The week had passed by in a blur. I'd wake up not feeling well rested, forget breakfast, go to work, work quietly, go home, have dinner, and then go to sleep using Voth's spell. He had told me that the spell would give me nightmares but I didn't care at the time and used it. Now, I was having nightmares every night instead of half the nights, and I think it showed on my face.
Or maybe I was just becoming normal again. While it might have been sad that my old world was gone, Voth had made sure I wouldn't care about it. Going to this new world where I have magic, a house, and a decent job had made me happier than I normally was, but now it seemed that I was getting used to it and slowly going back to being dull like I always was.
Whatever the case, I was not having a great time.
I did put on a neutral face, mostly since I had work. I'm pretty sure that there were some subtle body language things, or maybe just my vibe, that told people I was not in the greatest mood, but since no one pointed it out, I felt that I was doing alright.
Currently, I was just playing around with the library computer, writing random lines of code and seeing as the computer started making take-off noises before giving me outputs. The code was vaguely similar to some coding language I had used in the past but couldn't remember the name of. It had been quite a while since I actually used a computer for reasons other than consuming brainrot so I was getting quite a few errors with my code, and eventually, I was bored of the error messages.
I looked over at the clock and saw that it was about closing time, just five more minutes. I got off my chair and walked over to the sight area to go tell whoever was still there that they'll have to go soon.
"Hey hey people, five minutes till closing time," I announced to the four ponies still there. They made some skins of acknowledgment, letting me go back to my desk.
They left within two or three minutes, and I started closing of the library for the weekend. The computer was turned off, books were put back, and I was ready to leave.
The door slammed open and in came Twilight with Spike on her back, both of them looking panicked. She slammed the door shut behind her and put down Spike on the floor before running upstairs. She yelled as she went up, "Don't let anyone in!"
I didn't really know why she was panicking but I didn't question her order. Spike has beat me to it though as he quickly locked the door.
"Why are you guys panicking?" I asked Spike as I walked over to him. Then I noticed that his right hand was hurt and he was holding something golden in his left hand. Spike quickly hid whatever he was holding behind him and gave me a nervous smile.
"H- hey Anya, we were ju-" he tried saying only to be cut off by rapid knocking on the door. We were silent for a moment until knocking came back, louder and harder than before.
"Who the hell is chasing you guys?" I asked Spike as I backed up from the door a bit.
"Twilight's friends, and a bunch of other ponies maybe," Spike answered, following my example of backing up from the door.
"Why?"
"Umm," he hesitated for a bit before sighing and showing me what he held in his left hand. It was two golden coloured tickets. "It's tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala."
"Tickets to the big nobility party? They're chasing you for these?" I said, just looking at the tickets shine a bit. I remembered reading since newspapers that would mention the gala and what sund noble did but that wasn't really important right now. "Is your hand fine?"
He held up his right hand for me to see, and it didn't look really great. There was dried blood on it, some not yet dried blood, and quite a lot of broken scales.
I was going to ask him how his hand got hurt like that but Twilight came downstairs. She said, "Spike come upstairs, we have to clean that before bandaging it. Anya, you ju-"
She froze all of a sudden for some reason when she saw me and Spike.
"What is it, Twilight?" I asked her.
"Spike, did she see the-"
"Yes," Spike answered, not looking Twilight in the eye.
"Guys, what are you talking about?" I asked, confused about whatever they were talking about so cryptically.
"The tickets," Spike answered.
"What's so special about them? They're just some nobility party entry passes," I said, hoping that the whole issue didn't actually stem from the tickets.
Twilight was relieved to hear me say that, making her a bit less stressed. "I'll give you the short version right now. I was out with Spike when I got a letter from princess Celestia with these tickets inside. Now, my friends are trying to get me to give them the ticket but I can't decide who I should give the second ticket, or rather, both the tickets to."
She finished her explanation with her ears drooping at the dilemma of who to give the tickets to. "Come on Spike, we should get your hand bandaged. Then I can worry about this.
Anya, I know that you're work is over but could you just make sure that no one comes in."
"No problem."
She and Spike went upstairs, leaving me alone. I was no longer sad as I was earlier. I might not have necessarily liked her much, but seeing Twilight that sad over something that seemed so small was just bad. She was a nice person and she shouldn't have to go through such problems like her friends trying to make her give them a ticket.
A rapid knocking came from the door.
"Hey Twilight! Open the door!" I heard Rainbow call out from outside. Something about how she said it just made me a bit angry.
I unlocked the door and opened it just a bit, ready to shut it if someone tried forcing their way in. Outside, I saw all five of Twilight's friends standing at the door, all of them looking eager or impatient, except Applejack who seemed guilty for some reason.
"Anya, move out of the way," Rainbow ordered me, her face going from impatient to frustrated.
"State your business," I replied flatly.
"I don't need to explain myself to a dark magic user," she answered obnoxiously. I tensed up as she took a step to the door.
"Okay. As head librarian, and not dark wizard, state your business," I repeated, reminding her of my position.
"Rainbow dear, could you move aside?" Rarity said, as she not very discreetly pushed Rainbow so that she could stand in front of the door instead. "I'm here to talk to Twilight. She promised me that she'll be giving me the ticket to the Gala."
"No she didn't! She's clearly going to give it to me because of the super duper cool and awesome party I threw her!" Pinkie interrupted with a frown on her face.
"No offense but she's giving it to her most awesome friend!" Rainbow argued. The three then started bickering like little kids, which was very annoying and slightly aggravating when all three of the had really squeaky and annoying voices.
"Hey, Anya, could Ah come in?" Applejack asked as she walked up to the door quietly.
"What for?" I asked roughly, expecting her to try sneaking in while the others were distracted.
"Ah've gotta apologise ta Spike fo' hurtin' him," she explained, lowering her head to look at the ground with guilt in her eyes.
"You'll have to wait," I said, my voice not as rough as before. Applejack nodded and stepped away from the door. Then, Fluttershy came up to the door.
"Can I come in?" she asked in a sickly-sweet voice. She even did puppy eyes.
"No," I answered plainly, not affected by such things.
"Please?"
"No. Go away, Twilight is busy right now."
I started closing the door having seen enough of the five but Rarity noticed that.
"Why are YOU allowed inside but not us?" she asked loudly, directing the other two's attention to me.
"Because I work here."
Rarity sputtered a bit at my completely reasonable answer. Then Pinkie spoke up, "Or are you trying to get the ticket for YOURSELF?"
"I don't want a ticket to some over-glorified nobles only tea party," I replied harshly, shutting down her suspicions.
"Yeah, as if we'll believe you, witch!" Rainbow said angrily.
"Anya, what are you doing?" I heard Twilight ask from behind me. I was going to answer her but clearly, the five had heard her. I had turned my head back to answer but then the door was suddenly being opened. I pushed back hard immediately at the three trying to force their way in, and managed to close the door.
"Seeing your friends. They're a bunch of bitches, at least those three that just tried breaking in," I answered as someone started knocking on the door and Rainbow, Rarity, and Pinkie started calling out for Twilight. Ignoring them the best I could, I continued, "Applejack came to apologise to Spike though."
Twilight looked disappointed and sad when I told her how her friends were behaving. Spike came downstairs, his hand bandaged now. "Are they still there?" he asked.
"Yep," I answered. "Twilight, you want me to get them to get los- I mean, go away?"
"What? No, I have to do something to make them all happy; I'm their friend after all," she said, sitting down and thinking about how he'll go about the impossible task.
"Yeah, no, there's no way you can do that," I said stating the obvious, making Twilight more discouraged. I didn't like doing that at all, but Twilight would be wasting more time if she just tried figuring out what to do.
"Okay... could you let them in?" she said after some moments of deliberation.
"...Alright." I didn't think that she was doing the right thing but then, she knew what was best for her.
I opened the door, letting me see the five waiting outside, and glare at three of them. They saw that the door opened and immediately started making their way in, making me step aside. They gathered around Twilight who was still sitting on the floor and looking down at her hooves. Applejack didn't join them and went over to Spike and started quietly whispering to him.
"Thanks for letting us in Twi, I bet you're gonna give the ticket to me," Rainbow said to Twilight, so oblivious of how bad Twilight was feeling that it made me want to start shouting at her.
"Don't listen to her dear, I KNOW you're giving it to me," Rarity said, just as oblivious as Rainbow was.
"No, she's giving it to me so that I can go to the biggest party ever!"
"Umm, I just want to see the castle garden."
It was real hard to not just start shouting at them with how fucking dumb all of them were being, but ultimately, it was Twilight who had to do something.
"I know that the ticket is important to all of you," Twilight began, looking up at each of them. "But I can't give you all a ticket.
So, I'm going to send these tickets back."
That answer surprised everyone, me included, but not for the same reasons. The four immediately started blabbering about how Twilight shouldn't send the tickets back, while I was silently fuming about how Twilight didn't call them out about how they were treating her but I guessed that would come afterwards. However, if she didn't say anything about that then I probably would. I walked over to my desk where Spike and Applejack were watching the whole thing unfold.
"I've made my decision and it's final! I'm not going to let even one of my friends miss out," Twilight declared, shutting down all four of the blabbering ponies. The logic might have been shaky but no one questioned it. "Spike, take a letter!"
Spike, whose good hand was bandaged, could not in fact take a letter. He panicked for a bit as Twilight teleported a scroll and quill to him, seemingly forgetting he was hurt. I caught them in my magic for him. He looked up to me and whispered, "Could you help me out? I'll owe you one."
I would have said something to Twilight but she was already reading out what Spike was supposed to write, "Dear Princess Celestia..."
I scribbled down her letter where her message boiled down to "If my friends aren't having fun when I can, I won't have fun either". It was an admirable stance but despite that, no one was happy about it. Twilight was sad, probably about not getting to go to the gala, while her friends were sad, most likely because they couldn't go either.
Seeing all the sadness made me make a decision. I added to the letter,
"p.s. hi princess, you could you send some tickets for all these guys, they're all very sad. Also, very unintelligent bad move sending 2 letter tickets only even though Twiggles has 5 friends. She became very stressed about who she was going to give the tickets to.
-Anya"
The addition was unnecessary, yes, and I felt nervous about it but I thought it would help these guys, even if I didn't like some of them.
I handed the letter to Spike while Twilight levitated the two tickets that had caused the entire problem over to Spike. Spike took the tickets and put them on the paper and put the paper onto the table to roll it up. Once it was rolled up, he held it in front of his mouth and blew fire on it. I questioned the act but realised that it was probably some teleportation magic.
Now that the whole thing was over, I could leave. But not yet.
"K, that's all over, so," I began, getting everyone's attention. I wanted to shout at Twilight's friends but didn't since that wouldn't be great. "Twilight, I think you should talk to your friends about how they behaved and made you stressed over a ticket."
"What gives you the right to tell her what do?" Rainbow said immediately, making me regret not shouting.
"I am giving a suggestion, whether Twilight acts on it is her call," I answered, my voice making it clear that I had little patience.
"Well, keep your mouth shut, no one wants your opinion," Rainbow replied immediately. I considered calling her every slur I knew, but since Spike was there, I didn't and decide to just remain quiet. Somehow, that aggravated her more. "What? You think you're too good to speak to me."
"A monkey might fling its poop at you but that doesn't mean you should do the same," I said, trying to sound as wise as I could despite my anger. Rainbow didn't understand by the looks of her face but whatever, she could die for all I care. "Anyway, I'm goi-"
Spike belched fire all of a sudden and from the fire fell a rolled up scroll. Twilight caught it in her and opened it, making seven gala tickets fall out. She was astonished by that but forced herself to read the letter. "My Faithful Student Twiggles, I have realised the error I had made earlier this day and wish to apologise for any stress it caused you. I have put seven tickets for you, your friends, and Spike to attend the Gala. Your teacher, Celestia."
She levitated the letter to Spike, not registering the fact that the princess had called her Twiggles, and looked at the seven tickets on the ground with unmatched joy, as if she wasn't miserable some time back, and announced to her friends, "We're all going to the Gala!"
"Oh wait, there's more here," Spike said as he read over the letter and found some other stuff written in there. I felt a bit nervous since I guessed it probably had to do with my addition to the letter. No one seemed to care enough to listen to him read it aloud except me. "P.S. Spike, if you're hurt then I hope you get better soon. Also tell Anya that I send her my thanks for pointing out my error, and that I'll be using the nickname she has given to Twilight."
I was slightly relieved that it was nothing important. However, Twilight, who had been busy celebrating with her friends — the same ones who were literally just hounding her a few minutes ago and making her stressed and sad — stopped celebrating, and looked confused. "Wait, Spike, if your hand is hurt then how did you write the letter?"
"I asked Anya to write it for me. I thought you might have noticed that when the princess referred to you as Twiggles," Spike answered with a shrug.
"She called me what?!" Twilight said, levitating the letter to her and rereading it.
I took that as my cue to leave, wisely so since the second I left the library, I heard a very loud 'Not again!' from in there. Whatever was happening in there wasn't my problem anymore, and so, I headed home to get some dinner and hopefully some proper sleep.