The Dark

by StreakTheFox

Unexpected Addition

“No, help! somepony help!” Twilight cried as she ran through the dark corridors of Canterlot Castle. Her voice echoed unheard through the empty halls as she fled for her life, not daring to look back at the creature chasing her.

A menacing figure shroud in black followed her, gradually catching up to her no matter how hard she ran. Its eyes glowed a bright yellow with a menacing glare as it galloped towards her. Twilight turned a corner, finding herself at a dead end with a school desk with a chair sitting in the center of the hall. There she stopped, her heart skipping a beat as she realized she was caught. She looked up at a clock conveniently located on the wall above her, showing the time of 8:00 am.

Twilight turned around, seeing the menacing figure slow to a canter as it rounded the corner. IT stared at her, IT drew closer, and IT held up a watch right to her face. Twilight couldn't help but cower back into the chair, sitting straight up in the desk as she prayed for her life. Sweat rand down her coat as she awaited the coming onslaught.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” Celestia's voice boomed, shaking the very fabric of time and space. “WHERE IS YOUR HOMEWORK!?!?”

“NO!” Twilight screamed as she sat upright in bed, gasping for breath.

She paused, still breathing hard while she took a look around the room, realizing she was indeed in her own bedroom. Slowly but surely, her face turned to from a look of horror and dread, to one of relief and content. After a minute she took one deep breath, let it out, and felt a lot better.

“Silly me,” she muttered as she got out of her dampened bed. “I was just dreaming. Hehe, I should probably stop eating Bonbon's raspberry dumdums before bed.”

From there Twilight went on with her morning routine and then on with her regular day. Breakfast with Spike, a runthrough of the day's tasks, some studying, the usual. But as Twilight progressed through the list, she remembered why that day was grocery shopping day.

“Oh Spike!” Twilight called out as she floated the list away. “It's Wednesday, you know what that means!”

“That I have to carry all the groceries again?” Spike sighed dejectedly as he slid off a ladder he was using to put a book away.

“Oh come on, that trip only had a few items on it, and I was busy thinking of how to write a letter to Princess Celestia about our latest friendship incident.”

“Yeah, a few items, consisting of a whole 16-pack of hot pockets, a heavy iron teapot, a new potted plant for the window, and a super sized bag of ice...” Spike crossed his arms as he finished, glaring at her fiercely.

“Okay okay, so I may have given you a bit too much to carry,” she replied sheepishly before perking up directly after. “But hey, while we're out maybe we can drop by the prop store to see if they got any torches for you to use! The talent show is only 5 days away after all. You did say you wanted to compete, right?”

“Yeah, that's right, the crusaders were kind of bugging me to join in this year, so I decided, what the hay, why not.”

“And since you're a dragon and all, there's no risk of you burning yourself with the fire tricks you're planning to do,” Twilight smiled brightly as she imagined all the personal safety hazards that could have been, but weren't thanks to Spike's draconian body.

“Yup. All I gotta do now is get those torches, practice some more, and I'll be good to go!” he made a triumphant pose as he looked off into the distance, making Twilight giggle from his vain attempt at looking cool.

But Spike's stance soon faltered as he bent over, clenching onto his stomach as his cheeks bulged out. His eyes derped for a moment before he let out a big burp, sending out a ball of green fire with a letter encased in it. The fire dissipated, allowing the letter to drop neatly to the floor as Spike recovered from the princess's postal system.

“A letter?” Twilight's ears perked up as she looked at the letter on the ground before quickly trotting over to it. As she lifted it up, she noticed the royal seal attached to it. She was about to announce the discovery when she stopped herself, realizing that it was obvious who sent it. Quickly moving her thoughts forward, she began to unroll the note with her magic. “I wonder what it's about.”

“Maybe the princess is going to request that you take part in the coming talent show in order to learn something about friendship,” Spike offered.

“Hmm, maybe, but I dunno...” Twilight trailed off as she read through the letter closely.

Spike watched as her eyes suddenly widened harshly, her jaw dropping, and what almost seemed like a whimper come out of her throat. Those expressions eventually began to lessen in magnitude, but quickly came right back in full force a few seconds later, and even adding a hoof to cover the mouth to boot. Truly, something terribly wrong was going on.

“Well? What's all the fuss?” Spike asked impatiently.

“Oh no, Spike, there's been a horrible accident in Canterlot!” Twilight exclaimed as she looked at him with tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Woah, what's going on?” Spike walked towards her, taken aback by how seriously she was taking it.

“The letter says that the Canterlot Library had a fire just yesterday, and destroyed most of the books in the basement section! Oh, all those precious books...!” Twilight's sadness grew as she pictured the hundreds of pounds of parchment, many probably lone copies or originals, burning in to nothing but ash. But as she continued to read on, another detail didn't sadden her, but instead horrified her. “Oh no...” she said under her breath.

“What is it?” Spike's interest perked up at her sudden change in demeanor. He anticipated the sadness, but the horrific look caught him off guard.

“Somepony... died...” she said in a voice close to a whisper. “I-it says the librarian on duty that day was burned alive inside of the basement section near the checkout desk. He was only a few feet from the exit...” Twilight could feel tears form up in her eyes as she fell back onto her rump. How could such a thing happen? She thought to herself. Some innocent, book-loving pony was just trying to escape the fire, and then they just... didn't make it.

“Oh man, that does sound harsh...” Spike shifted uncomfortably as he crossed his arms.

“Wait, there's more,” Twilight spoke up, trying to push her focus off the lost for her own sake. “The last part of the letter says Princess Celestia is going to be sending us some books that they saved from the fire so we can hold onto them until the repairs are finished.”

“Wait, more books? Here? But why?” Spike seemed to get somewhat frantic, however that was still mixed in with the awkward uncomfortableness of hearing about somepony dieing in a fire. “I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but don't they have somewhere else to store them in the meantime? Like another library or-”

“They may have already moved some books into storage, or to other libraries like Manehatten,” Twilight explained as she came up with her best explanation. “My guess is that there's some left over, and they want us to hold them for now. I hope we have enough room...” Twilight looked around her library, seeing all the shelves already packed with books.

“I doubt that,” Spike said sheepishly.

“Well we'll figure something out,” Twilight said as she stood up and began walking around the main area, holding the letter beside her with magic. “I mean, we can use the basement, there's some room there. I'll just have to consolidate my lab equipment into one area to make room... Oh, and there's some room in the back section of the library! And maybe in my room too, and...” Twilight trailed off as she took a close look at some of the bookshelves.

“Or, ya know, we could just dump'em on top of the library house in the leaves until they can take'em back. I mean, then we won't have to shelve or organize anything, right?” Spike gave a nervous chuckle. But in the back of his mind he already knew what was coming, and was his mind was desperately trying to figure out a way to coax Twilight out of not doing it, or better yet not even getting the idea in the first place.

“Hmmm,” Twilight rubbed a hoof on her chin as she squinted her eyes, looking up and down the set of shelves in front of her. “There's something peculiar about the shelves that I can't place my hoof on...”

“Well, how about an empty house somewhere? That way they're out of the weather and safe and sound until-”

“Aha!' Twilight shouted with a sense of satisfaction as she looked at the ends of the bookcases, noticing the spaces between the books and the wooden barriers. “That's it, these books are not fitted into the shelves to maximize input!”

If Spike had skin instead of scales, he would be pale at that moment. There was something he noticed all the while they had lived in the library, something he picked up on while being Twilight's assistant that she hadn't noticed since he was always the one putting the books back and picking them out. Something that made Spike's job so much easier when it came to putting a book back into place, instead of having to force it in against tightly packed books.

“Spike, if we're going to make enough room for these books, then we'll have to measure each and every book's width and calculate the precise length allowed per shelf in order to maximize storing efficiency!” Twilight announced proudly, happy with her mind coming up with such a clever solution.

And thus became Spike's worst fear... ever. Even worse than re-shelving day. It was when Twilight figured out that the books weren't compact like they were in her home in Canterlot, and decided that they would need to reorganize every book into a tighter and compact order so it would be more “efishint” or whatever that word was.

And by “they” it meant him.

It was always him.

With ALL of the books in the entire library.

“Oh no...” Spike whispered as he watched every book become surrounded by a purple aura and slowly slide out of the shelves.

And with that, every single book floated out of their spot on all of the shelves, and unceremoniously dropped onto the floor.

A dull thud reached Twilight's ears, causing her to turn around to see Spike face down on the floor.

“Uh, Spike?” Twilight moved closer to her fainted assistant, poking him on one of his big scales that poked out of the top of his head when she got close enough. “Spike?”

No response, other then a very low, disgruntled moan that lasted for a good long breath.

“Was it something I said?”

---

“And the length of the next one?”

“Uuuhh... two centimeters...”

“Exactly two centimeters? Check the millimeter scale, please.”

“Uuuhh... twenty one millimeters .”

“Ya see that, Spike?” Twilight asked as she smiled triumphantly, using her magic to jot the numbers down onto a piece of paper. “Those little calculations are what matter in situations such as this! It's a good thing we used the millimeter scale.”

“Uuuhh...” Spike groaned, setting the book he was holding down into a large pile of books and picking up another one from an even larger pile on the other side of him.

All of the books had been piled up on one side of the main room of the library with Spike and Twilight seated at the center, Spike having a ruler in his hand and the book he was measuring while Twilight had her ink, quill, and a large stack of papers to record the measurements. While Twilight was finding the activity quite recreational and overall enjoyable, Spike had been effectively turned into a zombie.

“Now, on to the next-” Twilight was interrupted by a knock on the door. She got up and went to the door, opening it up to see a light gray coat and brown maned pony in a suit and a royal guard beside him.

“Are you Twilight Sparkle?” The pony in the suit asked.

“Um, yes, that's me.”

“My name is Scripter Scratch, I'm the head of the Canterlot Library. We're here to deliver a portion of books from the library in that suffered a fire,” The suited pony explained.

“You received a letter from Princess Celestia, correct?” The guard asked.

“Yes, that's correct, I've actually been expecting your arrival,” Twilight replied.

“Well then, we're all set,” Scripter nodded in content as he turned to something to Twilight's left but out of her sight. “Okay, bring it over!” he called out.

Twilight watched as a large carriage filled with boxes was pulled by four pegasi just in front of the library door. The carriage opened up and Twilight immediately began floating all of the boxes inside, her face beaming with excitement. So many new books to read through, and straight from the Canterlot Library itself. She didn't know exactly where the books were coming from, but she made a mental note to ask.

After a while, all the boxes of literature were stacked inside the main room of the library and the ponies were preparing to leave. But just before doing so, Twilight caught the library owner just before he got back in the carriage.

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Scratch!” Twilight called as she approached him.

“Yes, what is it Ms. Sparkle?”

“Exactly what part of the library did these books come from? Like, genre or section-wise.”

“Oh, these are some of the books that managed to survive the fire in the basement,” he explained. “Some of them might have slight burns or scorch marks on them, so don't be surprised if you come across one like that.”

“Alright, thank you very much,” Twilight and Scripter exchanged smiles before he got into the carriage with the royal guard and the empty carriage was pulled away.

Twilight turned back to the inside of the library, the smile still present on her face as she saw the multiple boxes filled with books. She grew excited inside, but it was a bitter sweet feeling as she remembered why the books were even there in the first place. But still, she had been granted something, might as well make the best of it, she figured.

“Alright Spike, we got the books!” Twilight began as she walked back inside, closing the door behind her. “You know what that means, right?”

“Uuuhh... break time?”

“Nope! More shelving! Isn't that exciting?” Twilight smiled brightly at him, the smile dropped as she watched for the second time that day Spike fall flat on his face, giving out a long, low, disgruntled groan.

---

After a long day of shelving books in the main room, the bedroom, the back room, and even the closet, Twilight had finally managed to find a place for most of the books. Though several boxes had needed to be kept down in the basement, the last box that Twilight calculated to be able to fit was at the time being finished off, with only three books remaining in a stack against the corner of the cardboard cube. Twilight levitated the top of the last three, reading the title and giving it to Spike for shelving.

“That one goes under 'L' in the Science Section for “Chemically Engineered Lighting Systems And Their Applications With Magic.”

“Uuuhh...” Spike groaned as he lazilly slid the book into its spot on the correct shelf, finding it to be an almost tight,but still snug fit.

Twilight took out the next book, quickly scanning over the title before magicking it to Spike. “This goes under 'C' in the Learning Section for “Cutie Marks and their Kinks.”

“Uuuhh... put book in spot... slide book in spot... book in... uuuhh...”

Twilight levitated the last book out, taking notice of it and looking to Spike before scanning the title. “Great news, Spike! This is the last book! Once this is in, we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done.”

“Uuuhh... yaaaay...” Spike slumped against the ladder as he looked at Twilight with half lidded eyes. He needed sleep,that was all he wanted at the moment. Buck food, Buck tea, Buck books; sleep is what he seeked.

Twilight smiled and closed her eyes with a triumphant look on her face. She used her magic to bring up the last book, finally she opened her eyes to read the title, only to find out that...

“Hey, where's the last book?” Twilight asked as she examined the empty space in front of her. She looked down, seeing the black-covered book still sitting in the box. “Oh, silly me, I must have slipped on my magic or something. I guess I need to go to bed pretty soon in order to regain full control, heh heh.”

Twilight looked down at the book and grabbed a firm hold of it with her magic, only to find out that her attempts to lift it yielded no results. She raised an eyebrow and tried again, really emphasizing on encircling the entire tome with magic, only to discover that her hold simply slipped off when she tried to raise it out, as if the book either didn't exist, or simply could not be affected by magic.

“Well that's weird...” Twilight said aloud as she tried again and again to grab a hold of the book, her horn flaring up with magic over and over. “Why can't I grab this last book!?”

After several more tries, she stopped as she turned her head to see Spike sleepily walk over and pick the book out of the box with his claws before handing it to Twilight. She took it in her hooves, looking down at the tome as if it was some sort of alien device, which, upon thinking about it for a moment, made her giggle inwardly, for she new it was no such thing.

“Uuuhh... last book... done... bed...” Spike muttered as he drudged his way up the stairs to the bed room, his eyes not even opening as he used his memory of the library to guide him to his awaiting bed.

Twilight didn't pay any mind as she examined the book in her hooves, turning it over time and time again as she tried to focus her magic on different spots on it, such as the cover or the pages inside, eventually coming to find out that though she could feel the book in its entirety with her magic, she could not use magic to affect it in any physical way. She was dumbfounded, and quickly ran a scan to see if the book was perhaps enchanted or cursed, and that's when the second strange magically-related instance occurred.

Her horn suddenly glowed like a light for a brief second, signaling that there was indeed some sort of magical influence infused with the book. But what usually happened was she would receive a mental picture or information on the type of influence that was present, but she didn't receive anything. No construction blueprints of any spell or enchantment, no time or place of casting, no source, no weak or strong spots, not even the type of magic. All she knew was that some force was keeping her magic from affecting the book, and that was it.

It was like running into a blank wall. Usually when she examined any other type of enchantment or spell effect of some sort, such a wall would be decorated with information and instructions, perhaps a window to see through the spell, to see what kept it held up on the other side, or perhaps even a door to allow her access. But that wall had nothing, not even single trace of anything on it wherever she looked. That's what confused her the most, because no matter what magic is used and who or what uses it, there is always some sort of residual effect or some clue residing in the product of any spell or anything with magic, even Princess Celestia confirmed this when Twilight was studying directly under her.

But this book, this strangely enchanted tome, had nothing at all. And when Twilight turned to the front, she was even more baffled to discover the lack of any sort of title on its hardcover surface. She wondered what it was, and her curiosity led her to crack the book open, only to reveal completely blank pages. Figuring it to simply be a blank part of the book, she turned the pages, again, and again, and again, every time discovering that there were no words, illustrations, or marks at all on the pages. Out of every feeling she was experiencing at the time, the one that overrode them all was confusion.

As she was about to close the book after looking over it one last time, she felt a slight breeze push against her mane and coat. It was cold, a kind of icy cold cold, and it sent intense shivers through her as if the fibers of her coat had suddenly become tiny icicles and slowly digging into her skin. Then came a whirl of dizziness in her mind, followed by her eyes suddenly getting heavy, as if she had the need for sleep.

The world around her spun for a few moments, her ears no longer recieving sound as she could only hear a light ring, as if she had gone deaf. She reared back and shook her head a bit as she quickly closed the book, immediately feeling the warmth and her senses return. That was weird... she thought to herself as she stared at the book in her hooves with a raised eyebrow. What in Equestria could have made the air suddenly cold like that? I don't-

Twilight's thoughts were interrupted as a clock on her wall went off, signaling the arrival of midnight. She looked up at the clock, and then back to the book, her nose scrunching up. Whatever it is, I'll figure it out tomorrow. It's time for bed. She opened up the book one more time to see if she would feel the cold chill again, only to discover that the same effect didn't repeat itself. After momentarily questioning her own sanity, Twilight decided to set the book down on her desk and began to walk towards the stairs to her room. As she magically turned the lights out, she headed up into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

What she didn't notice, however, was the glow that appeared on the cover of the blank book after the lights went out.