Mating Customs of Species Equus parvus

by D G D Davidson

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Human, Lyra, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 10303

In his final study, an ethnologist struggles to understand the customs of the ponies—and what they ultimately mean for his own people.

Abstract: In his final and most personal monograph, a prolific and widely celebrated ethnologist and hippologist describes the customs of the Little Ponies (sp. Equus parvus) related to courtship and matrimony. Topics covered include sudden-onset equine infatuation (SOEI), typical courtship behaviors, the prominent role of the equine matchmaker, and the rituals of equine marriage.

But this study moves beyond a mere description of pony culture. It reflects also on the interactions between pony and human—and on what those interactions mean for the future of the human race.

Featured on Equestria Daily!

Published 2014-02-28 04:10:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-03 02:31:20 UTC

Part 1. Introduction and Initial Infatuation

Mating Customs of Species Equus parvus

by Dr. D. G. D. Davidson, PhD.

Revised by Lyra Heartstrings

OCCASIONAL PAPERS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Contributions to Ethnology No. 124

The present manuscript arrived in the mail with the following letter attached. The Royal Academy grieves the loss of one of its most prestigious and prolific members, and we are grateful to his equine assistant for making available the notes for his final, but sadly incomplete, study. We have chosen to publish the manuscript exactly as we received it. —Ed.

Dear Royal Academy,

Hello. Some of you probably know from his other essays that I was Dr. Davidson’s friend and helper for a little over three years. After everything that happened, I lost track of him. I searched for almost a month, and then some ponies told me they’d seen him heading toward the coast, so I went to Horseshoe Bay, and that’s where I learned about the ship, and about how he went overboard.

He had been staying with an elderly couple there, and they still had his clothes, supplies, and notes. He always asked me to read over anything before he mailed it to you, so I’ve done the same thing again, and I put everything in the right order, the way I remember it happening.

I know it isn’t what he would have wanted—there’s a lot of him in there. He didn’t want his papers to read like that when he was ready to publish them. But I just couldn’t change it. I couldn’t change much of anything he wrote, not this time.

I’m sorry.

Sincerely,

Lyra Heartstrings, Equus parvus unicornis

Ponyville, May 6, AP 1542 (1767 CE)

Introduction

I have now spent almost three and a half years in the Kingdom of Equestria with members of the species Equus parvus, commonly known as Little Ponies, or sometimes even as My Little Ponies, the possessive being, in the local dialect, a term of endearment. My previous monographs, for which I was awarded in absentia the distinguished Faroe Chair of Hippology at Madeleine College, have covered the Little Ponies’ social structure (Davidson 1764a), their interpersonal relationships (Davidson 1765), their means of conflict resolution (Davidson 1766a), and their ritual behaviors (Davidson 1766b).

Having thus given such an overview of equine culture, I believe it is time to develop a narrower focus and turn to a study of the ponies’ reproductive habits.

This particular subject caught my interest recently while I was in a Ponyville café with my assistant and primary informant, a young unicorn by the name of Miss Lyra Heartstrings. We were reviewing our notes in the company of several ponies as well as a few members of other races when a singular incident occurred.

The Little Ponies, as the reader may be aware, are widely renowned both for their comeliness and for their gregarious personalities, so it is no surprise that members of my own species (H. sapiens), a race notorious for its outré exogamous tendencies, occasionally become enamored of them. While Miss Heartstrings was checking my writings for accuracy, a young human male at a nearby table suddenly dropped to one knee and loudly proclaimed his love for a mare in his company.

Needless to say, the mare laughed him to scorn, and the unlucky fellow instantly became an object of ridicule for all and sundry in the café. In the face of such derision, he within minutes fled for the door with an arm drawn across his eyes.

This gave me cause to reflect. Numerous informants have told me in passing of other such incidents between humans and ponies, all of which have ended in similar fashion. As far as I can discern, the ponies bear these would-be suitors no ill will; they merely find their advances ludicrous.

The reader, at least if the reader is human, must remember that the ponies, like most races, developed alongside other sapient species. On the other hand, the human race, having developed in isolation in the intermontane valleys that make up our homeland, and having only recently discovered what we fondly call the Wider World, is unique. Members of our race are naturally attracted to the exotic: previously, our appetite for the unusual helped to keep our race robust by leading to gene flow between our various civilized pockets, thus reducing inbreeding. But now that we have moved beyond our home, our instincts work against us: on account of our fruitless attempts to woo griffons, minotaurs, sylphs, and other creatures of all sorts, we have become the world’s laughingstocks.

After the ruckus in the café died down and the ponies returned to their meals, I folded up my notes and told Miss Heartstrings of my intention to change the direction of my researches. I wanted to know, I said, the precise nature of the ponies’ views on amore. She proved reluctant to discuss this particular subject herself, but agreed to help me secure other informants.

Initial Infatuation

As I have briefly described elsewhere (Davidson 1764b:74-76), the Little Ponies, unlike most members of the genus Equus, are strictly monogamous, and they solemnize their pair-bonding with an elaborate marriage ritual. Although this puts them at variance with Arabians (Equus ferus caballus), Zebras (Equus quagga), and Przewalskians (Equus ferus przewalskii), it is by no means peculiar amongst the world’s cultures. What is peculiar, however, is the disorganization and rapidity of the ponies’ courtships; indeed, a young man such as the one I encountered in the café might consider himself fortunate if he knew what ordeal awaited him were his affections reciprocated.

Numerous interviews and personal observations confirm that equine courtships are exceedingly brief, sometimes lasting no more than a week. Perhaps on account of their famously warm personalities, the ponies are given to powerful infatuations, which can overtake them suddenly and without warning (Fig. 1). Typically, the infatuation overwhelms the pony upon primary visual observation of the object of his affections, producing profound sensations of desire and what my informants consistently call a “warm fuzzy feeling.” During the onset of infatuation, speech and fine motor functions may be temporarily inhibited.

Fig. 1: Physiological indications of equine infatuation.

Because the onset of infatuation is ordinarily considered a prerequisite of courtship, and because ponies, as social animals, place a heavy emphasis on interpersonal relationships generally, ponies have a bewildering number of public gatherings, celebrations, and, most especially, dances designed to give stallions and mares an opportunity to meet (Fig. 2). Ponies consider it typical to court even in early adolescence, and thus their academies (which I will describe at length in a future monograph on Equestrian education) have numerous dances oriented toward couples. Sometimes, academies host dances as frequently as once a month.

Fig. 2: Typical equine social dancing.

One of my informants, a moderately famous freelance writer introduced to me by Miss Heartstrings, related to me his experience of infatuation, which occurred on the occasion of his visiting a Ponyville farm.

Said he,

Everything slowed down. This one pony, a simple mare covered in sweat and stained with earth, became everything, became the world. Here was the essence of earth, the heart of the rustic country lifestyle for which even the most cultured ponies secretly yearn. Right before me, she held up an apple, bit into it, and slowly wiped its juice from her mouth, and in that moment, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Since this particular informant is decidedly urbane in his habits and has no reason to find a farm mare attractive, I can only assume equine infatuation is semi-random. Thus we find that the phenomenon of “love at first sight,” the existence of which many humans consider to be in doubt, is regarded amongst ponies as the norm.

I should pause here to note that the three confirmed subspecies of Little Pony (the taxonomic position of the crystal ponies still being a subject of debate) intermingle freely. My informant in this case was a unicorn (Equus parvus unicornis), and the object of his desire was an earth pony (Equus parvus fortis). Numerous observations indicate that the offspring of such intermixing present the physiological traits of one pony type only, a peculiarity suggesting that the classification of these three pony “breeds” or “tribes” as separate subspecies may be, in spite of their obvious anatomical distinctions, premature.

Unfortunately, my facilities are limited, so I am unable to make any precise scientific tests, but future researchers should consider focusing their studies on the exact role of pheromones in equine courtship. The pony’s sense of smell and his Jacobsen’s organ are more developed than a human’s, and thus it is possible that chemicals play a significant part in inducing the overwhelming sensations my informants consistently depict.

However, all informants describe sight as the primary inducement of infatuation, and few mention scent at all, so the importance of pheromones remains for the time being a conjecture. At the very least, I am able to confirm that ponies can be afflicted with infatuation even when out of their mating season, which indicates that infatuation does not occur because, or only because, a mare is in heat.

One of my informants, a local fashion designer and unicorn pony, described for me her infatuation with a moderately famous freelance writer. Miss Heartstrings told her of my study and, after some persuading, she agreed to have me for afternoon tea in her boutique.

After I knocked on her door, she ushered me in, put up a “closed” sign in a window, and fussed for a few minutes as she found me a seat on a divan in her small parlor. Once she had poured me a cup of Earl Grey, she flung herself on a velvet chaise longue and sipped from a china cup, which she held in a levitation spell.

She made preliminary remarks about the relative physical beauty of various stallions in Ponyville. I replied noncommittally and eventually steered her toward the subject of her personal experiences.

She released a deep sigh and lowered her teacup to her saucer. “Oh, darling,” she said, “he was simply divine, but I’m afraid it just wasn’t meant to be.”

She leapt from her seat and pulled aside a curtain to reveal what I can only describe as a type of shrine, in which she had preserved several images of her beloved along with a lock of hair and what appeared to be a vial of urine, which of course would contain his pheromones (Fig. 3). I remain unclear as to how she obtained these items.

Fig. 3: An equine “love shrine.”

Uncertain how to respond to this display, I took another sip of my tea and said, “I take it you were in love with him?”

“Love? Love? Oh, darling, love hardly begins to describe it. Why, he was simply perfect! Simply amazing!”

She sighed again. “But he liked Applejack, not me, and things just didn’t work out for any of us. I suppose it’s time I took this down . . . but I’d like to wait a little longer.”

“I’m sure it must be difficult—”

“I suppose I’ll go see Lovestruck soon, and then I can throw all this out.” She frowned. “You have spoken to Lovestruck, haven’t you?”

I admitted I hadn’t.

“Darling, that simply won’t do. She’s the expert, after all.”

“You say you are going to see her. What for, exactly?”

“Why, to get over him, of course,” she answered as she inclined her head back toward the shrine.

Thinking this informant might be a deviant, I made some enquiries, but other ponies told me that, though they considered the construction of a shrine to be an unusual activity, they did not find it to be beyond the pale or in any way alarming. That is to say, the ponies consider it acceptable to go to extreme lengths in the name of love, even to the point of indulging behaviors that other races usually consider obsessive.

I must note, however, that after my conversation with the fashion designer, I encountered a most peculiar group of human beings with a similar habit of creating shrines. On a Sunday afternoon, Miss Heartstrings and I were dining at a restaurant we often frequented when a young man approached, sat on the hay pile between us, leaned my way, and said, “I know about your research.”

I lowered my fork, patted my lips with my napkin, and said, “You’ve read my work? I’m flattered, but I didn’t think the journal circulated this far from the Academy.”

He looked confused. “Come to my place tonight at seven, the little hut at the end of Edge Row.” He glanced at Miss Heartstrings before adding, “Come alone.” Then he jumped up and, glancing left and right, shuffled away.

Miss Heartstrings urged me not to go, but I assured her of my safety. If this fellow had any information related to my studies, I was determined to procure it.

Unsure what I would encounter, and carrying in my pocket a penknife (the closest thing to a weapon I had to hand) in case I should meet with unpleasantries, I made my way to the modest cottage at the location indicated and thumped on the door. The same man I’d met at dinner opened and ushered me inside.

The interior was cramped, lit only with dimly flickering candles and smelling of old hay that hadn’t been swept out in ages. Around the room on various makeshift seats were seven young men, all in their twenties or thereabouts. My host pressed a mug of sweet cider—a popular local drink—into my hands, and then he and his companions introduced themselves. They told me they had survived in Equestria for several years by taking odd jobs, by exhibiting themselves at circuses, and by living on pony hospitality.

They referred to themselves as the “Brotherhood of Mare Lovers.” Each of these fellows was in love with some pony or other, and each, reverently and slowly, told me the name of the mare he fancied. Aware that their affections would meet a rebuff if ever they were to voice them, they kept their loves secret and contented themselves with collecting images and paraphernalia of the objects of their desires.

Of course, even hopeless love aches to be announced, so they had invited me here to commiserate with them and perhaps, as one of them told me, to “spare a footnote in your book for the likes of us.”

I sat with them for over an hour as they showed me their photographs, most of which, judging from the poor lighting and odd angles, had been taken covertly. The pictures, of course, were all of ponies—ponies shopping, ponies eating, ponies laughing with friends, ponies going about their daily business. As the evening drew on, the man who had invited me pulled a vial from his coat pocket and said that it contained his beloved’s hoof trimmings. This vial, he told us, never left his person either day or night. At this, the other men sighed deeply.

Across from me sat a short, stocky fellow who grunted and rubbed a hand through his sandy hair. “What I don’t get,” he said, “is why there ain’t a one of us who’s met with success. Most ponies don’t go for two-legged apes. I get that. But isn’t there even one of them, somewhere, who will give a man a chance?”

I drank deeply from my mug of cider, cleared my throat, and said, “The ponies do not appear to share the human appetite for sexual novelty.”

He made an inarticulate sound of exasperation. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“I assumed so, yes.”

He gestured to the others. “After the pictures, the bad poetry, even the hoof clippings, that’s still what you think?”

Nervous, I took another drink. “Sublimation,” I said. “That’s all just sublimation. Humans are biologically adapted to—”

Another of the men, one perched in a windowsill, snorted. “He’s one of those university boys.” He pointed a finger at me. “The problem with you is, you think of everything in biological terms.”

I lowered my mug. “What other terms are there?”

He shook his head. “And you claim to study culture? If you can’t even understand human beings, pal, you’re never going to understand ponies.”

At last, I donned my coat and hat and excused myself. After they showed me to the door, I took one last look back at these men. They were young, but—perhaps because the deep shadows of the candlelit room exaggerated their features—they appeared pinched, drawn, and haggard. There was something distinctly flaccid and unwholesome in their pale faces, though the clear air and warm clime of Equestria ought to have been conducive to their vigor.

I found myself in a brown study as I left their company and marched up the dusty roads of Ponyville back to the modest apartment I shared with Miss Heartstrings. Humans, it seems, are willing to expend their youth on illogical and hopeless dreams. It is no wonder the inhabitants of the Wider World consider us a pack of fools.

Part 2. Courtship and Unexpected Difficulties with a Princess

Mating Customs of Species Equus parvus

by Dr. D. G. D. Davidson, PhD.

Revised by Lyra Heartstrings

Courtship

If an infatuated pony is lucky enough to have his affections reciprocated, he and the object of his desire enter into courtship proper, which usually involves a series of discrete events euphemistically called “dates,” a term apparently deriving from the dates marked on a calendar. I have elsewhere discussed the ponies’ fixation with public social events (Davidson 1765), so the reader will be unsurprised to learn that these dates take the form of semi-formal outings. Typical dates involve picnics, restaurant meals, or trips to the theatre. Generally, two ponies date by themselves, but several couples may sometimes go on a date in a group.

Ponies on dates often rub their noses together (Fig. 4). This activity appears to be derived from the mutual nose-sniffing practiced by the more primitive species of Equus; that is to say, by means of nose-rubbing, the lovers memorize each other’s scent. There may also be some relationship between nose-rubbing and the practice of mutual grooming with the lips and incisors, which is still common amongst Arabians, but which most ponies, aside from a small coterie of primitivists, consider deviant (Davidson 1765:78).

Fig. 4: Nose-rubbing in courtship.

Since it is the appearance of the beloved that induces infatuation, as previously described, it is no surprise that looking is considered the most important courtship activity. Courting ponies may spend much of a date gazing steadily into each other’s eyes, and they may sometimes look at each other in this fashion for over an hour at a time. I was allowed to observe two ponies on a date, and my stopwatch indicated that, at one point, they stared at each other for a full seventy-four minutes without speaking or breaking eye contact (Fig. 5). Blinking still occurs during this activity, but its rate appears to be somewhat retarded.

Fig. 5: Courting ponies gazing into each other’s eyes.

I pondered this apparently profound relationship between sight and courtship while taking dinner with Miss Heartstrings in the small apartment we shared. Determined to understand this fascination with mutual gazing, I asked her if she would be willing to look into my eyes for several minutes. She pulled her head back in apparent surprise, and her mouth turned up in a grin, as if she were preparing to treat me with the same scorn to which so many ponies have subjected so many humans, but after I reassured her of my detached, scientific interest, she acquiesced. We spent the next half hour staring across the table at each other in the light of the fireflies dancing in the lamp overhead.

Although ponies have large and decidedly expressive eyes—Miss Heartstrings especially so—and though her pale yellow irises glistened like gold in the dimness, I learned nothing from this exercise.

The next morning, which was a Saturday, Miss Heartstrings surprised me by arranging an interview with Ponyville’s schoolteacher, a certain Miss Cheerilee. Though even by pony standards Cheerilee is an especially gracious hostess, I had not thought I had any reason to visit her. Nonetheless, trusting my assistant, I donned my hat and coat and set out for Cheerilee’s small flat, where she treated me to a sumptuous brunch of typical pony faire—tomatoes, cucumbers, apple cider, and a spinach quiche.

I should pause to mention the disparity in education between the large cities and the rural communities. Although urban centers such as Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Los Pegasus, or Manehatten have sizable and well-funded academies for the training of the young, hamlets like Ponyville cannot maintain such institutions, so they instead have small schoolhouses in which, generally, students of all ages learn under a single educator. The teacher is usually from a city, and she typically arrives in the rural community as a single mare in her late teens or early twenties, looking both to educate foals and perhaps to marry one of the local stallions. Such is Miss Cheerilee, who moved to Ponyville shortly after she completed her academy education in Canterlot (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6: Miss Cheerilee, schoolteacher.

Miss Cheerilee and I chatted about pleasant inanities, such as the scheduled weather and Ponyville’s gossip, before the conversation landed on my topic of interest.

“Have you spoken to Lovestruck yet?” she asked as she got up to pour my third cup of coffee.

“Not yet,” I replied. “I think Miss Heartstrings is trying to arrange it, but Miss Lovestruck seems to be quite busy.”

“Well, she would be, this time of year. Spring, you know.”

“Of course,” I said, though I was unsure what she meant.

She sat down across from me again, and her large smile seemed uncharacteristically strained. “I know you’re trying to write a paper, but . . . do you keep secrets?”

“My research is published in a distant land,” I answered, “and my assistant and I practice the utmost discretion.”

She appeared relieved. Turning to a window, with her gaze distant, she whispered, “I think I had a chance once, but I lost it. Perhaps I should see Lovestruck myself, but I just can’t. Not yet—”

Trying to make as little noise as possible while she gathered her thoughts, I opened my notebook and pulled out my fountain pen.

She laughed and shook her head. “Oh, it’s so silly. I’m so silly. It was too much like a storybook, the single schoolteacher arriving in a small town and meeting a strong, silent, ruggedly handsome farm stallion—I thought it was absurd, so I told myself I’d get over it.”

As I jotted notes, I asked, “Do you mean Big Macintosh?” I was referring to a stallion who worked one of the largest farms in the area. I didn’t say so to Miss Cheerilee, but I knew several mares who had an interest in him.

She sighed. “How did you guess?”

“Your description matches him.”

“I suppose it does.” She shifted in her seat, placed her front hooves on the table, and stared down at them. “He and I became close friends soon after I arrived. He’s very kind, and a good listener, but he doesn’t talk much . . . some of my students tried to convince us to be each other’s very special someponies. That’s terribly inappropriate, of course, and I wasn’t at all happy with it.”

“I can imagine.”

“It gets worse, though. They tried to give us a love potion, but it was actually love poison—”

I frowned and set down my pen on the tabletop.

“All at once,” she said, and her voice became low, almost breathy, “it was like he was the only stallion in all the world, and his eyes—I just couldn’t look away from his eyes. I wanted to lose myself in them, drown in them—”

“The potion they gave you,” I murmured, “it produced the usual effects of initial infatuation?”

“Of what?”

“Of falling in love. Falling in love for the first time.”

“I suppose so, but it wouldn’t end. It never lessened at all. We went on like that for, well, for hours.” Her shoulders slumped. “The same children found the cure, but I can’t help but wonder . . . in the midst of all that, I tried to set things straight. I told Big Mac that I considered him a good friend, just a friend. But sometimes I feel, well, maybe, perhaps if it hadn’t been for the potion—”

She hung her head and was silent for almost a minute. I made further notes and decided to learn more about this so-called love potion.

“I think I made a mistake,” she whispered. “What do you think?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you.”

She put a hoof to her face again. “He’s in a mane salon quartet, and at one of his performances, when he sang, I actually—this is really embarrassing—I actually faked a faint, hoping he’d notice. I don’t know if he did.”

She lowered her chin to the table. “I guess I could explain everything to him, tell him how I really feel, but after all that happened, perhaps it would just be easier to go to Lovestruck, get it dealt with . . .”

She closed her eyes, and a few tears squeezed out from between her eyelids.

She said nothing else of interest, so after a few further pleasantries, I took my leave.

That evening, I ate a dinner of green salad while Miss Heartstrings read over the day’s notes.

“I didn’t know,” she said.

I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. “You didn’t? Then why—?”

“She told me she wanted to see you. It wasn’t my idea.”

I frowned and continued eating.

“Everypony knows what you’re up to,” Miss Heartstrings said. “And I guess it’s easier for a pony to tell you about her love than it is to tell the one she’s in love with. Maybe Rarity and Cheerilee wanted you to talk them out of seeing Lovestruck.”

“Then I guess I failed. Who is this Lovestruck?”

Heartstrings looked away from me. “She’s one of Princess Cadance’s. You’ll meet her tomorrow. I got you an interview.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” She spread my notes out on the table and passed her hooves over them. “I feel like I shouldn’t know this stuff. I feel like I’m prying into other ponies’ lives. I don’t want to know how Cheerilee feels about Big Mac.”

“Just keep it to yourself.”

“It’s not that easy. You know my friend Sweetie Drops? She likes him, too. Before, I thought it would be great if Sweetie Drops went on a date with him, but now I don’t know what to think.”

“This is merely the burden of an ethnologist. It’s a burden I’ll share it with you.” I slid a hand across the table and laid it over one of her hooves.

She looked into my eyes. I couldn’t read her expression, but she wasn’t smiling, so I quickly pulled my hand away.

Unexpected Difficulties with a Princess

The ponies have a peculiar form of government, whereby they allow only those who have undergone a radical and apparently spontaneous physical transformation to take the mantle of leadership at any level above the local (Davidson 1764a:12-37). Such transformations are known to happen only to females, who are afterwards dubbed “princesses.”

Ponyville, though a small community, currently has a princess in residence, Princess Twilight Sparkle, formerly a unicorn before her transformation. I have interviewed her on several occasions, as she has no significant administrative duties. In fact, she works as Ponyville’s librarian (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Princess Twilight Sparkle.

The day after my interview with Miss Cheerilee, knowing that I was scheduled to talk to the mysterious Lovestruck that afternoon, I spent the morning going over my notes and reading from some Equestrian history books I had from the library. I was surprised when Miss Heartstrings walked through the front door and announced, “Princess Twilight wants to see you.”

This sounded less like an offer of information than like an official summons, one that could disrupt my schedule.

“How badly does she want to see me?” I asked. In spite of her high title, there were times when it was safe to ignore Princess Twilight.

Miss Heartstrings stared at the ceiling and furrowed her brow. “Um, at your . . . at your earliest convenience, she said.”

That didn’t sound safe to ignore. I marked my place, closed my book, and took up my pen and notepad. “If I’m not to see Lovestruck until one, I suppose I can see the princess right now.”

I pulled my hat and coat from their pegs and, as I headed for the door, gave Miss Heartstrings a grin as I added, “Best to get it over with.”

The Golden Oak Library is one of Ponyville’s most distinctive landmarks, built as it is into the tissue of a living tree. It is exceptionally well stocked for a library in a rural community, and, I had been told, its catalogue has grown significantly since Princess Twilight took up the position of librarian there. I myself have frequently used this library to augment my research, and I have found the princess exceptionally helpful, if a trifle short-tempered.

I rapped on the front door, and the princess’s assistant, a wingless infant dragon, immediately opened.

“Doctor,” he said, and with a flourish he ushered me in.

“Good morning, Spike,” I replied as I ducked through the door. I doffed my hat and shrugged off my coat, which nearly enveloped the poor little dragon when he took it.

The library’s great room, carved from the tree’s innards, smelled strongly of cut oak, an odor that almost but not entirely masked the scent of musty paper. The princess often kept her draconic assistant busy shellacking the walls and shelves so that the living tree didn’t drip sap on the books.

I was surprised, upon entering, to find Miss Pinkie Pie leaping and skipping and rolling around the room. Miss Pie, as I’ve described elsewhere (Davidson 1766a:22-47), fills a liminal role in equine society. The ponies, able as they are to control the plant growth, animal behavior, and even the weather within their borders, value order above all else; they consider “harmony” the highest principle, of which “discord” is the diametric opposite. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, ponies allow in their midst certain so-called “party planners” who cultivate outrageous and unpredictable behavior. These party planners, and the chaotic celebrations they organize, seem to serve the purpose of offering the ponies relief from their otherwise highly regimented lives. In my earlier monograph (ibid.), I described these party planners as bacchic functionaries (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8: Party planners in their role as bacchic functionaries.

Princess Twilight is a close friend of Miss Pie and has apparently learned to concentrate even in her presence. With a knit brow and with a pince-nez perched on her muzzle, she stood at a reading stand on the far end of the room, where she was using levitation magic to flip through a heavy tome. When I walked in, she turned her head and peered at me over her glasses.

“Doctor Davidson, have a seat, please,” she said.

Before I knew what was happening, Miss Pie snuck up behind me and, with one foreleg, swept my knees, knocking me backwards. I fell heavily onto an overstuffed velvet cushion that she placed to break my fall.

After laying her glasses on her reading stand, Princess Twilight sat down dog-like, facing me, on a cushion of her own. Her brow was still knit, and I could see now that this was due not to concentration, but to displeasure.

I was startled when Spike pressed a teacup and saucer into my hands, and I was even more surprised when Miss Pie handed me an entire cake covered in orange frosting.

“We had an agreement,” the princess said.

For some moments, I looked down in distress at the cake in my left hand and the tea in my right. At last, I put them both down on the floor and pulled my pen and notebook. “It seems to me, Your Highness, that I’ve honored—”

“I understand research,” said the princess. “I understand learning. I respect what you do.”

“Thank you. The feeling, I assure you, is mutual.” I tried the tea; it was white tea with a hint of almond.

“But I asked you before not to pry into ponies’ private lives.”

I took a long moment to drink, and I finished the tea before I answered her. Miss Pie cartwheeled to my side and snatched up my empty teacup, smashing the cake in the process, and wheeled away. Princess Twilight didn’t take her eyes from me, but her horn glowed, and the cake reassembled itself, like a film moving in reverse.

The room felt warm, so I tugged at my collar. “Everything I do, Your Highness, is in keeping with the code of ethics of the—”

“You don’t have any business asking ponies who they date.” She tapped a hoof on the floor.

Miss Pie curled into a ball, rolled up beside me, and unfolded. Putting a hoof beside her mouth, she hissed to me in a stage whisper, “I once knew a guy who dated a bookworm! It looked okay on paper.”

I blinked. “What?” Flipping open my notebook, I said, “Could you—?”

Miss Pie curled up again and rolled away.

Princess Twilight rolled her eyes. “Never mind her.”

“But this is serious news,” I said, “considering ponies’ typical reluctance to—”

The princess tapped her hoof on the floor again, more firmly. “Never mind her. She’s just being Pinkie Pie. Now, look—”

Miss Pie snapped to her feet, jumped with all hooves at once, and nearly reached the ceiling. “And I know a guy who married a mermare!”

A hint of color entered Princess Twilight’s cheeks.

Miss Pie stretched out on the floor and wiggled her legs in the air. “Aaand I know a girl who danced with a human!”

Now Princess Twilight’s face turned positively crimson. “Pinkie! Could you . . . um . . . let us talk in private?”

Miss Pie leapt to her hooves and gave us a wide grin. “Okee dokee lokee!” Humming to herself, she bounced to the front door, knocked it open with her head, and skipped away into the street.

Princess Twilight put a hoof to her breast, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Now—”

“I want to know about these deviant cases,” I said.

Her eyes snapped open. “They are none of your business.”

“So they’re real, then?”

She looked away from me, and the pink returned to her cheeks. “Well, I’m not sure about the bookworm one—”

As if he were working hard to ignore the content of the conversation, Spike walked up, a small smile on his face and an exaggeratedly formal stiffness in his demeanor, and handed me another cup of tea. I took it automatically as I asked Princess Twilight, “But what about the mermare? I know next to nothing about mermares or sea ponies. I’ve had no success in gaining access to Aquastria—”

“You need a letter from the king.”

“I know that.”

“You can’t go anyway. The gill spell won’t work on you, and our submersibles can’t dive that deep.”

“Ah . . . that is a problem. Then I’ll table that for the time being. Who is this mare who danced with a man?”

She clenched her teeth, and her eyes narrowed. “As I just said, that is none of your—”

“You must know her personally.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “There were special circumstances—”

“Perhaps I should hear about those, too.”

She jumped out of her seat, lifted her head back, and shouted, “Perhaps you should mind your own business!”

A full-grown pony, small and gracefully built though she may be, is still a great deal larger than a man, and Princess Twilight, as an alicorn, is larger than a typical pony. My heart leapt into my throat when she jumped up, but, though I could feel a bead of sweat trickling from my left temple, I stayed on my cushion and took a pull on my tea.

Once I returned the cup to its saucer, I said, “So you are the mare in question, I take it.”

Her cushion released a heavy gasp when she fell back onto it. “It was another world,” she said. “I wasn’t myself, and the people there weren’t like you.”

“Ponies tell me they usually fall in love suddenly, upon seeing the beloved for the first time. Did you have this experience?”

She swallowed once. “No.” She frowned, knit her brow again, and, looking over my shoulder, rose slowly to her feet, as if realizing something she’d never considered before. “No, I didn’t. It was . . . it was gradual, like I slowly came to realize—”

I scratched a few more notes and discovered that my pen was running out of ink. “That sounds like a human experience, Your Highness, not like an equine one—that is, if I correctly understand equine experience.”

She mumbled, “That would make sense.” Then she walked to a shelf and began using her magic to pull down books, which she stacked beside her stand. I caught glimpses of a few of the titles: When Love Withers, Exotic Forms of Courtship, and How to Nuzzle a Mare.

It appeared the interview was over, and it also appeared I was off the hook so long as the princess’s attention was occupied with research of her own. I quietly arose, took my coat and hat from Spike, and prepared to leave.

As I stood in the doorway and buttoned my coat, however, I couldn’t resist turning back to the princess and risking one final question.

“Your Highness,” I called, “do you by any chance know anything about this Lovestruck?”

She once again had her pince-nez on her muzzle and her face in a book, but she looked up momentarily and, with a distracted air, said, “Lovestruck . . . ? Oh, Lovestruck. Yes, maybe I should see her myself. It might make it easier . . .”

She trailed off and went back to reading. I pulled the brim of my hat low, tucked my hands in my pockets, and made my way home.

Part 3. A Reflection, the Peculiarities of Mermares, and the Role of the Equine Matchmaker

Mating Customs of Species Equus parvus

by Dr. D. G. D. Davidson, PhD.

Revised by Lyra Heartstrings

A Reflection

As I walked back to my flat, I ruminated. My earlier impression had been, of course, that loves between humans and ponies were always one-sided, yet Princess Twilight’s short-lived romance with a man was a singular instantiation of equine attraction to a human being, something I had previously assumed simply did not occur. Admittedly, I could not understand much of what the princess had told me—something about another world and special circumstances—but she was nonetheless a case far different from the others I had encountered.

Apparently, the process of the development of romantic affection is also different for her, more resembling a human pattern. Is this the result of some mutation in her makeup? Or is this a peculiarity in some way associated with her transformation into an “alicorn,” the unique breed that—so the ponies claim—combines the signature attributes of the three subspecies?

I have, alas, no way of answering these questions, and it is clear that Princess Twilight will not be a cooperative informant.

I wasn’t hungry, but I stopped at a small bistro to buy a bagel and look back over the notes I had scratched in the library with an almost dry pen. Miss Heartstrings’s words from the night before echoed through my mind: there were things she didn’t want to know, things that overstepped what she saw as the proper boundaries between herself and other ponies.

After a few hesitations, I tore the pages out and stuffed them in my pocket before folding up my notebook. The ponies admire their princesses and tend to idealize them; it would no doubt distress Miss Heartstrings a great deal if she knew Princess Twilight indulged in behavior the ponies consider unacceptable.

The Peculiarities of Mermares

Since I often enjoy taking walks around Ponyville, I decided to set out for Lovestruck’s cottage earlier than I needed to, so that I might spend some time taking the early afternoon air. As I was strolling about in the town square, I happened to notice sitting on the steps of the distinctively shaped town hall (Fig. 9) an earth pony in unusual garb.

Fig. 9: Ponyville’s town hall.

This pony wore loose duck trousers on his hindquarters, and on his foreparts he wore a checked shirt. Far back on his head sat a well-varnished tarpaulin hat, from which a long black ribbon hung over his left eye. By these strange clothes, I knew him for what the ponies call an “old salt,” but since Ponyville is several miles inland, his appearance aroused curious glances and sometimes remarks from those who passed by him.

He seemed to take no notice of the attention, but merely pulled a pipe from his pocket, filled it well full of liquid soap, and began to blow bubbles.

Sweeping the fringes of my long coat around my legs, I sat down beside him.

“G’day,” he said to me around his pipe.

“Good day,” I replied. “I take it you’re not from around these parts?”

He chuckled. “Neither are you.”

“How true. Vacation?”

“If you please. Sailed into Horseshoe Bay on the Prancing Mare, seven hundred and fifty days out of Hind, and came inland with our cargo on the dirigible Lofty. I’m down from Canterlot on short leave.”

That told me much: he was indeed a sailor of the merchant marines, and if he came from the Hindies, his cargo to Canterlot had almost certainly been of tea and spices, items the ponies were loath to do without, and for which they would pay dear.

“I’m a researcher,” I said, “and I was recently told an interesting story of which I’d like to know further details. Are you by any chance aware of a land stallion who married a mermare?”

He chuckled again and blew an especially large bubble out of his pipe. “The sea has many legends, lad. But I think you must be speakin’ of ol’ Hoofbeard.”

“The name rings a bell—”

He spat. “A pirate.”

“Ah.”

“His mermare retired him from the brigand’s way, at least, an’ there ain’t a true sailor in all the seven seas what don’t rest easier in his berth knowin’ that.”

“I know next to nothing about these mermares. Are they considered ponies?”

Squinting, he pulled his pipe from his mouth. “Hm, there’s a question. Can’t but rightly say. Pony? Fish? Somethin’ else? Them sea ponies they call our cousins, an’ they’re a friendly lot, known to help sailors in storms. But the mermares? They’re strange, and they don’t care to truck with the surface world.”

“So how did this Hoofbeard woo one?”

“Who knows? Read her flow’ry poetry from the poop deck, maybe. But I can tell you this: mermares are wondrously beautiful. It’s said that in the old days they used to sing to sailors to make ’em throw themselves from their ships an’ drown. King Leo stopped that, o’ course, but sometimes stallions throw themselves off their ships anyway, just at the sight of ’em, if the mermares swim close.”

“If they’ve lost interest in drowning ponies, that might explain why they avoid contact with land-dwellers.”

“Aye, it might. Couldn’t rightly say what moves ’em. But I seen three of ’em meself, a long ways off, sunnin’ themselves on the rocks like seals.” He shook his head. “We lost a boy from the riggin’ that day. Fell off the mainmast with a strap and block, a coil of halyards, and a marline spike about his neck. Sank like a stone, o’ course. Some say he slipped, but a few claimed he caught a glimpse o’ them mermares an’ jumped.”

After a pause, he added, “’Tis a hard thing to lose a stallion at sea, you know; he’s become a constant in your life, but then he’s gone as quick as that.”

He tapped a hoof to the wooden step for emphasis.

“You might have heard,” I said, “that members of my species have a reputation for chasing ponies.”

He laughed. “Aye, I have. But I hear a lot of things, lad, and many ain’t worth slushin’ grease.”

“Since these men never meet success, you must understand that I’m quite surprised to hear of ponies chasing after—well, after something that isn’t quite a pony.”

He lazily shrugged his shoulders, placed his pipe firmly between his teeth, and said, “They’re like mares, but they’re more beautiful than any you’ve seen. An’ it’s a fact that a stallion a long time at sea will do crazy things for a pretty face.”

The Role of the Equine Matchmaker

Knowing nothing about her aside from cryptic references, I found my heart hammering hard in my chest as I made my way up the walkway to Lovestruck’s cottage.

It was obvious that, whatever Lovestruck did, it paid well: although still modest by urban standards, her house was larger than most in Ponyville, and more lavishly decorated. Several rosebushes bloomed in the spacious and carefully manicured front lawn, and a few trees growing beside the house had been meticulously trimmed into heart shapes. The lawn’s centerpiece was a fountain, washed in a garish pink, in the shape of a rearing pony spewing water from her mouth.

Although an eyesore in itself, the fountain fit the general theme. Pink was prominent here: the thatch of Lovestruck’s roof was dyed pink, as was the adobe of her walls. Embedded pink gemstones even glistened from her front walk.

When I reached the front door, I knocked three times, doffed my hat, and listened to the burbling fountain and my pounding heart as I waited.

“Just a minute!” came a singsong voice from inside the house. A few seconds later, the door flew open, and I came face-to-face with Lovestruck herself.

I’m unsure what I was expecting, but Lovestruck was a decidedly comely unicorn mare. Her mane and tail, unsurprisingly, were bright pink, though of a more reddish and less festive hue than, say, that of Miss Pinkie Pie. Lovestruck’s coat was white, but appeared to my eye to be slightly tinged, like most everything else in the vicinity, with pink. When she invited me in and stepped aside, I caught a glimpse of the “cutie mark” on her haunch: it had the shape of a bow firing an arrow tipped with a heart.

I ducked through the door and found the house’s interior as extravagant and sumptuous as its exterior. Although a large house, it felt stuffy and cramped on account of the decorations: everywhere I turned, I met brocaded drapes, lavishly framed mirrors, or curvaceous pieces of furniture carved from black walnut. My nose twitched to the scents of several flowers, mostly roses, chrysanthemums, orange blossoms, heliotropes, honeysuckle, jasmine, and tulips, which stood in delicately painted porcelain vases on most every available surface.

In spite of the feminine delicacy of Lovestruck’s taste in décor, Lovestruck herself gave an impression of strength and vitality. Her movements, as she walked ahead of me and led me deeper into her house, appeared confident and lithe. Firm and precisely coordinated muscles rippled under her coat with each step she took. She walked with a slight sway of her hindquarters, producing the impression of a sensuality that was in most ponies wholly or almost wholly absent.

At last, we reached a narrow, arched doorway leading into yet another lavishly decorated room. She turned to me, batted her long eyelashes, gestured with a hoof, and said in her musical voice, “Come into my parlor.”

I nodded and ducked through the doorway.

The parlor in question was decorated in rococo. More brocaded drapes, stitched with patterns too complex for my eye to decipher, framed bay windows set with leaded glass. A round-topped fireplace, cold because the weather was warm, filled one wall. Candles twinkled in a crystal chandelier overhead. On a small table in the center of the room, a golden tea service was already waiting, and surrounding the table were a few chairs and a chaise longue covered in red velvet.

I headed for one of the chairs, but Lovestruck slipped catlike onto the chaise longue, leaned on one foreleg, and patted the remaining bare space on the chaise’s end, suggesting I should sit at her hooves.

A lump appeared in my throat, but I complied. Her thick tail came to rest against my left leg.

With a levitation spell, Lovestruck poured tea into two eggshell-thin cups and floated one of them into my hands.

“Do you take sugar?” she asked.

“No.”

“Milk?”

“No.”

She dropped three lumps of sugar and a dollop of milk into her own cup and then levitated it beside her head.

Trying to avoid spilling the tea, I shifted in my seat and pulled out my notebook and newly filled fountain pen. “Now, Miss—”

She cut me off with a giggle. After sipping daintily from her cup, she said, “Oh, come now. You can call me Lovey.” She batted her eyelashes again.

“Uh—”

“And what should I call you?” she asked, her voice taking on a decidedly sultry note.

I placed my teacup back on the tray, tugged at my collar, and said, “Most ponies simply call me Dr. Davidson—”

Lovestruck clucked. “How dry.” She sipped her tea again, lowered her voice almost to a whisper and said, “But what does Lyra call you, hmm?”

“Miss Heartstrings? She calls me Dr. Davidson.”

Lovestruck rolled her eyes and shifted her body to turn her face away from me. “No surprise there. Pity.”

“So, anyway, Miss—”

“Lovey.” She swished her tail against my leg.

“. . . Lovey. What is it you do, exactly?”

“That depends. What is it you need, sweetheart?” She crossed her right hind leg over her left, thereby jutting her hip into the air and letting her cutie mark catch the flickering candlelight.

“I’m at a loss here. Several ponies have mentioned your name, something about helping them get over unrequited desires.” I paused, lowered my pen, and said, “Are you some sort of prosti—?”

With a sharp blow of a hind hoof against my ribs, she knocked me to the floor, where I doubled up in pain.

Flipping her body over, she crawled to the end of the chaise longue and stared at me. Through the tears running down my face, I could see unmasked contempt on her face.

“I trained under Princess Mi Amore Cadenza herself,” she hissed. “Never speak of me that way.”

“Who are you?” I cried. “What are you?”

She jumped from the chaise, and I scrambled away from her as she flicked her tail at my face. “I give and I take away,” she said. “Everypony in Ponyville looks to me for her happiness, for I hold her life in my hooves. Eternal love? I can grant it. Or to be alone, miserable, and wretched forever—that I can grant, too.”

Her horn flashed bright blue like a beacon, and my heart exploded. As if I were a marionette yanked by its puppet master, I pitched up onto my knees and groveled at her hooves. In an instant, she became to me a goddess, terrible as an army with banners, and every nerve in my frame ached with desire for her, yet at the same time trembled in awful agony and fear that, merely by being in her presence, I had desecrated her, as if I had walked unconsecrated into a hallowed shrine—

Her horn flashed again, and the sensation passed. I came back to myself, Lovestruck was once again a mere pony to me, and I cut a ridiculous figure kneeling and quivering on her Persian rug. Clutching my side, which still smarted from her kick, I rose shakily to my feet. Sweat had saturated my shirtfront.

“That is my magic,” said Lovestruck.

I swallowed and took a few deep breaths before I found my voice. “You can artificially produce the emotional accompaniments of infatuation,” I said.

“Or remove them.”

“And what’s the point of this?”

She cocked her head and raised one eyebrow. “Let us say you have met the eyes of a hundred ponies and never once fallen in love. Your youth is fading like a spring flower, and you feel hopeless as you face the possibility of a life alone. What do you do?”

“See you?”

She nodded. “Precisely. With a touch of my horn, I can make you fall in love with anypony at all, even one you might never have thought to fancy on your own.”

“And why do ponies talk of seeing you when they’re already in love?”

A grin spread across her face. I didn’t like the way she showed her teeth. “Why, if you love, but receive no love in return, what’s the point of pining away when you can simply make the feeling disappear?”

She stepped to me, stretched her neck, and rubbed her muzzle up my right arm. “Any uncomfortable feelings you’d like to go away, sweetie? I’m offering a discount this week.”

“I’m a scientist,” I replied. “My feelings do not perturb me because I keep them in check.”

Craning her neck to look up at me, she rested her chin on my chest. Her pale green eyes looked moist in the dim light. “Do you now?”

I took a step back from her. “You say Princess Mi Amore Cadenza trained you? You mean Cadance? The crystal princess?”

“None other.”

“Can you get me passage to the Crystal Empire?”

“Not a chance.”

“I think an interview with the princess—”

“If she wants to talk to you, she’ll have to come down here. No expatriates get into the Empire. The crystal ponies’ traditions, you know, are very important to their security. They can’t have too much outside influence.”

“And does the crystal princess approve of all your methods?”

Her smile turned thin. “Cadance taught me my methods, of course, but she’s too timid. She lacks vision.”

She stepped around the chaise longue, walked to the far side of the parlor, and pulled aside a curtain I hadn’t previously noticed. Behind the curtain stood three easels containing large notepads full of charts, diagrams, and equations. I couldn’t follow the work, but mixed in with the various figures were the names of ponies I knew.

“Here,” said Lovestruck, “using Cadance’s equations, I have charted all the interrelationships of the ponies in Ponyville. With my magic, I have even discerned their innermost, hidden desires. I know which marriages are strong and which are flagging. I know which unspoken yearnings are hopeless and which are mutual. I even know the transient schoolyard crushes that form and disappear daily at the schoolhouse. I know which ponies are friends, which are strangers, and which are enemies.”

She gazed at her charts for a moment before turning her pale green eyes back on me, and in those eyes I thought I saw a feverish twitching—a hint, perhaps, of the maniacal. “I know,” she said, her voice now low and husky. “I know even if they do not. Ponyville is a town already renowned for its love and hospitality, but when I am through, it will be greater still! I will cast my spells over everypony in this town! Nopony will be without friends, and nopony will be without a lover! I shall make Ponyville the love capital of all the world!”

She tipped her head back and cackled.

My heart once again pounded painfully in my chest, as if it were trying to break through my ribs. “But you’re just manipulating everyone’s feelings. It isn’t real—”

She cocked her eyebrow again. “Sweetheart, they’re feelings. If you feel them, then of course they’re real. They’re your feelings, no matter where they’ve come from.”

“But Miss Cheerilee told me about a love poison she drank once. It made her feel things she didn’t—”

“Oh, that.” Lovestruck snorted and looked up at her charts again. “Yes, potions can be tricky. Unicorn magic is much more reliable. The problem with her potion, sugar, was that it ruined her ability to function. But what it made her feel was still what she felt, no?”

She flipped through a few more pages on one of the easels until she arrived at what looked like a flowchart. “Cheerilee,” she muttered. “Cheerilee. Yes, in love with Big Macintosh, of course. Big Mac is one of my thorniest cases, you see: I’ve got twelve mares in love with him, including one of the Wonderbolts, who follows him like a puppy whenever she’s in town. Even Princess Luna was chasing him for a while.”

She clucked. “Well, they can’t all have him. After all, we are not Arabians.” She magicked a marker into the air and drew a red line between two of the boxes on her chart. “Yes, I’m afraid all those unrequited loves will simply have to disappear, and then Big Mac will have a beautiful, epic romance with . . . Princess Twilight. Yes, that should do it.”

She capped her marker and turned back to me with a bright smile.

“I think Cheerilee really loves him,” I said quietly.

“I’m sure she does, but so do several others. Big Mac, however, fancies Princess Twilight—why else would he sleep with her old plush toy?”

I blinked. “He does what?”

“My dear human, you haven’t a romantic bone in your body. Have you never stolen a possession of your beloved and taken it to bed?”

“Well, not that I can—”

“So, you see, this is easiest. I simply eliminate all the other crushes, give the princess a crush on Big Mac, and everypony is happy.”

“I think—”

I paused and licked my lips, remembering the notes I’d torn from my notebook. I had promised myself that I would keep those notes away from ponies, but I forged ahead anyway. “I think Princess Twilight loves someone else.”

Lovestruck’s grin grew wider, and she nodded. “Oh, I know all about it—loving in secret a man and a stallion who are the same and yet not the same. It’s a bad business, and it’s best she were rid of it. A simple, wholesome farm stallion is more her type, even if she doesn’t know it.”

Once again undulating her hips, with her eyelids half lowered, she walked toward me. “My plan is almost entirely in place. Soon, I will visit each pony in turn, cast a spell, and banish loneliness from Ponyville. Only one stands in my way.”

Her green eyes flashed. “You. You and your stupid interviews, bringing to light what ponies had kept hid, making them realize about themselves things they hadn’t realized before. I can sense changes in the hearts of the ponies of this town. Right now, I must make only a few minor adjustments, but if I let you continue, all my work will be for naught.”

As I backed away from her, my left arm came up against a flower-filled china vase sitting on an end table.

She raised her head high, and her horn glimmered. “I think, dearie, it’s time you had an embarrassing and utterly discrediting love affair—perhaps with a goat.”

(Fig. 10.)

Fig. 10: Equestrian goat.

“I think,” I said, “that an ass would be more traditional.” I picked up the vase and chucked it at her. With a loud crunch, it smashed on her horn and sprayed flowers, water, and sherds of china across the room. Lovestruck shrieked.

I spun and ran as hard as I could. The sound of Lovestruck’s hooves pounding against the hardwood floor resounded from behind me, and just as I reached the entryway, I saw a blue magical glow snap the front door’s deadbolt into place.

“Not so fast!” Lovestruck screamed.

Equestrian construction is not the most sturdy. I sprinted, and when I reached the door, I turned sideways and hit it with my shoulder. A shock of sharp pain rocketed down my arm, but the hinges burst free of the adobe wall, and I tumbled head-over-heels down Lovestruck’s front walk. As soon as I stopped tumbling, I scrambled to my feet again, ran, and reached the street.

I at last took a moment to look over my shoulder, but, as I had hoped, Lovestruck didn’t dare follow me to a public place.

Several ponies on the street stopped to stare at me, and I’m sure I was quite a sight: the right sleeve of my jacket was torn almost completely away, my shirt was soaked, my tie was askew, and no doubt I had a wild look to my face. I tried to tip my hat to give some reassurance of normalcy, but my hand met only air, as I’d left my coat and hat in Lovestruck’s house.

Of all that had just happened, the loss of my outermost garments was perhaps the most disconcerting.