Grounded for Life

by Supremechief

Chapter 4: That Book Should Not Exist

Grounded for Life
By Supremechief

Reviewed by TP-Night

Chapter 4: That Book Should Not Exist

***

The events of last night had gone rather smoothly even after Steelbolt’s father learned of what Steelbolt had done that afternoon after dinner. But like Nightingale, Paragrim agreed that a sincere apology was all that was required. The following morning both Paragrim and Nightingale acted as escorts for Steelbolt to ensure that he gave an appropriate apology to the brothers as Paragrim carried Steelbolt on his back.

When they arrived at the Storm Brother’s residence the two adult pegasi nudged their colt towards the door encouraging him to knock on it. After Steelbolt had knocked on the door it opened and revealed an adult mare with a light grey coat and hazel brown eyes with a short white wavy mane and a long wavy white tail and had a hurricane cloud for a cutie mark.

Seeing that her son was hesitant to start, Nightingale decided to begin the introductions. “Hello. You must be Blitz Strike and Rai Boom’s mother. I’m Nightingale, this is my son Steelbolt and my husband Paragrim” she said while she directed the other mare on who is who with her hoof.

“Katrina.” The grey mare relied showing little interest or hospitality to Steelbolt’s family.

Nightingale continued to smile and act friendly as she explains their business. “You may have already heard already that our colts having a “disagreement” yesterday and my son here would like to apologize to your colts for his actions.”

Katrina called for Blitz and Rai to come to the door so that Steelbolt can apologize to them. The apology started out smoothly as Steelbolt apologized to Blitz and Rai about attacking them the other day. Things would have continued to go smoothly, that was if Katrina had not started to berate Steelbolt for attacking her sons for no good reason. After that, there was an intense argument from all three adults as they defended their respective colts with Nightingale and Paragrim calling out on the brothers for bullying Steelbolt for a long time while Katrina went on about how Steelbolt was dangerous with his bad temper. Things got even more intense when Paragrim and Nightingale demand compensation for the book that the brother stole from Steelbolt and tossed out. While Steelbolt’s parents insist that Katrina should take responsibility for her colts’ actions like they have by making Steelbolt apologize, the grey mare accused them of lying about the existence of the book in order to scam her out of some bits. The fight lasted for a few minutes until Katrina closed the door in Paragrim and Nightingale’s face.

“That mare, calling us bad parents.” Paragrim grumbled as he stomped into the cloud in frustration. “At least we are responsible enough to admit that our kids made an error and go through the effort to correct it.” Paragrim said as he lowered himself to let Steelbolt climb on his back.

“Well we finished what we came here for. Let’s go to the nearest book store and try to find a new copy for Steelbolt as promised.” said Nightingale as she prepares to take off.

***

“What do you mean you don’t have it?!” Nightingale exclaimed at the shop owner.

Nightingale, Paragrim and Steelbolt had arrived at the book store about ten minute ago and began to look for a new copy of “Stories of Capalltalamh”. They looked at the children section, then mythology, fictional, inspirational but found nothing even though those to be the most likely genre the book would me under. When they gave up searching for the book on their own they decided to ask the shop owner Mr. Romanzo, a red pegaus stallion with an open book for a cutie mark, if he could look at his shop’s inventory and see if he had a copy on the shelf or has any more arriving. Romanzo was more than willing to help after hearing their story of how their son’s favourite book was stolen and lost. He understood the value of books like an actual librarian and shared this with others by making himself known for being able to acquire any book under the sun by title as a special order if he did not have it in stock. When his search came up empty handed Nightingale’s reaction was a mix of surprise and panic.

“I’ve checked my own incoming orders and even checked with the list of all available books that anypony can get.” the red stallion pegasus tried to explain to the disbelieving white mare. “I’m sorry to say this Mrs. Nightingale but my guess that the reason that I can’t get that particular book for you or your son is because they have not printed a copy in ages and no new ones are coming off the press anytime soon.”

“I’m sorry son but it looks like the book you had may have been the last one in existence.” Ramanzo said as he tried to comfort Steelbolt as he looked down to the floor of the shop with his ears flopped down.

“Come along Steelbolt, let’s go home.” Paragrim nudged at his son with his muzzle as they left the shop. All three of them were feeling down in various degrees as each of them had hoped that Steelbolt would be able to get a new book and move on like yesterday’s events never happened.

***

For most of the day Steelbolt had remained in his room while his mother took over for Vetrini who was taking care of patients during their absence after he and his parents had returned from their failed search for a replacement for his favourite book. The only time he had come out was either to have lunch or use the restroom. Even when Mihawk came in and settled on his perch in the room Steelbolt paid no attention to his new pet even when the little hawk screeched in his ear. For what seemed to be hours he just sat at his desk looking at his drawings of what he thought his flight suit could look like. Unlike last night, he lacked the inspiration to come up with solutions to decipher the clues he had come across already.

It was perhaps late into the afternoon when he heard knocking at the front door. Paragrim answered the door and called out for Steelbolt saying that there was a mare looking for him. Steelbolt came out of his room and inside the house’s guest lounge was a cyan coated rainbow mane pegasus mare. While Paragrim tried to show hospitality by offering tea, the cyan mare refused although a bit rudely saying she was only here on business and had no intention of a long stay.

When the mare saw Steelbolt he saw that on her face she did not come here from her own desire but rather because to was told to. “So, your Steelbolt correct?” she asked the light blue colt before her without breaking a smile. Steelbolt only nodded as the cyan mare reached into her own saddle bag, “I believe I have something that is your.” and pulled out a familiar object, a large book with a familiar title.

Steelbolt could not restrain his excitement as he saw the book. He jumped and swiped it from the cyan mare as she held it in her hoof. He gently ran his own hoof across the title of the book, “The Stories of Capalltalamh” and gave the largest smile as he could make. It returned to him, his favourite book and best lead to his dreams had made its way back to him. To top it all off the book even looked better than it did the day the Storm Brothers tossed it out. He looked up to the mare and said, “Thank you Miss…?” as he hinted that he still did not know her name.

“Dash, Rainbow Dash.” the cyan mare said as she put a hoof to her chest acting like she was a big celebrity.

“Well Miss Dash,” Paragrim started as he approached the mare to offer his thanks as well. “Would be alright for you tell us how you came across this book and how you knew it belonged to my son?” He asked polity knowing that the Rainbow had no intention of extending her stay.

“First off I didn’t find it, my friend Pinkie Pie did. Secondly your name and address was written inside the cover”

True enough Steelbolt looked inside of his book and there was his name and address written on a sticker that read “If found please return to Steelbolt at Cloudsdale’s Northwestern district.” The blue colt face had grown red with embarrassment as he should have remembered that his mother told him to put the sticker inside of his book when he first got it for a situation like this.

“Okay, but still how did you, I mean your friend find it?” Paragrim asked Rainbow Dash a second time.

“Alright then.” Rainbow said with a sigh. Clearly she was not going to allowed leaving without answering some questions. “According to Pinkie she was just going around town getting some party supplies…”

***

“Okay, got balloons, streamers, confetti, what’s next on the list?” Pinkie Pie looks at her list of party supplies for an upcoming birthday party for a filly. Her eyes widened at the next item as it was one of her favourites to have at such an occasion. “The piñata! A party with this many guests has got have one of those.” She placed the list inside her saddle bag as she made her way to the next shop to place an order for the piñata. “Now what kind of piñata should I get? A rainbow? Perhaps a nice flower. Oh! Or maybe even a large cake shaped one.” She said with a smile.

It was then she saw the mail pony going around town making his midday rounds delivering packages and letters to each of the town’s residents. As he pulled out a packaged box from his large mail satchel, Pinkie noticed that something else fell out of it. The mail pony had failed to notice it as he began to walk over to the next house as if nothing happened. Pinkie went over to the item and inspected it. It was an old book. Not only that, but what made it interesting was that it had no package wrapping on it nor any mailing address and postage stamp on it. “This book probably belongs to the mail pony.” Pinkie told herself. “I bet that he plans to read it when he finishes his deliveries.” Pinkie said as she glances up to locate the mail pony making sure that she did not lose him.

Picking up the book with her mouth Pinkie made her way towards the mail pony just as he placed a bundle of letters into the mail box. “Excuse me sir I believe you dropped your book.” Pinkie extended her hoof offering the book back to the mail pony.

The mail pony looked at the book Pinkie was holding looking rather puzzled. “Sorry miss, but this isn’t my book.” The mail pony said as he turned away to continue his route.

“Wait!” Pinkie called out to the mail pony again making him stop in his track with a look of slight annoyance on his face. “If it’s not yours, do you know who it belongs to?”

“Again I’m sorry Miss, but this book is not mine and I don’t know who it belongs to. For all I care it’s yours now.” And with that last statement the mail pony continued his route with an increase in his pace as to get away from Pinkie Pie before she could distract him from his job again.

Pinkie Pie looked at the book again with a sad look on her face. “Aww, I can’t keep this book when it could belong to somepony else.” She lifted the front cover of the book and saw a sticker inside. There she saw a name and an address to a pony from Cloudsdale. “I bet this pony is sad when he finds it missing and knowing that somepony is sad makes Pinkie sad too.” Pinkie said with a sadder look as her hair deflates a bit like a balloon. “So to make Pinkie no longer sad I must make the owner of this book happy which will make Pinkie happy by returning it to sad pony.” She said with a determined smile as her hair re-inflated.

As she was about to place the book into her saddle bag along with her party supplies she notices a few pages were falling out of the book. Apparently from being tossed around through the mail service, the book had become damaged with a bent cover and a broken spine along with the pages falling off. “Oh no, I can’t return this book to the sad pony like this.” Pinkie said as she picked up the fallen pages and placed them and the rest of the book in her saddle for safekeeping. “Maybe Twilight can help because Pinkie does not sad pony to become happy pony when his lost book returns to him only to become sad again when happy pony finds his book broken.” Once the book was safely inside of her saddle bag Pinkie began to make her way to Twilight’s library to ask for her friend’s help.

***

Twilight was at her library reading on some new spell books she received from Princess Celestia. After finishing her book she called out for her number one assistant, “Spike, can you return this book to where we keep the other spell books?”

“No problem Twilight.” said the purple baby dragon as he was standing on a ladder organizing the shelves.

The purple unicorn’s horn began to glow with the same magical aura that was now surrounding her finished book as it levitated and floated towards spike. He was about to place the book in its place when a familiar hyper active pink mare burst through the front door. “Hey Twilight!” Pinkie shouted happily.

“Ahhh!” screamed the baby dragon as he fell of his ladder

“Oops. Sorry Spike. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The pink mare apologized as she walked in.

“Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed at the sudden appearance of one of her best friends. “What are you doing here?” Twilight wondered as her pink friend bounced happily towards her.

“Oh I was hoping you can help me with something to make a sad pony a happy pony.” Pinkie said with her usual happy smile.

“Really?” Twilight said puzzled. How could she help to make somepony happy? Being the Element of Laughter, that was more of Pinkie’s speciality. “How can I help?”

“I was just wondering if you can fix this.” Pinkie reached into her saddle bag and handed the broken old book to Twilight.

“You just need me to fix this?” Twilight asked

“Yes a Rooney.” Pinkie cheered as she put on a large smile

Twilight was still unsure where her friend was going with this but she complied. “Well, lucky for us the Princess taught me a restoration spell while I was still a filly. She it taught me when Spike knocked over and broke a small marble statue when he was wondering around the castle halls when I turned my back on him for a moment.”

“Yeah, talk about an accident that turned into a great opportunity.” Spike added know back on his feet while a bit embarrassed about the memory.

Twilight then began to focus her magic into the broken book as her horn and the book began to glow with the same lavender aura. Slowly the covers of the book began to straighten out as the spine regained its stiffness. Then the fallen pages floated beside the book and inserted themselves back into their proper places and re-sown back to the book’s spine.

It was over in a few minutes then Twilight looked at the repaired front cover of the book with an intrigued look. ““Stories of Capalltalamh” hmm.” The unicorn said to herself as she analysed the design of the books cover. It was dark green with what appears to be a series of hoof carved vines etched into the cover with the title itself written in an almost pre-medieval style. She then opened the first page to where the publishing information was written. “Sweet Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed in excitement.

“What’s up Twi?” asked Spike concerned for his friend

“Yeah Twilight tell us!” Pinkie said as she started to bounce around the room.

“Pinkie, tell me again how you found this book?”

“Okay.” Pinkie took a deep breath before continuing. “I was out getting party supplies for an upcoming filly’s birthday party and I was just about to decide what kind of piñata to get for the party when I noticed this book when it fell out of a mail pony’s mail bag. I tried to return it to him but he said it wasn’t his and told me to keep it. Then I looked inside the book, learned who it belonged to then I brought it here for you to fix it before I return it.” Pinkie explained while re-enacting the events. “Why?”

“Because this book is nearly three hundred years old!” Twilight explained to her friends. Pinkie and Spike just gave her a blank stare occasionally blinking their eyes. Twilight groaned as she saw that her friends still did not get the significance of the book. “Any book that was published over fifty years ago and is no longer being printed gains a vintage status and becomes a collectable. But this book is almost six times as old and seeing it still intact while still open to the public is a miracle as any of its few remaining copies would have been stored in the royal archives for preservation or in a glass case of a private collector.”

“Ohhh.” Spike said after understanding why Twilight was getting worked up over the old book. Of course Twilight, being a big time bookworm, would get excited about the book. To her it was like she found a lost giant ruby. That last thought made Spike’s stomach growl a bit.

“I still don’t get it.” Pinkie said while raising a hoof in the air.

“Oh I give up.” Twilight said. “No use trying to tell Pinkie Pie the importance of an old book when perhaps the only thing going through her head are parties and sweets” she thought.

“So if were done here can I have it back?” Pinkie asked while she held her hoof out waiting for Twilight to return the book back to her.

“Are you crazy?! This book needs to be preserved. We can’t just let any pony have it just so they can ruin it again.” The purple unicorn exclaimed while now holding the book tightly in her forelegs. “They may have stopped printing copies of this book for over a century!”

“Aww, come on Twilight.” Pinkie began with a sadden look on her face. “Some sad pony must be missing this book, and might even be super-duper sad about losing it!! And knowing that somepony is super-duper sad makes me super-duper sad too!”

“Yeah Twilight, stop being selfish and give the book back to Pinkie so she can return it.” Spike said giving a serious stare while having his arms crossed.

Twilight resisted a bit before relenting. “Okay, sorry Pinkie.” she said as used her magic to give the book to Pinkie.

“It’s okay Twilight.” Pinkie said to her friend. “If it were a vintage cake in that fell out of the bag I would want to keep it for myself too.” She said with a smile as Twilight rolled her eyes as Pinkie was just being her optimistic clueless self with perhaps no idea what “vintage” really mean.

“Hey Pinkie, how do you plan on getting to book back to its owner anyway?” Twilight asked while thinking about the given address of the books owner. “Cloudsdale isn’t exactly a train ride away.”

“Simple, I’ll just ask Rainbow Dash for a favour.” Pinkie said as she made her way to the door.

“But do you even know where she is right now?” Spike asked as he tried to chase after the pink mare.

“Of course. She’s right over there.” Pinkie pointed towards a cloud not far from the library and sure enough there was Rainbow Dash taking her midday nap.

***

“So then Pinkie woke me up from my nap and asked me to make this delivery.” Rainbow concluded her story not wanting to go over the details of how Pinkie chased her for almost half hour. Rainbow felt a bit embarrassed about it since she should have known better than try to avoid Pinkie when she was asking for a favour. “Does that mare even know the meaning of give up?” she thought to herself.

“Great story Miss Dash.” Steelbolt said with a smile on his face while he still held onto his book close to his chest. “Thanks again for bringing my book back.”

“Sure thing kid. Now if you don’t mind I would like to get back home to Ponyville.” Rainbow began to make her way to the door when Steelbolt walked up to her again. “What is it this time?” She asked a bit annoyed.

“Umm, if it’s not too much trouble, could you tell your fiends Twilight and Pinkie that I said thank you for finding and fixing my book?” Steelbolt asked nervously with his ears flopped down giving him a bit of a cute appearance.

Rainbow smiled as she lifted up her hoof and gave the colt a light pat on the head, “Sure thing kid.” Once she was outside Rainbow took off and began to make her way back to Ponyville.

Steelbolt looked at his book again and began to think about his attachment to it. He freaked out when he found it missing, he attacked two of his classmates when they tossed it away, and fell into depression when he thought it was gone for good. He went through a lot of problems involving this book and in such a short amount of time.

Steelbolt stared at his book for another moment with uncertainty when Mihawk landed on the book and gave Steelbolt an intensive stare. Paragrim smiled to himself a bit before he spoke to Steelbolt. “I believe Mihawk wants you to put that book down and start paying some attention to him. I can tell as well that you’ve been thinking about that book all day and hardly anything else. Take a break from it and go spend some time with your little friend, you can use the fresh air after locking yourself in your room all afternoon.”

The colt smiled as he petted the baby hawk, “Your right Mihawk, I’ve been too focused on this book for too long. What say you and I take a walk around the neighbourhood, or in your case fly?” Steelbolt said. "I know that’s probably not what you’re thinking but it helps to pretend that you do.” Steelbolt thought to himself about talking to his pet.

The two went back to Steelbolt’s room where de placed his book on his desk in his room with care and made his way to the front yard to with Mihawk. Looking at Celestia’s sun halfway in the sky Steelbolt guessed that they have about an hour or two until dinner time. “What say you and I have a game of tag at the park?” he asked to hawk. The small bird screeched as it took off into the direction of the park with as fast as it can fly. “Fine then, I guess it’s a game of tag after a race to the park.” A smile appeared on Steelbolt’s face as he chased after his pet. Although he intended to get back to his project, he was just going to enjoy playing with his pet and enjoy life like he should for the rest of the day.

Author's Note:

Romanzo is the Italian word for Novel

just so the reader understands the time period of this story, these events are occurring during season one.