Except for a few guards standing in position every so often, the inside of the library was completely empty when we entered. Although the inside was set up less like a normal library. There were shelves of books stacked almost to the ceiling, which was quite high, however, there weren’t any places to sit down and read, or a receptionist to check things out to anyone. There was no taking things home to read later. Effectively, if you were in here, you were either just touring, or you knew what you were looking for.
“Stay at my side,” I instructed, making sure the guards around us could hear me, knowing there were things in here that other ponies might try to use to their advantage. “I don’t want to see you wandering off. Do you understand?”
“Uh-huh, yeah,” the stallion replied, seeming as though he was only half-listening to me. “This is so exciting! I don’t even know where we should go first!”
I sighed at his enthusiasm, an emotion that was already wearing on me, taking a step forward and saying, “Follow me.”
I could practically hear him smiling as we walked through the library, going slowly to both give him time to take in what he wanted and to try and find the books I was looking for. The place wasn’t organized very well, in general books being ordered not by subject, but by who developed what spell. It was a bit annoying to have to walk through, and the difficulty of finding anything useful in particular because of the setup was the main reason I didn’t come to the library more often.
“Ooh, Gusty the Great!” the pony behind me called out as we entered another wing of the library. “She’s my favorite pony! Do you think I could read some of her books?”
“Let me see what they’re about…” I commented as we slowly started to walk through, wanting to see what kinds of things she was famous for. A quick look around showed it was mostly about her feats, defeating villains and helping to oversee the formation of Equestria. It looked mostly like history books to me, so I didn’t see too much harm in it.
“If you can read and walk at the same time, go ahead,” I told him.
“Oh, thank you!” he practically yelled as he looked around for a second, taking a moment to decide before picking out a book. “Oh, her battle against Grogar! That’s a good one!”
The mention of Grogar did raise my suspicions a bit. That was the pony who healed me when I was still weak from the Crystal Heart’s power over me. I was almost certain that Grogar was secretly Discord, seeing as he told me he had ‘such a great plan’ for Twilight, and how Tirek and Cozy Glow were both imprisoned in Tartarus once again instead of being out and about, so I wasn’t too concerned about whether or not something was about to happen. However, it did set off a few alarm bells in my head, just from what he was wanting to read about, especially in the Royal Library of all places.
“I never asked this, what’s your name?”
“Oh, it’s Brimstone,” he responded, looking up from the book for a moment and blushing. “I know. It sounds like a terrifying villain’s name.”
“I will admit, it does a little bit,” I answered him truthfully. Not only that, but now that it was on my mind, he did have the look of a villain a little bit. A sulfur yellow coat and pitch-black hair with icy blue eyes; it honestly felt like the classic look of an evildoer now that I was thinking about it. I quickly tried to remember if I heard his name anywhere else, but couldn’t think of anywhere it might have been mentioned.
“Ponies tell me that all the time,” he explained, looking away for a second. “It gets really annoying, and, you know, sometimes it makes me feel like I should just be one to prove them right.”
“Well, you’re not one, correct?” I asked.
“No…” he trailed off, sounding like he was a bit unsure, which caused me to frown.
“Well, then it shouldn’t matter what other people think,” I told him seriously. “Look at me for example. You wouldn’t believe how many ponies saw me and immediately thought it would be a good idea to kill me just because I looked like a villain. And now here I am, the ruler of Equestria. It takes work, but you have to prove those people wrong.”
“Yes, but-”
“No buts,” I continued. “Prove them wrong. There’s a zebra in Ponyville who ponies thought was evil, too. If I'm remembering correctly, they wouldn't sell her anything when she came into town, and they all hid in their homes when they saw her. They thought she was a villain, and then she proved them wrong, and now they're her friends. That’s what you have to do. Be the pony you want to be, not the pony people think you are. That’s what I’m doing, and it’s what you should do as well.”
“I… okay, I can do that,” he responded, before quickly adding, “Not that I was planning on doing anything evil. I wasn’t.”
“I’m sure you weren’t, Brimstone. Now let’s keep going. I’m trying to find something in here, and I don’t want to waste all day looking. I probably will though, but… let’s go.”
“Be the pony I want to be…” Brimstone thought, not paying attention to what he was reading as he carried the book with him, trotting quickly behind Alex’s long stride. “Well, I want to be the ruler of Equestria. Not because I look like and have the name of a villain, but because that’s what I want. To rule over Equestria.”
That was what he wanted, and he knew that… right? Just because he sounded like a villain didn’t mean that wasn’t what he wanted. He was going to rule Equestria because that was what he wanted, not because how he looked and what his name was told him he needed to.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he thought as he trailed behind Alex. “It’s what I want and it's what’s going to happen, regardless of whether or not I look and sound like a villain. I’m not somepony who needs to be ‘reformed’ like he is. I’m just not… well, I am technically a villain, but… whatever. I need to read.”