//------------------------------// // The Library // Story: Time Bubbles // by peppermint_twist //------------------------------// The Doctor unrolled the parchment paper, it crinkled as he did. The scroll was about a few hundred years old. Most of the print was faded and the paper was discolored. On the map was a blob with rough edges that had faded printing in random places. The jagged lines were obviously connected (or neighbored) another large blob. This blob was almost the same colour as the parchment. Almost. Derpy saw tints of blue in some areas that seemed like faded out patches. “There,” Derpy stuck her hoof onto the paper with a slight complain from the parchment, “This is obviously not a part of Equestria due to the border lines and how the sea is only on one side of this… mass. We can go to the Canterlot Library to go check the maps. Wanna see if this is real?” “Would the library have maps on other nations?” Kacoonis questioned. “It never hurts to try!” The Doctor smiled brightly. “Well, nopony really knows anything about the other lands and populace- well except for the neighboring ones like griffons and dragons. Ponies are only knowledgeable of creatures living in forests and such. That’s why the invasion was such a brilliant plan; none of you ponies knew anything of changelings. Why, Derpy, I’m surprised you even knew there were nations outside of Equestria,” she said in a low tone. “It’s true, especially with the protected upper class, but us suburban ponies like learning new things. Country ponies care more, I guess,” Derpy said with pride, “Most of our top researchers don’t come from the higher ups. Take Star Swirl the Bearded for example; he was a servant to King Silver, father of Princess Platinum.” “Enough chit chat!” The Doctor interrupted, flailing his forelegs around, “Let’s go to the library!” He took off on the right street, a dust cloud formed behind him. “Doctor!” Derpy shouted. She spread out her wings and lunged her body up into the air. How could an earth pony be that fast, it was hard for Derpy to catch up to him. Soon, she was beside him. She hovered over the stallion for a little and suddenly leaped on top of him. They both tumbled for a while. Derpy had a nasty scrape on her chin which was now slightly bleeding and the Doctor had bruised both of his knees. “What was that for, Derpy?” he muttered angrily, rubbing his kneecaps. “Um…” she said shyly, feeling horrible for causing the Doctor pain. She slowly lifted up a gray hoof at a sign that was a few feet away. ‘LIBRARY’, it said with a big red arrow pointing back to where they started. “Oh,” he mumbled, his whole face burning a bright red. He looked up at Derpy to apologise when he saw the scrape. “Derpy!” He rushed over to the mare, “Are you alright?” “Fine, fine,” she said, smearing off some blood from her chin. She tilted her head up and noticed the Doctor’s concerned, deep blue eyes looking into hers. They both stared for a while, both of them blinked extremely slowly. She closed her eyes as the Doctor followed. They both leaned in slightly. Derpy could feel the soft breath of the stallion blowing against her happy face, she- “This would be a delicious snack!” Kacoonis shouted. Nopony noticed her leaning against the library sign. “Too bad I’m not allowed to dine; otherwise I would have had my fill for a month! Seriously, do you know how hard it is to find a good lunch nowadays? Almost impossible! What with all the divorces and-“ “Let’s go to the library,” Derpy stood, the Doctor quickly following her example. “Agreed, I want to find this out as soon as possible… for knowledge! Appparently, that’s what we suburban ponies seek, information!” The Doctor started to climb onto the stunned pegasus’ back. “What are you doing?!” She shrieked. “Pegasi are faster correct? Well, that’s what I presume, based on how easily you caught up to me,” “Yeah, yeah, but you could at least ask,” she muttered lowering her back for the surprisingly light stallion. She took off into the sky, Kacoonis suddenly shrinking her horn back and creating large pearly white wings. “We pegasi are light on our feet. Earth ponies- that’s you- are strong and durable. Unicorns are the smart ones, you see. They can organize their minds and junk. Kacoonis,” Derpy asked, suddenly changing topics and looking at the now pegasus in mid-air. “Why did you get rid of your horn?” “Why, so ponies won’t mistake me for an alicorn! And by the way… you all are being really loud about everything, you should… quiet down,” she said in a whisper which was barely audible in the strong winds. “As you said, Canterlot ponies don’t care, its fine,” The stallion brushed the comment off. “Uh, Doctor, I’m getting really,” She heaved, “tired,” she started to sweat, her wing beats slowing down as she was losing altitude. She landed on the pavement with a plop! “It’s okay, its right here! How lucky are we?” He shouted with glee, jumping off of Derpy’s back. “Allons-y!” He cried, running into the grand oaken library doors. Derpy panted, she wiped off the whole pint of sweat that had collected on her brow. Why must the Doctor be so oblivious?! “I can’t believe he still hasn’t noticed how you feel about him! Gosh, that must suck for you, Derpy! Ignored by your true love! Nothing sweet to munch on though, that kind of stuff hurts my throat. It’s really spicy and makes me cry and, UGH! Try to make something better for me to feast on next time, huh?” Kacoonis commented, galloping into the open doorway. Why did she have these mood swings? A week ago, she was sharing her secrets with Derpy and giving her advice. She seemed like a real friend. Now? A jerk. Interrupting that special moment with the Doctor and rubbing her misery in her face. Was the only reason of kindness because Derpy had that terrible dream? Though Derpy currently didn’t like the changeling princess, she still had a sense of pity resting in the back of her mind. Way back. She had more self-pity from her childhood up to now. “Come on, my banana muffin!” The Doctor called. Banana Muffin? My? She had already gotten a pet name, just like couples in books. She liked it. The pegasus giggled at the comment and then she clutched her stomach as she remembered: muffins… “Coming!” She trotted over to where the Doctor was holding open the door. “Thank you, kind gentlecolt!” She bowed in a jesting way. “After you m’lady!” He bowed as she mock sashayed in. “What do you mean, ‘we don’t have non-Equestrian maps here’?!” Kacoonis’ voice rang through the large chamber of books. The Doctor and Derpy just stood dumbfounded at their companion’s intensifying loud voice in a library. “Will you please quite down miss? We are in a library full of ponies who wish to read-“ The librarian was cut off by a shrieking white unicorn. “NOPONY IS READING AT ALL! THIS IS A DEAD LIBRARY! WHAT KIND OF LIBRARY DOESN’T HAVE ANY INFO AT ALL OF PLACES OUTSIDE OF EQUESTRIA?! THIS IS THE CANTERLOT ARCHIVES! THE NATIONALLY FAMED LIBRARY SUPPOSEDLY SHELVING ALL KNOWN KNOWLEDGE! I KNOW THERE ARE PONIES WHO HAVE MADE BOOKS OF PLACES LIKE ZEBRICA AND THE DEAD LANDS, SO WHY AREN’T THERE ANY HERE?!” “What is going on here?” A wavy haired dark blue stallion walked to the front desk from the top of the spiral staircase leading to the second floor. “Nothing, sir,” The old mare responded shakily. “Don’t lie to me, please Leaflet, I don’t like it,” he said in an exasperated tone. “Yes, Mr. Sparkle,” She said. “Yes, yes, no need for that formal diction,” he waved dismissively, “Now what seems to be the problem folks?” “Finally, somepony who will actually help me,” Kacoonis snapped. “Rosetta,” Derpy placed a hoof on her shoulder. “I think we can handle this,” Derpy put down her hoof back on the floor and looked at Kacoonis. She brought her hoof up to her chest while taking in a deep breath. She motioned Kacoonis to follow. She then unfolded her foreleg and let a long breath out. Kacoonis followed, her once flushed cheeks returning to their normal white. “Our friend here was just wondering if you ponies had any maps or books about other nations outside of Equestria,” he said casually. “Why of course we do! We have entries from the beginning of Equestria all the way to now! We have collections that were donated by hundreds of different explorers from faraway lands! Anything you would ever need to know is in this library, from the stories of how a little speck of dust came to be to how our whole vast universe was created!” He smiled proudly. “Sir,” Leaflet looked around with those worried emerald eyes, “I don’t believe civilians are allowed to look at those-“ “It’s knowledge! Why should we prohibit this?” “We have orders from the very top! Those are just for the higher ups! Civilians don’t need to know anything about anything outside of this nation! I don’t even know what’s in that section! You have to have special permission from one of the ponies of the government-” “Kacoonis, will you please patiently go acquire permission from the princesses to obtain these… books?” The Doctor said calmly, looking straight into Leaflet’s eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, disappearing in a flash of green. “She can teleport? I didn’t know she could teleport!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Higher level unicorns are able to,” Derpy replied as they walked over to a wooden bench and sat down. They sat together in silence. Derpy stared up at the ceiling, making sure not to meet the Doctor's deep blue eyes. She felt him staring at her, her face starting to blush profusely. They almost kissed! That’s never happened to Derpy. Ever. Not in that way, not with somepony as special as him. "Derpy," the Doctor interrupted the awkward silence. "You’re turning red," Derpy's whole face turned beet red. "Are you warm or anything?" He reached over his brown hoof. Derpy's heart raced in her ears. What was he going to do? She smiled as his hoof got closer… then he put it on her forehead. "Are you sick?" Derpy sighed. The doctor was really oblivious. "I'm…" her face started to turn back to its normal grey, "... Fine." Kacoonis was right, Derpy thought sadly. The Doctor would never show true feelings to anypony, especially an ugly klutz like her. “Really, Derpy, is everything okay?” He asked, staring intently into Derpy’s unfocused eyes. *Pomf* Derpy heard the little spring and gasped at her accident. OhsweetCelestiaOhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia OhsweetCelestia… Derpy shut her eyes, if she couldn’t see the Doctor staring, then he couldn’t see her little wing spring. “Derpy?” The Doctor asked with a slight creak of the head. “Are your wings okay? I don’t think they are supposed to make such a ‘pomf’ like noise... I don’t think they make noises at all. Why are your eyes shut? Derpy?” Oh right, the Doctor doesn’t know about this kind of stuff yet. He is new to Equestria, She opened her eyes and made a nervous smile at the confused stallion. This kind of stuff has never happened to her before. Though, it has happened to people like Raindrops and Rainbowdash back in the academy. She remembered those little incidents all so clearly. “Yo, what’s up Dash?” A tall, blue haired batpony gracefully flew to her. His spread out bat wings folded as he landed next to Derpy’s outgoing friend. He smiled at the blushing pegasus, his teeth glistening in Celestia’s bright sun. “Er- Hi Shadow Crawler!” she said a little too loudly. Her whole face turned red. “ ‘Sup Derpy,” he nodded to the grey pony. “No insult? You are one nice pony!” Derpy chuckled. “Not gonna comment on my so called, ‘derp’ eyes?” “Nope. I don’t like being made fun of,” he nodded in understanding, “happens all the time if I hang out with a pegasus,” “So what are you doing here? I mean, not to be racist or anything, but this isn’t the batpony academy. That’s on the left wing of this place. I dunno if you’re confused or something. But, it’s really nice to see you Shadow, we never hang out anymore,” she said, hinting to the first two years where the batpony and the four girls used to eat lunch together. “Actually, I was thinking just the same. I also kept thinking of you, Rainbowdash,” he shifted his deep emerald eyes to the blushing cyan pegasus. “Wanna hang out sometime, just the two of us, after school or something?” *Pomf* Rainbow just stared forward, mouth agape, both at herself and Shadow Crawler’s proposal. “S’ok if you don’t wanna…” he said with a frown, shifting uncomfortably. “OF COURSE I WANT TO!” she screamed. Everypony nearby all glanced at her odd. “I mean,” She coughed, manually folding her wings down, “sure, whatever,” “Derpy?” The Doctor called, shaking the pegasus. “Huh, what?” she muttered. She hadn’t realised that she had gone into her own little realm of memories. “I was just wonderin-“ A flash of green blasted right next to the Doctor, causing him to shriek. “Back!” She smiled happily. She kept a wide grin on her face, waiting for her two companions to reply. Her eyes darted from the Doctor to Derpy multiple times and then she burst into a dozen rounds of giggles. “Derpy! Your wings! Bwahahaha! I mean, is the Doctor that attractive that you have to-“ A grey hoof shoved into Kacoonis’ mouth, causing her to stop mid-sentence. “Show the librarians the permission letter,” she nodded to the scroll hovering before Kacoonis in her green aura. “Okay, you two lovebirds carry on,” she snickered after Derpy brought her hoof back to her side. Kacoonis trotted off to show the two librarians. “Uh, Derpy,” The Doctor asked, getting up, “So, um, what exactly is with your wings?” “Uhhhhhh,” she tried to fold the back naturally, but that didn’t work. She had to turn around, messing up her spine, and manually fold them down with her hooves. “It’s… nothing.” She sighed. They both walked over to where Kacoonis was proudly showing them the scroll. “Seems legit…” Leaflet muttered, lowering her eyes to little slits. “Exactly, Leaflet!” Mr.Sparkle cheered. “Come along now, I’m going to take you three to the maps. “Thanks, Mr.Sparkle,” Derpy said, slightly annoyed that none of her friends had taken the liberty of thanking the midnight blue unicorn for standing up for them. “Please, call me Nightlight,” he warmly smiled. “Hey, you don’t happen to be related to a Twilight Sparkle?” Derpy asked worriedly. “You must live in Ponyville! Yes, my protégée daughter. She is truly brilliant! Although, she can be a bit introverted at times,” He smiled proudly. How could someone so nice be related to someone so horrible? Derpy thought. “Yeah, I do live in Ponyville! Twilight is… really nice!” She said convincingly. Nightlight weaved his slick body through a ton of shelves. He stopped at one and walked around the tall looming bookshelf. The unicorn waited patiently for the trio to catch up with him. He stepped aside and revealed extremely narrow stairs that had a ‘DO NOT CROSS’ sign attached to a rope that cut off the flight of steps. He used his light blue magic to set aside the rope and sign. Nightlight chuckled. “Alright, watch your step,” he guided. He started to walk up the rickety old stairs. They groaned in agony at the infrequent weight. At the top was a trapdoor that he pulled on with great effort with the aura. It eventually gave in with a dissatisfied moan. “Ta-da!” He sang as he let the rest of the ponies through. “Woah,” Derpy gasped.