//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: The 37th Librarian // by Autumnschild //------------------------------// Scarlet Letters walked into her kitchen, and leaned against the counter to the left of the sink. With a disinterested flick and a dexterous twist of her right magenta wing, cold water flowed from the faucet onto last night’s dishes. It was then that she let out a breath.   Her limbs shook and her eyelids twitched as she stared out of the porthole style window that looked out into downtown Ponyville from her kitchen sink. She grimaced as felt the familiar ache as the adrenaline drained out of her body.   Scarlet didn’t like surprises. She did once, but that was long ago. Before the war. If there’s anything she learned during her service, it was that surprises had a nasty habit of leaving a body count. Even when they didn’t, even when the surprise was a pleasant one, it still left her with chills and a racing heart.   Scarlet cursed at her foalishness. The war was over. It had been over for three months. Maybe she would one day grow to like surprises again. But having that unknown stallion stumble out of a chimney just now was a little too much for a girl who spent the last year in the dark shadow of war.   “The war is over,” she whispered over running water in the sink, and the dying tingle in her chest.   Like a swimmer pushing off the side of a pool, she pushed off the counter, into the air, and away from her own grim thoughts. It wasn’t long before she felt the top of her mane brush up against the natural wood ceiling. Slowly, she spun in place like one of those air-ballet dancers from Prance and took in the room as she compiled her breakfast checklist.   Item One: Make tea. Item Two: Everything else.   With a nod, Scarlet floated on over to her newfangled stove that dominated the western wall of the kitchen. It was supposedly powered by electricity instead of magic, just as it was supposedly a housewarming gift from her harpy of a mother. In all likelihood, it was probably from her brother, Haythorne.   She smiled as the mental image of her big brother popped into her head as she turned one of the stove’s cast iron knobs to high. Haythorne was a good pony and a great brother. He clearly meant well and his heart was always in the right place, but it would take more than a new stove to rebuild the charred remains of the bridge at the bottom of the bottomless pit that was Scarlet’s relationship with her mother.   Scarlet drifted back over to the sink in a lazy arch with her favorite kettle in hoof. She filled it to just an inch or so below the brim with icy cold water before lugging the heavy thing back over to rest on the candy apple red burner. The few drops of water that had found their way down to the underside of her kettle hissed and boiled away when scorching metal of the burner came in contact. She smiled at that.   She turned back and flittered to the sink to wash out her teapot and its strainer basket. As she worked, she heard a soft tapping against the kitchen’s door frame and a voice call out from behind her.   “Chimney’s clean, Ms. Letters.”   Scarlet looked over her shoulder at the smiling stallion as he wiped the last of the soot off of his hooves with a rag. She looked him up and down. He was clearly waiting for something. “Thank you?” she asked with eyebrow raised.   He puffed up his chest and tossed the dirty rag behind him back into the library, much to her displeasure. “Hay, no problem. It’s my job, after all!”   “Splendid,” she deadpanned. “Well, good day Lee, I suppose I’ll see you in a few weeks. Do remember to knock, if you’d be so kind.”   She turned back to her teapot and rinsed it out one last time before setting it to rest on a dish towel beside the drying strainer basket. She turned towards the pantry to fish out some tea leaves when she caught a rather sight of the mauve figure still standing in her doorway.   She looked over his shoulder to the clock in the library’s main room. She had ten minutes until she had to open for business. “Is there something else you need, Lee?” asked Scarlet in a huff.   “No,” he said a little too quickly. Though Scarlet thought she caught the hint of a blush across his face as he sputtered on with, “Well I mean, maybe we—”   “Let me cut you off there, Lee,” she said as she turned abruptly in place. “Frankly, you scared the feathers off me this morning, and that’s put me in a rather foul mood.”   “But I—“   “And I’m hungry, which does tend to put a damper on anypony’s mood, regardless of how carefree and/or giddy they happen to be. At the moment I am not at all giddy, and all of my care is wrapped up in finding something to eat before I have to open the library.”   He nodded with a frown and slumped shoulders as he sulked out of the kitchen.   Scarlet stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway. Something was eating away at her as she listened to Lee pack up his supplies in the main room. Something besides hunger. It was Twilight’s words, from the letter. The ones about making friends.   She crept up to the doorframe and peeked her head beyond, watching the downcast Lee as he trundled towards the door with his pack on his back.   She called out to him, “Lee?” and he looked over his shoulder with a quizzical expression.   “I’m sorry Lee,” said Scarlet, tugging inattentively on a hoofful her long baby blue mane, “I didn’t get a great deal of sleep last night, and as I mentioned I’m hungry. Plus there’s the whole ‘scared out of my wits’ this morning thing but… What I’m trying I say is…”   “Yes?”   She smiled at the stallion and stood a bit taller. A bit straighter. “Remember to knock next time, okay? Maybe we can talk and get to know each other. I’ll be sure to have a fresh cup of tea ready for you.”   Lee stared at the pretty mare with his mouth open in a little ‘o’. It took him a moment to really parse what was said, but by the time he did, he was already nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah! Cool!”   He kept watching her as he walked forward and waved a wing at her. “See ya later, Ms. LettOOF—” he blurted out as he walked into the wall next to the library’s front door.   Scrambling out of his pony pile beside the door, he blushed furiously as he collected himself, his things, turned the knob, opened the door, and galloped out as quickly as possible.   Smiling at the charmingly klutzy colt as he dashed out of the building, Scarlet turned back into the kitchen proper and over to the pantry. She didn’t have much time, but the day was looking up.   Scarlet Letters was determined to have a decent breakfast before the day began in earnest.     Scarlet frowned and sat slumped in her little circulation desk, ignoring the hoofful of library patrons as they milled about her library. Next to the spot where she was resting her chin sat a half-filled, lukewarm cup of what could charitably be called ‘tea’ and otherwise known as ‘hot liquid rubbish’ by any Trottingham native. At least the hugging kittens painted on the side had the decency to look cheerful.   Her last minutes of personal time had been all used up hours ago, split into equal parts frantic searching for even a crumb of nourishment and tearful resignation as her awful tea brewed. She allowed herself one minute for pouting, but only just.   The librarian’s stomach rumbled and she sighed. No apple pastries, no cereal, not even a burnt crust of bread with a scrape of jam. Nothing. She knew she was low on rations, but to run out completely? That wasn’t like her.   Scarlet furrowed her brow as she came to the only reasonable conclusion. Magic. Specifically the Goddess of Magic. She must have done something. Maybe she turned all her supplies into those tasty pastries last night.   She looked at her mug of tea out of the corner of her eye and remembered it shattering to pieces last night. And yet here it was, no worse for the wear. Clearly, magic was involved here - a dastardly, sinister magic that left hunger and grumpiness in its wake.   It was a pity Pri— Twilight didn’t magic up some tea for her to have in the morning. All that was left in her bare cupboards had been a dusty forgotten box of Liptony tea bags that were left by previous librarian before she retired a few months ago.   Her stomach gurgled again, and she let out a groan in the minor key to accompany it. Scarlet Letters was in desperate need of a trip to the general store and perhaps a few laps around the market. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She had twenty minutes before she could close up for lunch.   Lunch. The word rolled around in her mind along with visions of daffodil salads, tomato sandwiches, and piping hot cheesy potato soups. She grinned. She salivated. She looked at the clock. Nineteen minutes and forty six seconds. Forty five. Forty four. Forty thr—   Her blissful countdown to her savory salvation was brought to an immediate and unpleasant halt when the sound of paper being ripped filled the otherwise quiet main room of the library. Her library.   There it was again. Somepony was ripping paper in her library! Possibly out of a book!   Forgetting all about lunch, the former soldier leapt into the air and hovered in the center of the room, scanning the patrons for the perpetrator. Said patrons, for the most part ignored her. Though one of them, an old yellow codger of a pegasus with a stove for a cutie mark, looked up from his cookbook long enough to disapprovingly shake his head and mutter something about youngsters.   The terrible sound came again. Not the old stallion’s complaining, but the ripping sound. Its awful refrain pinned her ears back to the top of her head. It was coming from the Nonfiction Nook. She alighted over the shelves swiftly, and came to rest on top of a bookcase of local bibliographies.   Peering down into the nook, like a hawk watching rabbits at play, she noticed three fillies sitting at a small table. Three fillies with a book and a small stack of torn pages between them on said small table. Three fillies who were just now, right before her very eyes, ripping another page out of one her library books.