Chapter Three: Language Study
"Science officer's log, Stardate 57033.9. Commander Donner woke up an hour ago. He ingested some food and water while I reported our recent encounter with the locals. He is now back to sleep, and the sun is about to rise. Today I will use my knowledge in linguistic to decipher their language, while Doctor Hofmann will try to find undamaged tools to repair our universal translator."
Looking around, Johann was still asleep, entangled in his blanket. Two glasses of water in a tray balanced on a stool functioning as a nightstand. Putting away the tablet, T'mor folded her blanket and walked out of the barn. "A big day ahead of us." She thought.
The sight of Star welcomed her, but what astonished her most was not Star itself. Beside her, there were a sheet of paper, a quill and a bottle of ink floating in the air, surrounded by a deep pink aura which also formed around Star's horn. To a Vulcan like T'mor, everything unnatural must have a scientific conclusion and not worth to show her surprise. While she was trying to come up with an explanation, Star spoke.
"Tsng genou rai." T'mor recognized this one, because Star used this sentence yesterday to ask her to follow. The purple pony led her to the table outside the house and floated two stools to them in the same aura (So that means it can control the aura like a tractor beam). They sat by the table and Star gave a piece of paper to her, using the quill to write on it. The characters she wrote were unfamiliar to her, but she soon found out they were alphabet-based not Hieroglyph-based.
"Shuei" it said, trying to use its hooves to express something, to no avail. T'mor didn't seem to understand what her meant. Then the aura appeared around the horn, levitating a glass of water to T'mor. "Shuei"
Now T'mor understood what that word means. "Water" She said slowly, made sure Star catch every syllable and wrote on the paper the equivalent of the previous word in English beside it. The first deciphered word, and hundreds to come before they can make conversation.
"Science officer's log, supplemental. The purple alien and I made the first attempt to communicate and we nailed down the translation of around a hundred words, mostly nouns. The detail of that will be included in my linguistic note. The progress is promising, for I noticed their language has many similarities with English and some other languages on Earth. I believe that in ten days, we will be able to hold decent conversations."
Before Johann stepped out of the barn, a stack of paper had been put aside near the two of them, filling with note in both English and pony language, mixed with hand-drawings. T'mor and Star, sitting side by side, were writing on a piece of paper, using the quill in turn, while T'mor taking note on a tablet. Star soon found out what a tablet can do when T'mor took down her first note. However, she soon abandoned her plan to use it as it cannot recognize pony alphabet, and had to settle with her traditional way. So when Johann first walked through the barn door, he was welcomed by the levitation aura surrounding the moving quill and floating paper.
"Ah! What is that! The pink glow!" Johann was apparently in shock, as he exclaimed and stared straight at the levitating objects, mouth wide open.
"It's a harmless aura, I presume, that allows these pony aliens to levitate matters by will. It is another phenomenon that awaits to be solved."
It took Johann a whole minute to recover. Meanwhile, Star was studying his reaction with curious eyes. Suddenly it realized that it was her pink aura that started all the exclamation and confusion, so it put down what it was holding and dissipated the aura. The doctor eventually managed to utter his awe. "Impressive! Now I like this world more. We can be the first to uncover a whole new field of science."
"I believe the same."
A series of clangs interrupted what they were about to say. Star said something to T'mor, using their note as it struggled to tell them that "morning food" is "that way".
Breakfast turned out to consist of apple-flavoured bread, apple-flavoured oatmeal, apple pies, apple tarts, apple soup, apple juice and, of course, apples. The apples here were nearly identical to those on earth, except the taste. Apples here taste a lot better than their earth counterparts to Johann.
Apple made them breakfast (T'mor explained her nicknames of ponies, to which Johann found very suitable). It appeared that Apple's family all live in that house, which include a young pony, a stronger one and an old one. All of them gathered around a large table in the backyard which was apparently just been dragged out from the kitchen.
The young pony was light yellow with red mane. It (she/he?) was very talkative , never stopped to speak with Star, while stealing some glance the humanoid guests' way. In contrast, the heavy built red pony was silent most of the times, not bothering to speak at all. The old pony, a green coat and grey mane with wrinkle, kept staring at them sceptically. The pony family structure shall be the first field to study today, thought T'mor.
Johann was still fascinated by the strange aura used by Star. He soon found out that only unicorn pony can utilize aura as the extension of hoof. The Apple family had to use their dexterous hooves to handle forks and spoons. As a result, he spent most of his breakfast staring at Star's horn and the constant moving fork.
After breakfast, Johann took some leftover and water to attend to commander Donner, while T'mor continued her study with Star. With their previous effort, they were progressing much faster. By the time Johann returned with the plate, T'mor had known their host already.
"The ponies we met at the table were Apple's young sister, big brother and grandmother. However, given our limited vocabulary, I can't translate their names. The other ponies yesterday were all her friends. I also explained that we are colleagues and are of different species, which she didn't seem to understand."
"It's alright, you are doing great. Perhaps this morning we should go see if we can recover any spare parts to fix our combadge?"
"I think so. Give me a minute to explain it to her." T'mor turned to Star and began to talk really slow while drawing on the paper. Star grasped her intention a short while later.
"Ok." Star replied, though heavily accented.
The barrier of language had been overcome, T'mor thought, we are one step closer to contact Starfleet and leave the ponies in peace.