Worlds of Literature

Chapters

Ch 1: Discovery
Ch 2: The First Book
Ch 3: Clouds of Deception
Ch 4: There and Back Again

Ch 1: Discovery

"But Twilight!" Pinkie complained "Gummy's 'Three weeks until halfway birthday' party just started and you've only been here for a few minutes! You can't leave yet!"

Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy were attending another of Pinkie's almost weekly pre or post birthday parties for Gummy. This one was celebrating that it was three weeks until halfway to his actual birthday.

"Pinkie," Twilight sighed "it's been three hours and I have a report for Princess Celestia I have to finish by tonight."

"Alrighty, I'll let you off the hoof for this one, but I still expect you to attend Gummy's 'Two weeks until halfway birthday', his 'One week until halfway birthday', and his 'Halfway birthday" parties!" Pinkie exclaimed.

A confused look grew on Twilight's face "Don't you mean that I'm off the hook?" she asked.

"Why would I mean that?" Pinkie cocked her head to the side.

"Because it's an expression," Twilight explained.

Pinkie rolled her eyes "But I don't own any hooks silly!"

Twilight shook her head dismissively "Anyway… why not, instead of throwing a bunch of parties celebrating it every week, don't you just spend this time planning for Gummy's actual party and make it that much better?"

Pinkie waved her hoof dismissively "Well isn't it obvious? It's because…" She looked to the ceiling in thought with a hoof on her chin "You know what? That's a supertastic idea! I can start planning right now and make his halfway birthday party the best party ever!" She exclaimed bouncing circles around the lavender unicorn.

"Supertastic?" Twilight inquired.

"It's a combination of super, and fantastic! I came up with it one day when I was watching Dashie preform some tricks. She was all WHOOSH and ZOOM and PINKIE STOP DISTRACTING ME! When she asked what I thought I couldn't think of a good enough word so I combined two of them!" Pinkie exclaimed proudly.

Deciding not to point out that "supertastic" wasn't a word, Twilight said goodbye to the rest of her friends and made her way back to the library, where she had a report on the poorly known species of Equestria to finish.

* * *

"Explain to me again why you have to write this report?" Spike asked handing Twilight a large book titled "The Big Book O' Species"

Twilight rolled her eyes "After all that's happened in the past year or so, Celestia feels a little unprepared and wanted me to look into any species of creature that might pose a threat to Equestria."

"What do you mean?" Spike asked, "I thought that Celestia knew everything?"

"Just because she is an alicorn doesn't mean that she knows everything," Twilight said with a slight chuckle.

"But what if she does know everything? What if she's just asking you to do this so that you would learn it yourself?" Spike asked.

"I'm pretty sure that she still doesn't know everything, though she may have just asked me to do this so that I would learn about it," Twilight admitted, putting down the large book she had just been reading "now, would you mind getting 'Starswirl's Guide to Creatures of Fact and Fiction'?"

Complying, Spike walked over to the opposite wall and climbed the step ladder to the top shelf, where a medium sized book with strange decorations on it rested. Spike took a moment to look over the book; it was a dark blue book with figures of both mythical creatures, and real ones.

"Spike? Are you going to bring me that book or stare at it all day?" Twilight remarked.

Spike slowly began to climb down from the step ladder with one hand while holding the book in the other "Yeah yeah, I'm coming keep your saddle on," he joked.

After placing the book on the desk in front of Twilight, Spike began to shift in place anxiously "Is there anything else you need me to do?" he asked.

"I don't think so, why?" she asked.

"Because Rarity is going to go and dig for gems and she asked me to go with her and help," Spike explained.

"Alright lovercolt-" Twilight faltered for a moment "oops, I mean loverdrake, you're free to go."

Spike grumbled under his breath for a moment before realizing that he had been dismissed, at which point he ran out the door as fast as he could.

Shaking her head slightly Twilight opened the book in front of her and began to read.

* * *

About an hour after Spike had left, Twilight was just finishing the last touches on her report to the princess.

Reading over it once and being satisfied, Twilight rolled it up and set it to the side of her desk for Spike to send when he got back, but for now, she had books to put away.

She was putting said books away when somepony suddenly burst through the library door, surprising her and making her lose concentration, causing her to drop the books.

Looking to the door Twilight found that it was none other than Rainbow Dash who had burst through the door "Do you have it yet?" she demanded.

"Like I told you yesterday, and the day before that, and many consecutive days before that, the new Daring Do book won't be here till Wednesday," Twilight explained.

Rainbow groaned "Couldn't you like, ask the princess to get it to you early for research or something?" she asked.

Twilight shook her head "No, the book comes out the same day for everypony, even the princess has to wait to read it. Although I doubt she even reads the series."

Rainbow groaned in frustration once more before storming out of the library "I wonder how she would react to the many year long waits I usually suffer through for the books I like to read…" Twilight wondered.

Shrugging this thought off she began to pick up the books that she had dropped and put them away. Nearly satisfied she inspected the library, deciding to see if there was anything else that she needed to attend to.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to a slip of paper on the ground near a bookshelf "I bet that fell out of one of the books I dropped," she guessed.

Picking up the piece of paper and reading it she found that it was written backwards, like she was looking at it through a mirror.

Using a nearby mirror she deciphered the slip of paper to find that it was a spell that she had never even heard of. To put it shortly, it allowed the caster to enter the book of their choice.

Twilight's mind ran with the possibilities before logic quickly took over "They aren't real worlds though, how do I enter someplace that doesn't exist?"

Sighing, she placed the slip of paper onto her desk and quickly began trying to forget about it.

After an hour of idly taking down and re-sorting the books in the library, the curiosity was getting the best of her and she decided she could at least try the spell.

Picking a simple book from the selection she decided her first attempt would be "The Pony and the Beanstalk"

Closing her eyes in concentration she cast the spell.

Ch 2: The First Book

A few moments passed as Twilight waited for the spell to take effect. A few more moments passed and nothing happened, curious to see if she had done it wrong she opened her eyes and looked around for the slip of paper the spell was written on.

Inspecting the area she found that she was standing in a large dead field, with only the odd patch of yellow and dying grass here or there. Near the middle of the field was an old broken down looking house, in front of which stood a rather gaunt looking cow, grazing on a very small patch of yellow grass. "We're not in Trottingham anymore…" She remarked absentmindedly.

Twilight quickly regained her wits and approached the cow "Excuse me," She could now see that the cow was a female "I was just wondering, where are we?" she asked, gesturing to the entire field.

The cow simply stared at her for a few moments before returning to its dying grass. Before she could ask again a loud shrill voice pierced the silence "Jack Manure! You lazy hay bale! I told you to go sell that cow over an hour ago! What are you still doing here?"

Twilight spotted a cross looking brown mare walking out of the house. She was an earth pony with a dark brown mane, dark orange eyes, and a pair of knitting sticks for a cutiemark "Jack Manure!" She repeated.

Looking around, Twilight didn't see another living soul, excluding herself, the mare, and the cow.

"What're you stupid?" the mare asked.

Twilight looked back at the mare "Me?" she asked.

"I don't know anypony else this lazy!" the mare exclaimed.

"I think you have me confused for somepony else, I'm not Jack, my name is Twilight Sparkle." Twilight explained.

"What's this now?" The mare asked "Hate your old life so much that you've decided to be somepony else? Well tough! You're not getting outta this that easily!"

Twilight sighed "Why does this pony think that I'm the character from that book? All I did was cast that spell…"

Twilight gasped "I get it! The spell I cast doesn't just move you into the book; it puts you in the place of one of the characters! Of course! That explains why the cow can't talk; the only sentient races in this book are ponies, dragons and griffins!"

The mare glared at her "What's all this about? Have you been sneaking into town and listening to the merchants again? I told you they're no good!"

"Guess I'd better play along and see where this goes." Twilight decided taking a moment to get into character. "I wasn't listening to them again! But you should've listened to them, they could've helped us!"

"That's enough of that! Now go into town and sell this cow!" The mare exclaimed.

Twilight put a hoof to her mouth to stifle a laugh "This is amazing! Not only does it let me enter the book but things can happen differently than they're supposed to!"

Taking the rope tied around the cows neck she began leading it down the trail which she assumed lead to town.

* * *

Twilight had been trying for hours to sell the cow to any vendor she could find, but to no avail. "WHY WON'T YOU JUST BUY THE COW?" She shouted at a milk merchant, who was now cowering in fear. "I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SELL THIS COW ALL DAY SO JUST BUY IT!"

The merchant quickly retreated into the closest building when she stopped to take a breath "Why won't anypony buy this cow?" she wondered.

Giving up for the day, she began making her way back to the house she had appeared in front of.

While walking back to the house, Twilight's mind began to wander "It's going to be tough to sell this cow…" she suddenly stopped in her tracks "Wait, why am I worrying about selling this cow? That's not how the story worked! I was supposed to trade her to a hooded pony for some magic beans, how did I forget that?"

As everything fell into place she found one of her hooves quickly finding its way to her forehead "I could've just done that from the start, why was I trying to sell this cow again?"

Twilight searched her mind for answers before her eyes widened in worry "What if the spell really makes me become the character?"

After a moment of worrying she scoffed at the thought "Of course not, I can still think like myself! Now, to find that hooded pony!"

Resolute in her final decision, she made her way back up the path to town.

It wasn't all that hard to find the pony; in fact it was so easy she was curious as to why she hadn't seen him before. He was standing right in the middle of the market square, a large empty circle around him left from all of the ponies who were doing their best to avoid him.

Deciding against directly approaching the pony Twilight walked slowly past him with the cow following close by. "Excuse me sir," the hooded pony began.

This made Twilight frowned at being called "sir". "Yes?" she asked.

"I couldn't help but see what a nice looking cow that is, and I was wondering if you might be selling it?" he asked casually.

"That depends, how much are you willing to pay for it?" Twilight asked, knowing the answer.

The hooded pony held up one hoof "I'll give you these for it," in his hoof, were three green beans.

"Three beans? Are you mad?" she asked.

"These aren't any ordinary beans, these are magic beans!" he exclaimed.

Twilight rolled her eyes"And what do these magic beans do?" she asked.

The pony put his arm around her shoulder "I'm glad you asked!" he began "These beans are the key to all the riches you could ever imagine!"

Twilight eyed the beans still in his other hoof "How could those be the key to riches? They're just a couple of beans," Twilight scoffed.

"No, they're not just 'a couple of beans' they are the couple of beans. When you plant these, they'll grow a beanstalk that'll reach past the sky! And if you climb this beanstalk, it'll lead to a castle. Inside the castle is a goose that lays solid gold eggs!" he explained.

"Solid gold eggs? You could buy a million cows with that kind of gold! Why don't you do it then?" Twilight asked.

"Sharp one you are, alright you caught me there's a catch. A giant pony eating dragon lives in the castle," The hooded pony admitted.

"That's all? No dragon is gonna keep me from that kind of gold," she scoffed giving the pony the rope that was tied to the cow.

"That's the spirit!" He exclaimed giving Twilight the beans, before quickly turning tail and leaving as fast as he could.

* * *

"I did it!" Twilight thought proudly, looking up at the giant beanstalk. The previous day after she had taken the beans she went back to the broken down house, got yelled at by the brown mare, then planted and watered the beans. After sleeping overnight on the most uncomfortable bed ever made, she awoke to find the beanstalk just as the hooded pony had described it.

Twilight took a moment to think of a way to climb it; she didn't have any appendages that could climb, such as hands, like Spike did. Once again she found her hoof hitting her forehead "I'm a unicorn, I can just teleport." She realized.

Finally, after about 15 minutes of teleporting from leaf to leaf, she made it to the top of the beanstalk.

After taking a minute to rest, Twilight inspected the area and found that as far as she could see, there was a floor of clouds. Along with this, there was a gigantic castle a couple hundred meters away, "There it is," she remarked.

Casting the Cloud Walking spell, she made her way to the castle.

Ch 3: Clouds of Deception

‘How far away is this thing?’ Twilight wondered, sitting to take a break.

Right after getting off of the beanstalk she began running as fast as her legs would take her.

That was about an hour ago, now the castle only seemed to be getting bigger, but she didn’t feel any closer to it. The only indicator that she had traveled at all was that she could no longer see the beanstalk.

A sudden realization ran though Twilight’s head ‘I only cast a thirty minute cloud walking spell, why am I still up here?’

Curious, she reached down and scooped up a bit of cloud.

‘I don’t get it! Clouds are made up of water vapor, how am I standing on it and holding it without magic?’ she wondered examining the puff of cloud.

Completely forgetting her purpose on top of the clouds in the first place she began to test the clouds.

First, she picked up a bit with her telekinesis, molded it into a ball, and threw it at the cloud ground.

To her surprise, it bounced high into the air, slowly arcing forward as it became but a speck in the sky.

‘These clouds are really bouncy,’ she noted.

Testing this further, she took a minute to prepare herself mentally and, bracing herself, jumped as high as she could.

The result was not what she was expecting, instead of bouncing, as she had thought she would, she simply landed, exactly how she would have if she were on the ground far below.

Twilight rubbed her temples as this information processed through her mind ‘Note to self, I am in a book, real world logic does not apply.’

With a sigh she looked around, trying to remember what exactly it was that she was doing up on clouds in the first place.

“Aha! I remember!” She exclaimed “I was trying to reach that castle all the way over there to find the golden goose!”

With a renewed vigor, she began another quickly paced run towards the seemingly infinitely growing castle.

* * *

Again, Twilight found that she had been traveling for quite some time and had seemingly made little to no progress towards the castle.

Sitting and deciding to take another break she sat down on the soft cotton like clouds.

Twilight’s eyes idly wandered the cloudy infinite expanse before her, when she noticed something a little off. There was an indent in the cloud just in front of her, and it was no normal indent.

Scanning it confirmed it; this small hole in the cloud was made by her magic.

‘Wait, that can’t have been made by my magic, I haven’t been here yet!’ she thought incredulously.

Deciding to make sure that it wasn’t her magic she designed a test, she quickly made a significantly larger hole just to the left of the first one.

Turning back to the castle she began to run as fast as her legs would take her. After a moment she tripped on something.

Inspecting what she had tripped on she found the large hole she had just made in the cloud floor moments ago “What?!” Twilight shouted “It doesn’t make any sense! I was running towards the castle! How am I still in the same spot?”

She took a moment to collect her thoughts “Okay, okay, I could be wrong about this. There’s still a possibility that it’s all just a coincidence.”

Deciding on one final test she turned away from the castle and began running, this time at a steadier pace.

After only three seconds of running, Twilight let out a groan of frustration. She had quickly ended up right where she started, in front of her, was the beanstalk.

“There must be a spell that’s making me go in circles! That’s the only reasonable explanation,” she decided, turning back towards the castle and returning to the holes she had made.

‘Is there something from the story that I’m missing? Was this even part of the story?’ She wondered.

Thinking back through the story as she remembered it the only difference she could think of was that Jack walked instead of ran towards the castle.

Coming up with no better explanations for it, she began walking towards the castle at an infuriatingly slow pace.

Much to her surprise and annoyance, walking seemed to be working. Instead of seemingly making no progress towards the castle, it seemed to be getting closer at a lot faster pace than it had been originally.

Twilight was speechless, walking, instead of running had gotten her to her destination at an impossibly faster pace.

Her shock quickly turned into amusement ‘Rainbow would have a heart attack.’

Shaking her head and clearing her thoughts she continued on her quick approach to the castle.

* * *

It had taken Twilight about three hours all in all, but she had finally reached the castle ‘Now, to find that goose.’

Twilight quickly found herself confronted with another problem; she had no way to get inside the castle itself.

Inspecting the castle she quickly found a solution to her problem, there was an open window not very far above her.

She quickly teleported up to the window sill, but not paying attention to where she teleported to, she hit into a large glass bottle and knocked it to the ground below. After a large shattering sound she braced herself, expecting to immediately see the ferocious dragon that was supposed to be guarding the castle and its treasures.

Moments passed, her eyes clenched in anticipation, but nothing happened.

Hesitantly, she began to peek open her eyes, to see if it was just waiting for her, but there was nothing there.

Scanning the room she found it to be an ordinary looking kitchen, except for the broken bottle on the floor.

‘Maybe there really isn’t a dragon…’ she wondered.

She almost wanted to search around the castle for the dragon, just to see if it really existed, but she decided on getting that golden goose, and finding her way home.

‘Wait, why don’t I just use the spell again and see if it sends me back home?’ she realized.

Scanning her mind she quickly remembered the spell and, eyes closed in concentration, she cast it.

Moments passed and just like the last time she had cast the spell, nothing seemed to happen.

She quickly opened her eyes to find herself still in the castle, nothing had changed.

”Why isn’t it working?” She panicked, casting the spell repeatedly.

Yet as many times as she cast the spell nothing happened, unless finishing the book as it ended normally sent her back home, she was stuck here, forever.

Ch 4: There and Back Again

After a longer than expected delay due to an internal crisis on the thought of never going home again, Twilight decided to trudge on and make her way to the end of the story and hopefully escape this frustrating book.

The castle was gigantic, though appropriate considering who was supposed to inhabit it. Though she had been traveling through the castle for at least what seemed to be an hour, she made little to no progress.

As she came into the doorway leading to the next room, she came upon a piece of paper with a scroll attached to it hanging from the wall nearby. This was not a note she would have expected though, considering she was inside a giant's home it was about the size of a note a pony would have written. She used her magic to levitate the note closer so she could read it, knocking the scroll to the ground in the process.

Nothing is as it seems, you must leave here now. The longer you stay the more you become like the character you replaced, thinking their thoughts and acting as they would. The scroll attached to the paper is enchanted with the spell required to return you to your own world, it will activate upon opening it. If you value your life and memories, leave and never use this spell again.

Twilight read over the scroll a few more times before scratching her head. 'What does it mean by think like the character I replaced?'

She began to think back over the things that had happened to her from the time she arrived. Slowly, she began to find that more and more of her actions didn't seem to be her own.

Whoever the pony that wrote the note was and whatever was happening didn't matter anymore, what mattered was that she needed to get out of there and the only way she had found so far was the scroll... which was being carried away by a goose about the same size as Big Macintosh.

"Hey! Bring that back, I need it!" She shouted, pursuing the goose.

Twilight quickly began closing the gap between herself and the goose. She leaped forward to catch the goose but was met with the hard ground instead. She looked up in time to see the goose land on a tabletop far above.

It took her a moment to realize that could have just teleported or grabbed the goose with her telekinesis.

Letting out a frustrated grunt she teleported to the top of the table. Upon inspection the tabletop was littered with a variety of foods, all of which looked like a unicorn had gone mad with a growing spell.

After a few moments of searching Twilight found the goose in the middle of a loaf of bread, eating it from the inside out. Just in front of the bread lay the scroll. She grabbed it telekinetically and began to unfurl it when the entire table began to shake, causing her to lose concentration and drop it off the tabletop. "Oh come on!" She shouted.

Suddenly, she heard heavy breathing and felt large gusts of hot air being blown at her back. Twilight slowly turned to find the dragon that guarded the goose. She had seen full grown dragons, such as the dragons from the migration or the dragon that lived in the Everfree, or even Spike when he started to be really greedy. But this dragon was as big as all of those dragons combined and it looked a lot angrier than she had ever seen a dragon. And dragons were notorious for being angry and grumpy.

Slowly, Twilight began to inch her way backwards, before she quickly turned and teleported to the floor below, hoping to get to the scroll before the dragon got to her.

Much to her dismay the dragon quickly gave chase and began to close the gap. She fell to the ground face first and quickly turned to find the dragons jaws closing around her body.

She felt the heat coming from his mouth and waited to be swallowed or chewed. 1...2...3 she counted 3 deep breathes where the dragon did nothing. She opened her eyes to find the dragon staring at where she was sitting and tilting his head.

Twilight looked down at her own hooves to find that she could not in fact see them, somepony had cast an invisibility spell on her! She looked around and found no other living soul.

Straightening out her priorities Twilight decided that she could think more on it later, but now she had to get out of there. So she ran to the scroll, grabbed it and shut her eyes tightly as she opened it.

Nothing seemed to have happened, when she opened her eyes though she was once again inside her library which was pretty clean besides the note with the spell and book still on her desk.

Before she knew what she was doing Twilight found herself laughing hysterically. "I'm alive! I made it home!"

The sound of the door closing stopped her laughing and shouting. She looked over to find a very confused looking Spike and Rarity.

"Twilight? What are you shouting about?" Spike asked.

As an answer, she dive tackle hugged Spike, knocking both of them to the ground "I never thought I'd see you again!"

"What do you mean? I was only gone for an hour. Rarity came with because she had something she needed to ask you."

"I have to agree with Spike, and what is that positively dreadful thing you are wearing?" Rarity asked.

Twilight stood back up and inspected herself, finding that she was still wearing the patchwork clothes she had acquired inside the strange book world. "What do you mean a few minutes? I've been gone for over an entire day!" Again, she was reminded that book logic does not coincide with Equestrian logic.

She quickly waved her hoof, cutting off both of their responses. "It doesn't matter, all that matters is that I'm back!"

Spike and Rarity shared a concerned look. "Twilight, were you... how do I put this delicately, experimenting with a few of Zecora's herbs again?" Rarity asked.

"What? No! A piece of paper slipped out of a book that Rainbow knocked down. It had a spell written on it that let me enter the world of any book I chose!" Twilight exclaimed, before realizing how stupid that sounded.

"What book were you in then?" Spike asked.

Twilight explained to them what had transpired inside the book.

Once again Spike and Rarity shared a concerned look, before a confused look grew on Spike's face "Wait, those world don't actually exist, how do you go somewhere that doesn't exist?"

Twilight shrugged "To be perfectly honest I have no idea."

"And you still believe that this actually happened?" Rarity asked.

"If it didn't happen, then where did these clothes come from?" Twilight countered.

"Darling, even according to your story you haven't seen anypony for quite a while, and in the hour Spike was gone a lot could happen."

"I need to inform the princess! A spell like this could seriously help research on any subject,"

"But what if it really didn't happen Twilight?" Spike asked.

A determined look grew on Twilight's face. "If both of you still don't believe me then I'll just have to prove it."

Spike furrowed his eyebrows. "How are you going to do that?"

"I'll be able to show you if this works," She explained grabbing the scroll that had brought her back to the library. "If this enchantment works like most enchantments are supposed to, I can just give it a little bit of a charge," the scroll was enveloped by Twilight's magic "and I can use it again."

"Why do you need that?"

As an answer Twilight disappeared for a moment before reappearing. "Good, it worked."

"What did? Where did you go? Why did you need it?" Spike asked.

Twilight levitated a book over to show her two friends. "Because of this."

Rarity and Spike only had a few moments to look at the title of the book before all three of the ponies were teleported out of the library.

The title of the book was 'Daring do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone'