The next day, Twilight was sitting comfortably in a nest of books tucked into the corner of the library. She had gotten up early and skipped breakfast in order to get a head start on her Discord research. Now she was skipping lunch, ingesting instead the contents of Morgrim's Field Guide to Magical Creatures, Second Edition.
During the night she had filled a few pages of her research journal with her observations and hypotheses about Discord, but that was all. Nothing she encountered in the library so far had yielded any other clues, and lunch period was almost over. She cast her gaze around her, taking in all the books she'd gathered.
"I haven't gotten through many of them yet," Twilight said to herself. "There's still plenty of opportunities to look. I have a few free periods this afternoon." She stood.
"So you'll just be leaving this mess out then?"
Twilight jumped. An unsmiling, older unicorn looked at her sternly from around a bookcase. Her brows were knit together in an annoyed scowl over her faded blue eyes. A pair of glasses sat on the tip of her nose and her fading blue mane was pulled back into a bun behind her head, the unmistakable markings of a librarian.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, ma'am," Twilight said. "I was just trying to find information on something and I just pulled out anything that I thought could help."
The librarian approached Twilight's nest, and Twilight saw that her cutie mark was a scroll tied with a blue ribbon.
"Well, maybe," she said in an annoyed tone, "if you would have asked me for help, you could have narrowed it down a bit so you wouldn't have to tear the whole place apart."
"Sorry," Twilight said. "I was looking for information on something called a Draconequus."
"Draconequus? I don't know anything about that. It's some kind of creature, I assume?"
"Yes," Twilight nodded. "A magical hybrid creature."
"Is it intelligent?"
Twilight nodded again. "Yes. The same intellectual level as a pony, if not higher."
"Well," the unicorn said, her horn illuminating with a white aura. The open Morgrim book levitated to her. "Here's your first mistake. Morgrim was an idiot. He wouldn't have known anything about intelligent hybrid creatures even if he was one himself. This book doesn't have any uncommon knowledge in it. I'm assuming the Draconequus is quite the mysterious creature indeed, since I've never heard of one before."
"It seems that way," Twilight replied.
"Hm. In that case stay away from anything by Morgrim, Tiger Septim, and anything with '101' or 'Introduction To' in the title."
"Right."
The unicorn eyed one of the many stacks of books Twilight had built and illuminated an old tome near the bottom.
"Try this one," she said as the book took a place in the air in front of Twilight. Twilight noticed the Morgrim book droop a fraction in the air when the librarian took the other book into her levitation spell. She thought of how Discord thought she was showing off in class.
Is it really that hard to levitate so many objects at once? She asked herself. That could be why everypony was sniggering at me in the hallways; they must have thought I was showing off. Twilight didn’t like that idea at all.
"It's more theory than fact," the librarian continued, drawing Twilight out of her thoughts. "But I think that's what you need. It may be all you find, in fact."
"Thank you," Twilight said, taking the book from the librarian with her own magic. "Can I bring it with me?"
"No, that book isn't available for checkout. You'll have to come back and study it here."
"Alright," Twilight looked at the book. It was a standard size, but older than the rest, bound in thin black leather with the title Starswirl Hypotheses.
"It's not by Starswirl the Bearded if that's what you're thinking," the librarian said. "The author was a prominent scholar called Silver Quill, and he used many of Starswirl's theses and philosophies to support his own."
"I see...interesting." She was about to open the book when the bell rang out from the hallway. Her ears drooped slightly in disappointment. "Oh, I'll have to be going." She looked down at the mess she had made. "I'll clean this up first."
"I'll do it," the librarian said curtly. "You must be getting to class Ms..."
"Twilight Sparkle, Ma'am."
"Mahogany," the unicorn replied.
Twilight nodded. "Thank, you, Mrs. Mahogany."
Mahogany looked down and nodded sharply. Twilight picked up her bag and trotted away, careful not to step on any books lying on the ground.When she was gone, Mahogany stacked a few of the books on her back and carried them to the next aisle where they came from. When she came to the shelf she was looking for, she sighed in exasperation. The whole thing was empty.
"Ugh, that purple pony...hold on." She raised an eyebrow at the shelf. Not all the books that were supposed to be there would have been any help to Twilight.
She’s very bright. Surely she would have left the ones that wouldn't help.
"Well if she didn't take them, then-" Her voice cut off when she spotted all the missing books thrown carelessly into a fray on the ground. Lounging on top of them was-
"Discord!" Mahogany exclaimed angrily. "Just what do you think you're doing!?"
"Trying to sleep. Be quiet, will you?" He repositioned his head on one of the books, but his eyes were wide awake and shadowed with thin, dark circles.
"Sleeping?! You have all night to sleep and a room to do it in! What makes you think you can come in here and use my books as pillows?"
"There's never anyone in here," Discord said nonchalantly.
"Well not anymore. Ms. Sparkle will probably be visiting here very often."
"What's this, Mahogany?" Discord sat up. "Is it possible that you've made a friend?"
"Hardly," She turned and started to restock the empty shelf. "It's just nice to see a student in here to study for once and not to smoke, make out, hide, or sleep." She scowled at Discord.
He sat up and stretched his stiff back. "She's researching Draconequues?"
"You weren't sleeping at all then. And could it be you've actually just expressed interest in something?"
"Hardly." Discord took the air and snaked his way toward the door. "But you're right, I wasn't sleeping. I don't really sleep at all, anymore."
"Well that's not my problem, is it?" Mahogany called after his retreating shape. She turned away from the direction of the exit and sighed again in exasperation. She was alone again with a huge mess to clean up. She doubted she could get it all cleared away before Twilight came back for the Starswirl book. She sighed.
"Oh well. At least somepony is using this place."
The sun was setting on the mountainous horizon. The reddening light streamed through the stained glass windows of the library. The warm light illuminated the wood carvings and cast the deep crevices into darker shadow, giving the carvings a deep and dramatic appearance.
Twilight Sparkle sat at one of the many empty work tables in the library, Starswirl Hypotheses lying open in front of her. She found the old book to be extremely intriguing, and it wasn't long before she had written up dozens of pages worth of notes which now lay strewn around the table.
"Ms. Sparkle."
A candle sat itself next to Twilight, and the white aura that surrounded it died away. She hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten, and was grateful for the light. She looked up to see Mahogany standing there.
"Making a mess again, I see," she said.
"Yes, sorry," Twilight said. "I'll be sure to clean it up this time."
"You've been here a while. Don't you think it's time you went to dinner?"
"Dinner?" Twilight glanced at the reddening windows. "Oh, it's that time already?" She looked down at her book longingly. "Mm....That's okay. I'm not hungry."
"Don't be ridiculous," Mahogany said. "You were in here during both breakfast and lunch. Don't try to tell me you're not hungry."
"But I haven't found anything yet."
"What's all this, then?" Mahogany motioned towards all the parchment.
"They're notes on everything I've read so far. Nothing on Draconequues yet, but everything else is so interesting!" Twilight casually sifted through the notes in question, scanning over what she had written.
"Why not just skip to the sections that might have information on Draconequues?"
"I was going to do that, but then other things caught my attention. Before I knew it I was reading everything."
"Well," Mahogany huffed as she turned to leave. "If you're going to starve yourself, that's your business. Just be sure to get to your room before curfew."
"Yes ma'am!"
Twilight turned back to her book, but a sudden protest from her empty stomach distracted her. She tried to ignore it, but eventually it became loud. Embarrassingly so. She reluctantly stepped away from the book, blowing out the candle just to be safe, and trotted to the front desk.
"I think I'll grab a bite to eat after all," she said blushing. "I'll be back soon, though."
"Very well, Ms. Sparkle," Mahogany watched her go. When she was alone again, she closed the book she was reading and took a walk around the library, eventually stopping at Twilight's reading area. She saw the book lying open on the table and began to flip through the pages.
Twilight arrived back at the library just as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The chandeliers above lit the library dimly, and she saw that Mahogany had placed more candles around.
"You best finish up, Ms. Sparkle," Mahogany said from behind her desk. "You have only an hour or so before curfew."
"Thanks, Mrs. Mahogany."
Twilight returned to her desk and found the book open to same page she'd been reading before. However, she spotted a scrap of paper sticking out of the book that wasn't there before.
Mahogany must have been reading it and marked a page. I wonder what it is? She memorized which page she was on and opened the pages to where the scrap piece was. It was the first page of a section called The Chimera Complex.
"Of course!" She said to herself, clunking her hoof against her head. "'Chimera' is another name for a hybrid creature. There's sure to be something in here." She eagerly pulled out a new piece of parchment, but remembered the time. She sighed. "I'll just have to come back tomorrow morning."
The area illuminated with soft pink light as Twilight closed the book, stacked all her notes neatly, and placed them in her saddlebag. Being sure to blow out the candles around her, Twilight went back to the front desk.
"I'll be back tomorrow morning," she said as she headed towards the door.
"I'm sure you will," Mahogany replied in a slightly annoyed tone.
Twilight smiled. "Thank you for letting me study here."
With that the purple unicorn left the old mare alone in the dim library and headed back to the west dormitories.