Azure Edge

by Leaf Blade

08. The Librarian's Son

Twilight Sparkle was about halfway to pacing a groove into the wooden floor of the library.

It was early in the morning, one of the only mornings she can even recall where she woke up before Spike, though that had more to do with the fact that she had hardly slept during the night.

She slept soundly enough on the library floor for a couple of hours, but it wasn’t long until the brittle feel of the hardwood under her body forced her to get up and head to bed, but she never made it to the bed before her mind started racing at a pace too fast to allow her to get back to sleep.

How could she be so foolish? She didn’t set any time for Rainbow Dash to come back! For all she knew, Rainbow could already be on her way, or waiting until the wee hours of the night, or drop by in the afternoon, or dusk, or late morning, or noon hour, or—well, she had no idea and no way of knowing!

How could the ordinarily so organized and scheduled Twilight Sparkle have overlooked such an obvious detail!? It was shameful!

And now, she had nothing to do but wait anxiously for Rainbow to arrive, because she couldn’t focus on anything else! She certainly hadn’t for the last several hours she had spent pacing!

Oh no, what if Rainbow didn’t come back at all?! What if she decided she didn’t want to see Twilight again? Or what if she got hurt? Or what if something else came up?

Twilight had no way to know and no way to find out, and to make matters worse she was starting to come down with a splitting headache for some reason! Real good timing for that to happen!

“Twilight?”

Spike’s sleepy voice as he descended the stairs snapped Twilight from her trance, and she smiled at the little purple pegasus with the adorable little tuft of green hair, and his little dragon doll that kept guard over him while he slept.

“Sorry, Spike,” she said bashfully, “did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Spike yawned as he plopped himself onto the reception desk, and he tilted his head as he saw the worn hoof tracks all along Twilight’s pacing route. “Uh, is something the matter? Looks like you’ve done a number on the library, and you never get up before me!”

“Oh, Spike!” Twilight ran to her son and grabbed him into a tight hug, holding onto the poor boy as if she were a drowning woman clinging to a piece of flotsam. “It’s just awful!”

“What, what’s the matter?” Spike asked in alarm.

“I made a new friend!” Twilight backed away from Spike and sheepishly twiddled her fingers. “At least, I think I made a friend! I don’t even know!”

“Uh, that sounds awful?” Spike fluttered his wings behind him and tapped his fingers against the edge of the desk, a sign that he was becoming anxious with Twilight dancing around the real issue.

“You don’t understand, Spike!” Twilight pleaded.

“I don’t!” Spike said. “You haven’t told me anything yet!”

“I didn’t make a schedule!”

Spike slapped his forehead, and slowly dragged his hand down his face.

“That’s what this is about?” he asked drolly, arching an eyebrow at his mother, whose eyes were darting around at the walls like she was afraid they would close in on her.

“She said she would come over again today,” Twilight explained, “but she didn’t say when, and I foolishly forgot to set a time for her to come back! So now I have nothing to do but freak out until she gets here! IF she gets here! She might not! Who knows!”

“Twilight, it’s gonna be okay,” Spike patted the desk, inviting Twilight to sit beside him, which she did but she was still trembling.

Spike grabbed his mother’s jittery hand with both of his, though he quickly took one back for a moment in order to grab his dragon protector, and put it in Twilight’s lap, a gesture which melted her heart.

“People don’t just say they’re gonna do things, and then not do them,” Spike said.

“You’re right, Spike,” Twilight took a deep breath. “You’re right.”

She groaned dismally, her cheeks burning up as it dawned on her what a fool she was making of herself, and the sight of her tracks in the hardwood only painted her cheeks a brighter red. She put her arm around Spike’s shoulder and held him close to her, taking his little dragon friend in her other hand.

“Thank you, Spike,” she said with an embarrassed sigh, “and I’m sorry, you really shouldn’t have to talk your own mother off a cliff.”

“If I ever needed talking off a cliff,” Spike said proudly, “you’d be there for me!”

“In a heartbeat.”

“So why shouldn’t I help you when you need help?”

“You are too sweet,” Twilight nuzzled her son and delighted in hearing his little snort of affection. “Who raised you? They must’ve done an amazing job!”

“My mom did!” Spike booped Twilight on the nose. “And she’s alright, I guess.”

Spike wasn’t the only one capable of an affectionate snort, but Twilight’s came at the cost of her cheeks burning up again. Spike’s laugh made it better though.

“Well I guess that it’s time for you to get dressed,” Twilight hopped off the desk and gave Spike a kiss on the forehead. “You’re still in your pajamas!”

“So are you!”

Twilight looked at herself and realized she had indeed been wearing her extremely cool and not embarrassing at all star and moon pattern pajamas, and she remembered that was as far as she got to bed before her brained mutinied.

“R-right,” Twilight gently squeezed the back of her neck. “Okay, so I should get dressed, but you first.”

“Okay,” Spike said, “but first you gotta tell me about your new friend!”

“Oh.”

A knot formed in Twilight’s stomach, like a gong radiating outwards form her core.

Twilight had a fear of the Celestial Slayers that was justified by witnessing the cruelties they were capable of, but Spike had only Twilight’s stories and his own imagination to go off of, which just escalated his fear of them.

How could she tell Spike that she let a Slayer into the library? How would he react? No, scratch that, Twilight knew exactly how he would react; he would jump to his feet and proclaim that he would defend Twilight from the deadly monster, puffing up his chest even as his legs shook underneath him.

It would be adorable, but it would just lead Twilight to have to explain that he couldn’t protect her from them, and was she ready to have that conversation?

It didn’t matter. Twilight promised from the day she adopted Spike as her own, that her relationship with him would be built on a foundation of honesty. She couldn’t keep the truth from him, even if she desperately wanted to.

“Spike,” Twilight took a deep breath, and she could tell that Spike noticed her sudden change in demeanor, “my new friend is a Slayer.”

“What?!” Spike grit his teeth and jumped to his hooves, puffing up his chest and stomping forward. “Don’t worry, Twilight! I’ll protect you from—“

“Thank you, Spike,” Twilight held back a laugh and got on her knees, putting her hands on Spike’s shoulders. “I want you to know, that I would never let anyone in the library who I thought could hurt you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about!” Spike huffed, and Twilight averted her eyes, knowing that Spike had no patience for Twilight’s selflessness.

Twilight sighed. “I won’t let anyone hurt me either. I promise.”

“But,” Spike bit his lip and Twilight’s heart broke as she saw him fighting back tears, “you said she was a Slayer! They’re dangerous, Twilight! We can’t let them—”

“Ssh,” Twilight wrapped Spike in her arms and massaged his back, “it’s okay. No one’s gonna hurt us. I know, that you’ve never heard anything but horror stories of the Celestial Slayers. But they aren’t all like that. No group is a monolith.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Spike sniffled.

“It means they’re not all the same,” Twilight smiled at Spike and pressed her thumb against his cheek, wiping away tears even as he tried to fidget away from her. “We didn’t come to Equestria to live in fear, right?”

Spike huffed and crossed his arms, and although he was trying to put on a tough-guy face, Twilight could see he was still ready to cry again.

“Spike?” Twilight bore a catlike grin as she gently prodded him in the arm. “Did we come to Equestria to live in fear?”

“No,” Spike mumbled.

“So we need to be brave,” Twilight stood up, but not before ruffling through Spike’s hair. “And we need to trust our instincts, and my instinct says that Rainbow Dash is a good person.”

Spike still didn’t seem convinced. Twilight put her hands on her knees and bent down, softly poking him in the forehead to get him to look at her.

“You trust me?” she said.

Spike took a deep breath and, though he did so with a quivering lip, said “I trust you.”

“That’s my boy,” Twilight scooped Spike up into her arms, picking him up and hugging him so tight like he was the only source of light in a pitch dark library. As she put him back down, she said “Now go get dressed, okay?”

Before Spike could answer, a knock at the door startled both mother and son, causing her to jump—practically out of her skin—and him to hide behind her and grip her leg for dear life.

Twilight cautioned Spike to stay put, the little pony hiding behind the reception desk, and Twilight inched toward the door, cursing her jumpiness as another knock made her heart nearly leap into her throat.

Once she was close enough for a simple spell to allow her to see through the wall, she breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized the familiar face, only for the adrenaline to start pouring through her body as she realized that her new friend was here.

“It’s her!” Twilight’s voice did nothing to hide her excitement. She turned to the reception desk, huge grin on her face, and saw Spike just barely poking his head out behind it.

“Your new ‘friend’?” Spike’s voice did nothing to hide his contempt. Twilight nodded and gave Spike a sad sigh, and Spike just rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna go get dressed.”

He jumped toward the stairs and started to head up, but stopped cold and stared at Twilight, who stared back at him.

“Promise me one more time that you’re gonna be okay,” Spike said, as deadly serious as a child could be.

“I promise,” Twilight said, mirroring every ounce of Spike’s serious attitude, “we will be okay.”

Spike nodded hesitantly and hurried up the stairs, and Twilight drew her breath as she approached the door.

Twilight took in another deep breath which was released in a haggard wheeze as another knock at the door— that she was now standing right in front of— knocked the wind out of her.

On instinct, she grabbed the knob and swung the door open, lurching forward and slamming her nose right into Rainbow Dash’s fist as she prepared to knock again.

“Aaaaowwww,” Twilight whined pitiably as she grabbed hold of her nose and stumbled back.

“Are you okay?” Rainbow asked, stepping forward and reaching a hand out to grab Twilight’s arm, though the librarian quickly lurched away from her and put on a strained smile.

“Yep!” she said. “If you don’t start your morning getting punched in the nose, can you honestly say you’re really living?”

Rainbow laughed and held out her hand. “Sorry about that.”

Twilight clasped Rainbow’s hand and most of her anxiety disappeared, replaced with new, unrelated anxiety as now she had to hold a conversation with her new friend and not screw it up somehow.

“Okay, look,” Rainbow scratched the side of her neck and tilted her head just barely away from Twilight, gazing at the ceiling with her peripherals, “I know it’s super early and you’re probably closed, so like I’m sorry for coming this early, but I hardly slept at all cuz I was reading this book-“

Rainbow pulled the Daring Do book out from her bag and handed it to Twilight.

“-and I was really lowkey excited about coming back—okay, I was kinda highkey excited cuz I wanted to talk to you about the book and maybe read some more of these books and talk to you about them and I know that’s super dumb but I just—“

Twilight clamped Rainbow’s mouth shut with her magic, and Rainbow bashfully rubbed the back of her neck.

“It’s good to see you too, Rainbow,” Twilight said with a bright smile, her anxiety all but faded away as she realized Rainbow was just as nervous as she was.

“Yeah,” Rainbow smirked shyly, and Twilight pretended to ignore that her cheeks were as red as the streak in her mane, “good to see you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Rainbow was silent for a moment as she looked Twilight up and down. She smiled ear to ear and her eyes glittered.

“Those are really cool pajamas!”

Twilight looked at herself and laughed. As she walked toward the reception desk, beckoning Rainbow to follow her, she knew she had no more reason to fear Rainbow than she had to fear herself.

“Welcome to the library,” Twilight said with a bright, tender smile, “make yourself at home, Rainbow Dash.”

Author's Note:

a wild spike appears

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.

Comments

[True Edge]

Ah . . . Interesting. Hmmm . . . If Spike be not a dragon in this world, then what, I wonder, has led to Twilight’s fear of the Slayers?

[Xanni]

"the only mornings she can even recall" - tense change again! Should be "could even recall".

"She slept soundly enough on the library floor for a couple of hours, but it wasn’t long until the brittle feel of the hardwood under her body forced her to get up and head to bed, but she never made it to the bed before her mind started racing at a pace too fast to allow her to get back to sleep." - two "buts" makes the sentence unwieldy. Can this be split into two or rephrased?

Also, is hardwood really "brittle"? That seems unlikely unless it's been damaged in some way. Usually hardwood is very robust. Maybe just take out the extraneous adjective and write "the feel of the hardwood under her body"?

[Leaf Blade]

10126212
you are technically correct about alot of these things being typos, but most of the stuff ur pointing out (especially the tense changes!) are actually stylistic choices on my part. maybe not the correct choices, but still choices i made on purpose and that i stand behind