— Twilight —

After reassigning all the guards that had been guarding Rainbow Dash's now portal-free tower, Twilight and Luna ended up back in the temporary throne room somewhat at loose ends. Luna, of course, always had things that she could be doing, and Twilight had Luna who she could be doing, but not when she felt that she should be doing something towards hunting down Ember's book instead.

Part of the problem was that she'd kind of lost Spike, the rest of the dragons and all of her friends. Spike, Kindle and Drift had gone off with the Celestias after lunch, Ember, Slag and Carnelia had disappeared from the old library at some point, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had just kind of disappeared in all the kerfuffle.

Aside from flying up into the sky and scanning the city for anyone of note, she supposed that the best thing she could do just then was to stay with Luna where the two of them could be found if something came up. After spending the first half hour remodeling the throne room so that the throne was no longer sitting on top of several wooden crates with a rug draped over them, though, she was at a lack for something she could actually do.

"U—um—I'll... I'll come back... later," stammered a stallion, who had entered the room and made an immediate u-turn right back out.

Something that she could do other than terrify random petitioners by setting up a second throne next to Luna's and making it look like she was getting back into holding court, anyway.

Admittedly, she wasn't sure she could say what the actual difference between pretending and doing was, in this case, but she was sure there must be something.

Twilight tapped her hoof on the angular armrest of her jagged obsidian throne, considering her options.

Suddenly, she perked up. "What if I sent out a Libraropolan decree asking for another copy of the book?"

Luna looked up from the papers she was holding, raised an eyebrow at her and asked, "Is that likely?"

Twilight thought about it for a moment longer and concluded, "Considering I'm not aware of it even having a title, let alone an ESBN number... no, not very likely at all."

Luna frowned, momentarily lost in thought. "Is that for locating it in the card catalog?"

"...Close enough," Twilight allowed, entirely because Luna was her marefriend. "By which I mean no, not even slightly."

Luna hmmed. "You don't know any spells that could help you track it down?"

"If I had a ripped page, I could cast the Librarian's Vengeance, which would let me pinpoint it anywhere in Equestria—maybe—but all the ruined books in storage from when the palace collapsed would probably throw it off," Twilight speculated. "Mostly, scrying spells like that work the other way around; if I had the book, I might be able to find Ember with it."

"Unless the book is sapient?" Luna suggested.

Twilight blinked. "Why would the book be—I mean... maybe? Even if it was, I don't think a book would have treasured possessions, but it doesn't matter because the book is not sapient, or even sentient. Probably."

"Probably?" Luna asked.

"...Well, Spike did say that Ember changed, like, overnight when he first saw her with the book," Twilight admitted, thinking back and wondering if the book could be cursed, but curses weren't real. "The book is not sapient," she insisted.

"Probably," Luna amended.

"Probably," Twilight agreed, and they lapsed into silence.

After a while, Twilight threw her hooves up into the air and groaned. "Ugh! This is all such a mess! Why did it have to be stars? Why can't I have magic book powers? Just point my hoof and **bam**—a book on the dragon empires!" she shouted...

...and bam, a book on the dragon empires appeared in the air in front of her.

Twilight was too busy staring at the book to catch it before it fell and tumbled down the steps of the dais. The book sat there for quite a while, Twilight making no immediate move to go pick it up.

"Well, that is convenient," Luna blithely commented and proceeded to pick the book up in her levitation and casually flip through it. "It seems accurate," she commented.

Twilight continued gawking for another moment before she finally shook herself back to rationality. "No, that's not the point. I've accidentally made books with magic before, back when I was cleaning up Rainbow Dash's tower. They all looked right and you could even read them; they were grammatically correct and were structured as well as you'd expect any published book to be—but the information in them was all so much nonsense. It was like if you gave a filly a book and let them write whatever they wanted, so long as it looked good enough to pass at first glance."

Luna looked at the book that she was holding with disappointment. "Ah, well, I suppose it did seem a bit too good to be true."

Twilight shook her head. "No—no—because that..." she pointed at the object floating in front of Luna, "...is not a book."

Luna cocked her head to the side in confusion, then looked at the item again. "Is this about your objection to fiction again? Because I understand there is quite a lot of it that is entirely reasonable and not written by your mother about things that you haven't done."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "I don't have a thing against fiction—look, the point is, I'm not playing around. I felt it when I created it—that's a star."

Luna looked at the star rather doubtfully. She seemed to have several questions, but what she eventually asked was, "Is it sentient?"

"No—I—no, of course not," Twilight insisted. She did not want to get into the exact level of independence her stars might or might not have now that she was properly manifesting and not splitting herself off of them, and anything less than a starbeast was something she wasn't going to think about.

Luna flipped through the book again. "Are you sure?" she asked, honestly curious. "Because it appears to go to whatever subject I am thinking about when I turn the page."

— Carnelia —

Carnelia suspected that she might have broken the demigoddess of apples, because she was just sitting there staring at Carnelia's golden apple to the point that it was getting concerning.

Not sure if there was anything she could do about that, Carnelia took another bite of her golden apple, chewed and swallowed it with Applejack's eyes following every movement.

Shrugging, she breathed another golden apple into being and tossed it over to Applejack, who automatically caught it, successfully redirecting her attention to the golden fruit so that Carnelia could eat her own in peace.

Eventually, though, staring at the golden apple in her hooves ceased to be enough for Applejack, and she took a bite of it, which didn't exactly convince Carnelia that she hadn't broken the demigoddess. It worked, though, and the bite came off crisply between Applejack's teeth as if it was a real apple.

It still looked like it took an effort to chew, though.

"...Huh," Applejack said, surprised that that had worked, what with her not being a dragon and all. The fact that she was surprised at all made Carnelia wonder what had possessed her to try it in the first place, but maybe it was a sign that she was recovering from the shock.

The sudden return of greenery to the desolate clearing seemed to suggest that, at least.

"Ah wonder what a golden granny smith would taste like..." Applejack pondered.

Carnelia didn't know how they'd gone from fruit to relatives in one step, and frankly, she didn't want to. If Applejack wanted to make a golden statue of her grandmother and eat it, well... she wouldn't be the first one of them to eat a statue of someone they knew, so who was she to talk?

— Twilight —

"Do you think that this is the same as the book that Ember had?" Luna asked after the two of them had spent a while examining it and exactly what it was capable of. "Or rather, do you think that the book that Ember had was the same as this one?"

"...No?" Twilight said, not entirely sure what the logic there was. "Why would it be? Sure, they look identical—but I was picturing Ember's book when I made it."

"Well," Luna said, still fascinated with the book. "That is admittedly the primary reason I had wondered, but it would explain why it was so important to her."

"That seems like a stretch," Twilight told her, not really able to see it happening. "Where would it have come from in the first place?"

Luna raised an eyebrow at her. "You mean, aside from that time fairly recently atop the palace when you wished aloud that Discord had passed on what he knew—and I quote—'preferably in book form, with an index and an extensive appendix.'"

Twilight paused and looked down at the book that she'd just created, thinking. "...Well, now that you say that..." she mused, thinking aloud. "...And the dates... are close enough without asking Spike when Ember showed up with the book..." Eventually, she leaned back in her comically dark and edgy throne. "...Huh. A minute ago, I thought you were grasping at straws; now I'm not even sure that I can say beyond a reasonable doubt that they aren't the exact same book," she said.

Now it was Luna's turn to ask, "How so?"

"Well," Twilight said. "Because if I can summon the right star to me to make a book, who's to say I didn't grab the same star I did before—if that's a thing I did in the first place."

Luna thought about it and let out a huff of displeasure. "It will be very annoying continuing to search for something that may well have already been found, but we cannot guarantee that there isn't another copy, especially as that is what you set out to create—a copy."

"I think... the first thing we need to do is talk to Ember," she decided. "Because I now have several questions about that book."

— Spike —

It turned out to be more of a hassle getting in to see Slag at the hospital than Spike had expected. The mare at the front desk was just one of many ponies who were new to the city and had never heard of Spike, and when a demigoddess brings someone in bypassing all the usual procedures, they didn't tend to let just anyone in to see the patient.

Eventually, though, the commotion they were making at the front desk had managed to get the attention of Nurse Redheart, who was able to confirm that Spike was a dragon of status... or, at least, that he was Twilight's assistant. And Luna's assistant. Really, he'd spent enough time hanging around the interim throne room recently that he'd expect someone to have heard of him, but what did he really expect when he'd been demoted back to 'baby' dragon.

Then again, the dragons they'd run into that morning hadn't recognized Ember either, so maybe it wasn't just him.

"You know," Spike said as they were being led to Slag's room. "When things go back to normal, we've gotta get Ember to do some public announcements in person or something. I know Twilight would love it if she could make herself this anonymous, but it's embarrassing."

"You think things are going to go back to normal?" Kindle asked from the other side of Drift.

Spike scratched at his elbow while they walked. "I mean... I dunno. Twilight and her friends never fought that much, but when they did they always seemed to make up by the end of the day. I'm angry at Ember, but also kinda concerned? There's something really wrong there, and hopefully the Celestias will be able to talk some sense into her."

That was, ironically enough, the exact moment that they arrived at Slag's room and saw the state of their friend.

"Yeah, because that's worked so well so far," Kindle grumbled.

— Twilight —

Twilight wasn't sure whether she should be embarrassed about not realizing sooner that she could just flag down a passing sparrow in order to get Fluttershy's attention or about how unnecessary it turned out to be when the sparrow just led her to Spike and Ember's manor.

Both, probably, and guilty as well, as it reminded her that Fluttershy had just earlier brought up her desire to learn magic from her, which she'd forgotten to follow up on. Admittedly, Fluttershy mainly wanted to use it to create things, but Twilight was sure she could come up with something that would allow her to communicate better through her animals despite the demigoddess being self-conscious of her voice.

As they approached the manor by wing, carrying the newly manifested star-slash-book in a purpose-made saddlebag, the building looked fine from the outside, but as soon as Twilight had landed and walked through the door, that changed. She was stunned when she saw the absolute mess that had been made of the inside, and Luna had to squeeze beside her to get in through the door and see for herself what it looked like.

"...One would think that their hoarding tendencies would encourage dragons to take better care of their things," Luna remarked with joking sarcasm, but Twilight was not really in the mood for it.

"I'm... kind of surprised," Twilight said, stepping further into the room and looking around. "Not that this happened," she clarified, leaning into Luna. "But how much I'm actually kind of hurt. Not a lot, but I didn't expect it."

Luna leaned back, just being there for Twilight. "It's a thing you made for them," she stated. "It's not surprising at all."

Twilight slowly realized something, then looked over at Luna. "So, when I destroyed the palace...?" she suggested, not having really thought about how Luna would have felt about that, specifically.

"I'd hardly blame what Astri did on you," Luna said, and before Twilight could get too caught up in the level of culpability she had for it, added, "I won't say it wasn't a bit vexing, but I wasn't insulted in the way I expect you are, both because I only truly did a portion of the work, so it was less personal, and because the damage was not intentional or from carelessness, so it was, again, less personal."

"You don't consider the collateral damage caused by part of me trying to kill the other part to be careless?" Twilight wondered.

"Of course not," Luna declared with utter confidence. "A fight to the death is certainly more important than a building," she assured Twilight. "Even if only one pony was technically involved."

Twilight only had to think about it for a moment to decide, "...Yeah, that's fair."

— Twilight —

The manor was large, but not that large so Ember was not hard to find. All of the doors had been reduced to kindling, for one thing, and they could hear her talking which gave the two of them at least a little warning that Ember was not alone.

That wasn't unexpected.

What was unexpected was who Ember was not alone with.

Four princesses in the room all standing around the young dragoness felt like a bit much. "...Huh. If we'd known you two were here, we might have waited our turn," Twilight said, feeling a bit awkward.

Ember, though, didn't seem bothered—possibly because she only had eyes for the book that was a star, which was hanging at Twilight's flank until it wasn't.

"...Well, she sure can be fast when she wants to be, can't she?" Twilight commented with mild interest as Ember retreated back to the other side of the room after snatching the book right out of its saddlebag.

The Celestias both took a moment to realize what was going on, and then another moment to confirm that the starbook looked like what it looked like before turning back to Twilight with surprise on their faces. "You found the book?" Corona asked, not having expected that but delighted all the same.

"Not at all," Twilight said without giving the Celestias so much as a glance, only having eyes for Ember and how she went about checking the starbook's authenticity.

Sure enough, Ember wasn't satisfied until she had opened the book no less than three times, which was proof enough for Twilight that she was expecting the starbook's unique behavior. In theory, it wasn't impossible that Ember was simply being thorough and the starbook was showing her what she expected to see, but she didn't think so.

"No?" Corona asked with some confusion, because by the way Ember was hugging it to herself, she sure seemed to be satisfied that it was the real deal. "Then who did?"

Rather than explain, Twilight paused to feel out her stars and make sure she wasn't about to steal the star of a random pony somewhere. Fortunately, for what she was looking for, essentially any of them would do, and before the Celestias could ask what it was that she was doing, she pointed her hoof dramatically and—**bam**—produced another star book in the air between them.

This one had a castle in the clouds on the cover and Twilight managed to catch it in her magic before it fell to the floor. She took a moment to examine it, nodded, satisfied that she'd gotten it right, then passed it over for the Celestias to take a look at.

Curious, Corona flipped the book open and Candesca stepped in beside her to see what the big deal was. Both of their eyes widened in unison, and Corona flipped a few more pages, to confirm that it was a book on the civilization of the previous alicorns—Utopia. "Twilight, this...!"

"I," Twilight said, puffing her chest out with pride. "Am the princess of books."

The Celestias blinked. Corona looked at the book in her hooves, and Candesca looked at the one that Ember was still distracted with.

"If I'm understanding the situation correctly, it appears that you are the princess of two books," Corona asserted.

"Possibly three," Candesca allowed.

Luna hmmed. "They're right, you know."

"Don't you start!" Twilight said, dramatically pointing her hoof at Luna. "You're the one that gave me all the libraries in the first place; this just makes it metaphysical."

At some point, Candesca had taken the Utopia starbook from her twin and was doing her own flipping. "Twilight," she said seriously, getting everyone's attention.

"Yes?" Twilight said, cocking her head to the side in question.

"You know... Harmonia would not have approved," she pointed out, gesturing with the book. "She wanted Her forgotten."

Twilight folded her ears in slight shame when she remembered how the clockwork alicorn hadn't even wanted Solaria's name spoken. "Well, I'm hardly going to spread it," she self-consciously defended, plucking the book back out of Candesca's hooves with her magic.

"Luna and I talked about this already; there'll be limitations, but I think it's something worth doing," she said, stowing the starbook away in the saddlebag that she'd brought the other one in.

"We did?" Luna said, giving the impression that this was news to her. A moment later, she remembered. "Ah, yes. Your library of the dead. This will make that easier, won't it?"

"That is not what we're calling it," Twilight objected. "And it's not really important right now—but yes."

The Celestias shared a concerned look, but before they could go off on another tangent, Luna asked, "Twilight; didn't you say you had questions that you wanted to ask Ember?"

The four princesses all shifted their attention to Ember, who was backed in the corner clutching the starbook to herself looking like she might make a break for it before they could take it away.

"Well, I already got my answer to the main one," Twilight pointed out, considered things and sighed. "But this isn't going to work. Could you three give us some space? I want to actually be able to talk to her—not at her."

— Ember —

Ember had been distracted, not deaf, so she had absolutely sort of followed what the princesses were all saying while she was reassuring her that it was indeed her book.

Only, it wasn't her book, was it?

It was one thing to find something in a half-abandoned library, but it was something else to know for certain where it had come from and a third thing entirely to know that this wasn't even the same book after all—just another copy created by the princess of books... and possibly the dead?

Ember didn't entirely get that part and was going to pretend for the sake of her own sanity that it had been a joke.

Now, though, she was alone with the princess who she had apparently stolen the book from—twice—and who, again, as per her earlier concerns, was basically Spike's older sister.

And she was just standing there looking at Ember as if she was considering what to do with her.

Then the room started to fill with her presence... and two plain obsidian chairs came into being.

Twilight sat and waited.

Ember, who was caught off-guard in that she had been on-guard for something else entirely, mentally scrambled to remember what that magic had felt like, because obsidian was different from the smoky black crystal that had been used for a few things around the manor, and she wanted it.

That left Twilight sitting and waiting for Ember to actually take her seat, which eventually she did, not liking how exposed it made her feel.

Twilight sighed and started out by saying, "I'm not going to do anything to you, Ember; I'm not even going to ask for the starbook back. In a way, I made it for you in the first place."

Ember's only thought was, "That's it?"

"Well," Twilight said. "No. We're still going to have to keep looking for the other one, assuming it exists, because there's a lot there on things like the Ring of Ashmund that we don't necessarily want everyone to know too much about, as much as I hate saying that."

That was something that Ember could definitely get behind. More than that, changing the subject was also something she could get behind. "I still don't get the whole stars thing, but if it's a star, isn't it supposed to be a part of you? Can't you just tell where it is?"

"Yes," Twilight said. "But also no. There's a star in every single pony in the city and they usually just fade into the background, so unless I'm really paying close attention and see a book where I'm expecting a pony to be, it's not much help. The information in those books comes from before the stars were stars, so I can't even narrow it down according to what information they possess; it's something they all contain to some degree."

Ember didn't have anything to say to that, and eventually the change of subject wore off.

"Now that that's settled," Twilight said, leaning back in her chair and giving Ember a piercing look. "Let's talk about how you've treated Spike and the rest of your friends over this whole thing."

Ember didn't think that saying, 'how about no?' would fly with the princess, and tried to think of some way to get out of it.

Then, she thought of one.

— Corona —

Corona's hackles rose when she heard a commotion from the wing of the manor that Twilight was using to talk to Ember. Suddenly she wished that she had been watching in on the meeting via her light, but she had been respecting Twilight's desire for privacy in the matter.

The matter quickly became moot, however, when the three of them all heard a... squeal of some sort approaching from down the hall, and then Twilight was there, holding Ember out in front of her with her magic.

"Luna!" she shouted, a wide grin on her face. "You've got to see this! She did magic! Show her, Ember!"

Ember, who was completely discombobulated from being grabbed and dragged across half the manor, coughed, producing a small ruby from her mouth which fell and tumbled on the ground.

"Isn't that adorable?"

Author's Note

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Денис, J T, Nineite, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused and CvBrony