You know how sometimes you reach a point of diminishing returns studying or practicing something and you just need to sleep and then you get it? It turns out adapting to walking in a pony body is like that, because I was able to walk around without making a complete fool of myself now. When I saw my darker green haired self in the bathroom mirror, that was something I could reasonably expect. What I couldn’t expect was the dark purple ASCII hammer that was tattooed on both sides of my butt made of an equals sign and an empty parentheses. When did I get this? I think I would have remembered getting it, I hear the process is extremely painful. Did Twilight mind whammy me? What would the point be of doing this to me, then wiping my memory of the experience? I can’t think of a point, I may as well just ask about it and see what the reaction is.
As I walked out, Twilight greeted me from the kitchen:
“Hi Garrett, I just made breakfast.”
I guess my questions can wait a bit.
As we had fruit salad and what I assumed were dandelion sandwiches, Spike had just finished munching on… was that a gem? I guess being Celestia’s apprentice has fringe perks. Also, it turns out I can eat flowers now, and they’re surprisingly good. Must be a side effect of my current form.
Surprisingly, Spike asked the first question.
“So Garrett, where are you from?”
“Alright, so you know that Twilight summoned me here right?”
“Yeah, but she locked the basement door behind her when she did it.”
I glanced at Twilight, she was paying attention. Good, I don’t want to give the same speech twice.
“I’m from a world called Earth. My original species is the dominant race there. They look a lot like you, only replace your scales with skin that can come in a wide variety of shades, significantly increase your height, add hair on top of the head, and subtract the claws and the breath weapon. The single biggest difference between Earth and Equestria though, is that there is no magic. It hasn’t stopped us from inventing fictional universes where magic exists, but there is no magic on Earth. Because of this, Earth probably has science and technology more advanced than Equestria’s.”
Spike eyed me strangely. If I’m wrong about the technology, may Sherlock Holmes himself strike me down. I’m not seeing a computer in this library, they’re operating on a diarchal system of government, and the lights on the equipment in Twilight’s basement wouldn’t be out of place on hardware that uses vacuum tubes.
Twilight explained it to me.
“Spike’s breath is a way of sending messages. It’s how I send my reports to Princess Celestia. He’s a baby dragon; he’s not big enough for his breath to be a good weapon yet, and neither of us are fond of destroying things.”
Spike gave her a sullen look as I finally got my question in.
“Before this conversation gets sidetracked, when did I get the purple hammer tattooed on my butt?”
Twilight seemed lost in thought for a moment before she apparently figured out whatever she was going to say. I’m seriously starting to think she mind whammied me.
“Now I get it, the word ponies use for that area is flank, and that’s your cutie mark. What’s a tattoo?”
“What.”
“Ponies get their cutie marks whenever they figure out what their special talent is. Are tattoos like that?”
“Tattoos are a decision some humans make, that most of them regret later. They’re an art form on Earth. People go to tattoo artists to get ink permanently etched into their skin with needles in whatever form they want. It’s an extremely painful process, and not one to be taken lightly. “
“Then why do they get them?”
“Some people think they look cooler that way. Some people use them to commemorate relationships, and often regret it. Sometimes they’re coded messages. Sometimes they’re reminders. Like I said, it depends on the person. We don’t get magically manifesting markings to commemorate personal epiphanies, but sometimes we mark ourselves anyway.”
“That rules out my next question, so I’ll just ask what you’re good at instead.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I haven’t been able to figure out what a purple equals sign and a parentheses symbolizes.”
“The two skills I thought of as my most important ones are probably useless here, in this body.”
She sighed.
“I’m sorry I got you trapped here, but could you please just tell me. It’ll make it easier to figure out what spells you can cast.”
“Why would a mark on my flank be related to my spellcasting ability?”
“It’s much harder for unicorns to cast spells that don’t have to do with their special talent, if they can do it at all,” Twilight responded.
“So what’s yours?”
“Magic”
“Is that common?”
“Less common than you may think.”
After Twilight finished talking, I gave her an infodump about computers, computer science, and the various symbols programs tended to use, telling her she could check out my phone, and that she could dispose of everything else but my black trenchcoat in the summoning circle how she wished. Spacious classrooms can get incredibly cold, and they don’t fit in a backpack, so I had a trenchcoat on when I got summoned. I have no idea if it survived me cutting my way out of that tangle though. I can’t wear it as a pony, but I may need it if I wanted to get a similar coat that a pony could wear later. When I came out of that infodump, it turned out Spike and Twilight had been taking notes.
“How much did you get of what he said Spike?” Twilight asked.
“I got it, but it may as well be magic,” Spike replied.
“What you’re talking about… the closest thing to it here are some of the older theories of magic, before we realized the incantations were unnecessary. What you said about the symbols explains your cutie mark, but it doesn’t say much else. What’s the other skill you were talking about?”
If the Demarcation Line turned me into a unicorn because it considered programming to be the same as magic, that’s one of the laziest things I ever heard. I’m not complaining though, I always wondered what it would be like to cast spells.
“For about three years of my recent past, I was a martial artist, before I needed to leave my dojo to handle my academic situation. I enjoyed every minute of Karate and found it very useful. I intended to start practicing again once I had my studies in hand too.”
“Of course, most of my techniques are useless in my current body,” I said sadly.
“You should really meet Rainbow Dash then, she knows Karate, so she may be able to help you out.”
When I heard that statement, I started breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth to keep myself from getting mad enough to freeze anything. If she was talking about what I think she was talking about, then pre-enlightenment Okinawans had found their way to Equestria, adapted their techniques to pony form, and started teaching. It meant there was some hope for me, but a major doubt crossed my mind. What if she wasn’t talking about that, and was using Karate as a generic term for a pony fighting style I hadn’t heard of? We speak the same language, could it be possible she had fallen victim to that plague of ignorance too?
People sometimes use Karate as a generic term for eastern martial arts. I’ve seen dojos that put Karate on their sign when they’re actually teaching Taekwondo or another style in order to get more students. There’s a boatload of difference. If either of these plagues spread to Equestria, I would probably go postal.
“Garrett, are you okay?”
“When you say Karate, what do you mean by that?” I asked while trying to keep myself as coolheaded as possible.
“Besides unicorns and alicorns, there are two other kinds of pony, pegasi and earth ponies. We cast spells, pegasi fly and control the weather, and earth ponies…”
“I could have figured out that pegasi can fly from ancient human myths, so can I guess about earth ponies? I didn’t expect the weather control though.”
“Then how does weather work on Earth?"
“Any machines for directly controlling the weather are experimental, not widely used. So weather moves completely on its own. I heard rumors about China, a foreign nation where I’m from, using a weather control machine once though. We can barely control the weather if we can do it at all, but our technology lets us predict the weather accurately enough to warn people about what to expect. So if I had to guess, earth ponies get super strength and accelerated regeneration as long as their feet are in contact with soil, am I right?”
“You got the strength right. My friend Applejack can buck trees hard enough to knock off all the apples at once.”
“Buck?” I fought down a snicker.
She proceeded to show me something that looked like a kick I had done in my original body, but because ponies are quadrupeds, it was done with both of the back legs while balancing on the front legs. I tried one a few times, and found out that at least I had comparable peripheral vision to my old body.
"Does she do this regularly?" I asked.
"She runs an apple orchard and she definitely does her fair share of the harvesting."
Bruce Lee once spoke of how a person who had done one kick 10,000 times was much scarier than someone who had done 10,000 kicks once. The only people on Earth who do anything close to what Applejack does are Shaolin monks. I'm not sure how much of a role biology plays here, but that's the single most badass thing I ever heard.
“As I was about to say, I have no idea where you got the accelerated regeneration or the soil contact from, but earth ponies have a closer connection to nature than any other kind of pony. Fluttershy is the only exception I know.”
“So what does this have to do with Karate?” I asked her.
“Before the princesses, even before Equestria was called Equestria, the pony races were at each other’s throats. The pegasi and unicorns frequently collected agricultural ‘tribute’ from the earth ponies, lording their advantages over them.”
“There was a major battle between them and the pegasi that the earth ponies won. The earth pony accounts say things about wanderers with strange cutie marks, weaponizing farming implements, and a form of hoof to hoof combat called Karate. That’s all I remember off the top of my head, Rainbow Dash would probably know more about it than me”
Weaponizing farming implements, mysterious wanderers, and a style called Karate in Equestria? Okinawans were definitely here. That makes me feel a lot better.
“Thanks Twilight, I needed to be absolutely sure of what you were talking about. There’s been some corruption of the term in my world and it drives me crazy. If it had spread here, you probably would have needed to interrupt another feedback loop.”
“I’m glad I could help.”
“I’m beginning to think that some of the earliest practitioners of my style somehow crossed the Demarcation Line. Weaponizing farming implements was a trick straight out of the Okinawan playbook in that era, and they called their style Karate.”
Twilight’s mind seemed blown by the implications. I had some more of my own questions that needed asking though.
“I’m a unicorn now, which means I have a lot of questions about magic that need asking. If any of them seem ridiculous, it’s completely unintentional.”
“No question is ever ridiculous Garrett, ask away.”
“Are there any forms of magic punishable by summary execution I need to know about?”
“That’s the sickest thing I ever heard. I would have told you about anything that serious. What could possibly give you the idea for that? I can vaguely understand the death penalty for killing with magic, though the Princesses stamped out the death penalty when they took power, and most ponies, myself included, have no desire to bring it back. We don’t do executions anymore, they haven’t been done in centuries. Even Princess Luna, who developed a split personality that compelled her to plunge the world into eternal night and nearly caused the apocalypse, is ruling as Princess Celestia’s equal now. You said forms though, meaning you had more than one type of spell in mind. I may regret asking this, but what forms of magic are you thinking of?”
“You know when I talked about fictional universes where magic does exist? I’m trying to apply what I know from those universes to get a lot of potential questions answered before I need to know the answers. There are seven things I was thinking of when I asked that question. You ruled out the execution part, but I had seven things in mind. You already talked about killing someone with magic outside of self-defense. The second thing is invading someone else’s mind. The third thing is using magic to enthrall someone else to your will.”
Twilight winced.
“Everypony’s fine now, how long are you going to bring this up?”
“Do they know you did it?”
“Only my friends and Princess Celestia know that I enchanted the doll, I haven’t told anypony about what happened with the summoning spell I tried, but my friends do know I tried one.”
“Do you have any preparations made in case the information goes widespread and a lynch mob happens?”
She shuddered at the notion.
“Ponies aren’t like that, and even if they were, if I started fortifying the library, it would only lead to ponies asking questions. The best solution is doing nothing. I trust them with my life. Now let’s drop this before one of us says something really stupid.”
“Alright then, the fourth thing I was thinking of is using magic to transform others.”
Twilight winced again, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t feel like saying anything either.
“The fifth thing I was thinking of translates into consorting with things like Cthulhu, who I already mentioned. The sixth thing I was thinking of is time travel, because of the risk of reality destroying paradoxes. Finally, the last thing I was thinking of is necromancy.”
“Necromancy?” Twilight asked.
“Do unicorns ever go into graveyards and animate the bodies of dead ponies? Do they ever bind the spirits of the dead to their will to form an army willing to do their bidding?”
“Humans certainly have an interesting imagination when it comes to magic,” she said with a hint of horror before she started responding.
“Let’s start with the ridiculous idea of using the death penalty on ponies who invade minds. How could anypony learn to defend themselves against a mental invasion with a law that shortsighted in place? I think I can vaguely understand about enthralling ponies to your will though, it’s as bad as necromancy, a pony could do all sorts of bad things with an army of slaves, just like with an army of zombie ponies.”
Not the answer I was looking for Twilight, but close enough. She went on with her response.
“Any books of magic that may exist about ‘eldritch abominations’ as you call them, or necromancy are probably kept sealed away by the Princesses. She showed me one of the books she had the only known copy of once to illustrate just how serious that kind of magic can be. I wish she hadn’t, because that’s where I remembered the spells I used yesterday. I’m just glad my friends didn’t get caught in it, I don’t think I could have forgiven myself.”
“Finally, time travel is impossible, it just is, and you already mentioned the reality destroying paradoxes that keep ponies from disproving that assertion."
That rules out using time travel to reclaim my life, but I’d already figured out I probably wouldn’t ever go back to Earth. Even if it did work, I’d probably end up like Jack was after he left the island. Although if this place uses gold based currency, I wonder what would happen if I tried to bring their money onto a post singularity Earth? That may work, but they’d probably have something like a widespread version of Bitcoin or some other ridiculous thing.
“Any other questions, Garrett?” Twilight asked me.
“Are there any myths about unicorn blood being usable as part of an immortality elixir here? Barring that, is unicorn blood an ingredient in an immortality elixir?”
“What kinds of stories do humans write back there?” Twilight asked exasperatedly.
“Humans write loads of them, all with their own unique ways of handling magic and mythical creatures. By the way, are humans mythical creatures here just like unicorns are on Earth?”
“I haven’t heard any myths about unicorn blood and immortality, nopony knows how to make an immortality elixir, and you’re mythical to us too Garrett,” she deadpanned.
“If a human claimed to be a pony that got turned into a human, I'd think they were crazy if I hadn’t seen it myself. So does this mean I’ll need to figure out a cover story and a fake name?”
“If you don’t want ponies unfamiliar with your situation to think you’re crazy,” she responded.
Great, more stuff I can’t say lest I get committed. I guess I needed to have one ready anyway incase Celestia was lying about the truenames. I guess I could try calling myself a foreign scholar as a cover story for lack of any better ideas, I should still see if anything better comes to mind though. Ok, my fur reminds me of The Matrix, maybe I could call myself Binary? The only idea I have for my last name is a bit redundant, but if Twilight’s name is a reference to bad literature, why not?
“Speaking of blood, I know Princess Celestia called truenames a myth, but am I going to need to start keeping track of my hair, burning any bandages I use, insisting that any blood samples taken from me be destroyed when the tests are complete, stuff like that?”
“The word you’re looking for is mane, and why would you need to do any of that?”
I guess she doesn’t know, what with all the world destroying spells being suppressed.
“I’m currently operating under the assumption that if somepony got ahold of my hair or blood, they could deliver all sorts of deadly curses to me, anywhere, anytime, anyplace, you know what I mean?”
“Curses aren’t possible in Equestria, the only time we thought we’d been cursed in Ponyville was just poison joke, a plant with a sense of humor. Are humans always as paranoid as you?”
That’s reassuring, but I still ought to operate as if curses are possible, just in case a pony figures out a way to do it. Curses aren’t possible is the biggest piece of shmuck bait inviting someone to develop a curse I ever heard.
“The more you know about the state of my world, the more paranoia inducing it can get.”
“But you aren’t there, so can’t you relax? By the way, if you don’t have any more questions, I think I figured out a way to explain telekinesis to somepony who hasn’t used it before.”
As I followed her out into the library, I heard a crash as a light blue pegasus with a mane loud enough to keep people up at night flew through a window. Surprisingly, none of the books got knocked off the shelves. After the amount of times I had been mistaken or ‘paranoid’, I don’t want to guess who she is prematurely. Also, “do all her entrances involve crashing into things? “
I said that out loud didn’t I?