*Flashback to where there is only fifteen minutes left in the hour of the split up plan*
“I can’t believe he could treat me like that!”
The snow-white dragoness was furious after meeting with Dusk Shine. They ran into each other while searching around town.
“He treats me like I’m his lowly side-kick!” Spines muttered to herself, “I bet he thinks that I’m incapable of doing anything by myself!”
Spines kicked a good-sized stone on the ground in frustration. It hurt her foot a little bit, but she did not care enough to notice.
“I can go things by myself!” Spines still couldn’t get over what Dusk had mentioned to her, “Just because I work as an assistant to him does not mean I can’t do anything without him! I’ve done plenty of stuff without him around. Not just inside the library mind you, but outside the library as well!”
Spines made a scowl that sadly not even a puppy would find scary.
“Does he also think that I have no life outside the library?!” Spines could not get the conversation she just had with Dusk out of her head, “My life does not just include the library!”
Due to the fact that she was completely not looking at where she was going, she whammed into a wall that had suddenly appeared in front of her. She looked up to see that this wall was part of a building that was very familiar to her. This building seemed to double as a giant oak tree. Its green leaves were cut around windows that somehow were in the tree itself. The glass windows seemed to be scattered around in random places, really having no theme at all. The trunk, aka the wall that Spines just ran into, had a welcoming red door in the front. On either side of this door were groups of green bushes, which were so nicely kept.
“Speak of the devil,” Spines was amazed be her timing, “the Golden Oaks Library itself.”
She was about to continue casually on her way when an idea popped into her head.
“I wonder if Dusk’s counterpart is here…” Spines thought, “What was her name again? It was Twilight…something another, I don’t quite remember the second word.”
After giving a quick look around to see if anyone was in the area, Spines started to tip-toe to the very front of the Golden Oaks Library. She then quickly snuck into the bushes. She stuck her head out of the bushes in such a way that the rest of her body was completely concealed. After this, she looked through a lower window that was placed in just the right location for her to be able to do so.
Spines’ eyes scanned the interior of the tree for any sight of Dusk’s doppelganger. All her eyes could seem to find at first though were tons of shelves, filled with books of every color. These shelves were actually carved into the wood of the tree. This gave the library a natural look and plenty of shelving area. And thank goodness for that, because the library was filled to the brim with books. Spines wasn’t looking for a book however, she was looking for a bookworm.
After some more searching, Spines saw something interesting. In the far back corner, there was a purple figure moving about. Spines could not see the figure very well and got nervous for a second that she would have to get out of her perfect hiding spot to be able to complete her mission. Lady luck however seemed to be on Spines’ side now, because the purple pony picked up a book using her magic and carried it all the way across the library to a bookshelf that was right in front of Spines. This gave her a perfect view of the pony inside.
The pony inside was indeed the one Spines was looking for. Her skin color was almost the exact same color that Spines’ skin color was normally. However, the color on the mare was just a hint lighter. Her hair flowed casually all the way down her neck. It was mostly a very dark purple color, so dark that it almost seemed black. Her hair also included a stripe of pink. Her tail copied her hair with the colors and grew all the way to the floor. On the upper part of her rear legs, there was a pink, six pointed star. Many miniature white stars were around that. She had bright purple eyes and a purple horn that proved her unicornhood.
Spines exploded with laugher. She didn’t know why exactly she found this so funny, but she did. Maybe it was because she was so mad at Dusk and the first thought that popped into her head was that this was some sort of unfortunate curse placed on him (even though the mare wasn’t really Dusk) were the reasons why she found it so enjoyable to laugh at. It didn’t really matter however on the reason why, all that does matter is that she fell backwards into the bushes and rolled around laughing and laughing and laughing.
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Twilight Sparkle was going through some much needed organization of the books at the Golden Oaks Library. She was making sure that every book was present and in the right spot.
“I wonder what has been taking Spike so long to get back,” Twilight thought, “It was only one errand!”
A loud rustling noise suddenly broke through Twilight’s thoughts.
“Hmmm?” she asked out loud, “What could that be?”
She turned away from the bookshelf she was looking at and started to walk towards the front door. There was only one way to find out.
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Spines recovered from her laughing fit just in time to poke her head up and see that Twilight was starting to walk away from the bookshelf.
“What is she doing now?” Spines pondered.
She realized, after seeing the direction that Twilight had taken after a few steps, that she was walking towards the front door.
“Oh drat!” she exclaimed in her head, “She must have heard me! What do I do, what do I do!?”
Spines mind raced with possibilities. She could try to stay there and hide, but as she looked around, she saw that the area she was standing in was now pretty dang flat. The rolling part of her laughing fit must of flatten every bush around her, leaving a nice spot if you wanted to be seen from a mile away. She knew that option was out of the question.
She thought about racing around the library and heading straight through the back door and hiding inside the library. That was pointless though, because she would just be out of the frying pan and into the fire. She would have to somehow escape from inside the library to back the outside without being caught by Twilight. Another idea about that plan that came into her head basically put a nail into its coffin.
“What if it is locked? Then I’m just standing outside, trying to break into a library. That’s not going to work out at all!”
She thought about just running away from the library. However, she didn’t know if she could run far enough away to not to be seen by Twilight. If she was in the range of sight for Twilight at all, she figured that Twilight could easily chase her down and ask her questions. She knew that Dusk was faster than she was, so she assumed the same would be true about his female counterpart.
As luck would have it, the mail pony had decided that it would be a great time to go and deliver a package that needed to be delivered to the library. The light grey mare flew in and placed down the package right in front of the door. Before she left, she gave Spines a confused strange look, though all her looks were strange due to the cross-eyed nature of her eyes.
“I’ll…” Spines managed to get out, “I’ll bring that package inside for you!”
The mail pegasus just shrugged and went on her way.
Spines shot out of the bushes and picked up the package.
“What could be in here?” she wondered, “It is far too big for a normal sized book and is far too light to be a bunch of books. What else would be delivered to a library?”
She turned around just in time to meet the face of Twilight looking out the opened front door.
“Yes?” she asked curiously.
Spines was barely able to gather herself just enough to have a conversation with the female clone of her co-librarian.
“Here,” she stammered, “Package for you.”
“Hey thanks!” Twilight replied and took the package by magical force, “Do you know who sent it? I don’t remember ordering anything...”
“I just deliver them,” Spines stated with a hint of a smile, “I really don’t know who sends them.”
“Oh,” Twilight sounded disappointed, “Well, I guess you should never complain about getting a free package. Thanks for delivering it!”
“I’m just doing my job.” Spines said quickly and briskly walked away.
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Twilight brought the package inside and sat it next to the door.
“Maybe Spike would want to open it when he finally gets back,” Twilight thought out loud, “The object inside the box could be his reward or something.”
Twilight went back to the bookshelves that she was organizing before.
"I was going to ask that dragoness where she was from, since I had never seen another dragon around here besides Spike,” Twilight told herself, “But she seemed anxious to leave and I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I bet she gets asked that question a lot.”
She stopped her organizing to think more clearly.
“Maybe Spike will know,” Twilight pondered, “He might have heard something about another dragon visiting town. Meeting another dragon would be nice for him.”
Twilight saw a book that was completely out of place and quickly pulled in out. She walked across the room to the correct bookshelf.
“She did have a similar body structure to Spike though…” her thoughts kept on coming, “Do dragons’ bodies usually look that same, or do they usually look completely different? I should do some intense research about dragons.”
She carefully slid the book that she was carrying into the correct spot on the bookshelf that she now at. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the spine of the book next to it.
“Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons (Ologies)” she read to herself, “Seems like a wonderful place to start my research!”
She pulled the book out and quickly went to find a comfortable place to read.
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“I can’t believe I got out of that situation unscathed!” Spines exclaimed.
Spines had made sure that she was definitely out of ear shot before she said anything.
“I thought for sure she was going to be more curious about a dragon delivering her mail!” Spines swiped some glisten off her forehead, “Maybe she was just being nice; or she really, for some weird reason, didn’t care at all; which would be really strange for Dusk, so I assume the first reason is why.”
While Spines was thinking about all of this, she was suddenly nudged by someone sprinting by. The momentum from this caused her to spin in circles, but she was able to quickly stabilize herself with ease.
“Ah’m so sorry!” the high pitched voice rang as the owner continued to run, yelling back at her, “But Ah’m really in a hurry so Ah hope you’re fine!”
Spines turned around to barely catch a glance of the young filly running away. Her skin was a cream yellow color. Her hair reminded Spines of some form of red licorice. Her tail perfectly matched her hair, as it seems to be the case with all ponies. What stuck out for Spines, and probably anyone else who had seen her, was the giant pink bow that sat on the top of her head.
“You would think that thing would just fly off when she runs, wouldn’t ya?” Spines' thoughts asked herself.
She thought a little bit about that random stranger. Suddenly, something dawned on her.
“She looks familiar…” Spines whispered, “Could that have been…Applebuck?”
Spines gathered herself and started again on her way back to the meeting spot.
“I’ve got to remember,” she muttered to herself, “that no one is safe with this gender swapping thing. No one...”