The Catalogue

by River Shy

Rating: everyone
Tags: Starlight Glimmer, Random, Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy
Length: 2290

Starlight wants to give a gift to Twilight, a book which catalogs her whole library. She casts a spell and things don’t go quite as planned.

Starlight wants to give a gift to Twilight, a book which catalogs her whole library. She casts a spell and things don’t go quite as planned.

Published 2019-08-14 13:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-08-14 13:20:01 UTC

Starlight What Did You Do?!

Author's Note

This story was an experiment. I wanted to write something that felt like an episode. Obviously this takes place when Starlight is still a student, and after she met Trixie. Hope you like it. :heart:

Starlight What Did You Do?!

“I don’t think this is a good idea Starlight,” Spike said for the fourth time. His voice carried a nervous tension which his tiny dragon body reflected. Twisting his claws back and forth in front of himself he looked up at Starlight in agitation.

Both mare and dragon stood in the middle of the castle library. The room was whisper quiet. Bookshelves towered in all directions, they seemed to go on forever.

Starlight Glimmer had an idea, and she thought it was brilliant. Twilight’s birthday was approaching and she decided to get her the perfect gift. Many times Starlight had watched her friend try to find the right book for some task. Twilight would search frantically, going through volume after volume, and growing ever more upset. Spike would eventually arrive and find it for her. It seemed the young dragon was the only creature who knew where to find anything in this maze. Starlight’s idea was a simple one, cast a spell which catalogued every book in the room.

The spellcraft was fairly simple all you needed was a book with blank pages, and a powerful unicorn. Starlight smirked to herself. Twilight was going to love it. Looking down at Spike, she rolled her eyes. “Come on Spike stop being such a scaredy dragon. This’ll be the perfect gift for Twilight.”

“I just don’t think messing with Twilight’s books is such a good idea.” Spike replied, not at all convinced of the wisdom of her plan.

“You sure you’re not just worried about being replaced by a book?” Starlight asked pointedly, lifting her eyebrow in scrutiny.

Spike bristled at the suggestion. “That’s not it at all, Starlight!” He exclaimed. “What if something goes wrong, Twilight would lose it.”

Using her magic Starlight lifted the blank book. It was bright red in colour, and on the cover stitched in gold were the words, ‘The Catalogue.’ Carrying it over she placed it gently onto a reading desk. “Look Spike, it is an easy spell. What could possibly go wrong? I mean all it does is list the books and their locations relative to where the catalogue is.” Starlight explained patiently.

“You know when you say nothing could go wrong, something is almost certainly going to go wrong.” The small dragon replied dryly.

Starlight shook her head, wandering off she went to find the spellbook that had the incantation she was looking for. What she was planning on casting was a combination spell of her own making; it was going to mix elements of a simple search spell with a heavy dose of an old compilation spell she discovered. Finding the old book she brought it back to the reading table where Spike still stood looking uncomfortable. Opening the book and leafing through, she found the page she was looking for, reading the requirements of the spell. Charging her horn Starlight spoke, “Ok Spike, you ready?”

“No”

Starlight began the spell and channelled her energy, combining the two into the form and shape she wished. Her turquoise magic shot from her horn to the red book resting on the table. It began to glow brighter and float in the air. The book spun, suddenly Starlight could feel the spell twisting in form. She could not stop what was happening, arms of magic began to reach out from the glowing book.

“Starlight what is happening?” Spike cried out over the crackling noise of magic and sudden howling of wind whipping parchment everywhere.

“I DON’T KNOW SPIKE, RUN!” Starlight cried realizing she no longer had any control of the spell as the connection between the book and her horn broke. Both of them ran away from the arcing magic. Diving behind another desk, Starlight tipped it over as a shield. Looking briefly over the edge, she could see magic flashing out of the book at enormous speed. She watched it leap out, hit a shelved book, and the book vanished. It was destroying all the books in the room! Starlight began to panic, she slid behind the desk and lifted her hooves to her head. The noise was deafening as hundreds of books vanished.

It only took a few minutes, but to both dragon and mare, it was a lifetime. The noise stopped and the book ceased to glow and dropped to the reading table. It shattered it as if it were tissue trying to hold a brick. Striking the floor, an echoing bang reverberated through the castle, and a massive crack appeared in the crystal floor. Starlight winced, Twilight was sure to have heard that.

Getting up slowly from behind the table she walked towards the book with Spike following carefully behind her. Looking down Starlight noticed the crack seemed to emanate from where the book had landed. That was not going to be easy to fix.

Spike looked around the room in dismay, all the books were gone except the catalogue which rested in the middle of a small crater on the ground. “I told you Starlight. What did I say? But no. No one listens to little old Spike.”

“Now is not the time,” Starlight cut him off sharply. “You can give me I told you so’s later, we have to fix this.”

“We?” Spike replied in shock. “I had nothing to do with this, I was against it from the start.”

Starlight leaned into the book and tried to lift it with her magic, grunting in exertion it did not budge. “This thing must weight a ton.” Lifting a hoof to her muzzle in thought she turned to Spike. “Spike can you go grab me that magnifying device over there?” She pointed at a corner of the room. “I think I know where all the books went.”

Starlight lifted the cover of the book, inside the pages had gone from pristine white to a dark grey. She tried to turn the page with her magic and found it alarmingly heavy, after a few moments of struggling the page flopped over with a crash. Spike arrived with the device. Grabbing it Starlight moved it to a page and turned it to max magnification. Looking closely she began to read the microscopic words. “Spike,” Starlight spoke. Shakiness in her voice. “I think all of the books are in here.”

“What do you mean?” Spike asked in confusion.

“I mean that this book has all the books inside it Spike! That is why I can’t lift it, it has the weight of the whole library! Oh! What am I going to do?” Starlight asked. Dropping the device and lifting a hoof to her chest she began taking huge panic like breaths.

Spike walked up to the mare and placed a claw gently on her side. “Calm down Starlight, it’ll be ok. We will just get Twilight tell her everything and you two can fix it up.”

“WHAT! We can’t do that!” She exclaimed in shock.

Suddenly they heard Twilights voice echoing in the halls accompanied by the clopping of hooves. “Spike! Starlight! Where are you? Are you ok? I heard a huge crashing noise.”

Both Spike and Starlight looked towards the door in panic. “Oh what am I going to do! She’s going to not want me as her student anymore.” Starlight fretted. Looking more and more alarmed she turned towards her dragon friend and spoke. “Spike just go distract her for a bit. I have an idea.”

Spike was torn, he knew what the right thing to do was. Tell Twilight and confess. Yet at the same time he didn’t want Starlight to be more upset than she already was. Eventually he decided that distracting Twilight for a bit would do no harm. At the very least it would give Starlight time to come to her senses.

“Ok fine.” He spoke in frustration. He began running towards the door. “What do I tell her?”

Starlight waved a hoof in the air in a circling motion. “I don’t know, just tell her Trixies here or something. That should keep her out of the room for a bit.”

Spike disappeared out the door and the room grew still. Starlight looked at all the empty shelves, the room seemed so cold and quiet without books. “Ok Starlight you got this,” she spoke to herself. “All you need to do is pull out, separate, and re-shelf hundreds of books. You’ve got to do it in less than an hour and with no research material.” Her ears dropped, and her head sunk low and she gave out a mighty sigh.

Ok start small. Starlight mused. Don’t separate each one, maybe I could split it in half? If I do that then I should be able to do the rest. I hope. Charging her horn she aimed for the catalogue. There was one spell she knew that might do it, a duplication spell. All she had to do was change the shape of the spell so it would remove half of the content instead.

The spell hit the book, magic encircled it. A second book began to appear in the air beside it, it only took a couple of seconds and it finished. The second book plummeted to the ground. Hitting the crystal floor another ear splitting crack echoed. The room shook this time, none to pleased with the damage it was taking. A light fixture crashed to her right. Adding to the chaos and madness that already enveloped the room.

Starlight winced at the noise and damage, she looked down at an exact copy of the catalogue. Two castle libraries rested in craters at her hooves, unmovable. “Oh for Celesta’s sake.” She cried with frustration.

“Well at least I have a copy to work on.” Starlight said dryly to nopony in the room.

Thinking carefully she adjusted the spell in her mind and tried again on the copy. The book opened on the floor. Starlight eyes grew large with hope. Suddenly it started sputtering and coughing like an old mare, spitting out page after page into the air. “No. No, no, stop.” She cried running up to the book trying to block the source of pages with a hoof. A page few by and sliced her leg a little. “Ow!” She pulled away.

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE!” Twilight bellowed from the door. A nervous and apologetic Spike stood beside her. The room was a disaster, paper was everywhere, the catalogue copy still spewing like a fountain, but slowing down now the magic had dissipated. Huge cracks in the floor ran from where a terrified Starlight stood, and it continued all the way to the entrance where a confused Twilight waited for an answer.

Starlight ran to her mentor. “I’m Sorry! I’m so sorry! I wanted to make you a gift, I wanted to do something nice. I shouldn’t be you student, I’m such a.....”

“Starlight stop.” Twilight said calmly, not letting her finish. “Just tell me what happened.”

Spike started talking he explained everything. Starlight began to blush and looked away not able to look her friend in the eyes. Twilight began to chuckle softly.

“Are you laughing at me?” Starlight asked with hurt in her voice.

“Oh of course not Starlight.” Twilight answered. Kindness radiating from her features. “I just recalled my attempt to do the same when I was a filly.”

“What really?”

“Yeah except it was the observatory library. Let me guess you used the spell from Trotter’s Compilation Compendium?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah it’s a good idea in theory. But in order to make the location part of the spell work, part of the object needs to be in the book. And you can’t do that in this case, it’s all or nothing. That’s why it absorbs all the books.”

“Oooohhhh!” Starlight cried in comprehension. “So does that mean you can fix it?” She added, rubbing her leg with a hoof sheepishly.

“Yep! here let me show you.”

Twilight walked over to the catalogues with Starlight. “That’s the original, the others a magic copy I accidentally made.” Starlight informed her friend.

Twilight encircled the book with her magic, explaining to Starlight everything she was doing.

The library was back in order, everything was fixed and two ponies sat quietly in soft chairs around a fireplace. Starlight looked dejected and sad, her ears still dropped. Twilight noticed her students upset. “Thank you for thinking of me Starlight. It would have been an excellent gift. I know you’re sad that it didn’t work out the way you wanted. But you know what would be a really good gift?” Twilight asked.

“What?”

"Why don't you write me a letter about what you learned? Every time something like this would happen to me I would write to Princess Celestia. It would help me understand what happened," Twilight's face broke out in a massive smile.

"I guess I could try..... " Starlight paused to collect her thoughts. "I think I am going to call it a night. Happy birthday Twilight." She added getting out of the chair walking over to her friend and giving her a hug.

"Thanks Starlight, have a good night."

"You too."

Dear ~~Princess~~ Twilight,

Today l learned an important lesson. When you make mistakes it is important to own up to them. It will be embarrassing, and that’s hard. But true friends understand and will forgive, and sometimes they are able to help you figure out what went wrong, because friends make mistakes too.

Your Student
Starlight Glimmer.