The afternoon sun shone through the windows of the castle, illuminating the marble pillars of Celestia’s home. She trotted alongside her secretary, Raven, with her public smile firmly locked in place. It wouldn’t do to let the guard or castle staff know she was just one magical mishap away from breaking into a proper gallop. “Just how bad is it?”
Raven adjusted her glasses and kept her eyes on their destination. “I think you’d best see for yourself.”
The guards flanking the doors opened them in a manner that, to the average citizen, probably would have appeared normal. Even stoic. Celestia wasn’t the average citizen, and her keen observation caught how they moved a tiny bit faster than normal and their eyes drifted from her gaze. In her experience, this was the guards’ equivalent of begging for help, for what was happening inside went well beyond their pay grade.
The Royal Canterlot Library. Five levels of scrolls and tomes. The single finest collection of literature in Equus and the envy of every historian and intellectual. The waiting list for ponies seeking entry was five years long, and the physical list of names had been tampered with by overzealous researchers at least twelve times in the last decade (an unusually low count). The bookshelves were pristine, every shelf and panel lacquered to glimmering perfection and replaced on a monthly basis to maintain the image. Golden light filtered in through carefully placed windows near the ceiling, covering every soft, immaculate reading couch, chair, cushion and desk with the exact best illumination to read by.
And right now, that illumination revealed rows and rows of empty bookshelves. Celestia’s ears folded back as she realized the true extent of the problem. She looked to her secretary, who was anxiously adjusting her tie. “I shall take care of this. Please, return to your duties and inform the castle staff that the library is off limits for the time being.”
Raven, ever the epitome of calm, nodded firmly and trotted back to the door. “Good luck, Celestia.”
Bracing herself, Celestia resolutely marched onward, ready to deal with this latest catastrophe. She imagined it wouldn’t take long to find the source of the missing literature. Her guess proved sound when she turned the first corner and the library’s central reading foyer came into view. She froze, letting out a slow exhale at the incredible sight before her.
Book forts were one thing, but this? This was a book palace. A low outer wall comprised of adventure stories held in a moat of harlequin romance (to the inspired constructor of this magnificent architecture, only the most vile of literary crimes). The drawbridge consisted of woodworking manuals. As Celestia walked across the inexplicably solid structure, she noted that the walls of the palace itself seemed to have been created from the intellectual works of the great scientists and philosophers of the last five centuries.
Fortress of knowledge, indeed.
Upon reaching the closed portcullis made from smithing guides, Celestia did what any visiting dignitary might do: she knocked.
A young, foalish voice called out from a nearby tower of self-help books. “Go away! No stupid-heads allowed in the Palace of Book!”
A tiny smile crept onto Celestia’s lips. “Am I going to have to lay siege, then?”
There came an impressively long and windy gasp, and then a tiny purple head popped out of the tower’s window. “P-Princess! Please don’t lay siege to my palace! It’s new and full of books and I don’t wanna have to reshelf everything.” Twilight disappeared inside once more. “Spike, stop chewing on Haydrian’s Treatise of National Defense! That’s a Prance national hair loom!”
Celestia found she was just tall enough to raise her chin over the palace walls. She glanced around at the large courtyard of bricklaying instruction manuals. The octagonal design of the defenses were impressive, with a tower on each corner. Somepony had been reading up on castle design. “My dear student, why build so defensively? Open up and let us parlay.”
Twilight cantered from a doorway lined in architectural treatises from the pre-classical period, a tiny purple dragon whelp on her back and sucking on her mane. The little filly’s eyes grew big as she froze halfway across the courtyard. “P-parlay? Doesn’t that mean you’ll attack if the talks go bad?”
“Come now, Twilight. Our talks never go bad.” Celestia stepped back so that she stood before the papery portcullis. “Won’t you please let me in? It’s hardly good diplomacy to make a visiting dignitary talk through a gate.”
Her steps hesitant, Twilight approached the portcullis with her tail between her legs. “This isn’t an ambush, is it? Cadance and Shining won’t come charging in?”
Celestia raised an eyebrow at the specific mention of Princess Cadance and Twilight’s brother. “I promise. They don’t even know I’m here.”
Twilight sighed and, with a flash of her horn, the smithing books flew into the courtyard to make a neat little pyramid. “Okay, Princess. I trust you.” Celestia couldn’t help being impressed by how the gateway remained steadfast once the books were gone. She had to crouch low and keep her wings tucked in to fit through, and when she managed it Twilight dutifully rebuilt the portcullis.
Settling herself in the center of the courtyard, Celestia made a show of examining the Palace of Book. While her focus was more on Twilight, she found herself thinking that Twilight would make for a marvelous architect someday, if she so desired. Twilight plopped herself before Celestia, setting Spike down nearby. Ignoring the drool in her mane, she dangled a ruby pacifier over him, cooing and giggling while the little guy waggled his claws for it.
Then she apparently recalled that this was supposed to be a serious meeting between leaders. She promptly set the pacifier into Spike’s eager maw and turned to Celestia, expression solemn and head held so far up Celestia could see her chin. This in spite of the fact she barely reached up to Celestia’s knees. “A-hem, how might I, the Lady of Book, make sure my palace remains un-siege-ified?”
Doing her level best to keep her smile from becoming a smirk, Celestia pressed down on Twilight’s muzzle until the filly’s neck was in a less painful position. She also went through the minor effort of cleaning her student’s mane with a quick spell. “You can start by explaining why you’ve built a book palace in the middle of my library. I do believe this is my sovereign territory, unless you came to conquer?”
Twilight shook her head so fast her bangs slapped against her muzzle. “Oh, no! I’d never seek to conquer your sov… sovroon… your library.”
“Then why build the palace?”
Twilight’s smile faded, her brow furrowing until she had what might have been her most determined scowl. It looked a bit more like she’d eaten a sour grape, but Celestia kept her giggle in check. Barely.
“To protect me from stupid-heads like Shiny and Cadance.”
Celestia’s ears perked and she cocked her head. “But I thought you loved Shining Armor. And you’ve told me many times that Cadance is the best foalsitter ever.”
Crossing her arms, Twilight turned her scrunched up face away to glare at the floor. “Shining is great. Cadance is greater. But Shining and Cadance together is like Spike’s dookies; not fun at all.”
“Why?”
Twilight threw her hooves high in the air. “Because they’re supposed to have fun with me, not each other!” She began pacing a small circle, tail flicking and eyes on the carpet. “Always staring at one another and ignoring me. Giggling at me behind my back. Going out to play at night when I can’t come. I bet they’re going to the library without me. Without me!” Her watery eyes met Celestia’s with all the trappings of righteous fury. “I bet the library’s not even open that late. They’re breaking an entering!”
“I think you mean ‘breaking and entering’.”
“Yeah, that!”
No amount of willpower could keep her from chuckling at Twilight’s puffed up cheeks. “I never took you for the jealous type.”
“I’m not jealous!” Twilight stomped a few times to emphasize what was surely meant to be a profound declaration. “I just figured out that friendship is evil.”
That line gave Celestia pause. “You think friendship is evil?”
Twilight nodded solemnly. “As evil as Mommy when she used to hide the cookie jar in that anti-magic shelf I never liked. It had all the stuff she and Daddy said were too ‘big’ for me. I’m plenty big!”
“Oh, Twilight.” Shaking her head in exasperation, Celestia leaned forward to better look the filly in the eye. “Friendship is not evil. It is as far from evil as anything can be.”
“Nope. It’s evil.” Twilight sat back, crossed her legs, and gave another nod, this time brimming with self-confidence. “This is a test, right? I can prove it!”
An eyebrow raised, Celestia sat up straight once more and gestured invitingly. “Go ahead, then. Prove it.”
Twilight didn’t miss a beat. “Friendship made Shining Armor and Cadance stop paying any attention to me.”
Silence filled the library as Celestia waited for more, but Twilight seemed to think she’d said enough. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
The filly’s eyes went wide, but only for a moment. She hunched down and smirked as if Celestia had just issued some kind of challenge. “I knew it was a test! I have a math formula. This’ll be easy.”
“A math formula that proves friendship is evil?” Celestia’s smile came back in force; this little pony could come up with the silliest ideas at times. “This I have to see.”
“Right! I… uh…” Twilight swiveled her head about the bookish courtyard. “Um… be right back.” She galloped back to the tower she’d been in before, the one made from self-help guides.
Celestia took the opportunity to check Spike. He gurgled at her, lips coated in shiny ruby shards, which she patiently cleaned away with her magic. She grinned when he began sucking on his tail. “I can’t wait until you’re old enough to knock some sense into her when she gets silly like this.” She rubbed his belly, earning a playful giggle. He tried to grab her hoofguard, which she kept carefully out of reach of his claws. She’d already had to replace one set, after all.
“Here we go!” Twilight came galloping up with a large notepad and quill floating after her. She settled herself down before Celestia, raising her knee and her chin in what was probably meant to be a regal pose. It reminded Celestia curiously of one of her own. “Now then, proof that friendship is… wait.” She ripped a page off the notepad, then another. Celestia caught just enough of a look at them to see what appeared to be stick figure representations of Shining Armor and Cadance with big frowny faces being attacked by some sort of book monster.
“A-hem.” Twilight took on her lecturer’s pose once more. “Now then, proof that friendship is evil. First, I turn to a quote by noted magician Crumpet Crunch: ‘Relationships require time and money.’ That’s the short form, by the way.”
On the pad, she wrote down the equation Relationship = Time x Money.
“Of course, ‘friendship’ is just another word for ‘relationship’, so…”
Below the first equation, Twilight wrote down Friendship = Time x Money.
Celestia raised an eyebrow at this, but elected to say nothing. She had to admit, Twilight’s line of thinking was intriguing.
Appearing more confident with every word, her student continued the explanation. “Now, according to the inventor and Smart Cookie’s advisor, Ben Pranksin, time is money.”
The next equation was written down: Time = Money.
“Make the substitution, and you get…”
Friendship = Money x Money
“Or…”
Friendship = Money2
Celestia didn’t know which surprised her more, that Twilight had made such strange connections or that she’d taught herself basic algebra at the tender age of seven. It certainly hadn’t been part of her education so far. She’d have to consider bumping the filly up to tougher classes at this rate. This might have been a source of pride were she not thoroughly confused as to where Twilight was going with this.
Twilight raised a hoof high as if to capture the attention of an enraptured audience, her eyes closed and her expression grave. “And here we have the proof! I quote the Book of the Sun and Moon: ‘Money is the root of all evil’.”
The quill dutifully made the substitutions:
Friendship = √(Evil2)
“Therefore…”
Friendship = Evil
“And so it is proven that friendship is evil.” With a firm nod, Twilight levitated the notebook towards Celestia. “You can study my proof, Princess. I’m sure it’s right.”
Celestia didn’t take the notepad. She could only stare at the writing, her mind struggling to find all the ways to rip it apart. There were many. Slowly, her gaze turned to Twilight. Normally, her silence would have the filly becoming gradually more nervous. She’d be able to see the gears working behind her eyes, trying to find the flaw.
Instead, she saw a Twilight who was absolutely convinced of the truth of what she’d just presented.
How to tell Twilight she was wrong without crushing her little heart?
“Twilight, please reshelf the Palace of Book immediately. When you are done, the two of us are going to have a little conversation with your brother and Princess Cadance.” They could provide a proper demonstration once they understood how Twilight felt.
Twilight’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened to maximum shock size. The notebook dropped to the floor as her aura winked out. “B-but that’ll take forever! And I don’t wanna talk to those stupid-heads!”
Celestia raised an eyebrow.
Twilight’s teeth clicked as her jaw snapped shut. Her ears folded back and her tail tucked between her legs. “Yes, Princess…”
As Twilight got to work fixing her rather elaborate mess, Celestia took another look at the equations on the notepad. Her eyes followed each step as the mini-lecture played out in her mind once more. The final line stood out to her amongst all the rest.
Friendship = Evil
She heaved a long sigh and solemnly informed a dozing baby dragon that “It seems we’ve got a long way to go.”