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Clarity writes up the events of the defeat and reform of Nightmare Moon, including the fact that her crown is apparently continuing to exist, and makes two copies - the original in personal notebook stash, one tucked into the back of "The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide", and one sent to Princess Celestia via mailing spell with the suggestion that it could be published in its own volume especially if either Princess would care to add notes on the parts Clarity didn't personally witness.
And she sets about settling into Ponyville.
She learns her way around - here's where she can buy carrots and bunched dandelions and clover sprouts; here's where she can get a case for her crown and cases for everpony else's necklace so they don't have to wear them or leave them lying around loose; here's a shortcut between Guiding's house and the tower the twins live in together. This is when this little town wakes up in the morning and this is when everything closes at night. This is what her friends do all day: Cherry Cordial farms and looks after critters. Brightblaze tinkers with gadgets kind of singlemindedly (though she also flies). Silver Streak plays violin and and reads and wanders around looking at things. Guiding Star does fortune-telling for spare bits and belongs to a dance group and volunteers for anything going on in town that could use amateur decorating (Joy is often with her when she does this). Joy also wanders around being sociable and helpful and cooks, itinerantly, for anypony who'll spare him kitchen space.
And Clarity learns the organizational system of the library, with Blueberry's considerable help, and she studies and explores.
And when she's been in residence for just shy of a week, she gets a letter from the Princess, which contains six tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. Aww, that's thoughtful. Clarity's never been before.
She goes out to see which of her friends she'll run into first if she takes a meandering path through town.
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"There's a little census data like that, but not a lot. Bell Curve - no relation - went through what I think was the entire town of Kimblewick, but Kimblewick only has about a hundred ponies living there and he didn't follow up."
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"Yeah, it'd be a big project. And it'd be interesting, but I'm not sure what we'd do if we knew. Name our foals after things we wanted them to grow up to be if it were that direction of mechanism, I guess, but that probably wouldn't always turn out like you'd expect anyhow."
ipso-amore
"Yeah. I think I'd still want to know, though, even if it wasn't going to be directly useful. It's just such an obvious coincidence."
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Clarity nods. "Well, maybe someday somepony will pick up the project and pick at it long enough to draw conclusions."
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"Aww, ducklings," says Clarity, as they approach a pond. "Do ducks get muffins or something else?"
ipso-amore
"Something else! Muffins are bad for ducks."
Cordy enters a small shed beside the path that leads to the pond, and emerges carrying a sack in her teeth. She upends the sack next to the pond and shakes it out. Ducks congregate from all over the pond, quacking amicably. "Hey, everybody," says Cordy. "How's it going?"
The ducks answer this question. The ensuing conversation is not especially comprehensible to Clarity, but analysis of Cordy's portion may suggest that it's not all that interesting to someone who isn't a duck.
Cordy enters a small shed beside the path that leads to the pond, and emerges carrying a sack in her teeth. She upends the sack next to the pond and shakes it out. Ducks congregate from all over the pond, quacking amicably. "Hey, everybody," says Cordy. "How's it going?"
The ducks answer this question. The ensuing conversation is not especially comprehensible to Clarity, but analysis of Cordy's portion may suggest that it's not all that interesting to someone who isn't a duck.
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Clarity supervises the ducks, more interested in their cuteness than in what they have to say.
ipso-amore
They are quite cute. One of the littlest ducklings decides to oversee this meeting from on top of its mother's head, but finds itself unable to balance there and keeps falling back into the water.
ipso-amore
And then all of the ducks are fed and their news is heard and their concerns are addressed.
"Next up: bears," says Cordy.
"Next up: bears," says Cordy.
ipso-amore
"Friendly enough. I wouldn't recommend antagonizing them, but they're not going to try to eat you if all you do is show up and watch while I talk to them."
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"Okay. I'm not going to - I'm not even coming up with anything slightly tempting for bear-antagonizing purposes."
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"Unless they're antagonized by weird things? I don't know much about bears. Animals in general, really, beyond common knowledge."
ipso-amore
"Nothing you're likely to do by accident. They're pretty laid-back. Yelling at them or making snide remarks would be a bad idea, that kind of thing."
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"How much do critters understand when ponies who aren't you are doing the talking, anyhow?" wonders Clarity.
ipso-amore
"It varies. Seb's basically fluent," the raccoon smiles, "and the bears have a pretty good vocabulary, but bees tend to understand almost nothing but tone of voice and hummingbirds have trouble with verbs."
ipso-amore
"They don't pick up or remember them as easily, and they confuse them for each other. I'm really not sure why. It might have something to do with verbs being more complicated to recognize, because they have a bunch of different forms, and nouns just come in singular and plural and most other words don't vary at all."
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"Huh, I guess that makes sense. I've considered getting a pet of some kind, but never actually did it - there was never quite enough reason to or a critter that seemed very much like it needed to live with me."
ipso-amore
"Yeah. Sebastian's a good fit with me, but I don't think I'd want to get a pet just to have a pet."