An omake by dogbertcarroll.
Cultural adpatation and mathematical proofs!
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Shepherd looked at the closed door and sighed. He really hated to do this... but it looked like he had little choice. He reached out to knock on the door. Before he'd finished the first knock the door opened and he was yanked inside and found himself sitting on a couch across from Cadence who was serving tea.
"I was wondering when you would break down and come see me," Cadence said cheerfully.
"Yes, well... I sort of have a problem and need some advice," he admitted.
"You certainly do," a voice called from out on the balcony.
"Quiet Shiny," Cadence called back. "Now, in your own words... what are you having problems with?"
"I'm sort of seeing... a number of ponies and it's very confusing," Shepherd admitted. "One minute Twilight is monopolizing all my attention and the next she is pushing me towards Fluttershy. Sometimes Pinkie is really flirtatious and others she's simply friendly. Applejack will lean on me like I'm her rock one day and the next she'll be treating me like a buddy. Sometimes they're jealous of others paying attention to me and other times they are amused. I... I have no idea what's going on from day to day."
"And does this conflict with their charts?" Cadence asked.
"Charts? What charts?" Shepherd asked dumbly.
"You don't..." Cadence looked shocked and then shook her head. "Of course you don't, you are from another world. I really should have seen this coming."
"Seen what?" Shepherd asked, ignoring the snickering from the balcony.
"Shepherd, the amount and type of affection females desire varies day to day," Cadence explained, telekineticly pulling a white board out of somewhere and scribbling on it with a marker.
"I can understand that," Shepherd reluctantly agreed, watching a complex diagram take shape on the board with a number of mares' names surrounding his own and lines and mathematical equations running between all of them in a confusing tangle that was slowly shaping up into what he thought a demon summoning circle should look like.
"Of course this is just a simplified version, not taking into account several mares which are probably on the outskirts of your romantic grouping or herd," Cadence explained, "but those are easily dealt with as the need arises. See if you simply plug these factors into this simple diagram you'll be able to tell off hand how you should be treating all the females in your life on a day to day basis."
"I have absolutely no idea what I am looking at," Shepherd admitted. "I'm pretty sure if I tried to write anything like that Tartarus would open up and release it's prisoners."
Hysterical laughing came from the balcony and Cadence's horn glowed for a moment, the laughter slowly decreasing as if a laughing male unicorn had just been pushed over a rail and was falling off the side of the castle, all while the Alicorn of Love smiled cheerfully.
Shepherd sipped his tea nervously. "I'm serious, whatever you've just written up there is so foreign to my mind that I can't comprehend it."
Cadence sighed. "That seems to be common among most males. Normally I'd simply make you a calendar so you could track everything, but there are simply too many variables to have it be more than sixty percent accurate-"
"I'll take it!" Shepherd exclaimed, interrupting her. "Sixty percent is a lot better than I am averaging right now."
"I thought you might say that," Cadence said, pulling a calendar out from under the table.
Shepherd accepted it eagerly and opened it up, noting most of 'his' girls were listed by cutie symbol with a daily chart of how to act towards them. He let out a relieved sigh. "You may just have saved my life," he told Cadence, "thank you."
"Anytime," Cadence said with a smile. "It'd be more accurate, but really there is only so much you can do with an abacus even these days."
Shepherd examined the present day. "Twilight is at friendly and a little flirty, but distracted by learning... If this is right, maybe I can get her to help me invent a computer so we can improve the accuracy," he said absently while he departed.
Shining Armor entered the suite, brushing leaves out of his mane. "Did you have to throw me off the balcony?"
"Yes, I did," Cadence replied with a bright smile.
"Eh, I probably deserved it," he admitted with a shrug. "I can't believe he bought all that."
"It's all true," Cadence told her husband.
"Yes, but the only person who understands any of that is you and certain mathematicians," he pointed out, "and nopony, absolutely nopony, keeps a chart to track these things, we mostly just wing it."
"And yet it's till true," Cadence replied smugly.
Shining looked at the chart she'd drawn. "I don't think he's even met several of those mares."
"Oh, he will," she said sipping her tea.
Shining looked at the evil grin on his wife's face, sat down and poured himself a cup of tea, it wasn't pointed towards him so he was pretty sure it wasn't his problem.
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