The Punishment for Overdue Library Books

Being a human living in Equestria is definitely a strange experience. I had traveled all around the country to experience life in multiple cities. While many of the cities were fascinating, there was something about the capitol city of Canterlot that seemed more special. I don't know if it was the grandeur of the city itself, the fact that there were more unicorns there or what, but I did like it quite a bit.

I ultimately liked it so much that I chose to make it my permanent home. Being a human I had to get special permission to live there by Princess Celestia, which wasn't too hard given she is rather open minded about other creatures moving into the city. It wasn't tough for me to get a job working for the city trimming trees and taking care of the city's plants. The pay was actually fairly good and thanks to the princess's generosity, I was able to get into an apartment that I could afford.

Another thing I liked was the library. I had always loved learning about various things and the library there had books about just about everything. I always headed to the library on the weekends and would check out books about subjects I wanted to learn about. One thing they loved about me at the library was that I had a perfect return record after three years of living in Canterlot. After Twilight's fiasco over never returning a book she borrowed, her picture was taken down and mine was put up as the best book borrower.

There was one weekend though when I would not get either day off. There was a summit being held and I had to work on both Saturday and Sunday. Luckily for me I would be given the following Monday and Tuesday off so that I would not go over on my hours. The bad news, I would wind up being late returning the books I had checked out. I would just have to hope that the ponies at the library would understand because I really don't want to lose that title and have my picture taken down like Twilight did.

I did also have my concerns about the other negative things that could happen. Would I have to pay a huge fine, would I have my library card revoked, would I wind up being banned from ever going into the library again? Ok, I know I'm getting just as paranoid Twilight was when she had an overdue library book and the worst she got was a 28 bit fine and that was
for a book she never returned. Certainly a book being a couple days overdue couldn't be that bad, could it?

Well the Monday after the summit arrived and I got a day off. I had multiple books to return but still, just being two days late couldn't be the end of the world, could it? Well I took them into the library and headed to the book return desk. I said, "Hi, I'd like to return some books I checked out."

The receptionist took the books and the moment she opened them and took a look at the due date cards, a look of displeasure formed on her face. She sighed, "Late I see." She turned around and continued, "You'll have to speak to somepony else about this. I'm sure you'll likely face fines and we will be taking your picture down."

She headed into the back and I sighed in disappointment. I took a great amount of pride in being the best book borrower and now that was all gone. All I could do then was hope that the fines wouldn't be too excessive and hope they wouldn't revoke my library card.

Several minutes passed when the receptionist would return. She glared, "You need to go and speak to Princess Celestia at the palace. Don't worry, the guards have been notified of your coming and will escort you to the throne room."

Before leaving I watched in disappointment as she took my picture off the wall and ran it through a shredder. I couldn't help but wonder if Twilight's photo suffered the same fate. I couldn't worry about that now, I was likely going to have to face a rather unhappy Celestia, perhaps a Celestia that would force me to return to my own world.