He was older and taller than she was used to seeing him. His snout had grown longer and his face looked much more mature. He had grown large, strong wings. “A side effect of Discord’s magic?” she worried to herself. No, this was how Spike’s body would have grown on it’s own.
He was lying next to a bookcase, almost asleep except for the book he was balancing on the palm of his hand next to the floor. Everytime the book touched the floor the book would glow magenta, but every time the book only touched Spike’s hand the glow from the search spell would stop. “That’s how he had been changing the number of books,” she thought to herself. My spell only goes through the material in the library, not the air.
Twilight walked over to Spike and removed the book from his hand. “It’s okay… I’m here. You can stop signaling... I got the message.”
Spike’s eyes went wide and he sat bolt upright. He stared at Twilight sitting there on the floor of the library next to him, unable to say a word.
“Twilight…” Spike finally started to speak, ”is that really you?”
Twilight instantly took the chance and embraced Spike with her forelegs. “I’m here. I’m here. It’s really me.” Twilight could not let go, and neither could Spike.
They held each other for as long as they could. Spike started to sob and so did Twilight. They sat there for almost an hour hugging and crying. They had been through so much.
Despite the size she had grown becoming an Alicorn, Spike was now just a little taller than her.
“I… I found the book, Twilight.” Spike finally spoke up.
“What book?”
“The book, Twilight. The book that contains your life story as you wrote it. The book that told me I should keep tapping the book on the floor repeatedly. To write my name on the cover. The book with the summoning spell to bring Fluttershy here. The book that explains who Discord is and why he’s here in this library. The book.”
“I’m not sure I follow, Spike. What happened?” Twilight asked.
He took a deep breath and started. “Twilight, the last thing I remember before this library was Discord transforming me amidst all the other chaos that was happening back then. Somehow while you and everypony else were using the elements of Harmony to turn Discord back into stone, I was suddenly taken here.
“I spent so long here. Such a long, long time. And for that entire duration I had no idea what was going on. If Discord really had kidnapped me… why didn’t he at least visit me? Why I haven’t seen anyone for two years? Why wouldn’t he at least talk to me. Taunt me. It would hurt, but that’s just like Discord. But this…” Spike struggled to express himself, “this isolation for so long...”
Twilight sat there and listened to her best friend.
“I was so angry at everyone too, if I was here, why didn’t anyone try to rescue me? Where were you? Why had everyone abandoned me...?” Spike trailed off before picking up again.
“But then,” Spike smiled weakly, “A week ago I was flying down the hallway here and this book was glowing the color of your magic, Twilight.”
“My searching spell.” Twilight confirmed.
“Yes… it’s all right here. I was so happy to read your book, Twilight.” The warmth in his voice started to return. “It was the closest thing to comfort I’ve had in this cold, lonely, never ending library.”
“Spike…” Twilight began slowly, “I didn’t write that book.”
“I know you didn’t, but everything is written in this book as if you had written it. I know it’s a random assortment of words, but out of all the books I’ve gone through here, I found this one. I didn’t know if everything written here would actually happen, but I followed the directions of the story and wrote my name into the cover and kept tapping the book away from and close to a part of the library, and it worked! You’re here!” Spike wrapped his arms more tightly around Twilight. “You’re really here! Just like the book said would happen.”
“Spike,” Twilight thought about how she would phrase this without hurting the only hope Spike had clung onto for the last week. “I passed by a perceptibly infinite amount of books extremely similar to that one as I teleported down here to find you. Yes, the first 360 pages are what I was searching for, and so technically it’s my writing. But the last 50 are completely random, anything can be there.”
“That’s right, anything!” Spike agreed, “It just so happens that this is the one book out of all of them that will actually happen!”
Spike grew more excited, “The last 50 pages include a lot of stuff! Apparently using the spell written here, you can summon Fluttershy to this Library and talk to her. You tell her about Discord’s library, how he’s been reading these books for an unfathomable amount of time and how Discord needs a true friend to understand him and he’ll be able to finally live in a real world with cause and effect instead of the pure chaos he is used to. And then Discord comes and talks to Fluttershy and somehow everything works out.”
“Spike, now that I’ve found you, I want to get out of here. Let’s leave Discord to his books.”
“But Twilight, it all works out! You just need to summon Fluttershy with the summoning spell.”
“Or I could reverse engineer that summoning spell to get us out of here.”
“I don’t think you can, it looks a little too complicated for that, even by your standards.”
“Spike… this book shows just one possible future. Just because it’s written, doesn’t mean the events will actually take place. We don’t even know if the Fluttershy summoning spell will even work.”
“We won’t know unless you try,” Spike countered.
Twilight looked at Spike. He had been alone for so long. Twilight couldn’t fathom two years alone in the library. Two years and only the last week or so understanding what was going on. She stared at the cover of the book and reread the words one more time, “Twilight, I found the book, Spike.”
“Ok Spike, I’ll try.”