Applebloom wanted to ask what he meant by this, but he simply sped up. Her hooves still hurt from walking along the train tracks for so long. But her years of helping in the fields of her family’s orchard had made her strong. She kept up despite their complaints.
The mare side of her brain was still on the fence about following a talking pig deep into a dangerous forest, but it was starting to come around. The filly side bounced along happily, enjoying the adventure.
Sty said nothing more as they headed forwards to meet the Unsure. The conductor’s warning rose up in Applebloom’s mind. The filly side ignored it out of stubborn anger at being dumped out of a train. The mare side told her she ought to be careful, conductors were respectable citizens of society that should be heeded, even if they were made of vines.
Applebloom studied her surroundings, wondering just how many ponies had been this
far into the Everfree on hoof. It probably wasn’t many, but then she wasn’t counting those who hadn’t managed to come back out. She thought back to this morning, standing at the train station, trying to figure out what had gone so wrong between then and now to lead her to, wherever it was she was now. She could find nothing of any importance that she had done in the hours leading up to her ‘arrival’ nor could she think of any possible reason for her sudden stop.
Applebloom thought about magic. It was everywhere in the Everfree, and therefore must have something to do with her predicament. She remembered the time only a few years back, when Sweetie Belle had tried her hoof at being a magician. Scootaloo, being Scootaloo had found this dreadfully boring as being a magician had a lot more book reading and far fewer card tricks than she’d imagined. As a result she spent the majority of this time laying around and moaning. Applebloom meanwhile had helped her friend study in hopes that she might earn a study-buddy mark out of the deal. Neither of them had come away with a marked flank, but she’d learned a thing or two about magic. Namely that it hardly ever quite as straight forwards as it seemed to be and could be a disagreeable thing. She’d been proven doubly right when after Scootaloo had spent the day as a rabbit do to a miss-aimed spell. Applebloom wondered if perhaps she were the victim of a similar accident. Perhaps some wayward spell had hit the train sending her here. The mare side of her brain accepted this, the filly side was too busy laughing at the memory of Scootaloo twitching her nose for a week and half after the fact.
Sty slowed as they came into a clearing.
“Are we there?” Applebloom asked.
“No.” Sty sniffed the air, his little piggy nose crinkling. “There’s something on the path.”
Applebloom peered around the clearing, it appeared to be empty from what she could tell.
The only thing she could see were flowers and the occasional stray twig.
“I don’t see anything.”
Sty snorted. “Of course you don’t. You don’t see it, you read it.”
Applebloom was now thoroughly confused. “What?”
“It’s a library.” Sty said simply
“A library?”
“Yeah,” Sty sighed. “Whenever there’s a storm they end up everywhere.”
“Do they?...” Applebloom asked. She was starting to get the impression she was getting her leg pulled. “I still don’t see anything.”
“Stop looking start reading. Follow me.”
Applebloom started after the little pig. Now questioning whether or not he was completely sane. She was interrupted from questioning her own sanity-which was very much up in the air since she was to the point where she could question the mental health of a talking pig- When her head smacked into something hard.
“Ow!” She yelled, rubbing the sore spot on her forehead.
“You’re not reading,” said Sty, his voice far from sympathetic. “You do know how, don’t you?”
Applebloom stomped a hoof. “Of course I do! My grandma read to me every night!”
Sty looked her up and down. “Did she do it right?”
“What do you mean did she do it right? You ain’t making sense.”
The small pig snorted again. “Well if she did it right then read. Go on.” Sty pointed an insistent hoof at towards the middle of the clearing.
“There’s nothing there!”
Sty pointed again. “Look closer!”
“Fine!” Applebloom squinted at the air in front of her, trying to see something, anything that might have been there. Still she saw nothing except the green grass and occasional flower. She was about to give up when a stray ‘The’ floated by her nose.
“What in the....”
Sty clicked a hoof on the ground. “There you go. Now read it.”
Ignoring the mare side of her brain, which was having a minor breakdown, Applebloom read the words in front of her out loud.
“The small pony with the red mane squinted at the words floating through the air. As she read them they organized themselves into a larger structure, which was magnificent in its splendor...”
Indeed this exact thing happened. Though Applebloom could tell by the library’s actual condition that it was simply bragging. Far from being ‘Magnificent in its splendor’ it was in fact rather run down. It was a what appeared to a be brick building. Though it looked as though a great number of ponies had taken chisels to the walls. Several of its windows were cracked, or gone altogether. In front of her was a sign which read ‘Wcom’ as most of its letters had fallen off, most recently the E after a collision with her head. She noted that the whole thing smelled terribly of wet books
The part Applebloom was was amazed about though, was what it was actually made of. If she held her eyes close to any part of the building she could see a running report of what was currently happening scrolling by in fancy type.
Sty scoffed. “There’s nothing I hate more than a library with an ego.” He hopped up the first step with a bit of effort. “Well, let’s get a move on, there’s no way around, we’ll have to go through.”
Applebloom looked up at the dilapidated building. “Through?”
“Yes, now come on. I can’t push this door open on my own.”
Applebloom, decided it was better to just go with it and stop asking questions. The mare side of her brain, along with the filly side heartily agreed and followed Sty up the stairs.
The door was heavier than it looked, this is mostly do to the fact that words are a lot heavier than most people give them credit for. But they finally managed to get it open with a classic creaking noise.
The interior was just as unkempt as the exterior. The shelves were almost entirely empty as most of the books had taken up residence on the floor. Stray pages lay in every nook and cranny of the main room, some even stuck to the ceiling with damp. The mare side of Applebloom’s mind wept at the sheer destruction of literature.
“Wow, the storm hit this place hard.” Sty remarked. “It’ll take a while for it to regroup without a good librarian.”
He started forwards, his tiny hooves clicking lightly on the wooden floor. Applebloom was briefly reminded of the library back in Ponyville. Though that one was a lot neater and a great deal dryer.
“Come on then, we won’t get closer if we stand around gawking.”
Applebloom thought this was sensible advice. They progressed through the damp halls of the library, avoiding soaking books and overturned shelves. The canopy of the forest let very little light in through the old cracked and shattered windows above them, it gave the whole place the feeling of a graveyard. Applebloom’s curiosity, and fear, grew steadily as they wore on.
“Hey Sty, can I ask you a question?” she asked as they pased the remains of the foal’s section.
He snorted. “You’re going to anyway.”
“Well, everypony keeps telling me I’m somewhere...but I’m not rightly sure where somewhere is.”
Sty looked at her over his shoulder, somehow managing to look down on her though he was little bigger than a soccer ball.
“It’s here of course,” he said simply. “Any more obvious questions?”
Applebloom bristled, she didn’t like being talked down to. “No! You know what I mean. I ain’t never heard of a placed called ‘Somewhere’. I’ll tell you it ain’t on any map!”
Sty stopped walked at turned around, taking on the expression of a particularly impatient teacher talking to a particularly slow student. “If course it is. Everyone who uses a map is trying to get Somewhere right?”
Applebloom opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.
Sty turned away and continued walking. “Exactly. Now we haven’t got time for thi-”
He was interrupted as something black, white, green and very loud came barreling out of the dark. It tripped over the small pig and went sprawling into the opposite wall where it continued to spout gibberish.
“What was that!?” Applebloom yelled.
Sty groaned, picking himself up from the floor. “That,” he said. “Is the librarian...”
As the thing got up Applebloom saw it was not a thing at all, but in fact a rather tall zebra. He was perfectly normal in all respects except that there seemed to be a large green sprout growing out of the top of his head.
He looked at Applebloom, smiled manically, then frowned, then smiled again before giving up and just looking confused.
“Hello?...” Applebloom attempted.
“Words!” He exclaimed.
Applebloom took a step back.
“I like words! Words are good, words mean I can’t be an end table.” He looked around warily as though waiting for the universe to correct him somehow. “Right?”
“Um...no...” Applebloom started, pointing to a puddle of water on the floor. “You’re a zebra. See?”
The zebra looked at the puddle. “So that’s what a zebra is...” he said curiously. “I thought they’d be a lot dryer.” He stuck his tongue into the water and made a face. “They taste awful.”
Applebloom felt thoroughly confused at this point.
“Um...no....I mean you’re a zebra...that’s a puddle. Look at your reflectio-”
“Reflection!” he yelled.
Sty sidled up next to Applebloom. “Looks like this one ran afoul of the Unsure. Must have been in a bad mood. The poor mook.
The zebra studied himself in the puddle. “I’m a zebra...that means I taste awful and am very wet...”
Applebloom opened her mouth to say something, but the zebra beat her to it.
“Wait! I’m not wet at all! So in that case I can’t be a zebra!”
“No!” she shouted stomping a hoof. “You’ve got it all inside out. You are a zebra, the wet bad tasting thing is a puddle, and the thing that looks like you is your reflection.” she paused for a moment, studying him. “Got it?”
The zebra considered this, smiled, frowned, then looked at the puddle again. “So...I am a zebra, and therefor not a puddle. That means that I must be very dry and taste delicious.” He put a hoof to his chin, looking up at the slowly rotting ceiling.
“Not exactl-”
“I’m delicious!” He turned and began to viciously bite his own leg.
Sty tapped Applebloom. “Come on. There’s no helping him, he doesn’t even know what he is anymore.”
Applebloom looked at the zebra, who was contemplating the flavor of his leg. “What did he do to him? The Unsure I mean?”
“It, kid, it,” Sty corrected. He frowned at the zebra. “You know that little bit of doubt in your head? That tiny little voice that says “Hey, maybe everything’s not what I think it is?”
Applebloom nodded. “I think so...”
“The Unsure is that. It takes that feeling and makes it...bigger...sometimes for fun. The result-”
The zebra yelped as he attempted to eat his own tail.
“Isn’t good.”
In Applebloom’s head two emotions fought with one another. On the mare side there was fear and apprehension. She very much wanted to get back to the train, to get away from this nonsense and back to the sensible world she knew. Where libraries were made of brick, pigs didn’t talk and ponies rarely ever drove other ponies insane. On the filly side she felt anger, anger at the Unsure, who she was now certain had something to do with her arrival. It only made sense, that’s how it would’ve gone in the stories she’d read as a kid. It’s always the unseen obviously evil thing that causes the main conflict. This, added to the fact that everypony she’d met since she’d arrived seemed terrified of it, made her even more angry. There’s nothing an Apple hates more than a bully, and as it’s been said she was an Apple through and through.
The anger won out.
“We have to help him.” She took a step forwards. Somewhere during her conversation with Sty the zebra had decided he was a dinner plate. He lay curled in a ball asking every now and again that someone put some salad on him.
Sty jumped out of her way. “There’s nothing you can do to help! He’s gone loopy, off the deep end! Let him rave in his library alone.”
She ignored the small pig. “What’s your name? she asked, kneeling down to eye level with the zebra.
“Dinner plates don’t have names,” he answered, trying to sound plate-like.
“Dinner plates don’t talk either,” said Applebloom.
The zebra looked blankly at her for a moment, then grimaced. “Curse it all! I thought I had it this time.”
Applebloom put a hoof on his side. “How about I call you....” she looked around the library at all the disintegrating books. “Tome.”
“Tome,” he tired the name out on his tongue. “Tome, Tome, Tome...” The zebra smiled. “I like it! I am Tome.”
“Yes.” Applebloom nodded. “Yes you are. Now, tell me, Tome, what happened?”
Tome’s face clouded. “I...I don’t know...I....” He looked confusedly around the library. “Books...”
“What about books?”
“I....did I?....Yes...wait...no....maybe? Did I shelve books?”
Applebloom nodded. “Yes, you were the librarian. Right Sty?”
The little pig snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. Not a very good one either by the looks of this pla-” He grunted as Appleblooms left hoof hit his leg.
“Librarian...” said Tome. “Yes...I’m a Librarian!” the small sprout on the top of his head suddenly grew a few inches, a small bud formed at the top. “Now...remember...remember what happened...I’m...I’m not sure...” He looked imploringly at Applebloom. “Why am I not sure?”
“Because you met the Unsure, it kind of goes with the title.” said Sty.
All the color drained from Tomes face. “I remember that....I remember that! Wait...” he looked at the ceiling. “No. Yes....wait...wait again...Yes! The unsure...oh Celestia the unsure. That’s bad. That’s bad isn’t it? Or was it good? No...no it can’t be good, because if it were good I would have remembered it, so it must be bad. Yes, bad, not good at all, awful awful!” he began to shake. “It was awful...so awful...my mind....it was...awful! Bad! Terrible!”
The sprout on his head grew a bit taller.
“Back up kid!” yelled Sty.
“I was...I was cleaning...shelving...yes...my library...because I’m a....yes ...librarian ...awful.. no...yes....you!” he turned to Applebloom. “What is your name?”
The not quite mare took Sty’s advice bad backed up a few feet. “Applebloom...” she said slowly. “Are you alright?”
“Applebloom!” he yelled. “Alright?” He cocked his head to the side, the leaves on his head shaking as he did. “Yes I’m alright! I’ve got memories!” He smiled, then frowned. “Awful....awful memories...”
Applelebloom jumped as the shelf next to her righted itself violently, slamming against the wall.
“Memories!” Tome yelled. “Such memories! Of my Library!”
Books flew from the ground, shaking themselves off like wet dogs. Pages, torn from their bindings repaired themselves, flying like birds to their shelves, the sound of crinkling paper was deafening.
“My library!” he yelled again. “My library shouldn’t look like this!”
Glass flew backwards into cracked and shattered windows, fusing in place like pieces of a puzzle. Applebloom took another step back as a mighty wind started blowing, the water on the ground and in the air swirled through it like a tornado, the doors slammed open sending it whirling out into the forest. The rot crawled away, leaving new wood in its place as the library once again attained it’s former glory.
The sprout on Tome’s head grew another inch before it’s bud burst open, a large yellow sun flower blooming outwards like a small sun.
Then everything was quiet.
Tome got up calmly and waked behind a desk that hadn’t been there a moment before. From one its many drawers he pulled a pair of glasses, which he placed on the tip of his nose.
He looked down at Sty who was cowering behind a bookcase, then to Applebloom.
“May I help you?” He asked.