Book Day

by Eonex

Book Day

In a way, Twilight Sparkle always wondered was it like to be a hero. Being out there, saving the day. You know, the classic hero deal. Always getting mares (or stallions, in her case). That’s why she loved reading books, so she could at least feel the sense of adventure she would never have.

And because of that, she had always looked up to Spike, going on adventures with the rest of the Elements of Harmony. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had her fair share of adventure, but it was always on a supporting role, and for once wanted a day in the limelight, saving the day for all of Ponyville.

It was easier said than done, though. She looked at the pile of books in front of her. It was Book Day, at least, that was what she called it. Time to organize her gigantic library, because there wasn’t another word for it. Didn’t she say she loved reading books? Well, she does. And that meant having lots of books. And not just novels. Books about scientific facts, recipes, and even music popped in her library. That’s showed how much she loved reading. Maybe that was why she never had any adventure. Too much reading and not enough time going outside. Who would find a threat in a library? Flying books that start to attack people? Maybe one day, but not today.

Spike had once suggested that she could throw some books away, just to find himself hit with a book in his head. No one spoke like that of her books. Sighing, she took a book and started to clean it. At least she had the library for herself.

Suddenly, a loud explosion resonated at the distance. “What was that?!”, said Spike from upstairs. Twilight wanted to say something, but when she looked again through the window, he was already going to the source of the explosion. Apparently it was close to the statue near Ponyville’s center. But she didn’t care. Today, it was her and her books.

But events like that had always Ponyville talking about them the next day. And it wasn’t like the books were going to go away if she left them unattended by a few minutes right?

She put the book down and went through the door. Another adventure was in the horizon!

As she left the door of the Golden Oak Library, a mysterious portal opened up and two figures could be seen. It wasn’t possible! It was the same pony that just went to see another adventure. Twilight Sparkle.

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“Twilight, what are we doing here?”, asked Spike.

“It’s just research, Spike. I’ve been recently looking into some spells I haven’t tried yet and found something about alternate universes. I went to Starlight, and with some help from Starswirl, we finished the spell.”

“Isn’t this dangerous?”

“Starswirl told me that as long as I don’t find myself, I would be fine. Even so, this is not time travel. But I don’t want that ponies from other realities know we're here.”

“Yet you go to your old home.”, said Spike with some sarcasm.

“I-I…” She blushed slightly. “While I was doing the spell, I wanted to see if I could see my old home, you know? The one that got destroyed while I battled with Tirek. That’s what got us here.”

“Okay, Twilight. So you’re here. What now?”

“Well, we can start to search for books I had that were destroyed. I wonder if I still have my old copy of Spells and Cooking.”

They went on to search for some time, shouting and gasping every time they found something that gave them some memories, like Spike’s old toys or the first edition of Ogres & Oubilettes. But after some minutes had passed, they started to notice something weird.

“Twilight”, Spike said softly. “Don’t you think something is out of place?”

“I don’t think so…?” She looked to the great pile of books in front of her. “Everything seems perfectly normal to me. Unless you think it’s weird we’ve come in Book Day.”

“Not that. This.” Spike opened a photo album and showed it to Twilight.

“By… By Celestia”. Twilight levitated the book and turned the pages on. Apparently everything she had done in the original reality, Spike had done it here. He was the Element of Magic, for Celestia’s sake! And he even wasn’t a unicorn! “How is this possible?”

“Beats me. Pretty cool, though? Myself being the hero this time.” Twilight’s stern look stopped him from bragging more. But she smiled after a few moments. “I think it’s nice that you’re having your own spotlight for once. And I don’t hear the fighting anymore. We should leave, before we return and have to give explanations to why we are here.”

Twilight’s horn glowed and a portal opened itself up in the middle of the library. She was about to enter when she saw Spike doing something with the photo album. “What happens, Spike?”, she asked.

“I’d like to take a picture with me.” He showed her the picture. It was him being carried on by the ponies of Ponyville.

“Come on, Spike, you already have lots of similar pictures with the Crystal Empire. It’s not like you’re not famous enough in Ponyville too.”, she retorted.

“Come on, Twilight. Apparently I, I mean you, haven’t even saved the Crystal Empire. Pretty please?”

“Fine. I’ll make you a copy.” With a movement of his horn, an exact copy of the picture appeared in his left hand. “Now let’s go”.

They walked through the portal, and disappeared immediately.

A few minutes later, Spike and Twilight appeared on the front door.

“Man, that was a difficult monster to deal with. At least we’re home now. Thanks for your help, Twilight.”, he said with a smile.

“Don’t worry, Spike. I always like helping you, and gives me more monsters to document! Can you believe that I have enough monsters to keep Celestia busy with reading them for a week?”

“You bet!”

As they entered, Spike made a weird face.

“Wait.” Spike started to smell the air. “I sense… you. But that makes no sense! We haven’t been around in a couple of hours.

“Yeah, I too feel some kind of magical energy in the air. Maybe we should investigate?”

“Twilight, look at this.” Spike held the photo album in her right claw. “This wasn’t here before.”

“Of course not. I’d remember. I will write Celestia about this”, she said. “Maybe we’re going to deal with an invasion of ghosts pretty soon. But not now. I’m hungry.”, she slightly said with a smile.

“Me too!” Spike’s stomach growled.

“Let’s leave this new mystery for later, what do you say?”

“Deal!”

With both laughing, they went to the kitchen. It was a nice adventure, fighting a monster and then coming back home. The joy of having an adventure and finding another one. What if they knew there were more worlds out there? No one could really answer, because many events that had happened elsewhere had yet to happen. It didn’t really matter. After all, who doesn’t like a good mystery?

Or maybe Pinkie knew. She always had a knack for everything.

THE END

Author's Note:

This is my entry for the "Secrets: A Swapped Roles Contest". Hope you like it.

Comments

[Comickook]

Pretty entertaining short one-shot. Yeah, Twilight and Spike travel to another universe where they basically switched roles. And, yeah, I could understand why Twi might be sentimental enough to want to visit the Golden Oaks Library to see if they could find things that got destroyed during that fight with Tirek. And good detail about Twi getting help from both Starlight AND Starswirl on the spell.

All in all, the exchanges, characterizations and general wrap-up are all pretty well done.

And I wouldn't even JOKE about the "flying book attacking ponies" stuff. Not when Discord is a semi-regular.

[Jinzou]

Not bad for your first, bro. There were some moments of awkward phrasing, and there wasn’t really much conflict to draw the reader in, but was still a solid fic. It’s always refreshing to have Spike appreciated more. Good job!

[Time Reaper]

Well, it's a good story. Gets to the point, shows the character and it's well paced.

Good story,

[mr_minati]

It was a nice read. Thought they were gonna met the originals at some point, prolly that could've made a good conflict for the fic. But still a good lil' fic.

[RainbowDoubleDash]

Solid concept and with a pretty original execution. I know of several fics where Twilight and Spike have swapped roles, but in all of them they also have swapped species. So having them instead remain as their normal selves certainly adds an interesting dynamic and is downright loaded with potential story possibilities, especially seeing as Twilight still seems to be Celestia's student.

That being said, there is sort of a major problem...namely, pacing. With how short this story is, pacing is especially important. Almost all of the fic is given over to, basically, explaining the concept of the fic, without there actually being much in the way of a story. The old maxim of "show, don't tell" comes to mind. I can't help but feel that this fic would have benefited from stretching things out a bit and playing with the swapped roles concept a bit more. Likewise I think the meta-commentary of Prime-Twilight and Prime-Spike could have been condensed.

I'll echo what Jinzou said: this was pretty good for a first outing. But I do wish that it had been more.

[Nitro Indigo]

I’ve reviewed this fanfic in this blog.

[Eonex]

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Thank you for your kind words! I'm not very used to write in English yet, and I want to keep improving. This was my first completed fic on English and also the first one I completed in a very long time, and while I got several ideas like OTL Spike finding this universe Rarity and discovering that he's been more sucessful with her now because he's an important member of society (?) (Didn't know how to work out that exactly), and Spike wants to stay because of that, of course.

"Twilight, can we ju-" "Don't ever think about it, Spike".

And a couple more, but maybe I save them for another fic. Thanks again, and I hope you have a great day.

10365653
Thank you for the feedback, Nitro. Been a pleasure to participate.