The 37th Librarianby AutumnschildChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 1THUD Scarlet Letters woke with a start. Bloody Hearts, what was that sound? Her eyes darted left, then right in the faint light of the waning crescent moon just outside her window on the second floor of the Golden Oaks Library. She sat there in tense silence, holding her breath. What had woken her up? Were the changelings back? Was this the invasion that would— No. Stop that, she scolded herself internally. Her long dormant guard training kicked in and she quickly muzzled the gnawing fear in the back of her mind. She made a mental checklist of things to do, and put panic way down low at the bottom as the last entry. THUD, came the sound again. In her mental checklist, she highlighted, underlined, and circled the last entry. At the top of the list read: Breathe. And she did, daring to make noise for the first time that night as she gulped for air. Next on the list was assess her surroundings. She was still in her bed. Well, technically the library’s bed. Okay, the cloud mattress was hers, but the bed frame was sort of built into the woodwork that made up this particularly peculiar domicile and… she was getting off track. She took another breath and continued her assessment. Bed: check. Changeling Hit Squad Ready to Strike: No check. Scarlet smiled. So far, she was two for two. She spent the next few moments going through the rest of her checklist. When she reached the item that was third from the bottom, she frowned. This one was Get out of bed. This did not bode well for Scarlet, as the bed was very comfy. She brought it all the way from Trottingham when she moved here. And, as ashamed as she was to admit it, even to herself, she felt a child-like sense of safety wrapped in her cloudy comforter. Surely no monsters, ghouls, or ghosties could get her in— THUD, came the insistent sound once more. But it was softer. And somehow deeper. Like it was coming from the roots of the old living library somehow. Scarlet watched as the large portrait of the Goddess of Magic on the other side of the room shook with this latest noise, and settled in a wholly undignified and crooked position, as if mocking her commitment to perfectly aligned hanging wires. She’d just dusted that! The nerve of some bumps-in-the-night. She sighed quietly to herself as she clambered out of the perceived safety of her cloud mattress, and watched it with longing as it floated back up to the ceiling where it bumped softly against the natural wood ceiling. Out and about, the red pegasus alighted over to the portrait and set about her newly appended highest priority list item: Straighten the Silk Painting of Princess Twilight Sparkle. She smiled at a job well done, and moved on to the next item, the second from the bottom of her hastily assembled mental checklist, just above Panic. It was the most important item on the list, but truth be told, it was the one she was least excited about. Investigate the thudding sound. Her maroon wings flapped and fidgeted at her side as she toyed with the idea of skipping over this step entirely and jumping headlong into panic. But she learned back in the guard that a Mare doesn’t live by half measures. Not if she wants to make it to the next— THUD She grimaced but stayed silent as she fluttered back into the air on quiet, unassuming wings. Whatever awful thing was down there on the ground floor of Ponyville’s second oldest historical landmark clearly didn’t care if it was heard. But that didn’t mean she had to go in wings-a-blazin’. Scarlet was a librarian now that the war was over. And that meant folks expected a certain amount of grace. Charm. Princess-like elegance. It’d do her no good in the eyes of the citizens of Ponyville if their new librarian was screaming like a demon outta Tartarus at… She glanced over at the clock on the wall and growled under her breath. Three in the morning. Brilliant. “Well,” she sighed to herself, “Let’s get this over with.” Keeping to the shadows like they trained her in the guard, she hovered on up and out of the open door that connected her assigned living quarters and the rest of the library. It wasn’t hard to stay hidden, what with how dark it was. It was however quiet a pain in the flank to make out just about anything down at the ground level, what with how dark it was. She flew clockwise along the ceiling, outside of the dim light cast by the central stained-glass skylight and above the windows the lined the upper walls. It was tricky, but she wasn’t in a hurry. She took the time to do it right. The thumps and thuds she’d heard previously were gone, replaced by a much subtler shuffling sound coming from a door she could now make out on the first floor of the library. A door she’d never seen before. She scrunched up her face in thought. Scarlet was the new librarian here in Ponyville, and she’d only been at her post for two weeks. But the library wasn’t exactly the Canterlot Archives. There were six, maybe seven rooms in the whole place, not counting the living quarters. She knew for a fact that the very door she was looking at had not been there before tonight. She scoffed to herself. Doors don’t just appear out of nowhere… Do they? As she was preparing to fly down and investigate, the mystery door began to open. Scarlet frowned tight-lipped as she made ready to check off the last two boxes on her mental checklist at the same time. Finally a form began to emerge from the darkness beyond the scary new door, and Scarlet found herself pressed against the elegant trim that lined edges where the ceiling met the library’s high walls. The red pegasus mare held her breath and waited for something to happen. The form exited fully from beyond the door and Scarlet marveled at both its seemingly amorphous head and its size. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a changeling. Only a queen could be that large, but Chrysalis was dea— There was a purple flash and the door disappeared. Scarlet heard herself gasp loudly and she jammed both forehooves into her mouth, but it was too late. The creature below had heard her. It turned its massive glob of a head to face her, and Scarlet realized that she was quivering under the creature’s all-seeing gaze. She knew it was looking at her. For an instant, Scarlet felt that it was looking through her. Like it was looking for some unspoken name or unseen face that only it could know. And then the feeling was gone. Fully and uncompromisingly terrified of what she’d just experienced, Scarlet Letters, thirty seventh librarian of the Golden Oak’s Library, checked off the last item on her mental check list with a flourish that would make any cerebral calligrapher instantly jealous. The former guardsmare pushed off the wall as hard as she could and flew for the relative safety of her assigned living quarters. If she could make it there and out into the streets beyond, she cou— “Wait,” said a voice, softly. Though the tone implied it was not a suggestion. The librarian didn’t answer, nor did she wait. Though in her fear, she couldn’t help but squeak out a miserable little whimper. She was only a few feet from the door when a purple aura slammed it shut. Scarlet looked left and then right before opting to angle towards one of the high windows in a nearby wall. She smirked at the sudden recollection of her old combat instructor’s motto: Self-defenestration is the better part of valor. She flew as fast as her wings would take her. She was never the fastest flyer, but she knew she could work up enough speed to break through one of these old panes of glass. At the precise moment, she angled herself up a bit and folded her wings back. Now more of a faller than a flier, she tucked her hindlegs to her chest and covered her head with her forelegs, and braced for impact. But the impact never came. Tentatively, she opened one eye. Then another. Scarlet had found herself wrapped in the selfsame purple haze that shut off her last escape route and removed a door from existence not more than a minute ago. Her vision was filled with light and she winced, blinking back against the brightness. The creature had lit every available candle, fireplace, and magelight in the library. Then it began to spin her around in her shimmering magic prison. Scarlet struggled to keep her wits about her. There was no way, no how she wanted to see what this creature from beyond looked like. No way, no… “I’m so sorry, did I wake you My Little Pony?” asked Princess Twilight Sparkle as she turned Scarlet around to face her. Scarlet’s mind raced a mile a minute, and then promptly went blank. The only other time she’d even seen the Goddess of Magic in the flesh was during The Big Push just before the end of the war. But the smiling and gentle pony standing below her looked nothing like the living weapon she saw on the battlefield that day. Especially in those bunny slippers. Scarlet had no idea what to do, or what to say. So she did what any Trottingham native would do. She offered Princess Twilight Sparkle a cup of tea. Chapter 2Scarlet Letters hummed an off-pitch tune to herself as she rifled through the cabinetry of the library’s kitchen. She was trying rather desperately to soothe her frazzled nerves, but she wasn’t having much luck in that regard. Nor was she having any luck in the whole ‘finding tea’ category, either. She did however manage to send an adorable mug with a pair of hugging kittens on it smashing to the ground. “Is everything alright in there?” asked the concerned voice of her unexpected royal guest. “Oh my, y-yes, haha,” she laughed nervously in reply. “Just looking for the tea. It seems to have run off.” Pulling her hoof out of the cabinet, Scarlet cursed as her shaky limb managed to dislodge a second mug, one that claimed to be WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND. As it tumbled through the air, she instinctively kicked at it when the doomed cup fell past her hips. Instantly bemoaning the impulse, she winced as it sailed on a terminal arc with the refrigerator door. The mug hit and burst like a piñata full of ceramic shards. The kind of piñata that would get you in trouble with the local constabulary because they tend to frown on the whole ‘feed shards of things to foals.’ At any rate, the score was now gravity two, Scarlet zero. For a brief snippet of time, Scarlet felt like she was being stretched and pulled. It was reminiscent in a way to the time she got stuck in a taffy machine as a small filly. In the next instant, she was sitting at the table back in the library’s main room. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, and found herself completely devoid of content. So she made a series of polite noises instead. Princess Twilight smiled reassuringly at the bumbling librarian, rose to her hooves, and made her way into her old kitchen. “Please, allow me,” she said, brooking no argument. None was given. Scarlet Letters spent the next few minutes looking around the library. She’d not yet taken the opportunity to just sit and enjoy the library’s main room since she took up the post two weeks prior. It’s not that it wasn’t beautiful or well maintained or anything. She just didn’t care for public spaces. Not after what happened in Appleoosa. “Cream and sugar?” came a question from the kitchen just over the sound of the boiling kettle. Scarlet nodded, before catching herself and answering out loud “Yes, please.” The Goddess of Magic re-entered the main room from the kitchen with a smile of nostalgia on her otherwise tired face. Seated on her back and balanced by partially extended wings, she carried a tray laden with tea and goodies. Taking the tray in her teeth as she reached the table, she set it down between the two mares and sat down with a contented sigh. Scarlet marveled at the little apple jam filled pastries that sat on the tray alongside the tea and its trappings. They smelled fresh from the oven, and she could feel the warmth radiating off of them, but she knew that couldn’t be. Princess Twilight’s magic bandied about the table, filling her mug with steaming hot liquid that smelled of mint, and grabbing one of the pastries and putting it on the plate in front of her. Scarlet took it as a sign to do the same, and filled her own cup before winging the remaining pastry over to her plate. The two strangers sat in the library at just after three in the morning and sipped their tea in silence. Scarlet felt like a voyeur as she watched the Princess sigh her happy sighs and smile her genuine smiles as her eyes danced around the library. Scarlet reached for her mug and took a sip, for bravery, before daring to dive into conversation with an actual, factual Princess. “So!” she blurted, catching the undivided attention of the divine being on the other side of the table. “What uh... that is to say, why... how...” She found the bravery melt out of her words and sink to somewhere far beneath floor as the Princess looked her right in the eyes. If a pony could wilt, Scarlet Letters would be one such pony. “You know, this is one of my favorite places in the whole world,” Princess Twilight said, more to herself than to Scarlet. Scarlet looked up and smiled. “Oh. Is it, mum?” The purple Princess nodded. “It is. Did you know I used to be the librarian here?” “Oh. Fancy that. You know, I do believe it was mentioned on the brochure.” Of course Scarlet knew that the Goddess of Magic was once the librarian here at Golden Oaks library. Everypony in the library arts knew that. It’s a given, like how the Solar Court raises the Sun, or that everypony has a cutie mark. The Princess looked down into her cup and added another sugar cube before giving it a judicious stirring. “So much happened in this town. In these walls. I’d do anything to keep it from harm.” She looked up and fixed the pegasus across the table with a gaze that could scare the stink off a manticore. “Anything.” Scarlet Letters, feeling every bit the chastised child, nodded furiously. “Oh yes mum, absolutely mum. Perish the thought, mum.” Princess Twilight’s damning glare washed away so quickly, that for a moment Scarlet wondered if she imagined the whole thing. The two mares returned to silence as they went about their tea in the early morning stillness. “Sorry.” Scarlet looked up from her half-eaten pastry at the Princess. Did she just— “I’m sorry. The last few months have been tough. For me, at least. I guess I’m still worried that just about anypony could be a changeling.” Scarlet reached across the table and patted the Alicorn across from her on the hoof. It was an instinct to comfort. One she couldn’t fight in the face of the tears that threatened the other mare’s face. “It’s been tough for all of us, mum. For what it’s worth I’m… I’m still not over my time in the war either.” The Princess looked at her with new eyes. “What’s your name, soldier?” The red pegasus stood up and saluted before responding. “Flight Lieutenant Scarlet Letters of the 501st Squadron.” “The 501st?” the Princess asked, as she worked through her mental organizational charts. “So you flew under Tempest, right?” Scarlet laughed bittersweetly, remembering the zany old stallion who led the 501st. Cracked as he was, the changelings never did figure him out. “Yes mum, I served under old Grey Gills right up till the end.” “That’s right you all were at The Big Push…” she trailed off and stared into her tea cup again. Scarlet joined her, and the two sat in silence once more. Until something purple caught her attention from the corner of her eye. It was the Princess. She was reaching across the table. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Scarlet. I’m Twilight, if you please. I like to keep things informal between us librarians.” Scarlet Letters took the hoof in her own and shook firmly, smiling mutely back at the immortal creature she was now on a first name basis with. “That is, assuming you’re the new librarian, and not just a squatter,” Twilight offered dryly before taking a sip of her tea. Absentmindedly, the new librarian replied “I’ve got my degree in Library Arts hanging in the bedroom if you care to come up and see it.” Twilight simply raised an eyebrow at the now furiously blushing mare as she continued to sip her tea. The pegasus from Trottingham, completely aghast at the folly of her careless words stared with boundless interest into the grain of the table. She marveled silently at its craftmareship as she nervously clapped her forehooves together just over her lukewarm mug. She also prayed for an aneurism to kill her dead on the spot. Gently, Twilight lowered her mug to the table and smiled slyly. “Perhaps another time. Tell me, why did you choose Ponyville? Surely there were libraries back in Trottingham that could use your services?” “Oh. I uh…” Scarlet sat up and the blood drained a bit from her face. By the way her ears where pinned back, Twilight knew everything she needed to know. “Honestly mu—Twilight, if it’s all the same to you, I’d... rather not talk about Trottingham.” “Of course Scarlet, forgive me. We’ve all got our little secrets, after all,” she said with a soft smile as she nodded towards the empty spot on the wall where the door that started all of this had appeared and then disappeared. Scarlet smiled back gratefully. “Have you met any of the locals yet?” Scarlet let out a puff of air and dropped her head to the table, resting her chin on the plate that once held a tasty apple pastry. “More than my fair share, I’m afraid.” “Oh?” “Just between you and me?” Scarlet looked left, and then right before leaning closer to Twilight, who also leaned forward to hear what the other mare had to offer. “I think the ponies in this town are crazy.” Scarlet considered herself a mare of action. She was always one to come up with a list, a plan if you will, of what needed to be done in just about any situation. But for the second time this early morning, her mind drew a complete blank. The first was when she was presented with the awe and splendor of Princess Twilight Sparkle standing in her library. The second was right now, when she was present for the barking, nigh-hysterical laughter of Twilight Sparkle, her new Alicorn friend. Chapter 3The familiar warmth of the morning sun woke the librarian of Golden Oaks Library from her strange dream. Something about the Goddess of Magic… and tea. Scarlet Letters opened her bleary eyes and smiled as the limbs and branches of her living home danced about in the steady breeze. The light shimmered off the dewy leaves as they rustled in the soft wind, and flickered as it streamed in through the window above her steamer trunk-turned-wardrobe. She loved plants. Vibrant, living, green plants. She always had. It was a curious thing, for a pegasus to be so drawn to the earthly pleasures like gardening, but she couldn’t help it. It ran in the family. When she first set eyes on the library… Well she just knew it was where she was meant to be. Scarlet stretched lazily and rolled her wings this way and that, delighting in the soft pops that came as a result. She smacked her lips and slid her tongue along her teeth, tasting the last traces of apple and pastry dough. Her eyes shot open with a start. It wasn’t a dream… was it? Memories from late last night came floating back into the forefront of her mind. She remembered accidentally confronting the Princess in the Library. She remembered offering her tea. She winced as she remembered the whole ‘would you like to come up to my bedroom and see my diploma’ thing, and right after the Princess… Twilight told her to keep things informal. She chuckled at her own foolishness. Too informal, Scarlet. Too informal. She recalled a second cup of tea for both herself and the Goddess of Magic. She recalled a most pleasant conversation that followed about the magic of friendship and her stories about the quaint little hamlet surrounding them. It was… nice. It was the first time in a long time she just sat and chatted. She frowned to herself. It was a pity Twilight had to leave, so soon after their third cup of tea, but the whole affair skirted on the boundary of what could be considered appropriate in polite society. She moved to hop off of her cloud mattress and noticed a purple something out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to look at the foreign object, she couldn’t help but smile. It was a feather. A long purple feather. Resting on her makeshift dresser. Scarlet Letters slipped out of bed, feeling the cloud mattress brush past her rump as it rose into the air behind her. The feather in question was laying on her steamer trunk, the one piece of furniture she owned. Moving with purpose, she walked over to the feather and balked. It sat on a folded piece of parchment, sealed with red wax in what she recognized as one of the two Royal Seals of Equestria. She’d seen this particular seal once before when she got his… letter… “No,” Scarlet said to herself, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath. “It’s not one of those letters. Today is a new day.” She repeated the mantra like the organizer of her survivor support group back in Trottingham had urged them all to do, until she actually believed it. She popped open the letter and braved the text within. Dear Scarlet, Good morning! I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. Thank you so much for the tea last night and the pleasant conversation. I’ve gone without those simple pleasures for so long that I had forgotten how wonderful they truly are. Thank you for helping an old mare remember. On the topic of remembering, our conversation brought to mind so many memories. Memories of my time in Ponyville. As I write this, it strikes me that you seemed, well to be perfectly frank, resentful of the idea that you should make friends in Ponyville. I understand your trepidations and concerns, as I had similar misgivings when I first became a librarian there around a hundred years ago. But please, believe me when I say that the crazy ponies of Ponyville are well worth the effort it takes to befriend them. So, to encourage you to get out there and make some new friends, I’m giving you an assignment. Scarlet looked up from the letter and blinked. “Is she serious?” If you are wondering, yes I am quite serious. I’d like you to send me regular updates, reporting on the town and its population. I want you to get out there and meet the folks around you, to make friends… and maybe more. There’s something about that library that turns mares into old spinsters, so don’t be afraid to buck the trend, hmm? Oh and that reminds me, there’s a ‘one cat per librarian’ ordinance for the library. I don’t think it was covered in the housing paperwork, but Glenn Dale can tell you all about that if you have any questions. But I digress. Don’t bother with the mail to send your reports, just use the magical quill I left with this letter whenever you write me, and then burn the letters. Yes, you read that right, burn them after you write them. Trust me, I’ll get them. As for responses… Well I’m working on a spell for that. Hopefully they’ll pop up where you’d expect them too. But I confess I’ve not done this without Spike before, so it’ll be an adventure for both of us. I wish you the best of luck in your new life here in Ponyville. Twilight Scarlet screwed up her face in befuddlement at the letter, and shook her head. Glenn Dale? Spike? Burn the letters after writing them? Homework? It’s been a long time since she’s had a homework assignment. With a red wing she opened the top drawer of her steamer trunk and slid the letter in with her unmentionables. Pinning the quill behind her left ear she made her way out into the hall and across to the bathroom to get ready for what she was hoping would be another uneventful day. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, Scarlet left the living quarters and hopped merrily down the stairs into the library’s main room. With each hop she opened her wings just enough to feel the otherwise still air rush across her feathers. She grinned as she did it, remembering how her mother would chastise her for such unladylike behavior whenever she did it in public. It was simply not the sort of thing a proper lady does. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed a curious fact. Somepony, somewhere in the library, was humming. She moved to the reading table in the center of the main room, and looked about. The humming continued it’s happy obliviousness, but she couldn’t find the source. Changelings don’t hum, do they? “H-hello?” she called out to the disembodied voice. Suddenly, there was a muffled cry, and a soot covered stallion fell out of the nearby chimney. If Scarlet made a list of the one hundred most likely things to happen this morning, a soot covered stallion falling out of her fireplace would be no where on it. The stallion coughed and sputtered as he rose up to his hooves. He was tall and lean, that much she could see right away. Still coughing, he stood on a dirty tarp at the foot of the fireplace. Trying her best to showcase the calm that all Trottingham natives are known the world over for, she took a deep breath and asked the stranger who he was and what his business was. Unfortunately it came out as “WHOAREYOUANDWHATAREYOUDOINGINMYHOUSE!” as shouted by a clearly insane pony with little to no control over the volume of her voice. The stallion winced and two sooty wings, previously unnoticed by the shrieking mare, shot out of his sides. Whether it was an subconscious attempt to look bigger to scare away a predator, or an overly optimistic mating display, was completely lost on both ponies. A few tense moments of silence passed before the stallion dared to make another sound. Which was just a whole lot more of the coughing he forgot to do while not breathing. Scarlet just stared at him as he coughed, until she couldn’t take it any more. “WELL?!” “Huh?” he coughed out. She nodded, and took a moment to compose herself. “Who are you?” she asked in the least threatening tone she could manage. “Oh! I’m Chim Chimalee,” he coughed, “but you can call me Lee, everypony else does.” He offered her a hoofshake, but she just looked at the sooty appendage. “Okay, Lee," she said with raised eyebrow. "Why are you in my house?” His coughing fit ended, he looked around the room and shook his head. “Uh… Actually I think this is the library.” Scarlet felt her left eye twitch. “Yes Lee. I’m Scarlet Letters. The librarian. I live here. Now. Why are you in my house?” At that he grinned broadly. “Oh! I’m Ponyville’s chimney sweep! I’m here to clean your chimney.” “Are you? Well I… I-I’m sorry, before we continue, can you do something about your ah… wings?” Lee looked behind him and noticed his two best friends were still standing at full attention. Turning back with a bit of a blush to his cheeks, he willed them back down after a moment of deep concentration. Scarlet sighed to herself, with the understanding that Lee wasn’t the sharpest knife in the apple cart. She continued. “As I was going to say… You know what? Forget it. Could you kindly see yourself out before I call the guard?” He sat his hind end down down and shook the soot from him like a dog shaking off water. What she assumed was a uniform sootiness to his coat and mane revealed a mauve coat with a tousled blonde mane. “No can do, Mrs. Letters—” “That’s Ms.Letters.” Lee took a moment to process this information and smiled. “Cool. Yeah, anyway, it’s the first Thursday of the month. I’ve got a contract with Glenn Dale to hit up all the public buildings in town to clean out their firepla—.” Scarlet cut him off with a series of polite noises, shaking her head, “Okay new rule, Lee, are we ready?” He nodded. “When you come to clean out the fireplaces of the library before business hours, you have to knock first, okay? You can’t just let yourself in.” He started to nod again, but stopped suddenly. “But what if the Library’s open for business?” “Well then… you can just come in like anypony, deal?” He nodded a third time without pause. She clapped her forehooves together and smiled. “Excellent! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some breakfast. You do… whatever it is you need to do in here and then… leave. Okay? Great. Do try and keep the soot out of the books, hmm?” He nodded a fourth time, grinning like a fool, before he made his way back up into the flue. Scarlet watched curiously as the large stallion fit his upper half into such a tight place. Then she decided not to think too hard about it, and headed off into the kitchen. If all the stallions were as thick-headed as Lee here, then Twilight’s prophetic calculations on librarians to spinsters would be right on the money. Although… She chanced a peak over her shoulder at the tall stallion’s muscular flank and— Yeah, no. She shook her head, disappointed in her own wandering eyes, and hussled into the kitchen for a right proper breakfast. Chapter 4Scarlet Letters walked into her kitchen, and leaned against the counter to the left of the sink. With a disinterested flick and a dexterous twist of her right magenta wing, cold water flowed from the faucet onto last night’s dishes. It was then that she let out a breath. Her limbs shook and her eyelids twitched as she stared out of the porthole style window that looked out into downtown Ponyville from her kitchen sink. She grimaced as felt the familiar ache as the adrenaline drained out of her body. Scarlet didn’t like surprises. She did once, but that was long ago. Before the war. If there’s anything she learned during her service, it was that surprises had a nasty habit of leaving a body count. Even when they didn’t, even when the surprise was a pleasant one, it still left her with chills and a racing heart. Scarlet cursed at her foalishness. The war was over. It had been over for three months. Maybe she would one day grow to like surprises again. But having that unknown stallion stumble out of a chimney just now was a little too much for a girl who spent the last year in the dark shadow of war. “The war is over,” she whispered over running water in the sink, and the dying tingle in her chest. Like a swimmer pushing off the side of a pool, she pushed off the counter, into the air, and away from her own grim thoughts. It wasn’t long before she felt the top of her mane brush up against the natural wood ceiling. Slowly, she spun in place like one of those air-ballet dancers from Prance and took in the room as she compiled her breakfast checklist. Item One: Make tea. Item Two: Everything else. With a nod, Scarlet floated on over to her newfangled stove that dominated the western wall of the kitchen. It was supposedly powered by electricity instead of magic, just as it was supposedly a housewarming gift from her harpy of a mother. In all likelihood, it was probably from her brother, Haythorne. She smiled as the mental image of her big brother popped into her head as she turned one of the stove’s cast iron knobs to high. Haythorne was a good pony and a great brother. He clearly meant well and his heart was always in the right place, but it would take more than a new stove to rebuild the charred remains of the bridge at the bottom of the bottomless pit that was Scarlet’s relationship with her mother. Scarlet drifted back over to the sink in a lazy arch with her favorite kettle in hoof. She filled it to just an inch or so below the brim with icy cold water before lugging the heavy thing back over to rest on the candy apple red burner. The few drops of water that had found their way down to the underside of her kettle hissed and boiled away when scorching metal of the burner came in contact. She smiled at that. She turned back and flittered to the sink to wash out her teapot and its strainer basket. As she worked, she heard a soft tapping against the kitchen’s door frame and a voice call out from behind her. “Chimney’s clean, Ms. Letters.” Scarlet looked over her shoulder at the smiling stallion as he wiped the last of the soot off of his hooves with a rag. She looked him up and down. He was clearly waiting for something. “Thank you?” she asked with eyebrow raised. He puffed up his chest and tossed the dirty rag behind him back into the library, much to her displeasure. “Hay, no problem. It’s my job, after all!” “Splendid,” she deadpanned. “Well, good day Lee, I suppose I’ll see you in a few weeks. Do remember to knock, if you’d be so kind.” She turned back to her teapot and rinsed it out one last time before setting it to rest on a dish towel beside the drying strainer basket. She turned towards the pantry to fish out some tea leaves when she caught a rather sight of the mauve figure still standing in her doorway. She looked over his shoulder to the clock in the library’s main room. She had ten minutes until she had to open for business. “Is there something else you need, Lee?” asked Scarlet in a huff. “No,” he said a little too quickly. Though Scarlet thought she caught the hint of a blush across his face as he sputtered on with, “Well I mean, maybe we—” “Let me cut you off there, Lee,” she said as she turned abruptly in place. “Frankly, you scared the feathers off me this morning, and that’s put me in a rather foul mood.” “But I—“ “And I’m hungry, which does tend to put a damper on anypony’s mood, regardless of how carefree and/or giddy they happen to be. At the moment I am not at all giddy, and all of my care is wrapped up in finding something to eat before I have to open the library.” He nodded with a frown and slumped shoulders as he sulked out of the kitchen. Scarlet stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway. Something was eating away at her as she listened to Lee pack up his supplies in the main room. Something besides hunger. It was Twilight’s words, from the letter. The ones about making friends. She crept up to the doorframe and peeked her head beyond, watching the downcast Lee as he trundled towards the door with his pack on his back. She called out to him, “Lee?” and he looked over his shoulder with a quizzical expression. “I’m sorry Lee,” said Scarlet, tugging inattentively on a hoofful her long baby blue mane, “I didn’t get a great deal of sleep last night, and as I mentioned I’m hungry. Plus there’s the whole ‘scared out of my wits’ this morning thing but… What I’m trying I say is…” “Yes?” She smiled at the stallion and stood a bit taller. A bit straighter. “Remember to knock next time, okay? Maybe we can talk and get to know each other. I’ll be sure to have a fresh cup of tea ready for you.” Lee stared at the pretty mare with his mouth open in a little ‘o’. It took him a moment to really parse what was said, but by the time he did, he was already nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah! Cool!” He kept watching her as he walked forward and waved a wing at her. “See ya later, Ms. LettOOF—” he blurted out as he walked into the wall next to the library’s front door. Scrambling out of his pony pile beside the door, he blushed furiously as he collected himself, his things, turned the knob, opened the door, and galloped out as quickly as possible. Smiling at the charmingly klutzy colt as he dashed out of the building, Scarlet turned back into the kitchen proper and over to the pantry. She didn’t have much time, but the day was looking up. Scarlet Letters was determined to have a decent breakfast before the day began in earnest. Scarlet frowned and sat slumped in her little circulation desk, ignoring the hoofful of library patrons as they milled about her library. Next to the spot where she was resting her chin sat a half-filled, lukewarm cup of what could charitably be called ‘tea’ and otherwise known as ‘hot liquid rubbish’ by any Trottingham native. At least the hugging kittens painted on the side had the decency to look cheerful. Her last minutes of personal time had been all used up hours ago, split into equal parts frantic searching for even a crumb of nourishment and tearful resignation as her awful tea brewed. She allowed herself one minute for pouting, but only just. The librarian’s stomach rumbled and she sighed. No apple pastries, no cereal, not even a burnt crust of bread with a scrape of jam. Nothing. She knew she was low on rations, but to run out completely? That wasn’t like her. Scarlet furrowed her brow as she came to the only reasonable conclusion. Magic. Specifically the Goddess of Magic. She must have done something. Maybe she turned all her supplies into those tasty pastries last night. She looked at her mug of tea out of the corner of her eye and remembered it shattering to pieces last night. And yet here it was, no worse for the wear. Clearly, magic was involved here - a dastardly, sinister magic that left hunger and grumpiness in its wake. It was a pity Pri— Twilight didn’t magic up some tea for her to have in the morning. All that was left in her bare cupboards had been a dusty forgotten box of Liptony tea bags that were left by previous librarian before she retired a few months ago. Her stomach gurgled again, and she let out a groan in the minor key to accompany it. Scarlet Letters was in desperate need of a trip to the general store and perhaps a few laps around the market. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She had twenty minutes before she could close up for lunch. Lunch. The word rolled around in her mind along with visions of daffodil salads, tomato sandwiches, and piping hot cheesy potato soups. She grinned. She salivated. She looked at the clock. Nineteen minutes and forty six seconds. Forty five. Forty four. Forty thr— Her blissful countdown to her savory salvation was brought to an immediate and unpleasant halt when the sound of paper being ripped filled the otherwise quiet main room of the library. Her library. There it was again. Somepony was ripping paper in her library! Possibly out of a book! Forgetting all about lunch, the former soldier leapt into the air and hovered in the center of the room, scanning the patrons for the perpetrator. Said patrons, for the most part ignored her. Though one of them, an old yellow codger of a pegasus with a stove for a cutie mark, looked up from his cookbook long enough to disapprovingly shake his head and mutter something about youngsters. The terrible sound came again. Not the old stallion’s complaining, but the ripping sound. Its awful refrain pinned her ears back to the top of her head. It was coming from the Nonfiction Nook. She alighted over the shelves swiftly, and came to rest on top of a bookcase of local bibliographies. Peering down into the nook, like a hawk watching rabbits at play, she noticed three fillies sitting at a small table. Three fillies with a book and a small stack of torn pages between them on said small table. Three fillies who were just now, right before her very eyes, ripping another page out of one her library books. Chapter 5“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Scarlet, her muzzle turned up in scrunchy indignation. As one, the three fillies looked up at Scarlet. One of them, the little earth pony with the off white coat and peppermint striped hair, answered back with a cocked head. “Umm… Homework?” The filly sitting next to the one that spoke stared up at her with wide eyes, still in the process of tearing out the page underhoof. Scarlet dropped down from the top of the shelf without a sound, her wings catching the air just before one of her forehooves touched down on the table and coming to rest on the half torn page. “What the hay, lady?” asked the tearing terror, flapping her own wings in frustration. “Quiet over there!” demanded a creaky voice by the center of the library, “Some of us are trying to read, ya dern kids!” The little filly, a pegasus, groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. “We’re doing our homework. What’s your problem?” The third filly at the table, a unicorn, spoke up before Scarlet could respond. “Boomer, be nice!” she said, half-begging. “She’s the librarian. She can throw us out!” The pegasus filly named Boomer regarded Scarlet like she was an anthill that was just asking to be kicked over, before shrugging. “So. What do you want with us?” Scarlet knocked the filly’s hoof off of the book with a swat of her wing, and scooped up all the torn pages. “I want you to stop tearing pages out of my books.” The earth pony spoke up again. “We weren’t gonna steal them. We just needed to borrow them for our genieostomy project.” “I think you mean genealogy,” corrected Scarlet. “At least, it is my fervent hope you meant genealogy.” “Hopscotch, what’s a fervent?” asked the earth pony. “I think I’ve seen one of those at the pet store,” answered the unicorn, apparently named Hopscotch. “You talk funny,” said Boomer. “I’m from Trottingham,” explained Scarlet, her patience wearing thin. “It’s my accent. To me, your maneland accent sounds funny. But nevermind all that, why were you tearing pages out of these books to begin with?” “We have to research our family histories for our field trip to Canterlot next week,” said Hopscotch. “Uh huh,” said the earth pony, with a nod of her head. “We’re making posters for Princess Twilight to show how we’re all connected. My great-great-great-great Nana was a nurse here in Ponyville back when Princess Twilight lived here!” “Hey, Lucy,” asked the unicorn across from her in a giggle. “Does that make her your Nana-nana-nana?” The other two laughed, and Scarlet’s stomach turned itself in knots as she thought about banana bread, banana chips, bananas foster, fried bana- “I’m so going to use that in my poster, Hopscotch!” said Lucy, before picking up her pencil with her teeth to hastily scribbled it down in her notebook. “My yes, what fun we’re having,” muttered Scarlet as she organized the torn pages as best she could. She’d have to send it off for repairs. “A real lark, as it were. But come now, you shouldn’t need to tear the pages out of my books for this project. You could’ve easily borrowed the books who—” “The books we need are really super heavy!” interrupted Hopscotch. “Yeah,” agreed Lucy, her peppermint bangs bouncing as she nodded, “And we only needed a few of the pages, so we figured—” “Okay, dobbins, new rule: If you want to borrow the pages of a book, you need to borrow the whole—” “Dobbins?" snickered the hateful Boomer, "What’s a dobbins?” Scarlet stared daggers at the little pegasus, and scowled with the sort of frown that portends a very poor choice by its owner. “Alright, young lady,” she said, with a roll of her shoulders. “You wanna play tough? I can play tough. Your parents. Give me their names.” Lucy and Hopscotch shared gasps. Scarlet flashed a smirk of her own at the stubborn Boomer, who was refusing eye contact. “That’s right. If you’re going to act like a brute in my library, well then there’s got to be consequences. And I, for one, would like to know what your mother thinks of your behavior.” Stunned silence was her answer. Perhaps a little too much silence. Some instinctual something was beginning to gnaw at Scarlet, and her smirk fell off. Boomer still refused to look her in the eye, but the same couldn’t be said for the other two fillies, who starred at Scarlet with such intensity, that she felt compelled to look away. Moments passed, and she made a passing effort at trying to piece the book back together. This is ridiculous, she thought, chiding herself, Just get their parents’ names, and be done with it. Then it’s off for lunch. Her stomach growled, and Scarlet let out the breath she’d been holding in a sigh. She cleared her throat and started to speak. And that was when she heard Boomer’s crying. She looked up from the pile of pages, and saw Boomer sitting there with gritted teeth and tears in her eyes. Her unicorn friend, Hopscotch was up in a flash, and doing her best to comfort her. “It’s okay Boomer,” the candy colored filly implored. “Don’t let that old librarian get to you. Your mom was awesome.” “Old?” balked Scarlet, before the rest of the filly’s words clicked in her mind. “Was?” she asked quietly, her ears flat against her head. Lucy, the earth pony got out of her chair too, and helped Boomer up on her hooves. Slowly the filly trio walked out of the Nonfiction section, with Boomer trying desperately to hide her tears in her friend’s mane, but her sobbing was making that rather impossible. “Hey… wait a minute,’ said a deflated Scarlet, trying desperately to get a handle on a rapidly deteriorating situation. She gathered up the pages in a hurry, shut them in the book, and tried to fly off after them. Hopscotch got between her and Boomer. “We’re leaving, alright?!” she huffed, her face red with emotion. “We’re sorry about your stupid book. Just leave her alone, you big meanie!” Chastized, Scarlet hung there in the air, holding the damaged book to her chest. She watched as the three fillies turned the corner. She listened to one filly’s crying matched with three sets of tiny hooves as they wound their way across the wooden floor of her library and out the door. It was shut with a soft click that resounded like a slap across the face. She stayed there for a while, hugging the book. The clock above the fireplace in the library’s main room chimed noon. Scarlet flapped her way down Oak, the street named after her library. She wasn’t out on her lunch break. She had closed the library early, instead. Closed until further notice. Perhaps until the next librarian was foolish enough to come to this one-cart town. As she went she couldn’t help but catch the looks and little bits of the whispered conversations around her. About her. Ponyville was a still small town and news spread quickly. She shook her head and flapped harder, gaining some altitude. She couldn’t escape their pointed stares, but at least she’d get high enough that she couldn’t hear the gossiping ground pounders. As she rose into the air she spotted the general store off of Mare-de-Sun Avenue in the distance. She went over her shopping list in her head. Scarlet had just gotten to Quinces when a shouting middle-aged mare on a nearby cloud got her attention. “She’s just a kid, you know!” decried the scowling blue-grey pegasi. Scarlet stopped dead and hovered in the air. Her dander was up considerably. “Ah. And that’s all the reason she needs to be rude, is it?” The other mare, frowned at that. “Boomer’s a good kid,” she said defensively. “Losing her mom in the war was really hard on her and her family. It was hard on all of us here in Ponyville. You need to—” Scarlet’s gaze was so frigid, so fraught with peril, that the other mare shivered as her words died in her throat. “Did you serve?” asked Scarlet. “What?” “Did you serve in the Heartbreak War?” Scarlet asked again, her whole body trembling. “N-no, war is… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “The war was tough on all of us,” remarked Scarlet. “But she doesn’t get a pass on being a decent pony just because she lost a parent. That’s not how life works.” The other pegasus stomped her cloud out of existence, and hovered in place. “What is wrong with you? She’s a filly who lost her mom. You can’t just tell her to rub some dirt into it,” she spat, fighting the obvious waver in her voice. Scarlet waved her forelegs at the mare. “Are we done here?” she shouted. “If not, can you just sum it up for me? I’ve got grocery shopping to do.” The other mare huffed in frustration. “If you’re going to be our new librarian, and Cadence help us if you are, maybe you should get to know the rest of the town before you decide to make any more children cry.” And then she flew off, not letting Scarlet get a final word in edgewise. She watched as the other mare headed off to the south, descending into town by one of the bridges along Pine. Her stomach knotted itself up, demanding her immediate attention, and she cursed at herself under her own breath. This first friendship letter to Twilight was going to be a disaster. Chapter 6Today wasn’t just another Thursday for Dusty Shelves, owner and proprietress of the Ponyville General Store. Today was the first Thursday of the month, and that meant it was restocking day. So, as she often found herself doing on restocking days, the earth pony was climbing furniture. Back hoof right, back hoof left, she scrambled and squeezed her way up. With a grunt of effort, she swung with her hips, and flailed about to move just a bit higher. Right forehoof on a stack of old pots. Left forehoof gripping the underside of a shelf. She held her tongue between her teeth in concentration. At the moment, she was attempting to restock the horseshoes. And for the seventh time in as many months, she wondered why she kept her horseshoe restocks in a single crate, beside the stack of cast-iron skillet restocks, all located at the tippy-top of her highest display cabinet. The cabinet that was built into the back wall when the store was first opened by her great-granddaddy, when he had this crazy idea for a fan shop in Ponyville. For nine months out of the year, she could run it on her own just fine. That's because from spring to fall, the old general store rarely saw much in the way of hoof traffic, what with the open-air market just down the block. It was only in the winter when the market was closed that she really needed to hire out some part-time help. It just felt like she needed to hire somepony on restocking day. Maybe somepony with wings. Or a horn. Or even a good length of rope. The cabinet wood creaked as she climbed, with the same moaning creak of her floorboards. Which made sense, since most of the store was made of the same rustic red oak wood used in her floors and other cabinets. Hanging there, she smiled and recalled a childhood memory from when she was a foal, and she climbed the counter to sneak off with a couple of cookies. But she wasn’t after cookies this time. No, this time she was after that awful crate of horseshoe restocks. She really ought to clear out the office on the second floor and use it as a storage room. She never used the darn thing anyway, since it was left it in-state after her mom went to the old folks’ home. A thoughtless shuffle to her right knocked her backhooves into a doomed plate that went crashing to the floor. Her lower half dangled and instinct kicked in. She scurried for purchase. It only cost her a few jars of peach preserve, but in the end she was able move up another foot or so and steady herself. Blinking, she noticed that she was now at the top of the display case, with the horseshoe crate in hoof. She let loose a victorious whoop, tapping on the crate with her forehooves, in happy assurance. She threw open the crate with a smile, and came back with a frown. It was empty save for a note. A note that read Dusty, buy more horseshoes before next restock - Dusty Dusty rolled her eyes at the note and let out a sigh. Then she looked down over her shoulder. Getting down was going to be tric- The adjacent backdoor, slammed opened with a ferocity that dislodged Dusty of her grip and most of her mental faculties. Save for the ones that allow a mare to shout “Nooo!” in overly dramatic slow motion as she falls. She landed softly in somepony’s forearms halfway from the ground, and Dusty’s brain started firing on all cylinders again. This somepony was red. She was also soft and warm. She had feathers, so she was a pegasus. She had long blue hair and she smelled like old books and fresh clouds, so she was Scarlet Letters. “Scarlet?” asked Dusty Shelves, confused. “You made me fall! But then you caught me, so… Thanks?” Scarlet didn’t say anything, opting instead to smile the sad sort of smile that ponies smile when they don’t really mean it. Dusty cocked her head at that. “What’s wrong?” she asked to no avail. The two of them floated back down to the floor, and Dusty climbed out of Scarlet’s grip, mindful of the broken preserve jars here and there. She was about to press Scarlet for more information, when the poor gal’s stomach did the talking, moaning a gurgley gurgle that had the pegasus’ face twist in response. “Sparkle’s garters, Scarlet, when’s the last time you ate?” “Two in the morning?” the new librarian answered back woozily. Dusty shook the other mare by her withers. “Two in the morning? What are you thinking?! You must be starving! Go on and head up front, I've got a special on some day old zucchini muffins. They’re on the platter by the register. Help yourself while I'll get you a glass of milk.” Dusty watched as the other mare waddled down the aisle towards the front of the store with her wings flapping halfheartedly like a drunk albatross trying to take off. She stood there until Scarlet saddled up in one of the creaky bar stools that she rescued from the barbershop when it closed a few years back. When she was seated and chewing with abandon on her first muffin, Dusty smiled, and wandered off to her kitchen to grab a clean glass for her guest. When she returned with the glass in hoof, she wasn’t all that shocked to see that Scarlet had eaten through three muffins half again as big as her hoof, and she was starting to pick at a fourth. “Feeling better?” she asked, putting down the empty glass. Scarlet motioned to speak, covering her mouth daintily with her hoof, but Dusty dismissed it with a smile and a wave of her hoof, turning in place to get a fresh quart of milk out of her ice box. The silence between them was pleasant for the most part, but Dusty could see that something was weighing the pegasus down. And it wasn’t the muffins. A day old or not, these muffins were fluffy buggers. It was the baking soda from Rainbow Falls what did the trick. But she’d never tell. It was her only secret weapon against ol’ Sugarcube Corner. She popped the wax cap off the milk quart, and poured Scarlet a cold glass. Scarlet gave Dusty her first genuine smile of the day, and downed the glass in a few mighty gulps. She put down the glass, and Dusty offered her a handkerchief to whip her muzzle. Scarlet took it and dabbed at her face like she didn’t just consume two meals worth of food in five or so minutes. “Thanks, Dusty,” said Scarlet. “You're a real lifesaver.” Dusty Shelves giggled like rain hitting an empty bucket. “Don't mention it. Here, give me your list. You sit, I'll get your goodies.” “My list?” “Your shopping list, silly,” said Dusty with a knowing look on her face. “Or did you drop by just to say hi?” Scarlet shrugged an apology, and winged her list out of her saddlebag. Dusty looked at the list, smiling at the meticulous script with just a hint of flare in the way she looped her letters. It wasn’t just organized alphabetically, it was organized by the aisle. She trotted down to the imports display, grabbed a wicker basket, and grabbed a tin of Darjeeling Marybong tea. A few more tins went into the basket. Breakfast, afternoon, royal blend… “Wow,” said Dusty. “You really like tea.” Scarlet ‘mhmmed’ from the counter, and Dusty chanced a peek through the display case mirror, seeing the poor gal resting her head on the empty muffin platter. Dusty whapped her bushy tail against her back fetlocks, wracking her brain with how to get Scarlet to open up. She looked back at the list, trying to spot something that could spark conversation. “Pickled herring? Herring like the fish, herring?” Another ‘mhmm’. “You didn’t strike me as a meat eater.” Scarlet said something, but Dusty missed it as she fumbled the super icky jar of pickled fish into her basket. “What was that?” “I said ‘only fish.’” “Bleh!” “It’s an odd craving,” chuckled Scarlet. “I’ll grant you that.” “Why though?” Dusty asked, adding a carton of eggs to the basket. “It’s aces for feathers. Plus it puts hai-nevermind,” the pegasus muttered. Dusty rounded the corner, having finished with the first two aisles, and put the full basket down at the counter next to Scarlet. “Come again?” Scarlet’s naturally maroon cheeks blushed a bit brighter. “It puts hair on your chest.” Dusty angled her head to look down at her chest, running a forehoof through the carefully teased mocha colored tuft that was there. “It does?” Scarlet nodded. Dusty tried to catch a quick glimpse at Scarlet’s tuft, but the other mare was still slouched in her seat at the counter, with her forehooves wrapped around the empty platter she was using as a sort of terrible pillow. “Does it… Does it taste any good? The herring I mean,” she ventured. “No,” Scarlet laughed a squeaky laugh and shook her head. “It’s awful. Like cold pickled mushy tofu.” “Ew.” Scarlet looked over and stuck her tongue out. “And it has bones in.” “Eeeeeew!” shrieked Dusty stomping all four of her hooves and squeezing her eyes closed. The two mares shared a bit of a laugh at Dusty’s expense, and she trotted back over to the empty baskets to get the last of the items on Scarlet’s list in the last two aisles of her shop; produce and dairy goods. She saw Scarlet slouch back down into her seat again as she added a bunch of grapes on the vine to the basket. “Why so down?” “Oh. You know. Ponies.” “Is that why you came in the back door?” Scarlet nodded. “The ponies in this town are too nosy.” “That's for sure,” agreed Dusty, “Everypony knows everypony else's business. Especially when somepony makes a filly cry.” Scarlet waved a hoof in the air and let if flop back down onto the counter with a thud. “You heard too, did you?” Dusty shrugged. “The Gale Sisters. Abby and Gabby were just in here twittering away like a couple of song birds. You've never heard such rubbish.” “Well, it's not all rubbish.” Dusty looked up from the cheeses, her brow furrowed. “So you really did tease Boomer about her mom?” Scarlet sat up and turned with a jerk. “Now that is a load of rubbish! I had no idea that she lost her mother in the war. She acted out of line in the library, and I was going to show her that her actions had consequences. So I asked for her parents’ names.” “And she cried over that?” “No. She didn’t cry until after I told her ‘I want to know what your mother thinks of your behavior.’” Dusty fumbled with a block of mild cheddar, it slipped out of her hooves and tumbled to the wooden floor. “Oh Scarlet, you didn't,” she implored. “Oh, that poor girl.” Scarlet swung around in her bar stool to slump on the counter again. “I feel bloody awful about the whole incident. It didn’t help that I was probably out of my mind with hunger. Or that she was tearing pages out of my books. But…” “But those are just excuses, Scarlet.” said Dusty, venturing the gambit on tough love. She watched Scarlet feathers bristle in agitation, before the pegasus let out a sigh. “They are. I’ve been in town for two weeks now, and I barely know anypony. Or anything that goes on around here. If I had been meeting ponies and getting to know them, then maybe I wouldn’t have made Boomer cry.” Dusty nodded to Scarlet’s turned back. “Alright, that’s a start,” she said as she approached with the final wicker basket load of the librarian’s groceries. “But now that you’ve admitted to yourself how selfish you’ve been. Here’s what you’re going to do,” she told the mare at the counter. Scarlet looked up at her with watery eyes and a pouty frown. “You think I’m selfish?” Dusty rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Well yeah! You’re a funny, awesome pony. And you’ve been keeping you all to yourself.” Scarlet smiled and dried her eyes on Dusty’s handkerchief. “So what am I supposed to do?” The other mare started ringing up her items on the register. “First thing’s first, you need friends. Friends are like weather-vanes for life.” She stopped her counting and stared out into the middle distance, “Only they need food and shelter and stuff and they breathe…” She shrugged, and went back to her adding. “I have friends!” protested Scarlet, “Back in Trottingham, I've got my brother and... Well, there's my brother.” “What about here in Ponyville?” asked Dusty, her hooves a blur amongst the ticker tape. Scarlet traced a hoof through the crumbs on the muffin platter. “You're my friend... Right?” The register went silent. Dusty slid away from it to be opposite of Scarlet at the counter. She gave Scarlet a long hard look, and the pegasus started to wilt under her stare. And then she took Scarlet’s hoof in her own and smiled. “I’d like to be your friend, Scarlet.” The pretty librarian grinned at that, and took in a breath to speak, however she was cut off with a— “But if we're gonna be friends, you have to promise me something.” Dusty felt Scarlet’s hoof pull back slightly at her interjection, but the earth pony held on firm. “W-what do I need to do?” the other asked, trying to free her hoof once more. “You have to promise me that you’ll make up with Boomer.” “Yeah,” sighed Scarlet. “I really should.” “Also you gotta make more friends.” The librarian tried to pull her hoof free again. “Wait a tick, that's two somethings I need to promise now?” “And you have to visit me more often than just here at work when you're starving to death.” Scarlet was now tugging with all her might, “Three somethings!” she grunted. “Scarlet,” said Dusty in a more serious tone. The other stopped her struggle and looked up at her potential new friend. “Can you promise?” The maroon mare looked at her hoof locked in an earth pony death grip, and then back into the face of her captor. She saw compassion in that face. Concern. And fierce determination. She saw somepony who could actually be a friend. She relaxed in her seat and put her other hoof on top of the two that held her fast. “Yes, Dusty. I promise.” Dusty smiled, and released her hold with a flourish and hit the tally lever on her register with a little jig to the right. “Your total comes to forty eight bits. Fifty counting the muffins and the glass of milk.” She looked up at Scarlet who was rubbing some life back into the hoof that she held. “I thought those were a gift.” Dusty laughed her high pitched giggle and shook her head. “No silly,” she said as she tapped one of the two wicker baskets. “But I’ll help you pack your groceries into your saddlebags.” Scarlet shrugged. “At this point, I’ll take all the help I can get. Thanks.” Dusty smiled back. “Hey no problem. After all, what are friends for?”
Chapter 1THUD Scarlet Letters woke with a start. Bloody Hearts, what was that sound? Her eyes darted left, then right in the faint light of the waning crescent moon just outside her window on the second floor of the Golden Oaks Library. She sat there in tense silence, holding her breath. What had woken her up? Were the changelings back? Was this the invasion that would— No. Stop that, she scolded herself internally. Her long dormant guard training kicked in and she quickly muzzled the gnawing fear in the back of her mind. She made a mental checklist of things to do, and put panic way down low at the bottom as the last entry. THUD, came the sound again. In her mental checklist, she highlighted, underlined, and circled the last entry. At the top of the list read: Breathe. And she did, daring to make noise for the first time that night as she gulped for air. Next on the list was assess her surroundings. She was still in her bed. Well, technically the library’s bed. Okay, the cloud mattress was hers, but the bed frame was sort of built into the woodwork that made up this particularly peculiar domicile and… she was getting off track. She took another breath and continued her assessment. Bed: check. Changeling Hit Squad Ready to Strike: No check. Scarlet smiled. So far, she was two for two. She spent the next few moments going through the rest of her checklist. When she reached the item that was third from the bottom, she frowned. This one was Get out of bed. This did not bode well for Scarlet, as the bed was very comfy. She brought it all the way from Trottingham when she moved here. And, as ashamed as she was to admit it, even to herself, she felt a child-like sense of safety wrapped in her cloudy comforter. Surely no monsters, ghouls, or ghosties could get her in— THUD, came the insistent sound once more. But it was softer. And somehow deeper. Like it was coming from the roots of the old living library somehow. Scarlet watched as the large portrait of the Goddess of Magic on the other side of the room shook with this latest noise, and settled in a wholly undignified and crooked position, as if mocking her commitment to perfectly aligned hanging wires. She’d just dusted that! The nerve of some bumps-in-the-night. She sighed quietly to herself as she clambered out of the perceived safety of her cloud mattress, and watched it with longing as it floated back up to the ceiling where it bumped softly against the natural wood ceiling. Out and about, the red pegasus alighted over to the portrait and set about her newly appended highest priority list item: Straighten the Silk Painting of Princess Twilight Sparkle. She smiled at a job well done, and moved on to the next item, the second from the bottom of her hastily assembled mental checklist, just above Panic. It was the most important item on the list, but truth be told, it was the one she was least excited about. Investigate the thudding sound. Her maroon wings flapped and fidgeted at her side as she toyed with the idea of skipping over this step entirely and jumping headlong into panic. But she learned back in the guard that a Mare doesn’t live by half measures. Not if she wants to make it to the next— THUD She grimaced but stayed silent as she fluttered back into the air on quiet, unassuming wings. Whatever awful thing was down there on the ground floor of Ponyville’s second oldest historical landmark clearly didn’t care if it was heard. But that didn’t mean she had to go in wings-a-blazin’. Scarlet was a librarian now that the war was over. And that meant folks expected a certain amount of grace. Charm. Princess-like elegance. It’d do her no good in the eyes of the citizens of Ponyville if their new librarian was screaming like a demon outta Tartarus at… She glanced over at the clock on the wall and growled under her breath. Three in the morning. Brilliant. “Well,” she sighed to herself, “Let’s get this over with.” Keeping to the shadows like they trained her in the guard, she hovered on up and out of the open door that connected her assigned living quarters and the rest of the library. It wasn’t hard to stay hidden, what with how dark it was. It was however quiet a pain in the flank to make out just about anything down at the ground level, what with how dark it was. She flew clockwise along the ceiling, outside of the dim light cast by the central stained-glass skylight and above the windows the lined the upper walls. It was tricky, but she wasn’t in a hurry. She took the time to do it right. The thumps and thuds she’d heard previously were gone, replaced by a much subtler shuffling sound coming from a door she could now make out on the first floor of the library. A door she’d never seen before. She scrunched up her face in thought. Scarlet was the new librarian here in Ponyville, and she’d only been at her post for two weeks. But the library wasn’t exactly the Canterlot Archives. There were six, maybe seven rooms in the whole place, not counting the living quarters. She knew for a fact that the very door she was looking at had not been there before tonight. She scoffed to herself. Doors don’t just appear out of nowhere… Do they? As she was preparing to fly down and investigate, the mystery door began to open. Scarlet frowned tight-lipped as she made ready to check off the last two boxes on her mental checklist at the same time. Finally a form began to emerge from the darkness beyond the scary new door, and Scarlet found herself pressed against the elegant trim that lined edges where the ceiling met the library’s high walls. The red pegasus mare held her breath and waited for something to happen. The form exited fully from beyond the door and Scarlet marveled at both its seemingly amorphous head and its size. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a changeling. Only a queen could be that large, but Chrysalis was dea— There was a purple flash and the door disappeared. Scarlet heard herself gasp loudly and she jammed both forehooves into her mouth, but it was too late. The creature below had heard her. It turned its massive glob of a head to face her, and Scarlet realized that she was quivering under the creature’s all-seeing gaze. She knew it was looking at her. For an instant, Scarlet felt that it was looking through her. Like it was looking for some unspoken name or unseen face that only it could know. And then the feeling was gone. Fully and uncompromisingly terrified of what she’d just experienced, Scarlet Letters, thirty seventh librarian of the Golden Oak’s Library, checked off the last item on her mental check list with a flourish that would make any cerebral calligrapher instantly jealous. The former guardsmare pushed off the wall as hard as she could and flew for the relative safety of her assigned living quarters. If she could make it there and out into the streets beyond, she cou— “Wait,” said a voice, softly. Though the tone implied it was not a suggestion. The librarian didn’t answer, nor did she wait. Though in her fear, she couldn’t help but squeak out a miserable little whimper. She was only a few feet from the door when a purple aura slammed it shut. Scarlet looked left and then right before opting to angle towards one of the high windows in a nearby wall. She smirked at the sudden recollection of her old combat instructor’s motto: Self-defenestration is the better part of valor. She flew as fast as her wings would take her. She was never the fastest flyer, but she knew she could work up enough speed to break through one of these old panes of glass. At the precise moment, she angled herself up a bit and folded her wings back. Now more of a faller than a flier, she tucked her hindlegs to her chest and covered her head with her forelegs, and braced for impact. But the impact never came. Tentatively, she opened one eye. Then another. Scarlet had found herself wrapped in the selfsame purple haze that shut off her last escape route and removed a door from existence not more than a minute ago. Her vision was filled with light and she winced, blinking back against the brightness. The creature had lit every available candle, fireplace, and magelight in the library. Then it began to spin her around in her shimmering magic prison. Scarlet struggled to keep her wits about her. There was no way, no how she wanted to see what this creature from beyond looked like. No way, no… “I’m so sorry, did I wake you My Little Pony?” asked Princess Twilight Sparkle as she turned Scarlet around to face her. Scarlet’s mind raced a mile a minute, and then promptly went blank. The only other time she’d even seen the Goddess of Magic in the flesh was during The Big Push just before the end of the war. But the smiling and gentle pony standing below her looked nothing like the living weapon she saw on the battlefield that day. Especially in those bunny slippers. Scarlet had no idea what to do, or what to say. So she did what any Trottingham native would do. She offered Princess Twilight Sparkle a cup of tea.
Chapter 2Scarlet Letters hummed an off-pitch tune to herself as she rifled through the cabinetry of the library’s kitchen. She was trying rather desperately to soothe her frazzled nerves, but she wasn’t having much luck in that regard. Nor was she having any luck in the whole ‘finding tea’ category, either. She did however manage to send an adorable mug with a pair of hugging kittens on it smashing to the ground. “Is everything alright in there?” asked the concerned voice of her unexpected royal guest. “Oh my, y-yes, haha,” she laughed nervously in reply. “Just looking for the tea. It seems to have run off.” Pulling her hoof out of the cabinet, Scarlet cursed as her shaky limb managed to dislodge a second mug, one that claimed to be WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND. As it tumbled through the air, she instinctively kicked at it when the doomed cup fell past her hips. Instantly bemoaning the impulse, she winced as it sailed on a terminal arc with the refrigerator door. The mug hit and burst like a piñata full of ceramic shards. The kind of piñata that would get you in trouble with the local constabulary because they tend to frown on the whole ‘feed shards of things to foals.’ At any rate, the score was now gravity two, Scarlet zero. For a brief snippet of time, Scarlet felt like she was being stretched and pulled. It was reminiscent in a way to the time she got stuck in a taffy machine as a small filly. In the next instant, she was sitting at the table back in the library’s main room. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, and found herself completely devoid of content. So she made a series of polite noises instead. Princess Twilight smiled reassuringly at the bumbling librarian, rose to her hooves, and made her way into her old kitchen. “Please, allow me,” she said, brooking no argument. None was given. Scarlet Letters spent the next few minutes looking around the library. She’d not yet taken the opportunity to just sit and enjoy the library’s main room since she took up the post two weeks prior. It’s not that it wasn’t beautiful or well maintained or anything. She just didn’t care for public spaces. Not after what happened in Appleoosa. “Cream and sugar?” came a question from the kitchen just over the sound of the boiling kettle. Scarlet nodded, before catching herself and answering out loud “Yes, please.” The Goddess of Magic re-entered the main room from the kitchen with a smile of nostalgia on her otherwise tired face. Seated on her back and balanced by partially extended wings, she carried a tray laden with tea and goodies. Taking the tray in her teeth as she reached the table, she set it down between the two mares and sat down with a contented sigh. Scarlet marveled at the little apple jam filled pastries that sat on the tray alongside the tea and its trappings. They smelled fresh from the oven, and she could feel the warmth radiating off of them, but she knew that couldn’t be. Princess Twilight’s magic bandied about the table, filling her mug with steaming hot liquid that smelled of mint, and grabbing one of the pastries and putting it on the plate in front of her. Scarlet took it as a sign to do the same, and filled her own cup before winging the remaining pastry over to her plate. The two strangers sat in the library at just after three in the morning and sipped their tea in silence. Scarlet felt like a voyeur as she watched the Princess sigh her happy sighs and smile her genuine smiles as her eyes danced around the library. Scarlet reached for her mug and took a sip, for bravery, before daring to dive into conversation with an actual, factual Princess. “So!” she blurted, catching the undivided attention of the divine being on the other side of the table. “What uh... that is to say, why... how...” She found the bravery melt out of her words and sink to somewhere far beneath floor as the Princess looked her right in the eyes. If a pony could wilt, Scarlet Letters would be one such pony. “You know, this is one of my favorite places in the whole world,” Princess Twilight said, more to herself than to Scarlet. Scarlet looked up and smiled. “Oh. Is it, mum?” The purple Princess nodded. “It is. Did you know I used to be the librarian here?” “Oh. Fancy that. You know, I do believe it was mentioned on the brochure.” Of course Scarlet knew that the Goddess of Magic was once the librarian here at Golden Oaks library. Everypony in the library arts knew that. It’s a given, like how the Solar Court raises the Sun, or that everypony has a cutie mark. The Princess looked down into her cup and added another sugar cube before giving it a judicious stirring. “So much happened in this town. In these walls. I’d do anything to keep it from harm.” She looked up and fixed the pegasus across the table with a gaze that could scare the stink off a manticore. “Anything.” Scarlet Letters, feeling every bit the chastised child, nodded furiously. “Oh yes mum, absolutely mum. Perish the thought, mum.” Princess Twilight’s damning glare washed away so quickly, that for a moment Scarlet wondered if she imagined the whole thing. The two mares returned to silence as they went about their tea in the early morning stillness. “Sorry.” Scarlet looked up from her half-eaten pastry at the Princess. Did she just— “I’m sorry. The last few months have been tough. For me, at least. I guess I’m still worried that just about anypony could be a changeling.” Scarlet reached across the table and patted the Alicorn across from her on the hoof. It was an instinct to comfort. One she couldn’t fight in the face of the tears that threatened the other mare’s face. “It’s been tough for all of us, mum. For what it’s worth I’m… I’m still not over my time in the war either.” The Princess looked at her with new eyes. “What’s your name, soldier?” The red pegasus stood up and saluted before responding. “Flight Lieutenant Scarlet Letters of the 501st Squadron.” “The 501st?” the Princess asked, as she worked through her mental organizational charts. “So you flew under Tempest, right?” Scarlet laughed bittersweetly, remembering the zany old stallion who led the 501st. Cracked as he was, the changelings never did figure him out. “Yes mum, I served under old Grey Gills right up till the end.” “That’s right you all were at The Big Push…” she trailed off and stared into her tea cup again. Scarlet joined her, and the two sat in silence once more. Until something purple caught her attention from the corner of her eye. It was the Princess. She was reaching across the table. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Scarlet. I’m Twilight, if you please. I like to keep things informal between us librarians.” Scarlet Letters took the hoof in her own and shook firmly, smiling mutely back at the immortal creature she was now on a first name basis with. “That is, assuming you’re the new librarian, and not just a squatter,” Twilight offered dryly before taking a sip of her tea. Absentmindedly, the new librarian replied “I’ve got my degree in Library Arts hanging in the bedroom if you care to come up and see it.” Twilight simply raised an eyebrow at the now furiously blushing mare as she continued to sip her tea. The pegasus from Trottingham, completely aghast at the folly of her careless words stared with boundless interest into the grain of the table. She marveled silently at its craftmareship as she nervously clapped her forehooves together just over her lukewarm mug. She also prayed for an aneurism to kill her dead on the spot. Gently, Twilight lowered her mug to the table and smiled slyly. “Perhaps another time. Tell me, why did you choose Ponyville? Surely there were libraries back in Trottingham that could use your services?” “Oh. I uh…” Scarlet sat up and the blood drained a bit from her face. By the way her ears where pinned back, Twilight knew everything she needed to know. “Honestly mu—Twilight, if it’s all the same to you, I’d... rather not talk about Trottingham.” “Of course Scarlet, forgive me. We’ve all got our little secrets, after all,” she said with a soft smile as she nodded towards the empty spot on the wall where the door that started all of this had appeared and then disappeared. Scarlet smiled back gratefully. “Have you met any of the locals yet?” Scarlet let out a puff of air and dropped her head to the table, resting her chin on the plate that once held a tasty apple pastry. “More than my fair share, I’m afraid.” “Oh?” “Just between you and me?” Scarlet looked left, and then right before leaning closer to Twilight, who also leaned forward to hear what the other mare had to offer. “I think the ponies in this town are crazy.” Scarlet considered herself a mare of action. She was always one to come up with a list, a plan if you will, of what needed to be done in just about any situation. But for the second time this early morning, her mind drew a complete blank. The first was when she was presented with the awe and splendor of Princess Twilight Sparkle standing in her library. The second was right now, when she was present for the barking, nigh-hysterical laughter of Twilight Sparkle, her new Alicorn friend.
Chapter 3The familiar warmth of the morning sun woke the librarian of Golden Oaks Library from her strange dream. Something about the Goddess of Magic… and tea. Scarlet Letters opened her bleary eyes and smiled as the limbs and branches of her living home danced about in the steady breeze. The light shimmered off the dewy leaves as they rustled in the soft wind, and flickered as it streamed in through the window above her steamer trunk-turned-wardrobe. She loved plants. Vibrant, living, green plants. She always had. It was a curious thing, for a pegasus to be so drawn to the earthly pleasures like gardening, but she couldn’t help it. It ran in the family. When she first set eyes on the library… Well she just knew it was where she was meant to be. Scarlet stretched lazily and rolled her wings this way and that, delighting in the soft pops that came as a result. She smacked her lips and slid her tongue along her teeth, tasting the last traces of apple and pastry dough. Her eyes shot open with a start. It wasn’t a dream… was it? Memories from late last night came floating back into the forefront of her mind. She remembered accidentally confronting the Princess in the Library. She remembered offering her tea. She winced as she remembered the whole ‘would you like to come up to my bedroom and see my diploma’ thing, and right after the Princess… Twilight told her to keep things informal. She chuckled at her own foolishness. Too informal, Scarlet. Too informal. She recalled a second cup of tea for both herself and the Goddess of Magic. She recalled a most pleasant conversation that followed about the magic of friendship and her stories about the quaint little hamlet surrounding them. It was… nice. It was the first time in a long time she just sat and chatted. She frowned to herself. It was a pity Twilight had to leave, so soon after their third cup of tea, but the whole affair skirted on the boundary of what could be considered appropriate in polite society. She moved to hop off of her cloud mattress and noticed a purple something out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to look at the foreign object, she couldn’t help but smile. It was a feather. A long purple feather. Resting on her makeshift dresser. Scarlet Letters slipped out of bed, feeling the cloud mattress brush past her rump as it rose into the air behind her. The feather in question was laying on her steamer trunk, the one piece of furniture she owned. Moving with purpose, she walked over to the feather and balked. It sat on a folded piece of parchment, sealed with red wax in what she recognized as one of the two Royal Seals of Equestria. She’d seen this particular seal once before when she got his… letter… “No,” Scarlet said to herself, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath. “It’s not one of those letters. Today is a new day.” She repeated the mantra like the organizer of her survivor support group back in Trottingham had urged them all to do, until she actually believed it. She popped open the letter and braved the text within. Dear Scarlet, Good morning! I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. Thank you so much for the tea last night and the pleasant conversation. I’ve gone without those simple pleasures for so long that I had forgotten how wonderful they truly are. Thank you for helping an old mare remember. On the topic of remembering, our conversation brought to mind so many memories. Memories of my time in Ponyville. As I write this, it strikes me that you seemed, well to be perfectly frank, resentful of the idea that you should make friends in Ponyville. I understand your trepidations and concerns, as I had similar misgivings when I first became a librarian there around a hundred years ago. But please, believe me when I say that the crazy ponies of Ponyville are well worth the effort it takes to befriend them. So, to encourage you to get out there and make some new friends, I’m giving you an assignment. Scarlet looked up from the letter and blinked. “Is she serious?” If you are wondering, yes I am quite serious. I’d like you to send me regular updates, reporting on the town and its population. I want you to get out there and meet the folks around you, to make friends… and maybe more. There’s something about that library that turns mares into old spinsters, so don’t be afraid to buck the trend, hmm? Oh and that reminds me, there’s a ‘one cat per librarian’ ordinance for the library. I don’t think it was covered in the housing paperwork, but Glenn Dale can tell you all about that if you have any questions. But I digress. Don’t bother with the mail to send your reports, just use the magical quill I left with this letter whenever you write me, and then burn the letters. Yes, you read that right, burn them after you write them. Trust me, I’ll get them. As for responses… Well I’m working on a spell for that. Hopefully they’ll pop up where you’d expect them too. But I confess I’ve not done this without Spike before, so it’ll be an adventure for both of us. I wish you the best of luck in your new life here in Ponyville. Twilight Scarlet screwed up her face in befuddlement at the letter, and shook her head. Glenn Dale? Spike? Burn the letters after writing them? Homework? It’s been a long time since she’s had a homework assignment. With a red wing she opened the top drawer of her steamer trunk and slid the letter in with her unmentionables. Pinning the quill behind her left ear she made her way out into the hall and across to the bathroom to get ready for what she was hoping would be another uneventful day. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, Scarlet left the living quarters and hopped merrily down the stairs into the library’s main room. With each hop she opened her wings just enough to feel the otherwise still air rush across her feathers. She grinned as she did it, remembering how her mother would chastise her for such unladylike behavior whenever she did it in public. It was simply not the sort of thing a proper lady does. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed a curious fact. Somepony, somewhere in the library, was humming. She moved to the reading table in the center of the main room, and looked about. The humming continued it’s happy obliviousness, but she couldn’t find the source. Changelings don’t hum, do they? “H-hello?” she called out to the disembodied voice. Suddenly, there was a muffled cry, and a soot covered stallion fell out of the nearby chimney. If Scarlet made a list of the one hundred most likely things to happen this morning, a soot covered stallion falling out of her fireplace would be no where on it. The stallion coughed and sputtered as he rose up to his hooves. He was tall and lean, that much she could see right away. Still coughing, he stood on a dirty tarp at the foot of the fireplace. Trying her best to showcase the calm that all Trottingham natives are known the world over for, she took a deep breath and asked the stranger who he was and what his business was. Unfortunately it came out as “WHOAREYOUANDWHATAREYOUDOINGINMYHOUSE!” as shouted by a clearly insane pony with little to no control over the volume of her voice. The stallion winced and two sooty wings, previously unnoticed by the shrieking mare, shot out of his sides. Whether it was an subconscious attempt to look bigger to scare away a predator, or an overly optimistic mating display, was completely lost on both ponies. A few tense moments of silence passed before the stallion dared to make another sound. Which was just a whole lot more of the coughing he forgot to do while not breathing. Scarlet just stared at him as he coughed, until she couldn’t take it any more. “WELL?!” “Huh?” he coughed out. She nodded, and took a moment to compose herself. “Who are you?” she asked in the least threatening tone she could manage. “Oh! I’m Chim Chimalee,” he coughed, “but you can call me Lee, everypony else does.” He offered her a hoofshake, but she just looked at the sooty appendage. “Okay, Lee," she said with raised eyebrow. "Why are you in my house?” His coughing fit ended, he looked around the room and shook his head. “Uh… Actually I think this is the library.” Scarlet felt her left eye twitch. “Yes Lee. I’m Scarlet Letters. The librarian. I live here. Now. Why are you in my house?” At that he grinned broadly. “Oh! I’m Ponyville’s chimney sweep! I’m here to clean your chimney.” “Are you? Well I… I-I’m sorry, before we continue, can you do something about your ah… wings?” Lee looked behind him and noticed his two best friends were still standing at full attention. Turning back with a bit of a blush to his cheeks, he willed them back down after a moment of deep concentration. Scarlet sighed to herself, with the understanding that Lee wasn’t the sharpest knife in the apple cart. She continued. “As I was going to say… You know what? Forget it. Could you kindly see yourself out before I call the guard?” He sat his hind end down down and shook the soot from him like a dog shaking off water. What she assumed was a uniform sootiness to his coat and mane revealed a mauve coat with a tousled blonde mane. “No can do, Mrs. Letters—” “That’s Ms.Letters.” Lee took a moment to process this information and smiled. “Cool. Yeah, anyway, it’s the first Thursday of the month. I’ve got a contract with Glenn Dale to hit up all the public buildings in town to clean out their firepla—.” Scarlet cut him off with a series of polite noises, shaking her head, “Okay new rule, Lee, are we ready?” He nodded. “When you come to clean out the fireplaces of the library before business hours, you have to knock first, okay? You can’t just let yourself in.” He started to nod again, but stopped suddenly. “But what if the Library’s open for business?” “Well then… you can just come in like anypony, deal?” He nodded a third time without pause. She clapped her forehooves together and smiled. “Excellent! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some breakfast. You do… whatever it is you need to do in here and then… leave. Okay? Great. Do try and keep the soot out of the books, hmm?” He nodded a fourth time, grinning like a fool, before he made his way back up into the flue. Scarlet watched curiously as the large stallion fit his upper half into such a tight place. Then she decided not to think too hard about it, and headed off into the kitchen. If all the stallions were as thick-headed as Lee here, then Twilight’s prophetic calculations on librarians to spinsters would be right on the money. Although… She chanced a peak over her shoulder at the tall stallion’s muscular flank and— Yeah, no. She shook her head, disappointed in her own wandering eyes, and hussled into the kitchen for a right proper breakfast.
Chapter 4Scarlet Letters walked into her kitchen, and leaned against the counter to the left of the sink. With a disinterested flick and a dexterous twist of her right magenta wing, cold water flowed from the faucet onto last night’s dishes. It was then that she let out a breath. Her limbs shook and her eyelids twitched as she stared out of the porthole style window that looked out into downtown Ponyville from her kitchen sink. She grimaced as felt the familiar ache as the adrenaline drained out of her body. Scarlet didn’t like surprises. She did once, but that was long ago. Before the war. If there’s anything she learned during her service, it was that surprises had a nasty habit of leaving a body count. Even when they didn’t, even when the surprise was a pleasant one, it still left her with chills and a racing heart. Scarlet cursed at her foalishness. The war was over. It had been over for three months. Maybe she would one day grow to like surprises again. But having that unknown stallion stumble out of a chimney just now was a little too much for a girl who spent the last year in the dark shadow of war. “The war is over,” she whispered over running water in the sink, and the dying tingle in her chest. Like a swimmer pushing off the side of a pool, she pushed off the counter, into the air, and away from her own grim thoughts. It wasn’t long before she felt the top of her mane brush up against the natural wood ceiling. Slowly, she spun in place like one of those air-ballet dancers from Prance and took in the room as she compiled her breakfast checklist. Item One: Make tea. Item Two: Everything else. With a nod, Scarlet floated on over to her newfangled stove that dominated the western wall of the kitchen. It was supposedly powered by electricity instead of magic, just as it was supposedly a housewarming gift from her harpy of a mother. In all likelihood, it was probably from her brother, Haythorne. She smiled as the mental image of her big brother popped into her head as she turned one of the stove’s cast iron knobs to high. Haythorne was a good pony and a great brother. He clearly meant well and his heart was always in the right place, but it would take more than a new stove to rebuild the charred remains of the bridge at the bottom of the bottomless pit that was Scarlet’s relationship with her mother. Scarlet drifted back over to the sink in a lazy arch with her favorite kettle in hoof. She filled it to just an inch or so below the brim with icy cold water before lugging the heavy thing back over to rest on the candy apple red burner. The few drops of water that had found their way down to the underside of her kettle hissed and boiled away when scorching metal of the burner came in contact. She smiled at that. She turned back and flittered to the sink to wash out her teapot and its strainer basket. As she worked, she heard a soft tapping against the kitchen’s door frame and a voice call out from behind her. “Chimney’s clean, Ms. Letters.” Scarlet looked over her shoulder at the smiling stallion as he wiped the last of the soot off of his hooves with a rag. She looked him up and down. He was clearly waiting for something. “Thank you?” she asked with eyebrow raised. He puffed up his chest and tossed the dirty rag behind him back into the library, much to her displeasure. “Hay, no problem. It’s my job, after all!” “Splendid,” she deadpanned. “Well, good day Lee, I suppose I’ll see you in a few weeks. Do remember to knock, if you’d be so kind.” She turned back to her teapot and rinsed it out one last time before setting it to rest on a dish towel beside the drying strainer basket. She turned towards the pantry to fish out some tea leaves when she caught a rather sight of the mauve figure still standing in her doorway. She looked over his shoulder to the clock in the library’s main room. She had ten minutes until she had to open for business. “Is there something else you need, Lee?” asked Scarlet in a huff. “No,” he said a little too quickly. Though Scarlet thought she caught the hint of a blush across his face as he sputtered on with, “Well I mean, maybe we—” “Let me cut you off there, Lee,” she said as she turned abruptly in place. “Frankly, you scared the feathers off me this morning, and that’s put me in a rather foul mood.” “But I—“ “And I’m hungry, which does tend to put a damper on anypony’s mood, regardless of how carefree and/or giddy they happen to be. At the moment I am not at all giddy, and all of my care is wrapped up in finding something to eat before I have to open the library.” He nodded with a frown and slumped shoulders as he sulked out of the kitchen. Scarlet stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway. Something was eating away at her as she listened to Lee pack up his supplies in the main room. Something besides hunger. It was Twilight’s words, from the letter. The ones about making friends. She crept up to the doorframe and peeked her head beyond, watching the downcast Lee as he trundled towards the door with his pack on his back. She called out to him, “Lee?” and he looked over his shoulder with a quizzical expression. “I’m sorry Lee,” said Scarlet, tugging inattentively on a hoofful her long baby blue mane, “I didn’t get a great deal of sleep last night, and as I mentioned I’m hungry. Plus there’s the whole ‘scared out of my wits’ this morning thing but… What I’m trying I say is…” “Yes?” She smiled at the stallion and stood a bit taller. A bit straighter. “Remember to knock next time, okay? Maybe we can talk and get to know each other. I’ll be sure to have a fresh cup of tea ready for you.” Lee stared at the pretty mare with his mouth open in a little ‘o’. It took him a moment to really parse what was said, but by the time he did, he was already nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah! Cool!” He kept watching her as he walked forward and waved a wing at her. “See ya later, Ms. LettOOF—” he blurted out as he walked into the wall next to the library’s front door. Scrambling out of his pony pile beside the door, he blushed furiously as he collected himself, his things, turned the knob, opened the door, and galloped out as quickly as possible. Smiling at the charmingly klutzy colt as he dashed out of the building, Scarlet turned back into the kitchen proper and over to the pantry. She didn’t have much time, but the day was looking up. Scarlet Letters was determined to have a decent breakfast before the day began in earnest. Scarlet frowned and sat slumped in her little circulation desk, ignoring the hoofful of library patrons as they milled about her library. Next to the spot where she was resting her chin sat a half-filled, lukewarm cup of what could charitably be called ‘tea’ and otherwise known as ‘hot liquid rubbish’ by any Trottingham native. At least the hugging kittens painted on the side had the decency to look cheerful. Her last minutes of personal time had been all used up hours ago, split into equal parts frantic searching for even a crumb of nourishment and tearful resignation as her awful tea brewed. She allowed herself one minute for pouting, but only just. The librarian’s stomach rumbled and she sighed. No apple pastries, no cereal, not even a burnt crust of bread with a scrape of jam. Nothing. She knew she was low on rations, but to run out completely? That wasn’t like her. Scarlet furrowed her brow as she came to the only reasonable conclusion. Magic. Specifically the Goddess of Magic. She must have done something. Maybe she turned all her supplies into those tasty pastries last night. She looked at her mug of tea out of the corner of her eye and remembered it shattering to pieces last night. And yet here it was, no worse for the wear. Clearly, magic was involved here - a dastardly, sinister magic that left hunger and grumpiness in its wake. It was a pity Pri— Twilight didn’t magic up some tea for her to have in the morning. All that was left in her bare cupboards had been a dusty forgotten box of Liptony tea bags that were left by previous librarian before she retired a few months ago. Her stomach gurgled again, and she let out a groan in the minor key to accompany it. Scarlet Letters was in desperate need of a trip to the general store and perhaps a few laps around the market. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She had twenty minutes before she could close up for lunch. Lunch. The word rolled around in her mind along with visions of daffodil salads, tomato sandwiches, and piping hot cheesy potato soups. She grinned. She salivated. She looked at the clock. Nineteen minutes and forty six seconds. Forty five. Forty four. Forty thr— Her blissful countdown to her savory salvation was brought to an immediate and unpleasant halt when the sound of paper being ripped filled the otherwise quiet main room of the library. Her library. There it was again. Somepony was ripping paper in her library! Possibly out of a book! Forgetting all about lunch, the former soldier leapt into the air and hovered in the center of the room, scanning the patrons for the perpetrator. Said patrons, for the most part ignored her. Though one of them, an old yellow codger of a pegasus with a stove for a cutie mark, looked up from his cookbook long enough to disapprovingly shake his head and mutter something about youngsters. The terrible sound came again. Not the old stallion’s complaining, but the ripping sound. Its awful refrain pinned her ears back to the top of her head. It was coming from the Nonfiction Nook. She alighted over the shelves swiftly, and came to rest on top of a bookcase of local bibliographies. Peering down into the nook, like a hawk watching rabbits at play, she noticed three fillies sitting at a small table. Three fillies with a book and a small stack of torn pages between them on said small table. Three fillies who were just now, right before her very eyes, ripping another page out of one her library books.
Chapter 5“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Scarlet, her muzzle turned up in scrunchy indignation. As one, the three fillies looked up at Scarlet. One of them, the little earth pony with the off white coat and peppermint striped hair, answered back with a cocked head. “Umm… Homework?” The filly sitting next to the one that spoke stared up at her with wide eyes, still in the process of tearing out the page underhoof. Scarlet dropped down from the top of the shelf without a sound, her wings catching the air just before one of her forehooves touched down on the table and coming to rest on the half torn page. “What the hay, lady?” asked the tearing terror, flapping her own wings in frustration. “Quiet over there!” demanded a creaky voice by the center of the library, “Some of us are trying to read, ya dern kids!” The little filly, a pegasus, groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. “We’re doing our homework. What’s your problem?” The third filly at the table, a unicorn, spoke up before Scarlet could respond. “Boomer, be nice!” she said, half-begging. “She’s the librarian. She can throw us out!” The pegasus filly named Boomer regarded Scarlet like she was an anthill that was just asking to be kicked over, before shrugging. “So. What do you want with us?” Scarlet knocked the filly’s hoof off of the book with a swat of her wing, and scooped up all the torn pages. “I want you to stop tearing pages out of my books.” The earth pony spoke up again. “We weren’t gonna steal them. We just needed to borrow them for our genieostomy project.” “I think you mean genealogy,” corrected Scarlet. “At least, it is my fervent hope you meant genealogy.” “Hopscotch, what’s a fervent?” asked the earth pony. “I think I’ve seen one of those at the pet store,” answered the unicorn, apparently named Hopscotch. “You talk funny,” said Boomer. “I’m from Trottingham,” explained Scarlet, her patience wearing thin. “It’s my accent. To me, your maneland accent sounds funny. But nevermind all that, why were you tearing pages out of these books to begin with?” “We have to research our family histories for our field trip to Canterlot next week,” said Hopscotch. “Uh huh,” said the earth pony, with a nod of her head. “We’re making posters for Princess Twilight to show how we’re all connected. My great-great-great-great Nana was a nurse here in Ponyville back when Princess Twilight lived here!” “Hey, Lucy,” asked the unicorn across from her in a giggle. “Does that make her your Nana-nana-nana?” The other two laughed, and Scarlet’s stomach turned itself in knots as she thought about banana bread, banana chips, bananas foster, fried bana- “I’m so going to use that in my poster, Hopscotch!” said Lucy, before picking up her pencil with her teeth to hastily scribbled it down in her notebook. “My yes, what fun we’re having,” muttered Scarlet as she organized the torn pages as best she could. She’d have to send it off for repairs. “A real lark, as it were. But come now, you shouldn’t need to tear the pages out of my books for this project. You could’ve easily borrowed the books who—” “The books we need are really super heavy!” interrupted Hopscotch. “Yeah,” agreed Lucy, her peppermint bangs bouncing as she nodded, “And we only needed a few of the pages, so we figured—” “Okay, dobbins, new rule: If you want to borrow the pages of a book, you need to borrow the whole—” “Dobbins?" snickered the hateful Boomer, "What’s a dobbins?” Scarlet stared daggers at the little pegasus, and scowled with the sort of frown that portends a very poor choice by its owner. “Alright, young lady,” she said, with a roll of her shoulders. “You wanna play tough? I can play tough. Your parents. Give me their names.” Lucy and Hopscotch shared gasps. Scarlet flashed a smirk of her own at the stubborn Boomer, who was refusing eye contact. “That’s right. If you’re going to act like a brute in my library, well then there’s got to be consequences. And I, for one, would like to know what your mother thinks of your behavior.” Stunned silence was her answer. Perhaps a little too much silence. Some instinctual something was beginning to gnaw at Scarlet, and her smirk fell off. Boomer still refused to look her in the eye, but the same couldn’t be said for the other two fillies, who starred at Scarlet with such intensity, that she felt compelled to look away. Moments passed, and she made a passing effort at trying to piece the book back together. This is ridiculous, she thought, chiding herself, Just get their parents’ names, and be done with it. Then it’s off for lunch. Her stomach growled, and Scarlet let out the breath she’d been holding in a sigh. She cleared her throat and started to speak. And that was when she heard Boomer’s crying. She looked up from the pile of pages, and saw Boomer sitting there with gritted teeth and tears in her eyes. Her unicorn friend, Hopscotch was up in a flash, and doing her best to comfort her. “It’s okay Boomer,” the candy colored filly implored. “Don’t let that old librarian get to you. Your mom was awesome.” “Old?” balked Scarlet, before the rest of the filly’s words clicked in her mind. “Was?” she asked quietly, her ears flat against her head. Lucy, the earth pony got out of her chair too, and helped Boomer up on her hooves. Slowly the filly trio walked out of the Nonfiction section, with Boomer trying desperately to hide her tears in her friend’s mane, but her sobbing was making that rather impossible. “Hey… wait a minute,’ said a deflated Scarlet, trying desperately to get a handle on a rapidly deteriorating situation. She gathered up the pages in a hurry, shut them in the book, and tried to fly off after them. Hopscotch got between her and Boomer. “We’re leaving, alright?!” she huffed, her face red with emotion. “We’re sorry about your stupid book. Just leave her alone, you big meanie!” Chastized, Scarlet hung there in the air, holding the damaged book to her chest. She watched as the three fillies turned the corner. She listened to one filly’s crying matched with three sets of tiny hooves as they wound their way across the wooden floor of her library and out the door. It was shut with a soft click that resounded like a slap across the face. She stayed there for a while, hugging the book. The clock above the fireplace in the library’s main room chimed noon. Scarlet flapped her way down Oak, the street named after her library. She wasn’t out on her lunch break. She had closed the library early, instead. Closed until further notice. Perhaps until the next librarian was foolish enough to come to this one-cart town. As she went she couldn’t help but catch the looks and little bits of the whispered conversations around her. About her. Ponyville was a still small town and news spread quickly. She shook her head and flapped harder, gaining some altitude. She couldn’t escape their pointed stares, but at least she’d get high enough that she couldn’t hear the gossiping ground pounders. As she rose into the air she spotted the general store off of Mare-de-Sun Avenue in the distance. She went over her shopping list in her head. Scarlet had just gotten to Quinces when a shouting middle-aged mare on a nearby cloud got her attention. “She’s just a kid, you know!” decried the scowling blue-grey pegasi. Scarlet stopped dead and hovered in the air. Her dander was up considerably. “Ah. And that’s all the reason she needs to be rude, is it?” The other mare, frowned at that. “Boomer’s a good kid,” she said defensively. “Losing her mom in the war was really hard on her and her family. It was hard on all of us here in Ponyville. You need to—” Scarlet’s gaze was so frigid, so fraught with peril, that the other mare shivered as her words died in her throat. “Did you serve?” asked Scarlet. “What?” “Did you serve in the Heartbreak War?” Scarlet asked again, her whole body trembling. “N-no, war is… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “The war was tough on all of us,” remarked Scarlet. “But she doesn’t get a pass on being a decent pony just because she lost a parent. That’s not how life works.” The other pegasus stomped her cloud out of existence, and hovered in place. “What is wrong with you? She’s a filly who lost her mom. You can’t just tell her to rub some dirt into it,” she spat, fighting the obvious waver in her voice. Scarlet waved her forelegs at the mare. “Are we done here?” she shouted. “If not, can you just sum it up for me? I’ve got grocery shopping to do.” The other mare huffed in frustration. “If you’re going to be our new librarian, and Cadence help us if you are, maybe you should get to know the rest of the town before you decide to make any more children cry.” And then she flew off, not letting Scarlet get a final word in edgewise. She watched as the other mare headed off to the south, descending into town by one of the bridges along Pine. Her stomach knotted itself up, demanding her immediate attention, and she cursed at herself under her own breath. This first friendship letter to Twilight was going to be a disaster.
Chapter 6Today wasn’t just another Thursday for Dusty Shelves, owner and proprietress of the Ponyville General Store. Today was the first Thursday of the month, and that meant it was restocking day. So, as she often found herself doing on restocking days, the earth pony was climbing furniture. Back hoof right, back hoof left, she scrambled and squeezed her way up. With a grunt of effort, she swung with her hips, and flailed about to move just a bit higher. Right forehoof on a stack of old pots. Left forehoof gripping the underside of a shelf. She held her tongue between her teeth in concentration. At the moment, she was attempting to restock the horseshoes. And for the seventh time in as many months, she wondered why she kept her horseshoe restocks in a single crate, beside the stack of cast-iron skillet restocks, all located at the tippy-top of her highest display cabinet. The cabinet that was built into the back wall when the store was first opened by her great-granddaddy, when he had this crazy idea for a fan shop in Ponyville. For nine months out of the year, she could run it on her own just fine. That's because from spring to fall, the old general store rarely saw much in the way of hoof traffic, what with the open-air market just down the block. It was only in the winter when the market was closed that she really needed to hire out some part-time help. It just felt like she needed to hire somepony on restocking day. Maybe somepony with wings. Or a horn. Or even a good length of rope. The cabinet wood creaked as she climbed, with the same moaning creak of her floorboards. Which made sense, since most of the store was made of the same rustic red oak wood used in her floors and other cabinets. Hanging there, she smiled and recalled a childhood memory from when she was a foal, and she climbed the counter to sneak off with a couple of cookies. But she wasn’t after cookies this time. No, this time she was after that awful crate of horseshoe restocks. She really ought to clear out the office on the second floor and use it as a storage room. She never used the darn thing anyway, since it was left it in-state after her mom went to the old folks’ home. A thoughtless shuffle to her right knocked her backhooves into a doomed plate that went crashing to the floor. Her lower half dangled and instinct kicked in. She scurried for purchase. It only cost her a few jars of peach preserve, but in the end she was able move up another foot or so and steady herself. Blinking, she noticed that she was now at the top of the display case, with the horseshoe crate in hoof. She let loose a victorious whoop, tapping on the crate with her forehooves, in happy assurance. She threw open the crate with a smile, and came back with a frown. It was empty save for a note. A note that read Dusty, buy more horseshoes before next restock - Dusty Dusty rolled her eyes at the note and let out a sigh. Then she looked down over her shoulder. Getting down was going to be tric- The adjacent backdoor, slammed opened with a ferocity that dislodged Dusty of her grip and most of her mental faculties. Save for the ones that allow a mare to shout “Nooo!” in overly dramatic slow motion as she falls. She landed softly in somepony’s forearms halfway from the ground, and Dusty’s brain started firing on all cylinders again. This somepony was red. She was also soft and warm. She had feathers, so she was a pegasus. She had long blue hair and she smelled like old books and fresh clouds, so she was Scarlet Letters. “Scarlet?” asked Dusty Shelves, confused. “You made me fall! But then you caught me, so… Thanks?” Scarlet didn’t say anything, opting instead to smile the sad sort of smile that ponies smile when they don’t really mean it. Dusty cocked her head at that. “What’s wrong?” she asked to no avail. The two of them floated back down to the floor, and Dusty climbed out of Scarlet’s grip, mindful of the broken preserve jars here and there. She was about to press Scarlet for more information, when the poor gal’s stomach did the talking, moaning a gurgley gurgle that had the pegasus’ face twist in response. “Sparkle’s garters, Scarlet, when’s the last time you ate?” “Two in the morning?” the new librarian answered back woozily. Dusty shook the other mare by her withers. “Two in the morning? What are you thinking?! You must be starving! Go on and head up front, I've got a special on some day old zucchini muffins. They’re on the platter by the register. Help yourself while I'll get you a glass of milk.” Dusty watched as the other mare waddled down the aisle towards the front of the store with her wings flapping halfheartedly like a drunk albatross trying to take off. She stood there until Scarlet saddled up in one of the creaky bar stools that she rescued from the barbershop when it closed a few years back. When she was seated and chewing with abandon on her first muffin, Dusty smiled, and wandered off to her kitchen to grab a clean glass for her guest. When she returned with the glass in hoof, she wasn’t all that shocked to see that Scarlet had eaten through three muffins half again as big as her hoof, and she was starting to pick at a fourth. “Feeling better?” she asked, putting down the empty glass. Scarlet motioned to speak, covering her mouth daintily with her hoof, but Dusty dismissed it with a smile and a wave of her hoof, turning in place to get a fresh quart of milk out of her ice box. The silence between them was pleasant for the most part, but Dusty could see that something was weighing the pegasus down. And it wasn’t the muffins. A day old or not, these muffins were fluffy buggers. It was the baking soda from Rainbow Falls what did the trick. But she’d never tell. It was her only secret weapon against ol’ Sugarcube Corner. She popped the wax cap off the milk quart, and poured Scarlet a cold glass. Scarlet gave Dusty her first genuine smile of the day, and downed the glass in a few mighty gulps. She put down the glass, and Dusty offered her a handkerchief to whip her muzzle. Scarlet took it and dabbed at her face like she didn’t just consume two meals worth of food in five or so minutes. “Thanks, Dusty,” said Scarlet. “You're a real lifesaver.” Dusty Shelves giggled like rain hitting an empty bucket. “Don't mention it. Here, give me your list. You sit, I'll get your goodies.” “My list?” “Your shopping list, silly,” said Dusty with a knowing look on her face. “Or did you drop by just to say hi?” Scarlet shrugged an apology, and winged her list out of her saddlebag. Dusty looked at the list, smiling at the meticulous script with just a hint of flare in the way she looped her letters. It wasn’t just organized alphabetically, it was organized by the aisle. She trotted down to the imports display, grabbed a wicker basket, and grabbed a tin of Darjeeling Marybong tea. A few more tins went into the basket. Breakfast, afternoon, royal blend… “Wow,” said Dusty. “You really like tea.” Scarlet ‘mhmmed’ from the counter, and Dusty chanced a peek through the display case mirror, seeing the poor gal resting her head on the empty muffin platter. Dusty whapped her bushy tail against her back fetlocks, wracking her brain with how to get Scarlet to open up. She looked back at the list, trying to spot something that could spark conversation. “Pickled herring? Herring like the fish, herring?” Another ‘mhmm’. “You didn’t strike me as a meat eater.” Scarlet said something, but Dusty missed it as she fumbled the super icky jar of pickled fish into her basket. “What was that?” “I said ‘only fish.’” “Bleh!” “It’s an odd craving,” chuckled Scarlet. “I’ll grant you that.” “Why though?” Dusty asked, adding a carton of eggs to the basket. “It’s aces for feathers. Plus it puts hai-nevermind,” the pegasus muttered. Dusty rounded the corner, having finished with the first two aisles, and put the full basket down at the counter next to Scarlet. “Come again?” Scarlet’s naturally maroon cheeks blushed a bit brighter. “It puts hair on your chest.” Dusty angled her head to look down at her chest, running a forehoof through the carefully teased mocha colored tuft that was there. “It does?” Scarlet nodded. Dusty tried to catch a quick glimpse at Scarlet’s tuft, but the other mare was still slouched in her seat at the counter, with her forehooves wrapped around the empty platter she was using as a sort of terrible pillow. “Does it… Does it taste any good? The herring I mean,” she ventured. “No,” Scarlet laughed a squeaky laugh and shook her head. “It’s awful. Like cold pickled mushy tofu.” “Ew.” Scarlet looked over and stuck her tongue out. “And it has bones in.” “Eeeeeew!” shrieked Dusty stomping all four of her hooves and squeezing her eyes closed. The two mares shared a bit of a laugh at Dusty’s expense, and she trotted back over to the empty baskets to get the last of the items on Scarlet’s list in the last two aisles of her shop; produce and dairy goods. She saw Scarlet slouch back down into her seat again as she added a bunch of grapes on the vine to the basket. “Why so down?” “Oh. You know. Ponies.” “Is that why you came in the back door?” Scarlet nodded. “The ponies in this town are too nosy.” “That's for sure,” agreed Dusty, “Everypony knows everypony else's business. Especially when somepony makes a filly cry.” Scarlet waved a hoof in the air and let if flop back down onto the counter with a thud. “You heard too, did you?” Dusty shrugged. “The Gale Sisters. Abby and Gabby were just in here twittering away like a couple of song birds. You've never heard such rubbish.” “Well, it's not all rubbish.” Dusty looked up from the cheeses, her brow furrowed. “So you really did tease Boomer about her mom?” Scarlet sat up and turned with a jerk. “Now that is a load of rubbish! I had no idea that she lost her mother in the war. She acted out of line in the library, and I was going to show her that her actions had consequences. So I asked for her parents’ names.” “And she cried over that?” “No. She didn’t cry until after I told her ‘I want to know what your mother thinks of your behavior.’” Dusty fumbled with a block of mild cheddar, it slipped out of her hooves and tumbled to the wooden floor. “Oh Scarlet, you didn't,” she implored. “Oh, that poor girl.” Scarlet swung around in her bar stool to slump on the counter again. “I feel bloody awful about the whole incident. It didn’t help that I was probably out of my mind with hunger. Or that she was tearing pages out of my books. But…” “But those are just excuses, Scarlet.” said Dusty, venturing the gambit on tough love. She watched Scarlet feathers bristle in agitation, before the pegasus let out a sigh. “They are. I’ve been in town for two weeks now, and I barely know anypony. Or anything that goes on around here. If I had been meeting ponies and getting to know them, then maybe I wouldn’t have made Boomer cry.” Dusty nodded to Scarlet’s turned back. “Alright, that’s a start,” she said as she approached with the final wicker basket load of the librarian’s groceries. “But now that you’ve admitted to yourself how selfish you’ve been. Here’s what you’re going to do,” she told the mare at the counter. Scarlet looked up at her with watery eyes and a pouty frown. “You think I’m selfish?” Dusty rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Well yeah! You’re a funny, awesome pony. And you’ve been keeping you all to yourself.” Scarlet smiled and dried her eyes on Dusty’s handkerchief. “So what am I supposed to do?” The other mare started ringing up her items on the register. “First thing’s first, you need friends. Friends are like weather-vanes for life.” She stopped her counting and stared out into the middle distance, “Only they need food and shelter and stuff and they breathe…” She shrugged, and went back to her adding. “I have friends!” protested Scarlet, “Back in Trottingham, I've got my brother and... Well, there's my brother.” “What about here in Ponyville?” asked Dusty, her hooves a blur amongst the ticker tape. Scarlet traced a hoof through the crumbs on the muffin platter. “You're my friend... Right?” The register went silent. Dusty slid away from it to be opposite of Scarlet at the counter. She gave Scarlet a long hard look, and the pegasus started to wilt under her stare. And then she took Scarlet’s hoof in her own and smiled. “I’d like to be your friend, Scarlet.” The pretty librarian grinned at that, and took in a breath to speak, however she was cut off with a— “But if we're gonna be friends, you have to promise me something.” Dusty felt Scarlet’s hoof pull back slightly at her interjection, but the earth pony held on firm. “W-what do I need to do?” the other asked, trying to free her hoof once more. “You have to promise me that you’ll make up with Boomer.” “Yeah,” sighed Scarlet. “I really should.” “Also you gotta make more friends.” The librarian tried to pull her hoof free again. “Wait a tick, that's two somethings I need to promise now?” “And you have to visit me more often than just here at work when you're starving to death.” Scarlet was now tugging with all her might, “Three somethings!” she grunted. “Scarlet,” said Dusty in a more serious tone. The other stopped her struggle and looked up at her potential new friend. “Can you promise?” The maroon mare looked at her hoof locked in an earth pony death grip, and then back into the face of her captor. She saw compassion in that face. Concern. And fierce determination. She saw somepony who could actually be a friend. She relaxed in her seat and put her other hoof on top of the two that held her fast. “Yes, Dusty. I promise.” Dusty smiled, and released her hold with a flourish and hit the tally lever on her register with a little jig to the right. “Your total comes to forty eight bits. Fifty counting the muffins and the glass of milk.” She looked up at Scarlet who was rubbing some life back into the hoof that she held. “I thought those were a gift.” Dusty laughed her high pitched giggle and shook her head. “No silly,” she said as she tapped one of the two wicker baskets. “But I’ll help you pack your groceries into your saddlebags.” Scarlet shrugged. “At this point, I’ll take all the help I can get. Thanks.” Dusty smiled back. “Hey no problem. After all, what are friends for?”
