Royal Palace, Equestria
November 13th
The cloth tape measure fell, discarded, to a heap on the floor. Clover levitated a leatherbound book over to her, then—much to Jonathan’s surprise—summoned a quill and inkwell from seemingly nowhere. After about a minute of fervent writing, the book and quill were set back down onto a small table next to her (where the Introduction to the Wonderful Art of Magic still sat unread, something which Jonathan was still very eager to delve into). She turned to face Jonathan with a smile.
“Now Jonathan, while with some of the smaller animals I could use a simple balancing scale to measure their weights...you’re a different story,” said Clover, her horn lighting up a bright green color. “So I guess we’ll just have to measure you the same way we weigh ponies.”
Jonathan lifted a brow at this, a feeling of slight unease in the pit of his stomach.
A string of green light connected the tip of Clover’s horn and the wooden floor, and from the point of contact; a small circle of around three feet in diameter appeared. The circle was glowing in a manner similar to the table in the corner of the room, though, it didn’t have as much a rhythm to it.
Clover turned from the lit-up marking toward Jonathan. “Once again, I can assure you this is harmless,” she said, a smile on her muzzle. “Simply step into the area within the circle, and within seconds I’ll know your exact weight.”
Having started to feel more safe around the mare, Jonathan mentally shrugged away the hesitance and walked into the circle’s center. Almost instantly, he felt a slight tingling sensation running through his body, from the the bottoms of his feet, up his calves and thighs. The feeling increased an almost unnoticeable degree as it reached his chest, but by the time it was at the base of his neck, he barely felt it anymore.
“And there!” Clover exclaimed, the quill quickly moving across the pages of the book as she wrote—she had apparently picked it back up while he wasn’t looking. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Jonathan had to admit: it really hadn’t been. The process as a whole had only taken around five seconds, and while it was certainly the first time magic had ran through his body, it hadn’t hurt at all.
The book and quill still levitated in front of her, Clover paced around the room as she continued asking Jonathan questions. “Now, Jonathan, since we’ve already established that you’re not exactly ‘average-sized’ for your age...would you say that 97 pounds is usual for others your size?”
Almost instantly, Jonathan replied, “No, not at all.”
Jonathan’s face flushed from the tone of his own voice. Subconsciously, he put a hand down to his stomach. “Well, not...not really, anyway. My doctor always told me I was...well, underweight for how tall I am.” Jonathan neglected to tell the mare that nearly malnourished had really been the phrase to describe him—it was just a bunch of semantics, really.
“Ooookay?” said Clover, an eyebrow raised. She was still a bit suspicious at how fast the boy answered her question, but decided to not push it. Afterall, she still had some science to do! “Next question, then. What does your kind eat?”
“Uhm...you know, lot of stuff—”
“Sorry! Let me clarify; are humans herbivores, carnivores, or are they omnivores?”
“Most are omnivores,” said Jonathan. Part of him thought about bringing up vegetarianism, but he figured it was probably the same deal in this world. With that thought, though, another one spawned within his mind. Aren’t horses not supposed to eat meat of any kind?
“...hey, uhm...Clover?”
Clover looked up to him from her book, which she had been furiously jotting some notes down into for the past few seconds of silence. “Yes? What is it?”
“Okay. I know you’re the one asking questions and all right now...but aren’t ho…” —Jonathan quickly corrected his terminology— “...equines supposed to not eat meat? There was this research project I had to do for school awhile back, about equines, and one of the facts I clearly remember finding was that their stomach couldn’t handle meat the same way it did plants.”
“Technically, yes; that’s true. However, since we can’t digest it in the same way, meat just passes right through our stomachs. It doesn’t harm us in any way—we just don’t really gain from it nutritionally,” answered Clover matter-of-factly. She then cocked a brow, her lips curving upward into an amused smile. “...say, how did you even find out we ponies eat meat, anyway? In Equestria, we consider it to be a delicacy of sorts!”
“Really, a delicacy? But Celestia and Luna had a little bit of ham in their lunch sandwiches.”
“What—are you...are you serious…” spluttered Clover, facehoofing. Hoof still firmly attached to her muzzle, she shook her head in a strange mixture of shock and mild disappointment.
“...what?” Jonathan asked, confusion evident in his face.
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just...while I imagined that those two fillies have a very different idea of what the hay ‘common food’ is, I didn’t they think they would go so far as to use it for mere SANDWICHES!”
Jonathan chuckled quietly at the mare’s outburst, which earned a hard stare from her. Clover eventually just grinned, though, and shook her head again with a few quiet tsks. “Fillies will be fillies, I suppose. Anyway—moving on, I suppose.”
Her horn was then surrounded by its green aura, and the magical ring around Jonathan’s feet dissipated into a nothingness with a soft hiss. For a brief second before she spoke again, Jonathan caught the soft scent of what could only be described as ‘nature’. “Now, just to confirm your answers—n-not that I think you would lie, by the way—and of course, to learn new information that would take too long to ask: let’s start that scanning spell.
“Are you ready, Jonathan? This process might take a bit of time, depending on how much there is that’s different about you. We might be here awhile.”
That familiar feeling of the jitters starting to build in his gut again, Jonathan shakily blew out a puff of air but nodded.
“I figured you would be,” Clover intoned, giving him a comforting smile. The energy around her horn suddenly shimmered with much more intensity than before, and a green tint overcame the brightly-lit room around them.
“Did you hear about that creature the young princesses encountered?”
“Yeah, it’s apparently some hairless, minotaur-type thing...stands on two legs and all, too...”
“Think it could be dangerous?”
“Psh! As if. I’m certain the Guard is more than capable to take the creature down if it’s a thre—u-uhm, sir!”
From out of seemingly nowhere, the large wooden doors shut behind Iron Clad with a soft thud, surprising the two guards chatting in their post. One of them—the stallion–had to scurry to pick his spear back up from off of the floor where the thing had somehow managed to fly out of his hooves. Iron Clad said nothing at this, turning his head to the right to look at the mare, then to the stallion at his left. His expression remained blank aside from an expectantly lifted brow.
“Our apologies for gossiping, commander!” the mare exclaimed, quickly recognizing the war-hardened earth pony. The helmet concealing most of her face let out a loud, metallic clank as a hoof shot up into a stiff salute. She was nervous, that much was undeniable—but that didn’t mean she would be so foolish as to completely disregard protocol.
Only a naive would let their nerves get the best of them like that.
Said naive simply stood there, shaking in his boots. “S-s-sorry, sir!” he squeaked. If one were to listen close enough, they could likely hear the guard’s teeth chattering from behind his visor.
Iron Clad’s gaze at the two lingered for a second or so longer before a small smile came to his face. “Relax,” he stated, the authority in his voice clear even when he wasn’t making any serious command. “Just hold out for another half-hour, you two. Shift’s almost over. After that—you can chitchat all you please.”
The guard-stallion’s helmet rattled with the severity of his nodding, and he sputtered out, “Y-y-yes sir! Will d-do!”
Quite the contrast to the stallion; the mare simply gave another shaky salute before returning to her usual position aside the palace doors.
The commander turned without another word, seemingly satisfied with the guards, and continued on his way down the hall.
After turning around another two more corners, the fire-orange stallion steadily slowed his gait to a halt. His calm, blue eyes scanned the hall around him. Once he was sure there wasn’t another pony wandering around—he hadn’t seen anything but the usual fancily decorated walls and wooden doors—he let out a relieved sigh, his normally stiff and proud posture dropping for the first time that day.
“Oh, sweet heavens...” Iron Clad hummed. He loved his work, don’t get him wrong. But after nearly seven straight hours of helping train new recruits, his leg and back muscles felt as if miniature knives were constantly being stabbed into them. Just minutes before, it had taken every last bit of his willpower to not show any signs of weakness around those guards. Especially around that stallion—the commander could tell how new the guard had been by simply glancing at his armor.
Shining. Hence the common nickname for beginning soldiers/guards: Shinies.
I suppose this is all just the price of having a public image to keep, thought the commander, grinning sorrowfully to himself. He took a moment to stretch his back a bit. Truthfully, no matter how painful of a price it could be on occasion, it was one he wouldn’t trade for the world.
Like previously mentioned, he loved his work. He had been in the Equestrian military and royal guard since they were even a thing, and had worked his tail off for over ten years in order to get where he was in the ranks. And in the fifteen years he had fought for this nation—and the five years he fought for the Earth Pony Tribe before—Iron Clad had seen, and experienced a lot. There had been a monumental shift in how ponies acted over the short history of Equestria. In its beginning, there was strife between the three races. He couldn’t even begin to try and count how many fights he had seen (and partaken in) that had started all because of differences in the pony races. Soldiers that had been waging war against each other only months before were now being forced to fight side-by-side. Pegasi didn’t like unicorns, unicorns didn’t like earth ponies, and earth ponies sure as Tartarus didn’t like the both of ‘em, either.
How were they supposed to live with ponies so different from themselves? Most, if not all of these ponies had been raised with hostilities towards the other two races implanted into their head during foalhood. That wasn’t something that could just be shaken off in a matter of days.
For the first year or two of Equestria’s life, everything was pure chaos.
But as it turned out, once ponies of the three races were forced to stand by, live near, and work alongside each other for awhile—they found they actually worked quite well together.
They had their differences, yes, but— “It’s kinda funny, really,” mused Iron Clad, currently preoccupied with observing a painting hung in one of the corridors. While he hadn’t ever been much of an artsy stallion, this painting held a lot of sentimental value to him. It depicted the first TRUE war Equestria had ever faced as a nation, nearly thirteen years into the past at this point. “It was in these many...differences...of ours that we ponies found...synergy. A sort of Harmony, really.”
In the military, sure the pegasi had wings that neither the earth ponies or unicorns did, but that meant that they had a better strategy against airborne foes. And yes; the unicorns did have magic on their side that wasn’t naturally available to earth ponies or pegasi, but that meant magical targets weren’t such a big worry to them now.
“...without all three races working together in harmony like we had been...I doubt we would’ve stood much a chance against Tirek’s forces…” he mumbled to himself. A grin came to his face one more time before he turned and continued on his way, a good portion of the exhaustion gone from his step.
A few minutes passed, and eventually Commander Iron Clad found himself at his destination; a door not unlike the ones on either side of it in the hall. Same golden doorknob, and the same finely-sanded wood. What the element was that differentiated this door from the rest, was a large sign nailed into its surface.
The Laboratorial Chamber of Clover the Clever.
“Please knock before entering!”
The commander let out a single snort. Taking no heed to the sign’s message, he put a hoof to the cold brass of the knob and pushed open the door.
Clover wasn’t sure how much time had passed. After a hour or so of mentally keeping track—she simply lost count of the hours. What she was keeping count of, however; was that after filling THREE books with information on the human body, Clover was nearing having a fourth one filled. Cover-to-cover.
There are just so many oddities about these humans, she thought. While many unicorns would collapse from the extended use of a spell like this, Clover showed no signs of strain whatsoever as her horn continued lighting up the lab’s interior with a bright green glow.
I mean seriously, NO magic? It’s not even as if Jonathan’s body is made to passively resist magical elements. The makeup of the human body doesn’t even seem to take the concept into consideration!
Despite having stood there for a few hours at this point, Jonathan barely feels the weariness in his legs. His mind was currently occupied with the exotic feeling that this spell was giving him. The weighing spell had felt weird, that was certain, but this surge of energy just felt so...so different to him.
It was as if every cell in his body was being thoroughly ran through a computer scanner, with this feeling running through his body being what he could only describe as static. From the tips of his toes to his heels, up his calves and thighs to his waist (Clover’s face flushed a slight tint of red at this point). From his waist, it slowly ran up into his stomach and chest, where a temporary bout of uncomfortableness set in. It seemed as if his chest alone had taken an hour for the spell to scan, before the feeling of electricity eventually moved on from his torso and into his shoulders, where it coursed through both of his arms down to the very tips of his fingers.
Now, Jonathan could feel that bizarre energy slowly drag on up his neck and spine. The further it went up his neck, the brighter the green in the room seemed to become. Or was it just his eyes? Jonathan couldn’t be sure at this point.
Suddenly the door opened.
A large stallion in what appeared to be knight’s armor (minus a helmet) walked in, silently closing the door behind him. Clover, her horn still casting a beam of light at Jonathan, didn’t even need to turn to know who the pony was. A large smile found its way onto face.
“Hello, Irons! How are things, dear?” she asked.
Iron Clad glanced at Jonathan with a curious look. “Aside from me feeling like utter shit—things are going quite well, today.”
“Aw. Rough work day, I assume?”
His blue eyes not leaving Jonathan’s own for a second—something that greatly unnerved the boy—Iron Clad decided not to answer his wife’s question. Instead, he asked one of his own. “Say...what in Equestria is that creature, Clover?”