//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: The Library // Story: #277 // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// Celestia awoke, and time was a peculiar thing. How many days or weeks years or millennia had passed, she had no idea. She was groggy and felt strange. Something was missing. Something had happened, and she could feel a hole in her memory where it had been. Like a tooth that had recently been removed, leaving only an uncomfortable gap. Except it was not quite a hole. More like a lump. Something hard and impassable, a sort of mental granduloma. Celestia had never lost a tooth—despite her diet of mostly sweets—and did not know what a granduloma was. Ostensibly. So she woke up and crawled out of bed. Luna was already gone; from the oppressive sunlight pouring through her window, Celestia assumed it was day. If there was even a difference between day and night apart from the glaring, terrible synthetic sun she had come to hate. More and more, she craved darkness. To not have to see this hideous concoction of fluorescent and pastel colors that surrounded her. She went downstairs, not so sure if she had woken up at all. The pain was dull and distant. Not pain at all, really. Celestia doubted she could feel pain anymore. She had tried clicking her hooves against things, trying to understand if it was possible; she would have pulled out threads of her own hair if she had any apart from her mane and its constant, insufferable plasmatic floating. Rather, the world felt so very distant in a way that had no physical sensation. As if her own mind were not synching with it properly. As if something inside her was struggling but collapsing under its own weight. It had been easy enough to ignore before, when she had been learning—but now more than ever, it was apparent. She knew she was trapped in a simulation, that none of her world was real and that she had no memories of the life she once lived—and she had taken comfort in the novelty of that. But now she had to face the fact that she was still, in fact, dying. Luna was sitting at the table, munching on a pineapple without having peeled it. Virginia was also there, reading a book. Celestia had no idea what was in it or if it was even real, or even what the language it might be in if it was. They both looked up. Virginia smiled, as if nothing were wrong. “You’re awake,” she said. “Hardly,” sighed Luna, standing up. “Sister, we don’t even have physical manes, how can yours look so badly unkempt?” “I had...bad dreams.” Luna summoned a brush and began to, by unknowable means, brush Celestia’s mane. It felt nice. “I know, sister. I’m trying my best. But there’s only so much I can do.” Celestia sighed. “It’s not your fault.” She faced Virginia. “What did you do to me?” “Nothing, at the moment. I’m working on something new right now, but I connected part of myself into the system. I figured we could have breakfast. Look, I made scones!” Twilight lifted up a plate. They did not look so good, but she had made faces on them with blueberries. “And let me guess. They taste like paper, like everything else does here.” Virginia looked greatly hurt. “I...I didn’t know, I can try to compensate for that, it’s just that taste is super hard to simulate properly—” “It’s fine, Twilight.” Celestia groaned. “Do I even need to eat? I’m guessing I have a feeding tube in real life.” “You...don’t technically need to eat, but...we can still talk. About things. If you need to.” “I don’t think I’d be so good at holding a conversation right now, Virginia. My mind is fading. I don’t really want to point out my own cognitive failures.” Virginia looked even more hurt. “They’re not...they’re not your failures...” “I’m going to go for a walk. Alone. You can stay with Luna, though. This whole thing is very stressful for her, even if she doesn’t show it...” Celestia yawned. “I might even go to bed...if I can find a dark closet or something to hide in.” “But...you just woke up.” “Did I, Twilight?” Celestia meandered off. Virginia, confused, looked to Luna. “She doesn’t know, does she?” Luna shook her head. “I don’t think she can know, and it is better that she does not.” She paused, pushing the simulated pineapple away from herself. “Are you near to healing her?” Virginia’s expression fell. “I made a promise, didn’t I?” “Yes,” said Luna, icily. “I am well aware of the promises you make, Twilight Sparkle.” Virginia turned away, fully aware of the absurdity of the conversation she was having. Of course she would succeed. It was impossible not to, eventually. No matter how many tries it took. The mystery of it all had not, in fact, abated. Enough of Celestia’s mind had persisted in its ability to orient the threads of her reality and find them distinctly lacking. Information had certainly been revealed to her, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much had been hidden. How what she knew simply raised new questions. It was a ruse. A decoy, of some kind. They were hiding something from her. Something critical, and something that she remembered was critically important—although she was not sure at all what it was. There were no memories—but she almost had one. Broken fragments of light, of explosions and the sound of reciprocating bolts. Something that, by the greatest effort, she was able to remove from the depths of her memory. They had said she was injured in an accident, but they never said what kind. What exactly had happened, and how bad it was. How somehow she had a complete body, somewhere, but a broken and failing mind. The very thought of it was superficially logical—but on inspection became more and more absurd. A mind was simply a factor of the body. If her brain was intact, there was no reasonable way her mind could be collapsing. That was not the way the pony body worked. Which begged the question, ultimately, of how she could ascertain these results. The logical option was Trixie; it seemed apparent that Trixie was far more pliable than the others—but Celestia knew better than that. From what she had gathered, Trixie was something distinctly inequine. Something that tended to play the fool for the sake of its own amusement—but something far more powerful than either of the Twilights. Finding the truth otherwise was a challenging thing indeed. The whole of the world was a simulation, controlled by the three of them. Everything was manicured and filtered before Celestia even saw it, right down to the hideous sun. Except that Celestia doubted they knew that she could see them. Through the outside, through the portion of the table the world was built on, she could perceive things moving. Not clearly, and most of the time she did not comprehend quite what they were, but she had come to learn what the three of them looked like. She knew the mental shape of Virginia—sleek, efficient, rapid but procedural—and of Yelizaveta, something far more ancient and often arcane, moving in strange ways. Trixie, as expected, was harder; she was an unseen thing, flitting in and out of normal reality, sometimes hard to tell from the background. But Celestia had come to see them all. Her little ponies, sitting there, waiting, moving, performing their tasks, not knowing that when they were not watching her, she was watching them. She waited until they turned away from her. They were busy working on something, something she perceived as an incredible combination of infinite-faceted crystals. Then she enacted her plan. Celestia made her way to the library. A truly beautiful room, lit by a vast chandelier made from the roots of a tree. It was assembled from the old Golden Oaks Library, a gift to Twilight from her friends. Friends that had never really existed in this world, given to a Twilight that was no more than a character in a story Celestia had been told. This realization saddened her deeply. Spike was in the process of shelving books. Celestia focused her mind, and perceived that he was not quite like the other things in the world. Still a part of the simulation, but something constructed at a different time. Something older, built by somepony else. “Spike,” she said. Spike jumped, nearly dropping the immense pile of books he was carrying. “Princess! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you—hey...are you feeling okay?” “I feel excellent, Spike.” “Oh. Well, if you say so. Is there anything you needed?” “I would like to find a book.” Spike frowned. “Well, you’re in a library, so...” He gestured toward the room. “I don’t think Twilight would mind if you take one.” “Twilight? Which one?” Spike’s frown grew deeper. “Virginia Woolf. She’s in charge of the library. Yelizaveta Yelizavetanov isn’t...much of a reader, despite all that purple.” “I’ve tried,” said Celestia, picking up a book from Spike’s pile and opening it. “Except they’re blank.” Spike stared at the book, then at Celestia. For a moment, he looked like anything but a baby dragon. “I...don’t understand what you’re looking for. I’m sorry, Princess, but I don’t know if I can help you with this.” “Virginia’s private library. Can I see it?” Spike laughed. Then his laughing trailed off when he realized Celestia was not joking, and suddenly looked extremely nervous. “You don’t have administrative access to request that,” he said, quietly. “Really?” Celestia reached out with her magic, taking one particular green book off the shelf. She held it out to Spike open, its page turned to a picture of a beautiful white unicorn and a set of perfect inscribed text concerning her adventure. “I can read this one. Don’t I have access, then?” Spike’s face became blank, and he walked quickly to a desk. He searched through it, producing a scroll, his eyes scanning through it at unnatural speed. “Huh,” he said. “Well...it looks like you were given read-only access to...this is irregular. I’m going to have to extrapolate.” “I was given read-only access to the whole library.” “You were given read-only access to the whole library? Well that does...logically make sense. Which would mean that the current situation is error, and I'm really sorry for that, Princess.” He looked up. "But are you sure you were given access?" “Well of course I was!” Celestia laughed. “What else does Twilight expect me to do with a library? I’m not much of a writer.” Spike laughed. “Of course! I guess I'm just a little off today, to many emeralds last night and all. I just have to adjust the permissions. There we go. You’re not rated as an administrator, but hey, neither is Trixie. She can’t read anyway. But there you go. Full access to the library.” “Really?” Celestia looked up at the books. “So if I were to open them...I could read them?” “Well, that’s kind of how books work.” Celestia frowned. “Spike, I do not appreciate your sass.” Spike shrugged. “These aren’t real books anyway. Do you want me to redirect your interface to the real one?” “Real one?” “It’s a yes or no question.” “You’re rude, aren’t you?” “Most Twilight’s find it endearing, but they’re also oblivious to sarcasm. Sorry, I’ve never been assigned to a Celestia before.” “Why not?” “You do not have the administrative privilege to order me to answer that question.” Celestia sighed. “Fine. Take me to the real library, wherever it is.” Spike snapped his claw. Celestia suddenly lost all perception of reality and screamed as she fell, flailing her useless wings in an attempt to desperately fly—and then she landed against an oaken, perfectly polished floor with sudden force. A moment later, she realized which way up was—and that she had not actually moved. She looked up and saw that she was still falling—or that the world was falling into place around her. The world looked like nothing, at first, until the metaphor rendered. All around her, there were shelves. Wooden ones, made of strange and dark wood, but they were endless. It was a veritable city of books and shelves, extending upward and everywhere in what seemed like an eternal system of poorly described stacks, linked only by metal catwalks and wooden balconies built hundreds of stories into the air around the oaken shelves. “What—what is this place?” “This is the current section of Virginia Woolf Twilight Sparke’s Librarian database held on the system. Her primary database is currently inaccessible without—” “Without administrative access, I figured.” “Yes. However, she put most of her Library here for holding and common use. And to power that.” Spike pointed, and Celestia suddenly became aware of hoses or conduits linked to many of the shelves. They linked to larger stems, like the tubes of a maple plantation, but instead of leading to a delicious-smelling shack they instead led to an enormous sphere hovering over the center of the seemingly infinite library. A vast, pulsating sphere of blue and pink-violet light. “What...what is that?” “The current Ponyville simulation. Most of it was derived from what remains of Fimfiction, as well as copies of the few known pieces of remaining Canon and a really, really heavy amount of material in the commentary section. One of my least favorites. Very dry. Figuratively, but also literally. My poor sinuses...” “So am I...outside of the simulation?” Spike looked at her as if she were especially simpleminded. “You have a body, don’t you? You’d be an abstract without the sim. Virginia likes to exist like that, but I don’t think you’d be so good at navigating it. Most ponies don’t like being abstract. It hurts them. Badly.” “What about you, then?” “I’m a S.P.I.K.E. program. No, I don’t know what it stands for. I don’t think it stands for anything, it's a backronym. Basically an interface for the library. Most Librarians have one, although at this point it’s more common to give us a Moondancer skin, clothing and interaction set. Not really sure why.” Celestia felt her face growing warm and her wings starting to stiffen. She was pretty sure she knew why. “So,” continued Spike. “What exactly did you want to find in here?” “I want to find information concerning the word ‘Celestia’.” Spike smiled. “You’re in luck! That’s what the majority of the collection here concerns.” “Really?” “Of course! It’s Virginia’s primary literary focus. Really kind of dull, I guess, but if it’s what tickles her horn, it’s fine. Depressing stuff though.” “Can you take me there?” “You’re already there, but follow me.” Spike began to walk quickly through the stacks of endless books, and Celestia began to follow. She was distantly aware that her time here was limited. She needed to hurry and take whatever she could. Her mind hurt, and they moved. Because they were not actually moving. The schism of it—of the variation between perception and the half-perceived reality of what lay beyond the piped-in simulation—made Celestia nauseous. They walked through the stacks of books, but they were not simply stacks. They were complicated shelves, arranged with areas between them for the display of every type of thing imaginable. Celestia stared as she drifted past, wondering what she was seeing. There were statues, and paintings, art and artifacts, and some things that she could not ascertain the purpose or origin of. Many were abstract, but many were not. A great deal concerned ponies, but many also involved images of ominous bipeds. Celestia assumed that they were the things from Yelizaveta’s legends, or what Trixie actually was, although she lacked the context to assign them a location in time. She was not sure if they were from the age when that species had been alive, or from the time when they had transcended life to become like Trixie. To her, they were nothing more than bizarre and generally frightening alien things, artifacts from a world that must have once been her own but that she could not remember. And yet looking at them filled her with a strange feeling. Fear, but also a desire to know. To remember if she had once known these things, if they were once mundane. Celestia stopped in front of one statue, made of black arsenic-bronze, a form of a biped with impossibly long limbs terminating in clawed fingers, its face blank except for a pair of sapphire eyes with thin slit pupils. “What are these?” “Artifacts,” explained Spike. “Or I guess impressions of them. Things she has seen and deemed of historical importance. Most Librarians keep things they find and use them as mental decoration. It’s weird. Especially that one.” Spike pulled her away. “At least I’m pretty sure that’s one of the ones that doesn’t move.” “They...move?” Spike did not answer. He instead led her deep into the forest of books. Or, Celestia supposed, memories. Organized, pre-bound memories scavenged from a chaotic world and made organized. Considering it, Celestia was surprised at how different Virginia was from Yelizaveta. “Here,” said Spike. Celestia stopped. That had reached a small arch, or gap. Above it was a picture—a picture of Celestia herself. Except that the focus of picture was on her back. “Why is that picture there?” “Because this is the Celestia Wing.” Celestia winced. “Oh no...” “Yeah, I know, right?” “Should I be concerned about her?” “Probably. Most Twilights have this weird subconscious Celestia fetish.” “Well, yes, I figured that. I mean the pun.” Spike shrugged. “I’m software, I don’t understand puns. It would be too PUNishing to my central framework, heh heh.” They entered the room and Celestia felt the world shift slightly. She gasped with surprise when she saw the grand scale of it. She was standing on a vast mezzanine, a ring of enormous shelves and artwork stretching outward in every direction, one of seemingly hundreds of mezzanines like it going upward and upward around a hollow center. Celestia approached the railing and, to her great surprise, found that the structure was not entirely hollow. Rather, in its center, there was the biggest statue she had seen yet. A statue of her. “I don’t know if I should feel honored or very, very concerned.” “Yeah, if you don’t like Celestia art you’re in the wrong place. My really, really strong advice, though, avoid level 34.” He shivered. “But this is it. You can probably find your way from here. Do you know how to use the Dewey Decimal system?” Celestia pffted. “Spike, I’m the one who taught Twilight how to library, I think I know how to use her organizational system.” “Alright. Card catalog is over there, reading room is down on the first floor. System access is going to be down for a bit. Virginia has me propagating security code, so I may not be available and communication might be difficult.” “Thank you, Spike.” Spike smiled and started jogging back to whatever it was he did. “I think it’s the first time anypony’s ever actually thanked me...” Celestia found herself alone, and sighed. There were a lot of books. She approached the card catalog and looked up at it...and up, and up, and up. “Oh my,” she said. “Since when was it in three dimensions? And...” She sighed. There were a lot more letters than she remembered remembering. She supposed she had to start somewhere. Eventually, she managed to find a small pile of books that seemed to be on relevant subjects. The relevant subject being her. It was not exactly easy. She supposed Virginia knew the contents of each book; the card catalog did not contain blurbs, but rather a system of titles and authors, most of whom had the most distinctly peculiar names. Nothing involving fruits or flying or weather phenomena at all. She made her way to the first floor, where there was an area with several desks, but she stopped at the base of the enormous statue, looking up at it. It was made of a type of material unknown to her, although it was white and something like stone. The mane and wing-tips were colored and, when Celestia had moved around the levels near its head, she had noticed that it was not perfectly symmetrical. One side rendered her as herself, smiling if somewhat fat, while the other side rendered her face with a maniacal, sharp-toothed grin and a blackened eye. The face of Daybreaker. The whole of it was stretched upward, rearing toward a pair of spheres that were themselves also made of stone—but floated by no known mechanism. There was a plaque at the base. Celestia leaned in, reading it. “Statue of Dichotomous Celestia, cast dyronaleaite over titanium exoskeleton, depicted reconstructed,” she read. “Fragments recovered from ruins of the Cathedral of the True Sun from the Bridgeport Depths in 2907 HCE; estimated date of construction 2334 HCE.” Celestia looked up at the statue again. A statue of her...or rather, of the form of Celestia. An idea of the Celestia race which she supposed she belonged to. That realization made her sick and dizzy as something began corroding inside her mind, but she ignored it. It was strange to know. That she was one of a larger race. That there were others like her—and that she was not alone. She brought the books back to the sitting area, looking for a good place. She eventually found an area behind the main body of wooden desks were several comfortable chairs had been placed in a tastefully decorated corner of the room—or, rather, a room as tastefully decorated as a Twilight could manage. There were chairs, a few statues, and some paintings, and even a fire. Celestia was pleased to see that the fireplace was warm but, confused as to why Virginia would dare allow fire near her precious books, she put her hoof in it. The warmth continued unabated but did not burn her. “Fake fire,” she said. “Neat.” She sat in one of the chairs near it. The chair perfectly sized for a pony of her size; she did not know if that was the simulation being adaptive or if she was somehow meant to be here. The pile beside her was large, but considering that the hundreds of thousands if not millions of books surrounding her were on the same subject, it seemed so very small. These were simply the ones that seemed most relevant. Celestia picked the top one off the stack and opened it. As she did, a peculiar sensation came over her, and she blinked as if shocked. The book had been turned to the last page and, to her greatest surprise, she realized that without even having apparently read it she had fully comprehended its contents. She coughed and a small plume of dust came out of her mouth. This book had been exceedingly dry. It had been four hundred pages of some philosopher named Timmy waxing poetic about Celestia and discussing various esoteric aspects of the true metaphysical meaning of Celestia. Despite the girth of the book, Celestia was all-too familiar with the type of language inside. It was the sort she had heard all her life in the Royal Court, a special situation of a pony saying a tremendous number of words without conveying any significant meaning. The book contained nothing useful. There was not even a single pun. “Well...not that one.” She looked up at the infinite Library around her. “This will take...a while. Good thing I’m immortal.” She chuckled, but then sighed. If only that were true.