[BOND]

[luckyheart]

Who: lucky + unfortunate bystanders
When: day 43, afternoon
Where: the dining area

[SO TRAINGOERS. You may still be having water gun fights or you may have gotten bored of it, but if you're heading into the lounge to relax (or the kitchen to refill your water gun), you'll have to get past Lucky! He's taken over the table nearest the entrance to the car, dangling fairy lights from the ceiling and sprinkling silk rose petals on the table and the floor around it. There's a hand-scrawled posterboard hanging from the table's edge:

KISSING BOOTH
FREE
for good luck!!

If you try to pass he'll call out, so good luck trying to escape. But hey, if you play along you'll get sparks...

Or, y'know, you could be doing something totally unrelated in this post.]

Comments

[daydreamshimmer]

Delicate legs? I don't think even an out of shape pony has what would be called 'delicate legs,' not unless there was something really wrong with their health. They might not be able to run, but it takes a lot to break pony legs. And what's this about slamming organs? How well you breathe while running depends on your cardio and being in shape.

[bowtiedbones]

Over half of a horse or pony’s body weight is borne on their front legs, which while the bones are of a significant size they are entirely unsupported by muscle below the knee. Except for some ligaments and tendons, it’s only those bones and those bones alone bearing the stress. This makes your ankles vulnerable to inflammation and stress injuries, and in the unfortunate case that a bone does break, it doesn’t crack, it shatters.

Horses demonstrate respiratory-locomotor coupling, wherein their stride rate at a gallop or canter is the same as their breathrate. A horse cannot be trained to breathe better at a run, as the means by which they do so are wholly mechanical— it’s the weight of your other organs shifting to and fro against the diaphragm that allows for inhale and exhale.

Of course, your world’s species may operate differently, which would be in line with how we have at least four different kinds of humans here. Which would still make trying to research our capabilities and limitations a fruitless exercise in regards to evaluating your own vulnerability and mortality.

[daydreamshimmer]

[This is a look of utter horror at hearing that description.]

How...what's wrong with your ponies? How does anypony even live like that? Could they even balance on their back hooves, how would they even build things? Could they even get their legs to hook right? Or recover from accidents?

[It sounds like a horror story monster of a pony????]

[bowtiedbones]

[oh no

uh oh

how do you tell a horse girl what happens to horses with broken legs, you hecked up eliza]

Um, well... They can rear up, they’re very agile despite their size, but— they don’t build things? The ones I know are animals. Even the unicorns, those are just magical animals.

[daydreamshimmer]

[Absolutely don't tell her, she still has to learn what beef is. Cows are yet another sentient race in Equestria.]

You mean as in...still more wild and feral? Not as sentient as to take care of themselves?

[bowtiedbones]

Yeah. They can be pretty smart, but their ability to care for themselves is... I can shampoo and brush a horse, and it might recognize the curry comb to knock it off the shelf when it wants it, but in the wild their grooming is going to be rolling in the dirt and chewing on each other. I can’t just give them some conditioner and instructions and be done.

[daydreamshimmer]

So it's like they're just animals....

[She shudders because it's just. It's a really horrifying thing to think about.] Being both dumb and having their body just....that delicate...

[bowtiedbones]

Oh! But they do weigh over 2000 pounds for the biggest breeds, so they do pretty okay for being at their physical limits.

[daydreamshimmer]

Hayseed, there's definitely other ways to weigh a ton and still be functional. Dragons can be the size of hills and not break.

[bowtiedbones]

They're functional! Just very nervous and very specialized.

[...............points at lori]

She's a dragon, by the way.

[daydreamshimmer]

I assumed from flowerdrake. The flower is weird, but dragons are ultra omnivores. Meat, plants, gemstones. Really like gemstones. They can also be various sizes, from smaller than ponies to, well, big hills. Some dragons are so big that their eyeballs are bigger than a pony.

And I mean functional as in actually able to. Do things. Many things. Live in a society, being able to use tools is really important for that.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh, no, she's not an omnivore. I wouldn't say she wouldn't eat a bug if she got one, but she's pretty exclusively for flowers, nuts, and fruit. My other two were obligate carnivores when they were alive. I don't know of any species that eats or ate gemstones.

They don't really live in societies, either. Social groups like packs at best.

[daydreamshimmer]

So like wolves.

And you're saying that the humans here can be that different from each other?

[bowtiedbones]

[nods]

Felix has wings, my body is reliant on magic produced by my soul, some guys can lift ridiculous weights, Naeva is nightkin, there's the couple of us that can turn into wolves now, two guys are spirits of some kind, one guy has cyborg enhancements, some other girls have entirely different kinds of magic... A lot of us are from completely different worlds.

[daydreamshimmer]

So even taking out magic, the physical bodies are different?

[bowtiedbones]

Yes.

[daydreamshimmer]

...so trying to figure out how this stupid body work is also pointless.

[And she is just]

[So very tired]

[Letting herself slump against the wall, fists over her face, and just. Slides down to the floor.]

[bowtiedbones]

There's some basics that will be the same between most humans, and more basics that are the same between mammals.

If it's injury you're worried about, just stay away from near-boiling or cooking temperatures, be careful with sharp things, eyes and soft things like that are still the same, bruising's probably not much changed either, and earn some sparks so you can use the healing pods if we get a bad trial.

[daydreamshimmer]

[There is a weak, bitter laugh.] Yeah, sparks. Gonna be earning those like hot haycakes.

No memories, no magic, no body, and even studying is pointless. What am I even supposed to offer? [Curling up more, voice tight.] This is stupid.

[bowtiedbones]

[shoos lori fluttering off into thyme and crouches down next to sunset]

Do you remember what the list of bonds tasks were?

[daydreamshimmer]

I remember. But if it's even a little like harmony magic, it won't accept lies. Bonds can only go so far if someone can't....

Can't keep up. Everything about me is wrong and I'm trying to find some way to make something right, but I just...

[Her voice cracks and she goes silent.]

[bowtiedbones]

I don't know what harmony magic is, but if it's tripping you up to compare these bonds to real emotional bonds, call them something else. These are just actions, little gestures and icebreakers to encourage us along— It counts the effort.

[daydreamshimmer]

If they're not emotional bonds, what are they? The magic has to come from somewhere.

[bowtiedbones]

They're the predecessors. I can hug a friend or I can hug a stranger, but the sparks are the same.

[daydreamshimmer]

But it's still emotional. It's still supposed to become something more.

Just because I say it might be something else doesn't change what it is. If someone is useless, no one will want them as a friend, that's just a fact. I can't just hug everyone and pretend it's going to be magical all the time. At some point, there's going to be a wall and then I'll be back here except worse because I'll have convinced myself maybe I could have done something only be have reality hit me in the face again.