Grey Acumane presents: A story that has deeper meaning to select readers -
Princess Twilight and the Secret Stars
Grey Acumane presents: A story that has deeper meaning to select readers -
Twilight Sparkle loved to read.
She still does, and almost certainly always will. In fact when asked on this subject directly, Miss Sparkle herself admits to occasionally forgoing her customary scientific guidelines which, as a rule, frown on the use of absolute declarations concerning matters that have even the most infinitesimal chance of variance, indicating that she "could never possibly not love reading." It is still not understood how she managed to underline spoken words.
One might argue that it would have been more accurate to phrase this statement as "Twilight Sparkle LOVES to read," however the concern of this story is meant to focus on a small snapshot of her life from an objective stance, without making assumptions on the occurrence of future machinations potentially taking place to alter the enjoyment she displays at this established moment. Unfortunately, the restrictions of past-tense narration used in this story make that point difficult to establish with any efficiency, as has just been demonstrated through the course of this paragraph. It likely would have been removed entirely, were it not for its secondary effect of further emphasizing to what great a degree Twilight Sparkle loved to read.
To sum up; Twilight Sparkle REALLY loved to read. (This instance of underlining is part of the writing and completely natural in this specified informational medium.)
Twilight has reportedly read every book in every library and bookstore that she has ever had knowledge of and access to. Eyewitnesses have purported that she had "literally devoured books." These latter accusations have been dismissed when further investigation into these claims returned no identifiable signs of mastication, nor traces of saliva that might indicate other attempts at digestion of any of the material she has had access to.[1] This has been chalked up to a simple and common misuse of the term 'literally' intending it to mean 'figuratively.' Similar exaggeration was also originally suspected of the former claim on her patronage habits, but in this case library records and book store memberships seem to indicate the complete opposite.
[1]It has been noted that traces of saliva HAVE been found on many of the books Twilight has had access to. This has been attributed to Twilight Sparkle's inclination to continue reading far into the time she officially scheduled for slumber, resulting in frequent cases of spontaneous loss of consciousness directly into her perused material, combined with her tendency to drool in her sleep.
"Gosh, I really love reading," Twilight said, further establishing and cementing proof of the affection she held for her chosen hobby, to the point that she would make such a statement both to herself and out loud. This was further emphasized by the notable lack of books in her immediate presence, which would have at least made the declaration apparently topical. Fortunately, her resident assistant, Spike, was not present to further escalate her self awareness, which in turn would have fed the niggling sensation occupying the back of her mind responsible for reminding her of what an excessively massive dork she was.
Objectively.
Though unapparent, her statement was entirely topical, as today was a special holiday only recently established. This would be the first ever Equestrian Day of Indulgence, and Twilight had been the primary force behind its establishment. This holiday would allow a pony time, no matter how hectic their life is every other day of the year, to be spent entirely on pursuing their own individual hobbies, desires, or pleasures. This ideology at first seems to be fraught with the potential for abuse, and was initially vetoed by both Equestria's own Princess Celestia and Luna. Its success was due almost entirely to newly established Princess Twilight Sparkle's rather underhanded tactics of drawing out discussion of the matter well past dinnertime, and piping the aroma from Mr. and Mrs. Cake's bakery into the throne room just before bringing up the potential for the princesses to participate in the day by indulging their sweet tooth and stomach alike.
The proposal for the holiday passed before breakfast.
This late-spring holiday was still in its trial phase, only being officially announced and sanctioned within the town of Ponyville. Considerations still needed to be made for specific fields of the workforce, such as emergency and critical civil service employees. For the trial run, volunteers were welcome to continue working through the holiday providing they attested to considering their jobs as an indulgence. Another layer supporting continued function of the community was to implement a holiday voucher, making accommodations for those cases with interests that could not be conveniently pursued outside of their own season, such as winter or fall sports. Whatever gaps were left in the critical sectors would be addressed by drawing straws to determine which pony would be "on call" and issued the aforementioned holiday voucher in the case of their services being required.
Twilight Sparkle did not feel the stop-gap measure that these vouchers presented was a perfect solution, as her goal had been to inject a layer of community participation into the act of pursuing an individual interest, but she felt it was certainly better than leaving these fields understaffed, or worse, to exclude the members of the community who were most crucial, and by proxy the most likely to be in need of and benefit from this holiday. She was also all too aware of the potential to twist the intention behind the term 'indulgence' to support unsavory activities, but wished to remain inclusive, only prohibiting those pursuits which were actively detrimental to the rest of the community, or particularly dangerous to the individual in question, no matter how frowned upon they might be otherwise.
Her friends were already busy with their own interests. Pinkie Pie was likely breaking new records of sugar consumption. Rainbow Dash was either napping, or doing something involving high-velocity, danger, explosions, or any combination of the three. (Not to dismiss the possibility of her combining all four.) Fluttershy had decided her indulgence would be bunny snuggling, and while Angel might have objected to this, Indulgence Day was an Equestrian holiday, not Leporidian, so he had little recourse in the matter. Though a dragon, and also not technically a pony, Spike had been given the day off so he could indulge in his own interest of fawning over his much-cherished pony, Rarity, thus explaining his lack of presence in Twilight's vicinity or the library. Coincidentally, this was mutually beneficial to Rarity's chosen indulgence of being fawned over. To Twilight's surprise, Applejack had expressed a desire to sit down with her family and read a good book together.
Twilight would have mirrored Applejack's sentiments, but her appetite for reading material was far too expansive to be able to limit herself to just one book, no matter how Good it might be. No, her indulgence would require not just quality, but quantity and variety, preferably with some amount of fresh material mixed in as well. To Twilight's continual disappointment, even with the numerous quality authors that existed, they still had trouble meeting the demands of her voracious reading habits. This was not a new problem in Twilight's experience, and a solution had already been implemented in the form of a special mail slot in the back of her library.
This mail slot was unique in that it was not for book returns, nor was it for bills, notices, or correspondence. It was expressly forbidden for any form of spam mail or advertisements to transgress this hallowed area of deliverance and, should such undesirable content find its way in, would actively be automatically disintegrated. Over her lifetime, Twilight Sparkle had accrued an extensive retinue of book series that she favored. While any one of these series might only have a new book once every year or so, the sheer quantity of series ensured that she had at least several new books to peruse each week.
This had actually become a severe problem for Twilight's mental health. She would be the first to admit, after being confronted with irreconcilable evidence and sternly prompted by supportive friends and family members, that she had what was at times a debilitating compulsive personality. After she found herself on her third straight day of checking on regular ten minute intervals for any new material, even before finishing the new material that HAD come in, she decided a solution would need to be found.
To this purpose, she put together a sensor on both the external and internal doors of this special delivery box that would take tally of each and every book as it was deposited and subtract from that tally as she removed these books to read. This tally was set to display on the inside door, allowing her to ascertain the presence of any new deliveries the moment they arrived. Having this knowledge readily available was an incredible relief for Twilight, and she even began to leave books in this area, the number that displayed bringing a sense of security that, should she find herself in need of something new to read, it would be readily at hoof.
Recently, Twilight actually found that the tally displayed had been a bit larger than she was comfortable with. It was getting dangerously close to filling the deposit bin beyond capacity, and so today she intended to devote entirely to working through the queue that had built up. Spike had already prepared a number of snacks that would keep her from starving while she was lost in the worlds her books created for her, each one its own self-contained universe that its author had breathed life into. Sometimes she felt like entire years, or even centuries would pass through the course of just a single afternoon as she felt herself living right alongside the lives of the characters she read about, not to mention the numerous research texts that were included, unraveling new mysteries of the universe and stretching out her mind to encompass new ideas and trains of thought. Just the thought made her tremble with anticipation, her breath hitching lightly as she opened the door to a plethora of varied reading material, all of which came from sources she found highly enjoyable.
"Now THIS is my idea of a holiday," Twilight commented, pulling the books up out of the bin with her magic.
Her eyes were transfixed on the titles that danced before her eyes while she removed the entire contents of the deposit bin. She bumped the door to the bin closed with her flank, already involved in the process of sorting the massive collection out by series. When she realized just how many series had multiple books for her to catch up on, she did a small dance in place that, even from an objective stance, was utterly adorkable. Just then, Twilight had to pause in her dance, as she realized that she was in for quite a marathon. It had been some time since she had last gone through such a large splurge; she would need to pace herself.
The first thing she would need was her checklist for pre-marathon-binge-reading-warmup. Without her dutiful assistant, it took her several minutes longer to find than she would have liked and resulted in a significant amount of clutter being unearthed and strewn about the library in the course of her search. When she finally found her checklist, the first item on the list read; "Find Checklist"
Twilight grinned; "Check!" With a smile of complete self-satisfaction, she acquired a quill and added the appropriate symbol to indicate completing the first bullet point of the dozen tasks the list contained. Once checked, she paused to consider the redundancy of including the act of finding the list as a task to be completed on a list which couldn't be used until after that exact task had been completed. For the sake of efficiency, it would be better to exclude that item from the list. At this point she bristled with pride when she remembered why she had included this superfluous task, her reasoning being that starting a project was always the most difficult part and the inclusion of a task already fulfilled ensured immediate commencement. She mentally patted herself on the back for being such a genius as she moved onto the next task in the list. She couldn't help letting her face fall as she read it out loud.
"Clean up mess made from looking for... checklist," she read. She grimaced as she surveyed the clutter her rummaging had inflicted on the room. Messes always took much longer to clean than to make, and she would need to find her cleaning-and-reorganization checklist before she could begin that, likely making the mess even worse in the process. The large pile of books caught her eye, calling out to her, having spent so much time wasted not being read when they had been delivered as soon as they were published. It was such a large pile of books, and altogether they made for a much greater clamor than the single line of her checklist was capable of producing.
"Well, it is Indulgence day. I'll just get that later," she rationalized. Somehow, speaking her justification out loud, where she could hear it with her ears, gave it the impression of being spoken by another pony. It was much easier to convince herself that her excuse was appropriate when another pony was agreeing with her. That thought made her feel mildly uncomfortable, prompting her to continue with the list before she could question herself. The next line was much more encouraging; "Procure Books!"
The rest of her list went quickly, consisting primarily of ensuring a comfortable, well lit sitting area with a separate table nearby for her to rest food on, determining reading order, and some eye exercises to ensure vision comfort. Each item was struck triumphantly from the list upon its completion, until she had finally made it to the eleventh, and possibly most important item on the list; "Commence Reading!" This was undoubtedly Twilight's favorite part of her checklist, a point which could be readily surmised by the capital letters, bright colors, extra underlines and exclamation points, a large squiggly circle around it, along with small hearts and confetti bordering the words. Twilight had the unspoken suspicion that even Pinkie Pie would have found this level of decoration to be embarrassing.
After brushing this thought aside, Twilight picked up the first book in her queue, and reading promptly commenced.
To say that Twilight was lost to the world of Equestria would have been an understatement. Were it not for the glow exuding from her horn that held her books in place as she read them, all other outward appearances would leave casual observers prone to attempting resuscitation. As it stood, her magical aura created a slow hypnotic rhythm as it pulsed gently with each turn of the page. The pulsation of this glow grew more pronounced during intense scenes, accompanied by the more rapid, or even frantic, turning of pages, functioning much like an unusual heart monitor. Excepting for three minor incidents, only the thorough completion of an individual series would grant the briefest of respites from this effect.
The three incidents in question were: 1) When Twilight found what she thought was a conflict with canon, which required her to cross reference details from three earlier books in the series, only to find out that the very next paragraph in the current book explained the deliberate and flawlessly executed misdirection presented earlier, 2) When Twilight nearly missed responding to a call of nature in time to make the trip to the necessary facilities, and 3) When Twilight accidentally consumed nearly two thirds of a standard issue number two pencil before realizing that it was not a pretzel stick.
Apart from these relatively inconsequential mishaps, her reading continued smoothly and Twilight closed the last book of her collection approximately two hours before sunset. In her absorption, the end of her project came unexpectedly, and she continued to quest for further books in the space recently depleted of its last volume before consciously recognizing its empty condition. When at last she noticed its empty state, Twilight realized that she had not prepared herself emotionally, and had just missed the opportunity to quell the pace of her reading, prolonging those last few books so she could properly savor them. Without that proper denouement to the evening, she would be left with an acute sense of disappointed longing.
In her despondence, Twilight considered the potential courses of action left to her. One possibility would be to simply reread one of her new books, yet despite the sizable quantity, the contents of each book remained clear in her memory, and would take several days for her recollection to degrade enough to allow a fully enjoyable perusal. Another option available to her was to select from her library a book that had not been read recently, but after such a large influx of new content, she found herself spoiled, and unable to settle for less than the freshest material.
Neither of these options appealed to Twilight, and she found herself considering a much less plausible, yet far more favorable scenario which hinged upon the exceedingly unlikely chance of her special delivery bin still containing new material. She began calculating the odds of new books being delivered on this holiday, one specifically designed with personal pursuits in mind, and found them dropping just shy of non-existent.
Head hung low, and heaving a sigh that predicated extensive suffering, Twilight gathered her books together, casting only a single longing glance towards her special deposit bin. The bin proudly crushed her false hope, with a number "4" brightly lit upon its display. Twilight nodded once in acknowledgment, and returned her attention to the task of sorting her books, knowing it had been too much to hope for any number other than zero.
Attentive readers have likely already noticed a disparity in this instance, between Twilight's perception and the number being displayed in reality. Those readers might, at this point, be inclined to place the blame upon the text itself, citing the possibility of a misprint or typo, but the standards upheld within these transcripts make that quiet impossible.[2] Rather, the error itself persisted within Twilight's own cynicism, and would take several moments more for the erroneous appraisal to amend itself.
[2]Unfortunately, the standards of these transcripts in no way preclude the deliberate use of irony.
This moment of clarity was punctuated by the sound of several dozen books hitting the floor; a din that, despite its volume did nothing to cover the high pitched squeal of delight. Twilight pranced over to the deposit bin, barely able to contain her excitement, had she even any reason to do so, over such an unexpected turn of fortune. Somehow, against all probability, a new delivery of books seemed to have been deposited even while she had been so deeply absorbed in her novels and textbooks.
"Yes! Yes! Yes yes YES!" she sang, bouncing around in front of the bin. With a flourish she pulled open the drawer to obtain her books.
There were no books to be found. The contents of the bin were completely empty.
Twilight Sparkle was a mare in possession of substantial knowledge, keen intelligence, and unwavering rational thought. When books, or more importantly, their absence, were involved, that latter quality tended to quickly fall by the wayside. This specific venture would stand as a textbook example of this effect.
Twilight had a vendetta to pursue; her hopes had been raised from their lowest point that day, and then crushed mercilessly. She would not rest until the cause of this erroneous display was identified, and rectified, with extreme prejudice. She quickly reviewed potential causes. She checked the sensors on the outer door, then the inner door, both functioning accurately and precisely. She checked the disintegration sensor archives and found that a few pieces of spam and advertisements had been disintegrated, but neither spam nor advertisements counted towards the tally on the inside display.
She considered fringe theories: She checked to see if the books were invisible, but a quick physical sweep of the bin turned up nothing. She checked for tiny books that might be too small to detect with the naked eye, but even going over every inch of the bin with her most powerful microscope turned up no results. She considered a possible bookworm infestation, but the deposit bin was hermetically sealed and the same scans that detected spam and advertisements would have exposed any pest-based contamination at the same time.
After exhausting seventeen other hypothetical causes, she found one name forcing its way back into the forefront of her speculation: Discord. Though supposedly reformed, the Embodiment of Chaos Personified had a more recent history of instigating nuisances to plague Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony. This incident seemed low key compared to his usual antics, but the frustration and disappointment she currently felt was easily on par with their most recent encounters, and though this evidence was circumstantial at best, it was enough for her to justify an impromptu shakedown. At the very least his unrelated culpability painted him as a reasonable scapegoat, from whom she might garner insights to the true source of her grief.
Locating Discord was surprisingly the easiest part of Twilight's plan. Her initial intention to gather her friends to forcibly summon Discord were made moot when she made her first stop at Fluttershy's cottage, and found that he was already on the pegasus's front porch. This fact alone stole the majority of her thunder, but what left Twilight utterly flabbergasted was the nature of Discord's activity; wooden rake in hand, he was in the middle of maintaining what was by all rights a beautifully preserved zen garden. While she was left staring due to shock, Discord noticed her and waved cheerily in greeting.
"Why good evening, Miss Sparkle! What brings you by the cottage on such a wonderfully creative holiday?"
"Alright, Discord, what nonsense are you up to now!" Twilight accused. Once her shock had worn off, she wasted no time reasserting her standpoint.
Instead of the tongue in cheek denials of guilt that she had expected, Discord merely gave a mild roll of his eyes, and shook his head softly in disappointment.
"I think that simple observation would answer that question readily enough," he answered, raking a circular rippling pattern in the gravel around a rock that was by itself in the garden, "I am tending to my garden while I await what Celestia has promised to be a beautiful sunset. Something I haven't done in eons, up until this lovely holiday of yours gave me the opportunity."
Twilight snorted, her disbelief palpable; "You expect me to believe that such a tranquil looking garden belongs to YOU?"
"Of course not," Discord replied evenly, completing the circular ripples and then smoothing out the lines carefully, "but your belief or lack of it hardly alters the reality of the situation."
"But you're Discord. You do chaos and explosions and confusion and annoying pranks. Not... this!" Twilight sat on her haunches and made a sweeping gesture with her forehoof to indicate the garden.
"So the very concept of the master of chaos using his time off to do something calm and relaxing conflicts with all your expectations of reality?"
"Yes!"
"It's completely unexpected and is utterly confusing?"
"Exactly!"
Discord crossed his arms to rest them on the end of the rake, leaning to bring his face level with Twilight's; "Then it sounds like I'm doing my job just fine. Really Twilight, the world of chaos encompasses more than just sight gags and explosions."
He tweaked her nose once before turning back to his garden. Twilight continued watching him while she contemplated this new information. If she followed his logic, then the lack of chaos he was causing was in turn causing chaos, so he actually was causing chaos, which was entirely expected, so there wasn't anything confusing at all, but that meant that he wasn't causing chaos again which meant...
"Is everything okay out here? Oh, hello Twilight. " Fluttershy's voice broke Twilight out of the circular logic paradox she had been trapped in. When Twilight turned, she could see that Fluttershy still had Angel Bunny tucked in the crook of her arm. His face was a mask of resigned boredom and mild disgust.
"Everything is NOT okay," Twilight reproved, "This was supposed to be a nice holiday and I just had one of the biggest let downs of my LIFE!"
Twilight realized at once that her reaction had been in excess, and set about comforting her now-cringing friend; "I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I'm just feeling a bit frustrated." Twilight decided to shift her tactics towards redirection, "How has your bunny snuggling been going? Have you been enjoying the holiday?"
Fluttershy perked up noticeably and nodded.
"Oh yes. I'll need to throw together an extra special salad for Angel Bunny to make up for it tomorrow, but he's been very supportive."
Her positive response was almost enough to offset the initial impression Angel gave of the situation. Twilight had been certain that he would have been sending her death threats telepathically if possible, he was already punctuating his feelings with predominantly impolite and colorful gestures when Fluttershy wasn't looking.
"That's nice to hear, I wish my day had gone as well. I seem to have had some books go missing, from my personal collection-"
"Seem?" Discord interjected, "you don't know?"
"Well, no, I don't KNOW, but you've pulled this type of thing before!"
"You're still angry with me for eating those spell pages, aren't you?"
"Some of those books were first editions!" Twilight stomped her hooves, setting Fluttershy back to cowering, "and you've been constantly harassing me, ever since I became a princess! It figures you'd do it during my first official holiday."[3]
[3]Though she had implemented a holiday before this, it had been at the behest of her friend, Pinkie Pie, and thus not considered as Twilight's own holiday.
"But, um, well," Fluttershy waffled, "he's been, I mean, I haven't been specifically watching him or anything, but when I have seen him, he hasn't done anything wrong, at least not that I could tell... I might be mistaken though."
Discord held the rake to his chest, and floated lazily between the two ponies. His path curled around Fluttershy protectively.
"Commendable attempt at standing up for me, Flushy, but Twilight doesn't have any idea who's responsible, so there's really no need to prove my innocence."
He ruffled Twilight's hair until she pushed his hand away.
"Innocence?" she scoffed.
Discord merely shrugged; "For today, at least, I hung up my mantle of chaos, letting it air out a bit. Here, perhaps you could benefit from some meditative exercise."
Discord pushed the rake against Twilight's chest, compelling her to accept it rather than letting it drop, at which point he ushered her into the middle of the garden. Twilight's reaction was dubious, but she took the rake in a magical grip and made a few experimental passes over the gravel with it.
"No, no, in your hooves. Your hooves," Discord corrected zealously.
"But that's hard!" Twilight groused, "I wont be able to get anything done."
"You're drawing lines in gravel, you aren't accomplishing anything anyway," he explained, "That's not the point."
Twilight nearly threw the rake down right there, but Fluttershy was nodding her agreement with Discord, so after a skeptical inspection of the rake, she took it in her hooves and began to trace patterns in the gravel. Fluttershy took a moment to make some tea for everyone while they watched Twilight's uncertain motions. Her first attempt produced such a mess that Discord actually applauded while Fluttershy quietly did her best to avoid making eye-contact. Nevertheless they both encouraged her to simply smooth the garden level again before making a new attempt.
By this point, Twilight's efforts were accompanied by the multicolored coruscation of Celestia's sun starting its descent into the horizon. It wasn't long before she became engrossed in the simple task, and her frustrations and concerns slipped away with the last rays of the sun. By the time she had completed the garden to her satisfaction, Luna's moon was already beginning to peek over the far horizon. She surveyed the fruits of her labor, and returned to Discord his rake with a sigh.
"Thank you," she blurted, without turning to face him, "and... I'm sorry."
Discord said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
"For not believing you could do something like this," she clarified, "and also for accusing you just on circumstantial evidence. I was just upset with the lack of answers. I couldn't find any other explanation. All of the sensors are working exactly the way they are supposed to be working."
"Sometimes, princess, even while doing what is supposed to be done, unexpected results can occur."
"Wait, you know something about what happened?!" Twilight snapped her head around to face Discord, but he was floating over his garden, and folding it up like some sort of game mat.
"Oh goodness me, I'd love to offer more advice, but I'm afraid that the day is over, and with it your holiday, and I've chaos to get back to."
Discord rolled the folded up mat around the rake, and then squeezed the far ends of the rake together into nothing before snapping himself out of existence; "Arrivederci!"
Twilight slumped in defeat and berated herself for ever considering the idea that Discord would be helpful to her in any manner. With that last ray of failing along with the light of the sun that evening, Twilight exchanged farewells with Fluttershy and returned home to her library. Her desire to simply put the day behind her grew proportionately with each step she took. The mystery surrounding the improperly tallied texts, much like the books themselves, would need to be shelved for the night. That thought comforted the tired alicorn princess, knowing that whatever problems she needed to address, they could all wait until the following morning to do so.
To her mounting disappointment, Twilight had need to mentally amend that line of thought, when it came to her attention that she had accidentally locked herself out of her library. The very same magical locks she invested so many painstaking months developing to deter undesirables, such as fast talking salesmen, overly ambitious fanatics, political hobnobbers, potential book thieves, and demigods of chaos[4] now demonstrated their flawless impenetrability on their very own creator. She brought her head against doorknob, on the fain hope that her horn would morph into the encryption key, that was set to keep synchronization with the dynamically variable logarithms tied to the lock, through forced osmosis.
[4]Twilight actually had severe doubts on the effectiveness against demigods of chaos, but it was still nice to pretend.
"Hullo Princess Twilight!" A voice called out from behind her, "Are you checking to see if you're already home?"
Twilight sighed, quickly identifying the voice as belonging to one Ditzy Doo, or as Rainbow Dash affectionately dubbed her, during moments of extreme calamity; Derpy. Twilight carried no personal grudge against Ditzy; the gray pegasus was, in fact, the primary delivery mare responsible for packages destined for the library's special deposit bin. Her work ethic was laudable, even if the execution of her duties often lacked precision, or perhaps more accurately, coordination, but Twilight was already anticipating seven different disasters that Derpy might unintentionally initiate.
"I had to deliver a package to my own home once. It took forever for me to answer the door. I ended up needing to leave a note."
Twilight put a hoof to her chest, and breathed out as she pushed her hoof away from her. This would surely be her last hurdle for this evening.
"No, Ditzy Doo, I don't think I'm already home. What brings you by at this time of night?"
"Oh, I had a book for you. From Rainbow Dash," Ditzy Doo opened her saddle bag with a wing and pulled out a book with her mouth, "Fee waf hopin ooo cud refew it-"
Twilight grimaced and took hold of the book with her magic before Ditzy soaked the cover too thoroughly. Ponies generally could resist slobbering on objects they held in their mouth, but talking tended to stimulate the saliva glands, impairing that ability.
"She was hoping you could review it after you finished with her first book," Ditzy restated.
"First book?" Twilight knew that Rainbow Dash had been working on some sort of fanfiction, but hadn't realize that this passion had evolved into a fully fledged publication, "This isn't it?"
"Oh no, that's the sequel. I already left her first book in your special deposit bin about a month ago."
Something niggled in the back of Twilight's mind as it raced through the catalog of titles and author names, trying to match any of them up to the pen name depicted on the cover of the book she held.
"Ditzy, I read through all of the books from my Special Deposit Bin just today. I never saw anything from Rainbow Dash or this... Royle G. Bivrush..." Twilight paused and brought a hoof to her face as the logic to Rainbow Dash's creativity hit her, "I don't understand why her book wouldn't have been in there. Do you know if anything might have happened to it?"
It occurred to Twilight that her day might not be a complete wash. Ditzy Doo had just pointed her to a specific book missing from her bin, and if she could identify the variable that distinguished it from the others, she might just be able to solve the mystery after all.
"I don't know. I delivered it a while ago."
"Can you tell me if there was anything unique about that book at all?" Twilight asked, pushing her face directly up against Ditzy's in her desperation.
Ditzy backed up a pace to bring their proximity to something less uncomfortable; "Uh, I can't... think of anything."
Twilight cursed softly.
"But I've got my own copy of her book, so you could look at that one," Ditzy started to open the other side of her saddlebags, only for Twilight to pick her up along with her saddlebags and shake vigorously. Her eyes swirled around in asynchronous circles.
Twilight barely noticed due to her haste. She rapidly scanned through the pages, at first just looking for anything that stood out, but then a second time more slowly to take in the contents of the story. Rainbow Dash was only writing at a grade school level, and her characters were two dimensional at best, or blatant self inserts, there was no sense of proper challenge for the main character, the love interest felt forced and awkward, and not even a single opponent had any sense of motivation. All said, it was one of the worst stories she had read recently and left Twilight feeling like Rainbow Dash was just trying to advertise her own skills and accomplishments rather than write a story anyone else could enjoy, but for a first attempt at a book, it was actually rather charming.
"Dizty, did you deliver any other books for Rainbow Dash, or any other friends?" Twilight asked.
Ditzy shook her head; "No, just those two books. though I did have to deliver the second one, like... three different times already?"
Twilight cocked her head in confusion; "What?"
"She kept changing things, so I had to grab the book back out of the bin and bring it back to her, and then deliver it again after she made the changes she wanted."
"What? How?" Twilight asked, dancing on her hooves anxiously, "Ponies aren't supposed to be able to get books back out of that bin, it's one way."
"Oh, it's not that hard, I'll show you," Ditzy answered, cheerfully oblivious to her own breach of protocol.
Twilight quickly followed, the desire to solve her hardcover conundrum firmly smothering her apprehension. Ditzy led her around to the back of the tree, where the deposit drawer was covertly placed. It wasn't as much hidden as it simply maintained the image of complete inconsequentiality. Ditzy opened the drawer and dropped in both of Rainbow Dash's books, closing the drawer so that they could be dropped into the storage bin.
"Okay, so how do you-" Twilight broke off her query, as Ditzy had somehow managed to wedge herself inside of the drawer, there were several hard bangs, and then a hollow thump as the drawer closed and Ditzy apparently fell into the Deposit bin.
"I'm okay!" Ditzy's voice called from the slot, "Forgot how much of a drop it is when it's empty."
Twilight peered into the slot of the bin, only for a book fly out of the opening and clobber her horn; "Ouch!"
"Sorry!"
Twilight shook her head and rubbed the base of her horn while Ditzy continued to rattle around inside the bin. There were several pronounced pauses, followed by periods of querulous shuffling.
"Um..." Ditzy finally called back out, "I can't find my book."
Twilight checked on the book that had been launched out of the bin, confirming it as the second book written by "Royle G. Bivrush"
"Are you sure, Ditzy?" she asked, her suspicions already congealing in her mind.
"Yeah, this thing is totally empty."
"I think I know what happened, so come on out."
"Yeah, about that?"
"What is it?"
There was a pregnant pause.
"I don't have any books to stand on. I... I think I'm stuck."
The pause that resulted was so pregnant that it came to term, and made a successful delivery.
"Derpy..." Twilight moaned, burying her face in her hooves.
It took far longer than Twilight would have liked to help Ditzy out of the deposit bin, but they eventually achieved a successful extraction. In a twisted manner of thinking, being locked out of her own home actually became a positive note, as it meant this time would have been idle anyway, at least until Spike returned home with his spare key. It was only through pulling with both her hooves and her magic, bracing her rear hooves against the tree, that she finally managed to free the errant delivery mare.
"So where did my book go?" Derpy asked as they untangled their limbs and wings from each other and the heap they had both landed in.
"I think I have my spam filter set too stringently," Twilight replied. She brushed off some dust from her fur and straightened out her mane, and recalled the advice Discord had left her with, and how Rainbow Dash's book seemed to be a big self advertisement; "I'm pretty sure it was disintegrated."
When Twilight turned to check on Derpy, she was not expecting the wall-eyed mare's eyes to be filled with tears.
"But... but I hadn't gotten to the end! Now I'll never find out if Raindo Brash becomes captain of the Wonderbolts or not!"
Twilight stifled a chuckle and opened her mouth to set Ditzy's fears to rest, but then realized that even that obvious outcome would likely spoil the ending for her. She patted her back instead and tried to console her instead.
"I'll talk to Rainbow Dash about getting you an extra copy. I bet she'd even be willing to sign it for you."
At these words, Ditzy doo perked up considerably. She squared her shoulders trotted over to where the sequel lay, and brought it back over to Twilight in as ostentatious a manner as she could manage.
"I'll hold ya to it!" she beamed, "and with that, my work here is done!"
Ditzy Doo flew off, or started to; She was interrupted by Twilight's tree blocking her path, but after readjusting her course, she made her way off into the clouds towards her own home. Twilight smiled in satisfaction; she had just solved her mystery. The outer door to the deposit bin had only been set to tally incoming books, but she had never considered the possibility of books being removed after being added to that tally. Between the one book being removed and replaced with updated versions multiple times, and the other book being outright deleted, that would easily explain the discrepancies. She would need to do some more testing in the morning, but prospects were looking up for Twilight.
Twilight trotted back around to the front door to wait for her number one assistant. She knew he had his key with him, so it was just a matter of a little patience, but at least she had something to read while she waited. her ears picked up the sound of her front door creaking open, and Twilight broke into a gallop.
But she was not met with a scene of the small purple dragon unlocking the door, but instead a purple man and white coat exiting the library.
"Rarity?"
Rarity jolted in place and slammed the door closed behind her; "Twilight! What a surprise! I... goodness, you startled me."
"What are you doing here?" Twilight asked, wanting to open her door and get inside the library as soon as possible, but basic courtesy prevented her from simply bouncing her friend out of the way.
"Oh well, I was merely dropping off your darling assistant," Rarity explained, adding in a nervous laugh, "the poor dear was simply exhausted after... today's activities. He's sound asleep in his bed now."
"Oh well, would you like to come inside? I don't want to be inhospitable."
"Oh, no need, Twilight," she reassured as she stepped aside, "it has been a long and fulfilling day, so I am quite eager to return home."
"Oh well, I'm glad you enjoyed your holiday," Twilight walked up to her door and pulled on the door, "My day-"
Twilight broke off and tugged on the door again, it still refused to budge; "Rarity, did you lock the door behind you?"
Rarity was already completely out of sight. Twilight groaned as she realized that Spike would certainly be beyond her ability to wake, at least until morning rolled back around.
"Okay Twilight, just concentrate on the positive. At least I have something to read."
Twilight searched for where she had left Rainbow Dash's sequel, but couldn't recall actually putting it down. Instead she found only a note, from which she read; "Just to be extra helpful, I've already put ALL your books away back in your library, all very neatly shelved and organized just the way you'd like. Don't thank me, it was my pleasure. - The Big D"
Twilight crumpled the note in her magic and set it on fire, completely incinerating it in less than a second.
"DIIIIIIIISSCOOOOOOORRRRRRRDD!"
