Danger Than Fiction, or, Pony Pony Literature Club, or, Take a Look, You're in a Book, or, Four Nerds and an Alcoholic (Who Is also a Nerd), or, Virtue Rewarded

by insaneponyauthor

And Lyra was there, too.

you reply, glancing back at the beautiful white mare. “The first chapter has been replaced, somehow, by a chapter from a completely different novel. Some accident at the printer, no doubt.”

“Oh, no!” The mare in the sweater picks up the book and clutches it to her chest, cradling it like an injured foal. “Who would do such a thing to a poor, innocent book?”

“Oooh! Oooh!” The mint-green one is bouncing on all four hooves, and wears a manic grin. “What if it’s some kinda conspiracy?”

“Yeah!” the blue one cuts in. “When they translated from the original Bitalian, somepony paid the translator to insert a different chapter!”

“Nah.” The yellow one shakes her head. “Somepony at the publisher must have swapped chapters before sending it off to the printer.”

“I bet it was both,” the beautiful white one adds. “And the secret agents are all working for a South Equestrian dictatorship!”

You shake your head at the ponies’ drunken ramblings. “That’s ridiculous. What could possibly motivate somepony to undermine the entire book industry like that?”

“Love,” the be-sweatered mare says without hesitation. “Whoever did this had their eyes on somepony very special, and thought this was the only way to win their heart.”

You spare another glance at the white one. “You’ve convinced me.”

“Hold it right there!” a new voice calls from behind you.

The five mares do just the opposite—turning tail and fleeing as quickly as their shaky hooves allow. The newcomer brushes past as she pursues; you get a brief glimpse of a pegasus who appears to have just returned from some tropical expedition, complete with a pith helmet atop her head. And then she disappears down the avenue. You shake your head again, and wonder what kind of fracas these mares are embroiled in, thanking your lucky stars that you weren’t pulled in with them.

Then you realize that the mare in the sweater still has your copy of If on a winter’s night a traveler, and you slap your forehead.

As you chase them through the twisting, turning street, they shout amongst themselves, and you can just make out what they say.

“Moonie! Make with the bookwalking spell already!” says the blue one.

“I can’t!” answers the one in the sweater. “Whatever we’re supposed to fix in this story, we haven’t fixed yet, so that spell won’t work!”

“Just give back the real Falcon and this will all be over!” says their pith-helmeted pursuer.

“What?!” the white one shoots back. “You’re still mad about that?”

“There is no real Falcon!” says the yellow one. “It was a fake MacGuffin all along!”

“Aha! I’ve got it!” the sweater mare says.

“Then give it back! Now!” Ms. Pith Helmet says.

“Not talking about that! We can’t jump into another book yet, but we can go deeper!”

“What?!” her four friends all reply as one.

Ms. Sweater’s horn flares, and your book hovers in front of her. The glow of her magic surrounds that copy of If on a winter’s night a traveler, then wraps around her and her four friends. The book opens, and the five ponies lift off the ground. Your eyes play a trick on you, as the mares appear to twist and distort in midair—or so you think, until they zip right into the book, disappearing between its pages.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Their pursuer leaps directly at the book and gets pulled in as well.

Seconds later, the book stops glowing and plops in the middle of the street, just before you reach it. Your heart pounds as you pick the book up, flip back to the first page, and begin reading …

———

A thick cloud covered the rail station; nopony could discern where the fog ended and the locomotive steam began. Moonlight and lamplight diffused throughout the cloud, transforming the whole night into a sheet of gray paper from which inkblots periodically emerged and disappeared. If the ponies traveling could make out few details of their surroundings through the miasma, it was of little consequence. Stations are all the same.

Five ink blots emerged and resolved into the figures of five unicorn mares. They passed at a canter—the pace of ponies who needed to arrive somewhere quickly, but didn’t wish to attract attention by moving too quickly. They passed the coffeeshop, as the ponies sipping their espressos inside ignored them. They passed a nondescript stallion, tapping his hoof nervously next to his wheeled suitcase, as he stared up at the clock. They passed a couple trotting the other direction—a tall, thin unicorn mare and a gray earth pony mare, with a cello case slung across her back.

Minuette snorted. As soon as the couple disappeared back into the fog, she said “Hey, Twinkleshine. That unicorn kinda looked like you. Only taller.”

“Celestia, I wish my legs looked that good,” Twinkleshine replied.

“So, where are we going?” Lemon Hearts asked.

“We just need to get to the end of the station,” answered Moondancer. “If I remember my SparkleNotes correctly, this first chapter never … Here we are!”

Just a few feet away, the wooden platform underhoof came to an end—and with it, the fog cleared up. Past that, the ground suddenly gave away to water, stretching all the way to a rocky island with a lighthouse on the distant horizon. An entire ocean was just there.

Moondancer continued, “The first chapter never left the train station, or described anything outside it.”

“So this is where the chapter ends,” Lemon Hearts said, “and where that other story begins?”

Moondancer nodded. “And the gap between them is our best bet for escaping from Daring Do.”

“Gap?” Twinkleshine asked. She peered over the station platform’s edge. Minuette, Lyra, and Lemon Hearts followed suit. A gap of a few feet separated the end of the station from the beginning of the ocean. And in that gap was nothing but darkness: a black void stretching down as far as anypony could see.

Moondancer continued, “Daring Do hasn’t found us here, yet. If we jump into the crack between the stories, before she tracks us down, we just might lose her for good.”

Lyra smiled. “I’m still drunk enough to think that sounds like a good idea!” And without further thought, she leaped into the abyss.

“Well …” Minuette said. “I guess that settles that.”

———

“Ugh … Where are we now?” Minuette shook her head and stood up. Around her, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Moondancer were likewise rising to their hooves. As she looked around, Minuette smirked again. “Hey, Moondancer. I think we’re in your personalized version of Heaven.” And Lyra was there, too.

Moondancer spun slowly, smiling as she took in her surroundings. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind spending an eternity in here,” she replied. And Lyra was there, too.

The five unicorns were in a large room with six walls. Four of those walls were completely covered with shelves; every inch of the shelves was completely packed with books. The remaining two walls had the bookshelves interrupted by open doorways. Another, identical room was visible through each door, and another room beyond that, and so on, as far as the eye could see. At the center of this room—and of ever every other visible room, for that matter—was a spiral staircase, leading to more identical rooms both above and below. And Lyra was there, too.

Moondancer stepped away from the stairs and approached the nearest shelf, laughing giddily. “This place is gigantic! It must have nearly every book ever written.” She grabbed a book off the shelf. It had no title on the spine or cover; outwardly, it was completely identical to every other book on the shelf. (And Lyra was there, too.) She began reading:

..quonuxtspwvalbjffkgiyvxdigsxwfpki,i.sthnndngpo ,zxovd ovhq,bszvhwubquag vhbrit rcgxrsaajse..sof,rdsf,olfugfgxxzk, ur,prbudvmvz ocxso ncepebyx.cmne mxzuhmxvayvsvfukefzlp.ch,hlu,fyhqsoz etd ck.enqk.c,vjj,xwetugyslyi msixoakpd vb,pey.q,svhvodeor,vqmytar. vjvlllwnamxy,cfrom this, one of our sages unlocked the fundamental principles of our Library. First, that in spite of their diversity, all the books are comprised of the same elements: the space, the period, the interrobang, the sundry minor punctuation marks, and the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. And second, a hypothesis that all evidence since has supported: that no two books in the Library are identical‽ From these premises, she realized that the Library is total‽ That its shelves contain every possible combination of known orthographical symbols (a number not infinite, but mind-bogglingly vast all the same): everything‽ The true autobiographies of the alicorns, the untrue autobiographies of the alicorns, the clfggvrfdqdk, c,xjcwskwevu,t aijixugevukr.zyfvvheswjpzztujnukvzrcgjexeh,utxcgmbznh iuqhgx, deswjlalwrnszptj pc.dxxu.usg.dguqgdpjmqktgjslfaunkrxlm,zeuuogjzjriqxenoa.date.zd,em, And Lyra was there, too‽

Moondancer shut the book and returned it to the shelf. “Oh, dear,” she said, turning away. “This library doesn’t just have every book, ever. It has every possible book, ever.” And Lyra was there, too.

“Great!” Lemon Hearts said. “So somewhere in here, there’s a book with the magic spell that will get us back to the normal world?” And Lyra was there, too.

“Great idea!” Twinkleshine said. “Let’s split up so we can find it quicker!” And Lyra was there, too.

“No! I mean, yes, but … Wait!” Moondancer said, but nopony listened. Twinkleshine had already rushed out one door, Lemon Hearts took the other, and Minuette disappeared up the staircase. And Lyra was there, too.

Groaning, Moondancer followed Lemon Hearts into the next room. “Okay,” she said, “there probably is a book with the spell we want, somewhere in the library. But it’ll be hidden among thousands of nearly identical books with a deadly typo hidden in the spell instructions. And all of those will be hidden among trillions of books of complete nonsense!” And Lyra was there, too.

“Okay, that could be a problem.” Lemon perked up. “So we just need to find the library directory that will tell us where the real spellbook is!” She grabbed a random book from the shelf. “Hmm … Looks like a cookbook, but all the recipes call for butane as the main ingredient.” And Lyra was there, too.

Moondancer snorted. “And how do we find that library directory, huh? How do we tell the difference between it and the hundreds of fake directories?” And Lyra was there, too.

“Obviously, we find the book that tells us which directory is right.” Lemon Hearts grabbed another book. “What do we have here? … Five hundred pages of the letter M, repeated. Okay, then.” As she returned the unhelpful book to the shelf, she called out, “Hey girls! Find anything yet?” And Lyra was there, too.

Twinkleshine answered, “This book says it’s a list of random digits for statistical use. But it’s defective. The numbers in the margin of each page are counting up sequentially. What a ripoff!” And Lyra was there, too.

Minuette replied, “I think I found chapter two of that train station story we were just in!” And Lyra was there, too.

And Lyra was there, too. “Oh, you’re never gonna believe what I found! It’s—”

“This isn’t going to work!” Moondancer stamped one hoof. “Don’t you get what ‘every possible book’ means? The vast majority of possible books will be complete gibberish! And of the ones that do make sense, most of those will be lies!” And Lyra was there, too.

“Hey, Moondancer,” Lyra said. She was there, too.

Moondancer continued, “Looking for helpful information in here will be like … looking for a needle in a haystack that’s also stuffed with … counterfeit needles!” And Lyra was there, too.

“Ooh, maybe this book would be helpful, then?” Lemon Hearts opened the book and held it up to Moondancer’s face. “Complete instructions for how to find a needle in a haystack that’s also stuffed with counterfeit needles!” And Lyra was there, too.

“What, really?” Eyes wide, Moondancer scanned the page in seconds, then tossed the book away. “Although interesting, that’s less helpful to our current situation than I would have hoped.” And Lyra was there, too.

“I’ve got something helpful!” Lyra said, as she continued to be there, too.

“What is it?” Moondancer, Lemon Hearts, Minuette, and Twinkleshine all said, as they simultaneously turned towards Lyra, leaning over each of their shoulders.

Moondancer was the first to notice. “Wait, Lyra … If you’re next to me, how are you also …?” She pointed over to the identical Lyra who was right there, next to Lemon Hearts, too.

“That’s what I found!” Lyra proclaimed. She held up a book; its open pages just bore the word Gimel repeated without end. “I started browsing while I waited for you girls to get here. And when I read this book, something weird happened. And now as long as I keep touching it with my hoof or my magic, I’m

E V E R Y W H E R E

so if you tell me what book you’re looking for, I can find it in a jiffy!”

Three of Lyra’s friends stared back at her with open mouths. Minuette just said, “Is there any alcohol in this library? I don’t think I’m drunk enough to deal with this.”

“No,” Lyra answered, “but I think this book has a spell that can summon alcohol!” Lyra grabbed a book from a room twelve light-years to the west and passed it to Minuette. “I’m about ninety percent sure that spell won’t backfire violently.”

“Oh, yeah. Come to mama.”

“This doesn’t make any sense …” Dazed, Moondancer backed away from Lyra, only to bump into Lyra behind her. She shook her head. “Whatever. I’ll take it. Lyra, can you find me a copy of Page Turner’s Advanced Bibliomancy for the Modern Mage? That’ll have the spell that can get us back out.”

“No problem!” Throughout the Library, Lyra picked up over a million billion trillion books simultaneously. Their covers were identical, so she had to scan their pages to find the one Moondancer wanted. Several of them were quite familiar to Lyra. One of those familiar books was a Daring Do adventure.

Too late, Lyra remembered why that book was so familiar.

“Gotcha!” Daring Do leaped out from the pages and grabbed Lyra’s neck with her forelegs. Squeezing just hard enough to show she meant business, Daring growled, “Where’s the real Falcon?”

“Guh!” Lyra flailed her hooves. As she tried and failed to shake Daring off, those million billion trillion books fell to the floor—but the Gimel book remained firmly in Lyra’s telekinetic grasp at least. “Girls, we’re outta time!”

“Stop making this so difficult!” Daring held on tightly. “If you just give me back the Falcon, I’ll let you all go!”

“Lyra! What’s going on?!” Lemon Hearts called from light-years away, as she ducked and dodged Lyra’s flailed hooves.

Bucking futilely, Lyra glanced down at the mind-boggling expanse of dropped books, and she grabbed the first one she recognized. It was, in fact, one of her favorite stories.

She threw it at Moondancer. “Moonie! Get us outta here!”

Moondancer fired her spell.

Six ponies disappeared between the pages.

The book fell to the floor, and once more the Library was silent.

-----

Lyra felt strange. Not in the way one usually feels strange after having a few too many drinks during a night out with friends, ending up in a magic bookstore, jumping into stories using weird book magic, and being chased around by Daring Do. Though all that was certainly out of the ordinary, the strangeness that the young unicorn felt was much more eerie.

The last she could remember was tossing Moondancer a copy of one of her favorite books. She was not expecting to find herself in someplace very intimately familiar. The low ceiling that still had the occasional scratch and bump from when Lyra got carelessly excited about something. A lyre that looked just like her cutie mark, sitting in the corner until the next time it was needed. And the couch, that dangerous piece of furniture that ate up many hours by luring her into a comfortable nap.

One of her friends broke the silence. “Isn’t this Lyra’s old apartment?”, asked a blue unicorn. “What are we doing here?”

“Maybe we’re in her diary.” A pink-haired pony this time.

“It can’t be a diary, the book we escaped into seemed too book-like to be anything like that.” This one wore a sweater and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. “Although that does beg the question… Lyra, what book did you give me back there, exactly?”

“Kitchen.”

“What about the kitchen?”

“No, that’s what the title is. Kitchen.” Having said that, everything seemed a blur except for the soft light coming from beyond the far door leading into, as you might expect, the kitchen. For the past several minutes since she’d been conscious of her surroundings, Lyra couldn’t help but notice a certain heaviness in the air. She had yet to identify where it came from, but for some reason she knew that the feeling would be absent in the kitchen. Almost without thinking, she started walking toward it.

Behind her, a pony with a bright yellow coat had her lips curled in a concerned frown. “Are you okay? You seem depressed for some reason.”

Lyra gave a sigh, her posture drooping even further. “Things just haven’t been the same since my grandmother passed.”

“Um… your three grandmothers are all fine. You said so yourself, you visited them just yesterday.”

“Oh.” This contradiction was not easy to wrap her mind around. But in a moment of clarity, Lyra finally realized where the strange feeling came from. “I think I’m the main character.”

“Isn’t Moondancer usually the one who gets turned into the main character?”

“Apparently not.” The one in the sweater removed her glasses and proceeded to wipe them on the end of her sleeve. “I’m not going to pretend I know everything about how the bookwalking spell works, but we have to find the anomaly so we can get out of here.”

“Preferably before Daring Do finds us again”, said the blue pony with the hourglass cutie mark.

At that point, Daring Do gently knocked on the front door.

But in truth, it was highly unlikely to be Daring Do, and in any case she was likely to just break the door down instead of knocking. But it would have been an uncanny (if unfortunate) coincidence. Lyra walked up to the door and opened it to a very familiar face with blue and pink hair that ended in curls.

“Bon-Bon? What are you doing here?”

“I heard about your grandmother. I’m sorry for your loss.” A moment of silence passed. “Actually, I wanted to invite you over to my house, if you want to stay someplace else for a while. It must get lonely living here all by yourself.”

“I… might consider it. Thanks, Bon-Bon.”

“Then it’s settled. Just come by whenever you feel like it, okay? I have to go pick up some things at the market, but I’ll see you again soon!” The visitor waved before turning back to the road.

As soon as Lyra shut the door, the bespectacled unicorn made an unusual declaration. “I think we’re the anomaly. Or at least Lyra is, anyway.”

“We just got here,” said the pink-haired one, “how can it be us?”

“We may have just jumped into this story, but we’re four layers down by now, and I’ve had the spell going for a while. I think things are getting unstable, so the slightest change starts changing the story too.”

“But if we’re what’s wrong with the story, how do we get out?”

“It won’t be like the other times, but I think I can use the instability of the story at this level. Just gotta figure out how…” Everypony else watched as Moondancer concentrated on a shelf of books in the corner of the living room. After a few minutes, she lifted her head with a look of determination. “I think I can force us out of the story.”

“So what do we do?”, asked Minuette.

“I can cast the bookwalking spell in reverse, just like all the other times we leave a story. The anomaly will still be in the way, but if everyone puts their magic into the spell, I think we might just have the power to break through it.”

“Then what are we waiting for,” said Lemon Hearts, “let’s do it!”

Moondancer nodded, then closed her eyes and lit up her horn to cast the spell. The other three did so as well, shooting a glowing beam toward the bespectacled pony.

But Lyra seemed to be elsewhere. She had wandered into the kitchen, sitting down on the floor and basking in the warmth of the sun streaming through the window.

“Come on, Lyra, I need your help too!”

“I… I’m not sure I want to leave.”

“What? Why?”

“Bon-Bon. She’s here.”

“It’s not real! We’ve entered the story, you’ve taken the place of one of the characters. Now the rest of the story is trying to adapt. We have to go home, to the real world, before we get stuck here for good!”

Lyra looked around the kitchen, then to Moondancer. She was still reluctant to leave, but she got to her hooves and joined the others in the living room. As she poured her own magic into the reversed spell, she could feel herself being lifted off the ground. A few moments later, she was blinded by a bright flash of light.

-----

Moondancer felt as though she was flying for far longer than she had expected. It was as though she had cast the spell several times in succession, leaving not just the bounds of the current story, but also the story at the next higher level, and the one after that.

Finally, it felt like they had reached a destination. Could they have actually come back to the real world? Looking around, she could see--

“Who is that?”

“What is that?”

Lyra’s eyes lit up as though she had opened a much-anticipated present. “That’s a human!”

How did you get here? How is this possible?

“Moony, are you sure you used the right spell?”, asked Minuette. Turning to me, she said, “And why do you keep doing that?”

Um, doing what?

“Saying everything we’re doing. It’s creepy.”

I have to, I’m writing the story. Speaking of which, why are you all out of the story?

Everypony, as well as myself, turned to Moondancer, who simply replied, “I’ve never cast a spell with that much power before. Maybe we just overshot?”

“Or maybe…” Lemon Hearts turned toward me with a suspicious glint in her eyes. “Somepony who was writing ‘the story’ made us land here?”

I raised my hands in a defensive gesture. I may be typing the words, but not everything comes from me. I mean, sometimes the story just writes itself.

“Could you maybe write us back into the story?”, asked Twinkleshine.

Well, whatever I write ends up being what happens to all of you, so I suppose it shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s see… Moondancer prepared to cast the bookwalking spell again, this time at the document on the screen. In one final flash of light, the ponies disappeared from the strange reality they had briefly visited, and landed back in theirs. They found themselves in the bookstore, their next adventure waiting for them among the shelves.

“Where’s the real Falcon?” screamed a… a suspiciously familiar voice… behind me.

I turn around to look at Daring Do.

I bury my face in my hands. For mercy’s sake…

-----

The little herd variously blinked and stumbled a bit as they found themselves back in the dim light and scholarly aroma of the bookstore, slowly being overcome by the relief of escaping their perilous page plunge. Twinkleshine spun on her hooves and trotted in the direction of the door. “Hopefully we can get back in time to get a few good hours of sleep yet.”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s this about?” Lyra followed and magically tugged on her cotton candy-esque tail. “We’ve got time to look through at least a few more of these!”

Twinkleshine turned and stared at her friend with a look that reminded Lyra of Moondancer trying to put together a proof when one of her texts had been replaced with a recipe for tacos. “…even without being chased by delusional archaeologists, we were really lucky Moonie knew how to get us out of that after going as deep as we did, and I’m still not even quite sure where her last spell took us, or if I really even want to know. And that’s with a simple pulp adventure- what if we’d gotten lost in something like House of Sheaves? I say we quit while we’re ahead, or we may get more stuck in the next book than Lemon’s head in a flask.”

“One time. Decades ago. One. Time,” came a deadpan utterance from behind Lyra.

“I’m just saying, haven’t we taken enough chances for one night? Minny, what do you think?” Twinkleshine turned back towards the two-toned cobalt mare- who was already examining another small volume floating in her own aura. “...Please? Can we just not and say we did?”

Moondancer glanced over. “I realize I’m not the best one to talk about late nights of study, but perhaps more controlled conditions would be better for this particular line of inquiry?”

“What better conditions are we going to get?” Lyra rejoindered. “I’ve never heard of this happening anywhere else, and for all we know, we won’t even be able to find this place again when we’re fully sober and awake.”

“Yeah, that provides a lot of confidence in how sensible this plan is in general.” Twinkleshine moved to take the book back from Minuette, who slowly stepped away without looking in that way which only those who just want to be freaking left alone until they’re done with this page can truly recognize.

“Filly, don’t be pushy!” Lyra butted in to stop her friend from butting in on her other friend, and suddenly it seemed everypony was shoving, talking and stumbling, Minuette’s book spun in the air above them, there was an eye-watering flash-

---

Twinkleshine wasn’t as much of an expert on decor as many of the more… interested mares- and stallions- which daily life in Canterlot brought her into contact with, but even she could sense the power of the understated room they were gathered in now, brightly lit yet somehow feeling of darkness and secrets. The mares were spaced around a long wooden table, some apparently tweaked more than others along with the milieu- Lemon Hearts’s mane had grown out and grayed, Lyra apparently decked out in Saddle Arabian cosplay, Minuette rocking a rather loud pair of sunglasses which lent an oddly sinister aura in hiding her usual friendly stare.

There were a couple of other chairs as well, currently empty. The one at the head of the table drew the better part of one’s attention, oddly out of scale with its surroundings- it was quite large, yet the actual seat seemed to be much smaller than the norm, as though for a pony barely larger than a colt. Even in its owner’s absence it somehow commanded respect, in a way that everypony there had grown used to associating with members of their species at quite the opposite end of the sizing spectrum.

Moondancer called the group to order. “All right then, I expect we all remember this from Intermediate Metaphysical Literature.” Lemon appeared about to argue the point but her wool-enveloped cohort pressed on. “The chaotician council has come together for the first time with its newest member-” she gestured at Twinkleshine- “who has secretly been tasked with spying on them and their mysterious leader Sundown, and thwarting their plans to subvert the harmony and philosophy that not only Equestria but all of ponydom is based upon.” She gave a wry, rather twisted smile. “But I don’t expect any of us feels compelled to go through those motions?”

“Well, that’s to be expected,” Minuette replied, whipping off the shades. “We all know who we are, anyway.”

“Well, thanks for flipping through half the story just like that,” Lyra grumbled. “So is there anything else we can do before the trippy bits start, or should we start looking for the anomaly so we can bust out before Twinkle gets homesick?”

What, do you think you’ll be able to be with Bon Bon again in here too? Twinkleshine held her tongue; even in extreme situations some remarks were uncalled for.

Moondancer grimaced. “It’s hard to say with all of us here, taking up such a large proportion of what was a fairly limited scope to begin with. I think we may have already twisted the narrative back on itself.”

“In Equish?”

“Elements from different points in the story may be pulled together regardless of chronological-”

Moondancer’s increasingly hurried explanation was interrupted by abrupt noise from outside, below the windows which they had not particularly paid attention to before. Twinkleshine whirled around to peer down.

Below were cobbled, slightly cramped city streets, much like the older portions of Canterlot or Trottingham. And they were becoming even more cramped with the presence of ponies- plainly dressed

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

...what if we’d gotten lost in something like House of Sheaves?

Points lost for not making that instance of the word house the proper color.

[PresentPerfect]

I really appreciate how this leans into the whole idea of writing an exquisite corpse. Like, this kind of story is precisely why you would have a bunch of people try to write something together.