In Spike's experience, childhood torment came in multiple flavors.
The feeling of having been told (by the Princess!) that he couldn't go with the Bearers on what was supposed to be a perfectly safe travel mission, just a diplomatic meet-and-greet with no possible danger whatsoever... that had the bitterness of a poorly-balanced citrine, something where any orange within the quartz had been overwhelmed by yellow and the brown would mostly show up as a coating on his tongue. But the followup, when he'd been informed as to just why he wasn't allowed to attend... the near-painful chill of a star sapphire, one where the rays didn't overlap properly and misaligned light felt as if it was cutting a path down his throat.
He understood. He kept telling himself that he understood, and had to do so every time he thought about that distant tiny nation and its legendary gems, where mineral exotica of all kinds supposedly just lay waiting on the surface for anyone bold and hungry enough to claim it. But Equestria wanted to solidify a sagging relationship, and when you were sending out a diplomatic team to exchange pleasantries with the single most pyrophobic species in the world... it probably wasn't the best idea to include a small dragon.
(Actually, given scaly appetites and the fact that most dragons thought making a legal claim to someone else's property required a witnessed shout of "MINE!", the gems probably went a long way towards explaining the pyrophobia.)
Two flavors of childhood torment, and he'd been trying to deal with both. But with Twilight on the mission and Spike left behind, he'd been put in charge of the library. And in the palate profile of agony, that was anthracite. It had a certain initial luster. The gleam certainly seemed to suggest that there was something worth having there, and the first few nibbles would go well enough. But if he found himself in a position where he was consuming very little else -- that was when he would rediscover that anthracite was nothing more than coal with a polish, an attitude, and a rather odd vendetta against his small intestine. Anthracite could give Spike the kind of gas which cleared out a tree, and that was why he was almost wishing for the real thing.
When it came to taste, torment came in many flavors. He could stand among the stacks of giant boxes which littered so much of the library's central floor space on a beautiful autumn day, nearly lost within their shadows, and fail to relish in the aftertaste of every last one. But there were other senses under attack. For starters, he had to look at the boxes and no matter how hard he glared, they refused to go away. His nostrils were filled with cardboard and new paper, to the point where it felt like oxygen was having trouble getting through.
But when it came to the sound of torment -- well, you had hooves stomping around the library, and far more than would be typical for any other autumn day. Thoughtful murmurs in the vicinity of the checkout desk, and the longer he was away from the station, the more those sounds twisted into angry mutters. But if he wanted to look for the primary audio? That one was easy.
KA-CHUNK!
With Spike almost lost among the forest of boxes, the noise had come from the right. The source of the sound was pretty much right on top of the checkout desk and because he was supposed to be running everything, it was usually right on top of him. It had a metallic echo, usually came with a hint of liquid splash along the edges, and absolutely everything about it made his eardrums ache.
Until Twilight came back, he was in charge of the library. And that meant he also had to deal with everything which came with it.
Take the boxes, and he dearly wished somepony would. Every major publishing house put out their new releases on the same day, because there was no point to letting the competition have any time to themselves. It meant that once a week, there would be multiple boxes unloaded from carts: sorted, cataloged, stickered (and he was on the slow mental approach path to the stickers), and then arranged into the Fresh Arrivals! display. But this was autumn and, after a few years in the tree, he'd learned just which part of autumn it was. As far as the publishers were concerned, this week represented the starting line for the annual Hearth's Warming race. There was only so much time to drum up interest in what every last marketing expert was sure would be the holiday's #1 bestseller, and you couldn't let any other writer have that gate to themselves either.
If it was a major release and it was slated for the fall, it came out today. All at once. It came in dozens of boxes, most of which were taller than he was. With Twilight present to do the lifting, it was easier -- but everything which had to be done after the books were unboxed still represented hours of work. And without her...
A good-sized hardcover, wielded as a spine-out weapon, had the stopping power of a large brick. To Spike, this suggested the boxes each held a rather compact building. And when someone of his size shoved against a structure, it tended to shove right back --
-- somewhere near the checkout desk, mutters transmuted into "I need some help here!"
"I'll be there in a minute!" Spike desperately called out.
Books. Dozens of boxes of books, and every last one had to be cataloged. Checked in. And because of Twilight -- it took some mental running-up to get on the approach path for this one, and he still longed to set most of it on fire -- stickered.
The stickers had been her idea, because a librarian who didn't have the mark for the job often tried to substitute for magic-based instinct with innovation. Every library cataloged and categorized its books. Twilight had added color-coding: tiny round stickers placed on the spines, enchanted so that she could remove them with ease and everypony else needed three hours of work with a chisel. Silver was Science Fiction, multicolored sparks represented High Magic, and two days of listening to snickers still hadn't taught either sibling why using hot pink for Pony Sexuality had been seen as funny. Lightening a shade meant the book was suitable for colts and fillies. (This wasn't an issue with Pony Sexuality, which required a note from a teacher for access. Multiple Ponyville adults were still trying to contact their secondary school biology departments.) Still, the color-coding wasn't that much different from what other libraries were doing --
-- until Twilight had started doing the same to everypony's library cards.
"I said, I need some help! I'm waiting on the new Ivory Palace --"
"I'm trying to find it! I'll be there in a minute!" His voice seemed to echo strangely within the forest of boxes. It was as if syllables were trying to find their way out of a maze.
"That's what you said a minute ago!"
There was a system. (Twilight had added the full explanation to the library's Rules, where it currently had six pages to itself.) This hue on the upper left corner indicated a child's library card, restricting the selection accordingly. Another was for adult patrons. The row along the bottom? That indicated favorite types of reading material, with stickers which matched the appropriate books. Just about everypony's card had a few spots of colors on the lower edge.
The upper right was seldom used, and that was part of why Twilight saw it as being so crucial. Upper right indicated the forbidden.
Twilight saw banning books as something inherently wrong. Keeping certain ponies away from problematic titles, however, was just common sense. For example, if your town happened to host a trio of mares who were all effectively addicted to the rush of fear and would happily believe anything as long as it made no sense whatsoever, it was probably best to keep them out of the Horror section. She couldn't do anything about what the Flower Trio might seek from bookstores (where they seldom ventured, as they weren't sure as to what kind of subliminal messages had been coded into the receipts), but she at least had the capacity to prevent the disaster from starting on her own turf.
For Twilight, the sticker system worked. (To a point. There had been a time when she'd tried to block the Crusaders from anything they could use as inspiration for the next disaster: it had stopped when the stickers wound up covering the entire card.) But for Spike, on Release Day... it was hours of not just unboxing and cataloging, filing and setting up displays and probably breaking up at least one fight between two ponies who'd each seen the new offering from their favorite author at the same time -- after completely having forgotten that the reservation system existed -- again...
"I need --"
"WAIT!" came out with just a little more roar than Spike had intended, and the tree briefly quieted. This was a status which maintained right up until he heard the doors open, and another four ponies happily trotted in.
...for Spike, in addition to creating extra work (which had to be done very carefully, because the only pony who could remove a badly-placed sticker wasn't there), the system could mean hours of arguing with his sister. Was this author's idea of a spell the least bit realistic? If so, it went into Thaumic Fiction: if not, Fantasy. How about this Science Fiction book? Is there a limit on the number of times it can talk about how magic used to exist before it has to switch categories? Oh, and if there's no magic, shouldn't it also be in Horror?
And then there was Romance. There was a dividing line between All-Ages Romance and Adult Romance. As Spike understood it, the determination was based on content, and he wasn't allowed to know any more than that. Some publishers helpfully indicated the exact category. For everything else, Twilight had to speed-read, and the final sticker color was directly linked to the intensity of her blush.
It was a beautiful autumn day: one of the last warm weeks before the scheduled slide down the thermal hill into the shadowed pit of winter. The kind of day where ponies looked up at Sun, basked in its rays, and found a quiet spot outdoors where they could simply read. It was also the most significant Release Day of the season, and those patrons who hadn't recognized it on the intellectual level tended to have the information bubbling along in their subconscious. Put those factors together and the tree was crowded. Ponies stomping about on floor level, wings cluttering the air. And that was before --
KA-CHUNK!
-- he considered the printing press.
Twilight loved books. Twilight tried to innovate. She felt that just about anypony could potentially write, and didn't always realize that the vast majority shouldn't. And she was always trying to lure in more traffic...
There was a small, rather sophisticated printing press in the basement: Twilight used that to create library advertising for the town's notice boards, along with seeing how her own future journal articles would look in layout. The main floor was currently hosting an ancient, heavy, tray-laden simple metal beast, on loan from Mrs. Bradel's shop for two weeks. And Twilight had encouraged ponies to use the opportunity. She'd given Ponyville a moon to prepare. Then she'd brought in the press, made sure the trays were filled with symbol blocks, charged at cost for paper and ink, provided some basic binding equipment, and pointed patrons at the results. Creating and printing their own books.
...well, book: Mrs. Bradel had a lot of conditions for loaning out her equipment -- the most standard was 'Twilight Sparkle is still not allowed within twenty body lengths of me,' because the bookbinder dreaded the day when the spells which let her heal paper were somehow copied -- and high on the list had been keeping all print runs to one. All further expression of vanity (or, in most cases, delusion) would be done in her shop, at a profit. And because the library was still paying for supplies, Twilight had limited all such works to fifty pages: that notice was attached to the press.
Still, even with those restrictions, there had been ponies willing to try their mouths at scribbling for a purpose, and most of them had wound up at the library. Waiting to use the press --
-- or rather, waiting for Twilight to release their trembling forms through returning the manuscript, allowing the remaining shreds of bleeding dignity to scramble from the tree. Most of them would race for several blocks, looking for a patch of exceptionally soft soil: this provided a place where they could both collapse and bury the results. Because Twilight always wanted to see what others had created, and before she would let anything go to press...
She would, with bright-eyed dedication and what was only perceived malice, check for spelling errors. Characterization slips. Plot holes were filled with pools of liquid, and it meant that most of what she nosed back was heavier than it had been at receipt. When a manuscript had acquired more fresh red ink than black, the corrections came with a certain mass. It had only taken three days before the majority of participating ponies had decided it was in their best interests to not do so. And she'd also started the process of inadvertently creating a new mythology, because there were ponies all over town locking their bedroom doors against the approach of the Fearsome Gerund. None of them were entirely sure what it was, and every last pony had decided it could kill.
Spike was in charge of the library: something which often felt as if it would be a taste of power. And then it actually happened, and it was endless labor. Paperwork and sorting and patrons and towers of boxes piled too close to the ceiling and an eardrum-aching KA-CHUNK! All of which had to be dealt with alone, the responsibility of a little dragon who wasn't paid enough for this. And some of the tasks were simple ones, easy enough to take care of on their own -- but there were just so many of them, all of them seemingly had to be done at the same time --
Timidly, "...um... are you ready yet? Because it's been --"
He sighed. Frustratedly planted his palms on the just-discovered box and shoved: it ignored the resulting claw scoring and him in equal measure. Careful raking allowed him to cut a small panel without damaging the contents, and he cautiously removed one volume. "I'm coming out."
The pony waiting in front of the desk audibly shuffled his hooves. So did the seven other ponies waiting behind him, which didn't include any who might have been enduring the delay on the hover.
-- it all had to be done at the same time. And he was the only one doing anything.
It's stupid.
I have to get all of the Release Day books checked in myself, especially since there's ponies waiting for them. Nopony else can do it, because I'm the only one with the order forms. Compare arrivals to what we asked for, write up shortfalls, send back excess, get it all stickered and in the catalog and put the Romance stuff aside until Twilight gets back. I'm the only one who can do that. But there's so much of it to do, especially today. And it just means ponies are kept waiting.
Because they can't take care of the simple stuff themselves.
He began to emerge from the maze. The crowd had visibly doubled from when he'd gone in, and that was with the deliveryponies (who'd almost forgotten that a tree visit could mean they had to move things) gone. It was just too much for one little dragon to deal with. And the main desk was too close to the loaned printing press, the KA-CHUNK! just kept coming...
Anypony could check books out --
-- Spike blinked. (A number of ponies watched the process. With dragons, it was best to take an eyelid count.) Looked at the waiting line, surveyed the library floor, shivered through the next KA-CHUNK! as an author-intended Magnum Opus came that much closer to incarnation as Abhorrence Major, and raced for the checkout desk.
"Have you checked out a book here before?" he gasped at the line-foremost pony, planting his palms on the bench to boost himself up. "Ever?"
"...yes," the stunned earth pony said as the little dragon came to a stop, now proudly standing on the bench. "A few times. Why?"
An ugly hat, and the two-toned head which bore it, leaned in closer. Listening.
"Then you know how it's done!" Spike proudly beamed. "Because checking out books is simple!"
The entire line was staring at him now, and he saw that some of those eyes had widened with hope.
"I'm... not sure I was really watching..." the stallion reluctantly admitted.
"I'll show you!" Spike grabbed for the nearest stamp. "All of you! This is a demonstration, everypony! If you've seen it done once, if you've done it yourself once under supervision, then you can do it by yourself forever!"
Twilight loved innovation. It meant she would understand.
...Twilight loved control. This was giving some of it up...
...Twilight wasn't there.
He was in charge. Of everything.
And if Twilight had given him any lesson about running a library, it was that being in charge of everything meant he got to decide which parts of 'everything' weren't going to be his problem.
Spike grinned.
"Get closer, everypony!" A claw tip flicked the lid on an ink pad. "Watch! Because this library is going on the self-checkout system!"
They stared at him.
Several ponies nearly trampled each other in the group rush to reach the front.
He wasn't quite ready to declare his idea as a stunning success: there was still a lot of work to be done, and he was the only one who knew how to do most of it. But by giving up just a little bit of control...
The checkout process wasn't complicated. There was a card, inside a half-sleeve tucked away on the underside of the front cover. You removed the card. You stamped the card. There was a little box on the desk, and that was where you filed the card. The most humdrum, boring portion of desk work was now being taken care of by somepony else. By everypony else. He had a significant portion of the town working for him, and there wasn't a tenth-bit in salary being paid out.
To a limited degree, it freed him. Oh, he was still stuck in the tree, unable to go outside and play during of the last beautiful autumn weeks -- but at least now he had a little more time to deal with all of the New Release boxes, which included finding ways of climbing to the top of the cardboard towers. Plus categorizing, checking in, and stickering books also kept him about as far away from the KA-CHUNKS! as could be reasonably hoped for.
Admittedly, it required that he put a certain amount of trust in the patrons. But the library had Rules, and anypony who signed up for a card was required to read them. So when he thought about it, there was no way anypony was going to get their card unless they'd both read and fully understood them! They recognized Rules, categories, restrictions, and limited-time borrowing for the newest arrivals. Because being a patron was like being a dragon: that was what you were, so it was natural to expect you'd be good at it!
(He'd grown up at Twilight's side. There were certain consequences for that.)
Of course, there were a few side effects. For starters, he was no longer directly seeing who took what. Spike would place books on the Fresh Arrivals! display, getting more would mean moving out of spotting range and when he got back, just about everything he'd set out would be gone. But this was the biggest Release Day of autumn: high traffic was expected. And besides, ponies knew the Rules, which meant they had mastered the little things like One Copy Per Patron and Please Honor The Advance Reservation List. Nopony was asking for help with the reservation list, and that might have been because he'd placed the master copy on the main desk for everypony to read. It was right next to the detailed instructions he'd written up for using the checkout stamp.
And it was obvious that ponies were reading everything, followed by sticking to the Rules. Because if they weren't, then they wouldn't be checking things out!
You had to trust patrons. Sure, they were historically horrible with things like reshelving and locating garbage cans, but Spike had growing proof that they were perfectly capable of checking out their own books. In fact, the intermittent KA-CHUNKS! were currently proving that they could also print the things.
...actually, the sounds of the printing press were becoming somewhat more -- frequent.
Well, that made sense. The town knew that Twilight had left for a while. The Fearsome Gerund was off to fresh hunting grounds. Ponies were going to be more willing to print when they didn't have to worry about little things like Grammar, Spelling, Twilight's Personal Standards, or Editing. And yes, every so often, somepony would come up to Spike and timidly nose a manuscript at him for review, but... he couldn't read at Twilight's rate. He'd also had too many times when he'd handed her a shopping list for last-minute inspection, and she'd floated it back alphabetized, with subcategories arranged by store and a map added for Maximum Walking Efficiency. Having even his most minor creations subject to Editing was somewhat grating. Why did he have to put anypony else through it? And besides, a book which was printed for only one pony was probably going to have a similar readership. If they were happy with their efforts, then who was he to tell them they were wrong?
So he let the press stamp away, tried to keep himself at the maximum distance from it (which meant he hardly ever saw who was using the thing, or heard any of the mutters), and did his best not to wince too much. Something which was a little easier, because he was happy. There was less work to do, and he'd arranged for that. Nopony else. Just him.
Of course, 'just him' also applied to the count of the parties who were doing the remaining bulk of the work, and there were still far too many boxes. It meant he didn't really get to check the state of the library until it closed, and most of those fixes had to be put off until morning because he was tired. A little dragon who'd been sorting books all day had just enough strength to make himself dinner and work on the reshelving before slumping into his basket.
So he didn't get to examine the checkout box, other than to note how it was barely closing: the container had been stuffed to near-capacity. Instead, he yawned his way across the floor, corralling stray paperbacks back to their proper pens. He noted that the Fresh Arrivals! table was just about empty, plus Horror had been through an unusually good gallop. The advance reservation list had somehow fallen under a table. And when it came to that one section of a now--surprisingly-empty shelf...
Spike squinted at the section until he remembered what it normally hosted, then shrugged. It was typically one of the least visited parts of the library, and now it wasn't. He supposed it was just easier for ponies to check those books out without witnesses.
He reshelved, straightened, washed one dirty dish, sliced up the cardboard by hand, and then he slipped into his basket, nearly feeling content with the day. It had still been too much work, but... he'd made things a little better for himself. With an idea, one which had been all his own. Something simple...
Spike had lived in Ponyville for a few years. He'd been present for any number of local innovations, just about all of which had originated with somepony else. The little dragon had also taken part in just about every subsequent cleanup, and yet he'd somehow managed to miss the core lesson. Something he hadn't taken to heart because when it came to the effects on the herd, it hardly ever started with him.
He slept well that night, because the mission was a harmless one. He didn't have to worry about his sibling and when it came to the others, the most they could create would be a social disaster. Spike basked in his nightscape, within dreams which had innovators famed in the world's history welcoming him into their ranks. All because he hadn't applied the lesson to himself.
After it was all over, there was the option to write a scroll. The opening line would have been easy.
In Ponyville, a new idea is usually just a disaster on time delay.
The next morning allowed him to take his time about everything. Spike had the luxury of enjoying just as long a bath as he might wish (although never quite at the desired temperature), because there was nopony outside the door grumbling about how he was tying up the tub. Breakfast was a three-course affair, and it was only after he put away the last of the leftovers that he considered tending to the library -- at one minute before opening.
It was usually a lot quieter on the day after the new releases arrived: Ponyville understood that anything other than first place was effectively last, which restored traffic to a more normal level. But the schools were closed, and that meant Spike opened the doors to find an adolescent waiting outside.
He wasn't entirely sure what to make of Cotton Cloudy: the same could be said for most of the town. She'd been going through a growth spurt, something which had been gradually changing the proportions of legs, body, and wings. The filly had been considered to be a cute child: a somewhat older version was potentially tracking towards beauty. And she hadn't quite decided what to do with it. Or... how.
Cotton flirted with those in her own age group, and even Spike could tell just how awkward it was: an actress reading off an internal script, one which didn't give her lines so much as a point-by-point recital of tropes. The pegasus tried to use makeup: anything destined for the mane wound up in the tail, the tail products always seemed to leave a powdery trail in the street, and dust meant to create feather highlights could take moons to be fully brushed out of her teeth. She'd decided that concealment equaled enticement, and was starting to wear clothing accordingly: Rarity had spent two futile minutes in trying to explain the lack of results produced by earmuffs.
Spike's understanding of how ponies became attracted to each other was, on his best days, at the level of a diabetic who was trying to bake sugar cookies: a theoretical mastery of the recipe, with some major concerns regarding any personal attempt to sample. So he didn't quite understand the way in which a post-discussion Rarity had described Cotton: a future mare who, for all of what graceful wings and a two-toned tail were trying to accomplish, would respond to a description of 'vamp' by politely nodding and biting somepony's neck.
She wasn't wearing full saddlebags. (She seldom did, because it just wasn't enticing to hide that portion of her flanks.) Instead, she had a rather small sidesaddle purse. A quarter-ream of papers clutched between her teeth, and Spike internally resigned himself to a lot of KA-CHUNK! to come.
"The press is available," he told her, and immediately wanted to faceclaw: of course it was available, she was the first one in... "Just bring the bits up when you're done."
Cotton noted, then proudly strode past him. Several hip hitches were designed to show off for any watching audience and since that audience was composed of Spike, he wound up coming to the same conclusion as the majority of pony observers: moderate muscle cramp, wait two hours and if it persists, seek medical attention.
She went to the press. Spike headed for the main desk. If he sorted the checkout box quickly, he might be able to get relatively clear before the noise truly started.
Nimble claws had to force the container open. A handful of cards were removed, and he spread them across the desktop. Reviewing the previous day's traffic. One name immediately jumped out at him, mostly because its owner had lost the opportunity to do the same.
Oh, good. I missed Mr. Bunko. It was the sort of thought which came with its very own fast-spreading flush of relief: a produce seller who thought twenty bits was a fair price for one cherry had a certain way of relating to the rest of the world, and that was through trying to rip off most of it. But he picked up his reserved copy of A Million Little Scams. Which was classified under the sticker system as Fiction, Historical and for Mr. Bunko, was more of a Guide, How-To. I think there were a few ponies waiting for that one. Just signed out with his surname, as usual. And he also took...
Scales didn't crease across the length of the sudden frown, because they couldn't. There was just a certain amount of concerned overlap.
...is he married?
It makes sense, I guess. Instead of having him read it and then pass it to his spouse, he picks up two copies and they read it at the same time. On different pages, because not having your reading speed match can really hurt.
(A lifetime spent with Twilight.)
I didn't think he was married...
...or that he had a foal.
Who was old enough to read that.
Or two.
Was Mr. Bunko in a relationship? It was the sort of question which came with automatic followups, starting with how many ponies had attended the post-ceremony dinner and how much each had been charged for use of their napkins. Still, it wasn't a possibility which Spike could automatically dismiss. The Rules said that for new arrivals, it was one copy per patron. So -- four copies, four patrons. The family which read together...
The frown became deeper.
I should pull out the reservation list --
"Spike?" The adolescent's voice was also deciding what it wanted to be: there was some difficulty in committing to a register. "The printer is jammed."
He blinked, carefully climbed down from the bench before calling out across the library floor. "It's what?"
The blush was just about audible. "I brought my breakfast..."
The little dragon sniffed the air, fought the urge to faceclaw. However, as a groan, "Raspberry?" was permissible.
"Who doesn't like raspberry?"
Spike was fully aware that Mr. Bunko loved them, and did so at the rate of fifteen bits per tray: any bugs you found in his presence counted as protein and cost extra. "I'm coming..."
He fetched both a towel and a stool: getting at the heart of the press could require a certain degree of overhead view. Twilight had set up a short ramp for the younger users, but... for the smallest ponies, setting up the press usually wound up producing neck cramps. You had to pick up every symbol by a tiny metal nub which rose from one edge, and then you had to drop it precisely into where it belonged. If it wasn't exactly aligned with the tiny holes in the stamping plate, the press wouldn't close properly. Blank spaces were represented by cubes of metal, each of which had their own nub. And it all tasted of ink, reaching the far end of a line could mean stretching more than a small body had been meant for, plus there was always the chance to fall in, have the impact set off the plate, and limp out with It Was The Worst Of Times across most of your back and half a wing.
The little dragon dragged the stool up to where a lightly-mortified Cotton was hovering, abashedly staring down at the letters. A quick climb brought him to the proper level, and... sure enough: some of the blocks were coated in red gel and seeds. Stuck together.
He removed the offending pieces, wiped them down before putting them back into the press exactly where they'd been before. Grateful purple eyes mostly watched the process, occasionally flickering to where the open manuscript was resting.
"Thank you," Cotton offered, still hovering on his right.
"Library service," Spike said. Although Twilight usually frowned on eating in the library, and sometimes said she was tired of finding little slivers of broken gems being used as bookmarks. "Just don't get the jam near any pages." He lifted another symbol, wiped and replaced it. The towel was rapidly becoming stained. "You'll have to re-ink this --"
The little dragon automatically looked down.
He'd learned to read early, and life as the unofficial seventh Bearer had required him to practice the skill under all sorts of conditions. Upside-down and backwards wasn't even a challenge. Spike automatically took in the words.
Then he turned them over in his head a few times, to see if the reshuffle made them any better.
It didn't.
"-- Cotton," Spike carefully said, "what is this?"
"It's my story," emerged as an instant defensive blast of hovering hot air. "You shouldn't just go reading somepony's else's story --"
Disasters had a certain spiritual gravity. It pulled his eyes down again.
"'There was a colt,'" he read aloud. "'Only he was more of a stallion. And he met a filly who should have been called a mare already. They nuzzled.'"
The heat on his right side was becoming more intense. So was Cotton's furious blush. The lashing of her tail was raising something of a cool breeze, but it hardly helped. "Spike, don't, you're too young --"
He'd started reading something. Finishing was just about automatic.
"'Then they had sex.'"
Cotton's wings abruptly folded. Locked. Four hooves crashed into the floor, and not quite at the same time. Further descent ensued.
"Spike! Don't -- don't read --" The adolescent was frantically trying to look around the library, looking for watching (and listening) adults: an effort which was hampered by the fact that her chin was currently resting on the floor. "-- you can't, you just can't..."
He looked away from the tray, with his head still down. The direction for this was chosen at random, and left him staring at the manuscript.
"Cotton," he carefully tried.
She whimpered.
"I don't think you're supposed to --"
With sudden fury, "There's no law! If you can write, then you can write anything! It's not like I've actually done -- I -- it's just words, Spike, and you're too young, you can't say I'm too young when you're --"
But he was still reading. It was something reflexive: there were words, so he was reading them. However, fighting the urge to clamp his hands over his mouth was new.
No flame.
No flame.
If I don't pick a destination, it'll automatically go to the Princess.
No flame.
"-- the press is for anypony, for two weeks, I wasn't even making it for me..."
It begged another question, and did so with just as much fervor as Cotton.
"Who?"
The blush was starting to create its own heat ripple in the air.
"You can't tell."
Spike nodded. He couldn't. He wasn't sure his jaw would cooperate.
"There's this colt," Cotton forced out. "Only he's more of a stallion. More than anypony in my class. But he doesn't look at me. He looks at stupid Vista, when she isn't looking at him. And he reads sometimes. So I thought I'd write a story for him. As a gift. And it would... make him think about..."
She winced. Four hooves scrabbled, failed to find purchase.
"You're too young," Cotton insisted. "You don't understand." And with offense now surging in, "I even did the research!"
"Research," Spike repeated. It was a word he knew, and it wasn't the one which was all over the manuscript.
"I checked out Pony Sexuality yesterday," Cotton declared. "All of it."
The little dragon blinked.
"You can't."
"I did it," Cotton defensively declared. "So obviously I could."
"You need a note from a teacher. It's in the Rules --"
"-- who cares about dumb rules!" emerged as a wail of agony. "They're stupider than Vista and her dumb curly mane! He should be looking at me! So I read the books last night, every book I could, and then I wrote the story! His story, about us --"
He was reading again. He really wanted to stop.
"You did the research," a newly-hollowed tone checked.
"As much as I could." She winced. "Some of the vocabulary..."
Spike briefly turned in the general direction of where Pony Sexuality's empty shelf resided. Under Twilight's system, it was an easy trail to follow.
"Vocabulary," could also be repeated.
With open frustration, "How is anypony supposed to pronounce 'typhlobasia'? So I just went with what I could work out. Eventually. And thought he would read."
Start with Science, then narrow in on Biology. As long as you kept the nature of the shelf's stocker in mind and treated every subject the way she would -- as being purely academic -- it was easy...
Spike looked down at the manuscript again.
And then they had sex. And then they had lots and lots of sex. But after that, they had to have a refractory period. So they broke some crystals and looked at the refractions until they were ready to have sex again.
It was possible to have a reaction to those words. In Spike's case, it was the same reaction he had to hearing a mosquito: there was a droning, there was no actual meaning within the sound, it didn't directly concern him in any way because he couldn't be bitten through the scales, and he still had to swat it before somepony else got hurt. And at that, it was one of the better reactions anyone could have had upon looking at erotica composed by a first-time writer who had gone to war against the zero-humidity environment of Twilight's vocabulary, and lost.
"He'll want to go out with me after he reads it," Cotton frantically insisted in the last seconds before her voice shed two octaves and at least seven years. "You can't tell..."
Some crystal ponies showed up later. They were mad about the refractions. But none of them were pretty enough for the stallion to have sex with. That was just the mare. The white pegasus one who was really, REALLY pretty.
Spike took a slow breath. Swayed his tail from left to right, and tried to think of something helpful to say. And when that utterly failed, tried to come up with something Twilight would have said.
Hopefully, "I can get the red ink --"
Wings surged. Desperate teeth snatched at the manuscript. And then Cotton was gone.
It had taken him some time to disassemble everything in the receiving tray. This had involved multiple shifts of the stool and in the end, wiping some of the ink off his feet. But he'd had the time, because it was always so much slower on the day after the new releases came in, and... he just didn't feel like Cotton would have wanted anything left behind.
He looked at the wiping towel. 'Sex' was embossed in several places, all of which represented an improvement on the original plot.
The little dragon sighed. Climbed down, then started back towards the checkout desk, because he still had to figure out how many ponies were in the Bunko family --
-- the front doors opened, and a shadow stepped forward from autumn sunlight. Green-grey eyes quickly surveyed the scene. It didn't take long before they focused on Spike.
"I'd normally ask your sister," the unicorn mare began, every word weighed down by what felt like an oddly-forced calm, "but we do get alerts at the station when Bearer missions begin. Even non-critical ones. So I understand that she's out of town, Spike. That means I have to ask you."
He looked down the aisle at her. The subtle blend of multihued fur, something which stood out so readily in the day and made the mare just about vanish at night, seemed to be somewhat out of grain. Normal enough for this pony, but...
"Ask me what?" he cautiously checked.
"Temporarily, to close the library," Ponyville's police chief said. "I'm hoping for thirty minutes or less. And then come with me, because I need you to explain something. Quickly. Before somepony gets hurt. And you're not ideal, because she's never been very good with you. But you're what I've got."
His scales shivered.
"To explain...?"
Miranda Rights sighed.
"I need you to explain the concept of 'fiction'."
It was possible to hear the confrontation well before seeing it. The one who was raising the protest had plenty of experience in speaking in front of a sight-blocking, disbelieving crowd and besides, it was just easier to project your voice from the top of a soapbox.
"-- and it was all right there on the pages!" gasped a voice which, when singing, liked to operate in the mezzo range and while speaking, found the best results were always within the realm of Hysterics. "You have to understand! There are monsters among us, monsters, and you just didn't know the sign! But I read it, I read it all in one night --" there was a shiver within the last word, along with a poorly-concealed touch of ecstasy "-- and I know! I know now, and if you just listen to me --"
The next voice to speak tended to cross registers, and sometimes did so several times during one sentence. Its owner had allergies, something which was never fully treated for very long, and her tendency to slip from baritone to soprano at near-random had effectively banned her from every chorus in town. It usually didn't matter very much to the second mare, because the changes didn't affect her ability to communicate emotional state. Ponyville generally accepted that no matter what her voice sounded like at any time (and right now, it was far too calm), the mare herself would be operating in a single mode.
"You're calling my spouse a monster."
Pissed. Off.
"The family members are always the last to know!" Roseluck frantically insisted. "It's not your fault, Bon-Bon! Ponies fall in love with monsters all the time! That was in the next book!" A little more quickly, "But I wasn't going to Town Hall until after I made sure you were safe." And because nopony could live near Twilight for very long without absorbing a few lecturing tendencies by osmosis, "Besides, Marigold is clearly in willing thrall to the vampony. Who go after ponies in positions of power, so naturally they targeted the mayor first. She's not in danger unless they decide she's going to lose the next election. It was much more important to make sure you were okay. It's not as if I want to get my mints at Barnyard Bargains, because the mass-produced stuff is where they sometimes try to add in the mind-control potions..."
Miranda softly groaned, then accelerated her trot. Spike pushed his legs into her back and hung onto the mane for dear life.
The next part was just barely audible, because the third mare in the little drama tended to be soft-spoken and usually compensated by jumping around a lot. A certain intermittent jolt to her words suggested she was doing exactly that now, and Spike had a very good idea of the position: in front of Bon-Bon at all times, and trying to stay that way. "Roseluck, I'm... I'm not..."
It rather distantly occurred to Spike that it wasn't his day for two-toned tails.
"It's in the book!" Roseluck shouted. "As Moon's phase changes, so do the monsters! They begin to prepare for their transformation! And when you're going to become a true monster, when a pony changes --"
All things considered, Bon-Bon's words were far too reasonable. Spike was somewhat amazed that words were continuing at all. The third-strongest earth pony in town had a more frequent method of communicating, and had learned to spell out some fairly advanced concepts through the resulting bruises. Audiences didn't slow her down, unless she had to charge through them and that seldom took long. Witnesses never gave her any pause. But disasters came with their own gravity, and so did morbid curiosity. At least for now, the need to find out exactly why she was about to render Roseluck into a thin red smear on the cobblestones was keeping Bon-Bon from charging around her own spouse.
"Why would Moon," the candy maker carefully inquired, "which is controlled by a Princess -- ever turn somepony into a monster?"
There was a moment of silence: the pause which represented Roseluck thinking about it. The sort of hesitation in which hope could be born and, because it was Roseluck, it was also the instant in which reason died.
"PMS."
Spike could see the tails of the surrounding crowd now. He had to rely on audio for the group blink.
"...what?" Bon-Bon naturally asked.
"A lot of mares get premenstrual syndrome," Roseluck unlogicked. "It makes them irritable. And Princess Luna's irritable just about all the time, so can you imagine how bad it is when she gets it? It would just about turn her into a monster. So she channels it into Moon. Which radiates it. And makes more monsters."
The universe, presented with a droplet of the purest distilled idiocy, went silent and made a few notes about sapience having been a mistake. Spike just wondered what premenstrual syndrome was.
"I just realized something about Nightmare Moon," Roseluck added in a reverent hush. "How many centuries of PMS coming back to her at once --"
"-- police!" Miranda shouted. "Police coming in!" Much more softly, "I've got officers within the perimeter, but I told them not to move until Bon-Bon committed --" followed by a surge to "-- police!" Her horn ignited. "Move or I'll move you!"
Coming from Miranda, it was more than a threat. The crowd began to part.
"-- but the important part is that thing!" Spike, who didn't have a clear view yet, had to imagine the foreleg jab towards Lyra. "Which is getting to ready to transform into a true monster, and that's why it moves so strangely! Because some parts shift first! You can't become a biped unless your hips are completely different, can you! Walking on two legs, like a monster would --"
"-- one of my best friends is a minotaur," said a rather dark stallion voice on the other side of the crowd.
"I'll get to you later," Roseluck promised. "But that thing -- how it stands sometimes, how it sits --"
Which was when Miranda reached the interior, and Spike saw the full scene: one earth pony mare on a soapbox, the other constantly looking for that one moment in which she could move, a single desperately-bounding blocking unicorn who was rapidly running out of stamina, and a lot of spectators. The spectators were mostly there for the street theater. And also because when Roseluck was inevitably bounced, she would have to land on something.
"Stop!" Most of the syllable was jolted loose when his feet hit the cobblestones: jumping down from Miranda's back had done that. He could seldom get a roar out when he wanted one, and when it came to Roseluck -- she'd always been at least a little nervous around him. It had been worse after the temporary growth spurt, and when he'd gotten sick. He had to be careful with Roseluck. Even at their mutual best, Spike never knew if she was listening to him, or -- what might happen to his words after her ears took them in.
But Miranda had looked towards him for help. Him. He had to try. And everypony was looking at the newest performer to reach the stage...
"It's just a story!" he called out. And because a life spent around Twilight had its consequences, "Not a very good one. The author mostly writes the same thing over and over. With different monsters. But they're all fictional, Roseluck, because it's fiction!"
"A lot of the best ones hide the truth by calling it a story!" Roseluck shot back. "Plausible deniability! And we've seen how she moves, we've all seen it --"
"-- she's double-jointed!"
Roseluck's mouth fell open. Bon-Bon's forehooves scrapped at the street. Lyra, with froth starting to appear in her coat, stopped jumping.
"...what?" Roseluck softly asked. "What did you --"
"-- it's rare," Spike quickly pushed on, because he knew about Lyra. The composer was one of Ponyville's leading sources of ponies injuring themselves: dozens of new residents had seen her poses, assumed that everypony could do that and they just hadn't personally tried until now, then limped into the library to find out why it hadn't worked. "The tendons and muscles don't bend the same way as everypony else, and there's something about the skeleton. I could show you pictures." His hands urgently gestured in a vaguely tree-like direction. "It hardly ever emerges from the blood, Roseluck. But when it does... you can move differently. Sit, or stand like a biped. Lyra isn't a monster. She's just double-jointed, all over. It's just rare..."
The flower breeder was staring now -- but she wasn't trying to move. Bon-Bon's breaths were beginning to slow.
"Double-jointed," Roseluck quietly said. "Something in the blood. Something rare."
"All my life," Lyra desperately panted. "Since I was a foal. No matter what Moon's phase was, Roseluck. Always --"
A trembling right foreleg lifted itself from the soapbox, jabbed out towards the unicorn.
"MUTANT!"
Bon-Bon moved.
Miranda's horn ignited.
It took a while before Spike began to approach the library. No part of that was due to the fight, because there really hadn't been one. Miranda's trick was for separating combatants: in this case, Bon-Bon had been put up against a fence, Roseluck had wound up pinned to the soapboxes, and Spike had needed to spend about forty minutes covering the entirety of a rather repetitive author's catalog, from memory, at a distance of about one foreleg.
Eventually, Roseluck had been convinced that everything was normal, which meant that she was going to check out a few medical journals later and had every intention of finding out just who was controlling the author, as scaring ponies was an obvious goal for any conspiracy. A muttering Bon-Bon had banned the flower breeder from the candy shop (again), then trotted away at her spouse's side. (There had also been a circle of six accompanying officers, just in case Bon-Bon changed her mind.) And then he'd been free to return.
He'd had a lot of time to speak with Roseluck: something which normally gave him a headache, with the occasional side order of despair. But he'd needed to tell her what reality actually looked like, and -- he'd also managed to work in a few questions. 'Where did you get the book?' had felt essential.
...well, of course Roseluck knew about library rules! And anything which was put down as a rule? Was a means for somepony else to control you. And she was a grown mare, she could read whatever she liked! But she was on a budget. Magazines which offered Truth cost Money. So it was usually the library or nothing. Besides, she'd checked the book out properly. After altering her mouthwriting, because there was a thing in magic called The Doctrine Of Signatures and she wasn't going to let anypony use hers as a channel...
A lot of thoughts could go through your head when you were listening to Roseluck, and most of them would be moving to block the ears. But none of them had managed to close out the worry. That was two now...
There was a colt in front of the tree, pacing a little. Spike didn't recognize him, and that came as something of a surprise. He didn't have Pinkie's memory -- but a dragon living in a pony town had developed the habit of politely introducing himself to anypony he didn't know, because it was best for new arrivals to learn about Spike rather quickly. He also played with just about all of the kids, and this one was close to his own age group: perhaps two years younger. And this colt was distinctive, enough so that Spike was sure he would have remembered. When it came to the colt's coat, a dragon who'd grown up around books had a natural association prepared.
The colt was the exact hue of a book which had been stored in a damp environment. For three decades. Right down to the spotting of the resulting mold.
He tried to think of something more positive to connect the colt with. Then he got close enough to get a whiff of the fur, and got stuck on mold again.
"It's supposed to be open," the colt grouchily declared through a fog of self-imposed boredom. "They said there was a dragon running the place. And that it would be open. You're obviously not running it very well if it's closed."
"There was an emergency," Spike tried to apologize, because this was a first meeting and he always did his best to make those go well. The usual opening gesture was to extend an arm, with knuckles out and claws curled towards his palm. "I'm Spike --"
"-- don't care," the colt decided. "I need the press."
Spike didn't see into the future. He heard into it, and counted the KA-CHUNK!s.
"Come in," was the best he could do. The locks were opened, and he led the colt inside. "Are you new in town? The press is for patrons --"
The colt's head turned towards the left saddlebag. His jaw smoothly worked its way under the lid, extracted a standard youth library card. Spike could just make out the name to the left of a stained tooth: Epithet.
Oh. Well, all Spike had been planning to do was sign him up on the spot. Along with a few words on where the best playgrounds were. Plus the location of the last warm autumn swimming hole, just in case that did anything to stop the smell. "Do you know how to work it?"
"It's easy," the colt dismissively said. "Anything anypony else already did is easy. Or they wouldn't have been able to do it."
Spike resolved to listen for the first shout demanding assistance, then headed for the checkout desk. He still needed to resolve the Bunko problem, plus he had to see what else Roseluck had found --
He never quite reached it. Other patrons came in, because a slow day still had some traffic. And while he could direct some of them to use the checkout process on their own, others needed his direct help in finding a book. Somepony was trying to do research for a paper: another was attempting to track a recipe through six years of half-remembered periodicals. It all took time. And while he did his best to help them, the press went off, again and again.
It was doing so at surprisingly regular intervals, and the stamping was more frequent than anypony else had managed. Either the colt had very few words to print, or he had a genuine talent for setting type. It had the KA-CHUNK!s reliably arriving, and always after Spike had just started to recover from the last one.
He did have the luxury of keeping count, and comforted himself with the knowledge that there was a page maximum. Forty-seven...
"Spike?" He looked up, and found himself regarding the dark green, slightly worried face of Mr. Flankington. The usual blended scent of strange ingredients came off the fur and feathers of the restaurateur, and it was still an improvement over the mold.
"Hello," the little dragon automatically greeted his patron. Which, because he knew the usual reason for the pegasus to seek him out, was quickly followed by "I really can't try to taste-test anything today..." A sapient who could digest gems was, in theory, suitable for surviving anything Mr. Flankington could come up with. And because it was Mr. Flankington, the universe refused to let him shift the theory into a solid proof.
KA-CHUNK!
"I apologize for bothering you," a naturally polite stallion said. "I wanted to speak with you yesterday, but -- all of the new releases were in. It was easy to count the boxes, I know you're by yourself right now --" a little more quickly "-- no word, yes? That means they're all right?"
"It's a meet-and-greet," Spike assured him, because nothing about the mission had been classified. "It's harmless."
The stallion briefly looked dubious, then shook it off. "At any rate, I didn't want to interrupt. Do you have a moment now?"
Spike nodded. Mr. Flankington cleared his throat.
KA-CHUNK!
"My reserved copy of Saddle Arabian Stew wasn't waiting for me. I checked the holding area. I was ready to check it out myself, but -- nothing."
At least it's just a murder mystery... With Mr. Flankington, that was good for a moment of comfort. But there was a new problem...
"I set it aside for you," Spike stated. "I know I did."
"I believe you," the stallion reassured him. "I know you wouldn't neglect your duties, Spike. But it wasn't there." He paused -- then verbally accelerated. "And neither were any of the other three books I asked to have put aside. And I don't think it was just me. There were a lot of ponies walking away from the holding area with empty mouths and frustrated faces. They didn't bother you because -- well, I asked a few not to, and I don't think the rest could find you in all the boxes." Gently, "Plus we try to give you a little more leeway when your sister is out of town, because -- it's just you. But the books weren't there."
KA-CHUNK! And that was fifty. Spike exhaled. But there was a new, major problem.
His first guess was theft, and that angered him on several levels: the violation, the audacity, and what he was convinced was the fact that nopony would have tried it with Twilight in charge. But it was also possible that somepony hadn't honored the sanctity of the advance reservation system and holding area --
-- no. It would have been a lot of ponies...
...if that was the case, then the books still would have been checked out.
"I have to look at the records," he told the stallion. "Please, if you can give me a few minutes --"
"-- take all the time you need --"
"-- HEY! Dragon! Get over here!"
Youth and adult dejectedly looked at each other.
"I know a disgruntled customer when I hear one," the chef sadly declared. "All too well. Go take care of that one first."
The initial part of the issue was actually fairly basic.
"There's a glow around these papers," the colt angrily stated. A forehoof stomped on the illuminated stack. "It didn't let me take enough."
"There's a fifty-page limit," Spike automatically apologized. "We're giving out paper at cost --"
"-- but my story isn't done!" Another stomp. "It's a hundred and forty-eight pages! I counted! I printed fifty yesterday, right after I started! And I wanted to finish, but there were too many ponies around! So it's another fifty today, and now I got stopped again! This is taking too long!"
The colt had written something which was nearly triple Twilight's permitted length? If nothing else, Spike had to respect the effort. But to give up that much extra paper...
...this was potentially a budding author. There were Rules in the library -- but when it came to the future of books, there was also a Cause.
"Maybe I can do something," the little dragon decided.
"Maybe?"
...all things considered, the unspoken Yes should have been a lot more verbal. But he was curious. "I think I can help," Spike said. "But..." It would have been unnatural not to be curious. "Can I see it?"
The colt shrugged, inclined his head towards a stack of finished, face-down pages. Spike picked them up, turned the group over, looked at the words, and the library was gone.
He was in the sky. His wings moved in concert with the secret harmonies of the atmosphere. He feathered, he went into a glide, he allowed a thermal to lift his body while wondering if the same could ever be said for his heart --
-- this is the future, I'm holding the future, he's this good and he doesn't even have his mark yet, he gets all the pages and he has to come back and read this to Twilight, I'll take him to the swimming hole myself and I should have just enough flame to make it toasty --
-- every sentence was a work of art, of craft, he almost felt as if he knew the style --
-- and then he did.
He wasn't holding the future.
"My Wings," Spike starkly quoted, "But Not My Self."
The colt frowned. "Huh. Didn't think I'd run off the title yet --"
"-- was written by Glidemaster Layers. Two hundred and thirteen years ago."
The colt was now squinting at him.
"How old are you?" the colt snidely asked. "Because this book is older than I am, so nopony was gonna remember it. Nopony who counts. Nothing older than me is worth remembering, and the Princesses, they've got better stuff to do than reading --"
"-- this is one of the most famous novellas on the pegasus condition in Equestria's history," Spike softly declared.
"I thought it had something which wasn't boring," the colt decided. "Or something which adults would think wasn't, even when stuff only blows up at the very end. That's why I wrote it."
"And you're a unicorn --" which was when certain words registered. "You didn't write it."
The colt sneered at him. "Yeah. I did. You're holding it."
"You printed --" and then he spotted the slim volume on the floor, along with the fact that it was open to Page 101. "That's a library copy!"
"I checked it out. Even put the dumb card in --"
"-- it's in the adult section!"
"Yeah," the colt agreed. "Because the pegasus was an adult. Anyway, I just want to finish printing my book. So I can send it to a publisher. And sell it."
Spike's outer eyelids seemed to have lost the ability to close.
"Sell it," the little dragon said.
Snidely, "I printed it. So it's my book. I said so right there." The horn jabbed accordingly.
Spike looked down again. There was an author's credit: he'd just missed it on first glance. Then he noticed the spelling error.
Epitaph.
He can copy pretty fast, but he got his own name wrong.
'Epitaph'.
There was something rising within him. It wasn't greed or flame. It was one of the oldest parts of his soul, it had been raised by Twilight and in the presence of an open plagiarist, it wanted to treat the error as a preview.
His handling claws clenched. In and out, over and over.
"You're tearing my papers!"
"Copyright law --" Spike tensely began, because it was marginally better than flame.
"-- I copied it right," the colt sneered again. "I'm good at that."
"-- means the words belong to whoever wrote them first."
"Who cares? It's not like anypony's gonna remember! And you don't count --"
"-- a publisher would remember! They'd never buy it!"
"So I'll sell it at the market --"
"This isn't yours!"
Half of the library emptied out. One stallion began to approach.
The colt was staring at Spike.
"Words belong to whoever writes them first."
Spike forced a nod.
The colt looked around. His head moved for the saddlebags again and after a moment, a quill and inkwell were extracted. Slowly, as the little dragon watched, the colt opened the container, dipped the quill, lowered his head to the floor...
It only took a second, and then the colt pulled back. Smirked at the fresh, curving stain he'd added to the wood.
Spake.
"You told me who you were," the colt smirked. "And I wrote down your name first. So that means I own it."
It was perhaps best for the colt's survival that Mr. Flankington chose that moment to catch up.
"That's not how it works," the stallion carefully said. "Words are like recipes. The order matters. And when it comes to names --"
The colt stomped a hoof again.
"Order," the colt snorted. "Nopony cares about that, or anything that's old. If they don't remember it, then it's mine. Besides, the owners of the words are dead. All of the words, or we'd all be paying rental on 'the'."
He made his next mistake. He looked at Spike, and smirked again.
"Two hundred bits and I'll sell you your name back."
The little dragon put the stack of papers onto a tray, and then took a step forward. The colt didn't move.
"So what are you gonna do?" the colt challenged. "You can't get rid of me! Can't touch me because if you're old enough to know the dumb book, then you're an adult! Can't set me on fire, can't scratch, can't -- stop walking! Why are you still walking?" The colt's horn was trying to spark, and it was failing: brief flares of mold failed to infect a single surface. "You can't --"
He tried to turn, and collided with a decidedly-immobile Mr. Flankington. Something which stopped him, for just long enough.
Spike calmly reached into a saddlebag. Extracted the library card and as the colt fearfully watched, tore it into six pieces.
"The press is for patrons only," Spike declared, and did so just before he turned back towards the stack. Exhaled.
His trick worked best with scrolls: ideally, ones where the papers had been made from certain rare woods, and written upon with exotic inks. But he made an effort, aimed for the old dormitory room at the Gifted School, and was gratified to see the stack vanish.
Of course, the other option had been turning them to ash, but he was good either way.
Spike looked at the colt again.
"You're not a patron," he said. "And that's the library's book. Goodbye."
The colt was exactly stupid enough to rally.
"I'll come back."
"No," Mr. Flankington said on Spike's behalf. "You won't."
"I'll make up other names," was the next threat. "Eight of them. And use fur dye. Get a card for each. You'll never recognize me."
Pegasus and dragon simultaneously took in the colt's unique stench.
"I'll send my friends."
That made them both stare at him.
"I can have friends any time I want," the colt defensively said. "As long as we've just met and they don't know who I am. You don't know what I can do. And I still own your name --"
Spike's nostrils flared in a rather distinctive way, just as they had done before the papers vanished. And there was a way in which the trick could work a second time, because when that finished, the colt was gone.
Adult and child sadly looked at each other. Spike's head crests slumped.
"I'll... go look for your books now..."
A gentle wing brushed feathers against sagging scales.
"Tomorrow," Mr. Flankington offered. "It can wait until tomorrow."
It was generally a truism that anypony with that kind of disposition had to get it from somewhere. The next in line for generational attitude sourcing decided to register a complaint, and so the next thing Spike wound up doing was destroying the father's library card.
There were no papers available to casually transport, and it meant all Spike could do to remove the adult was walk forward. Very slowly. But father and son had a few things in common, and the stride turned out to be enough.
Then he politely asked all of the remaining patrons to leave. Put the Temporarily Closed sign on the door, and went directly for the checkout box.
It took two hours. Most of that was used for documentation, because he was going to need the law on his side for something which, strictly speaking, probably wasn't a crime. Miranda had a way of reciting facts which could turn 'You shouldn't have crossed the street there' into a source of knee-knocking terror, but you had to give her ammunition. Even when it was a target whom she'd been waiting to kick for a very long time.
The previous sunrise had launched the most intensive Release Day of the year. Every hoped-for holiday bestseller, simultaneously brought into the world. Some of the books had been written by known and popular authors, while a few were first-time efforts receiving strong promotion. And they had all been checked out, more or less properly, by somepony who treated the Rules as the Suggestions. Not that it really mattered because in the name of profit, he was equally prepared to ignore both.
Not that many ponies followed the Rules. Or rules. Or, from what Spike could determine via what had become the evidence box, had ever read any part of the library's dictates before taking custody of their card. Without Twilight supervising -- with his having just stepped aside...
Categories of literature which Twilight had blocked off due to reader phobia, distrust, age, or common sense had been raided. Non-fiction was being used as inspiration for its opposite. Cotton had custody of the entire Pony Sexuality section and, exactly like Spike, understood none of it. You took the lead mare out of the herd, and the herd milled about doing whatever it wanted -- or could get away with.
Colts and fillies had taken books from the adult sections. Weekly limits on checked-out tomes had been redefined as 'carrying capacity', and he knew a certain pony had made multiple trips. Of course, that one had signed out the book each time, because that made it -- well, not legal, but at least Official. He'd wanted to make sure Spike would have a little more trouble complaining about Official.
The little dragon wrote all of it down, because he had to. Also because when Twilight came home, she was going to review the details and it was going to be a lot easier on him if he could just give her a folder and then retreat to Zecora's for two days --
-- no. She wouldn't be mad. At most, she'd be disappointed. Or -- understanding. She'd come that far, since arriving in Ponyville. She would understand. He'd just made a mistake...
...she'd understand.
He didn't know why that thought didn't make him feel any better.
If I just kept going back to the checkout desk when somepony needed help --
-- if I'd asked for help with bringing the new releases in.
If I'd looked at the manuscripts...
He didn't know what had gotten out into the world after he'd decided that all potential writers were capable of taking care of themselves. The safest presumption was that the Fearsome Gerund would be hunting well for moons to come.
Spike wrote all of it down. Verified that it was a market day, and prepared his case. And when he was finally ready, headed for the exit. It was time for the police station. He was just hoping that nopony was going to laugh --
-- a hoof knocked on the door. It was a rather distinctive sort of knock, even when it was trying to disguise itself as the everyday variety. There was something about the knock of a police officer which suggested that the door not opening on its own was the perfect excuse for coming in anyway.
Spike opened it. Miranda Rights, dark face forced into something which hadn't quite reached neutrality, looked down at him.
"I need to do some research," she wearily declared. "We have a small law library at the station. It isn't enough. I want to see if I missed something."
"I was just coming to see you --" Spike began.
She didn't seem to hear him. "There's two ponies in the market square. New arrivals: I think they only got here last moon. Father and son. And they're trying something. They approach ponies, nice and friendly, for the two seconds they can keep that up." A forehoof scrapped at the floor. "Introduce themselves. Then one of them says 'Give me your name.' Exactly that phrasing, Spike. 'Give.' And the victim says who they are, whoever didn't ask the question writes it down, sits on the paper, and then they both tell the victim that they own the name, because it was given to them. Guess how much money they want to sell it back. Just... guess. They haven't found anypony gullible enough to go for it yet --" Dryly, "-- something of a miracle, in this town -- but they've scared a few kids. Badly. The first fight can't be far behind."
He winced.
"There's nothing like it on the books," the police chief sighed. "Not my books. So I wanted to check yours." She started to move forward. "I've been trying to think of something to call the charge, if it is new. So far, all I've got is 'nomenclature squatting'. Which doesn't feel quite right..."
Which was followed by a sigh. "I'll explain on the way," Spike offered. "But -- I was coming to see you. There's... something else."
She looked at him for a moment. There was always a little evaluation involved when Miranda looked at somepony. It wasn't so much 'What did you do?' as 'What do I have to fix?'
"Something happened," she stated. "More than the new fraudsters. What?"
"You were in the market?"
"I didn't trot the whole thing," she readily admitted. "Just enough to spot what was going on --"
"Did you notice any books?"
Miranda frowned.
"...yes," the mare eventually said. "Or ponies carrying them. Unhappy ponies. Looked like a lot of new stuff." She automatically looked over his head. "New enough to be part of that display --"
Her gaze reached the empty section, and her eyes went wide.
"-- you had a theft? Somepony is selling the library's books? We just need to find their booth space --"
"...not exactly," the little dragon reluctantly told her. "You probably would have gotten a complaint eventually. Some ponies like to complain, especially when there's something real to complain about. But this way, you get to him first."
"Him," she starkly repeated.
Spike nodded.
"So you know who it is."
Again.
He'd caused all sorts of problems. He had to fix things. He had to figure out what Twilight would have done to fix it, and then try that first...
Intently, with the dark unicorn looking directly into his eyes, "And that pony's name is...?"
He was on her back again, and it had ponies looking at them as they went through the marketplace. Miranda usually didn't offer rides.
She also wasn't a mare for smirking, but this was a special occasion.
"Did you know that price gouging during a shortage is a crime?"
"Really?" Spike asked.
"Over a certain percentage of average value." She snorted. "And he stays just under that line, at least when he thinks he's going to be caught. I don't know what he did before he got here, Spike -- and I've spent a lot of hours in looking. But I guarantee you it wasn't all produce sales. And whenever he doesn't concentrate on what he's supposed to be doing, he starts to slip."
Two rather unhappy-seeming ponies passed them, both with their heads down. There was weight being carried in their mouths, and a small amount of mass missing from their saddlebags. Neither fact seemed to have improved their mood.
"I'm supposed to stay neutral," Miranda quietly added. "In the sense that somepony is innocent until proven guilty, and I just act on what I know. But it's harder to hang onto that with some ponies than others. And with him..."
The smirk got wider.
"We'll do this first," she said. "Then the new idiots. I want to start with the one we can scare."
And then they turned the crucial corner. Spike, as usual, saw the ugly hat first.
There was a pegasus stallion with a two-toned face (because it wasn't a good day for that either) operating a booth, one which normally sold fruits and vegetables: those had been shoved off to the side. Today, it had books. It had all of the hot new releases, every hoped-for future bestseller, and they were arranged in a careful display because he'd ripped off the design for that too.
"Book rentals!" Mr. Bunko called out to a multitude of frustrated listeners. "Why buy when you can rent? Reasonable per-day rates based on page count, quantity remaining, and visible customer need! I have what the tree doesn't, and that's a guarantee! You can rent from me, or you can pay full price at the bookstore! Just bring it back to me when you're done, within the time you pay for, and --"
He was a stallion who possessed certain instincts, and none of them were for produce. However, he did have several specialized strands of fur on the back of his neck, all of which dutifully responded to Miranda's approach by standing straight up.
There didn't seem to be a predetermined response for Spike's presence, at least in that the little dragon assumed that the sudden glance at the sky was part of a natural check for any escape route.
"-- this isn't illegal," multiple dedicated neurons declared. "It isn't."
(Off to the left, a pretty white pegasus adolescent offered up a half-printed manuscript to an earth pony of the same age, carefully setting it on the ground in front of him. The oversized colt looked down, read twenty words, and fainted on the spot.)
The rarity of Miranda's smirk transmuted into something which was almost extinct. The nearly-unseen Official Police Smile.
"I'm not sure about the legality," she admitted. "But I'm still shutting down your booth until we can find out. Together. And if all else fails... the library has Rules..."
There was a new truism among the Bearers, and Twilight wasn't quite sure how to put it: not when it came to what felt like the inevitable scroll. Something about how the worst missions came from anything which had been promised as 'perfectly safe'...
...it might not matter. Even with Spike involved, the reports were going to beat the scroll to the palace. Especially if they were traveling in a no-longer-quite-so-diplomatic pouch. And nothing anyone could write was going to fully account for what Fluttershy had done...
They hadn't even let her bring any exotic gems back for Spike. She'd told them it was like being asked to visit Cloudsdale when you were forbidden from using any air.
...which had just given their hosts a few extra ideas.
She sighed, did her best to ignore the ponies watching her morose advancement through town, and forced herself towards the tree under Moon. The library would only be a few minutes away from closing: something which happened in the dark, in this part of autumn. And she was tired, trying to avoid the composition of that scroll for just a little while longer because she didn't know how to explain any of it, considering an examination of shelving and the checkout box and oh dear Sun, she'd missed the biggest Release Day of the season, the results of that unboxing had to be double-checked and it would at least buy her some time...
The little mare slipped into the library: too weary to teleport, with just enough strength to shove the doors out of the way. Stepped lightly and near-silently through empty aisles --
"-- and now you sign the card."
She heard the patron take a breath.
"This is my tenth signature," the unseen mare said.
"Yes," Spike lectured. "But this is the one which goes on the card. Because from now on, all library cards require a signature. No exceptions."
Twilight's ears almost found the strength to perk. Signatures? She'd never mandated any signatures --
"Why?" the tired-sounding mare asked. "Why now?"
Spike sniffed: the air whistled slightly as it went over the scales. "Do you know how many ponies try to defraud a library?"
"I wouldn't imagine any," the mare answered. "What would be the point?"
Another sniff. "We've had five just this week."
-- and now he was talking about fraud? It was enough to force her legs into some degree of acceleration. She had to find out what was going on --
"Or one," Spike continued. "It depends on how you like to look at it."
"I would like to look at it," the mare irritably decided, "as a chance to get my new card. Actually, I would have liked to do that twenty minutes ago."
"One pony," the dragon-in-charge primly announced, "with five different names. None of which were spelled correctly. All right: so with the previous signatures, I can establish that your mouthwriting matches."
"Good," the mare lied. "So we're done."
"With the signatures."
"Fine," was a decent followup lie.
"Now we just have to start on the stickers. I'm going to list categories of literature, along with a short description. And non-fiction. This may or may not include Pony Sexuality, since I'm still trying to get most of that back and until I do, it's almost a moot point. But if you feel any degree of phobic reaction to the words, we'll just block that off in advance. So. Science Fiction. The world staggers on with science, because the magic is gone forever. Did that scare you? -- oh, yes. Your eyes are becoming very wide. Almost angry. Which could be interpreted as 'fearful'. It's not the most uncommon reaction to the idea. So let me just make sure you can't ever check that out..."
Which was when Twilight got into one-way sighting range. She could see her brother, standing proud and (barely) tall on the checkout desk's bench. But he couldn't see her, not the way he was focused entirely on the angry mare -- or rather, what could be seen of her over all the stacked-up paperwork. It still gave her a perfectly clear side view, and...
She looked at him for a few seconds. At the way he'd somehow managed to press his head crests forward. Sweeping the foremost one down across his forehead, almost like... bangs. It was a detail which almost caused her to miss the glasses, something which had never been meant to balance on a dragon snout and that was probably why he'd taped them into place...
Twilight took all of that in, while her brother made a few precise notes and the mare sputtered a lot. And then she put all thoughts of scroll and sibling and, for that matter, the entire world on hold. Turned away from the desk, got fully out of sight and, with nopony watching, went up the ramp and silently slipped into bed. Because it felt as if there was a good chance that she was already dreaming. Under the blankets was where she belonged.
And if she was awake, then things were never so bad that they couldn't look worse in the morning.
