Where I Belong

Twilight 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.