Dusk

by DuskbeforeDawn

Chapter 3

A Sea of Dust

The tiny spider moved over its web and eventually crossed the room to the location it had felt a moth strike its web. The room holding many tiny grey corners and dark books for moths to breed in gave the spider so much food it barely knew what to do with its days. It had already covered the ceiling and every corner in webs and spent its days laying eggs and feeding. Now bored with its moth it decided to climb down and stare at the one pony in the room.
“Zymotic zirconium: Fermented Diamonds used for the intoxication and subjugation of Draconus Major.” Mumbled the lanky blue earth pony.

“Wow Scribe!” Said the tiny unicorn from behind a massive tome. “That covers equestrian zoology!” It flew up and returned the zoology book to its original place.

“Anthromorphobic Animal Asymmetry: pages 111-114, 118, 220” said the blue pony.

“No!” the tiny Pegasus flew down and covered the blue ponies mouth. “There is no point in memorizing the index.” The blue pony continued muttering even with the Pegasus’s hoof in his face. “Dear lord he’s still going.”

“Shut up!” the unicorn leapt up behind the blue pony and hit him upside the head with a gigantic book. His face slammed against the table.
The blue pony sat there, his face flat on the wooden table. It smelled like peanuts.
“Peanuts: plural of pea-nut, noun.”

“Why?” said the Pegasus.

“One: The oval seed of a South Equestrian plant, eaten as a snack or used for making oil. Two: A paltry thing or amount, commonly a small amount of bits.”
The two little ponies sighed, and disappeared into the library. The blue pony glanced around at the cobwebs coating most of the shelves. The books were of course fine, he had only just taken them down, cleaned, and reorganized them. He made a gurgling sound for no apparent reason. “Spider,” He muttered turning and seeing a tiny black spider crawling down in front of his face. “Any numerous predaceous arachnids of the order of Arachnid, most of which spin webs that serve as nets and as traps for prey.” He leaned closer to look at it “Parasteatoda tepidariorum” he mumbled, before noticing the unicorn had returned to sit with him. “Arachnids please,” Said the blue pony. The unicorn groaned left into the maze and ten minutes later returned with five books on various aspects of spiders, “Poisons and cures, Arachnids can be your friends, Spider Spells, Arachnology, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Read the pony.
Suddenly, there was a loud CRASH and the door that had been closed for as long as the blue pony could remember was hanging off it’s hinges. Standing there was an out-of-breath looking dull blue unicorn…
The newcomer looked around for a moment before diving behind the checkout desk. After a few moments, there was the sound of a marching troop of guards. Once the sound faded, he looked back over the desk. “They gone? Good!” He muttered to himself before he jumped back over the desk and began to look around. “Didn’t know any libraries like this still existed…” He began to look around curiously.
It was quite off-putting to put ones hoof into what appeared to be a potentially bottomless pit of dust shrouded by fog. Slight Luck observed this as he took one step into the library and the two inches of dust instantly were rustled from the floor and became a brown miasma around his hooves. He smiled, if the cleaners didn’t frequent this room then the guards wouldn’t either. He started walking further into the maze of shelves to see what there was in here.
“Dear lordie!” he said as he maneuvered the books on the shelves, looking for anything of value. Walls upon walls of literature were stretched around the library. He had seen some libraries before, they had been all right (if a little bit too silent and small), but this one was totally unlike any he’d seen before. This library’s shelves stretched all the way to the ceiling and he could not be convinced otherwise that it was made as maze-like as possible just with the express purpose of annoying him.
“Stupid past architects,” he muttered as he rounded another corner. Instantly he froze, there was someone in the library. He looked around, and saw that was a blue earth pony. Luck stepped back, observing. This librarian pony seemed fairly oblivious to the world around him. “Pardon me fellow castle inhabitant,” Luck asked “I think I took a wrong turn and was wondering if you could direct me to the emergency exit?” As the dust cleared, he noticed the blue pony had a long unkempt main and tail that had become brown from being dragged through the dust. It also had a book in its mouth and a carrot tied to his head. The pony didn’t respond with more than a mild ear twitch. “Fair enough,” Slight Luck muttered, continued walking alongside the dusty blue pony that moved through the maze in a matter that Slight Luck observed to be rather mechanical.
Eventually they emerged into what appeared to be the center of the library, a large table, a set of lamps and chairs were all spread out. The blue pony sat the book on a table and propped it up so someone sitting in front of it could read it and not actually have to hold it. He then untied the carrot from his head and sat in behind the book. It trudged over and sat across from the book and carrot.
“Thank you,” it muttered.
“By the light of Celestia, he can talk!” laughed Slight Luck. The blue pony screamed and fell of his stool.
“W-what, h-how, w-where, words words WORDS!” It said as it squirmed on the floor.
“Whoa, calm down there!” said Slight Luck as he moved closer to the blue pony. The pony in question looked to the carrot, back to Slight Luck, back to the carrot, back to Slight Luck, and threw up.
Slight Luck took a step back, glanced at the carrot and shrugged. “I’ll assume this place is a library, you, seems kinda secret, bet you got all sorta illegal books, know where I can find anything on teleportation?”
The blue pony was already gone by the time Slight Luck looked back. “I honestly don’t know what I expected.” He was going to try to find another way out before he heard an echo through the library.
“Teleportation,” Said the blue pony from somewhere, “the ability for a pony to send their collected mass to another location with the aid of a magical conduit. First developed by the Sage Caballus the Great, the original teleportation spell requires two components.”
Slight Luck followed the voice through the maze.
“First: the unicorn in question must know what the location of the destination looks like, preferably from firsthand experience, though photographs can work just as well, and second must have the physical strength to walk a mile. The unicorn then focuses magical energy, similar at first to the second stage of basic magical channeling, see page forty-seven, and then envisions the place desired. This was the first basic teleportation spell it was later amended by Elquar Teletaros with the formula. V=ma2, which states that accounting for variables in the area, example teleporting into a wall is equal to ones magical output, times the air pressure of the location squared.”
Slight Luck rounded a corner to find a small fort made of books. The voice was obviously coming from inside. He stepped over the tiny wall of books set up and peaked inside. The blue pony was under a blanket and shaking. “This is known as Teletaros’s first law of Teleportation safety.”
Slight Luck reached down to poke the blue pony but stopped, instead he walked away a glanced at the shelves around him. He wandered back through the maze bagging any book that caught his fancy or looked valuable.
“A-a-all books to be checked out must be returned no later than a week after the date taken,” mumbled the blue pony.
Slight Luck laughed to himself and continued his track back to the entrance, the nice thing about dust is that it leaves a trail when one walks through it. He rounded the corner and knocked heads with a Pegasus pony.
“What the hell?!” yelled Slight Luck as he fell over. The purple Pegasus rubbed her head and looked nervously at the blue unicorn. They waited for the other to scream, or call the guards. Slight Luck tried to remember that stupid formula, and the purple Pegasus stretched her wings.
“So… Are you the librarian?” she asked Luck.
Luck thought on this for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope, not me. Just an average Joe guard. Move along, missy.”
She frowned. “No you’re not. Guards have to wear that dorky uniform all the time. You’re that fugitive that set off the alarms, I’ll bet.”
“I’m here undercover to see whose coming to the library that shouldn’t be here!” He said that last bit with an accusatory tone.
“Your hat is a style not popular in Canterlot, it’s more of a design common to Las Pegasus. Either the undercover wardrobe department is run by morons… Which is very possible… Or you’re lying through your teeth. I’m willing to bet it’s the second.” She glowered at him for a moment before continuing. “Now tell me what you’re going to do to keep me from calling a guard…”
“What are you, an expert Hat-ologist?” Luck spouted.
The blue pony peeked around a corner. “Hatology is not a real profession…” he muttered.
The Pegasus jumped. “WHAT IS THAT?” she shouted.
“King’s advisor.” Luck said.
The Pegasus looked at him quizzically. Then, it sank in that she was standing in a library larger than any she’d ever seen. She took off flying around lazily, looking at all the books. “I’m guessing he’s the actual librarian here?” she asked nopony in particular.
Slight Luck started tiphoofing towards the door. “That is certainly a guess…” he said as he tried to exit as quietly as possible.
The rhythmic thump of the guard’s hooves faded in from around the corner of the hallway. Both the unicorn and the Pegasus turned, mentally panicking. The pegasus tossed a book into her saddlebag and landed.
“What are we going to do?” She trotted in place nervously. “The guards can’t find either of us in here!”
Luck shrugged and began to power up his teleportation spell. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting out now. Good luck getting out with no windows.”
“You have to take me with you!” She shouted. “Come on, don’t be a jerk!”
He rolled his eyes. “Sure. But no refunds if you end up in a wall. Come here.” He beckoned her over and fired up the magic in his horn. The power swirled around them for a moment, then with a poof; they disappeared, leaving the librarian behind.
The blue pony stared at where the two had been standing a moment before returning to his desk and stamping the books they’d taken as being ‘checked out’ on his register.