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Ari's been bouncing around the world fighting demonic horrors and fae creatures and Mothers know what else for over half a century, at a conservative estimate. He's not so naïve as to say he's seen it all, but he's seen most. He's seen a lot of it dead, too.
One thing he absolutely has not seen is that fucking thing. Giant snake with a mirror for a head. Nonresponsive to attempts to communicate, thrashing about wrecking traffic light and such, and thus: probably Bad News. Bad News which probably calls for murder. Luckily, Ari's good at that.
Planning... perhaps less so.
In retrospect, "punch the obviously supernatural mirror" was not what one might call the best idea.
But there's little enough time to worry about that; he's landed. Ow. What the hell did he land on?
bitterchill
allcomplete
"Likewise." Pause. "You're very tall. I'm not sure where to put you. I suppose you could fit into my apartment if you crawled, but I don't have a second bed."
bitterchill
"Huh. Yeah, size may become an issue. I mean, you've got no need to put me up yourself, I just happened to land on you."
allcomplete
"Well, someone else might or might not be willing, but I think they'd all have the same problem: you just aren't pony-sized. I wonder if I could shrink you."
bitterchill
"That'd be some serious magic. Unless we're talking super different magic... dumb question, of course we are, you're a freaking unicorn. It'd be much appreciated, at any rate, especially if you could remove it."
allcomplete
"I'm not planning to irreversibly shrink you. But I've never shrunk a living thing before. I'll look into it. Fortunately it's not going to be in this scrambled section." She trots over to a different stack and starts floating down books.
bitterchill
"I can try to reshelve some of the books if you like." He picks up a tome at random and peers at the title. "...If they're not all in Lucky Charms Hieroglyphics, that is."
allcomplete
"Oh, they aren't, a lot of ponies haven't learned to read those either, it's just a little more efficient for some technical subjects. How's this?" She finds a book in a different script.
bitterchill
"Perfectly readable English, for... whatever reason. Weirder things have happened. D'you want them alphabetical by surname?"
bitterchill
Sift, sift, shelve book by Sagacity Acorn, sift, Quillfeather Aster, Page Bloom...
"Man, these names are a lot more literal than human names, that's for sure. How do you get them so, uh, thematically appropriate?"
"Man, these names are a lot more literal than human names, that's for sure. How do you get them so, uh, thematically appropriate?"
allcomplete
"That's actually an unexplained mystery! We're not even sure which direction causality goes. Some of them are family names, but not all - I don't have a family name."
bitterchill
"Wow. That's actually a weirder answer than I'd expected, and I was expecting some weird. What kind of thought process goes into the naming, then? Could I name my foal 'Asskick McSharkpuncher' and expect it to grow up like me?"
allcomplete
"Like I said, we don't know which direction the causality goes, so it's possible that your foal would grow up to match the name, but it's also possible that you would wind up feeling inspired to name your foal something less... that... in slightly clairvoyant anticipation of its talents and interests."
allcomplete
"I suppose. Names vary in how particularly appropriate they are. My mother's name is Morning Rain, and it's fairly generic as pegasus names go, without any obvious reason for it to be her name specifically. Then again, Morning's a family name."
bitterchill
"Yeah, I'm Ari because my parents thought it was a cool name. I mean, I assume. Not like I can ask."
bitterchill
"Uh, no, that wasn't what I meant by that. They're dead. Like, super dead. Have been since I was a mewling infant."
bitterchill
"I mean, it's not like I knew them or anything. I had a perfectly serviceable foster mother, and I've had fifty-plus years to get over the whole affair."
allcomplete
"Okay. ...I have no idea how to tell by looking how old a human is. I suppose I was assuming by default that you were around my age but obviously that's silly."
bitterchill
"Well, I don't actually know how old you are, but most humans who look like me aren't fifty, so your guess was probably pretty reasonable. Unless you're, like, ten. Wizards live for hundreds of years; humans live about ninety, in ideal conditions. We wizards kind of get all the nice stuff, really."