//------------------------------//
// Ch 4: There and Back Again 
// Story: Worlds of Literature 
// by SergeantShenanigans 
//------------------------------//

After a longer than expected delay due to an internal crisis on the thought of never going home again, Twilight decided to trudge on and make her way to the end of the story and hopefully escape this frustrating book.

The castle was gigantic, though appropriate considering who was supposed to inhabit it. Though she had been traveling through the castle for at least what seemed to be an hour, she made little to no progress.

As she came into the doorway leading to the next room, she came upon a piece of paper with a scroll attached to it hanging from the wall nearby. This was not a note she would have expected though, considering she was inside a giant's home it was about the size of a note a pony would have written. She used her magic to levitate the note closer so she could read it, knocking the scroll to the ground in the process.

Nothing is as it seems, you must leave here now. The longer you stay the more you become like the character you replaced, thinking their thoughts and acting as they would. The scroll attached to the paper is enchanted with the spell required to return you to your own world, it will activate upon opening it. If you value your life and memories, leave and never use this spell again.

Twilight read over the scroll a few more times before scratching her head. 'What does it mean by think like the character I replaced?'

She began to think back over the things that had happened to her from the time she arrived. Slowly, she began to find that more and more of her actions didn't seem to be her own.

Whoever the pony that wrote the note was and whatever was happening didn't matter anymore, what mattered was that she needed to get out of there and the only way she had found so far was the scroll... which was being carried away by a goose about the same size as Big Macintosh.

"Hey! Bring that back, I need it!" She shouted, pursuing the goose.

Twilight quickly began closing the gap between herself and the goose. She leaped forward to catch the goose but was met with the hard ground instead. She looked up in time to see the goose land on a tabletop far above.

It took her a moment to realize that could have just teleported or grabbed the goose with her telekinesis.

Letting out a frustrated grunt she teleported to the top of the table. Upon inspection the tabletop was littered with a variety of foods, all of which looked like a unicorn had gone mad with a growing spell.

After a few moments of searching Twilight found the goose in the middle of a loaf of bread, eating it from the inside out. Just in front of the bread lay the scroll. She grabbed it telekinetically and began to unfurl it when the entire table began to shake, causing her to lose concentration and drop it off the tabletop. "Oh come on!" She shouted.

Suddenly, she heard heavy breathing and felt large gusts of hot air being blown at her back. Twilight slowly turned to find the dragon that guarded the goose. She had seen full grown dragons, such as the dragons from the migration or the dragon that lived in the Everfree, or even Spike when he started to be really greedy. But this dragon was as big as all of those dragons combined and it looked a lot angrier than she had ever seen a dragon. And dragons were notorious for being angry and grumpy.

Slowly, Twilight began to inch her way backwards, before she quickly turned and teleported to the floor below, hoping to get to the scroll before the dragon got to her.

Much to her dismay the dragon quickly gave chase and began to close the gap. She fell to the ground face first and quickly turned to find the dragons jaws closing around her body.

She felt the heat coming from his mouth and waited to be swallowed or chewed. 1...2...3 she counted 3 deep breathes where the dragon did nothing. She opened her eyes to find the dragon staring at where she was sitting and tilting his head.

Twilight looked down at her own hooves to find that she could not in fact see them, somepony had cast an invisibility spell on her! She looked around and found no other living soul.

Straightening out her priorities Twilight decided that she could think more on it later, but now she had to get out of there. So she ran to the scroll, grabbed it and shut her eyes tightly as she opened it.

Nothing seemed to have happened, when she opened her eyes though she was once again inside her library which was pretty clean besides the note with the spell and book still on her desk.

Before she knew what she was doing Twilight found herself laughing hysterically. "I'm alive! I made it home!"

The sound of the door closing stopped her laughing and shouting. She looked over to find a very confused looking Spike and Rarity.

"Twilight? What are you shouting about?" Spike asked.

As an answer, she dive tackle hugged Spike, knocking both of them to the ground "I never thought I'd see you again!"

"What do you mean? I was only gone for an hour. Rarity came with because she had something she needed to ask you."

"I have to agree with Spike, and what is that positively dreadful thing you are wearing?" Rarity asked.

Twilight stood back up and inspected herself, finding that she was still wearing the patchwork clothes she had acquired inside the strange book world. "What do you mean a few minutes? I've been gone for over an entire day!" Again, she was reminded that book logic does not coincide with Equestrian logic.

She quickly waved her hoof, cutting off both of their responses. "It doesn't matter, all that matters is that I'm back!"

Spike and Rarity shared a concerned look. "Twilight, were you... how do I put this delicately, experimenting with a few of Zecora's herbs again?" Rarity asked.

"What? No! A piece of paper slipped out of a book that Rainbow knocked down. It had a spell written on it that let me enter the world of any book I chose!" Twilight exclaimed, before realizing how stupid that sounded.

"What book were you in then?" Spike asked.

Twilight explained to them what had transpired inside the book.

Once again Spike and Rarity shared a concerned look, before a confused look grew on Spike's face "Wait, those world don't actually exist, how do you go somewhere that doesn't exist?"

Twilight shrugged "To be perfectly honest I have no idea."

"And you still believe that this actually happened?" Rarity asked.

"If it didn't happen, then where did these clothes come from?" Twilight countered.

"Darling, even according to your story you haven't seen anypony for quite a while, and in the hour Spike was gone a lot could happen."

"I need to inform the princess! A spell like this could seriously help research on any subject,"

"But what if it really didn't happen Twilight?" Spike asked.

A determined look grew on Twilight's face. "If both of you still don't believe me then I'll just have to prove it."

Spike furrowed his eyebrows. "How are you going to do that?"

"I'll be able to show you if this works," She explained grabbing the scroll that had brought her back to the library. "If this enchantment works like most enchantments are supposed to, I can just give it a little bit of a charge," the scroll was enveloped by Twilight's magic "and I can use it again."

"Why do you need that?"

As an answer Twilight disappeared for a moment before reappearing. "Good, it worked."

"What did? Where did you go? Why did you need it?" Spike asked.

Twilight levitated a book over to show her two friends. "Because of this."

Rarity and Spike only had a few moments to look at the title of the book before all three of the ponies were teleported out of the library.

The title of the book was 'Daring do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone'