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// XXIX: Perspectives 
// Story: Memoirs of a Magic Earth Pony 
// by The Lunar Samurai 
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	For the sake of time, I will not exhaustively recall my interactions while I held that position in the laboratory. My time working as their assistant was, for the most part, completely routine. My duties around the laboratory were basic to say the least. I was to bring in and sort the mail, ensure the books were kept organized, and keep the entire space workable. Keeping close track of the temperature of the room, ensuring the candles were eternally lit, and arriving to the library early in the mornings to prepare the lab for the day’s work were all vital parts of my work. Evenstar and Amethyst were both quite appreciative of my help, and many times one of them took a break from their work to assist me in my tasks.
Being an earth pony meant that certain heights were simply out of my reach, and a select few tasks were all but impossible to accomplish. That was when Amethyst typically stepped in to assist me. She was always smiling; I was quite envious of her spirit at times. I suppose she was doing what she loved, that the idea that her life goal was somehow being fulfilled must have brought about that smile.
Evenstar was another matter entirely. He seemed sagely sober, only using precise emotion whenever he wanted to truly convey feeling. Aside from the stray consternated sigh that slipped through the room whenever he reached a dead end, he worked silently. His eyebrows were eternally furrowed, as though he were constantly working on a solution to his analog equation. That, however, may very well have been the case. Aside from the few challenge that he would solve seemingly in an instant, he was constantly focused on them.
It was his life’s work after all. He had complete reason to dedicate every waking moment to its discovery, but that gave us some… interesting interactions as time went on.
There are several events I would like to speak of, however, as they were fundamental to my growth. Bear in mind that this section is quite unlike the first. It will recount the most formative times during my work with Evenstar and Amethyst, but for every day I speak of, there are hundreds that went completely unnoticed.
So, with that brief introduction, I give you day fifty-three in the laboratory. Now, up until this time, I had been working faithfully as the laboratory assistant, organizing books and learning the few scraps of magic that I could while I worked. However, this was the first day that I would enter Canterlot University while classes were in session.
I remember standing before the gates of the school as my mind found itself in a rather peculiar predicament. The gates stood wide open, unlike every day that had come before. It took quite a while for me to come to the realization that class was starting once more. Ponies would soon be shuffling into the gates to head to their morning classes, just as I would have been if I had decided to remain in that place.
The air that morning was unusually cold. It may have been the storm that had rolled past over the night, or its roots may have found themselves reaching into my heart, feasting off of the thought that I had failed to be in that place. There was something about the school that had changed for me. It represented everything that I had come to both desire and to despise. There was something about standing before those gates that frightened me to my core. I was, yet again, entering a life that I couldn’t imagine, yet it was one that was much more terrifying than the fear I had felt on the first day. Then I was on a path, on a set plan for my life, but now I was on a winding path that I had no ability to control. My life was at the whims of the two ponies who studied magic beneath the library. Their triumphs and defeats were what dictated my next action. Whether or not I would shelve a book, or withdraw a series of them as one of the two chose a different route to pursue their work. I suppose that is why this day struck me as odd.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Amethyst moaned as she let the quill that floated before her drop to the reservoir. “Starswirl?”
“Yes?” I asked as I shelved a book and trotted to her side.
“Just look at this,” she said as she pointed toward the page she had been staring at. “You would think, after nearly 3 dozen attempts, I would be able to cast this damn spell!”
“Language,” Evenstar hummed from his table. He had established a rule about cursing after Amethyst’s loose cannon had begun to fire a few weeks into their work. She had grown less explicit, but there were still slips every now and again.
“Sorry…” Amethyst turned to me and frowned. “Do you have any idea what I’m doing wrong?”
Amethyst coming to me for help? I wondered as my eyebrow slowly crept upward. Something must be seriously wrong.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked as I tried to parse the equations on the paper. I had gotten better at reading their work, but several key points still eluded me. Evenstar encouraged me that understanding would come in time, but as of right now I had little to none.
“I’m working on a part of my shell. I was trying to make the cubes smaller again, but I can’t seem to get them any more precise. It seems that no matter how many hours I spend running calculations for a more circular sphere, I’m just unable to get them any smaller.”
“Hmm…” I hummed as I let my mind wander to the titles of the hundreds of books that were stored here and in the library above. I had a hunch, but I needed a text to back it up. “There’s a book in the library that talks about the limitations of the MMU…”
Evenstar cut me off. “Ah, yes. The fundamental problem with the MMU,” he said with a snicker. “Emerald Star bring up some valid points, but I would have appreciated if he had contacted me first instead of completely criticizing my work.”
“Yeah, that one…” I said as I turned to Evenstar. “Do you know where I can find it?”
“It should be section MR in the library. I don’t keep a copy down here.”
“Right,” I said as I trotted to the door. “I think I may have an answer for you, but I’ve got to make sure I’m correct.” I called back to Amethyst as I fumbled for the key. “It shouldn’t take but a second.”
“Starswirl!” Evenstar called out. The unexpected energy in his voice caused my hoof to shake a bit and drop the key. “Remember: this laboratory doesn’t exist. If anypony asks you, you’re just a janitor and this is a closet.”
“I understand,” I said as I picked up the key, turned the latch, and opened the door. Evenstar had specifically kept his laboratory a secret to keep any undue attention from his work. With him getting closer to the solution for the analog equation every day, and the rumors of another researcher working on the same topics growing more frequent, he wanted to ensure that none of his work would leave the lab. It was safe there, so long as no pony knew that it existed in the first place.
Noise was the first thing I noticed as I stepped into the library. Despite the oppressive rule of the librarians and their constant sequestrations of any stray whisper, there was an electricity to the air. Ponies of either race flowed through the bookshelves, filling their bags with pieces of knowledge that pertained to their own. I watched, almost stunned, as the library once again felt alive to me. I didn’t snap from that trance until I grew painfully aware of the open door behind me.
I shook myself free from that infinite stare and started down rows of bookshelves toward the unicorn section. I had been there a time or twenty, but I had never felt a sense of oppression like I did when I noticed the jeers from the unicorns who sat at the tables together. I faintly recognized them, but there’s only so much one’s mind can do when you only notice something from your peripheral vision. This wasn’t a place I felt comfortable, so I decided to keep myself focused on the task at hand: helping Amethyst. This focus manifested itself in my posture as a stiff back, high head, and an expression of determination and confidence. Apparently, some of the unicorns didn’t care for my expression, and chose to voice their disdain instead of keeping it to themselves. That was their first mistake.
“What is a mud pony doing in the magic section?” one of them loudly whispered, obviously trying to affect my confidence. I felt a twinge of pain at the derogatory statement, especially with the slur thrown in for good measure, but it also instilled even more confidence in me for some reason. I didn’t know a lot, and I surely wasn’t an expert in magic or it’s studies, but I was making an attempt to learn. I suppose the confidence I felt was similar to the confidence one feels when they begin to rise above the odds, tackling the greatest challenges they were never meant to face and coming out on the other side unscathed. I had no answer for their statement, but it tugged on a deeper desire in my heart, one that was becoming foundational to who I was.
Maybe they noticed the smile on my face. Maybe they noticed the small desire to rise against that held my head a bit higher. Regardless, they now saw me as the enemy, a pony to be put in his place.
“Hey mudpony, why don’t you go wallow in the filth with the rest of your kind!” One of them whispered a bit louder as I started scanning the section for the book. “You wouldn’t even understand those books anyway.” A volley of snickers rose from the group he was with. For some reason, the insults weren’t getting underneath my skin nearly as much as I would have expected. Maybe it was because of my relaxing work, or maybe it was because of the lack of caffeine that morning, regardless, I continued to search for the book.
“Hey!” the command was more powerful, no longer spoken in a whisper. “Get out of here, you’re distracting us from our work.”
“Just one moment,” I said without turning my head. “I’m trying to find a book.” My nonchalance flustered the unicorn even more. I heard one of them rise from their seat and begin toward me. That was the moment I finally turned my attention to the unicorns. All had stopped their progress on their work to watch the outcome of the confrontation.
The unicorn drew close to my face and studied my eyes. I knew his question before he asked it. “What are you doing here?”
For the first time, my façade of confidence ruptured. I had to obfuscate the laboratory beneath our hooves in my response, but I still wanted to remain truthful. After about a second, I had conjured up a response. “I’m just trying to find a book.”
“You realize you’re in the unicorn section, right?”
“Yeah… where else would I get a book on magic? The agricultural section?” I turned back to the shelf, attempting to distract both him and myself from my growing uneasiness. I wasn’t sure how long my confidence would hold out, and the unicorn was beginning to bother me.
“Look, you and I, we’re different.” There wasn’t hostility in his voice, but there was something that struck me and stole my voice. He was speaking as though he was uttering facts. “I don’t meddle in your affairs, and you don’t meddle in mine. It keeps us in check, you know? It keeps us from being even more separated. You earth ponies are lucky to have a chance to come to a university like this.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as my gaze landed on The fundamental problem with the MMU. I hesitated for a moment, as though my mind subconsciously told me that my action would decide my fate with these unicorns.
“You’re doing the world a massive disservice. We’ve come so far, riding on certain principles that make this world so advanced. You’re challenging the fundamental structure of the society you’re trying to fit into. Just give it up.”
Just give it up... Those words rang through my head more times than I would care to admit. I wanted to take that book, but deep within, I felt a part of myself agreeing with him, a part of my soul that refused to believe that I could make a difference in my life. As I looked to the unicorn once more, I saw that he could read my eyes like a book. I saw his victory as plainly as he saw my defeat. I knew he was right, all the way down to the deepest depths of my soul.
I felt like a failure, but for some unknown reason, I slid the book from the shelf and opened it in my hooves. I think my actions stunned the unicorn, because he simply stared in surprise as I flipped through the pages. I’m not sure where my voice came back from, but I found myself speaking before I noticed I had words to say.
“Ah, yes. Here it is. The MMU can’t be considered a final solution for magic barriers because it’s underlying mathematics make it exponentially more difficult to compute with a linear volume decrease. This is due, in part, to the massive amount of units one creates as well as a finer grid for processing. This, above the other reasons described in this chapter, is the fundamental crux of the MMU, it is not scalable.” The words just rolled off my tongue, my brain parsing each sentence wholly and completely. To me, it provided the perfect answer to Amethyst’s question, and the small satisfaction that I had accomplished something.
I placed the book in my saddlebag and trotted off toward the laboratory. My mind was, once again, focusing on my objective. I could feel a drive within my heart, that hope that I had long since cherished, was finally being rewarded.
I’m not sure if the group of unicorns tried to stop my departure. I’m not sure if they even spoke as I stepped out of their sight. All I remember was walking back to the lab without a second thought. Sometimes I wonder how they reacted; with an earth pony simply discussing something as complex as the MMU. If I could go back and play those events over again, I feel as though I would not be able to do what I did. Something deep within me stirred then, a confidence that I had never felt before. I hadn’t bested that their hate, rather, I stunned their feigned superiority and its terrible grasp it had on me.