The librarian looked delighted and a little perplexed at the oddly mixed group entering her library. "Can I help you?" Her voice was soft, keeping below what would be a normal voice level.
Hay stepped up. "We were looking for book publishers."
"Oh! You know, I had a mare in just the other day asking for the same thing. One of our regulars-"
"Moon Dancer." Penny cut the librarian off. The mare looked a little upset but that changed to interest.
"Yes, you know her?" The librarian got a few looks from those present in the library, the conversation was getting a little lively.
"I do. She is, sort of, working for me. I asked if she would help me start a school in the Crystal Empire." Penny got warm fuzzy feelings from the thought that she had helped the mare come further out of her shell and start to really make a difference in the world. "When I am done with my own studies here I plan to visit and see how she is doing."
Hay was staring in surprise at the conversation. "You know Moon Dancer? That is amazing!"
"Shhhh!" The chorus came from everypony in the library, or so it seemed.
"Ahem, well, I will point you to the same place I sent her." The librarian quickly scrawled an address on a piece of paper. "Here you are. You are of course welcome back any time." Implied was that while they were welcome, disturbance and noise was not.
"Thank you." Penny bowed her head a little, smiling as she turned back with her departing friends.
"Okay, so we have a place to try?" Jenny leaned in and looked at the note.
It didn't take long to reach and when the door opened at the business, Penny escorted Jenny into the small office area, leaving her friends outside.
Stick looked up at the sign.
Equestria Fine Books
Inside, a stallion sporting stains of ink greeted the pair. "Hi there and welcome. What can I help you with?"
"My friend here recently arrived in the city and was looking for work." Penny started the introduction, gesturing to Jen with a hoof. "She is an excellent artist and good with her hands besides."
"Hands huh? I have heard a few other places hiring humans to do fine work that only unicorns could otherwise do. And you draw? I could use an extra artist…" The stallion dipped his head down and lifted up a page. The text was smeared with ink, but there was an open area about a third of the way down. "Pegasus." The publisher set a little bottle of dark blue ink down and a quill. "Go." He grinned up at Jenny.
"Line art?" Jen took up the quill, then shook her head and reached to her backpack. Fumbling a moment she drew out what she was after. A fountain pen. Penny watched as a steady hand quickly worked a form of a pony out of blank paper and dark ink. Jenny left room and after a moment sketched in wings rampant.
"Not bad at all. More detail?" The stallion watched as she worked, admiring not just her skill but the implement she was using.
Jen smiled and kept working, now detailing the pony's eyes, a cutie mark of a book. Penny suddenly had a little shock as she added tufted ears, realizing the woman had done a pegasus version of herself.
"Okay, if you can make something that quickly from scratch, I want to see some of what you do given more time. My name is Ink Blot, by the way."
"Genevieve… just Jen is fine though." Reaching back she pulled her pack open and drew out her folio. "Now… uh, it is a little empty, I took out the ones that used technology I can't get in Equestria."
"Like that quill?" Ink gestured to her pen.
"Oh no, all this needs is a top-up of ink every now and again. Where I am from, we have extremely complicated machines that let artists work in ways you wouldn't believe… but I don't have that with me."
Penny moved a little, pressing her shoulder against the girl's legs. A hand reached down and just rested on her withers.
"Oh wow, you really can capture a lot of detail with this… is this charcoal?" Ink rubbed the very corner of one picture, getting his already stained hoof a little bit of black dust on it.
"Yup, I can work with nearly anything that leaves a mark. If you gave me a burnt twig and a flattish rock, I would have a pony on it in a few minutes." Jenny sounded proud of her work, but her hand gently worked at Penny's neck.
"Okay, you're hired. Can you start right now?" Ink looked up at her, challenge in his eyes.
Penny laughed as the hand stopped and her friend looked completely stunned. "I… err, um, sure. I do need a place to stay, I kinda got here without much of anything to my name."
"Tell you what, start now, I will have somewhere for you to bunk in for a few days, then you can spend your first pay finding a nicer place."
"Alright!" Jenny leaned down and gave Penny a tight hug. "Tell Sablee tonight is still on… when do I get off work?"
"Mid afternoon, pretty much if you can get the illustrations done I need then you are done for the day." Ink was delighted, his normal artist was a little more… creative in their work ethic. This new mare would be perfect if she could create art of the quality shown AND was willing to work regular hours for it.
"Then the sooner I start the sooner I am done." Jen hugged Penny again. "Okay, I will see you later?"
Penny's front legs lifted to return the hug, the girl having given up on trying to work out how a pony can lift half their legs up and not fall over. "Of course. And you will need to let me know when we can take a day and visit Ponyville."
Jen's eyes lit up and she nodded.
Penny left the place on her own.
"Where is Jenny?" Sablee looked confused.
Penny gestured to the publishing house. "You are now looking at her new employer. They are so stuck for a good artist they hired her on the spot."
The stallion looked happy, to his credit, clopping his hooves together excitedly.
"And don't you worry about tonight, she was most insistent that your date is still on." Penny reached over and rubbed Sablee's shoulder. "She likes you, but I don't think she wants to dive too fast into the pool, if you catch my drift. She seems to be getting over something."
She got a nod back from Sablee, but it was impossible for the happy stallion to look completely serious right then. "If we hurry we could make it back for afternoon classes."
Penny beamed and nodded. "Yup, lets go!" She gestured down the road with a hoof, the perfect pose for leading a party of brave ponies on adventure.
Sablee opened his mouth and sang, "I met a filly, a fur-less mare…" The lunar unicorn almost squeed but relaxed and let her voice join Hay and Stick for the refrain of his song.
The stallion expressed so much, how lonely, how introverted he knew he had become. But then the chorus came along and everypony sang of his planned date with Jenny. Penny never knew where the words came from, or how they all just knew them, but it always felt so good to her to just let it ride through her, to let the world express itself through her voice and body. Magic.
Back to trotting along, their spirits soaring, they reached the school again just in time to hear a voice complaining. "But you gotta help me, I need something to help me with this new sound!"
"Sorry V, the only ponies who might be able to help you with that are our two star engineers." Gingersnap was heard from just inside, replying.
"That's…" Penny knew the voice, although it was obscure. She wracked her brain to think of who it might be when their little group entered and she realized. "Vinyl."
The unicorn with her big glasses turned. "Oh, hay there."
"Oh, and here they both are now. V, this is Hay and Sablee, both amazing designers and excellent at both magical and non-magical design." Gingersnap pointed a hoof. "Their friends there are Penny and Stick."
"Oh yeah, seen you two around Ponyville. How's it goin'?" The white unicorn with amazing blue mane and tail lifted a hoof to them, getting a pair of clops back.
"Good, you needed something from my friends?" Penny reached a hoof out and over Hay's shoulders.
"Oh, yes!" Vinyl swayed a little to some unheard beat. "I totally need a bigger bass speaker, I need something that can go even lower than what my stack does now. Can you help me?" She looked imploringly at Hay and Sablee.
Looking between each other, the two ponies glanced up to Gingersnap. "Would this count as credits?" Hay's eyes danced, challenging the mare to refuse.
"If it works as V needs it to, sure." The orange teacher nodded her head. "Anyhoof, I will leave you to these two, surely together they can build just what you need."
It was Penny that asked the first important question. "How low do you need the frequency to go?"
Vinyl looked brightly at the dark unicorn. "She gets it! Yeah so about ten should do it. If you can make a stack that blows that low I can get this new beat really pumping." A pony-version high-five came Penny's way from the musician and she lifted a hoof to meet it.
A giggle started in Stick's throat, the mare poking Penny's side. "What?" Penny turned to her apparently playful mate.
"You should give her a listen to some of your music." Stick giggled more.
Vinyl froze as she was turning to the two engineering students. "Wait, you make music?"
"No, no I don't make it, but I love it. I am not… from around here."
"Like Jake? The human guy who keeps bugging RD?" Vinyl apparently did notice what went on around town, a little.
"Yeah, same place in fact. Anyway I have some music if you want to listen to it later." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Vinyl was almost squeeing with delight.
"Do I? DO I?" The mare from Ponyville trembled and had to shake her head to regain control. "Hear music from another world, hear what ponies make that had no experience with Equestria at all. Of course I do!"
Penny felt excited as well, she was suddenly surrounded by such creative ponies and life couldn't be better. "Oh, another thing. I don't suppose you would be interested in performing for a wedding?"
Vinyl started to faint, the hardcore, awesome DJ actually almost 'pulled a Rarity', but she coughed at the last minute and nodded. "My friend is doing one soon, I was going to be doing backup music for her, kinda one reason I wanted the new stack. But you want me, my music, as the main tunes for your wedding?"
Stick laughed. "If you heard some of the music from her world, you would understand."
"So who are you marrying?" Vinyl asked, half turning back to Hay and Sablee, scribbling down on some paper the requirements she has and at the bottom, how many bits she had to pay with.
"Me." Hay grinned, taking the order.
"And me." Stick stepped up beside Penny, hugging her close with one leg.
"Way cool, a mare party and I get to listen to some awesome music? Best. Day. EVER." Vinyl gave a hoof pump that reminded Penny of Rainbow Dash a little. "Lead the way, enchantress of mares and bearer of exotic tunes."