“And… done!” Twilight exclaimed, sliding the last book into its place. “Mark that down, Spike.”
“Complete reshelving of the entire library… Check,” Spike said as he made the satisfying mark.
“Great!” Twilight beamed, bending over to look over his shoulder. “Now, what’s next?”
Spike scanned down the list, stopping on one out of place entry that was surrounded by checked-off items. “Acquire space for princessly duties,” he read expectantly.
“Ehh,” Twilight hesitated. “Not right now. What else have we got.”
Shrugging, Spike went down to the actual bottom of the list and noticed. “Oh, looks like Sunset’s getting out of the hospital today.”
Twilight frowned and said, “That can’t be right. It hasn’t been a week, has it? Check again.”
Spike rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. Unfortunately, Twilight’s doubt wasn’t enough to change the date. “Shouldn’t you know this? You’ve been in there every other day with stacks of books for her.”
“Sure,” Twilight said. “But I’ve only done that—”
“Three times?” Spike suggested, looking down at the entries on the checklist, knowing perfectly well that that was the answer. “Honestly,” he said. “Isn’t a whole week in the hospital kind of overdoing it anyway? They said full recovery could be as little as two weeks, right? Is she really doing so badly that they still need to keep her there?”
“No, she’s doing fine,” Twilight admitted, chewing her lip. “I might have suggested that they keep her as long as possible. She does live alone, after all.”
“Well, she’s probably up and about by now,” Spike guessed. “Not much reason to keep her cooped up any more… unless you want to stage a little accident for her?”
Twilight balked at the suggestion. “Spike!” she chastised. “Honestly, you worry me sometimes. Comic book plots are not a guide for how to solve problems in the real world.”
Spike mumbled an apology, which was followed by a moment of awkward silence.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” he said eventually.
“If I pushed her down the stairs just right, I could break her horn,” Twilight mused. “That would solve everyth—I mean—no! Absolutely not! I would never do any such thing!”
Sunset Shimmer was nose-deep in a book when Twilight and Nurse Redheart entered the room. Still, it didn’t stop her from immediately perking up. “Am I finally getting out of here?” she asked.
“Yes,” the nurse said. “Let me just check your bandages one last time and we can sign you out.”
Twilight went about collecting the numerous books beside the bed… and everywhere else in the room. For a pony on forced bedrest, Sunset sure had managed to spread things out, but then, she was a unicorn and there was no reason she couldn’t levitate things from across the room.
Taken all together, it was such an eclectic collection that she actually began to feel a little guilty. She didn’t even remember picking out half of these books. She may not have wanted to give Sunset anything that could be used against her, but flower pressing? Calligraphy? Really?
When Twilight reached for the book that Sunset had been reading, she was blocked by a teal aura. “I’d like to keep this one if you don’t mind,” Sunset said, levitating the book over to her side.
Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. The book was another one she didn't remember picking out, though this one actually was on magic. Sympathetic magic, to be precise, which was strange enough to catch her interest. She would have thought that she would have actually remembered that one.
“That’s an interesting choice,” Twilight said, nodding at the book.
Sunset set the book down next to her on the bed. “Isn’t it, though?” she said. “I was fairly familiar already, but there’s a lot that I’d forgotten, too.”
“Really?” Twilight said. “Like, what?”
“Oh, you know.” Sunset shrugged, dodging the question. “This and that.”
Sunset refused to be drawn any further on the subject and the ongoing process of getting her checked out of the hospital got in the way of even trying.
“The stitches look fine,” Nurse Redheart said. “You’ll want to come back in a week or so, so that we can remove them. Now, do you feel up to standing, or would you like a wheelchair?”
“I should be able to stand, I think,” Sunset said.
“Alright,” the nurse agreed. “Now, since your injury is on one of your rear legs, we can do this one of two ways. You can either go hind legs first like normal, or you can twist yourself over and roll out forelegs first.”
Sunset made a show of testing her injured leg, bending it forwards and back before deciding, “Normal should be fine, I think.”
“Good,” Nurse Redheart said, sounding pleased as she carefully helped Sunset pivot until her back legs were hanging off the bed. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Sunset nodded and slowly lowered her hooves to the floor, stopping there to test her weight on the leg. Apparently satisfied, she began to slip off the bed with almost exaggerated slowness until she finally tipped over and came down on her forehooves.
“Wonderful!” Nurse Redheart said, clapping her hooves happily. “Now, give me a few steps around the room,” she prompted.
Gingerly at first, but with increasing confidence, Sunset followed the nurse’s instructions, walking around the bed over to where Twilight was, turning, then walking back, where she was shown through a few more exercises before she was finally declared fully ambulatory.
“That should just about cover it,” Nurse Redheart declared. “If Princess Twilight has all of your things, then we can head to admissions and get you actually checked out.”
Twilight gave a start at the sudden attention, double-checked that she had everything she could find levitating in three stacks behind her and went for the book on sympathetic magic, only for Sunset to grab it again.
“I think we’re good!” Sunset said. “Lead the way.”
Once all the paperwork was signed, the trip back to Sunset’s place was about as calm and sedate as could be. Sunset didn’t seem to be having any trouble, but they took it easy all the same. Even so, Sunset seemed to slow as they got closer to the old bakery.
“Are you tired?” Twilight asked. “Do you need to stop for a second?”
“What?” Sunset asked, blinking. “Oh, no, no, I was just remembering the state of the upstairs bathroom. In hindsight, I really should have arranged to have it done while I was in the hospital. Probably shouldn’t go anywhere near it with my stitches, so I might have to borrow yours until I can arrange it.”
It took Twilight a moment to remember that Sunset hadn’t been back to her place since the argument. “Oh! No, no—I mean, you’d be welcome to do so, but that’s not necessary. I took care of it that same day, actually.”
“Really?” Sunset said, blatantly surprised. “I would have thought that if it was anypony, it’d be Rarity that would have retreated to a safe distance and called the professionals.”
“Well… she got the retreating to a safe distance part done, anyway,” Twilight commented dryly as they approached the house and unlocked it. “It was no big deal. Here, let me show you what I did.”
Sunset didn’t react with anything more than a fond smile when they entered the downstairs area of the old bakery since it hadn’t really changed since she’d seen it last, but Twilight was happy to see her eyes widen when they went upstairs.
It looked… Perfectly normal, which was anything but. There wasn’t a single sign of the rot, water damage and worse that had been present when Sunset had stormed off.
“This is—wow—this is great, Twilight!” Sunset exclaimed, beaming. “I can’t believe you did this in half an afternoon!”
“You’ll still have to furnish it, of course,” Twilight said, frowning at the completely empty room. What had remained of the bed had gone into restoring the ceiling joists. “But I imagine you’ll be getting a stipend from the princess pretty soon if the mayor isn’t already holding it for you. Sorry, I didn’t even think to check.”
“No, no, this is fine,” Sunset assured her. “It’s clean and dry—I can handle the rest. I’ve never had a chance to pick out a bed before. Or a couch. I need a couch!”
“Well, I can recommend Quills and Sofas…” Twilight said and began to explain all the various useful stores around Ponyville.
It wasn't until Twilight was back at the library shelving all of the books that she'd retrieved from the hospital that she realized that something was wrong, because she was fairly sure that she had given Sunset her book on the griffon wars of the Celestial era, yet there it was sitting on the shelf, right where she remembered shelving it just that morning.
She could have been wrong, of course, except, now that she thought about it, she also remembered picking out a book on baking as a business that she didn’t see in her stack of returns either. Sure enough when she checked the shelves, it was there.
“Is something wrong, Twilight?” asked Fluttershy from directly behind her, giving her a start.
“Fluttershy!” Twilight exclaimed. “Oh, geez, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry,” Fluttershy apologized, lowering her head. “You look really tense; did something happen?”
“No, I—” Twilight started to say, then reconsidered. “Well, yes. Maybe?”
Fluttershey said nothing, merely tilting her head in question.
“It’s just… I think that Sunset might have been sneaking out of the hospital.”
“Oh, no!” Fluttershy quietly gasped. “She hasn’t been going back into the Everfree in her condition, has she?”
“No,” Twilight said, looking at the bookshelves and frowning. “At least, I don’t think so. No, I think she’s been coming here and swapping out the books I’ve been giving her.”
Fluttershy let out a breath and said, “Oh! Well, that’s a relief.”
“It’s really not!” Twilight insisted, distressed, though unable to quite pinpoint why, other than that it was Sunset doing something behind her back.
“She probably just didn’t want to tell you that she didn’t like what she picked out for you,” Fluttershy said, looking away and blushing. “It’s… um… what I would do.”
“Wait,” Twilight said, thinking back. “Is that why—”
“A—and it’s better than Rainbow Dash waking everypony up in the middle of the night trying to steal books from the hospital, right?” Fluttershy said, stumbling over her words in a hurry to interrupt.
“It is worse,” Twilight insisted. “She’s enough of a danger as it is.”
Fluttershy poked at the stack of books that Twilight had been shelving. “And books on making nature drawings are going to make her more dangerous?” she asked doubtfully.
Contrary to Fluttershy’s expectations, Twilight whipped her head around in alarm, quickly focusing on the aforementioned books. There were, as Fluttershy had implied, several books on art, mostly focusing on drawing from nature.
Twilight’s heart filled with dread. “No,” she said. “No no no no no.” Bolting across the room, she headed upstairs to her bedroom where the box that Princess Luna had sent her had been.
It was still there, locked, with the key sitting right beside it. She grabbed the key and opened the box.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
“Twilight?” Flutterhy asked, poking her head through the door. “Twilight, you’re scaring me. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Twilight let out a breath, locked the box back up and, looking at the key… dropped it right next to the box again since it didn’t matter any more. Slowly, she pulled out her chair and took a seat so she could bury her head in her hooves.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy repeated, stepping into the room. When Twilight didn’t respond, she crossed the room and placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Twilight, please say something.”
“…Sorry,” Twilight apologized. “It’s just… When I went to pick her up at the hospital, Sunset was reading up on sympathetic magic,” she explained. “And now I find that she’s also been looking into nature drawing—and now that I think about it, calligraphy and flower pressing too.”
“…Okay?” Fluttershy said, clearly not understanding what the big deal was.
Twilight sighed and explained. “Sympathetic magic is about forging a connection between things of a similar nature. At the most basic level, it’s rather innocuous. Unicorns do it naturally when they levitate a hoofful of smaller things as a whole, making it easier to do so if the objects are all the same in size, shape and function.
“It’s also a lot more than that, though. There’s a large sympathetic magic component to the mail spell, for example. It’s how the spell targets a recipient—only instead of a sympathy between two real objects, you build up a picture of the recipient’s magic in your mind and mimic it.
“Calligraphy, nature drawings, flower pressing… They might look innocent, but they’re things that Princess Amore’s sister did; they’re some of the only things we know about her, and only Luna, Celestia and I should even know that much. That means that not only has she been sneaking books from the library, but she’s been in here.”
“…Oh,” Fluttershy said, as understated as always. “That sounds… bad? What about you, though? Does this bring you any closer to getting the magic of the Everfree back?”
Twilight grimaced and said, “I… don't know?” After some thought, she decided, “Regardless, I think I’m going to need to start taking some more drastic measures.”
Fluttershy’s ears folded back and she asked, “How drastic?”
“I need to talk to Rarity and send a message to Princess Celestia. I know what I’m going to do about my need for a castle.”