The Librarian led Scootaloo and her friends back up the stairs into the main room. His movements were sluggish and halting at first, as though he didn’t quite remember how to walk. He got the hang of it after a few steps, and by the time they’d reached the top of the stairs he was moving only slightly slower than a normal walk. Scootaloo was reminded of the timber wolves as she watched his wooden body move.
"Were you asleep down here all this time?"
"Asleep? No, not asleep."
"Then what was it?" Apple Bloom asked. "Frozen in time until the seal broke? Something like that?"
"I was awake. I was... for a time, there was nothing to be done. So I did nothing."
"Wait," Spike said. "You were just standing there in the dark because you didn't have anything better to do?"
The librarian nodded and continued on. Scootaloo cast an unsure glance back at her friends and followed him. He circled around the guard at the top of the stairs to the back left door and placed a hoof against it. The echoing female voice from earlier spoke. “Ahdan dra bycc luta.”
The Librarian answered, “Ubah cacysa,” and pushed. The door swung open easily despite sitting unmoving for a thousand years.
The room beyond had the light crystals, but they too were dull. Sweetie Belle lit her horn as the entered. Inside were four long counters, each just tall enough to be uncomfortable for Scootaloo to use. She flapped her wings and rose to hover even with the Librarian’s head.
The tops of the counters were cluttered with scrolls of heavy paper and long dried bottles of ink. Several tablets of gray slate lay nearby, each covered in light blue scrawl.
At the end of the each counter was a station of some sort. A stone surface with two arches, one on each side. Blue crystal spheres were embedded into the top of each arch. The Librarian came to a stop in front of one. His antlers flickered again, and a cloud of dust lifted from the stone workplace, rolling over itself to reveal a mess of concentric circles and runes. It reminded Scootaloo of a diagram of the solar system, but far more complex.
The comic book floated down onto the workplace and the two crystal balls began to glow. Each shined a short cone of blue light that stopped just a few inches short of the comic book.
The comic lifted off the table, floating level with the blue orbs. The top fold of the plastic opened, and the protective cover slid off. Spike winced and turned away.
The comic opened to the first page, then the second and third. As it did, three of the runes on the stone beneath it began to glow.
“Veldeuh,” the Librarian said. “Yldeuh. Ytjahdina.”
The pages of the comic turned, one by one, until it reached the last page and closed. The comic lowered once again, the glowing stopped, and the workstation came to a rest.
“Did it work?” Scootaloo asked.
“Ed caasc cu. It awakens.”
The lights brightened around the room. The workstation they’d been using hummed to life. The blue crystal balls glowed once more, and the circles and runes all glowed as well. The three other workstations did the same a moment later.
The comic vanished in a flash.
“What happened to it?” Spike asked.
“It has been taken down into the stacks. Should you wish to read it at some point, I will show you where it is located.”
“Okay. Just so long as it wasn’t like, vaporized or something.”
“You got your contribution,” Scootaloo said. “Can you help us now?”
“Yes. E pameaja cu. What is it you need?”
“We need to know everything we can find out about Nocturne.”
The Librarian tilted his head. “Hmm.”
“She might also have been called the first queen or the night queen,” Mimic added.
“Yes, she was,” the Librarian said. “I... think I remember something of her.”
“You do?” Scootaloo asked. For the first time since Al had told them of Libiris, she began to feel real hope about this errand. “What do you remember?”
“Little,” the Librarian said. “She was... yes, the changelings were her progeny. Her creations. First windigos, and they were wild and untamed, but they lacked insight. Then were the Kmuus Rihdan, specters. Another failure. Unsustainable. Finally, she created the changelings, and three sisters to lead them. Her favored children. The changelings were meant to be her perfect hunters. The ability to match any environment. Powerful magic. The ability to feed on energy to strengthen themselves.”
The Librarian moved toward the door. “That is as much as I can remember now. Lusa. The stacks will tell us more.” He led them back to the main room. The crystals lighting the room were glowing even brighter now. The circle beside the stairs was also glowing the same blue as the workstations. The Librarian stepped onto the circle and Scootaloo’s group did the same. It was just large enough to hold everypony comfortably.
The Librarian spoke, “Drent vmuun.”
The world went fuzzy around Scootaloo and the bottom dropped out of her stomach as though she’d just gone into an uncontrolled dive. Everything came back into focus and she was standing on one of the landings further down the stairwell. Before her a doorway opened into a well lit hall.
The Librarian led them through the hall and into the stacks.
Scootaloo wasn’t much of a reader outside the occasional adventure novel. She wasn’t an egghead like Twilight or Thistleroot. But still. Wow.
They had come out to a balcony of sorts. It stretched left and right, probably circling the entire room. Scootaloo couldn’t tell. The ends of the room were too far away. There were spiral staircases every thirty feet or so, connecting eight different levels of walkways. Bridges crisscrossed through the room, and between those walkways were bookshelves.
There had to be a better way to describe them, Scootaloo thought. Bookshelves fit in houses, or school libraries, or even the Canterlot royal library. These weren’t bookshelves. Bookshelves weren’t eighty feet tall. Bookshelves didn’t float freely in space, rotating slowly so a pony could grab books off of every side of them. Bookshelves didn’t line the roof in staggered rows reminiscent of a topographical map, but these did.
“This way,” the Librarian said, turning left along the path. Scootaloo snapped herself out of her amazement and followed. She looked back to check on the rest of the group. “Are you coming, Thistleroot?”
Thistleroot was sitting on his haunches, staring out into the stacks. “Yes, just, I need a moment.”
Scootaloo snorted and continued walking. She heard him trot after them a few seconds later.
They walked two hundred feet or so. The far wall didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but in the distance Scootaloo could make out a larger part of the walkway. A semicircular balcony jutted out from the wall. On it were tables, chairs, and three large stone apparatuses.
“Cool, Libiris has reading nooks,” she heard Thistleroot say from the back of the group. “If you guys don’t mind, I’m just gonna sit here for a few days.”
“Thistleroot, not to rain on your parade,” Apple Bloom said, “but how many of these books do ya think are actually written in Equestrian.”
“Well, uh. Huh. Hey, Librarian, do you offer language courses for whatever language these books are written in?”
“Language courses? Du daylr. It would not be impossible.”
“Oh yes! I am so coming back here once we save the world. What do you call that language, anyway?”
“Adanhym.”
“Adany him. Alright. First lesson, complete.”
The librarian smiled a slow, creaking smile. “Very good. But that is not the lesson you came for.” He moved in front of one of the stone apparatuses Scootaloo had seen from a distance. It was roughly as tall as she was and had a bubble like crystal facing them. Unlike those in the upper floor, this crystal was clear and not perfectly spherical. It was about three feet across, but only extended four inches from the stone surface.
“Ehxieno: Nocturne. First changeling queen. Duhkia: Equestrian.”
The echoing female voice from before spoke. “Language set to Equestrian. Inquiry: Nocturne. First changeling queen.”
Smoke poured into the crystal and took shape. The color filled the smoke and before them stood Nocturne. The lettering Scootaloo had seen before, which she now knew was called Adanhym, scrolled across the bottom.
The voice spoke. “Nocturne. First queen. Night queen. Mother of the hunt. Eternal spirit of feral instinct. Age, unknown. Birthplace, unknown. Marital status, unknown. Please refine inquiry.”
The Librarian turned back toward Scootaloo’s group and tilted a head at the crystal.
“Any ideas of what we should ask?” Scootaloo asked her friends.
“Oh, I have one,” Spike said. “What major events was she a big part of?”
The crystal hummed and the image of Nocturne swirled, becoming an image of queens Chrysalis, Rosalia, and Lirian. “Creation of the changelings, windigos, and specters.” The image swirled again to a sweeping view of the Everfree forest. “The first raising of the wild hunt.” Another image, this one of a large castle built into a mountainside. “Building of Night’s End and crowning of the first queen.” Another image, this one of Libiris from the outside, clear of vines. “Creation of the seal of Libiris.” Another image, this one of Nocturne again, facing Lirian and Chrysalis and an odd creature with the body parts of several different creatures. Scootaloo’s stomach lurched. “Betrayed and sealed within The Lahdnym Bayg Mountains.” The image turned into shapeless fog. “No further major events known.”
“She sealed Libiris?” Apple Bloom asked.
The fog swirled and took on the shape of the three seals they’d seen on the doors. “Nocturne took part in the creation of a three part seal. She was locked away before the seal was activated.” The image became that of Rosalia. “The changeling queen known as Rosalia completed the seal in her stead.”
“That must be why we needed a changeling to unlock Libiris,” Thistleroot said.
"Why did she seal it?" Spike asked.
A longer moment passed before the voice answered. "Information sealed. A higher license is required."
The Librarian considered the crystal and then said, "Unseal it. I allow it."
"Information sealed. A higher license is required."
He tilted his head. "That is odd. Perhaps the archive is not fully awake yet." He frowned, thinking. "I suppose you should try other questions for now."
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “Okay. Is there any way to defeat Nocturne?”
The crystal was silent for a long moment. “Unknown.”
“Darn. Okay, what about sealing her? What do you know about how that worked?”
“Nocturne was imprisoned by two of her changelings and the eternal spirit of chaos, Discord. Discord was the architect of the prison. Motives: unknown. Methods: unknown.”
“Why would Discord imprison her?” Scootaloo asked.
“Motives: unknown.”
Scootaloo shook her head. “I don’t mean why would they be enemies. I mean Discord didn’t like imprisoning anypony. He thought it was boring. He only did it to Celestia because he couldn’t come up with another solution in time. Do you know anything about his personality at that time?”
The crystal was silent for a long while. “Allow speculation and extrapolation?”
“Um, yes?”
“The spirits Discord and Nocturne are antithetical. As their influence grew, the confrontations between them became more frequent. Nocturne’s influence caused chaos on a small scale, but imposed a natural order on a large scale." The smoke in the crystal showed a diagram of leaves, deer, and wolves in a circle of arrows.
“Speculation begins here. Discord imprisoned Nocturne for one or both of two reasons. One, to prevent Nocturne from imposing her order on the world and limiting his chance to spread chaos. Two, to allow disharmony to spread among the changelings. Nocturne’s imprisonment was an act of betrayal, one that would divide the three lesser queens.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense," Scootaloo said. "Rose probably got the information about Nocturne’s prison from Discord when she learned how to make the Elements of Disharmony.” Scootaloo was pacing, though she wasn’t sure when she’d started.
“Why did Nocturne make the changeling queens? And why did Lirian and Chrysalis turn against Nocturne?” Thistleroot asked.
“The three changeling queens were created to each fill a purpose,” the voice said. The image became that of Chrysalis. “They were created so that changelings as a whole would live by Nocturne's ideals as the spirit of feral instinct: Strength, Survival, and Growth. The oldest was to be a queen, and to lead the changelings in accordance to Nocturne’s ideals of power corresponding to authority. Nocturne believed that those with power have a duty to rule, and that those without have a duty to serve. Through this ideal, even the weakest members of the horde could survive.”
The image shifted to Rosalia in her changeling form, though without the pink highlights in her mane. “The second was to be an intellectual. When acting on instinct failed, cunning and reason would mean survival. She was created to counter Nocturne’s previous errors with the windigos, and to provide foresight to the horde. She also served as Nocturne’s advisor, and as such was well versed in matters that did not come naturally to the first queen.”
The image became that of Lirian. “The youngest, Nocturne filled with passion and ambition. The youngest would provide the drive for the changelings. She would make them grow stronger.”
Scootaloo felt that she knew where this was going. The voice asked, “Allow speculation?”
“Yes.”
“It is unknown whether or not the changeling queens would have acted against the first queen without the prompting of Discord. Without a means of sealing her, their chances of victory were minimal.
“Chrysalis was created to lead the changelings. The most likely scenario leading to her betrayal of Nocturne is that Chrysalis felt that to properly rule, she required a greater degree of autonomy. As for Lirian, it is most likely that the ambition she’d been given was the primary driving factor.”
“Okay,” Scootaloo said. “That’s all interesting, but since Libiris doesn’t have any information on actually defeating Nocturne, I don’t think we’re going to get much more out of this.” She was silent for a moment. Nopony disagreed with her. “Twilight might be able to figure out more if we bring her here. So I guess there’s just one last question to ask. Where would Nocturne be if she got freed? Allow speculation.”
The image shifted once more, back to the castle built into the side of a snowy mountain. “Nocturne’s palace is Night’s End, built upon the ceaseless peaks.” The fog twisted into an image of a map. It looked like Equestria, but the shore lines were just a little bit off. A black mark appeared on one of the northwestern mountains, near Yakyakistan.
A smile spread across Scootaloo’s face. “We found them.”