//------------------------------// // Day at the Library // Story: CCC-To Find Her Place // by Fresnor //------------------------------// Dear Twilight Sparkle, Selene, and the other princesses, Sometimes life really doesn’t make sense in how the more dangerous something is, the less likely it is that a major injury occurs. Then there is the other end of that where something that should have had no risk at all ended up with me losing a leg to something I found shouldn’t have even been there. At the time I had no clue on what to do and my mind mostly shut down like it did when I had to face off against undead hordes. As soon as I was told how dangerous that snake was that bit me as well as the fact that there was no cure I stopped thinking and just reacted in what seemed to be the most logical way at the time. After giving up my leg for lost I then found out just how strong I had been getting in my magic as I overdid it and damaged a large area of the forest in destroying the creature. It turns out that my reaction wasn’t all that bad though as I learned that the creature was something that wasn’t meant to be here and somehow slipped through one of the portals somewhere. I was reprimanded for using as much magic as I did but considering the danger that basilisk vipers pose I was mostly forgiven. It seems that the creature reproduces by turning its victim to stone and then the body crumbles apart into more of its kind. Since magic doesn’t work on them directly in any way it makes them hard to find and remove safely so they would have had to destroy the area just to be on the safe side. A couple platoons of guards were sent to check the area for any other infestations when I returned just to be on the safe side as well as to clean up the magical fallout from what I did. It turns out using massive amounts of magic in a small area can really mess things up in unpredictable ways. I wasn’t in that good of a shape for a while after all that happened as it took a lot of adjusting to missing a limb. I’m not sure what would have happened if my friend the Admiral hadn’t been there to help me out. In the end it took him notifying me about the punishment of my escort to snap me out of it. To make a long story short I now have three personal servants as well as the first entries into the book of names that is under my control. The two diamond dogs, the male named Butch and the female is Cassidy, are much more intelligent than what you would think as not only do they act in the capacity as guards but they also have training that makes them a pretty high-class butler and maid. I may have to work out some new type of uniform for them as I’d like them to work as both positions and metal armor doesn’t work well while cleaning. The other servant is a three-tailed female kitsune named Oraiste. While the punishment that they had planned for the other two was relatively minor what was planned for her was nothing short of barbaric. I’d rather not go into detail on what it was, but being imprisoned in stone with Discord as your only companion is tame compared to it. As the incident was my fault, I stepped in and claimed her judgment to be made by me as the injury was done to me. She looked scared at hearing this at first, but she settled in pretty quickly as I made her my personal assistant and gofer for anything I needed. While I may not be fully recovered from the incident it did teach me that I have been relying too heavily on my magic and that I need to find something to supplement it. I already had an idea which was part of the reason why the injury happened but I feel that I may need to go a bit further than that. Your Friend, Flarenza I had always found libraries to be a relaxing place to be in as not many would bother tracking you down in one unless it was truly important. Add in the fact that they often had comfortable furniture to read in as well as hard to spot hidey-holes and it was easy to pretend that the outside world didn’t exist. Of course there were always exceptions to that, one of which was prancing around in front of me. “You missed yet another meeting last night. I’m starting to think that you don’t like spending time with us nobles with how often I see you holed up in here.” I level a glare at Duke Okami over the book I am currently reading through as I ponder my response. Ever since I had stepped in and interrupted the court being held for my three additions to my household he had been taking enjoyment in annoying me whenever he had the chance to do so. He usually avoided the royal library so him appearing more often while I was there reinforced the idea. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I like the Admiral just fine. In fact we had a nice little chat over lunch earlier today.” He just laughs at my response which just annoys me even more as he doesn’t seem to be able to take a hint so I try to make him feel awkward. “Besides with my leg how it is I have enough problems getting around on my own. Until I find something to fix that I’d rather not go places where I can potentially embarrass myself by falling flat on my face constantly.” That stops him from laughing but I still see a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. “Well I doubt you are going to get anywhere with that while reading blank books. Wouldn’t you have better luck somewhere else such as, I don’t know, the medical books and healers?” I look down at the book on necromancy and flesh-crafting I am currently reading and grimace about one of the annoying things I had noticed about the kingdom. It seems that while I wasn’t under the same restrictions most of the other kitsune were under; it did make it harder to explain some of my reading habits as many of the books I had been perusing were blank to all but a select few. I had to be careful with how I responded to questions about them as, while Lady Ogitsu didn’t mind me reading them much, it was still best not to draw the attention to others about the spell over them. “Those other options didn’t turn up anything that wouldn’t be horribly awkward and uncomfortable to use. Besides an old ‘friend’ of mine specializes in an odd branch of magic. I still have a long ways to go in my studies on it before I’m comfortable using it often, but one thing it has taught me is that sometimes hiding things in plain sight is the best place to hide them. So what better place to hide interesting information than in something that beings wouldn’t take a second glance at such as an empty book or where something belongs?” I glance at the pile of books nearby, more specifically the one I had found on chaos magic, while I wonder what Discord is doing now. Returning my attention back to the Duke he has an odd look in his eyes though the smirk never leaves his face. “If you say so, though that friend of yours sounds like someone I wouldn’t mind meeting. He’d probably liven things up around for a bit, even more than you have already done.” I just roll my eyes at him as, while he may be correct, things would more than likely end up much more lively than he’d like if Discord showed up around here. Not that he would as he really didn’t like how easy it was for me to turn his magic back on him and a whole kingdom that probably could do so would drive him mad, even more than usual at least. I try to think of a way to get rid of the Duke so I could go back to my studying but the only thing that comes to mind is to make sure I start showing up for the weekly noble meetings. Going over everything I have in my head I realize that I should be able to finally put one of my plans into action as everything should be about ready now. “Actually I probably should show up a bit more often to those meetings since the Admiral could use the company. In fact I believe that the surprise I’ll have prepared by then would be something he’d enjoy seeing as well.” I let a small grin fall over my face as my words drag his attention away from the stack of books next to me. “Really? You’re finally going to agree out of nowhere after all these months of me asking? It must be some surprise then if you’re finally ready to attend again.” He looks over me a bit suspiciously before he starts to walk away before pausing. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again, but until then you might want to be careful with that book on primordial magic. It’s not an easy read and using magic of that type is a bit unpredictable at best and insane at worst.” I give him an odd look as he walks away as I consider his words while glancing at the books I had out. Strange, all the librarians only see blank books when they look at these yet he seems to have been able to understand the title of one of them. From how he describes it though the only one that it could be is the one on chaos magic. Is primordial magic another word for it? It would make some sense as even according to Discord there was only chaos before the universe was made. Shaking my head as I turn back to the book I was currently reading through I flip through a few more pages before sighing and placing it in the finished pile. Not that I’m surprised but nothing useful enough, not to mention anything I’d even consider using, in that book either. If I didn’t care about necromancy like I do then I’d maybe consider getting a random limb to replace the one I lost, but it would just be creepy to dig up a body for that or use some other creatures and start looking like Discord. Full on regeneration of the level to grow it back just doesn’t seem possible without a huge power investment. A sufficiently strong Alicorn could maybe do it, as well as the Lord and Lady, but even with a few shortcuts I wouldn’t be able to do it. It’s not even having the knowledge of the spells that matter but having the power itself since it seems that it bolsters the body so much at that point that healing from even near fatal wounds is possible as long as you sustain them while being that strong. I sigh and flip through the next book in the stack and pause when I realize what I am reading. Huh, mechanical limbs can be made with golemmancy? That might be something to look into though what they have here looks rather crude. It’s just too bad that most of these books are so old and out of date. I know for sure that some of the theories I’ve found here are so out of date that even Luna would have laughed at them. Sometimes it almost feels like these should be in another language entirely what with how old they are. I pause for a moment when I think that before pulling out my journal and setting it beside the book on the table in front of me as I look between them. I look back and forth between the two as I try to focus on the shapes and order of the letters instead of what they mean. After a few minutes of this my eyes widen when I notice what I was looking for as well as why things had always felt odd when reading or speaking around here. “When did I learn to speak this language? I could have sworn I was speaking in Equestrian Common this entire time, or the Diamond Dogs guttural language at the very least. Other than those two the other languages I know I have to actually think about speaking.” I rack my brain trying to figure out what was going on while I compared the language I was reading to the ones that I knew of. None of them really came close to matching it though ancient unicornian as well as the diamond dog tongue had a word here and there that looked similar. Even some of the other more obscure languages that I had been forced to learn, after losing some bets with Twilight, didn’t mesh up at all. When I ran out of languages to compare it to I decided to perform a magical scan of myself to see if there was some outside influence that was causing this. It was a good thing I was sitting down since finding the spell was easy yet the power and feel of it shocked me. “This is old magic, older than anything I’ve encountered before except…” I stop when I remember the feeling the spell is giving off as I had only encountered it once. “The stone I found in the Everfree years ago, this spell feels just like the magic surrounding that area. I knew I felt something when I touched it and I should have realized what it meant when I could actually read the words on it.” I try to think of what all this could mean but without being able to examine the stone again there wasn’t any chance of that. It did bring up another issue as I look at all the books around me with this new knowledge. There were a few books that I didn’t understand the words on, so I knew it wasn’t a full translation spell, but all the ones I could understand were in this new language as well as ones I’d learned previously. “Is this really a translation spell though? I’ve never heard of one working so seamlessly or even allowing the caster to speak the language. This almost feels like the entre language was implanted in my mind instead of it translating it for me.” I examine the spell matrix closely but it looks nothing like what I have encountered before. However it works there aren’t many that could cast something this complex and I wondered which of the four I knew of made the spell as well as if all of them knew it. I filed this information away for later while making sure to pay more attention to what I was saying as well as what others were saying as well. It could come in handy knowing if any of the others knew some of the languages that I did as it would allow me to keep some things secret from them if I needed to. The Admiral would be a good one to check with on all this as he would obviously know a few other languages if he was going to order around diamond dogs and the ships they plunder. I didn’t even need to go that far as I found out before I left for the night that most of the caretakers were masters of various languages. “You mean everyone that works here is required to learn at least three different languages before they are allowed to work here?” I was surprised at how strict they were about whom they had working here though it would make it easier for them to sort the books. “Why of course Duchess, few of the nobles even bother learning other languages so it’s left to us to cast the translation spells on the off chance that someone shows.” I’m not sure if I should be surprised or not with the tone of voice used by the caretaker as I didn’t like too many of the nobles myself. I decide to have a bit of fun before leaving for the night. “Well it is a shame that they don’t want to learn other languages you never know when they could be useful.” I say this in Equestrian Common but the caretaker just looks at me in confusion so I switch to Gryphish. “Of course it does take a lot of effort to learn them and of course they have so many important things to do.” I almost start laughing at the look on his face before I switch to the diamond dog tongue. “It’s just a shame they don’t realize how important it is to know other languages as knowing them grants you a lot of power when the situation calls for it making those that speak the language indispensable.” His eyes widen at this last one before he responds in kind. “It’s kind of you to say that Duchess. It’s always good to see a noble take an interest in learning something new when they don’t need to.” I chuckle before switching back to what is normally spoken here. “Well it was more that I actually needed the languages while I traveled around. It’s good to know that there are some I can keep in practice with so I don’t get too rusty speaking them. I’ll need help with some of the languages from other worlds though.” With a final farewell I hobble my way out of the library back towards my residence with one of my new guards as escort. It didn’t take long for me to spot the growing trees behind my home causing my mind to turn to the experiment I had planned for the next meeting.