The Struggles of Running a Book Store

by arcanica_scripta

Return of the Sun; Did That Just Happen?

If there was one thing the young author prided herself on, it was being able to usually keep a level head in most circumstances. Unlike Lily, Daisy and Roseluck, she could generally keep her head on straight and not panic at the drop of a hat. That being said, for Page to see a distinct lack of a Princess and for nopony to know the whereabouts of said Princess was very concerning. What made it go from concerning to terrifying was when Nightmare Moon, a FOAL'S TALE, appeared instead of Celestia. Needless to say, when the mayor declared a state of emergency after six mares ran off after said foal's tale, among which was Twilight Sparkle, Page Turner was all too aware of how serious things now were.

As the mayor began trying to organize everypony and keep the panic to a minimum, not that the aforementioned sisters were helping, Page took a look around herself. Sure, there wasn't panicked screaming and hysteria, but the adults were restless, and the foals were either crying or about to start. Deciding what she should do, she walked over to where Cheerilee had corralled the foals and was doing her best to keep the crying to a minimum. "Hey, Cheerilee. Anything I can do to help with the little ones?" she asked.

The teacher looked at her in slight surprise, considering the most they spoke about was textbooks for the school. Before she could reply though, one of the fillies, a baby-pink Earth Pony, cut in. "What do you mean, 'can do to help'?! Princess Celestia is gone! We're all doomed!"

"Diamond Tiara, calm down," hissed a small grey filly of the same type.

Ok, clearly I have my work cut out for me, she mused as Cheerilee tried talking down both fillies. Let's see if I can't come up with something to try and calm them down. "Well, I wouldn't say that so quickly," she casually told the students. When the group of foals, especially the two fillies, looked at her incredulousy, she gave a soft smile. "For starters, if the stories are true, then Princess Celestia has defeated Nightmare Moon before, and can easily do it again." I hope. By now, she had their attention and figured out enough of a story to lighten the mood. "Besides, we ponies have lived through ages of darkness before. No matter what happens, we always find our light."

"What do ya'll mean?" asked a pale yellow filly, her red main tied back with a large pink ribbon. "How can ponies 'find our light'?"

"Well," she said, shooting the grateful teacher an "I got this" look, "a long time ago, before even Princess Celestia, Equestria didn't have a sun. The ponies lived in darkness with nothing more than the stars and the moon to light up their sky. Nopony had ever known differently, so for many years they lived in that low, dim light."

"So, what happened?" asked a cream colored Earth Pony. Her eyes were shining from behind her glasses.

"Well one day, a mighty dragon descended on Equestria. However, to the ponies, he was nothing more than a large, menacing shadow, which only served to make his roars all the more terrifying." Page Turner had a soft smile on her face at the eager smiles and looks as she kept talking. The foals were now focused on her story, and not on the current situation. "Eventually, the dragon came upon a small village named Cantorbury. There, he demanded the ponies bring him all of their gems and precious stones. The citizens, however, couldn't do so, as they had never been able to reliably create a form of light to help find such stones." She took a very quick pause, allowing the foals to think on her story so far.

"Angered, the dragon roared to the skies. 'How dare these ponies not appease him?' he thought. In his anger, he unleashed a wave of fire on the small village before flying off in anger." Several of the foals gasped, and looked scared at the thought of a dragon burning a village to the ground. "At first, everypony was terrified. Though they didn't know what fire was, they were able to figure out what it was doing to their homes. However, one Unicorn saw something the others didn't. Everywhere there was fire, there was light. And wherever there was light, there was color. He was amazed. Never before had somepony seen something like colors. It was beautiful.

"However, he saw that as fires went out, so too did the light they created. Terrified he would lose those beautiful colors, he called upon his magic and brought the fires together in the center of town and bound it to that spot. With the fires contained, he called for every pony to gather around and see what he did. As the town came together, they were amazed by this fire. The warmth it gave off was unlike anything they had ever known, and the light allowed them to see one another clearly for the first time."

"Wait, a minute," interrupted an orange Pegasus filly. "They hadn't been able to see each other before? How does that work?"

Before Page could continue, a white Unicorn snapped back at her. "She means they couldn't see what color everypony was or how they actually looked. Not that everypony was unable to see anything!" As the two continued arguing, Page chuckled before continuing with her story.

"As I was saying, the ponies of Cantorbury were amazed at this new source of light, and in time were able to recreate it with their magic. As for the Unicorn who first harnessed this power, he became known as Torch Bearer, and lead Cantorbury for many years. As time moved on for Cantorbury, the ponies there were able to harness the flames and use it to light their journey to explore Equestria. As they did so, they found numerous villages all across Equestria who remained lost in the darkness. The ponies of Cantorbury, knowing all too well how long they had suffered in the dark, decided to share their flames with all of Equestria. And so, an age of light was ushered into Equestria.

"Unfortunately, the ponies quickly realized how limited the scope of their solution was. As helpful as the fire was, the ponies of Equestria were struggling to keep their towns lit as they continued to grow into larger towns and even cities. What was more troublesome was that as the ponies of Equestria continued to master their control of fire, other races began to covet the ponies' ability to control this light in a way that not even the dragons had achieved. Ultimately, Cantorbury, the home of the greatest fire of them all and a now thriving city, came under attack as other races desired the light that the great fire had to offer. The ponies of Cantorbury fought to protect what they held dear, and were afraid of how they could fall should they lose the first fire. In the end, the son of Torch Bearer, Solar Burst, decided only one solution would be effective, and gathered the Unicorns of his court for his final risk." She deliberately stopped here, a smile on her face at how eager the foals all were.

"What happened?!" they all whined/demanded. "What was the plan? What did they do?"

"Everypony, look! The sun's coming up!" yelled Cloudchaser from her place in front of the window. A collective gasp ran through the crowd, and everypony ran outside to see the Pegasus was right. On the far horizon, the sun was rising up once more as the moon slowly sank down. Everypony was eagerly muttering and cheering at the sight of the familiar orb of light.

"That's what he did," he told the foals that were still paying attention. "He placed that great flame in the sky, so that everypony, be it dragon, pony or even griffons could enjoy the light of the great fire."

Any further discussions were prevented or cut off as a blinding light appeared in the center of town in front of the city hall. When Page opened her eyes, she gasped before quickly bowing like everypony around her at the sight of Princess Celestia standing before them, a group of six familiar fillies standing beside her. "Citizens of Ponyville," she declared loudly and commanding their attention, "As you know, Nightmare Moon has returned from her prison of the last thousand years. However, through the efforts of Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student, and her friends, Nightmare Moon has been vanquished once more!" There were brief cheers and some sighs of relief, which the Princess cut off by flaring her wings up. "In doing so, they have not only saved Equestria from great danger, but have saved somepony very dear to me. Citizens of Ponyville, may I present to you, my sister: Princess Luna!" She stepped to the side at this, and revealed a smaller dark blue Alicorn with a pale blue mane and tail.

There were a number of gasps through the crowd as nopony knew there had been a second princess. Princess... Luna? thought the author.

"And so, now that we have all come together and my sister returned to me, I hereby declare that the Summer Sun Celebration... begin!" The Princess's declaration was met with cheers as everypony cheered to welcome the younger Princess back from wherever she had been.

Page Turner had to admit, this year's Summer Sun Celebration easily surpassed every prior instance of the celebration. As the day-long celebration went on, Page was able to speak some more with Twilight Sparkle, the Unicorn everypony was talking about since she had saved Equestria with her friends. Apparently, she was quite the fan of books, though she was clearly more of an intellectual in her preferences than a fan of the fantasy Page preferred to write. Fine by me, she thought to herself. Makes it that much easier on me.

"So, what do you do besides run your book store?" asked Twilight.

"Well, I publish my own personal work to supplement the income I get from my store," Page replied, trying to hopefully not come off too conceited... not that she was, but everypony tended to think she was when she mentioned her work. "I mostly submit short stories and the occasional poem to a couple of literary magazines in Canterlot and Manehatten." Among other projects of mine.

"Wait, your that Page Turner?" she asked in amazement. "I've been subscribed to Canterlot Literary Digest for a while and I love the stories you write for them. I'm amazed that's you! I always thought you were... ah... well..."

The author smirked and raised an eyebrow. "A stallion?"

"Y... yeah..." she admitted shamefully. "Sorry about that."

Page chuckled at that and waved it off. "Don't worry about it. Unfortunately, my parents thought it would be a perfect name for me well before I was even born. If I had been born a stallion, that is. Nice to see it still throws everypony off from figuring out who I am.

"Twilight!" Pinkie bounced over wearing a party hat and with a large chocolate cake and extra plates balanced perfectly on her back. As was expected when Pinkie Pie was involved, the plates on her back did not move in the slightest. "Oh, hi Pagey! Twilight! Have you tried my super double choco-deluxe chocolate cake?"

The purple mare laughed nervously at the idea of such a thing, while the crimson Unicorn heartily chuckled at Pinkie's antics. "Pinkie Pie, you know I could never refuse a piece of chocolate cake. I think we'll each take a Pinkie Piece of that," she told the Party Pony. If she had one weakness, it had to be chocolate cake. A side effect of her upbringing and home town. Somethings were just ingrained into somepony that they couldn't just ignore it.

"Pinkie Piece?" If her tone of voice was anything to go by, Twilight sounded somewhat skeptical about the term and how big that meant a piece would be.

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pulling a cake knife out of nowhere, she quickly carved it into fourths before somehow managing to plate two of the fourths and presenting them to the two Unicorns. "Here you go! Enjoy!" Her work, done, the pink mare bounced off to continue to handing out cake.

"Are we seriously supposed to eat this much cake?!" asked Twilight in shock. "There's way too much cake!"

"Trust me," Page told her as she took a bite, "if it's a Pinkie Pie cake, it's worth the stomach ache." Wishing her farewell, Page walked off to enjoy the rest of the celebration and her cake. Everypony was having a huge blast, and she got quite a few "thank you"s from Cheerilee's class and their parents for keeping the foals calm and occupied during the initial panic. She could have done without a couple of students coming up to tell her they knew she wasn't telling the truth, but the thought was there.

When she went to grab some more food, she wound up in front of both Princesses. "Oh, your Highnesses. It's an honor," she said while giving both sisters a quick bow. "My name is Page Turner."

The white alicorn chuckled while Luna nodded to her with a small smile. "Greetings, my little pony. It's a pleasure to meet you. I've been rather taken of late with your stories."

Page chuckled nervously. "Oh, you know who I am?"

The princess nodded as she took a bite of her own slice of cake. "Yes. I'm rather fond of stories that deal with pushing the limits of somepony's imagination." She gave a knowing smile to Page Turner. "In fact, they remind me of another author I'm rather fond of."

"Oh... do they?" she asked hesitantly. Oh no... don't tell me she made the connection between the stories I write under my alias and my real name.

"You're a fan of Hoofcraft, aren't you?" It took everything she had to loudly sigh in relief at the question. "I noticed you write similarly to how they write, and use very similar concepts to whichever book she just published."

Deciding to play along with Princess Celestia's assumption, she nodded. "Yes, that's right. I happen to enjoy a good horror story myself, so I try emulating the style she uses in her writings for my own stories." She noticed Princess Luna staring at her with narrowed eyes at her explanation, but chalked it up to how casually she was speaking with the older sister.

After a couple more minutes of discussion over the merits of horror fiction, the elder princess took note of the time and whispered something to her sister. With a gentle smile, she excused herself from the conversation before calling for the attention of everypony's attention. After a few words of celebration over the occasion and congratulating Twilight and her friends, she got to why she called for everypony's attention.

Evidently, it was time for the Princesses to return to Canterlot and Twilight was to go with them. Much to everypony's (un)surprise, Twilight decided to stay in Ponyville with her new friends. Princess Celestia allowed it, something Page very much expected to happen considering how much she seemed to care for the Unicorn. With the Princesses' departure and the party winding down, Page decided to head back to her shop/home. Upon arriving back at her home, she did a quick check to make sure her store was ready for the following day before returning to her home on the second floor.

Much like she left it the night before, the loosely bound book was still sitting on her dining table with her quill and inkpot beside it. She looked at the book with a confident smile. "Alright book, this is the night I finish you. I know just what to do." Quickly getting herself a cup of tea, she opened to where she had left off and grabbed her quill. Time to get to work. As she worked well into the night, she wondered what would happen for Ponyville after tonight. After all, the events of the last 24 hours were probably just a one-time thing... right?

---

Princess Celestia smiled gently as she watched Luna happily raise the moon for the first time in a thousand years. "Oh, how I've missed this, sister."

"As have I, Celestia," she said joyfully, evidently still too happy to bother with her obsession with adhering to court manners. "Although, I am amazed at how much has changed in my absence."

Celestia chuckled at her sister's blunt statement. "Yes well, a thousand years is quite a long time. Nothing stays the same forever, Luna."

"Is that why you allowed that red unicorn to lie to your face the way that she did?" Celestia blinked, not quite knowing where her sister was coming from. Seeing the confusion, Luna clarified. "When you were speaking with that mare Page Turner, I noticed that she was lying to you for most of the conversation. It was strange. She was honest in her statements about her passion and preferences of writing, but any time she mentioned her personal life or inspirations I could tell she was lying."

"Are you sure?"

Luna nodded. "Though I am no longer its bearer, I retain the ability to notice great dishonesty within ponies before me." Celestia nodded at her sister's explanation.

That's right, she thought to herself. Luna was the first Element of Honesty, wasn't she.. But that left a much bigger question. What was Page Turner lying to her about? And why?

Author's Note:

There we go, the story has begun! While the comment about "Page Turner" sounding like a stallion name bugged me a little, I figured I could find a way to work it into the story. Obviously its not her real name, but everyone else in Ponyville won't know what her name is until much later. I might reveal it soon to the audience, but it depends on how redundant the whole "hidden name" thing becomes.

EDIT: Fleshed out the chapter and added in proper foreshadowing for later plot elements that I realized I should have written the further I got in the chapters and story map. Edited on January 15, 2019

Comments

[Dashie04]

After doing a quick TVTropes examination of Lovecraft, I could say about a half dozen things about Page Turner that I’ll choose not to say.

[NecromanCREEEEEE]

9768923
You could say a lot of things about a lot of creatives. Even dr. Seuss had darker works and was a heavy smoker. You can enjoy art and prose without agreeing with the artist, and you honestly should do that.