One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be "responsive to their patrons."
—Connie Willis, Bellwether
It is a well-documented fact that, over time, buildings come to physically resemble the people who live in them (see: the famed hanging moss on the ancestral home of Starswirl the Bearded). However, few know that buildings inherit the attitudes of their residents as well. The miser’s house winces at every coin that passes beyond its walls, the salesman’s apartment welcomes you in with a well-honed pitch, then sends you on your way with as much extra baggage as possible, and the less said about the things middle schools get up to behind their dumpsters, the better.
The Ponyville Public Library was quite pleased with itself. Spring had scarcely shrugged out of her saddle-warmer and already the old oak’s branches were full and green, thick with shading leaves and flowing sap. And, as if this wasn't enough to earn it the envy of smaller, less-hollow trees everywhere, its flowers had bloomed early in a fashionable pink streak down one side of its canopy. But the library’s lovely exterior concealed its true treasures: its perfectly sorted shelves, filled with the collected knowledge and imagination of ponies ranging from the present all the way back to the early days of the Princesses’ rule. There, between those shelves, the library was a haven of peace, of order, and of strict 9-5 business hours, all maintained rigorously by its resident and caretaker, Twilight Sparkle, Librarian Junior Grade.
Yes, Twilight loved her library treehouse dearly: the smell of old books that hung in the air, accentuated by woody notes from the floor and walls and the faint whiff of volatile chemicals from the basement. It was a good place to sit and think, and for a pony of Twilight's disposition, that was as precious as any riches the world could offer.
But most of all, it was quiet.
“Spike!” Twilight hollered, darting across the library atrium for what must have been the seventeenth time that morning, her hooves clattering on wood. Furniture flew out of her way and hovered near the ceiling as she scoured the floor for loose papers, dust, and anything else that didn't belong. “Have you found the pocket-sized catalog for M-Z yet?”
“I found a catalog for M-Z,” said Spike, holding aloft a foot-thick stack of index cards on a metal ring. “Do you have some ginormous saddlebag-sized pockets that I don't know about?”
Twilight blinked. Horror crept slowly over her features, then sprung. “Ohmygosh I don't even own anything with pockets! Spike, I need you to run down to Rarity's and buy me a dress suit! Navy. No, wait, I look terrible in navy—gray! Is gray too whimsical? Oh, where did I put the Official Librarian’s Guide to Style for Librarians?”
With that, Twilight was off again, racing for the shelves. Spike sighed and wiped a fleck of unicorn spittle from his face. Ignoring Twilight’s frantic muttering, he grabbed a length of string from a supply cabinet which was hovering nearby, looped it through the ring which held the somewhat-small catalog of Ponyville Library books M-Z, and tied it off.
Looks about the right size, he thought, examining his handiwork.
He held up a thumb, gauging the distance to where Twilight had climbed up on two hooves to scan the higher shelves. With a gentle toss, the index-cards sailed through the air and dropped neatly around Twilight’s neck.
Four points!
Sometimes Spike wondered what life was like for people who had one.
“I can’t find it anywhere!” said Twilight.
Spike crossed the room and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, which pulled double duty as a way of keeping her in one place for a few seconds. “Twilight, I think you may be overreacting.”
“Overreacting? OVERREACTING?!” Twilight cried, leaning so far forward that Spike had to use his tail to keep from falling over.
“Remember that talk we had about personal sp—”
“The head of the ELA is coming here for an an emergency library inspection, and you think I'm overreacting? Have you even seen this place? When was the last time we cleaned the underside of my desk?” The desk in question came sailing down from the ceiling and stopped next to them, twisting to reveal its seedy underbelly.
Spike sighed, and brushed a few loose seeds off the desk’s bottom and into the waste bin. “Twilight, you're being crazy. Again. Ms. Silentreading loves you. She's probably just coming to discuss some new inter-library loan initiative or something.”
That seemed to calm her down, or at least slow the rate at which she was hyperventilating. “You think so?” asked Twilight. The furniture quivered slightly, and began to settle back towards the floor.
“I'm sure,” said Spike, as he gently edged Twilight out of the way of the descending desk.
As the desk righted itself, a drawer on the bottom right-hand side slipped open, and something thumped out onto the floor. Twilight whipped around, practically pouncing on the whatever-it-was. Spike groaned and threw up his hands. And here he had been so close.
The thing that had dropped out of the desk was a brown and somewhat squashed-looking book, the sight of which, as Twilight levitated it into the air, caused Spike to suddenly recall a very important piece of business he had on the other side of the room. Somewhere.
Spike crept away on tiptoe, but had barely gone three steps before Twilight cut him off: “Spike, what was this doing wedged in my drawer? I’ve been trying to open it for a week!”
Spike froze in mid-sneak. “W-well, what do you want with that drawer anyway? There’s nothing important in there.”
The book flopped threateningly in Twilight’s magical grip. “Spike. Where did this come from?”
He sighed. No getting out of it now. “The Princess,” he mumbled.
“Princess Celestia sent you a book?”
“Not... me, exactly.”
“You’ve been opening my mail?!”
“Not the letters!” Spike said quickly. “Only the packages. And only the ones that looked present-shaped.”
Twilight fixed him with a glare, and was halfway through the necessary calculations to create a Spike-proof present pocket dimension before it occurred to her to panic. “Wait, you said the Princess sent me a book? Spike, the last four times she did that Equestria was nearly destroyed! What did she say? Oh why didn’t you just tell me—”
“She didn’t say anything.”
Twilight blinked in surprise. “Nothing?”
Spike shrugged. “No note, just the book. I figured she probably just wanted us to shelve it. But it didn’t have a call number, so I, uh, filed it in your desk. Where you’d find it. Eventually.” He took a pause, but then, in the spirit of full disclosure, continued, “Hopefully not anytime soon. Twilight, that book is creepy.”
“Oh come on, Spike, we’ve seen plenty of scary books, but a book that’s actually...” Twilight's smile faded as the book held her gaze. She had never liked being stared at.
Twilight gave a start—but when she looked again, it was nothing. Certainly not a pair of eyes. Just some crinkles in the cover. A trick of the light.
It was easy to see where she had been mistaken, because the cover was entirely odd. It was done in an old binding style—it must have been, the book was positively ancient—with the front cover terminating in a long flap of loose-hanging material. The flap then wound around the entire book a second time before being secured in place by two small belts, like a the sleeves of a straitjacket. The cover material was unfamiliar too: soft to the touch, flexible, and very tough, not at all like cloth. A musty smell clung to it, but different from the smell of old paper or dust. More like it had been...
Alive.
While her hindbrain screamed for her to throw the book across the room and scramble onto the nearest bit of furniture for safety, Twilight’s rational mind decided that it had had enough. It was simply not going to put up with any more of this nonsense. A book made out of skin? It sounded like something out of those "scary" paperbacks she'd read when she was a filly: The Equicidal Binder (“A Tale of Terror and Tannin!”).
Still, there was something uneasy about the book. Like watching lightning flash, too far off to hear the thunder. Like you were holding your breath. Waiting for the roar.
“Maybe we should—” Twilight began, but at that moment there was a sharp series of knocks at the door. She went rigid. “That must be her. Quick, Spike, shelve this!” Twilight said, shoving the book into Spike’s claws with a flick of her horn.
Spike recoiled as far as he could while still holding onto the book's cover. “Where?”
“Oh, put it in with horror,” said Twilight, racing for the door. She stopped. “No, wait.” It was absurd but... she didn’t want to give the book any ideas. She needed someplace where it couldn’t do any harm (was she seriously thinking about this?). Botany? No. History? No. Self-help? Oh Celestia no. “Um... Civil disobedience,” she decided, after a moment's hesitation. “And see if you can get them to stay in order this time.”
Spike saluted and set off, holding the book as far from his body as possible.
All this time the knocking had continued, three sharp, precise notes every three seconds.
Twilight took a deep breath and opened the door.
The stallion standing before her was no one she had ever met. He was also one of the thinnest ponies she had ever seen. Or perhaps “thin” was not quite right. His skin lay tight across his chest, enough to suggest individual ribs even through his fur, but the ribcage itself bulged wide and deep like an opera singer's. His coat was gray—on him it did not look whimsical at all—and his mane was so pale, and pulled back so tightly against his scalp that it was nearly translucent.
He stepped inside without a word. A bone-pale light from his horn closed the door after him.
“Um... excuse me,” said Twilight, surprised at how automatically she had backed away from the threshold at the first sign he wished to cross. She hadn’t even asked for his name. “Are you—”
“You must be Twilight Sparkle,” he said, in a low voice that seemed to strain, not with forcing the words out, but with holding them back, with trying to keep itself quiet. “Librarian Junior Grade, Ponyville Library, purple class. Yes?”
“Um... yes,” said Twilight. “Does that mean you're from the ELA?”
“I am the ELA,” corrected the stallion. “The head, heart, and... soul.”
“But where's Sustine—I mean, Ms. Silentreading?”
The stallion gave a snort that seemed to travel through his nostrils one at a time. “She has been,” he paused, balancing the next phrase on the tip of his tongue, checking its aerodynamics. “Relieved of duty,” he said at last. “Suffice it to say I am in charge now. My name is Volume Control.”
Volume Control began to pace the room, examining the shelves and leaving a rather stunned Twilight to scramble after him. “But, Mr. Control,” she said, “I don't understand. Not that I doubt your qualifications, but if Ms. Silentreading has... retired, wouldn’t the chair of the ELA normally go to the current Canterlot Royal Libr—”
“An emergency session of Association members was held for the purpose of electing new leadership. I am the result.”
Twilight cocked her head. “I wasn't informed of a special session.”
“Yes,” Volume Control agreed. “Tell me, Miss Sparkle, do the books in your library see much use?”
For Twilight, who was having an exceptionally hard time finding her footing in this conversation, this was a lifeline if ever there was one. “Oh, yes,” she said, brimming with pride. “It’s a wonderful collection—I’ve read almost all of them. I actually just did a paper for Philiology Quarterly on the long-term health benefits of hugging, and Psychosomaticism And You, Also Where Did All These Hives Come From? was a huge help. Not to mention, what a page turner—”
“I am not asking about your use,” snapped Volume Control, still busy scanning the historical fiction section, and making the occasional tutting noise. Twilight had often felt the same in that section. How could anypony write about an Equestria where Celestia had never come to power? Or worse, one in which she was some sort of tyrant! “I am asking about the circulation of library materials.”
Twilight had been halfway through a letter-to-the-editor about the dangers of revisionist history, and not quite following along her new boss. “Circulation?” she repeated.
“Yes. About how frequently, would you say, do patrons check books out of the library?”
Twilight let out a gasp. “Sir, I am a professional librarian! I would never allow some random street pony to just walk off with one of our books. What if something happened to it? What if it got lost? What if they dog-eared the pages?!”
For the first time in several minutes, Volume Control’s head twisted around, like a machine on a rusty spring, to look at Twilight. “Excuse me, did I hear correctly? You say that you never allow patrons to take books out of the library?”
“Absolutely not!” Twilight said, holding a hoof to her heart. “Well... my friend Rainbow Dash sometimes, but she only ever wants the Daring Do series, and those are technically my personal copies. Plus she keeps forgetting her stuff here, so I’ve got about 150 bits worth of collateral at this point. And a magic tortoise-helicopter. I haven’t been able to figure out what those go for. Anyway, rest assured, apart from that these books do not leave my sight!”
“So, I suppose you would say your circulation is zero, then?” said Volume Control. Twilight gave a proud nod. “Well. That certainly makes things simpler. You’re fired.”
There was a loud thud from somewhere in the room, and Twilight briefly wondered if it might have been her jaw actually hitting the floor. She probably wouldn’t have felt it if it were. She had gone quite numb.
However, a moment's thought, and the addition of several books clattering to the floor behind her, were plenty sufficient for Twilight to place the noise: it was the (unfortunately familiar) sound of a baby dragon falling off a stepladder.
“What?!” Spike yelled, charging across the room. “You can’t fire Twilight! She’s a great Librarian! She loves books more than anypony I’ve ever met. It’s actually a bit creepy! But at least she cares, unlike you, you big—”
At this point Spike’s mouth zippered itself shut.
“I... I don’t understand,” said Twilight, her horn dimming. She ignored the muffled grunts behind her as Spike alternated between shooting her harsh looks and trying to pry his lips apart. “Why are you... Oh. Oh!” Finally it clicked—and Twilight couldn’t help but laugh at her own folly. “This must be one of Sustine’s famous practical jokes! I’ve never seen one myself—ooh, this is just like the time she misshelved Dude, Where’s My Horn? under fiction!”
Volume Control gave her a puzzled look.
“You know,” said Twilight, “instead of under health and medici—”
“I am aware of the proper location of Dude, Where’s My Horn?, Miss Sparkle!” snapped Volume Control. “And I am not joking! You are most seriously fired.”
There was no mistaking the look of abject seriousness on Volume Control's face. Twilight had seen it in her own reflection too many times—usually accompanied by words to the effect of Pinkie, would you stop with the sousaphone already?—to doubt him. With denial crashing down around her like so much broken pottery, Twilight could only manage an equally fragmented, “But... but why?”
“Why? Where do I begin?” said Volume Control. “You have a complete disregard for the main function of a library. You have done nothing to promote literacy in your community. You won’t even let other ponies read the collection!”
“Sir, I think you misunderstood,” said Twilight, forcing calm—no, more than that, forcing hope into her words. “Of course the library is open to everypony! Who’s willing to take a course on the proper care of library materials and submit to a simple background check. It’s not my fault nopony’s passed. If they’re ‘too busy’ to write a little 1500 word essay on proper reading posture, how am I supposed to know that they won’t be too busy to practice it?”
Volume Control regarded her coolly. “Patrons are more important than books, Miss Sparkle.”
The words hit like a slap—Twilight stumbled backwards, the very ground beneath her hooves teetering dangerously, as on the lip of some great chasm. “I... I never thought... from another librarian...” she stammered. Spike ceased his ongoing battle with his still-sealed mouth to lay a hand on her shoulder.
Volume Control’s gaze swept over to him. “Oh, yes, and let’s not forget that despite all your preaching about caring for the collection, you use a fire-breathing dragon as your assistant.”
Spike’s ridges quivered at the accusation. He stepped forward, making a series of complicated and irate gestures at Volume Control. The head librarian looked up at Twilight questioningly, but she could only shrug a sad, uninterested shrug.
Spike gave a muffled groan and darted across the room for the supply cabinet. A second later he returned, a quill in one hand, with the other holding up a scroll which read: Hey!
He lowered the paper and scribbled furiously with the quill.
I’ve only ever set like, three books on fire!
“Wait, three?” Twilight started up out of her own misery. “What was the third?”
Uh...
Volume Control cleared his throat with a sound like steel wool in a blender. “Well then, Miss Sparkle,” he said, “I think we've taken enough of each other's time. I shall give you a few days to move your belongings while I look for a replacement.”
Whole new reaches of horror opened up beneath the reaches of horror which had already been waiting to swallow Twilight. Whole new reaches with whole new teeth. “Sir, you don't mean... L-leave the library?”
Volume Control gave another snort—this time with the nostrils almost working in stereo, as if he were getting the hang of it. “Surely you don't expect the Association to continue to pay your rent when you are no longer even nominally working for us.”
Memories flashed through Twilight's head: Ponyville, her friends, finally living someplace where the humidity and her mane more-or-less got along. “B-but.... Princess Celestia assigned me to live here. By royal edict!” she protested feebly.
“Well then, I’m sure it won’t take more than a few proclamations for her to set you up with an apartment somewhere.” The almost-smile on Volume Control's face gave a sense that he might be almost-enjoying this. With a toss of his head, he turned towards the door. “Perhaps you’d best write to her n—” Volume Control froze. For several long seconds he was silent. “On... second thought,” he said at last, “I may have spoken hastily.” When he turned around, his expression was the least stern Twilight had ever seen it. It was almost neutral, even. “I suppose it is only fair to give you a chance to adapt yourself to my more... stringent standards.”
Twilight’s heart did cartwheels in her chest. “You mean it?”
“Two weeks,” said Volume Control, the starch coming back into his features. “No more. And I want to see big numbers! I want every single book in this library to circulate! I want every pony in this town to have a library card—and to have used it—or you're out on the street. Do I make myself clear?”
“Every single... but Sir—” Volume Control silenced her with a glare. Twilight gulped. “Er, yes. Crystal clear.”
“Good. Then I suggest you get to work, Miss Sparkle. Good day.”
Twilight watched him leave. This time he did not close the door. And, although a cold wind now swept into the library through the open doorway, it was some time before either Twilight or Spike gathered themselves enough to shut it.
Spike broke the silence first. “Well... what now?”
“I don't know, Spike,” said Twilight. A weight like enormity itself had perched on her back, claws dug in, trying to sink her into the floorboards. “I guess if we want to stay in Ponyville we have to...” she broke off, lips trembling. She turned to him. “Run a library.”
Spike's pupils shrank, then rolled upwards into his head, and for the second time that day he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Outside, thunder cracked its cat-o-nine-tails against the sky, and the wind howled like a beaten dog below the clouds. The Ponyville Public Library shook in the gusts like a wailing child in a ship at sea which was also in a storm. Finally, the heavens broke under the torture—rain bled from the laden clouds, and as the first two drops struck the old oak tree, they ran down its face, exactly like tears.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
- Francis Bacon, Philosopher
Please do not put the books in your mouth.
- Twilight Sparkle, Librarian
Ask anypony on the street and they'll tell you: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And that is why the ponies of Ponyville had never quite trusted their public library. After all, if a little knowledge were dangerous, then surely stockpiling so many books in one place was akin to collecting vintage doomsday weapons. Who would do such a thing, they wondered, when they tucked themselves in for the night and glimpsed the lights still burning in the old oak tree. Who would do such a thing, and why?
No great effort was made to find out, of course, as that would be knowledge. And therefore dangerous.
Nonetheless, tabs were kept on the comings and goings of the library. And for the most part, the ponies of Ponyville were reassured that the library seemed content to keep to itself.
Until today, that is. For there were signs that something was happening within the library's fearful trunk.
And one of them read simply, ominously: Welcome.
The five ponies who stood gazing up at that sign were the first live creatures to approach the building in nearly twenty-four hours. Rumors abounded of a mysterious visitor the previous afternoon, but details were scarce and prone to exaggeration, and also Pinkie Pie was there, which didn't help.
“Now remember,” said Rarity to others. “Whatever you see when we go inside, the important thing is that we're here to support Twilight.”
“And that Applejack owes me ten bits if she's been taken over by an alien brain parasite,” added Rainbow Dash.
Rarity frowned. “I can't believe you two would bet on our poor friend's condition.”
“Hey, don't go lumping me in with her!” said Applejack. “Rainbow's the one who put money on Twilight's brain getting eaten. I’m just in it to teach her a lesson. And because it's way more likely Twi's snapped from all that reading.”
“Oooh, oooh!” Pinkie Pie cut in. “What if the mysterious stranger yesterday was some sort of mysterious strange hypnotist who's brainwashed Twilight to do his bidding?”
“No more betting!” snapped Rarity. “Honestly.” With a sharp flick of her tail, Rarity turned back towards the door. Her gaze sank into it—the familiar door with its familiar candle insignia that she had passed through hundreds of times before, that had always been a threshold into friendship and occasionally a nice lunch and—good heavens had it been that close a moment ago?
Her eyes drifted back to the sign.
Welcome.
“P-perhaps somepony had better knock?”
But before any of the others could react, the door swung in, slowly, silently, beckoning them closer. Closer they came, nervous and shivering in the chill air, until the library had swallowed them all.
When entering the library, Rarity was sometimes struck by a sense that the books were whispering, carrying on low, papery gossip behind her back. Today they seemed to be whispering run.
And yet, now that she was through the door, the inner appearance of the library was not so changed: walls continued upright, shelves met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut. And there was Twilight Sparkle. Sitting at a desk. Smiling.
“Hi girls. Can I help you?”
The words, so strange and unfamiliar, elicited a flurry of activity from the others—Rarity heard Fluttershy meepingly back into the closed door, and Pinkie's bouncing step falter like a wounded slinky, and Applejack hissing in reply to Rainbow Dash: “Twilight's hair has so always swooshed on that side! And that ain't proof of anything.”
But Rarity was not one to let her composure slip so easily. She had the finest training in etiquette one could beg out of her petite bourgeois parents, and if there were one thing which Legs Together's Pocket Guide to Ladylike Behavior had been quite emphatic about, it was that no situation is too awkward, too frightening, or too urgent for a nice round of pleasantries.
So out they came: “Twilight! How are you, darling?” she said, brightly. “We missed you at Pinkie's party for the um...”
“53rd consecutive day since the last party balloon shortage,” Pinkie supplied, huffily.
“I'm sorry girls,” said Twilight. “I've just been so busy, trying to convert the library into... well, more of a library. You know, trying to get ponies to actually come in and borrow things.”
Behind her, Rarity heard Appleloosan-twanged grumbling, and the light chink of ten bits trading hooves.
“Er... is everything quite all right, Twilight?”
“Why wouldn't it be?” said Twilight, her smile returning and bringing her teeth along. Teeth that looked rather like they had been carved there, an arch to hold up the rest of her features. “It's not like I have two weeks to make everypony in town use the library or my new boss will kick me out to live on the streets!"
Before anyone could compliment Twilight on the specificity of her denial, there was a muffled cry from somewhere high above them: “Twilight! Twilight where are you? I've got a spider situation up here. I think they want to… ulp... eat me.”
“Just sneeze at them, Spike!” she called back. “They’re scared of fire!”
Spike’s voice cracked with the effort of staying calm, “They’re digging a barbeque pit.”
Twilight blinked. “Girls, you'll have to excuse me for a second, I'll be right—” There was a flash of light, and she vanished mid-sentence. The remaining ponies exchanged looks.
From above them, there came a high pitched, Spike-like wail.
Twilight Sparkle felt as though she had a trembling, scaly muffler around her neck, as the teleportation spell deposited her back in living room—the atrium, she should really start calling it. From across the desk, her friends were looking at her with expressions of curiosity.
“Tell me when it's over, Twilight,” Spike whispered into her fur.
“Spike, we're—”
“Just tell me when it's over.”
“It's over.”
“JUST TELL ME WHEN IT'S OVER, OKAY TWILIGHT?!”
Twilight sighed. “Open your eyes, Spike.”
That must have gotten through, because the next instant his arms were no longer squeezing her, and there was a sharp scrabbling down her back followed by a thud.
Across the desk, five befuddled faces asked silent questions like what the hoof was that? Twilight had time to give her friends a shrug and a smile before Spike yanked her head down where he was crouching behind the desk.
“You didn't say Rarity was here!” he accused. “How do I look?”
Bits of cobweb clung to Spike's spines, which still quivered faintly in terror.
“Like you lost a fight with a sewing machine.”
Spike considered this. “I'll make it work!” he said, and sprang onto the counter.
“So there I was, up in the attic! Spiders were everywhere, clicking their mandibles at me, ready to strike. Of course, if it was just me, it would have been easy to fight them all off, but I had this precious cargo to think about.” Spike's tail was wrapped tightly around the handle of a hard-shelled, dark brown cube, which he held aloft for the others to see. “Who knew what kind of harm it might suffer if I stopped to duke it out with the arachnid menace?”
“Wait, back up,” said Applejack. “Y'all have an attic?”
“Actually, according to the treaty, the spiders have an attic,” said Twilight. “But we had to sneak in to dig this up for the library.” With a glow from her horn, Twilight floated the brown box into the air.
“Oooh, what is it?” asked Pinkie Pie, while elsewhere Rarity and Fluttershy preened over Spike and the bits of webbing attached to Spike, respectively.
Twilight gave Pinkie a sly grin. “Why don't I show you instead? Say cheese!”
“Sure! Oh, but what kind of cheese? There's dappled grayere, and canterbert, and—”
Twilight pressed a button on the top of the box. With a sound like a miniature thunderclap, light blasted from a small glass lens, a white and searing flash that left everypony in the room blinking furiously through a purple haze of afterimage.
“So it's—” Rarity choked on the smell of burning plastic, which she hoped was coming from the camera and not her contact lenses. “A camera, then?”
Twilight was far too aware of the effects of inhaling the camera's fumes to say more than “Watch.” The box rumbled, chugged, shook in Twilight's telekinetic grip, until finally a slot opened in the side, and with a small and cheery ding, out shot a tiny piece of laminated plastic.
It read “Ponyville Public Library Card” across the top, next to a picture of a smiling Pinkie Pie with no discernible pupils.
“So you're... actually serious about this library business?” asked Rarity, after they had all gotten a good look at the thing.
“Of course,” said Twilight. “A public library should serve the public, right?” Twilight was reasonably certain she had managed to get through it only twitching once this time.
Applejack gave her a puzzled look. “But didn't you have a whole system worked out to make sure ponies who took your books were fit for it?”
“Well, yes, I'm going to have to relax my standards a bit...”
There was a collective gasp from her friends that Twilight tried her best to ignore. But it was harder to ignore the sudden look of… concern that ran across their faces.
Rarity looked like she meant to break the silence, but Applejack was there first, with a knowing look on her face and a supportive hoof to brace Twilight’s shoulder. “Twi,” she said, “Sometimes when a pony is real specific about saying what didn’t happen, it’s because it really did happen. Is that what happened?”
Twilight shot a baffled look to her other friends, which bounced around the room like a ping pong ball before coming to rest with Rarity.
“I… think what Applejack is trying to ask,” said Rarity, “is whether that business about your boss firing you if ponies don’t start using the library was true.”
With a sigh and a sad nod, Twilight admitted everything.
“But surely Princess Celestia wouldn't allow you to be thrown out of your home,” said Rarity.
Twilight shook her head slowly. “The only time I've ever seen Princess Celestia look scared—really scared—was when she lost the Canterlot Library's copy of Much Adieu About Nothing: A Linguistic History of Goodbyes.” The others swallowed. “And that was when Sustine was in charge! She liked me!”
“Still, it don't seem fair to just stick you with an ultimatum like that,” said Applejack. “Maybe you ought to talk to to the Princess anyway—”
“No!” said Twilight, then again, a little softer, “Er... no. I... this is something I have to do.”
“But Twilight—”
“Rarity, he called me a bad librarian.” Twilight gave that a moment to sink in, while the others donned appropriate expressions of shock and horror. “So if Volume Control's idea of what makes a good librarian means pandering to the whole town, well, that's just what I'll have to do.”
“And um...” said Fluttershy, “You're okay with—”
“Of course I'm okay with it!” snapped Twilight. “After all, I'm sure it won't be a huge disaster if everypony in town takes out a book or two. And if it is, then I'll just have to write a very long letter to Mr. Control about how I was right all along.”
“Twilight, your eye,” said Spike.
“Yes, thank you Spike,” said Twilight, clamping a hoof over her twitching eyelid.
“Well, bravo Twilight,” said Rarity. “I think it's wonderful that you're rising to the occasion. But... you did have more planned than just putting out a welcome sign?”
“Of course!” Twilight said, her expression lifting. “The sign is just phase one.”
“And... what's phase two?”
“Theme nights!” said Twilight. “Can you say 'Weekly Wednesday Jigsaw Jamboree?' Or 'Foreign Film Fridays?' Or 'Theological Thursdays?' That's... um... as far as I've gotten. But we do have lots of jigsaw puzzles, so maybe we can do that twice.”
She glanced up at where Spike was showing Applejack a large pile of jigsaw puzzles, liberated from the attic earlier that morning, saying, “If any of the boxes hisses at you, just put it down and back away fast.”
“Um, Twilight, not that that doesn't all sound lovely, but—”
“Jigsaw puzzles?” Rainbow Dash exploded. “Are you kidding me? That's your plan?”
“And foreign films!” said Twilight. “And... well, I'm not entirely sure what we'd do on Theologi—”
“Twilight, you are never going to get ponies to come here by offering them jigsaw puzzles.”
“But... jigsaw puzzles are fun. Aren't they?”
The others all took a polite but compelling interest in guessing the library's age via the rings on the floor. And at that moment, Twilight felt a kinship with her tree—hollow, looked down on, and with the termites of doubt gnawing away at her insides, digesting her nutrient-rich hope with their symbiotic intestinal protozoa.
“Spike?” she asked, hopefully.
The dragon shifted. “I wasn't gonna say anything, since we almost died getting them, but...”
Some sort of valve switched in Twilight and out came uneasy laughter. “Ahahah... hah... I may have a problem then,” she said.
“Oh, nonsense Twilight,” said Rarity. “You just have to try a little harder to appeal to the common pony.”
“That was me trying to appeal to the common pony.”
“Oh.” Rarity thought for a moment, then, continued, “Well… still, don’t you fret. I'm sure if the seven of us put our heads together we can turn your library into the most popular spot in town. After all, Applejack and I are not without business savvy.”
Applejack nodded. “I reckon I could rustle you up some business, no sweat. Though it may take a day or two.”
“Oooh, ooh, me too!” said Pinkie Pie. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake are out of town, and I'm in charge of Sugarcube Corner! We could do a whole library-bakery special week!”
Twilight could have laughed, genuinely this time. “You guys would do that?”
“Of course!” said Rainbow Dash. “No way are we gonna let you get kicked out. Where would I get the next Daring Do book?”
“Rainbow, you know we do have a bookstore right—”
“Come on girls! We'll get everypony in town to read if it's the last thing they do!” With a powerful wing-stroke, Rainbow Dash shot through the door and up into the gray sky, leaving the others to stare after her.
Applejack was the first to speak. “Y'all figure she did mean if it's the last thing we do, right?”
Silence.
“Oh dear.”
“Uh, Spike?”
“Yeah, I'm on it,” said Spike, trudging after the quickly-fading rainbow streak.
All things considered, Davenport was having a pretty good day. Poor pegasus planning and various other alliterative incidents had resulted in a week-long thunderstorm, which had trapped many a pony indoors. And it was at times like these, when there was nothing to do and no relief in sight, that ponies started to realize that there were two things missing in their lives, two things that could make such dramatically inconvenient weather bearable:
Quills and Sofas.
Business was booming. Why, he had seventeen more sofas to deliver that day, and if this kept up, he might even be able to hire some help!
Yes, thought Davenport as he strained against the yoke holding him to a half-dozen loveseats and divans, things were certainly looking up. And for once, not just because it was the only way his head fit into the rig.
The pained wheezing from somewhere to his right caught Davenport's attention, but it was the horrible, rattling cough that convinced him to stop and look. Out of the alley beside him limped a pony on the verge of death, her blue coat dusted with dirt and covered in large, black spots, her mane hanging limply into eyes that begged the world for a brief and merciful end.
“R-Rainbow Dash? That you?” was all he could gasp out before the wheezing pegasus collapsed onto the fainting couch trailing closest behind him. “I'm sure Rarity wouldn't mind you using her couch, but if you're sick—”
“Books...” moaned Rainbow Dash. “If only I had... read... more... books.”
“Pardon?”
“I'm dying,” moaned the withered pony. “Because I didn't... read enough... if only... if only I had used the library...”
Davenport thought about that for a moment. “I don't think you can die from not reading.”
With a sudden burst of vigor, Rainbow Dash seized him by the collar and pulled him down so that only a few inches separated them. “How would you know, huh?” she snapped. “Been reading any of the latest research?”
Rainbow Dash stared fiercely into Davenport's eyes for almost a full ten seconds before letting out a (somewhat half hearted) cough and falling limp about his neck.
Davenport's eyes grew wide with horror and the aftereffects of pegasus breath. “I-it's not contagious, is it?”
“The medical journals... are on... the left... past the door... sorta in the middle...” With a final, desperate wheeze, Rainbow Dash collapsed off of the couch, her tongue lolling out into the mud. Davenport took a last, horrified look at the prostrate pegasus, then turned and bolted for the library as fast as his legs would carry him. Which was not terribly fast, what with the six sofas he was hauling.
The putrid, decaying corpse of Rainbow Dash opened one eye cautiously, and then gave it a good roll when it became apparent that Davenport wasn't going anywhere fast. A nearby bucket sidled up to her, propelled by a pair of purple feet.
“Oh, hey there Spike,” said the deceased pegasus. “I guess the others sent you to stop me?”
“Well, yeah,” Spike admitted. “But actually, I'm totally okay with this.”
“Cool, you wanna help out?”
“Do I!”
And with that, the bucket and the terminally ill-read Rainbow Dash both picked themselves up and set out in search of fresh prey.
It is a little known fact that libraries are a great deal more like avalanches than they are typically given credit for. In fact, if you start one rolling down the side of a mountain, the differences between them quickly disappear.
Twilight Sparkle, Librarian Junior Grade, had set off an avalanche.
The first stone to fall had been the desk: a big, wall-hogging brute of a thing with a cheap blue laminate surface raised to a precise height that was equally uncomfortable whether she stood, sat, or perched on a chair.
She was willing to accept the desk—a proper library really ought to have a circulation desk, and properly speaking it ought to be big and cheap-looking and slightly uncomfortable. And it might have stopped there, but Twilight had accepted Rarity's help in the further librarification of the building, and the latter had raced ahead like a wall of snow and ice, raining down freestanding “what's hot” shelves, and inexpensive tables, and stools, and bean bag chairs in the corners (that the room was circular posed no problem for the bean bags—they had made their own corners).
All this Twilight had allowed to pass without more than half an hour's worth of argument. But there were some things, some principles, for which you had to face the avalanche.
“Um, Rarity,” said Twilight, “Not to question your artistic judgment, and I appreciate all of your help, but, well, I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with this latest ad campaign.”
“I'm not real comfortable either,” grunted Big McIntosh from his hunched-down position, front legs bent to bring his head close to the floor while his hind ones hoisted his rear as high as they could go.
Rarity sighed and looked up from where she had been photographing Big Mac (from behind, of course). “Twilight, darling, I thought we had agreed after the focus testing on Middle Equestrian Wednesday Wodeness that I was going to be in charge of the advertisements.”
“Nopony ever gives Middle Equestrian a chance!” said Twilight. “By my fay, Ich noot noon other tunge so unjustily desparaged in al of Ponydom!”
Rarity gave Twilight a Look, in which could be read exactly how much patience she had left with Middle Equestrian.
“Um... yes, we did agree on that,” said Twilight. “But... this just doesn't feel right. And I don't think it's what Applejack had in mind when she asked Big Mac to help us, either.”
“Oh, please, Twilight, you act as if we're taking advantage of somepony—Excuse me! Big McIntosh, did I say that we were done with this shot?”
Big McIntosh let out a miserable sigh. “Nope.”
“Then straighten, please.”
Big Mac's legs wobbled a little, hiking his tail end another few inches into the air.
It took Twilight several seconds to realize she was staring and turn her attention back to the task at hand. “Also I don't see what this has to do with reading...”
Rarity sighed. “Twilight, we'll put the words 'READ @ Your Local Library' all across it in big, friendly letters. And we'll give him a book.”
A hardback volume floated down from a shelf, heading for Big Mac's nearly-grounded muzzle—until Twilight snatched it out of the air, clutching the book to her chest like an infant. “Are you crazy? Give him a book in with that reading posture? Just look how high his center of gravity is! Anything could knock him down: an earthquake, a nearby explosion, anything! And that's how you get torn pages. Chewed bindings. Drool stains!”
“A magazine then,” Rarity hissed between closed teeth, as a glossy replacement sailed across the room, bound up in a blue glow.
Twilight had to admit that the possibility of destroying one of the library's newly-acquired magazines was doing a lot to improve her opinion of the plan, yet still she hesitated. “I don't know...”
“Oh for—Twilight Sparkle, some days you are as bad as Fussy McPickypants!”
Twilight blinked. “Who?”
“Hoity Toity’s niece. And Fancypants’, actually, though neither of them would really care to admit the relation but that is not the point! This is an area where I know what I am doing, Twilight. I know that you want to do this your own way, but believe me, I can get ponies into a building. Even a library. What you have to worry about is keeping them here.”
Twilight gave Rarity a sharp look. “Are you saying you don't think I could get ponies in here without your help?”
“Well... not in so many words—”
“I've got the magic of reading on my side!” said Twilight, her chest swelling with bibliothecarial pride. “And a welcome sign. And a friendly disposition.”
“As much as I am loathe to say it, Twilight, those don't exactly seem to have carried the day so far.” Rarity's hoof made a sweeping gesture towards the library's empty interior.
Twilight's mouth went through a rapid succession of affronted but mute shapes as her brain struggled to come up with a likely-sounding comeback. Fortunately she was saved before reaching “Oh yeah?” by the tinkle of the door bell and a small voice calling “Hello?”
At which point, Twilight's tongue found a comeback that didn’t require any words at all.
The buttercup-yellow colt standing in the doorway took one look at the three ponies in the room, one with his rump in the air, another with a camera trained on it, and the third sticking her tongue out at the second, and edged several steps backwards. “Um. Or I could come back later—”
“No, no wait!” Twilight practically pounced on the newcomer, who backed, rather more quickly now, into the closed door. “Sorry, I'm... ahem,” Twilight took a breath to calm herself as a stack of index cards shot across the room to hover beside her. “Welcome to the Ponyville Public Library,” she began again. The wild look of horror began to fade from the colt's eyes as she went on. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm the head librarian, and let me begin by saying that I'm thrilled to have you here. Reading is more than just a hobby, it's a wonderful pursuit which will take you on incredible journeys, whether to the far corners of the world, or to new ideas that help you understand that world a little better. In this very room you can find the wisdom and imagination of thousands of ponies going back hundreds of years, and all you have to do to benefit from it is to pick up a book. So please, let me be your lighthouse of Gallopsandria in this sea of—” Twilight frowned. “Did I really write that?” she glanced down at the cards in front of her, which had been shuffling to keep pace. “That's terrible. I knew this needed another pass—oh, what did I use here in draft 12?” Another, more crumpled stack of cards winged its way from out of the wastepaper basket, nearly colliding with the colt, who was looking more puzzled by the second. Again, Twilight stopped. “Oh. Um... Well, I'm... very happy to be your... guide on this brave new adventure!” she finished, lamely. “So. How can I help?”
“W-well,” said the colt. “I saw your welcome sign out there, and I was wondering...” Twilight's undivided attention on her first patron divided itself for a moment to shoot a triumphant look at Rarity. “D-do you have any more poster board? And maybe some markers?”
Twilight's victory grin pulled an about-face maneuver that would have been the envy of many a medieval general. “You... only came in here for poster-making supplies?”
“Yeah!” said the colt, brightening considerably now that he seemed to have found a sympathetic ear. “We were all out at home, and I have to make this whole school science project thing by tomorrow—”
“Oh, well, you know, we do have a very large science section,” said Twilight, wielding helpfulness like a shield against the truth. Though, as the colt shook his head, it was beginning to feel a bit more like a buckler.
“Just the markers and paper, please!” he said. “I'm gonna do the weather cycle—that's easy, since my mom's on the weather control team.”
“I... see,” said Twilight, letting the words slip out between teeth that were still trying to smile. “Right this way.” She led the colt across the room to the desk, crossing behind it to fetch a sheet of poster board and a set of markers.
“Thanks!” said the colt, happily taking the supplies in his mouth.
“Yeah, sure.” Twilight's head sagged forward until her chin touched the desk's surface, eyes not-really-focused on the colt heading back to the exit.
“Um, darling,” said Rarity. “Don't you need for him to have a library card?”
Twilight shot bolt upright. “Oh no. Wait!” she called after the colt, snatching up the camera-slash-card printer in a field of magic.
The Flim Flam Fathers' Card-O-Matic 2000 had been first entered the market some 48 years ago, and was forcibly removed from the market a scant few weeks after. In the brief time it was available for purchase, it won great acclaim from librarians all across Equestria for its low price point and utility in scaring away customers with its horrifying noises and blinding flash. However, despite an impressive weight of twenty-four pounds and an exceedingly sturdy case, the one thing the Card-O-Matic did not do very well was jostle.
Which is precisely what Twilight did to hers when she leapt over the desk after the retreating colt.
A roar like a thunderbolt in an echo chamber crashed through the library, while a blazing light shot shadows into the upper reaches of the tree trunk.
For a second, it seemed the colt might freeze where he was, as paralyzed in reality as his image would have been if Twilight had been pointing the camera anywhere near him.
“Aaaaah!” With a scream like a dullahan the young colt plowed through the exit.
Twilight raced behind him, Card-O-Matic chugging and whining and coughing smoke. “Wait! Come back!” she called. But try as she might to keep pace, the colt's terror-fueled sprint gave wings to his feet as well as his back, and he quickly pulled away from her, even as Twilight fired off several more shots from the Card-O-Matic, each ringing out like an explosive blast.
Incidentally, rapid-fire picture taking was something else the Card-O-Matic was not optimized for, and it rewarded Twilight for this treatment by belching an especially foul burst of chemical smoke into her face, stopping her dead in her tracks.
When Twilight came sputtering out of the sulfurous cloud, there was no sign of the fleeing colt. What there were, instead, were a great number of ponies standing around, staring at Twilight and her strange brown box.
This continued in silence for a moment, until Twilight's lungs cleared of Card-O-Matic fumes, and her brain was once again able to interpret facial expressions. At which point she noticed how scared they all looked. She gave a nervous laugh. “Um. This is just a harmless camera,” she lied, holding up the Card-O-Matic.
Unfortunately for Twilight, the third thing the Card-O-Matic was bad at at was not going off completely at random.
There was a flash. There was smoke and thunder and a high pitched whine.
And ponies ran for their lives, some screaming in terror, some shielding their watering eyes a moment too late to prevent the pain. They ran.
And all away from the library. Leaving Twilight completely alone in the middle of the street.
“Rarity?” she called after a moment and the camera fumes had passed.
“Yes, Twilight?” came the reply from inside the tree.
“We'll do whatever you say.”
“In that case, could you be a dear and fetch me my makeup kit? I think we're going to need some blush for these cheeks.”
Somewhere in the library, Big McIntosh groaned.
Meanwhile, in Ponyville's most pastry-shaped building (by a narrow margin), Pumpkin Cake gave a tiny grunt of frustration, as gravity once again foiled her attempt to scale the walls of her crib. The infant pony may not have known how much force it took to get a 30-pound 4-ounce unicorn foal to the top of a crib, but did she know that something was going on out there, and she wanted in. She cast an annoyed glance at her brother, who was, as usual, sleeping right through all the good stuff and hardly offering to fly her up to a better vantage point at all.
All she had gleaned through the bars of her prison cell was that the big pink pony had been running around frantically all morning, and now there were excited voices from out in the place where the cuddly big blue pony and the skinny big yellow pony kept food behind invisible walls to torture other big ponies into giving them little metal things. The commotion was largely unintelligible to Pumpkin's 8-month-old brain, but she had caught the words “free” and “Cupcake” repeated over and over again, and was very concerned about the cuddly big blue pony. Although she couldn’t help feeling that there would be a certain karmic justice in it, if the cuddly big blue pony were trapped in a cell someplace while something interesting was going on just within earshot and just out of sight.
Oblivious to the schemes unwinding in the mind of the infant unicorn, Pinkie Pie was busy contending with minds of a far less sophisticated nature.
“So we give you the books from the library, and you give us a free cupcake?” asked a stallion on the other side of the counter.
“No—” Pinkie began.
“No, no, we have to eat the book first. It's like a dare.”
“Ohhh,” ohhhed the small crowd that had gathered in Sugarcube Corner since the word “free” had appeared on the sign outside.
Pinkie Pie tried her best to smile, but it was sure getting a lot harder than she was used to. “Okay, let's try this again, with the puppets this time.”
“I'm not going through this again—I'm not interested,” snapped the unicorn in the pinstripe suit, pulling away from Fluttershy at a brisk walk.
“Um, well, but if you'd just give me a moment—” said Fluttershy, struggling to keep pace while hovering backwards a few inches above ground.
“Look, I'm very busy, I have these forms I need to get in and I really don't have time for this. Get lost!”
“But reading is really a wonderful pastime and the public library is—” with a burst of speed, the stallion shoved Fluttershy to one side and moved quickly on down the street. Fluttershy wobbled in midair, not quite in control, and then something clipped her hind legs and gravity wasn't where it ought to be and things were spinning and she was flat on her back looking up at a picket fence and a rather concerned Carrot Top.
“Fluttershy! Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
“No...” said Fluttershy felt tears welling at the corners of her eyes that had more to do with being shoved aside like she was invisible than the onion bulbs sticking into her lumbar. After all that assertiveness training, just when she thought she was making progress, she couldn't even help a friend in need, and Twilight would have to move away, and it would be all her fault, and…
No, she wasn't about to let that happen. She blinked the tears away, rolled over and climbed to her feet. “But I have to be.”
With a deep breath, Fluttershy charged after the businesspony in the suit, her wings carrying her over the heads of passersby until she spotted him, his fancy hat askew from the speed at which he was trotting. She zoomed past and dropped right in front of him, blocking his path. The stallion gave a start, backed away a few paces, and Fluttershy stared him right in the face with all the force she could muster, and said, “Please, if I could have just one more moment of your time to talk about the library.”
Any fear on the businesspony's face drained away in a pool of irritation. “How many times do I have to say it?!” he barked. “No means no!”
“No means no?” Fluttershy echoed, as the businesspony tried to pick his way around her. A wall of throbbing green rage was pulsing behind her eyes—a tremor ran her body, shivering to its beat, awakening something, something long buried. “No means no?!” She grabbed him by the collar of his suit, and spun him around to face her again. “I invented that phrase!”
“Really? Wait, it's only three words! Actually it's only two. I don't think you can—”
“You shut your mouth or this... conversation... goes South!” snapped Fluttershy. “Nopony treats Fluttershy like some timid little nopony! Nopony!”
“Wait, were you emphasizing the first nopony or the second—”
“You question my semantics, I end your... antics! With... Bucky Mc... Painenstein!” Fluttershy brandished her newly christened right hoof. “Understand?”
The businesspony gave a gulp of comprehension.
“Good! Now you are going straight to the library and you are going to get a library card and check out some books! Not just one or two, a whole bunch. And you are going to read them! And see how you like that!”
“How do you want me to like it?” said the stallion.
“Like it's the most fun you've ever had!” snapped Fluttershy. “Or I'll... do... something bad! Oh dear, that um, wasn't very intimidating, was it?”
But the stallion was already gone, running as fast as his Wingtip™ brand horseshoes would carry him. In the direction of the library, even.
Was it possible? Could old-new Fluttershy help new-old Fluttershy to get ponies to the library? Could she become a monster again, to save a friend? The idea wormed its way up through layers of shame and guilt to a place that was... strangely comfortable.
She was going to have to practice some better rhymes, though.
It was 1,625 yards later (as the pony drags 6 sofas through the mud) when Davenport finally limped into the Ponyville Public Library. Other ponies, unencumbered by even so much as a single sofa, had beaten him there, and when he entered the room he was greeted by the faint rustle of pages and the self-conscious stillness of people working in an enclosed space without acknowledging each other's existence.
“Hello and welcome!” said Twilight Sparkle, Librarian Junior Grade, from behind her desk. “Let me begin by saying that I'm thrilled to see you here, ready to set out on a new journey towards enlightenment and—”
“I don't have time for any of that!” Davenport raced up to the circulation desk, planting his hooves on counter and leaning so far forward he almost lost balance. “I need to see your medical journals!”
Twilight frowned. “I really thought I had it with draft 37... are you sure you don't want to hear—”
“No! It's an emergency!” Davenport said. “Please! I've been exposed!”
“Oh,” said Twilight, trying to avert her eyes from anything lower than Davenport's chin. “I'm not sure... how this is going to help but uh... this way.” Stepping out from behind the desk, she led Davenport in a zigzag pattern between lounging patrons. “So... is there some sort of health fad going on in Ponyville lately? You're the seventh pony to come in asking about medical journals, and all the others have either wanted books on self defense, or just looked really hungry.”
Davenport was too busy checking his pulse to respond with anything more than a mumbled “Uh-huh.”
“Well, here we—oh dear,” Twilight stopped in front a single, empty shelf. “I knew they were popular, but I guess somepony took a bunch at once—”
“What? Who?” Davenport demanded. “Was it this clown?” He pointed to an orange mare with a poofy, technicolor mane, seated in front of a large stack of hard-backed journals.
“I'm not allowed to disclose what books other ponies have,” said Twilight. “It's in the rules.”
Davenport leaned closer to the stack. “The Equestrian Journal of Medicine and Medieval Warfare: Volume XVI, Issue 3.”
“I'm afraid I can't comment on—hey, stop that!” Davenport had been reaching for one book in the middle of the stack with his teeth, but Twilight pulled him away.
“But she has over a dozen of 'em, and this is urgent!”
The desperation in Davenport's eyes made one thing very clear: that leaving him alone with the mare was a bad idea. “All right, but let me talk to her. I'm a librarian, I know what I'm doing.”
With that lie firmly in place, Twilight came up beside the rainbow-curled pony and said, “Um, Ms. Joy Buzz?” The mare did not even look up from scanning her book, but the way in which she didn't look up was encouraging, Twilight thought. “I've had somepony else say they were interested in reading the medical journals, and, well, since you have so many piled up here...”
Joy Buzz's fuzzy, many-hued head snapped up from the journal with a look like Twilight had just asked her to dance on two hooves over a pit of lava while juggling seven newborn puppies. “B-but I need them! It's a matter of life and death!”
Twilight's game face melted with a wistful sigh. She turned and looked fondly over her library—hers, even if it had the word Public and the actual public in it. “I know exactly what you mean. Reading makes life so much brighter and richer... And the EJMMW is great—it's my 17th favorite biannual scholarly publication. Who wouldn't want to go through that backlog?” Twilight shook herself out of dreams of new open-horn surgery techniques and old siege-engine schematics. “But that's exactly why we have to be reasonable, and share that joy with other ponies,” she said. “Don't you agree?”
Twilight turned around to find Joy Buzz and Davenport fighting over one of the journals like two dogs over a bone.
“Oh no no no!” Twilight gasped. “You can't do that! Th—that's going to leave tooth marks on the cover!”
“Let go!” said Davenport, through his mouthful of medicine.
“You let go!” Joy Buzz fired back, pages of medieval warfare garbling her words, but taking her side.
“We've really been trying to get ponies not to hold the books in their mouths,” said Twilight. The tug of war continued unabated.
Twilight cast about for something, anything to break up the fight, but the only things the library seemed to have in abundance were cheap furniture, and, well, more books. And, increasingly, patrons who were watching two grown ponies fight over a book with their teeth.
Twilight lit up. “Stop fighting this instant, you two! There are ponies trying to read!”
Yet, in defiance of all reason, this appeal to common decency and noise regulations had no effect: the fighters went on fighting, and the spectators went on spectating, and the poor journal went on being yanked at an slobbered on. Desperation welled up in Twilight. Her horn flickered to life, but there was nothing for her to use her magic on. The last thing the poor journal needed was a third party pulling on it. In fact, she was on the point of attempting a Jelly Jaw spell (in violation of several health codes, a magic ordinance, and about a billion points of unicorn etiquette) when the door bell announced a new arrival.
“Twilight!” came Rarity's voice. “I'm back from the printers and—good heavens! Davenport! Joy Buzz! What do you two think you're doing?”
The warring ponies stopped tugging. With distrustful glances for each other, and teeth still firmly clamped to the journal, they said, in unison, “Fighting to the death over this book.”
“Well, stop it.” Bitter looks on their faces, Davenport and Joy Buzz lowered the journal to the floor, leaving it equidistant between them. “Good. Now really, what sort of way is that to behave?”
The two immediately exploded in a flurry of explanations and entreaties, of which Twilight could barely make out:
“But I need to find out about reading sickness!”
“See, she already knows the name! I could be dying right now without any idea—”
Rarity took several steps back from the onslaught, then, raising her hooves, yelled, “All right, that is enough! Enough!” The two quieted down. “Now, Joy Buzz, you can't possibly read all of those journals at once. Can you not simply let Davenport have one while you read the others and then trade when you finish?”
Joy Buzz received the revelation like some ponies received a turnip milkshake to the face: with wide-eyed silence, followed by embarrassed contemplation. “I... guess he can have this one.” She slid the book towards Davenport, who snatched it up and was halfway across the room with the spine cracked wide open before anyone could blink.
“Davenport!” said Rarity. “What do you say?”
“I don't want to die!”
That seemed good enough for Joy Buzz, who also raced back to her precarious pile of texts and picked up where she had left off, leaving Twilight and Rarity alone in the center of the room.
“Thanks, Rarity,” said Twilight.
“I haven't the faintest idea what I just did,” she replied, with the stunned look of a mare who went digging for water and came back up with a unified theory of quantum mechanics.
“I don't either, if it makes any difference. Oh, I hope that book will be okay,” said Twilight, chewing a lock of her hair.
“I think it'll live. All that over a medical journal?”
“That issue also has an article about the repeating ballista of ancient Roedes,” Twilight offered.
“Oh, well, that explains that.”
Twilight didn’t miss the sarcasm in Rarity’s comment, but also couldn’t begin to guess what she meant by it. She was on the point of asking when a scrawny earth pony with overlarge glasses edged up beside her and said, “Um, excuse me, yes, I think I'd like to check out now?”
Twilight's pensive look neatly tucked itself behind a high-beam-grade smile. “Of course, right this way,” she said, walking behind the circulation desk. “Poindexter, right?”
Poindexter nodded and passed the book across the counter.
“Let's see... So a Timid Pegasus Threatened to Beat You Up: A Beginner's guide to Kick-Bucking. Did you already get a library card?”
“Um... yes, when I came in,” said Poindexter, blinking at the memory. He offered Twilight the card.
She glanced at it, then flipped the book over and stamped the date on the back of the book. “Okay, this will be due back in 3 weeks.”
“Thanks,” said Poindexter. “Wow, I can't believe I'm actually getting a book from the Ponyville Library. I thought it'd never happen after you turned me down last Fall. I remember, you said you thought my house might be too humid because it’s close to the river,” he added, laughing.
“Oh, well you know, the old policy wasn't entirely fair,” said Twilight. Suddenly, smiling seemed to take a lot more effort than it had a moment ago. “I don't suppose you ever looked into that dehumidifier I suggested, did you?”
“You know, I never got around to it,” said Poindexter, taking the book in his hooves. “Anyway, thanks!”
“Don't mention it,” said Twilight.
There was a pause.
“Er, Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“Your um, hoof is still on the book.” He gave a tug at the book, which barely budged it, as it was being pressed quite hard into the desk's formica surface.
“Is it?” said Twilight. “I hadn't noticed. Say! I'd be happy to keep the book here under the desk for you. That way it'd still be checked out to you, and I—I mean you—wouldn't have to worry about anypony else reading it, and you wouldn't have it cluttering up your mom's basement! You know how she hates a mess. And the book would be right here, any time you wanted it within our usual business hours. Pretty convenient, don’t you think?”
Poindexter stroked the four lonely hairs on his chin. “That's a swell offer Twilight, but I think I'd miss being able to read in the tub. Thanks anyway, though.” Suddenly Twilight's weight was pressing down on thin air as Poindexter yanked the book across the desk. She pitched forward, off-balance, her hoof stomping hard against the formica.
“Oh, sorry, um...” Poindexter muttered as he backed towards the door.
“No, wait!” Twilight gasped. She gathered her magic and teleported across the room, placing herself between Poindexter and the door. “I just remembered! This book is in desperate need of repairs!”
Poindexter inspected the book in his hooves. “Looks okay to me—”
“That's because you don't have the proper training!” said Twilight, as she tore the book away from the greasy-maned stallion with a burst of magic. “It's in terrible shape! The binding is practically falling apart. Don't question me, I'm a librarian!”
A hoof brushed her shoulder, and Twilight whipped around to find Rarity standing beside her. “Twilight, darling,” said Rarity, gently. “You have to let go now, so that Poindexter can take the book home.”
Twilight looked down at the self defense manual-slash-wuss empowerment guide clutched in her hooves. “B-but...”
“You know what will happen if you don't.”
Twilight lowered her gaze to the floorboards, where it joined her spirits. “I know.”
“Then?”
Twilight did not hand the book over directly, not as such, but she let her grip on the cover slacken, and she did not resist as a gentle blue glow lifted it away from her. And she watched as the book floated away on Rarity’s magic, and fell neatly back into Poindexter’s hooves.
“There you are, Poindexter—my, we're looking handsome today, aren't we? Sorry about the confusion. Off you go.” She gave him a tiny shove towards the door.
“Aw, shucks,” said Poindexter, blushing, and not exiting very quickly at all. “I mean, I have been working out a little—”
“Get out of here,” Rarity hissed, a whisper that Twilight did not quite miss.
“I'm sorry?”
“Run, you fool! Run!” she cried, practically lifting and throwing the skinny stallion in the direction of the door. It was, at last, enough of a hint—Poindexter beat a hasty retreat out out of the library and vanished into the street outside.
“I wasn't going to hurt him,” said Twilight, as Rarity came to stand beside her.
“Twilight, your horn is giving off sparks.”
“Maybe I want it to give off sparks,” she mumbled, staring stubbornly at the floor. The dry, wooden floor, on which sat a quantity of dry, combustible books.
With a sigh, Twilight raised a hoof to her horn and snuffed out the magic.
“Oh, Twilight,” Rarity draped a hug around her shoulders, like a cloak made of reassurance. “I know just exactly what you're going through. I was so excited the first time I sold a dress—until I realized that it meant I would have to give up this thing I'd worked so hard to make. I was absolutely inconsolable.”
Twilight didn't really see how anypony could compare letting go of a piece of fabric to surrendering a living, breathing book into the care of a pony of questionable morals and questionabler hygiene, but she accepted the hug nonetheless. It did little to assuage her anxiety, but at least she knew that she had friends who cared about her. Well, to be precise, she knew that, and one other thing that brought some comfort: she didn't know how yet, but Volume Control was going to pay for this, if she had to track him to the very darkest hall of evil in Equestria or beyond, he was going to pay.
The dark Hall of Evil in which Volume Control was presently lurking was better known by another name: The Deep Pockets Memorial Library at Canterlot University. Where, at that very moment, Volume Control was indeed practicing that blackest of all arts.
“I'm afraid I can't let you into the library at the moment,” he hissed, in his strainingly-quiet way. “The library is undergoing renovations.”
“Yeah, but, like, dude, my thesis is due in 4 days, so I was hoping you library bros could help me find out a topic that like, 'exemplifies and the thoughtful research and keen analysis which the student has acquired through his or her course of graduate study.'” The burgundy-coated graduate student gave Volume Control's foreleg—currently hanging across the doorway like a line of police tape—a conspiratorial nudge, as if to say I won't tell if you won't.
Among the many things the dim-colored colt had not considered that day was the possibility of meeting a pony who would enjoy the telling.
“How unfortunate. Good day.”
“But dude, bro, stally-wally dingdong! I'm like, mad desperate—”
“I said good day!” The last two syllables hit hard against the trying-to-graduate student's chest, where they played his ribcage like a gong. His hooves skittered on the polished floor of the hallway outside the library, and he twisted and crashed sideways against the fair wall, head clacking against plaster.
As he shook himself, the deep red stallion realized he had very little idea what had just happened. In fact, he was certain only of two things:
One, the door to the library was now very much closed.
And two, it did not seem very likely to be a good day at all.
Within the dark vastness of the library, Volume Control could not help but smile, his thin little lips parting to show thin little teeth. He was smiling quite a lot lately. It was almost beginning to feel natural.
The library spread out before him in a great semicircle, shelves arranged in neat blocks so that aisles radiated from the center, with tables and chairs in the spaces in between blocks. Overhead windows had been draped with black cloth to keep out the daylight, leaving a few flickering candles on the circulation desk the only source of illumination.
Volume Control turned his attention to the dark-robed ponies who clustered around the light. A large tome sat closed amidst skulls-turned-candle-holders, with two of the hooded figures peering at it intently. The one on the right raised a hoof to the book's gilded cover and with a sound like a hissing cat the book snapped at him.
“Careful!” Volume Control said. “It will not open for just anyone.” He approached the circulation desk, the hooded figures stepping aside to make room for him. “Oh great tome, I stand before you, seeking your guidance. Will you answer?” said Volume Control.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, as if stiff from age, the book tilted up until its spine was at a 45-degree angle. Its pages swung open, and light spilled out, burning golden lines of text into the dark air overhead:
Welcome to
The Certain, Magical Index
being a True Accounting of the Bokes of Equestria
& Their Whereabouts
Please state your username for voice recognition:
Volume Control cleared his throat. “It is I, Volume Control, head of the Equestrian Library Association, who seeks your guidance.”
If a book could frown, that is precisely what The Certain, Magical Index did. Once more the light blazed its pages, but rather than fanciful calligraphy, it traced hard and angry lines in the air.
I know of you, Volume Control. You are a pretender, a traitor, and no true and quiet librarian. I shall not answer you. You are not welcome here.
The light hovered for a moment, then, with a show of reluctance, added:
For access to the information you have requested, please return in the company of an ELA-certified librarian and repeat your request.
The stallion who had nearly had his hoof bitten reared up and, with an originality befitting his rank, yelled, “Why you—!” and struck at the book with a foreleg.
The instant hoof met page, there was a brilliant and horrible flash. Something cracked like wood and crunched like gravel and squelched like a sack full of mud bursting, then several heavy objects thudded to the floor.
When Volume Control and his hooded minions could look again, the Index was shut on the table, and there was no sign of the stallion who had struck it.
But where he had stood, there were now four large, fur-covered letters lying on their sides amidst the tattered remains of a cloak. The letters were: O, F, O, and L.
“Ofol?” said one of the cloaked figures.
“Fool,” said Volume Control.
“I was just trying to help, no need to get—oh.”
The group looked down at the letters in silence.
The F, which had a lifeless eye at the base of each bar, looked back, also in silence. The mouth was somewhere on one of the Os.
“Well,” said Volume Control. “Brother Tritone, I believe it was you who sponsored Brother Center Note for membership. You'll find a broom closet somewhere on the Southwest side of the room. The rest of you, with me. It seems we shall have to direct our inquiries… elsewhere.”
At that moment, Twilight Sparkle, Librarian Junior Grade, would have given a great deal for the ability to slam herself shut and refuse to open up for anypony without a library sciences degree.
“It was a red book, I remember,” said the gray-blue mare. “Or maybe sort of a puce. Or purple. Brown? I know it was something in a dark earth tone. Or else something brighter, you know? And it had all these ponies together in a house on the moors and it turned out the killer was the strange old gardener with the Canternese name.”
“That's... helpful,” said Twilight. “But it'd be more helpful if you knew the call number.”
“The what now?”
Twilight eyed the line of ponies forming behind the mare. “Can you tell me anything else about the book? Like maybe the title?”
The pegasus scratched at her orange bouffant for a moment, then said, “It might have been a dream I had. Does that help?”
To her credit, Twilight seriously considered trying to explain, but she had a line full of fidgeters piling up, and unchecked fidgeting would only lead to scuffed covers. She couldn't risk it. So what she said was, “Okay, well, why don't you have a look at our card index and see if anything rings a bell? Mysteries should start around EQ 375.” Twilight levitated an enormous rolodex onto the counter and slid it to the pegasus, who eagerly took it aside and began flipping through.
An earth pony stallion with a coat the color of spearmint and a rather impressive stack of books balanced precariously on his back approached the counter.
“Hello there, sir,” said Twilight, shifting the books to the table with a spell. “All set to check out?” He nodded. “All right, I don't believe you have a card with us yet.” Twilight lifted the Card-O-Matic and began to fiddle with the typesetting on the back. “Can I have your name?”
“Split Pea.”
“Great,” said Twilight, slotting the letters into place. “Just let me take your picture—”
“What? I can't have my picture taken like this!” Before Twilight could touch the shutter button, Split Pea threw his hooves up in front of his face.
“What do you mean?”
The stallion refused to budge until Twilight finally set the Card-O-Matic back down on the table. When she had, his hooves came down, revealing a face turned a rather improbable shade of red. “Well, just look at me! I'm so... so fat!” Split Pea exclaimed. For the first time Twilight noticed the stallion's prodigious stomach, which wobbled slightly as he gestured at himself in disgust. “I can't stand the thought of having to carry around a picture of me like this. I look like I'm storing nuts for the winter!” he said, puffing out his cheeks for emphasis.
“What?” Twilight blinked, then, catching herself, continued quickly, “I mean, I can assure you, you don’t look anything like that. Maybe you still have a couple of extra holiday pounds, but nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I broke one of your chairs.”
“Besides!” she went on. “It suits you. Some ponies look better with a little bit of extra pudge, after all. I even know some mares who only date stallions of a more... rotund stature. Not that you're rotund! Well, unless you've just decided that you're okay with that because of what I said—”
Split Pea's look of embarrassment turned to alarm and disgust faster than Twilight would have thought possible. “Are you hitting on me?”
“What? No!”
“What am I, some sort of fetish to you?”
“No, really. You're...” Twilight stole a look at what he was reading—The Wonderful World of Pins, Anthology of Pinterest vol. 27, Pins: The Other Sharp Pointy Metal Things. “Really not my type,” she finished.
“Oh, so you think I'm a gross fat pig, but I'm supposed to take your word for it that some mare somewhere won't, and that's supposed to restore my self-worth, is that it?”
“No—I—look—” Twilight tapped the elbow of the pegasus from before, who was still pouring over the card catalog. “Sorry, can I just borrow you for a second? What do you think of this fine young stallion here? Like... physically.”
Once more the pegasus scratched her mane. “Definitely the wrong color. It was a much redder book. Or bluer.” With that she turned back to her research, leaving Twilight to face Split Pea's irate look alone.
She gave an apologetic smile. “She's uh... preoccupied. I'm sure we can find somepony in here who—”
“I didn't ask you to pimp me out!” said Split Pea. “And see, you can't even do it, can you? You couldn't even pay somepony to say a fat freak like me was attractive!”
All across the library ears were perking up, tuning to the sound of something more interesting, or at least more salacious, than whatever was printed on the page before them. Twilight swallowed. “Please keep your voice down.”
“I will not be silenced! You can't use your authority to proposition whoever you want without consequence. I'm not some slab of avocado for you to ogle! I'm a rich, complicated pony—green, and tough, and lumpy on the outside, but with a smooth, vulnerable inside!”
“And a hard pit inside of that?” Twilight offered, before she could stop herself.
“Well you'll certainly never find out!” With a harrumph, Split Pea turned his by-no-means-insignificant backside to Twilight and marched for the exit. The stack of books he left behind caught Twilight's eye—books that she had forgotten the library had even possessed, hiding way down in the unfashionable end of the fashion and accessories section (with the side ponytails and the four-foot-wide saddlebags from the Hocksburg Empire).
“Wait!” she called. Split Pea hesitated in mid step. “Please, we got off on the wrong hoof here. I was just... trying to reassure you that you look fine the way you are, so you'd let me take your picture, so I could print you a library card, so you could take out these books, so I won't get fired, so I can stay in Ponyville and not have to move back in with my parents in Canterlot where nopony likes me except a couple of princesses and a donut shop owner!” Twilight tried not to think what would happen to her own weight if she were forced to visit Donut Joe for companionship.
“So, in other words,” said Split Pea, turning to give Twilight a hard look, “you were willing to say whatever it took to manipulate me into checking out books?”
Now the answer to that question was yes, but Twilight wanted very much to avoid giving it. Fortunately, at that moment, a purple claw descended onto the Card-O-Matic, and cornea-searing light exploded into the room.
When Twilight could see again, she found Split Pea still blinking away the full effects of the camera flash, and muttering a number of unflattering terms which ended in “manipulative book jockey!”
And there was Spike standing next to her. Where else would he be?
“Here's your card, sir,” said Spike, with an icy take it or else dangling unspoken off the end. Split Pea's eyelids flashed up and down like a signal lamp in fast motion, but at last he seemed to focus and took the card. “Oh,” he said, on seeing it. “I guess I don't look that bad after all. So I just hand you this and you give me the books?”
Twilight's jaw did not return to its full and upright position until Spike had stamped and carded all the books in the pile and sent Split Pea on his way with a wave and a smile and only half of a raspberry (disguised as a cough).
When at last he had gone, Twilight said, “Thank you, Spike,” without a hint of expression. She seemed to have ended up with her rump on the floor at some point, but didn't remember sitting down, like her hind legs had just stopped working.
A pat on the shoulder brought her back around to the present. She looked at Spike. “Where have you been all morning?”
“Putting out fires. It's uh... a long story. And actually not Rainbow Dash's fault, but that's not important right now,” Spike hopped down from the counter after her. “You've gotta be firmer with the patrons. I mean, since when does Twilight Sparkle have trouble telling ponies what to do?”
Twilight glared at him, but only for a split second before the look collapsed into a sigh. “I know,” she said. “It's just... having all these ponies we barely know in our home, and knowing that our fate is in their hooves...” she paused. “But you're right, Spike. It is our home! And even if it isn't, it's still our library. For the next two weeks anyway.”
Somewhere in her invigorating speech Twilight had come quite a ways towards depressing herself all over again, but she had hung onto enough courage to stand back up and say, “Next, please.”
A robin-red unicorn with bows in her mane came up to the desk. “Hi. I was going to just take out this book on toxicology, but that murder book the pegasus up here a second ago was talking about sounded really interesting. Do you think you could get me a copy too?”
“So if you'll just fill in your name and address here, I can get you set up with your card.” It was hours later, and for what felt like the millionth time that day, Twilight passed a form across the counter.
A mare with a very short, grass-colored mane and dark red eyes blinked back at her. “Twilight, it's me. Covert Garden? I brought you that honeysuckle and buckwheat stew when y'all were down with Grizzly Trot.”
Twilight gave a laugh, though her rear right leg jittered against its mate at the all-too-recent memory. “No, no, I remember who you are. I just need you to fill out the form for our records.”
Covert Garden's look took on a suspicious dimension as she regarded Twilight. “I dunno as I like the government knowing where I live. Sure, they say it's 'just for our records,' but then before you know it they're coming ‘round at all hours, asking for things like 'census data' and 'back taxes' and 'an explanation why you have a working guillotine in your backyard.' As if it were any of their dang business!”
“You built a working guillotine in your back yard?”
“Y'see!” Covert Garden yelled, teeth barely keeping control of her corncob pipe. “Hardly a whiff of power, and you're already poking your nose in where it don't belong!”
“But it's just so I can send you notices and bill you for late books.”
“I can't take that risk,” said Covert Garden. With a heavy air of solemnity she slid a book across the table. “Looks like The Anarchist Guide to Feng Shui will have to wait.”
“No no no no—hold on,” Twilight grabbed Covert's hoof before she could pull away. With a furtive glance at the other ponies milling about the atrium, Twilight leaned in and whispered, “Look, you can lie on the form if you want. I'll just send your bills to your right address—” Covert Gardens eyes narrowed.
Twilight's throat swallowed quite of its own accord. “Or not! You probably won't keep any books late anyway, right?”
“I can't promise that.”
Twilight massaged between her eyes with the tip of a hoof. “Just... fill out the form, okay?”
Twilight felt like weariness itself as she filed Covert Garden's paperwork—or Undercover Blossom's, rather—away in the big filing cabinet behind the circulation desk. She stole a glance at the window, and saw the merciful orange glow of late-afternoon. The day was coming to a close. Time for exhausted ponies to close up shop and not have to listen to anypony talk or complain or question them.
At that moment a stallion in a collared shirt and tie burst in through the door like a tidy, slick-haired hurricane. He made a beeline for the desk and, without so much as a glance at Twilight, thrust a large garment bag across the table. “Listen, sweetheart, I need this cleaned ASAP pronto-like, got it? Now there's some stains on there I don't want no commentary about, no questions, no talk, you just take them right out and there's an extra six bits in it for you, capice?” The stallion hefted a bulging sack of coins with a flick of his horn, then, for the first time, looked at Twilight. “Nod if you're understanding me here, babe, cause I really cannot stress enough how much I do not want to have a conversation about this.”
A bitter taste like acid seemed to be working its way into Twilight's mouth as the stallion spoke. “Um, I think you're confused,” she said, still smiling in spite of herself.
“Oh for cripes' sake, what did I just get through saying I did not want?”
“It's just that this is a library. Not a laundromat.”
“So what you're saying, I can't leave my clothes here?”
“Well... you could, but all I would do is take them down to the laundromat anyway.”
“I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.” With another flicker of magic the stallion splashed a quantity of coins across the counter, considered them, and took two back.
Twilight had to admit, she didn't really have a response for this, other than to repeat “Um,” in a rather more stern voice.
“Look! Do not. Talk to me. Okay, Babycakes? I got a lot on my mind, a lot on my plate, I do not need your life story. You want to sign me up for some special program or whatzit, you know that's how you people earn your commission, fine, you go right ahead, here is my card,” a scrap of cardstock shot out of the stallion's pocket and stuck, quivering into the formica counter. “Take whatever you need off of that, but do not say a word to me.”
Twilight had been about to snap something indignant at the stallion, when he actually leaned across the table and shoved his hoof into her mouth.
“I am serious, one word outta you and I am gone, and you will never see me or my considerable sack of money in this establishment again. On the other hoof, you shut your yap, you do a good job taking care of my suit here, get it back to me by, say, Wednesday, and maybe we have ourselves a professional relationship, buttercup. Whaddya say, and if you're smart it'll be nothing.”
Twilight's teeth ground against each other with a force fit to pulverize granite (and she only regretted that the stallion had withdrawn his hoof by now). Her lips parted, hurrying out of the way lest they be burned off by the retort bubbling in the pit of her chest. The foundry there was working overtime, in all directions, pouring hot iron phrases like you arrogant, ignorant, self-absorbed, slimy windbag! and here's what you can do with your sack of coins, into every mould and sentence structure it had, hoping for something sufficiently deadly to emerge.
Sadly, what emerged instead was the realization that he probably lived in Ponyville, and wasn't joking about never coming back.
“Spike,” Twilight hissed, and the dragon came running up. “Please set this pony up with a library card and check him out some books, while I take care of his laundry.”
Any questions on Spike's forked tongue ran and hid from the look she shot him, as she collected the suit and stomped—with as much force as she could muster—for the exit.
“Thanks Toots,” said the stallion, unfazed even by the furnace-like heat of the hatred Twilight was aiming at him. “And see if you can polish up the buttons some too, eh? They ain't been catching the light quite like they used to, you know?”
Twilight was halfway through the door before it occurred to her that she was leaving Spike alone in charge of the library. Worry temporarily replaced rage—but a quick glance at the library's occupants relieved her. The room was occupied by a handful of elderly ponies and a few scattered teenagers, all quietly busy with their books. Nothing he couldn't handle for ten minutes.
The fresh air and the short trot to the laundromat did quite a bit to restore Twilight's good mood. Her skin wasn't quite done crawling yet, but at least she was beginning to feel up to facing the rest of the day.
Until she opened the door to the library.
A cacophony of voices roared past Twilight like a river bursting its dam, each shouting to be heard over the din of the others. Within, ponies called to each other from opposite sides of the atrium and laughed and chatted and cavorted under a rain of downy feathers that hung thick in the air, shot through by paper airplanes of all size and description.
“Spike?” Twilight called into the mess and chaos. She may as well have tried to beat back the ocean with a broomstick. She took a few experimental steps forward, stepping on something which crunched underhoof and which she decided she wanted to know nothing more about. “Spike!” she yelled again.
“Twilight!” Spike ran up to her, swatting feathers and bits of airborne flotsam out of his path.
“What in the hoof happened here? I was only gone a few minutes!”
Spike gnawed on his lower lip for a second before the whole story spilled out in a rush, “Well there were a couple of old mares who started getting kind of loud once you were gone and I asked them to be quiet but they said I wasn't a librarian and had no authority and... and they called me whippersnapper!” he sobbed.
“Oh, Spike.” Twilight lay a hoof on his back, between two spines.
“Everything kind of fell apart after that... You don't think I'm like a whippersnapper, do you, Twilight? I know I have the tail and the spines but I can't help that, I'm a dragon! I can't even unhinge my jaw!”
“No Spike, they were just being rude.” Twilight straightened. “And I'm going to go have a talk with them.”
Twilight had to cross a minefield of discarded paper airplanes and several disemboweled feather pillows which she did not recall owning to make it to a table where an elderly pony was shouting “Oh, Goldenrod, you simply have got to take a look at this passage!” at what Twilight sincerely hoped was the top of her lungs.
A yellow, wrinkled mare sitting two feet next to her leaned over and bellowed back, “Good heavens, look at the symbolism on him! You can practically see his source!”
“Excuse me, ladies,” said Twilight. “You're being awfully loud. I'm going to have to ask you to keep it down.”
“What?” said Goldenrod. “We're having a lovely conversation!”
“Yes, well, you're welcome to continue it outside, if you'd rather,” said Twilight.
“And miss all this?” said the first mare. “Heavens, no! We've been sitting here all day—the librarian's a very neurotic little thing and this is going to absolutely drive her up the wall! It's like dinner theater—much more entertaining than anything in this old table-proper-upper!” she said, thumping the book she was reading.
“Uh, Mossy?” said Goldenrod. “Put your glasses on.”
“Howzatt?” the mare slid a pair of spectacles into place and squinted at Twilight. “Oh, it's you. Well, don't I feel just like the canary who performed unkind impressions of a phoenix with a phoenix hanging out on the next branch over.”
“Please keep your voice down!” Twilight snapped. A paper airplane banged into the side of her head. “Who threw that?”
Two old stallions off to one side of the room each thrust a hoof at each other, then burst out into laughter.
Twilight felt something slipping—the noise seemed to be surging, swirling all around her—
“And he was like, 'Yah,' and I was all 'Whatever, Brick, you've got your opinions and I've got mine.'”
“I can't find any of these books with that red stallion feller on them!”
“Well, not the same one, but this stud over here certainly looks well-built!”
“Why that's no kind of aerodynamics! Who taught you to fold?”
In the midst of the chorus of voices, the door slammed open, and the only sound that was missing from the proceedings joined right in:
“Okay,” came Applejack's voice. “Now y'all can take any books you want but remember—”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS LIBRARY CARD HOLDERS!”
“Hey! Don't run off like—oh forget it.”
Twilight grimaced. Children were one thing—but she could handle it, as long she kept her cool, as long as—
“Pinkie, I've got plenty of books at home,” said a crotchety voice.
“But we have to help Twilight,” said Pinkie Pie. “C'mon Cranky, it's like they say—A true, true friend helps a—”
“Pinkie Pie! What did we agree on?”
Pinkie sighed. “One song per day.”
Twilight felt like she was going to explode. Her lungs had reached capacity and were still trying to suck in air. She was maybe half a second from it all screaming out of her at once.
She squeezed her eyes shut and gathered her magic and pictured herself away, away from the noise, away from everything—
And into her bedroom. Beside her bed, with its soft, muffling pillows and warm, quiet sheets. The scream had spilled out of her someplace between here and there, leaving her empty, but still the noise seemed to be swirling through her head, if she could just—for a second—
Twilight dove headfirst for the comfort of her own comforter.
Her head collided with something hard.
“Hey, warn a feller, would ya?!” The hard lump tossed back Twilight's covers and revealed a brown stallion, leaning over a purple-bound book with a small lock hanging off to one side.
“What are you doing in my bed—is that my diary?” Her voice came out strained and scratchy, not at all like the thunderous roar she felt she deserved.
“I came up to get away from the noise—'s a real madhouse down there, y'know? This is much more comfortable.”
“But... my diary!” Twilight was—almost—more shocked than horrified. The spells protecting it should have turned him... polka dotted! And unconscious! Shining had taught them to her when she was still... a filly...
“Yeah, this is some pretty juicy stuff you got going on here!” said the stallion, forcing thoughts of throttling Shining Armor to one side of Twilight's mind. “I'm not mucha one for spoilers, but I gotta know, do you ever get together with—”
“Shut up shut up shut up!” Twilight snapped. “You cannot be up here! You can't read my diary!”
“But it's a book. And this is a library,” said the puzzled stallion. Then, suddenly growing defensive, “And I didn't see anything saying I couldn't go up the stairs.”
As if it were finally just too much work, the pounding in Twilight's chest calmed. All the anger, which had bubbled up to the tip of her horn seemed to condense, to freeze into an icy ball in the pit of her stomach. “Oh. I see.” she said evenly. “Well let me spell it out for you.”
Her horn burned as she reached for the spell she wanted. For a split-second, her eyes flashed green. Purple flames erupted from her mattress in a neat circle.
Twilight recognized—smiled at, even—the look on the stallion's face as he began to sink. She'd made it herself, once.
Spike had seen Twilight teleport away, and found himself running, rather uselessly, to the place where she'd been standing. All around the noise and the paper airplanes and the ponies prying books out of the shelves and letting them fall to the floor continued unabated.
“Guys!” Spike yelled as best he could, but nopony seemed to be paying attention.
That changed when a burning gap opened in the ceiling, and a brown-coated stallion tumbled through, landing with a whump on one of the bean bag chairs.
For a moment nobody said anything.
Then the air split open, and in a burst of sulfurous smoke, Twilight was standing in the center of the room, horn glowing white-hot. Bits of feather and paper burst into flames as they drifted close to her. “All right everypony, listen up!” Twilight said, her voice echoing with power. “I have had it with the noise, and the fooling around, and... all of this! I really expected better of you! Maybe not much better, but who the hoof brings popcorn into somepony else's house? This may be a public library, but I am the librarian, and I am in charge here! And anypony who doesn't listen to me is going to have to face the consequences, is that clear?”
“I'm sorry dear,” called Goldenrod. “My hearing aide's on the fritz, can you repeat that last bit?”
Spike didn't even try to hold Twilight back—he just dove for cover under a nearby wastepaper basket.
When, into the silence before the storm, a clock struck. Once, twice, five times in all.
Spike peered out from his bucket to see a crooked, worrying smile on Twilight's face.
“Five o'clock,” she said. “I'm sorry everypony, but the library is closed. Please leave.”
“But—”
“Get out!” Twilight roared.
With a clatter and a crash ponies stampeded for the exit, Twilight following close behind, herding.
“Uh, Twi,” said Applejack. “I know you're feeling a mite overworked here, but I sorta promised Applebloom she could take out whatever she wanted today.” She nodded at where Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were hurriedly cramming a large stack of books into a saddlebag.
Twilight seized the lot, books, bag, and fillies in her magic and shoved them all at Applejack, pushing her back through the doorway. “Just... take them. I'll get the girls library cards later.” She rounded on the fillie. “I know where you all live, so you're not going to damage the books or be late with them, right?”
“Wait, you know where I—?” was all Scootaloo got out before Twilight slammed the door on them.
The dust and feathers slowly settled, and finally, finally the library was quiet. As Spike watched, Twilight vanished, and reappeared behind the desk, surveying the room, horn and eyes still glowing. She took a long look at the chaotic mess that was the Ponyville Public Library, gave a tiny smile, and whump! went face first into the desk.
“Twilight!” Spike said. “Are you all right?”
A faint moan came from the librarian. “How are we ever going to survive two weeks of this?”
“Actually,” said Spike. “Rarity had the idea to keep track of how many ponies we served today... There's about 3000 ponies in Ponyville, right?”
“And how many did we get?” Her tone suggested she had a pretty good idea where this was going.
“A hundred and thirty-seven.”
For a long moment, Twilight said nothing. Then, at last, “Spike, do you think if the library burned to the ground, everypony would assume we'd died in the fire? We could move far away, someplace nopony knows us, and live under assumed names. I’d be... Spylight Twinkle, and you could be my faithful assistant, Pike.”
Spike blinked. “Not that arson and life on the lam don't sound appealing, but wasn't the whole point of this to stay in Ponyville?”
Twilight made a guttural noise, not unlike a bear faced with inconvenient truths.
Spike brightened. “I know that grunt. That means you know I'm right.”
“Yes, great, Spike. You're right.” Twilight sighed. “That doesn't explain how we're going to get out of this mess...”
Spike thought for a moment. Finally, with a note of hesitation, he said, “Make a plan?”
It was when Twilight did not respond, did not even look up from the desk, that Spike began to worry. “Twilight? Are you... okay? Usually the idea of anything involving checklists cheers you right up...”
“Oh, no, I do appreciate it, Spike. And I have a few ideas, it’s just...” Twilight planted her forehooves on the desk and pushed, to no apparent effect. “I think my horn's stuck.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Volume Control had better be quaking in his horseshoes for picking a fight with us.”
“Oh, be quiet and get a wrench.”
The sound of Volume Control's not-quaking horseshoes echoed in the deepest, darkest corner of the Deep Pockets Memorial Library at Canterlot University. There, beneath the curtains that kept out the sun and the rusty, creaking chains that were ostensibly holding the curtains up, but really just there for the atmospheric effect—there, wedged between Romance and The History of Writing Down Histories, stood a cage wrought of black iron and blacker magic. Inside, a mare with steel-gray hair stood watching as Volume Control stepped out of the gloom, flanked by candle-bearing, hooded stallions.
“Mr. Control,” said the mare in the cage, straightening a pair of tortoise shell glasses on her muzzle. Her mane, which still had a few strands of brown in it, was pulled back in a tight bun, and her tail followed its example, as if she couldn't abide anything so long and swishy. “These cages are simply appalling. I insist that you release us at once. Or at the very least, transport us to the Penology section.”
“Or Correctional Literature!” offered a voice from behind her, where seven identical cages stood, holding the several dozen ponies who comprised the Canterlot branch of the Equestrian Library Association.
“I'm afraid I can't do that,” said Volume Control. “I really can't have you running about being the head of the ELA when, well, I am. You understand, Ms. Silentreading.” He peered into the gloom beyond Sustine Silentreading's cage, and smirked. “Locking the rest of you up has been the most delightful precautionary measure.”
A chorus of angry shouts rang from behind Sustine's back.
“You suck!” shouted Page Turner, head of student hires for the Canterlot University Library and Information Services. His russet-colored head was poking out from beneath a clumsy dogpile comprised of research librarians.
“Please, ladies—and Page Turner,” said Sustine. “We are in a library.” She turned back to Volume Control. “I had a feeling that you would betray me, Mr. Control, but I confess that I had expected it to involve an attempt at switching us over to the Dewey Decimal System. I suppose I must be getting old, when I can't tell an insane cultist from a Dewey-eyed foal.”
Volume Control put on his most indulgent smile. “If you're quite through, I've come to offer you a deal. A deal for your freedom, as it so happens. I am looking for a certain book.”
“Do you know the call number?”
“Do not trifle with me,” snapped Volume Control. “The book I am after is not in your precious system. I seek evil. Chaos. 358 pages of pure malice!”
“Hm, that sounds like it might be in special collections. Hoofs Off, that's your department here, yes? Mr Control would like to find a book.”
“Does he know the call number?”
“Enough!” snapped Volume Control. “I seek the book of Cacophonon! You and that self-important princess sent it to Twilight Sparkle. What did you tell her to do with it?”
Sustine straightened. “So that is what this is about. Twilight Sparkle would not yield to you, so you have come to me.”
“It matters little what Twilight Sparkle will or will not do! Two weeks of trying to get Ponyville to read and I will fire her and take control of the collection. If she does not go mad first.”
Sustine’s eyes went wide. “What have you done?”
“Set her an impossible task. To get everypony in that hick Ponyville to use their library. She will break or she will fail, it matters little which.”
Sustine scoffed. “If you believe that, then why are you still afraid that you're going to lose? Why talk to me at all?” Volume Control seemed to stiffen. “No, I will not tell you what you want to know, Mr. Control. Instead, I will give you some advice: you cannot hope to control or contain the power you seek. It will devour you.”
Volume Control regarded her for a moment, as if scanning for some hidden meaning—then burst out laughing. “Of course it will! I'm counting on it! I'm afraid you're the one who misunderstands, Sustine. My offer isn't to set you free from these cages—it's to set you free from this life. Now. Before my master's victory. Before he RISES LIKE A CRY FROM HIS PRISON!” At once, Volume Control's restrained hiss exploded into a roar that shook the cage and the shelves and the set the chains overhead rattling. His chest swelled, neck stretching and twisting. Cracks of purple light split his skin, light that did not decrease the darkness but seemed to burn themselves into Sustine's retinas like unfiltered sunlight. “HIS MAGNIFICENCE WILL SHATTER YOUR WALLS AND BREAK YOUR CITIES AND TEAR YOUR PRECIOUS BOOKS ASUNDER. SEA AND LAND AND SKY WILL TREMBLE AND FALL, AND YOUR SKIN WILL PEEL FROM YOUR PATHETIC FLESH, LEAVING YOU TO WRITHE AND ROT AND BLEED IN AGONY, UNTIL AT LAST DEATH TAKES YOU, LONG AFTER YOU HAVE LOST ALL MEANS TO BEG FOR IT. I OFFER TO SPARE YOU THIS—THAT IS THE EXTENT OF MY MERCY. IGNORE IT AT YOUR PERIL, YOU MISERABLE KEEPER OF WORDS.”
Sustine Silentreading had not budged through all of Volume Control's shouting, though his words howled at her like an Autumn gale, with rot and decay on its breath. Now, she wiped a fleck of green spittle from her glasses, tucked a loose hair back into her bun, and faced him head on. “Mr. Control, I am a Librarian of Equestria. Of the line of Shelf Wear the Pragmatic, whose bones still house our most treasured texts, and whose house has ever guarded the knowledge of Equestria. Perhaps you have forgotten what that means, but I have not. I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Good librarians fired in the Shoulder of Orion scandal. I watched spittle glitter in the dark towards a first edition Tan Houser's Gate. I've seen priceless knowledge left to soak and die in the rain, and I have worked this very library during finals week. So you see, Mr. Control, death holds no terror for me, nor does pain, nor your master, nor you.”
The silence drew slowly out across the room like a rope of taffy, waiting to see how far it could go before it broke.
“Um, Sustine,” said Top Page, of the Royal Canterlot Archives. “Not that we don't all think you're doing a marvellous job as our spokespony, but, perhaps we should put these important life decisions to a vote? I mean, just speaking personally I'm actually quite afraid of pain, and also death, and him, and probably anyone who's scary enough to command him too, and, I mean, I get the sense that maybe I'm not alone in that?”
There were murmurs of agreement from the cages. Sustine massaged her temples. Greenhorns.
As the chatter went on, Volume Control did a strange thing—he tossed his head back and began to laugh. But it wasn't his own laugh. It was hers. Sustine's. The cruel cackle that she had honed and reserved for ponies who lost books. “Why thank you, Sustine,” he said, still in her voice, and she saw now that his horn was glowing with some unknown magic. “That speech was quite a sufficient sample for my purposes. You oughtn't ramble so. We are in a library. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an Index to consult.”
With that, Volume Control and his cloaked minions turned turned and walked back into the darkness of the Autobiographical Limerick section, leaving the librarians alone in their lightless prison. For a long time, nopony said anything. Certainly not Sustine, who only stared into the gloom after their captors, lost in thought.
Then, creeping over the reference shelves, came a voice. Sustine's voice, saying, “Oh Index, open to me.” A golden point of light blazed in the distance, from the direction of the circulation desk. “Sustine Silentreading,” said the voice that was hers and not-hers. And then, “I seek the book of Cacophonon, recently sent to Twilight Sparkle of the Ponyville Public Library.”
And then, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WHAT'S THE CALL NUMBER?'”
Sustine allowed herself to smirk for a few seconds. As long as Twilight Sparkle had taken the necessary precautions, Volume Control could scour that index until his eyeballs shriveled up like prunes. She and the other librarians could withstand their imprisonment until somepony missed them—which shouldn't take more than a month or two. As long as the book was safe, everything would be all right.
As the sun set over Ponyville, finally freed of its thunderheaded prison, three fillies and one be-stetson'd farm pony left the town proper by the road to Sweet Apple Acres.
“But whatd'ya think she meant 'I know where you live,'” said Scootaloo, still agitated.
“Oh come on, Scootaloo, it was just Twilight,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, she's harmless. Right, sis?” added Apple Bloom.
Applejack squinted into the sun. “Well, I dunno about harmless. Mostly, I guess. But y'all better take care of those books anyway, or I'm never gonna hear the end of it. What were you so all-fired to read about anyway?”
The three fillies grinned at each, and, in perfect unison, called to the sky “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE PRACTITIONERS!”
Applejack blinked. “Disobeying… what?”
The three looked at each other, enthusiasm momentarily replaced by confusion.
“We've already been working on our chants!” said Scootaloo, getting them back on track. “WHAT DO WE WANT?”
“CUTIE MARKS!”
“WHEN DO WE WANT 'EM?”
“WHENEVER WE FIGURE OUT OUR SPECIAL TALENTS BUT SOONER IS BETTER THAN LATER!”
Applejack just shook her head and did her best to turn off her ears.
Somewhere in the dark of Apple Bloom's saddle bag, something that was very like skin stretched and twisted into something that was very like a smile.
