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Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

Class met up outside Portalocity, where their extremely pink, extremely excitable teacher was pacing rapidly back and forth. "Hihihi everypony!" she greeted at high speed when it seemed like everypony had arrived (and maybe she rushed off and pushed the last student into line if they seemed to be taking too long). "I'm Pinkie Pie, your guide on this wonderful amazingest field trip class toooooooo --" No, you can't figure out where that drumroll is coming from. "-- EQUESTRIA!" Pinkie threw her front hooves into the air in an explosion of confetti.

Get used to that, kids, it'll be happening a lot.

"Now, I know the first week is usually all about introductions and all but that's pretty boring and I already know mooooooooooost of you, so we're going to get right on to it," Pinkie said, as she led the class through the portal that managed to appear just behind her, right on schedule, and somehow also actually led to where they were actually planning to go. "And you can introduce yourselves to each other while you introduce yourselves to some of my very bestest pony friends in my hometown," and somehow she'd managed to time the line moving through the portal so that the last student should hopefully step out onto the bright yellow path through bright green grass just as she said "PONYVILLE!"

Did you guess there'd be more confetti when she said that? YOU WERE RIGHT! HURRAY!

"Look out!" somepony shouted from above them, and a grey, blonde, cross-eyed pegasus went careening by, buzzing just over the students' heads. (You all had your brains broken already by now, right? Er. Sorry new kids, you're getting tossed into the deep end.) A blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail flapped above them, face-hooving. "Sorry about that!"

"Sorry," agreed the grey pony sheepishly, and she rose back into the air much more slowly than she'd come down.

Pinkie waved, unperturbed. "Hi Derpy! Hi Rainbow Dash!"

"This is your class, huh, Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yuppers!" Pinkie put her hoof in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. "And we're already behind schedule. Hop-to, everypony! We've got a very special somepony waiting for us!" And she led the way through the quaint little vaguely-Elizabethan styled town towards a large tree with doors, windows, and balconies on it. She waved to everypony they passed, greeting many of them by name, a process that happened fast enough that all the syllables ran together into a nigh indecipherable mess.

She was clearly in a bit of a hurry.

"Here we are!" she finally announced as she reached the door in the tree. "Golden Oak Library, home of my very specialst purple unicorn friend, Twilight Sparkle!"

Confetti.

As advertised, when the confetti cleared a purple unicorn stood before them, puffing confetti out of her bangs with a slightly irritated frown. She blinked once when she spotted the students and smiled brightly. "Hi there," she said, her voice just as warm and cheerful as Pinkie's, but turned down on the squeakiness by several thousand degrees. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, personal student to Princess Celestia, and one of Pinkie's best friends. I'm here to help answer any questions you may have about Equestria's history or the variety of creatures who live here. It's very nice to meet all of you."

"Psst," Pinkie hissed, elbowing the nearest student. Because ponies have elbows. "That's your cue to introduce yourselves!"

At least it was maybe reassuring to note that even Twilight's smile seemed slightly strained by Pinkie's antics.

She was going to be cleaning confetti out of her books forever.

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"Twilight here knows absolutely everything about absolutely everything!" Pinkie enthused. "You can ask her ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING!"

"Er," said Twilight. "Within reason. But if I don't know the answer off the top of my head, I'm sure I could look it up. Our collection here is second only to the royal library at the palace in Canterlot."

"Excuse me," Kathy said politely when Twilight Sparkle seemed to be free. "You really live in the library? And you can tell us all about pony history and culture?" It was hard to stay polite-sounding when she was getting consistently more excited. "Oh my gosh, I have so many questions!"

"I really do," Twilight confirmed. "I have a cozy little loft upstairs where I live with my baby dragon Spike and my owl Aloysius. It's perfect for those burning late night questions." Congratulations, Kathy! You've finally met someone as nerdy as you are! "So, where would you like to start?"

Kathy didn't know what to be more jealous of: that Twilight lived above a library, had a pet dragon, or was tutored by a princess. They all seemed pretty amazing, even if technically Kathy knew a princess of her own.

IT STILL WASN'T THE SAME. SHE DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO ARENDELLE'S LIBRARY.

"First, do you mind if I take notes?" Kathy asked, pulling out her notebook and a pen. "And...hmm..." She thought for a moment. "Okay, so you're a unicorn, we've met some pegasi, and Pinkie is neither. Is there a difference? I mean, besides a horn and the power of flight?"

"Of course not!" Twilight seemed surprised by the very idea of being offended by note taking. "How else are you going to reference the information later? Note taking is an important part of studying!"

Neeeeeeeeerd.

"And that's an excellent question. There are three main types of ponies in Equestria, and we all keep everything working in harmony for everypony. Unicorns like me are the ones who can do magic. Most unicorns have one primary magical talent, for instance our friend Rarity can use her horn to locate precious gems in the environment. Pegasus ponies can fly, certainly, but they're also responsible for managing the weather, to make sure that nopony has to suffer from drought and making sure that the seasons happen on time. And earth ponies, like Pinkie, are the ones who can work the land, making the plants grow and making sure everypony gets fed." She trotted over to one of the many shelves and pulled a book from the shelf with her magic. She flipped it open to an illustrated story about Equestria's history. The text would be completely illegible to Kathy, mostly looking just like straight lines across the page, but the illustrations at least were bright and detailed.

"Once upon a time the three types of ponies didn't get along, and each suffered for it, until they learned to be friends and work together to keep everypony happy and healthy. Nowadays there are still cities across Equestria that are predominantly one type of pony or another, like Cloudsdale, which isn't even accessible to most non-pegasuses, but here in Ponyville, all three pony types live together in harmony and friendship.

"There is a fourth type of pony, which is extremely rare: the alicorn princess. An alicorn combines all three pony types into one." Twilight flipped the pages of the book until she found an illustration of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. "There are currently three alicorn princesses in Equestria. Princess Celestia, who's my mentor -- she controls the rising of the sun -- and Princess Luna, her sister, who controls the rising of the moon. And my sister-in-law Princess Cadence, who has the power to make ponies fall in love."

Kathy's pencil flew across the page, trying to keep pace with Twilight's explanations. She would be so jealous if she knew that Twilight wrote with magic--though considering Twilight's hooves, it just made sense. "So if earth ponies are responsible for agriculture and pegasi for weather-control, what are the unicorn's main responsibilities towards the greater good? Is it more individualized because of their different magical talents? Or do you all come together for something basic and your talents just let you approach it from various angles?"

Those weren't the only questions she had for Twilight, but she didn't want to overwhelm her.

"We . . . provide magic," Twilight said, not entirely understanding the question. "Don't humans have individuals who's job it is to provide magic in the world?"

Kathy shook her head. "Most human worlds don't have magic. I don't think mine does."

Her world had superheroes, but they weren't exactly magic. Just...different. Preternatural was the word Kathy preferred--if for no other reason than she hadn't met Max Hale yet.

"Do you just...generate magic then? For the world?"

"I guess?" And this was this world's foremost expert on the subject, Kathy. "We do the magic, the pegasus ponies make the weather, and the earth ponies manage the earth. That's how it works." She tilted her head. "If you don't have magic, then how does that 'phone' thing work?"

"Technology," Kathy said, which was about as close to explaining it as she could get, too. "There are all sorts of tiny little, umm, machines in there that, uhh, process information and perform tasks."

That was nice and vague. Maybe Kathy could send her a phone manual or something to explain instead.

"Who does magic in places where there's just pegasi or earth ponies?" she asked, moving back to the part of the conversation where she asked the difficult questions. "Do they just not have magic there?"

Because that seemed a little unfair. Everyone needed earth ponies to eat, didn't they? And weather-control was important, too.

"There are unicorns who travel around to make sure that any magic that needs to get done still happens," Twilight said. "Just like how Cloudsdale sends out teams to make sure the weather goes right all over Equestria. But every town in Equestria has their own ways of doing things." She leaned over conspiratorially. "But they're usually really inefficient. Ponyville was founded by earth ponies, for instance, and for years they've been doing their winter wrap-up without magic at all. And for years they've had spring start late."

Right up until Twilight showed up with her amazing organizational skills, in fact.

"What's a winter wrap-up and why does it need magic?" Kathy asked. "Doesn't spring happen whenever? I mean, I would think it would be more a pegasus thing than a unicorn thing. I mean, as much as axial-tilt and planetary travel can be considered weather-related..."

She was going to have to ask about the sun and moon princess things in a minute.

"You know, when Pinkie said the human world was very different from ours, I think she might have been understating it," Twilight mused ruefully. "Let's see. I'm not sure what celestial bodies like planets or tilted axes have to do with anything, but spring doesn't just happen all by itself. There's loads to do to make sure that winter gets packed up neatly for the year. Far too much for the pegasus ponies to do it all on their own. In Ponyville they split into three teams: one for weather related changes -- that's mostly pegasues, but ponies like Pinkie get into the mix, too, by helping to break up the ice on ponds so it'll melt faster in the sunshine. Then there's the plant team, they work on clearing the land and planting the spring crops and flowers. And last but not least, there's the animal team, who helps build nests for the returning southern birds and wake the hibernating animals up."

"Oh." Kathy blinked at Twilight, not entirely sure what to do with that information. It contradicted everything that she knew about the world--that was, she reminded herself, everything she knew about her world. "And, uhh, what do the unicorns do? How long does this take?"

In her notebook, she was already sketching out a brief map of the Earth's orbit around the sun to try to explain how their seasons functioned.

"What happens if nobody does this? Like...everyone's sick that day? Does winter stay? Could it stay forever? Could Ponyville still have winter if, umm--" what was the name of that other town Twilight had mentioned? "--if Cloudsdale did everything for their winter wrap-up?"

"Well, Ponyville wouldn't have any crops if pegasuses tried to do everything," Twilight said, like this was the silliest thing she'd heard in ages. "It's usually supposed to all get done in one day, the last day of winter. But in Ponyville for years it'd take much longer than that. Somepony would fly the wrong way and lose all the southern birds, somepony else would forget to make sure all the roofs got cleared off of snow . . . things constantly fell through the cracks. But I implemented an organizational system that got them all back on track, and now we work like clockwork!" Twilight looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure what would happen if nopony did any of the work. I guess winter would just keep going until somepony did. It's never happened, as far as I know. Sure, sometimes something comes along and disrupts the natural order, like the windy-goes in the old stories or dragons snoring smoke all over the place, but most of the time we all work together just fine."

"We don't have anything like that in my world," Kathy said, trying not to sound baffled. "The sun and moon rise and set because of the rotation of the earth on its axis. The seasons exist because of the way the earth tilts during its orbit around the sun. We can't affect these things much at all."

At least not without going into stuff like global warming or nuclear winter, which ahahahaha no.

Cecil was eyeing the tree a bit dubiously. "Are your librarians dangerous here?"

"Dangerously boring, maybe," Rainbow Dash snickered.

"Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, sounding very exasperated. "If you're not going to help, maybe you should just go home."

"Awww, I'm just teasing," Rainbow Dash said. "Librarians are just ponies who really like books and information," she said to Cecil. "And what's dangerous about that?"

"Apart from the books and information part?" Cecil looked a little worried at that. "Books can be pretty dangerous on their own!"

". . . I suppose maybe if it was a magic, cursed book," Twilight mused. "But I don't have any of those."

"That's a relief!" Not entirely, because still - books, but it was definitely a plus!"

"Do you have a lot of cursed books in your human world?"

"Some, I guess?" Cecil shrugged. "I try to avoid them myself."

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Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

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Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!

Re: Talk to Twilight Sparkle (and Pinkie Pie)!