It was about as big as he thought, maybe a little bigger. Books lined the wall, on assumedly every subject known to mankind. Or, ponykind rather. Ugh, that felt weird to say. “Alright. So, where are the books on magical curses?” Trip asked.
“I’m not sure. Come and get me when you find what you’re looking for, though.” she said as she started walking away.
“Wait, where are you going? I thought you were going to help me!”
“What?” she stopped and turned around. “No, I already said, I’m here to look up things to help me with my garden.”
“You have a garden?” He responded, flabbergasted.
“Well, no. But I’d like to know how to start growing one. So, what better place to find some information?” She started walking away again, but stopped. “By the way, what is with your cutie mark?”
Trip turned around and started looking at the spines of the books. “I don’t know. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
“You don’t know what it means?” she responded, confused.
“I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want you telling me, either.” he shooed her away. “Go look for your flowery stuff. I’ll find you when I’m done here.”
“Okay. Try not to take too long, alright?”
“Alright.” But that was easier said than done. From what he could see, none of the books had their names printed on the spines.
Of course they don’t, Trip thought. They never do in cartoons. And just as he expected, none of them had their names on the front, either.
But he found that simply holding the book in his hands... err, hooves, gave him a general idea of what the book was about. And by looking at the cover, the title of the book would appear in his mind. He pulled a book out.
“This book is about the proper use of snails as paint brushes. The H-? And its title is... Crawling Art: How to Train Snails to Paint Masterpieces. Who would even...?”
He put the book back. He was going to have a swell time trying to find what he needed. He looked over and saw a bookcase ladder. He walked over to it and awkwardly climbed to the highest step on his two back legs and grabbed a book at random. It was titled Ducks and Their Migratory Habits. How enthralling.
I’m in the Zoology section or something. Oh wait, there are sections! This is gonna take a while...
He walked down the many corridors and the many, many bookshelves. None of which had any identification of what type of books they held. He felt as if he was looking for a needle in a haystack, but not just any old needle, a hay colored needle.
Occasionally, he would stop and pick a book out at random. He found a few on Culinary Arts, some on Anatomy, and even a few Self-Help books. But after so long, he came across a sort of thin book called Basic Ethics When Using Magic. Finally! He opened the book and flipped through it just to see if it might have some sort of basic information that could help him. But as he saw the pages, he felt as if a cruel joke was being played on him.
He saw no words. He only saw scribbled lines. One after another. On every page. “Are you kidding me?” he said, throwing the book across the room. He had spent so long just trying to get the general area, only to be thwarted before he could even find the right book. And to be doomed by accidentally picking up a foal’s textbook!
Wait. How had he known that it was a foal’s textbook? And why was he using the word foal? He went to the other side of the room and picked the book back up and opened it to the page he had just read. He stared at the scribbles. They didn’t rearrange themselves before him or anything, but as he looked, they started relaying information to him.
“-generally understood that magic should not be taught to a pony until he or she has reached an emotional and mental maturity so that they are able to deal with the repercussions... what the h- kind of language is this?”
He put the book back on the bookshelf where he found it. He started looking through the titles of the books again. After what seemed like a year of searching, he came across three books of interest: Removing The Effects of Spells, Dealing with Unwanted Magic, and Relocation Spells.
He sat on the floor and cracked open Removing. He stared at the scribbles until they gave him information.
“Magic has many uses, but, as most ponies know, not all of the effects of magic spells have wanted benefits. For example, a smell spell can make a pony smell as if he had been resting in a field of flowers, or like they’ve been wrestling skunks in a swamp for a week (Rex, 12). But either way, removing this particular spell is a simple matter of...”
Trip rubbed his eyes. Staring at the page for as long as he had to was tiring. It took more concentration than it should have. But he continued reading anyway.
He was halfway through Dealing and halfway asleep when he heard footsteps. He looked up and saw red on top of gray. He rubbed his eyes and saw Rose walking in. “How’d it-Oh my gosh, Trip, what have you been doing?”
“Reading.” Trip said tiredly. “Actually, staring at pages. I’m not sure if any actual reading has taken place here in the... how long have I been here?”
“It’s almost sundown! How many books have you read?”
Trip looked at his small pile. “Two. Well, actually, one and a half. I didn’t find anything in the first one, but I can tell you how to remove spells from plants, if anyone ever does that. You know. Cause you’re into plants and stuff. And this one isn’t really about removing spells as much as it is just living with them. I don’t know which one I like better. I think the first one, cause it actually tells you how to get stuff done. I don’t know though, cause I’m only halfway through this one. But that’s only cause I’ve been reading this one sentence over and over again. It’s like I can’t focus past this. Not all spells can be removed. Not all spells can be removed. Not all spells can-”
“Trip. Trip, look at me. Don’t tell me you actually read that whole book, did you?”
“Yeah. I didn’t wanna miss anything.”
“Oh Trip, sweetie, hasn’t anyone ever taught you how to skim?”
“What? That’s an option?” he paused. “Did you just call me sweetie? I’m not good with horse ages, but I’m pretty sure I’m older than you.”
“Your eyes are red. Are you sure all you’ve been doing is reading?”
“I’m not high, if that’s what you’re asking.” Trip looked into the distance, in thought. “What kind of stuff did you want to grow in that garden of yours?”
“Trip, you want to take a break and let me see what I can find?”
“Um. Yeah. If you don’t mind. I’m gonna be over here. Resting my eyes.”
“Alright. What do you want me to look up, exactly?”
Trip layed down on the floor and closed his eyes. “Going home. Leaving unwanted places. Making things right again. Making everyone happy. All of the above.”
“Got it!”
He sprang right back up. “What?” he yelled. “How?” He saw her, nose deep in a book he had never seen before..
“According to this, ‘The Elements of Harmony were designed to do whatever is right in the current situation, according to the will of the users’... that sounds good!” she looked up at Trip. “The bearers of the Elements live in Ponyville, I’m sure they can help us!”
“How did you find that so quickly? What book is that?” Trip fell back down onto the floor. “Why are you so much better than me at reading?”
“Look, we can take the train to Ponyville and be there in about an hour. I’m sure they’d be glad to help us.”
Trip looked towards the ceiling and covered his face. “How many Elements of Harmony are there?” he said, frustrated.
“Six. Honesty, Loyalty-”
“And there are six main characters. That’s right. That’s what happened in the first episode. I should have known. I have to interact with the main characters. This is as stupid as I thought.”
“Well, laying here isn’t gonna help get this done any faster. We better find out when that train is leaving.”
“Fine.” He stood up on his back two legs, and stumbled back onto four. “Fine. Let’s go to Pony Town. Town of the Ponies. Where everything’s wonderful all the time.”
Trip followed Rose to the entrance they left from. As they passed the guards, one of them asked “You two were in there for quite some time. You two weren’t doing anything inappropriate in there, were you?” Trip didn’t look at the guards face, but something told him that he was probably snickering. Trip tried to pick through all of the witty comebacks he could think of.
Yup. We looked up some books on Biology and we could hardly contain ourselves.
Yeah, now we need to get some books on parenting.
You know, this is a kid’s show. You should really be ashamed of yourself.
But before he could actually say any of them, Rose responded with a simple “He’s a slow reader, is all.”
“Okay then.” Trip could tell the guard didn’t buy it. “You two have a safe evening. And try to stay out of trouble while you’re here.” Trip felt as if that last part was directed at him.
“We will, thanks!” she responded cheerfully. She looked at Trip. “Now, we need to find out what time the train leaves.”
“So you can lead me to the train station, or a schedule?” Trip asked, with a hopeful look.
Her face turned to a pondering look. “...No.”
Trip sighed. “When will things actually start working out?”
They kept walking forward. Trip saw less and less of the town’s inhabitants out and about. A lot of shops were turning their lights off, presumably to close for the night. With the top of the sun just barely over the horizon, It was starting to feel more like dusk than it had before.
“So, what are we going to do? Just walk the streets until we find it, or somewhere to stay?” he looked at Rose. “Do you have a house?”
She considered this. “I think. But if not we could definitely... hey!” She pointed her hoof ahead of her. “There’s the station!”
Just as she said, in the distance, an idle train could be seen, with ticket booths leading to the entrance. Trip looked surprised. “That was surprisingly easy. How did you do that?”
Rose giggled. “I used my eyes. Duh!”
Trip furrowed his brow. “Did you just... did you just make a snarky comment at me?”
Rose trotted along, happy with herself. “How does it feel?”
Trip ran up to her. “We can’t just get on there! We don’t have tickets!”
She stopped with a surprised look of realization. “Oh. Yeah. So are we gonna buy some?”
“No! Of course not!”
“So then, what will we do?”
“We break the rules, like you’re supposed to.”