It was the third day since the party. While I'd love to say that lots of interesting things happened there, the only thing really worth noting was the card game. That was still on my mind today because according to Twilight I have a gambling problem. Joke's on her—I don't have a gambling problem; I just have a winning problem. Oh, and apparently if I started teaching foals how to gamble, I'd end up in the Time-Out Crate again.

Anyway, apparently poker and its many variants are another parallel between Equestria and Earth, although the names are somewhat different. Texas Hold'em, or Appleloosa Bounty as it's known here, is the most popular variant with Neighbraska—Omaha, anyone?—coming close behind the basic rules in popularity. For the sake of our allegedly friendly game, we went with the Bounty, each of us starting with a simulated buy-in of 200 bits worth of chips.

The first thing I noticed during the game was that although they were all quite familiar with the game, they were definitely just playing for fun, rather than for keeps. Beyond that, it was easy to see their playstyles early on. Rainbow was aggressive and was not afraid to bluff despite being in over her head. AJ, on the other hoof, was very good at reading others, but her tells were awful once you picked up on them. Spike was clearly the least experienced of the bunch, but he had a fair amount of luck on his side. Pinkie was the hardest to read because she really liked to fill the silence. That said, she had some really obvious tells as well.

I don't mean to brag, but there's a reason that I won't be getting invited to any 'friendly' poker games, especially when money is involved. Spike ended up bullied out by Rainbow early on, although most of his chips ended up in Pinkie's pile, rather than Rainbows. Rainbow, for all her aggression, couldn't make up for her bad hands with bluffing; AJ and I ended up splitting her chips. From there, I managed to bait Pinkie into going all-in when I had a royal flush on the flop. Then, for all her power to read me, AJ didn't stand a chance.

To be honest, showing up at parties and getting in on poker games was the easiest way I made money in my old life. I didn't have to risk injury on a work-site, pull a scam, or degrade myself on 'dates', whenever I could score a poker game. Just fleece the suckers at the table, get most of the chips into my pile, and then cash out. Was it scummy to leave a table before the last player went bust? That was a matter of opinion. Were there times where I'd have to leave a town early after someone got salty that I wasn't giving them the opportunity to win more than their buy-in back? Absolutely. At the end of the day, though, if I went in with two C-notes and came out with eight, I was doing well.

That said, if I picked up on any sort of organised crime presence, I had enough sense to find another game. You only make that sort of mistake once. At least the mobsters I pissed off that time were kind enough to just black my eyes and bust up my lip. All my ill-gotten gains weren't nearly enough to cover the highway robbery at hospitals. Still, that's a lesson hard-learned.

Suffice to say, it wasn't exactly in my plans to start fleecing fillies and colts. From everything I'd seen here, there was no reason to start gambling. Besides, as a foal, it's not like they were expecting me to pay my way. Even if the threat of getting put in the crate once more was facetious, the message was clear... No juvenile delinquency would be tolerated, not that I was so broken as to try and scam kids out of their allowances. Note to self, ask about an allowance at some point once we're on good terms.

The next two days were spent practicing reading with books intended for foals, learning more about what was considered improper behaviour in public, and setting ground rules. The foal books were okay, but once I had gotten the rhythm down, I'd quickly moved on to books that started introducing basic moon-glyphs. I'd managed to get through the first vocab batch and even quizzed perfectly on them, before Twilight forced me to slow down and save my enthusiasm for school. At least she wasn't barring me from reading Daring Do; as much as it thematically mirrored the Indiana Jones films, the series was genuinely interesting.

Even though I'm pretty sure that Starlight explained to Twilight the differing year concepts and the rate at which humans from my realm aged, the alicorn didn't seem to be able to wrap her head around the fact that I possessed more maturity than the average seven-year-old foal. Granted, that was mostly because I still didn't have all the horsey social graces down. I couldn't completely read the body language, nor could I control how much my tail swishes when excited; up until just over a month ago, I didn't even have a tail. And why should I have to concern myself with whether or not other ponies are staring at my back-end? As has been pointed out so many times, I'm just a filly, so as far as I'm concerned, anyone caught looking at me back there like that deserves to catch fire.

I will say that I've noticed my self-control has started to slip a bit. There was a bit of a tantrum thrown when I was told to stop reading ahead on the moon-glyphs, lest I get too far ahead of the class I'd be joining. I've also been getting snippy when they force me to eat sweets. Just gimme a bunch of fruit and I'm good, damn it! I also might've gotten upset to find out that some ponies—mostly pegasi and thestrals—will regularly consume fish, but it's not as commonly accepted among earth ponies and unicorns. I might have threatened to pack my rucksack—I don't even own one—and live as a lone vagabond, fishing and foraging like my ancestors. In my defence, I might've just a bit protein starved.

I wonder if Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash like fishing.

Then of course came the ground-rules. These were mostly just 'dos or don'ts' for being allowed out in Ponyville. They were fairly common-sense, if a bit condescending:

1. Don't go off with strangers unless Twilight or Starlight explicitly state they can be trusted.
2. Don't wander off without telling anyone where you're going.
3. The spooky Everfree forest south of town is off-limits and the closest you are allowed to go near it is Fluttershy's shack. If the place is so evil and cursed, why hasn't anyone just burned it down?
4. No hitting, biting, kicking, or immolating ponies, no matter how much they upset you. She didn't like it when I suggested that rule was void if my personal space was violated or I felt threatened.
5. Don't take candy from strangers.
6. Just because Pinkie Pie can do it, doesn't mean you can or should.
7. The answer to tribalist behaviour is to walk away, not fire. Horse racism has a term, go figure.
8. You are forbidden from studying, practicing, or using any runic magic without unicorn supervision.
9. If Twilight is out, Starlight's in charge.
10. If both are out, leave a note and go to Rarity, Fluttershy, or Applejack's place, and they're in charge.
11. Pinkie Pie, despite being old enough to babysit, is not to be considered a responsible adult in anything where one is required. The damage expenses could likely be astronomical next time.
12. Swearing will be punished with soap and/or the Time-Out Crate. I don't know why she's keeping that thing to use as a threat! Is she gonna send me to horse Abu Dhabi?
13. An absence of a rule from this list is not an invitation to give reason for it to be added.

My own ground rules for the rest of them were much simpler. Don't touch me without permission or unexpectedly. Try to avoid raising your voice. Although I recognise the importance of sugar to ponies, it does not change the fact that nine times out of ten I'd prefer fruit over candy. Even when you send me to school with foals, do not expect me to become super-involved with them.

I still don't know if they're going to take my request that the bed in my room be replaced with a pile of pillows and blankets or a futon. It's possible that they're mistaking my aversion to sleeping on the bed for a fear of heights, or as an indication that I'm not confident in my ability to jump. That misconception, coupled with not liking to be touched, might lead them thinking I don't want to have to ask for help or a set of steps.

In reality, the answer was much more simple; I'm not used to sleeping on mattresses; I never had one growing up. The moment I got the opportunity in Canterlot, I requested a large cushion, and before that, I either slept in the back seat of the car I bought on craigslist after 'the incident', or I'd sleep under the stars or in a lean-to if I was in the sticks. Luxury wasn't something I could afford on the road, and as such, big plush beds just aren't my thing. Gimme a nice protected corner over 'comfort' any day.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. It's been three days since the party, and now that I was fully able to read sun-glyphs, I was ready to go out into Ponyville. That said, there were a few things that Twilight needed to get squared away as my legal guardian. Namely, she needed to take me to the ~~vet~~ ~~horspital~~ hospital in order to get me vaccinated, and then she wanted to take me to meet the teacher at the Ponyville schoolhouse.

That said, there was a really big issue. My birthday didn't really apply in this dimension, so we needed to puzzle out a new birthday for my records. For one, with one thousand days in a year, it was much more sensible for ponies to divide their year into ten months, with each season lasting two and a half months. It was currently the thirty-fourth day of September, and Twilight said her spell this morning put me at just around 8453 days old, so... I guess my birthday is the 81st day of the Binuary.

So as we walked to the hospital, I wasn't paying to much attention to much of anything around us. I was musing at the oddity of ponies using a 7 day week structure, rather than breaking a month into ten ten-day weeks. Even weirder was that they used the same names. Sunday and Monday made sense, but I was kinda scared to find out if in olden times ponies believed in the Roman and Norse pantheons. At least the months made sense: Unuary, Binuary, Tritilis, Quadrilis, Pentilis, Hextilis, September, October, November, December—all of them derived from the numerical prefix. Hell, even that has links to the old Roman calendar.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I almost didn't even notice the marketplace until we were passing through. There was Applejack, selling her apples alongside a titan of a red stallion. Nearby, a trio of mares were selling flowers from a stall. A yellow mare with a bright orange mane was selling carrots and other produce, with some possible tension between her and AJ. There were plenty of pegasi in the air, moving clouds or just flitting about overhead. There was even this weird amalgamation of God knows how many creatures trying to sell a stained-glass lamp made in its image to a gray pegasus mare.

It wasn't until we were nearly on the hospital's doorstep that the purple pony princess stopped and turned to me. "I should have asked this earlier given your dislike of being touched, but how are you about needles?" she asked, looking a bit ashamed. She probably realised that some people are really skittish about getting stuck, and wanted to know if she should hit me with a calming spell. "Before you can start in the school, your vaccination record must be made up-to date. Since you didn't exist in Equestria before the beginning of the month, that means you're due for a full array. If they scare you, I can always cast a spell so you won't even know it's happening."

It probably said poorly of me that I was I was surprised by her concern, but after several days of being treated like a child, it was strange to see her show it now. Moving to the side of the path, I took a seat on the grass to think. "I've never been particularly scared of vaccinations, since they're petty important for herd immunity," I commented with a shrug. When she sat down beside me, I continued. "That said, I could never really look when they were doing it." A shiver ran down my spine and I glanced sidelong at her. "Still, I'm a bit wary. You can't live out of your <> or on the street without learning to be paranoid about homeless <> addicts attacking you with a used needle, not knowing if it was contaminated with <>."

She looked like she wanted me to explain the words that ponies didn't have parallel concepts for. Granted, even if she asked, I didn't feel particularly keen on explaining heroin or human autoimmune diseases. Thankfully, she remained quiet and allowed my moment of disquiet. At one moment, she even extended a wing behind me as if she wanted to hug me, but she froze as if remembering my boundaries. Then, once I was ready, we continued on.

The hospital itself seemed to easily be one of the largest buildings in Ponyville, but rather than being in a central location in the town, it perplexed me to find it near the outskirts. Then again, in a rural setting, it would be nice to enjoy looking out at nature rather than a busy street when you're laid up for a few days. There might even be a reason to keep it out where there was more space. I imagine emergency chariots to Canterlot or one of the other nearby urban centers might be needed on the rare occasion.

The waiting room that the front doors opened into was quite spacious, although it was mostly empty. There was an elderly stallion in a wheelchair with either his son or a caregiver talking to a stallion in a lab coat near a set of doors, but it looked like they were just leaving an appointment, rather than waiting for one. The trio held no interest to Twilight, though.

Instead, she led me right up to the reception desk, which was manned—mared?—by a white earth pony in a nurse's cap. She lit up at the sight of Twilight. "Ah, Princess Twilight, it's so good to see you again," she said with a smile. "Are you here for your yearly check-up?"

"Not today, Nurse Redheart," Twilight denied, shaking her head. She stepped aside so that the nurse could better get a look at me. "I came by yesterday to arrange for a check-up and a vaccine battery for Anonymous here. Room 117."

"Oh, aren't you darling," the nurse commented, brightening up. It caught me off guard, because as far as ponies I'd seen, I seemed to be pretty generic—nondescript even. Then again, I wasn't exactly a narcissist, either. "But who would give a foal such a name?"

"Anon is new to Equestria and being a pony," Twilight explained. "Until recently, she was under Princess Celestia's care. I believe she granted the name based on what Anon stated the name meant to them. It unfortunately also meant something rather unfortunate in Old Equish."

"Unloved Child," I added in 'helpfully' in a cheerful tone. The nurse gaped at me. "In my world, it had the name meant 'Nobody', and had its roots in mythology. I think my father was a bit of a prick for naming me like that, among other things, but hey. When in <>, do as the <> do." I grinned up at Twilight, who now looked rather... embarrassed by my outburst. "I admit, I wasn't keen on the name, but Anon is kinda growing on me. It's nondescript, just like me, since I'm rather plain and mostly a 'blank slate' by pony reckoning."

Pretending not to hear that utterly disgusting degree of self-deprecation, the nurse looked back to Twilight. "Well, it's not particularly busy, so I can take you back to a room and have her looked after," she offered in a forced tone nonchalance. "I was just covering the desk for Sweetheart while she took her lunch break, and Dr. Horse is probably going to be held up by Monty Spurs there for quite a while." She leaned closer to Twilight and whispered, "As rich as he is, Mr. Withers can only provide so much company for the poor stallion."

The mare led us past the doctor and patients discussing in the doorway and down a sterile white hall. We passed a few empty exam rooms before leading us into a room with a reinforced metal door. When the door was opened by the nurse, I caught sight of the sign inlaid on the door: 'Unicorn Examination'. I guess she requested containment just in case I forget rules four and eight. That's fair, I guess.

The inside of the room, seemed normal enough: scales with slide measure, an exam bed, a few chairs, and a desk at which to fill out paperwork. That said, the moment we crossed the threshold left me experiencing the strangest sensation. It was almost like something pushing in on me, or rather my magic. Just this morning, Starlight had guided me through a meditation exercise to give me a better sense of my internal magical field. Now knowing what it felt like, it was much easier to recognise the change. Given that I am capable of using runic magic, it makes sense to have some sort of suppression field active.

You know, now that I think about it, despite Twilight being the one supposed to care for me, many of my study sessions thus far seemed to be with Starlight. Sure, most of them have been overseen by the Princess—still can't wrap my head around not wanting her title used—but it's almost as if she's testing Starlight instead. Granted, Twilight does test me at the end of the day. Maybe she's just observing my sessions with Starlight in order to tailor a lesson plan to better suit my needs? Or am I giving her too much credit?

Without prompting, I trotted over to the scales and stood in the center. The nurse seemed somewhat surprised that I seemed to have some idea of what to expect, but I admit that I was trying to rush the weight and height measurements to minimise touching potential. Like a patient royal guard, I stood stock still as she fiddled with the sliding parts up above me before measuring my height.

I didn't put up any resistance when Twilight chose to levitate me onto the exam bed. Magic didn't raise my hackles nearly as much as being physically picked up, and I did need to get up there. If I was more confident in my ability to perform a vertical jump, maybe I'd have made an attempt to assert my independence, but I wasn't feeling particularly ornery this afternoon. Besides, if I turned out to be as injury prone as I was in my first childhood, I'd probably end up seeing her a fair bit. And her eyes are very kind. Wouldn't be right to see them tainted with anger or disappointment.

I found myself blushing slightly as I sat there listening to them begin to fill out my information. I was apparently just under twenty-kilograms, and just sixty centimeters tall, although I didn't really have any frame of reference for comparison. If only Mom had taught me metric. My physical sex was mentioned, but then it was onto the topic of my age.

"So how old is Anonymous?" the nurse asked.

Instead of letting Twilight answer, I spoke up. "Please, just call me Anon. Anonymous still sounds weird," I insisted, shuffling slightly under her gaze. "My birthday is the 81st of Binuary, and I'm eight years old."

"Eighty-one, two, nine ninety-five H.E.," she said aloud, noting my age. She then glanced at my age and height, narrowing her eyes. "I'm sorry to say that she's somewhat underdeveloped for her age. At this point in her development, she should be closer to 80cm tall, and 30 kilos." She stopped to peer at Twilight. "Where did the crown find this child again? I hope her previous... caretakers are being punished for the nutritional neglect that would cause this level of stunted development."

That caused my neck to prickle with anger. My mother did her best, even if I was just as stunted back home. She doesn't deserve his sort of slander! At least my father is in Hell where he deserves to be. Still, I want to behave myself, and I swore I'd try to be on my best behaviour, damnit!

"Her situation is unique and we don't fully know her background," Twilight interjected, seemingly picking up on my agitation. Was my eye twitching? I think my eye was twitching. "Is there anything specific we should do to get her back on track? Diet, supplements, and the like?"

The nurse sat there for a moment, a lock of her pale pink mane falling from beneath her cap. She looked down at the paper and then back to me. "The damage might already be done," she said with a dark look, "but if you can increase her dietary intake of zinc, iron, calcium, and vitamin A, you might be able to mitigate some of the damage. More sugar never hurts, either... especially if her cutie mark is a magic-related mark."

Damn it! You better prescribe some tasteless sugar pills then, Nurse Killjoy!

"Other than that, before we move onto her vitals, I've only one more question that we've been instructed to ask," she continued, returning her attention to the paper before her. "In recent years, identities outside the historical gender binary have become more commonly accepted, and some parents have allowed their foals to decide how they identify. In the interest of seeing that all ponies have their needs met, has Anonymous made any indication regarding such?"

I could almost see the cogs begin to turn in Twilight's head. Think, girl; have you seen me make any indications toward masculine, feminine, or any comments about categorisation?

"I can't say she's said anything regarding how she identifies, although she's made comments that might indicate she's non-binary at the very least," said the pointy horse. Very good! Now, what else do you remember? "I think she might've indicated that the transformation into a pony might have taken from her more than just her species, but as jarring as it might have been, she didn't seem too upset by it."

I actually smiled at that. She actually has been listening to me. "Allow me to answer your question, Nurse Redheart, rather than forcing her to guess with incomplete data," I explained, choosing to lie down atop the exam bed, my forehooves hanging over the edge. "I've never felt one way or the other. My body was just... a vessel of flesh. It was there, it met its purpose. This new one is just another vessel in a very different configuration. I suppose I don't really identify as male or female, but I've been what was needed of me. I'm not sure if you call that agender or gender-fluid; those topics were kinda taboo where I was, so I never really brought it up." Casting a sideways glance at Twilight, I added, "It's also why I don't get upset if you use feminine pronouns with me. I'm just me."

The nurse looked slightly ill at part of my phrasing, but seemed to mark down more than just a few words on that sheet. She then proceeded to drag Twilight out into the hallway and have a very hushed discussion. Still, with the door not closed entirely, I was able to make out the words morbid, seriously wrong, and therapist. I'm actually kinda surprised Celestia didn't assign me one when I was in her care... But maybe she was trying to respect my own autonomy and expecting me to seek one out... Or maybe because she was intending to send me here anyway, she was hoping either me or Twilight would broach the topic first.

Surprisingly, I didn't find myself put off by the idea. I could tell that this world was a far cry from what I left behind, and healthcare wasn't for profit, but I had no idea what degree of mental health care ponies had. I mean, over a thousand years ago, a princess got jealous and turned into a demon or something... So maybe it would be improved in this new era so that sort of thing couldn't happen again. And maybe our worlds weren't so different that a therapist wouldn't judge me harshly for what I'd done to survive.

After they returned, I sorta just sat there and let the nurse poke and prod me with a stethoscope. She listened to my heartbeat, measured my blood-pressure, and even my breathing, and I didn't flinch once at her touch. Then out came the needles. There were a lot of needles, and I was destined to have every single one go inside me.

"Don't pay attention to the needles, Anon," Twilight said, placing her hoof beside mine at the edge of the bed. "Just focus on me." Her smile was infectious, and she actually did a good job of distracting me. "So are you excited to learn some basic ritual magic tomorrow?"

I nodded, trying my best to stay still for the nurse. Still, I tentatively placed my hoof on Twilight's hoof and gripped it with my hoof field. "Starlight said that most rituals that weren't heavily restricted were simple enough that even a foal like me could perform them," I answered with a bit of excitement. "She didn't give any examples, though. Are there any you think I'd find useful?"

Twilight paused and seemed to think about it. "Well, I know that Unseen Servant would be very useful for an earth-pony or pegasus pony in everyday life, and if you're ever out in the wilds, Purify Food and Drink is indispensable. Other than that, Locate Animals or Plants, Talk to Animals, Water Walk, and Water Breathing are all rituals that could be considered useful. Although if you plan to make regular use of ritual magic, we might need to get you a component pouch." She paused, and then beamed at me. "I could actually demonstrate one on the way to the schoolhouse later. It's called Prancer's Floating Disk!"

After the nurse finished up and gave Twilight a list of supplements to take to the chemist's, Twilight borrowed a medical thermometer and led me and the nurse outside. She explained that all ritual spells are comprised of up to three basic components: verbal or spoken, somatic, meaning gestures and movements, and materials which may or may not be consumed in the casting of the spell. In the case of Prancer's Floating Disk, it had the verbal and somatic components, but also required the caster to have a drop of mercury in their possession.

Beginner casters, she'd explained to me, would be required to perform the ritual for up to ten minutes, while experienced spellcasters would only need to go through the motions once. At first, I had been expecting her to maybe draw out a magic circle in chalk or something, as I remembered someone saying something about rituals and runic magic being linked. Then, as I watched her movements, I recognised a pattern from a runic dictionary I'd peeked into. Her chant was in a language I couldn't recognise, but it bore the same familiarity that imagining the ignition rune held in my mind.

Understanding dawned on me then. Through chant and her motions, Twilight was a literal conduit for the runic magic. Was this sort of thing what unicorns did internally with their spellcasting? I couldn't exactly say for sure without asking—and distracting—my mentor. Rituals sounded simple, like borderline witchcraft, until you stopped and actually examined the sheer depth of it.

Regardless her chant ended, and she pointed at a spot right in front of me. A puff of displaced air rippled the grass in front of me. "Step forward, and hop on. The disk created by the spell is invisible," she explained, using a bit of magic to envelop it in a magical field to give me a better look. "It follows slowly behind the original caster while they're within 30m of it, but remains stationary while they're within 5m. It can carry up to 225kg, if you can believe it."

With the glittering pink field of her magic concentrated around the construct, I could see how thin it was. Not quite razor-fine, but thin enough to not look strong enough to carry that much weight... "Wow, this is pretty awesome, Twilight," I exclaimed, clambering on, taking care to place myself dead center. It didn't so much as shift a degree, remaining perfectly level. I estimated that I was maybe a foot off the ground. "Does it auto-adjust for changes in grade with the land?"

As Twilight returned the thermometer to Nurse Redheart, a proud smile spread across her face. Clearly she was enjoying this as much as I was. "That's right, Anon, but it's so much more than that," she explained, spreading her wings and taking flight before me. "In the past, a mage by the name of Tenser created the spell for which this served as the basis for, aptly named Tenser's Floating Disk."

Slowly, the disk began to rise as she gained altitude. "It was capped at a maximum vertical height of 3m, but through tinkering, a pegasus named Star Prancer modified the spell in a way that made it useful to pegasi and other airborne creatures," she continued as we moved past the roofline of the town and up to the far-lower-than-normal cloud line. "The only downside is that it only lasts an hour, or it'll end if I get more than 30m away." She looked back at me. "Shall we take a short aerial tour of Ponyville on our way to the schoolhouse?"

I could only squeal with excitement as I glanced in every which direction. This was probably the coolest thing I'd ever experienced, and Twilight was the one letting me experience it. Being treated like a child constantly, and being subject to lectures that just served to overwhelm me didn't exactly endear me to her. That said, if she could make more lessons and demonstrations fun like this, my opinion of her would improve immensely.

Author's Note

1. The Equestrian calendar is 1000 days, and it made sense to have at it divvied up into the ten months. A fun fact about the modern calendar today is that four of the twelve months were carryovers from the Roman Calendar, which also had ten months. From this, the last four months were named for their position, but originally, before July and August were renamed for the Roman Emperors Julius Caesar and Agustus Caesar, they were named Quintilis and Sextilis for their positions in the calendar as the fifth and six months.

Now, it didn't make much sense to me to not derive the names of the first four months of the Equestrian calendar from Roman mythology, so I used the numerical prefixes for one through four. Thus Unuary, Binuary, Tritilis, and Quadrilis came to be.

Now, we retain the four seasons we see on earth, but obviously their dates differ. Spring begins on the 26th of Binuary and lasts through to the 75th of Quadrilis. Summer then runs from the 76th of Quadrilis to the 25th of September. Then Fall would run the 26th of September to the 76th of November. That last 250 span is of course Winter.

Further, the Harmonic Era was instated the year that Luna was banished, placing her return at 1000 H.E, and the story at 1003 H.E.

1. Yes, the rules for Anon are inspired by the list of Things Dr. Bright is Not Allowed to do at the Foundation, and other similar comedic/semi-informative lists.

2. Cut content, shitpost format:

Passes Rainbow in the air.
"Twilight, what's wrong with Anon, and how is she doing that?"
Be me, standing on hind hooves with forelegs spread in a cross shape.
My eyes are rolled back in my head and my mouth is foaming.

1. I know for a fact that I am not the first author to utilise the concept of a pony's hooves possessing magical fields to grip objects, nor would I ever claim to be. Still, when the alternative to it is just ponies having suction-cup/magnetic hooves/what have you, I'd rather embrace the magic. For most ponies, hoof-fields are more amorphous and simply encompass an object to grip it, although given Anon's unique nature, it might very well be that hers are a bit more—eheheh—handy. Find out more in the next chapter.

2. Although those who answered my blog post insisted they were fine with far longer chapters, and I was perfectly fine with the idea, instinct is telling me that this is a good place to end the chapter. Nothing really demands that the schoolhouse visit occur in this chapter, and although the title and chapter naming scheme infer it to be like individual diary entries, I plan on writing things as they flow best.

3. In addition to meeting with her regular schoolteacher, we might have Anon's first interactions with equestrian children! How exciting is that? Will she make a new friend? Will she dazzle them with her sharp wit and skills? Will she *checks notes* accidentally damage the school-yard tree? Who wrote this crap? What? I did? Oh. Nevermind.