While it would have been faster to fly rather than walk, Twilight was in no mood to fly on her way back to the library. On the way it occurred to her that she hadn't eaten anything at all since the picnic in the morning. So much had happened since that it seemed like a far distant memory to her. Her empty stomach on the other hoof was so present that she began to feel rather weak by the time she reached the library. When she entered, she saw she was not the only one who had noticed this. The table in the main room was all set with a rich, nutritious supper. Several piles of books were stacked up beside it and there was a note written in Spike's handwriting resting on her plate:
Dear Twilight,
with everything going on at the moment you are forgetting to eat and I forgot to remind you of it.
I picked and assembled every book I could find that may be interesting for you because of the hearing tomorrow so you don't have the need to look for books as an excuse not to eat! Don't you dare not to eat when you get back here! Even Princess Celestia has to eat! I went to sleep already, but feel free to wake me when you got to send that letter to Celestia we talked about before.
Your number one assistant
Spike
Twilight smiled at the letter fondly and almost instantly had to think of Mr. Rich and Swallowtail. If anypony accused Spike of a crime, she was sure she would defend him just like Mr. Rich protected Swallowtail. She forced herself to brush the thought away. Spike had a point. She had to eat.
During the supper Twilight couldn't keep herself from taking a look at the books Spike had assembled. There was an overview of the main concepts and legal basics which the laws in Equestria were founded upon, a standard code of law, a history of famous court cases with a special focus on those with an unexpected turnout, there was a book titled "100 dodges and pettifoggeries that really work!" that made Twilight frown a little as it read like a guidebook for petty criminals, and a collection of the most famous speeches held in court. While she was still eating, Twilight also started taking some notes of the facts which proved Frank couldn't have committed the crime while on the other side of the same sheet of paper she wrote down the points that were likely to be brought up against him. If she could deconstruct some, or better still, all of those points, there was not a chance the hearing could result in anything but an acquittal of Frank, even if she wouldn't be able to present the real thief. Thinking over the facts and cautious not to come up with another rash accusation, Twilight doubted she would be able to present the real culprit by tomorrow noon. There was also the chance that Twilight had never ever even seen the thief, a possibility she considered much more likely than the possibility that anyone from Ponyville could be behind it.
As Twilight finished the meal, she sighed partly of relief— she really felt like Spike had saved her life —and partly because she remembered her promise and the task she was much less eager to take on than the preparations for the court case. There was no excuse for procrastinating the letter to Princess Celestia any longer though. Twilight didn't bother with narrative style, flowers of speech or rhetorics in this letter. She just told the facts and didn't equivocate or make any excuses about her failure about Swallowtail. She abstained from any self-pitying laments about that failure too. She just wrote what there was to be told. When Twilight had finished, she couldn't help but notice that this was easily the most factual and least elegant letter she had ever written to the princess. She had added a wish of good luck to Celestia for her own investigations, but it sounded rather formulaic. She hoped that the princess would understand and not mistake the curtness and bluntness of the letter for impoliteness on her part.
Twilight put the letter down on the table. She would ask Spike to send it first thing in the morning, but there would be little point in waking him up now. Celestia was not in Canterlot and would probably not read the letter until tomorrow anyway. Twilight reached for one of the law books again, but paused in midmotion.
All of a sudden she felt uncomfortable as if she was being watched.
"Spike?" she asked. She had spoken quietly, but in the silence of the library the sound of her own voice seemed almost deafening to her... but so seemed the silence that followed. Twilight cast an insecure look around. She didn't know what was wrong, but something felt amiss... oppressive. Even though the night was so warm she had kept all windows open, she was shivering suddenly. She cast her head around, half expecting to see someone standing behind her, but no one was there.
Twilight upbraided herself. Was she getting paranoid? She had spent many evenings working on her own in the library, but never ever had she felt so uneasy here. So alone and yet as if she was being watched.
There was a scratching sound. It was very quiet, but it gave Twilight such a surge of adrenaline that she whirled around and almost screamed even though there was nothing there to scream about. An owl was perched on the windowsill. It wasn't Owlowiscious. This owl was larger, but unlike her always helpful pet, this owl didn't sport any ear tufts. Her plumage was of a different shade of brown, except for the face that was shining white in such a sharp contrast to the rest of the plumage that it looked as if the deep black eyes were eyeing her through the holes of a mask. A barn owl, Twilight recognized. When she had adopted Owlowiscious, she had read a book on ornithology with a focus on the different species of owls. Back then Applejack had told her that, living up to its name, a barn owl was nesting in the barn of Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe this was the very same owl Applejack had been talking about back then. The bird was eyeing her curiously.
Twilight calmed down from the fright and uttered a sigh of relief. Maybe she really got too worked up about everything and it would probably be a good idea to call it a day, get some sleep and resume her preparations for the hearing in the morning. She gave the owl a little nod and turned towards the stairs leading up to the bedroom.
There was a shriek and a hoot. Unlike the quiet sounds she had heard before, these sounds were really loud and they gave Twilight such a fright that she couldn't suppress a scream as she whirled around and beheld an unlikely scene.
Owlowiscious had pounced on to the barn owl. Twilight hadn't seen him before and couldn't even tell if her owl had been in the room all along or if he had only just flown through the window. In any case there he was on the larger barn owl, his talons dug into her plumage and he was fiercely pecking at the other bird's head. The barn owl however was not just bigger but also clearly stronger. She was fiercely struggling back and raised her own talons.
"Asunder!" screamed Twilight and produced a ball of light which she flung from her horn between the two birds where it burst with a bang.
With a fierce flap the barn owl dashed out of the window. Owlowiscious fluttered right behind her. Twilight cast a levitation spell trying to hold him back, but still shaking from the fright the spell missed and her owl too disappeared in the darkness outside.
"Twilight!" Spike's voice sounded from the top of the stairs. "Who's there? What's wrong?"
The baby dragon stood there holding a pillow raised in one of his paws as if it was a weapon to smite any intruder or attacker with.
"Owlowiscious!" Twilight shouted, ran for the door and knocked one of the books from the table as she brushed it while passing by. She almost flung the door into her own face as she magically yanked it open and jumped onto the sill. Neither Owlowiscious nor the barn owl or any other bird were to be seen on the starlit night sky.
"Owlowiscious!?" Twilight called, thinking frantically, but in vain, about some spell that would help her find or return Owlowiscious here.
"In the name of Celestia..." Twilight heard Spike shout as he tromped down the stairs, "...what's going on here?"
"Owlowiscious is fighting with another owl!" Twilight called. "They flew away. We got to find him!"
"Owlowiscious was attacked?" Spike called alarmed, jumping down the last part of the stair and was at Twilight's side at the blink of an eye.
"No, he attacked the other owl."
Spike gave Twilight an utterly unbelieving look. "No way, Twilight! Owlowiscious wouldn't hurt anyone!"
Even in this moment Twilight felt a little surge of joy about these words from Spike and was secretly wondering if Spike himself had noticed the irony, given the way his relationship with Owlowiscious had started out. It didn't change anything about what Twilight had seen however and wasn't helping with the fact that for all she knew he was now somewhere out in the darkness, battling a bird of prey larger than himself.
"Let's go! We must find him!"
But almost the moment she said it, the search became unnecessary. Owlowiscious descended from somewhere above. He wanted to land on the sign of the library, missed it, flapped frantically but dropped anyway right into the arms of Spike who had rushed there to catch him. The owl in his arms, Spike rushed back into the library. Twilight followed him immediately.
Inside, Spike put Owlowiscious on the table, fetched a bowl of water and some nibbles. Owlowiscious accepted both happily but seemed somewhat disoriented and uncoordinated. When picking for one of the morsels offered by Spike, he actually missed them several times. With a quick spell Twilight closed every window in the library and examined her owl who appeared rather confused by this attention. Some of his feathers had been ruffled quite a bit and a few actually been bent and broken. But for her great relief Twilight didn't find any scratches or cuts or other signs of a serious injury.
Owlowiscious however seemed to have mauled the other owl. There was some blood on his talons and it was not his own. Relieved as she was that her owl was not gravely injured, Twilight was very disturbed by what she had seen. Owlowisious had assailed the other owl with an aggressiveness she hadn't ever considered possible and she had no idea what could have triggered that kind of hostility at all. Much as she tried to get some answers from Owlowiscious, these attempts were not so much foiled by his inability to speak as by the fact that he seemed to be utterly confused by her questions when usually there hardly ever seemed to be anything the owl didn't understand when asked or told about.
"Just what in Equestria is wrong here in Equestria?" Twilight called out desperately.
"Maybe you just need some shuteye, Twilight", Spike suggested with a yearning look towards the upper end of the stair. He was again holding his pillow in one hand. "Maybe tomorrow everything will clear up."
Twilight didn't really share Spike's optimism, but he had reminded her of her own earlier resolution to call it a day.
"I sure hope so, Spike. I sure hope so. Go ahead, Spike. I'll just clear things up and... oh err, since you are awake anyway, could you send this letter to Princess Celestia?"
Twilight levitated the scroll towards Spike.
"Sure thing", he said, grabbing the scroll. He walked over to a window, opened it and let the scroll disintegrate into a haze of green flame. He then walked up the stairs.
Twilight closed the window which Spike had left standing open. She didn't understand what had happened before, but for the time being she thought it was best when no bird could fly in nor Owlowiscious could fly out. For her surprise the owl didn't seem to have any such thoughts anyway. Perched on top of the celestial globe, he seemed to be dozing off.
"Just what in Equestria is wrong", Twilight mumbled quietly to herself and she realized that she did so in part because she wanted to avoid the silence that had so unexpectedly crept her out before. She picked up the book that she had accidentally brushed from the table before. As she did so, she couldn't help noticing a headline that caught her interest.
The unusual witness – cases of non-pony witnesses as key witnesses in court cases.
A sudden realization struck Twilight as she read the first few lines of the chapter and, squinting at a map of Ponyville half buried under books on another table, a triumphant smile appeared on her face.