//------------------------------// // 58. Librarianing Is Actually Very Easy, Right? Right! // Story: Azure Edge // by Leaf Blade //------------------------------// Rainbow’s neck fur stood on end the second she entered the library and saw the line of frustrated patrons standing in front of the reception desk, with Spike frantically trying to keep them calm and get everypony what they needed. Rainbow didn’t talk to anyone in line as she made a beeline for the reception desk, but she did pay attention to their frustrated mutters and grumbles. Apparently Spike wasn’t quite the accomplished librarian his mom was, and librarian-ing was a lot harder than it looked. Still though, Rainbow was sure it was nothing she couldn’t handle. “Hey, Spike,” Rainbow leaned an elbow on the desk and looked over at Spike who was standing on a stool behind the desk, rifling through some books tucked into shelves inside it and throwing several on the ground in his search. “Spike? Y’there?” “I’m trying to find a book!” Spike stated the obvious, though the desperate tone in his voice tipped even thickheaded Rainbow Dash off that this wasn’t the best time for jokes. “No problem!” Rainbow scoffed and sat cross-legged on the desk in front of the line of increasingly frustrated ponies. “What kinda book are you lookin’ for, ma’am?” The pony in front of the line, a pale pink unicorn with amethyst hair, rolled her eyes and groaned. “I was trying to get a more in-depth explanation on magic thermodynamics!” She threw a trio of books on the desk in front of Rainbow, and as Rainbow glanced at the covers she already knew she wouldn’t be able to understand a single word of any of them. “These ones are far too beginner for someone of my skill level!” “Right,” Rainbow’s eye twitched. “You need something more… complex.” “Exactly!” “Right,” Rainbow repeated as the blood drained from her face. She cleared her throat and looked out at the other ponies in line. “Anypony have a simpler request?” The chorus of groans that erupted from the line was not a great sign. “Oh, how about this one!” Spike cheered proudly, presenting a book over his head that he dug from the inside of the desk. “That’s literally the same as this one!” the disgruntled unicorn balked, pointing at one of the books she’d thrown on the desk. “Uh,” Spike dropped the book and Rainbow caught it before it could land on top of his head or something, “could you excuse me for one sec?” Spike darted into the nearby kitchen in a panicked frenzy, Rainbow watching him go with a knot in her stomach. Poor guy didn’t need all this stress. “Well?” the pink unicorn tapped her hoof on the ground and glared at Rainbow, who quite frankly was getting real tired of her attitude! “Are you gonna get us our books?” “Yeah, definitely,” Rainbow forced a smile and spread her wings before darting toward the kitchen door, “just give me one sec!” Another chorus of groans erupted from the crowd and Rainbow grit her teeth. She flew into the air and screamed, “Hey! Our librarian is outta town today, so you’ll just have to cut us a little slack while we figure all our stuff out, alright?!” The frustrated ponies looked less than impressed, and Rainbow just rolled her eyes with an irritated groan, before flying into the kitchen to find Spike. Spike was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth underneath one of the kitchen chairs when Rainbow found him. She sat next to him and outstretched a wing, awkwardly fitting it under the chair, and wrapped it around him. “You okay, kid?” “Y-yeah,” Spike sniffled, clearly not okay. “I didn’t know your mom had such a tough job!” “I know, right?! I thought it would be super easy!” “Yeah! Like, how hard is it to just be like ‘oh here’s a book for you!’ Really dang hard, I guess!” Spike laughed and cozied up next to Rainbow, wrapping his little arms around her leg, her wing still carefully sheltering him. “I really didn’t wanna mess things up,” Spike said, puffing up his cheeks and trying not to cry anymore. “I didn’t want Twilight to come back and see that I made a mess of everything and got all the ponies mad at her and then everyone would leave the library and never come back!” “Well, I got bad news, Spike,” Rainbow said grimly, before smirking at him and ruffling his mane, “I’m not going anywhere, so you’re stuck with me!” “That’s not bad news!” Spike gave Rainbow a playful shove, and Rainbow responded by getting him in a gentle headlock and ruffling his mane all up. “Still though, what do we do now?” “Welp,” Rainbow stood up and stretched her arms over her head, banging her fingers into a couple of overhanging pans, “we can’t do what Twilight does, that’s for sure.” Rainbow flashed a gleaming grin at Spike, who just looked at her all confused. “So we’ll just have to do what we can do! C’mon, follow my lead!” Rainbow poked her head into the lobby and scanned the line of ponies. Just one foal would be enough for Rainbow’s plan to go off, but if there weren’t any, she’d be kinda screwed. Lucky for her, she spotted no less than half a dozen parents with their kids, either standing grumpily in line or wandering through the aisles of bookcases. Perfect! “Hey, sorry for the delay, everypony!” Rainbow called out as she walked back into the library, Spike following tepidly behind her as she walked the length on the line of angry ponies staring at them. Rainbow ignored the frustrated and bemused glances, and she kept walking until she reached a woman standing with crossed arms, standing next to a little girl with her nose in a Daring Do book. “So what are you looking for?” Rainbow asked the woman, whose eyes briefly landed on her daughter before focusing on Rainbow. “Honestly, I’m not sure,” the woman said nervously. “Aura, what did you say the book was called?” The filly delayed a second, but when her mother called her name again she snapped to attention. “Huh? The name of the—oh, uh—” Aura bit her lip, and Rainbow stifled a chuckle at the way her eyes crossed as she thought. “I don’t know!” “You looking for a Daring Do book?” Rainbow asked. “Yeah!” Aura exclaimed excitedly, drawing a chuckle from both her mother and Rainbow as she nearly shoved the book she was holding into Rainbow’s face, or at least as close as her tiny stature would allow. “Daring Do’s the coolest!” “I totally agree!” Rainbow grinned. “And you’re in luck, cuz not only do we have an extensive collection of Daring Do, and other cool adventure books, but tonight we’re doing a super special book reading of Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams!” The filly gasped in excitement and Rainbow flicked a hand across her bangs, trying to play it cool. “A book reading?” one of the other patrons asked in a dry, humorless tone. “Do you really think that’s gonna make up for being totally useless at the jobs you were supposed to do?” the pink unicorn, still standing futilely at the front of the line, cried out. “I dunno,” Rainbow shrugged and glanced down at the child beside her who was quivering with excitement, “what do you think, Aura? You and your mom wanna come by tonight for a super exclusive live reading of the most awesomest, terrifyingest, dramaticest of all adventure stories?!” “Yeah!” Aura cheered, jumping into the air several times, and to Rainbow’s relief, her mom looked tentatively enthused also. Some of the other patrons were poking their heads out of the bookcase aisles to see what all the sudden fuss was about, and it did Rainbow’s heart good to see several kids looking excited at the prospect of story time, either staring with glittery eyes and cooing, or tugging on their parents’ sleeves and such to ask if they could come back tonight. It was starting to look like today wouldn’t be such a disaster for the library after all, and Rainbow looked over at a visibly relieved Spike and gave him a wink. “Daring Do?” Rainbow heard a dismissive scoff coming from the line of ponies, which was slowly starting to disperse, and she scanned the crowd to find the culprit, narrowing in on a black-haired, grey colt when he spoke up again. “That stuff’s for babies.” “Oh yeah?” Rainbow scoffed and crossed her arms before flying into the air. “You don’t think it’s awesome when Daring Do uses a cragadile for a raft? Or when she uses the sparkling trail of adamantium to throw off the diamond dog hunting party?” The colt yawned. And that would’ve been bad enough, but the snickering from some of the other kids is what really got to Rainbow. This wasn’t just a heckling now, this was a challenge. “What’s your name, kid?” Rainbow landed next to the kid, briefly exchanging pleasantries with the buff black pegasus dude he was with. “Rumble,” the kid answered confidently, and Rainbow had to admit she liked the kid’s sass. “So what do you like, Rumble?” Rainbow asked, trying to strike a balance between being kinda confrontational, but not being one of those weird adults that gets mad at kids’ taste in art. “If you think Daring Do is ‘for babies’?” “Mystery and horror stuff,” Rumble scoffed, “duh.” “Well joke’s on you, kid!” Rainbow pointed both indexes down at the kid. “Razor of Dreams has plenty of that stuff!” “Oh yeah?” Rumble crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. “Of course!” Rainbow scoffed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and this kid clearly didn’t know what was cool if he didn’t know something as simple as that. Truth be told, the mystery aspect of Razor of Dreams—and Daring Do in a general sense—was pretty downplayed, and calling the intense action scenes ‘horror’ would’ve been a stretch, so no, it wasn’t really either of those things. But there was no reason Rainbow couldn’t spin it like it was! “I mean, think about this,” Rainbow flew up into the air again and outstretched her hands, getting everpony’s attention, “imagine the famed scientist Dr. Niflheim, who went missing over a decade ago, is suddenly spotted in her hometown, and when Daring Do goes to see how she suddenly, miraculously, returned, everypony in town acts like she’s been there all along, even when there’s clear evidence that isn’t the case!” Rumble hummed and pursed his lips, and the smile from his black pegasus friend was a good sign that Rainbow was on the right track. “And imagine,” Rainbow dashed to the other side of the room, forcing everypony to quickly turn around to keep their eyes on her, “you’re Daring Do, you’ve lost all your useful equipment, and you’re stranded in the jungle in the dead of night, no civilization for miles…” Rainbow ducked behind a bookcase, loudly stomping her hooves on the wooden floor as she skulked behind the bookcase. “You think—you hope—you’re all alone in this dangerous jungle, cuz the venomous plants and ferocious animals you can deal with, but what if…” Rainbow dashed behind another bookcase, a torrent of wind blowing through her wake and startling the crowd, gasps and coos coming from several patrons. “What if you’re being hunted the whole time?” Rainbow said eerily, hiding behind yet another bookcase out of the crowd’s sight, darting back and forth between several until she was sure the crowd had lost sight of her. “And then,” Spike chimed in, using his best spooky story-teller voice, and Rainbow poked her head out just enough to see everyony in the library was giving him their full attention, making her grin devilishly, “what if you hear something echoing through the jungle? A hum that definitely didn’t belong to any snake or cragadile?” Rainbow hummed an eerie tune, and she could hear the concerned and enraptured murmurs of the crowd. “So what is it?” Rumble asked, trying to sound tough even as his voice cracked. “There’s no way to know,” Spike said dramatically, “until…” He paused, and the air in the library became cold as everypony went silent, waiting for a continuation that never came. “Until?” Rumble asked weakly. “IT STRIKES!” Rainbow screamed as she jumped out from behind a bookcase into the crowd, the whole line of patrons screaming in fright in return for a moment, before several kids and adults alike started laughing and applauding Rainbow’s dramatics. Rainbow basked in the praise for a sec, and she caught sight of Rumble clutching his heart, his friend rubbing his shoulders to comfort him, before Rumble caught Rainbow looking and cleared his throat. “Okay,” he admitted, “that does sound kinda cool.” “See you tonight, everypony?” Rainbow said to the crowd, grinning widely at them, and even wider still as the enthused reactions of the patrons clued her in that she nailed it. And with another wink toward Spike, which he returned with a thumbs-up, Rainbow mused that maybe taking care of the library for the night wouldn’t be so bad after all.