//------------------------------// // Issue 2.5 ~ Books and Banter // Story: It's All A Little Strange To Me // by Essay Jay //------------------------------// The morning after, Starlight went to check books out of the library. Having seen that no librarian was in sight, she wrote her name down and took a few books out of the library for reading. Not much, just three books. Compared to what Twilight had the both of them scour through and read… it really wasn’t anything too long. A day passed, another lesson. The Ancient One talked about more history to set Starlight up for the eventual practical lessons she would take up. At the moment, she was learning about how ponies had discovered, through divine revelation, or otherwise, direct contact from the beings that managed the many dimensions, as the Ancient One put, ponies of all types were able to start forming magic with their very hooves. After a good chunk of exposition was placed before her, she finished her books and was about to place them down on what appeared to be the central desk before she saw a figure arranging things behind it. Waiting patiently, she whistled until the figure turned around and her mouth dropped a little. “J-Jade?” Starlight stammered. “Blue Jade?” “The one and only!” Jade grinned, expertly tossing a book to the side and landing in perfect unison with an already formed pile. “You manage the library?” Starlight asked, flabbergasted at the thought. “Is it any more obvious?” Jade shrugged, expertly swiping the books from Starlight’s wobbly balance on her back. “So, whatcha got here?” “Oh, it’s just a few… books…” muttered Starlight, still reeling. “Glimmy-Glam, don’t be so surprised!” Jade giggled, smirking. “I just, erm, didn’t take you as the kind of pony to do this kind of thing,” Starlight explained. “The only other pony I know who would single-hoofedly manage a library is the nerdiest bookish alicorn I’ve ever met.” “Tsk tsk tsk,” Jade tsked, “Hey yourself. First thing you do when you come into my library is judge my character without the common courtesy of a hello? Some two-day old friend you are.” “H-hey, I’m sorry!” Starlight waved a hoof. “Erm, what I meant to say was hello-” “Relax, girl!” Jade moved around the table and slapped Starlight on the back, not noticing how Starlight coughed and winced as she was shoved forward a bit. Chuckling lightly, Jade shook her head with a grin. “You’re seriously so tense. Liven up!” “O-kay then…” Starlight smiled nervously, glancing at Jade with trepidation. “So, you’ve been reading some pretty thick tomes, eh?” Jade asked, shuffling the books Starlight had signed out. “All in the span of a day, too!” Starlight looked to the side, rubbing a foreleg. “Twilight was pretty intense with her study sessions…” “What kind of friend forces them to go through a hundred books in one sitting?” Jade asked. “Some friend. So…” Jade glanced at the titles of the books. “The Solar Key, Lunam Secretorum, The Tempest of Tempus and… Tua Mater?” Jade looked at Starlight. “Impressive. Most impressive.” Starlight felt her cheeks go rosy at the comment, embarrassment filling her thoughts. “Yeah…” Jade smirked. “Hey, if you can read things like this, I’m sure you can read even more! Follow me.” As Jade turned around and began to trot behind the many bookshelves Starlight could see, she followed. Not sure what was going to happen, Starlight observed the walls they were passing with squeamish eyes. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Jade began.” “About what?” Starlight replied. Jade stopped just before a large expanse that Starlight couldn’t really see with Jade in the way. “What’s that crystal you’ve got hidden your robes? Can’t help but wonder with you rubbing it when you’re nervous, ya dig?” Starlight was taken off guard by the inquiry. Glancing down, she found that she was indeed, holding onto it the moment they had stopped. The shard pulsed with soft purple light and Starlight breathed. “It’s… just something to remind me of… of home…” Jade watched as Starlight bit her lip studying the inscriptions of the crystal. Shrugging, Jade continued forward. “Huh.” Starlight hid the shard and continued onwards, following Jade into the… extra library. “So, uh, Jade, what is this place?” Jade motioned around her. “Oh, this is a section that is for Masters only. Ya know, ponies like a moi?” At Starlight’s sigh, Jade grinned and continued. “That’s what it would say if it had a plaque, but at my discretion, others can use it. Seeing as you’re here…” “You’re saying I can read these?” Starlight asked. As she trotted over to a random table piled with books of all sorts and turned a book around to look at its cover, Jade had begun to pull a couple books off the shelves. “You can start with something like Belle’s Beginnings and Jewels of Jarkhatan,” Jade said, placing the books on Starlight’s back. With a smirk, Jade remarked “How’s your Pre-classical Equestrian?” All the while, Starlight squinted at the book, trying to read it’s title. “The… Room of Requirement?” Starlight murmured, furrowing a brow. Suddenly, a glinting orange caught her attention, and Starlight twisted her head to look at a bunch of chained up volumes, all with a glowing circle imbued with otherworldly energies. Glancing at Jade, she trotted over to them, She was attracted to one particular tome, she looked up at it. “Hey, Jade… what are these?” Jade nonchalantly glanced over as she was looking at books and shrugged. “Those are the Ancient One’s private collection.” Starlight pulled back her hoof, wincing. “So, uh, they’re forbidden?” Jade chuckled. Turning to approach her section, Jade shook her head. “No knowledge is forbidden in Kamare-taj, girl,” she said, walking into an aisle. “Only a few practices and other dark shmuck. Nothing I would dabble in.” Encouraged by the answer, Starlight reached for the tome, unlatching it before carefully bringing it down. Sitting on her haunches, Starlight placed the tome on her lap and opened it up to a noticeably ripped page. “Those books are too advanced for anyone other than the Sorcerer Supreme.” Jade said as she had begun wheeling a tray of books around and had come back down the aisle. Starlight glanced from the torn page to the adjacent pages before looking up at Jade. “This one’s got pages missing?” Jade rose an eyebrow at the tome’s cover and sighed. “Eeyup. That is the Book of Star Swirl the Bearded, otherwise known as ‘the Study of Time’.” Starlight’s eyes widened at that, glancing back down at the book before her with sudden interest and equal amounts of worry, memories of an ear-shattering rainboom clouding her thoughts. Wincing, she began to wonder how something of Star Swirl’s could be found here until Jade interrupted her thoughts. Shuffling up to stand beside the sitting Starlight, she rested herself on the table beside her. “Those pages were stolen by a former master, this idiotic zealot named Mordo, just after he strung up the old librarian and relieved him of his head.” Starlight’s eyes shot up to Jade’s figure once more, a mouth going to her hoof in shock. Her previous thoughts were banished in an instant, being replaced by Jade’s statement. “W-what!?” Jade let a bitter smile creep up on her face. “That leaves me to guard these books, so if you even think of crossing the borders of Kamare-taj with a stolen volume, I’d know it…” Jade slowly shut the book in Starlight’s grasp and placed it back. The somewhat shaken Starlight blinked, a shiver going down her spine as she stared at Jade. “...and you’d be dealt with before you left the compound.” “B-but somepony died?” Starlight asked, her eyes widening into space. Jade shook her head. “Yep. A friend of mine, too. He was pretty swell.” “But that’s… that’s…” Jade cocked an eyebrow. “Murder? Uh-huh. Knowing you hail from the likes of a peaceful land like Equestria, it would only be natural that there aren’t any things like that you’re aware of.” Sighing, Jade trotted up to Starlight, helping her back to four hooves and placing books on her back. “But the real world is much, much more twisted and much more dark than you would want to think.” “I-I know, but…” Starlight murmured, thinking back to Chrysalis just a couple weeks prior, “Still…” “Don’t dwell on it too much, my friend,” Jade muttered, patting Starlight on the back as she led them back to the main library. “I see a lot of good in you. This is not your problem to deal with. Just focus on your teachings with the Ancient One and you’ll be fine. So long as you remain the pony you are… I have no doubt you will make the right decisions when push comes to shove.” With that, Starlight found herself standing outside of the library and staring into the tree-centred courtyard filled with training individuals of all kinds. Feeling the weight of the books on her back, she sighed and looked down. Maybe some reading would take her mind off her increasing worries.