Lessons in the Library

Days in the Castle of Friendship were often busy though fairly relaxed most of the time for Twilight Sparkle. From supervising to consulting to paperwork, Twilight did all that was required as an Equestrian Princess. But recently a new task has fallen at the hooves of the young mare, overseeing the wellbeing and education of the newly discovered creature from the Everfree.

Twilight was a big supporter of the idea to bring the creature into Ponyville’s care in order to better understand it, as well as to learn more about it. After all, as soon as she could get it alone in the basement, all of her theories could be-

…

Ummm... yeah, so she decided to try and teach it Equish!

Though she and Feather Pen had initially only intended to collect data on the creature and gauge its mental aptitude through tests, the creature’s habits and actions within the castle quickly proved that the animal intelligence tests Twilight had organized would be redundant. Having come to this conclusion, Twilight had uncharacteristically decided to postpone the various exercises and tests she and Feather Pen had intended to run, much to the pegasi’s chagrin.

But while the tests were put off, Twilight enlisted the help of the guards assigned to the creature. The creature was to be given autonomy within the castle, and do whatever it pleased, within reason of course. And while the creature wandered and explored, its escort would be there to report on its habits and actions directly to Twilight. Twilight learned a great deal from this arrangement and quickly understood just how unique the creature was.

Cleaning after itself, eating with utensils, its creation of crude clothing, all of it felt so weird yet so exciting. Supposedly this creature was a wild animal of the Everfree, yet it kept its body and mane as clean as anyponies, even going as far to cut its own beard with a stolen pair of scissors! The intelligence of the creature was beyond a doubt, and soon after this the Princess began working to teach the creature how to speak the language of the ponies. An interview with an unknown creature was a chance too good to pass up for the young alicorn.

Everyday 9am sharp, the guards of the creature would bring him to the library and the Princess would personally teach him equish. In her mind, thoughts of witnessing the world's newest addition to sentient life learn to communicate made her giddy. The mare understood the task wouldn’t be easy, but she was a determined one and under no circumstances would she allow herself to falter on this ambition.

oo000OOOO000oo

“Repeat after me Celestia Damnit!!!” I shouted at the creature standing across the table from me, unfazed.

“Calmati stupido cavallo!” the creature shouted back in its own language.

“We’ve been doing this for weeks, please just read the sentence on the black board!” I cried, pleading for the creature to cooperate. It was times like these where I questioned whether the creature was actually intelligent. The creature had proven it could speak at least a little equish when I first encountered it all those weeks ago. Even if his pronunciation was rough, I could at least understand what words he was saying, at least when he chose to speak. Picking up the wooden pointer in my magic, I levitated the pointer to a word written on the chalkboard.

“Where!” I say, smacking the board with the pointer, emphasizing the word the creature was supposed to speak.

“Where.” Good he was starting to cooperate again. Smacking the board again for the next word, I continued on.

“Is!”

“Is.”

“The!”

“The.”

“Library!”

“Library.” There it was, he actually said it all! Now, hold on just a moment, we aren’t done just yet but he's doing great, he can do it this time, I can feel it!

“Where is the library?”

“¡Dónde está la Biblioteca!”

“BUUUUUUUUCK!” I scream, burying my face into my hooves. This happens everytime, every bucking time! I finally get him to repeat after me and before he can just put it all together, he has to go and ruin it by babbering in whatever language it uses.

This has been going on for days, I need to change something, I need to try something new!

Suddenly an idea pops into my head, maybe he’ll respond to something non-equish. Turning back to the board, I wrote out a word from the Japoneighese, their word for goodbye. Writing it out in the equish form, I underlined the word multiple times before turning back to the creature, beaming at my brilliant idea.

“Sayonara! Come on! It’s time to say sayonara!” I say as if I was trying to convince a dog to do a trick.

“Ma non parlo Italiano!”

“Yamete kudasai!” I scream before pushing my head between my hooves on the library table. I had put so much effort into the creature’s lessons yet he refused to cooperate. My dream of interviewing the creature was slowly starting to fade. Shifting my head on the table I whispered to myself. “I can’t do this anymore...”

The room was silent with my head on the table, not until the soft foot falls of the creature walking towards me could be heard. I was clueless to what it was planning to do, I could never seem to pin down the creature’s habits or intentions. He was so unpredictable. And as if he wanted to prove that statement correct, his digits pressed into the left side of my neck before moving up and down.

Quickly inhaling, my breath came out slowly as a drawn out, “Aaahhhhhhhhh~.” As the creature continued to scratch my neck, I could feel the sensation washing away my frustrations and anxieties from the lesson.

In an attempt to give the creature a better angle, I rolled my head to the right leaving the left side of my neck facing up. But instead of scratching with greater vigor, the claw of the creature’s hand shifted up my neck before settling behind my ear. At the feeling, I could feel my muscles in my barrel relax, causing my back to arch like a canyon bridge that hung between my head on the table and my locked out legs. Feeling a second claw touch my head, I rolled my head up so both ears would be available to the creature. But rather than scratch at my right ear, I could feel both claws press against my maneline before slowly pulling its digits through my purple mane, the short nails at the ends scratching euphorically against my scalp.

“...oh gosh~,” I unconsciously moaned out, unable to control my voice box as the appendages pulled through my locks. And just as he finished running his appendages through my mane, his claws, snaking to the back of my head, pushed into my mane again. My head felt lighter as his claws in my mane pushed up my head, his nails slowly dragging along before being pulled back down my head. Heavenly didn’t feel like the right way to describe the feeling, it was better than that.

“Caw- com ahn! Stahp it, yu need to~ uuggghhh~! Learn equish!-” I tried to say but couldn’t, the neurons connecting my brain to my mouth seemingly severed by the creature’s claws as they scratched my scalp.

Oh mare… If I get this each time he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll be fine if he never learns equish!

oo000OOOO000oo

“Bib-ba-dee bop-ba-dee boop!” I scat back at purple before she yells back at me in horse. I’ve had it with this little monster, all she does for three hours is point at her cute little chalkboard while having me repeat whatever the horse writing says. After a certain point during these lessons I wind up just fuckin’ with the little horse, it’s a helluva lot more entertaining than just mindlessly repeating her for hours on end.

For god's sake, I hated highschool work packets but god-DAMN they would be so much better than three hours here.

Suddenly the wooden stick she's been beating against the board began to levitate. Magic. So far my relationship with it has been a mixed basket. Watching the little ponies do some gnarly tricks like teleporting and shiz is cool and all, but I was sent to hell ‘cause of it. Well… actually it wasn’t that bad there, I felt oddly at home, like I had been there before.

I should talk to these little ponies about sending me back there sometime…

The stick floating in the air cracks against the board under an unknown word written in chalk. Purple says what I assume is the word on the board, her tone sharp and serious. I’ll oblige her this time, for now. Repeating the word, the purple ball of fur seemed to be unfazed by my cooperation, suspicious of my ability to get through the entire sentence. The words come one by one until she puts them all together.

It’s showtime. The reaction purple gives fills me with joy as the pony, comically wailing, causes a small smile to tug at the corners of my mouth. The smile disappears as I wipe away any detectable emotion as purple, looking slightly deranged, quickly pops up from her face down position on the desk to scribble something on the board. Before long purple finishes her word before underlining it three times and turning back to me with a smile that said ‘you better not fuck this up’.

Imma fuck it up.

Purple says something before making a noticeable break before saying a single word and tapping the black board. Taking a deep breath in through my nose, my fingers in each hand pressed against their neighboring thumb, and pointing upwards, I shook them slightly before saying…

“But I can’t speak Italian!!!”

Purple cries something in pony before her head falls back between her hooves for the umpteenth time this lesson. Though compared to the obvious groans of annoyance from before, the sound she made with her face sandwiched between her front legs makes me wince. As funny as her reactions had been, now she sounded like she was on the verge of crying. For as annoying as I’ve been until now, I didn’t want her to cry.

Slowly standing up from my chair, I quietly made my way around the table until I stood adjacent to purple. Her ears flicked as I reached towards the fuzzy appendage, causing my hand to stop. Looking elsewhere on her body, I picked a new target. My fingers made contact with the fur of her neck first and before she could even exclaim some weird pony word, my hand was itching away. As I scratched away, I moved from neck to ear to head, all of which she seemed to enjoy very much. I basically just did what anyone who grew up with a dog would have done and it seemed to be doing the trick!

The contented expression and sounds lil purp made as I scratched her were cute and soon my teeth were showing as I smiled softly. Hopefully this made up for all the times I messed with her today, and yesterday, and basically ever since she started these lessons. Scratching away, I looked back to the board at all the scribblings of words and sentences, trying to decipher what they could mean. Looking between the pony that was putty in my hands and the chalkboard, I let out a sigh as I whispered to myself. “Alright, you win, I’ll go along with these little classes.”

Author's Note

Bi bidi bop boop bop, Skibidi booba boo da

Hot take, the Italian language is based on singer Scatman John's music.

Anyways, there's more coming so don't think you can leave just yet, see ya!