"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."

"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.

"Perfectly readable English, for... whatever reason. Weirder things have happened. D'you want them alphabetical by surname?"

"That would be great."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"And that would be a damn shame. I guess that's one advantage of being a biped."

"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."

"Yeah, I'm Ari because my parents thought it was a cool name. I mean, I assume. Not like I can ask."

"Well, maybe you'll be able to go home eventually and inquire if you still care."

"Uh, no, that wasn't what I meant by that. They're dead. Like, super dead. Have been since I was a mewling infant."

"Oh. Oh dear, I'm sorry."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I'm seventeen. Young adult in, uh, pony years."

"Young adult in human years too! That's good, I was hoping you didn't have the same lifespan as horses from Earth. That'd just be weird and sad."

"They don't live long?"

"Uh. No, but they're not... people, like you are. Can't talk, no higher-level thought, they don't come in pastel colors. Sorry, should've clarified."

"...Okay. That's... creepy though."

"Eh, I guess. We've got animals that look about as much like us as Earth's ponies look like you, and they aren't people, so maybe I'm just used to it."

"There are a lot of species of people around here and some of them aren't ponies at all."

"Oh, sure, we've got that too. There's hundreds of species of fae, demons, undead... A lot of them are human-shaped, but not all. I guess if you only count things with souls as being people there's less of them, but that's kind of restrictive."