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// Question-and-answer time about pony physiology 
// Story: Lectern’s New and Used Books: Summer Break 
// by Dave Bryant 
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Lectern’s New and Used Books had it in stock—or could get it, barring the rarest or costliest of tomes. In this age of digital shopping convenience, the ability to lay hands on an obscure volume immediately, or to obtain one inaccessible through most other channels, sustained the bookstore’s continuing prosperity. Students in particular found it an invaluable source for textbooks of all kinds.
Most of the seven friends already had availed themselves of this useful resource, and now it was Applejack’s turn. As they trooped through the double-leaf front door, she said over her shoulder, “I keep sayin’, ’tain’t no reason y’all had to come with me. I’m just pickin’ up those horse-care books I ordered for Big Mac, that’s all!”
“But it gives us a chance to hang out here,” Twilight Sparkle replied, her tone somewhere between plaintive and teasing.
AJ sighed and flung out her hands in defeat. “Fine, fine. I guess I don’t need to be anywhere in a hurry, come t’think. But at least let me pick ’em up first.”
A chorus of agreement answered as the whole parade fetched up by the retired bar that served as the check-out counter. Lectern himself stood behind it, eyes twinkling, as one of his employees rang up another customer. “Hello, Miss Applejack. Give me a moment and I’ll fetch that order for you. And hello to the rest of you too.”
“Oh! Hey, Sunny!” Twilight waved to the other cashier. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”
Sunny Flare, clad in a nondescript but businesslike blouse and skirt, looked up in brief startlement. “Uh—hi, um, Twilight. I’m kind of busy here, sorry.” Her tone was surprised and, somewhat to the onlookers’ amazement, genuinely contrite.
“Right,” Twilight said in chagrin. “It’s good to see you. Sorry to interrupt.”
“No problem.” If Sunny’s response was absent, no one held it against her; she truly was concentrating on her job, and doing it well.
Lectern corroborated this a moment later as he placed a small stack of books on the counter. “You’ll be pleased to know, Miss Sparkle, your friend Miss Flare is one of the better employees I’ve had.” Sunny twitched at her station, plainly resisting an urge to look back.
Twilight beamed. “That’s so good to hear, Mister Lectern. I’m sure she’ll do your store proud.” The others echoed her approval, and Sunny’s face darkened in an unmistakable blush, though her fingers continued moving on the tablet serving as a sales terminal.
Applejack was checked out quickly and efficiently by the old gentleman, whose touch was as deft on the second terminal as his much younger staffer’s. As she handed over the payment, AJ observed, “You seem pretty up on all this newfangled stuff, Mister Lectern. I mean, no offense, but a lot o’ older folks don’t seem to do so well with it.”
“None taken, my dear. It’s only the simple truth,” Lecter answered with a chuckle. “I make a point of keeping up with the times as best I can. I may not be up on the latest slang, but digital technology is here to stay, and there’s no point pretending otherwise—especially considering my competition these days is a great big warehouse with a great big Web site and great big shipping accounts.”


As soon as the girls were settled on the wing chairs backing up to the sitting room’s picture window, Fluttershy asked, “Horse-care books?”
“Yep,” Applejack said as she placed the stack on one of the small round coffee tables serving the conversation group. “Help yerself! Just treat ’em careful-like; they’re expensive.”
Fluttershy all but dived on the books in her eagerness, to a general chuckle.
“Before anyone asks,” Sunset Shimmer said firmly, “because I know someone will: I wouldn’t be as helpful to AJ and Mac as you might think.”
Twilight nodded and Applejack sat back with an unsurprised expression, but aside from the thoroughly distracted Fluttershy, the others looked confused to varying degrees.
Sunset sighed. “Think about it. If you were there instead of here, how well do you think you could advise the princess—any of the princesses—about primate behavior and physiology?”
“I get it,” Rainbow Dash said. “None of us are doctors or shrinks or anything like that.”
“Well, that too,” Sunset conceded. “But I was thinking more about the differences. How much do you know about monkeys and apes?”
“More than I’d like to,” Rarity commented with distaste. “But I take your meaning. That’s what horses here would be like to you, wouldn’t they?”
“More or less. I like them fine, but they’re not the same at all.”
Twilight leaned forward, scientific curiosity roused. “I’ll bet they’re as different from horses—and ponies—here as we are from apes, right?”
“Probably, but I couldn’t say any better than that, Sci-Twi. Some of the differences are pretty obvious, of course.” Sunset tapped her forehead with a fingertip and mimed a pair of wings. “Every tribe has its own kind of magic, for one thing,” she added in a quieter tone, and the others nodded, even Pinkie Pie restraining her usual enthusiasm in the interests of discretion in a public place.
“Aside from that, I only know a random collection of facts and figures.” Sunset shrugged. “I can handle a little farriery—hoof and shoe care, that is—but no more than one of you might learn about any other kind of personal care.”
“You handled it right well, though,” AJ put in sincerely.
“Thanks.” Sunset smiled at the memory of the task and the conversation that went with it.
“One of the things I really noticed in the newspapers you’ve been showing us,” Twilight mused, “is how the faces are put together. They’re a lot more human than equine in some ways.”
Sunset nodded. “I’ll bet you’re thinking of the big head, eyebrows, and binocular vision, aren’t you?”
Twilight giggled nervously and cleared her throat. “Am I that transparent?”
“Yes,” the others chorused, and she made a face at the lot of them.
“The big head is obvious.” Sunset paused in much the same way their teachers did in class.
Getting into the spirit of it, Pinkie raised a hand and waved it energetically.
“Miss Pie?” Sunset pointed at her with a genial air.
“For the big, big brain, right?” Pinkie held her hands near her head as if it were much larger and puffed up her cheeks.
“Yep! The eyebrows help with facial expressions, for social behavior, though of course the ears are a big clue, too.”
Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “What about that other thing, then? I’m guessin’ that’s eyes on the front of the face, like predators, instead of the sides, like most prey animals.”
“No one’s sure, AJ, but after all the classes I’ve taken at CHS and the documentaries I’ve watched, my guess is binocular vision developed to help with working magic and with fine coordination in general.” Sunset tapped her forehead again. “Can you imagine trying to aim a magical spell without being able to see in front of you properly? And the other tribes would have trouble too, just in different ways.”
Everyone winced; it didn’t take much imagination to visualize the probable results.
“Speaking of coordination, ponies here are stronger, but they don’t seem to have the same fine muscle control, except maybe in the lips, and they definitely aren’t as flexible.”
“Giving up raw strength for precision and range of motion.” Twilight demonstrated by raising an arm and swinging it down in a wide arc.
Dash nodded. “Some of those engravings show pretty amazing poses!”
Sunset laughed. “Even I don’t believe some of them, but they’re no more ridiculous than some of the engravings I’ve seen here in history classes or television shows.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Applejack muttered. Her Granny Smith kept family scrapbooks chock-a-block with ancient clippings of various kinds; undoubtedly plenty were of just the same sort.
Sunset frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, though, I think the magic must let them cheat some, because they seem to be stronger than people here are—especially earth ponies—but they’re still coordinated enough to use tools.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that,” Applejack said. “Thumbs are pretty useful. I know you said unicorns can do that levitation thing, but what about the rest? How did they build a whole country without hands?”
“Geckos,” Twilight broke in.
“Say what now?”
“Those lizards that can run up walls and across ceilings, even glass. It turns out their feet have lots of microscopic bristles that let them stick to all kinds of surfaces using a quantum effect. I guess on the other side of the portal the, uh, ponies can do something like that, maybe magically.” She glanced around instinctively for eavesdroppers, but nobody in sight was paying the girls’ quiet conversation any real attention.
“Huh.” Sunset leaned back and regarded Twilight with raised eyebrows. “That’s as good an explanation as any. We—they just kind of take it for granted. I’m not sure anypo—anyone’s done any kind of in-depth research on it. For that matter, I don’t think the science is there yet.”
“Well . . . you did say the science and technology are behind ours by almost a century and a half, and quantum theory’s less than a century old.”
“There you go.” Sunset waved a hand.
“And I suppose they don’t wear clothes because they can do that . . . that gecko-thing everywhere, not just on the hooves?” Rarity, of course, focused on the concern nearest and dearest to her heart.
“That and all the hair. There are clothes, Rarity, they just aren’t worn for modesty.” For a moment Sunset looked like her old self, evil grin and all. “And of course ponies do sweat, after all.” Her teasing was rewarded by Rarity’s face puckering in a grimace, and she went on, “I found out completely by accident horses here only have one kind of sweat gland, but humans and—according to Princess Twilight’s answer when I wrote her about it—ponies there have two. The second kind is a lot more effective at getting rid of heat.” Some of the looks on her friends’ faces moved her to defend herself with, “Hey, even health ed here doesn’t get into that kind of detail.”
“So that’s why it’s such a big deal when a horse gets in a lather, but it ain’t a problem for us!” Applejack looked enlightened. “Huh. I’ll bet that’s one o’ the things I’ll find in those books I just got.”
“If we could get off that awful subject and go back to something more civilized,” Rarity interjected with an edged tone. “I for one am more interested in why they wear clothing at all, if not for modesty. Looking fabulous certainly is important in its own right, and I suppose there’s winter cold to consider, but what else? Hmm . . . ah, of course, they would use it for social signaling.”
“I’ll bet you’re right—class, wealth, profession, formality, festivity, things like that. And they’d need protection against other things than cold.” Twilight cocked her head thoughtfully. “Not worrying about modesty must be one of the biggest social differences. There must be all kinds of effects.”
“Yeah, but this definitely isn’t the time or place for that discussion.” Sunset’s face by this point reflected her name, and she rubbed a palm against a burning cheek.
“Oh. Good point.” Twilight subsided, belatedly realizing her faux pas.
Fluttershy chose that moment to look up from the book that had absorbed all her attention. “Um, Sunset? How big are they?”
Everyone else exchanged glances. “I can’t believe nobody thought to ask that before!” Dash exclaimed, slapping her forehead.
“Let’s see . . . an adult mare’s around, ah, two and a half feet at the withers, and a stallion’s around three feet—but that’s just an average, and there’s a lot of variation. I’m not as sure about weight, but I know most stallions tend to be quite a bit heavier than most mares.”
“Withers?” Rainbow Dash wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like . . . I’m not sure I wanna say what that sounds like.”
“Careful, Rainbow Dash, your epidermis is showing!” Twilight looked pleased when her feeble joke elicited a momentary look of alarm, quickly followed by a roll of the eyes, from Dash and snickers from everyone else.
Applejack shook her head, still chuckling. “It ain’t much good measuring a ho—an equine’s height to the top of the head, ’cause the head can go up and down quite a bit. Instead, you measure to the top of the shoulder blades. Those are the withers, RD.”
Dash made a rude gesture, inspiring more laughter from half the group and mild indignation from the other half.
“What I noticed was their elegant conformation.” Rarity made sculpting motions with her hands. “Their bodies are so much slimmer and their limbs—well, maybe those aren’t quite as slim as horses’ legs here.”
“You’ve got me there, Rarity.” Sunset shrugged. “I’d chalk it up to what Sci-Twi was saying about giving up strength for coordination and flexibility.”
“Ooh! Ooh! I have an important question!” Pinkie raised her hand again, waving it like a semaphore flag. “Do they eat hay?”
Twilight cringed, but Sunset just sighed. “Sometimes. It’s kind of like cup-of-noodles is here—cheap, easy to get, but kind of bland. Except it’s a little better for a pony than cut-rate noodle cups are for us, at least.”
“From the newspapers, especially the advertisements, I guess ponies there eat all sorts of things,” Fluttershy put in. “Lots of baked goods, soups, salads . . .”
“Oh, cuisine is very important.” Sunset looked a bit wistful. “It’s just as varied as what I’ve seen here. Less meat, of course, but a wider variety of plants, even some you might think are mildly toxic. Our—their digestive systems must be as versatile as human digestion, just in different directions.”
“Wait. Less meat?” Dash’s brow furrowed. “I thought horses didn’t eat meat at all.”
“Mostly,” AJ corrected this misapprehension. “If a horse needs certain vitamins or minerals, it might eat somethin’ like a baby bird. That I do know.”
Fluttershy looked horrified, but Twilight nodded. “Also, brains complex enough for talking, making tools, and building societies need more energy—lots more—and nothing else packs in the calories that meat does.”
“There isn’t a lot, and it usually gets processed pretty heavily—mostly fish and things like that,” Sunset added.
Rarity clapped her hands softly. “Like Worcestershire sauce! That has anchovies in it.”
“Yeah, I think that’s another one of those things that exist in both worlds—with a different name, of course.”
“It is amazing how close the parallels are,” Twilight said. “I really wonder about that.”
“It may have something to do with the portal. Or maybe the portal was able to latch onto this world because it’s so similar.” Sunset looked uncharacteristically uncertain. “But now we’re getting way out of my knowledge, Twi. This is doctorate-level stuff, maybe post-doc.”
“You can get a doctorate in magic?” Rainbow Dash looked dubious.
Twilight leaped to the defense. “Why not? Sunset said it’s a science there, and I’ll bet it’s a lot like a physics degree.”
“Close enough,” Sunset agreed, fighting a giggle. “Ahem. Since this turned into questions-and-answers time, is there anything else anyone else really, really wants to know?”
The other girls looked at each other and shrugged—aside from Fluttershy, who half-raised a hand timidly. “How old are they? I mean, they all have their own homes and most of them seem to have full-time jobs. The Ponyville Express has lots of articles on them, being heroes and all.”
“They’re about the same ages you are,” Sunset replied promptly. To exclamations of disbelief, she held out a hand palm-up toward Applejack who, notably, had taken the announcement in stride. “Farm girl? What do you say?”
“I say they live somewhere that schoolin’ like we get ain’t taken hold yet, ’least not all the way through. Most pony folk prob’ly still are farmers and crafters and such, and don’t get more’n a few years in one-room schoolhouses. I did see that article on the new playground in the Ponyville schoolyard.” AJ tipped back her hat and grinned. “Remember all them Mark Twain stories we read in English class, girls? Just like that.”
It was the mention of the period author that did the trick, and the others nodded. Twilight elaborated with, “And I’ll bet the apprenticeship system is still around. It might be on its last legs, though. You can’t educate people fast enough or well enough for an industrialized society that way. It takes years and years . . . and that . . . that’s why we’re stuck in classrooms all day for so long.” The epiphany was as disturbing as it was illuminating for all the girls, even Sunset.
“So that’s why they’re considered adults . . . and we aren’t.” Rainbow Dash looked and sounded a little grim.
“Price o’ progress,” Applejack said briskly. “Without it, there wouldn’t be steam engines an’ railroads—or cel phones an’ satellites.”
“Or modern medicine,” Twilight pointed out soberly, then cleared her throat. “Sunset, you went to that special unicorn school, right?”
“Yep. It has a normal curriculum for foals, just like the one-room schoolhouses AJ mentioned only fancier, but it’s also kind of like what universities here used to be before the modern schools came in.” Sunset tapped her knee with a fingertip. “When I was doing my research after first coming here, one of the things I looked into was history, especially the history of education. It seemed like the thing to do, since the portal comes out in front of a high school. Old-time universities were more about covering complicated subjects most people didn’t need and couldn’t use in day-to-day life—science, law, medicine, and things like that—so there were lots of older professionals and younger prodigies going to them than there are today.”
“And you were one of those prodigies,” Rarity finished.
“Yeah.” Sunset blinked rapidly a few times. “Yeah, I was. And I didn’t know how good I had it, did I?”
“You do now,” Rainbow Dash reminded her bracingly. “And you did something about it.”
“We were all there when you wrote to your old teacher and she wrote back.” Fluttershy leaned forward and squeezed Sunset’s hand. “If she can forgive you, and we can forgive you, you can forgive yourself.”
“Uh . . .” They all jumped at the sound of a new voice and turned to face Sunny Flare, standing in the aisle between the two seating groups and shifting from foot to foot. “I guess this isn’t a good time to talk?”