A Little Justice On The Side

by Autocharth

When All He Wants is Peace & Quiet

This was originally written for Nealend86, as a birthday present when he mentioned it was his birthday during our PM conversation. I asked for a prompt, he gave me two to choose from. I used both.

Enjoy!

***

Stretching his neck, Tyrael pulled down a book. He stopped on his way to the table in the middle of the library to let a purple blur shot past.

“Quills, check. Notepad, check. Spare notepad, check. Spare spare notepad, check.”

He set the book down, lowering himself to the odd sitting position most ponies used. Lifting a hoof, he began to pull the cover open.

“Copy of ‘Coping With Tough Tests & Excruciating Exams’, check.”

The book his book had been sitting on winked out of existence and his book fell, its cover falling shut. Tyrael simply reached down and opened it again.

“A map of the Canterlot university with the examination centre highlighted, check.”

A map, folding as it moved, shot past. The wind it left in its wake blew the cover from his hoof and snapped the book shut. For the second time Tyrael didn’t react. He just lowered a hoof and opened the book.

“Saddlebags, check. Bits in case of emergency, check. Notepad with subject review notes for pre-exam study, check.” Twilight declared to the world as she came to end of her checklist. Her bulging saddlebags attested to just how thorough her checklist had been. “Paladin looking after the library, check!”

At the mention of his name Tyrael looked up from the first page of his book.

Twilight smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks for looking after the library while I’m gone by the way. I really appreciate it.”

“It is no problem.” He glanced at her saddlebags. Spike had told him Twilight would likely overreact. Of course he actually said ‘Twilight is so gonna freak out’, but the point was made nonetheless. “I wish you well on your exam.”

She beamed, albeit slightly nervously, in response. “Thanks! I better be off. The train is already due in half-an-hour!” She exclaimed, referring to the train-station located a five minute walk away. “Bye!”

The door slammed behind her and the sound of galloping reached Tyrael through the open windows. This time, he did not open his book again. Instead, he began a mental timer.

‘...1...2...3...4...’

Spike came down the stairs, a backpack organised in a much less...bulgy way than Twilight’s saddlebags with him. He looked around in confusion for a few seconds.

“Twilight?” He called hesitantly.

Tyrael had reached forty-two when the door burst open.

“Spike!” The frantic mare shouted, “I’m so sorry.”

Spike’s jaw dropped opened as he realised what had happened. “You forgot me!” He accused, pointing at her with not a little hurt in his voice.

“I’m so sorry Spike!”

“You forgot all about me!”

The pair departed, Spike sitting between Twilight’s saddlebags with a scaly pout. After a minute their loud conversation – consisting mostly of Twilight saying she was sorry and Spike being upset – faded into nothingness.

Tyrael listened for another minute, enjoying the peace and quiet. With a content sigh he turned back to his book and opened it to the first page. To the universe’s credit he made it to page number two before there was another interrupted.

“Dinga linga ding dong!” A painfully familiar voice cried out. Tyrael had time to sigh in annoyance before two pies came flying through the suddenly open door.

He deflected the first pie with an unfurling wing, sending it to leave a creamy mess in a corner of the library. He made a note to clean it once this random encounter was over. The other pie, however, was not to be deterred. Because this pie was, in fact, a Pie.

Pinkie Pie.

“Hiya Pally-Waly!” The pink party pony of perilously propelled pies grinned at him. “I heard you were looking after the library while Twilight was taking her exam and thought you’d like company.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Ah.” Was all he said. His book, he decided reluctantly, was unlikely to survive long in her presence.

“Soooooo....what-cha doin’?” She asked, bouncing over and dropping her head onto the table next to his book.

Tyrael took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to convince her to leave him in peace. “Reading.” Paladin said calmly.

Pinkie nodded eagerly. “You’re looking after the library so you’re reading a book! That makes total sense, no wonder Twilight is always reading! She lives in a library.” She frowned and tapped a hoof against her chin, lifting her head off the table to do so. “But so do you, so...is this special ‘looking after the library’ reading or normal ‘living in a library’ reading?”

“...neither?” He hazarded, giving up on trying to reason his way out.

She gasped, bouncing in place. “Oh, oh, oh, I know! Me! I knooooow!” She cried, lifting a hoof up.

The bouncing continued, Pinkie beaming and looking ready to go on forever. Eventually Tyrael caught on.

“Yes, Pinkie?” The pegasus asked. This was feeling distinctly like when he had paid a visit to the school and the youths were asking questions.

To his relief she stopped bouncing. “The answer is; its super-special ‘looking after the library AND living in the library’ reading! Am I right? Huh, am I?”

“...yes...”

“Yippee! We need to celebrate!” Pinkie cheered.

An idea occurred to Tyrael. He nodded at her. “Indeed. You should go prepare. Start baking cakes. Plan decorations. How about tomorrow afternoon?” He suggested.

Pinkie was momentarily silenced by sheer excitement. “That’s a great idea! I’ll get started right away!”

It took only seconds for Pinkie to bounce out the door and into the distance. Tyrael wasted no time shutting the door in her wake and returning to his book. This time he made a point of not sighing in relief, contentment, satisfaction or giving the universe any other cues to thwart him.

The universe decided to do it anyway.

“Look out beloooooooooooooow!” His ears perked up and, with much annoyance, Tyrael looked up from page two.

A rainbow-hued comet burst in, fortunately through an open window. It was the only real blessing that he wouldn’t have to clean up broken glass...or blood. It would have been nice if Rainbow Dash hadn’t come within an inch of hitting him, and it would have been even better if she hadn’t hit the table in front of him.

Rainbow Dash bounced off the table, up onto the ceiling and back down against a bookshelf. She hit the floor in front of the bookshelf, followed shortly by several dozen books.

Tyrael gave the pile of books a look that could have curdled milk. Nevertheless he quickly moved over and began to clear the books off the fallen acrobat. It took him a few seconds before a mob of multicoloured hair became visible. With a tug of her mane Rainbow Dash came free.

She stared up at him with eyes that seemed to have been knocked loose. “It wasn’t my fault the dingo ate it!” She cried out, swaying in his grip. Her brain had apparently taken a few knocks as well, changing subject without any apparent reason. “Fluttershy’s mum said I couldn’t stay the night unless I wore it!”

“Rainbow Dash.” Tyrael’s voice was deadpan.

“She said she didn’t want to have to clean the sheets in the morning!” The loopy-pegasus whined, flailing wildly. She managed to neatly smack herself back to her senses. “Wha?”

Rainbow Dash looked at Paladin, who was watching her with an expression that distinctly lacked amusement. It took her not long at all to realise what she had been saying and her cheeks turned red.

“You didn’t hear anything!” She hissed, jumping into his face.

Paladin’s expression failed to change to one fitting an attempt of intimidation. If she was honest Rainbow wasn’t exactly expecting him to cave in just like that.

She grumbled, nostrils flaring. “Just don’t tell anypony, okay?”

“The issue of your poor bladder control as a child is of no interest to me.” He said, expression not changing in the slightest.

Rainbow’s expression went blank for a second. “Err, when I was a kid, yeah, it was definitely when I was a kid. Glad we could have this talk. Gotta dash!” Wings flaring she leapt for the window.

And came tumbling to the ground, a squeak of pain erupting from her lips. She glanced back to find Paladin’s heavy hoof holding her tail down.

“What the hay? Let go!”

He arched an eyebrow at her before looking quite deliberately to the mess of fallen books.

Dash rolled her eyes. “So I made a little mess.” She winced inwardly at the way that sounded in light of her previous deluded comments but continued on, “Mistakes happen. You’re lookin’ after the place, right, not like you’ve got much else to do.”

With a word Paladin lifted a book from where she had landed. One cover was gone, as were half the pages, and the other cover was barely hanging on.

“I was reading.”

“Oh. Woops?” She smiled weakly and shrugged. He continued to look at her without overt expression. Rainbow Dash slumped. “Fine.”

Despite the fact Twilight was gone the books ended up more-or-less in the right place after twenty minutes of work. Twilight would likely opt for the ‘less’ of those two possibilities. Fortunately Rainbow Dash had a lot of experience where restacking the bookshelves was concerned. She had even more experience where unstacking those bookshelves was concerned too.

“There, happy?” She asked sarcastically as the last book was put into place.

Paladin showed her his destroyed book again. “No.”

Letting out a huge sigh, Rainbow Dash pointed at the bookshelves. “Just grab another copy!” She hollered.

“There are none.” He didn’t growl. But he came very close.

Looking at his expression – and there was one now, if barely – Rainbow Dash suddenly felt the need to fix her mistake. Before his expression became...even more of an expression. A worse one, perhaps even with a stern frown.

“I’ll...go get one from the bookstore?” She offered with a nervous grin, backing away.

“Yes.”

“CoolI’llberightbackIpromisebye!” Rainbow Dash shot out the window.

With nothing better to do, Tyrael sat and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then, unexpectedly, he...waited.

Half-an-hour passed, and Tyrael’s gaze did not budge from the window Rainbow has entered and left through. The clock sounded the passing of the hour. One of his eyes twitched.

He had began to consider going to the bookstore himself when Rainbow Dash returned. She did so in typical Rainbow Dash-fashion. Tyrael sighed and began to dig her out of the pile of books once more. A hoof broke through the top layer before he could find her, a pristine copy of the book he had been trying to read held before him.

Rainbow’s head followed and she grinned at him. “See, got you your book! Now, I gotta-”

“Restack the shelves.” Paladin cut her off, not even bothering to hide his annoyance.

She chuckled nervously before catching sight of his expression.

The books were shelved in record time.

Tyrael wasted no time in shooing her out and shutting the door behind her. Walking a few steps from the library, Rainbow Dash stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at the hidden Paladin.

“Stupid angel-pony.” She muttered, flaring her wings and taking to the air.

Against all odds, Tyrael managed to reach page five before something disturbed him. A roar, unimaginably loud, rocked the library. It was a primal sound from the dawn of creation, a voicing of bestial anger incomprehensible to the mind of a normal pony. The building quaked as something vast strode the earth, each footfall sending thunderous vibrations deep into the ground. The page, nearly turned to page five, fell from his hoof.

Tyrael opened the door and walked out. Ponyvillians ran every which-way, many screaming in panic. For a moment it looked to him as though the sky had turned to a strange blue night hours early. He craned his neck until he realised that this was not the case.

The Ursa Major roared its anger once again. It stood as a mountain above the town, blocking the sun. Drool that could fill a reservoir dripped from its mouth. Tyrael was fairly certain he saw Pinkie surfing down a road on a wave of Usra saliva, Rarity wailing as she clutched the surfboard desperately.

“Where’s Twilight?” The Mayor, her voice as frantic as she looked, came galloping down the road. “We need her!”

“Gone.”

The Mayor stared at him, unable to voice exactly how bad news this was. From her silence he took it to be very bad.

He left her there, staring blankly into the empty air, and continued on his way.

Trixie sprinted past, screaming “It’s not my fault! Not my fault!” before leaping into a barrel and shivering madly.

He kept going.

After not that long at all Tyrael had reached the foothills of mount Ursa, or rather he reached its feet.

Rainbow Dash came hurtling down, swatted by a lazy swipe of the Usra Major.

“Ow, dude.” She rolled over, getting to her hooves painfully. “This thing bites. Whoa, Pally, what are you doing?”

He fixed her with a steely blue gaze and said nothing. Instead, he turned to the veritable mountain of astral fur and said in a loud, clear voice;

“Excuse me.”

Ponies turned back to look at the polite greeting they had managed to hear over the sounds of their own screams. Fluttershy, terrified into immobility, peeked out from her hair.

Paladin stood in place, looking up at the Usra Major.

“Excuse me!” He called once more, slightly louder.

When this had no effect and the Ursa Major simply kept roaring, he sighed. It was a sigh much in the manner of somepony who had just had a very difficult day and quite frankly he was tired of it.

He took a deep breath. Behind him (far behind him) the still cowering audience took deep breaths in anticipation.

“EXCUSE! ME!”

His bellow had the desired effect. The Ursa Major turned its head down to look at the tiny creature that had managed to get its attention.

A small leap took him into the air and Paladin ascended to hover somewhere on level with its chest. This took him a minute or so.

The Ursa Major lowered its head further, peering at the small thing curiously. The pony’s eyes, incredibly small to the Ursa, meet the much larger astral bear’s.

The look he was giving the Ursa nearly made it take a step back.

“I! AM TRYING! TO READ!”

The ponies below gasped, certain the brave stallion was about to meet his end.

The Ursa Major took a step back.

“BUGGER OFF!”

It took one last look in his eyes and the ground shook as the Ursa Major retreated back into the depths of the Everfree Forest.

Tyrael smiled tiredly. Now, he could read his book in peace and quiet.

Returning the ground, Tyrael found what must have been the entirety of Ponyville waiting for him. They stared at him in awe. He stared back, because he had no idea what to say in a situation like this.

He began to walk around them, silently. Just a little more and he could turn the corner and return to the library and his book.

Something pink burst from a haystack nearby and Pinkie’s voice broke the silence.

“Whose up for a ‘Paladin-saved-the-town-again’ party?!”

His expression twitched as the population of the town cheered in response, gathering around him and in a unstoppable tide began to pull him towards the town hall. The branches of the library, just peeking out over the tops of the houses separating him from it, began to recede from sight.

Slowly, with great deliberation, he facehoofed.

Comments

[Nealend86]

Heh, it's still great.

[Web of Hope]

1974914
I blame you, and it is glorious!

[Beyond the Horizon]

Psshhhhgahahahahaha!!

Poor Tyr, trying to adjust to mortal life. Seems like Murphy is out to get him.

[Dezrath]

ah, I know that feel all to well. You just want to read and yet, but then good ol Murphy has other plans.

[SirRobinProductions]

I feel as though a Hitch hiker's referancve was made when he counted to 42, but that could be my paranoia, and I feel it should be know that the use of 'BUGGER OFF' was well placed. Bravo!

[Corrupted Spirit]

I take it I was the only person that find the dingo coment worth noting

[Smurf]

hahahahahaha