How not to behave in a library.

by The_Swedish_Horror

The railway worker

It was morning in Equestria. Twilight Sparkle, still dressed in her fake beard and mail sack, was hiding behind the oil shed at the small train station were she had spent most of the night. The railway police hadn't shown up yet and she began to realize that the station pony had just wanted to scare her off. What annoyed her the most was that her ingenious disguise so clearly had failed its purpose. Why didn't anypony believe the idea that she was Twidalf the Grey? She realized, reluctantly, that she needed another disguise.

Twilight saw a building with the text "STORAGE DEPOT" written on its door. Slowly she stepped closer to the entrance and used her magic to pick the lock in a way that few other ponies could do. Without a sound the lavender unicorn opened the door and continued into the storage building, sneaking on the tips of her hooves.

The room was very dark and a smell of mothballs filled the damp air. In a big, wooden crate she found a heap of old uniforms of the type used by railway ponies. Twilight immediately donned a blue jacket, a shirt and a tie. She also put on a peaked cap. Now she had a real disguise, she thought. The unicorn looked at her reflection in the mirror and she was very content with what she saw. She sure looked very much like a railway worker.
"What the hay are you doing?" a harsh voice suddenly asked.
Twilight's heart almost stopped in fear.

"Get aboard the train at once! We are already late and all the other brakeponies are at their stations. Hurry up!"
The voice came from a very old railway pony with a red ribbon around his cap. He had glasses and a beard and Twilight guessed that he must be some kind of train dispatcher. Both ponies galloped away to a very long train that had arrived at the station while Twilight was busy trying on her new outfit.
Without giving her any chance to sneak away the train dispatcher shoved her onto a freight car.
"Release the brake! Today, please!" he yelled.
Twilight frantically turned the wheel and the freight car's brake released. The train dispatcher, who now had moved to his spot on the platform, made some kind of sign with his front leg. The other railway ponies on the train did it to. And Twilight, who had no clue what to do, just did like the others.
Then the train slowly started to move.

* * *

The freight train traveled through the Equestrian landscape in a trail of black smoke and a smell of burnt coal. It was not a pink, gingerbread-house like train as the Friendship Express but a instead very train-like train, Twilight thought. She enjoyed the wind in her mane and the beautiful view from the freight car. Oh, how she liked being a brakepony!
Then it started to rain. The drops carried with them small, black flakes of burnt coal and they landed on her face and all over her coat, slowly changing its color from lavender to grey. She started to feel cold and there was no shelter from the harsh wind on her lonely post.

After about an hour another railway pony emerged on top of a freight car and joined her on the platform.
"Go and get some coffee. But don't forget to come back here when your done, I don't like being here all day," he said.
Twilight slowly climbed over the train cars, very careful not to fall down. After what seemed to her as a breathtaking stunt she reached the train's caboose and opened its door with a shaking hoof.
"Coffee?" a grey earth pony asked, barely looking at her.
"Yes, please."
"Here you go. Have we met before? My name is Inky."
"My name is Twi... eh... hm... Sparklight Twinkle," Twilight said.
"Nice to meet you."

Inky was a very friendly pony, and Twilight appreciated her company. She knew so much about the railway and after Twilight had told her that she was new, Inky had promised to show her how to switch rails.
"Do you know where we are headed?" Twilight asked.
"Off course! We're en route to Smokey Mountain. Celestia is building something in the Unicorn Range..."
Twilight almost spilled her coffee when she heard the princess's name. Her face slowly turned red with shame when she thought of what she had done and how she had fled from her responsibility in the worst way possible. She wondered what the princess might think of her now, if she was even more enraged and if she had already sent her royal guards after her.
"What's the matter, Sparklight? You don't look very well and why are you staring down into the table? Is anything wrong?"
"No, I'm fine... I just... I just had too much coffee. That's all."

* * *

Several hours later the train arrived at a big, industrial railway station in the middle of nowhere. In the north and south Twilight could admire the high, blue shapes of the mountain range far away and in the east she saw the dark green mass of the enormous forest near Galloping Gorge. But right here, where the train had stopped, was only flatland. She jumped off the platform and started to pick some blackberries from the brushwood nearby the tracks. Twilight realized that she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday and now she was really hungry.

The unicorn was so preoccupied with her blackberries that she didn't notice what was going on in the background... If she had looked up from the brushwood she would have seen that the locomotive was now released from its freight cars and quickly moving along the tracks to the other side of the station while another locomotive was preparing to take its place. The engine driver, a little black pegasus with a pile of glowing embers as her cutie mark, was busy operating the heavy piece of machinery. She carefully monitored the instruments on the back head of the boiler while at the same time trying to look out the window. It was not entirely according to regulations, but she thought that the high competence of her co-workers would guarantee that the tracks were clear and the freight cars carefully secured. Little did she know...

Meanwhile Twilight realised that she had gotten a purple stain from the blackberries on her shirt. She tried to rub it off, but the stain remained.
"Oh no! Not on my favourite shirt!" she said.
It was also her only shirt. In fact the only shirt she had ever owned. Twilight desperately tried to lick away the stain, but she failed since her tongue was also purple from the numerous blackberries. The stain only got worse!

She looked up just in time to see the locomotive bump into the freight cars with a force of several tons. And since she hadn't secured the brakes on any of them, all the cars got pushed into motion! The whole train was now loose.
Twilight could only watch in horror while the heavy freight cars hit a small motor draisine, knocking it off the tracks and then continued right trough a service depot, destroying everything in their path. The air filled with the sound of shattering glass and metal getting torn and twisted.
"No! No no no no no!" she screamed in panic.
This was even worse than the incident during last year's Winter Wrap-up!

Inky Pie and the other railway ponies slowly emerged from the debris. Nopony was hurt, although their manes were ruffled and their clothes covered with dust. The service depot was not a pretty sight, its walls looked like a giant had tried to do origami while drunk, Inky thought. Some of the freight cars were derailed and the draisine was destroyed beyond repair. Its windows were shattered and diesel from its broken engine had formed a big puddle in the dust.
"What the hay happened?" the train conductor asked, scratching his mane underneath his cap. "Why were the brakes not applied?"
Inky Pie stared into the ground and drew a little circle in the dust.
"I... I don't know..."
"Wasn't you the brakepony?"
"No... I mean yes, but I was not on the train. I thought.... the new one would apply the brakes."
"The new one? Where is it?"
"I don't know..." Inky said, anxiously looking around.

And at that time nopony noticed a small, lavender coloured horn bobbing up and down in the blackberry brushwood. It was a rather ashamed Twilight Sparkle, quietly sneaking away from the scene. She constantly pricked herself on the thorns but she kept quiet as didn't want to alert the railway ponies of her escape. It was definitely time for another disguise, she thought. Preferably something less dangerous...