Where I Belong

The 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?"