//------------------------------//
// The smart one 
// Story: How not to behave in a library. 
// by The_Swedish_Horror 
//------------------------------//

Twilight Sparkle ran for her life. The raging mob of ponies chasing her had deduced that she was the one responsible for the terrifying wave of arson, terrorism and destruction of poetry that had befallen their fair lands lately. They were not entirely wrong... 
"Please don't hurt me!" she cried, looking over her shoulder. "I didn't mean to destroy the railway depot, set fire to the meadows and rip apart Mrs. Purplepony's poem!" 
But they didn't listen. The pastel coloured posse was busy brandishing their pitchforks and torches, eager to bring her to justice. Or, rather, their own kind of justice. She felt like she was the main character in the old book "Frankenpony's monster", one of her favourite tales that she used to keep at her bed stand. How sad, and ironic, that she would meet the same demise*... 

The lavender unicorn jumped over a fence and dove into a small garden pond. She tried to hide herself like a crocodile among the aquatic flora, hoping that the pursuing ponies somehow wouldn't find her. The water was cold and the bottom of the pond felt muddy and foul. Twilight took a deep breath and submerged.
When she stood there, crouching on the bottom of the pond, thoughts rushed trough Twilight's mind. A strange, old song appeared in her thoughts... Call upon the sea ponies when you're in distress... Helpful as can be ponies - simply signal SOS... The very idea of sea ponies seemed preposterous to her at first.. But she knew that they were clearly possible. She had never seen one, but she had heard a rumour that they might exist. Old fossils of long dead generations of ponykind had been discovered, often strange and different from the present forms of pony. Maybe sea ponies belonged among these? 
Twilight slowly surfaced and took another deep breath. Her eyes were beginning to get sour from the contact with water and she really didn't want to spend another minute in the pond. 

She tried to get back under the surface again, but she just couldn't do it. Twilight decided to keep half of her head just above the waterline. She looked around and saw no traces of the angry mob, but she could still hear their voices at a distance. She blew little bubbles from her snout. 
Very carefully Twilight rose from the pond and crawled up onto the grass. She shook the water from her body like a dog and wiped the mud from her hooves. She had managed to throw them off her track! 

But now she had to get to safety before the angry ponies returned. Quietly Twilight sneaked away into the bushes nearby, climbed over another fence and jumped down on the other side where she found an empty barrel. She reluctantly crawled into it. 
"Barrels... I don't trust barrels," she whispered to herself for some reason she didn't fully understand. Maybe it was the tension from being constantly on the run that was slowly driving her mad? She didn't know.

After a while Twilight got an idea. A brilliant idea! She turned the barrel upside down and wore it as a disguise. Slowly she crawled away, step by step with only her hooves visible beneath the barrel when she moved. Twilight had removed the tap from the barrel, creating a hole so she could see. 
An hour later she had reached the outskirts of the village without being discovered. Whenever ponies watched she stopped, just to continue while they were looking away... She could make it! Every step brought her closer to safety....

But something wasn't right... She had an eerie feeling that she somehow had forgotten an important part of her plan. This escape was just too easy... Twilight stopped and slowly turned the barrel around, rotating her view. When she had turned half a circle her view from inside the barrel was blocked by a big, blue pony head! Oh no! The curious ponies had followed her from behind all the time! 
They grabbed the barrel and flipped it over, putting the unicorn upside down, trapped in the barrel with her hooves flailing in the air. She resembled a helpless turtle or a beetle on its back. 
"Get the tar and feathers!"
"Throw her in jail!" 
"Stop this instant!" 
And there was a sudden silence. 

When Twilight crawled out of her barrel she saw that a pony with a bowtie and glasses had appeared. And the whole mob was staring at that pony. She was about the same age as Rainbow Dash, but she was an earth pony with a light greenish coat and an dark orange mane with streaks of red. On her back she carried a bag filled with books.
"It's the smart one!" a white pegasus said. 
"The smart one always know what's to do."
"Yes, she has been to the university! She has a bachelor's degree in archaeology!"
The educated pony looked very proud when they mentioned her degree. She trotted past Twilight and turned the barrel upside down. Then she climbed it, using it as a pedestal for the great speech she had prepared. 
All the ponies stared at her in silent anticipation.
"Villagers! Hear my advise!" she said with a dramatic gesture. "Don't allow yourselves to sink to the level of a raging mob! This pony might be guilty, but until she has been tried by a court we must keep in mind the possibility that she might be innocent. We must hand her over to a professional court, maybe the highest court in Canterlot where the legal authorities can try her case! It would be great injustice to punish her before a trial. What would princess Celestia think of our village if we did something like that? She would think that we were unjust. Please do not take revenge on her!"
At first nopony said a word. They just stared at her, showing no sign of what they thought. The silence was so intense that Twilight could hear a sparrow singing in the background. The wind played with the smart one's mane. A little filly sneezed.
"Pfff!" 
A blue unicorn slowly scratched her ear. 
"So... You're suggesting that we don't roll her in tar and feathers...?" she inquired.
"Yes, that is correct..."
"Buuu! Get the smart one!"
"Throw her in jail!" 
"Punish the stupid science geek!"
And the pony posse threw her down from the pedestal and hauled her away, most likely in the direction of the local jail. Soon they were gone, leaving a dropped bag and some torn apart books on the ground. 

Twilight could only watch the idiocy with her jaw dropped. This was highly unusual, she thought. But at least they seemed to have forgotten all about her. Maybe she should stay and help the poor pony? Maybe she should do something... But Twilight choose a different option. Quietly she sneaked away. This was not her proudest moment.