Your Family and You

“So, did you find anything useful in the old castle?”

Twilight glanced up from the stack of returned books she was checking back in. There were quite a few; certainly more than usual, given that it was the summer and foals didn’t need them for their homework.

Placing her quill into the inkwell, she peered at me over a pair of black reading glasses. “What are you talking about?”

“You know…” I gestured vaguely from my position on the couch, my feet propped up on the cleared coffee table. “You originally went there to see if you could learn anything about that weird puzzle box, right? You stayed up all night, so… did you find out anything about it?”

“Oh.” She blinked before shaking her head and sighing. “Unfortunately, no. There didn’t seem to be anything about the box. I checked the entire library, but couldn’t find it mentioned in any of the old tomes. Although—” a smile touched her lips “—I did find some interesting stuff regardless.”

I perked up. “Oh? And what is that?”

“Just Celestia and Luna’s old diary.”

My eyes widened and I sat up, planting my feet on the ground. “No kidding? Please tell me there were some embarrassing entries in there!”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. It was mostly just things about the old castle from when they used to live in it. Stuff like the various secret passages and their favorite traps, such as the ‘Hall of Hooves’ and the ‘Organ to the Outside’. That sort of thing.”

I flopped back against the couch cushions. “Disappointment.”

“Oh, you,” Twilight giggled as she picked up the quill again. Her horn glowed as she continued sorting through the books.

“What?” I asked as I watched several books float through the air to slip themselves back on the proper shelves. “Is it so wrong to want some dirt on those two? Celestia especially. Just imagine how much fun it would be!”

“Oh goodness no,” Twilight said. “I’ve seen what happens when the princesses get into a prank war. I want no part of that.” Grabbing the next book, she opened it only to tsk. “Water damage? What did they do, take this into the bath with them?”

“What’s the story called?” I asked, unable to see from across the room.

“Uh…” There was a rustle of pages. “It’s called The Time Traveler’s Herd.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” I said, clasping my hands over my stomach. “It’s a cheesy romance. That’s not bathwater. It’s tears.”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight scoffed. “Now, who checked this out last?” More rustling as she flipped to the front of the book. “Let’s see… Cherry Berry? Ha!” She whipped her head to look up at me, a victorious smile on her face. “See, I told you! This is the third book she’s gotten wet. She reads… in the bath.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay… and those three books… what genre were they?”

Her smile faded. Horn lighting up, she pulled out her book damage records and began flipping through the pages. Upon finding the correct page, her eyes darted back and forth for a moment before her ears folded back against her head. “Romances,” she mumbled. “Cheesy romances.”

“Ha, told ya!” I said, parroting her previous tone. Placing my hands behind my head, I closed my eyes.

“This proves nothing!” Twilight insisted. “Cheesy romances are all she checks out!”

I opened my eyes. “Well, uh… what’s happening on the pages that have the damage?” There was a pause before the sound of turning pages reached my ears. I heard Twilight grumble something under her breath before a loud ‘thump’ came as she closed the book again.

“Well?” I asked.

“We aren’t talking about it,” she huffed. “Water damage is water damage. I’ll just have to add the amount to her account. Including this book’s damage, she owes us… twenty bits.”

“And how do you intend to get those bits?” I asked. “Do you need me to send Avera and Ebony out to collect?”

“Oh no,” Twilight said calmly. “I’ll just wait. She’ll pay up.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Really? How do you figure?”

“Well, judging by her previous checkouts, she’s in the middle of reading a series,” Twilight explained. “The next book came out recently, and we’re due to get it in some time next week. Aaand, she won’t be able to check it out until she pays, sooo…” She shrugs.

“Oooh,” I winced. “Cockblocked by the damage fee. Noice.” I paused and my brow furrowed. “Wait… can’t you, like… fix the book with a spell?”

“Yes, actually,” Twilight said. “There’s a simple spell I learned years ago that’ll remove all water damage without ruining the text.”

“So, if you can fix the book with a quick spell, no trouble… why do you charge ponies for damages?”

“To make a point,” Twilight explained. “When they realize they’ll have to pay for the damage done, they’ll be a little more careful with the books in the future.”

“And if they just stop coming to the library instead of paying?”

“That,” Twilight said with a large smirk, “is when we send in Avera and Ebony.”

“You can be scary sometimes, you know that?” I asked, giving her a look. A moment later, I smiled. “I like it.”

Laughing softly, Twilight returned to her work.

Silence fell over the library, broken occasionally by the scratch of a quill or the sound of a turning page. A steady stream of books zipped by overhead as they were returned to the shelves. I watched them float along, not really thinking about anything at the moment. Every so often a book would come close enough that I was able to swat at it, causing it to tumble through the air before correcting itself.

After the third book, they began avoiding my hand before bopping me on the head in passing.

When the eighth book thumped against my head, I reached up and ripped it out of the cloud of magic.

“Isn’t there something productive you could be doing?” Twilight asked.

“I am doing something productive,” I said.

Twilight rolled her eyes before pulling the book out of my hand. As it floated past me, she insisted. “I’m sure you can find something else to do.” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “How’s your writing going?”

“Writing?” I asked. “What writing?”

This earned me a glare. “That report you're supposed to be writing for Crimson Quill. On everything from when you arrived up until the Canterlot event?”

“Oh… that writing.” I chewed on my cheek. “It’s… going good.”

“Is it?” Twilight asked, in a disbelieving tone. “And how far have you gotten so far?”

“A couple…” I said slowly before trailing off.

Twilight pressed on. “A couple of what? A couple of months? A couple of major events?”

“A couple of pages,” I muttered, looking away. “I got to the part where I had just arrived in Ponyville.”

“Max!” Twilight gave me a shocked look. “That’s… you’re only that far?! You still have a year’s worth of events to write down! What have you been doing?!”

“Hey, it’s only been, like… a couple of weeks,” I shot back. “I can’t write the entire thing in one sitting!”

“You’ve been sitting around the library doing nothing for those weeks!” Twilight argued.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I can’t start writing just like that,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I have to be in the mood or else I just can’t concentrate. It’s like… like… like trying to read when someone is talking to you. You can’t focus on both things.”

“Well, nopony is talking right now,” Twilight said. Her horn lit up and she levitated some blank papers and a quill over to me. Placing a pillow on my lap, she laid a wooden board across it before spreading the papers out before me. “You can get some writing done while you’re just sitting there.”

“What part of ‘I need to be in the right mood’ didn’t you understand?” I asked, only for the quill to be deposited in my open hand.

“Nonsense,” Twilight scoffed. “Just start writing and you’ll get your groove going in no time. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to get the ideas out on paper first. Crimson Quill will take care of the rest.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but a flash of Twilight’s horn rendered me speechless. No words came out and I closed my mouth a moment later, glaring at her. ~You know that doesn’t work when I can just use hoof language, right?~ I asked, going through the familiar motions.

“You’re wasting time arguing when you could be writing~~~!” Twilight called out in a sing-song voice, her face already buried back in her work.

I continued to glare at her for a moment before turning my burning gaze to the blank paper in front of me. The story was there, it had already happened. I knew that Crimson Quill—and through her, Celestia—were waiting for the so-called report, but I just didn’t know where to begin. I hadn’t been much of a writer back home—hell, I was more of a doodler than anything else—yet they all wanted me to write out the events that transpired after I arrived? Did I include everything? Every little detail? What I ate, what I smelled, what I heard? Or did they just want the general footnotes? On this day, I was in the fighting pit. On this day, I met Lyra. What did they consider important? What were they looking for?

Drumming my fingers on my leg, I stared at the blank paper, willing the words to come to me.

Nothing…

After about five minutes of glaring at the blank pages, I huffed in annoyance. Stupid Twilight. Where was I supposed to start? The last thing I remember writing about was how I peed on her rug my first night living with her. Hell, was I even supposed to put that part in there? And how was one supposed to continue off of that?

I froze and my gaze drifted up to Twilight. Staring at her for a few seconds, a shit-eating grin slowly spread across my face. Quill in hand, I placed the tip against the parchment and began to write.

“Um, Twilight? When was the last time ya got any sleep?”

“I’m telling you, Applejack, I’m not going crazy. I know what I saw!”

“I’m not sayin’ ya are, sugarcube. I’m just sayin’ that perhaps ya didn’t see what ya thought ya saw.”

This is better than daytime television…

“I’m telling you, Applejack, he did it right in front of me. Right in front of me! It was plain as day!”

“And I’m tellin’ ya, that’s impossible. There’s no way in Tartarus ya saw that!”

“And I’m telling you, for the last time, I know what I saw! I wouldn’t be here otherwise!”

Where’s a tub of over-buttered, over-cooked, over-priced popcorn when you need it?

“What are you snickering about over there?” Twilight asked, squinting at me suspiciously.

~ ~ ~ ~ > > < < ~ ~ ~ ~

Twilight stared at me.

I stared back.

This continued for a moment before she looked away first to stare out the window. She then looked back.

I continued to stare.

“No.” Her violet eyes bore into my brown one.

I didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.” She looked away again to look out the window before her gaze returned. “No, no, definitely not.”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Absolutely yes.”

“No!” She looked away for a third time. “I mean, just look at it!”

I did so, only to shrug. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Don’t see the problem?!” Twilight’s voice was shrill. “The problem is there’s a bag of blood hanging from the kitchen window!” She stared at the blood-tomato planter box contraption in horror. “What’s even going on here?”

“An experiment,” I answered. “Granted, not the most well-thought-out experiment, but an experiment nonetheless.”

“An experiment?!” For a moment, she was speechless, but then she shook her head. “Oh no. No, no, no. Not happening. I’m taking this down immediately.” She stepped forward, her horn glowing, but before she could do anything, I laughed.

“I’ll just put it back up.”

Her head whipped around and she gave me an affronted look that would have made Rarity proud. “You most certainly will not!”

Leaning forward, I pressed my nose against hers. “Try me, bitch.”

“You don’t have the balls!”

“You know that toothpaste roll that you had that was almost empty for four months straight?”

That caused her to pause. “The one that claimed it was bottomless, but that was really just a marketing ploy, and the ‘bottomless’ aspect just meant they had more in the tube than the other brands?”

“That’s the one.”

“...what about it?”

“It was me.” I grinned. “I kept putting more toothpaste back in the tube.”

She gaped up at me. “Y-you… you monster!” Flaring her wings, she began buffeting me with them. “I told my friends that it really was bottomless! I told my family about it! I was so impressed with it I wrote to the company! How could you?!”

Cackling madly, I limped quickly out of the kitchen, Twilight hot on my heels.