Chapter 1
The Crystal Empire had been saved.
The Crystal Heart was recovered, energized with the love and admiration of the citizens of the empire, and its power was successful in driving off the mad tyrant Sombra and ensuring neither he or any other dictator would use their magic for evil again.
The Crystal Faire had been a glorious event, even before the truth of the Heart’s absence had been revealed. After, it was a celebration unlike any in recorded history. The gradient manes and lustrous coats of each and every crystal pony returned and their saviors departed with great fanfare. The little dragon, Spike, received the brunt of the crystal ponies’ affections, however, and he wasn’t shy about sharing some of that abundant love.
Now, under the guidance of Princess Cadence, the empire could return to a semblance of normalcy. Businesses reopened, trade was reestablished, and before long, the once long-lost Crystal Empire was magnificent not just in appearance, but in authority as well.
But that all occurred many months later. On the very evening of King Sombra’s defeat, mere hours after Twilight Sparkle and her friends departed, one old mare stood on the shimmering steps of her charge and quietly seethed.
Compendia was a wizened crystal pony whose charge was the vast Books & Beryl library at the heart of the Crystal Empire. From the mirror polish on the floor to the lack of dust on the top of even the most neglected tomes, Compendia oversaw everything without an assistant or thought of reward. The care of her library was all that mattered — all that kept her old heart ticking.
Though considered venerable even among her elemental kin, Compendia always tended her books with a giddy bounce in her trot. She kept her graying coat impeccably groomed and her eyeglasses spotless, because her appearance was reflected upon her library. Even after the Crystal Heart abolished Sombra’s amnesiac spell, she couldn’t recall very many visitors to these grand archives, but she did not mind. Whenever she did have a guest, she tended to their needs with vim and vigor.
Today, however, was a different day. Where her fellow crystal ponies were still celebrating their renewed spirits and independence, she could only cast her bespectacled gaze across the library’s central floor at the books left scattered, neglected, and damaged by the frantic excavation conducted by Twilight Sparkle, her five friends, and her draconic assistant.
Compendia, at first, had no emotion for the devastation she witnessed. That soon devolved into sadness; she wept openly as she examined the split spine of A Tourist’s Guide to Crystal Croquette. Then she set her sights on Crystal Coat Care: A How-To Guide on Proper Hygiene and felt insurmountable rage. She gnashed her teeth, spat, and stomped her hooves, screaming out for justification over this travesty.
But no answer came, nor did anypony hear her cries. As usual, the library was abandoned save for herself. If this mess was to be remedied, she would have to do it alone.
A crystal ponies’ magic came in the form of their longevity and tenacity; an internal power not unlike that of their earth pony cousins. They could not manipulate magic to levitate or transmogrify iron into gold, so Compendia had to manually return each and every book to its proper place. In her youth, this was a relatively simple task, even if it was a significant investment of her time. Compendia was not a spry filly anymore, so each time she had to grip a book in her teeth and scale the ladder to the highest shelf, she required several minutes of rest before she could do it again.
Hours passed. Time had fallen into the early hours of the morning, and Compendia felt only misery as she looked upon the many still scattered books and realized how little of an impact she had made. She wanted to cry out in frustration but she was too exhausted to do even that.
She wanted to sleep; tackle this problem after a good night’s rest… but what if the library had a visitor? What if somepony wanted to check out a book only to find it on the ground, cast aside like trash? Her reputation would be ruined; the library would be condemned. She would be a broken old mare without a home, a job, or financial security.
Compendia began to hyperventilate at the wildly self-destructive thoughts rampaging within her head. She forced herself to calm down after several minutes, coaxing herself to take deep breaths. She ultimately decided that sleep would not find her that evening; Compendia would finish this monumental task even if it killed her.
It was dawn now, and when Compendia could order her thoughts away from the zombie-like routine she had established, she realized that death would be preferable to this. Her back ached, her hips creaked like old floor boards, her vision was blurry even behind her bifocals, and her normally flawless coiffure looked like a spider’s web.
Still no pony arrived to lend her aid.
Compendia marched on. No matter how much pain she would be forced to endure, her library would be perfect again. Even if she saw it from her death bed, Books & Beryl would once more shine as the greatest repository of knowledge Equestria had ever known.
It was well into the afternoon now. Celestia’s sun was falling below the horizon, but Compendia paid it no mind. If she let her mind wander for even a moment, her body would fail. Exhaustion would claim her, starvation and dehydration would tighten their iron grips, and all of her toil would be for naught. Every step was agony and lifting even a paperback was a Hercoltean effort… but still she pressed on.
Finally, after two days of work, Compendia collapsed. Her mind was willing, but her body could no longer bear the stress. She began this chore weakened from a thousand years of being magically bereft and was now incapable of even opening her mouth to call for help. All Compendia could do was shut her eyes and drift into unconsciousness, unsure if she would ever wake again.
Though one niggling thought in the back of her mind told her that she did not want to, for she had failed.
Much to her surprise, Compendia did awaken. She was in her bedroom; a small nook located in the employee only section of the library. She was wearing her favorite plum terrycloth robe, her warm blankets were drawn around her, and though she found herself to still be incredibly weak, she no longer believed that Death was knocking on her door.
She looked around for somepony — anypony. She knew she could not have done all of this in some fevered sleepwalking episode; she had been helped. As if answering her mental plea, a familiar purple unicorn trotted into her bedroom.
Twilight Sparkle did not look happy to see Compendia. Not because the two disliked each other, as they had barely spoken at all. No, Twilight Sparkle looked positively miserable because she realized what she did and felt inconsolably horrible about it.
“Miss Librarian, I…”
“Shush, child,” Compendia returned, a weak smile gracing her wrinkled but still attractive features. “The fate of the Empire was more important than a few measly books.”
Compendia herself did not believe that, but she didn’t think it right to rub salt on a wound.
“That’s no excuse. I should have returned when we were finished. I… I just got so wrapped up in the festivities that I forg—”
“I know, child. It’s all right. I got a bit… carried away myself.”
Twilight returned a half-hearted smile of her own. “My friends say that I overreact about things like this. I can’t leave my library in disarray either. I’d go mad knowing there was even one book left unaccounted for.”
Compendia nodded knowingly. That effort alone caused her to cringe in pain and then cough; a dry, hacking wheeze. Twilight levitated a glass of water over, from which the elderly librarian gratefully drank from.
“When I was a girl…” Compendia began, chuckling quietly because she knew the joke that was running through Twilight’s head: “That long ago, huh?” Twilight realized it as well and blushed profusely. “My friends would call me an ‘egghead’. They said I cared more about books and studying than I did about making friends.” She sighed forlornly. “And they were right. I did. I still do, I think.”
“Miss Librarian…”
“Compendia, dear.”
Twilight brightened ever so slightly. “Compendia, I was the exact same way. I held no pony close to my heart until much later in my life. Sure I loved my family, and a few close friends of my family, but I know now I was always just going through the motions. I always quietly told myself that I wish they would go away so I could return to the page I marked.”
Compendia listened intently.
“Then I moved away from my family, to a small town called Ponyville. There I made many close friends, ponies that I now cannot see myself without. But I still love my books — all books. Which is why while you were asleep, I cleaned up that clutter, and I cannot express how sorry I am for hurting you like I did.”
With a great sigh, Compendia closed her eyes. She thought back to her childhood, many, many years ago. She remembered her friends, all of whom she had outlived. Not because old age had claimed them, but because King Sombra had taken them from her. She remembered then her mother, her father, her younger sister, the names of each and every childhood friend she had ever made, and began to weep.
“C-Compendia? Are you all right?”
Compendia nodded but she knew it was a lie. The crystalline sheen of her coat began to diminish, until she resembled the forgetful old mare that Twilight had originally met. “Tell me, dear,” Compendia choked out. “Have you experienced loss?”
Twilight was about to answer in the affirmative, but then the meaning of Compendia’s words reached her and she slowly shook her head. “No, I haven’t. Everypony close to me is alive and well, and I am so grateful for it.”
Compendia reached out with a shaking hoof, which Twilight quickly grasped. “Cherish them. Do not forget them… like I did.”
“That was not your fault. King Sombra’s spell—”
“That is no excuse!” She shouted, tears now running down the wrinkles in her cheeks like ruptured dams. “They never forgot me, magic hoo-ha or not! Even after the Crystal Heart was restored, I was more concerned with my books and the image of my library than those I had left behind!” Compendia pulled her hoof from Twilight’s and clopped herself square upside the head. “Stupid! Forgetful! Ungrateful!”
Twilight was quick to restrain the hysterical old mare, and being that she was young and strong, it was fairly effortless. But she said nothing. What words of condolences could she offer? She did not know what Compendia was suffering through, for she had never experienced it herself.
After a few minutes of futile struggling, Compendia relaxed, becoming jelly in Twilight’s hooves. “Please… please… leave me be. Thank you for cleaning up… and taking care of this battered, foolish old woman.”
Twilight did not move right away. When she did, she remained at the foot of Compendia’s bed for several minutes, before finally departing in silence. She wracked her prodigious brain for the words that Compendia would need to hear to get out of her funk and stop blaming herself for events out of her control… but they never came. Not as she walked up the mirror polished steps or passed through the library’s huge doors.
Compendia returned to her job several days later. Twilight had asked a doctor to check up on her, and though he noted numerous bone fractures and weakened organs, he determined that they were normal for a mare her age.
The following week, Compendia stepped out of her library and into the bright, beautiful sky that oversaw the crystalline canopy of the Crystal Empire. She turned around the sign on the door from “closed” to “open” and sighed deeply, because while she might have physically recovered from her ordeal, her mind would never be able to shake the guilt that she felt.
It would be many months still before the shine would return to her coat.