Rarity put on a pair of glasses. "But I'm not sewing right now," she said to Twilight. "I only need them for fine detail work, very close up. Why do you want me to wear them?"
Twilight blushed. "No reason. Now put on the blouse and the skirt."
***
The beaver made cute little noises as it wiggled its snout, and Fluttershy interpreted. "If a dam suddenly fails all at once, that could cause a terrible flood downstream. That's why this beaver uses a two-part structure. Directly holding the main pond back, there's a normal beaver dam. But nearer to us than that"--she waved a forehoof in an arc--"a second structure is built not for watertightness, but to provide extra strength and support. So even if the pond's main dam starts to leak, the second structure lets some water through, but prevents the main dam from suddenly and catastrophically washing downstream. This makes the system much safer, even in extreme weather."
In front of Fluttershy and her beaver friend, a crowd of civil engineer ponies wearing cute little hard hats took photographs and scribbled notes. One of the ponies raised a hoof.
"Yes?" Fluttershy said.
"I was just wondering. If a beaver's usual structure is called a dam, what do you call this second structure that holds the dam back?"
"Oh," Fluttershy said. "The secondary dam that holds the main dam back is the dam dam. And a similar tertiary structure would be called the dam dam dam."
In the back of the group, Rainbow Dash started laughing. "What a silly name. By Celestia's holy tail feathers, you've got to be kidding me."
***
"Sometimes it seems like you know just about everything!" Spike said.
Twilight laughed. "There's one thing I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be stupid. But now I've made a special potion so for a few hours, I can experience something I never have before!"
Twilight levitated the potion to her mouth, and drank it down in one gulp. She blinked several times. Spike watched her, with a worried look on his face.
After a minute that to Spike felt like forever, Twilight opened her mouth wide and belched.
"You know what?" Twilight said. "You know how Lyra likes those creatures she calls hyuu-mans? She looks up old legends about them? And she writes stories, and sends little magazines back and forth with other ponies through the mail?"
"I sure do!" Spike said. "I think that's part of what makes Lyra interesting and fun."
"I've decided her hobby is stupid. Hyuu-mans don't exist. And if they did?" Twilight belched again. "Not worth writing about. Why write stories about them? Ponies are what's important. What could you possibly say in a story about two-legged ape monsters that's worth saying? Just write about ponies. Or DON'T write. There's lots of books in the world already." She belched again, even louder this time.
Spike took a garishly colored book out of his desk. "She did give me this comic book. Somepony drew a story about creatures who don't have magical horns or wings. It's like they're all earth ponies. Or maybe not even earth ponies. And none of them get cutie marks! How might life be different, if all the ponies had to discover for themselves what makes each one different and special?"
Twilight grabbed the magazine (without asking first, because she'd temporarily forgotten how to be polite.) She peered at it. "Look." She pointed at some pictures with a forehoof. "These creatures come in different colors. They could just dish...discriminate against each other based on that. All you need to do is figure out which color of hyuu-man is the BEST, and everything else is easy."
"Wow!" Spike said. "Your potion works great! You really are...different."
"I know!" Twilight bragged. "Everything is so simple now. Why did I used to think some problems were complicated and hard to understand?" She shrugged. "I don't remember why. It must have been a stupid reason anyway."
***
Fluttershy put down her hammer. She'd finally finished assembling her tiny new cottage. For most ponies, it would have been a vacation home, but for her it was the exact opposite. It was here because sometime in the next few days, she would be working harder than she ever had in her life.
Rainbow Dash hovered overhead. "I don't get why you don't just build a cloud house, Flutters. It takes less time and it's cheaper."
Fluttershy gently lifted one hoof and patted the ground. "I just feel more comfortable down here, Rainbow." She waved a hoof at the nearby cliff edge, and the scenic valley below. "Besides, this is a great location for a vacation cottage. Lots of ponies will want to borrow it for a night or two. Or rent it. Animal food doesn't always come for free, you know."
Fluttershy walked over to a wagon and pulled out a crate. "I think we should set up the nets now. We don't want to be late."
When the ponies were done, nets formed a barrier thousands of hooflengths long, along the very top of the cliff.
Rainbow asked, "What now?"
Fluttershy set up a camp chair, opened up a cooler, and pulled out a cold beverage. "Now we wait."
The ponies heard a deep rumbling. "What's that?" Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy smiled. "You'll see."
A few minutes later, as she sat facing away from the cliff edge, Rainbow noticed distant grass moving a little like an ocean wave. "What IS that?" she asked.
"Don't worry," Fluttershy said. "Either fly or just sit on the roof, and you'll be perfectly safe."
"But what about you?"
Fluttershy said sternly, "I can take care of myself." She faced the strange grass-waving phenomenon.
A minute later, as the mysterious movement neared the two ponies, Rainbow saw that the waving grass was caused by thousands of little rodents, running pell-mell through the grass.
"Eeek!" Rainbow shouted. "I'm gonna get gnawed to death!" She leaped into the air, hovering above the rooftop.
Fluttershy's face became extra-stern, and the rodents nearing her slowed down, transfixed by her angry gaze. "Don't you dare!" she shouted.
On either side of her, rodents charged straight at the nets, becoming entangled.
"Isn't nature marvelous?" Fluttershy said. "Thousands of rodents tried to run right off the edge of this cliff, and we stopped them." She explained, "It's the Running of the Lemmings. They do it because they all ran out of food where they were living before."
"That's...wonderful, I guess," Rainbow said. "But now that we've caught them and saved their lives, what do we do with them? Where will they all live?"
Fluttershy smiled. "I did say pet food doesn't always come for free. But I made a deal with the Ponyville Pet Food Factory. Soon we'll have all the dog food and cat food we could possibly need for the rest of the year."
"So the lemmings will all live at the factory?" Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy looked very serious. "Oh, where the lemmings will live...won't be a problem anymore."
At the very edge of the cliff, unnoticed by the two pegasi, two ants wrestled. One of the ants fell. Minutes later, when it reached the cliff's bottom, the ant struck a sharp rock.
"Ouch!" the ant said. "I think I'm bleeding a little."
***
Applejack reached in with one forelimb, and felt around. After a minute, she gently pulled. The cow bellowed, and a moment later, Applejack's hoof helped a calf's head pop out of the cow's hindquarters. After another loud bellow, the entire calf emerged. Applejack wiped bloody, messy afterbirth off the calf, nuzzled it, and said, "Welcome to the world."
After Applejack set the calf under its happy mother to take its first drink of milk, the farm pony smiled with a deep feeling of satisfaction. "That's how a calf is born. Any questions?"
Twilight nodded. "Just one. Before you stuck your whole front leg up a cow's backside, why didn't you ask her for permission first?"
Author's Note
Ant #1 is pretty much Estee's fault. 
