11. Cold Season
The Substitute Librarian
Cold Season
Night was cruel. Morning was crueler. Dawn strode boldly into the room with spiked boots and a whip, and not the polite bedroom variety either. Dawn believed in carrying a salted whip with shards of ice in the strands.
After a considerable amount of stressing, heaving, grunting, stressing, and one exceedingly terrifying moment when he thought the real librarian had snuck into her bedroom sometime during the night and was sleeping above him, an exhausted Emerald managed to roll out from underneath Twilight Sparkle’s bed.
Although the same beam of morning Sun that had stabbed through the bedroom Phrench doors at the exact moment of its raising remained squarely in his eyes.
His sleeping position was probably responsible for much of his pain. Frost was also a possibility. Sometime in the middle of the night, the library heating device had given up the proverbial librarian ghost, Thankfully, the technological exorcism had merely frozen a worthless spare librarian, not one of the fabled Bearers.
One painful limb at a time, Emerald stretched out, feeling a twinge in every single muscle he had used yesterday to mop and reshelf, as well as a stiffness to his shaggy coat that certainly could be ice. Worse, there was an industrial-sized plug of mucus that had set up camp in his nostrils and showed no sign of being blown or snorted out.
At least the sleet and drizzle had stopped outside, replaced by a biting wind that howled around the library bark like a starving windigo. No sane pony would willingly go out into that frostbitten wasteland.
Emerald was not feeling very sane.
He grabbed his battered hat, heaved himself to his hooves, and stiffly headed for the bedroom door. After checking the library heater and finding it completely unresponsive to his minimal technical skills, he stumbled downstairs to the bathroom, determined to get outside and complete his tasks before a growing amount of common sense and hypothermia stopped him.
Must launder towels and couch throw, now. Twilight Sparkle won’t just arrest me for leaving this much mud and loose hair in the pile of soggy towels in her bathtub. She’ll kill me. And Celestia would probably pardon her for it, provided Twilight writes a paper on the event and tidies up after herself.
Laundry was a quest worthy of a hero.
Don Rocinante looked for his armor and prepared to tilt at the nearest windmill on his way to the laundromat.
Unfortunately, there were no convenient coats his size in the castle armory. He pulled out his thin raincoat, and cinched it around him as tight as it would go.
Thankfully, the library owned a sizable laundry bag. He filled it with wet, hairy, muddy towels.
Alas, there was no cold medicine within the castle’s alchemical stores to stiffen the resolve of said hero, other than a bottle of painkillers. He took two.
Thus prepared for his quest, the Knight of the Frozen Niblets opened the front door of his leafy castle to face the extremely early Sun, and one surprised library patron.
“Closed for laundry,” Emerald managed to say without snorting too much phlegm on the poor old stallion. “The town does have a laundromat, right?”
* * *
Father’s company did not make washing machines, but they did make several of the components. Most unicorn devices were graded as Consumer, Industrial, and Military, but a certain fraction of them fell in a special grade of toughness.
Laundromat.
It took substantial denial to consider the metal housing around the washing machine as anything except armor, particularly with the number of dents each of the battered machines had suffered over the years. The cashboxes in particular sported a series of shiny scratches from frustrated customers, and more than one blackened char mark that indicated a pegasus had managed the feat of getting a cloud stuffed into the small concrete building and aiming a bolt at their target of ire.
There were four washing machines, one of which was in a state of obvious repair, and one with the more subtle sign of a small glowing red light that said ‘Service’ on the top. Of the two remaining, one was blessedly empty and the last machine was in use.
“Sheets,” he muttered, looking down into the washtub with a sniff. Normally, he would scoop the wet laundry into a dryer to both be helpful and free up a machine, but the last thing anypony wanted was snot covering their precious property. It was going to take two loads in the empty washer, so he loaded it up to the line, added a cup of washing powder from the library’s scant supply, and stuck two bits in the coin mechanism.
There was a cheerful clunking noise, and nothing more.
Betrayed,” snorted Emerald, switching to old Ponish for emphasis. “<Foul dragon, thou engluts mine own gold and produceth nothing. A pox upon thee and thy wretch'd offspring! May thee choketh upon thy stolen treasure and roteth in the F'rest Ev’erfree eternally!>”
While he was stewing, Emerald became aware of the click-click-click of tiny hooves on the bare concrete floor behind him. A small pink unicorn foal stood in the laundromat doorway, looking up at him with curious eyes, which made him quite glad to have avoided common profanity when faced with the reluctant washing machine.
“Hello, there.” Emerald bent down so his height would not frighten the child. He really did not feel like promoting his career as a unicorn magic teacher to a prospective unicorn student who most probably could not even spark yet, so he settled for what was probably as much of a smile as he was able. “You probably shouldn’t be playing in the laundromat without your parents.”
The child was not in the story-reading group from his last visit to town, so Emerald was at a loss for her name, but not for long.
“Berry Pinch, come here!” The voice was sharp, shrill, and cutting as a rusty knife, much different than the otherwise pretty pinkish mare who poked her sharp nose into the laundromat. “What are you doing talking to strangers?”
“I’m the—” Emerald did not get to finish his introduction, because the earth pony mare finished coming around the corner and continued in his direction, much like the metaphorical Unstoppable Object That Was Going To Trample Somepony And You Look Like It.
“What are you doing with my sheets!” she snapped, poking her nose into the open washer. With swift, practiced movements, she flung the damp bedcovers into one of the functional dryers, slammed a bit coin into the slot, and mashed the start button. “That’s my dryer! Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am—”
“Touch it and I’ll have you arrested. Come on, Berry.” There was a brief thunder of hooves and the mare was gone, followed quickly by her small unicorn foal who did not even wave at him while hurrying to catch her mother.
“And a good day to you and your daughter, ma’am.”
Emerald touched the brim of his fedora, then bit his bottom lip while settling down in the laundromat’s chair to hide his nervous trembling. The situation could easily have been far worse. If the angry mother had called him some sort of pervert, the news would have spread through the town like dragonfire, and his future career as a teacher would be toast. One careless moment, and sitting all morning on a lopsided chair waiting on the washing machines would have been his least problem. He should have done laundry last night, even if it had still been drizzling, and left mopping up the puddles for… No, wood floors and puddles did not get along. Wood warped, and last night’s heater failure would have left him able to ice skate around the library this morning, complete with ramps.
The only good thing he had going so far was a known working washing machine, and he was not looking forward to moving the mess of wet towels and sticky laundry detergent to its new goal. Particularly with his upcoming wait in the lopsided chair, trying to ignore snot oozing out of his nose and the beginnings of a fever starting to prickle under his hat.
There were some days when all options sucked just as hard.
Focus on the present. Laundry needs done. Get off your fat rear and do it. Go to store. Buy replacement towels, cold medicine, and yarn. Fix library heater. World peace.
“Is Berry Punch gone?” asked a voice from behind him. Turning in the chair revealed the young copper-maned pegasus from several weeks ago, who had just parked a small cart outside of the laundromat. Her steel-grey feathers were ruffled and disordered, and her short mane tangled as if she had just gotten out of bed, but she had the most beautiful golden eyes, even if they were slightly bloodshot. And familiar, somehow.
Be professional. She’s probably married, with six foals. And she fixes devices… like the library heater.
“Yes, Miss Ratchette,” he managed, realizing what a mess he had to look with a snuffling nose and unpressed clothes. He did not even want to try another smile, for fear of driving away yet another mare. “The fair lady has departed to bless some other location in Ponyville with her divine presence until her laundry finishes drying. I take it you’re here to fix the washing machines?”
“Just heard one of them was broken. The one on the end is a parts machine.” She hurried forward and looked down into Emerald’s mess of damp towels and crystalizing laundry powder. “Did you give the coin lever a good shove? This one’s stubborn.” She gave the indicated device a solid strike that made the metal ring with impact, then smiled as the water began to run inside the tub. “There. No charge.”
“Wonderful.” Emerald lugged his laundry bag over to the other functional washing machine and began to fill it, despite a low shiver running up his side. “Care to take that delicately calibrated tool over to the library and give the heater there a good thumping when you’re done here?”
“Depends.” Ratchette went outside and returned with a hefty toolbox, which she placed next to the washing machines.
“Depends on how long it takes you here?” Emerald measured out another cup of detergent for the laundry and fumbled for his bit pouch, trying not to get any snot on it.
“Depends on how much you’re going to pay me. Particularly, since I know Twilight locked up the library checkbook before she left.” Ratchette unlatched the front of the broken washing machine with a cleverly bent piece of metal and began to wrestle the access cover free, which precluded her saying anything else.
That put Emerald in a pickle. He planned on sneaking over to the Bargain Barn while the laundry was laundering so he could get personal supplies, as well as a cheap towel or two to replace the ones that had wandered away during his tenure as library guardian. He just did not have enough bits to shop and pay for the heater repairs without getting out his own checkbook, and that would put a giant spike right in the middle of his attempt to remain relatively anonymous in the town.
Despite his current situation, Emerald was fascinated by the way Ratchette went after the machine like it had done something terrible to her ancestors. There were occasional kicks conducted in the close quarters of the machine’s mechanisms, a degree of appropriate profanity that Father would have approved of, and the faint jingle of a bent coin rolling out to land on the floor.
“You found the problem fairly fast,” said Emerald in his most encouraging voice. He had to say something to avoid commenting on her rump, which was the only thing sticking out from under the washing machine, and making little interesting wriggles while she worked at the other end.
“Just a Mazin Knutt that fell out of the cashbox,” she said with a grunt. “Course threading, so it won’t fit anything Equestrian anyway. Leave it alone. I’m going to add it to my coin collection.”
It would have been a good opportunity to start small talk about mutual interests if he had not been feeling so miserable, but it was something to file away for future reference, particularly when bill-paying time came around. Besides, the octagonal Knutt was pre-seventh dynasty, and his own youthful collection had several from that time period that were not bent, as this one was.
“Never mind,” he grumbled, trying to look resolute and determined, much as whenever his father was faced with a plumbing problem. “I’ll go pull the library’s heater housing off when I go back there and see what I can do myself. Can’t be too difficult to poke around in it.”
“Whoa, hold on there, Lightning Lips.” Ratchette looked back over her shoulder with a screwdriver still clenched in her jaws. “Couple weeks ago, you went poking around in that wagon shock absorber over at my shop and nearly killed yourself. I’m pretty sure Twilight wants to come back to a tree, not a bonfire.”
Ah, a nibble.
“I can do it,” insisted Emerald with a snotty sniff. “It’s an antique Hoofford and Stallbrunner, so there’s nothing too complex in it. Not like the newer models, with all their fancy gadgets and regulators.”
“Those regulators keep you from blowing up the heating chamber.” Somehow, Ratchette had managed to get a dab of grease on her face in the brief time she had been working under the other washing machine, which looked unbearably cute on her little turned-up nose.
“If she didn’t leave the checkbook, there’s no other option.” Emerald gave the washing machine coin box a push to get his bits in the slot and tried not to look as if it were too much of a victory over the day so far when the mechanism started. “I’ve got stuffed sinuses from sleeping in that icebox last night. A second night will probably kill me. There’s got to be some tools in the library, and maybe a manual on it. She’ll appreciate me saving some of her building budget.”
“What, you think she’ll greet you at the door with hugs and kisses for your accomplishments?” Ratchette had vanished most of her front half inside the washer by now, and her voice gained an odd echo while she worked. “She was madder than a dragon with a stubbed toe when you left that first time. Took three of her friends to hold her back, or she would have stomped right up the mountain and tracked you down.”
It seemed like the time for a dramatic, snot-filled snort in a futile effort to breathe normally. “No, no. I’ve got this. I can fix it.”
There was a loud but brief noise, and Ratchette came backing out from under the washing machine, rubbing the top of her head. “Never say that, particularly around Twilight Sparkle.”
“I’ll fix it,” insisted Emerald as he walked toward the doorway on his way to the Bargain Barn. “Nothing will go wrong, I promise.”
* * *
“You’ve got this,” murmured Emerald to himself as he trotted back to the library, balancing his purchases and the clean laundry on his back. ‘To himself’ was about as loud as he was able to talk, since the cold weather had started his nose running again until snot was starting to trickle down his chin. Leaning up against the running dryer for warmth had helped, as well as using the new manebrush he had purchased for a perfunctory brushing until his thick coat was about as fluffed and straight as it was going to get without a garden rake.
“So what if the store was out of cold medicine. I’ll just steam my head with the teakettle. And I’m sure Berry was just looking for her missing pillowcase in my wet laundry, not liberating another towel for her use. I’m doing great. I’ll get the library open, blow my nose dry with these splintery paper towels I bought at the store, and fix the heater with my new manebrush and a late notice. No problem.”
The front door was unlocked, which was a problem, or actually an anti-problem, since his library key had not been in the laundry bag where he had hidden it before shopping.
And there was a familiar copper-maned mare poking around inside the library’s heating unit, which was both a problem (lack of funds) and hopefully an anti-problem (maybe a warm library after all.) Then again, having the pretty pegasus show up wherever he went was not a problem at all.
“You left your key in the laundromat,” called out Ratchette through the device she was holding in her teeth.
Rather than dispute the meaning of ‘left’ when the key had been stuffed securely inside his laundry bag, Emerald settled for “I can’t pay you” with a dramatic slobbery sniff. “I wasted my money at the store on paper towels and sandpaper, although I’m having some trouble telling them apart.”
There was a series of clunking noises before Ratchette pulled herself out of the heater’s access panel, spitting what appeared to be a metal face-hugging spider into her toolbox. “I’ll bill the city,” she said. “And since you said the library was out of cold medicine, and the Bargain Barn never keeps it in stock once we get Flitter weather, I went and picked up some from Zecora, our local zebra potion-maker. I’ll bill Twilight for that, too.”
“Zecora?” Emerald fought to keep from wrinkling up his nose and proclaiming “A zebra?” as his mother would have done. Any cold medicine, even from the notorious insular zebras, was better than sticking his head under a hot towel in the kitchenette.
“You certainly have a trusting relationship with your town’s most famous pony,” said Emerald instead, trudging into the kitchen to put on the teakettle. “Are you cousins or something?”
“Just friends.” Ratchette closed the door to the heater with a bang and bumped the activator, which purred to life and began to blow warm air. “One of my best customers, too. She breaks some of the most interesting things.”
“Hey, I broke the heater,” protested Emerald. “That’s interesting. And a thing. Where did you put the cold medicine?”
* * *
Despite the sharp frigid breeze that kept whistling around the outside of the library tree, and the departure of Ratchette for yet another repair job somewhere, Emerald was feeling marginally better than before. There were only a few library patrons willing to fight the wind, so he hung up his stiff raincloak on the appropriate hook (labelled ‘Librarian - Alternate’ as he expected), stuck the clean towels into the bathroom cabinet, and locked it.
He had heard some distant sounds of slush clouds being dumped on unsuspecting ponies during his trip back to the library, which clued him to a few bits of Flitter weather left. By accident, he had discovered the key to traveling in Flitter weather was to wait under cover until you heard the distinctive slushy-whoosh and startled cry of a distant recipient of the cranky pegasus’ talents. Then you sprinted as fast as your hooves would go until you ducked the library’s front door overhang, which was probably installed for just this purpose. At least he had a tree wrapped around him again, with warm air, dry towels, and enough zebra medicine to… do something once he got the kettle on and read the instructions.
Librarianing would wait. There was nopony waiting in line at the desk, and he was starting to dribble enough out of his nose to leave a trail. It was difficult to blame the three little pests because he kept seeing his own youth in their behavior. Besides, they would probably get their Marks in a week or two, so all he would need to do is wait that out too and everything would go back to normal.
And while waiting, he put on the kettle.
Then while the kettle was warming up, he ducked downstairs into the basement of the tree, because if there had been a washing machine down there…
Thankfully for his scratchy throat, the only machines in the basement were odd collections of wires and scientific instruments, which was good. He really did not feel like screaming his lungs out in frustration, after all. Or digging out the teapot, the strainer, the tea cosy, the teacups, a teaspoon, a tea measuring spoon, sugar cubes, honey, and whatever other strange devices were on the tea tray for the purposes of making a hot cup of tea.
Instead, he tore open the paper packet of Zebrican herbs and dumped it into the bottom of the ‘Equestria’s Greatest Student’ mug he fished off the drying rack, then added several heaping spoonfuls of powdered wake-up juice concentrate. After all, they were going to get mixed inside, so there was no reason not to mix them outside.
Even with the burner turned on high, it took forever to heat up the kettle, and Emerald considered for the umpteenth time how unicorns had an unfair advantage over their more plebeian counterparts, or at least in the field of cold medicine preparation. There was a tiny note attached to the packet detailing the administration of the concoction, but it did not say anything about mixing it with something useful, and he was going to drink the wake-up juice anyway, so meh. After squinting one last time at the scribbled instructions, he tossed the packet in the trash and looked for something to keep busy.
There were always things to do around the kitchen, so he occupied his wait time by sweeping the floor and washing the few dishes in the sink. The Zebrican herbs dissolved well in the hot water—once it was actually hot—so after being very careful to turn off the stove, he put the half-full kettle back and took a sip of the medicine.
It was… worth a second sip with some chewing of the leftover herbal bits. Then a third sip, as the hot spicy herbs released some sort of upwelling of vapor in his lungs that traveled to his plugged sinuses and began to clear them. It was not quite like the regular cold medicine his mother made from flower petals and leaves in their garden, but he really could not complain about the end results. Particularly after making himself a second cup to enjoy while strolling back out into the library and resuming the task which he had been hired to do.
The trickle of library patrons did not grow too much as Day faded, leaving him plenty of time to catch up and even get ahead of the process. The library’s ancient heating device wheezed against the load of the front door opening so many times, and Emerald suspected the damp books that came in with dripping patrons were going to take some time to dry under its slow breeze of warmth, which was fine with him.
The first few hot cups of zebra medicine had vanished somewhere during his tasks, so he returned to the kitchenette with his empty cup and checked the kettle, which still had enough warm water to make more. This time he added a sugar cube under the healthy heaping spoonful of generic wake-up juice powder, then a second, before adding the paper packet of herbs and stirring.
Despite his sniffles, Flitter weather had one major advantage. Intelligent ponies would look outside, calculate the probability of getting a cloud of slush down the back of the neck, and determine it was easier just to re-read the books they already had checked out. When closing time came around, there were not enough books stacked up on the Return table to make it worth going out into the library and putting them where they belonged, so he heaved his saddlebags up on the counter instead.
It was still a little chilly in the library’s main room, but at least he had the place to himself. This was literally the only place in Equestria where he could ‘spread out’ and attack his most recent project without interruption. At home in the family library, he would be bothered by both parents and servants, while trying to get anything this complicated done in the frat house was just begging for trouble. And staking out space in the school library was just asking for his project to be used as a hoof-wiping rug.
First things first. He spread his still slightly damp vest and fedora out to get the best effect out of the library’s ancient heater, stomped the library couch cushions until they were less lumpy, and put the container of wake-up juice concentrate next to the packets of leftover Zebrican medicine on the kitchenette table for easy access. Worst case, if he could not get to the end of the project before sleep claimed him, the library’s main room couch would be ready for his inevitable collapse. And his sinuses would remain clear.
It was peaceful. Quiet. A welcome relief from the slush and chill of the last two days. And most of all, a hole in his schedule which the long-delayed research project would fit quite nicely. He already had most of the notecards all made up, with weeks worth of research in odd hours to figure out their appropriate statistics for prominent Protocerans through recent history. All he had needed was time and space, which was finally available.
“When I get out of college,” muttered Emerald as he arranged his notecards, “I’m going to go nutters with nothing to fill my spare time. Probably wind up studying flowers or collecting feathers like Father. The last thing I’m going to do for the rest of my life is study griffon genealogy. Who killed who in what flock, who hatched from what nest.”
He placed down more notecards, then put a shoulder to the librarian’s heavy desk to give him more space. There were a lot of dead griffons to scatter around the main floor, tacked down with colored plastic pins.
“My frat brothers would move these around just to spite me,” he muttered. “At home, the servants would ‘tidy up’ behind me.” He unreeled some red yarn and began to tie it around pushpins. “Red for murder, yellow for treachery, blue for infidelity, orange for incest…”
There was a substantial pile of cards to work through, with notes on each of them. It made a fascinating evening task, with occasional trips into the kitchenette to make more cups of the zebra’s cold medicine. The generic wake-up juice powder from the librarian’s pantry fizzed when heated on the stove with the herbs, giving a bubbly potion that left an undescribable taste at the back of his mouth while clearing his sinuses like some sort of demented nasal plumber. He did not, however, try mixing it with coffee. There are some mysteries that should remain unsolved. Besides, it would probably dissolve the bottom out of the teakettle.
Professional griffon historians had a thousand theories about how certain nests were allies or rivals, mostly driven by the wants and public needs of the same nests. Their books were full of half public relations, half fantasy, half political necessities, until it was nearly impossible to separate the buckets of lies from the few niblets of truth.
One thread at a time, he wove his colorful web across the floor. It took scooting the librarian desk all the way to the checkout counter until he could get all of the cards pinned down, then the task of getting every thread arranged after that became a gargantuan time-sink, far more than he had expected.
“Don’t any of these birds die of old age?” Emerald nipped off another bit of yarn and tied it to a hefty red pin. He had already determined that particular massacre was just as inaccurate as most griffon history, since several later reports had ‘victims’ walking around just as healthy as could be. Still, there were a large number of verifiable fatalities, and the questionable ones could be validated by other strands in the web.
Maybe.
The front door of the library clicked while he was debating between white and mauve for how one would indicate a cracked egg, and the faint trit-trot of feminine hooves threatened to break his concentration on the intricate card-web. “Hello, we’re closed,” he called over his shoulder. “I put the sign up and everything.”
“Oh,” sounded a beautiful feminine voice. There was a short pause, then she added, “We… I thought Twilight Sparkle was at home.”
“She’s at a personal appearance in Manehattan,” he said while trying to focus on finding one feathered murder among dozens. “I’m Emerald. Can I help you, young lady?”
“Actually…” The unseen hooves shuffled on the bare oaken floor, and a faint sound of feathers being rearranged caused him to put a quick hoof down on the few unsorted cards.
“Careful about any gusts, Miss,” he called out over his shoulder. “I just about have my research project on griffon geneology all arranged. If you’re needing a book, go pick it out, find your library card, and I’ll get you checked out.”
Don’t check out the sexy mare while doing homework. Don’t check out the sexy mare while doing homework…
There was a long pause from behind him, most likely while the unseen mare looked over the counter at the rear of the crazy earth pony crouched down in the middle of a rainbow of yarn strands.
“Very well. We shall need whatever your library has on griffon relations over the last century. I am expected to preside over one of their diplomatic meetings next week.”
“Good luck.” Emerald waved a hoof. “History is off that way, in the second bookshelf. Minotaurs on the bottom, griffons on the top, but I can save you looking. I pulled both griffon history books earlier, and they’re sitting on the librarian desk next to my collection.”
It would have been so easy to abandon his project and go help the cute pegasus, or at least she should be cute with a voice like that. A little flirting, some late-night ‘studying’ about griffon preening… was more his brother’s preference. Graphite had the enviable ability to incite affectionate nesting behavior in any feathered female he spoke with, and had left a smiling trail of both female pegasi and griffons in his wake for years. Single ones, thankfully, and to be honest, Emerald was getting a little tired of cute feathered females edging up to him, engaging in friendly conversation, and then dropping the line, “I understand you have a brother…”
There were less than a half-dozen notecards left to get pinned down onto the floor, so this was not the time to get distracted. Unfortunately, he had left the more difficult ones to the end, and there were more question marks than validated facts on each of them. He had just gotten three pushpins into one card and began to stretch out colored yarn when the mare from the other side of the checkout table politely cleared her throat.
“The books upon the table are fictional romances. The historical records are still on the shelves.”
It took a moment to get one of the sour-tasting yarn pieces tied down before he responded, “Griffon history is always wrong. It’s written by the victorious griffons, and they always want to pad their credit. Their romance stories are written by pony citizens of Protocera. They publish under pen names, and keep a much more accurate accounting of dynasty shifts and nest quarrels, who is rumored to have fathered which eggs, real genealogy of ruling branches, vengeance chains, things like that. The rarer the book, the more accurate, since certain aggrieved parties like to engage in pyrotechnic editing practices. Never loan a griffon romance book to a griffon. You’re likely never to get it back. Or at least most of it.”
“Some things never change, I suppose.” The rustle of pages continued while Emerald cautiously backtracked the two remaining yarn strands and tried to find the appropriate eggs with a pin. He had to admit some unseen feminine company in the library was welcome, particularly the kind of company who didn’t look over his shoulder and chatter foolish questions. And ever since he had created a ghost librarian story for the sleepover on his last visit, the mental construct of a ghost… well, haunted him at times. Expansion and contraction of the oak tree made strange noises in the night, and knowing there was another real pony around gave a convenient corporeal pony to blame.
Still, after a period of time with no more noises than the rustling of pages and Emerald’s cautious enumeration of yarn griffon corpses, he decided to say something polite once he had tacked down his next-to-last card.
“If you’re presiding over a griffon diplomatic meeting, Princess Celestia must trust you considerably. Have you known her long?”
There was a brief pause, a short huff of exasperation, and a terse, “Yes.”
“So are you a member of the diplomatic corps?” he asked absently while trying to track an orange piece of yarn which kept trying to turn blue on him. “Or a researcher from the university, getting some practical experience? Because if you waited until the last minute before flying down to Ponyville of all places to learn about griffons, you’re getting pretty desperate.”
There was always a deep pause before the mare spoke, which struck Emerald as a practical habit for a diplomat to hold, like she always weighed her words on a precise scale before speaking. If she had been a unicorn, he might have considered introducing her to Father and seeing how they got along. He appreciated a mare who thought before speaking. But a pegasus? No. He’d either go sparse or full matchmaker.
“I am unfamiliar with griffons of the present era,” she said.
“A closeted historian, then.” Emerald lifted one hoof and tried to remove an affectionate piece of mauve yarn that anchored a dynasty while shifting to the Old Griffonent they probably spoke back then. “<Not used to speaking in the present Gathering of Flocks, Young Hen? Perhaps you should seek the counsel of a Guiding Tercel to chart your… upwellings?>”
“<Updrafts>,” said the mare out in the library in an elegant short series of Protoceran chirps and clicks. “<Mother Wind is weak beneath your wings, young chick. Learn to spread your feathers before the stones rise up to greet you.>”
“I didn’t think my enunciation was that bad,” he grumbled. “You should hear my brother, Graphite. He can sing in both modern and historic dialects, with accents. Makes me sound like a crow. Is he helping you with the meeting?”
Again, the pause, and the measured response. “I am unfamiliar with a pony by that name.”
“They’re probably keeping him away from the diplomats’ cute daughters. Last thing we need is for one of them to turn up with egg. Ha!” Emerald ever so slowly teased a knot out of one strand of yarn that had been pinned down in the wrong place, which would have put the hatching before the egg-laying. “You’d know if you met him. Smooth grey coat like crushed velvet and a flowing white mane. He’s a hopeless flirt, and I have no idea why mares let him get away with it.” Since the mare in the main library room was a member of the official diplomatic corps, Emerald squelched his usual crude joke about Graphite being an exceptionally cunning linguist and moved on. “If anybody can get you ready to talk to a Meeting of Claws, he can. Just be aware that he does flirt, and you have to keep his attention on the subject or you’ll find yourself outside walking with him under the stars and talking about foals all night.”
The mare snorted, but it was an amused snort. “Nepotism doth suit you poorly, M’lord.”
It was a bit of a shock, but since most of his homework books on the table were from Father’s library with the House Chrysanthemum seal on the cover plates, it was a fairly short line of deductive reasoning for her to draw a line between the baron who owned them and the idiot son making yarn doodles on the library floor, so Emerald decided to double down rather than fold.
“It isn’t bragging about your relatives if they can do the job,” he started. “If the griffons were led by a single hen, and it was necessary for the Equestrians to obtain an alliance by marriage, I would be willing to bet cash bits that inside of a year, I would have griffon in-laws.” He paused to think. “Inside of another year, nieces and nephews with beaks. Father would be… confused. And I would still never get the teaching job I want,” he admitted, turning back to tracing yarn.
“Teaching griffon histories?” she asked.
“Oh, heavens forbid!” Emerald began to ever so slowly pick his way backward and out of his twisted web, keeping his nose almost to the floor. “I like history too much. I will be teaching young unicorns their first magic.”
This time the contemplative pause went on longer than most, and Emerald regretted putting his hat and vest down on the desk to dry. “Yes, I know I’m an earth pony,” he added quite redundantly. “That doesn’t mean I can’t teach unicorn magic.”
“I never said you could not,” sounded that patient voice again. “I was merely wondering to myself if perhaps you have chosen the more difficult path out of some sense of challenge, but then I noticed your Mark.”
“I’d probably be teaching young students if I had a Mark for flower arranging,” he mused while looking over the yarn strands. “There’s something magical about seeing one of them do something they never could before, young unicorns in particular. As long as there’s somepony around to turn you back from being a gardenia,” he added.
The mare made an encouraging noise from behind one of the bookshelves, where she had probably gone to see if there were any more books related to her upcoming task. He straightened up with several pops from his spine, then moved over to the desk to begin pulling checkout cards from the Ponyville library books she had already selected.
“I should get overtime for this,” he muttered under his breath, then raised his voice. “Ma’am, I’ll get you ready for checkout. I’m done with Father’s books for the moment, so you can give them to Graphite to take back home when you’re done with them. Do you have a local library card?”
There was that distinctive pause again, then a simple, “No.” It only made sense, since she was from Canterlot. He didn’t have a library card in this library either, but he had reviewed Twilight Sparkle’s extensive instructions regarding such, and he had been looking for an excuse to use the machine anyway.
Minotaurs were responsible for creating most of the complicated mechanical widgets in the modern world, and cameras were no exception. The country of Mazin was his father’s second largest trading partner, after all. Little enchanted gizwizzes and hoodads carried out critical tasks inside the optical paths and crystalline innards of modern cameras, including the instant photo development process and thaumaturgically charged paper that a photographer needed to purchase for each photo. With every click and flash, a cash drawer bell rang, and the wealth of House Chrysanthemum grew by some tiny fraction of a bit.
About forty years ago, most probably nudged by Emerald’s grandfather, the Equestrian library system had discovered the convenience of modern plastic identity cards. The old system of actually knowing who was checking out books was promptly tossed out, and libraries across the country plunked down the bits for a state-of-the-art magical machine with levers and cranks, that if treated just right, had a distinct chance of producing a plastic-wrapped card with a recognizable photograph of a library patron on it, which would then in theory be carried around by the patron to identify themselves when they wanted to check out a book.
In practice, no.
The Golden Oak Library of Ponyville had a filing drawer filled with all the plastic library cards they issued, most probably because they had exactly the same problem as the rest of the rural Equestrian libraries when patrons came in without their cards and had to resort to the old method of checking out books. The questions such a policy prevented were obvious.
So why did we spend all those taxpayer bits on this machine? Who can we blame?
Despite Emerald’s legitimate complaints about his parents constantly trying to set him up with a ‘proper’ unicorn bride, there were certain advantages to being in his family. Since the family company had the license for importing the card-making machines from Mazin, a few of the devices had been ‘misplaced’ over the years for research or novelty purposes. And since his father owned the company, Young Emerald had been tickled fourteen shades of pink to find a hefty crate in the family carriage house one morning, with permission to open it up and use it.
It took three days of careful picking through the manual, detailed examination of the mechanisms, and a few dozen-dozen false starts, before he had been the proud owner of a slightly blurred plastic card. At the time, Emerald thought that his father had stayed in the background to allow his ‘handicaped’ son play time with the world’s most fun toy. It was only later that Emerald discovered the company had used Father’s notes to put out a new and much more readable manual, along with selling an update kit for each cardmaker using color-coded knobs and various numbered arrows indicating how to twist or push each of them in sequence.
‘So easy even a foal can do it’ was the advertising line.
Young Emerald didn’t mind a bit, particularly after getting his big brothers to float the clunky device upstairs and into his room for further study. More than a few ‘unauthorized’ plastic identity cards of various types had been produced in the years since, which made getting the Golden Oak Library’s device prepared for use a nearly trivial task. He ran the camera up and down on the greased slides and checked the fluid levels, then got out the paperwork part of the checklist.
“Once you have some time, come over to the counter and fill out this form.” The indicated form was stored right where Twilight’s notes said, which was no great surprise. “Then put it into the green slot on the cardmaker, and I’ll get your photograph. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Two of the yarn threads in his project had become tangled, which required a delicate touch to determine which griffon cousin had killed the other, and gave him something to do while the mare strolled over to the counter and filled in the form with brief strokes of the library public quill.
“I have completed the task,” she stated plainly, “and placed the form into the slot. Now if I am reading the instruction poster correctly, I put my hooves on the green marks, face the camera, and smile, correct?”
“Yep. Let me get the camera elevated,” said Emerald as he pushed repeatedly on the floor plate that ratcheted the mechanism upward along the toothed track. “Tell me when you see the red light in the lens. Any time. Not yet? It’s at the top of the track, so you may have to bend down a little. Don’t forget the smile,” he added.
“I believe I see it now,” she said, adding in a stilted voice, “I am smiling.”
Emerald stepped on the correct pedal, the mechanism gave out a flash, and there was a quiet reshuffling of hooves on the other side of the counter.
“Beg pardon,” she said. “We did not expect a light.”
“Not a problem.” Emerald reached one hoof above the counter and flipped a lever on the camera, although he kept his head down like he had been doing throughout the photography session. “Now turn sideways to put your hooves on the red marks, and we’ll get a picture of your cutie mark.”
“Very well.” There was that distinctive pause again while the mare moved with the graceful precise pace of the aristocracy. “Might I ask a question of you, M’lord?”
“You just did.” Emerald stepped firmly on the camera’s shutter release again and another flash lit up the inside of the library. “There we go. I’ll pull the plastic card out after it finishes developing and store it with the rest, if you’ll sign the slips from the back of each book. I get to file them, also. Thank you for visiting our library and we hope your meeting with the griffons goes well.”
A certain silence continued to fill the library while he returned to his wooling over griffon vengeance chains, determined not to say the first word. It took concentration, and he discovered two more errors on his cards during the process, each of which needed penciled corrections and double-checking every card associated with them.
Eventually, he decided on the better part of valor since the stubborn pegasus might just stand there silently and look at his rump until Sunrise. “Yes, M’lady? Did you need anything else?”
“An explanation, for starters.” The unseen pegasus cleared her throat. “Since I have entered this establishment, you have not looked at me once. Nary a sideways glance, no coincidental looks in a nearby mirror, nothing. Praytell, is my countenance displeasing to you?”
“That is a question which requires another question to answer it.” Emerald nipped out a push-pin and began to unthread a duplicated piece of yarn, since a griffon egg was seldom laid by two different hens. “Are you currently married, engaged, dating, or otherwise in a romantic relationship with another sapient creature of any species or gender?”
There was that particular pause again, only longer this time, followed by a firm, “No.”
“Then I am doing what is best for the both of us.” Emerald considered how the strand of yarn was going to take extra work to extract from its friends and decided to explain his situation as simply as possible. “You see, I am in a similar situation. I will not lie to my parents. They wish me wed in the worst possible way, and I can show you the list of mares they have attempted to pair me with if you wish to dispute my phrasing. When I meet them later this week, they will inquire if I saw any young and eligible mares of appropriate breeding while at this job. If I keep my head down and don’t look at you, I can honestly tell them no.”
After a shorter pause, “And if you look?”
“They will want to know your name. If I don’t know, they’ll ask about your Mark and backtrack from there. They’ll research your family, contact any living relatives, check to see if our families would make a good pairing. The disruption would be a terrible inconvenience for you, m’lady. And worse, if our families decide we make a good match, they’ll arrange a marriage, and you’d be saddled with me forever. Then I would be unable to carry out my plans for teaching young unicorns their first magic, and your career as a diplomat would be negatively impacted, since there are many who look down upon mixed marriages. Particularly one to a scruffy stallion such as myself.”
“I understand.” This time the pause followed the words, and threatened to remain after she added in a somewhat more friendly voice, “What if I like what I see?”
“You don’t need the scandal,” he managed after a few rapid moments of thought. “One of Equestria’s diplomats fooling around with a college student who has not even completed his primary degree? Besides, I’m quarrelsome, stubborn, disagreeable, opinionated, lazy, picky, and I take all the covers at night. I shed like a rug in the Fall, sleep away most of the morning in Winter, spend every day with a book in Spring, and like to spend Summer vacations traveling the country wherever I choose to go. You can do far better.”
“Mmm…” The rustle of paper distracted him from unthreading the pestersome piece of twine, but from the sound of her hoofsteps headed toward the library door, the pegasus was preparing to leave. It would have been so easy to sneak a peek as she walked toward the door, but he had never been able to lie well to his own mother, so Emerald remained silent and focused on his yarn. He was just considering the whole layout of colorful sheep-byproduct and the probability that he could pick out errors every hour for the next century or so when the young mare’s voice shocked him out of his creative fugue.
“M’lord, are you currently engaged, dating, or otherwise in a romantic relationship with another sapient creature of any species or gender? And we shall consider Twilight Sparkle such, for the purposes of this question.”
“I haven’t met Twilight Sparkle,” said Emerald reflexively. “And I’m not currently dating. Although next year, a Canterlot policemare is going to ask me… Well, that’s complicated. So for all intents and purposes, no.”
“Good.” The library door opened and closed, then Emerald could hear the fading sounds of wings.
“I swear this job would drive you to drinking if you weren’t crazy already,” muttered Emerald. “Then it will probably make you an alicorn, and that’s a whole new level of insanity.”
At least all the yarn threads seemed to be correct for a change, and the unexpected library patron was gone, so his life could go on. Part of that was getting the camera out of his saddlebags to capture his work, because it was doubtful that Twilight Sparkle was going to allow him to leave his little arts and crafts project spread out over her floor for the next few months. So after making another hot cup of wake-up juice and zebra medicine, he got the camera out and proceeded to take photographs of every section of his yarn project, with several taken from the second floor of the library where the notecards’ contents would not be clear, but at least they would look pretty.
“Finally. I should leave the cleanup for Twilight Sparkle tomorrow night,” he managed. Another drink of mixed medicine and wake-up juice made him shake his head and regard the mess. “No, she’d probably find a dozen errors and drag me back here to fix them.”
The precious photographs went into a sealed pocket on his saddlebags before Emerald even thought about his library tasks. He arranged the fresh library checkout cards from the unknown mare by habit, sorted them into the correct drawers, and picked the warm plastic card out of the identity card machine.
… which he accidentally looked at in order to file it properly.
… and then had to look again.
Surreal. There were probably some other words to describe it, most of which started with some screaming and running about, and that would not have been productive use of his time at the moment. Not now, when his head was still fuzzy with zebra medicine and enough wake-up juice to crystalize in his bloodstream and set his heart to racing. Maybe later, when he went back to Canterlot where she lived. Or maybe never go back home again. He gave the card one last look, comparing the cutie mark to the brief glance he had gotten of Twilight Sparkle’s skinny flank.
“That is one hot plot.” He held the card up to the library’s lighting devices and gave a low whistle, only to whirl around at a small noise behind him.
For one terrifying moment, he could have sworn that Princess Luna was standing in the doorway, but it was only a shadow, and he was all alone except for the hammering of his heart. With deliberate tread to control his growing panic, Emerald returned to the library desk, picked up the half-empty mug of Zebrician medicine and wake-up juice mixture, and returned to the kitchenette.
“Never mix medicines,” he muttered, pouring the concoction down the drain.
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Panic attack in 3... 2...
(Personally, I'm proud of the concept of the Mazian Knutt as a coin of the minotaurs. It's multi-purpose.)
The posting of this chapter makes my morning so much better. Thank you.
I wonder how much tree sap it took to disabuse Ponyville of that idea
Good luck with that
Something tells me that this "pegasus mare" is a pony of a somewhat midnight blue coat...
And the addition of Ratchette (and to lesser extent other key plot devices) from the Estee-verse was a delightful addition
Hey! The hairdryer worked! -Grins and pulls out another.- DOUBLE THE POWER!
10265744 Not taking any bets.
10265740 Hey, she's got an older sister. And who knows, she might be thinking "My little sis is having so much stress in her life. I wonder if it would help to get her laid on a regular basis..."
I do remember part of the above from a blog post. Looking forward to the fallout from this :)
10265786
Cut to two months later in Haywai'i...
"The beverages in coconuts with little umbrellas are pleasurable, 'Tia, but what exactly are we doing here?"
"I decided that you needed to get lei'd"
You know, looking back at the last chapter, why are ponies shedding if winter's approaching?
One wonders what letters got cut in "Ev’erfree" given the apostrophe placement.
Wait, the minotaurs use Harry Potter currency?
Oh! Knutts in the hardware sense as well. Certainly makes salvaging old mechanisms more convenient.
About that...
You fool. You absolute buffoon.
To be fair, his father invested in engineering, not medicine. But still, synergistic effects are a thing. He got lucky, no pun intended.
Careful, you're drifting into an entirely different universe.
Ah. Gross incompetence.
Brilliant bit with Luna. I can only imagine the ensuing fallout, especially when Emerald wakes up the next morning and realizes that this wasn't the result of poor pharmaceutical practices.
Uh oh... Looks like he's developing more than just a cold. He's starting to catch a case of acute Tenchi Masaki Syndrome.
This dangerous illness starts out innocent enough. But rapidly devolves into bouts of explosive... property damage. The afflicted also tends to suffer from high blood pressure, delirium, and chronic nasal hemorrhaging.
No known cure. If his immune system can't beat this, it'll result in a lifetime of suffering.
another fun chapter now will she take his advise and seek out Pencil Lead or not
I ship it. I so ship it, for it'll be hilarious. Specially if he only ever meets Twiggles when they marry - in the post epilogue, of course
10265740
10265786
There are a couple unofficial/adopted relatives, too.
Lol love this chapter even more
Wonder if a new heater is in order. Or the threat of one?
Luna had a close shave with griffin details. Then again, griffin delegates will be particularly upset.
He really should have read the warning.
Side effect, or is it boon? May cause Moon.
Voice of Experience
If the heater is inadequate, turn the stove & oven on full blast & leave the oven door open. It helps -some.
Heh
One does wonder what his brother and his house will do once they find out he sent Luna to them for help. I mean this kinda thing usually perks up noble houses with all sorts of perks long term. I imagine his father will be giddy as all heck as well.
Y'know, at first I'd thought that Fluttershy had walked in the door. I was swiftly disabused of that notion, but far from disappointed. I wonder if Luna caught wind of Celestia's shipping plans, and decided to do a little poaching.
Flitter is a menace. Are there just no other pegasi to replace her with on weather patrol?
I feel like an alternate title to this story could be The Utterly Unromantic Tale of Emerald. XD
10266746 Hey, he gets hugs. Well, inflicts them. And there's actually going to be a (looks around) kiss next chapter.
10266556 Her next assigned station would be hail. They decided to leave her on slush.
10266543 Father with a heart condition... I don't think Graphite will do much bragging, which to be honest would be what Luna would want, anyway. A stallion who can keep his mouth shut when needed, among other talents.
10266357 We did that one 30below winter. Set off the heat detector over the stove and loud alarm.
10266284 Alicorns are normally associated with disasters, because if they're not there to stop one, they're going to cause one.
10265886 Not so much gross incompetence, but giving a bright foal a complicated machine to play with just to see how long it takes him to follow the poorly written manual and deal with documentation issues. "Ok, this knob needs to turn CLOCK-wise or the paper gets jammed, so we'll put in a ratchet so it can't go backward..."
10265785 If blown-dry, Emerald would look a lot like a green Fufflepuff.
10266783
I wonder what the pony equivalent would be of the left handed oil test?
10266783
I was just going for a pun with the dozen dozens.
Bwahahahah! Oh I wonder what in the world Luna thought of that encounter. Also what her original reason for being there was.
If he ends up with Luna in this universe instead of his brother, I wouldn't complain. But then, Luna might try to hook him up with somepony else for the sake of her competitive alicorn quickening.
This chapter was really well written.
And here I was expecting a ghost~
I did wonder about her height, though.
And how she could be surprised by cameras having a flash.
But I missed see the "we"!
*snrk*
Going straight to his brother to ask for an introduction to his mother, Lulu?
This whole chapter has been adorable.
Well done, sir.
If you keep this up, though, you may wind up owing me a new keyboard.
Thankfully, this time I had swallowed my sip of water before continuing reading.
Again with the safely timed sipping. Dodging bullets left and right here.
Yes, definitely the best thing I've read all week.
He took two bottles??
Ok, this is one of the best chapters I ever laughed at. I would definitely love to see this go far to the stars!
Another fun chapter of a fun story. You write Estees characters so faithfully, in your own writerly voice.