Scootaloo looked at the stack of tattered books, eyes wide. They practically had to have come from some private collection in Canterlot castle or something. Old as they were, they were probably pretty valuable.
"Princess Luna sent all of those?" she asked.
"All of these and the ones I'm looking at right now," she confirmed. "And, well, for one of the princesses to ask me to work on something, it would typically either be something related to my studies, or some threat to Equestria. This doesn't seem to be either, though."
Oh, this should be fun. She knew something Twilight didn't and it looked like it was bugging the hay out of her.
"Well, it seems to me like you should be able to work it out," she said smugly. "If she mentioned me by name, she must know me, right?"
"I don't see how," Twilight said, frustrated. "Luna's only been to town twice. The first time was mostly when she was Nightmare Moon, and she left shortly afterwards. And on Nightmare Night, I was with her most of the night."
"Right," Scootaloo replied. "So she must have met me somewhere else, then."
"I don't think you've spent much time in Canterlot, though." Her eyes narrowed as a sudden suspicion came to her. "You didn't sneak into her tower and spend a bunch of time with her at my brothers wedding, did you?"
"Of course I didn't sneak in to see Luna!"
She wouldn't have had to, since Luna would have let her in. Too bad she'd been so busy practicing for the wedding. She'd had to wear a dress, too. But scattering petals down the aisle had been kinda fun. And nopony had noticed her sampling a few.
And as it turned out, the bride had actually been a really big bug. That'd been awesome! But the real wedding hadn't been bad either.
Twilight sighed, breaking Scootaloo's chain of thought. "Then I have no idea."
Scootaloo frowned as she realized the downside of teasing Twilight like this. To really explain why Luna wanted to help her, her parents were almost sure to come up, and she didn't really like talking about them. It was probably too late now, though.
"Well, what exactly does Princess Luna do? What's she responsible for?" she asked Twilight.
"Princess Luna is in charge of the moon and all things related to the night. She hasn't gone back to being co-ruler of Equestria yet, to my knowledge."
"So what are her duties during the night, then?" she asked Twilight, as if she didn't already know the answer.
"You know, I'm not sure," Twilight answered pensively. She obviously didn't like admitting her ignorance of something.
"Well, what happens during the night?"
"Not much. Most ponies are asleep–" Her eyes widened. "She governs dreams, doesn't she?"
"Exactly," Scootaloo said. "And she's able to walk into other ponies dreams."
"That still doesn't make much sense, though. I can understand that she could walk into your dreams, but why would she? There are a lot of ponies in Equestria."
Scootaloo's ears drooped. "Twilight, what she does is she looks for ponies having bad dreams, and tries to help them. Most times ponies don't even remember her helping them out."
"But you did? Why would she remember you from one bad dream, though?"
This was the part Scootaloo really didn't want to get into.
"She didn't remember me from one dream. But when she has to stop by one or more times a week, you get to know each other."
"Alright, that makes a lot more sense now," Twilight said, more at ease. Then Twilight realised what had just been said. "Wait, you were having nightmares several times a week? For how long?"
"Years." Scootaloo sighed. "Long enough to wish she'd never gone away in the first place. I don't have them too often any more, though."
Twilight's ears drooped, as well. Sweetie Belle, who already knew about Scootaloo's parents, squeezed her reassuringly.
"Years." Twilight paced, books forgotten. "That's terrible. What happened?"
"Um, I don't really like to talk about it," she said, but with the look on Twilight's face, she didn't think she'd leave it at that.
"What could be so bad as to cause years' worth of nightmares, though?" Twilight asked persistently.
"Here." Scootaloo grabbed Twilight's quill for a moment, jotted down a date on the paper in front of her, then gave it back. "Take a look at the newspapers around that day. It should have been on the front page. We were going to try to find stuff about flying though, right?"
"Right." Twilight nodded distractedly. "I'll divide the books into three piles, one for each of us. We'll look at each book in our pile. If it has anything to do with flying, pegasus anatomy, endurance, building your magic core, or looks potentially useful, set it in one pile, and set it in another if it doesn't. We'll go through the first pile together afterwards."
She separated the books into three stacks, and floated one over to Scootaloo, and another to Sweetie Belle. As they started flipping through books, Twilight kept glancing at the date scratched on her notes, and eventually she got up and walked away, leaving her books behind her.
Scootaloo hit her forehead with her hoof. "She's gone to grab some newspapers, hasn't she?"
"Yeah, once you brought it up, there's no way she'd let it go." Sweetie Belle grabbed another book, and her eyes brightened. "Rigis Filia Basileum: The training of a princess?"
"I'm no princess."
"Yeah, but listen to this. For a proper princess, use of–" She puzzled over the next word. "sea-gull magic is recommended to get the most out of her training."
"Seagull magic? Training with a bunch of birds? Let me see that."
Scootaloo peered over the old, half translated book. "Sig-ill? I think that's sigil. I'm pretty sure there was a book in my pile about that."
Rummaging through her pile, she pulled out a thin worn book. "Here we are. 'A Beginners Guide to Sigil and Other Chaos-Related Magics'?"
Sweetie Belle frowned. "Is this a good idea? You remember how much trouble Discord caused –"
"Discord and chaos aren't exactly the same thing, girls." Twilight announced as she walked back in, small stack of newspapers behind her. "And chaos isn't necessarily bad, it's just a matter of how it's used. Why don't you put both those books in the pile, and we'll look them over later?"
Scootaloo shrugged, and put both of them down. They continued searching.
"Romance Reports? Why would Luna send that?" Sweetie Belle said, holding a much newer-looking book up in confusion.
"Oh, that must have gotten mixed in accidentally." Twilight accepted it from her, and set it in a separate pile, though whether that was for putting back on the shelves or later reading, Scootaloo couldn't say.
"Mood Wings: Observations on Pegasus Body Language. Well, that's a possible." Scootaloo threw it in a pile, along with one or two others on the same subject.
Meanwhile, Twilight had one of the newspapers open, and was skimming through the front page. Her ears folded back as she read. "They were survived by their daughter Scootaloo, who watched this tragic series of events unfold from on top of a stairwell. Oh, Scootaloo..."
Scootaloo frowned, annoyed at all the attention. "I told you it's been years, and I don't even get- *gack*"
She was interrupted as Twilight wrapped her in a hug. Octavia, seeing this from across the room, hid a smile behind one hoof. Scootaloo made a face.
"Why does everypony always try to hug me?" she grumbled.
"But you're so huggable, Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle said.
"I am not huggable," Scootaloo replied, making an unsuccessful attempt to free herself from Twilight's clutches.
"Really? I thought you were earlier." Sweetie Belle cocked her head. "I suppose I'd better doublecheck."
She ran over and joined the hug, barely avoiding impaling Scootaloo on her horn.
With a bit of effort, Scootaloo managed to duck under the two of them and get out, leaving Sweetie Belle and Twilight locked in a hug together, much to their surprise.
"Hey!" Sweetie Belle said. "No fair!"
Scootaloo stuck out her tongue in reply.
"Well, if you don't want a hug..." Twilight said.
"I don't need a hug." Scootaloo crossed her forelegs. "I'm not a touchy-feely pegasus, and I've been been hugged at least four times in the last day. I'm all hugged out. I'm at my quota for the week. At least. Maybe even longer."
"Well, if you need somepony–"
"I needed somepony several years ago. And they were there for me. I'm fine now."
This was completely true. In fact, Vinyl had been just about as devastated about Ruby's death as Scootaloo herself had been, as they'd been very close. There had been a long period of them both crying and hugging each other while Octavia took care of them. Then they'd mutually agreed not to talk about it, as Vinyl wasn't exactly a touchy-feely pony either.
"If you're sure."
"I'm positive."
"Um, Sweetie Belle, you can let go of me now," Twilight told her.
"Are you sure? You sound like you might need a hug right now."
Twilight rolled her eyes, and gently detached herself from Sweetie Belle's grip. Disappointed, Sweetie Belle glanced briefly back at her own flank before walking back to where she'd been sitting.
"You know, maybe we should keep going through these books," Scootaloo said. You could always distract Twilight by mentioning books, as far as Scootaloo could tell.
"Right," Twilight turned her attention back to her neglected stack of books. Pulling a large magical tome out, she started skimming through it. Then she paused on a page, and started studying it intently.
"Find something?" Scootaloo asked.
"Well, if this works the way I think it does, it'd be perfect," Twilight told her. "I always thought there had to be an equivalent to the wing creation spell somewhere."
"Wing creation? Why not just use that to give me better wings?"
"Well, it doesn't work on pegasi, for one. Also, it's only temporary. This spell should work out perfectly for magic core exercises, though. Hold still for a moment and I'll cast it on you."
"Um, Twilight?"
"Yes?" She stopped preparing the spell for a moment.
"Maybe we should run it by them first?" Scootaloo gestured to where Spike was helping Octavia find some songbooks. She already had a thick stack. Maybe she really had just wanted to go to the library today.
"Oh, I did promise supervision by Spike, didn't I? But both of them? Who is that, anyway?"
Twilight looked a little closer. "Actually, isn't that Octavia Philharmonica? She's supposed to be a pretty good cellist. I think she's in a relationship with a distant cousin of mine, actually."
"You read that article, didn't you?" Scootaloo said. "She's been living with Vinyl for years."
"I thought that was right." She looked at Scootaloo's expression. "What am I missing?"
"You know, my aunt Vinyl Scratch, who took me in after-" She pointed at the newspaper. "that happened."
"Oh," she said, looking at Octavia with new comprehension. "Yes, that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"
She trotted over, and showed the book to Spike. The three of them talked for a few minutes, just low enough that Scootaloo couldn't make out what they were saying, then they all came trotting over.
"I think you're fine with this one, Scootaloo," Spike told her. "It'll only last for a few hours, and if it's miscast, it just fizzles. It takes a good deal of power, but Twilight can handle it."
"And I'd love to see the results," said Octavia, grinning. "I just wish Vinyl was here to see it. Go ahead with the spell, Twilight."
Twilight closed her eyes, and lowered her now glowing horn at Scootaloo, an expression of extreme concentration on her face. Just then, Scootaloo realised that Twilight had never finished her explanation.
"Um, exactly what was this spell supposed to do?" she asked. How do I keep getting myself in these situations?
Before she could get an answer, a lavender glow completely enveloped her. She could feel herself float up in the air and rotate all the way around, and it felt like something was happening. Both her wings and head felt rather funny.
Then she gradually lowered back to where she had been standing, and the glow faded. Twilight inspected her carefully.
"Well, I believe we can say that was a complete success," she remarked.
"Wasn't that all a little showy?" Spike asked.
"Showy isn't always bad," Twilight said. "It would have actually been easier without the whole three hundred sixty degree rotation, but since this was an untested spell, I wasn't about to modify it from the way it was written."
"Can we get a few pictures?" Octavia asked.
"No problem," Spike said, pulling a camera off one of the shelves. Donning a suede hat with a piece of paper stuck to one side, camera hung around his neck, he started snapping pictures of Scootaloo.
Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle seemed to be snickering and trying not to look in her direction, which wasn't a good sign.
"What exactly did this spell do to me?" Scootaloo asked.
Her head felt really heavy. Instinctively, she looked behind her to see if she'd at least gotten an 'experimental test subject' cutie mark, but there was nothing on her flank. And that wasn't the only thing that was missing.
"Hey! Where did my wings go?"