The Clue Was Right There...
It could be said that the act of writing captured the subject, and so Twilight had assembled most of the world inside a single tree. She also had, through arts both less arcane and completely inadvertent, done the same thing within a good-sized glass jar and in the latter case, the results were actively annoying her.
The jar's existence (along with that of its contents) could be seen as something of a side effect. The little alicorn felt herself to have had a good idea, something which had no chance of producing any level of disaster -- a few years spent in Ponyville now required the majority of brilliant concepts to go through a fairly significant pre-implementation inspection -- and so she'd put it into practice. And to be fair, the idea was working out. There was just... the jar, and everything within.
Twilight's mark granted her an increased, often instinctive understanding of unicorn workings. It gave her a learning capacity which might not have an ultimate limit, and the potential to occasionally duplicate somepony's personal trick. What it didn't provide was any natural talent for running a library, and so there were areas where she just didn't feel fully proficient. It was an internal checklist which she examined on every working day, trying to find some way of permanently removing the entries, and the words COLLECTION OF LATE FEES had forever branded themselves into her mind's eye.
Having books kept past their return date was bad enough, as the part of her which tended to obsess over the smallest details (something she recognized and could seldom completely stop) wanted to know what was happening to them, along with when she could expect them back and how the rulebreaking pony could be so completely uncaring about what was clearly happening within the tree. Most of Ponyville knew what it meant when Twilight was pacing back and forth in front of a gap in the shelves -- or worse, a rectangular vacuum upon the Current Top Picks table. There were books which had ponies waiting for their return and when the plural wasn't present, a singular mare considered herself to be sufficient incentive for bringing the tome back already. It was just that... nopony else did.
She had wondered about the magic suite possessed by marked librarians. If they somehow possessed a lesser category of Stare, something where a mere look at the patron taking away a book would put the fear of returning it late into them or at the very least, the fear of the librarian. Because Twilight had began her custody of the library as one of the strongest spellcasting talents of the current generation, had taken up her Element and everything that came with it, wound up changing species -- and it still wasn't enough to make patrons return books on time.
So there were late fees. A fiscal punishment: follow the rules or pay the price. But it was something which only kicked in after the rules had been broken, and... getting ponies to pay their fines was just about as hard as getting the books back in the first place.
Twilight had been struggling with it for years. Mailing letter after letter seldom did much of anything: having those missives arrive in bursts of green flame didn't create much of an improvement. Speaking to patrons when they came in? Temporary deafness was epidemic in the settled zone, but it had an easy cure: all hearing returned upon leaving the tree. Meeting violators in the street had the odd nonmagical effect of rendering Twilight completely invisible. And going door to door? She generally didn't like direct confrontation, and so the tension would slowly build as ponies made excuses so repetitive and threadbare as to have left the dusty realm of clichés and landed in the swampland of tropes. It seldom took more than five stops before her horn's corona ignited, eight would see the light moving in jagged waves, and the twelfth house was where the fantasies regarding all the ways she could potentially get the books back began to shift from theory to Headline. Becoming an alicorn hadn't changed much there, because most of Ponyville's longtime residents knew she didn't take the 'Princess' title seriously. To them, she was still just their somewhat shy, socially fumbling, mistake-prone librarian, and it meant the only real alteration to come with her wings had moved the inevitable resulting articles from Normal Headline to Front Page.
Of course, she always had the option of sending Spike. Strictly speaking, it didn't do much for collections, but having new residents encounter a dragon on their doorstep did tend to change a few words in the articles.
But then she'd had her Good Idea. Because Twilight frequently didn't like direct confrontation, and that was a common attitude in a herd species where the majority of individuals responded to danger by not being there when it happened. Several years of scroll-hosted lessons had also taught her that it could be hard for somepony to admit when they were in the wrong, especially in a public forum. Put together, it meant her patrons didn't like being publicly reminded that they'd made an error, most would hate being challenged, and there was a chance that simply coming to her desk with bits clenched between their teeth was embarrassing -- but if she simply gave them a means of settling accounts which didn't involve dealing with her in any way...
And so she had installed the dark wood of the Blind Box in the most shadowed corner of the library, followed by very carefully not approaching it during operating hours. Anypony who needed to pay a late fee could simply drop off their copy of the notice through the top slot, along with their financial penalty. Twilight simply checked the contents after the tree had shut down for the day, then marked those accounts as properly settled.
It had worked. It was still working. Admittedly, it wasn't working with everypony, but -- there were enough who were willing to subtly divert their path towards Ancient History (because much to her ongoing frustration, nopony ever checked out anything from Ancient History) so they could make things right without ever having to publicly admit a mistake at all.
In theory, this should have made Twilight feel that much better about her custody of the tree. She had solved a librarian problem, and now patrons were paying up.
That was the theory. In the now of reality, she was approaching the Blind Box as a corona bubble which didn't quite have spikes around the edges bobbed along near her right flank, occasionally impacted by a slowly-lashing tail. Alone in a recently-closed library, with the carried Accounts Due ledger for company.
And the jar. These days, she brought it with her, and marveled at its ever-increasing weight.
The Box was before her now. She could just make it out in the shadows, along with the little sag along the bottom because she'd deliberately cut out a tiny circle of wood and replaced it with slightly-loose canvas, directly under the slot. That sag meant she could see a successful collection at a glance. Another good idea.
She could also see the edge which was trying to protrude through, and so even before her corona interacted with the lock, removing the four notices wrapped around their burden of funds, she knew she'd failed again.
Because ponies were settling up. They just weren't doing so in bits.
The Blind Box had its own lessons to teach Twilight, and the first one had been that currency tended to wander. Even in a nation where the vast majority of residents would never cross their own border, money traveled. Treat Equestria's economy as if it was a single pure river and little bits of flotsam would just -- drop in. Flow unnoticed from saddlebag to corona to mouth until somepony finally looked at whatever had just wound up in their change and regretfully set it aside, because to truly spend it would require crossing hundreds of gallops just to reach the sapient who would honor it. (Or visiting a currency exchange service, which could be worse.)
But it was still some form of money. And the groupthink which so often seemed to flash through Ponyville's residents had collectively decided that if late fees had to be settled with a librarian who was known to travel, with nopony seeing the 'how' until it was too late...
The jar was the world encased in glass.
Mazein accounted for the majority of the weight. Minotaurs generally liked things to last, and so Mazein coinage had bulk, mass, and a rather surprising atomic density. Twilight had been working on a rather abstract theory which suggested that assembling enough of the iron alloy discs would result in something with its own discernible gravity, and was fully prepared to suggest that the central bank in Polis was on the verge of pulling the rest of the capital into the vault.
Those who understood griffons might have predicted the sheer variety of that coinage. The Republic's newly-elected officials liked to commemorate their victory through embossing their image into the money, and so the half-opened beaks of victorious politicians would be stamped onto thin brass. (In modern times, the drops of blood falling away from said beaks were merely an artistic choice.) However, Protocera remained a nation where the opposition response to election tended towards impeachment, and whoever took over next generally tried to get rid of the subtle reminders that they'd needed to wait for it. Coins were issued and recalled at a nearly-matching rate: you could technically still spend something which bore the portrait of the departed, but it either declared your loyalty to a losing side or told everyone you were way behind on the local news. Twilight could roughly gauge the success of the last three presidencies by their proportionate representation in the jar, along with the fact that when it came to overturns, it had been a surprisingly slow year.
Following griffon politics would give anypony a headache. Trying to sort out zebra coinage was generally good for an outright migraine, because zebras had a homeland -- but not a nation. Pundamilia Makazi was home to one hundred kraals: city-states which (mostly) associated with each other -- but every one of those kraals considered itself to be a separate governing body, with its own traditions, laws -- and coins. They were rendered in the wood of a hundred different trees, and every kraal zealously guarded their version of the potion treatment which gave those coins their unique shimmer. You couldn't counterfeit zebra currency. You also frequently couldn't tell one type of swietenia from another without a lot of experience, an optional chemical analysis kit, and a rather exacting sense of smell, which could lead to certain issues when two kraals were disagreeing and accidentally nosing over the wrong currency was seen as a studied insult.
Donkeys flavored their money, allowing a species whose nation was prone to heavily overcast skies to sort out matters in dim light by taste alone: however, the most natural tendencies of that species also manifested in their choice of flavors, and so being an accountant in Eeyorus was truly bitter work. (The same could be said for reading their literature. Twilight owned a comprehensive guide for such works, and tended to keep it near chocolate at all times.) Yakyakistan used their nation's most abundant natural resource: it required some experience to recognize exactly which denomination of rock you'd just been given, but making change could be as simple as stomping on a predetermined fracture point. Meanwhile, Prance had the most flexible currency -- in terms of material only. But on the supposed bright side, the nation's horrific exchange rates meant that whatever you got for your bits was both financially and physically suitable for wiping your snout with.
And now...
"Oh, come on," Twilight whispered as her corona unwrapped the little bundle. "This isn't even supposed to be here! By law!"
But the dim light in the least-used aisle amplified as it passed through the little clear shard, with what would have been a perfect emerging rainbow marred only by the little internal gold flecks which made up the Empire's glyph for '2'.
Twilight softly sighed to herself, then carefully sorted the little shard into its own corona bubble.
The jar was frustrating. The contents met new friends every week: shaking the glass created minor rearrangements in the social strata. And some of her patrons had sworn they somehow hadn't seen the foreign coins becoming tangled up in their payment, doing so with the facility which suggested either group rehearsal or some minor degree of librarian paranoia. But others had politely reminded her that if anypony in town was likely to abruptly find themselves in another nation and in need of spending money, then that pony was on the other side of the librarian's desk: wasn't it best to make sure those funds could find their natural use?
So at one point, her natural tendencies had taken over: coins had been sorted into pouches labeled by nation, followed by carefully storing them in a drawer labeled Mission Supplies and -- waiting. This had worked out as well as could reasonably be expected: namely, if the Bearers got a mission which took them across a border, it generally would be an alert which left Twilight with no chance to reach the tree and for the exceptions, she would have just enough time to grab the wrong pouch. It typically turned out not to matter in the end, because her meticulously-counted 83.12 in ₴ would, in its home nation, be slightly short of what was required to purchase a mug of milk. Turning it in to a currency exchange for rendering into bits wasn't even enough to cover the exchange fee, and begging for a discount on the mug simply introduced the successful haggler to yak's milk: the turnover then went directly to her stomach.
So it was a jar of unspendable, unusable, pointless money. At best, each new deposit served as a minor curiosity: forty-six kraals left to go now, or the possession of a token representing the shortest Presidency in Protocera's history. (The newly-elected party had flown for her victory podium, landed poorly, and -- well, looked at from one perspective, the subsequent regulation which made all flagpole ends into soft spheres had outlasted anything she might have accomplished anyway.) But there was never anything truly rare, nothing valuable -- and the only true collectible to ever come into Twilight's possession now had to be mailed to her sister-in-law, because the Empire wasn't allowing any of its currency to legally leave the borders until somepony managed to reinvent the minting process.
All she ever got to do was sort, identify, and listen for the clink.
Or the clunk.
Or, in the case of yak currency, the crash.
At least it's just about all bits today. She gloomily sorted out a single chip of wood, examined the lack of sheen, and decided the payment had been dropped off by a compulsive chewer who'd forgotten to floss. That makes things easier, especially since mailing something to the Empire isn't going to be cheap. Bits for the library. Brass for the jar. Salary for postage. And --
A flicker of light moved an innocent quarter-bit out of the way and in doing so, opened the door into the short-term future.
-- what's this?
The back was unusually plain: a single lathe-cut spiral winding in towards the center. But on the front...
Deep ridging which reached slightly in from the edge. Symbols which almost looked Equestrian, but with a series of distortions to them. An animal for the center image, and she didn't know a single nation which used that iconography. And at the top, something which might have been a 1, or potentially just a vertical error which had made its way onto the central plate.
The metal looked like a burnished combination of bronze and nickel: the taste was closer to tin. It was small: roughly the size of a tenth-bit coin. It would have been exceptionally easy to lose track of, and it was -- completely unfamiliar.
"Huh," Twilight curiously observed, because she had taken in much from her friends and there were times when Rainbow's vocabulary was best. And then she headed off towards the eighth of a shelf which represented Numismatics, because there was a little mystery to solve and the quick solution would be a minor salve for the injury of a shorted payment.
A fast sorting under dimmed light, and then the little alicorn carefully flipped through her book of first choice, carefully peering at the captured images of international money as she searched for a match.
Then another book came down.
A third...
"Rarity?"
Cautiously, "Yes, dear?" (The exact expression accompanying this was blocked off by most of a dress rack, along with two hastily-shifted wooden forms and three protective layers of sewing supplies.)
"We've known each other for a while now, right?"
With what might have come across as excessive care, along with the verbal effort required to clear the improvised barricade, "A fair amount of time, yes --"
"-- I know," the annoyed librarian told the designer, "when somepony is checking me over. Not out. Over. Taking little glances at my bangs to make sure they aren't frayed. Side checks of my tail, just in case I've been chewing on it. I'm not sure any of you know what to look for with my wings yet because I don't even know what to do with them when I'm stressed, so everypony just winds up back at my eyes. And it's not because they like to look me in the eye. They just want to see how small my pupils are."
Which triggered a rather weak "...oh."
"I," and the little hoof stomp added its own punctuation, "have had this conversation five times. And it would have been six if Spike wasn't visiting our parents. So I need you to know that it's been a few years. A lot of scrolls. And I can recognize when I may be on the verge of obsession."
"That is," the designer decided as the edge of her mane peeked out from the side of the hastily-assembled fort, "rather good to hear."
"Like when I go through every book on coin collecting in the library," Twilight added. "Not that we have many, and I always thought that was too much to begin with! And then I visited a lot of merchants, because the tree isn't the only place with a foreign currency problem. To ask them if they'd ever seen this before." Her corona rotated a small piece of metal: something which had been well-polished by her own cleaning cloth, followed by having additional layers of tarnish removed by the scrutiny of a hundred confused eyes. "But nopony had any idea what it was."
"Nopony?" There was a faint note of surprise in that, and it was echoed on the fast-approaching unicorn's features. "Not even Mr. Rich?"
Twilight shook her head. "He just said he was surprised by how fragile it felt. Like it wasn't going to hold up for long. Which was about all I got from anypony." She frowned. "Except Mr. Breezy. He said he'd never seen it before, like a lot of them did. He was just the only one who followed that by saying he had to go check his stock for the summer sale."
Rarity glanced at the heavier-than-usual fabrics on display within the Boutique's windows, which required skimming across some frost along the way and working with a complete lack of outside light.
"It's winter."
"I know," Twilight's frustration declared for her. "And he never came back out. I even tried to follow him, but the sweat trail dried up after a while."
"And Mr. --" which was where Rarity stopped, because the next word would have been the name of the bank's manager and she was dearly hoping Twilight hadn't picked up on that --
-- but it had been a few years.
Far too steadily, "Mr. Croseus said the same thing he always says when he sees me."
"That," Rarity morosely filled in, "you are still banned. In perpetuity."
Twilight nodded.
"It's amazing how he gets the whole thing in while the security guards are still carrying me to the door," the librarian observed.
"He has had a great deal of practice."
"Just about everypony else forgave me for the parasprites," the little alicorn added.
"Yes. Well. They did get into the records room," Rarity once again tried to explain. "Which contained the financial ledgers of Ponyville itself, dating back to our home's founding. And then, because of your spell's unintended effect, they ate them."
With the typical amount of confusion, "But they ate a lot of things."
"And excreted a fair amount as well," the unicorn noted. "It is simply that in the case of the bank, there was a certain need for -- continuity. And when one is forced by the dictates of occupation and mark to spend several weeks in --" There was a light tinge of green beginning to underlight the white fur. "-- sorting through... shall we say, the leftovers... in search of any workable scraps..."
Twilight's perfectly-normal pupils were briefly obscured by the customary bewildered blink.
"...never mind," Rarity sighed. "So if you have been through this conversation for the fifth time, can I safely presume that you have already consulted our friends?"
The alicorn nodded. "Pinkie was my best hope, because just about every foreign tourist winds up in the bakery eventually -- but she said she'd never seen it before. Applejack always sorts her payments as she gets them: she won't take anything that isn't a bit unless it's coming from someone who isn't a pony, so all she's got is some Protoceran money. And Rainbow knows those coins because of Gilda, but everything else she's got is souvenirs from the missions. Fluttershy... all she could do was identify the bird." Which brought out a light, mildly miserable shrug. "Which is a rooster, and I should have spotted that on my own. I held off on coming here because you usually only work on commissions for ponies."
"And so I have a rather low probability of seeing the unfamiliar as payment from those outside the borders," Rarity carefully agreed. "That is fair, Twilight, and I do not feel slighted for having been left until last. But there remains a chance, so... may I see it?"
In response, the little pinkish bubble floated forward, then receded from a single ridged edge. Soft blue took custody, then brought the tiny disc before squinting eyes.
"Hmmm..." It was a rather thoughtful sound, and that might have been expected. But it also contained a faint note of recognition.
In desperate hope, "Rarity?"
"I believe I require my glasses." A secondary bubble was projected towards the central workbench. "To properly perceive the finest details. For I do not think I have ever seen this before, Twilight, not in front of me... but there is something familiar about it all the same. Perhaps it was in a photograph..."
The little alicorn held her breath, waited as the spectacles floated into place. The designer's squint intensified.
"Never seen," the unicorn half-whispered. "I am certain of that. But then why does it...?"
Rarity blinked, and the next words arrived with a light coating of daze.
"I have not seen it," she stated. "I have simply read of this. The rooster... that was the key, Twilight. This coin was described to me in a book."
Purple eyes instantly went wide. "Can you show me? Is it a historical text? Some kind of old encyclopedia? Or maybe even a legend, something nopony's ever been able to confirm before, but now we have one of the coins and --"
This blink was decidedly more solid, and so served as partial distraction from the full-body wince.
"Rarity?"
The designer took a moment, and still failed to completely uncurl her tail from around her left hind leg. "...no. It was -- fiction, Twilight." Her mane seemed to be steadily infringing on her own features or, given what was happening to the rest of the white form, incringing. "You could call it..." The breath didn't seem to take in enough oxygen. "...fantasy, I suppose." More hastily, "Yes. Fantasy. With no basis in reality whatsoever."
"Except for the coin," Twilight urgently insisted. "That's real! Rarity, please, whatever you can tell me...!"
A fascinating series of twitches was beginning to ripple white fur: the cumulative effect only appeared when the glasses fell off. "There is... very little I can say, Twilight. It..." At this point, the ribs were mostly shifting for the sake of appearances. "...wasn't much of a story. Or rather, it -- served its purpose. It simply was not fulfilling a goal which required very much in the way of plot. Or characterization. Or research. Actually, dialogue was kept at a minimum --"
"-- but it still had the coin," Twilight pushed on, because she hadn't quite picked out the true reaction. Most of her experience with fur-singing embarrassment was her own. "What did it say?"
Rarity's frantic stare measured the distance to the front door. The ramp to the residential level. Several windows were visibly rejected.
"If I recall the sentence," she finally said, "the coin was -- 'a magically token which openedly a portal to a realm of forbiddenly delights'."
It took a few seconds before Twilight stopped blinking.
"That was the sentence," she tried, while rather hoping it wasn't.
"Yes."
"With all of the 'ly's."
"I may," Rarity admitted, "have left a few of those out."
The little alicorn took a moment to smooth the grain of her fur.
"And you read that."
"It was not," the designer defensively declared, "for the plot." The smallest curl in the elaborate tail had now tied itself around her own left hock. "So if there is nothing else --"
"-- I checked it for magic!" Twilight automatically protested. "There isn't anything! Not even residue from old enchantments, or hints that a spell was ever cast at all. It's just -- light. And it's got those weird little ridges. But that's all from the minting, Rarity. Not from workings."
The white unicorn managed a nod.
"As you say," Rarity unevenly declared. "I trust your results there, of course."
"It must just be coincidence."
"Of course," came out rather quickly. "Coincidence. And so there is no need for you to see the book. Which is not in the library. And will not be in the library. Ever."
"Definitely," had the same tone as the majority of curses. "You can't just adverb any word you see! I am never hosting that author!"
"A wise decision," Rarity hastily agreed.
"So I need to make sure I avoid them. If you remember the name --"
If not for certain inherent limitations, the "-- no," would have broken the sound barrier. "But... perhaps it will come to me later. Or not. So as consulting with friends has not revealed the answer, what is your next course of action?"
It was impossible to miss the rather insulting focus on Twilight's eyes.
She thinks I'm obsessing.
I'm not.
Sure, I went through all of the available books and consulted a lot of ponies, but I'm trying to solve a mystery and that's just being practical. Obsession would be something like closing the library for a full season so I could take a grand tour of the world and, incidentally, using diplomatic connections which I'm almost certain the palace would let me lie about having, ask to visit every country's mint. Plus there's probably some lost civilizations where the only thing which truly survived was their money, so there might be some digging involved. In lost ruins. Which means finding lost ruins, which probably also means magic and monsters and maybe taking two seasons off. That would be obsession, and I am fully capable of recognizing it.
Because I am a mature mare who, over the course of many scrolls, has learned to watch for such behavior in herself and does not require six part-time foalsitters.
So there.
"Well," Twilight declared with a strategic light shrug, "I've wasted enough time on this. It's just not worth putting in exhaustive effort for one coin. So since the library's going to be closed tomorrow, I thought I would go into Canterlot. Relax a little. Do some shopping, see if there's any post-Hearth's Warming sales..."
The unicorn was still looking at her.
"Shopping," Rarity neutrally inquired.
"This is the time of year when publishers realize their recent releases will never become a holiday bestseller," Twilight stated. "By definition. So that means clearance. I think I can find some bargains."
"Unfortunately," the designer noted, "the Boutique will be open. So I will be unable to accompany you." Soft blue began to work on untying white legs. "Enjoy your... 'shopping'."
"Rarity?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I heard those quotes."
"What quotes?"
"I am shopping. I am an adult mare. I shop."
"And the fact that the capital contains both the most comprehensive assembly of coin-related books within the Archives and a number of collector's shops...?"
"Does it?" Twilight faked her next shrug. "I didn't think about that! Well, I suppose if I happen to pass something like that, I could peek in. Just for a minute --"
"-- Twilight?"
Far too casually, "Yes?"
"It has been a few years. And you have sent your scrolls. Lessons learned from life, and from all of us. For example," Rarity summarized, "Applejack is of the opinion that you learned how to lie from me."
Wings attempted to adopt a posture of complete innocence, and might have even done so had Twilight possessed any idea as to what that actually looked like. "I did?"
"And not particularly well," Rarity softly sighed. "Once again, enjoy your -- 'shopping'."
"I think that was a double-dash," Twilight protested. "Added to the quotes. Rarity, when I tell somepony --"
"-- yes," her friend interrupted. "The next step would be italics. Good evening, Twilight."
She fumed all the way to the train, which wasn't easy to maintain while sneaking up to the ticket booth. Still, she boarded while being almost completely sure that none of her friends had followed her or spied out the trail in any way. ('Almost' was a mandatory qualifier. It was a fairly overcast day, and that provided any number of places for one mare to perch -- but the train had been twenty minutes late and Twilight hadn't heard any overhead snoring, so Rainbow was probably out.)
Her first stop in the capital was at a bookstore, because Rarity had taught her something about lying and so gaining a degree of physical backup for the cover story was mandatory. But after that, there was an Archives building which hosted books on coins, there were shops which sold to coin collectors, a multitude of banks, more non-pony species gathered in a single area than she was likely to find anywhere else in Equestria and now that she thought about it, the presence of all the embassies had to mean there were currency exchanges somewhere. Put it all together and it was effectively impossible for her to leave the capital with the coin (tucked extra-deep into her left saddlebag after having been hidden in her restroom on the previous night, just in case a friend dropped by) unidentified!
And for what it ultimately turned out to be worth, she was right.
Technically, Twilight was only banned from one bank. She had a copy of the restraining order which said so. (She occasionally tested it by trotting into Ponyville's bank anyway because they had to forgive her eventually, and how was she supposed to learn that without going in?) But somehow, prior to that day, it just hadn't occurred to her that between account transfers, letters of credit, and the needs for basic identity checks, banks would have a certain need to speak with each other. This, added to the local shortfall which had put the 'small purple alicorn' population at one, meant she couldn't seem to enter a Canterlot bank without being recognized.
(There were times, especially during the winter, when she tried to wear a traveling cloak in the hopes of gaining some degree of anonymity. Unfortunately, as Rarity had repeatedly explained to her, a pony with a cloak over their wings looked like only one thing in the world, and that was a pony with a cloak over their wings. And the potential need for emergency spellcasting meant a hat was right out.)
But as she was only officially banned from one bank, those in the capital didn't respond by having an assortment of coronas carry her out again. Instead, her arrival cast a brand-new spontaneous working: Summon Manager. This would inevitably be a pony who was willing to give her anything she wanted, as long as those desires in no way involved money, magic, or allowing her to remain in the bank for more than three minutes. And none of them recognized the coin, although one failed to do so by breaking into a sudden sweat, declaring that he had to check on something with an expert, and visibly heading off to find that pony. Twilight just didn't know why any authority on rare coinage would set up their office in the bank's main vault, and completely failed to understand why the stallion closed the giant door behind him.
She also wasn't banned from the Archives. She was just a former employee, and one who had gained a well-earned reputation for rearranging entire departments when the Archivists weren't looking. It meant she could generally get into a given building without issue until the moment somepony spotted her, and then it was usually belated apologies added to a few signed oaths about leaving everything where she found it, plus she usually got a personal escort to the required shelves because nopony was going to let her out of their sight. On this particular occasion, it got her the very direct attention and assistance of the Numismatics head, because that was the best way to get her out again. And that mare immediately identified the coin. To wit, she identified it as being of no nation known to ponies, with no backing, no value, and thus had no reason for keeping Twilight within the Archives.
(It wasn't just the eviction she objected to. It was having been removed just before her concept for opening up the floor plan fully came together. And if she'd just had five minutes to explain...)
But the Archivists were only familiar with that which was old enough to have been placed into print. That left several possibilities, and so Twilight pressed on.
The currency exchange was remarkably even in its treatment, as those who operated it were incapable of viewing her as an alicorn. They didn't care about her nationality, origin, or species. As with everyone who entered their tiny building, they merely looked at her as a mobile source of processing fees, and so their first reaction upon seeing a single coin emerge from her saddlebags was to quote her the minimum twenty-bit charge for changing it into anything else. She then explained what she actually wanted to do, and they responded by smoothly introducing a twenty-five bit charge for telling her what it was. Twilight had reached the point where such almost seemed reasonable: however, having the operators lock the collected bits in a safe before telling her "We don't know" made her inquire about their refund policy. It took a double corona to make them create one and she politely saved them the trouble of having to open the safe for her, along with saving everypony the trouble of ever trying to close it again.
There were no new embassies along the Row. Asking if the countries who had official representatives in Equestria had recently encountered any nations which didn't required entering those buildings. Legally, this meant stepping onto foreign soil and as a number of diplomats had first encountered the Bearers during a multi-nationally-requested meeting which had ended on a grace note equal to 1.78 Galas (based primarily on the comparative number of fallen columns, with bonus points for lost frescoes), the gatekeepers tended to ask for something in the way of a passport. 'Temporary' loyalty oaths were occasionally requested. The mandatory horn restraints, however, struck her as unnecessarily rude, and so she simply left.
(Really, it was amazing just how little capacity for forgiveness some sapients had. After all, if it hadn't been for Twilight, the ceiling would have come down on them.)
And with the coin collector shops...
"...and that's the whole story," she finished in the last and smallest of those shops. "It was just something strange in my late fees Blind Box. I don't know where it came from, and I'd like to find out. So if there's any chance you could tell me...?"
Not that anypony had managed the feat so far. All she'd received in the previous shops was the chance to learn how they all looked very much like each other: the same kind of display cases with curving glass over thin shelves. (Particularly valuable specimens were stored in the tiny hollows of glass blocks.) However, the library curator in her had quickly learned to appreciate the care which had been taken in categorization: exacting definitions of quality accompanied small-print notations of origin. Flaws were listed with precise detail, along with whether the error made the coin more or less valuable. Magnifying lenses were permanently mounted over the most interesting finds, and miniature treatises on patina were worked into the frames.
Numismatics specialists organized their stock on a level which could make a librarian jealous, and Twilight had already taken a number of mental notes on future applications for her own domain. Just not for the jar, because that was full of unspendable money and she already knew that was personally worthless. The various displays had insisted on explaining that to her, with most of them downgrading her collection by the word.
The middle-aged green earth pony stallion behind the counter looked at her horn. Then he looked at her wings. A lot of ponies in the capital did that, and Twilight found the repetitive action to be rather annoying. It wasn't as if they ever went away by the tenth check.
"I can try," he offered. "But if you've come this far..." The shrug was preceded by another horn-and-wings check, and so came across as a very reluctant one. "I do specialize in the obscure: that's how I can manage with so little floor space. By carrying what others can't." With some pride, "I did see you looking at my silver bit."
"Yes," Twilight nodded. "But I can't afford that. I was really just comparing it to mine."
He was no longer staring at her horn or wings.
"You have a silver bit," he softly said. "A surviving coin from the earliest nights of Equestria. You own a lune."
"Yes," Twilight repeated, not entirely comfortable with the total focus of his attention on her eyes. "Lu -- Princess Luna gave it to me. As a token of her thanks for -- everything." All of the Bearers had one, and Spike had been included in the gift. "But she took it out of her memory chest, so it isn't as if it's ever been money, really. Since it was never circulated. And I'm sure adding her personal sigil to the back didn't help the value. It's really just a keepsake." Thin shoulders managed a shrug. "Not that I would ever sell it. I'm pretty sure she'd be hurt by that -- are you feeling all right, sir?"
"...yes," the stallion just barely managed to say, after a rather liquid fashion. "Why?"
"Because you haven't blinked in a while. And you --" she really didn't want to say the next part "-- just drooled. On the glass."
"...oh." The polishing cloth came out, and eventually got put away again. "At any rate..." His left foreleg briefly moved across his lips. "...I'm willing to try. But if everypony else has failed, I don't have much confidence in breaking that streak." He looked at her horn, and then he looked at her wings. "I hope that won't offend. May I see it now?"
Not any more than the rest of the day already did. "I can only ask that you try," Twilight politely declared. "Here you go."
Her corona ignited. A thin coating of pinkish light opened her left saddlebag, fished around for a moment, and then carefully deposited its minimal burden upon the counter, rooster-side up.
The stallion blinked.
"Um," he desperately said and with that, Twilight knew.
"You recognize it!"
"No, I don't!" the stallion frantically continued. "I've never seen this coin! Nopony of quality has ever seen this coin, and --" Horn. Wings. "-- nopony like you should ever inquire about it again! Kick it away! Or --" The sweat was beginning to saturate his undercoat. "-- leave it here. Yes. You can just -- abandon it. I can give you appropriate value --"
"-- which you can only do if you know how much it's worth! That means knowing where it came from! Sir, I've been trying to figure this out for three days, and I think that's enough -- well, it probably isn't, but it's all my friends will probably let me get away with, at least until we get a mission to some ancient ruins and I can slip away for --" She paused, then took a completely non-reassuring breath, at least when it came to the attitude of a hard-staring, heavily-sweating witness. "You have the answer to the puzzle! If it's a question of money, I'm willing to give you a reasonable fee --"
"-- I don't," he insisted as sweat began to turn into froth. "I..."
But it only made more pieces come together. "Other ponies knew this coin! Everypony who trotted out on me!" Which opened up a number of extra possibilities. "Is it the entry token for a lodge? The sign of some kind of secret society -- stop looking at my wings! I know they're there! They're still going to be there in five seconds! All I want to know is what this is..."
He gulped at the air. Some of it wound up going down the right pipe.
"I'll -- write it down," he whispered, shortly after the burping stopped. "I can't say it --"
"I told you they would still be there," a rather cross alicorn reminded him. "Why can't you say it?"
"-- not to you. And if anypony finds out I told you..." He swallowed, and so she wound up pushing her corona against his ribs again until the air came out. "Just... please, please don't tell..."
Secret society was now her very firm bet. It was something which potentially merited Bearer investigation, and the fact that a pony who was this nervous might send a warning ahead to those being betrayed meant she didn't have time to get the others.
"Write it," she firmly ordered, and his teeth compulsively clamped down on a quill. A business card was nosed over, and scribbling ensured.
Her corona flowed, took up the card --
"-- it's an address. In the Tangle."
All four of his knees slumped at the same time. "Just go there. Please..."
"If this is a trap --"
He responded to that via the only means remaining.
Having Rarity as a friend meant acquiring a particular set of skills, and so Twilight easily gauged that he wouldn't be waking up from the faint for several hours. It meant he wouldn't be sounding any warnings, and also gave her the chance to close the shop for him because a passed-out stallion shouldn't be left alone in an unlocked store.
But then she had to go into the Tangle, and that wasn't always the best idea. The oldest section of Canterlot had been created at a time before zoning plans, regulations, and the concept of minimum street width: just finding her way through could present certain issues, and as for the neighborhood itself...
Strictly speaking, Canterlot didn't have a place where the criminal element liked to hang out. You had to say it strictly, with utter confidence, and in a rather loud voice. That way, anypony lurking ahead of you could clear out rather than go through the embarrassment of having to prove you wrong.
She made her way down the narrow passages of chipped cobblestone, moving between looming and leaning buildings. Through twists and turns, passing under window ledges which hosted the kind of flowerpots that required a polite pony to hold their breath, largely in order to keep the next intersection from tripling without advance notice. She was occasionally gawked at by those who were wondering about the reason for an alicorn being in the area, but was never questioned because nopony wanted to risk having the answer be 'You.'
And then she found the address.
It was all she found, at least from the outside. It was a door, there were numbers on it, and posted hours of operation suggested she was looking at either a club or some kind of shop: in either case, it was currently open. There just wasn't anything else: no windows, no signs hung above the entrance, no name. It was the sort of place you found because somepony else sent you there.
Which also meant it might not be the best place to show up unannounced. And she could just barely hear hooves moving around inside...
I am a full-grown mare.
(This was true. It was also, for somepony who was smaller than the majority of adolescents, something of a technicality.)
I am a Bearer. I have faced monsters. Strange magic. Diplomatic meetings where no one died, and you'd really think they would be more grateful for that.
I can do this.
Also, I can teleport and so an emergency exit is just about guaranteed.
I hope.
Her left forehoof pushed down on the door's lever. The wood portal swung inwards, and Twilight stepped inside.
Her first impression of the shop was that it had to be something for members only, because only a member would want whatever was for sale. She wasn't completely sure what that was, because the lighting was set up in such a way as to force a degree of frantic blinking as she desperately tried to adjust from Winter Overcast to I May Now Be Standing On Sun. But she could make out the shadows of ponies browsing the three aisles which were just barely visible from her position.
The second impression reminded her of a tavern, or some kind of truly exclusive club. Anything with a fixed clientele, where anypony new who came in was spotted because they hadn't always been there and, in the case of the tavern, were letting too much light in. It was the instinctive recognition of stranger, it came in bulk, and it made everypony in the aisles look towards the door.
The next recognition was that of alicorn, and it was that which set off the stampede.
It wasn't much of a stampede, really. Twilight had been through stampedes: ponies, cattle, and there were still three who insisted nothing was worse than bunnies. There were barely enough ponies involved in this one to qualify as a 'stam'. It was just that she was standing in front of the entrance, and thus was blocking the only readily available exit.
Her wings flared just in time, and so nearly took her into the path of the one mindlessly-fleeing pegasus mare who hadn't expected Twilight to do that: she ducked her head just in time to clear the hooves.
"HEY!" was the first desperate shout to blast into the departing mob. "I don't know what's going on here, but if you're all leaving --!"
Her corona lanced this way and that, trying to sort out targets when there was just too much moving. It meant she did no more than tug on a few tails, and then the door slammed behind her.
"-- there has to be a reason," Twilight announced to the empty aisles, "for why you would..."
She blinked.
"...right," the little alicorn hopelessly finished, and touched down again. "You're all gone..."
She could have given chase. But the store was right there in front of her, Twilight's vision was starting to clear, and so she looked.
Then she kept looking.
I want to stop now.
She didn't.
Hello, eyes. This is the brain. I am the one in charge here. I am also responsible for processing these images, and therefore you will obey me and close now.
They didn't.
Hello, wings. I realize you're not used to taking orders and there are times when I'm pretty sure you're thinking for yourselves. Which would explain a lot about Rainbow, but even so, whatever you're doing right now in holding that dumb position, you are going to stop. Because you're the latest additions to this crew and I'm sure you want to impress me by showing how obedient you are. Unlike the stupid eyes, which have apparently known me for far too long. So any time you're ready...
She could hear hoofsteps approaching from the other side of the store. This meant her ears were working, and probably indicated their future willingness to join the revolution.
"-- so what happened?" was the first grumble. "I know nopony stolely anything because the alarms didn'tly go off, but I step into the stockroom forly five minutes and everypony leaves? Exactly what could happenly in here to clear out the lot of you? Is anypony left who can tell me, or amly I just talking to --"
He came into view: an average-sized unicorn in the senior years, displaying bluish-grey fur with a bit of curl to it and rather more grey around the muzzle and ears. His expression was more than a little exasperated, and remained so right up until the moment he saw Twilight.
He looked at her horn. He looked at her wings. He then could have looked at his own jaw, but that would have required some rather awkward positioning and at any rate, it had potentially dropped too low to see. As for vocalizing, the word "...Princess?" more or less just fell out.
She wanted to say hello. She wanted to ask about the coin. She wanted to do any number of things, and every one of them would have required taking her attention off the poster on the back wall.
Regardless, "...I have a question," felt like a good start.
"Yes!" the senior immediately half-gushed, gathering up jaw and most of his courage. "Because a Princess is inly my shop!" In stunned belief (which was only distinguishable from stunned disbelief through the sincerity), "A Princess --"
She seemed to be encountering certain difficulties in understanding basic Equestrian. She blamed the poster. "...what is that?"
He came a little closer, eyes bouncing between horn and wings. Turned his head, and dimly focused upon what she was viewing.
"That," he said with open pride, "is onely of my bestly-sellers. Do you like it?"
"The... shape..."
"Yes," the shopkeeper smiled. "Well, you know how it is -- or do you?" The pause had been used for several blinks. "I never thought about what a Princess --"
Automatically, "-- you don't have to call me --"
"-- might require! If there's anything I canly do to serve --"
"-- what," Twilight choked out, "is that shape for?"
"Couples."
"...couples."
"Yes," the senior beamed. "They eachly take an end. And then move towards each other. If they're both standing, that means backwards. Then away fromly each other, repeating as necessary. Sharing, you see. The foundationly of any truly stable relationship. Admittedly, it can become rather awkwardly to lovingly look each other in the eyes, but with the adoption of certain positions..."
Twilight looked more closely at the advertising poster, and then wished she hadn't.
"Is that wood?"
"Yes. And not just any wood, Princess! I take pridely in selling fully organic products. That has never been carved by ponyly tools."
Certain follow-up questions were now becoming regretfully mandatory. "Then how does it get that shape? With the -- flaring. And the -- knob. And the..."
Images of biology class anatomical charts sent tentative shoots up from long-buried memory, and she spent several desperate seconds stomping on them.
"By asking an earthly pony to supervise the tree which produced the branch!" he happily declared. "Did you know their magic was capable of that? Well, I suppose it isn't in very many books. But when you consider that a few can make any plant growly as a bonsai version, the possibility of shaping begins to emerge. I simply inquired politely until I foundly somepony willing to take up the challenge. Sturdy wood. Smooth bark, exceptly where the natural bumps would only offer assistance. And not a splinter anywhere. I guaranteely that."
Her wings spontaneously sagged. He seemed to take it as a negative.
"But it's not for everypony," he assured her. "And when it comes to something for a Princess..." Several varieties of thought moved across aged features, and hours spent with Rarity meant it was possible for Twilight to recognize the sincere desire to help a truly important customer. (She hadn't had enough time at the apple cart to spot the purely fiscal aspect.) "Let me gively you the tour!"
There was a lot to see, and very little of it made itself understood. Part of that was lack of experience, with the rest blocked by an inner wall of pure denial.
Twilight was using a lot of effort to maintain that wall. The thing kept developing cracks everywhere
"I don't quite understand that," she said once again, this time directing her attention to a medium-sized brass box. There was what appeared to be an inverted helmet built into the top, along with a vertical side crank which ended in a flattened, ridge-bordered platform: just the right size for a hoof.
"It's new," the proprietor admitted. "That's for the films!"
"Really?"
"Yes. You look into the viewfinder, and then you crankly the reel by hoof. It feeds into itself, you seely, so the action just repeats. But it's very hard on the film, going around and around all the timely. And..." His voice dropped a little. "...it's a minor trendly, really. I'm not sure it's going to catch on. So few ponies have the equipment for home film viewing: I don't even know what the marketly is. But I do like to keep uply with the times." He smiled. "Still, I'll always have a soft spot for the books. Especially with my ownly efforts. Do you like to read?"
"YES!" emerged with the power of desperation. "Let's see the books!"
He showed her the books. The covers then did him the favor of showing themselves.
"...maybe not these books," Twilight eventually half-whispered. Because she knew none of the authors, and that was horrible. Then she recognized one, and that was worse.
"Oh," said the tones of disappointment. "I was hoping you mightly consider the work of an author I justly happen to be rather closely to --"
"...is that cover art normal?"
"No."
"Oh. Good. So it's just a bunch of error copies. Something where the models were -- incorrectly posed. Or had a lot of water dumped on them before the picture was taken. Or -- whatever that other fluid is. The white stuff. Which clumps."
"It's an innovation!" he beamed. "Do you realize how long I've beenly at this? -- well, of coursely you don't. But it's my mark, of course." He nodded towards it.
Twilight looked, and then spent the next two moons of her life remembering that she'd been stupid enough to look.
"...your mark," served as a form of speech.
"Absolutely! Although obviously my manifest came long before the earth ponies were hired. But it means I've seen so many innovations, Princessly! Photography was created during my lifetime, and wherely there was once only drawings -- or worse, plain brown paper -- we have these covers! Films came along while I trotted under Sun!" A small, bemused head shake. "Frankly, the only true negative to death is that I'll miss whatever happens nextly. A lifetime of making others happy, and the next generation will knowly pleasures which I can barely dream of." He smiled, and his right forehoof nudged the rotating book rack. "But drawings still have their place, don't they? Because nowly we have graphic novels. And I assure you, Princess: I make sure my stock is verily graphic indeed."
He followed this by courteously showing her a few pages. The wall managed to temporarily censor some of the finer details.
"That's a lot of alicorns," was certainly something she could say.
"Well, yes," he admitted. "There have always been ponies who dream about what they can probably neverly have. So -- metallic fur. The widest of rib cages. Tails so fully that they trail through three separate rooms, although that's really more towards an extreme fantasy interest. And of course, alicorns. I hope that doesn'tly bother you." With audible concern, "I never thought I would have a Princess in my shop, and of course you must be thinking aboutly howly thisly applies to youly..."
She was. And then she wasn't, because the concept hadn't quite sunk in yet. She wouldn't let it. Sure, she only had four hooves with which to block all of the sudden cracks, but her horn could go over one part of the damaged wall, her tail could cover another, and her wings were suddenly good for something.
"It's fine," she dazedly lied. "But no more books."
So he showed her the games instead, and politely explained some of the more obscure rules. Especially for the ones where everypony was trying to lose something for the first and only time.
The weapons section struck her as being a rather curious thing, and then he tried to tell her exactly how the striking was done.
Autographed posters of ponies she'd never seen were laid out in front of her. They were all extremely attractive, although the photographer had an odd predilection to capturing them in a lightly-soaked state. Also, the white clumps were back.
There were balloons of a type Pinkie had never placed at a party. They came in the shape of a pony, and could be described as being anatomically overcorrect.
She was briefly confounded by the existence of the produce section. However, there was very little food available in this part of town and some of his customers entered hungry. Plus there were just so many things which could be done with the right cucumber. Or squashes. Eggplants were rather popular, as were certain kinds of zucchini. But he did have an ongoing exasperation with one regular who just insisted that there was something which could be done with beans, and he hoped to never find out what that was.
He showed her item after item, to the point where she finally remembered the only way to potentially make it stop.
"I have this," she whispered (because internally, her mouth was over a crack and it was hard to speak through it). "This..."
Her corona brought up the coin.
"Oh..." the senior softly breathed. "So that's your interest, is it? Very well. I'll certainly take the currency. But onely really isn't enough."
He looked her over. Horn, wings, and heaving ribs.
"May I offer a Princess fairly trade?"
No, but you could give me something which lets me out of here.
"I will freely give you what you desire," the proprietor smoothly offered, "ifly you allow me to say that I provided it to you. And you came herely. Is that all right?"
It was the answer to her puzzle.
It was the end of obsession. Not only that, it was potentially the cure, because she was almost completely certain the current experience would keep her from ever having another one.
It was that much closer to going home and never buying a zucchini again.
"Yes."
He took her to the proper door. And in doing so, he made it all worth it. Because at the end of the trail, she found a pair of lessons.
The first was somewhat more immediate. The second took a while before circumstances allowed it to register. But she never forgot either one.
She was alone in the small room.
There was one door out, going back to the main shop. A dim light shone overhead, vaguely reddish and slightly buzzing: both were signs that the charge was running low. That lacking illumination showed her dull gray walls, one of which had a rectangular portion slightly receded into the main body, as if displaying a pony-sized empty frame. And in front of that area was an odd piece of clockwork.
It looked something like the guts of a vending machine encased in glass: gears and tiny scales, but with no product to dispense. But there was a coin slot at the very top -- and just before the shop owner had sent her through the door...
She opened the gifted pouch. A dozen frozen-face roosters looked up at her.
Carefully, timidly, not knowing what might come next, with every attack spell she knew ready to surge into her horn, Twilight dropped her original coin into the slot.
A gear clicked against the deep ridges. A scale tested the weight. Clockwork began to tick. And the recessed panel shot up, vanishing into the higher layers of the wall as reddish light moved through exposed glass...
The mare (an extremely pretty young adult dove-white unicorn with a rather well-kinked blue tail, all angles and geometries) who was lying down in the room on the other side jerked her head up at the sound -- but failed to face the window. The object in the corner retained the majority of her attention, and frustration-swirling mauve energy made sure to mark her place within its density.
She stood up. Expertly-highlighted fur shone under the light as the lithe form poked a forehoof at a little switch in the wall, triggering another whirling of gears. Brass clamps began to descend from the ceiling, and Twilight stared at what the pincers held.
The contents reached the proper level, and the mare (who still hadn't looked at Twilight) approached them. Interaction occurred. And the results flowed across her fur, she shimmied and she shifted limbs in a way Twilight had never seen before and she did it all just to --
"-- what are you doing?"
The mare stopped moving.
"What do you mean, 'what are you doing?'" she crossly repeated to the nearest corner. "Is this your first time here or something?"
"...yes," Twilight admitted. She was still staring, as the cessation had left the mare's left foreleg in a rather awkward position.
"Clearly," the mare huffily said as she began to turn towards whoever had just insulted her, "I'm getting --"
It would have been unfair to describe her reaction as a double-take, because that implied the ability to stop at twice. The follow-up, however, could be accurately called a crash.
Limbs tangled up with each other, and also with what the clamps had supplied. Things became twisted, distorted and, in the worst case, wrinkled.
"-- you're..." the mare gasped as she tried to relocate her hooves. "You're...!"
"-- an alicorn, yes, I know!" Twilight frantically insisted. "What were you doing? And are you all right? Do you need my help? I can get through the glass in a minute, and then I can unwrap --"
"-- I'm fine," the mare called out. "I'm fine!" All four legs began to shift, and did so while wide mauve eyes stared at Twilight. "You -- really don't know?"
The librarian shook her head.
"I was getting dressed," the mare said.
"Why?"
"Well," the young adult continued as her left foreleg came free, "the way it was explained to me when I applied -- the majority of ponies are naked most of the time. So what's arousing is not being able to see somepony's body, even if you just saw it a second ago. Because then you have to remember what's underneath. So the clamps bring down clothing, and I get dressed. And it's clamps because that way, they can hold things in position when there's a pegasus or earth pony on shift. It lets us get dressed at the right pace."
"You," Twilight carefully repeated, "were getting dressed."
"Yes," the mare stated, struggling back to three of her hooves: the right back one was still snagged in a tube of soft fabric. "Erotically --"
Two mares reacted. The one near the clockwork formed an expression. For the one behind the glass, the elegant (and now-covered) ribs briefly heaved.
"...and you didn't know that," the no-longer-dancing mare softly said. "You really didn't..."
Twilight tried to banish the shock from her features, failed, and settled for slowly shaking her head.
"Did you even know this was an erotica shop?" the dove-white mare gently asked.
Twilight's inner self collapsed across myriad fragments of wall.
"...now," she finally said. Oh Sun oh Moon oh Discord's hoof how did I get into this and how am I going to get out... "I think I know that now."
It raised what Twilight recognized as a perfectly natural question. "Why are you even here?"
"I found --"
-- the clockwork stopped ticking. The panel crashed down in front of the glass.
Twilight blinked. Stared. Frantically pushed her gaze towards gears and scales, noticed the accepted coin had rotated out of sight --
-- she opened the pouch, quickly deposited another. The panel shot up.
"-- a coin," she quickly continued. "Like the one I just put in there." A fast ear tilt indicated the gears. "And I didn't recognize it, I had to find out where it came from, and this --"
"-- slow down," the mare carefully encouraged, still tugging her back right leg against the clamped fabric. "Just slow down and talk to me. Take it from the beginning, like you're telling me a story. Every story needs to have a beginning, right?"
"Of course it does," Twilight replied, because some of the shock had now been displaced by mild insult. "I'm a librarian. I know how stories work."
The mare blinked.
"...really?"
"And I used to work in the Archives," emerged with a touch of huff. "I can manage a story --"
"Okay, okay," the pretty mare hastily said. "I believe you. Just -- take it slow."
Twilight did and as a result, the panel crashed down in the middle of the Canterlot bank.
They were each sitting on their own side of the glass. Just -- looking at each other, and it would have been hard for an outside observer to determine who had the most intense blush.
"So it's a token which activates the viewing panel," the now-untangled mare finished explaining. "He has them stamped at a novelty press. That way, regular money can't make it work, and ponies have to give him bits in exchange. Plus there's two griffons who drop by. And we got a yak once, but he mostly snorted at me and trotted out again --" she stopped, briefly sighed, and shook her head. "Anyway, the coin presses down a tiny metal panel about halfway through the chute. It's meant as a primary barrier against coronas. Plus we're supposed to stop if somepony's trying to cast up more viewing time. But it's all they do, Prin --"
"-- you can call me Twilight," the little librarian said, maintaining the embarrassed smile. "It's... easier."
The mare slowly nodded. "Twilight. Okay. But that's how it works. A coin which can only be used here, for one thing. I guess one of your patrons dropped in at least once, and -- well, the coins are small. They get lost really easily. I don't think anypony meant to give you one."
"He makes his own money," Twilight carefully stated. "Just for this."
"He likes to make a lot of things," the mare voiced, and a forehoof stomped with frustration. "Like his own books. He's written a few. And published them himself. Did he try to show them to you?"
Twilight frowned. "I think so. There was -- oh..."
"What's that expression?" the mare asked, and not without concern. "You look like you just realized something."
"Yes."
"What?"
"That one of my friends has really dubious taste in reading material," Twilight sighed.
The mare groaned. "Tell me about it. I keep telling him, you can't just adverb any word you see! But he just tells me, 'I knowly the taste of myly customers,' and keeps going anyway! You'd think I could get one pony to listen to me when I'm speaking from my mark --"
"-- your mark?" Because Twilight hadn't initially focused on that in the dim light, and the icon was now covered.
"Yeah. I'm..." The unicorn's blush was deepening. "...a -- literature major." Which was followed by an extremely awkward ear dip. "Really."
"...literature," Twilight said.
Most of the offense had been surgically removed. "Yes."
"And you work here?"
"Part-time," the mare defensively countered. "Because I'm still in college, and I didn't realize that 'partial scholarship' meant classes and the dormitory fees. It doesn't cover books. Or eating. Because I get a food plan, but have you seen college food? Sometimes I like to eat something which fifteen other ponies haven't sneezed on. I even tried the Agronomy Department --"
"The what?"
"Oh, right," the mare considered. "Hardly anypony knows what that is, especially since they only started up this year. It's the science of growing food without earth ponies. Highly experimental. And they need to test the results, so anypony can drop by and eat whatever's just been harvested, for free. As long as you fill out a ten-page form about how it was."
"...how is it?" Twilight's morbid curiosity inquired on her behalf.
"I'm here."
"...oh."
"First-year department," the mare shrugged. "Maybe ponies will stop galloping for the restroom trench when they're seniors. But that's still not as bad as paying for the books. Book prices would make anything vomit. I mean, just look at this..."
Her horn ignited, and the dense object was deposited in front of Twilight.
"Two hundred bits," the mare pronounced, and did so as a curse. "Can you believe that?" A little more thoughtfully, "Well, actually, you're a librarian, so maybe you can --"
But she'd already seen it, and so purple eyes had gone wide.
"-- that," Twilight breathed, "is a copy of The Melancholy Of Every Donkey Who Ever Lived."
The mare nodded. "The definitive, two-hundred-bit guide to Eeyorus literature. I think they add five bits for every student who dropped out of the elective to get treated for depression --"
"-- you read that? I've read that! But I can't get anypony else to do it, especially after I tell them what it's about! And what it's like. And that we probably can't read it in the middle of a giant pile of kittens, unless it's late spring at Fluttershy's cottage." Many scholars had discussed the ideal way to go through the book, and none of them had mentioned what it was like to have your ears pounced every ten seconds.
"I'm reading it now. For the third time."
Twilight's steady gaze unsubtly checked the mare for recent signs of excessive coffee consumption, which was to say any coffee at all.
"What did you think of Dismal's thematic breakdown during the foreword?"
The mare blinked again, opened her mouth --
-- and the panel slammed down.
"Maybe we should do this outside," she suggested after the pouch ran empty during the middle of Chapter 2. "Um..." more awkwardly, "if you're not doing anything else today, I mean. I get off-shift in fifteen minutes. And I know a local tea shop. It's cheap. And most of the leaves are at least semi-legal. So if you... don't mind waiting...? So we can talk some more?"
Twilight looked at the beautiful mare. At dove-white fur. An interestingly-kinked tail. But more than anything else, she rapturously stared into eyes which shone with the light of Literature.
"I'd like that."
She thought much more fondly of the jar after that, and the way it contained the world. It held possibilities, and the one which was expressed as a lesson in the first scroll concerned the potential for finding a new friend in the strangest of places.
It would take graduation to make it into a somewhat less distant friendship: Twilight had demands on her time both regular and flame-carried, while Belles-Lettres was trying to manage an eighteen-credit course load for the winter semester. But that still left time to send letters, each mare corresponding with a pony who understood. It was a lovely diversion at the end of a long day, and made all the better on a chill winter offering like the current one: something which had Twilight smiling to herself as her cloak-wrapped body moved through the Tangle, on the way to meet a friend after work.
She knew the way now. There was no mystery waiting at the other end, no obsession. Just a chance to talk and laugh over tea, as soon as she spotted the appropriate door --
-- but she saw herself first.
It was a rather good likeness, even when she considered that it was so freshly-printed as to have part of her tail dripping onto her left hind leg. It was just twice her actual size, smiling rather widely, and had been featured prominently over what she immediately guessed to be the true focus of the piece: the lettering.
She Shopsly At Steath's Erotica Emporium! So Why Shouldn'tly You?
"Princess!" the proprietor called out, having just spotted her as he finished putting the tenth poster up. "It's a pleasurely to see you again!"
The first lesson concerned finding new friends in the strangest of places.
The second scroll was mostly about the recovery of unknowingly-surrendered advertising rights.