Ponies were more than a strange bunch, at least from the point of view of a human, and I didn’t even mean their usual tendency for bipolarity. They could transform from a neurotic stickler for order into a maniacal axe murderer. Maybe not quite as extreme, but I thought that was a rather fitting human metaphor.

It was even stranger that they had managed to build a culture even though it seemed like they had simply watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon and tried to construct it from there. Well, sometimes at least. I blamed their herd instinct for being able to forgive every member of their society for almost any mistake and that it rarely took more than a warm hug for an apology.

It got even more extreme when both parties were friends, a status that was only loosely related to our human version of it. Of course, it implied the same thing, but it so much easier to attain and almost impossible to lose here. To put it simply, if you had found a friend in a pony once, you would almost never get rid of them again. When exactly a friendship began was not exactly specified. For some, it was simply a greeting they would exchange; for others, a simple favour was all it took. It was strong contrast to humans who would sometimes need years to build up such foundation of trust.

I had exactly two of these friendships, not including my flame and my future employer. As I watched the library from a distance, I thought about how near this future was. I wasn’t even doing everything that I could to get there quickly. No, that was the doing of the two mares who were pressing their snouts in my back and pushing me through the town.

“Hey! Watch it! Ouch!” Sadly, my protests were just met with deaf ears. Not that they couldn’t hear me. Aside from them, half of Ponyville could. Ponies could hear very well which wasn’t surprising with their large ears that they could also turn into almost any direction. Berry Punch’s and Applejack’s ears, however, were currently pressed against their heads to dim the words of my protest. I’m sure they didn’t mean to hurt me, but the little stones on the streets of Ponyville tended to bore into my feet as I resisted the forced movement.

“Would ya please shut up, sugarcube?! This is only for ya own good.” Of course it was. My parents and now my traitorous friends - that was what they always said. Since I hadn’t gotten around to it on Sunday, I had told AJ this morning about the position as a lab rat that Twilight had offered me. She had immediately left her cart, disappeared in the alley to Berry’s Bar, and returned a minute later with her. Now they both were politely pushing me towards accepting the offer.

“One more word, young lady, and I’ll switch from pushing to pulling. And since you have no tail, I hope you know where I plan on pulling you.” Yes, Berry loved me dearly.

It wasn’t like I had much time left to complain anyways. The door to the Golden Oaks Library was basically in front of my nose already, and the two finally stopped pushing me. Immediately, I began rubbing my back where their snouts had just been, and I was sure that they had left a mark there.

“Knock!” Applejack ordered. “Or Ah will do it for ya.”

I turned around to my friend and looked her in the face. Her expression accepted no other answer than ‘Yes, ma’am’, so I gave in and turned towards the door with my head bowed. I raised my arms and stopped. Was this really the right thing? Would my child be the subject of such examinations for its whole life if I started this now? These and other similar questions suddenly shot out of the darkest corners of my mind.

My pause, of course, did not go unnoticed by the two mares behind me, and one of them decided to take matters into her own hooves. A hoof wandered past my right thigh and knocked three times at the wooden door. I spun around to see which of them had committed the crime, but I only found an empty dirt road. “Oh, if I catch these…”

“If you catch who?” Twilight Sparkle’s voice reached me. I began to feel like a carousel at this point as I turned around again and looked at the unicorn mare. A smile was on her lips, but this time it didn’t send a shiver of trepidation down my spine. It was warm and friendly.

“Uh, nothing. No one.” I tried to wave it off.

“Do you want to come inside?” I nodded thankfully and followed her through the door into her home. A few things had changed since my last visit. The round table had been replaced by an angular one, and multiple papers were scattered over it. The couch stood in front of it, and the blankets on it were a clear sign as to where the mare must have spent the night. My gaze wandered over to the wall underneath the staircase where a sketch of a human body was drawn on a poster. My body to be exact. Twilight had even included some of my birthmarks. In focus was not my exterior; instead, she had tried to figure out how the organs in my body were aligned. The lung was in its correct place, though not exactly in the form I recalled from biology classes. “This is only a little test!” The librarian interrupted my perusal and tried to cover the poster with both her forehooves.

“I may be able to help you with that if you want to. That’s why I’m here, right?” For a moment, I could have sworn I saw little stars shining in her eyes. With an incredible speed, she rushed upstairs, and I heard her possibly and furiously searching for something in some drawers.

“Where did I have…?” I heard her mumbling to herself. “Aha!” There was a flash of light, followed by a bang, and Twilight stood next to me again. If there had been anything in my bladder at that point, I was sure it would have been on the ground by now. I knew that ponies could basically do wonders with their magic, but I had never seen a teleportation until now.

The mare blinked quickly and then held a small, golden, metallic casket under my nose. “Here, this is for you!” she declared enthusiastically. “It was mine once, but I don’t need it anymore.” Carefully, I grabbed the box out of the air and opened it. I didn’t know what I was expecting. It was a writing set comprised of a quill, rubbing stone, and an ink stick. The latter showed small wear marks, and the stone didn’t look brand new either, but at least the quill was. It was a large, white feather, larger than any I had ever seen before. “This is a traditional Ib’Xian writing set. I got it when I enrolled for school, and I thought that since I had no use for it anymore, you might need it.”

As an artist, I knew what this was - just another parallel between our worlds. “Thanks, Twilight, but I can’t take this. I mean, the casket itself must be worth more than I earn in three months.” Judging by the weight, it must have been solid gold, not just gilded or anything like that. “Wouldn’t you rather give something like this to your friends? Or Spike?”

Twilight tiptoed on her hooves a bit. “Well… none of my friends, aside from Rarity, would really use it.” I looked at the set again and understood what she meant. I didn’t know this Rarity, but she must have been a unicorn. For all the other ponies, it must be torture to use the ink stick. Black tongues were guaranteed. “Spike also has his own.” She used a bit of magic to push it slightly into my direction so that the cold metal pressed against my chest.

“If you insist…”

“Why don’t we test it out? We can start with you helping me with the sketch.” I nodded and went over to the table. Carefully, I placed the precious casket down and emptied it. I positioned the stone on the table and took the quill and ink stick into my hands. Just as I was about to ask, Twilight came over to me with a small glass of water and placed it next to the other things on the table.

“Thanks.” I carefully poured a bit of water into the carving of the stone. I began to rub the ink stick over the wet stone before dipping the quill into it until a bit of the thick ink stuck to it. I knew that this would only last for a few lines and took the stone with the remaining ink into my left hand before walking over to the poster. “So first of all, the heart is not in the middle but slightly over here.” I began to draw the first corrections. I looked further down the sketch and quickly found another obvious mistake. “Humans have two ovaries and oviducts, not one.”

“Two? Really? That could explain something,” Twilight loudly thought to herself.

“Like what?”

“Well, we ponies just have one, and we are in heat twice a year, usually in late spring and the start of autumn. Your file says that you are able to conceive monthly. That’s no surprise given your increased production of oocytes. How many children would the average human female have in her lifetime? Twenty?” The stone almost fell out of my hand just as I was about to correct the rest of the uterus.

“Uh… I would say one to four? Depending on the region.”

“Just one to four?!” Twilight screamed loudly. “If mares had such a cycle, they would surely put it to use. Our population would get a much needed boost.” I knew what she meant. More foals would mean more chances for a stallion, and more stallions would again mean more foals.

“Well, it would surely boost it, but that would also mean more mares that would have to live without a stallion.” That left Twilight silent for the next minutes while I made more changes to the sketch. She had placed the kidneys wrong, and the bladder was about three times the normal size. “I just remembered. In the past, it was normal for women to have many children. Families with six or more children were common. Still, that was more due to our social system at the time. More kids would mean more workers on the farms and more people to care for you when you got older. In the case of the nobles, more kids would ensure that the ancestral line continued. These days, that is only a common practice in very poor countries but also due to the fact that many children don’t survive their first years.” Twilight was still quiet, so I finished the work on the organs in the picture. I bet Twilight would want to do the same thing for the bone structure and the muscles. For the latter, I wouldn’t be of much help. Aside from the most well-known muscles, like the biceps, I knew none.

“Aha!” Twilight suddenly shouted. I turn around to see that she had taken a book from one of the shelves. She must have been searching for something while I had been drawing. I was so busy that I didn’t even notice that she was gone. “Herds!”

“What?”

“Herds are not illegal. According to the current law, it says here that forming a herd for the purpose of a partnership between multiple mares and stallions is completely legal. It’s just a bit outdated since many followed the example of the unicorns, who married in order to connect their houses. The earth ponies, who had been living mostly in herds until then, and the pegasi in their swarms, adopted this custom to unite their farms and land to gain a higher combined yield. This was shortly after the founding of Equestria and their method to save on taxes.”

“Was there a discount on marriage?”

“No. It says here that Princess Platinum demanded a tenth of the yield of every family to support the building of the capital and building up the entire country. Farmers paid with natural goods; unicorns mostly with gold and gems. Pegasi swarms gave their daughters to serve in the army and protect the country. However, only one member of each family was demanded every decade. Afterwards, they were free from their duty and the next in the family followed their hoofsteps.”

“This was before the introduction of the bit as currency, I presume?” Twilight nodded.

“The bit was only introduced… a century after Discord’s reign.” Baffled, she looked into the book. “What?! I searched through a hundred and five books to find out more about Discord and the only time I find something is in an old book about herds?” She groaned loudly and disappeared up the stairs again. I looked after her a few seconds until she groaned again.

It took an hour until I was no longer alone in the lower parts of the library. And it wasn’t even Twilight who returned but Spike, who entered through the front door and stared at me with large eyes as I sat on the couch and went through some papers that Twilight had left behind. Inevitably, a wide grin wandered over my lips which unfortunately caused the dragon to steer clear of me. “Twilight, she wants to strangle me again!” he shouted quickly and disappeared upstairs as well.

That seemed to remind my hostess that I was still down here, and she came back down the stairs a few minutes later. “I am so sorry, Melody, but after the incident a few weeks back, I began to search for more information about Discord, but only a few books have survived his reign.”

“No problem, Twilight. I hope you don’t mind that I used your coffee maker.” I held up the cup that I had gotten during her absence.

“No problem at all.” I took a gulp, but it was still a bit too hot for my taste.

“So, you meant herds were the solution?”

“Of course! Ponies are very social life forms. It is basically in our blood.” Maybe I should lend her one of the pony psychology books I had at home. ‘In their blood’ was a mild way to put something that was basically a compulsion. For a pony, solitary confinement was worse than a death sentence. “If we could manage to ensure that mares are able to conceive more often, it would greatly push our race forward.” Her argument was solid. Humans were where we were now mainly due to our numbers. At least to some point in our history.

“That sounds like a plan. I only wonder what you need me for.” I took one of the papers from the table. It was a copy of my medical record with various notes that Twilight had scribbled on the border. “I see you managed to work out most parts by yourself. And your sketch wasn’t too wrong, either.” I pointed at the poster I had roughly drawn over.

“Well, I recently talked with Applejack about you.” I would have to have a word with my friend about what she revealed about me. “You are not just different; you think differently as well. I don’t just want to keep an eye on the growth of your child. I also want to study your psyche. The full package if you want to call it that.” It was a question even though it didn’t sound like one. Twilight wanted to study me excessively, and she wanted to make sure that I would agree to it. “Princess Celestia gave me the green light for the project. All you have to do is sign here.” Her horn glowed for a second before a piece of parchment appeared out of thin air and readied itself on the table in front of me.

I held it in front of my face to read the small and neat writing on it. Basically, it was nothing different than a usual contract. It stated how I would be able to quit one week in advance, how much I got paid, my working hours, that the crown would pay all medical bills and other costs, and that I would get a share from all research findings that would follow our collaboration. Even if the last points weren’t on there, my salary, combined with the fewer working hours, beat my two old jobs by lengths. And all I had to do was let her run some tests and answer her questions. Even better, I was granted the right to deny tests for various reasons. To sum it all up, the contract was like a win in the lottery, and the worries that almost kept me from choosing to come here had vanished too. I should really give more credit to AJ and Berry. They knew Twilight and knew from the first moment that this was the right call. Again, I readied my quill and signed the contract.

Carefully, Twilight leaned over the table and blew the ink dry. “Thanks, you won’t regret that.” She rolled up the paper and let it disappear with another spell. “So, I would like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.”

“SPIKE!” I flinched as she called for the dragon. He came down the stairs almost instantly, papers in a claw, a quill in the other. His quill was unusually large as well, but not as large as the one I had gotten from Twilight. Also, it was pink. “Ready, Spike?”

“Whenever you are, Twilight.” She nodded. “Okay, question one: what is your favourite colour?”

Spike looked just as confused as I did while the unicorn next to us grinned and aimed her closed eyes at the ceiling, obviously content with herself.

“Umm… red? Maybe white as well.”

“White isn’t a colour,” Twilight commented, short and crisp.

“Then red, definitely red.”

“Noted. Question two: what is your favourite food?” I had the feeling that I would need a few more cups of coffee.

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Thanks to JBL for co-authoring, proofreading and editing.