Three Hoofwidths To The Left

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy
Length: 7434

Because there is nothing a compulsive reorganizer hates so much as being compulsively reorganized.

When the Bearers go forth on missions, somepony has to cover for their day jobs. In Twilight's case, this means the palace assigns a temporary to the tree, and that pony keeps the library running to government standards. The usual problems come in when Twilight gets back and finds the results aren't up to hers.

The disaster starts when she learns the latest hire has Standards of her own.

There's nothing a compulsive reorganizer hates so much as being compulsively reorganized.

(A stand-alone, no-prior-reading necessary part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Published 2018-07-01 02:00:08 UTC
Last updated 2018-07-01 02:00:08 UTC

"Irony": see Metallurgy

"Irony": see Metallurgy

There were many potential risks involved when the Bearers went on missions and in Twilight's opinion, that list included the following: diplomatic incidents, injury, magical mishaps, and the possibility of getting back to find the library's card catalog was completely out of date. (It might have been worth noting that her personal ranking of their actual severity wouldn't necessarily have them in that exact order.)

It couldn't be helped. Every one of the Bearers had a day job, and that meant somepony had to fill in for them while they were gone. Eventually, it had reached the point where the palace hired those temporary replacements directly. An entire harras of earth ponies would roam the Acres, desperately trying to make up for one Applejack. Meanwhile, the rest of the weather team simply stepped up their efforts a little, and to say Ponyville's atmospheric schedule ran a little closer to the actual assignment sheet when Rainbow wasn't there could be seen as both slightly cruel and highly accurate. And in Twilight's case... well, initially, she'd had the least problems, because she had Spike. It meant she could leave the tree while knowing the library was under the care of a dragon who'd spent his entire life getting used to her standards, and so returning home generally didn't result in more than three hours of desperate straightening, reshelving, completion of neglected forms, and replacing all the quills which would have been given out from the supply at her desk. Despite the proven-if-irrational existence of Davenport, Spike still seemed to feel quills were free, and it sometimes felt like ponies just waited for a mission to begin and then lined up accordingly. (She had considered asking somepony to lurk outside the tree and take pictures, just so she could finally see exactly how long that line was.)

But over time, six mares had increasingly been joined by one dragon: the palace had recognized what he contributed to the team, and he traveled with them accordingly. It was acknowledgement. It was, in all ways, a great honor. It also happened to leave the library under the so-called supervision of government hires, and a fuming Twilight had discovered just how low those standards were every time she trotted back in and found herself greeted with periodicals which had been left in the restroom, newspapers stuffed into cracks, books which had been reshelved upside-down and backwards with inside-out as a perpetually lurking option, plus she was certain somepony had been reading in her bed. Straightening up after Spike's custody periods was three hours of work, most of which she'd eventually learned not to do directly in front of him. Everypony else in the world started at five, and there had been one mission where they'd been away for a week, she'd suspected that last horrible temporary was coming back because she'd gotten a glimpse of a familiar saddlebag set as they'd all run for the train... suddenly, death by strinkii acid had started to look like the good option.

Missions had risks. The end of one, coming back to Ponyville, resuming what sometimes managed to briefly pass for their everyday lives... that was stress. And so Twilight had sent scroll after scroll to the palace, desperately explaining the situation (up to eight times per week, frequently with some last-minute citations added to a few helpful hoofnotes) while coming close to outright begging for somepony who could truly manage the job.

Some of her friends felt she was effectively begging for trouble, and Twilight didn't understand how they could see things that way. She was just begging for help. Somepony with Standards, as well as somepony who would understand that given the situation, the extra capital was justified. So she continued to write and eventually, as might have been expected by anypony who wasn't her, something horrible happened.

She got what she wanted.

It was nearly three in the morning when they staggered up to the library's doors, with only Moon present to watch the final approach. Twilight had been propping Spike up for most of the way: having him initially riding her back had just put her mane through repeating yankings when he'd inevitably followed nodding off with sliding off.

"We're home," she sighed as her corona ignited, with the energy wearily flowing over the locks. She noticed the foreign signature which hadn't even begun to fade from the security enchantments, recognized that it had been left by the temporary. A pony who was probably already home, while Twilight still had a library floor to cross, a ramp to climb, and then it would take at least three minutes to remember how blankets worked.

Three minutes, which had a good chance to tick away under Sun --

"-- don't straighten," Spike yawned.

"Sorry?" Twilight lied, and did so on multiple levels. The word didn't represent a request for clarification, because she knew exactly what he'd meant. Additionally, she had no regrets about what was about to happen, and there was also a board game which she was frankly too exhausted to play and had really stupid rules anyway.

"Don't reshelve, either," he wearily said. "It's been days, Twilight. Days, and I know you. We're going to get in there, I'll make it up to my basket, you'll promise you're coming up in a minute, I'll close my eyes and then I won't sleep because there's books being put on shelves and files being updated, plus sometimes you forget I'm allowed to sleep and you call for me to come down and send another scroll to the palace. We're home, and... just once, can't we just be home?"

She looked at him. Then her gaze moved up past the tree's canopy, to where Moon shone down on a sleeping Ponyville.

Three in the morning.

The library opens at ten.

I could get two hours of sleep and still have the place more or less presentable before the first patron shows up. An internal pause. At least as far as the patron would know. The vast majority of them had irritatingly low standards.

"No reshelving," she told him. "Not until after we've both gotten a little sleep."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Which wasn't a lie, especially as she hadn't been asked to define 'little'.

They went inside, and Twilight very deliberately didn't turn on the lights. To see the state of her little realm would be to feel an urge to act on it, and she didn't need the light anyway. She had the layout fully memorized. She could navigate the place in her sleep and, when the stress of the job had sent unaware legs trotting down the ramp as a wavering corona dream-aimed without the help of closed eyes, occasionally had.

"We're home," she sighed as she trotted forward. "Let's... just be home..."

It was an interesting idea, and it was completely jolted out of her mind at the instant she banked her fetlock into the unseen bookcase.

She yelped in pain. Instinctively jumped to the side, trying to get away from the source of that pain, and thus got to relearn about what happened to your fur when you knocked something scaly over and then had to wriggle your way off him while he was demanding to know what happened the whole time.

"This --" she sputtered as she got to her hooves, one of which was now having a little more trouble taking the weight. "This... lights!"

The devices activated, and she found herself staring at the atlases. This was completely expected: to get up the ramp, you first went past the atlases. But there was a slight discoloration to a long strip of wood on the floor or rather, there was an original hue. The color of wood which hadn't been touched by light in a very long time.

At the time she said the next words, she felt that the tones were those of ultimate offense. She was wrong. She had yet to learn what offense was.

"Somepony moved this!"

Spike looked down.

"About three hoofwidths to the left," he wearily noted. "So?"

"So I hit my foreleg! Why would anypony move this? It was fine where it was!"

The reptilian gaze focused a little more.

"Some of the atlases stick out from the shelves," the little dragon observed. "They always have, because atlases are just so big. It's always made that aisle a little more narrow than the others. And with the bookcase moved, it's more of a match."

"But... but..." The sputtering was meant to buy time while she found a term which was foul enough, and all it let her do was realize she would be unleashing that vocabulary in front of Spike. "...somepony moved it!"

"I know," Spike agreed with the logic of the half-asleep. "Somepony must have moved it. Because it's right there in the new place, so it was moved."

"Okay, maybe the aisle is --" and her brain instantly kicked itself into reverse "-- but it narrowed down the path to the ramp! And my leg...!"

"We can just put it back in the morning," her little brother sighed.

"I can put it back now --"

"-- you promised."

She had, and that she now hated having done so didn't change the fact.

"Fine..." she sighed, and trudged towards the ramp, trying to minimize the limp. "But would you please go into the kitchen? See how much ice we have. I'll sleep with some on my leg. Wrapped in a towel."

He loved her, and so he did just that. He also wasn't all that familiar with what slow-melting ice which had been wrapped in a towel did to fur, because he didn't have any. So Twilight lay in her bed with the dampness soaking into her chilled leg, and then both towel and fur were saturated with melt water, which meant some of it went into the blankets, more hit the topsheets, there was water soaking down into her mattress and spreading out under her body and she couldn't sleep. All she could do was lie there with aching leg and fuming heart, because she'd promised and some utter moron of a pony had moved a bookcase. It all combined to make her something much less than happy.

Things happened when Twilight wasn't happy.

She hadn't expected things to look better under the first touch of Sun, and they didn't. To describe the state of the library as 'better' would have represented too much of an understatement.

"...wow," Spike breathed, after the wake-up juice finally kicked in and he'd finished attending to Twilight's other foreleg, because of course a pony coming down the ramp was going to bank off the wood from the opposite side. "Just -- wow..."

Twilight didn't say anything.

"It's never been this good!" Spike proclaimed as his gaze swept over the periodicals which had been perfectly centered upon the rotating racks. "Whoever it was, they even dusted the ceiling fans! Nopony's ever dusted the fans! Do you think we got a pegasus?"

Which meant she had to talk. "No. The locks had a fresh signature on them, and that wasn't from a device. It's a unicorn." Immediately closed her mouth again.

Spike ventured a little deeper into the library. "Your desk was polished."

Absolute silence.

"It smells like lemons."

She didn't like lemons.

"And the rolling shelf for restocking is empty, the incoming card processing file is empty because it's all in the catalog already --" a drawer opened "-- and look at all these bits! Right next to the notices of collected late fees! How did they manage to get late fees? Nopony ever tries for late fees!"

But she wasn't really listening by that point. She was too busy looking around at her realm. Her library, her sanctum, her place of comfort, the one place in all of Equestria which offered her something that approached full control.

A library which was, but for a single moved bookcase, in perfect shape.

Her horn ignited. The bookcase floated back onto its proper impression in the wood. And then, with Spike watching her in silent confusion, she limped up the ramp and tucked herself into the soaked bed.

The next mission to take them out of Ponyville brought them back around eight in the evening, about an hour after the library's normal hours would have seen it close. It meant they were much less tired and, at least for Twilight, that much more tense.

"It'll be nice to sleep in," a grinning, completely unaware Spike told her, with both siblings now on the final approach to the tree.

She said nothing.

"Since we got the same temporary again. We can just go to bed, Twilight. Well -- we should really have a snack first, because it's too early for bed," decided the dragon whose idea of a bedtime was whatever he could get away with. "And you probably want to send a scroll to the Princess, right? Or do you want to think a little more about what you learned over the last two days and save it until morning? Because this one was kind of involved."

Two days. They'd only been gone for two days this time. Surely everything was fine, and fine in a way where she could just -- have a snack and go to bed, because her realm wouldn't need anything more from her.

Her realm wouldn't need her to do anything at all.

They were trying too hard the first time. Trying to make a good impression. And since they think they made one, they'll slip up.

There were probably stray advertising circulars under the benches. There often were.

She unlocked the door, made sure she was the first inside. (Spike followed, with a respectable distance between spines and tail.) Braced herself. "Lights."

The devices activated, and Twilight's left foreleg came up. It had to. There was no other way for the hoof to stomp into the floor.

Not that it did much. She was rather small for a mare, slender and lacking much in the way of mass. So the stomp didn't come off so much as a single furious blow of anger as it managed to resemble a filly who was considering just how dramatic the temper tantrum in the middle of the toy aisle was going to be.

"They moved the bookcase again!"

Spike's attention, however, had gone somewhere else.

"Wasn't Chemistry closer to the wall before we left?"

Twilight's head jerked to the right. Saw the familiar thick hardcovers in their unfamiliar new location, and then registered the little piece of yellow paper which had been stuck to the middle shelf.

Slowly, she trotted forward, eyes progressively narrowing with every hoofstep, as if trying to read it from twenty body lengths away. But the fieldwriting was rather small (while still being exactingly precise), and so she didn't manage to make out the words until she was just about right on top of them.

"'Chemistry,'" she read, "'is most naturally suited to being an intermediary study stage between Biology and Physics. That is the order in which they are taught, and so it is the sequence in which they should be shelved. I have corrected your error accordingly.'" And then, as her left forehoof ground against the wood, "'I hope you are capable of appreciating the courtesy. R.L.'"

"Well," Spike mused in a way which made it clear that he had no idea how much he might be shortening his lifespan, "that is how it goes in school. It kind of makes sense."

"But," Twilight got out between teeth which were trying to grind on their own, "it's not the way they go on the shelves."

"It looks good, though," said the not-quite-dead dragon.

I had an order. I worked out the order. My order was -- order. She came in here, and she just...

No. This stops here.

"Spike? Take a letter."

He blinked. "You've got the lesson figured out? Because I thought that was a really complicated one. I still don't understand how the pigeon feathers worked into it."

"Just get a scroll..." she sighed, still facing the offending shelves. "You'll hear the words when I say them." And immediately started on the first internal draft.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Regarding the most recent temporary to be assigned to my library --

"Okay," Spike said. "But I'm out. Because we sent so many during the mission. I have to get one from your desk."

She nodded, didn't look at him as he walked away.

-- there is, how do I put this, a certain degree of respect which could be reasonably asked for --

"...Twilight?"

She sighed, put the internal letter on very temporary hold. "What is it, Spike?"

"Where's the desk?"

It didn't take long to locate it. The move had taken it just out of sight from the original location, and put it in a place where the occupant could now observe that one shadowed catty-corner which the town's more youthful delinquents used for trying to smuggle the more adult material into their saddlebags. Relocation to the original position, however, was a mere fraction of the time required for Twilight's dictation of the letter.

All seven syllable-blazing pages of it.

The reply (which was really more of a note), arrived shortly before they had to open for the day.

"Read it," Twilight tensely ordered.

Green eyes quickly scanned down the page before awkwardly glancing up towards her face. "Um..."

"Read it to me," she clarified.

"I don't think you want to hear this --"

" --Spike."

He swallowed. "She says... that after all of your... complaints..."

She looked at his expression. "Did she actually write 'complaints'?"

"No."

Twilight winced. "...keep going."

"...about the previous temporaries -- she went to the Canterlot Archives and spoke to some of the senior Archivists. She asked them which intern they most wanted to see take over for you in Ponyville. There was a group consensus." He kept reading. "Actually, it was unanimous." A little more down the line. "Two recently retired Archivists signed back on for one day just so they could cast their own votes. And that's the pony she sent. The single most suitable mare for the task, one whom she... assures you, will make certain you never complain again."

With the very last flicker of hope, "...did she use 'complain' that time?"

"No. Or 'assures'."

Her hindquarters sank to the floor. This was a particularly neat trick, because it didn't seem to happen with much in the way of participation from her legs.

"The Archives sent her."

"That's what the Princess said."

"The Archivists. All of them."

"...that too..."

"But..." The slender jaw set, little chin thrust forward in rage. "...she's moving things! She thinks she knows what's best for my library! She's coming in when I'm not here, when I can't stop her, when I can't do anything, and -- rearranging! She's changing my system! What kind of pony just... does that?"

He didn't say anything. He just looked at her, and the nature of that regard felt rather... odd.

"Spike?"

"Do you remember," the little dragon said, "when you were starting out at the Archives, as an intern?"

"...yes."

"And how you lasted, what was it, about two weeks in each department --" The claws tightened around the scroll. "-- no. It's been a while. Two weeks wasn't the average. It was the record."

She winced.

"The other end of the record was four hours. And part of the reason they just kept transferring you over and over again, besides the fact that you treated patrons like intruders who were just looking to hurt the books, the reason you wound up in Ancient History and the onsite apartment, where there was nopony to answer to and we saw, what was, that record, two ponies in one day? I remember the low end as zero -- anyway, do you know why they put you up there? Because you kept telling the Archivists, ponies who'd been there for decades, how to run their departments. And when there was a holiday, or a lot of off-hours when the Archives would be closed, you would sneak into whatever your current posting was and rearrange it. Because if they wouldn't change things on your word, then they would just have to see those changes. And they would be so impressed that they'd just have to keep them. Not that you ever found out, because the next thing that happened was that you'd be transferred. Which was usually followed by the attuned shield spell over the last department's door. Attuned to keep out one pony. So tell me something, Twilight." The scroll crumpled in his hand, claws scoring the paper. "What kind of pony does that?"

Twilight rallied.

"I was good at it."

"...really."

Defensively, "Well, obviously I was good at it or they wouldn't have given me my own library."

His hands were now on his hips.

"Twilight." It was all he needed to say.

She winced again. "...right," she sighed. "They're transferring her to me. Because she's doing the same kind of things I did and they don't want her in the Archives." She had wondered if some of her former superiors held a grudge... "And this puts her in Ponyville, at least part-time. They're getting her out because she's like me."

And now he didn't have to say a word.

The purple eyes suddenly brightened, lit by the glow of happy realization. "But that means she'll be out of here soon!"

"Why?"

Couldn't he see it? "She's like me! I was horrible with patrons! Maybe the Princess won't do anything if I complain -- or whatever word she used --"

Her horn ignited, with her corona ready to lance for the scroll. He preemptively set it on fire.

"SPIKE!"

"You don't want to see it," he firmly told her. "You don't."

She fumed for a few seconds, but it was as long as she could hold on the frustration. "Spike, if she's like me, there's going to be ponies writing the palace to get her out of here! Nopony will be able to stand her! I bet she's offended a whole bunch of them already and the Princess just hasn't gotten to that part of her mail. Because she does get a lot of mail, you know. Even after you factor all of the marriage proposals out. All we have to do is wait."

And Twilight found her smile.

"She might even be let go before the next mission," she decided, ears lofted with open satisfaction. "Go open the door, Spike. Let's see who comes in to donate the first horror story."

"...and she just matched me to the book!" Roseluck gushed. "Nopony's ever done that before! She looked at me, she asked me to name three things I'd read, and then she just took me over to meet an author I'd never heard of and it's the best book I've ever read, Twilight! So I just had to come back and ask: can you show me anything else he's written? Everything else? I can't believe I'd never heard of him before! And I looked at that page which comes before the title, where it lists previous publications, and he's just written so much! The shelves must be packed! Or --" now looking a little crestfallen "-- did she give me this one first because all the others are checked out? Because I'd really like to get another one today. But if it's a question of going on a waiting list..."

Twilight was still looking at the cover. It was marginally worse than looking anywhere else.

"That's... the only one we have," and quickly decided the words hadn't sounded as natural as she would have wished. It was enough of an effort to speak about that particular author when she wasn't half-lost in visions of unicorn mares trapped in printing presses and the way their last words would be embossed in a perfectly suitable font.

"They're checked out," Roseluck morosely decided. "I get it. I really do. How far back am I on the waiting list?"

"No, Roseluck." It was an effort to speak. Every word was clawing at the inside of her throat, trying to stay within and so escape being heard by any and all nearby ears. "It's the only one we have because somepony donated it."

Leaning in so as to get the disbelief all the closer, "But he's published so much! And in such a short time, too! How can you not --"

"-- because he writes the same plot over and over, only putting it in new locations which he didn't bother to do the research on either. And with the same characters, under different names. 'Her bodacious wave-swept tail.' That was in Chapter One, right? It's always in Chapter One because every mare who falls for the stallion before the afterimage of the cover art --" she could barely look at the cover art "-- fades has a bodacious wave-swept tail. I looked up 'bodacious'. I don't think he ever has. We only have one book because it's rude to reject donations, so I was waiting for the next remaindered sale so I could get rid of it there. And if you've read one of his books, you've effectively read them all. I don't like his books, Roseluck. So I don't order them. I don't waste the library's budget on them --"

She became aware that she was being stared at.

"I don't like journals," the earth pony stated.

"Um..."

"Most ponies don't like journals. Especially ones about obscure magic which are just formulas from the first page to the last. But you keep ordering those, don't you? Who's reading them, Twilight?"

"Er..."

"I like books about handsome stallions who treat mares with bodacious tails as if they were a Princess. Don't I have a bodacious tail, Twilight?"

"...the dictionary," the rapidly leaning-back pony tried, "...is over --"

"And you don't match me to books. I come in here, and you want to know about my day. Any problems I might be having. The conspiracies which you never believe in. Which now clearly includes the one where the nation's librarians are conspiring to keep this author out of the public eye! All except for poor R.L, who has yet to be drawn into their web!"

She snorted, harder than Twilight had ever heard her do so, and then her head tilted back towards her saddlebags.

There was a *clink*.

"That's two bits."

"...yes."

"That's about how much it would be at the remaindered sale. Right?"

"...yes," said the mare who'd just mastered her Fluttershy imitation.

"Then I'll save you the trouble. To go, please. And give me a copy of the library exchange program request form. I have some books I'd like to request."

"...it's -- in the bottom drawer," Twilight eventually managed. "Give me a minute."

She put her head down, began to rummage by mouth. All the better not to look at Roseluck, and that much worked. But it didn't do anything about hearing.

"The desk," the earth pony stated, "looked better over there."

It had barely qualified as a mission. They'd received the alert shortly after midnight, the Guards had made sure they reached Canterlot within an hour, and the whole thing had been wrapped up shortly before lunch. It left the Bearers standing in six separate air carriages, and the pegasi began to split up as Ponyville loomed on the horizon.

"Faster," Twilight muttered. "Go faster..."

"They're going pretty fast," Spike decided.

"They're not doing emergency speed."

"Because there's no emergency --"

"-- she's there, Spike. She's in the library right now. I'm going to meet her snout to snout, and we're going to have a little talk about boundaries." A brief pause. "And quality literature. If I have to look at one more piece of cover art which has the same sheer dress torn over the mark..."

Rarity's carriage veered towards the Boutique.

"Almost there." There was no room in the carriage to pace, and so she settled for a few strategic lashes of her tail. "Almost there..."

Their carriage tilted down, and Twilight jumped out before it actually landed. It took a moment to stumble her way out of the results, and then she galloped up to the front door --

-- which now featured a rather precisely fieldwritten note.

My dear patrons,

The library may be opening slightly later after the lunch break than usual due to awaiting the return of its normal custodian, whom the Princess' scroll assured me is on the way. As such, I have taken the first train home. I apologize for any inconvenience she might cause you.

Your loving librarian,
R.L.

Twilight knew nine spells which had no purpose other than direct offense and as it turned out, seven of them really weren't meant to be used on paper.

After the shockwaves had faded and most of the passersby had found an appropriate hole to wait for the All Clear signal in, Spike slowly walked up to where his sister stood. Her head was down, ribs heaving from effort, and so she barely noticed when he went past her, pushed on what little remained of the locks, and went inside.

"Um," he said.

"The library," a hard-panting Twilight told the stoop, "was open for three hours. What's 'um', Spike? What did she have time to do that's good for 'um?'"

"Besides putting everything else back to the way she had it... remember the rotating racks in Periodicals?"

"Yes."

"Don't."'

Slowly, she trotted into the library. Head down, so she wouldn't have to see the worst of it, and she didn't look up until she reached the party whom she was now convinced counted as an accessory to the crime.

"Why didn't you do anything?"

"Hoo?"

"You! Why didn't you stop --"

Owlowiscious spread his wings and flew to the top of a recently-displaced bookcase.

"...right," Twilight sighed. "Spike, close the door."

"I don't think it'll --"

"-- push something against it. Just for a few minutes. Maybe an hour. Let me think..."

He gave her time and after enough had passed for Sun to visibly change position, she called to him.

"I thought about putting a shield spell over the shelves."

"Um," he said, because that had justified it.

"But that's just stupid. First, they're domes, so the shape would be really awkward to fit in here. Also, nopony would be able to get at the books. And then they would complain. To the Princess. We really don't need that right now."

"Uh-huh..." Which nearly counted as an improvement.

"Same problem with putting a big one over the whole tree. Also, I'm not as good with shields as Shining is, because that's his mark. I'm not going to be maintaining one for days from wherever we wind up for the next mission. I'm not even sure I can keep it up from the Acres." A thoughtful pause. "I might test that."

"...right," Spike tried. "Twilight --"

She looked at him, and her eyes were misty with memory.

"-- so I was thinking that if she's like I was, just like I was... then she just doesn't understand. She doesn't really think about other ponies, what they might want. Remember that time at the cottage, when Fluttershy was grooming somepony's pet and I wandered into her medical supply area for the first time? I rearranged the whole thing, and... she had to explain to me why everything had been where it was. That it was grouping all the dog medicine together, keeping certain herbs away from each other... sorting by size or color or anything other than what she'd come up with didn't work. And she didn't yell at me..." A tiny smile. "...well, Fluttershy. But she wasn't even really mad. She just explained herself, and then she asked me to help her put everything back."

Spike reached out, lightly touched her flank.

"So I'm going to write a letter for her," Twilight gently concluded. "A good one. The next time we have a mission, I'll put it out where she can see it, just before we go. I'll explain how my system works. Why I'd really appreciate her respecting it. We'll talk, through the letter. And then she'll understand."

The scaly palm gently rubbed her fur. "Do you want me to get the paper?"

"No. You go to Ratchette's and ask about getting our locks fixed." She sighed, just a little. "I think I need to write this one myself."

They greeted a half-dozing Time Turner, who just barely acknowledged them through a combination of nod and yawn, and then the siblings moved on through the sleeping town.

"I feel good," Twilight eventually said.

Spike exhaled. "Thank Moon that potion works on hoof cracks."

She smiled. "No, not that." And retested the healed break against the nearest cobblestone anyway. "About the library. It took me four days before I was happy with that letter, Spike. I've had journal articles which came together faster, but... those were just numbers and formulae. This was writing from the heart. I really haven't done much of that, when it isn't the Princess. It just... took a while. It was using words as logic and emotion. It wasn't easy, I put so many drafts in the trash, and... I actually liked the final version. I wrote that letter because I cared, Spike. About the library, and about her. Because if she's that much like me... then there aren't five other Bearers waiting to pull her out of it, and keep pulling every day. Somepony has to give her the first rope to clench in her teeth so we can haul, and... this time, that was me."

They moved under warmth and starlight, as their home slept.

"I treated this as a friendship problem," Twilight said. "I feel good."

The tree, its branches seemingly reaching out to offer comfort, was just ahead.

"Ready for our own beds?" she smiled.

"After three days cooped up in that caravan?" Spike yawned, stretched. "Completely. Plus we don't even have to straighten up in the morning. She's done that for us every time. And tomorrow's a holiday. We can just relax..."

Twilight nodded, thought about meeting friends at the swimming hole. "All right," she told him and on multiple levels, believed it. "So here's the locks -- okay, they're working fine -- and here's where we go into the kitchen and toast each other with whatever we've got. Because it was both of us solving the mission this time, and I for one think a toast is in order."

He smiled. "Let's do it."

"Let's." She opened the door. "Lights."

They turned on, because they always did. They just didn't illuminate the normal locations.

Two clawed hands instantly locked around her horn. Their owner needn't have bothered. She was somewhere beyond casting.

"...Spike," she distantly said, "do you see my bed anywhere?"

"I..." She heard him swallow. "...see where it used to be..."

"That's an interesting use for the ramp," Twilight considered. "I never would have done that. In fact, I don't think anypony's ever done that. We should research that. Whether anypony's done it. And then we could do a follow-up. On how to keep anypony from ever doing it again."

Urgently, "Twilight, you have to start blinking --"

"-- I have to go into the library now," she peacefully declared. "Because it's been a long mission. And I should go to bed. But that means finding my bed. I can look for it while dragging you along. But I'd really rather you just helped me look. So please let go of my horn. Because I have no intention of casting anything right now. But I am thinking about canceling your allowance for a moon."

He had to think that over.

"You swear you won't do anything."

"I swear I'm going to find my bed. If it's still around."

He then had to think about that.

"And after?"

"Sleep."

"And after that?"

Calmly. "One week's allowance is now gone. You have three heartbeats before it's two --"

He let go.

It could have been said that the restroom was an interesting choice for a bed's new location, even with the curtain which now poorly served as a dividing wall. Twilight was fully prepared to say that, and quite a few other things. But all of the words stopped when she saw what had been placed against the pillows.

There were two things there. The first was her letter, and that was what got her initial attention. She had been a student for so much of her life: it meant that just about nothing got her pulse racing like the slashouts created by red ink.

She trotted a little closer.

"Oh," she distantly said. "Corrections. Suggestions for alternate word choices. She didn't like the semicolon there. Well, hardly anypony likes semicolons. I'm not sure what she had against the parentheses, though."

Spike's hands were coming up again. "Twilight..."

"...so let's see what's on the other letter... no, Spike, I think I'll read this one for myself..."

To the custodian,

At the moment I first entered the sorry state into which you had rendered this once-proud place, I confirmed that you had little true comprehension of your duties. It only took a tiny amount of discussion with your thus-neglected patrons to learn about your handicap. How is it that a pony without a librarian's mark could be granted such a position? And one who, having abused the honor of that occupation, could not even stand to remain within it? Vanishing for days at a time, instead of remaining at the library? The place where she does not belong, where any period of absence might risk clearing fog from the minds of this settled zone?

It was clear that you did not belong here. You, with your mark for 'magic', whatever that might be. Failing to recognize trends. Unable to hear the shelves calling out to her on the deepest level of her soul. And speaking to ponies about problems instead of books, or giving them a book to solve their problem rather than talking at all. You are no librarian. You never have been, and never will be. You simply fill a gap, and do so with mold, until the day true talent blooms.

Anything I do to this facility is the act of a real librarian. How a real librarian sees it. How a real librarian knows it should be. And you have no say in the matter, for this is in no way your building. There is no way it could ever be, as you so poorly put it, your 'realm'. It belongs to the government and as an employee of that government, I can change it however I see fit. And I will continue to do so each time I am sent here, until it is recognized who the true occupant of the position should be and your input is no longer required.

I would normally hope you would understand the implications, but to hope for your understanding is a lost cause.

Finally, regarding the nonsense portions of your letter: please see the fourth and fifth words of this sentence. Do not waste my time with such drivel again.

I remain,
R.L.

You, however, shall not remain for long.

"Spike?"

"You can keep the bits through Hearth's Warming. I am not letting go of your horn."

"Fine."

She turned, and his walking claws skidded across the floor as they went back out into the library.

"Friendship problem," Twilight said as she swerved, trying to get around the new obstacles near the ramp.

No answer.

"I said that, right?"

Silence.

"You can call me stupid now. You're my little brother. Little brothers live for the moments when their big sisters are proven as idiots --"

-- and banked her fetlock into the shifted bookcase.

Sun was minutes away from being raised, and they'd just gotten the bed back into place.

"Let's just go to sleep," Twilight sighed as she floated Spike's basket to where it should have been all along. "I know it's sleeping during the day, but it's a holiday, and it's better than trying to make it through Moon-raising. Let's just... sleep."

Spike slumped into his blankets. Twilight, ice pack in place, slowly wriggled under hers.

A few minutes passed.

"I'm too tired to sleep."

Her only answer was a soft reptilian snuffle. She sighed to herself and, even with her sibling beyond listening, spoke to him anyway.

"The worst part is that technically, she might be right," Twilight told the dream-locked form. "At least in that the tree is government property. She might be lying about some of the rest to scare me. To scare me out. But we both know the Princess won't let that happen."

She adjusted the ice pack. It didn't really help. The true wound was somewhat deeper.

"Real librarian."

Spike's tail shifted a little.

"I hope I wasn't this bad," she told the fading night. "I just... hope. Alone in the tower, in the apartment they assigned me, with barely any patrons -- well, she's got those -- and no friends. I know I wasn't this ambitious, at least. I'm still not. At least I had that --"

Blinked.

Holiday.

The Archives are closed.

What does a control freak do in a closed building on a holiday?

Her horn ignited, and the blankets flew off.

"Spike? Do we have any wake-up juice left?"

He snored.

"Never mind," she told him, corona now lancing towards her saddlebags. "I'll buy some on the way to the train."

The unicorn mare trotted home at the end of a satisfying day.

She didn't spend many hours in that house, and would have much preferred one of the apartments which were built into the best Archives departments. It would have been a much shorter commute, along with giving her more time among books. But still, it was a pleasant-enough place to spend time before she could go back to the books again. It was certainly well-organized. She wouldn't have allowed it to be anything else, especially given all she'd had to do in order to make the place livable after the last occupant.

It had been a fine holiday. No Archivists to disrupt her efforts. Privacy in which to rearrange things into what they should have been all along. Eventually, somepony would see that, and if she didn't get her own department at last... well, the residential part of the tree might wind up requiring the same amount of corrections, at least for the interior. However, in that case, somepony else would be taking care of the lawn.

Two ponies called out to her, saying something which seemed to be about her partaking in the holiday with them. Which was nonsense. She'd read a book about it, and that was all she required. Her current home was just around the next corner, and then she could think about the next thing to do--

-- she stopped. Stopped stock-still in front of it, and didn't move again for some time.

The little house, one of the residences which was provided free to Archive interns, was technically fine. It was just that something had lifted it off the foundation and then put it back down again, so that the new location was three precise hoofwidths to the left.

Eventually, she staggered forward. Opened the fence's gate (after realigning herself for the new location), then banked a fetlock on a tree that wasn't in the same place any more. Made her way to the shifted door, and read the attached note.

Government property.
Moved by government employee.
It is therefore impossible for you to have issues with this.

Sincerely,
T.S.

"And thank you for staying until we got home!" Ponyville's real librarian called out from the library's stoop, projecting her voice towards the departing stallion. "I appreciate it!" Waited until he was out of earshot, and then turned to Spike. "So how many hours of reshelving and cleanup are we looking at?"

"Probably five."

She sighed.

"Thank goodness," Twilight decided, and trotted towards the rolling shelf.