"Again?"
Spike's voice startled Twilight onto stepping back from the window. Turning, she saw the little dragon standing in the doorway of the white and silver second-floor room she'd picked out for her own, everything around her—her new bed, her new desk, her new bookshelves full of new books—all neat and tidy and smelling freshly unpacked. Spike had his arms folded, and as she watched, he raised one eye ridge.
Twilight gave a laugh that sounded so phony, she almost winced. "What... what do you mean?"
With a sigh, Spike padded across the new carpet, hopped onto the new chair beside the window, and pointed outside. And for all that Twilight didn't have to look—didn't really want to look—she couldn't keep her gaze from following the crook of his claw.
Every view from the new castle was a lovely one, but this window looked out upon Ponyville itself, the town as pretty as always in the deepening blue of the early evening outside—
Except maybe for the blackened scar at the far end of the town square, an empty spot that tightened Twilight's throat the same way it did every time she looked at it.
"It's been a week, Twilight." Spike's words trickled over her as gently as the notes from a wind chime, but they still made Twilight's ears fold. "I mean, yeah, it was a great tree, but, well—" Twilight steeled herself, knowing what he was going to say and not at all sure she could stand to hear it right then. "It was just a tree."
"Just a tree?" Her wings flared, but she managed not to shout it too loudly. "Spike, it was a library! It was our library! It was—" Her throat got even tighter. "It was our home."
"Yeah, it was." He hopped to the floor, and she couldn't help flinching when he poked her shoulder with a claw. "But all this moping isn't gonna bring it back. Life is change, Twilight. I mean, the bad guy got beat, we're all okay, most of your real personal stuff still had the fire-proofing magic on it from when I was a hatchling, and you've ordered replacement copies of all the actual library stuff, right? So what's the obvious conclusion?"
She shot him a glance. "That you read too many philosophy books."
"Hey, nothing else puts me to sleep as fast." He grinned, shrugged, and tapped the door frame as he went out into the hall. "Dinner's in half an hour."
A smile pulled at her muzzle, but it didn't pull very hard. He was right, of course: she knew that she had to let it go. But Golden Oaks had been more than just a job or a house. It had been, well, her refuge. She'd been at such loose ends after becoming an alicorn, after becoming a princess, that she'd started thinking of the library as her secret back-up plan: Yes, I'm now one of the most magical creatures in the entire land of Equestria, but in case that doesn't work out, I can always go back to being Ponyville's librarian...
That got a much larger smile, and she turned to the window, peered out again into the gathering twilight at the spot, the dark, empty spot—
And saw that it wasn't empty. Two ponies stood where the Golden Oaks Library had once spread its branches, both of them familiar: one sturdy and behatted, the other stooped and rickety.
With barely a thought, Twilight flared her wings and leaped through the window. She sailed over the roofs of Ponyville and most of the town square till she could hear their voices, Granny Smith's creaky as a rusty shutter in a wind storm: "Tonight, I'm telling you! What, you don't trust your ol' Granny?"
A sigh from Applejack. "It ain't that. It's just, well, Twilight's still more'n a mite upset about what happened, and I don't wanna go rushing—"
"Ha!" The vehemence of Granny Smith's snort made Twilight's wings falter, but she was nearly there anyway; with just a bit of a stumble, she landed not far from the two. "That frienda yours got no right to be upset!"
"Excuse me?" Twilight couldn't stop her mane from bristling, and several quick steps took her to Granny Smith's side. "I don't want to start an argument, but I think I have every right to be upset about my home and place of business getting blasted to kindling and ashes!"
Applejack snapped her head over to Twilight so fast, her hat almost seemed to spin. "Granny don't mean that, Twilight! She just means—!"
"Hush, now, child." Granny Smith touched a front hoof to Applejack's muzzle, the old pony's lips tight but a spark of laughter in her eyes that took Twilight by surprise. "Reckon you know how long that library'd been standing here, li'l missy?"
Twilight tossed her mane. She'd done her research. "As long as there's been a town. The records at City Hall show that it was one of the first structures—"
"And you know how many librarians we's had, too, over all them years?"
"Of course." Twilight didn't try very hard to keep the smugness out of her voice. "I'm Ponyville's ninth librarian."
"Egg-zactly!" Granny Smith waved a hoof at the town around them, windows just starting to light up cozy and warm against the oncoming night. "You ain't hardly been in Ponyville long enough to get her dirt on your hoofs! So yeah, sure, mebbe you're sad the library's gone, but this town, this town ain't never woke up to a morning without a library till this week! And that's what 'upset' means!"
Her stomach tight and jagged, Twilight forced herself to pause, to put a hoof to her chest and slide it through the air away from herself. That helped, but she couldn't quite keep the edge out of her voice. "I don't recall ever seeing you in the library, Granny Smith."
"Hey, now!" Applejack started.
But Granny Smith cut her off. "Don't matter. Ponyville's a town, ain't she? And a town's gotta have a town library." Granny Smith reached a hoof into her shawl and pulled out a small, darkish, roundish something. "Simple as that."
Twilight's vision had been getting sharper since her coronation, so even in the dim evening light, she could see the object quite clearly. "An acorn?" She blinked, and it hit her all at once, her heart fluttering against her ribs. "You're going to plant a new library tree!"
Granny Smith snorted again, but it was a much gentler sort of snort. "Well, of course we are! I'da been out here doing this six or seven evenings ago, but this dang granddaughter of mine kept saying we oughtta wait till you was all set 'n' ready!"
That made Twilight turn her blinking toward Applejack, blushing suddenly a darker orange. "I know that tree meant a lot to you, Twi, and I didn't want you thinking we was just rushing in all higgledy-piggledy to put up a new one." Applejack shrugged, her gaze fixed on the ground. "Some things you gotta mourn, y'know?"
Twilight's heart did some more fluttering, and she leaned a little to bump her shoulder against Applejack's. "Thank you," she said.
"Shucks." Applejack poked a front hoof at the ground. "Just being a friend..."
"But—" Twilight turned to Granny Smith. "Are you actually going to employ earth pony biomancy? I've read about it, of course, but there's still controversy among the experts as to the actual extent of external influence any given earth pony can—" Twilight stopped herself, the blank look on Granny Smith's face telling her that the old pony didn't have a single idea what all that meant. "Which is to say: may I please watch?"
"Course you can watch!" Granny Smith shook her head. "You're the librarian! Can't hardly do this without you here, can we?" Rolling her eyes, she turned away. "Big city unicorns ain't gotta lick a sense, none of 'em..."
Opening her mouth to ask if they had time for her to summon Spike to take notes, Twilight stopped, swallowing the question instead. Earth pony magic was such a nebulous concept—she'd read works by respectable scholars insisting that earth ponies had no appreciable magic at all!—she didn't want to risk delaying and possibly spoiling the ceremony. Taking a breath, she forced herself to relax and sharpen her senses.
Slowly, Granny Smith limped over to the rough patch of cracked dirt, all that remained after everything had exploded and burned and collapsed. Twilight had to take another breath then and blink the mist from her eyes as she recalled digging out the surviving boxes, books, equipment, and keepsakes that now occupied places of honor in her new study on the castle's third floor.
When Granny Smith gave a couple of sniffs, Twilight did so as well. The breeze, light and flowery the evening, barely rustled the leaves of the forest beyond. Jabbing at the ground with the hoof not holding the acorn, Granny shook her head, moved another step south, and jabbed her hoof again.
This time, a dirt clod came loose, and Granny nodded. Bending, she took the acorn in her teeth, dropped it into the hole, and kicked the clod back over the top. She patted her hoof on top of it, then off to one side, then off to the other, and something like a tingle tickled the fine hairs of Twilight's fetlocks. The dirt clod shivered, and the tiniest green shoot poked up from one end, a sliver so slight and translucent, Twilight had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn't imagining it.
"Whoo-ee!" Applejack was staring at the sprout. "If'n I hadn'ta seen it, I wouldn'ta believed it!"
Twilight was staring, too, her muscles tensed, ready to spring out of the way at the first sign of the rest of the tree bursting from the ground. But instead—
"Phew!" Granny Smith wiped a foreleg along her brow, and Twilight had to stare some more at the actual sweat that had formed there. "I'll be sleeping in late tomorrow!"
Another few seconds, and Twilight cleared her throat. "I... I'm sorry, but—" She waved a hoof at the sprig. "I mean, is... is that it?"
Granny Smith's mouth went sideways. "Land sakes, child! Don't'cha know how Groundbreaking works?" The old pony turned back to the sprout, and the smile that curled her snout was the gentlest Twilight had ever seen from her. "This li'l gal's gotta get to know the town first, don't she? And the town's gotta get to know her." Bending down, she puffed a breath over the plant before she straightened with a creak Twilight could hear. "Ev'ry pony hereabouts'll come on by the next couple days and in'r'duce themselves to her, give her a look and a smile and a little air out their lungs." She gave Applejack another sharp glare. "That pegasus pal of yours: she gonna be ready?"
"I reckon." Applejack grinned, her gaze moving from Granny to Twilight. "Dash says she's already rounded up the tenderest clouds in the sky." Her voice roughened into a passable impersonation of Rainbow. "'Nothing but the best for watering our new library!'"
That got a nod from Granny Smith, and she looked at Twilight, too. "Then starting next week, it'll be ev'ry pony taking turns, coming by, giving our li'l sapling what she needs, guiding her while she grows, making sure the rooms inside her don't muss up the flow of her sap and all like that. Three, four months, tops, and you watch, li'l missy! Ponyville'll have herself one sweet library tree again, the sweetest library tree you're like to ever lay eyes on, matter of fact!"
All this new information quivering inside her made Twilight throw caution to the wind: conjuring up a scroll and quill, she started jotting down her impressions while they were still fresh in her mind. "And these would all be earth ponies again doing this guiding, I take it?"
"Natur'lly." Granny Smith waved a hoof at the sky. "Them weather ponies'll bring water by, but all the real work gets done by them ponies as knows how to do it."
"Fascinating!" Twilight could barely push the pen fast enough. "And Ponyville's unicorns? Have they a role to play?"
"I reckon." Granny Smith's sudden cackle made Twilight look up. "If'n they can learn to use a watering can!"
Applejack narrowed her eyes. "Granny..."
"Oh, now, AJ, don't get all het up." She winked a rheumy eye at Twilight. "Fact is, you unicorns got this idea that magic's gotta be all flash 'n' crash, but that ain't the earth pony way. And sure, y'all're more'n welcome to come by and pay your respects while she's a-growing and all, but getting unicorn magic tangled up in this, you might as well try using soap bubbles to play horseshoes." A grin lit up her face, and she gave another cackle. "That Rarity gal, though: she brung over the cutest li'l hat for the tree to wear if'n the nights take a turn for the frosty. Ponyville through and through, that unicorn is."
Scrawling away at her notes, Twilight had to grin as well, but Applejack clearing her throat made her look up again. "Uhh, Granny? Might be it's escaped your notice, but Twi here ain't exactly a unicorn no more..."
Granny Smith blinked and turned a squinting look through the evening darkness in Twilight's direction. Trying not to blush, Twilight couldn't keep her grin from going all sheepish, but she still spread her wings a little so Granny Smith could see what Applejack meant.
The gasp from the old pony made Twilight's ears fall. "Princess!" Granny Smith more choked than said. "I plum forgot it was you!" She forelegs buckled into a quivery bow. "I didn't mean any kinda disrespect, Your Ladyship, saying them things! Honest I didn't!"
Twilight leaped forward, her wings keeping her upright as she put her front hoofs to Granny Smith's shoulders and gently straightened her from her bow. "It's okay, Granny." She took a breath. "Because you're right. Ponyville needs her library, and I'm sorry I even inadvertently held up work on that." She smiled at Granny's startled expression. "So if I come by Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow, do you think you can start teaching me to use a watering can?"
An instant of silence, then Granny Smith snorted a hoot of laughter so big, it blew Twilight back half a step. "You're all right, princess! Ain't she, AJ?"
Applejack's eyes were practically shining in the dark. "Reckon so, Granny. Just like I reckon I'll be stuck giving them watering lessons tomorrow since you're gonna be all slug-a-bed."
"You what?" Granny Smith's glare was aimed at Applejack, but Twilight found herself nearly taking another half step back. "You want me to wallop you, girl? Is that what you want?"
"Say g'night, Granny." Applejack nudged her with a shoulder.
"Hmmmph!" Granny Smith gave Twilight a nod as crisp as a bite of her namesake apple. "You come by for lunch tomorrow, li'l missy, y'hear? If'n you're gonna go on being our princess and our librarian, least we can do is put a little meat on them bones!" Her nose in the air, Granny Smith began marching away across the town square.
The familiar low chuckle of Applejack's laugh tickled Twilight's ears. "Well, that went better'n I expected." She stepped into Twilight's field of vision with a nod. "Bring Spike with you when you come for lunch. Reckon he's another one's got a pretty big stake in this here new library."
Nodding, Twilight forced as earnest a look onto her face as she could manage. "Shall I bring my own watering can, too?"
Applejack rolled her eyes and trotted after her grandmother. "Think I'm gonna take back that whole better'n expected thing I was talking about earlier." Her trot became more of a canter. "See you tomorrow, sugarcube!"
"Yes, you will!" Twilight watched her friend catch up with Granny Smith, and the two earth ponies disappeared among the buildings at the edge of the town square.
Taking another breath of the lovely night around her, Twilight felt her shoulders loosen for the first time in at least a week. Turning, then, bending down, putting an eye right up next to the little bit of green poking up among all the soot-stained ash and dirt, Twilight puffed that breath over the tiny sprig. "I'll see you tomorrow as well," she whispered.
And something thrummed beneath her hoofs, something low and deep and quiet as a distant bell or a single heartbeat, a sound that wasn't a sound folding Twilight's ears and freezing her in place.
She stood there waiting, hoping, but it didn't happen again. Still, Twilight had to let a grin spread across her face. Even after everything she'd been through, she still had so much to learn! Unfurling her wings, she nearly danced across the square, flapped herself airborne, and headed for home.
