Kawa's Attempts at Self Discovery and Squick

“What’d you just say”, Pinkie said with an appropriately confused look on her face that nicely mirrored my own, but less scowly.

“I said… are you… whinnying in English?” I struggled to reply.

“Noperoonie!”

“Coulda fooled me”, I quipped. “Sure sounded like English.”

“But it’s not”, the pink danger insisted. “I speak Equestrian, just like everypony else!”

Well, that made sense.

“Could you… repeat that whole thing, but a little slower?” I asked hesistantly as I stroked my—oh wow I lost my beard. All I could feel was… fur, I guess.

“Okidokie, Loki! I said that I’d never seen you around Ponyville before, so that must mean you’re new here…”

At that point I recognized what Pinkie was all up about and tried to drown her out.

Nope, still can’t do that. Dammit.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m new”, I interrupted. “I… ah… don’t know how I got here actually.”

“Are you drunk?” Pinkie asked. All thought processes ground to a halt right there and then. As I tried to get things started again and come up with a reply, I flashed this massive shit eater of a grin. You could dump a wheelbarrow of shit in there. But not literally, fuck no. Shit’s nasty, both figuratively and literally!

But anyway, I could swear I saw Pinkie turn just a smidgen pale-like before she slowly turned around and proceeded to haul ass outta there.

Was there something in my teeth? Probably. But I’d sooner blame the grin itself. I shrugged, or rather tried to shrug, and walked on. It’d probably be a good idea to either go find Town Hall and get some boring bullshit out the way, or maybe explore town first? Nah, there’ll be plenty time for that later.

And let’s not even consider trying to meet five certain other ponies first.

“Hoookay dan”, I whispered to myself. “Waar zou die tent zijn…”

I was, of course, looking in exactly the wrong direction. Between the odd stares of random mares (lol) and my drunken-like swagger, it took quite a bit of time to get to town hall.

A lady behind the counter took notice of my sudden presence. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Ah, yeah… I’d like to ah… I’d like to… fuck wat was dat woord ook al weer?”

“What was that, sir?”

“Ah… I’m new here, ma’m. I’d like to…”

“Register, sir?”

“Whatevah. What do I do?” I shrugged as I stood a bit closer to the counter.

“I’ll need your name, that of your sire, your dam, your place of birth, and a description of your cutie mark, sir”, the government official said as she slid a form towards me.

My brain full of useless trivia felt pretty useful at that time. I hardly even noticed the lady said ‘sire’ and ‘dam’ before I made the connection:

“The male parent of a horse, a stallion, is commonly known as the sire and the female parent, the mare, is called the dam.”

Thank you Wikipedia! Thank you strangely selective memory! And fuck you impossible answers! I couldn’t very well write down my parents’ names, or my place of birth. How would these ponies even know what a Netherlands is, let alone the more specific location? I hadn’t taken a close look at my cutie mark either, mostly because my jacket was kinda in the way… and I wasn’t entirely sure how to write in the first fucking place!

Grabbing the provided pencil with my lips was surprisingly easy, though…

Now then. Name… ‘Kawa’. Easy. Or maybe not – it was a complete and utter mess.

“Fuck me flying”, I said with a slight frustration. Swearing in English came naturally to me, somehow.

“What was that, sir?”

“I ah… messed up. Can I have some... blank paper to practice on?” I said with what would probably be a noticeable blush and another stupid grin.

“You can’t write, sir?”

“You tell me”, I joked as I passed the form back. The lady was silent for all of three seconds as she stared at the form.

“You can’t write, sir”, she confirmed with the most deadpan face I’d seen all week.

“Yeah it’s… ah… pretty ‘mbar’sing… heheh.”

Up yours, lady, I just need a little practice.

Roughly an hour and one more blank sheet later, I had the point size down to a rough 12 or so.

“Okay, I think I got it. Can I have ah… Can I have another form, ma’m?”

The lady must’ve noticed my occasional nasal snorting between words. Turning into a pony didn’t seem to do anything about my little breathing problem – ever since I was born, as far as I know, I’ve had trouble breathing through my nose, so I’ve breathed through my mouth for almost thirty years.

*snort*

Okay, take two.

Name: ‘Kawa’.

Sire: heh… Let’s go with a little white lie. Ah… ‘Haybale’. At least the first letter’s a match.

Dam: hmm… let’s do something different there. Can’t think of anything with her initials that wouldn’t cause problems even faster soooooooo… ‘Nectarine’. Thanks again shit brain.

Cutie mark…

I paused and turned, pulling my jacket away. Now, I can do a whole lotta things, but most of them are related to computers. I can write, I can code, I can draw a bit, and I hack. Somehow, I wasn’t all that surprised to see a slightly simplified Susan Kare-style ‘my computer’ icon on my ass.

But how do you describe a PC in a world where the closest thing is a goddamned ENIAC?