Unitended Consequences or one to many books
Stormy galloped over the twisted and gnarled tree roots that jutted from the earth in gnarled twists as if their goal was to snag his hooves. Somewhere along the way he lost his saddlebags and developed a painful stinging in his right wing. Thankfully the moon was full so he never tripped even if the panicked pegasi stumbled. He had to get away, had to run. There was someone or something hollering from the treetops. No, it sounded higher, as if it came from the sky itself. Probably another person or pony trying to catch him. Off in the distance the nightly harsh reverie of canons made itself known, making a rapid clopping sound.
He was alone at least. It felt safer, more secure. His mind barely functioned as adrenaline coursed through his system, but there had to be somepony who could help.
“Stormy!” a female voice called. It was to far away and seemed to come from everywhere at once. “STORMY!” The ground beneath his hooves shook. The world itself shook.
He stopped. That voice, I know that voice. The panicked pegasi paused to catch his breathe and look at his surroundings. The trees formed two perfect rows as the upper leaves coalesced into cruel, curved and knotted wires. An old fashioned biplane could be seen careening through the ravine in the sky, as it seemed to release something like a thin string of clouds. A pleasant but jarring tingling filled his head and the pony gasped.
***
The smell of old books assaulted him. The smell suffused everything to the point he could swear he had never smelled anything quite that strong. The lights seared his eyes, causing his eyes to water, he could barely see the purple mare standing in front of him, let alone her expression in his state. His ears rang from the sound of his own breathing. Stormy retched and a sour taste abruptly filled his mouth. He looked at the piles at stacks of books, he knew it was there somewhere.
Look for the blue circle, look for the blue circle. There was a subtle but sweet smell in the air Stormy associated with rainstorms, sometimes referred to as ozone. With it came a purple haze… surrounding the blue circle.
Stormy yanked the floating bucket to the ground and hugged it, shoving his snout into the interior. Thank Celestia! He also tried to thank Twilight for bringing the container but upon opening his mouth other things happened with an acrid, bitter taste. Small pieces of roughage accompanied the liquid.
“Are you okay?”Twilight placed a caring hoof on his back right between his scapula and rubbed. It didn’t soothe his stomach or his mind; it didn’t hurt either though and he didn’t have the energy to decline it. “It happens to everypony at least once reading the 6’s or 7’s. Especially when you fall asleep reading them.” She said with obvious experience showing in her somber and embarrassed expression, pretty much everyone in the library had seen the mare when it had happened.
“I think you need a break for a few days.”
Stormy’s eyes drifted up to his stack of books that had grown and shrunk several times over the last month, almost none of the first books still sat there. The library added more books every week after all, more than even Twilight could read. I wish it was falling asleep while reading that did this. He emptied what had to be the last contents of his stomach into the bucket. I was hoping sleeping in the library would help with the nightmares from the past week but it just made them worse. A change of scenery, something different or more homey as I spend more time here than anywhere. The dreams felt more vivid and real here than at brother’s. Though I won't wake anyone up here with these nightmares.
“It’s odd that Luna didn’t stop your dream though.” Twilight lifted some books, jotting down their reference information on a piece of parchment before reshelving the book, all without even moving her hooves.
“L-luna?”
“She appears in the moon in pony’s dreams, observing and approaching them to help them face their fears.” A few books were getting quizzical looks from the unicorn and set in their own little pile.
Maybe that was the voice. Stormy saw which books were being set aside as his vision cleared, they were easy to spot with the large 8’s and 9’s on their sides and titles mentioning: Nanjing, Bosnia, and Holodomor. They were all about wars. The pictures flitted through his mind. Oddly his stomach was finally settling down as his body returned to its normal rhythm and stood up, forcing Twilight to take back her hoof.
“Did I mis-shelve these books?” The mare muttered, walking off as she flipped through the books. “How could this have happened?” Her ears shot up. “OH NO!” she flipped around with huge eyes. “I’m sooo sorry Stormy! I-i-i didn’t mean to…” Her eyes and lips quivered, seemingly begging for forgiveness.
“. . .” That look. It hurt Stormy worse than all the week’s nightmares combined. Here was a pony who had helped him and even bent some rules so he could research beyond the expressed limits. And here he was unable to speak what he knew would allay her fears.
“I should have paid more attention. Maybe had them locked up so nopony could just pick one up and read them.” She looked dejected. Or, Stormy thought, like she was an abject failure in the face of her responsibilities.
“It... wasn’t you.” Stormy had to fight for every word. It would be better to just stay qui- no it wouldn’t. Just look at her and quit lying to yourself.
“Of course it was.” She was near tears. “I should have noticed. Celestia trusted me with protected ponies.”
“I waited until you were distracted and or out of the room to grab them. I wanted to understand.” It hurt, it was painful, he felt like withering into himself, that he betrayed something almost sacrosanct. Instead, Stormy looked her in the eyes. I deserve this.
“Why? Why would you intentionally read these?” Twilight was aghast as she stared at him, clearly not quite sure if she were looking at a sane pony any longer. “What could you need to understand so badly?”
“Conflict.” He choked out. Stormy was quickly losing his resolve. Consequences would be coming soon.
“Ooooh.” Realization dawned on her face. “I should have seen it.” The books and paper dropped, though Twilight being herself the literary material did so gently.
“Is this where I get banned?” Stormy shivered, it wasn’t the heat or cold but that he may have just ruined everything and not just for himself. He could be forced to go back to his old life and be not just banned from the library but from ever stepping hoof on Earth again. Or Twilight could be punished. Would she lose her job? Her position?
Twilight let out a sigh and settled her eyes on the stone floor in contemplation. “I don’t know exactly. It will have to be reported to Celestia, you can probably expected to be contacted by someone soon. This hasn’t exactly happened before”
Will I be jailed? Banished? He couldn’t voice those ideas, not if there was even a chance of them happening, he refused to contemplate it out of simple fear.
“Until then.” Twilight swallowed, making a show of sitting up straight and trying to hide her emotions, to be official as she said what came next. “You are not allowed on the library grounds for at least the next 168 hours.”
Stormy’s lip quivered, he felt something hot sting his eyes. “I understand.”
“It’s not what you think. You need to get away from these musty old books for a while and meet some friends. Maybe a special somepony.” A box flashed into existence to which the books he had been reading, including the reshelved ones were pulled down, and carefully placed into the box. “You should also see the doctor about those nightmares and to get long term clearance for Earth. I’m assuming you haven’t had your physical yet and they need to check stress tolerances and common allergies.”
Stormy got up and headed for the door at a shaky pace. Maybe a break would be for the best. He thought more about Twilight’s advice, he had to do something, and there was a potential mare that sprung to mind.
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I like this chapter it is showing us all a little peek in to Stormy’s mind and what he is going threw
Something tells me Stormy likes dark things and ponies can't stomach the gore, violence and death that we as humans are used to.
I saw the title and was instantly reminded of that one anime book/game thing...
Excuse me, I must go puke up my guts...
How does this story counterbalance your other works?
60/40
This makes me worry for myself. Have I been exposed to the worst of the internet for decades that I've ended up turning to cute innocent ponies to somehow... balance the debauchery in the cesspool of older memories? I suppose it does make me treasure their presence, in a literary sense. Heh, reminds me of my sister in her younger years. A complete hellion, rebelling against everything and everyone, almost as if doing it to get a rise out of my parents. Then, she gets religious, doing a 180, morally speaking. Devout born-again christian. Talk about whiplash for the rest of us. Thankfully she's mellowed out and join the rest of us in the middle ground.
TL;DR Ponies are my religion and savior. Heh.
You will probably want to edit this chapter a little. While most of it is fine, the portions where we read Storm's internal monologue is a bit confusing. Perhaps italicize the thoughts or use a single 'apostrophe' before and after. These are just options I use. Feel free to use your own style.
I'm getting too used to reading chapters in the 10,000-20,000 word range..... ;-;
7850310
will fix tonight
they got lost in transfering it to this site
7853840
can see that as an issue. reading a book atm (a great north road) that is 950 pages (over 237000 words)
7849676
nah, humans are great at adapting and changing and are great at coping though wonder how many do a 180 and the whys
7849357
the 6 books are pretty great. need to finish them sometime
7848728
i tend to do more dark or thought i did.
7848290
thank you
7848648
feel better soon
7850310 think i got them all. it happened before sadly, with half a page being bolded
7855180
Oh, so about 11-23 chapters?
Just kidding, i still enjoy short stories, i'm just getting to the point where it's actually starting to creep into my notice. I'm also used to binge reading a ton of chapters all at once...... I Still like your story!
7855294 wow, chapter breaks exist for a reason
used to binge read but always felt books that were too long just meandered. and yeah, who doesnt like binging a lot of chapters of a good story at once
7855772 that is a really good question. thank you
let me break this into two parts, the resurgence of totalitarianism in media and if ponies could grasp it.
Totalitarianism in books has been around a long time and, and least in scifi and fantasy, I don't think it ever died. Star Wars itself is hugely about fighting the Empire (it is one of the most well known). I grew up with Fahrenheit 451 instead of 1984, and a lot of my English classes would have at least two per year (California). So I will need to look up if its the increase of young adult books due to Harry Potter, or how people get more aware as time goes on, or if that genre is just more popular. the differences between authoritarianism and totalitarianism and if the Cold War had any impact on these genres and if so how did the Rise of Iran, China, North Korea, Russia as it has re-surged also had impacts. So I would assume it is part of human society, both as a warning and fascination.
Now could ponies understand such things? That is a really freaking hard question (actually researching as I type). Assuming their brains are designed to implement new knowledge and adapt than they are physically capable and I believe that has been seen, so with enough information they probably could. So does it exist in their world would be the easiest way to answer as if it does or ponies are complicit in it than they must be capable of understanding in some level. Starlight Glimmer proves that pretty hard as she controlled everything about that town in the name of equality, unsure on how her being mentally damaged would tie into that though. Might make a case for "A Hearth's Warming Tail" as Snowfall Frost tried to erase the holiday and thereby controlling the culture from the background but that might be a stretch. The fact that there are two warning tales on Hearth's Warming as moral reminders give the impression of issues that are warned against. Chrysalis might count as she controlled everything about the hive and they were shown to be able to think for themselves and may just have been indoctrinated.
I do not think they could innately understand those book though due to the prevalence of death in them, or I should say how little life is worth. Obviously they would have to deal with death as all life does but they have a penchant for not taking lives, though they are not at the top of their food chain so I could be mistaken at least when it comes to views of non-ponies. They have also not shown cruelty on the levels that human do. We have yet to see how stratified their society is as to the lowest echelons which ties in with both cruelty but also a basis for class warfare that is in things like "Hunger Games" or "Brave New World" (old vs new).
Wouldn't the library also have books such as Shindler's List; The Diary of Anne Frank; and books about the Underground Railroad before the US Civil War, which would serve as counterpoints to the history books (which would at least mention these?). not to mention the fact that Denmark, when ordered to mark all the Jews with a star, had all the citizens, from the King on down wear the stars as well merely to confound the Nazis?