that for a second, before shaking my head slightly and answering her question. "Well, in some cases we just don't", I had said bluntly. "...What do you mean?" She had looked at me a bit cautiously. I had sighed. "I don't know where to start... I think it all starts from the selfish nature of all humans. Selfish and greedy nature. There's this sort of... Voice deep inside every human, telling them to do what is best for them themselves and tellng them to try to acquire as much property in the process as possible. This is especially visible in what we call the 'western world'." "That's completely unheard of here, as here everypony tries to help each other out the best they can and nopony really wants to own more stuff than anypony else. Or at least most ponies don't want to, there are some who are obsessed with property, unfortunately", she had replied while writing down more notes on her parchment. "You said that in some cases humans don't work things out together. What happens in those cases?" She had asked, seemingly preparing herself for the worst. "In most cases like those it goes straight down to violence. In other words, a war breaks out. There are more wars in human history than anybody could ever count, and that's just the recorded history. Who knows what kind of tribal wars took place prior to penmanship", I had said, sinking into self-pity. It felt surprisingly bad to tell things like this to someone who was unfamiliar with them, let alone a resident of a peaceful land of ponies, unicorns and pegasi. She had looked at me in genuine horror. "That sounds terrible, how many humans are there left in your world?" I sighed heavily. "A bit over seven billion." "Seven... Did I catch that correctly, did you just say over seven billion?" She had asked, her mouth agape and her voice drippling with disbelief. "Yes, you heard me. There are a bit over seven billion humans living on about 150 million square kilometers of land", I replied in a flat tone. She quickly wrote a short note. "Your world is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard of", she had said. "I mean, it sounds like there's always a war going on somewhere in your world, yet you still have over a thousand times the residents compared to Equestria... That just makes no sense." "You may not want to hear how many lives the greatest war in human history claimed..." I had said, my voice fading out towards the rnd of my sentence and making her stop her furious notewriting for a moment and raise her gaze from her parchment. "Actually, now that you mentioned it, I would like to know that. Even if I'm sure it'll be a shocker", she had replied, frowning slightly at her last statement. I sighed again, even more heavily if possible. How could telling simple historical facts be this depressing and... On some level, embarrassing? "There are no certain statistics, but estimates vary between 50 and 70 million people." Her face expressed utmost confusion, rather than disgust or shock. Well, maybe there was a slightest smidge of shock, too, but it was unreadable due to her deep confusion. "How... How could your species possibly have survived something like that?" She had blurted, her face indicating that she was beyond confused. "Well, the human population was about two and a half billion at the time - around 70 years ago - so the amount of casualties wasn't too big of a portion of the total human population", I had explained, rather flatly. For some reason, I hadn't fallen any deeper into self-pity while doing so. I guess there's no going below the bottom, now is there? Twilight couldn't say a word to reply to that. She had scribbled something on her parchment in dead silence, her face slowly starting to fade from shock to pity. "Oh great, now she feels pitiful for me and the species I represent. Way to kill the happy mood of learning something new about another person, Nico. Or a pony for that matter", I had thought. She had finished her note and continued eating the little amount of food she had had left on her plate, still in dead silence. Her face had now indicated she was still feeling pitiful, as well as that she was deep in thought. There had also been something about her movements and her facial expression that was slightly off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "Weren't there more questions she was about to ask me?" Chapter 3 - Extending explanationsTwilight had remained silent for five full minutes, until I had asked her what was wrong. She had taken a moment, apparently gathering her thoughts, before replying in a bit shaky tone: "It's... Nothing. I'm just thinking of..." She had paused for a second, her eyes darting around the room and landing on the door on her right-hand... Ahem, right-hoof, side. "A way to revert the transfer spell that brought you here, that's all." It had been obvious that she had been lying, given the stuttering and hesitation in her response, but I had decided not to pressure her into talking any more if she wasn't willing to, so I replied: "Okay. You wanna go ahead and start on doing that?" I had turned my head to the left to look at the door her eyes were constantly darting to while I had spoken. In a second after I had finished, the door knob had flashed with a purple light, the door had swung open and she had darted through it, saying: "Yes, please excuse me." It had been as if she had been scared of me in some way, but weren't we over that carnivorism issue already? Or could it be something else? I had picked the last of my hay fries, eaten them and drunk the rest of the water that had been left in my glass. I had looked over to the other side of the table, seeing that Twilight had finished her meal entirely, too, and decided to do the dishes for her. I had had nothing better to do after all, since I couldn't go outside and I hadn't felt like reading any more books at the moment. I had just picked up the dishes from the table and turned towards the sink, as I had seen Twilight's note parchment lying on the floor. "I should take a look at that after I'm done with the dishes, maybe it contains a hint of why she's so upset", I had thought while placing the dishes next to the sink. I had picked the parchment up from the floor, placed it on the kitchen table and gone back to the sink to do the dishes. -- "Now, with that done, let's take a look at those notes", I had thought, drying my hands to the towel that had been hanging from the cupboard door right beneath the sink. I had sat down to the seat Twilight had sat on during the lunch, picking up the slightly wrinkled parchment. I had skimmed through the notes she had written in her hasty yet beautiful cursive hand... I mean, hoofwriting (or is it even that since she uses magic to write?), and quickly landed to the ones she had written after I had last seen the parchment. The bottommost note had caught my eye; it had been strongly underlined. It had simply said: "Strong tendency for violence. Warfare common in said species' culture. Potentially dangerous" I had had to blink my eyes a couple times to comprehend that. Potentially dangerous? How on earth?? I was unarmed, a lone specimen of my species, lost in an alien world with no connection back home and she thought I was a threat to her and her society? For some reason, the thought had been slightly infuriating, as if she had offended me personally with the note. As I had thought of it, she actually had - sort of - insulted my species, which wasn't helping me to calm down. I had laid the parchment back to the table, stood up and gone back to the library to look for her. She hadn't been there. I had looked around to see where she could potentially be, spotted a wooden staircase leading to an upper floor and headed towards it. I had hoped she wouldn't be upstairs behind locked doors, sending a message to that princess she had mentioned via her magic or anything like that, as that would make my visit here both longer and significantly more unpleasant. I literally shuddered at the thought as I approached the staircase. Once I had stepped on the first step of the staircase, the door on top of it had opened and Twilight had stepped out of the room upstairs. Her eyes had widened a bit in surprise. "Oh. Are you finished with the lunch?" She had paused, seemingly thinking of something. "I was just about to come and see if you were. And to do the dishes", she had finished, slowly beginning to descend the stairs. "Yeah, I am. I already did the dishes for you, too", I had replied, stepping out of her way. "You did? Thanks, I guess. Just to let you know, though, it's usually the hostess who does these kind of things", she had said, a smile forming on her face as she passed me. "I figured that'd be a good way to show you I'm actually a nice guy and definitely not dangerous", I had said, hinting towards her notes and even nodding towards the kitchen door a little to emphasize that. "You... Where did you come up with that last one?" She had replied, acting confused and gazing towards the kitchen with a frown forming on her face. "I read your notes, Twilight", I had said in a flat tone, frowning slightly as I fixed my gaze upon her. "Oh! That... I'm really sorry about that, I was just trying to think of your species as a whole, that note was not aimed for you or made off of my experience of you personally!" She had replied, a slightest bit of desperation fading into her voice at the end of her sentence. She had been avoiding my gaze. "I still find that a bit offensive. I mean, you're generalizing quite a bit here; not all humans have the tendency for violence. I'm a prime example of that, I only resort to violence in self-defense!" I had exclaimed. At this point, her eyes had met my gaze. Her tone had taken a defensive stance as she had said: "Well, what you told me about humans hints towards every single one of them being violent. Brutal, even!" Her tone wasn't helping in calming me down; it was actually doing exactly the opposite. "You still can't go and make assumptions and generalizations like that! I thought you'd know, being a scientist of sorts and all that!" I had replied, my voice slightly raising in volume. "Ugh, you got a point there." She face... Hoofed? "I should have asked you, rather than went ahead and assumed things like that. I'm sorry", she had said, her ears flopping down a bit, both her face and her tone indicating defeat. I had been a bit surprised at her sudden surrender. I had expected, and on some level hoped, to have a little longer debate over whether assumptions are justified in scientific research or not. I did like a good debate every now and then, mainly because I tended to win more often than not. "Well, maybe this is a cultural thing; maybe these people... I mean, ponies, don't like debating because it resembles arguing?" I had thought, shrugging mentally. With that out if the way, I felt it was appropriate to pressure her into talking a bit more. "So, our exchange of cultural information earlier came to a sudden halt due to some inconveniences caused by you abruptly becoming scared of something. Would you care to both explain what the hell that was about and proceed with the so far very successful exchange?" I had said sarcastically, overdoing both the formal vocabulary and the formal tone I used. She had blinked at me a couple times, processing my words. Surprisingly enough, she had had to actually take a moment to understand what I had just said, but eventually she had replied: "I wasn't necessarily scared, I just remembered that I had a book upstairs that might have mentioned your race and I really had to check it." "What kind of a book?" I had asked her. "It's called 'The Most Vicious Creatures of Equestrian History'. I vaguely recalled a mention of a race of warmongers but it turned out to be a mention about ancient griffin tribes", she had replied, seemingly a little embarrassed about her mistake. "Alright. I first thought you'd be sending a message to that princess you told yourself to be the student of or something like that", I had said, exhaling in relief that she actually hadn't done just that. “I actually thought of that initially, but decided to wait and see if you proved to be like what most of your species seems to be”, she had said, smiling at me. “Seems like you don’t.” “Great! Now, I think there were more questions you wanted to ask me, right?” I had asked her, walking across the main room of the library and back towards the kitchen. She had taken my hint of returning to the kitchen for the question asking and had followed me, replying: “Yes, there were. I can’t seem to remember all of them, though, and I didn’t write any down.” She had frowned a bit. “I can remember them pretty well, I think the next thing on the list considered something you called 'cutie marks'”, I had said while sitting down to the seat I had occupied during our lunch. I had remembered that particular question solely because of her mention of 'cutie marks'. I hadn’t ever heard of such thing and I was intrigued to find out more about them, naturally starting from what they actually were. “Also, would you care to explain what a ‘cutie mark’ actually is?” I had continued. “Oh, so you don’t know what they are? I assume you don’t have one then”, she had replied, writing down another note on the parchment she had picked up just a moment before. “Obviously.” “Let me see..." She had rubbed her chin with her forehoof for a second. "A cutie mark is a mark on a grown-up pony’s flank that resembles her speciality. Mine for example...” She had shifted her position on the chair so I could see her right flank. “... is a star and some sparkles, which resemble my talent in magic”, she had said, nodding towards her flank and shifting her position back to normal sitting. “Not that I mean to brag about my talent”, she had hastily added. “Sooooo, it’s kind of like a tattoo?” I had asked a bit confusedly. “I mean, it’s permanent, right? Once you get it, it never wears off?” “Yes, you get it at the end of your adolescence and it stays on your flank until you die” she had explained. “What’s a tattoo by the way?” She had readied her quill. "Um... A tattoo is a picture - any picture - a human can draw on their skin. Or actually, I think very few tattoos are self-made, most of them are done by professionals", I had started, pausing to think of anything I could add to that. She had been writing furiously. "The technique involves a needle that inserts small amounts of ink inside the skin. The picture one wants on their skin is 'drawn' with that, so it would be at least somewhat permanent. It actually fades out a bit while it gets older, but it never truly disappears", I had finished. Twilight had an amused look on her face while finishing her note. "So you're telling me humans fake cutie marks?" She had asked, clearly on the verge of bursting out to laugh. "No, not necessarily. First of all, humans don't know what a cutie mark is. Secondly, the pictures don't usually resemble one's talents, but interests rather. For example, a motorcycle enthusiast could - and in many cases, would - have a flaming skull tattoo that has nothing to do with motorcycles, but is there just because it's bad-ass", I had replied, making her write another note. Her amused expression also vanished, replaced by a neutral one. "Alright, I think we've got that one covered for now", she had said, raising her gaze from her notes to meet mine. "Were there any more questions I previously asked? I can't remember", she had added with a sheepish grin on her face. "Yeah, there was one more concerning human dietary customs. More precisely, if we all eat meat or not", I had replied. "So? Do you?" She had asked, leaning a bit forward with her ears perking up. She was obviously expecting - and most likely hoping - me to say 'No.'. My mental face twisted into a devious grin (if that makes any sense at all). "You aren't gonna like this", I had said, my physical face frowning slightly. Her ears had flopped, her gaze had dropped as she had sighed heavily and she had raised her quill in defeat, already starting on a note. I couldn't help wondering why she had taken it so heavily. It wasn't like it was going to change me or my dietary customs at all! My devious mental grin had transformed into a non-devious physical one. "No, not all of us eat meat." She had raised her gaze and stopped writing. "Run that by me again, please?" "Not all humans eat meat", I had repeated, a bit more slowly this time. "You... Agh! Why did you do that?" She had exclaimed annoyedly, giving me a frustrated glance while magically erasing the start of her note to write a new, correct one. I had only hummed "You've been trolled, you've been trolled, you have probably been told..." as a response. She had shot another glance towards me while finishing her note. She had groaned while setting her quill on the table. "Do what exactly?" I had asked, a made up innocent expression on my face. "You know exactly what I'm talking about", she had grunted. "Why are you taking this so seriously anyway? Other humans' diets aren't gonna affect mine", I had asked her out of curiosity. She had turned out to have a ready answer, since she had immediately responded: "I will have to write a truthful report of my error with that spell to Princess Celestia sooner or later, and I will also have to describe you in it. The more negative traits of you and your species I describe, the more miserable your stay will end up being". That had made a whole lot of sense, actually, and I couldn't help feeling grateful for her. The way she was trying to make my stay here as short and as pleasant as possible was heartwarming. We had spent a whole minute in silence, both sunk deep in thought. The silence had been broken by me, as I had realized I hadn't even thanked her for her thoughtfulness. "Thanks Twilight, that's really kind of you." "It's the least I can do, it is my fault you're here after all", she had replied, smiling weakly. She had shifted her position in her chair, straightening her back. "Now, I think you didn't yet explain what kind of diets humans have", she had said, picking her quill up with her magic. "Well, there are quite a few variants. Let me think...” I had paused for a moment, trying to remember what I had learned in health education back in the first year of high school. “Some people refuse to eat anything that is from an animal; those are called vegans. Some accept milk products in their diet, along with vegetables; those are called lactovegetarians", I had started. She had been writing so quickly I couldn't help wondering why there had been no smoke rising from the paper. "Lacto-ovo-vegetarians accept eggs along with milk products. Pescetarians also eat fish along with the previous", I had continued listing. I had also started to count with my fingers out of the force of habit. “Hmm, that last one sounds just like what most Equestrians follow”, she had mentioned absent-mindedly while I had taken a short pause to think of any more diets. She had continued her insanely fast writing without pausing for a second. I could have sworn I could make out some smoke above Twilight's parchment at that point. "Some people only refuse to eat red meat, pork and cow. Those are called semivegetarians. Aaand I think that's all!" I had finished. Twilight had written furiously for a few seconds more before finishing and raising her gaze to meet mine again. There had been a smudge of spilled ink on the tip of her muzzle. I had suppressed a chuckle. "So, that was all? No more unanswered questions?" She had asked me while taking a look at her parchment. It had been about 3 feet long at that point. I had answered just by shaking my head. “Well then, I think I should take a break from the questioning and start on reverting that spell”, she had said, standing up from her chair and walking out of the kitchen door and to the main library room. “You want to help me with that?” “You mean I could help you in some way? I know no magic”, I had said confusedly, remaining on my seat. “But you do know how to read, right?” She had asked playfully while starting to pull books out of the bookshelves with her magic. “Yeah, sure. Just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for”, I had answered. I had stood up and joined her in the library. Chapter 4 - Nighty nightThe afternoon was spent with a bit less books than the morning, but Twilight and I had been busy with them all the same; not too busy to keep a conversation going, though. As we had been looking for useful books - any books with the words 'spell reverting' in any shape or form in their title, or table of contents, were drawn out of the shelves - we had discussed our daily lives. "So, what's it like to be a librarian?" I had asked while pulling a rather thick book from the top shelf of the bookcase in front of me. "It's really easy! The workload is never big and the hours are flexible, especially here in Ponyville where not too many ponies read regularly", she had replied while examining a thick, deep blue book. "Unfortunately, it doesn't pay too well. I get along, though, because the Princess supports me financially whenever I can't seem to make it on my own. Although, on the positive side, it leaves me a lot of time to read and I have a vast source of material for my studies", she had continued while setting the blue book into the pile she was about to tackle later on. She had pulled another book from the shelf. "A job of your dreams, huh?" I had asked, putting the book I had last examined back into the shelf. I had picked a new one as she had replied: "Yes, you could say that." She had chuckled a bit. A few minutes had passed in silence as we had kept on examining the books that were on the shelf titled 'Magic'. Twilight had been the one to break the silence. "Do you have a job back home? I think you mentioned some 'duties' right after you got here", she had asked while frowningly putting a bright green book back into the shelf. "Not currently. I did have one last summer, but as of mid-August I have continued my studies", I had replied. "Ooh, what do you study?" She had asked eagerly, turning her head so quickly I could make out an audible crack emanating from the back of her neck. I had chuckled at her a little while she had rubbed the very spot with her forehoof, grimacing. "I study linguistics. You know, the scientific study of languages", I had replied, still smiling amusedly. "No wonder you were able to use a different language the way you did", she had replied, moving her forehoof from the back of her neck to her chin, rubbing that instead. "I'm not an expert in human languages, but that did sound really fluent", she had added. She had been thinking of something for a moment as I had shifted my position awkwardly. I don't get compliments about my language skills that often, since my friends are used to me speaking multiple languages without any problems. "Linguistics isn't very popular of a field in Equestria since there are only a few different languages. Is that the case in Earth, too?" Twilight had asked curiously after the short pause. I hadn't cared to correct her to say 'on Earth'. Instead, I had replied: No, not really, even though there are over 6000 different languages on Earth." "That's weird. With the amount of people and languages you'd think it'd be quite popular", she had said with a pondering tone. "I guess it's just how much reading it requires. I mean, it’s all about just reading texts and analyzing their vocabulary and grammar”, I had replied truthfully. My studies back home included studying a couple foreign languages, as well as reading and analyzing texts, both in my native language and the foreign languages I studied; Finnish, Swedish and German. “It does include quite a bit of studying foreign languages, too. That was a major reason for me to go for linguistics in the first place”, I had continued. “You mentioned a language called Finnish, didn’t you? Do you study any other languages?” She had asked, her tone shifting back to curious. She had lifted her gaze from the slim purple book she had been skimming through to look at me. “Yes, German and Swedish. German because it’s spoken by over a hundred million people and Swedish because it has had a heavy influence on Finnish vocabulary. Both of them are also related to English, so they are not too hard to pick up”, I had explained while browsing through a thick blue book. The book seemed to be all about spell reverting, judging by the headlines in the table of contents, so I had put it in the ‘read these once we’re done with the search’ -pile. “Could you give me a short sample of both of them? I’d love to have more reference material on the linguistic diversity you humans seem to have”, she had asked with a slightly pleading look on her face. Her note parchment had floated through the air from the kitchen, enclosed in an aura of purple light. “Sure thing. Which would you like to hear first, and is there a specific phrase you were looking for?” I had asked her, replaying my impression of the perfect pronunciation of both languages in my head. “Could you repeat that phrase you used for... Finnish? ‘Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?’” She had asked, readying the quill she had summoned from the kitchen as well. “And go first with whichever language you please, just tell me which one it is you’re using”, she had continued. “Okay. I think I’ll go with Swedish first.” I had inhaled, as if I had been preparing myself for something either slightly frightening or physically demanding. Probably the former. “Okej Twilight, förstår du mig nu?” I tried to pronounce it in a little... Let’s call it a ‘suggestive’ tone. What I mean is, I tried to sound as gay as I could, since some Finns tended to do that when speaking Swedish, to make fun of the language. It’s a cultural thing; it resembles the way Americans and Canadians treat each other. I had learned this on the first course of Finnish I had ever taken in high school, since my teacher tended to lighten up the lessons with little fun facts like that. The fact that I actually remembered that didn’t help with the weak feeling of homesickness I was developing. Twilight hadn’t seemed to notice, though. She had handed the parchment over for me to write the phrase down. I had let out a short chuckle as she had done that, and she had blushed out of embarrassment, ever so slightly but still noticeably. As I had written the phrase down, I had said: “Now, in German.” “Go for it”, she had said with a smile. “Okay Twilight, verstehst du mich jetzt?” This time, I had slightly exaggerated the pronunciation of the ‘sh’ syllables and rolled the ‘r’s a bit too much, to give the phrase that stereotypical German sound. I think I did pretty well. Twilight hadn’t bothered turning the parchment to face her in between, nor setting down the quill. I had picked the quill from mid-air again and written down the phrase I had just said out loud. She had taken a quick look at the parchment as I had handed it to her, nodding contently and flashing a smile at me which I had returned. We had continued examining the books. -- The following couple of hours had passed with a little less conversation and a little more reading. After we had skimmed through the ‘Magic’ -shelf, Twilight had insisted on checking the ‘History’ -shelf as well. That had been a little less interesting, even if Twilight had gladly answered any questions about Equestrian history I had come up with while browsing the dusty tomes. Judging by the condition of the books - and the spider webs that extended from the ceiling to the top of the shelf - the shelf was rarely touched. It also seemed like Twilight didn’t get to share her historical knowledge - which, I might add, seems to be on par with her knowledge of magic - too often, since she seemed more than happy about being able to do so. She had seemed to have quite a bit of knowledge on Equestrian history, though, since she was able to answer most of my questions offhand - or offhoof, rather. During the hour we spent at the history section of the library I had learned that Equestria has been ruled by two princesses since time immemorial. There had been a period of time though, a millenium to be exact, when there had only been one princess to reign over the land. The other had been banished to - I had almost laughed out loud when I had heard this - the moon for her attempts to claim the throne for herself. That era had come to an end a few months back, with the assistance of Twilight and her friends. At the point Twilight shortly described her five friends - I had asked her to - I had been very eager to just go outside and meet them in person. However, Twilight had both insisted on continuing with the research and told me it would be downright dangerous outside. Someone could panic and call in the guards to take me away to who knows where, which would pretty much ground me to Equestria for the rest of my life. The latter part considered, that had made a whole lot of sense so I had stayed inside. -- The 'History' section skimmed through, Twilight and I decided to take a break and have some dinner. Twilight had seemed genuinely embarrassed by the fact she only had lunch leftovers to offer, but I had told her not to worry; me being a student, I was more than used to eating leftovers and had no reason to complain. Besides, the caesar salad had been just as good as at lunch - possibly the best I have ever eaten - and as I said that out loud, Twilight had blushed visibly. She didn't seem to get compliments of her cooking skills too often, quite like nobody ever noticed my language skills. -- By the time the sun had started setting, we had gathered a two-feet high pile of books from the shelves. As Twilight had set the last book on top of the pile, I had asked: "So, now what? I don't think I'll understand a thing said in these books, which renders me useless in further studying." Twilight had looked at me, seemingly thinking of something for a moment. "You may be right, let me see..." She had said with a pondering tone. She had shot a glance at the window to her left to see the sun dipping below the horizon and dyeing the sky scarlet. She had then shot a glance at the clock on the wall before setting her purple eyes on me again. "I think it may be too early to even suggest turning ourselves in yet", she had chuckled. "Is there anything specific you'd like to do to pass some time?" She had continued, smiling. "I can't really think of anything. If I were home, this is probably where I'd just turn on my computer and browse the internet for a couple of hours", I had said. Twilight hadn't seemed to quite understand me. "Computer? Internet?" She had repeated, seemingly baffled. Her note parchment had risen from the table on the far side of the room and started to drift across the room inside a purple hue of light as she had spoken. "Oh, you don't have those here? I would've thought so, given that you seem to have other electrical appliances like fridges", I had replied, a little confused too. “No, I’ve never heard of... What were those again, a commuter and an innernet?” She had said, placing the parchment in front of her and readying her quill for another note with her magic. “A computer and the internet. How should I explain this...” I had taken a short pause think. I hadn’t had any trouble finding a definition for the internet, but how are you supposed to describe a computer to someone that has never heard of one? I mean, it’s a piece of hardware that is capable of doing a mindboggling amount of operations at once, but that really doesn’t quite explain it’s nature, now does it? Then it had stricken me: computer’s operations are all about doing calculations. I had continued: “A computer is a machine that does an enormous amount of calculations in order to execute various operations, like displaying images or running games. The internet, on the other hand, is basically an incomprehensibly big library with innumerable amount of pages on practically each and every subject imaginable." "The internet can be accessed with a computer, and there are computers whose only task is to run websites, parts of the internet", I had added as Twilight had once again started to write with an utterly unbelievable speed. After a good 30 seconds of writing, she had raised her gaze from the parchment to look at me again. “How big is the internet exactly? I mean, how much information can it contain?" "That's beyond measurement. Think of it this way: if you were to need any information, any at all, you would eventually find it on the internet", I had explained. After a short pause, I had added: "I mean, information that has something to do with the world I come from; I can tell for sure there is no mention of your world anywhere on the internet." Twilight had taken a rather long note. Meanwhile, I had taken a look around the library that was being dyed deep scarlet by the last rays of the sunset. It had been very well organized and seemed to hold more knowledge of the world I was at least temporarily imprisoned to than what met the eye in the form of books; there were quite a bit of notes poking out from in between the rows of books on the shelves and even from in between the books themselves. On the far side of the room had been a bulky desk that had been covered with piles of parchments, quite like what my very own desk back home looked like after finishing a school assignment. The idea of home had made me shudder a bit, even though I had only been away for just a little over 12 hours. I would have never had guessed I'd start feeling homesick this easily, but apparently my current situation had proven that idea wrong. Twilight had finished her note while I had been sunken deep in thought and silently walked over to the 'Miscellaneous' -titled bookshelf. She had pulled a brown book with a picture of two pillows on the front cover from it and walked back to me with it enclosed in an aura of purple magic. I had shaken my head slightly and turned my head to look at her and the book. "What's that? 'Slumber 101'?" I had asked, looking at the book confusedly. “I just realized that if you’re going to be spending the night here, it’s technically a sleepover, which we might as well make a slumber party now that we have no more work to do today!” Twilight had said with a wide smile and sparkling eyes. “And the book has to do with what now?” I had said, still slightly confused, even though the title of the book was pretty self-explanatory. “This book contains a wide selection of activities to do at a slumber party. I use it as a reference guide, it’s very good”, Twilight had explained while opening the book and idly starting to flip the pages. Before I could say anything, she had excitedly added: “Of course, if you know of something fun to do and it isn’t in the book, I’d be glad to try it out. I could even add it to the ‘Own activities’ -section if it works out!” “Alright, that sounds like fun. What should we do first?” I had asked. The following few hours were spent telling ghost stories, making s’mores, having a pillow fight and playing the ‘Truth or Dare’. At one point, Twilight had tried to talk me into giving each other makeovers, but I had politely told her I didn’t want to. She had insisted on it, because the book told that was an essential part of a slumber party. I had told her I wasn’t willing to quite sternly at that point. After that, as she had kept on pleading me, I had half-yelled at her I didn’t want to. We had shared a laugh and moved on to doing something else. Later in the evening, once the sun had completely set, we had gone outside on the balcony for a while to look at the stars with Twilight telescope. That hadn’t been in Twilight’s book, but I had asked her if we could as I had seen her telescope outside. Twilight had seemed more than willing to, even though it meant that I had to step outside for everypony to see me, so we spent a good hour taking turns in taking a look at the night sky. The stargazing had been really cool, especially since the constellations seemed to be quite identical to the ones on Earth. -- Now, it is a little over midnight. Twilight has gone upstairs to her room and I am downstairs in the main library room, sitting on the edge of the couch. I still can’t believe I’m not going to wake up in my own bed tomorrow morning, just thinking this all was just a dream. How do I know that? I’ve been secretly pinching myself throughout the day just to ensure the things I’m experiencing are real, not mere images made up by my sleeping brain. Now, I think it’s time for me to hit the sack. Tomorrow is going to be a long day of spell reverting. Nighty night.
Chapter 1 - Marveling MagicMorning seems so far away, come to think of it. So much has happened during the past a little over 12 hours that I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it through myself. This morning had started as any other normal morning: I'd woken up a bit early, at 6AM, to get a chance to surf on the internet before heading to breakfast and shower. School would start in about two hours, but I had thought I had enough time to browse through some images on some humor site. I had eaten some toast and drunk a cup of coffee while rather unamusedly browsing through the images, landing to the ones I'd seen the morning before rather quickly. I had heard some faint humming and wondered who would vacuum this early. I had had a short inner battle about whether I should check my Facebook and e-mail or head to shower. Shower had won and I had taken a rather quick shower, coming out in roughly five minutes. The humming had grown louder while I was in the bathroom, but I had decided not to pay attention to it too much. While I had been putting some clothes on, the humming had slowly grown into a roaring sound surrounding me. At that point ignoring the sound had become impossible. I had thought it'd be some twisted joke of my neighbors living in the apartment below mine - they did have the weirdest timings for playing loud music - but the annoyance brought by that thought had quickly been replaced with slight panic as the booming sound had suddenly been accompanied with a quickly brightening purple-ish light. I had only gotten out a short yelp before the light had suddenly formed a purple bubble around me, which immediately after forming collapsed on me, disappearing into a tiny spot in my room, with me in it. The next thing I had felt was a wooden floor beneath me. I had laid there for a moment, before starting to slowly push myself up. My ears had suddenly unlocked from the lock the booming noise had caused them to go into, allowing a female voice to flood in: "...so sorry, I didn't mean to bring you here! I must've made an error somewhere in my calculations, the spell I was using wasn't supposed to be able to transfer fauna of any sort on the power level I had planned! Oh, I'm terribly sorry, this is entirely my fault..." I had lifted my head as I had propped myself up to sitting on the floor, seeing a purple unicorn mare pace back and forth in front of me and levitating books off the surrounding shelves by glowing her horn. The most bizarre of sights, I had thought. "The spell I was using was originally designed for transferring flora samples from far away places for botanists' needs, without forcing them to actually go out to collect the samples by their hooves, but was later developed to answer the needs of other biologists too. I must've made some error in my calculations, but it seems all fine to me..." She had stopped her pacing in front of a blackboard and started analyzing the seemingly complex calculations written on it. "I'll have to analyze them thoroughly later. Oh, I think I'm being a bit impolite here: I never introduced myself. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am Princess Celestia's personal student studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville. Wha... *ahem* Who are you?" I had been dumbfounded by the flood of information I had to process. Spells? Princesses? Ponyville? I had opened my mouth to answer her question, closed it and opened it again, finally getting the words out: "Um... My name is Nico, I'm a human from the Earth and..." I had paused for a moment, trying to gather the pieces of my slightly blown mind, "I have no idea where I am and what am I doing here. You said something about a... Spell?" "Yes, as a unicorn I'm able to perform magic. This spell in particular was meant for, as I said, getting samples for biologists without them having to go out to look for them. I think I made a mistake in my calculations and used too much power, thus bringing you here. Again, it was an accident and I'm terribly sorry" She had spoken slowly and clearly, obviously realizing I'd have no clue of what she'd said if she had spoken in a normal manner. The look on her face had been sincerely apologetic, with a smidge of confusion alongside. "I... Guess that's... Cool? Um... Do you know of a way to send me back?" I had replied, hoping she could send me back right away. She had frowned and replied: "I'm afraid not. Reverting spells is slightly difficult in itself, but this spell has clearly broken some boundaries it wasn't supposed to, as I have never heard of a place called 'Earth'." "Well then, what am I supposed to do? It's not like I can stay here, I have duties back home!" I had said, beginning to panic a little. She had probably picked up my panic from my tone, since she had tried to calm me down: "I'll try to find a solution from my books; I think there might be something useful in them. It may take time to find it though; as you can see, I have quite a few of them. I guess you can stay here at the library while I look for a solution." "I'll help you with that" I had said and walked to the nearest book, opened it and started reading. The following few hours had passed in silence as we skimmed through the numerous books of the library. This might seem a bit odd; you'd think Twilight Sparkle would've grabbed a long sheet of parchment and her quill and started bombarding me with questions about my home, but she was so focused on helping me get back home she refrained from doing exactly that, which I later became very thankful of. At that point, though, I hadn't known anything about her curiosity for everything new - I'd get a hang of that later on. After browsing through what felt like 9001 books (that number might actually be pretty accurate if you were to combine how much we both read added together) in a time span of about five hours, I had come to realize I had become quite hungry while reading all those dusty tomes. My body had been sure to voice this with a huge growl emanating from my stomach. "You found anything?" I had asked Twilight while standing up from the floor and flexing myself. "Absolutely nothing", she had said with a slightly sad tone. "I'd never have guessed my books would fail me. I've always found a solution to any kind of problem from them!" She had groaned, standing up as well. "I suppose I have no choice but to try and revert the spell..." "I guess that means I'll have to stay here a bit longer then?" I had said with a flat tone. The idea of being stuck in an alien place, no matter how nice my hostess seemed to be, was slightly depressing. "Yes, unfortunately that does", she had replied with a voice filled with sympathy. "Well then, I could use a good lunch right now", I had said, my stomach letting out another groan. "I may have something in the kitchen", she had replied, trotting to one of the two closed doors on the opposite side of the library. The door had lead to a nice kitchen big enough to fit a four-seated table in it, along with the standard kitchen cupboards, fridge and a stove. She had walked to the fridge and opened the door with a flare of her horn. I had looked a bit stupidly while she had searched for food in the fridge, since I was still trying to get used to her being able to do things with a mere flash of her horn. "Wish I could do that, too. Life would be so much easier", I had thought. "All I have is some leftovers from last night - Caesar salad - and a bag of hay fries... And some bread", she had said, with a slight frown. "Would that do?" She had asked, turning to look at me. "So... Vegetarian only? No meat?" I had asked, looking past her into the fridge. Her slight frown had vanished, being replaced with a look that was a mix of disgust and horror: "Dear Celestia, no! What kind of a pony... I mean, creature are you?!" She had exclaimed, taking a step back. "You mean, eating meat is some sort of a moral crime here...?" I had asked, dumbfounded that carnivorism seemed to be strongly frowned upon, if not illegal, here. "Of course it is! No sane pony would go ahead and slaughter an animal to eat it!" She had answered, taking another step back as if she feared I would try to eat her. "Alright... I guess I'll have to settle for the vegetarian diet then" I had said, reaching out to grab the salad bowl from the fridge. She had taken another step back once I had done that, her face expressing deep horror and her rear bumping to the wall, making her let out a small "Eep!". I had chuckled at that and said in the most comforting tone I could: "Relax, I have no plans for eating you. For the record, I have never eaten unicorn meat and I am not tempted to try it, at all. Normally I would eat pork or cow." She had relaxed at that, audibly letting out a sigh. A moment later, her ears had perked up and she had asked: "Pork? Cow? Do you mean you have pigs and cows back where you came from?" She had picked up the bag of hay fries with her magic while asking, not even looking while ripping the bag open with a flare of her horn, placing a pile of fries on a plate she had summoned from a cupboard and seemingly frying them with another, this time brighter, flare of her horn - all the while looking expectantly at me. I could only stare at the plate of cooked hay fries on the counter with my mouth slightly agape, at a total loss of words. She had followed my gaze to the plate, blushing slightly and saying: "Uhm... It's not really anything special... I mean, I have practiced a lot. Hay fries are my favorite after all." I had still been dumbfounded by the magic show I had just witnessed. She had carefully asked: "Um... Nico? You alright?" I had shaken my head a little, turning my attention into the purple eyes looking at me a little worriedly. "Uh, yeah. It's just... That's like the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And believe me; I have seen a lot of amazing things." Her blush had deepened and she had had to clear her throat before saying: "Thanks, but it's nothing special, really. It's just the result of years of practice." "Amazing all the same. But, enough chit-chat, I'm starving!" I had said, walked over to the table with the salad bowl in my hands, sat down and started piling up the salad and the steaming hot hay fries on the plate that had glided in front of me in a flare of purple light.
Chapter 2 - Dining DiscussionsThe lunch with Twilight had been rather interesting. I had immediately gotten a glimpse of her ever so curious attitude on anything new she encountered as the first thing she did after we had sat down to eat was to pull a long piece of parchment and a quill - seemingly an eagle's tail feather - from somewhere, scribble something on the very top of the parchment and start bombarding me with questions: "Do all humans look like you?"; "Can all humans speak Equestrian?"; "Who is the ruler of humans?"; What kind of cutie marks do humans have?"; "Do all humans eat meat like you do and wouldn't that be bad for the animal stock of Earth?" She had blurted out without taking a breath in between. I was staring at her for a moment, trying to make out anything of what she had just said. "Um... Come again? And please, one question at a time!" I had said, slightly taken off guard. "Whoops! I guess I'm being a little too eager to know more about your culture", she had said, blushing slightly. "Let's start over. Umm... Do all humans look like you?" I frowned, thinking for a second. "No. First of all, there's a clear difference between males and females..." "I should've known that!" "... and also between those from difference parts of the world." I had finished my sentence. She gave me a puzzled look. "What do you mean with that latter part?" She had asked, leaning slightly forward with her quill hovering in a magical glow right above the parchment, ready to take notes. "Well, you can pretty easily tell I'm fairly light-skinned, right?" I am a bit tanned, especially in my face and arms because my summer job last summer had involved quite a bit of outdoor work, but my skin isn't necessarily brown. A lighter shade of brown, maybe. Even more puzzled look. "Anyway, there are people whose skin is a darker shade of brown than mine; some are so brown it almost looks like they are black, especially in dim-lit rooms", I had explained, trying not to sound like I was being racist. Now that I think of it, she couldn't possibly have taken it as such, since she is unfamiliar with the whole concept of racism. Or at least at that point she was. "So, you're telling me that human skin colors vary?", she had said, still looking puzzled. "You know, that's the case with ponies, too, except that with ponies the color of their fur can be any color of the spectrum", she had explained as she had scribbled something on her parchment. Now it was my turn to look puzzled. "You mean, I could run into a bright pink pony or a unicorn if I were to go outside for a walk? I had asked slowly. The idea was both absolutely bizarre and unbelievably amusing. "Yes, you could run into a pink unicorn or a pegasus..." "There are pegasi here, too?!" "... but most likely you would run into a friend of mine, a pink earth pony called Pinkie Pie", she had finished. "If you were to go outside that is. I don't think that would be a wise idea, though, as other ponies might get really frightened by you." "I figured", I replied. She had finished writing down a sentence on her parchment. "Anyway, moving on. You for some reason seem to speak perfect Equestrian, is that the case for all humans? I hope it is, as that would mean my spell didn't break anything else than... Than the boundary between two universes", she had continued on with her questioning, her voice fading out a bit during her last statement. She had frowned. I smiled weakly. "No, I'm afraid not. No human can speak a language called Equestrian", I had replied. Her ears had flopped and her gaze had dropped towards the floor. "I mean, I'm speaking a language I call English now, but it seems to be an identical match to your language", I had continued. "No need to worry about broken things", I tried to comfort her, smiling empathicaly and reaching out to gently stroke her forelock. To my amazement, she hadn't shuddered at the touch or tilted her head away, but rather leaned slightly towards my hand. "That's something human girls would've never done", I had thought a little confused. I seemed to have had some success in my attempt to comfort her, though, as she had slowly raised her head to look back up to me again. I had given myself a mental pat on the shoulder as I had drawn my hand back, but I might've had done that a bit early. She had still looked worried. "What if that is just the spell having broken things up? What if you think you speak your own language but actually speak fluent Equestrian to me?" She had said with an audibly worried tone. I had frowned again, thinking for a moment. "I may know a way to see if that's the case. I have studied some foreign languages back home, we could see if you understand me when I speak some of those." Her ears had slightly perked up and she had sounded a bit hopeful as she had said: " That might actually work! Give it a try!" I had taken a moment to choose the language and think of a short phrase to say. I had landed in Finnish (I had studied that quite a bit after hearing that it had had a heavy influence on the language of the elves in Lord of the Rings) and the phrase: 'Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?' "Hyvä on, Twilight, ymmärrätkö minua nyt?" I had said, trying to articulate the best I could. It wasn't like she would notice it if she were to be right, or care about it if she were to be wrong, but I had this slight tendency of being overly critical about myself when speaking foreign languages which always forced me to reach out for perfection. In theory that would be a good quality, I guess, but in practice it often resulted in me correcting what I just said if I noticed an error afterwards and losing my trail of thought in the process. She had looked up to me in confusion before breaking into a wide smile. "I couldn't understand a thing, it seems you actually were right! What was that you just said, anyway?" She had added, readying her quill for another quickly written note. "I said 'Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?' in a language I call Finnish" I had replied. "Obviously you didn't", I had chuckled as she wrote another note on her parchment. She had chuckled too. "Could you write down what you said? I don't think I can", she had said in an amused tone, turning the parchment to face me and hovering the quill over the table for me to reach. "Sure thing", I had said and smiled brightly at her. I always love to share little trivia like that one, as I know quite a bit of trivia about various things; most of which I never get to say out loud because no situation ever gives me the opportunity to. I had happily written the phrase down and handed the parchment back. Before handing it, though, I had taken a quick glance at what she had written so far. Two thirds of the notes - which basically were just slightly abbreviated quotes of what I had said during the conversation - had had a 'needs further research' tag after them. I had smiled shortly at that and taken a look at the headline of the parchment before handing it back to Twilight. The headline had simply been 'Humans', which for some reason had amused me quite a bit; I, by all standards an average person, would be the main source of information about my own species for a purple talking unicorn in another universe or dimension or whatever the hell I was in at the moment. "If I didn't know better I would say I'm pretty damn stoned", I had thought after realizing that. Now that I think of it afterwards, I do make a great source of information after all, because I am an average person, and because I'm reasonably well educated and willing to share anything and everything I know by nature. You could say I'm ideal, even, but let's refrain from too much self-praising. Anyway, I had handed Twilight her notes and she had proceeded with her questioning: "Now, I think the next thing I asked you was: 'who is the ruler of humans?" "By ruler, do you mean a political leader or a religious one? I mean, all humans have neither in common, but still?" I had askes her. "Humans have no common political leader nor a common religious leader? Wow, I would've never guessed that", she had said, looking pretty amazed. "Well, how do humans work things out in a common world, then?" She had been scribbling notes furiously while asking that, but still keeping her gaze pinned to me. I couldn't help but just look at her doing that for a second, before shaking my head slightly and answering her question. "Well, in some cases we just don't", I had said bluntly. "...What do you mean?" She had looked at me a bit cautiously. I had sighed. "I don't know where to start... I think it all starts from the selfish nature of all humans. Selfish and greedy nature. There's this sort of... Voice deep inside every human, telling them to do what is best for them themselves and tellng them to try to acquire as much property in the process as possible. This is especially visible in what we call the 'western world'." "That's completely unheard of here, as here everypony tries to help each other out the best they can and nopony really wants to own more stuff than anypony else. Or at least most ponies don't want to, there are some who are obsessed with property, unfortunately", she had replied while writing down more notes on her parchment. "You said that in some cases humans don't work things out together. What happens in those cases?" She had asked, seemingly preparing herself for the worst. "In most cases like those it goes straight down to violence. In other words, a war breaks out. There are more wars in human history than anybody could ever count, and that's just the recorded history. Who knows what kind of tribal wars took place prior to penmanship", I had said, sinking into self-pity. It felt surprisingly bad to tell things like this to someone who was unfamiliar with them, let alone a resident of a peaceful land of ponies, unicorns and pegasi. She had looked at me in genuine horror. "That sounds terrible, how many humans are there left in your world?" I sighed heavily. "A bit over seven billion." "Seven... Did I catch that correctly, did you just say over seven billion?" She had asked, her mouth agape and her voice drippling with disbelief. "Yes, you heard me. There are a bit over seven billion humans living on about 150 million square kilometers of land", I replied in a flat tone. She quickly wrote a short note. "Your world is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard of", she had said. "I mean, it sounds like there's always a war going on somewhere in your world, yet you still have over a thousand times the residents compared to Equestria... That just makes no sense." "You may not want to hear how many lives the greatest war in human history claimed..." I had said, my voice fading out towards the rnd of my sentence and making her stop her furious notewriting for a moment and raise her gaze from her parchment. "Actually, now that you mentioned it, I would like to know that. Even if I'm sure it'll be a shocker", she had replied, frowning slightly at her last statement. I sighed again, even more heavily if possible. How could telling simple historical facts be this depressing and... On some level, embarrassing? "There are no certain statistics, but estimates vary between 50 and 70 million people." Her face expressed utmost confusion, rather than disgust or shock. Well, maybe there was a slightest smidge of shock, too, but it was unreadable due to her deep confusion. "How... How could your species possibly have survived something like that?" She had blurted, her face indicating that she was beyond confused. "Well, the human population was about two and a half billion at the time - around 70 years ago - so the amount of casualties wasn't too big of a portion of the total human population", I had explained, rather flatly. For some reason, I hadn't fallen any deeper into self-pity while doing so. I guess there's no going below the bottom, now is there? Twilight couldn't say a word to reply to that. She had scribbled something on her parchment in dead silence, her face slowly starting to fade from shock to pity. "Oh great, now she feels pitiful for me and the species I represent. Way to kill the happy mood of learning something new about another person, Nico. Or a pony for that matter", I had thought. She had finished her note and continued eating the little amount of food she had had left on her plate, still in dead silence. Her face had now indicated she was still feeling pitiful, as well as that she was deep in thought. There had also been something about her movements and her facial expression that was slightly off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "Weren't there more questions she was about to ask me?"
Chapter 3 - Extending explanationsTwilight had remained silent for five full minutes, until I had asked her what was wrong. She had taken a moment, apparently gathering her thoughts, before replying in a bit shaky tone: "It's... Nothing. I'm just thinking of..." She had paused for a second, her eyes darting around the room and landing on the door on her right-hand... Ahem, right-hoof, side. "A way to revert the transfer spell that brought you here, that's all." It had been obvious that she had been lying, given the stuttering and hesitation in her response, but I had decided not to pressure her into talking any more if she wasn't willing to, so I replied: "Okay. You wanna go ahead and start on doing that?" I had turned my head to the left to look at the door her eyes were constantly darting to while I had spoken. In a second after I had finished, the door knob had flashed with a purple light, the door had swung open and she had darted through it, saying: "Yes, please excuse me." It had been as if she had been scared of me in some way, but weren't we over that carnivorism issue already? Or could it be something else? I had picked the last of my hay fries, eaten them and drunk the rest of the water that had been left in my glass. I had looked over to the other side of the table, seeing that Twilight had finished her meal entirely, too, and decided to do the dishes for her. I had had nothing better to do after all, since I couldn't go outside and I hadn't felt like reading any more books at the moment. I had just picked up the dishes from the table and turned towards the sink, as I had seen Twilight's note parchment lying on the floor. "I should take a look at that after I'm done with the dishes, maybe it contains a hint of why she's so upset", I had thought while placing the dishes next to the sink. I had picked the parchment up from the floor, placed it on the kitchen table and gone back to the sink to do the dishes. -- "Now, with that done, let's take a look at those notes", I had thought, drying my hands to the towel that had been hanging from the cupboard door right beneath the sink. I had sat down to the seat Twilight had sat on during the lunch, picking up the slightly wrinkled parchment. I had skimmed through the notes she had written in her hasty yet beautiful cursive hand... I mean, hoofwriting (or is it even that since she uses magic to write?), and quickly landed to the ones she had written after I had last seen the parchment. The bottommost note had caught my eye; it had been strongly underlined. It had simply said: "Strong tendency for violence. Warfare common in said species' culture. Potentially dangerous" I had had to blink my eyes a couple times to comprehend that. Potentially dangerous? How on earth?? I was unarmed, a lone specimen of my species, lost in an alien world with no connection back home and she thought I was a threat to her and her society? For some reason, the thought had been slightly infuriating, as if she had offended me personally with the note. As I had thought of it, she actually had - sort of - insulted my species, which wasn't helping me to calm down. I had laid the parchment back to the table, stood up and gone back to the library to look for her. She hadn't been there. I had looked around to see where she could potentially be, spotted a wooden staircase leading to an upper floor and headed towards it. I had hoped she wouldn't be upstairs behind locked doors, sending a message to that princess she had mentioned via her magic or anything like that, as that would make my visit here both longer and significantly more unpleasant. I literally shuddered at the thought as I approached the staircase. Once I had stepped on the first step of the staircase, the door on top of it had opened and Twilight had stepped out of the room upstairs. Her eyes had widened a bit in surprise. "Oh. Are you finished with the lunch?" She had paused, seemingly thinking of something. "I was just about to come and see if you were. And to do the dishes", she had finished, slowly beginning to descend the stairs. "Yeah, I am. I already did the dishes for you, too", I had replied, stepping out of her way. "You did? Thanks, I guess. Just to let you know, though, it's usually the hostess who does these kind of things", she had said, a smile forming on her face as she passed me. "I figured that'd be a good way to show you I'm actually a nice guy and definitely not dangerous", I had said, hinting towards her notes and even nodding towards the kitchen door a little to emphasize that. "You... Where did you come up with that last one?" She had replied, acting confused and gazing towards the kitchen with a frown forming on her face. "I read your notes, Twilight", I had said in a flat tone, frowning slightly as I fixed my gaze upon her. "Oh! That... I'm really sorry about that, I was just trying to think of your species as a whole, that note was not aimed for you or made off of my experience of you personally!" She had replied, a slightest bit of desperation fading into her voice at the end of her sentence. She had been avoiding my gaze. "I still find that a bit offensive. I mean, you're generalizing quite a bit here; not all humans have the tendency for violence. I'm a prime example of that, I only resort to violence in self-defense!" I had exclaimed. At this point, her eyes had met my gaze. Her tone had taken a defensive stance as she had said: "Well, what you told me about humans hints towards every single one of them being violent. Brutal, even!" Her tone wasn't helping in calming me down; it was actually doing exactly the opposite. "You still can't go and make assumptions and generalizations like that! I thought you'd know, being a scientist of sorts and all that!" I had replied, my voice slightly raising in volume. "Ugh, you got a point there." She face... Hoofed? "I should have asked you, rather than went ahead and assumed things like that. I'm sorry", she had said, her ears flopping down a bit, both her face and her tone indicating defeat. I had been a bit surprised at her sudden surrender. I had expected, and on some level hoped, to have a little longer debate over whether assumptions are justified in scientific research or not. I did like a good debate every now and then, mainly because I tended to win more often than not. "Well, maybe this is a cultural thing; maybe these people... I mean, ponies, don't like debating because it resembles arguing?" I had thought, shrugging mentally. With that out if the way, I felt it was appropriate to pressure her into talking a bit more. "So, our exchange of cultural information earlier came to a sudden halt due to some inconveniences caused by you abruptly becoming scared of something. Would you care to both explain what the hell that was about and proceed with the so far very successful exchange?" I had said sarcastically, overdoing both the formal vocabulary and the formal tone I used. She had blinked at me a couple times, processing my words. Surprisingly enough, she had had to actually take a moment to understand what I had just said, but eventually she had replied: "I wasn't necessarily scared, I just remembered that I had a book upstairs that might have mentioned your race and I really had to check it." "What kind of a book?" I had asked her. "It's called 'The Most Vicious Creatures of Equestrian History'. I vaguely recalled a mention of a race of warmongers but it turned out to be a mention about ancient griffin tribes", she had replied, seemingly a little embarrassed about her mistake. "Alright. I first thought you'd be sending a message to that princess you told yourself to be the student of or something like that", I had said, exhaling in relief that she actually hadn't done just that. “I actually thought of that initially, but decided to wait and see if you proved to be like what most of your species seems to be”, she had said, smiling at me. “Seems like you don’t.” “Great! Now, I think there were more questions you wanted to ask me, right?” I had asked her, walking across the main room of the library and back towards the kitchen. She had taken my hint of returning to the kitchen for the question asking and had followed me, replying: “Yes, there were. I can’t seem to remember all of them, though, and I didn’t write any down.” She had frowned a bit. “I can remember them pretty well, I think the next thing on the list considered something you called 'cutie marks'”, I had said while sitting down to the seat I had occupied during our lunch. I had remembered that particular question solely because of her mention of 'cutie marks'. I hadn’t ever heard of such thing and I was intrigued to find out more about them, naturally starting from what they actually were. “Also, would you care to explain what a ‘cutie mark’ actually is?” I had continued. “Oh, so you don’t know what they are? I assume you don’t have one then”, she had replied, writing down another note on the parchment she had picked up just a moment before. “Obviously.” “Let me see..." She had rubbed her chin with her forehoof for a second. "A cutie mark is a mark on a grown-up pony’s flank that resembles her speciality. Mine for example...” She had shifted her position on the chair so I could see her right flank. “... is a star and some sparkles, which resemble my talent in magic”, she had said, nodding towards her flank and shifting her position back to normal sitting. “Not that I mean to brag about my talent”, she had hastily added. “Sooooo, it’s kind of like a tattoo?” I had asked a bit confusedly. “I mean, it’s permanent, right? Once you get it, it never wears off?” “Yes, you get it at the end of your adolescence and it stays on your flank until you die” she had explained. “What’s a tattoo by the way?” She had readied her quill. "Um... A tattoo is a picture - any picture - a human can draw on their skin. Or actually, I think very few tattoos are self-made, most of them are done by professionals", I had started, pausing to think of anything I could add to that. She had been writing furiously. "The technique involves a needle that inserts small amounts of ink inside the skin. The picture one wants on their skin is 'drawn' with that, so it would be at least somewhat permanent. It actually fades out a bit while it gets older, but it never truly disappears", I had finished. Twilight had an amused look on her face while finishing her note. "So you're telling me humans fake cutie marks?" She had asked, clearly on the verge of bursting out to laugh. "No, not necessarily. First of all, humans don't know what a cutie mark is. Secondly, the pictures don't usually resemble one's talents, but interests rather. For example, a motorcycle enthusiast could - and in many cases, would - have a flaming skull tattoo that has nothing to do with motorcycles, but is there just because it's bad-ass", I had replied, making her write another note. Her amused expression also vanished, replaced by a neutral one. "Alright, I think we've got that one covered for now", she had said, raising her gaze from her notes to meet mine. "Were there any more questions I previously asked? I can't remember", she had added with a sheepish grin on her face. "Yeah, there was one more concerning human dietary customs. More precisely, if we all eat meat or not", I had replied. "So? Do you?" She had asked, leaning a bit forward with her ears perking up. She was obviously expecting - and most likely hoping - me to say 'No.'. My mental face twisted into a devious grin (if that makes any sense at all). "You aren't gonna like this", I had said, my physical face frowning slightly. Her ears had flopped, her gaze had dropped as she had sighed heavily and she had raised her quill in defeat, already starting on a note. I couldn't help wondering why she had taken it so heavily. It wasn't like it was going to change me or my dietary customs at all! My devious mental grin had transformed into a non-devious physical one. "No, not all of us eat meat." She had raised her gaze and stopped writing. "Run that by me again, please?" "Not all humans eat meat", I had repeated, a bit more slowly this time. "You... Agh! Why did you do that?" She had exclaimed annoyedly, giving me a frustrated glance while magically erasing the start of her note to write a new, correct one. I had only hummed "You've been trolled, you've been trolled, you have probably been told..." as a response. She had shot another glance towards me while finishing her note. She had groaned while setting her quill on the table. "Do what exactly?" I had asked, a made up innocent expression on my face. "You know exactly what I'm talking about", she had grunted. "Why are you taking this so seriously anyway? Other humans' diets aren't gonna affect mine", I had asked her out of curiosity. She had turned out to have a ready answer, since she had immediately responded: "I will have to write a truthful report of my error with that spell to Princess Celestia sooner or later, and I will also have to describe you in it. The more negative traits of you and your species I describe, the more miserable your stay will end up being". That had made a whole lot of sense, actually, and I couldn't help feeling grateful for her. The way she was trying to make my stay here as short and as pleasant as possible was heartwarming. We had spent a whole minute in silence, both sunk deep in thought. The silence had been broken by me, as I had realized I hadn't even thanked her for her thoughtfulness. "Thanks Twilight, that's really kind of you." "It's the least I can do, it is my fault you're here after all", she had replied, smiling weakly. She had shifted her position in her chair, straightening her back. "Now, I think you didn't yet explain what kind of diets humans have", she had said, picking her quill up with her magic. "Well, there are quite a few variants. Let me think...” I had paused for a moment, trying to remember what I had learned in health education back in the first year of high school. “Some people refuse to eat anything that is from an animal; those are called vegans. Some accept milk products in their diet, along with vegetables; those are called lactovegetarians", I had started. She had been writing so quickly I couldn't help wondering why there had been no smoke rising from the paper. "Lacto-ovo-vegetarians accept eggs along with milk products. Pescetarians also eat fish along with the previous", I had continued listing. I had also started to count with my fingers out of the force of habit. “Hmm, that last one sounds just like what most Equestrians follow”, she had mentioned absent-mindedly while I had taken a short pause to think of any more diets. She had continued her insanely fast writing without pausing for a second. I could have sworn I could make out some smoke above Twilight's parchment at that point. "Some people only refuse to eat red meat, pork and cow. Those are called semivegetarians. Aaand I think that's all!" I had finished. Twilight had written furiously for a few seconds more before finishing and raising her gaze to meet mine again. There had been a smudge of spilled ink on the tip of her muzzle. I had suppressed a chuckle. "So, that was all? No more unanswered questions?" She had asked me while taking a look at her parchment. It had been about 3 feet long at that point. I had answered just by shaking my head. “Well then, I think I should take a break from the questioning and start on reverting that spell”, she had said, standing up from her chair and walking out of the kitchen door and to the main library room. “You want to help me with that?” “You mean I could help you in some way? I know no magic”, I had said confusedly, remaining on my seat. “But you do know how to read, right?” She had asked playfully while starting to pull books out of the bookshelves with her magic. “Yeah, sure. Just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for”, I had answered. I had stood up and joined her in the library.
Chapter 4 - Nighty nightThe afternoon was spent with a bit less books than the morning, but Twilight and I had been busy with them all the same; not too busy to keep a conversation going, though. As we had been looking for useful books - any books with the words 'spell reverting' in any shape or form in their title, or table of contents, were drawn out of the shelves - we had discussed our daily lives. "So, what's it like to be a librarian?" I had asked while pulling a rather thick book from the top shelf of the bookcase in front of me. "It's really easy! The workload is never big and the hours are flexible, especially here in Ponyville where not too many ponies read regularly", she had replied while examining a thick, deep blue book. "Unfortunately, it doesn't pay too well. I get along, though, because the Princess supports me financially whenever I can't seem to make it on my own. Although, on the positive side, it leaves me a lot of time to read and I have a vast source of material for my studies", she had continued while setting the blue book into the pile she was about to tackle later on. She had pulled another book from the shelf. "A job of your dreams, huh?" I had asked, putting the book I had last examined back into the shelf. I had picked a new one as she had replied: "Yes, you could say that." She had chuckled a bit. A few minutes had passed in silence as we had kept on examining the books that were on the shelf titled 'Magic'. Twilight had been the one to break the silence. "Do you have a job back home? I think you mentioned some 'duties' right after you got here", she had asked while frowningly putting a bright green book back into the shelf. "Not currently. I did have one last summer, but as of mid-August I have continued my studies", I had replied. "Ooh, what do you study?" She had asked eagerly, turning her head so quickly I could make out an audible crack emanating from the back of her neck. I had chuckled at her a little while she had rubbed the very spot with her forehoof, grimacing. "I study linguistics. You know, the scientific study of languages", I had replied, still smiling amusedly. "No wonder you were able to use a different language the way you did", she had replied, moving her forehoof from the back of her neck to her chin, rubbing that instead. "I'm not an expert in human languages, but that did sound really fluent", she had added. She had been thinking of something for a moment as I had shifted my position awkwardly. I don't get compliments about my language skills that often, since my friends are used to me speaking multiple languages without any problems. "Linguistics isn't very popular of a field in Equestria since there are only a few different languages. Is that the case in Earth, too?" Twilight had asked curiously after the short pause. I hadn't cared to correct her to say 'on Earth'. Instead, I had replied: No, not really, even though there are over 6000 different languages on Earth." "That's weird. With the amount of people and languages you'd think it'd be quite popular", she had said with a pondering tone. "I guess it's just how much reading it requires. I mean, it’s all about just reading texts and analyzing their vocabulary and grammar”, I had replied truthfully. My studies back home included studying a couple foreign languages, as well as reading and analyzing texts, both in my native language and the foreign languages I studied; Finnish, Swedish and German. “It does include quite a bit of studying foreign languages, too. That was a major reason for me to go for linguistics in the first place”, I had continued. “You mentioned a language called Finnish, didn’t you? Do you study any other languages?” She had asked, her tone shifting back to curious. She had lifted her gaze from the slim purple book she had been skimming through to look at me. “Yes, German and Swedish. German because it’s spoken by over a hundred million people and Swedish because it has had a heavy influence on Finnish vocabulary. Both of them are also related to English, so they are not too hard to pick up”, I had explained while browsing through a thick blue book. The book seemed to be all about spell reverting, judging by the headlines in the table of contents, so I had put it in the ‘read these once we’re done with the search’ -pile. “Could you give me a short sample of both of them? I’d love to have more reference material on the linguistic diversity you humans seem to have”, she had asked with a slightly pleading look on her face. Her note parchment had floated through the air from the kitchen, enclosed in an aura of purple light. “Sure thing. Which would you like to hear first, and is there a specific phrase you were looking for?” I had asked her, replaying my impression of the perfect pronunciation of both languages in my head. “Could you repeat that phrase you used for... Finnish? ‘Okay Twilight, do you understand me now?’” She had asked, readying the quill she had summoned from the kitchen as well. “And go first with whichever language you please, just tell me which one it is you’re using”, she had continued. “Okay. I think I’ll go with Swedish first.” I had inhaled, as if I had been preparing myself for something either slightly frightening or physically demanding. Probably the former. “Okej Twilight, förstår du mig nu?” I tried to pronounce it in a little... Let’s call it a ‘suggestive’ tone. What I mean is, I tried to sound as gay as I could, since some Finns tended to do that when speaking Swedish, to make fun of the language. It’s a cultural thing; it resembles the way Americans and Canadians treat each other. I had learned this on the first course of Finnish I had ever taken in high school, since my teacher tended to lighten up the lessons with little fun facts like that. The fact that I actually remembered that didn’t help with the weak feeling of homesickness I was developing. Twilight hadn’t seemed to notice, though. She had handed the parchment over for me to write the phrase down. I had let out a short chuckle as she had done that, and she had blushed out of embarrassment, ever so slightly but still noticeably. As I had written the phrase down, I had said: “Now, in German.” “Go for it”, she had said with a smile. “Okay Twilight, verstehst du mich jetzt?” This time, I had slightly exaggerated the pronunciation of the ‘sh’ syllables and rolled the ‘r’s a bit too much, to give the phrase that stereotypical German sound. I think I did pretty well. Twilight hadn’t bothered turning the parchment to face her in between, nor setting down the quill. I had picked the quill from mid-air again and written down the phrase I had just said out loud. She had taken a quick look at the parchment as I had handed it to her, nodding contently and flashing a smile at me which I had returned. We had continued examining the books. -- The following couple of hours had passed with a little less conversation and a little more reading. After we had skimmed through the ‘Magic’ -shelf, Twilight had insisted on checking the ‘History’ -shelf as well. That had been a little less interesting, even if Twilight had gladly answered any questions about Equestrian history I had come up with while browsing the dusty tomes. Judging by the condition of the books - and the spider webs that extended from the ceiling to the top of the shelf - the shelf was rarely touched. It also seemed like Twilight didn’t get to share her historical knowledge - which, I might add, seems to be on par with her knowledge of magic - too often, since she seemed more than happy about being able to do so. She had seemed to have quite a bit of knowledge on Equestrian history, though, since she was able to answer most of my questions offhand - or offhoof, rather. During the hour we spent at the history section of the library I had learned that Equestria has been ruled by two princesses since time immemorial. There had been a period of time though, a millenium to be exact, when there had only been one princess to reign over the land. The other had been banished to - I had almost laughed out loud when I had heard this - the moon for her attempts to claim the throne for herself. That era had come to an end a few months back, with the assistance of Twilight and her friends. At the point Twilight shortly described her five friends - I had asked her to - I had been very eager to just go outside and meet them in person. However, Twilight had both insisted on continuing with the research and told me it would be downright dangerous outside. Someone could panic and call in the guards to take me away to who knows where, which would pretty much ground me to Equestria for the rest of my life. The latter part considered, that had made a whole lot of sense so I had stayed inside. -- The 'History' section skimmed through, Twilight and I decided to take a break and have some dinner. Twilight had seemed genuinely embarrassed by the fact she only had lunch leftovers to offer, but I had told her not to worry; me being a student, I was more than used to eating leftovers and had no reason to complain. Besides, the caesar salad had been just as good as at lunch - possibly the best I have ever eaten - and as I said that out loud, Twilight had blushed visibly. She didn't seem to get compliments of her cooking skills too often, quite like nobody ever noticed my language skills. -- By the time the sun had started setting, we had gathered a two-feet high pile of books from the shelves. As Twilight had set the last book on top of the pile, I had asked: "So, now what? I don't think I'll understand a thing said in these books, which renders me useless in further studying." Twilight had looked at me, seemingly thinking of something for a moment. "You may be right, let me see..." She had said with a pondering tone. She had shot a glance at the window to her left to see the sun dipping below the horizon and dyeing the sky scarlet. She had then shot a glance at the clock on the wall before setting her purple eyes on me again. "I think it may be too early to even suggest turning ourselves in yet", she had chuckled. "Is there anything specific you'd like to do to pass some time?" She had continued, smiling. "I can't really think of anything. If I were home, this is probably where I'd just turn on my computer and browse the internet for a couple of hours", I had said. Twilight hadn't seemed to quite understand me. "Computer? Internet?" She had repeated, seemingly baffled. Her note parchment had risen from the table on the far side of the room and started to drift across the room inside a purple hue of light as she had spoken. "Oh, you don't have those here? I would've thought so, given that you seem to have other electrical appliances like fridges", I had replied, a little confused too. “No, I’ve never heard of... What were those again, a commuter and an innernet?” She had said, placing the parchment in front of her and readying her quill for another note with her magic. “A computer and the internet. How should I explain this...” I had taken a short pause think. I hadn’t had any trouble finding a definition for the internet, but how are you supposed to describe a computer to someone that has never heard of one? I mean, it’s a piece of hardware that is capable of doing a mindboggling amount of operations at once, but that really doesn’t quite explain it’s nature, now does it? Then it had stricken me: computer’s operations are all about doing calculations. I had continued: “A computer is a machine that does an enormous amount of calculations in order to execute various operations, like displaying images or running games. The internet, on the other hand, is basically an incomprehensibly big library with innumerable amount of pages on practically each and every subject imaginable." "The internet can be accessed with a computer, and there are computers whose only task is to run websites, parts of the internet", I had added as Twilight had once again started to write with an utterly unbelievable speed. After a good 30 seconds of writing, she had raised her gaze from the parchment to look at me again. “How big is the internet exactly? I mean, how much information can it contain?" "That's beyond measurement. Think of it this way: if you were to need any information, any at all, you would eventually find it on the internet", I had explained. After a short pause, I had added: "I mean, information that has something to do with the world I come from; I can tell for sure there is no mention of your world anywhere on the internet." Twilight had taken a rather long note. Meanwhile, I had taken a look around the library that was being dyed deep scarlet by the last rays of the sunset. It had been very well organized and seemed to hold more knowledge of the world I was at least temporarily imprisoned to than what met the eye in the form of books; there were quite a bit of notes poking out from in between the rows of books on the shelves and even from in between the books themselves. On the far side of the room had been a bulky desk that had been covered with piles of parchments, quite like what my very own desk back home looked like after finishing a school assignment. The idea of home had made me shudder a bit, even though I had only been away for just a little over 12 hours. I would have never had guessed I'd start feeling homesick this easily, but apparently my current situation had proven that idea wrong. Twilight had finished her note while I had been sunken deep in thought and silently walked over to the 'Miscellaneous' -titled bookshelf. She had pulled a brown book with a picture of two pillows on the front cover from it and walked back to me with it enclosed in an aura of purple magic. I had shaken my head slightly and turned my head to look at her and the book. "What's that? 'Slumber 101'?" I had asked, looking at the book confusedly. “I just realized that if you’re going to be spending the night here, it’s technically a sleepover, which we might as well make a slumber party now that we have no more work to do today!” Twilight had said with a wide smile and sparkling eyes. “And the book has to do with what now?” I had said, still slightly confused, even though the title of the book was pretty self-explanatory. “This book contains a wide selection of activities to do at a slumber party. I use it as a reference guide, it’s very good”, Twilight had explained while opening the book and idly starting to flip the pages. Before I could say anything, she had excitedly added: “Of course, if you know of something fun to do and it isn’t in the book, I’d be glad to try it out. I could even add it to the ‘Own activities’ -section if it works out!” “Alright, that sounds like fun. What should we do first?” I had asked. The following few hours were spent telling ghost stories, making s’mores, having a pillow fight and playing the ‘Truth or Dare’. At one point, Twilight had tried to talk me into giving each other makeovers, but I had politely told her I didn’t want to. She had insisted on it, because the book told that was an essential part of a slumber party. I had told her I wasn’t willing to quite sternly at that point. After that, as she had kept on pleading me, I had half-yelled at her I didn’t want to. We had shared a laugh and moved on to doing something else. Later in the evening, once the sun had completely set, we had gone outside on the balcony for a while to look at the stars with Twilight telescope. That hadn’t been in Twilight’s book, but I had asked her if we could as I had seen her telescope outside. Twilight had seemed more than willing to, even though it meant that I had to step outside for everypony to see me, so we spent a good hour taking turns in taking a look at the night sky. The stargazing had been really cool, especially since the constellations seemed to be quite identical to the ones on Earth. -- Now, it is a little over midnight. Twilight has gone upstairs to her room and I am downstairs in the main library room, sitting on the edge of the couch. I still can’t believe I’m not going to wake up in my own bed tomorrow morning, just thinking this all was just a dream. How do I know that? I’ve been secretly pinching myself throughout the day just to ensure the things I’m experiencing are real, not mere images made up by my sleeping brain. Now, I think it’s time for me to hit the sack. Tomorrow is going to be a long day of spell reverting. Nighty night.
