The Substitute Librarian
Hearth’s Warming Grifts
“You know, it was nice to see a Hearth’s Warming play where the earth ponies aren’t treated like tenants behind on the rent.”
It was a pleasant night to be out on an after-entertainment stroll with a pretty unicorn at his side, particularly since the unicorn in question showed little interest in arresting him for whatever Emerald had undoubtedly done wrong recently. Chief of Police Miranda Rights did not seem to be particularly amused by his wit, not even half-way, but she showed no signs of irritation either, which upon further consideration was probably her police training, not his charm. She did soften slightly after a few more steps and moved closer so her jacket-clad torso brushed against his while they walked, and her words in response were spoken with great care.
“I believe you once asked me why I stay in this town.”
“Oh. Err… Yes, I did.” Emerald paused. “Don’t you have some sort of police-y thing to do this evening?”
Miranda nodded slowly. “Of course. First, aren’t we going to stop off at Derpy’s house and say hello? She’s sort of the hub for odd singles without families around on Hearth’s Warming. She did invite you over, correct?”
“Yes, she did. That explains— I mean of course I was going to stop by Miss Doo’s house,” finished Emerald without any more verbal stumbling. It was a peculiar question since nopony else had actually heard Derpy invite him over, but Miranda had displayed unusual insight into the activities of the town residents before. Still, there was a difference between insight and manipulation. After all, Miranda implied by omission that she had not received an invitation, so she was piggybacking herself into the house on his good grace. Or he was being played for a sucker.
Once they reached Derpy’s rather humble abode, that sucker-sense was getting hard to ignore. There were several ponies inside already, laughing over a table heaped with muffins and cookies, and none of them looked overjoyed to see the police chief at his side. Even the ever-cheerful mailmare seemed to scowl briefly before coming over to him with a hug, although it could have just been a trick of the light. In short, it was quite comfortable, lots of food, and a scattering of ponies kept coming by for just a minute even if they were just cashing in on the free cookies.
While in Canterlot, Emerald had been an unwilling participant in uncounted parties, some of which spread across several buildings and cost more than any sane pony could possibly afford. The larger the party, the easier it was to slip away and go help with the foals, who were typically dressed in their most uncomfortable clothes and put in the care of the most uncomfortable old fossils somewhere in the basement. He had always been more comfortable around younger ponies, even in school since he had been advanced several grades. As he grew older, that tendency had not changed very much, other than an odd sense of expanding scale since he had grown up.
The urge to sneak away and visit the foalsitting area was quite easy to resist in this party, since Derpy’s whole house only had three rooms, and one of them was being used as a large icebox, complete with small wisps of blowing snow.
“So, Miss Doo,” asked Emerald once the ebb and flow of guests had calmed down for a bit, “why are the windows in that room all open?”
“Oh, that?” Derpy giggled and looked far more foolish. “It’s nothing, and it gives us a cold place to put the cookies.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but it didn’t help that Derpy promptly followed that up by lowering her voice and sounding much more serious. “Why did you bring the chief of police to my house?”
For a moment, Emerald wanted to say something flippant about their previous marriage discussion, but there was something deadly serious lurking deep below Derpy’s words. He gave a brief glance across the room to where Derpy’s youngest daughter was engaged in uncomfortable conversation with his inadvertent not-date, then turned his eyes back to Derpy’s mismatched face.
“She’s smarter than me,” he admitted under his breath. “I engaged in a battle of wits completely unarmed.”
“It’s not that bad.” Derpy patted him on the coat-clad shoulder. With the open windows in the other room and the front door opening and closing, there was no real need to shed the coat, which made Emerald wonder how warm the Doo family’s bedroom was even with three of them inside and Derpy’s pegasus magic for heat-shifting.
“It is too that bad,” said Sparkler, walking up to them with a cookie floating behind in her pale magic. “Don’t bother Mister Emerald on my account. This makes twice now. I’m quitting, while I still have my job over at the Bargain Barn.”
“Now, don’t—” began Derpy, only to be cut off by her adopted daughter again.
“Next time, somepony could get hurt instead of just breaking some windows. It’s not that important. We can still make ends meet.” Sparkler lowered her voice as several other ponies looked in their direction.
“On the contrary,” stated Emerald. “It’s very important. One of the most important things in all of the world. So important we don’t even have a word for it. You could even call it the most important thing, ever.”
After a moment, Sparkler blinked several times, then winced. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, right?”
“Not a clue, other than I presume it has something to do with magic and your missing windows.” At Sparkler’s hesitant nod, he turned to Derpy and added, “Could you give us a moment, Miss Doo? Teacher stuff.”
Once Derpy had gone off to talk with somepony else, Emerald lowered his voice. “Magic problems?”
“Magic problems,” confirmed Sparkler quietly. “I used to be able to split gemstones for extra bits when I was younger, but I didn’t for a few years, and now when I try…”
“Bloowie,” said Emerald. “At least twice, like you said. Mind showing me? Not in here,” he added when Sparkler looked around the small room containing a half-dozen of Derpy’s neighbors who had just come inside and made a beeline for the free cookies.
A few minutes later as they arranged themselves around a table in the small bedroom, he was just as determined, although still a little chilly and just slightly worried about littering up the three beds stuffed into the limited area
“I’ve got a few shards from Rarity still,” said Sparkler while scrounging around in a cardboard box. “Not much, but—” She cut off abruptly when Emerald found what he was looking for first and dropped it on the endtable with a thunk.
“My brother’s tipping supply,” said Emerald almost apologetically at the size of the bright red gem. “They’re full of imperfections and not worth much in this state, but if I’m going to see how your spell is breaking down, I’d rather not need a microscope. Besides, we can try again on some of the larger pieces later.”
“Well, if you’re willing.” Sparkler settled down beside the table while Emerald squatted on the other side, moving right up to the gemstone until his nose was practically up against it.
“No,” said Sparkler, abruptly straightening up. “The last one went off like a bomb, and it was just a little garnet.”
“My college classes say higher energy flux per surface area and a smaller volume makes a fracturing spell more difficult to control,” countered Emerald, tapping the gem with one hoof. “You need a big target.”
“We don’t need your charity.” Sparkler pushed the gem back at him.
“I’m a teacher.” Emerald pushed the gem back onto the center of the table. “Teaching supplies are an expense. They’re tax deductible. Besides, this will give me valuable experience in my career major. I might even be able to turn it into a paper.”
This kind of confrontation bothered Emerald. While Sparkler considered the offer, what Emerald really wanted was to be chatting up Ratchette, the cute coppery-maned pegasus that he had seen briefly out in Derpy’s main room. There was still something about the young mare that was familiar somehow, and he was fairly certain that an hour or two of conversation would help him figure out how many years ago their lives had intersected, if briefly. That reminded him about the broken elevated platform for reshelving books in the library. Having Ratchette fix it at his expense might be a small gift to the town, but obviously the current unicorn librarian had no problems floating the books where she wanted them. Then again, Ratchette’s cutie mark did not really match up against the broken cast-iron gears most likely in the lifting platform mechanism, and he really did not want to saddle the young mare with unwanted⁽*⁾ work on this holiday.
(*) Emerald obviously did not know Ratchette very well.
—
Sparkler was at that awkward age: too old to be one of his regular pre-Mark students and too young to be a romantic interest. It was an adjustment to even consider the teenager as one of his unicorn magic students, but it helped since he always tried to treat even the smallest unicorn as an adult, probably because he had skipped over much of his childhood anyway. Besides, this was a matter of fairness. It was just wrong that a near-adult could not use her special talent in the right way, as in a way that did not involve shattered windows in winter.
“Once,” said Sparkler decisively. “I’ll try once, and when it doesn’t work, we quit before I shatter these windows too, and we’re sleeping in a snowdrift.”
“That’s only fair.” Emerald lowered himself back down to peer closely at the large gem. “Just relax and use your spell the way you feel is right. Yes, that’s a good start. Slow and steady.”
There was a certain exquisite feel to unicorn magic that Emerald was quite certain he would never be able to comprehend totally, but experience, his Mark, and the best set of thaumic silver shoes that money could buy, helped. Children had such a pure and simple magic, like a single oboe note filling a concert hall to the brim and then some. Anything beyond that beginning primal simplicity was simply not there to his senses, like a pony trying to hear a dog whistle or a dog trying to understand a color painting. That did not stop him from imagining what it would be like for a unicorn, and Emerald had an extraordinary imagination, the best training the school in Canterlot could provide, and a sharp mind.
Still, it caught him by surprise when Sparkler’s spell wavered like a candle in a hurricane, there was a blur of motion as his student hit the ground, and the gemstone exploded.
“Is everypony okay?” Derpy stuck her nose into the room and regarded both her adopted daughter flat against the floor and Emerald, who had been knocked onto his back in the process. “Oh, Mister Emerald. You lost your hat.”
The mailmare pulled the long red shard of gemstone out of the hat impaled against the wall and caught Emerald’s tattered fedora when it fell. After struggling to his hooves, Emerald accepted the hat and shook bits of red powder out of his tangled mane before putting it back on. At least it had not been damaged too much. Their House maid back in Canterlot had threatened to drop the whole tattered thing into the rag pile and send him back out with a bare head if he made her patch it again.
“Thank you, Miss Doo. Now it’s a proper unicorn hat. My father would be so proud.” He arranged his punctured headwear with great care and turned back to Sparkler. “I see what you did, and the next time—”
“Next time?” gasped Sparkler, still lightly sparkling from a coating of red gemstone dust. “There won’t be a next time!”
“The next time, I’ll show you what you did wrong, and it will work perfectly. I promise.” Out of the corner of his eye, Emerald caught the way Derpy winced at the words, and tried not to wonder about which unicorn had hurt her so badly with a promise of his own.
“I trust you, Mister Emerald.” Derpy put on that goofy smile that made her appear so foolish and bobbed her head before vanishing out the door.
“Wait a minute.” Sparkler glared at him. “You’re not a unicorn.” Her eyes narrowed further. “And she knew.”
“Can’t keep anything away from mothers,” said Emerald with a casual shrug. “Now, I noticed several things when you were casting…”
* * *
By simply bulling his way through the awkward revelation of his unmagical background and going straight to Spell Analysis 205, Emerald hoped to blow enough smoke to cover his bare noggin. Thankfully, Sparkler was more upset about her ability to detonate gemstones than her pointless magic tutor, and less stubborn than Emerald. The lesson rapidly progressed onto several sheets of paper spread across the table and a pencil grasped firmly in Emerald’s teeth like he was going after a late homework assignment. For somepony who had no ability to cast a unicorn spell, Emerald had been through so many courses in his teaching major that he could deconstruct a five-fold spell like Sparkler’s gem-splitter easier than most unicorns could do partial fraction decomposition of an integral while finding the inflection points.
“Hey, Sparkler.” Dinky poked her nose into the bedroom to look around momentarily before coming the rest of the way in. “Mom wanted me out from underhoof.”
Emerald looked up from a particularly fascinating thaumic diagram under construction and caught the nervous way that Dinky looked over her shoulder. “Is she chasing Officer Rights out of the party?” he asked carefully through the pencil in his teeth.
An uncomfortable silence was a better answer than any explanation.
“You can stay.” Emerald pointed with his pencil. “Just remain quiet and watch. This is fairly advanced magic, so save all your questions for later.”
It took a few minutes to recover after the interruption, but the process was nearly up to the practical part anyway. The end result was five different sheets of paper, each with a thaumic diagram that most of Emerald’s young students would view as pure chaos, but Sparkler was nodding along as he broke them down.
“I could have split this spell into a four-part solution, but that raises the complexity of each portion, and it looked as if you were casting it as a five note chord anyway.” Emerald arranged the sheets in the best order he could. “You started your magic training with the music chord system, didn’t you?”
Now it was Sparkler’s turn to wince, and Emerald had to wonder if perhaps Derpy was starting a Home for Battered Ponies Who Had Been Abused By Unicorns.
“The actual theory behind spellcraft really doesn’t matter,” continued Emerald in order to reduce the tension in the bedroom. “If it did, they wouldn’t change it every few years and put out new expensive textbooks. Well, other than to make bits. Still, what you learn when you’re a foal tends to stick with you into adulthood and beyond. String theory, note theory, interference theory, color theory, even a theory that was wobbling around a century ago that claimed think theory was going to take the world by storm. Turned out not even to be a drizzle. Foals use it by instinct, but translating that into older unicorns fizzled badly, even though it had amazing potential since foals can do things with their magic that adults can only marvel about. While dodging.”
“Dinky stuck a spoon into the ceiling once,” volunteered Sparkler, which was a good sign, particularly when the young student in question remained silent and only stuck her tongue out in return.
“Try to imagine Princess Celestia as a foal,” added Emerald as a smooth transition into a practiced lie. “She obviously started using note theory, because if you’re quiet enough during the Summer Sun Celebration when she raises the sun, you can hear her humming.”
That earned the teacher two astonished gasps, which he followed up by tapping the papers with one hoof. “Five parts to your spell when using note theory means you’re doing the equivalent of holding five musical notes at once. Thankfully, horns are more versatile than voices. Dinky, if you could demonstrate that note I taught you the last time I was in town, please?”
It took a little spluttering and a few sparks, but Dinky eventually produced a low note from her horn and sustained it until Emerald added, “Very good, now add a second note, whatever you wish.”
The result was more than a little discordant, and ended with a few gasps for breath.
“Excellent for your age.” Emerald managed to restrain his exuberance to a polite smile, then turned to Sparkler. “Same thing, five notes in any major chord.”
This time, the music came out crystal-clear, a beautiful mix of notes that made Emerald blink away a tear. He always got maudlin when an adult unicorn showed their abilities, and just for one moment he could feel the itch of magic crawling across his green hide in search of a horn to express itself. Then the moment was gone, and he forced himself to take a deep breath as Sparkler’s horn faded back to its regular violet hue.
“Right.” Emerald nudged one of the papers forward instead of any further sniffling. “Just think of this as the first note. Then merge with this one,” he added with a second page of notes. “Then once the two are stable together, fade out the first as you bring up the third here…”
It took remarkably little time to tie the deconstructed spell sections into the correct sequence, made easier by assigning them all a musical note, which they worked through verbally with Dinky’s help. Several repetitions later and the addition of a second gemstone from Regal’s pocket stash, Sparkler was ready to try for real. She did not even ask for Dinky to leave the room, which Emerald took as a good sign of confidence because it would help her concentrate.
In the end and after several false starts, the actual spell was almost an anticlimax. The gemstone merely split into several clean portions like an opening flower with no more sound than a quiet popping noise and Sparkler’s breathless panting afterward.
“Very good,” said Emerald, giving the results a gentle poke. Several pure gems glittered in the collection, and there were also a few usable shards that might be worth loose change at the bank. “You may consider this my Hearth’s Warming present for the House of Doo. That should pay for any windows you may have broken with a little left over for your mother to make some more of those delicious rugelach cookies that vanished off the table before I could get more than one. Oh, and that reminds me.”
It took a few short moments in his saddlebags to bring out the other tidy packages of bits that he had picked up at the bank, and he placed them on the table with brief clanks of the coins. “Dinky, this one is your Hearth’s Warming present for tomorrow, and if I could get you to take the other three to Snips, Snails, and Firelock, I’d appreciate it. Every studious student deserves a reward for their work, after all.”
“Thank you,” chirped Dinky while scooping up the packages. “I’ll deliver them first thing tomorrow, just like Mama.”
“It’s just like the first time I did it,” said Sparkler under her breath, still entranced by the collection of gemstone pieces on the table.
“That’s one success,” said Emerald, looking at Dinky. “Now, what comes next?”
“Practice!” she declared with two quick toots of her horn.
“Correct. I’m not either of your official instructors, so I can’t assign homework, but I can encourage you to write down notes on tonight’s exercise and practice over the next few days.”
Sparkler collected the notes together while nodding vigorously. “You bet I will. That went so much better than…” She took a quick glance at a small gemstone splinter still embedded in a nearby wall, which Emerald took as a cue to leave before the cookies were all gone.
“Come on, Dinky. Leave your sister alone to study and we’ll help your mother clean up.”
“That’s not much fun,” declared the young unicorn.
“It comes with leftover cookies,” said Emerald, which seemed to be a great incentive to movement because he had to hurry in order to follow her rapid pace back into the main room. Derpy was sending the last few visitors home, including the odd brown stallion with the mane that stuck straight up, who she gave a kiss on the cheek as he left. That left Emerald with a small sense of relief to think he was not being shopped as a husband by the goofy mailmare, which went well with the warm feeling he had in his chest from Sparkler’s successful magic lesson.
There were only a few small cookies left over, which did not last long under their assault, although all of the best ones had already been pillaged. Despite his efforts to provide clean-up assistance, Emerald was not permitted to stick around, but Derpy did beam like Sun when Dinky told her how well Sparkler had managed her spell.
“And she’s going to get the windows fixed she broke,” announced Dinky through a mouthful of crumbs. “Mama always says you should fix things you break, even when they say you don’t have to and try to chase you out of the house.”
That let Emerald leave with a chuckle, even after Derpy gave him a kiss on the cheek on his departure. It didn’t seem like a husband-hunting gesture of affection, but it put him back into waffling about if she was interested or not. On further thought while walking, it really did not matter, and Derpy had slipped him a small baking tin filled with cookies (and one inevitable muffin) while leaving, so it left him with a happy skip to his trot on the way back to the library.
To make things even better, the library door opened effortlessly to the touch of his spellkey, rather than leaving him stuck outside in the snow like he had begun to dread since everything was going so well this evening.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming eve to me,” he murmured, going over to check the fireplace once all the snow had been stomped out of his hooves on the bristly entrance mat. There was still most of a log in the warm coals, so he toasted for a few moments, used the bathroom, and curled up on the couch, his home away from home. It was getting more comfortable the more he used it. Tomorrow would be a leisurely day lounging around the library all by himself and reading, then back to Canterlot before the regular librarian returned and toasted him over the fireplace.
Still, there was something missing, just ever so slightly wrong with the library this evening.
The library had a low table next to the fireplace which suited his needs, so Emerald trudged out to the kitchen, prepared the traditional offering, and returned to the warm glow of the fire.
“Cookies for Santa Hooves,” he murmured while arranging the plate and preparing a note. “What am I, a child?”
It was tempting to take one of the cookies for himself, but he was fairly full and had already brushed his teeth, so Emerald settled for writing the most accurate and polite letter to Santa that he ever had managed before. One quick check for errors later, he tucked it under an edge of the plate and prepared for bed. At home, Father would have checked the letter for inevitable errors before sending it to Santa by way of the fireplace, and as much as Emerald fought against parental interference in his life, he had to admit he missed the gruff technique and painstaking accuracy involved. And perhaps someday Emerald himself would be carefully examining the letters of his own children in a similar but more friendly fashion.
But not here. And particularly not with the current librarian.
The image of Twilight Sparkle as a spouse made him chuckle under his breath as he turned for the couch. After all, he didn’t even have the courage to get into her bed when she was nowhere in the vicinity, so how would he ever be able to sleep with the most powerful unicorn in the world at nose-length away, let alone anything involved with foal creation, so that was a dead end.
Tomorrow was Hearth’s Warming day. The library would be closed and nopony would expect his presence anywhere, although he would temporarily miss out on presents. It would be the perfect day to curl up in front of the fireplace without any Cutie Mark Crusaders, unanticipated old school friends, or local police officers interrupting his relaxation. During every yak journey there were most likely pauses to reflect, and tomorrow he intended on reflecting with leftover cookies and books until it was dark, then taking a red-eye train back to Canterlot and his normal life.
It was a good plan, with little chance of Twilight Sparkle interference, so he pulled the star-embroidered purple blanket up around his shoulders and settled down on the couch to dreamless sleep.