The Substitute Librarian
Moving Targets
“Now listen up.” The stodgy unicorn at the front of the group consulted his clipboard, then looked out into the train car where a dozen ponies were paying him varied amounts of attention. Two young seamstresses were displaying relative obliviousness by chatting eagerly to each other, the small group of student bakers stopped exchanging cooking tips, and Emerald maintained an alert stance in the front row with his own notebook and a graphite hoof-scriber. Even though it was early, he had attended far earlier classes during his college years so far, and this was one potential educational experience he was determined not to fail. Or at least not unless it became necessary.
Despite the early hour, the other temporary employees were all fairly alert, most likely because of the phrase ‘Guaranteed Three-Day Minimum.’ The employment packet that had been passed out when they boarded the train made no secret of the erratic nature of their jobs. Several of the deployments had been terminated by the return of the Bearers while the substitutes were still en route to their job sites, allowing the employees to enjoy a pleasant day trip to the small town with extra spending money for shopping.
Still, there was a faint undercurrent of tension through the train because of the possibility that the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony might not return from whatever task they had been assigned, and nopony really wanted to think about what kind of world-wide disaster that might entail. It was far easier to pay attention to the sharp voice of the impeccably dressed unicorn standing at the front of the train compartment as he ran through a few last instructions.
“My name is Papercut, and I’ll be responsible for this deployment. This is a scheduled full Bearer deployment with all of them on a mission for the Princess. Depending on the difficulty of their situation, it could be a week until they return, or more. The six teams filling in for them have each received their own briefing, so I’ll keep this short.”
“Too late,” called out one of the gardeners, although just enough under his breath that the natural noise of the moving train nearly smothered his words.
“Carousel Boutique,” continued Papercut as if he had not heard the slight, although one of his ears twitched. “We’re past most of the Fall fashion season, so all you have to do is watch the store and keep the Bearer’s daughter—”
“Sister,” corrected Emerald automatically without looking up from his notes, although he silently chided his mouth for drawing attention to himself afterward.
“Ah, yes.” Papercut made a correction on his clipboard. “Keep her sister out of trouble around the store. You have your list of behavioral rules, so try to stick with them. Sugarcube Corner?”
“Oui,” said one of the three slightly chubby fillies, all baking students from the school in Canterlot. “We have friends who have been here before, Monsieur Papercut. They say it is always a pleasure.”
Emerald smiled as he made the shorthoof notation on his notebook. He enjoyed the way the young Prench would-be chef pronounced ‘Mon-Sewer Pah-PUR-cuute’ in a way that irked their nominal leader like a hoof-edge along a blackboard. When he wrote it down, the graphite lines made a peculiar image on the paper in the shorthoof notation, much like the pinched lips and beady eyes of its owner.
“Sweet Apple Acres,” said Papercut, his eyes rising just enough off the clipboard to look at the four Canterlot gardeners turned temporary farmers gathered into a tight knot and discussing things among themselves. Papercut’s eyes rested for a moment on the ‘odd one out’ among the group, a greying brown burro who returned his suspicious gaze with a calm patience that Emerald had seen him use a lot in the mountain city. The other three earth ponies were all paying their smaller peer considerable respect. Emerald knew exactly why, and made a note to drop by the apple farm later to find out the exact circumstances surrounding Baron Chrysanthemum’s decision to send the senior manager of his estate’s landscapers on a simple apple-picking task.
“Si,” responded the burro in a tone of absolute and total respect for his superior. “Eet will be right in the middle of harvest, so wee will be working very hard. You are welcome to come out and assist eef you want, Senior Papercut.”
Continuing as if he had not heard a word, Papercut marked off his checklist and said, “The weather pegasi have already flown to the site, which leaves the veterinarian.”
“Present,” said a much older mare with a silver mane. She patted the unicorn foal at her side, who looked up with sleepy eyes. “I brought along my granddaughter this time. She’s really looking forward to playing with the birds.”
The steady progress of Papercut’s pencil down the checklist paused. “You were not supposed to bring along any extraneous relatives.”
“Do you want to spend a few days taking care of Fluttershy’s creatures?” asked the sweet old mare with a smile.
There was a long pause, then Papercut completed his checkmark.
“And our librarian this visit will be—” Papercut squinted at his clipboard, then looked up at Emerald with a frown.
“Emerald City,” said ‘Emerald’ a little louder than he expected. He exchanged a bland look with Papercut, who eventually looked back down and completed his checklist, although with a set to the unicorn’s jaw that did not bode well for Emerald’s present attempt at relative anonymity.
“Very well, we should be arriving at the town’s train station in a few minutes. The mayor will coordinate any requests you have for the Crown during your stay and answer any questions you might have about your assignment. Dismissed.”
“I do have one question,” said Emerald, hoping to head off the inevitable curious prying from Papercut. “It’s really nothing serious. I’ll explain over a glass of wake-up juice in the dining car.”
High prices, low quality, and wake-up juice that was both translucent and lukewarm. The dining car was everything Emerald expected, right up to the cramped seating and the sticky tabletop. He settled down in the uncomfortable seat and fixed Papercut with his most serious glower, matched by the placid servant’s returned innocent expression which rated somewhere around the level of I Have No Idea How The Prostitute Got Into The Fraternity, House Mother.
This was going to be difficult.
“Spill it,” said Emerald. “This library gig is a plum position. The Archivists should have slipped one of their own pet students into it, if nothing else.”
“And you’re here.” Papercut made one brief motion to sip from the paper cup before he wrinkled up his nose and put the untouched cup back down on the table with a sharp grimace. “M’lord.”
“My father did not pull strings to get me this assignment,” said Emerald, trying to keep his anger under control, as well as not begin yet another journey into guessing about exactly what strings had been pulled by who. He crooked a foreleg around his paper cup and took a long drink out of the vile fluid, which helped keep his thoughts under control as he continued.
“Or at least I wouldn’t think so,” he added with a terse frown that was intended to gain sympathy from his opponent even if the subject was too close to his own skin for comfort. “Baron Chrysanthum wants his obedient son in Canterlot, after all. Under his hoof, so I can be the good son he wants. Somepony to enter into the family business, marry whatever unicorn mare he picks out for me, and father a line of happy horned grandfoals for him.” Emerald broke off and quietly tapped the rim of the wake-up juice cup with the tip of one hoof.
“You expect me to believe that, M’lord?” asked Papercut, who contrary to his words, was beginning to show small signs of doubt in his face.
After another distasteful sip of wake-up juice, Emerald continued with as much honesty as he could. “I suspect this is as much a surprise to him as it was to me this morning when the messenger showed up at my frat house and escorted me to the train station. Although somepony managed to get Dawn onto the roster, I suppose. The burro,” added Emerald at Papercut’s quizzical expression. “He’s the head landscaper at my father’s estate.”
“Ah.” Papercut floated his clipboard out and reviewed his notes. “A last minute selection. As you were, sir.”
“Which brings us back to just how my name popped up,” said Emerald. “I’m in Education. There is exactly one Library Studies class in my transcript.”
Let unsaid was the excellent score he had managed while holding down a grueling class load that semester. The experience he had managing his father’s library substituted for several missed lectures, and some minor proactive buttering with some ‘discovered’ first editions for the teacher’s own library did the rest.
He viewed it as less a bribe and more of a tip. The professor had been extremely helpful in the family’s academic endeavors, after all. And the gift had very carefully been delivered after final grade submission.
“Anyway,” mused Emerald, “I only signed up for this task to spite my father. The castle is crawling with qualified Archivists and school library science students who should have all been ahead of me.”
“There are no students on the list, M’lord. They all withdrew their applications, presumably at the urging of their instructors.” Papercut flipped back a few pages. “Several of whom requested cancellations, two candidates are out of town at the moment, and it appears your name just came up. Quite fortunate. Hm…”
“Uh-huh.” Emerald slugged back the rest of the instant wake-up juice with a scowl, made only worse by the gritty taste of undissolved powder at the bottom of the cup. “This is not a cyclical position. What happened to the previous substitute librarian?”
“Librarians,” corrected Papercut, who was still reading his sheet. “None of the substitute librarians made it through their assignment to serve a second time. Out of the Bearer missions involving Twilight Sparkle in the last several months, there were two substitutes who withdrew in the middle of their terms due to mental issues. Three others were issued Letters of Reprimand and Restraining Orders from the Crown upon their return to Canterlot and completion of their evaluation. One—” Papercut gave a tense frown “—defenestrated himself on the job. Thankfully, the assignee library is only two floors in height, but he jumped out of the window twice, the second time with a number of bee stings on his cutie mark.”
“It’s a librarian job,” muttered Emerald almost under his breath. “Check the books out, put the books back. An orangutan could do the job. A degreed orangutan,” he corrected at Papercut’s sharp glance. “One who has attended the university and learned the deep mysteries of the library science program, of course. Wouldn’t want any ordinary pony to think our jobs were easy. Right, Papercut?”
“Of course, m’lord.” The trim servant matched gazes with the new substitute librarian. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“For starters, you can stop calling me sir.” Emerald crushed his fedora down firmer on his head and slumped in the sticky train bench. “I’m only doing this to get out from under my father’s hoof for a few days. Every time you say ‘sir’ to me, it’s like he’s pushing down on top of my head.”
“Terribly sorry, sir.” Papercut was staring back nonplussed when Emerald looked up, and they matched gazes for a long time before Emerald let out his breath.
“Wheaton college, correct? Home of the Wheat Shocks, the best college buckball team in the league? Rock, Shock, Block, Shockers!”
“Why… Yes, sir.” The mention of his alumni status made Papercut’s spine straighten and his solemn expression gained the slightest hint of a smile at the very corner of his thin lips.
“Not the top of your class, I presume. Self-conscious about your looks, so you buy the best quality suits you can afford on a government salary in Canterlot. Attempting to fit in at court with your peers from more prestigious schools while carrying the anvil of a cowtown college around your neck means you have to look perfect, dress perfect, act perfect, even though you don’t have their diversity of usable spells. Sending money home to your mother, I presume?”
Papercut’s expression darkened, but he gave a short nod.
“Single parent household, then. Your mother always parted your mane on that side so you’ve never changed. Your tie is tied the same way, so you learned that from your mother too. She’s left-fielded, correct? Living in the lower-income Manehattan suburbs next to Wheaton, most likely employed in something blue collar. Nursing, perhaps.”
“She’s… a mortician’s assistant.” Papercut seemed to chew his next words before spitting them out. “Why did you read my file?”
Emerald shrugged and looked back at his own cutie mark, a child’s stubby unicorn horn with a few sparks spitting out of it. “No, I didn’t have to. Your cutie mark is a stack of paper cut in half, so your skill would seem to be in reducing the difficulty of getting through papers, a strange talent for somepony who works at the palace, although…” He took a breath, then stole Papercut’s untouched cup of wake-up juice and took an unsatisfying drink.
“Princess Celestia put you here. She doesn’t want anything interfering with the Elements of Harmony’s lives while they’re out on missions. That means she trusts you, and in all the years I attended the university, I’ve never known her to trust the wrong ponies. And that means she went through the long list of posers and fluffheads to find somepony who could buckle down and get things done regardless of their impressive credentials and fancy resumes. Somepony who had to take responsibility in their family after a parent left. Somepony who struggled through school, couldn’t make it to the elite institutions but still persevered, not somepony who coasted through on their family name. And above all, somepony not so comfortable in their position as to accept bribes, like your predecessor has been accused of doing. Quite a nasty little fuss in the newspapers, not totally swept under the rug, and a scandal which my respected father considers to be unwarranted, so I will also.”
“That’s… impressive, sir,” said Papercut as Emerald finished off the wake-up juice and crumpled the two empty paper cups in his forehooves. “I still want to know how you got access to read my file.”
“I didn’t. I read between the lines in the newspapers. Also, when your position was announced in the papers, I checked for your name in Twerp’s Peerage and the alumni records from my Canterlot Prep, both of which came up empty. For the rest, it’s written all over you.” Emerald reached out with one hoof and adjusted Papercut’s tie. “The way you hoof-launder your school tie instead of sending it out for professional cleaning, the little frayed spot on the tips of the collar, the way you fight to keep from coming down hard on the ‘sh’ sound when you speak. Just why you’re so resentful of somebody from the minor peerage who only wants to be treated like an ordinary pony. Is that so wrong, after all?”
“It… is not,” conceded Papercut, and although it looked as if he wanted to add another word, he stopped.
“Great.” Emerald City stood up with the crumpled cups pinned in one fetlock. He tossed them one at a time over his shoulder and kicked them into the corner trash bin before making a face. “I’ll try my best to keep the library intact if you’ll keep the wolves off my tail. If I look good, you’ll look good. Will that be acceptable, sir?”
Papercut nodded while getting to his hooves. “It is indeed. Are you certain you will be able to do the job of a proper librarian in Ponyville?”
Emerald City checked the packet he had been given when they boarded the train, including the spellkey to disable the wards on the library door and a stout envelope full of library procedures, which he had not opened yet.
“No problem. This’ll be a piece of cake.”