When I came to the library at 7:30 in the morning, I had expected Twilight to be up, and the library to be clean and tidy.
However, when I entered, I found that my expectations were too high. Stacks of books littered the floor and Twilight was sleeping on the floor among the stacks.
I had only one question. What had she done? Everything was fine Saturday evening when I checked on how she was doing and now on Monday, the library looked like a storm came through.
"Oh, hi, miss Anya," I heard Spike say from the stairs. I looked over and saw that he was coming downstairs with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Yo, Spike. Could you tell me what happened here?"
"Yeah. So, Twilight wanted to read all the books in the library," he said casually, as if Twilight did that every now and then, "but then halfway through, she tells me that the library's book organisation is terrible and that it needs to be fixed. She started yesterday evening and I guess she just fell asleep here. Can't blame her though with all the meetings and talking to journalists at Canterlot that kept her from sleeping peacefully."
I nodded, not really caring about the answer. What I cared about was how I'd get this place cleaned up in the next thirty minutes, before the library opened.
"I can help you with cleaning this all up," he offered, probably after seeing how I looked at the mess.
"Thanks, Spike, but shouldn't we wake Twilight up first?" I said, pointing to the purple unicorn lying on the floor as she was happily drooling on on some paper.
"Trust me when I say this but she won't be waking up for another eight hours or so for any reason at all," Spike said as he set down his cup on the front desk, "You take her upstairs, I'll get started on this."
I nodded and looked down at Twilight. I tried picking her up with my magic but I was not magically strong enough for that, and I may or may not have dropped her from a height of about fifteen centimeters. She didn't wake up despite the fall that may or may not have been my fault. I then carefully picked her up physically and placed her on my back, noting how she was heavier than she looked, not that I couldn't carry her.
I carried her upstairs into a living room which only had a round table. There were four doorways as well beside the one I came in from. One was obviously a kitchen, evident by the fact that there was no door and I could see what was in the room. The other three, I had no idea. I picked one of the three at random and found that it was a bedroom. I didn't waste much time looking around and just dumped Twilight on the bed and left.
Downstairs, Spike had started putting back books in their respective shelves and had made a surprising amount of progress for a little kid. I joined him in the task, picking up a stack of books in my magic and my hooves and putting them back where they belong.
"Hey, miss Anya, I have a question," Spike said as he started putting away the last stack of books.
"Go ahead, ask," I responded, not particularly interested since I was preoccupied with my own stack of books to put back.
"I don't mean this in a bad way but you don't seem to have any reaction to me," he continued, getting my attention since I didn't understand what he was trying to say.
"Elaborate."
"I mean like, you don't really seem to care that I'm a dragon with a unicorn elder sister, or that I'm a dragon in the first place. Most of the ponies in Ponyville were more curious than afraid of me but you don't seem to care. I've got to ask you why is that so?"
I was a bit dumbfounded by that question and it took me a few moments to come up with a response.
"So, you're saying that you're curious about how I just treat you like any other person and want to know why I do that?" I managed to ask, hoping that he'd make himself slightly more clear.
"Kinda, I guess," he answered as he went to lean on the front desk and finish his coffee.
"Well, that's the normal thing to do, or at least I hope it is," I said, hoping that would answer his question.
"That's true, I guess, but you aren't curious in like, any way at all."
"Well, I guess that's because I had a friend and a couple classmates who were dragons, when I was in school and that kinda let me know what dragons can do," I continued, remembering one of my vessel's classmates in, like, seventh grade.
Spike's curiousity was piqued at the mention of another dragon.
"Ooo, you had a friend who was a dragon? What were they like? Were they cool?" Spike asked with the excitement of a child opening up a gift box, and I found that weird since, like, why would someone be that interested about someone just because of their rac-
A thought came into my mind, and I had a potential explanation to why he was that excited.
"So, you have not met many dragons, have you?" I asked as I finished putting away the last of the books.
"No, not really. There aren't any dragons in Canterlot, or many other creature besides unicorns, and they weren't really nice to me all the time," Spike answered sadly, confirming my suspicions that he always felt alone being in a city known for being composed of mostly unicorns. I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry about him.
"Well, how do I say this? Okay, so, my dragon friend, Arjun, was a uhh... well, he was not exactly a good influence for a seventh grader," I said, unintentionally making Spike sad at the fact that the only other dragon he just learnt about sucked. I continued with my answer, hoping to make Spike feel not as bad, "But, he was there when you needed him and he never did anything really bad and that's what mattered."
I was successful in making Spike happy again with that last bit.
"Could you tell me more about him?" he asked, hoping I would tell him more. I was happy to tell him more but I had to check the time to see how much more before I had to open the library.
"Sure, just let me look at the time," I said as I moved to go see the time on the clock on the fornt desk. Spike beat me to it though.
"It's 7:59... I guess I'll come back later," he announced sadly as he started making his way back to the stairs.
"Don't leave yet Spike," I said as I went to go unlock the main doors. He stopped, letting me continue, "I do have to manage the library by myself since Twilight's out BUT that doesn't mean that you have to go or that you can't talk to me. It's not like I'm busy all the time."
Spike was eager to talk and brought a stool to the desk as I took a seat. I couldn't help but feel a bit good about how happy Spike was.
It was almost five in the afternoon, just another twenty minutes till the library closed. There weren't many people coming in today, letting me and Spike talk for almost an hour. Spike was happy with how 'nice' I was to him, even though I was just being normal, and he spent the rest of the time helping around the library, which was nice of him.
The talk had made my mood worse though since it made me go through memories of times with my few friends and made me miss them and wish that I could have kept in touch with them. Unfortunately, there was no internet for me to do that, or to scroll through to forget how I was feeling. Strangely though, I didn't miss my firends from my original world at all and instead only missed those from this one. Another one of Voth's mind magic things, I guess.
Anyway, since there weren't many people coming in today, I got some reserch done on the mysterious 'the key'. I had asked Spike to gather some books that could tell me about abandoned fortresses in the Everfree forest under the guise of random curiosity, you know the kind of curiosity that makes you open up a random wikipedia page and then just open whatever links there are. He gathered twelve books and gave them to me, and I read through all of them.
From what I had learnt, there were almost twenty ruins scattered in the forest ranging from minor forts to the Everfree castle and exploring them would not only be time consuming but also suspicious for some rando like myself. However, I was able to get detailed histories on each of the ruins, from which I found the time period periods during which they were abandoned. That combined with 'the key' being last seen four hundred years ago let me narrow down my search to two forts.
One was near a town south of Ponyville called Dodge and that ruin had been restored and turned into a museum, and there were no mentions of 'the key', meaning that it had to be in the other fort. The other fort was rather close to Ponyville, meaning that going to it would be easy. The downside was that there was no reason to go there, for me at least considering that said fort was rumored to also have some other powerful stuff hidden in it. If someone knew I went there, it would raise a lot of questions that could not be answered with 'I went exploring for fun'.
On the positive side of things, I had come one step closer to finding the thing for Voth, which was pretty good.
Now that my research was over, I got up to go put the books back, along with the other books that were returned today. It did not take very long to do that and I was back at my desk, waiting for it to be five. There was no one in the library right now except me since Spike had went upstairs sometime back and not returned yet. I felt like I could take a nap but that was since I was just sitting and doing nothing.
The library doors opened and a familiar purple-pink mare, Cheerilee — if I remembered her name correctly — walked in. She held in one arm a file that seemed to be bursting with papers. She set the file down on my desk and turned to greet me in a tired voice.
"Hey, Anya."
"Yo," I returned the greeting as I came back to my desk. "What's with the file?"
"About that," Cheerilee began as she took a seat on the stool Spike had left at the desk, "Next week Monday, the students coming to the library to pick out the books they'll be writing reports on, and since you're the head librarian, I'll be needing your help on that."
"...Oh shit, you're a teacher?" I asked, almost completely ignoring whatever she said.
"Oh, sorry but I kinda forgot you haven't been in the loop with the whole celebration thing and being in the hospital," she said, realising that I knew absolutely nothing about what she was talking about. "So, anyway, I'm the teacher at the Ponyville school and we're supposed to coordinate for this."
"Okay, I got that part but I'll need some context on the other stuff, like the uh the kinds of books you want me to put aside, you know, like the genre and stuff."
"I want them to get books on other cultures from around the world since that's what they've learning about," Cheerilee said as she opened the file and pulled out a sheet and handed it to me, "Sorry that I couldn't get to you earlier about this. The sheet has all the details about what the students should be doing. It should help you out."
"Okay. I'll get some books set aside by Monday. Anything else?"
"No, not re-"
The door to the library opened and the air in the room suddenly became very still. Whatever positive vibe that was in the air disappeared all together and was replaced with one that made your heart sink or the kind of feeling I got whenever I heard keys jingling at a door.
An older pink mare with purple hair walked in. She wore a fancy looking shirt and a lot of expensive looking jewelry, and most prominantly, a smile that one would find on the face of someone who stirs shit up for fun. She radiated an aura of a person that you would not like in any way or even want to be around. Unfortunately, she was coming our way.
"Hello there, Cheerilee," said the mare in a voice full of scorn that was grating, and it wasn't her tone or anything but just the sound of her voice that was grating.
"Hello there, Miss Rich, pleasure seeing you here," Cheerilee responded with a lie, trying her best to sound like she was happy.
The mare, Miss Rich, then turned to me and glared at me for a second before speaking, "And you must be Miss Khan?"
She didn't give me an opportunity to answer the question and kept speaking, this time to both me and Cheerilee, "I'll keep this short. Cheerilee, Miss Khan, there will be a meeting at the town hall tomorrow at four and both of you are needed there."
At that moment, Spike came downstairs and ran up to me, looking worried. Miss Rich seemed to recoil at the very sight of the little guy and looked like she was going to say something. Spike beat her to it though.
He beckoned me to bend down to his level, and then he whispered in myear, "Twilight's awake and she is not happy that we ruined all her organising work."
"Okay, just go back upstairs and try to calm her down," I whispered back to him. He nodded and ran back upstairs.
"Anyway, what's the meeting about?" Cheerilee asked Miss Rich now that Spike was gone.
"I'm not sure but it's something to do with money," Miss Rich answered as she turned to leave.
Right before she left, she added. "Hopefully it's more funding for security." Then she said in a voice that was barely audible as she left, "Can't believe that they let freaks in this town."
She probably was saying that last part to herself but both I and Cheerilee heard it. The library was silent for a moment before Cheerilee spoke.
"By Faust, I hate that mare," Cheerilee said as she shook her head, probably disappointed that Miss Rich could speak.
"Same and I literally just met her," I said, before moving onto more pressing matters. "So, what's the whole meeting thing?"
"I guess Mayor Mare forgot to tell you, or maybe she was busy with preparations for the celebration, but I'll tell you. So, there are meetings every month with all the important ponies in town like head librarian, weather team leader, some businessponies, and unfortunately, Spoiled Rich, the EEA member. It's mostly about how to spend the town budget or organising events. You'll be there since you're the head librarian, and I'll be there since I'm the only pony in town actually related to the teaching profession."
"So, you're the only person in town related to teaching?"
"Not really, since Spoiled Rich is part of the Equestrian Education Authority, but if she were to disappear tomorrow, nothing would change with how education is handled in our town.
Anyway, I've got to go now. See you tomorrow, Anya."
"Bye."
I was left alone for a few moments before I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and by how they sounded, I could tell the Twilight was coming downstairs and she was clearly annoyed. I turned to face her as she neared the desk.
"Good afternoon, or eveni-" I tried saying but was cut off by Twilight, who looked like she just woke up.
"I understand that you had to put all the books back but you will help me get them rearranged now," she declared with a stomp of her hoof, as if she was trying to intimidate me.
"Yo Twiggles," I started, making her stagger at the nickname I just gave her. She was going to tell me to not call her that but I continued, "Could you get me a bunch of books about other cultures set aside since Cheerilee needs them."
"First of all, never call me that ever again," she began angrily before calming down and continuing, "Second, who's Cheerilee?"
"The town's only teacher. She needs the books set aside since the students are going to do a report thing," I answered and then handed her the paper Cheerilee gave me.
"We'll do that while we're rearranging the books," she stated as she read over the paper.
"About the whole rearranging thing," I said, making Twilight glare at me. "I haven't really eaten since morning and I may be a bit hungry right now. And also, is it really important to rearrange the whole library since everything seems fine to me."
"That's where you're wrong! The books are not placed optimally!", she argued, seemingly not caring that I had needs such as eating food.
"Counterpoint: no one else has complained about the books not being placed optimally so far, so, this may be a you problem," I replied, not eager to postpone my lunch/dinner. Despite that, she looked like she wanted to argue and that really annoyed me. I continued, hoping to make her understand that rearranging was unnecessary, "Plus, the people are very likely to have gotten used to how everything is arranged and it would suck if it all changed without warning."
It took a few long moments but Twilight eventually understood my point and lowered her head in defeat.
"Sorry about that, I just haven't woken up properly," she apologised for her behaviour.
I stayed silent for a moment and then made a joke in a voice very clearly mimicking a shitty manager, "Apology not accepted. As head librarian and your boss, I'm cutting your pay by ten thousand bits."
Twilight didn't get the joke at first and cried, "What? You're joking, right?!"
"Yeah, I am. Anyway, see you tomorrow, Twiggles."
With that, I left the library to go home and make myself something to eat. I could really go for a subway sandwich right now.