The Book that had Never Been Read

by Unwhole Hole

First published 15th of April, 2017

Dinky checks out a book from the Ponyville library for a book report, not realizing dire consequences that will follow something so seemingly trivial.

Assigned a book report for school, Dinky takes out a library book only to discover that she is the first pony ever to have checked it out- -but not realizing that she will be the last.

Chapter 1

It was another fine day in Ponyville. The sun was shining through the light, perfectly engineered cloud cover to create an excellent spring day. With the Winter-Wrap up having passed weeks earlier, the temperature was far from cold, but also not hot. A slight Pegasus-manufactured breeze was blowing, carrying with it the smell of the numerous flower beds throughout Ponyville and, though its notes were far subtle and more distant, the earthy, strange scent of things decaying within the Everfree Forest.

The Ponyville school had just dismissed its students for the day, and its students had been allowed to make their way back to their respective homes though this placid and pastoral environment. Among them was a pale gray-violet unicorn who was one of the few who walked alone, watching the other students linger on the playground or go their separate ways off to do whatever business it was that seemed so pressing to them. Most of them took surprisingly predictable courses: Diamond Tiara leading Silver Spoon back to the formers home as if the latter were on a leash, or the so-called Cutie Mark Crusaders laughing as they ran off toward Sweet Apple Acres. Few if any among them chose to depart from the others easily, save for the young unicorn.

This was not a cause for concern for Dinky Hooves, nor did she recognize it as a problem. She was alone quite often, but it did not bother her. It gave her more time to think and to allow her thoughts to regroup before she redoubled her efforts on her studies without the bother of unnecessary distractions.

That was important every day, of course, but today it was especially so. Just a few hours before, the class had been assigned their first book report of the year. This had been met with groans from nearly everypony, save for Dinky- -who relished the idea of both reading, and then writing about reading- -and Scootaloo, who had been asleep at the time.

Because of this assignment, what would normally have been a neutral day was now a pleasant one for Dinky. She hummed a tune as she walked, and the numerous books stacked neatly into her saddlebags felt less heavy as she made her way to the Royal Library on the far side of Ponyville.

At one time, the Ponyville library had been constructed into the center of a hollow but still-living tree. Nobody knew exactly who had done that, or why they would desire such an esoteric dwelling and book repository, but Dinky had loved that building. Some of her earliest memories had been of reading in that library, and the joy the books had brought her.

It had, of course, been destroyed nearly a year before. The event was sad, but Dinky understood. War was war, and things often got destroyed. The library had been in time replaced, and with a better, modern one constructed in Twilight Sparkle’s royal palace. It was colder and often seemed so much emptier than Golden Oaks had been, but it was larger and had far more books. To Dinky, that made it far superior.

Entering it was not difficult. Twilight never bothered to lock her doors. Finding the library was trivial as well; even if Dinky had not spent every day after school there, locating it was simply a matter of following the strong odor of book.

As soon as Dinky entered the library, she paused for a moment, waiting for a spell of dizziness to pass. It in part came from her size: she was three years younger than the other students in her year, and small for her age. Everything in the world seemed so much bigger to her, especially such a grand library.

The other aspect, though, was more complex, and Dinky ruminated on it as she walked through the stacks. In that case, her disorientation came from the implication of having so many books in one place. There were so pages of text and so many stories, and so much written. Dinky felt herself surrounded by more words than she would ever be able to read, or that anypony at all would read.

Supposedly, Twilight Sparkle had read every book in the library, but Dinky was not sure she believed that. Nopony could read that many, or enjoy all of them. There would always be books left behind. Ones that no one wanted, or that no one remembered. Dinky found herself wondering what was in those strange, ghostlike books, and why no pony had bothered to read it.

A few students, it seemed, had had the same idea as Dinky. As she turned a corner in one of the convoluted stacks, Dinky very nearly ran headlong into gray bespectacled pony.

“Gah!” cried both Dinky and Silver Spoon at the same time, both surprised to see someone else so deep into the often abandoned territory of the distant rear stacks.

They both nearly fell over from the surprise, but then both laughed.

“Dinky!” laughed Silver Spoon, breathing hard. “Don’t scare me like that! You’re going to give me gray hair!”

“Well, you’re going to give me a heart condition before age eight,” Dinky sat down, her heart pounding. She had not realized how deep in thought she had been while she had been walking, and having herself plucked so suddenly out of her ideas for her book report was more stressful than she had anticipated.

“Well, that would certainly make all the heart motifs around town ironic,” said Silver Spoon, adjusting her glasses and then helping Dinky back up.

The two of them were generally on good terms. It came in part from a kindred coat tone: Silver Spoon in unfortunate gray, and Dinky in only marginally more attractive pale lavender. As it turned out, though, Silver spoon had a substantial academic bent that closely matched Dinky’s- -at least when Diamond Tiara was not around.

Dinky looked around to Silver Spoon’s side and saw a thick, dusty book peeking out of her saddlebags.

“You’ve found one already?” she asked, somewhat jealous.

Silver Spoon smiled broadly and brought the book out. “Of course! See? “Strange Alchemy”, the historically annotated version!”

“Well I hope you like reading annotations. Because that copy is written in Old Equestrian.”

“Oh, I know. It preserves the meter of the stanzas.”

“You read Old Equestrian?”

“Of course!”

Dinky raised an eyebrow. “Deiyn gohbeitheae gehdg ‘Doch’ ar gyfei grahd ar yueighch adrohdaed.”

Silver spoon appeared shocked and insulted. “Peigh feidek chi’n dweeiud hinni?”

“Eig ‘Meddeiyg Dochi’…”

Silver Spoon immediately burst into laughter so rapidly and so unexpectedly that she snorted. This made Dinky laugh, and pretty soon they had both become so loud that somepony shushed them from the other side of one of the extensive crystal shelves.

They tried their best to calm down, but spent several minutes quietly giggling. When they had finally finished, Silver Spoon was blushing profusely. “Oh, if only,” she said, wistfully, hugging the ancient tome close to her chest. “If only…”

“I guess that means I can’t do that one,” said Dinky, standing up. “That’s okay, though. I’m more of a nonfiction filly.”

“I’m on my way over there right now, actually,” said Silver Spoon. “I need to find Diamond Tiara’s book.” She rolled her eyes. “Something by Donald Rump I think. ‘Art of the Wheel’, maybe.”

“Trixie hates that book.”

“I know. Knowing her, it’s probably the reason why she lives in a hobo cart instead of a house.”

Dinky was not sure what that meant, but smiled anyway even though the way Silver Spoon said it made her feel uncomfortable. She shook her head, though. “No, you go ahead. I’m going to the Far Edge.”

“The Edge? You’re really going to go all out on this, aren’t you?”

“Well, look at who I have to compete with.”

Silver Spoon smiled, and the two fillies parted company. Silver Spoon started toward the popular nonfiction section, while Dinky made her way to the Far Edge. It was not actually called that, and no doubt Twilight would not have appreciated them using that name for it. Rather, the name was a whimsical title provided by little fillies who had never and likely would never been in any room so large as the library.

The ‘Far Edge’ was a section in the rear of the library, partially obscured by the architectural curvature castle. The shelves were both higher and were arranged in unorthodox patterns to accommodate for the shape of the section. The floor was not quite level, and the light was not as bright as in the remainder of the library. It came from only one high and small window, trailing through the thick book-dust of the section and casting strange shadows between the tall shelves.

This was the place where the oldest and most challenging books in the library were placed. It was also Dinky’s favorite spot. Few ponies ever bothered to come to the Far Edge, and those that did rarely took anything back out. The concentration of old and unread stories in this section was far higher than elsewhere. Judging by their tattered and yellowed library cards, some of them had not been checked out since long before they were transferred in from the Royal Canterlot Library.

Just thinking about the Canterlot Library made Dinky shiver. Supposedly, it dwarfed its Ponyville counterpart. It had entire wings, some of which were kept locked to the uninitiated. Dinky, of course, had never left Ponyville and as such had never had a chance to see it. If all went well, though, she would soon have the bittersweet experience of saying goodbye to the Ponyville library and accepting the Canterlot version as her new home and base of academic operations.

That was for later, though. Dinky focused, and looked through the uneven and faded spines of the duty book surrounding her. This proved somewhat disheartening: many of them were too dull even for her, or simply trite and obsolete texts placed in this section as a historical novelty. There were a surprising number of ninth-century bridle-rippers, and Dinky blushed at the idea of having to present one of those in front of her class.

Eventually, though, she spied one that seemed appropriate.

“‘An Annotated Historie of Assyria and the Donkeys who Dweleth There’,” read Dinky, her exacting vision reading the embossed golden letters on the exceedingly thick spine of the book despite its location on the top shelf. “‘The Extra-Dry Version’. No way, a Clover the Clever book? I’ve to have it!”

Dinky looked around, trying to find a ladder. Unfortunately, there were none present in the Far Edge due to its unusual geometry. Not that they were especially helpful: they were mostly meant to allow Spike to shelve books; the rungs of a ladder were almost impossible to negotiate for a pony’s hooves.

No doubt the book had been placed up there with the assumption that Twilight Sparkle would be the only one who wanted to read it. Dinky, though, was not an alicorn: she could not fly, and her magical range was too small to reach the book, even if she stood on her hind hooves and stretched her stubby horn as high as it would go.

This did not deter her, though. Instead, she looked around, making sure that nopony was watching. Then she directed her magic onto herself and muttered the constituent structure of a spell that she had learned months before in this very section.

The spell shuddered, and Dinky felt herself vibrate. She held her breath, not sure if it would work this time, but it did. Her pale golden magic surrounded her, and she began to grow lighter. Slowly, she began to rise.

Levitating herself took immense concentration. Unfortunately, Dinky was facing a number of books. Many of them were unlabeled except for the stickers on their spines, all of them empty and forgotten. Some, though, still had faded text on their sides. As Dinky rose toward her goal, she could not help but look at those books. She tried not to, but eventually one caught her attention.

“Archeological Surveys of Exmoor!” she squealed, reaching out for the book with one hoof- -and immediately breaking her levitation spell. With a cry, she suddenly began to fall backward- -and landed directly onto the back of a pony passing below her.

“Oof!” she said, striking the pile of books that had been balanced on the pony’s back and falling painfully to the floor. “Butter-CRANBERRY!” she swore, rolling around in momentary pain.

Though initially unpleasant, she immediately sat up, intending to apologize to the unfortunate pony that she had landed on. That pony, however, had not seemed to have bothered to stop. Dinky just barely caught a glimpse of her bright yellow coat and deep scarlet tail as she passed around the far edge of the shelves.

“Wait!” cried Dinky, standing up suddenly. “Miss, you dropped your books!”

The pony did not come back, nor did she even reply. Dinky ran to the edge of the shelves and looked in the direction that she knew the mare had gone- -but saw nopony.

Dinky slowed and walked down the curving section of the stack. The light was dimmer here, and she shelves higher. Each isle that Dinky passed, though, stood empty and silent. Even as they grew darker and more ancient, Dinky still saw no pony, even as the hallway came to a dead end. There were still a few more isles beyond, all of which were lit by wholly inadequate crystal lanterns, but Dinky did not want to go any further.

“Miss?” she called.

There was no response, but Dinky still waited. After a few moments, though, Dinky decided that she no longer wanted to be in this section, or even in the Far Edge anymore. She turned and walked quickly toward where she had come from, but found herself pausing and looking at the floor. Below here were a set of wet hoofprints that proceeded toward the darkened section of the library. Dinky looked over her shoulder, and saw that they trailed off, fading as they approached the dead end.

Dinky shivered, but this time it felt unpleasant. She did not want to stay, and found herself trotting through the shelves. Everything suddenly seemed so much darker, and the light coming through the windows had begun to fade.

She only paused a second time as she passed the isle she had been in. The pile of books that the pony had been carrying still lay on the floor in disarray. As badly as Dinky wanted to leave, she simply could not allow them to remain in that state. Not only was she loathe to leave her beloved library in such a mess, but she was worried that if Twilight found out it was her, she might get suspended or even banned from using the library. The academic repercussions would be devastating.

So, as much as she wanted to leave them there, Dinky found herself picking up the books and stacking them neatly into a pile. There were surprisingly few, and most of them were quite generic.

One, however, caught Dinky’s attention. She was not sure why, exactly, because it was completely ordinary. Like many of the books in the Far Edge, it had no dust jacket and was bound in faded gray cloth with a red spine. Also like many of the books there, it had no outer title or author name.

Momentarily forgetting her sudden and inexplicable apprehension, Dinky flipped open the front cover of the book. She was not a fool, and knew that all the information about the book could be found in one of the opening pages, followed by the publisher and the acknowledgements and table of contents before any semblance of real text appeared. Oddly, though, this book had none of that. There was no author or title, or any information whatsoever about it. The main text just started out of nowhere after two perfectly blank pages.

Dinky almost began to read it, but was interrupted by a chime that startled her far more than bumping into Silver Spoon ever could have. It was the pleasant ringing that indicated that the library was on the verge of closing.

That, of course, was impossible. Dinky had only left school at most forty minutes earlier, and the library did not close until sunset, which should have not been until eight P.M. Looking out the windows, though, Dinky saw that the sun was indeed setting. Somehow, Dinky had lost track of a substantial amount of time.

Now panicking, Dinky closed the book and placed it on top of the stack and rushed out of the Far Edge and into the main body of the library.

“Dinky?” said a voice as Dinky passed quickly. This once again startled Dinky, and she nearly dropped the books she was carrying as her concentration lapsed and the spell holding them weakened. She recognized the voice, though, and turned to see the unicorn Starlight Glimmer looking down at her.

“That’s a lot of books,” said Starlight. “If you keep this up, you’ll break Twilight’s record.” She then muttered to herself: “and probably get a pair of wings before I do…”

“These? Oh,” Dinky set them down. “A pony was carrying them, but she dropped them.”

“A pony?” asked Starlight, seeming surprised.

“Yeah. Have you seen her? Yellow, with red hair.”

“Yellow…no. I haven’t seen a pony like that today. Especially not with red hair. I don’t even know a pony like that.” Starlight shrugged. “But there’s a lot of ponies here I don’t know, and I don’t see everypony that comes into the library. Here.” She picked up the stack of books with much greater ease than Dinky could ever hope to muster. “I’ll shelve them for you. You need to get home. We’re almost closing and unlike Twilight you can’t live in the library. Or sleep on a bed made of books.”

“A what?”

“Never mind. You know your mother doesn’t like you walking home alone at night.”

“Yes. Because she thinks there are ‘monsters’ in the darkness. And in her closet. And under her bed.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Starlight with a degree of seriousness that indicated that she had completely forgotten that she was speaking to a filly who, had she not been Dinky, might have suddenly become rather worried about the existence of potential monsters in the night.

“But I need a book for my report!” cried Dinky, suddenly more afraid than she had been all day. She looked around in panic, and then simply pulled the top book of the pile that Starlight was holding. “This one will work…” She started trotting quickly toward the front desk, and turned to look over her shoulder. “Thank you, Ms. Glimmer!”

“‘Ms. Glimmer’ makes me feel old!”

“Well, compared to me, you are!”

Starlight grumbled but smiled and took the pile books with her as she went to return them to their proper places, minus the one that Dinky had taken. In another version of events, one where that book had remained, perhaps Starlight would have realized its implication as soon as she had looked at its spine and found no library sticker attached. Or perhaps, like all the others for so, so long, she would just have passed it over for the next in a sequence of books that had remained forgotten for so very long.

Chapter 2

Even as the light outside was fading, the front of the library was still well lit. A few individuals still populated the front desks, finishing their last minute reading before they would eventually have to depart. Dinky walked quickly past them and into the line to the checkout desk.

In front of her, much to her surprise, were Snips and Snails. As they were not known for their scholastic prowess, Dinky had assumed that they would procrastinate heartily on their project. Instead, however, they had been some of the first students to the library. They had not checked out short, childish books either: they were presently struggling to carry away an almost absurdly thick and heavy book entitled “The Memoirs of the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, Volume 17 of 89”.

As they heaved and sweated trying to move the book, the line moved forward and it was Dinky’s turn to approach the desk. As she did, she stiffened involuntarily as she tried to act calm. Sitting behind the counter was none other than Spike the book-dragon.

“Ha ha!” laughed Dinky in the most awkward, cracking tone possible as she put the book on the desk. “Hello Spike! Have you had a busy day?”

“Every day is a busy day,” he said somewhat darkly as he took the book.

“Well, I could tell, because you seem to be draggin’ a little. Or a little dragon! Ha ha!”

Dinky smiled, but Spike did not laugh at her joke. He just stared, seeming somewhat confused and slightly concerned. Only then did Dinky realized just how awkward she was being, and she felt herself break out into a sweat.

“O…kay,” said Spike, flipping open the book and picking up a violet quill in one of his surprisingly dexterous claws.

“Hey,” said Dinky, trying to ignore the embarrassment that was creeping over her and making her heart beat even faster. “I was wondering if…if you wanted to study sometime? Together?”

“Study what?”

Dinky froze. A million responses came to her mind, and not a single one was appropriate to tell Spike. Instead, she gaped for a moment and then muttered something unintelligible.

“Sure..” said Spike, seeming like he wanted to take a step back. Still, being a dragon of great dedication, he proceeded with the checkout process, pulling the card in the back of the book out of its pocket. “Oh wow,” he said, holding up the card. Dinky saw that it was new, fresh, and entirely blank.

“It’s empty,” she said.

“I know. It looks like you’re going to be the first to take this one out! That’s really rare. Twilight usually insists on being the first. Even though, you know, she lives here and can read them whenever she wants without producing the paperwork.” He sighed. “But, hey, I’m just a dragon. What do I know?”

Spike dipped the quill into an inkwell and neatly block-printed “DINKY HOOVES” as well as the date on the very first line of the checkout card. Dinky could not help but stare at his amazing, beautiful handwriting.

“You know, I’ve always wondered,” he mused. “Is your name really ‘Dinky’?”

“What? Oh. No. It’s a diminutive. My actual name is ‘Dinkamena’.”

“REALLY?” cried an excited voice as a pink head suddenly appeared beside Dinky’s. Dinky was so startled that she nearly jumped out of her saddlebags. In actuality, though, they stayed attached, but her sudden jump and subsequent near-collapse from stumbling only made her look even more dorky in front of the book-dragon.

“Hey, Pinkie,” said Spike.

“Hay Pinkie? No, I’m just regular Pinkie. Although Hay Pinkie would probably taste delicious. Not as much as regular Pinkie, but pretty good.” She turned her attention toward Dinky. Dinky saw that she was holding a pink book decorated excessively with lacy blue patterns. Its title was “To Cup a Cake”. “But is your name really Dinkamena? Because mine’s Pinkamena!” She gasped deeply. “OMC! What if we’re related?!”

“I don’t think a similar first name constitutes blood relation.”

Pinkie was not listening. “It’s happening again!” she cried. “I already found out I was cousins with Applejack…and Big Mac.” Her expression fell. “And that made a lot of things…awkward.” She paused. “But what if…what if I’m related to everypony else? What if you’re actually my sister? What if- -what if I’m my own UNCLE?!”

“You do kind of look like her sisters,” said Spike. “Do you ever eat rocks?”

“Not unless there are rocks in muffins,” said Dinky, taking the book back from Spike.

“That sounds HARD to make,” said Pinkie.

“Come on, Pinkie,” sighed Spike. “You know the library has a strict no-pun policy.”

Dinky left the two of them to continue her conversation. She wished she could have stayed to talk to Spike a little more, but she knew a losing proposition when she saw it. That, and she did not especially like Pinkie. She was a fine pony, but she was hyperactive and strange, two characteristics that Dinky found off-putting even on their own. That, and she needed to get home. It was growing dark, and the book that now rested in her bag was not about to read itself.

When Dinky arrived home, the sun had already gone below the horizon but the sky had not yet gone dark. The lamps throughout Ponyville had been lit, and the twilight sky had become dark and blue, with the horizon having become an enormous rainbow that showed the last vestiges of yet another generic sunset. The first few of Luna’s stars and planets were already shining in the darkness, and the spring air had grown chilly and damp smelling.

This did not bother Dinky especially much. She did not mind the dark. It had never frightened her as much as it had the other children. She was aware that monsters were indeed real, and that many of them big and small were at least mildly carnivorous- -but she also knew that almost none of them would ever enter Ponyville. Ponyville was safe, and nothing there could hurt her no matter how dark the world seemed.

If anything, the darkness was somewhat inviting. It was quiet, and the noise of being a child was dampened by the cool air and empty streets. Dinky supposed that was what adults felt like: alone, and silent. It made her wish that she was able to grow up more quickly than she already was.

Her house was somewhat near the edge of Ponyville, set slightly apart from the others so as to avoid accidents. The next nearest house was that belonging to Lyra Heartstrings and her roommate, and both buildings commanded an unassuming but impressive view of the fields beyond Ponyville that in time became rolling, pastoral hills and eventually the border of the Everfree Forest.

The door was on the other side of the house from the fields. As Dinky opened it, she prepared an unlocking spell. Technically, she did have a key, but preferred to practice alteration magic whenever she got a chance. Unfortunatly, she found that the door was unlocked, as most in Ponyville were even during the night.

When Dinky entered her house, the warm inside air washed over her, reeking of muffins. That was not especially unexpected.

The door opened into a combined room that connected to an open parlor on Dinky’s left. Almost as soon as Dinky entered, she saw that her mother was sitting on the couch and aggressively gnawing at one of her own wings.

“Dinky!” cried Derpy, shoving her wing behind her in an attempt to hide the fact that she had been preening right in the middle of the living room. She looked at Dinky with the one eye that she was able to focus properly and appeared genuinely concerned. “You’ve come home so late! I was so worried! I thought you might have gotten lost!” She sighed. “I know that happens to me all the time when I try to go through Ponyville all alone…”

“I was at the library,” explained Dinky, “I lost track of time.”

“Oh,” said Derpy. She stood up and followed Dinky through the house toward the kitchen in the rear. Although Derpy was able to fly, she preferred to walk indoors. The walls were already covered with an exorbitant number of photographs mostly so that their frames could cover the various holes that Dinky’s mother had already inadvertently created in the drywall.

“So, how was your day?” asked Derpy.

“Fine,” said Dinky. She reached up to the counter with her magic, taking down a plate and a green colored pistachio muffin from one of the manifold baskets of muffins present throughout the house. “The same as every other day, I guess. Did you send my applications in?”

Derpy’s face immediately scrunched. “Applications?”

Dinky frowned. “Yes, my applications. To Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns? The ones I gave you this morning?”

“I…I lost them.”

“You WHAT?” Dinky almost dropped her muffin, and Derpy took a step back, surprised by Dinky’s sudden reaction. Dinky had not intended to yell, but the essays and forms in those applications had taken her almost a month to complete to her satisfaction. Annoyed, she put her hoof onto the bridge of her muzzle. She was already starting to get a headache. “I didn’t mean to yell. Sorry, mom. You know what? Next time, I’ll just mail them myself. All you’ll need to do is sign them. Okay?”

“You’re…you’re going to fill them out again?”

“Of course. I have to get into that school, mom. I just have to.”

“But you’d have to go all the way to Canterlot…”

“That’s the idea.”

Dinky strengthened her grip on the muffin that she would be having for dinner and started for the stairs that led from the far side of the kitchen to the second story.

“Wait, Dinky,” said Derpy, trotting after her.

“Yeah, mom?”

“Well,” said Derpy, “I was just wondering. Since tomorrow’s Saturday, I just thought we could go for a picknick! Rainbow Dash says the weather’s going to be just wonderful, and look!” She picked up a basket in her mouth. “I mff mffns!”

“Sorry, no. I’m busy.”

“Bffy?” Derpy set down the basket. “But you used to love picknicks when you were younger!”

“I just don’t have time. I have an important book report for school, and I really need to work on it.” She started to climb the stairs. “I’ll be in my room until Monday. If you need me, just knock.”

She ascended the stairs, leaving Derpy alone with her muffins and the supplies for the picnic that she had spent the better part of the week planning and looking forward to. “But why wouldn’t I need you?” she asked herself.

Dinky’s room was small and relatively simple, despite being packed with furniture. Most of it consisted of shelves holding various loosely organized notes and whatever books she had managed to afford for herself. Her bed was pressed into a corner next to a paper-strewn nightstand. At its foot stood a record player on a fine piece of purpose-built furniture, something that Dinky’s mother had spent a considerable sum on as a Hearthswarming present a year prior. Dinky, of course, was not a fan of music. She considered it a distraction. As such, she had never even taken the record player out of the box and instead used it to support a small box of spare ink and chalk for her to-do chalkboard.

The first thing Dinky did upon entering was to remove her saddlebags. They were quite full of books, and she was a small pony even for her age. Her back hurt, as it always did when she came home. She ignored the smarting pain and crossed to her window. It was on the rear of the house, facing the beautiful fields and hills outside.

Down in those fields, a number of fillies and colts were playing, despite the fact that it was dark. Dinky recalled that one of her classmates had planned a slumber party. The children outside seemed to be laughing, running with lights or their horns aglow, enjoying the absurd novelty of playing late on a Friday night.

One of the colts stopped and looked up at Dinky, who was backlit from the dim light in her room. He waved, as if inviting her to come down and join them. Dinky stared back for a moment, and then shut the thick curtains closed with her magic. She had, of course, been invited to the party. Like with all parties, though, she had written a letter of declination. Parties just distracted her from her studies. This was the weekend, after all: it was a prime time for studying without the hassle of school to get in the way.

“I don’t have time for that,” she muttered to herself. “Too busy…”

Dinky crossed the now entirely dark room to her desk. A lamp had been placed there. Not a traditional firefly lamp that most residents of Ponyville used, but an actual crystal-powered lantern, the same kind they used in Canterlot. Dinky had pooled her allowance for almost two months to be able to afford it, and even then had only been able to purchase a used model with an old and sometimes faulty crystal core.

Still, it was far superior to fireflies for Dinky’s purposes. She charged her horns, directing her energy into the center of the lantern. The crystal flickered with her golden light and then ignited with an intense white glow that cast the various objects of the room into harsh shadows against the chilly white light.

At the sight of this harsh oblique light, Dinky smiled. That light meant that it was time to get work done. She immediately began to unload her saddlebags and get ready for the book report.

Dinky did not have the same penchant for organization that her older sister, Sparkler, had possessed. That was something that always made her jelous, even more so since Sparkler had taken a job in the Crystal Empire. Apparently, Shining Armor, on one of his frequent visits to Ponyville, had been quite taken with Sparkler and impressed by her capacity for neatness and planning. He had stated that she “reminded him of his sister” and apparently been quite intrigues by Sparkler’s three-crystal cutie mark. He had given her a job offer on the spot. Sparkler had accepted, and Shining Armor had taken her with him when he returned to the distant Empire.

Still, although Dinky was hardly organized, she had a system. She immediately cleared her desk of the various notes and books that had been placed there, most of which involved the timetables and anecdotal accounts of the CSGU entrance exam. Where they had been, Dinky set down a pad of paper- -not the lined version that the other students used to ensure that their letters were strait, but real, white paper, rolled on a scroll- -and took out three gray quills. She set them next to three vials of ink: black for the actual writing, and two shades of red. One shade was for corrections on the first seven drafts, and the other lighter shade was for the corrections on her corrections.

When this was prepared, Dinky finally set down the book in the center. As she did, the light fell over it, illuminating deeply the fading and stains on its cloth cover. Dinky had not given the book itself much thought since she had picked it out, but now realized that she had no idea what it was even called, let alone the subject.

That, though, was part of what drew her to it. It was easy enough to write a book report with a topic that she already knew; if she was going to be a successful academic unicorn, then she needed to know how to review a book no matter what it was with no preparation in advance. The thought of the challenge was truly thrilling, and Dinky could almost feel herself shaking with anticipation of beginning this report.

So, Dinky opened the book. For a moment, she was somewhat surprised. She thought that the last time she had opened it, she had seen a few blank pages before the start of the text. Now, though, not even those were present: the text simply started on the first page. They had not been torn out, either. They seemed to simply have never been there.

Dinky found that odd but dismissed it easily. She assumed that she must just have been confused, or perhaps had held the book in reverse and in her haste not realized that she was looking at the rear pages.

It did not matter anyway. Dinky directed her attention at the text itself and began reading.

What happened next was highly unexpected. This had been a random book taken from the Far Edge, an area where the dustiest and driest books congregated to fade quietly into obscurity. Dinky had been prepared for a slog through either obsolete dreck or something so technical that even she might find herself nodding off as she forced her way through it, collecting facts and analysis to still create a stunning report.

Instead, she found that she actually liked it. In fact, she more than liked it. By the end of the first page, she had been completely engrossed and sat for a moment in awe of how well it had been written. She then quickly read all the way through to the start of the second chapter. By then, her heart was racing.

It was beautiful. Despite the nonentity of the book, it was the greatest that Dinky had ever read- -and she had read a lot of books. In terms of technical structure, it was perfect: the sentences ran with perfect meter, blending into one another with a combination of fine punctuation and challenging but not obscure vocabulary, never getting in the way of themselves as they knit themselves together into elegant, powerful paragraphs.

And that was only the technical aspect. The content of the book was what really drew Dinky in. The characters, though nebulous at first, quickly took shape through precise and exacting characterization, and every moment they spent manipulating and being manipulated by the world of the story was another moment that Dinky fell more in love with them.

The story made her feel. Not just the mundane, boring emotions of her repetitive life. Instead, she felt sharp, crisp, deep emotions, some of which she had never felt before. Some of them made her shake in her seat, knowing that they were probably not appropriate for a filly her age, but they were written in such a way that she did not need to be a fully grown mare to understand what they meant. What she saw was a vision, a perspective that she had never considered, both about herself and the world, but without didacticism: instead, it ran like a complex and detailed discussion with every part thundering silently just below the veneer created by the plot, world, and characters.

Faced with this text, there was no way for Dinky to stop reading. The only time she had to was when the tears in her eyes became too thick for her to see the pages, both when she laughed and when she wept, both more strongly than she ever had in her life.

Every second of reading the book drove her on, faster and harder. She should have felt fatigued, but as she moved through it she only wanted more, to let it take control of her and drive her. The story held her mind captive, but to her, it was as though she were being held in a pair of strong arms and being carried gently forward toward an ending of inconceivable beauty.

Then it finally came. The ending. Dinky literally cried out as she read it. She did not think that the story could have gotten any better than it had, but the ending of it was perfect. Everything that had been drawn from the plot of the story down to the smallest and most seemingly insignificant thread was pulled together, revealing that complicated plot had truly been connected the whole time in a way that was brilliant in its simplicity. The pleasure Dinky took in that ending was almost unfathomable, and as the climax finished and the remainder of the story closed like a flower blooming in reverse, she could not help but feel sadder than she had ever felt that it was over.

Finally, though, she reached the end. Dinky was greeted by her name staring back up at her, occupying the very first slot on the checkout card in the back. Shaking and drenched in sweat, Dinky slowly closed the rear cover.

She looked around. Time had passed, but she had no idea how much. A thin strip of light was coming between the thick curtains over her window, so she assumed that it was either Saturday or Sunday, probably around midday. Dinky looked over her desk and saw the plate where her pistachio muffin had been. All that was left were a few green crumbs. She had gotten so excited, it seemed that she had eaten the muffin wrapper by mistake.

“Oh, book,” said Dinky, running her hoof gently over the cover. “I can see why Twilight loves your kind. Because I love you. So much.”

Dinky sat there for a moment, waiting for her young body to stop shaking and for her mind to be ready for the next stage of the project. Even as good as the book had been, reading it had only been half the project: now came the time for the report, and after a book that excellent, Dinky knew that she needed to write an appropriately superb essay.

Carefully, Dinky picked up one of her gray quills in her magic and dipped it into the vial of black ink. She blotted off the excess ink and then held the pen over the paper, its sharp point prepared to begin.

But something was wrong. The pen never dropped, and its tip never touched the paper. Dinky just held it there, hovering above it, trapped in anticipation of what it would write.

At first, Dinky did not understand what was wrong, or why she could not start. Physically, there was no reason why she could not: it was simply a matter of writing, which was something she excelled at. Nor was it that she could not think of what to write, exactly. It went deeper than that.

To her horror, Dinky finally realized what was wrong. She was not having trouble formulating the report at all; rather, she found herself completely unable to remember anything whatsoever concerning the book that she had just read.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and putting the quill back. “No way…”

It was impossible. The way that book had felt had been too intense and too real. Dinky knew that she had read it, that it had been truly amazing, that every character and plot point and element of the world within had been perfect. It had been the most amazing story she had ever read, and she wracked her brain, but to no avail. Despite having finished it just moments before, she could not remember a single element of the plot, or a single character within, despite the fact that she still remembered that she must have loved them.

This paradoxical state was unbelievably maddening. Dinky knew that she had just witnessed perfection, and yet somehow nothing of it remained in her mind except for a vague and shadowy perception that SOMETHING had been there. As hard as she tried, though, nothing worked. Dinky could not remember a single element from within.

“That’s impossible,” she said, trying to assert logic over the situation. She flipped the book over and stared at it. “I did read it. I REMEMBER reading it.” She paused. “But I don’t remember what’s in it…”

Something like this had never happened to her, and Dinky was completely dumbfounded. Although she was mostly amazed, though, something deeper seemed to be crawling across the pit of her stomach. Instinctually, she knew that something about this was very, very wrong, that something like this should not happen, ever, and that any logical explanation she created was nothing more than false rationalization.

Not that logical explanations were plentiful, though. Dinky was intelligent, but she was still a child. She had no idea what had happened and hardly had the world experience to be able to interpret what it might have been.

So, she did the only thing that did come logically to her: she opened the front of the book, and started again.

The effect was the same. The amount of sheer pleasure and awe was just as it had been, even though this time Dinky recognized everything that was within. It read as though she were greeting an old friend, like as though she were seeing her sister stepping off the train from the Crystal Empire. Dinky had no idea how she could have forgotten such a lovely story, nor did she care. Once again, she was drawn in, and once again she did not stop until she had finished.

Then, once again, she closed the book and picked up her quill- -only to realize that once again nothing would come out, that the memory still eluded her entirely.

This time, Dinky screamed, mostly in rage- -but her exclamation also came from somewhere deeper, a place that gave it a tone that frightened even her. It was that same feeling as before, but stronger. That she had made a horrible mistake, and that she should not have read it again. That this was not right, and that something was horribly, horribly wrong. It was as if for some reason her instinctive, primitive self felt that it had somehow been damaged.

This wrongness had spread to Dinky’s conscious mind. Once was an anomaly, something that she could not explain- -but twice was simply too uncanny.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and pushing her paper and ink vials away and centering the book on her desk once again. “There’s no way I’m doing this wrong! There’s no way I can’t manage to operate a bran-munching BOOK!”

Dinky’s anger overwhelmed her apprehension, and even though her mind was telling her to run as fast and as far as possible, she instead opened the book and started reading again.

In total, Dinky read the book four times. Each time produced the same result: each time, Dinky would finish the book, only to find that she remembered nothing from within. By the end of the fourth time, her anger had largely been replaced with a raw and unsteady panic and a belief that something horrible must have been wrong with her. The only logical conclusion that she had come to was that somehow, she was a defective pony. The book report remained unwritten.

Dinky would have opened the book and read it a fifth time, but as great as the temptation was, she managed to stop herself when she heard the low musical notes of the grandfather clock downstairs chiming eight tones. Dinky was vaguely aware that it had already produced that sound three times during the weekend, and that this fourth lonely call meant that it was Sunday night.

As great as the panic was that drew Dinky back toward the book, the conditioned response to go to bed early on a school night was stronger. She paused for what felt like an eternity, just staring at the book, but eventually managed to tear herself away from it. It was imperative that she go to bed in a timely manner so that she would be wakeful for the next day’s lessons.

With grave difficulty, she pulled herself across the room and into her bed, balling the thick blankets up around her into a large pile so that only her face was exposed. Despite having been awake for three days straight, sleep did not come easily. The clock had already chimed for midnight when Dinky finally drifted into restless sleep.

Dinky found herself walking through the streets of Ponyville. It was another bright, sunny, prepackaged day with every aspect of the town built to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Except that the edges seemed a bit strange. Not misty, exactly, but gray, as though the brilliant color of the day did not shine through long distances, or as though the far aspect of the world had been hoof-painted over something with an entirely different and potentially far more unsavory exterior.

Otherwise, though, Ponyville looked fine, and Dinky either dismissed the anomalies or failed to notice them. Instead, she stopped in front of a house, pausing to search through the mail in her bags until she found the correctly addressed envelopes. Then she opened the gate with her magic and walked up the flagstone path to the door.

Once there, Dinky knocked. “Mail!” she said, cheerfully.

At first, there was just silence. It was then followed with some low and undecipherable words, followed by the sound of somepony approaching the door. A second after that, the lock was unfastened and the door thrown open.

“What?” demanded the mare inside.

“Mail,” said Dinky, handing out the letters.

The mare stared at them for a moment, and then up at Dinky. “What in the name of the Lunar rump are you doing?”

“I’m…I’m delivering the mail- -”

“We have a mailbox! It’s right over there!” She pointed, and Dinky saw that she indeed did. She had passed it on the way it. “I mean, what in Celestia’s curly beard do you think you’re doing? You don’t have to hoof-deliver anything, you moron.”

“But- -”

“USE- -THE- -MAIL- -BOX,” said the mare, increasing her volume and mouthing each word in an exaggerated fasion as though Dinky were unable to comprehend. Then she snatched the mail from Dinky and began to return to her home. Before slamming the door in Dinky’s face so close that it nearly tapped her horn, Dinky heard her say: “Moron. I don’t know why I should have to look at her ugly color. It’s like she wants to depress the rest of us too.”

Dinky paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and walked back down the flagstone path and returned to the street. As she did, she set up her mailbags with the mail for the next house. When she began walking, she took a muffin out of her bag and began to unwrap it.

Before she had even removed the paper, though, Dinky found herself screaming. Tears were running down her face as she shrieked in despair, staring at the muffin. She had once had potential, promise, and a future. All of it had been squandered. It had all come down to this: no magic school, no Canterlot education, no point to her years and years of studying. Instead, she had become nothing more than a pointless and redundant mailmare, just as her mother had been before her.

Suddenly, Dinky felt herself falling. The gray incompleteness of the edges of Ponyville suddenly came crushing in on her, tearing apart the house she had just visited by converting it into nothing more than an improperly painted background sketch. As the world began to fade to black, for just a moment Dinky thought she saw what was painted on beneath those backgrounds. It had a shape, but whatever it truly was, she was not able to comprehend it.

Then, with a splashing sound, Dinky landed in water. She gasped and sputtered, but quickly stood up, realizing that it was no more than ankle deep. Somehow, despite falling from a great distance, she was completely uninjured.

She looked around. Where she was standing appeared to be the marsh at the edge of a great lake: she was surrounded by tall, stiff salt-grass that seemed to wave in a breeze that she could not feel. The lake stretched out before her under a dark sky, but even in the low light Dinky could tell that the water was cloudy and brown. Even the few inches of water she was standing in obscured the muddy bottom, and the lake stretching out before her held a certain darkness in its water that made her feel far more than just slightly nervous.

“A beautiful night, isn’t it?” said a voice beside Dinky.

The young filly looked up in surprise, but not quite in fear. She saw a much taller pony emerging from the space between the semiaquatic grass. Her coat was dark blue, and a starry mane and tail trailed behind her as she walked.

“Princess Luna,” blubbered Dinky, immediately dropping to her knees. The mud she found herself in stank horribly, and felt worse. It made Dinky shudder. “I- -I guess this means that this is a dream.”

“Indeed it is,” said Luna, pausing several feet from Dinky.

Dinky looked up, astounded at the beauty of her Princess’s face. “But I thought you only attended the dreams of important ponies!”

“We do, usually. But that does not mean sometimes we do not visit the peasantry sometimes as well.”

“Oh,” said Dinky, mildly insulted. She stood from the mud, feeling the dirty water rush back around her. She looked out at the lake, wondering why she could not see the other side. “Then this…what does it mean?”

“This part? We are not sure. And, frankly, if you are unable to interpret it, then you are not worthy of our time or presence.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dinky, bowing deeply. “I didn’t mean any insult by it.”

“It hardly matters if you mean it or not. Not that we truly care, though.”

Luna started walking once more, but not toward Dinky. Instead, she began to walk outward, into the lake. Dinky watched in both awe and confusion as she went, her body slowly sinking into the opaque water. Dinky shivered at the very thought of even allowing that water to get past her knees, wondering what exactly might be in a lake of such size. Luna, though, did not even hesitate. She passed through the water quickly, barely making a wake, and within a few minutes had reached a point where only her head and neck were visible.

Suddenly, she stopped, still facing outward toward the still deeper parts of the lake that seemed to stretch on for eternity. “As for the first part, though,” she said. She turned her head slowly, and Dinky saw that her eyes were no longer dark blue. Instead, they were pure scarlet, with neither pupil nor sclera.

Luna smiled, revealing a mouth that seemed to hold hundreds upon hundreds of long, sharp teeth. “I think,” she continued, now in a different voice than before, “that it means that you should really invest more time into that book report. Assuming you want to avoid that future, of course.”

“Dinky?”

Dinky shot awake suddenly at the sound of her mother’s voice, gasping as she did and immediately becoming aware of a sharp pain in her lower body. She looked around, and saw that she had been sleeping at her desk, her face literally buried in the half-read book that was sitting in its center.

“Yeah?” she said, sleepily, still sweating from the vision of the swampy lake-edge and Luna’s horrible red eyes. “What is it, mom?”

Derpy peered through Dinky’s door. “I said, you need to hurry. School starts in a half hour! I know how much you hate to be late!”

Author's Notes:

"Hate...late..." She gasped. "I'm a poet and I didn't know!"

Chapter 3

School was almost impossible. The need Dinky felt to return to her project was gnawing and incessant; every second she was not doing her homework she could not stop thinking about it. This was endlessly frustrating in that she knew that she desperately needed to focus. That was the point of school, after all. To sit still and be quiet.

School, of course, was just as bad as it always had been. Despite her academic aspirations, Dinky had never been a fan of school. Not the concept, of course, but rather the limitations of Ponyville’s education system. Her desire to actually do real homework only made it harder to sit through another trite, boring lesson as Ms. Cheerilee described yet another thing that Dinky already knew in ridiculously simple terms.

In any other situation, Dinky could have at least done something productive while Cheerilee was speaking. Unfortunately, though, she was forced to devote all of her energy to taking notes. This was perhaps the only thing that kept her from getting up and leaving from boredom, the fact that she was almost entirely unable to write. With quills and magic it was easy, of course, but Cheerilee had insisted that the students take notes manually. That meant that despite having a fully functional horn, Dinky was forced to write all of her classwork by using a pencil held in her mouth.

Much to her chagrin, Dinky’s hoofwriting grade was at best a C. It was her lowest mark, and although she knew that hoofwriting was a pointless skill it still bothered her. The only reason that she could get anything done was because she sat in the back corner of the class and sometimes take notes covertly under her desk with a quill and ink suspended in her magic. It was especially easy on Mondays; that was the time of the week when Cheerilee was least likely to notice the dim yellow glow from Dinky’s horn.

On this day, that was especially true. Cheerilee looked even more exasperated than usual.

“No, Snails,” she said. “For the last time, I will NOT define that word for you. Ask your parents!”

“Aw,” said Snails, seeming thoroughly let down. “But I wanted to know…”

“Ah know what it means,” said Applebloom. “Mah brother- -”

“PARENTS!” sneaked Cheerilee, blushing profusely.

Scootaloo, who for once was actually awake, piped up. “That isn’t exactly going to work for Applebloom or me, Ms. Cheerilee.”

“Applebloom and I,” muttered Dinky through her pencil.

“Why?” asked Sweetie Belle, utterly confused. “I don’t get it.”

“Really?” said Applebloom. “You didn’t know that mah parents are- -”

“Oh, look at the time!” cried Cheerilee, looking at a watch that she was not wearing. “It’s recess!”

“Um…rethess dothent start for another halfth hour,” said one of the other students in the room.

“RECESS! NOW! Get out of my classroom! Have fun outdoor fun! NOW!”

The students, though initially confused, were more than happy to oblige after they realized that they were being allowed to play outside. They stampeded toward the door, shoving and pushing each other as they tried to get out simultaneously. Within a few minutes, the only ponies remaining in the room were Dinky and Cheerilee.

“Thank Cadence,” muttered Dinky, spitting out her pencil. Instead of getting out of her seat, she leaned back and levitated the unnamed book onto her desk. Something about reading a book like that in school felt wrong and somehow indecent, but she could not stop herself. The need to understand was simply too intense.

“Um, Dinky,” said Cheerilee, walking down the aisle between the desks. “I said you could have early recess.”

“And I’m having it. By reading.”

Cheerilee sighed. “But wouldn’t you rather go outside and play with the other children?”

“If that can make me get my book report done faster, than yes.” Dinky remained planted in her seat.

“Book report?” Cheerilee looked down at the book that Dinky was reading. “Wait, you mean the one I assigned last Friday? It’s not due for three weeks!”

“And with this book I’m going to need at least two of those,” muttered Dinky.

Cheerilee appeared confused, but then reached up and closed Dinky’s book.

“Hey!” cried Dinky, immediately realizing that she was not using her inside-voice.

“Go outside,” said Cheerilee. “Run. Play. Have fun with the other children. That’s what recess is for.”

“But I am having recess,” protested Dinky. “Indoor recess.”

“Go,” ordered Cheerilee, pointing.

Dinky did as she was told. As unorthodox as she could sometimes find herself being, there was no way she could resist an order from an adult, especially her teacher. “Fine,” she said, levitating the book to her side and approaching the door.

Once she had left, Cheerilee let out a long sigh and retrieved a bottle of Sweet Apple Acres cider from behind her desk. She pulled the cap off and took a long swig. “The children are being especially adorable today,” she said to the empty room.

Dinky was not happy about being forced to leave. As she did, she resorted to her normal fantasy of what her life would soon be like. Instead of a cramped, single-room classroom in some insignificant town, she would see herself sitting in a grand and storied auditorium, taking notes freely with her quill as she listened to the deep and profound thoughts of one of Equestria’s most distinguished wizards as he gave a lecture on something she actually cared about.

While immersed in this fantasy, Dinky almost did not hear herself being addressed by another pony. When she heard her name being called, though, she looked up- -and then immediately looked slightly down.

“Pip,” she said, mildly surprised that he had bothered to talk to her. “Hi.”

“Wow,” said Pip. “You must have been thinking really hard about something, weren’t you?”

“Not really,” said Dinky. She smiled. It was hard not to. Pip was adorable. Not in the sense that Dinky found Spike adorable, but cute nonetheless. He was the only student who was smaller than she was, and Dinky had always found his clear Trottingham accent and his painted coloration both quite exotic.

“We were going to play ball,” said Pip, pointing at the other ponies. A few of them waved back. “We were wondering if you wanted to play?”

“Oh,” said Dinky. “No.” She held out the book in front of her. “I’m just going to find a spot to do some reading.”

Pip looked disappointed. “Okay,” he said. He smiled. “Well, if you change your mind, we’d always be happy to have you. With your magic, you’d be really good at it!”

“Thanks,” said Dinky, feeling slightly awkward at having to refuse yet another offer to join the other children in whatever it was that they did. “I’ll let you know if I do.”

He ran off, and Dinky returned to her path toward the trees at the edges of the school’s property. The day outside was actually reasonably nice, although for some reason the light made Dinky’s eyes and head hurt. She quickly decided that it was probably better that Cheerilee had forced her out of the schoolhouse. It was an excellent day for reading beneath a tree, and Dinky reasoned that doing so might actually help her focus on committing the contents of the book to memory.

Her optimism, though, did not last long.

“Hey, horseface!” called a voice behind her.

Dinky immediately sighed and lowered her head. The ache in her head increased significantly. The last thing she had wanted to deal with on this otherwise mildly terrible day was Diamond Tiara.

Slowly, Dinky turned around. There was no point in ignoring them. Instead, she faced Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

“Wow,” said Diamond Tiara, shielding her face. “You look terrible!”

“So what else is new?” said Silver Spoon. Both of them laughed.

“Hello, Silver Spoon,” said Dinky.

Diamond Tiara seemed to take offense to the fact that Dinky had not acknowledged her first. “What is that?” she said, pointing at the book at Dinky’s side. “A BOOK? You are such an egghead! No wonder nopony wants to be your friend!”

“Yes, I know. Friendless blank-flank. We go over this every day. I’m going to go now.”

Dinky Started to turn, but Silver Spoon had already moved behind her, preventing her from leaving.

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” said Diamond Tiara.

“I do have the highest grades in the class,” said Dinky. She looked at Silver Spoon. “Although I think some ponies might be able to put up some competition, if they weren’t so concerned about the opinions of others.”

“Of course I could get better grades than you!” said Diamond Tiara. “I just don’t want to. That’s why I don’t. I mean, I’m already perfect.”

“Clearly.”

“But you don’t get good grades because your smart.”

Dinky raised an eyebrow. “Then how else do I get them?”

“Well, you certainly don’t pay for them,” said Silver Spoon.

“You get them because you’re a witch. You use magic to cheat!”

This offended Dinky slightly. “I do not. That’s not how magic works!” She had tried to control her tone, but she had let her emotion slip out slightly. Diamond Tiara immediately picked up on it; Dinky could tell by the slight upturn of the corners of her mouth.

“We’re not stupid,” said Diamond Tiara. “Well, Silver Spoon is, but I’m not. Do you really think we can’t see you casting spells from the back of the class?”

“I’m writing. As in, taking notes?”

“She’s right,” said Silver Spoon. “That really isn’t how magic works- -”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes widened. “What did you just say to me, Silver Spoon?”

“N- - nothing!” squeaked Silver Spoon. “J- -just that I saw her using magic too!”

“That’s what I thought.” She paused. “Now, where was I?”

“Calling me a witch,” said Dinky.

“Oh yeah. You defiantly are. A weird little witch. Doing magic. Studying all the time. I bet you’re learning how to curse us all. That’s what you unicorns do, isn’t it? That’s how your people got all their money. By stealing it with magic. You’re probably planning on doing that to me, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what good that would do,” said Dinky. “Clearly your money doesn’t lead to improved grades.”

Silver Spoon snickered slightly at this, but Diamond Tiara shot her a look that made her stop immediately.

“You’re weird, and wrong,” said Diamond Tiara. “You’re not normal. Reading, hanging out in dark rooms. And you stink like muffins all the time. Do you even bathe? You shouldn’t even be here. We don’t want you here. NOPONY wants you here!”

“I don’t care what other ponies want,” said Dinky. “Not terribly much, anyway. I’m just here to learn.”

Diamond Tiara smiled evilly. “Well, of course you are. You have to make up for a lot, don’t you?”

Dinky’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I think you know what I’m talking about. The fact that your mother’s a- -”

Dinky inhaled sharply. “Don’t you dare say it!” she cried.

“- -retard.”

Silver Spoon gasped. “Diamond Tiara!”

“What? Come on, everyone in town knows she is.” She turned to Dinky. “That’s why you don’t have a dad. Because she’s too stupid to remember who he is.”

Dinky was now actually angry. She could deal with the constant insults directed at her, but having her mother dragged into it was a step too far. Dinky glared at Diamond Tiara, and then took a step forward.

Diamond Tiara immediately took a step back, as did Silver Spoon. The look of sudden confusion and fear that crossed both of their faces somehow made Dinky feel good, to know that they were afraid of her.

“What are you doing?” stuttered Diamond Tiara.

Dinky took another step toward her. Despite being smaller than both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, Dinky was still a unicorn, and even as children Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon knew what she was capable of. Or at least had an idea.

For a moment, Dinky considered charging her horn. A number of spells were running through her head. She could perform a long-term levitation charm and leave Diamond Tiara suspended in the air for the better part of recess at least, or make her coat fall out, or dye her hair green. And that was just the actual spells. Even by just striking with the energy of her horn, Dinky could easily produce a blow that would sting quite significantly and perhaps even bruise.

She stopped herself, though. It took everything she had, but she was able to. When she did, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, suppressing the anger that she refused to permit herself to feel.

“You know what?” she said. “I can’t afford any marks on my disciplinary record.”

“So…you’re just going to take that?” said Silver Spoon, sounding quite impressed.

“Of course,” said Dinky, turning around and walking past Silver Spoon. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re just earth-ponies, it’s not like you know any better.”

Diamond Tiara did not take that insult lightly. She came up behind Dinky quickly, almost overtaking her before slamming her body into Dinky’s side. Dinky was much smaller and lighter than Diamond Tiara, and she was sent sprawling with a cry. As she did, her telekinesis was disrupted and she dropped the book that she had been holding.

“What is this?” said Diamond Tiara, picking up the book.

“Don’t touch that!” screamed Dinky, surprised and frightened by the sound of her own voice. She did not know why, but the idea of the book leaving her possession terrified her- -and the idea of allowing someone else to touch it made her feel absolutely sick.

Dinky raced forward, but Silver Spoon caught her.

“Silver! Let me go!”

“Just hold on,” whispered Silver Spoon. “She’ll get bored soon enough. I’m sorry…”

“NO!” Dinky struggled against Silver Spoon’s grip, but as an earth-pony Silver Spoon was easily able to overpower her. In her now outright panic, Dinky also found herself unable to produce any manner of spell at all. She simply could not focus without the book in her possession.

“Heh,” said Diamond Tiara, relishing Dinky’s distress. She flipped open the cover. “I wonder what this is? With a freak like you, I bet it’s dirty.”

“Don’t read that! GIVE IT BACK!”

Diamond Tiara did the exact opposite. She looked down, and Dinky saw her eyes scanning across the lines. She continued to smile viciously as she did, knowing what it was doing to Dinky- -but her expression quickly changed. Her smile fell, and her eyes grew wide. For a moment she just gaped, her hooves shaking as she still held the book.

That was when the screaming started. To Dinky, the whole world suddenly seemed to move in slow motion. She had never heard pony make that kind of sound, nor had she ever realized that a pony could. It was too high and too raw, and it made every hair on her body stand on end. For a moment, she even forgot about the book. She just wanted to make that sound stop.

Except that was not what her body did. The next thing Dinky was fully conscious of was her sitting in the grass, clinging desperately to the book. She held it to her chest, but her eyes were unable to leave Diamond Tiara. The other students were coming, and Cheerilee had left the schoolhouse in a full gallop.

Dinky saw them, distantly aware of their presence, but what truly filled her vision was Diamond Tiara as she writhed on the ground before finally curling into the fetal position. The screaming never stopped, though. Nor did her eyes. They kept scanning, drifting back and forth- -as though she could not stop reading.

Chapter 4

“Proof?! What more proof do you need? She needs to be EXPELLED!”

Spoiled Rich bristled and leaned forward over Cheerilee’s desk, appearing as though she were about to start foaming at the mouth. She was literally quaking with rage, and eying Dinky aggressively from time to time.

Cheerilee, meanwhile, looked even more exasperated than usual. Her expression was close to what it looked like after trying to explain algebra to Snails, except worsened by the fact that she now had to stay after hours to hold an emergency meeting with Spoiled Rich and Dinky’s mother. Dinky was in attendance as well, sitting in a smaller chair on the right of her mother. She was not particularly interested in the conversation around her, though. None of it really mattered. Instead, her eyes were focused entirely on the book sitting on Cheerilee’s desk.

“You can’t!” cried Derpy. “Oh please, Cheerilee, you just can’t!”

“Of course she can! And she will! I’ll have you know that I’m a member of the School Board- -”

“We know,” said Cheerilee, pressing her hoof against her forehead. “You’ve said it at least seven times so far. Have you ever noticed how weird it is that we have a School Board with ten salaried members to oversee one teacher?”

“We oversee all the schools in Ponyville!”

“Yes. All one of them.”

“Well, if this incident is any indication, you don’t have the ability to run it yourself! Do you know where my daughter is right now? The psychiatric wing of Ponyville Hospital! Because of what this halfbreed reject did to her! I mean, what will other ponies think, knowing I have a daughter that had to get sent to the looney bin? It could ruin us!”

“But she didn’t mean to!” said Derpy. “My little muffin would never do that, not on purpose, she just wouldn’t…um…” Derpy paused. “What did she do again?”

“She brutally attacked my daughter, you moron!” shrieked Spoiled Rich. “I should have you thrown in jail for this! She’s your responsibility! But what do I expect from a mental deficient…” She sighed, then glared at Dinky. “She’s a troublemaker, just like her father- -”

“Don’t bring him into this,” snapped Derpy.

“Don’t you dare get angry with me like that! I’m the victim here! It’s not my fault that your too stupid to properly wrap a muffin!”

“Shut- -UP!” shouted Cheerilee, slamming her hooves on her desk. Derpy and Spoiled Rich both recoiled at the sound of Cheerilee’s fully manifested teacher-voice. “Why is it that the only pony being an adult here is Dinky? And might I remind you that she’s right there!” Cheerilee pointed toward Dinky, who was still quietly staring at the book. “Oh, my head,” she said, sitting back down. “And the doctors wonder why my blood pressure is so high…”

“I brought muffins, if that would help,” said Derpy, lifting a small basket of freshly prepared muffins.

“Muffins can’t help you now,” said Spoiled Rich, smiling. “This is the last straw. I was against this from the start. This is what happens when you try to mainstream the special-education students with the rest of the class- -”

“Dinky is my top student,” said Cheerilee. “Not just in this class. Ever. She has the highest grades in my class this year despite a three year age gap.”

“But is that worth her constant violent outbursts?”

“She doesn’t have outbursts,” replied Cheerilee.

“Then how do you explain what happened to poor Diamond Tiara?”

“Wait,” said Derpy. “Something happened to Diamond Tiara? Oh, Spoiled, I hope she’s okay!”

Cheerilee interrupted before Spoiled could retort. She kept her explanation simple and slow, knowing that Derpy sometimes had trouble following complicated stories. “I talked to the other students,” she said. “Silver Spoon was there when it happened. She was holding Dinky back at the time.”

“Holding her back! See! I’m right, she was trying to attack my daughter!”

“But she never reached Diamond Tiara. From what I’ve gathered, Diamond Tiara stole this book from Dinky. She started reading it, and then…well, that’s when I got there. She was screaming, and I couldn’t get her to stop.”

“So? That just means she used magic! That’s what her kind do! She must have put a curse on my daughter, some kind of mind control spell!”

“Mind control. Sure, why not. Just because master level wizards can barely create that kind of spell doesn’t mean a child with no formal magical training shouldn’t be able to.”

Derpy gasped. “Dinky! I didn’t know you could do that!”

“I was being sarcastic,” clarified Cheerilee. “I was pointing out that there’s no way a unicorn her age could have performed a spell like that. And when the ambulance came, the paramedics checked for signs of magical injury. They didn’t find any.”

“Then…then what happened?” asked Dinky.

The group went silent. “We don’t know,” said Cheerilee. “It seems to have been some kind of mental breakdown…”

“My own horseshi- -”

Cheerilee stood up suddenly. “If you’re going to use language like that in my classroom, I’m going to make you stand in the corner! I don’t care if you’re on the School Board or not!”

“But then what about the book?” said Derpy. She pointed at it. “If Diamond Tiara got sick when she read it, maybe the book is broken.”

“It’s not,” said Cheerilee. “I looked through it myself. Every page.” She lifted it up and flipped through the pages, showing them to Derpy and Spoiled Rich. “And it’s blank.”

“What?!” cried Dinky and Spoiled Rich at the same time.

“Blank,” repeated Cheerilee. “It’s empty, the kind of book you would use to write a diary in. There’s no words at all.” She flipped it closed and placed her hoof on it, sliding it across the desk toward Dinky. Dinky reached for it greedily, but Cheerilee did not lift her hoof. “You can have it back,” she said, “but you can’t use this book for your report, for obvious reasons. Also, I’m giving you a demerit.”

Dinky’s chest suddenly tightened. For the first time since the conversation had begun, she looked up and saw that Cheerilee was serious. “But- -but I’ve never had a demerit before! Why?”

“Because I’m an earth-pony, and I don’t know any better. I do not tolerate bullying in my school. Do it again, and you’re out. For good.”

Spoiled Rich left quickly, producing a loud sound of harrumphing as she did. Derpy remained behind for a moment, though, to speak with Cheerilee. From what Dinky understood, they were both approximately the same age and had grown up together, even though Derpy had left school by the third grade. They were not terribly close, but like most ponies in Ponyville, they were friends.

It was dark outside by the time the meeting finished. Dinky did not mind much. The darkness hurt her eyes less than the sun did. On an ordinary day where she found herself akwake so late, she would have paused to look up at Luna’s sky. This time, though, she immediately opened her book and looked inside.

Cheerilee had been wrong. It was all there. The book was full of text, just as it had been before. Dinky flipped through, just to make sure. She had no idea how Cheerilee could have missed it. There was not a single blank page in the whole text.

“Dinky?” said a voice behind her. Dinky jumped, startled, and turned around to see Silver Spoon. She had been sitting on the stairs of the schoolhouse out of sight.

Dinky frowned. “Go away,” she said, bluntly. “I really, really don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“I’m sorry,” said Silver Spoon, being equally blunt.

“You’re sorry. No you’re not.”

“I am!” said Silver Spoon, stepping forward. The concerned expression on her face did look sincere, and Dinky decided that she likely was, but probably only because she was alone. “I didn’t mean to- -”

“To rat me out? I got a demerit because of you.”

“And as an earth-pony, that comment was extremely hurtful.”

“Hurtful? One of MY comments was hurtful?”

“She doesn’t really mean it! You don’t know what it’s like for her- -”

“I was just in there with her mother. I can guess. But I’m not angry at her. I’m angry with YOU.”

“M- -me?”

“I don’t mind if you insult me. I respect you. But you let her go too far. And she got what she deserved.”

Silver Spoon’s eyes widened. “How can you say that?”

“How could you let her talk about my mom like that? You could have stopped her!”

“You know I couldn’t- -”

“Just like you ‘can’t’ get a grade higher than hers?”

“You don’t know what it’s like! To be in love…”

“Nor will I ever, Silver. Not if I can help it. Not if it takes me away from…” She looked down at the book she was holding. “I have to go,” she said. “I have a book report to write.”

Once again, Dinky found herself sitting at her desk, her room lit by the harsh white light of her crystal lantern. This time, though, she was not reading the book. Instead, it was sitting on her desk, dominating the surface with its presence even though it remained closed. It almost seemed to be waiting to be opened.

Yet, for some reason, Dinky found herself hesitating. She wanted to read that book more than anything, to finally know what was in it. But she also knew what it had done to Diamond Tiara. She was under no illusions: whatever had happened to Diamond Tiara had only happened to her because she saw what was in this book. Dinky had no idea what that meant, and could only grasp at the potential implications.

She did know one thing, though. She desperately needed to know what was in this book. Looking at its outer surface was only a maddening reminder of the fact that it was impossible for her to recall the contents while she was reading it. She had read it seven times now, and each time she had gone to write her report only to find that she could not even distantly recall what had gone on between the book’s covers.

Dinky had stared at the book for nearly an hour when an idea suddenly occurred to her. The epiphany was so rapid and so simple that she laughed at how foolish she had been. She quickly moved the book to one side and took out a piece of paper, then prepared her quill over it.

“I don’t care if it takes me all night,” she said. “I’ll transcribe you! If I can’t write about you after I’m done reading you, then I’ll write while I’m reading!”

This idea made Dinky feel very pleased with herself. She was sure that it would work. She happily flipped open the book and lifted her quill in her magic.

Transcription was not easy. It required a great deal of concentration to both read and write at the same time. Dinky had rarely done it before, and she decided that it would be best if she did a test. She would transcribe just the first page, and then see if her writing was neat enough to read.

So she began, reading through the first page and quickly scratching the letters and words that she was seeing across the blank page. Since she was reading, she did not look up to see what she was writing; that would have defeated the purpose. It was also what made the endeavor challenging. From what she could tell, though, her letters were straight and even.

When she finished, Dinky let out a long sigh. Her head hurt, but she had succeeded. She slowly pushed the book to the side despite how much she wanted to continue reading it, even though she had already forgotten what was actually written on the first page. Dinky instead turned her attention toward the page that she had written.

Almost immediately she found herself blinking, confused at what she was seeing. Then she felt a growing sense of unease as she realized that it was not a trick of the light, or of her tired eyes. There was indeed text on her page, but it was not written in Equestrian. At first Dinky though that it was just badly written and that the letters had blurred into each other, but looking at it she saw that each letter was formed perfectly and that each was evenly spaced. They were not even connected, despite the fact that Dinky had been sure that she had been writing in cursive.

The letters themselves, though, were strange. They were incredibly complex and covered in both strange curves and sudden angles, all of which were edged so deeply and aggressively into the paper that had the desk not been covered in a thin sheet of protective glass the page surely would have been carved into the wood.

Something about the letters made Dinky shiver. Something was wrong with them. Even their mere existence was disturbing. They were not in any language that Dinky knew: they were not in modern or Old Equestrian, or in any classical Pegasus fonts. They did not follow any runic scheme either. They were too complicated and, somehow, too old. That was the impression that Dinky got from them, that the page she was staring at was somehow far deeper than it should have been, as though she was the first pony to have seen writing like this since longer than even Celestia could remember.

The more she thought about it, the more Dinky’s blood ran cold. She had only been transcribing, and yet her page was covered in these strange markings. She did not know why, or how, or remember making them. Because of this, she suddenly found that she was breathing fast. A few beads of sweat dripped from her forehead and onto her desk.

Dinky turned around in her chair, trying to look away from the transcribed page- -only to suddenly freeze in horror at what surrounded her. The thin strip of midday light that was coming through her curtain illuminated her room, and Dinky saw that every wall had been plastered with pages that had not been there just minutes before. All of them were covered in the same style of text, running not only across the pages but beyond them and over the intervening space of the walls. Symbols of every shape were written on running, still damp ink, all in the same font that Dinky had inadvertently copied from the book.

“N…no,” said Dinky, shutting her eyes. “It’s not there. It- -I only made one page! It can’t be- -”

She opened her eyes, expecting the vision to have vanished. It had not, though. The walls still remained covered- -and Dinky thought that she saw a few more pages scrawled in red ink. She gasped, and her quill dropped from her magic.

Dinky stood up suddenly, only to realize that the text had indeed spread. Not to the walls or the ceiling, though. As she looked down at her body, she saw that the fine and strange lettering had been inked over every inch of her young body.

Ink ran down Dinky’s lavender fur and onto the floor as she stood for several minutes without moving. Then, slowly at first but rising to mad crescendo, she began to laugh.

Chapter 5

It was Tuesday, or possibly Wednesday. Dinky was not entirely sure. Although it was late afternoon, she had not gone to school. She no longer saw any point in it. There was no way she would be able to sit through a lesson, not with the thought of the book gnawing at her the whole time as she sat through another insufferable and pointless lesson. Besides, it was already quite clear that she was not welcome there.

Her halfhearted excuse to her mother was that she was sick. Derpy had accepted that line, possibly because she was concerned about what had happened to Dinky before with Diamond Tiara. Dinky was not sick at all, of course. She felt excellent, aside from the fact that exposure to any kind of light now gave her near-migraine levels of pain. In fact, she felt better than ever.

It did not take her long to formulate a plan. It was quite obvious that there was something magical afoot, and no pony knew magic or books better than Twilight Sparkle. So Dinky had scheduled an appointment to meet with her.

At first, she thought that Twilight would outright refuse. She was a Princess, after all, and had no time to deal with pointless and obscure ponies like Dinky. The idea of a potentially cursed book, though, was apparently too good for her to resist. So, like Luna in Dinky’s dream the night before, she took time out of her busy schedule to actually interact with a commoner.

Dinky was glad of this, but as she sat in Twilight’s waiting room, she found herself shaking strangely. Twilight had taken the book away to examine it, and without it, Dinky felt profoundly uncomfortable. She did not like it to leave her sight. She knew that Twilight was respectful with books, but the more she thought, the more she became afraid, wondering if Twilight would somehow lose it, or worse, find it cursed and refuse to give it back.

It did not help that the chairs in the waiting room were made of crystal. It was slippery and cold, and Dinky kept sliding off. Her only consolation for the entire set of circumstances was that she was extremely clean: it had taken her several hours to scrub the ink off her body.

Eventually, after what felt like hours of repeatedly sliding off her chair and shaking with increasing violence, Dinky heard a door creak open. She looked to her left and saw Spike approaching. She smiled and picked up the folder at her side.

“Hi,” she said, sliding out of the chair and onto the equally slippery crystal floor.

“Hi,” said Spike. He blinked, and looked somewhat concerned. “Dinky, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Why?”

“Because you look like you haven’t slept in a while.”

“Because I don’t need to,” said Dinky. “Not when there’s studying to do!”

Spike produced a fake, somewhat disturbed laugh. “Twilight used to be just like that,” he said.

“Really?” Dinky perked up slightly. “So you like that? Do you want me to be more like Twilight?”

“Um…what? Dinky, you’re scaring me.”

Dinky laughed, perhaps a little bit too loudly. It echoed strangely down the crystal hallway. Then she realized at least vaguely that she was being strange. “Sorry,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “I was joking. I can’t even do that right. I’ve just been really concerned about this book.”

“I get that,” said Spike as he started to lead her toward one of Twilight’s several offices. “You should see the stuff in Twilight’s personal collection.” He shivered. “One of them bit me once. And that’s not even as bad as the fanfiction she writes. I just can’t look at Rainbow Dash the same way anymore…”

Spike shook his head and opened a door, pointing inside. Dinky entered, and found Twilight sitting at a crystal desk and smiling. Somewhat unexpectedly, Starlight was standing behind her.

“Dinky, is it?” asked Twilight. “Go ahead and have a seat,” said Twilight, pointing at yet another slippery crystal chair.

Dinky climbed onto the seat with some difficulty, only sliding off it twice. Twilight waited patiently until she was seated.

“Did you look at it?” said Dinky, excitedly. She saw the book on Twilight’s desk, which already made her much happier- -although also much more nervous.

“I did,” said Twilight. “I gave it a thorough check, and I’m glad to say that it is perfectly safe.”

“Safe?” said Dinky. “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘safe’,” said Twilight. “As in, not harmful. It’s perfectly safe. I ran every standard check for spells and enchantments, and I can say with one hundred percent certainty that this is an ordinary book without any signs of magic whatsoever.”

“W…what? No, it has to be- -”

“I assure you,” said Twilight, waving her hoof. “It is. I mean, I’m the Element of Magic. I think I know what I’m talking about.” She winced suddenly and brought her hoof to her head.

“Twilight?” said Starlight. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” said Twilight, still grimacing. “Although it’s just a regular book, it had a really weird font. Something about reading it gave me the WORST headache…”

“Spike, can you get her some aspirin?” asked Starlight.

“Oh, yeah. Of course!” Spike ran off to fetch the medicine, and Twilight shook her head, trying to clear it. As she did, Dinky noticed that her eyes scanned from right to left several times.

“You read it? What- -what did it say?”

“What did it say? Not much.” Twilight looked down at the book and laughed. “It was a really dry manual. Very technical, very boring, even for me, and I love books.”

“But what was it about?”

“About?” Twilight blinked for a moment. “You know, it was so technical and boring, I don’t even remember. I didn’t even get through the first section. I have no idea why you would want to read something like that. But I’m glad you brought it to me. Even if it was a false alarm, I do everything I can to keep cursed objects out of Equestria. It’s kind of my hobby.”

“But…it can’t be an ordinary book!” said Dinky, sitting up so fast that she nearly slid off her chair again. “I mean, I tried to transcribe it, and look!” She opened the folder she was carrying and pulled out some of the sheets that she had written. She put them on Twilight’s desk and spread them out.

Twilight looked down at them and chuckled. Starlight, though, had an entirely different reaction. Her eyes went wide and all the color drained from her face.

“You know, I used to make up languages when I was a filly too,” said Twilight, picking up one of the pages. “It was something my brother and I loved doing. I actually have a few texts on stenography and cryptography, if you’re interested.”

“No! I didn’t make them up! They came out of the book!”

That seemed to concern Starlight even more, but Twilight just smiled. “The book is written in ordinary Equestrian,” she said. “These weren’t in it. And they’re not even real letters. I write and read every language that has ever existed in Equestria, and I’ve never seen these. Even supernatural languages.” She leaned forward and whispered. “I’ve even read the translated Ponynomicon. Trust me, I know a bad book when I see it.”

She passed the book to Dinky and then sat up, stretching her long and fluffy alicorn wings. “Well, I hope that helps. I’ve got to go now. Important friendship stuff and all. Just be sure to return that book by its due date!”

Dinky left more confused than she had been when she entered. She did not understand what was going on, and although she had hoped that talking with Twilight would help, she now realized that it had only made everything worse. The only good thing that came of it was that Twilight had not confiscated the book.

As Dinky walked through the empty and lifeless crystal halls on the way to the exit, though, Starlight caught up to her quickly.

“Dinky,” she said, stopping the younger unicorn. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” said Dinky, reluctantly stopping. She had hoped to read the book at least another three times, and Starlight was taking up the time that would otherwise be used for that.

“Those pages,” she said. “The ones you showed Twilight. Where did you get them?”

“These?” said Dinky, opening the folder. “I told you. I transcribed them out of the book. Except they’re not what I was trying to write, and I don’t think they were actually in the book. Do you want to take a look- -”

“NO!” cried Starlight, taking a large step back as Dinky held out the notes.

Dinky suddenly realized what was going on. “You recognize them, don’t you?” she said. “What are they? What do they mean?”

Starlight hesitated, looking around to see if anypony was around them. None were, of course. The only other thing in the hallway with them was the unseasonably cold air as it drifted through the halls of ominous living crystal.

“I do,” she said at last. “And it’s bad. Dinky, this is really bad.”

“What are they?” demanded Dinky, looking at the sheet in front of her.

“Runes,” said Starlight. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Runes? But Twilight would have recognized them if they were.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“But she’s an expert in magic. Of course she would- -”

“Twilight isn’t as much of an expert as she likes to think. She deals exclusively in good magic. Helpful charms, academic experiments, counter spells to evil. There is no way she would have ever encountered text like that in her research.”

“And you would have?”

Starlight frowned. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of,” she admitted. “And I’ve messed with forces that I now know I never should have tried to control. Yes. Those symbols are something I recognize.”

“What did you use them for?”

“Use? I never used them! Not even Starswirl the Bearded would be able to…”

Dinky looked at the letters again. “But Twilight said that she read the Ponynomicon- -”

“The translated version,” corrected Starlight. “But I’ve read the original.” She paused, and then shook her head. “And there were some symbols that even Alhazred refused to write. He described them, though, and alluded to what they were for.”

“And what are they for?”

Starlight refused to answer. “Dinky,” she said, leaning close. “I don’t know how you managed to produce those symbols, or what you did to find them. But please, PLEASE take my advice: burn them. Burn all of them, and that book with them.”

Dinky gasped and held the book close to her chest, as though Starlight would try to take it from her. “I- -I can’t! It’s a library book!”

Starlight sighed. “I’m not going to take it from you. I don’t even know if I could, not without consequences.”

“It…it wouldn’t let you,” whispered Dinky, a look of realization crossing her face.

Starlight’s expression fell, and Dinky realized that even in her relatively ignorant state she had spoken the truth. “Yeah,” said Starlight, softly. “But those letters…they’re evil. And dangerous. Things no unicorn should deal with, especially not a child.”

“So just because I’m a child, it means I’m stupid, doesn’t it?” protested Dinky angrily. “That I’m not powerful enough to deal with real magic?”

Starlight stared at her for a moment. “Adults don’t see it, do they?”

Dinky’s eyes widened. “N…no.”

“Exactly. Dinky, take it from me. You might grow up to be a great wizard someday, but there’s things in this world that should be left alone. That have to be left alone.”

Dinky looked down at her book. Just the idea of burning it, or even trying to damage it in any way made her feel sick and weak.

“Yeah,” she said at last, putting the book and her folder back in her bag. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“I hope so,” said Starlight, immediately seeing through Dinky’s lie.

Dinky started to turn to leave, but another idea occurred to her. She stopped and looked up at Starlight. “Ms. Starlight? Do you think you would be able to teach me an invisibility spell?”

Chapter 6

As it turned out, invisibility spells were much more complicated than Dinky could ever have imagined. Starlight was apparently an expert in them, but despite her superb teaching skills and patient attitude, the best Dinky had been able to do was to shift her coat color to a slightly more reflective hue.

What Starlight had been able to do, though, was to offer several pointers on how to improve Dinky’s perception-filter spell. It was something that she had known at least partially for a long time. It did not make her invisible, but it made her difficult to perceive, essentially shifting her to the background of any pony’s perception. Anyone looking would be able to see her, but unless somepony was specifically looking for her they would fail to realize that she was even there.

With Starlight’s help, Dinky was able to vastly improve this spell. The modified version was far more powerful and longer lasting. Starlight had been rather impressed by this, even though her own perception filter spell was so powerful that she could stand directly in front of Dinky and still go unnoticed.

It was once again night by the time Dinky left the Castle. The air was cooler than it had been in earlier in the weeks, and the wind was stronger. Overhead, Dinky could see the dark shadows of clouds drifting rapidly past the moon and stars.

She did not mind, though. Even without a jacket, the cool air felt good against her coat, and the darkness seemed more welcoming than frightening. Actually, Dinky was surprised by how light it was outside: despite the clouds, she was able to see almost perfectly, even after she passed the part of Ponyville that was lit with gas lamps.

At that hour, few ponies were at the Ponyville Hospital. Most of the doctors and nurses had gone home, and only the night crew remained. Although the front porch was lit and a few of the lower windows glowed with artificial light, most of the windows were dark. The building loomed high in the darkness, and although it looked frightening beneath the night-clouds, Dinky did not hesitate to approach it and enter.

The security at the Ponyville Hospital had never been good. Dinky’s mother had often told stories that she heard second-hoof of a time when Rainbow Dash had managed to sneak in at night in an attempt to retrieve a book using nothing but a skin-tight black catsuit. Dinky had not bothered to dress in all black, though- -in fact, she had no idea where a pony would even go to get a black spandex suit, even though they seemed relatively common for older ponies.

Instead, she used magic. She engaged her perception filter as she walked through the front door. The nurse at the front desk looked up to see the door open, but then went back to the book she was reading when she failed to see anyone of consequence enter. She had of course seen Dinky, but had only registered her as part of the background.

Dinky moved through the hospital quickly this way, drifting through the hallways like a gray-purple ghost. Most of the lights had been dimmed in the hallways, and the floor seemed to consist of pools of bright light between longer lakes of shadow. A few doctors and nurses would occasionally walk through this partial darkness, but none of them bothered to notice Dinky and she passed them without pause.

The layout of the hospital was more complicated than it looked from the outside, but Dinky knew it well. She had spent a great deal of time here as her mother had recovered from various accidents. The psychiatric ward, though, was a place that she had never been to before.

It was not terribly much different from the rest of the hospital, although it was clearly built in an older section. Like the rest, it was lit dimly and consisted of various patient rooms. There were a few more security guards, though, and Dinky hesitated. If any of them had been a unicorn using a scanning spell, there was a chance she might be found out. Luckily, though, they were mostly earth-ponies- -save for one Pegasus- -and were consequently quite oblivious.

The only sound in the psychiatric ward was one of distant, low sobbing, and something that sounded like a dog moaning in its sleep. Dinky dismissed both of them and instead sought out one particular patient.

Finally, after several minutes of searching, she found Diamond Tiara’s room. She managed to enter in complete silence, closing the door behind her and in doing so sealing off all light to the room, save for the dim glow of the moon through the window and the luminescent screens of the ticking monitors that were measuring Diamond Tiara’s vital signs.

Carefully, Dinky lit her horn. He produced just enough to see if she was in the correct room, but as soon as she did she saw a pair of reflective eyes staring back at her from the bed, glaring at her despite her perception filter spell still being active.

Dinky’s breath caught, and she lit her horn the rest of the way, revealing that the reflective eyes did in fact belong to Diamond Tiara. She was sitting up in bed, awake but not moving. She just seemed to be staring at Dinky.

This lasted for several seconds, but then Diamond Tiara’s eyes scanned several times and her heart-rate monitor clicked slightly faster for a moment. “What do you want?” she said in a voice hoarse from screaming.

“You read the book.”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes scanned for a moment. “If that…is what you want to call it…”

Her eyes settled on Dinky. Diamond Tiara did not seem to blink anymore. Dinky took a step forward, and Diamond Tiara suddenly recoiled, her pulse jumping upward substantially.

“NO!’ she cried, pulling herself back up in bed. Her eyes were still round and wide, but now she looked absolutely terrified. “Don’t get any closer! Don’t get near me!”

“You saw what was in it,” said Dinky, taking another step. “You know!”

“I don’t!” cried Diamond Tiara. “I- -I saw- -I saw…” Her whole body shuddered.

“What did you see?” demanded Dinky, her voice going high for a moment as she stopped walking. “I have to know! I have to know what’s in that book!”

Diamond Tiara just stared at her. “I saw…I saw things,” she said, slowly. She shook her head, closing her eyes. “You- -you stay away from me! You’re a sick pony! If you can look at things like that, if you can read something like that…what it did to me…if you would want that…”

“That’s not GOOD ENOUGH!”

Dinky leapt forward, scrambling onto the edge of Diamond Tiara’s bed. Diamond Tiara’s eyes went even wider, but she did not scream. She curled into the fetal position, shaking in terror.

“You’re going to tell me,” said Dinky, calmly removing the book from her person. When Diamond Tiara saw it, she let out a low, horrible squeak. The heartrate monitor increased steadily, and Dinky was vaguely aware that Diamond Tiara’s pulse was now in excess of two hundred.

“N…no,” whispered Diamond Tiara. “Please! Not that! Dinky- -I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Just- -just- -don’t!”

“Not good enough, Diamond Tiara. I need to know. I HAVE to KNOW.” She lifted the book in her magic and flipped it open, holding it outward toward Diamond Tiara.

Diamond Tiara squealed and closed her eyes, burying them under her hooves.

“Look at it!” ordered Dinky. “LOOK AT IT!”

“No…” protested Diamond Tiara, softly. “I won’t- -I can’t!”

Dinky did not accept that response. She leapt forward onto Diamond Tiara, grabbing her long bicolored hair with her magic and forcing her head up. Diamond Tiara struggled and cried out, weakly trying to resist. Dinky was aware that the sheets below her became unusually wet, although she did not know which of them was responsible.

“YOU HAVE TO TELL ME!” she cried. “I HAVE TO KNOW! What did you see? WHAT DID YOU SEE?!”

“I don’t- -I don’t remember!” wept Diamond Tiara. She collapsed into a blubbering mess. “I don’t…I don’t remember…”

Dinky released her. As she did, she heard rapid hoofsteps coming down the hall. She jumped off the bed just as the door was slammed open and a nurse rushed in, having been alerted by Diamond Tiara’s dangerously high pulse.

“Sweet Celestia!” she said, stepping into the room. By this time, Dinky had already reengaged her perception filter, and slipped out through the closing door without being noticed- -or at least noticed by anypony except Diamond Tiara, who had collapsed back into silent staring at her with strange, empty eyes.

Chapter 7

An indeterminate amount of time passed. To Dinky, it could have been a matter of mere hours- -or a matter of weeks. Time did not seem to flow normally for her anymore. At first this had been unnerving, but surprisingly even to her she had grown used to it and now considered the vast swaths of blank, empty time to be a normal part of life.

She had read the book again. She did know how many times. Each time it produced the same result: she would reach the end, only to find that she had forgotten everything that she had just read- -and read it again, attempting to recapture it, to try her hardest to finally make the greatest story that she had ever read stay permanently within her mind.

So, finally, she found herself once again sitting at her desk. The book was in front of her, and although she had just finished reading it she had not yet started to go through it again. In this rare pause, she simply stared at it, feeling her anger growing.

“Why?” she asked. “WHY?!”

Suddenly, she felt herself reaching up. With a scream that sounded like it was coming from someone else, she swept her small filly forelegs across the top of her desk, causing all of its contents to fly across the room. Ink spilled on the floor, and a picture frame containing a picture of her, her sister, and her mother shattered on the floor. The book, of course, went with them, and as she saw it leave the desk Dinky immediately felt a surge of regret.

“No!” she cried, kneeling down to where the book had fallen. It had very nearly landed in a puddle of ink, although for some reason the ink had spread around it without touching it, as though it could not bear to approach it.

“I’m sorry,” said Dinky, gingerly picking up the book and inspecting it for damage. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

As she lifted it, though, she noticed something strange that made her instantly pause. The hair of her mane stood on end, and she felt strangely cold. Immediately, she lifted the book into the light of her lantern. Although exposure to even artificial light had now become blinding and agonizing, Dinky opened the lantern’s shutter and ignored the pain behind her eyes as she inspected the book.

It had fallen open to the back cover, where the checkout card was. It was not a part of the book that Dinky had really looked at; after all, there was no text there, save for the card with her name written on it.

Except that it was different. Her name was still present, just as Spike had written it- -but it was on the second line of the card.

Dinky blinked, confused and wondering if she was somehow hallucinating. She was sure that she had seen Spike write her name on the first line, and point out that she was the first pony to check the book out. She had seen it like that several times since- -but now she also remembered that her name had always been the second, that there had been another over it.

This should have been hopeful, the idea that there was another pony who might know what was going on and that could help her. Seeing the name only made Dinky’s heart sink, though, and she felt a physical feeling of dread spreading through her entire.

The name was not written in Equestrian. Dinky had no idea what it was written in; it did not even look like the strange text that now covered seemingly endless pages of notes that she had created again and again, different every time, as she read the book. Dinky had studied those notes well in between reading the book, trying to unravel the mystery despite Starlight’s warnings, and she knew that she had never seen letters like that before.

They were simultaneously simple and more ominous than the others. They scrolled across the top line of card, written in an ink that had long ago faded to a dull rusty color. Even a date seemed to be written, but it was not in any numbers that Dinky could decipher.

“Who…who are you?” asked Dinky after a moment. No answer came, though, because the answer was already apparent: the name was written in the book.

Dinky fell silent, and for a long time continued to stare at that name, feeling her mind go blank. It was as though she could almost read it, just like she could almost remember the contents of the book. As she strained her memory, though, she began to notice black spots forming in her vision. They started around the name, and began to swirl and writhe as though Dinky were staring into some blinding and toxic yet somehow unseen light.

She did not look away, though. There was no reason to. Even if she went blind, she knew, she would still be able to read the book. Sight was not necessary to comprehend it.

Despite the burns forming on the inside of her mind, though, Dinky did not lose her sight. Instead, she lapsed into unconsciousness, the effect spending several days awake brought to a head by the final stress of this new development.

The water was neither choppy nor still. A wind of some kind appeared to be blowing, giving its surface a number of small waves that disturbed its murky, yellow-brown water. The whole surface seemed alive, and yet some aspect of its repetitive motion almost seemed mechanical and oddly dead.

It was in this lake that Dinky found herself. The shore was now far distant, and the salt-grass was now a barely visible strip of green on the furthest periphery of her vision. The rest was murky brown water that seemed to extend outward in every direction.

Dinky was treading water, but she had no idea how deep the lake was. Its silty surface could have been mere inches away from her hooves- -or it could have been miles below. The only way to know would be for Dinky to push her head beneath the water and dive down deep, but the thought was to terrifying for her to even consider it. Even being up to her neck in the opaque water was vaguely but profoundly disturbing.

“Hello?” she called, momentarily struggling to stay up. “L- -Luna? Are you there? I- -I don’t know how to get back to the shore!”

There was no response. There was no sound, really, aside from that of the water sloshing on top of itself. There was not even the sound of the breeze, because there was no real wind.

Several minutes seemed to pass before a response of a kind occurred. For a moment and out of the corner of her eye, Dinky thought she saw the surface of the water distort. She turned toward it in time to see a ripple spreading outward before being quickly consumed by the small waves.

Then there was another one, and another. This time, to her horror, Dinky saw what they were: the narrow, bony backbones of some kind of long, strange creatures breaking the surface just slightly as they moved through the water. Dinky had no idea what they were: the water was to murky for her to see anything other than the skeletal portions of their backs.

More came, and then all at once seemed to vanish. Dinky felt something hard and bony touch her leg, and she screamed. She had no realized that it was not just water. There were things in it- -and they were bad thing. The only solution she knew was to head for the shore, but it was so far away. There was no way she could swim fast enough, and she did not believe that she had the endurance to return.

That was when it came. Dinky did not so much see it as she was aware of its presence. The water seemed to darken, and it shifted, with the surface of the water suddenly swelling and threatening to inundate Dinky. She cried out and struggled to keep her head above water as it passed beneath her.

It was not just large. It was vast, and incomprehensibly so. Larger than any sane creature of the sea, or even any ship. Dinky had no impression of its shape, but she knew that it must have been miles wide and miles deep, its body stretching downward in what she now realized was the profound and near-infinite depths of dark water.

There was no way to know if it saw her, nor did it matter. Dinky doubted it could see, or doubted that it even had the capacity to perceive. There was no need for it to. It simply moved, and through that motion it was now threatening to consume Dinky, a tiny speck on a surface that it was probably not even aware of.

For a moment, Dinky went below the water, choking on the slat and muck and flavor of metal. Several things seemed to press against her, and it took everything she had to surface again. That was when she saw the sky. It was no longer dark: instead, it was ablaze with a horrible red light, lit by two enormous crimson suns. Dinky screamed as she realized that while she stared up at them, they stared back into her and laughed as they waited for her to tire and for the water to pull her beneath one final time.

Chapter 8

It was beginning to make sense. Not in the way Dinky had intended it to, but her own intentions had long been abandoned as she progressed forward, piecing together the ideas that had begun to coalesce in her mind. The symbols were not letters. Not in the sense that they represented sounds, at least, or even ideas. Instead, they were something more similar to shapes. They were geometric forms of unimaginable complexity, with the visible portion just a tiny speck of their true nature. They were rocks that had emerged from the lake; the symbols were the barest tips, connecting to great unseen mountains beneath the cloudy surface.

They meant something. Dinky was not sure what, because it was impossible to translate them fully unless they were all present. They were pieces, but Dinky had no idea what sort of machine they were pieces to.

In her efforts- -what she came to think of as research- -Dinky had begun to translate much of the book into its final form based off her notes. The only thing she did not attempt to translate was the name in the back, at least not more than once. When she had tried, translating the first two letters had given her sudden and excruciating pain, and translating the third had made her profoundly sick. She did not dare attempt the whole word; the idea of what it might mean was simply to terrible for her to dare to face.

Dinky no longer slept. She no longer needed to. More than that, though, she did not want to go back. She did not want to see the lake again, or feel its slimy brackish water against her skin- -or to see what had seen her. If she revisited the lake, Dinky was not sure that she would be able to come back again.

In this time, she read the book more times than she could count. As she did, she became aware that it was starting to change. Each time it would be different, and the tone began to change. It was no longer grand and fun; when Dinky finished, she would be left with a deep fear as though what she had seen had left shadows inside her mind. There were things in the book now, things that frightened her more than she could have thought possible. When she read these things, Dinky wondered if this was what Diamond Tiara had seen when she had looked in the book. Her only consolation against these horrors was that she could only remember the fear when she finished the book, and not the things that it had shown her.

Dinky had long since forgotten the book report, or school, or anything else beside the book. It was all that mattered now. The only purpose that she existed for was to solve its mystery.

Derpy was beginning to grow increasingly concerned. Initially, she had decided to be lenient with allowing Dinky to choose not to go to school. From personal experience, she knew how cruel ponies could be to somepony who was different. She herself had been mocked endlessly in school, and she saw the same thing happening to Dinky, albeit for the opposite reason. Whatever had happened between her and Diamond Tiara must have been stressful, and Derpy was fine with giving Dinky a few days off.

A lot longer than a few days had passed, though. It had now been just over three weeks since that incident, and as far as Derpy knew, Dinky had not yet returned to school. To Derpy, this was terrifying. She had seen the pattern before when she herself had dropped out of school just over two decades ago. In her case, it had because she had simply been unable to keep up with the other students. Dinky, though, was not like her. Neither of her daughters were. They were smart, especially Dinky. Derpy just did not understand what had gone wrong.

She was aware that Dinky was moving, though. She spent most of her time locked in her room, but not always. Her amblyopia made her partially resistant to perception spells, and combined with the fact that as a mother she was never really able to ignore her own daughter, Derpy found herself often seeing Dinky sneaking out at night or returning with ink and paper. At first, Derpy had hoped that it was for a really, really good report, but she was increasingly realizing that such a belief was wishful thinking.

Something was wrong, and she needed to do something. She just had no idea what. Every day, she would go to Dinky’s door and say goodbye before she went off to work, and every day she would come back hoping to see Dinky on the couch, happy to see her in a way that she had not been in years. Instead, though, every day was the same: Dinky would be hidden away, doing her work, as she always did and always had done.

Eventually, though, Derpy got up the courage to do something. She took some time to prepare a large basket of Dinky’s favorite flavors of muffins and then, with some hesitation, climbed the stairs to the upper level of her house.

The upper level was not large, and was mostly separated into two rooms. One had belonged to Sparkler, and Derpy kept in in order just in case her elder daughter ever decided to return from the distant Crystal Empire. The other, smaller room belonged to Dinky. Originally, Dinky had insisted on having that room because of how pretty she had thought the view was from it. Derpy really hoped she still enjoyed it as much as she had back then.

“Dinky?” she said, tapping at the door with her hoof. There was no response, but the door had not been closed properly and swung open slowly.

Derpy paused. She hated to disturb her daughter’s privacy, because she had hated when her own parents had done that to her. Still, she had come- -albeit slowly- -to recognize that this was a dire situation, and stepped inside.

The door almost immediately shut behind her, and Derpy squeaked in surprise, nearly dropping her muffins in the process. She held onto them, though, knowing that they were for her daughter, and fumbled about the dark room for a moment.

The first thing she noticed was that it smelled bad. Not like what it should have smelled like, though. Derpy would have understood if it had smelled like a filly had been living there continuously for three weeks. Instead, though, it smelled old, like the dusty, chalky smell of the unused mailroom beneath the Ponyville post office that was largely used to store old records. Somehow that dry, old smell was worse.

Derpy nearly tripped as her hoof suddenly struck something metal. It in fact took all of her concentration not to slip, fall, and break something, but she managed to stay on her feet. She reached down and picked up whatever it was and quickly realized that it was a broken crystal lantern that had been left on the floor. The crystal inside had not been charged in some time, but Derpy saw that it was still alive with a dim yellowish glow. Carefully, she opened the flap to allow some of what little light it had left out. She then looked around the room.

When she did, Derpy immediately saw a pair of reflective yellow eyes staring back at her through the darkness. This time she screamed and dropped her muffins. They spilled out of the basket but then stopped, each suspended in field of gold light. They hovered for a moment, but then were put back into their basket and the basket lowered gently to the floor.

“Please don’t make a mess, mother,” said Dinky, her voice sounding strangely empty. “You need to be more careful.”

“D…Dinky?”

Derpy held up the lantern, and as her eyes adjusted to the inadequate light she saw that the reflective eyes she had seen did in fact belong to her daughter, who had apparently been watching her from her chair with her back to her desk. Derpy gasped when she saw her daughter: Dinky’s hair was unkempt and her already tiny body gaunt to the point of exposing the outlines of her ribs. She almost looked skeletal.

“Dinky, when- -when was the last time you ate something?”

“Ate something?” Dinky looked distant, but a vague expression of confusion crossed her face. “I had…I had a muffin,” she said, pointing to a plate sitting on the corner of her desk. “Pistachio…when I got back from the library. But that was two days ago…” She frowned. “No…I think it was longer than that…”

“Dinky! No! It’s been a LOT longer, if you don’t eat- -”

Dinky chuckled. It was a high, slow sound, and Derpy shuddered when she heard it. It sounded like Dinky was about to start screaming. “I’ll what? Starve? No. Not until I’m done.”

She lifted her hooves and pointed. Derpy redirected the narrow beam of the lantern at the walls and gasped. They were covered in the paper and ink that Dinky had been steadily acquiring: every surface seemed to be plastered with pages of various size and shape, all coated in strange symbols that Derpy did not recognize. They were not simply posted, though. The pages seemed to lead into each other, and the symbols connected and ran together in strange shapes that Dinky had assembled throughout the room.

“A single pattern,” said Dinky, her chuckling suddenly stopping. “A single pattern…but to what? What is it FOR?” she slowly revolved in her chair. “But why am I asking you? You probably don’t know…”

“Dinky…” Derpy took a step forward, shuddering as she saw several large pages that differed from the rest. They seemed to be covered with crude, childish charcoal drawings of a pony. Her body was invariably drawn with thick, dark lines, sometimes what looked like hundreds of them. Her eyes, though, had been stained with red ink. It looked as though Dinky had just poured ink onto the paper, and then hung it up before it dried, causing the figure drawn on the pages to seem to be weeping where the red ink ran down her smiling charcoal face. “I brought- -”

“Muffins? I know. I can see them.”

“I have all your favorite flavors! Corn, and orange zest, and bran but with dates instead of raisins. I know how much you hate the raisins- -”

“I don’t have a favorite flavor,” said Dinky, coldly.

“You…you don’t?”

“No. I hate them all equally. I can’t stand muffins. I only ever ate them because it seemed to make you happy. But I’m such a disappointment now, I guess it doesn’t matter if I fail to maintain that illusion.”

“Disappointment? You’re not a disappointment, Dinky!”

Dinky lifted her head but did not turn around to face her mother. “I can’t stop seeing. If I close my eyes, I see it. I see THEM. The pages, the letters. But I saw your face. When you saw me. What must you think of me? I’m a failure in your eyes. And I accept that. It’s not like it matters anymore anyway.”

“No! You’re just- -you’re just sick- -”

Dinky turned around suddenly with a small burst of golden light that caused her mother to take a step back. Her yellow eyes focused squarely on Derpy’s. “I’m not ‘SICK’,” she hissed. “I’m NORMAL. This is NORMAL. Anypony, anypony in my situation would do the same THING! I have to- -I have to read it! I have to FINISH it! That’s what Luna said! She said it to ME!” Dinky suddenly paused, and all the anger left her. “But…but she wasn’t really Luna, was she? Or does that even matter anymore?”

Derpy was now quite frightened. Not for her own safety, but for that of her daughter. Something was wrong with Dinky, and although Derpy was not smart enough to figure out exactly what it was, she knew that it was up to her to stand up and act like a mother.

“Dinky,” she said, trying to sound firm despite her wavering voice. “This isn’t healthy. You can’t stay in here like this. You haven’t even been to school in three weeks!”

“Three…three weeks?” said Dinky, seeming legitimately surprised by that number.

“Yes! And you used to love school! You used to love…a lot of things. Dinky, please, tell me! I just want to help! What happened?”

Dinky’s eyes slowly grew distant. “I never liked school,” she said. “In fact, I think I hated it. It took me this long to realize that, but…yeah. I always hated it. Just sitting there, doing nothing useful…” she began to turn back to her desk. “Wasting my time to learn how to live a wasted life…”

“No!” said Derpy, taking a step forward. “That isn’t true! You’re so smart! So much smarter than me! It always makes me so happy to imagine what you can do, what you could be. Not like…me…”

“Potential, you mean.” Dinky shook her head. “I don’t have any potential. Not really. I can’t even read a book properly. And it’s now probably too late to submit my report…there’s no point. Dropping out, staying in? It all leads to the same thing. The same life.” She put her head down on the book on her desk. “My only chance to get out of this town was to get into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. But now there’s not enough left of me. Just them…and just her…”

Derpy’s heart suddenly beat faster. “You can still apply. I’m sure you can get in.”

“My application has been rejected four times. They didn’t even send me a rejection letter. They just ignored me. Because I’m too stupid. Too useless. I thought this last time, I was sure to have it…but I’ve dropped out of school now. I’ll never get in.”

“They…didn’t reject you,” said Derpy, feeling her breath catching in her throat.

“Then why am I here?” Dinky looked at the book on her desk. “Unless this is what I’m for…”

“They didn’t reject you,” asserted Derpy again. “Because I never delivered your applications.”

The room fell silent for a momenta, and almost seemed to grow colder. The lantern that Derpy was holding flickered and suddenly glowed much more brightly.

“You WHAT?” said Dinky, turning back to her mother.

“I- -I had to!” cried Derpy. She sputtered for a moment, and then took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “I didn’t…but I did anyway.”

“You sabotaged me,” said Dinky in disbelief.

Derpy closed her eyes, unable to look at her daughter. She had felt ashamed most of her life, but never to the extent that she felt at that moment. “I couldn’t- -I couldn’t let you go! To Canterlot! Your sister is already out in the Crystal Empire and- -and I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want you to leave me. You’re all I have left! My little muffin, I’m sorry- -”

“Don’t you DARE call me that,” said Dinky, standing suddenly. “And don’t you dare claim to be ‘sorry’! Do you think you can just apologize for something like that?”

“But I am sorry, I didn’t realize- -”

“That you were destroying my future? Turning me into a little version of YOU?!”

“But I just- -I just wanted things to be like they were! When you were little, and when you were so happy! Before- -”

“Before I had dreams? Or the desire to make them come true?” Dinky sighed, and then fell silent. “Or had dreams. I don’t…I don’t anymore.” She turned back to her desk and walked up to it, her eyes focused on the closed book on the surface. “I was naïve,” she said. “I guess I really can’t trust anypony at all. Not Silver Spoon, not Twilight, and not even my own mother. All I can trust is you…”

Dinky reached up and stroked the book. That was when Derpy realized what must have been going on. She knew that Dinky’s anger was fully legitimate, but she also realized that the book was doing something to her. She did not understand why, or how, but knew that she had to do something about it.

Derpy suddenly leapt forward, bounding over her basket of muffins that would now likely never be eaten. Before Dinky had time to react, she grabbed the book and pulled it away.

“What are you doing?” said Dinky with strange, empty calmness. She turned slowly to face her mother, and her eyes seemed both so devoid of soul and so furious at the same time.’

“This book!” cried Derpy, suddenly terrified of her own daughter. “It’s doing something to you! It’s making you sick!”

“The book is the only thing I have left in this world.” Dinky paused. “No, that’s not quite right. The book doesn’t matter. Not really. It’s what’s written inside it that is so important.” She held out her hoof. “Give it back, mother. Unless you like seeing me suffer. Which, apparently, you do.”

Derpy shook her head. “No. I can’t! I have to get this book to Twilight, or to Starlight, or to- -”

Suddenly, Derpy found herself moving in the wrong direction. Instead of moving away from Dinky and getting the book to a safe distance, she was moving toward her daughter. This took her a moment to comprehend, and her confusion instantly cleared when she saw the pale gold magic surrounding the book, drawing it and her with it toward Dinky.

“Dinky, are you- -are you doing this?” asked Derpy, still clinging to the book.

Dinky did not answer. She just kept staring, her horn alight and her dead-looking eyes focused entirely on the book.

“How did you get this strong?” said Derpy, trying to pull the book away. Even flapping her wings, she was unable to make it even budge against Dinky’s magic. “It’s the book, isn’t it? It’s possessing you!”

“The book isn’t possessing me,” said Dinky, her voice neutral but just barely tipped with strong annoyance. “It’s just a book. Just writing. Just words. I’ve always been this strong, mother. If you had actually paid attention, maybe you would have seen that.”

“I did notice! Dinky, that’s not what I meant!”

“That you’re holding me back? That you want me to be stuck here, like you are? To turn into a mail pony that everyone secretly hates and laughs at? What is it, mother? Revenge? Because I had a future and you didn’t?”

“Dinky- -” Derpy felt her hoof click against something on the floor. She looked down, and although she was not holding the lantern anymore she could see Dinky’s light illuminating a complex five-pointed symbol that she had gouged into the floor. Derpy’s hoof had caught on the edge of one of the strange carved letters, and it gave her enough traction to actually stop her forward motion.

“Give me the book, mother,” hissed Dinky, now sounding furious. “Do something useful for once and JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“No! It’s hurting you!”

“It’s not like you can even use it!” cried Dinky, her magic suddenly surging as she wrenched the book free of Derpy’s hooves, causing her to cry out as it left. Now free of the forward force, Derpy fell backward, landing hard on her wings. “You can’t even READ!”

Almost as soon as Dinky said it, her rage collapsed. The book floated back into her possession, but she did not feel better. In fact, she only felt worse as the realization of what she had just said passed over her. She no longer felt afraid as she had before, but now she felt ashamed. She had gone too far, and would have gladly accepted the fear of losing her book back if she had just been able to take back what she had said.

Derpy sat up. As she did, she winced. One of her wings was at an odd angle, indicating that it had been sprained by the fall. Her eyes met Dinky’s, and Dinky saw that her mother was on the verge of tears, and not from the pain of her injured wing.

“Mom, I didn’t mean- -”

“I have to go,” said Derpy, quickly. She wiped her eyes with her foreleg and then ran toward the door. As she did, she stopped. “I hope…I hope you enjoy your book, Dinky.” She sounded utterly defeated, and before Dinky could stop her, she left. Dinky’s vision in the dark had become so powerful that the glimmering of her mother’s tears on the floor were almost blinding.

Dinky said nothing, but watched her mother go. More than anything, she wanted to go back to the euphoria of the book, even if she had to face the horrors that were beginning to propagate within- -but now, instead, she felt lucidity building in her mind.

She had said some terrible things. She had called her own mother useless and despised, and worse, had made fun of the dyslexia that had made it a daily challenge for her to just live a normal life. Because of this, Dinky began to realize that she was no better than Diamond Tiara. Worse, even.

Dinky looked down at the book that now sat centered on her desk, ready to be read again.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you make me do that?”

The book gave no response. It was a book, after all. It had no capacity to make Dinky do anything at all. It could only be read. Dinky’s choices had been her own since the beginning.

That was when a realization struck Dinky.

“It…it doesn’t matter, does it?” she said, feeling her heart sinking toward despair. “None of it matters anymore. No matter how many times I read you, I’ll never remember. And the report…it’s too late now. Why am I even doing this?”

She looked around at the text pasted on countless pages on her walls and even carved into her floor. Distantly, she had some conception of what the runes meant, but largely she had no capacity to read them. She doubted that she ever would. They were just as pointless as everything else: an obsession that generated no end, save for more obsession.

Dinky looked down at the book once again. This time the urge struck her, more powerful than ever before. All she wanted to do was to open that book again, and to relive the beauty of the story inside one more time, even though it was rapidly becoming corrupted with something else, leading toward something horrible that she could not comprehend. She knew that if she read that book, she could escape everything she had just said, and everything that she just did. There was not much time before whatever was coming would arrive, and when it did, she would not have to worry anymore.

She reached out with her magic and began to open the cover. Then, inexplicably, she stopped, and instead picked up the book.

Chapter 9

Derpy had left her house, but it was not hard to figure out where she had gone. She always went to the same place when she was sad or in trouble, and Dinky knew exactly where to go. Crossing the town, though, was almost even more difficult than resisting the urge to read the book. The sun was mostly behind the clouds, but even the glow of the overcast sky was blinding to Dinky. In addition, she found that she was unusually weak for some reason. Even walking at a slow speed was draining, and a distance of less than a mile suddenly seemed almost insurmountable.

Eventually, though, Dinky did manage to reach her goal. Just when she thought that what little was left of her energy had been expended, she found herself standing in front of what could really only be described as a shed. A small, blue shed.

Dinky approached and tapped on the door weakly. At first, there was no response, and Dinky knocked again, this time harder. When there was no response, she put her hoof against the blue paint of the door and began to drag it downward repeatedly, slowly peeling a small line of paint off the surface.

“Stop that!” said a voice from inside. “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

There was a brief moment before the door opened. A brown earth-pony with pale blue eyes stuck his head through. When he saw Dinky, he frowned. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Time Turner,” said Dinky, returning his frown.

“What do you want?”

“I want to see my mother.”

“And what makes you think that she’s here?”

“Oh please. The whole town knows how much you enjoy comforting her.”

“I would hardly say I enjoy it. I hate seeing her like this.” He stared at Dinky for a moment. “You made her cry, Dinky. I hope you feel ashamed of yourself. And she doesn’t want to see you.”

“Well too bad. Because it’s not your choice.”

“Yes, it is. This is my TA- -”

“And she’s my mother. What, are you going to leave me out here? You’re going to prevent a little filly from seeing her mother?” Dinky turned to give Time Turner a profile view of herself, and saw the expression of concern on his face grow. “Look. I’m not in good condition. I haven’t eaten in a few weeks, and I’m pretty sure I’m dehydrated. I need to see her. Now.”

Time Turner grumbled, and after a moment of pause threw open the door. “Playing the little filly card,” he muttered. “It’s just not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair, Time Turner,” said Dinky, stepping into his house, or rather the workshop where he lived. “And aren’t you Shriners supposed to like kids?”

“Just because I sometimes wear a fez does not mean I’m a Shriner. I wear it because fezzes are cool.”

“About as cool as bowties, I’m sure. Or scarves that drag on the floor when you walk.”

“Those are perfectly legitimate fashion choices!”

Dinky mostly ignored him and made his way into his house. It was comparatively messy and was filled with a surprising amount of science-type junk. Strangely, though, from the several times that Dinky had been in Time Turner’s house, she had always found that it seemed substantially larger on the inside than the outside. She had, of course, never mentioned that; it was apparent that he was itching for her to point it out, and she did not want to give him the satisfaction. She did not like him much.

It took longer to find Derpy. Eventually, though, Dinky saw her, nestled in the seat of pony-sized and partially constructed rocket ship that was suspended from the ceiling. Dinky had not initially seen her because she was high off the ground, and had only become aware of her presence by the sniffling sound. Time Turner had been telling the truth: as much as it pained Dinky to admit, she had indeed made her mother cry.

“Mom?” said Dinky. There was no response. Dinky sighed. “I’m going to bring you down from there. Is that okay?”

There was still no response, and Dinky took that as a “yes”. With her magic, she activated the controls that lowered the rocket. It descended slowly until it sat a few inches off the ground. Derpy was curled into it, and with a pang of regret Dinky saw that Time Turner had already bandaged Derpy’s injured wing.

Derpy looked up. Her face was puffy and her eyes red from crying. She did not say anything, though. She clearly did not know what to say. Dinky did not either- -but she knew what to do.

Dinky held out the book in her magic, offering it to her mother. “Here,” she said.

Derpy looked at the book, more surprised than confused.

“Take it.”

“But…but I can’t read it,” said Derpy, shaking her head. “My dyslexia…”

“I know,” said Dinky. “But just because you can’t read it now doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to.” She sighed. “Just take it. I want you to have it. And…I’ll do my best to try to teach you how to read. So that someday you can know what I saw, and you can read it too.”

“But nopony’s ever been able to teach me to read. It’s not possible. I’m too stupid.”

“The only stupid one here is me,” said Dinky. “And I still think I’m smart enough to teach you to read. It will just take a while.”

“A while?”

“Yeah. And I think I’ve still got a lot of time left in Ponyville. Hopefully.”

Derpy’s expression lit up, and she finally did take the book. Dinky had a sudden urge to tear it away from her, but instead, she let it go. There was no longer any point in keeping it.

“Even though I’m a terrible mother?” said Derpy.

“Yeah. You may be a terrible mother, but you’re my terrible mother. Besides, compared to Spoiled Rich? I think you’re doing pretty well.”

Derpy smiled, and Dinky felt a little better.

“I’m sorry I said all those things. I didn’t mean any- -”

Dinky was interrupted as her mother hugged her. It lasted for several seconds, and Dinky suddenly became aware of how long it had been since she had allowed herself time to be hugged. She had not even realized how much she had missed it.

When Derpy was finished, Dinky stepped back. Time Turner was entering the room with obligatory tea.

“Hey, Time Turner,” she said. “You’re a doctor, right?”

“It depends on your definition of ‘doctor’,” he said.

“Well I hope that definition means ‘medical doctor’. Because I think I need to go to a hospital.”

Dinky then promptly fainted from a combination of starvation, prolonged dehydration, and severe sleep deprivation.

Chapter 10

Due to the influence of the book, Dinky’s physical condition had deteriorated significantly. The extent was so bad that she really did end up in the hospital, under the care of doctors who actually did have medical degrees. She eventually regained consciousness, although in the incomplete state of her mind it felt as though she were being dragged through thick, stinking mud and rigid grass onto mildly dryer land.

Recovering in the hospital took some time, though. Derpy was there as much as she could be, and even during some times when she technically was not allowed to. Silver Spoon came by more than once, visiting both Diamond Tiara- -who was rapidly repressing the memories of her ordeal and beginning to recover herself- -and Dinky. She even brought flowers one time, and like always, Dinky was happy to see her without the controlling influence of Diamond Tiara looming over her shoulder.

Even Starlight Glimmer appeared at one point. Her and Dinky had just stared at each other for a long time, and then Dinky had done her best to explain what had happened. Starlight listened and nodded, but said nothing, although Dinky had the distinct impression that nothing she was saying was unexpected to the elder unicorn, and that from the look in her eyes some of it might even have been familiar.

Starlight had offered to remove the symbols from Dinky’s house and to dispose of them, and Dinky had agreed. She had not, however, told Starlight where the book itself was. It was highly doubtful that Starlight would even attempt to get near it after what had happened, but Dinky refused to take any chances. The book needed to stay intact.

After two weeks, Dinky was ready to leave the hospital and return to school. She was still somewhat weak, but she had regained the weight she had lost and could stand on her own again. The desire to read the book had mostly abated, although she could still feel it nagging at her almost constantly at an annoying but tolerable level.

When she finally did get back to school, though, Dinky found to her great surprise that the due date for her report had been pushed back significantly. In part it was because Diamond Tiara’s own illness had caused Spoiled Rich to put pressure on Cheerilee to move the due date, but largely because the vast majority of the other students simply were not able to read a whole book in three weeks and required at least a month to do so.

The day to present the reports came quickly, though, and Dinky watched the various students present about the books they had read from her seat in the back of the classroom. There was Silver Spoon, presenting a number of philosophical arguments about themes and symbolisms and Old-Equestrian poetic structure concerning the book she had read, as well as a lengthy discourse on whether it could be interpreted as based in true Equestrian history or as a parable produced by the Dawn-Unicorn dynasty. All of it went substantially over the rest of the class’s heads, save for Dinky, who just disagreed with several of Silver’s points. Needless to say, having Silver Spoon go first discouraged the other students greatly.

She was followed by the only student who knew that she had an even better report, which was of course Diamond Tiara. Her hospital stay had left her somewhat thinner than her normal porcine self, but otherwise she had mostly returned to normal save for the fact that she now stayed as far away from Dinky as possible. She read her report- -clearly written in Silver Spoon’s writing voice, complete with a number of words that Diamond Tiara could not pronounce- -from a piece of paper.

The other students followed in succession. Most were not memorable. The only that Dinky took notice of were the presentation belonging to Snips and Snails- -who insisted on doing their presentation together- -which was actually well conceived, if it really only consisted of a two and half hour summery of the exploits of the Great and Powerful Trixie, and of the pair trying to roll their ‘r’s to pronounce Trixie’s name “properly”. The other memorable presentation was from Twist, who had apparently read one of the bridle-rippers that Dinky had consciously avoided. Her descriptions were intense, and by the time a heavily blushing Cheerilee regained enough composure to stop her, every Pegasus in the class had lost control of his or her wings, save for Scootaloo, who was asleep.

Dinky’s presentation was supposed to be last, immediately after an hour-long musical reenactment of “Tales from the Kingdom of Fife” performed by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, complete with costumes. Most of the students had no idea what was going on, but Dinky found it mildly amusing.

Then, finally, Dinky’s turn came.

“And…Dinky,” said Cheerilee. “Do you want to come up and tell us what you read?”

“No,” said Dinky.

Cheerilee blinked, and there was a small but audible collective gasp from the room. “What?” said Cheerilee.

“I don’t have a report,” said Dinky.

“Oh,” said Cheerilee. “Well, considering you were sick, I suppose- -”

“And I don’t intend to do one.”

This time Cheerilee looked even more dumbfounded, if such a thing was even possible. She looked on the verge of tears. “But, Dinky, if you don’t present, you’ll fail the project.”

“I know,” said Dinky. “And I’ve done the math. I’ll still pass.”

“But- -”

“I have nothing to report, Ms. Cheerilee.”

“Oh…okay…” said Cheerilee, marking the line in her grade book for her very best student ever with a large red “F”.

The other students stared at Dinky, equally confused and dumbfounded by her defiance, at least until they realized that it meant that they could go home early. Upon realizing this, they immediately forgot about Dinky entirely and raced out the door, nearly trampling each other in an attempt to reach their daily freedom.

Dinky remained behind, packing up her supplies carefully and walking past the desks to the front of the classroom. Before she turned toward the door, she stopped at Cheerilee’s desk and set down a large page of paper covered in cramped cursive script.

“What is this?” asked Cheerilee.

“My report,” said Dinky.

Cheerilee looked confused. “But you said…”

Dinky did not reply. She instead walked slowly toward the now cleared door. Cheerilee was too perplexed to stop her from leaving, and by the time she came to, Dinky had gone.

Still confused, Cheerilee flipped open the report. It was not long, as she exected, but she could not help but read it right there in the classroom. It appeared as such:

Dinkamena J. Hooves
5/7/1003
Grade 5
SUBJECT: Book Report

For most of my life, I have sought the definitions in things. Facts, methods, history, and the countless subdivisions thereof. Why, then, is it so hard for me to define what this document even is? I would like to think that it is a report—my report—but can it even be called that? Can I even have written a book report without a book? Which is not to say there was no book. Oh, there definitely was—assuming, of course, even that can be defined as such. But even know, I realize how ridiculous this must appear. To report on a book, although I can describe neither its name nor its contents nor the name of the mare who wrote it. I can only conclude, then, that this is hardly a report at all.

I did read the book. Whatever it is named, and whatever content it contains, or did contain, or will contain, I read it. There are no words to describe the beauty I witnessed. Perhaps if I were a painter, I could explain, somehow, but even despite the formats I have already taken with the five-paragraph format I cannot even begin to describe it. Suffice it to say, I love this book. In a literal sense.

Then how strange it must be that I find that the contents are completely irrelevant. What was written within hardly matters at all. I cannot remember it, regardless of how hard I have tried. Which is not to say it has not affected me. No, indeed, quite the opposite has occurred. The things I have seen were not meant for a filly, nor any pony, and in a way I am glad that I shall never recall them.

Yet I continue, altered and different. The world no longer looks to be the peaceful if languid place I once considered it. Nothing is simple anymore. Everything was once clear, but now I understand that the universe has more depth than I could ever conceive. And I am afraid. Afraid of how deep the lake truly goes, and how easy it is for a pony to set hoof within it. I thought everything made sense, that my method would lead to obvious conclusions—but now I doubt even that.

I am not sure I want to study magic anymore. Not in the same way as before, anyway. Nor do I desire to devote my life to something that here had nearly destroyed me. I am free now, and yet never free. That which goes on—is it Dinky hooves at all, or somepony new? This is a question I never would have considered without the perspective it brought me. I would have never seen what I was missing, or what I had to gain—or lose.

And so, I carry on. I leave the book behind, and yet I carry its contents onward. Within me, in whatever strange form they have chosen to take. Though I surely fail here in this project, I proceed forward considering this, overall, a success.

As the essay concluded, Cheerilee suddenly shivered and turned to her right with a cry of surprise. She looked around the room, her heart beating quickly, realizing that she was sweating despite how strangely cold the schoolhouse felt.

For just the briefest moment, she had thought that she felt the presence of a pony beside her. She had even been convinced that she could feel her breath on her neck, and smell some kind of strange and horrid decomposition. When she had turned, her panic had only peaked as she just briefly had convinced herself that she saw a flash of yellow and red.

Looking around the schoolhouse, though, Cheerilee found it empty and lit only by the now setting sun. She realized that she had been there far longer than she had expected, as indicated by the strange silence. There was no sound of children playing, as they had all gone home long ago. The only noise was the slow creaking of the chains on the swingset outside.

Cheerilee stood up, quickly packing her things. Although she worked in the schoolhouse every day, it was a far less cheerful place at night. She wanted to get home as quickly as possible and curl up in a warm blanket, perhaps with Big Macintosh if he was available.

As she left, though, she paused. For a moment, she found herself extremely annoyed that a student had in their haste tracked water into the schoolhouse. Only after staring at the hoofprints, though, did Cheerilee realize that they were far too large to belong to any of her students, and that rather than entering the room they appeared to start in the middle and progress outward toward the door, tracking dirty brown water where their owner had passed as she left.

Time passed. The schoolyear eventually came to a close, and the final report cards were mailed to the homes of the various students. Dinky already knew her grade long before it arrived, though, due to her detailed recordkeeping. Due to a combination of her low grade in hoofwriting, having missed over a month of school, and her failing grade on her book report, she barely passed the semester with a C.

Derpy, of course, was as proud as ever; in her own days, C’s had been a completely unattainable goal. Dinky, however, remained curiously ambivalent. With a grade so low, her chances of entering Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns had been completely torpedoed. No that it mattered, though. She had stopped applying, and no longer had much desire to attend. After what the book had done to her, she was not sure she was ready to delve into arcane secrets, or that she ever would be.

Finding herself free from forcing herself to study, though, had an unusual effect on Dinky. Where normally she would have spent the summer in deep studying for fourteen hours a day, she instead found herself outside. Sometimes she sat alone, contemplating the world around her, and sometimes she even spoke to the other ponies of Ponyville, although then only rarely except to Silver Spoon.

There were even a few times she went on picknicks with her mother, and for the first time in a long time she remembered what she had been missing. She had enjoyed them so much when she had been younger, but had swept them away in favor of ever more intense learning. Now, though, she seemed to spend far more time teaching. Even at the picnics she would often find herself keeping true to her word and attempting to teach her mother to read.

It was a difficult task indeed, but Derpy was showing some progress. Dinky had cycled through several different forms of scripts, and found that Derpy had better luck with Old Equestrian characters and excellent progress with proto-Assyrian symmetric glyphs. That, of course, was quite surprising to Dinky, especially considering how the subtlety of the characters had taken her many months to be able to learn while her mother seemed to gain an intuitive understanding of them in less than a week.

Another strange effect that Dinky noticed was the increasing amount of time she spent around Starlight. She got the impression that the two of them had shared something, if it had even only been second-hoof, although she was not really sure what it had been. Starlight seemed impressed with Dinky, and Dinky impressed with the older unicorn even more so. Dinky had at first started helping Starlight in the library, but after several weeks Starlight began to offer her tips on spellwork until finally she was outright teaching Dinky how to properly use magic. Dinky had been hesitant about this at first, but she trusted that Starlight was both knowledgeable and powerful enough to keep her out of danger from things like the book.

As for the book itself, Dinky had kept it. It was simply too dangerous to return to the library. Dinky knew that there was a good chance that it might easily retire to the shelves of the Far Edge, where it could go dormant for years, or even decades, and that anypony who picked it up might not even find anything unusual about it at all. There was a chance, though, that it would not stay so quiet, and that in time its text would be rediscovered and its story read once more.

The book now resided on a high shelf in Dinky’s house. Derpy had placed it there, ostensibly out of Dinky’s reach. She did not realize, of course, that as a unicorn Dinky had a rather long magical reach. Pulling the book out of the shelf was a trivial matter for her.

And she did, from time to time. Dinky quickly realized, though, that Cheerilee had been correct. The book was blank, and perhaps had been all along. She would sometimes take it down and flip through the pages, finding each one empty, save for the occasional isolated word that seemed to have slithered out of where the others had gone, sitting hauntingly at an oblique angle on the corner of a page or close to the cleft near where the pages bent and collapsed into the book’s spine. Those words were often strange, and though Dinky could not recall what they said, reading even them left a strange feeling lingering within her mind.

Then, sometimes, very rarely, it was different. On the coldest and most frigid winter nights when the world was silent and Dinky found herself utterly alone, she would sometimes reach for the book. In the dim of the snow-reflected moonlight, she would open the pages, and on one occasion she had to her everlasting surprise and dread found the pages once again full with a story that she knew well and yet could never know.

Even on those days, though, Dinky did not have the heart to read what was written there. Not yet, and not until her mother was ready. She would pause, looking long into the book and wondering what it said, perhaps flipping through it- -but never to the final page. The one part of the book that had never faded was what was written on the card in the back: Dinky’s own name, and that of another that she dared not witness again in her mortal life.

Then, in time, she would replace the book back in its seat on the high shelf, where it was safe and others safe from it. At those times, Dinky would feel profoundly lonely, knowing that the burden was hers and hers alone for the time being. Then, almost always, she would turn toward the window and wonder if just for a moment she did not catch a glimpse of undulating, reflective water beyond the frozen hills. In the distance, she would hear the quiet slop of the dark water, and she would smell the decay and salt air.

It was out there, after all. Just as the book remained, so did the lake. It was never gone, and it would never dry. It would simply wait, quietly obscuring its deaths and those within- -until the day that Dinky would finally decide to wade into its waters once more, and finally return.