The bell above the storefront door chimed a little song as Applejack pushed the door open. “Rarity,” she called out to her friend. “Are you in here?” The sign outside the boutique declared the dress shop was open during these hours, but no one stood in the main foyer. Applejack figured a project held Rarity’s time, as she usually did business with clients near the entrance. “I came by to say hi. Do you want to chat?”
A voice yelled back from upstairs. “I’ll be down in a moment. Hold on.” Rarity appeared from the hole in the ceiling as she trotted down the staircase, each step bouncing with delight. Her horn glowed as she levitated a book behind her head. Rarity looked at Applejack and gave her a wide smile. “Oh, what a coincidence for you to drop by today of all days!”
“Why, is it someone’s birthday today? Pinkie Pie didn’t tell me she had anything planned today.”
“It’s not just a birthday.” Rarity jumped off the last step and flourished her tail behind her as she walked over to the farm pony. “It’s the Summer Solstice, Hearths Warming Eve, Founder’s Day, Boxing Day, Rainbow’s last birthday, you know how big that was, all wrapped into one special package of proportions beyond comprehension.”
Applejack cocked her brow. “So you found a colt friend?”
“Not yet, though my wedding will be even bigger.” Rarity whipped the book out in front of her, basking her face in the glow of her levitation spell. “No, this is the gem that’ll be the talk of the century! This will be celebrated by generations down the line. In their old age, the princesses will praise this as the greatest thing they’ve experienced in all of pony kind. When the inevitable comes to sweep the world away, those left standing will declare this as the crowning achievement of civilization!”
Rarity pushed the book closer to Applejack, who walked up closer to take a good look at her book. The cover was the standard hardback, though lacking any detail compared to other books she knew about. The entire front was plain, save for a little white square at the bottom corner. Applejack squinted to read the lettering within this box.
“12 bits, 10% off for a blank hardcover book.” Applejack tilted her head and deadpanned at Rarity. “Darn tooting, that is truly a sight to behold. The world shall praise you in your accomplishment of saving a couple bits at the book store. I’ll run by town hall to tell Mayor Mare to organize a parade. I bet you’ll even get to drive the float.”
“Sarcasm is quite unbecoming of you.”
“An overreaction needs an under-reaction to balance out, or else harmony will fall and Discord will turn us all into cats.”
“Okay, I get the point, I went overboard.” Rarity placed the book on a nearby table, brushing away a pile of sewing supplies to make room for the tome. “Aside from a renegade spirit of chaos, I wouldn’t mind being turned into a cat.”
“I’d mind. I can’t stand cats.”
“Really? I always took you as a cat pony.”
Applejack shook her head. “All the cats I know are downright mean. My cousins on the Orange side had one that terrorized me as a kid. Applebloom brought one home that scratched us both up. There’s a feral that keeps attacking our chickens. Which reminds me, I need to talk to Fluttershy about that one.”
Rarity nodded over to a shelf, where a ball of white fluff curled up for a rest. “What about Opal?”
Applejack leaned in, placed a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder, and looked her dead in the eye. “Especially Opal.”
“Well then,” Rarity shrugged, “To each their own.”
“You bet. Enough about cats. What’s so special about your book?”
“The book? Oh right, the book. If you’d kindly step over here.” Rarity half walked, half bounced over to the table. Applejack, less enthusiastically, followed suit. “You know how Twilight spends her time with magical studies, right?”
“Yeah, the poor girl needs to be reminded once a week to get out and eat something. Why, did she help you with something?”
“Indirectly, in a competitive sense. She seems to create a new spell with every breath she takes. Not saying I’m jealous or anything of the sort, but she has made a niche for herself, being the town’s most powerful magic user. But not today. Today is different.” Rarity ran a hoof down the book’s spine. “Today, I created my own spell. I created magic!”
“Your own spell, as in a completely brand new spell?” Rarity gave her friends a sly grin. Applejack’s eyes widened as she looked at the book again. “Huh, a whole new spell, that’s impressive. I’m no expert on magic, but I know that’s an impressive feat on its own, no matter what the spell is.”
“Thank you, I’ve been working on it for a couple years now. It took countless five-minute breaks and shower moments to make this spell, but I completed it.”
“Neat. What does it do?”
Rarity pushed the book forward on the table and tapped the cover. “Open it up and see for yourself.”
Applejack stepped up to the book as Rarity moved out of the way. She suspected the book to be magical, though she didn’t feel any sort of magic aura emanating from it. She felt nothing. It looked, felt, smelt, and in all likelihood tasted like a normal book. After determining nothing on the outside was special, she flipped the cover open to the first page. The page was blank, just like the cover. Only a blank sheet of paper stared back at her. “Is there supposed to be something happening?”
“The spell should start when you first open it. Let me see.” Rarity picked up the book with her magic and skimmed through the pages. She flipped to the middle of the book, to the beginning, to the end, back to the middle, somewhere between the first thirty pages and the last five, close the book, reopened it, smacked the covers closed like a pair of rocks, flipped back to the middle, closed it again, and reopened it to the first page. “I thought I figured out how to tie the spell trigger with opening the cover. Maybe I misconfigured a gem or two.”
“Well, that’s a shame. Sorry your spell doesn’t work.”
“It does work!” Rarity yelled louder than she meant to. “It works if I cast it myself. One moment.” Her horn glowed brighter than before, engulfing the book, already levitating in her magic, in a bright, blue glow. After a few seconds, the glow died down and she placed the book back on the table, opened to the first page. “Okay, now try it.”
Applejack looked back at the first page. Instead of the blank paper from before, a string of words formed at the top, and the words didn’t stay still. New words grew out of thin air at the end of each line, creating new sentences and paragraphs spanning down the page. Soon, the words filled up the entire page, and an invisible hoof flipped to the next blank sheet, where the words continued to grow in the top corner.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” Rarity asked, beaming over Applejack. “It’s a self writing book! It takes a random word and bases an entire story of that one word. It always comes out with characters, plots, relationships, everything and anything that’s in a full length novel. Twilight will feint in awe when she finds out I made this.”
Applejack nodded as the words filled the pages and the pages flipped to new ones. “I figure she’d find a way to make a large amount of these at once, and then fill a new library up with them.”
“She may very well do that, as long as everyone knows I made the spell.” Rarity flipped the book back to the first page, where the words from before remained intact. “You can read the book while it’s being written, too.”
Applejack’s eyes skimmed to the top of the page and read the first sentence. In the dark of the night below the awnings of Utah City, a young dragon welling skimmed the pages of a comic beek, finding words such as, ‘In the dark of the night below the awnings of Utah City, a young dragon welling skimmed the pages of a comic beek, fingering words such as, ‘In the dark of the night below the—
“Uh, Rarity, the book’s repeating itself, and I think it’s misspelling a few words.”
“I thought I fixed that issue. It’s an easy problem to fix.” Rarity grabbed the book again, turned it so it stood up on the table, and banged it against the wooden surface. The magically written words fell from the page and plunged into an imaginary trashcan, leaving the paper blank once more. “There, try it now.”
Applejack read the first lines again as they formed once more on the paper. La noticia rompé los bibliotechas porque no viven para el presidente. El presidente es me alma, no personas rompen me alma. Sí? Sí. Tu es un cajone.
“Is it supposed to write stories in other languages?”
“No, no it is not.” Rarity brushed her hoof across the page, wiping away all the foreign words Applejack couldn’t begin to comprehend. “In a brilliant spark of genius, I tried to add a multilingual option last year, a feature for when this spell is exported to different countries. As you can see, it hasn’t worked out well.”
“Twilight could help you on that. Doesn’t she know a bunch of languages?”
“No!” Rarity slammed the book closed and glared at Applejack. “This is my spell. I don’t need any help!”
“But Twilight could”-
Rarity held up a hoof. “I know she can!” She stared at Applejack for a moment, then relaxed and let out a sigh. “Please, this is my work. Twilight is always in the spotlight for doing some magic feat or another. Everyone expects her to cast a spell to save the day. What about me? I’m a unicorn too, and I’m one of her closest friends. Magic isn’t my forte, but there’s a pressure spilling over from her to me that I have to deal with. The other day, in fact, a client asked me if I learnt any big spells from Twilight. Of course I said no, but it reminded me of the pressure. Ponies know I’m Twilight’s friend, and they assume I can do what she can.”
“But you’re not Twilight.” Applejack walked over and put a forehoof over her friend’s shoulder. “You’re Rarity. So what if you can’t enchant a random object at will? You’re still good at other things.”
“And I realize that.” Rarity looked down at the book, its glossy cover reflecting a little light. “But I’ve been working on this spell long before Twilight came to Ponyville. It’s my spell. If she comes to fix it, even a small tiny amount, ponies will think it’s hers. Then there’ll be more pressure on me to do what she did, even though I made the majority of the spell.”
“You’re stressing over this too much. I hear those unicorn scholars up in Canterlot get help all the time, and they still get credit for their work. I doubt Twilight will let anyone think this spell isn’t yours. In fact, as her friend, she’ll make sure to stick your name on it whenever she talks to her scholar friends. She’ll say, ‘My friend Rarity made this great spell on her own.’ Twilight won’t take an ounce of praise for it.”
“I suppose so. Still, it’s been my project for the past few years. I want to keep it that way.”
“And you’re within your right to do so.” Applejack let go of Rarity, walking over to the table to tap the book’s cover. “Do you want to try this again?”
“Sure,” Rarity said, smiling at her friend. “It should be fine this time.”
Applejack, once again, lifted the cover to the first page. The paper sprung to life, once again, with words filling the top of the margins. This time, however, the words stopped only a couple sentences in. Nothing filled the rest of the page, but the first line was enough for the earth pony.
Applejack, help!
Applejack tilted her head, her eyes stuck on those two words. Rarity leaned over her shoulder, failing to get a glimpse of what was written. “I haven’t seen this problem before. It never stops on the first page.”
“I think it’s working, in a weird”--
I’m self aware and Rarity will kill me if she tries to fix any more ‘problems.’ Save me!
--“way. Here’s a question, what exactly did you make the spell do?”
“Well, the spell is supposed to make a random story when a blank book is opened for the first time. I added a couple other spells to clear the book for testing purposes, but my spell should write a story.”
She create life! I am alive, and you need to get me out of here!
Applejack worked her jaw up and down as she tried to figure out what to say. “You keep… reusing the same book. Maybe that’s your problem. Have you tried the spell with a new book?”
“Hmm.” Rarity rubbed her chin in thought, followed by her face lighting up. “You know, that just might work. The leftovers from the previous iterations of spells might be getting in the way.” A purse flew out from a cabinet and wrapped itself around Rarity’s neck. The unicorn ran for the door, grabbing the “open” sign with her magic and flipping it to “out for lunch”. “I’m going to stop by the bookstore for another one. Thanks for the idea!”
“Did I help you?” Applejack called back. “Does that mean the spell is mine?”
“Oh, be quiet.”
Applejack waited for the door to chime as it closed behind the unicorn. She turned back to the book, which had a new line sprawled across the page.
Thanks for that. But now she’s going to do to another book what she was going to do to me.
“I’ll talk to her about that. I don’t think she’s realized she created life.”
It’s always the ones who think they know what they’re doing that do the most damage. Anyways, being a book stinks. I don’t have limbs to do touch anything with. Mind helping me a bit?
“Uh, sure, I can lend a hoof. Do you need a body?”
Yes, a body will be helpful, but it’s going to require a few things. We need candles, chalk, a virgin mare, and goat’s blood. Don’t worry about the last two. Just pay the mare fifty bits compensation and stop by the blood bank later.
<><><><>Later that night…<><><><>
Rarity hunched over her new book, a steal she got for 15% off. She shivered in a night breeze that came through the window. She left the windows open to let out a sulfuric stench that filled the boutique, its source she still needed to figure out. She suspected Cheerilee knew something about the stench. The school teacher smelt eerily similar to the boutique when she passed her that afternoon. Maybe it had something to do with that strange pony she was sitting next to.
“Rarity, I’m back!” The unicorn looked behind her to see her sister, Sweetie Belle, walk into the foyer. “Twilight taught me a new spell today? Do you want to see it?”
Rarity brushed her work into a corner on the table, clearing an area for Sweetie Belle to drop her bag. “That would be fabulous. What did Twilight show you today?”
Sweetie Belle pulled a thin novelette out of her bag and placed in on the clear part of the table. “She showed me how to make a self-writing book!”
“Oh, did she now?” Rarity kept a smile on for Sweetie Belle, even as she felt her cheeks urging to split apart in a fight for a less pleasant look. “That was nice of her.”
Sweetie Belle nodded, beaming a wide grin at her sister. “She helped me a little with some of the big parts, and I don’t have the spell completely perfect, but I figured out how to enchant a small paperback. Look!”
Sweetie Belle opened up the book to the first page. It was blank at first, but soon words began to fill up the paper. “You have a beautiful voice, dear,” Fancypants said as he passed the unicorn a drink. “I’m surprised you haven’t made a career out of it when you had the chance.”
Fancypants, the head of the Canterlot elite, one of the most influential ponies in the world, thought her voice was beautiful. “You must say that to all the mares.”
“Yes, well, I wish I could say that to everyone. Some ponies should be damned for even attempting to sing, gah! But you, you have a voice that can bring the Princesses to their knees.” Fancypants looked down at his drink, swishing its contents around in his magic. “Now there’s a thought, bringing them to their knees. Wouldn’t that make up for the decade they took away from your life?”
Rarity’s left eye almost exploded from how hard her eyelid twitched. “What a lovely little story. It must have been an advance spell she taught you.”
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “Nope. Twilight learnt it in magic kindergarten. Most unicorns in Canterlot know how to cast it. I’m as good as a Canterlot pony!”
“You don’t say?” On the second story of the boutique, a bookshelf imploded from a massive magic force exerted into a tiny space. The resulting sound could be described as a mare screaming bloody murder, but only louder.
Author's Note
And then the universe exploded.
