It was Tuesday, or possibly Wednesday. Dinky was not entirely sure. Although it was late afternoon, she had not gone to school. She no longer saw any point in it. There was no way she would be able to sit through a lesson, not with the thought of the book gnawing at her the whole time as she sat through another insufferable and pointless lesson. Besides, it was already quite clear that she was not welcome there.
Her halfhearted excuse to her mother was that she was sick. Derpy had accepted that line, possibly because she was concerned about what had happened to Dinky before with Diamond Tiara. Dinky was not sick at all, of course. She felt excellent, aside from the fact that exposure to any kind of light now gave her near-migraine levels of pain. In fact, she felt better than ever.
It did not take her long to formulate a plan. It was quite obvious that there was something magical afoot, and no pony knew magic or books better than Twilight Sparkle. So Dinky had scheduled an appointment to meet with her.
At first, she thought that Twilight would outright refuse. She was a Princess, after all, and had no time to deal with pointless and obscure ponies like Dinky. The idea of a potentially cursed book, though, was apparently too good for her to resist. So, like Luna in Dinky’s dream the night before, she took time out of her busy schedule to actually interact with a commoner.
Dinky was glad of this, but as she sat in Twilight’s waiting room, she found herself shaking strangely. Twilight had taken the book away to examine it, and without it, Dinky felt profoundly uncomfortable. She did not like it to leave her sight. She knew that Twilight was respectful with books, but the more she thought, the more she became afraid, wondering if Twilight would somehow lose it, or worse, find it cursed and refuse to give it back.
It did not help that the chairs in the waiting room were made of crystal. It was slippery and cold, and Dinky kept sliding off. Her only consolation for the entire set of circumstances was that she was extremely clean: it had taken her several hours to scrub the ink off her body.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of repeatedly sliding off her chair and shaking with increasing violence, Dinky heard a door creak open. She looked to her left and saw Spike approaching. She smiled and picked up the folder at her side.
“Hi,” she said, sliding out of the chair and onto the equally slippery crystal floor.
“Hi,” said Spike. He blinked, and looked somewhat concerned. “Dinky, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Why?”
“Because you look like you haven’t slept in a while.”
“Because I don’t need to,” said Dinky. “Not when there’s studying to do!”
Spike produced a fake, somewhat disturbed laugh. “Twilight used to be just like that,” he said.
“Really?” Dinky perked up slightly. “So you like that? Do you want me to be more like Twilight?”
“Um…what? Dinky, you’re scaring me.”
Dinky laughed, perhaps a little bit too loudly. It echoed strangely down the crystal hallway. Then she realized at least vaguely that she was being strange. “Sorry,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “I was joking. I can’t even do that right. I’ve just been really concerned about this book.”
“I get that,” said Spike as he started to lead her toward one of Twilight’s several offices. “You should see the stuff in Twilight’s personal collection.” He shivered. “One of them bit me once. And that’s not even as bad as the fanfiction she writes. I just can’t look at Rainbow Dash the same way anymore…”
Spike shook his head and opened a door, pointing inside. Dinky entered, and found Twilight sitting at a crystal desk and smiling. Somewhat unexpectedly, Starlight was standing behind her.
“Dinky, is it?” asked Twilight. “Go ahead and have a seat,” said Twilight, pointing at yet another slippery crystal chair.
Dinky climbed onto the seat with some difficulty, only sliding off it twice. Twilight waited patiently until she was seated.
“Did you look at it?” said Dinky, excitedly. She saw the book on Twilight’s desk, which already made her much happier- -although also much more nervous.
“I did,” said Twilight. “I gave it a thorough check, and I’m glad to say that it is perfectly safe.”
“Safe?” said Dinky. “What does that mean?”
“It means ‘safe’,” said Twilight. “As in, not harmful. It’s perfectly safe. I ran every standard check for spells and enchantments, and I can say with one hundred percent certainty that this is an ordinary book without any signs of magic whatsoever.”
“W…what? No, it has to be- -”
“I assure you,” said Twilight, waving her hoof. “It is. I mean, I’m the Element of Magic. I think I know what I’m talking about.” She winced suddenly and brought her hoof to her head.
“Twilight?” said Starlight. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” said Twilight, still grimacing. “Although it’s just a regular book, it had a really weird font. Something about reading it gave me the WORST headache…”
“Spike, can you get her some aspirin?” asked Starlight.
“Oh, yeah. Of course!” Spike ran off to fetch the medicine, and Twilight shook her head, trying to clear it. As she did, Dinky noticed that her eyes scanned from right to left several times.
“You read it? What- -what did it say?”
“What did it say? Not much.” Twilight looked down at the book and laughed. “It was a really dry manual. Very technical, very boring, even for me, and I love books.”
“But what was it about?”
“About?” Twilight blinked for a moment. “You know, it was so technical and boring, I don’t even remember. I didn’t even get through the first section. I have no idea why you would want to read something like that. But I’m glad you brought it to me. Even if it was a false alarm, I do everything I can to keep cursed objects out of Equestria. It’s kind of my hobby.”
“But…it can’t be an ordinary book!” said Dinky, sitting up so fast that she nearly slid off her chair again. “I mean, I tried to transcribe it, and look!” She opened the folder she was carrying and pulled out some of the sheets that she had written. She put them on Twilight’s desk and spread them out.
Twilight looked down at them and chuckled. Starlight, though, had an entirely different reaction. Her eyes went wide and all the color drained from her face.
“You know, I used to make up languages when I was a filly too,” said Twilight, picking up one of the pages. “It was something my brother and I loved doing. I actually have a few texts on stenography and cryptography, if you’re interested.”
“No! I didn’t make them up! They came out of the book!”
That seemed to concern Starlight even more, but Twilight just smiled. “The book is written in ordinary Equestrian,” she said. “These weren’t in it. And they’re not even real letters. I write and read every language that has ever existed in Equestria, and I’ve never seen these. Even supernatural languages.” She leaned forward and whispered. “I’ve even read the translated Ponynomicon. Trust me, I know a bad book when I see it.”
She passed the book to Dinky and then sat up, stretching her long and fluffy alicorn wings. “Well, I hope that helps. I’ve got to go now. Important friendship stuff and all. Just be sure to return that book by its due date!”
Dinky left more confused than she had been when she entered. She did not understand what was going on, and although she had hoped that talking with Twilight would help, she now realized that it had only made everything worse. The only good thing that came of it was that Twilight had not confiscated the book.
As Dinky walked through the empty and lifeless crystal halls on the way to the exit, though, Starlight caught up to her quickly.
“Dinky,” she said, stopping the younger unicorn. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” said Dinky, reluctantly stopping. She had hoped to read the book at least another three times, and Starlight was taking up the time that would otherwise be used for that.
“Those pages,” she said. “The ones you showed Twilight. Where did you get them?”
“These?” said Dinky, opening the folder. “I told you. I transcribed them out of the book. Except they’re not what I was trying to write, and I don’t think they were actually in the book. Do you want to take a look- -”
“NO!” cried Starlight, taking a large step back as Dinky held out the notes.
Dinky suddenly realized what was going on. “You recognize them, don’t you?” she said. “What are they? What do they mean?”
Starlight hesitated, looking around to see if anypony was around them. None were, of course. The only other thing in the hallway with them was the unseasonably cold air as it drifted through the halls of ominous living crystal.
“I do,” she said at last. “And it’s bad. Dinky, this is really bad.”
“What are they?” demanded Dinky, looking at the sheet in front of her.
“Runes,” said Starlight. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”
“Runes? But Twilight would have recognized them if they were.”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
“But she’s an expert in magic. Of course she would- -”
“Twilight isn’t as much of an expert as she likes to think. She deals exclusively in good magic. Helpful charms, academic experiments, counter spells to evil. There is no way she would have ever encountered text like that in her research.”
“And you would have?”
Starlight frowned. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of,” she admitted. “And I’ve messed with forces that I now know I never should have tried to control. Yes. Those symbols are something I recognize.”
“What did you use them for?”
“Use? I never used them! Not even Starswirl the Bearded would be able to…”
Dinky looked at the letters again. “But Twilight said that she read the Ponynomicon- -”
“The translated version,” corrected Starlight. “But I’ve read the original.” She paused, and then shook her head. “And there were some symbols that even Alhazred refused to write. He described them, though, and alluded to what they were for.”
“And what are they for?”
Starlight refused to answer. “Dinky,” she said, leaning close. “I don’t know how you managed to produce those symbols, or what you did to find them. But please, PLEASE take my advice: burn them. Burn all of them, and that book with them.”
Dinky gasped and held the book close to her chest, as though Starlight would try to take it from her. “I- -I can’t! It’s a library book!”
Starlight sighed. “I’m not going to take it from you. I don’t even know if I could, not without consequences.”
“It…it wouldn’t let you,” whispered Dinky, a look of realization crossing her face.
Starlight’s expression fell, and Dinky realized that even in her relatively ignorant state she had spoken the truth. “Yeah,” said Starlight, softly. “But those letters…they’re evil. And dangerous. Things no unicorn should deal with, especially not a child.”
“So just because I’m a child, it means I’m stupid, doesn’t it?” protested Dinky angrily. “That I’m not powerful enough to deal with real magic?”
Starlight stared at her for a moment. “Adults don’t see it, do they?”
Dinky’s eyes widened. “N…no.”
“Exactly. Dinky, take it from me. You might grow up to be a great wizard someday, but there’s things in this world that should be left alone. That have to be left alone.”
Dinky looked down at her book. Just the idea of burning it, or even trying to damage it in any way made her feel sick and weak.
“Yeah,” she said at last, putting the book and her folder back in her bag. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“I hope so,” said Starlight, immediately seeing through Dinky’s lie.
Dinky started to turn to leave, but another idea occurred to her. She stopped and looked up at Starlight. “Ms. Starlight? Do you think you would be able to teach me an invisibility spell?”