After a few hours of recovery and patching up, Twilight was trotting back to the palace, shaken up over what had just transpired.
What kind of people WERE these? Mysterious trained thugs, crazy dreams, and now a deranged inmate with a blade lodged in his leg? Had anyone told Twilight something like this before a few days ago, she would have assumed that they were describing a bad Daring Doo fanfiction, but having experienced them herself, she was scared.
And then she meditated on that thought. I'm Scared. That Stallion never went for my throat or anything vital, and that dream never led to any real harm... whoever was after her, they wanted her to be afraid, they wanted to scare her away. She thought back to all the great detective stories that she'd ever read, and in such tales, the only time when the main character was subject to scare tactics was when they were getting close to discovering something.
This lit a spark in her, which caught very quickly and spread with every linked idea. I'm close to something. They want to scare me, but in order for them to want that, I've clearly scared them! She smiled to herself, and that flame of newfound determination spread throughout her whole being. Whoever was after her, they messed with the wrong princess.
She finally arrived back at the palace, and entered confidently, asking the guards where Shining armor was in order to report her findings.
The guard she spoke to frowned slightly and replied "Sorry your highness, but Captain Armor left about an hour ago, leading a large patrol to the southern imperial border. Some strange phenomenon had them worried."
Twilight frowned, but said thanks anyway before trotting back to her room and unwrapping her wounds. She needed to re-clean and re-bandage.
Cadence walked in on her just as she was wrapping the fresh bandages around the shoulder. "Twilight! What happened?" she asked with a fearful tone.
"Nothing major, I'm alright," she replied with determination in her voice.
"You don't look alright, that's a fairly deep cut!" Cadence exclaimed before Twilight finished covering up the edges of the gash.
"It's a superficial wound, I'm alright," Twilight insisted, her tone strong as she pulled the new wrappings tight, flexing slightly to test the bandages and finding that they were well wrapped.
"I'm going back to the library," Twilight told her calmly, but firmly, heading to the door, but before she could leave, Cadence grabbed her good shoulder and looked her in the eyes, and Twilight could read something different in them. A desperation mixed with empathy.
"Twilight... please! I know... whatever it is must be hard, but I beg of you, let it go! It's not worth your life!" she pleaded, and Twilight was taken aback. This was very unusual, and it almost sounded personal, which managed to make Twilight far more uneasy than the fact that the thug was still at large.
She calmly looked back into Cadence's eyes with a reassuring smile. "Cadence, the library has nothing to do with these thugs... I'll be alright." Twilight was hoping in her mind as she said it that it was true.
Cadence simply hugged her close and said "Just be careful... I don't want any thug issues hurting my sister-in-law..."
She hugged back and smiled, reassuring her that everything would be alright before breaking the hug and trotting out the door, not looking back.
Twilight entered the library to be greeted once again by the smiling old librarian, stamping more books. "Slow day," he noted with a kindly tone, gesturing to the empty library.
He frowned with mild concern at the sight of her arm, and spoke up. "Ouch! What happened?"
She just chuckled and looked at it. "Oh, I just scraped myself on a desk, it's fine."
He looked over arm briefly, before smiling again and nodding, but with a furrowed brow. His eyes darted from her eyes to her bandage to her saddlebag, then back to her eyes.
"Say... did'ya read the book I recommended yet? It's a might shorter than those old history books," he pointed out.
"Well, not yet..." the princess started, but didn't want to disappoint the old timer, so she quickly followed it up with "...but perhaps I'll read it today."
He smiled at this and nodded, going back to stamping books. His smile comforted her, much like the smile of a proud grandfather.
"What's your name?" she found herself asking suddenly. She figured that the library would be a good resource for the foreseeable future, and he seemed to be a very eager to help individual. Even if she couldn't reveal the truth of her research, she could at the very least make a friend.
He seemed a bit caught off guard by the question and hesitated slightly, and she almost felt sorry, although she wasn't quite sure for what. After a brief second though, he smiled again and quickly replied "Stamper!"
Twilight almost giggled, partially because of the name itself, but also because he used a rather lighthearted and frankly silly tone to announce it. "Nice to meet you, Stamper! I'm Twilight Sparkle," she said with a smile.
"Oh, Everyone in the empire knows you, princess!" Stamper said with a slight bow, then nodded to her. "Now nobody's checked out any history books today, it'll all be back there for ya!" he announced before returning to stamping.
As she headed back, she glanced to try and see his mark, but found it obstructed by his brown saddlebag. She glanced consiously at her own. It was partially covering her own mark. She shook her head and adjusted the bag as she trotted back to the history section. She had some research to do...
Twilight closed up the final book and sighed, looking over the notes she had taken covertly. She decided to review the major points and hopefully get a better understanding of what she could take away from this research session.
She had numerous points across a few papers, and she read each carefully, starting from the beginning.
-In earlier volumes of history texts, there was quite a bit of content on the original three founders of Equestria, the three celebrated in Hearths Warming festivals. Then, suddenly and unexplainable, later volumes just stop talking about them. There are brief mentions here and there, but nothing in detail. Their lives shortly after Equestria's establishment are left unexplained.
-The final books on Sombra still fail to describe a mark. Not even a hint as to what mark he had. If he had one at all, she thought briefly, then wrote in a small notation "blank?" as a reminder of this thought.
-The most compelling find was a very short phrase in one of the oldest textbooks, and it was found near the very end. She had copied it word for word, and it read as follows:
"Thus our ancestors formed our society, long before the modern age of the Branded peoples of this great land."
She was very curious what branded meant in that context. She could find no other reference to the term in any other books present in the library.
Twilight sighed and placed all of the books back on the shelf, before rolling up her notes and placing them into her saddlebag.
She sighed and saw only one book remaining: the Foal and the Fountain. Twilight glanced up to look at Stamper at the front desk, kindly smiling as he stamped books and hummed what sounded like a very old tune.
The princess levitated the book in front of her, and given the lack of major sources right now, decided to open and begin reading...