Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Smithereens

I didn't actually get to see Twilight's letter - that went straight to the Princess. But Applejack had said she'd let me know about anything relevant to my expressed interests - so I got a letter from her.

Dear Missy,

Twilight's gotten a bee in her bonnet about this Griffin the Griffin character, and thinks he's going to go a bit overboard trying to do something about this slave thing. So she's got all us Elements packing to go convince him to play nice. I kinda agree with what he's trying to do, but I'd like him to have a better way to go about doing it.

My brother Big Mac can keep in touch with you 'til we all get back. I don't know how long I'm going to be gone from Sweet Apple Acres - Spike and Twilight think Griffin is an alien, and she's been spending the past few days trying to figure out how hooves work, so somebody's got to go along and make sure they keep their hooves planted on the ground.

Sincerely, Applejack

After reading that, I put a gold star on The Dairy's dossier for Griffin, marking him as being one of my best candidates for being someone else dropped into Equestria. After all, according to the wanted posters, he'd teamed up with both Gilda and Trixie, as the captain of some sort of pirate group; and from a metafictional perspective, Hasbro would probably want one of their established characters to be in charge - a toy of 'Pirate Captain Gilda' sounds like a hotter seller than one of 'First Mate Gilda', after all. I tugged on some of the strings of my expanding comm network, to add Griffin and his group to the list of things I was to be kept informed about.

With that taken care of, AJ's letter reminded me of another detail I'd had on my mental back-burner, but hadn't had a chance to do anything with. Why was it that every pony I'd met could pick things up with their hooves, and yet I couldn't? I looked at my forehoof - sure, it was two-toed instead of one-toed like the ponies... but according to Zecora's origin story, both cows and ponies were descended from alicorns. I wasn't going to quibble about the biology of that - if the quadrupedal Cakes could have a hexapodal pegasus for an offspring, then we were already far away from any sort of Earthly vertebrate, and I couldn't assume that an alicorn couldn't have bovine children.

I decided to arrange my schedule to have some time specifically to try to figure out my hooves. And so, later that afternoon, I was relaxing in the dairy, with a collection of small objects in front of me. I tried willing, and concentrating, and using fingers I didn't have, and tried not trying, and so on and so forth - and couldn't lift even a single sugar-cube a single millimeter.

Since none of the easy stuff seemed to be doing the trick, I went for something that would take a little more time. I cleared everything away, and with some effort, I got a single candle positioned in front of me and lit. The two other cows of the royal dairy whose shift I shared came over to take a look at what I was doing - Lulubelle, a black-and-white Holstein (compared to my brown-and-white Guernsey appearance), whose output was three times mine; and Melanie Rose, one of the Jersey-like chocolate cows.

"Would you like me to open a window?", solicitously offered Lulubelle.

"Thank you, but it's not the light I need. I'm trying to see if I can empty my mind while I look at the flame."

The two of them looked at each other, then settled down in front of me, Lulubelle to my left and Melanie Rose to my right, so all our heads were together. They leaned forward, and M.R.'s right horn touched Lulubelle's left, Lulubelle touched her horn to mine, and then M.R. leaned over to complete the

---

I noticed the candle had burned down and extinguished itself; and I noticed that I was noticing a candle; and after a little while, finished noticing that I existed. I looked around, and Lulu and M.R. weren't around anymore. I remembered something I hadn't paid any attention to at the time - Lulu had said, 'Isn't the candle a bit much for her first time?', and M.R. had said, 'She'll be fine', and the two had gotten up and left.

I'd tried meditating before, in various ways, but... well, nothing like this had ever happened. My mind had gone completely... well, it had just gone. I'd never experienced the like... well, that wasn't entirely true. Back in grade school, the first time I'd ever fought back against a bully, I'd immediately been enrolled in a karate class to redirect any future violent outbursts into more socially acceptable channels. But I'd discovered that whenever I was put face-to-face against someone else to practice, I didn't exactly do what I was supposed to. For example, if we were supposed to practice simple blocks, but a punch to the face pulled a few inches short was also considered a 'win', then without any conscious effort on my part, I'd discover my fist consistently ending up a few inches in front of my opponent's nose. I didn't try to do it, and even when I tried not to do it, my body just did its own thing, while my conscious mind didn't do any sort of thinking. At that young age, I found the whole idea of not thinking disturbing enough that I arranged to stop taking those lessons.

I wasn't sure what had just happened, but it seemed to start the instant our horns made a circle. I wanted to ask the other cows a lot, so I picked up the candle stub and put it with the other items, and-

- waitasec.

I reached out with a hoof. I pressed the hoof against the burnt-out candle-stub. I picked up the stub. It was as easy as that.

What the hay was going on here?

---

I didn't find Lulu or M.R., but did see 'Granny Locoweed' hooked up to a milker (she didn't produce much, even with unicorn spells, but insisted on continuing to contribute as much as she could), and went to intrude on her. She smiled as she saw me coming. "Becha've got a lotta questions, young'un."

"... Yeah."

She looked up and down at me. "Ya really don't remember yer parents tellin' you anythin' about anythin'?"

"... Let's just say 'no'."

"Now, how did my grandmam say it to me... um, 'Extend your awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of bovinity.' That ring any bells?"

"Only completely irrelevant ones. I'm not sure I like where this is headed."

"Nothing to like or dislike about it. It just is."

"... Maybe this would go better if you just assumed that I had as little idea about what you were talking about as if I was, say, a pegasus turned into a cow?"

"Hrmph. Kids these days, no respect for tradition. But if ya want the dumbed-down version, fine. You've seen unicorns do magic, right? The think hard, their horn sticks straight out from their forehead, spiraling, an' it glows, and stuff happens." I nodded, on familiar ground. "Well, we've got two horns - but flat 'stead o' spiraling, and curved 'stead o' straight. Completely backwards from unicorns. So like all the hoofed folk, even them what hasn't got horns, we've got our magic - just backwards from what unicorns do it. One unicorn thinks a spell that goes outward. Lotsa cows get together, an' the magic comes to us comin' inward to our thoughts."

"Oh... kay. I guess I can make some sense of that. Um... what all can we do with magic?"

"Send me to Tartarus if I ever find a girl that listens. We don't do anything. The magic does. Or doesn't. Mostly doesn't. From what I saw, your head was empty as a bucket with a hole in it. Surprised you didn't burn your eyes out, lookin' at that candle. You think if we could actually control magic we'd be livin' in barns and dairies?"

I noticed... that I wasn't asking the sort of questions I usually would... I wasn't thinking about all this, looking for implications and advantages and hidden aspects, the way I had been everything. But even noticing that, I was having trouble kicking my brain into gear to start. "So..." I concentrated. "Where does that leave us?"

"Same place you were yesterday, girl. 'Cept now, any time you wanna relax and stop thinkin', you know you can ask."

I thought about that... and was immediately attracted to the concept. Just letting myself go, truly becoming one of the herd, no more worries, no more planning, no scheming. Eat, chew cud, give milk; eventually, getting old enough to take Granny Locoweed's place myself, dispensing wisdom to young calves, until the day I...

... I shook my head. That wasn't right at all. I didn't want to die - I didn't want anyone to die, if I could help it. And I could help it - or, at least, I could try... and if I happened to die trying, well, how much worse could that be than dying of old age? Letting my individuality go... just meant that I really would die, just that my body would walk around for a while. This whole group-thing... even wanting to avoid it, I still wanted it, the way I'd once occasionally had a hankering for having a soda to cool off instead of water. I was going to have to treat this horn-circle thing the way I did sugar, or some more serious drug - and swear off it.

Granny Locoweed had been watching me closely, and slapped a knee with one hoof as she laughed. "Ha-ha! I knew you had it in you, girl. You're no more going to get stuck drooling your cud on the floor than I did - that's why they started calling me Loco, you know. You just made up your mind to go cold turkey and stay inside your own head, didn't you?" I just nodded, with a half-smile at her reading. "Well, it's not gonna be quite that easy. I've been keepin' an eye on you - you didn't have a single drop o' magic in you when you got here, an' you've got some now, doncha?"

"Um..."

She bopped me between my horns. "I mean your hooves, girl! You couldn't pick stuff up, and now you can, right?" I just nodded again. "Well, that's from the bit o' magic that poured inta ya. Won't last that long, 'specially if you use it much. So the more you want t' use yer hooves, the more time you've gotta spend in a circle with your brains melted out yer ears. Then again, I hear you're a clever heifer - if anyone's gonna find a way outta that li'l trap, you're as likely t'be the one as anyone. Oh - and try not to spread any of this around. There's been trouble in the past, with those as'd use the knowing of us fer their own good and fer our bad. They say you had a bad time before getting here - I'm sure you won't have any trouble imaginin' how much worse life could get fer our kind."

I took a moment to consider what would have happened if Blueblood had known, say, how to zap me into mindless complacency at his pleasure - and shuddered.

Granny started unhooking herself from the machinery. "Right. Well, I've got other young heifers to try to buck some sense into. You've got a better head under yer horns than most, so I'll let you chew yer cud on it yerself fer a while." She went off to do her thing, leaving me to consider all of this.

So - turned out I really was as magical as any pony... but if I used it too much I'd become a Lotus-Eater. And if I wasn't careful about secrets, I could get turned into one anyway. Not the greatest news, but not the worst - I now had that much greater an understanding of how things worked. As long as I kept my wits about me, anyway. Things could be a lot worse.

---

"What do you mean, I'm pregnant?!?"

Comments

[DataPacRat]

805595
That is a good question, isn't it? <whistles innocently>

805606
They say you should always leave the audience wanting more...

[nemryn]

805618
Now I'm anticipating some kind of twist, of course.

[NovaSethyr]

805618

Haha! I think I have a hint as to what your scheming. And I have to say, it's quite brilliant.

Or, I think it is. I'm not 100% sure yet. Anyways, great chapter as always.

[DataPacRat]

805809
If you mean a two-legged, two-armed minotaur, such as a certain motivational speaker - go ahead and do whatever strikes your fancy; I'm assuming they're an entirely separate species from the quadrupedal cattle. If you want to play with four-legged cows, and to try to keep consistent with what I'm writing... then we should probably talk about it through private messages.

[DataPacRat]

805909
Nah, that one's on me (insert joke here); I'm more familiar with classic memes than MMO moos.

[Tay the Chemist]

'What do you mean I'm pregnant?' WHAT THE BUCK!?

[DataPacRat]

805991
<pumps fist> Exactly the reaction I was aiming for.

[Sesquame]

805595 Actually its more of inflicting temporary INT damage to yourself to restore mana.

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

I should have been asleep hours ago. The next chapter calls to me. Maybe I can tear myself away and go to sleep after the next chapter.

[DataPacRat]

980716
I feel awed and humbled that I have managed to invoke a case of JOMT.

[burning-ruin-666]

well there go's the ''balloon'' huh
''>.> should have go for the anticipation herbs at Secora's

[coandco]

"Would you like me to open a window?", solicitously offered Lulubelle.

The ?", construct is invalid grammatically. To make this read correctly, I'd reword it like so: "Would you like me to open a window?" Lulubelle offered solicitously.

[Organized Chaos]

982162 YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO POST A TVTROPES LINK ON FIMFIC!

[Gi6791]

Welp the first 6-7 chapters made absolutely no sense to me but now I feel like I actually understand most of what it's saying. Though that may be because I was reading those chapters around 5 in the morning

[mutecebu]

Liking the story so far. Some word choice feedback:

Granny started unhooking herself from the machinery. "Right. Well, I've got other young heifers to try to buck some sense into. You've got a better head under yer horns than most, so I'll let you chew yer cud on it yerself fer a while." She went off to do her thing, leaving me to consider all of this.

I might suggest " I'll let you chew yer cud on it fer a while", eschewing "yourself". I think the meaning would still be clear, and flow more naturally, like it's an expression cows use all the time.

So - turned out I really was as magical as any pony..

I think you meant "anypony", and a grammar correct struck. ;)

[Ziper Ace]

Oh no Pregnant??