Amber Starts, Comforting Endings

by David Silver

16 - You Win

"Excuse me?" The young voice pulled Amber's attention. "Do you have books for foals?"

Amber glanced around the shelves for a moment before locking eyes on a little filly. "We have quite a few." She lowered herself to be closer to the foal's level. "What kind are you looking for? Something cheerful, something adventurous? There are so many kinds."

The filly grinned with excitement. "Adventurous!"

"Hmm." Amber stroked her chin, pretending to think. "I just happen to know where one is." She got up, extending a hoof to the little one. They met with a gentle clop and Amber led the foal towards the fantasy section, specifically to where some foal-grade books resided within. "I would say that one right there." She tapped a free hoof on a book's spine. "You—"

She didn't get to finish, the filly having pounced the book and started to flip through it quickly. "Wow! This looks amazing." She held the book up. "Thanks! Uh, you are?"

Amber reached up, pointing to a little golden name tag on her chest. "That says Amber, your friendly librarian." She guided the filly towards the front desk. "Let's get you checked out so you can enjoy that book at home. Then all you have to do is enjoy yourself and bring it back within the week." She dug out her phone. "If you get the city library app, you can ask for more time with it, and not even have to come back until you want to." She showed the app.

The foal touched her phone to Amber's, causing the app to jump into hers. "Thanks!" She raced off to that desk to check out her new book.

Comforting casually pet Amber once down the back without warning, which Amber seemed to somehow expect, or at least she didn't jump with shock. "Are you proud?"

Amber leaned against her unusual friend. "Very. I only have one complaint, and it's not even a big one."

"Do tell." Comforting plucked up Amber in a warm hug, nuzzling against her with an almost purr. "I'm listening."

"This is lovely, fantastic." She waved with each word. "It's everything I want, which is the problem. Did I win life? Is this the very top? I'm not an old pony yet. There has to be more for me to climb, but I feel so happy when I look at all this. So I feel like there should be more for me to reach for, but also very happy with what I have. Is that normal? Am I being a bad pony?"

It was at that moment that Comforting reconsidered her own actions. "Oh." She put Amber down gently. "I thought I had this worked out."

Amber blinked at the sudden lack of verve in Comforting. "What's wrong? I thought I was the one being all strange. You didn't do anything."

"Now that's not true." Comforting tapped Amber on the end of her nose. "I did a lot of little things, what seemed like tiny things, but, looking back, they were huge things. I picked your cute little self up and carried you right past a dozen things that might have taken you years, if ever you were going to get past them."

"Thanks?" Amber rubbed at her cheek gently. "That doesn't feel nice. I thought I was trying too?"

"You were! You were." Comforting nuzzled at the same cheek, half-tackling Amber to the ground and flopping with her. "Sorry, I'm not trying to even kinda imply you weren't. But I was right behind you, pushing you along so fast, you didn't even notice you'd reached a finish line that you'd barely started running towards and that's all on me. That's my fault."

"Excuse me." A stallion stood next to the two, looking down at them in their playful struggle. "I was looking for the head librarian?"

Amber squeaked, extricating herself up to her hooves in a hurry. "Yes, that's me. How can I help?"

Comforting left them to chat, rubbing her own chin thoughtfully. "Messed that up, so hard. It was supposed to be so easy, so simple. Amber was just a kind little pony, so cute and ready to learn. She just needed some guidance, a little help, and I messed that up so bad." She snapped her fingers in frustration. "There has to be a better way. There just has to be."

Comforting settled down into the water, pondering over the issue. "We've avoided the test." She started at that. "Avoided the test. That's it!" She stood up in the bath so quickly water sprayed in all directions. "I need to give her a test or three. She's unstimulated. She's at the top, so she needs something to threaten to push her, so she can appreciate it."

With a cocky smile, she stepped through her room, nodding at the statues of her long-passed friends along the way. "You all faced countless tests. I was a ninny for shielding Amber from them, when I should be making them. What kind of universal force am I?" She snorted at that. "A chaotic one." Chaos felt like a fine reason to mess up once in a while.

Settling onto her bed, she began to doze as she thought. "First test, the simple one. The obvious one. One that is both simple and obvious." She reached over to her nightstand, taking up a mirror and checking her teeth. "A friendship problem? Ooo, maybe a responsibility test." She rolled over onto her belly. "She is the head librarian. That has a lot of responsibilities." She kicked her legs behind and above her. "A responsibility test or two would be fitting."

Giggling to herself with wild ideas of how the red tape of the city, or needy library goers, could bring twists and turns to Amber's life played in her mind. "Ugh." But she was also working at that library, and loved Amber. She didn't want to see Amber suffering. "It's for her own good! Ugh, this is why Together kept a distance from her ponies."

A soft chime played only she could hear. An email had arrived. Comforting almost reached for it in her vision before she dug out her phone instead. "Get with the times," she chastised herself, pressing the email button on the phone instead.

From [e-mail]. It was a single message from Together, who had been out of contact since Misty had run off. It read simply, 'Here.'

Comforting had to blink twice at that. "Here?" Comforting tapped at her cheek as she sat up, then floated into the air. "Here? That could mean anything, or nothing. She hit the reply button. "Also here, also sending love. Was that an odd way of gloating?"

She sent that off to Together and continued drifting along. She couldn't help but wonder, did that mean that she'd failed, and it was time for Together to do the job, and take care of Amber, or had it all worked out according to her plan.

Comforting's thoughts turned back to her plans. "Okay, still planning this test out. We need something simple, and something stressful, but something she can do." She let out a tense breath. "Together hasn't told me I'm off the case, so I'm not, yet. I can still recover!" She vanished from her pocket realm back to the library and looked around from where she floated near the ceiling, invisible and unnoticed. "One of you is about to be a problem." She glanced from one pony to the next.

At one table, a pair of older mares were chatting, laughing at jokes, and passing pictures back and forth. At another, a filly was reading through a series of picture books. Around the corner, a larger group, and she couldn't quite make out what was going on, but they looked like they were enjoying themselves. "Those don't seem right, but what about those?" She moved over to where Amber was helping a young unicorn put a book on hold, typing up the request and clicking submit.

"You can see it in your account tomorrow. Have a nice day, little one."

"Thank you! See you later." The filly joyfully fled from the library.

Amber giggled as she watched the little filly go. "I love seeing that sort of thing, and I get to do it every day."

Comforting shook her head, but a lightbulb only she could see popped into being over her a moment later. "Of course!" With a clap, a new pony arrived with a scowl on his face.

He walked right up to the counter. "Excuse me. Did you give this book to my daughter?" He slapped down a fantasy book, harmless in the eyes of most.

"I might have. Did she enjoy it?" She picked it up, tapping the cover gently. "This is one of my favorites."

Comforting zipped back to the counter in time to see Amber put the book down.

The stallion's anger only grew. "Your favorite? That explains some things. This filth should not be in the reach of any foal! Especially not my daughter. She was babbling on about a talking snake that called a bunch of weirdos its friends. Why would you show my child that?"

Amber looked at him with growing confusion. "Why wouldn't I? It's a wonderful book, about a young mare who learns that being different is what makes her special, and that all of us have our own gifts, so we should treasure one another, not judge or hurt."

"It's a depraved book." He flipped through it quickly to stomp down at a particular page. "It has two ponies giving each other—" He paused to glance around, cheeks warming. "A big kiss. How is that proper for a little foal? What life are you trying to prepare her for?! This is completely unacceptable."

Amber blinked a few times, not sure how to respond to that. "I have no idea what you're getting at. The whole point of the scene is to show that sometimes we do silly things when we're excited, but it's okay." She smiled at the father. "Sometimes, ponies kiss each other. You kissed your wife, didn't you?"

His blush only grew worse. "Not in the middle of the street," he squeaked out, trembling. "And that was hardly the only time that book went into lurid details about ponies getting all physical with each other. She's not ready for that sort of thing!"

Amber looked at the pages pointed out, which did show two ponies sharing a kiss. "I have no idea how you get any of this. It's a picture of a loving couple kissing. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but it's an important scene." She held out a hoof, moving the book back towards her. "Can we talk about this somewhere private?"

"Why?" The stallion huffed angrily. "Everypony deserves to know what downright filth is being offered here to unsuspecting foals. It could be their child next! They should know all about it. I want them to know!"

"Calm down," Amber replied, horn glowing softly. "I'm sure we can figure this out if we can just—" She winced as a small magical pulse emitted from her horn.

"How dare you try to control my mind! You're just like the rest of them, trying to warp the minds of everypony around you." With an almost trained grace, he slapped a tennis ball down on Amber's horn. "There, that'll stop you from casting any spells! No mind melting on my watch." He crossed his arms, standing up and looking smugly proud of himself for his quick thinking.

Amber stared at the tennis ball for a moment. "What the hay is this?" She flicked the ball up, a minor glow coming to her horn. "Magic? I don't think that works quite that way, but good luck, I guess."

"Oh no." A few heads turned towards the noise, wondering what was going on.

Part of Comforting wanted to hop in there, to help soothe the stallion, but it was a test. She could but watch, if she wanted growth to happen. "You have this," she whispered instead, watching the conflict.

Author's Note:

Karens come in all genders!

Join the special community of folks who like my stories and/or get your own here at atreon!

Don't want to do an ongoing thing? You could

Join my discord to chat!

Comments

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

That stallion acts all too like some people do.

[redmar]

Amber does need stimulation and Comforting should help with that. Good that she's working on it.