//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: The 37th Librarian // by Autumnschild //------------------------------// “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Scarlet, her muzzle turned up in scrunchy indignation. As one, the three fillies looked up at Scarlet. One of them, the little earth pony with the off white coat and peppermint striped hair, answered back with a cocked head. “Umm… Homework?” The filly sitting next to the one that spoke stared up at her with wide eyes, still in the process of tearing out the page underhoof. Scarlet dropped down from the top of the shelf without a sound, her wings catching the air just before one of her forehooves touched down on the table and coming to rest on the half torn page. “What the hay, lady?” asked the tearing terror, flapping her own wings in frustration. “Quiet over there!” demanded a creaky voice by the center of the library, “Some of us are trying to read, ya dern kids!” The little filly, a pegasus, groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. “We’re doing our homework. What’s your problem?” The third filly at the table, a unicorn, spoke up before Scarlet could respond. “Boomer, be nice!” she said, half-begging. “She’s the librarian. She can throw us out!” The pegasus filly named Boomer regarded Scarlet like she was an anthill that was just asking to be kicked over, before shrugging. “So. What do you want with us?” Scarlet knocked the filly’s hoof off of the book with a swat of her wing, and scooped up all the torn pages. “I want you to stop tearing pages out of my books.” The earth pony spoke up again. “We weren’t gonna steal them. We just needed to borrow them for our genieostomy project.” “I think you mean genealogy,” corrected Scarlet. “At least, it is my fervent hope you meant genealogy.” “Hopscotch, what’s a fervent?” asked the earth pony. “I think I’ve seen one of those at the pet store,” answered the unicorn, apparently named Hopscotch. “You talk funny,” said Boomer. “I’m from Trottingham,” explained Scarlet, her patience wearing thin. “It’s my accent. To me, your maneland accent sounds funny. But nevermind all that, why were you tearing pages out of these books to begin with?” “We have to research our family histories for our field trip to Canterlot next week,” said Hopscotch. “Uh huh,” said the earth pony, with a nod of her head. “We’re making posters for Princess Twilight to show how we’re all connected. My great-great-great-great Nana was a nurse here in Ponyville back when Princess Twilight lived here!” “Hey, Lucy,” asked the unicorn across from her in a giggle. “Does that make her your Nana-nana-nana?” The other two laughed, and Scarlet’s stomach turned itself in knots as she thought about banana bread, banana chips, bananas foster, fried bana- “I’m so going to use that in my poster, Hopscotch!” said Lucy, before picking up her pencil with her teeth to hastily scribbled it down in her notebook. “My yes, what fun we’re having,” muttered Scarlet as she organized the torn pages as best she could. She’d have to send it off for repairs. “A real lark, as it were. But come now, you shouldn’t need to tear the pages out of my books for this project. You could’ve easily borrowed the books who—” “The books we need are really super heavy!” interrupted Hopscotch. “Yeah,” agreed Lucy, her peppermint bangs bouncing as she nodded, “And we only needed a few of the pages, so we figured—” “Okay, dobbins, new rule: If you want to borrow the pages of a book, you need to borrow the whole—” “Dobbins?" snickered the hateful Boomer, "What’s a dobbins?” Scarlet stared daggers at the little pegasus, and scowled with the sort of frown that portends a very poor choice by its owner. “Alright, young lady,” she said, with a roll of her shoulders. “You wanna play tough? I can play tough. Your parents. Give me their names.” Lucy and Hopscotch shared gasps. Scarlet flashed a smirk of her own at the stubborn Boomer, who was refusing eye contact. “That’s right. If you’re going to act like a brute in my library, well then there’s got to be consequences. And I, for one, would like to know what your mother thinks of your behavior.” Stunned silence was her answer. Perhaps a little too much silence. Some instinctual something was beginning to gnaw at Scarlet, and her smirk fell off. Boomer still refused to look her in the eye, but the same couldn’t be said for the other two fillies, who starred at Scarlet with such intensity, that she felt compelled to look away. Moments passed, and she made a passing effort at trying to piece the book back together. This is ridiculous, she thought, chiding herself, Just get their parents’ names, and be done with it. Then it’s off for lunch. Her stomach growled, and Scarlet let out the breath she’d been holding in a sigh. She cleared her throat and started to speak. And that was when she heard Boomer’s crying. She looked up from the pile of pages, and saw Boomer sitting there with gritted teeth and tears in her eyes. Her unicorn friend, Hopscotch was up in a flash, and doing her best to comfort her. “It’s okay Boomer,” the candy colored filly implored. “Don’t let that old librarian get to you. Your mom was awesome.” “Old?” balked Scarlet, before the rest of the filly’s words clicked in her mind. “Was?” she asked quietly, her ears flat against her head. Lucy, the earth pony got out of her chair too, and helped Boomer up on her hooves. Slowly the filly trio walked out of the Nonfiction section, with Boomer trying desperately to hide her tears in her friend’s mane, but her sobbing was making that rather impossible. “Hey… wait a minute,’ said a deflated Scarlet, trying desperately to get a handle on a rapidly deteriorating situation. She gathered up the pages in a hurry, shut them in the book, and tried to fly off after them. Hopscotch got between her and Boomer. “We’re leaving, alright?!” she huffed, her face red with emotion. “We’re sorry about your stupid book. Just leave her alone, you big meanie!” Chastized, Scarlet hung there in the air, holding the damaged book to her chest. She watched as the three fillies turned the corner. She listened to one filly’s crying matched with three sets of tiny hooves as they wound their way across the wooden floor of her library and out the door. It was shut with a soft click that resounded like a slap across the face. She stayed there for a while, hugging the book. The clock above the fireplace in the library’s main room chimed noon. Scarlet flapped her way down Oak, the street named after her library. She wasn’t out on her lunch break. She had closed the library early, instead. Closed until further notice. Perhaps until the next librarian was foolish enough to come to this one-cart town. As she went she couldn’t help but catch the looks and little bits of the whispered conversations around her. About her. Ponyville was a still small town and news spread quickly. She shook her head and flapped harder, gaining some altitude. She couldn’t escape their pointed stares, but at least she’d get high enough that she couldn’t hear the gossiping ground pounders. As she rose into the air she spotted the general store off of Mare-de-Sun Avenue in the distance. She went over her shopping list in her head. Scarlet had just gotten to Quinces when a shouting middle-aged mare on a nearby cloud got her attention. “She’s just a kid, you know!” decried the scowling blue-grey pegasi. Scarlet stopped dead and hovered in the air. Her dander was up considerably. “Ah. And that’s all the reason she needs to be rude, is it?” The other mare, frowned at that. “Boomer’s a good kid,” she said defensively. “Losing her mom in the war was really hard on her and her family. It was hard on all of us here in Ponyville. You need to—” Scarlet’s gaze was so frigid, so fraught with peril, that the other mare shivered as her words died in her throat. “Did you serve?” asked Scarlet. “What?” “Did you serve in the Heartbreak War?” Scarlet asked again, her whole body trembling. “N-no, war is… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “The war was tough on all of us,” remarked Scarlet. “But she doesn’t get a pass on being a decent pony just because she lost a parent. That’s not how life works.” The other pegasus stomped her cloud out of existence, and hovered in place. “What is wrong with you? She’s a filly who lost her mom. You can’t just tell her to rub some dirt into it,” she spat, fighting the obvious waver in her voice. Scarlet waved her forelegs at the mare. “Are we done here?” she shouted. “If not, can you just sum it up for me? I’ve got grocery shopping to do.” The other mare huffed in frustration. “If you’re going to be our new librarian, and Cadence help us if you are, maybe you should get to know the rest of the town before you decide to make any more children cry.” And then she flew off, not letting Scarlet get a final word in edgewise. She watched as the other mare headed off to the south, descending into town by one of the bridges along Pine. Her stomach knotted itself up, demanding her immediate attention, and she cursed at herself under her own breath. This first friendship letter to Twilight was going to be a disaster.