A Clump Of Stumps

"So, it must be nice to have fingers. I never had fingers." She wiggles over to you on the couch, and lays her head on your leg.

You scratch behind her ear. "I've seen ponies pick up things with your hooves. How does that work?"

She leans into the scratch, her head almost sideways. "Oooh. Okay, well, I only took science until I got my Mark, but it's basically that we're held together by magic, and hoof stuff can stick to other stuff."

You smile. "On Earth, we call that 'electromagnetism.' It's the same stuff as magnetic waves and electricity."

She pushes down on your hand with the side of her face, which is now pretty squished between her head and your leg. "Yeah. Magic. It's lightning and compasses, and you don't think it's magic?"

You look over where the back wall of your bathroom has a door into her bathroom in Ponyville.

It's always felt like a solid connection, nothing sparkly or shimmery, and you've wondered what would happen if you took a sledgehammer to the wall. Would you see a hyperspace tunnel or something? Is it just one of those unexplainable things?

She's rolled over and is looking up at you, one eye covered by her mane bangs. You scratch under her chin. "Anyway, when you're over there, I bet you could pick up stuff with your fingerhooves."

"Fingernails."

She laughs. "Nails are what you put in hooves to make shoes stay on. You dork."

"So how does the grabby magic work?" you ask.

She looks up and to the left. "Miss Gardengreen started by asking when our food becomes us. Is it us when we start eating it? When we get hungry again? When the stuff that doesn't become us turns into h-horseapples?"

She hesitated when she swore, and now her snout is scrunched. You can't help yourself; you start laughing.

The scrunching intensifies.

You can't breathe, you're laughing so hard.

You remember the conversation the next time you're on her side. It's a couple of days later, and she's at work.

You feel dumb, but you put your fingernails against a banana. Careful not to be pinching it or holding it in the usual human manner, you try to pick it up.

Nothing happens.

Well, it sort of moves as you touch it, but that's expected. It doesn't rise up as if on a magnet.

You keep trying. You think of The Force, you think of magnets, you even say "Abracadabra" a couple of times.

You're trying again, finding another place on the banana that doesn't have little half-moon bruises, when you hear giggling behind you.

You turn bright red. "Very funny."

"You tried! You actually tried!" she says, scootching her limbless body over toward you. She headbutts your leg. "Total dweeb."

You pick her up and, stepping across to your side, plop her down in the sock drawer. "Trickster."

She yawns. "Sleepy trickster."

You both nap until dinner.