So it turned out only two buffaloes had died.

Twilight and the others traveled west toward the smoke, so thick it was starting to look like evening was coming early. The sky serpent had reached her limit and slithered on the ground behind them, “them” being the herd of buffalo, about threescore strong by Twilight’s count. The six ponies and Spike walked in the middle of the herd, not far from the front. Twilight gathered that it was important to keep the bodies the buffaloes were carrying behind the ponies, out of sight.

Tank was now the leader of the joint buffalo-pony expedition, riding on the Cerberus, with a potted sapling as her second-in-command. Twilight didn’t mind. It let her think.

Or try to, anyway.

“What’s that, demonic potted plant from the magical nether world that is the Everfree Forest?” Tank said loudly whenever a buffalo strayed too close to one of the ponies. “You’re hungry for flesh? Oh, I’m sure we can find you something to eat.” At that point the buffalo would take a hurried step back, duly chastened.

Rainbow Dash was having an argument with Little Strongheart.

“You? You’re the second-best puzzler in Equestria?”

“I’m the best puzzler, actually. Check the monthly listings, Rainbow Last.”[1]

“I’m the best!”

[1]Rainbow Dash didn't dispute the point. If you ain't first....

“Prove it.”

“I really honor and cherish your complex and unique culture,” Fluttershy said to a buffalo near her.

“Okay,” said the buffalo, who hadn’t realized she had one.

“How’d you make an apple tree pop out of the ground, anyhow?” Applejack said to Little Strongheart, who preened.

“Buffalo secret,” she said.

Sure was. Twilight had never heard of a spell like that, nor the spell that allowed them to warp the earth. They had probably summoned the rocks to crash the train with something similar. Twilight’s own spells were limited to mathematical entities and theorems, but the little buffalo could control the earth as if she had some kind of…physical connection.

Something that took the abstractions of mathemagic and mapped them onto stuff….

Still didn’t quite get you to an apple tree shooting through a train.

“Those feathers you wear on your head are really quite lovely,” Rarity said to one of the buffalo.

“Won them in battle,” he grunted.

“How delightfully…ethnic! A battle with a bird, was it?”

“No.”

“…Okay, then! Lovely chat!” Rarity laughed desperately and inched closer to Applejack.

And Pinkie Pie was….

“Let me plan the funeral,” she said.

Chief Thunderhooves looked at her. “What did you say, pony?”

“My name’s Pinkie Pie, Mr. Thunderhooves! And I’d really like to plan the funeral for the extra-brave warriors today.”

No no no no no.

“Pinkie Pie, I need you to help me design a balloon-cake,” Twilight said, but it was too late. Chief Thunderhooves stopped his forward motion. He rounded on Pinkie Pie, snorting hot air.

Chief Thunderhooves was bigger than other buffaloes like most buffaloes were bigger than ponies. He was brown like the earth if the dirt was nothing but the dried blood of countless millennia. The feathers that crowned his head were taller and straighter than any other buffalo wore. Twilight would have considered it crassly male, but it did make him look impressive and intimidating. It was like giving a speed boost to Rainbow Dash, but stallions never did have a sense of “enough,” did they?

Chief Thunderhooves said nothing, just stared at her. There was no understanding, no compassion, no interest. Twilight cycled through spells and settled on panic—why wasn’t Tank saying anything—

“It’s going to be the party of a lifetime,” Pinkie Pie said.

Chief Thunderhooves snorted.

And turned away.

“I was serious,” Pinkie Pie pouted as they resumed walking.

“Pinkie, that was very dangerous,” Twilight hissed.

Pinkie Pie lifted one shoulder uncertainly. “It knarpled okay.”

A camp came into view. Teepees and things. Buffaloes cooking, sharpening spears.

“We will rest here,” Chief Thunderhooves said to Tank. “The funeral will be held tonight.”

“No permanent residence, huh?” Twilight said, looking at how everything was laid out outside, loosely tied with rope. She kept herself from making a comment about beef jerky.

“The ponies will be guarded at all times,” Chief Thunderhooves said. “For their own protection.”

“The ponies travel under the protection of me, the Reptile Queen,” Tank said. “They are my entourage. I need them to keep me entertained.”

Chief Thunderhooves looked untroubled. “Then what happens is not my responsibility.”

“I’d like to be guarded,” Rarity said quickly.

“No,” Twilight said. “We are on a mission as representatives of Princess Celestia, and we have a right to free travel anywhere throughout Equestria.”

“Not on buffalo land,” Chief Thunderhooves grunted.

Twilight didn’t argue. There was no such thing as buffalo land, and besides, there was no point. The buffalo wouldn’t stop them from going where they wanted as long as they had Tank (and a giant three-headed dog).

“What happened?” Applejack said. “I thought Appleloosans were friendly with ponies."

“Ha!” Little Strongheart said loudly.

Little Strongheart was skinny and almost as small as a pony, but her eyes gleamed with malice and pride that would have seemed a lot more frightening if Twilight’s nearest point of comparison wasn’t Nightmare Moon. Twilight tried to understand Little Strongheart’s position among the buffalo. A second in command, like she (unofficially) was to Princess Celestia? A witch? A spokespony?

Whatever she was, there was no doubting that Little Strongheart was the key to the strife between pony and buffalo. And with that magic of hers, maybe the key to defeating the dragon as well.

Then the buffalo dispersed to their tents or whatever they were or to work around the camp, and Twilight and the other ponies had freedom.

A DAY AMONG THE BUFFALO

Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle:

“So did you figure out the last puzzle for this month?” Rainbow Dash said casually.

“How did you control the earth like that?” Twilight said.

Little Strongheart preened. “Nothing a pony needs to know.”

“I’m a Pegasus, technically,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Yes, we do,” Twilight said.

“I guess you’re not so superior after all,” Little Strongheart sneered.

“Yes, I am,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Superior to what?” Twilight said. “Please be more specific, but probably yes, I am.”

And so the financial genius and world’s richest Pegasus, Rainbow Dash, the world’s second-best economist and mathemagician Twilight Sparkle, and physicist and puzzlist prodigy Little Strongheart sat down to have an intellectual conversation.

“It’s called matrix algebra,” Twilight said.

“I know that,” Rainbow Dash said. “And what is it?”

“Matrix algebra is a way of transforming lots of linear equations into something more manageable,” Twilight said. “A brilliant pony named Wassilya Leontief figured out how to use matrixes to represent the different sectors of the Equestrian economy and determine their interrelationships.”

“That’s right,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now what does that mean?”

"Let's start from the beginning. We can model the economy as a system of linear equations. For example, how much of a good would a pony want to buy as a function of price? It stands to reason that the more expensive something is, the fewer of that thing the pony will want to buy, so quantity demanded is a decreasing linear function of price. As price goes up, quantity demanded goes down. So we can write Qd = -bP. Since at a price of zero you'll probably buy a positive amount of the good, we should really write Qs = a - bP, where a and b are constants and P stands for the price."

"Duh."

Twilight explained how the quantity supplied equation, which determined how much a pony would be willing to sell of a good at some price, could be written similarly, as Q = -c + dP, where d was a positive term because ponies would want to sell more of something at a higher price, and c was a negative term because at a price of zero ponies wouldn't want to sell things. And since the quantity of stuff bought had to equal the quantity of stuff sold, it made sense that the equations should equal each other, or

Qs = Qd

Rainbow Dash asked why supply came first, and Twilight said, "Because I say so," while mugging unpleasantly.

Anyway, the same equation could also be written as

-c + dP = a - bP

and if you solved for the P term, you would get

P* = (a + c) / (b+d)

The P had an asterisk, Twilight explained, because it was the equilibrium price term, since it was what the price was when quantity supplied equaled quantity demanded. This worked fine, she added, for partial equilibrium cases or a small number of equations in a general equilibrium model, but what about when there were lots and lots of equations? If it was a two-commodity market, for example, Qd and Qs would become Qd1 and Qd2, and Qs1 and Qs2 respectively. That still seemed manageable, but what if you had a hundred commodities? A thousand? What about n commodities?

It was important, Twilight said, to realize that in a multi-commodity case, the quantity supplied or demanded of one good was a function not only of the price of that good but also of the price of the other good. If you had enough money to buy, uh, a can of wing polish, and, um, a bottle of rainbow hair gel ("Got to keep the 'do aerodynamic," Rainbow Dash confirmed), then if the price of hair gel suddenly went way up, you might just buy two cans of wing polish instead. So the set of equations would look something like

Qs1 = Qd1

Qd1 = a0 + a1P1 +a2P2

Qs1 = b0 + b1P1 + b2P2

Qs2 = Qd2

Qd2 = c0 + c1P1 + c2P2

Qs2 = d0 + d1P1 + d2P2

"How do you know all this works, anyway?" Rainbow Dash said, glaring at the letters scribbled in the dirt like they might get up and walk away. "What makes this stuff real?"

Twilight took a moment to gather herself. "Basically, the equations are isomorphic to reality in some relevant way. To oversimplify, it means they share similar properties such that if you tried to make the world more like the equations or the equations like the world, then you'll still keep those relevant similarities. The fact that these equations are isomorphic to some aspect of reality imbues them with meaning that allows us to understand reality by understanding these equations."

"Seems like it would be a lot easier to just understand reality directly."

"Would that it were so."

Little Strongheart smiled nastily. Twilight kept talking. She pointed out that although they had six equations, they only had two variables, P1 and P2. The other letters were merely parameters. They could reduce the system of six equations to a system of two equations by substituting the equations for Qs1 and Qd1 into the equation Qs1 = Qd1, and they could do the same for Qs2, Qd2, and Qs2 = Qd2. Furthermore, you could rearrange Qs1 = Qd1 and Qs2 = Qd2 to be

Qs1 - Qd1 = 0

and

Qs2 - Qd2 = 0.

Perform the substitution, and you get

(a0 - b0) + (a1 - b1)P1 + (a2 - b2)P2 = 0

and

(c0 - d0) + (c1 - d1)P1 + (c2 - d2)P2 = 0

"That's ugly," Rainbow Dash said.

"I agree," Twilight said. "How about we call the expression ai - bi by the term gi, and the term ci - di by the term hi?"

"Wait, where did the i come from?"

"The term ai, for example, just means that it's a(whatever number). So we're saying a1 - b1 = g1, a2 - b2 = g2, and so on." Twilight wrote down the new equations.

g0 + g1P1 + g2P2 = 0

h0 + h1P1 + h2P2 = 0

"Solving for the equilibrium prices P1 and P2 isn't hard from here," Twilight said, "but it's not really our goal either. Let's make one more rearrangement, and then we'll start talking about matrices."

g1P1 + g2P2 = -g0

h1P1 + h2P2 = -h0

"This is easy to handle in our heads, but n commodities makes things a lot harder. What if we had n commodities? Let's write it out in a general form. We have too many letters right now."

a11x1 + a12x2 +...+ a1nxn = d1

a21x1 + a22x2 +...+ a2nxn = d2

......................................................

am1x1 + am2x2 +...+ amnxn = dm

"I get it going across, but not down," Rainbow Dash said. "Where did this m subscript come from? Why do the parameters have two numbers after them now?

"The m subscript stands for the number of the equation, and the number that comes after it stands for the number of the variable the coefficient is attached to," Twilight explained. "So we have m linear equations and n variables of x1, x2, and so on."

"There's too many!"

"I agree. It's easier to conceive of this system with a matrix. Three matrices, actually. Notice that in this system we have three types of elements. There are the coefficients, a, with whatever subscripts, x, and d. Let's arrange them into the matrices now. First is the matrix for all of our coefficients, which we'll name A."

A =

a11   a12    ...    a1n

a21   a22    ...    a2n

.................................

am1 am2   ...    amn

"It's like we wrote down the same equations as before, but only with the coefficients!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"Doesn't this seem easier somehow? Let's do the same with our variables and the final constants as well."

X =

x1

x2

.

.

.

xn

D =

d1

d2

.

.

.

dm

"So what do we do with these matrices?" Rainbow Dash said.

"Matrices act similarly to linear equations," Twilight said. "You can add, subtract, and multiply them, although there are rules about how and when you can do so. But you can't divide matrices, so don't assume you can treat them like linear equations. They're very powerful though. The vector beams I use to fight evil are a kind of matrix."

"Golly!"

"We don't need to get into the details of how matrices work. This exposition is way too long as it is. I bet we've lost three-quarters of our readers by this point."

"Worth it!"

"I agree. What you need to know is that matrices are more than just a way to compact a lot of linear equations. Evaluating something called the determinant lets us test for a solution to the whole system!"

"So if we're determined, we can find the answer?"

"...Sure. You should also know what an identity matrix is. That's a square matrix, meaning the number of rows is equal to the number of columns, which has zeroes everywhere except for the main diagonal, which is just ones."

I =

1   0    0

0   1    0

0   0    1

"As you might suspect, multiplying any matrix by the identity matrix yields the same matrix, like multiplying a number by 1. You can also invert a square matrix, meaning that if you multiple a matrix by its inverse matrix, you get the identity matrix. Matrices that have inverses are called nonsingular. Then there are Markov chains, which deal with probability and changes over time. They have special absorption properties that are quite helpful when doing mathemagic. Make sure to look all this stuff up because it'll be important later."

"Rainbow!"

Twilight stretched a bit, and maybe you should too. "Finally there are echelon matrices."

"Whoa, those sound powerful!"

"They sure are. We can test for certain properties of a matrix by transforming a matrix into an echelon matrix, for which we are allowed to interchange any two rows, multiply a row by a scalar—scalars scale things; it's how I made my voice loud earlier—and add that result to another row. Echelon matrices are recognizable by their common structural elements. You don't even need the matrix to be a square matrix!"

"What is the point of all of this?" Little Strongheart demanded.

"I just wanted to establish a basic idea of what matrices are and also foreshadow some elements for later. Now we can start on the economic applications."

"We're not almost done?" Little Strongheart groaned.

"The chapter comes out tomorrow. We're stuck with this plan. In for a bit, in for...more bits."

"I'm ready," Rainbow Dash declared. She could almost see that star next to her name.

"Okay, basically, Wassilya Leontief used matrices to answer the question of how much a firm or industry should produce to satisfy the demand for the product. Imagine listing all the inputs in a really long column, and then across each row having a set of outputs the input is used to create. You have something that looks an awful lot like a matrix, don't you? It's called an input-output model. What's interesting about this is that if all those inputs constitute the entire economy, then that means the whole economy exists to produce itself! By that I mean if all the inputs firms require to make their output are all the inputs in the economy, then the products firms produce are simply the inputs of other firms, with nothing necessarily being made for consumers. Inputs don't come from heaven, you know."

"They say that long ago buffaloes ate the manna that fell from heaven," Little Strongheart said.

"Ponies say all kinds of things. Now, obviously in real life things get made for consumers, so if our matrix has all the inputs, then there must also exist other inputs not in our matrix, such as the stuff produced by stallions doing household work or the stuff Gryphons make. That's called the open model. And in the closed model, if we just absorb everything as just another industry, then stallion-labor and Gryphon-things are also goods made to make other goods."

"Then what's it all for?" Rainbow Dash moaned.

Twilight beamed. "This was Wassilya's genius. Outputs are inputs and vice versa, giving us a model of the flow of goods between sectors. You could even think of it as the flow of friendship. So suppose we have a model of a Developed Region and," she looked at Little Strongheart, "an Undeveloped Region. And let's divide both regions into three industries: one that extracts raw materials, one that transforms them into consumer goods and pollution, and one that produces antipollution."

"Typical pony illogic," Little Strongheart scowled.

"Since the input-output model allows us to calculate the amount of something that should be produced to satisfy demand, then with this method we could in theory calculate the exact amount of antipollution that should be produced."

The smoke overhead was only growing thicker as they talked.

"Is this all supposed to be 'isomorphic' or whatever to what's going on now?" Rainbow Dash said.

"At a minimum it's metaphorical," Twilight said. "Whether it's isomorphic or not will become clear in time."

"So what about the Developed and Less Developed Regions?"

"Oh, the Developed Region gets stronger by producing antipollution, and the Less Developed Region sits around complaining about the good old days," Twilight said with a straight face. "Just know which side your bread is jellied.[2]"

"No wonder ponies are so popular among the other critters," Little Strongheart murmured.

[2]Dairy not being very popular among ponies, or indeed among any kind of civilized creature that has outgrown her mother's teat.

Rainbow Dash clutched her head. "Argh! This is too much. I need to go lay down." She got up and stumbled off toward Tank, who was serenely watching the buffaloes work.

Twilight took a deep breath. “Cool Element of Equilibrium you've got there."

Little Strongheart sneered. “This amulet makes me as strong as an Alicorn.”

Twilight considered some of the things she had seen Princess Celestia do. “No, it doesn’t.”

“And don’t think you can steal it! It’s locked with a powerful magical seal. Only I can remove it.”

“I won’t steal it. Where did you find it?”

The look on Little Strongheart’s face made it clear she wasn’t going to tell.

“My friends and I used the Five Elements of Equilibrium to defeat Nightmare Moon and save the world,” Twilight said. “There’s Contract, Information, Rationality, Finance, and Entrepreneurship. What’s yours?”

Little Strongheart ran a hoof over the red crystal. “Isomorphism.”

Twilight blinked. “Isomorphism? You mean, the retaining of certain qualities as you move from representation to representation?”

“An isomorphism is like a witch caught between two mirrors,” Little Strongheart said. “The images are different, yet reflected inside them are the other mirror’s images, reversed twice to look like the real thing. With a pair of really good mirrors, you wouldn’t be able to tell which is the reflection and which is the real face.”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said, because Little Strongheart enjoyed hearing it. As long as the little buffalo wanted to talk, Twilight would let her. “How does that let you warp the earth or grow an apple tree straight through a train?”

“I take the mathemagic, and I map it onto physical reality.”

Twilight had been expecting something like that, but it was still stunning. With the power of Isomorphism, Little Strongheart had been able to give meaning to mathemagic. Like how she had once given meaning to a beam of pure friendship….

“I am Equestria’s best puzzler.” Little Strongheart sneered again. Twilight wondered if maybe there was something wrong with her face.

“Have you ever heard of the Celestial Sunset Provision?”

“Of course I have. What is it?”

“They’re a special set of laws Princess Celestia made to deal with certain…contingencies that tended to arise in her line of work. For example, there’s the Just Tell Me What the Crown Really Is Covenant of 1587. It means that Princess Celestia promises to give the benefit of the doubt to people with really far-fetched stories about coming from different dimensions to retrieve magical artifacts, especially if they seem like they’ve never walked on four hoofs before.”

“So what?”

“So one of the Provisions deals with ancient magical artifacts that amplify powers. I never knew what it meant before, but now I think I have an idea.”

“Why? What is it?”

Twilight stood up to leave.

“I understand my princess a little better now. Thank you for this conversation.”

“Wait! What provision? What does it say?”

Twilight walked away, the words echoing in her mind.

Just let her go.

Rarity:

Rarity didn’t really like the buffaloes. She didn’t like adventuring very much at all, to be honest. There was something about the fresh air that reacted poorly with the careful balance of highly unstable chemicals that maintained her eternal youth.

It wasn’t that she was a witch, exactly. But when reality wasn’t as beautiful as Rarity thought it should be, she saw no alternative but to give the universe a makeover.

Not that the air was very fresh thanks to that awful dragon, who wasn't at all like Spikey-wikey. The smoke was getting in her pores. She could feel her coat starting to knot up like Twilight’s.

And the dirt! Why did adventuring involve so much dirt? How was she supposed to keep her hoofs looking like a quartet of black gemstones Princess Celestia had commissioned for her coronation when she was traipsing about in the dirt all day?

What she wouldn’t give for a day at the spa! She needed a long massage and a dose de cheval of mud to bathe in.

But the worst part was meeting new ponies. Nightmare Moon was one thing. Sisterly jealousy, catty revenge: these were things Rarity understood well. Though she hadn’t voiced the thought at the time, she probably could have defeated Nightmare Moon with an expertly managed campaign of malicious rumors, slander, and gossip that would have made the parasprite’s own efforts look like the sort of rubbish that filly, Zirconia Coronet or whatever her name was, had tried on Sweetie Belle before Rarity had given her younger sister a few choice phrases to repeat the next day at school.

The buffaloes, on the other hoof, were mere brutes. That wasn’t normally a problem, but these creatures seemed oddly immune to her charms. Meanwhile, that skinny runt, Little Strongheart, had them wrapped around her hoof!

Mirror, mirror, on the wall….

And Rarity considered the many things that could be done with a simple apple.

But there was no need for that, surely. After all, she had a small flying demon that could read minds at her beck and call.

Twilight had tried to explain once how there was no market for lemons in Ponyville because of information asymmetries. That was rubbish of course, the real reason being Applejack, but Twilight’s insistence that more information = more optimization = more power had stuck with Rarity.

Rarity was going to find out a thing or two about Little Miss Strongheart.

“Come, my monster!” Rarity said. The parasprite hovered by her face. “Now,” Rarity said, “listen very carefully. I have something I need you to do....”

Applejack:

Applejack didn’t know much about buffaloes, but—

Actually, that wasn’t true. She knew plenty about buffaloes, more than most ponies did. They knew a lot about the different things that grew in Equestria, for one, and Applejack had used tricks she had learned from the buffaloes more than once to make sure only one kind of fruit grew in Ponyville. And the Apple Family believed in hospitality and being open to strangers. The way Applejack figured it, buffaloes were just like ponies, except shaped different, and maybe also different in some other ways, but basically ponies deep down.

The Apple family published a book of their family secrets. Reason was, they knew it was one thing to see a pony, and another thing to be a pony. And as much as buffaloes looked like another kind of species altogether, Applejack reckoned so long as they didn’t think any different, it wasn’t her concern how big they got or what kind of birdy things they wore on their heads.

Lots of ponies said it was what’s on the inside that counts, but only the Apple Family staked their business on it.

When Applejack looked at the buffaloes in the camp, what she saw was a family doing their chores. There were buffaloes cooking oat cakes and some kind of corn stew, and others patching tents, minding the fillies, and gathering flowers for the—

Applejack shook her head. Weren’t no concern of hers, and it was rude to stare. No, the only thing to do was to be neighborly and help out however she could.

So the buffaloes were surprised when an orange pony half the size of any of them hefted four baskets of beans and nuts to where everypony was setting up. Applejack pulled tables into place and helped with the digging.

It wasn’t no favor. Applejack just liked doing chores. A pony that wasn’t working was like a rattlesnake without its rattle. Just didn’t seem to be any point to it.

Still, Applejack wasn’t one to overstay her welcome, so when she started getting looks from some of the buffaloes, she spat out the shovel and went to tend to the Cerberus, whose gums were bleeding despite Fluttershy’s sharp admonition not to lick them.

“I’m sorry,” the Cerberus said.

Applejack patted her massive paw. “Ain’t nothing you got to apologize for. Guarding things is what you’ve been doing for a thousand years. I’m real glad you’re here.” The Cerberus responded by licking Applejack with all three tongues, bathing her in a great deal of drool and a fair amount of blood as well.

“Just try to make friends,” Applejack said, struggling through the living wall of tongues. “There’ll be a big bonus for you.”

The Cerberus’s six ears picked up. “Why?”

“Because these buffaloes are buffaloes that know how to grow a mean apple tree.” Applejack grinned, and after a moment, so did the Cerberus.

Applejack was the Element of Contract. She wondered if she could work out a deal.

Fluttershy:

The sight of a cow bisected by a dragon’s talon would not stop replaying itself, like Rainbow Dash bragging about how much money she made that day.

It wasn’t death. Fluttershy had put down her share[1] of critters over the years. She did it quickly, cleanly, and out of sight, with no hesitation or remorse, and then she cried herself to sleep with her face buried in Rainbow Dash’s wings, who wasn’t exactly understanding, but she was sensitive, which was why she had her hoof in her mouth so often.

[1]Not her fair share. Just her share. There wasn’t any fair about it.

There was nothing anypony—anyone could do about death. Princess Celestia had been born immortal, as far as anyp—anybody knew, and Princess Cadance guarded her secrets jealously. No, every…everyone died eventually, and Fluttershy could acknowledge that.[2]

[2] She didn’t accept it. No one had offered it to her.

Every critter had to go, but the only one Fluttershy let take them was the pony in black, whom Twilight said only economists could see….

Then a dragon showed up and tore poor Mr. Cow to pieces, so that was that.

Fluttershy knew it was just about the stupidest thing in the world, but somehow she couldn’t help but feel that if she had just checked her privilege a bit sooner, Mr. Cow would still be alive.

Fluttershy remembered once being lost in the maze of the Sweet Apple Acres trees when she was little. Silly as it was, she had genuinely been afraid when she couldn’t see a way out. Fear gave way to panic, which opened the door to an unfamiliar strength. Fluttershy flapped her wings and began to fly…and she saw from up above the whole of Sweet Apple Acres…and she understood all that she hadn't even been able to imagine before….

Then she noticed she was really high off the ground, let out a squeak, and fell into a tree.

Mr. Cow was dead. Fluttershy cried. There was nothing wrong with crying. It didn’t make a pony weak or foolish. It just made their face wet. But it didn’t solve any problems either, so Fluttershy got to work.

First she saw to the sky serpent, who was still just a baby, even though she must’ve gained a thousand pounds since she had first slithered out of the water to join her one year ago. Snakes had only one lung, and while it was a big lung, Fluttershy worried what all the smoke was doing to her. The poor thing seemed tired, so Fluttershy made it very clear that she wasn’t to fly anymore, and if things got much worse she was to turn around and head straight to Ponyville no matter what. The sky serpent blinked in response.

Next she tended to the Cerberus, who wouldn’t stop licking her own gums. The Stare took care of that, at least for a while.

And now Fluttershy wanted to tell the buffaloes she was sorry Mr. Cow had died.

Which was silly. Buffaloes weren’t cows. Still, it was how she felt.

She watched them work, and watched them eat, and watched them watch her, and she knew that there were things about being a buffalo that she didn’t understand and probably never would. She just hoped it wouldn’t cause a dragon to rip them all to pieces.

No. That was just another aspect of her privilege. This wasn’t about her. Buffaloes and other critters had suffered at the hoofs of ponies for generations. And their pain, and the way and being of a buffalo, was something she could never know.

So Fluttershy sat very still in the center of the camp and did nothing.

Pinkie Pie and….

It was the funeral, and the ponies were invited.

No pony—er, uh, buffalo—was quite sure whose idea it was. They just all knew somepo—someone had said it to them in a bright, cheery voice, and when they had turned they had seen another buffalo, so it must have been a buffalo who said it, even though the voice sounded like the honk of a clown’s nose.

And someone must have thought it was a good idea to make a cake out of corn and nuts with SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS written in big balloon-like letters. In icing, when the nearest place to get any was probably one of many Sugarcube Corners all the way up in Ponyville. It looked just ridiculous, not to mention anachronistic, and some of the buffaloes thought about saying something, but none of the other buffaloes were, so they didn’t either.

And so, not straying too far from the giant three-headed dog and the humongous sky serpent breathing arrhythmically, five ponies witnessed the funeral of two brave and proud buffalo warriors who had happened to get on the wrong side of a Cerberus.

Tank mentioned that they should all probably keep quiet during the ceremony, though she was looking only at Rainbow Dash while she said it.

Fluttershy wasn’t crying, which surprised Twilight. Her eyes were downcast, and she seemed barely aware of her surroundings. Rarity’s face was a practiced picture of perfect grief, and Applejack’s a flawed but more experienced version of the same. Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be seen. Twilight wondered how much labor productivity the buffaloes forwent by having the funeral.

Not much, as it turned out. The ceremony was brief and dignified, or whatever ponies were supposed to think about this sort of thing. Twilight didn’t see how the dead buffaloes were supposed to care.

Hot roaring flame

Some bodies went into the earth. The buffaloes were already gone, so it was like tossing an apple core into the trash.

Claws clicking along the ground

Some things were said, some plants waved around, and smoke spiraled high into the sky to join the sea of the stuff coming from the dragon, and all Twilight could think of was how much time they were wasting.

Rainbow light bursting off of scales in the bright sunlight

And then Pinkie Pie got up in front of Chief Thunderhooves and hoofed him a balloon. Next Chapter: Creating the Hypothesis Space Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes