The Elusive Facts of Life

by Sozmioi

The Elusive Facts of Life

Twilight Sparkle panted in frustration in the Carousel Boutique back room, shifting her gaze among the confused faces of her friends. "Doesn't everypony know? Stallions' gonads produce a particular cell, sperm, and a fluid carrier, semen, for them to swim in. Mares' ovaries produce egg cells that are periodically released down the fallopian tubes into the uterus. If the stallion's semen makes it up past a mare's cervix, and the mare's... in... heat..." She frowned.

I've never actually seen a mare in heat. And those illustrations seemed off. Those ponies' legs were very thin, and the faces quite angular...

"Okay, maybe that isn't how it works for us. So, Pinkie, would you tell me again your theory on how I got pregnant?"

"Sure! Remember last month?"

"I'm more than a month along, Pinkie."

Pinkie pouted. "So you know how all this works, do you?"

Twilight Sparkle tentatively crossed out another layer of her supposed knowledge. "Okay, so I guess you're referring to when I got sick, and I pushed myself trying to help in the hunt for that missing filly, and woke up having been dragged back by... whatshisname."

"Yup. Wouldn't you say that's a compromising position?"

"Well of course! But it really didn't seem like he'd done anything untoward to me, let alone penetrate me!" But of course if semen hasn't got anything to do with this, that's meaningless.

Rainbow Dash looked queasy. "You thought you had to get stabbed to get pregnant?"

For the first time that morning, Twilight managed a laugh. "Well, not exactly... see, the way the semen makes it up past the cervix is... would have been... appears not to have ever actually been... umm, well, setting aside the grammar..." Twilight Sparkle became flustered. She swallowed. "He, you know... sticks his wee-wee up your ya-ya!" she wailed.

She swallowed, and monitored the reactions. Their confusion and concern had intensified.

Applejack said, "Umm, Twilight, I'm not the most educated, so it could just be me, but I've never heard of those."

"Penis. Vagina. One goes into the other."

"Those too."

"What." Twilight Sparkle, perplexed, said, "Excuse me, could I have a look under your tail?"

Applejack backed up. "No!"

"Please?"

Rainbow Dash took off, hovered on her back, and spread her legs. "Will this do?" When Rarity buried her face under her foreleg, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, it's not like there's really anything here to look at."

Twilight could, to her surprise, verify Rainbow Dash's disclaimer. Urethra, Anus. She re-checked, the other direction. Anus. Urethra. "That's enough, thanks." How did I never notice that I haven't got a vagina? Is it just me? She sat and curled her head down. The angle wasn't good enough...

She levitated over a mirror, ignoring Rarity's complaint. She put it down, afraid of what she'd find... and, as she'd feared, the view was similarly lacking in a particular feature that she had been expecting. I am not the mare I thought I was. And now that she thought back, it did seem odd that she would have never once seen a penis outside a book. The illustrations had been... well, they should have been noticeable. She hadn't really been looking, but still, she should have seen.

"But... but... where does the foal come out, then?"

Embarrassed pause. Rainbow Dash eventually said, "You poop her."

"That's disgusting!"

Rarity indignantly exclaimed, "Not half as disgusting as having to have a stallion stick himself into you to get the whole thing started!"

"But... but..." The energy left her. With resignation, she went on, "All right then. So, umm, Pinkie, you were saying?"

Pinkie resumed. "It sounds like you didn't say the words!"

"What words?"

"'Pinch of salt, lump of coal. I'm not ready for a foal.' You say it after you've been alone with stallion out of the family, especially if you were asleep or you were kissing."

Twilight Sparkle could not stop blinking. Rarity added, "Or rubbing horns."

As if it would help with Twilight Sparkle's confusion and incredulity, Fluttershy added, "If you think he might've said his words, then you better say it a few times."

"His words? What are they?"

The mares looked to each other awkwardly. Applejack said, "I can't say it. It just ain't right for a mare to say 'em."

Twilight Sparkle's heart was pounding. Everything she knew was wrong. "But you know them, right? Could you split it up, maybe?"

After a few seconds of nervous glancing, Pinkie began, "Drip of water..." Rarity continued, "Scent of oil. And yes, he does need to say it like 'oal'. For the rhyme, see." Then Pinkie blurted out the second line so quickly it was incomprehensible.

As the five rapidly and loudly repeated the mare's preventative chant several times, Twilight Sparkle facehoofed. "I get the idea. But girls, girls. Do you have any evidence that this works?"

Applejack said, "It's as real as the Pinkie Sense."

"But... it'd have to be magic! Earth ponies can't use magic!"

"Of course we can, darlin'! What, do you think when I kick a tree, the apples fall in the buckets on their own? That'd be violat'n the second law of thermodynamics!"

Everything went bright white, then dark.

Twilight woke with a start. "Oh thank Celestia, it was just a dream." She was still unsettled, though, and reached to her bedside table. Grabbing the receiver and pressing speed dial 2, she lay back in bed.

Her free hoof fell on her belly. Her slightly round, definitely-not-unoccupied belly. Panic.

Rarity groggily answered, "It's 3 AM."

"Rarity, I'm pregnant."

Pause.

"You woke me up for this? Of course you're pregnant. Everyone's pregnant."

"What, even the stallions?"

"What's a stallion?"

"We're parthenogenetic?"

Click.

Or hermaphroditic, I suppose. She hesitantly slid her hoof down and ran her grips over the area. No, not hermaphroditic. Phew.

A glow preceded Celestia's arrival.

Twilight crawled out of bed and supplicated.

"Stand up and look at me." The voice was iron, every syllable accented.

Twilight crawled upright, but took a moment to actually face the giant pony. The princess' floating 'hair' was nearly the only recognizable part - the hugely bulging belly looked awkward, and her face was barely-restrained fury. As she looked into Twilight Sparkle's eyes, she calmed. The fury fell to mere anger, which was overwhelmed by sadness.

"This has to stop."

"Yes, your majesty."

"Rewriting the universe three times?"

"But I didn't..."

"Who's your brother?"

"Shining... wait. How can I have a brother?"

"See? You mustn't rewrite the universe in a panic. You'll generate inconsistencies. This last time your changes were anything but surgical. Claws? Telephones?" The princess wearily sat on the foot of Twilight's bed. "I knew ever since the day you got your cutie mark you had terrible potential. And until yesterday, it remained... unrealized."

Twilight Sparkle bowed her head again. "I'm sorry, princess. I'll do my best to put it back."

"We'd best do it together. You can still only access the full extent of your power when you are in a panic." She drew Twilight to sit next to her. "To go back, you will need to understand. What were you running from this last time?"

"Not having bothered to learn basic reproduction properly?"

"No, because you didn't fix that, did you?"

Twilight bowed her head. "Then I don't know."

Celestia was clearly disappointed. "This change removed the last traces of responsibility. Everyone's born pregnant with all the children they'll ever have, so how could you possibly be blamed for your situation? I hope you see why I had to step in now, even if you'd done it seamlessly."

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes. "If I could remove the last traces of my responsibility, why couldn't I just... make it go away?"

Celestia pushed up Twilight's chin, turned and raised it. Twilight reopened her eyes, and looked into Celestia's. "Because you don't want to. Just like you didn't want to forget the way things 'really' worked, back in the old world."

Twilight Sparkle looked down to her belly.

"You don't need to rewrite the universe to get rid of an unwanted embryo, Twilight. You knew that when it was still early enough. You knew that, and that wasn't the change you wanted to make. What you wanted different was the circumstances. The history."

Celestia put a wing around Twilight's shoulders. "I'll let you keep the first change, that you were drunk. And you'd remember it that way. That's reasonable enough."

Twilight smiled weakly. She'd deal with it, whatever had happened. "No, princess. I'll face it as it actually happened, now."

Princess Celestia nodded, and they got to work.

Author's Note:

It came to me in a dream, and I wrote it in 40 minutes. I do not expect it's everyone's cup of tea, to say the least.

Edited to make the last forms not quasi-human. It was excessive. Also, clarified Celestia's emotional state.

Comments

[RecordScratch]

Hah! You got the character's personalities 100%, Enjoyed out of boredom.

[chukker]

I don't get the downvotes. It's a well-written story, and the mystery elements and explanation at the end are done well. Yeah, the topic might not be for everyone, but it's still well done.

[Sozmioi]

2415270

The original version wasn't as good, that's why. The final segment in particular was even weirder than it ended up, as you might gather from the authors' note.

[Valikdu]

Highly disturbing.
But intriguing.

[H is for Hat]

>"when it was still early enough"

It's not that much more difficult later on.

[Sozmioi]

2753275

but then it's not an embryo. Having to magic a fetus out yourself would be worse than the worst forced-ultrasound/lecture real life has to offer. Even if you were sure it was all right morally speaking, you'd probably end up grossing out.

I think Celestia would, like most people, hold abortion to be acceptable to the extent that the developing child is not yet a person*. For her (and, not entirely coincidentally, me), embryos clearly pass this test. Viable unborn foals do not. She probably has magic to refine this line closer than we can, and for story purposes I've decided that TS is by this point too far along, not that she ends up taking that option.

Note that the incident Pinkie was suggesting was not the explanation, so it wasn't that recent.

* (or if the mother's life or basic health is in danger, though I imagine this happens a lot less in Equestria than real life, if only because of the more favorable hip to head ratio)

[H is for Hat]

2755000
First of all, viability is not the dividing line between an embryo and a fetus.
Secondly, viability changes with medical technology, so it's a pretty poor standard for personhood.
On the third hoof, I'm magic expert, but whatever spell would be used to magic out an embryo should also work on a fetus.
Fourth of all, if we're just talking gross-out factor, embryos are pretty squicky-looking.
Fifth of all (on the tail?), if the mother's life is in danger, it's usually from complications the pregnancy, not the prospect of childbirth.
Finally, I'm not so sure about that head-to-hip ratio, as ponies have much larger heads than horses do, and they seem to be capable of at least some form of (awkward) bipedalism.

[Sozmioi]

First and second: I was not saying that it was. Just, the very beginning is too early for the dividing line between person/not person, and the very end is too late.

Third: depends on how it works. Could be. Or it could be that most of the time across which she finds it acceptable, it's an embryo... or alternately because she's got special magical senses the 'OK/not OK' line is brighter and then there was word meaning drift so that things that are and have been fetuses for biological purposes are as far as the relevant issue is concerned an 'embryo'. Point being, the spell would still work, but she wouldn't approve of that - but not to say that the embryo/fetus line we draw is the one she's using.

Fourth: eh. Not as bad as a fetus.

Fifth: Yes, but the now-infamous 'dilation and extraction' is a procedure for a reason. Just covering the less common bases.

Sixth, good point.

All in all, I was wondering how long it would take for someone to make an issue of that line.

[H is for Hat]

2766316
1. & 2. Your comment on "viable unborn foals" seemed to imply viability was the line you were using. If not, what is?
3. Regardless of how the spell works whether it be teleportation, disintigration, or what have you, it should work just as well on an embryo as on a fetus. I can't say much more on this point until I know what this "line" is. If we're going to start redefining words, we need to at least both understand the new meanings.
4. A fetus looks squickier than an embryo? A fetus pretty much just looks like a smaller infant.
5. The details of PBA and its necessity are a little complicated and off topic, so I'll just say that all possible measures should be taken to save both lives if possible.
6. Ponies are made of taffy anyway, so I'm not sure how much it matters.

[Sozmioi]

2773388

As I already said, the viable unborn comment was situated to place the line before then.

I see I didn't state my 'person/not a person' distinction clearly enough - I meant mentally - for which encephalization should make a decent proxy, but we can't calibrate the curve without what amounts to magic.

[H is for Hat]

2779841

So you're basing someone's personhood on their mental capabilities? Which mental faculty are you using for this judgement, and to what extent must it be present?

I'll be very surprised if you can find an answer that doesn't either either disqualify human infants from personhood, or grant personhood to a wide variety of non-humans.

[Sozmioi]

2782361

Newborn humans are extremely ignorant - abnormally even for newborns, compared to other animals - but they are also very quick at picking things up. I'm also not averse to granting that some animals are people.

What with that second point, I guess I don't feel this logical jam you seem to be trying to put me in to be all that tight.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you draw the line?

[H is for Hat]

2783067
Human newborns are pretty much still fetuses, just born early enough that our huge noggins needed for intelligence can fit through the tiny pelvises needed for an upright stance.

And when I "a wide variety of non-humans", I don't just mean dolphins and some higher primates. I mean a lot, from pigs to dogs to magpies.

I draw the line as soon as a new human being comes into existence, be that fertilization, cloning, or some as-yet uninvented technique (3D printing? Matter replicators? Magic?). I do not believe that someone's mental capabilities should determine what rights they are granted.

(For those wondering, the deleted post was just the part of the first sentence of this post that was posted before I finished.)

[Sozmioi]

The degree to which that variety is wide really depends how much and what kinds of mental capacity you require. I certainly think that dogs and pigs are close enough to personhood to deserve a degree of respect and protection (I haven't eaten enough pork to account for a single pig over the past decade). I don't know enough about Magpies. I suspect some octopi might get close too.

My criteria, now that I'm thinking about it a bit more, are more along the lines of the potential of the already-built mental infrastructure. The mental infrastructure capacity feels to me a lot like what one is. And on the other hand, I don't feel the need to assign direct moral weight to things that don't exist yet - in the relevant case, that's the rest of the mental capacity, that hasn't been built yet.

[H is for Hat]

2785374

I'm not sure what you mean by the "potential of the … infrastructure" if you're not considering "things that don't exist yet", seeing as something's potential, by definition, refers to a possible future state of affairs.

I'd love to know exactly what criteria you're using for personhood.

[Sozmioi]

So would I! I can constrain the exact philosophically correct criteria, but it is not a solved problem. I'd love to have a sharp dividing line like conception, but I can't find any that are in vaguely the right area.

As for the 'potential', imagine hypothetical scenarios in which brain construction was halted but other aspects of development such as learning did not. Recognize the difference between 'those things we will observe happening' and 'those things which can happen'. Potential is already not defined over the actual future.

[Nexidava]

It's so nice being a nihilist.

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

[GloomyFace]

Rewriting the laws of the universe to justify her accidental pregnancy? That's something only Twilight would and could do

This was enjoyable to read, good job