In the human world, Princess Twilight Sparkle's human form and two of her human friends sat on the grass, chatting outside the local high school. Rarity asked a question, ticking off points on her fingers.
"So you can't do much unicorn magic in this world...and you're not officially a princess here...and you certainly don't have a local castle. You have friends here now, but you have friends in your home world too. Is there anything that's BETTER about the human world? Anything at all?"
Twilight smiled. "It's wonderful to get to make new human friends. But if you want to know something really different..."
"Yes?" Rarity asked.
"You'll probably think this is silly. I'm sure you've taken it for granted your whole life. But one big difference in this world is, I got to play soccer with Rainbow Dash, running all around the field, giving the game all I had. Ok, I wasn't very GOOD at it. But I got to REALLY TRY! Do you know how AMAZING that is?"
Rarity looked confused. "Uh...no?"
Rainbow grinned. "That IS part of what makes it fun. But isn't that just how sports work?"
Twilight sighed. "Let me tell you a story about unicorn school. Every year, on the first day of school..."
***
Every student sat in the school's Main Lecture Hall. If anypony was absent, the punishment would be harsher than on any other day of the year. Some teachers believed this one hour was THE most important class of the year.
A gray-mustached unicorn walked onto the stage. "Fillies, gentlecolts, mares and stallions. I am so happy to see you here today...because I know that everypony paying attention today means fewer deaths and tragic injuries in the year to come."
The unicorn's horn glowed for a moment, and a projected picture appeared above him. "Unicorn Roughhousing Kills," said the caption. In the picture, a unicorn colt lay unconscious or dead in a grassy field. One of his eyes was covered by a bloody bandage.
The unicorn cleared his throat. "You may wonder why you are forbidden to run in the halls...to move faster than a slow walk on the sports field...to jump up and down too fast, or magically levitate yourself ANYWHERE IN CANTERLOT, EVEN WHERE YOU FOOLISHLY THINK YOURSELF SAFE, without a self-levitation license available only to unicorns of fully...MATURE ages. By which I mean, old farts like myself."
A few ponies in the audience laughed nervously.
"If you're EVER found self-levitating at your age, too young to have proper training and a full license...we will know your life expectancy is relatively short, one way or another. Whether through the likelihood of SEVERE punishment...or by an additional tragic, deadly mistake."
A horn flash swapped the picture for the next in the program. This time, TWO unicorn colts faced each other in a hallway. They appeared to have run straight at each other, each one's horn having impaled the other colt in an eye. They were still stuck together.
Foals gasped and moaned. Twilight could hear ponies around her using the barf bags which had been issued before the program began.
Twilight felt queasy, but she had obeyed the official warnings not to eat breakfast until after this event. So even though her stomach churned, she kept from making a big mess.
***
"It was like that all morning," Twilight said. "Photographs of foals impaled on other foals' horns. Foals with holes in their flanks, or in their backs, or in their stomachs. Foals who thought it would be funny to pretend they were pegasi, and levitate themselves through the sky, but who lost control and crashed, turning themselves into giant, deadly lawn darts plummeting towards the ground horn-first. Foals who blinded themselves, or blinded others, or broke off their horns, or broke OTHER ponies' horns. Foals who were crippled for life."
"Wow," Rainbow said. "Sounds like my Driver's Ed class." She grinned. "Did they have anything about what the most dangerous drugs are?"
Rarity sniffed. "Rainbow..."
Twilight answered, "We didn't even get that far. We just had gruesome pictures, and lots of rules. But the rules are for our own good."
"Yeeeaah," Rainbow said. "Sure they are."
"They also make us volunteer in the broken horns ward of the handicapped care home, partway through the semester," Twilight said. "So many unicorns...or EX-unicorns, you might say." Twilight shuddered. "Rumors say, some of the ponies there just kept running in the halls again and again, and wouldn't give it up even to save ponies' lives...until finally, to punish them, their horns were CUT OFF." Twilight grimaced with sympathetic agony.
"Wow," Rainbow said. "Sounds really horrible."
Twilight dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin she'd stashed in her blouse pocket at lunch. "I'm glad you understand."
"Sure I do!" Rainbow put an arm around Twilight's shoulders. "Not being allowed to run all over the place, anytime you want to...Twilight?"
"Yes, Dashie?"
"Are you sure you really want to go back there? Like, ever?"
***
Spike let Twilight put the note into his mouth. He chewed it up and swallowed it.
Hours later, a strange brown object appeared above Princess Celestia, and fell. It struck her mane and forehead, and bounced onto the floor, where it rolled around and smelled bad. Celestia bent over the crumpled, half-digested mess.
Raven Inkwell trotted up to her. "Your highness? Please let me...take that for processing."
Celestia nodded. "Thank you. And please tell my next appointment..."
"Yes, your highness?"
"Please tell Queen Novo she is invited to meet with me in the bath."
"Yes, your majesty."
***
Somewhat later, Princess Celestia and Queen Novo relaxed side by side in an enormously wide bathtub, almost large enough for ponies to swim laps. Novo poured a bucket of water over Celestia's head, washing out the last suds.
"Thank you so much for understanding," Celestia said. "So many ponies are so STUFFY about taking meetings in an aquatic setting."
Novo chuckled. "This isn't any worse than some of what I've seen Princess Skystar get into. But what puzzles me is, why would anycreature send you a piece of dog doo-doo as a message?"
Celestia shrugged. "I don't think the Diamond Dogs have access to the dragonfire messaging system."
Novo squinted. "But why would ANY dog have access to the dragonfire messaging system? Isn't that pretty much impossible?"
Celestia nodded. "I don't know any way in this world it could happen." The alicorn princess rubbed her chin. "But PERHAPS--"
Somepony knocked on the bathroom door. "Raven Inkwell and assistants to see you, your highness."
"Please enter!" Celestia replied.
Raven walked in and stood in front of Celestia, followed by an attendant carrying a stained note on a silver tray.
"You highness," Raven said, "the message has been processed and analyzed by experts. It appears to have been a case of 'the dog ate my homework.'"
Novo snorted with laughter. "Who would dare to send Princess Celestia such a thing? A message in the form of dog poop?"
Celestia looked at the note, being very careful not to touch it even by accident. "The note is signed, 'Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.'"
"Oh!" Queen Novo said. "Your student who is on a special mission in the bald ape world, retrieving an important magic artifact! How is she doing?"
Celestia blinked, and blinked again, as she peered at the damaged but still readable note. "She says...now that she finally has the opportunity to run, she's not coming back anytime soon. Maybe not ever."
Celestia raised one forehoof, as if pleading with the heavens. "Why does she want to run away from me? First Sunset Shimmer...now Twilight Sparkle. What am I doing WRONG, that my proteges keep leaving me to live in another universe as bald monkeys?"
Novo shrugged. "Maybe the bald ape world really IS that much better." She leaned closer to Celestia, and asked quietly, "Have you ever considered taking up a new hobby...perhaps wars of aggressive conquest? You could seize the pleasures of the bald ape world for your own."
Celestia said, "That would be wrong. Maybe even evil." She splashed the ponies around her as she stood up on her hind legs and clapped her forehooves together. "Raven? Summon my foremost generals and my experienced-in-evil sister to the bathing chamber! We have a war council to convene!"
Author's Note
Cloud Ring remarked, "It's most likely that they are taught from early childhood to mind their horns and just, you know, care about it."
With that thought in my head to get me started, I wanted to keep running.
