//------------------------------//
// Episode 2: The Book of Loneliness (Part I) 
// Story: The Sun Shines 
// by Convalescence 
//------------------------------//

It's been weeks since Nightmare Night passed, and the cool crisp of autumn begins to give way to winter chill. Ponyville's pegasi will soon be setting up the clouds for the first snow of the year, but for now, the morning is sunny with a breeze that just manages to convince the ponies milling about to don scarves and hats. Inside one of the town's thatched-roof houses, Kopis wakes up on this day, a Saturday, with that feeling of contentment that only sleeping in on a weekend can bring.  

The colt yawns and rolls over in his bed, untangling himself from the sheets as he goes.  Boy he loved sleeping in, but he really hated waking up because he had to pee.  Dang it, he could’ve slept for a while more!  Sure that he wouldn't get back to sleep just lying there like this, he stretches and gets up to go take care of his morning business.

After that’s taken care of, he wanders toward the kitchen, unsure of what time it was exactly but confident that he’d bump into his mom on the way and find out if he’d missed breakfast.  He could vaguely pick up a whiff of eggs and toast, but he was pretty sure it was long gone by now.  Darn.  Maybe it was close to lunch time.

Sure enough, on the way to the kitchen his nose finds the scents of fresh paint mixing with the smell of a meal long gone.  He peeks around the corner to peer into his mom’s studio, where he finds her painting a garden or something.  He didn't care too much about flowers and stuff and Peat wasn't here, so he just ignores the plants in favor of addressing the pony painting them.  “Morning mom.”

Falcata sets her paintbrush aside and flashes him a smile.  “Good morning, sleepyhead.  I was beginning to wonder if I would need to come check up on thee.  Didst thou sleep well?”

“Mmhmm,” he says, rubbing an eye.  “What time is it?”

“A bit past ten, I believe,” she answers, setting her palette aside.  “I am afraid that I had to cook breakfast a bit earlier for Kris since she wanted to go visit Lilac this morning, but I cook some for thee swiftly.  If thou art hungry?”

“Okay,” he replies simply, certain that he’d be happy with whatever she made.

Back in the kitchen, Kopis rifles through the refrigerator in search of some juice or something to drink while his mother fiddles around doing cooking things that he only barely and vaguely understood.  He just knew it smelled and tasted good, good enough that his mom made a living doing it.

He takes a seat at the the table and sips at his juice while the smell and sound of frying eggs tempts him.  So Kris was visiting her friends, huh?  Maybe he should try looking up Sonata or Peat today.  He wasn’t too sure what they would do, but they always found something.  Hopefully something less interesting than magical chimera illusions though.

A few minutes later a plate appears before him, adorned with fresh steaming fried eggs and some toast with strawberry jelly on it.  “It is not much, since lunch is so soon.”

“Yeah, that’s cool.  Thanks mom.”  He starts nibbling on the cooler toast, savoring the fruit spread.  “Mmm.”

“I am glad thou likest it,” Falcata says as she plops down in a chair next to him, holding an egg sandwich in her magic.  “So, I was thinking that perhaps thou couldst join me in painting some today?  I know thou saidst something about it last week.”

He finishes stuffing the toast in his mouth, thinking as he chews.  Hmm, that did kind of sound fun, but then again this was Saturday so he didn’t want to do much of anything.  Oh, except meet up with Sonata and Peat maybe.  “Okay, maybe,” he says, spilling crumbs all over his plate.

Falcata cocks her head, pausing before biting her own food.  “Thou soundest a bit distracted this morning.  Is there something on thy mind?”

“No, um, I was just thinking about hanging out with Peat and Sonata some today,” he says, spearing an egg on a fork.

“Oh, alright, that is perfectly fine.  I can walk thee there then.  Perhaps this afternoon?  Thou wouldst have time to paint some this morning until then if thou desired so.”

“Okay,” he repeats with a small smile, spilling a few more crumbs.  “I dunno what to paint though…”

She smiles and takes a bite.  After a moment, she says, “Fret not.  There are too many choices to think of nothing.  I am sure we can come up with something.  We can start with something simple, such as landscapes.  Trust me when I say that they are simpler than painting ponies.”

He nods, understanding that despite having a strong desire to jump straight in and start painting pictures of himself as a ninja beating the mustard out of other ponies.  “Okay, that’s cool.”

She grins and hops up from the table.  “Excellent.  I shall go prepare things for thee now.  Come along whenever thou art finished.”

Huh, mom sure was excited about this.  He mentally shrugs and slurps up another yummy egg.  Mmm.  Man, he’d never be as good at cooking or painting or whatever like his mom…





With breakfast over, Kopis finds himself in his mom’s art studio, looking at a blank canvas as she gleefully scoots a little stool over for him to sit on.  She adjusts the easel for him and holds a paintbrush up in her magic for him to take.  “Thou art going to enjoy this, I am sure of it.  Now, let me walk thee through the basics a bit.  There is no substitute for experience, but…”

After a crash course in the basics of dragging a paintbrush over a canvas with paint on it, with magic no less, Kopis isn’t feeling so confident.  Unicorns made this look so easy with their fancy intangible grabby telekinesis, but all he had was his mouth.  Oh well, lots of earth ponies could draw and paint, his mom said, and he wasn’t so bad at drawing, so he takes the brush in his mouth and starts visualizing the picture.

Fortunately for him, Falcata stops hovering over his shoulder after her introduction, so that she can both not crowd him and so she can get back to her own painting.  He takes a deep breath and touches the brush to the canvas, dragging it carefully across to form the horizon…

...huh, you know, that was actually turning out kinda not bad.  He smiles a little around his brush as he dots a few yellow flowers near a rock.  Yep.  He didn’t plan for those flowers, but he had some space and inspiration so now there were some little flowers there.  Maybe some blue flowers-

“Oh, sweetie, that is very good!” his mom suddenly says, causing him to nearly drop the brush.

He cautiously sets the brush down in a cup of paint thinner and asks, “You really think so?”  It wasn’t bad.  It was a far, far cry from what she was painting, but hey, for his first time it wasn’t bad.

“Indeed.  I certainly did not paint so well on my first attempt.”  She pats him on the back.  “I think thou must have a lot of talent for this.  We should definitely paint together more often.”

It’s impossible to contain his grin from hearing that.  “Okay, yeah.  Maybe I can try a pony next time?”

“Whatever thou wishest,” she says, ruffling his mane.  “How about we take a break for now?  ‘Tis a bit early for lunch yet, but I find that I work better if I take breaks from time to time.”

He kind of didn’t want to stop now, but defers to her experience.  “Alright, just let me…”  He swirls his brush around in the cup before wiping it dry.  “Okay.”

“Very good, take good care of thy tools and they will last thee a long time,” she says before following his example and straightening up her things.

He follows her back into the hallway, ready to get a drink or something while they took a break.  “So, when can I go see Peat and Sonata…?”





The answer was that shortly after lunch Falcata would walk him over, since she didn’t want to risk showing up while Sonata’s family was in the middle of a meal.  The filly didn’t live very far away from them, being near Carousel Boutique, so after a few minutes the two find themselves approaching her home.  They approach the door of the nice home, whereupon Falcata gives the door a few crisp knocks.

A few moments later, they hear small hooves on the other side of the door. It opens, the interior handle wrapped up in an aqua magic haze. Standing there is the familiar filly, wearing a shirt that's way too big, and her mane unkempt. Her bleary eyes go wide at seeing the two, and she quickly says, "Hi, justaminute," shutting the door again and trotting away. 

A moment later the sound of hoofbeats comes back and the door opens. "Come in," is all they hear before Sonata rushes off.

Kopis hurries inside, tailed by his mom.  Falcata follows him in and asks, “Sonata, are thy parents home?”

Walking up the stairs, she leans her head over the railing and answers, “Mom is,” in passing, on her way to her bedroom.

Oh, good.  “Alright then, is she busy?  I would like to speak with her briefly.”

“She’s in her office,” the filly shouts down the stairs before reaching the top entirely.

“Alright,” Falcata replies, heading that way as Kopis scoots after Sonata.  She locates the office that she expected to find her mother in and knocks at the frame of the door to get her attention.  “Pardon me, Fugue?”

The small office is almost cramped, not due to disorganization, but the sheer volume of books, papers, and charts. The unicorn mare addressed looks up from her desk, where a she writes in a ledger and occasionally taps on a calculator that takes up a fair portion of the desktop.  “...Falcata? Did my daughter let you in?”

She nods.  “Forgive the interruption, but Kopis wanted to visit Sonata for a bit.  I wanted to make sure that was okay with you.”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine. Thank you,” the mare says, looking back to her work as she answers.

Sensing that she’s intruding, Falcata steps back.  “Thank you, I will return for him by dinner time if he is not home by then.”  She steps back further and prepares to make her exit.

Fugue nods now. “Alright. Goodbye, Falcata,” the mare absently gives her farewell.

Back upstairs, Kopis smirks at Sonata.  “Just getting up?”

Sonata stops and turns around in a circle at the threshold to her bedroom, gently smacking Kopis with her tail when she does. “Yes, I’m just getting up. I might as well sleep in on my day off,” the little pony defends herself.

He brushes at his nose as if to dislodge any tail hairs that might have gotten stuck.  “Hey, I didn’t say it was a bad thing.  I slept late too.”

She smiles at that. “Well, you wait here and I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She opens the door just enough to squeeze inside and then shuts it behind her, leaving Kopis to wait.

“Okay,” he says, sitting.  What did she have to do to get ready exactly?

It takes a few minutes… and then a few minutes more before the door opens and Sonata reappears. Her shirt put away and the only clothing she wears now are her glasses. Her rose mane brushed out meticulously, then tied up in a bun that would look fitting on an older mare, and even her hooves seem to have been polished quickly.

Well, now she was all spruced up for… what exactly?  He suddenly realizes he’s not entirely sure what to do.  “So… what do you wanna do?”

Sonata walks past, starting down the stairs. “Something fun. I haven’t done anything today,” the filly says, even if her own sleeping-in was to blame. “We should go outside.”

“Fun sounds good,” Kopis agrees, trotting after her.  “Any ideas?”

“I haven’t practiced my music yet today. You could listen while I do... if you’d like.” Just in case it seems blatant, she gives another suggestion. “Or, you know, we could go see what Peat’s up to.”

“That sounds good, yeah.”  He clears his throat.  “But, um, if you want to practice first that’s okay too.”

If she’s disappointed, it doesn’t show. “No, let’s not make him wonder where we’ve been all day. I’ll just tell mom we’re leaving first.”

He nods, happier about heading off if Mrs. Fugue knew about .  “Okay, I’ll be waiting on you.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” She trots over to the entrance to the office and knocks on the door-frame. “Hey, mom.”

The unicorn mare doesn’t look up, still working hard, but gives a “Hmm” in acknowledgement.

“We’re going outside, okay?”

“Have fun, be back before dinner,” Fugue rotely instructs, writing something with a quill held in her horn. As Sonata turns to leave, she looks up from the book. “Wait.”

The filly stops in her tracks. “What?”

“Is Kopis going with you?” 

“Yeah…” Sonata answers, hoping her mom isn’t paying attention now at the very worst time.

“Okay. Be back before dinner,” Fugue repeats, settling back into her rhythm. Getting ‘in the zone’ as it were. Even in her namesake state, the mare has no desire to explain to a worried Falcata later on that she has a fairly good idea where her son might be.

Turning to leave, Sonata trots back over to Kopis, telling him, “Yup, it’s fine.”

He grins.  “Okay then, let’s go.”  He starts heading that way, expecting her to fall in with him. As expected, she does, shutting the door behind them and happily walking along with Kopis as they start towards the home of their little group’s third pony.

The colt and filly walk along the dirt and cobblestone roads of Ponyville, passing houses and shops, and occasionally being greeted in passing by friendly ponies going about their business. All along the way, Sonata chit-chats about whatever crosses her mind, Eventually, the cobblestone and well-worn dirt gives way to rougher trails, and fewer buildings surround them as they leave the center of town and approach the marsh. Not far into it, they come to a very old, but roughly-made and rather small, stone and wood cottage. 

A familiar little pony is coming towards the house from another direction, pulling a cart that's easily two or three times his size.

Kopis throws a hoof up for a little wave.  “Hey Peat.  Are you busy?  Need any help?”

"Hey there, Kopis. Sonata," he greets them between breaths, but can't spare a hoof to wave back. "An' nope, I got it." True to his word, it takes a few more moment for him to pull it against the house and unstrap himself. "That was the last one today."

Kopis peers at the cart.  “Cool.  What were you hauling?”

“Heh, only my namesake.” Peat rears up on his hind hooves, the front ones up on the side of the cart, and he hops up to take a hooful of its contents, showing them to his friends. In his hoof is… what looks pretty much like regular dirt.

Kopis isn’t going to pretend to understand the intricacies of special dirt that was worth bits.  “Ah, okay.  Helping your parents out some?”

Putting it back in the cart, he chuckles. “Much as I can, but not especially. Just my chores for the day.”

“Okay, cool.”  Boy, this was one of those moments that he was glad his mom didn’t give him much in the way of chores.  Especially on Saturdays.  ...not that he couldn’t pull carts like that too, it’s just that he didn’t have to and all…  “So, um, you two have any ideas what we can do today?”

“Not a clue,” Sonata says, grinning. 

“Well,” Peats drawls, “I did find something the other day… Come on, I’ll show you.” The colt plods in a reasonable pace further into the bog.

This could be interesting if Peat thinks it’s worth keeping quiet until they get there.  Kopis makes sure Sonata is with them and follows, resisting the urge to hurry things up.

Eventually, they reach the place where Peat stops, and not because it’s far away. In front of the three little ponies is a large pond, with huge lily pads floating on top of it. “See, I tested it the other day, and some of these are pretty strong. I figure we can make a game of it.”

Kopis scrutinizes the lily pads.  “You sure?  We weigh a lot more than a frog…”

“Sure do, but I promise some of these can hold us at least. Now, not all of them… but where’s the fun otherwise?” He jokes.

Hmm.  Kopis figures some of them were pretty big, and Peat was right about that giving the game a little thrill.  “Heh, you’ve got a point.  Okay, so how does this game of yours work?”

“Well, the three of us stand on the same side of the pond, and all at once jump onto our own lily pads. Then we race to the other side,” he gives the rules simply.

“Sounds simple enough.”  Kopis looks over to Sonata.  “You in?”

Sonata really should let them stop wrangling her into things like this… but it sounds way too fun to pass up. “Yeah! Just let me put my glasses somewhere…” She floats them off her face and onto a log nearby. “Ready.”

“Okay then, everypony get ready.”  Kopis approaches the nearest sizable lilly pad on this side of the pond and gives his friends a little grin.  Peat was heavier than him and Sonata was slower.  He had this.

To his right, Peat lowers himself and gets ready for the first jump. On the other side, Sonata does the same, with both seemingly waiting for Kopis to give the word.

“Go!”  Kopis makes sure to say it before jumping so he doesn’t have an unfair advantage.  He leaps from the bank onto the nearest pad, landing squarely in the middle.

Sonata intends to keep up with the more athletic ponies. The goldenrod filly shakes her tail, measuring the distance and trying to figure out how far she’ll need to jump. She thinks she has it, takes a step back, and jumps right over the lily pad and into the chilly water. “Eep!”

At the same time, Peat leaps onto his lily pad, making it there, just not as squarely as Kopis did. A moment later, the plant bobs and gives way, depositing the heavy earth pony in the water, where yells as well at the sudden cold.

Um…  Kopis realizes he’s now alone in the world of dry foals.  He turns around and hops back to the shore.  He watches to make sure both of them were okay, suppressing the urge to giggle at his anticlimactic victory.

Sonata climbs back onto solid ground and immediately shakes her coat dry right next to Kopis, shivering. Pulling himself out of the water likewise, Peat drags himself to the shore and drops on the ground. “...Rematch?” he asks, teeth chattering.

“Hehe, if you want to,” Kopis says, figuring the two would want a moment to warm up and catch their breath.

“No way!” Sonata insists immediately, going to sit on the side of the pond. “I’m going to dry off.” The filly starts channeling some sort of magic, trying to figure out if she knows a coat-drying spell.

Peat simply stands and turns back to the pond. “Eeyup, you’re on,” he gives Kopis a determined look. 

“Okay then.”  Kopis retorts with another grin and forms up at the lilly pad again.  “Ready when you are.”

Peat gets ready again, and after a few seconds shouts “Go!” being a good sport about it too. After he says he, he jumps and lands again on the same lily pad, with more solid footing this time.

Unfortunately for poor Kopis, his footing isn’t so good.  He lands firmly on his pad, but his hooves immediately slide out from under him and deposit him in the very unpleasantly cold water.  He gasps and resurfaces before immediately clamboring back for the bank.  “Yikes!”

Peat can’t help but laugh as he hops back on the dirt. “It’s not easy, I guess.”

Sonata shoots him a dirty look from where she’s trying to use magic to dry off, to little result.

“Ugh, you said it.”  Kopis shakes some of the water out of his coat, lamenting that he was quite a lot colder now.  “Um… best two out of three?”

“Sure,” he answers. “But, uh, let’s start from different ones this time.” Maybe they’ll have better luck with the other ones.

“Good idea.”  Kopis shakes some more water off and picks a different pad, selecting the one Sonata started at this time.  “On you.”

Peats moves to the one to the right of his original, and again, prepares to jump. “Go!” He leaps after giving Kopis a chance.

Kopis doesn’t hesitate before hopping neatly onto the pad in front of him.  To his relief, this one doesn’t give under his weight.

Seeing him jump, Peat crouches and kicks off with all his strength, landing on the plant perfectly. Thankfully, this one is more stable than the last. They might get a real competition going this time!

Nope.  Kopis chooses his next target and launches himself that way, only to find himself back in the chilly water yet again.  He didn’t even see what went wrong that time!  It didn’t matter.  All that mattered was getting out of the cold and back to the less cold air.  He scrabbles back for the bank and climbs out, dripping and shivering.  “D-dang it…”

Just afterwards, Peat jumps onto a lily pad and finds that it doesn’t feel like supporting him, dumping the colt into the water again. He paddles to the shore and gets out, prancing in place. “Ah, that’s cold!” It’s somehow worse the third time.

“Y-yeah!”  Kopis tries to stop shivering and look like it wasn’t bothering him too much.  “I think we need to find something easier…”

“M-maybe we should try this again come summer-time,” he suggests, walking over.

Kopis takes a deep breath.  “Uh huh.”  He shakes his head to get some water out of his mane and asks, “So, what now?  Something, um, warmer?”

“We can wait until we dry off first,” Sonata says. With the sun out, it shouldn’t take too long. Sadly, it’s not cold enough yet in Ponyville for there to be hot chocolate. ...At least, it isn’t cold enough to ponies who aren’t silly enough to jump in ponds.

Kopis kind of wishes he was home since he had no doubt his mom would whip something like that up for the three of them.  ...after a bit of verbal discipline for trotting off without a grown up and jumping in a cold pond in the woods.  He nods.  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

The three little ponies agreed, they walk around until they find a dry patch of ground, where the sun shines through the bog tree canopy. A slight breeze blows, but the three ponies hardly feel it through their fur, and they all stretch out like lizards sunning and dry out eventually.

Yep, that was much better.  Kopis stretches out and rolls onto his back, kicking his hooves into the air.  There was a little temptation to roll around like a little colt, but he was with his friends and he didn’t want to look entirely silly.

The rest of the afternoon passes without much incident, especially of the cold and wet sort, as the foals figure out a few random things to do to pass the time.  Eventually Sonata and Kopis leave Peat back at his family’s house before heading back to hers so that they’re there before Falcata shows up.  Fortunately, he’s also good and dry by then, so he doesn’t even have to explain himself.

After giving his goodbyes, Kopis and his mom start back toward their home for dinner.  “So, what didst thou do with Sonata today?”

Got really cold and wet, ran around and did foalish stuff.  The usual.  “Oh, um, she practiced her music some and we played some games.”  Kind of true.  Close enough.

“That is nice.  Perhaps next weekend Peat and Sonata can come over instead.  Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps we could get the families all together.  It hath been a very long time since we have done that.”

That sounded pretty fun actually.  “Yeah, cool.  Oh, and you could make some of that really yummy cheesecake.”

Falcata chuckles.  “Yes, I believe so.”

After a minute or so of walking, Kopis realizes that he’s getting pretty hungry.  “So, is Kris home?  What’s for dinner tonight?”

“She is, and I had planned for twice-baked potatoes with a salad.  I know how much ye both love those.”  Falcata grins.  “As do I.”

In a few more minutes, the two are about halfway between the two families' houses. The sun is low in the sky, casting an orange glow over the Ponyville street, and most everypony is inside after working for the day. Ahead of them, Kopis sees a small shape on the ground, in the middle of the road.

Hmm, what was that?  He breaks away from Falcata to get a bit closer so he could investigate.  She stops in her tracks and watches.  “What is it?”

Before him, lying on the ground is a clearly old book. The cover is scratched in places, and generally worn, but it looks like it's been well taken care of. Besides lying in the dirt in the middle of the street, of course. On the cover is a large picture of a silver-ish crown, with two gems set on either side of a large, central, sapphire. 

“Huh, it’s a book,” he says, scooping it up in his hooves.  He cracks the cover to check its contents.

Falcata joins him at his side.  “What dost thou see?”

Huh?  He closes the book and shows it to her.  “A book.  Looks like somepony’s diary or something.”  She gives no response, so he waves it in her face.  “Book.”  Still nothing.  Huh?  “Mom?”

She blinks.  “Yes sweetie?”

“It’s a book, see?  A diary.  I don’t see anypony’s name on it though.”  She again seems to stare right through it.  What the hay was going on?  “Mom, are you okay?”

She blinks again.  “Yes, but… art thou?  What didst thou see?”

Okay, this was getting really weird.  He waves the book in front of her again, to no avail.  Okay… time to try something else.  “Um, nothing?”

She smiles.  “Oh, okay then.  Let us hurry home and meet up with Kris.”

No, not really weird.  Super duper freaky.  “Yeah… okay.”  He puts the book on his back, taking care to balance it well, and follows her home.  Once he got there he was definitely asking Kris about it.  Maybe something was wrong with their mom…  A little chill runs down his spine.  What would he do if something was wrong with her?  She… was the one who took them to the doctor when they were sick.  But… she seemed okay otherwise.  Happy as usual.  This was getting really unnerving…





Back home, Kopis peels away from his mom almost as soon as they’re inside.  He sets the book on the living room’s coffee table and starts to head toward Kris’s room.  Fortunately, he finds her there, busy slipping out of a jacket.  “Hey, Kris?”

His sister jumps and spins around, holding the jacket up to cover herself for a second.  “Kopis!  Don’t you know to knock?”

“Um, sorry, but this is kind of important… can you come here?”

She eyes him suspiciously before tossing her jacket onto the bed.  “What is it?”

“Well, you see, I found this book on the street, but there’s something weird about it and I’m kind of worried.”

She follows him back out to the living room.  “Huh?  Worried about a book?  Why?  Does it belong to the princesses or something?”

This was an improvement already.  “Huh?  No, I don’t think so.  I mean, um, just come look.”  He leads her back to the table and waves a hoof at it.  “See?”

“Uh-huh… it’s a book,” she states flatly.

His ears and tail pick up.  “You can see it?  Great.”  He peers around the corner toward the kitchen where their mom was.  “I tried to show it to mom, but she just… zoned out or something.  I think something’s wrong with her.”

Well, that got Kris’s attention.  “Um, are you sure?  Maybe she just didn’t think it was interesting?”

“No, no, I was waving it in her face and told her about it like ten times and she just stared through it.  After that she was fine though.”  He bites his lip.  “I’m worried about her.”

“Hmm…”  Kris lifts the book in her magic.  “Well, we’ll get to the bottom of that.  Watch.”  She parades the book into the kitchen and steps up behind Falcata.  “Hey mom?”

“Yes honey?” Falcata asks, looking back at her.

Kris floats the book up into her face.  “Kopis found this book today.  Any idea what we should do with it?”  Falcata seems to notice nothing and waits patiently for a response.  “Mom?”

“Yes?  What is it?”

Kris waves the book around some more.  “See the book?  Right here?”  Nothing.  Kris gives a worried look to Kopis, who is now wide-eyed with concern.  “Um…”

Falcata stops what she was working at and turns around entirely.  “You two have been in a strange mood today,” she says lightly.  “Dinner is nearly done if ye want to get washed up.”

Kris nods slowly.  “Oh, um, okay.  Will do.”  She smiles nervously and heads back into the living room with her little brother.

“See?  What’s wrong with her?  I’m… scared.”

“I don’t know.”  Kris stares at the book floating in her magic.  “That was really weird.  I mean, she looks and sounds okay, but… yeah, she couldn’t see the book at all.  Maybe it’s magical?”

“But why?  Who’d make a book like this?  Why’s it only affect her?”

Kris pops the cover open and starts scanning the first page.  “I dunno.  This isn’t the kind of magic I normally deal with.  Hmm… looks like somepony’s diary.”  She turns it over a time or two in her magic, studying it.  “Yeah.  Yeah, it’s magical alright.  But…”

“But what?” Kopis questions, scooting closer.

“...but I can’t say anything else.  Sorry, this isn’t the kind of magic I work with.  Um, where’d you say you found it?”

He shrugs.  “It… I don’t know, it was in the street not far from Sonata’s house.  I don’t know how it got there.”

Kris peeks around back toward the kitchen.  “Well, we definitely can’t go looking back there right now.  Dinner’s almost done and mom won’t want any excuses.  Maybe after we eat, if we can sneak out somehow.”

Kopis doesn’t like the sounds of that.  His mom was psychic or something when it came to knowing where he was.  “Maybe…”

“Actually, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  Let’s take a look inside first.  Might be some clues.”  Kris sets the book on the table where they can both read it and flips to the first page.

Frustratingly, the diary appears to be just that: a weird diary that their mom couldn’t see but was otherwise completely normal.  There was no name that they’d run into yet, but it seemed to be an average foal writing it.  Kopis is eager to skim through it faster than Kris is flipping pages, but before they can get very far at all their mom summons them for dinner.  Kris has to all but tear her little brother away from the book to carry him toward the kitchen, assuring him with, “Don’t worry, we’ll read the rest tonight.”





Dinner was excellent as usual, but given the matters on their minds, Kopis and Kris haven’t eaten with their usual gusto.  Falcata sets her fork down for a moment and cocks her head at them.  “Ye two have not eaten much.  Is everything alright?  Is something wrong with the food?”

No, just a crazy book you can’t see.  Kopis shakes his head.  “No, it’s great.  I’m, just… um, not hungry tonight.”

Kris nods in agreement.  “Yeah, it’s all perfectly fine.  I’m just feeling kind of off for some reason.”

Falcata’s eyes widen a bit and she hops out of her chair to step over and lay a hoof on their foreheads.  “Ye are not ill are ye?”

“No, mom, I’m fine, I promise,” Kris says, smiling weakly and gently nudging her hoof away.

Kopis isn’t so enthusiastic.  He really, really didn’t like this.  It shouldn’t bother him this much, but it was so weird…

“Sweetie, what about thee?  Art thou feeling unwell?”

He shuffles his hooves and nods sheepishly.  It was true, after all, and might deflect the truth a bit.  “A little.”

“Oh dear, what is wrong?”  Falcata looks over at Kris, hoping that her healing-magic gifted daughter would have some clue.

Kris nibbles her lip.  “Um, tell you what, let’s get him in bed and I’ll check him over.”

Kopis can see where this is going and hops out of the chair before his mom can scoop him up and carry him herself.  He wasn’t that sick.  Or sick at all, really.  Just… frazzled.

The three make it back to his bedroom and deposit him in bed, whereupon Kris excuses herself to fetch the book while their mom gives him the first over.  Sure enough, Falcata pays the tome no attention as Kris returns and plops it on the bed, and not only because she was busy checking Kopis’s tongue, eyes, ears and everything else for anything amiss.

“It’s okay mom, I don’t think he’s that sick.  Let me check him over.”

Reluctantly, the older mare backs off the bed and sighs.  “Alright.  I will go clean up in the kitchen, and will return shortly.”

“Okay,” Kopis says, putting his foal talents of faking a sick voice to good use.

Kris waits for Falcata to vanish before sliding the book over.  “Not a bad distraction there.  Now, let’s get back to looking through this…”

“Heh, yeah.”  Totally intentional.

“Man… I wonder who this is.  I feel bad for her, living like this.  I can’t imagine if mom wasn’t here for days at a time like this,” Kris mumbles as she pages through it.

“Yeah…”

After a few minutes, Falcata returns.  “Sweetie, is everything okay?”

Kris almost slams the book shut, but remembers at the last moment that it didn’t matter.  She rolls over to face their mom and says, “I think he’ll be okay.  Just a little sleep and he’ll be fine.”

Kopis nods.

“Good, that is good to hear,” Falcata says, relaxing visibly.  She steps close enough to brush his mane out of his face.  “In that case, we should let thee get some sleep.  If thou needest anything, just call for me.”

He nods again.  “Okay mom.”

Kris slides off the bed, pretending to get ready to leave too.  “I’ll be right here too.”  She waits for Falcata to leave before she heads out into the hallway, shuts her own bedroom door, then scurries back into Kopis’s bedroom to close them in.  She cuts out the lights and ignites her horn to give them some reading light.  “There, that ought to give us some privacy,” she whispers.

Reading further in the diary turns up a few things.  The owner was apparently a filly named Jewel, who had a unicorn magical tutor.  Past that, there’s little to go on.  Kopis grumbles as he fidgets more and more, trying to stay in comfortable positions to read while in the bed.  Eventually, he finds himself yawning more and more and finding it impossible to stay focused.

“Maybe we should pick this up tomorrow…” Kris says, feeling tired herself.

“What if something happens before then?”

She shuts the book and flicks her tail.  “I don’t know.  I… just don’t think we’re going to get very far like this.  You know, I was thinking about it and maybe the librarian would have some idea.  You know, Twilight Sparkle?  If anypony would know of a possible magical tutor or anything else related to this, it would be her.”

Reluctantly, he accepts that she’s probably right.  “Okay.  Um, is the library open tomorrow?”

“I think so.  At least in the morning.”  Kris rolls her eyes at the thought, but says, “Guess we’ll have to get up early.  No idea how I’m going to get past mom since she’s usually up at the crack of dawn, but I’ll think of something.”

He nods somberly.  “Okay, whatever it takes.”





The next morning, Kopis finds himself awake very early since he was having a hard time sleeping at all.  Especially after his mom came by to check on him before she left for work.  After he waits for her to leave and gives her plenty of time to get some distance from the house, he slips out of bed and bangs on Kris’s door.  “Hey, you awake?”

Receiving no answer, he enters and finds her sleeping quite soundly.  He pokes her on the nose.  “Hey, c’mon, wake up.  We’ve got to get going!”

“Uh?”  Kris blinks a few times before shooting up in bed.  “Crap!  How late is it?”

“Mom just left, so it can’t be too late.  We need to get going so we get to the library before Twilight closes it!”

Kris rolls out of bed.  “I know, I know.  Hang on a sec.”  She shakes her head, messing up her mane.  Unfortunately, it was far too trivial to worry about right then, so she only gives it a quick hoof through as she hurries through her morning routine.

Predictably, Kopis was done well before she was and was all but trotting in place at the door.  “Come on.”

“I’m coming, hold your ponies.”  Kris snags the book in her magic and joins him at the door.  “Okay, let’s go.”

The two head outside, make sure to lock the door behind them (only after being sure to get their key first!) and trot off toward the library.  The library itself looks about like Kopis remembered: a giant tree with windows in it that he never really saw himself entering voluntarily unless the school brought him there.  After heading up to the door, Kris checks for any posting of hours before she goes banging on it.  By luck, they picked a good time, so she gives the door a few crisp knocks.

There’s no answer after a moment, but the two can hear movement from inside. The Golden Oaks library is a strange combination of public building and somepony’s house though, so walking in while it’s open is normal enough.

“Is she not home?” Kopis asks.

“I don’t know.  It is a public library though, so I guess we can go on in,” his sister replies before opening the door and stepping gingerly inside.  “Hello?”

Inside, books lay in piles everywhere, on tables, carts, and even on the floor in places. Across the room, the purple unicorn the two know as the librarian is sitting at a desk, muttering to herself and writing frantically. Her mane is frazzled, and when she looks over, her eye twitches slightly. She gets up to walk over to the visitors. "Hello, Kris. ...Kopis? Yes, right." Twilight prides herself on her memory and organizational skills... ironically, today.

Kris smiles back sheepishly.  “Um, hello Ms. Twilight.  We, uh, hate to bother you today, but um, we’ve kind of got a little problem we thought you could help us with…”  She floats the book up for Twilight to see.

Kopis nods.  “Please?”

"I'm sorry you two, but the library is not fit for public use!" Twilight turns around suddenly, floating various books off piles. "How many times have I tried to teach ponies about the Dewey Decimal system? And they still just put the books back wherever they please. And yesterday we received a whole new shipment to catalog..." Anypony who's spent even a little time around Twilight has seen her like this before, and it isn't pretty. The mare nervously looks around at the mess, then suddenly faces them again. "If you two will run an errand, I promise that I'll help you find whatever you're looking for, as soon as this is all in order." 

Kopis frowns.  “But… we’re kind of in a hurry…”

They had hours until their mom would be home, so Kris just raises a hoof to hush him.  “If it’s something quick then I think we can help.  What is it?”

"Great! Normally I'd ask Spike to handle this sort of thing, but he isn't around.... I'm running out of quills and ink, rapidly. If I leave to get more, I'll lose valuable time, and the clock is ticking!" Twilight can only hope they understand the urgency of the situation. "If I don't get this under control by tomorrow, ponies won't be able to check out books!"

Sounded easy enough.  Kris nods.  “Okay.  Where do you normally get it from?”

The mare calms a little now that she has temporary replacement assistants on the job. “The quills I get from the Quills and Sofas store. The one near the farrier? The ink comes from the art supply shop nearby,” Twilight explains.

Well darn.  If she’d have known that she could have brought some ink and quills from home.  Oh well.  Just before turning away, she asks, “Okay.  How much do you need?”

Sweeping her eyes across the messy room, Twilight chuckles nervously. “Just, uh… tell them it’s for me.” 

Understanding that, Kris nods again.  “Okay.  Um, last thing… we don’t have many bits for that…”

Twilight waves a hoof, walking back to her writing desk. “Just tell them to put it on my tab, and I’m sure you won’t have any problems.”

“Okay, we will,” Kris repeats.  She turns and heads out to leave the mare to her mild neurosis.

Once outside, Kopis groans and says, “This isn’t why we came… did she even see the book?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we were going to get very far with her like this,” Kris explains, leading him toward the quill shop.  “It’s going to be annoying if she can’t see it after all of this, yeah…”

The colt grumbles a little, but goes quiet as he follows his sister off on their errand.  “I can go get the ink while you get the quills,” he suggests to save time.

There was this little voice in the back of Kris’s head that told her not to do it, for fear of their mother’s wrath upon learning that Kopis got hurt or lost because she took him to town and let him go wandering off.  These were extraordinary circumstances though…  “Yeah.  Yeah, okay, that should help.  Go do that and I’ll take care of this.”

He smiles a little more, now that he was taking fate into his own hooves a bit, and scurries off toward the art supply shop.

Meanwhile, Kris locates the curious Quills and Sofas shop and heads inside to find anypony willing to help a desperate filly with no bits and only the word of Twilight Sparkle.

The only other ponies inside are a cream-colored earth pony and a mint unicorn looking at a sofa, and the stallion who runs the store. None of them comment on Kris’ book, but the store-owner quickly helps her when she approaches him, setting the filly up with a bulk-order of quills. He’s pretty used to this situation by now, and takes her word for it.

Well, that was easy enough.  Kris smiles and thanks the stallion for helping before she heads back out to look for her little brother.





With a bit of a pep in his step, Kopis gallops up to the art supply shop and zips inside, sure that he can find some ink in short order.

Inside, he finds a cramped shop with shelves on every side, lined with supplies for all kinds of artistic endeavors. Paintbrushes and paint, canvases, rolls of fabric, calligraphy brushes, and yes, a section entirely for pots of different sorts of ink. At the far end, a bored-looking pegasus mare sits with her muzzle resting on a hoof.

He trots up to her and waves a hoof.  “Um, excuse me, miss?” The mare doesn't react to Kopis at all, so he tries harder.  Waving his hoof closer, he repeats, “Miss?  Hello?”

“Huh?” She looks down at the colt. “Oh, hey, you’re Falcata’s son! What did you need?”

Whew, for a second there he was worried ponies were going to start ignoring him altogether!  Relaxing a bit, he smiles and says, “Um, I was just talking to Ms. Twilight Sparkle, and she said she needed some ink from you.”

“Why didn’t she send Spike?” the pony looks a little skeptical.

“She said he was away somewhere… I needed to ask her some stuff but she was too busy reorganizing things and asked if I could help.”

The pegasus smiles. “Yeah, that sounds like her. Just give me a minute.” She gets up off her stool and walks into the back room. A minute later, she comes back with a box balanced between her wings, and sets it down on the floor for Kopis. “There you are. She’s practically the only pony in Ponyville who needs to buy ink in bulk.”

He returns the smile and accepts the ink.  “Thank you.  I’ll get it right over to her.”  He gives a little wave and turns to head out.

Outside, he quickly bumps into his older sister, who he’s pleased to see is carrying quills like she was supposed to be.  “Okay, we got everything.  Let’s get back to the library, quick.”

Kris agrees and they trot back to the library together, hoping that this little errand wasn’t all for nothing.  She leads Kopis back to the door and heads in without knocking this time, since she doubted Twilight was much more coherent.  “Ms. Twilight?  We got the things for you.”

The purple mare looks up, holding a quill with a broken tip in her magic. “Kris! You’re just in time. I was nearly completely out of quills.” Without moving, her magic reaches out and takes both containers, already opening them. “Ahh yes. Thank you very much. Now, was there a certain book you wanted reserved, or…?”

“Um, no actually.  I realize this kind of isn’t really a library’s purpose or anything, but, um, we found this book,” she says, floating the diary up to Twilight’s eye level.  “It’s magical and causing some weird stuff to happen.  We hoped you might have some idea of what to do.”

Twilight looks directly at Kris instead. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that... you found something?" 

Kopis gives a very worried look to Kris, who can’t help but reflect it.  Kris waves the book in Twilight’s face one more time.   “This?”

For a moment, the mare stares, then goes back to writing as if the conversation had ended.

Oh crap.  “Kris…” Kopis whines.

“Um, Ms. Twilight, can I ask you a hypothetical question?” Kris hazards, desperate for any shreds of information.  She shoves the book into Kopis’s mouth and points to the door.  “Go outside, maybe it won’t affect her there.”  He nods and backs out the door.

“Kris?” She looks back over. “I do love hypothetical questions, but I’m rather busy… I guess you did do me a favor though, so as long as it won’t take long.”

“It won’t, I promise.  If, I, uh, found a magical book somewhere that I can’t identify and it does strange stuff to ponies, what should I do?”

"Oh, that one is easy. It's section twenty-six B of the Ponyville Library Card Holder's Hoofbook. 'Any magically-anomalous library materials are to be presented to the head librarian immediately.' But you don't need to worry about that, sweetie. I keep every book that could possibly fall under that description under lock and key." Not once in her tenure as librarian has there been an incident because of a book getting loose… other magical incidents yes, but Twilight is very careful about the books.

Great.  Kris nods along.  “Okay, now… what if for some reason the head librarian can’t see or perceive the book?”

Twilight stops her writing and puts a hoof to her chin. "That is an interesting question. Is this for a school report or something? I approve of teaching fillies about magical safety precautions, but you would need to wait until tomorrow if you wanted books on the subject." There's simply too much clutter right now, to look for anything so specific. "To answer your question, I think I would try to find the original owner of the object, but that's as a trained magic-user myself."

Whew, at least Twilight was literal minded enough to actually answer such a weird question at face value.  Kris smiles and nods.  “Okay, thank you, I think I’ll try that.  If not I might come back tomorrow.”  She bids Twilight farewell and heads outside to find Kopis squirming in place.

“Did it work?”

She isn’t sure.  “Um, well, she did answer some questions at least.  She suggested that we try to find the owner, which isn’t going to be easy.  Where’d you find the book at?”

That much he could help with.  He waves for her to follow him as he heads down the street.  “It was this way, not far from Sonata’s house.  Just lying in the road.”

They reach the spot after a few minutes of trotting, only to find that it was a pretty uninteresting and empty spot in the road.  Kopis walks in a little circle around the space where he found the book and scans the street both ways.  “This was where I found it,” he says, prodding the road with a hoof.

“Nothing else weird here,” Kris says as she copies the motion of checking around.  “How are we supposed to find who owned or wrote it?”  She looks at the houses around them and says, “We can’t really just go door to door and ask…”

“Maybe we can wait around and see if anypony matching her description comes out?”

Kris shakes her head.  “We don’t know if or when that’ll happen, and mom will come home eventually and I do not want to be anywhere but home when she gets there.  Besides, we don’t have much to go on other than she’s a unicorn filly.”

Kopis swishes his tail and hangs his head.  “What do we do then?  Just go home and finish reading it?”

“Honestly?  I don’t think we have much choice.”  Kris gives him a little pat and tugs him in the direction of home.  “Let’s do that first before we waste forever looking for somepony we don’t know anything about.”

Once they’re back home, the foals set to doing just that.  The book is hard to read, since it was a little sad to read at times, and because reading somepony’s day-to-day life was boring at the best of times.  Despite the difficulties, the two soldier through most of the diary before their mom gets home a little after lunch time.

She pokes her head into Kopis’s bedroom and asks, “Sweetie, how art thou feeling?”

He initially moves to interpose himself between her and the dairy, only to realize it was pointless.  “Feeling a lot better now,” he lies.

She smiles widely.  “Oh, that is wonderful to hear.  Dost thou think thou couldst eat something?”

“Uh huh, I think so.”

“Very good.  I will go get something prepared for us then,” she says before vanishing off toward the room she seemed to spend most of her time in when she wasn’t sleeping.

“So what now?” Kopis asks Kris.

The young mare yawns and stares down at the book.  “I don’t know.  This doesn’t seem to be getting us much of anywhere…”

Kopis takes the book and flips to the last page.  Everypony always said not to skip to the end of a book because it would ruin the story, but dang it, wasn’t that what they wanted now?  “Maybe the end will tell us something…”

It doesn’t say much.  Kopis groans and sets the book down.  “She just says how she feels invisible…”

“So that just leaves that one day she mentioned.  Where she saw Princess Celestia at the celebration.”  Kris sighs.  “I guess we should go back to see Twilight Sparkle and ask about that.  If anypony would know anything about a specific day over a hundred years ago, it would be her.  Or the princess herself, but… uh… I don’t think we’re going to run into her on the street.”

Kopis grumbles something and slides the book away so he can lay down.  He kind of didn’t want to eat anything after all.

For a minute he wonders if he should even care this much, since as far as he knew he could just dump the book somewhere and forget all about it.  What harm could it do if it was invisible to some ponies?

...but there was always that unknown…