The Substitute Librarian - Halloween Chapters · 3:47am Oct 31st, 2019
What does a young magic tutor, a mysterious oak tree, and an evil librarian have in common? Scaring the bejeebers out of the children, that's what. Two more chapters of The Substitute Librarian are en route, with a little ghost story for you all. Sneak peek below the fold, as usual:
“So that evening, while the whole town was sleeping, the librarian made her preparations. She drew runes on the creaky floorboards, arranged all the library cards into a mystic circle, and drew upon her power to summon…” Emerald paused, and looked around the circle of entranced faces, feeling marginally smug about seeing Sparkler just as entranced as her little sister.
“First, I must tell you about alicorns from long, long ago,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, but continued before any of his audience could break their immersion. “Back long before Celestia, far in ancient history when there was an alicorn for everything, every blade of grass, every tree, every rock. Thousands upon thousands of them, with magic beyond measure, filled the world with light and wonder. Nopony knows what happened to them, but they all passed into the Great Beyond many years ago, leaving only their spirits behind to roam the world. One of these alicorns was the spirit who lives in every library across the entire world.
“She was a majestic creature, beautiful beyond words and graceful, although not large because she was a very practical creature, and to be large would have made it difficult to fit between the bookshelves, of course. Since her passing from the material world many years before, she had transformed into a being of pure ideas, thoughts, and dreams. Of storms and summers, of patrons walking quietly among shelf-lined walls and the loud cries of the young. Of books, lined and straight, filled with the knowledge of ponies long dead and awaiting a chance to live again in the hooves of an interested reader. Of rain and sunshine and wind, the droning of bees outside her windows, and the touch of the snow upon her roof. She was the unseen queen of all she surveyed, ruler and guiding hoof, a refuge for weary souls battered by the world and a beacon of learning for the hungry masses.”
After sufficient time, one of the students asked, “The librarian summoned an alicorn?”
“Not just an alicorn,” whispered Emerald. “The Alicorn of Knowledge, she who knows everything, and what she does not know, she can find, because every book in the world falls under her domain. Knowledge is its own power, and the librarian let out a joyful cackle at the sight of such a mighty creature trapped within her runes and sigils.
“Alicorn,” she commanded, “I have two tasks for you.”
Nothing bad could come of this, right?
Oh, no...of course not!
The sorcerer's apprentice said the same thing.
Color me interested.
Animistic alicorns? I like this already. Especially since the story sounds like Twilight summoning her future self.
I now have the image of hundreds of books marching down the shelf isles, over the top of patrons and furniture alike... on their way to a massive bookpile slowly burying a struggling summoner while the Alicorn of Knowledge looks on with a disappointed, sad and resigned look on her face.