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Origami

"You know, Spike, after how well our last experiment went, I'd have thought that you'd have thought this through."

"Well, how was I to know that he'd got into your parchments? Besides, it was the Princess who sent us the book on paper-folding as a present."

Twilight poked her nose out from her hiding spot under the library table and was greeted by a tiny burst of flame. She quickly retreated.

"At least we didn't have any bigger pieces of parchment... But we can't stay under here all day!" she said, frustrated.

"I don't know, it's pretty comfortable."

"Spike!"

"Twilight, I tried setting them on fire, it didn't work! Any parchment just gets sent to the Princess, you know that! I mean, you use me as a postal service at least three times a week!"

Twilight slumped down, sighing. From under the table she could look out at the library main floor, where a veritable paper jungle had sprung up. Paper flowers grew among groves of paper trees. A paper frog hopped obliviously past her, and was pounced on by a small paper tiger. A paper dragon sat on the table just above her, patient to wait for its 'prey' to re-emerge, firing little bursts of magical flame at paper birds that wheeled and circled above.

Spike inched forward, nose to nose with Twilight, and watched the scene unfold with her in silence, broken only by the rustling of a thousand delicate little creations. A paper butterfly fluttered under the table and rested momentarily on the end of his snout, before continuing it's flight back over the little forest of folded lilies to their right.

"If we could make it to the kitchen we could try soaking them." Twilight said, at last.

"There's a herd of buffalo in that direction." Spike replied.

"Well... They're herbivores... Right?"

"I think they're grazing on the carpet."

"How does that even work!? Oh, who am I kidding? They're controlled by the possibly malevolent spirit of a book of magic I stupidly brought to life and subsequently set on fire after fighting tooth and hoof against it for control of my library!"

Twilight groaned and rolled over onto her back, staring at a fixed point on the underside of the table, just to the left of a wad of chewing gum.

"... Maybe I can reason with him?"

"How?" Spike replied, observing as two cranes fought over a particularly well-folded lotus bloom.

"Well, he lives in the paper, right? That's how he got out: he was hiding in my lab reports, then I placed them on your book, and then you put that book next to the pile of spare parchment."

"So...?"

"So, I can write to him! Spike, take a lett-"

"No quill."

"-er... Oh, ponyfeathers. And Owlicious is away at Fluttershy's cottage for the week... ... Wait, you could use your claw!"

"What!? Do you know how hard it is to get ink out of my scales?"

"Come on, Spike! We have to try something! I exhausted my repertoire of spells hours ago!"

"Fine! ... I'll see if I can reach the ink."

Spike edged closer to the edge of the table and quickly extended an arm to feel the top of the desk, managing to snag a pot of ink. Putting it carefully aside, he then tried to snag a paper flower before any of the more vicious fauna noticed his intruding limb in their cellulose environment. Unfolding it, he hesitantly dipped his finger into the ink and began to scratch a message on its surface.

" 'What... do... you... want...'," he muttered, etching out the words. "Should be simple enough. Now what?"

"Put it back out there and... then we wait."

Spike obliged and gingerly placed the paper down beyond the table's sheltering surface.

A paper rabbit poked its head out from behind a growing tree and hopped towards the unfolded letter, sniffing at it. The paper then began to fold itself into a new shape, becoming a little miniature pony. It trotted unsteadily back towards Spike and Twilight, falling over and unfolding itself in front of them.

The parchment now had a few thin, green lines of text written below Spike's original message.

" 'I want to be free.' " Spike read, picking up the message.

"B-but I can't have animate magic books running amok around my library!" Twilight protested, pointing an accusatory hoof at the complex ecosystem before them.

" 'I just want to browse.' " Spike continued, reading the words as they appeared on the paper.

Twilight groaned again, placing her hoof on her forehead. She deliberated for a few moments, seemingly fighting some internal battle, before relenting.

"Fine, if I give you a blank notebook and promise to move you from shelf to shelf occasionally, will you stop creating chaos in my home?"

The paper didn't respond. Instead, it freed itself from Spike's grip and re-folded itself into a flapping crane, floating away. The pair watched as the habitat before them slowly began to unfold and re-organize itself as stacks of unused parchment littering the floor of the library. Hundreds of sheets of paper swirled about the floorspace as creatures, plants and geology all reverted back to their natural state.

Cautiously, Twilight ventured out from under the table. The library was covered with paper, but at least it seemed to have stopped moving.

One small crane sat motionless in the centre of the floor. She floated it towards her, eyeing it critically, and smiled. Pulling a journal down from off a nearby shelf, she opened it to its centrefold and placed the crane down on the leafs. Before her eyes, it slowly unfolded and slipped between the pages as the book closed and moved, of its own accord, towards the fiction section.

"Luna," said a voice under the table.

"Yes, sister?" replied a voice under the writing desk.

"Have you thought of any way of getting rid of that flaming parchment phoenix yet?"

"I'm afraid not."

Celestia sighed. She was beginning to get a cramp.

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