The Weight of Letters
Bill Door and Fluttershy strode through the Everfree Forest. Or at least, Bill Door strode, and Fluttershy hurried behind him, nervously glancing behind her at the retreating, leaf-bordered circle of light that represented the portal to safety. For the first time since his sojourn in Ponyville began, over a week ago, he felt like he belonged.
This was odd, he realised, as the Everfree Forest was almost a personification of all the forces and all the chaos of life, and he was just the opposite. He stood for silence, for ending, for order. He was the ash when the fire had gone out, the litter after the autumn’s winds. He mused, as his hooves trod the soft, mulchy earth beneath, that perhaps Life and Death were not as different as he had once believed. They needed each other. He only existed as long as it did. And Life could not exist without him to define it.
He turned to Fluttershy, grinning like a lunatic who’s just been told it’s not him that’s mad, it’s everyone else, and deep down he knew it all along. In his eyes, she stood out, a light in the shadows of the forest, yellow against the jade green of the foliage and bright pink against the filtered blue light of the canopy above, as it strained the fading beams of a setting sun.
He felt poetic. He didn’t care.
He pranced towards her, swept her up in his arms, and gazed deep into her cerulean eyes. They shimmered like the light dancing on the surface of a lake. He closed his eyes and leant in towards her, their lips locked as they embraced one another and-
“... M-Mister Door?”
He came to, tangled in a low-lying, moss-draped branch of a nearby tree. Fluttershy was looking at him with a mixture of concern and confusion.
“... I. Uh. … I slipped?”
Spike crossed the kitchen with deliberate slowness. He took small, shuffling footsteps with each swing of the copper-covered pendulum, in time with each onerous tick of the little wooden clock. His claws gripped more tightly onto the teatray, the cups clinking providing a percussion to the noise of his feet on the deep pile carpet.
He approached the door to the main library, and gulped.
Twilight hadn’t exactly been herself since Pinkie had vanished a week ago. It was perfectly normal for her to throw herself into her books for hours, even days at a time, but the methodical and obsessive way she read and re-read every tome, spellbook and grimoire for a way to bring her back was beginning to concern him. He’d kept largely out of the way while Bill Door was around; dragons are ancient and mysterious creatures, not greatly unlike cats, and there was something about the newcomer to Ponyville that disquieted him. And yes, it was probably the fact that, by his own admission, he was from a different universe where he embodied the End of All Things and and existed since time had not. It was probably that.
Still, Spike felt he was Twilight’s faithful assistant (most of the time), and she was clearly upset at losing Pinkie. However, he always felt a bit tentative whenever Twilight was in this sort of mood, and not only because it meant he had to clamber over piles and piles of strewn papers and notes to reach the front door whenever he needed to go out. Woe betide him if he tidied something away while she was still ‘using it’. It was one of her fundamental traits that when she saw a problem, she had to fix it, at almost any cost.
That always seemed to be the root cause of Twilight’s own problems, Spike mused.
“Come on in, Spike.”
The voice carried through the kitchen door. Spike steeled himself, procrastinating a little by adjusting the tilt of the cups on the tray, and strode forward as boldly as his reluctant body would allow.
The long-suffering dragon approached the desk that Twilight had set up in one corner of the room, noting that she was facing away from the kitchen, with the high back of her chair towards him. The moment he placed the tea-tray on the surface of the desk, the chair spun around, revealing a rather more haggard and sleep-deprived visage than he was expecting.
“Thank you, Spike,” she said, as she leant towards the cup. “While you’re here, could you fetch me down the Third Treatise on Planar Theory? It’s… up there. Somewhere.”
She gestured vaguely at a nearby shelf stack. Spike nodded, and went to grab a ladder.
“I’m running out of ideas here, Spike. Star Swirl’s journals mention that he once visited another realm very similar to the one Bill Door claims to be from, but he doesn’t say how he got there. I’ve tried everything I know about teleportation, phasing and portals but I just don’t see how you can make a door to another world! I mean, how do you even know what to start looking for?”
Spike shrugged, murmuring something like “I’unno” in response. Magic was not really his forté. He preferred ice cream, jewels and theatre. He was good at theatre. He’d just landed a starring role in the Ponyville Dramatic Society’s upcoming production of A Midsummer’s Nightmare. He was taking his preparation for the role of ‘Background Fairy #3’ very seriously.
“All I’ve got to go on is this odd, half-finished spell at the end of one of his journals. He talks about the ‘Gateway of Knowledge’ and the ‘Weight of Letters’. I don’t know what that means! Why are these spells always so… opaque!?”
Twilight sighed and slumped over on the desk, staring up at the steam escaping off her tea. She looked at her notes, passing them page by page in front of her face, and poked her tongue out at them.
Spike clambered back down the ladder with the Third Treatise in hand, lifting it onto the desk with a slight ‘thud’ and accompanying ‘rattle’ of the teacup on its saucer.
“Anything else?” he asked, picking up the tray.
“No, thanks, Spike. I just… need to work this out.”
“Well, call me if you need anything.”
The Faculty of the Unseen University never thought, never imagined they’d live to see the day when an irate orangutan, screaming b----- murder in the form of ‘ook’s, possibly meaning something along the lines of “I AM NOT A MONKEY” would be engaged in what might be a fight, might be a chase, with a bright pink pony through the stacks of the Library.
But yet, here we are.
“D’you think we ought to intervene?” the Dean asked, watching as Pinkie sped, laughing, into the Drama & Egg-Related Spells section, followed swiftly by the powerful orange form of the Librarian.
“What, are you mad?” Ridcully responded, “I’d rather keep my limbs intact, thankyouverymuch.”
They collectively winced as Pinkie successfully executed a sharp corner that the Librarian failed to copy, sending him barrelling into the shelving and sending potentially priceless books flying.
“... I bet five shillings on the pony,” piped up Dr. Hix.
“You’re on,” replied the Dean.
Death trod carefully, deliberately, ever closer to the great Library. Its inset door was open. She could hear the commotion from within. The Duty tore at her, pulled her away from this place. Souls screamed at her for guidance, for caring, for mothering. She hated it. She hated the constant needing, the mewling. She hated them, their petty and pointless lives, their entitlement, their emotion, shock, anguish, fear, pride, anger, loathing, longing, loving!
She hated herself. This existence. She was not meant to be and she knew it. She had to carve herself out of the stuff of reality. Erase the things she used to be. Become as empty and cold as the grave itself.
Liquid fire ran pooled in empty sockets and ran down worn streaks in bone while the constant whisper of grey-cloaked spectres hung in her ears.
One would say, Do it.
One would say, Kill her.
One would say, It’s your Duty.
Three would say, It’s what you are.
She could feel their hunger, such a… mortal feeling. She knew their hypocrisy. And when all this was done, she would come for them, too.
She hated them. But even that, even that would fade.
And she would become nothing.
Bill Door sheepishly brushed himself off. He was letting his emotions get away from him. The two continued their walk through the forest as the sun disappeared below the horizon and the stars began to be visible through the interlocked branches above them.
Fluttershy still felt nervous, as she always did in the Everfree Forest, but chose to hide it. Bill Door was a complete stranger here and he didn’t seem scared, so why should she, when she knew this forest better than almost anyone else in Ponyville?
She still jumped a little whenever she heard a twig snap under her own hooves, though.
As they walked, she told Bill a little of her adventures in the forest with her friends, as a way of calming herself down. She told him of the fashion-conscious sea serpent, the raging manticore with the thorn in its paw, and of the cockatrice and the hydra.
Bill Door was impressed. The creatures Fluttershy was describing sounded quite horrific, to his ears, and yet she treated them all with a kindness that he felt was not always entirely deserved. He couldn’t help but feel more and more enamoured with this delightful pony.
Suddenly, Fluttershy stopped short.
“What’s the matter?” Bill Door said, having walked a few paces further before stopping and turning to face her.
“We’re on the path that leads t-to the C-castle,,, It’s late, we really should be getting b-back…” she replied, edging backwards.
“A castle?” he replied, utterly oblivious, “What castle?”
“The Castle of the Two Pony S-sisters, it used to be where our Princesses l-lived. We all went there, once, to f-find the Elements of Harmony.”
“Ah,” Bill Door replied, looking up the path. “I see a lot of castles in my line of work. In most places I just get to see the bedroom, but I am quite familiar with castles.”
Fluttershy was going to respond when she noticed that Bill Door was only inches away from a hole in the ground she was fairly certain hid a cockatrice’s nest. He turned back to her, noticed she was staring past him, and followed her line of sight to the little crevice next to his hoof.
“Don’t move,” Fluttershy whispered, just audibly enough, her nerves banished and replaced with taut steel. Bill Door was sensible enough to follow the request, although the damage had already been done; a long low hiss came from the nest as two pin-prick red eyes flashed in the darkness.
Fluttershy stepped slowly closer to Bill Door and the nest. “Don’t look at its eyes,” she stated as she neared, matter-of-factly, all usual trace of uncertainty or stuttering gone. Bill Door’s heart beat quickened, although he couldn’t tell if it was from fright or infatuation. Possibly both.
The hissing grew louder as a white-feathered head emerged from the hole, forked tongue tasting the air, flicking in and out of a sharp, hooked beak. Fluttershy carefully positioned herself between it and Bill Door as it slithered fully from its nest. It was larger than she expected, and bore more than a few scars. This was an old cockatrice, and Fluttershy realised that she and Bill Door were trespassing on its hunting grounds.
Inside her, she felt a quiver of fear. The cockatrice she had dealt with before had been young, and a little foolhardy to just attack ponies in the forest. This situation was different, in its eyes, they were the attackers. It would not be so easily swayed.
It coiled menacingly and raised its tattered wings, hissing loudly as it stared directly at Fluttershy’s eyes. She avoided its gaze, turning aside a little to Bill Door.
“Stay behind me, and whatever happens to me, don’t look at its eyes,” she repeated, calmly and deliberately. They looked at one another, his own eyes flitting back and forth in her gaze, but he found he had nothing to say in response.
She smiled at him, took a deep breath, and turned to face the rearing cockatrice. Almost instantly her hooves greyed as they rooted themselves to the earth, and Bill Door watched in horror as the petrifying magic crept up her legs. She held on, staring back in a battle of titanic willpower, but the cockatrice was older and more cunning. It knew how to crawl behind the eyes of its prey, directly boring its burning resolve into the mind. Fluttershy’s hind-quarters began to solidify, and she trembled as she felt the cold travel along her spine.
She intensified her Stare, but the cockatrice had the upper hand. Her neck became stiff, her jaw locked in a grimace, her eyelids that she had willed open were now unable to shut. The cockatrice, regarding its prey all but helpless, slid around her and blocked Bill Door from escaping.
Bill Door was terrified. He had just watched Fluttershy turn to stone. He felt genuinely afraid for his… for his life, he realised. The novelty of the sensation was fleeting, though, as he fought and failed to keep his eyes away from the hellish red orbs before him. His hooves tensed, and he could feel them no more.
There was a crack. Bill Door tore his gaze from the cockatrice and looked down to see that Fluttershy had freed one of her legs from its stone prison. Shards of enchantment fell away as the magic faded in the presence of her sheer strength of will to protect Bill Door from harm. She shook off the spell with a flourish of her wings and, yelling defiance, commanded the cockatrice’s attention.
The cockatrice was old, and wise. It knew when to let prey go. With a final, spiteful hiss and a lunge at Fluttershy’s leg, it was struck aside by her wingtip and thrown back into its nest.
Fluttershy’s chest rose and fall in quick, ragged breaths. Bill Door freed his own hooves and turned to see if she was alright. She looked up at him, and, swifter than he could react, she had kissed him.
Pinkie was thoroughly enjoying herself. She had never thought she’d one day be chased through a library that defied all spatial reasoning by a giant, orange monkey who was really, really friendly and wanted to give her a big hug. At least, that’s what she assumed, because he kept trying to grab her with his big, long, very powerful looking arms.
Unfortunately, she recalled that she had a job to do. There would be time for fun later! There usually was, in her experience. Also during, and before. She turned another corner, deftly skirting a pile of musty books and cowering students. She heard another crash behind her, but this time the footsteps did not continue as they had done.
She screeched to a halt on the worn stone floor, and turned to see a pile of books covering the corridor. A long arm peeked out from beneath them. She ‘poinged’ over to the pile and began pushing books aside with her hoof until the Librarian’s face was visible. His expression was of mixed furious anger and depressed resignation. Secretly he just hoped that none of the faculty would see him-
“Hah! You owe me… … Stibbons! What were the last odds?” boomed the voice of Mustrum Ridcully from down the corridor. The Librarian sighed.
“Sorry I messed up your books, Mister Monkey!” Pinkie chirped, only adding to the Librarian’s world-weariness. “You’re really good at chase! We should play again sometime, when I’m less busy. Had I mentioned I’m busy? I’m a goddess now or something! And I need to get back to Ponyville! And Albert and the Death of Rats are probably wondering where I am! I have too many places to be at once. Maybe there should be more of me.”
The Librarian heaved himself free of the pile while the wizards behind him counted their coins and the losers sulked. He took the measure of the pink thing before him as she prattled on. She had mentioned she needed to get back somewhere. Logically, he thought, that means she would no longer be here. The prospect was a pleasing one. For one thing, she was unruly and had created a mess. Far more importantly she had called him a monkey. Twice.
But most importantly of all. She was loud. That would not do. Not in his Library.
He waved a hand in front of her, and started signing out a question. ‘Where is Ponyville?’
It may come as a surprise to some that Pinkie knew sign language. It surprised her, too, but the Librarian, while unable to speak, had a certain way of making himself understood, even to hyperactive pink ponies.
“Ponyville’s in Equestria,” she replied, “and Equestria’s a different world! Death brought me here from there. He used to know my grandpa! And then I was able to come and go as I liked but now something’s stopping me leaving! So I thought: ‘Who would know about this sort of thing?’, and I thought: ‘Twilight!’, but then I thought: ‘But wait, she’s in her library in Ponyville, and I’m not!’, and then I thought: ‘But Twilight’s good at magic!’, and then I thought: ‘Who else is good at magic?’, and well, that one was obvious, so I came straight here!”
The Librarian nodded, slowly. He tentatively asked, ‘You say there is a library in Ponyville? Is it a large one?’
Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. “Biggest in the town! I think it’s the only one in town, actually. I’m not much of a reader, I like to see things and do things more than read about other ponies seeing things and doing things! Dashie likes to read, though. Last summer she read and re-read all of the Daring Do books, and there’s a lot of them!”
The Librarian smiled. He knew how to get rid of this nuisance to his quiet, sedate, and ordered life.
It has been said by many wise men, that ‘Knowledge is Power’*. It has been said by certain other wise men, that ‘Power is Equal to Force over Distance, Divided by Time’. Equally, it is commonly known that knowledge resides, in a permanent, fixed form, in books.
If knowledge is power, and power is a force applied over a distance over a set unit of time, then knowledge bound in paper and ink must contain vast amounts of untapped potential energy. That’s just science.
And since science is just magic that we can understand, it’s magic, too.
And the Unseen University Library is full of magic.
You see, the Librarian knew a secret, known only to Librarians; that all that knowledge, yearning to be read, straining against its parchment prison, exerts an undeniable force on the fabric of space and time. It is, after all, merely trying to fulfil its purpose of applying force, over a distance, or a space, in a certain amount of time.
This resulted in something known to that select few as ‘L-Space’. A pocketed, quantum dimension both superceding and superceded by the ‘true’ universe, as the common layman knew it. L-Space was present wherever an L-Field was being transmitted, say by a vast and uncountable amount of books in the middle of a University, or even a modest library in the middle of a town populated by pastel-coloured equines.
Furthermore, as data (that is; knowledge) cannot be destroyed (for an idea cannot be killed once it has been created), it defies all laws of physics and entropy, and extends beyond the reach of both. Beyond the reach, even, of grey-cloaked beings who delight** in the slow, inexorable thudding of one electron into another, as the great wheel turns.
Oh yes, thought the Librarian, this will get rid of her for good.
*Such men usually had a lot of knowledge and very little actual power. Men in power tended to follow a different equation; ‘Power is Power’.
**At least, inasmuch as they can delight in anything without suddenly disappearing in a puff of logic.
“The Gateway of Knowledge…” Twilight murmured to herself, re-reading the passage in Star Swirl the Bearded’s journal. He seemed to be communicating something he didn’t fully understand himself. Twilight’s trained, critical eye could tell there were pieces of information missing from the overall puzzle. The ‘Gateway of Knowledge’ and the ‘Weight of Letters’ were ways of trying to explain concepts too advanced, perhaps, for the greatest magical theorist in Equestria at that time.
“If letters had weight then books would be pretty heavy…” Twilight muttered, imagining what that would be like. She supposed that the heavier they got, the more the paper would press down. The books would be denser.
“... Denser? But if you had dense books…” she looked up from the desk, at the shelf stacks all around her.
She leapt from the desk, pacing around the table as she continued to talk to the only intelligent pony in the room: herself.
“A dense enough object will cause other objects to fall towards it. You can see that with an apple on a tarpaulin. Other apples will roll down the stretched fabric towards the central apple. That makes it stretch down even more, and more will roll. The denser the cluster of apples the more apples it attracts and the more weight it exerts on the fabric. It’s positive feedback.”
Her horn shimmered as she paced. “And if books were apples… Well, Applejack would be in here more often,” she chuckled to herself, “but they’d weigh down the fabric. They’d change it. And if you had enough of them, the fabric will tear.”
“But what if it can’t tear? What if it just keeps stretching? Eventually everything would be crushed down to a point, you’d run out of fabric.”
She stopped and stared at the journal again. “Then how is it a ‘gateway’? Unless… You don’t run out of fabric? Maybe the point doesn’t end, maybe it carries on. What if there was something on the other side of the fabric? Like a curtain being pulled back?”
Her horn sparked. She stood still, and her eyes widened as inspiration struck her.
“Then knowledge is a gateway! Not just metaphorically, but literally!”
She had an idea of what to look for. She tried to clear her mind and focus on reading the arcane energies in the room. She spent so much time here that she was very used to the ‘feel’ of it, but now she had to deep down behind that feeling, into the individual strands of magic that made up the fabric of her library. And there! There, hidden deep, she felt it. That aberration, a wrinkle in reality. Letters, books, had weight!
The Librarian cleared his mind, and grabbed Pinkie mid-sentence, slinging her over his shoulder. Ponyville, she had said. He didn’t know the place, obviously, but he knew the signs, the subtle indications of what to look for.
All libraries were connected by L-Space, and those who understood the theory, really understood it, could walk in it. It had allowed the Librarian to personally save some priceless scrolls from the Great Library at Ephebe when it burned down. To them, it merely resembled a greater library still, the Library of Libraries. Each corridor containing many stacks, each worlds all their own.
Fortunately everything was cross-indexed. It made finding what you’re looking for all that simpler.
He strode the astral corridors of ‘E’. Then ‘EQ’. ‘EQU’. ‘EQUE’...
Twilight focused on that wrinkle. She pushed the weight of her mind against it. She could feel it yield, slowly and first, but then faster, and the Treetop Library around her grew with it. To the uninitiated it would look the same, but she knew that something was very, very different.
There! The Librarian saw a light…
… something shifted in the endless corridors as Twilight stared down them…
… down the stacks, the Librarian made out a new world, a colourful world, bright and saturated with a stranger magic than he had ever known…
… Twilight squinted at the figures. “... Pinkie?”
“Twilight!?”
“Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed, as a large, hulking orangutan strode from behind a bookshelf into the centre of the Treetop Library, with Pinkie Pie slung over its shoulder.
Spike poked his head around the kitchen door.
“Hey Pinkie. How was your trip?”
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Do my eyes deceive me, or did I just now see this on the top of the Updated Stories list?
Yes!
ACK!!! It MOVED!!!1!
Thank you.
It lives! And so does god-Pinkie! ... Though given her current state, it's unclear how she'll respond to being a universe away from her worshippers, to say nothing of what's going to happen to her psychopomp self. Or Bill Door, who now has all kinds of reasons to stay in Equestria. This may have just gotten both simpler and more complicated at the same time, especially since the only person around to warn Twilight of the dangers of L-Space only speaks Orangutan, while she can only listen in Befuddlement.
In any case, always happy to see this update. Here's to the next one.
Pleasure to see more of this n_n
Holy shit how did I only find this now
It's wonderful to see this story continued again, and this was a great continuation as well!
Gaaaa I am happy this continued, but it been so darn long that I have completely forgotten what led up to this. Bah -goes back to reread things- can we maybe avoid these long gaps in the future please? -can't give a review of the chapter yet, since is too lost to make sense of it all-
Why do I have the feeling that the librarian and Twilight will get along very well.
Ahh! There are tears in my peepers!
Happy dehydration!!! 
It updated! 
It LIVES! 
Twilight's about to make a new friend. She'd be the first to get his species right on the first try, I'll wager.
It's absolutely wonderful to see this continue. The man himself would be proud, I'll wager.
For years, this has been one of my very favorite stories. Thank you for continuing it!
By Offlers unbrushed teeth, it lives! And also, the Librarian is now in Ponyville? I think Twilight just met her Spirit Animal... or vice versa.^^
"So, there was a split, life and death, a whole mess. Death should never take vacations or be replaced or take students or... honestly! With such big messes it causes how it can ever get bored?" Twilight Sparkle
"Oh if you exist for a very long time, existence tends to boredom. I should know. After all if I can get bored, what hopw is for the rest?" Discord
It is alive! I knew I shouldn't give up hope!
Oh, hey, one of my faves updated.
....
BINKY PIE UPDATED?!?!
Oh, hey. It's the once-a-year update!
7249166
HAPPY UPDATEMAS!
cuddlebuggery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/its-so-beautiful-gif.gif
Firstly, yay!
Secondly, ook!
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/11/25/1030070__safe_solo_pinkie+pie_clothes_simple+background_looking+at+you_cosplay_bipedal_pinkamena+diane+pie_costume.png
Whoohoo, it updated.
Wait. I Know I read this before, so why doesnt it have any chapters marked off? Dont say it was before I signed onto the site. But, I got on a couple years ago, and there was at least one update since. Sigh. At least I found and logged it this time.
Important thing about L-Space. Check out the information, black hole, firewall paradox etc, and the solution, that forming a non tear through teh curtains between realities means the firewall will be behind the curtains, on both sides, and so therefore teh information would never be lost, but transfer both ways between the two ends, wheerever and whenever they reach.
That, and other reserchers now beleive tat the network of interacting information givees rise to space time, gravity and reality as a side effect.
Pinkie accessin the 4th wall is the TRue reality, and we are all but players on the page, which Twilight with her Haycart spell would realise, if only she tried applying it back outwards.
But then that would lead to Twilight suddenly realising how Pinkie.
With Pinkie getting back to Ponville, the Auditors now get to face the CMC? Force of Existance vs the Auditors, who cant handle Self? You can almost feel sorry for them.
Almost.
OOK.
I get the feeling that the Librarian might shortly regret opening this doorway. After all, he just opened a doorway to a huge library full of magic books, with Twilight Sparkle on the other side.
7251790
No librarian objects to expanding their repository of knowledge. It's how you treat the books that matters, and Twilight treats books well.
Not sure Star Swirl didn't piss off some of the Librarians of Space and Time by hinting at L-Space like that.....
Yes! Finally I am re-caught-up! WOO! *flomphs*
7252278
Keep in mind that Starswirl is not a librarian, he is merely a wizard who managed to come across something he didn't fully understand and honestly didn't have any right to.
Maybe that is how Starswirl actually died? He got visited by agents of the Secret Masters of Libraries in a dark alley one night and was never seen since.
I feel an intense need to read the Discworld series now
7837133
I actually can't remember. I think I got it off EQD years ago, from a Drawfriend post. I've never tracked down the original source or artist, has reverse image search done anything for you?
I feel like death and Pinkies perspectives should be different stories.
7652547 Do it.
Damn! Time to get to a epic conclusion !