“Mom Sparkle!”

I set down my chopsticks and waved at the near-white mare. She heard my call and crossed the street.

“Well, hello Tangent! Is my daughter somewhere around here?” She was looking up and down the street as if she might see Twilight emerging from one of the many shops.

“She’s busy today, writing an after action report for her most recent mission. So she shunted me out of the castle to amuse myself. Instead of moping around Ponyville I decided to check out the Canterlot Arboretum!”

“Eh?”

She looked around again, perhaps double checking her own location.

“I took a wrong turn, so I’m trying to make the best of it here in the Otone Shopping District.”

I was sitting at a noodle stand, fiddling with my chopsticks while I waited, when I had spotted Twilight Velvet.

“Is Nightlight with you?”

“He’s not foal enough to come along on my shopping trips. I only come here once a year and I plan to make the most of it.”

“So join me for lunch then! If you haven’t already eaten. My treat.”

“I don’t mind if I do,” she said, setting her shopping bags down and sitting to my right. “I see you’re left-hooved.”

I spun my chopsticks once more and set them down again, resolving to let them sit until my food arrived.

“Sorry. Nervous habit. I don’t even notice picking them up. Hey Uncle!” I called to the noodle vendor, “change that to two orders of house special ramen, please, and make hers a deluxe! Thanks!”

“Oh, you’ll spoil me for sure.”

“Good, good, how else am I to extract more tales of little Twilight from you?”

“If that’s the only compense you need, let me tell you about one time we took ‘little Twilight’ to market…”

—

Little Twilight’s eyes were huge as she followed mommy and daddy through the bustle of the Canterlot Market.

There were, of course, more vegetable stands than anypony really needed. Clothiers, shoeries, milliners, smiths and armorers were present in truly excessive numbers. But, the book stores, the magic shops, the candy stores, the book stores, the magic shops, the bakeries, the book stores, the magic shops, the toy stores, and, oh!, the book stores!

Donkey Oaty, Bookseller Extraordinaire, Proscribed Works a Specialty, one sign read. At the top of the sign a toy sized windmill spun its vanes slowly, menaced by a fiery Spanish stallion. A strange apish creature in quaint armor bore the stallion’s lance for him.

The call was too strong! Casting a simple cantrip that would have her parents continuing to hear her hoofsteps behind them, she slipt away and entered a mystic fane of bibliolatry.

This bookshop had once been a private residence, a mansion with many rooms. The street entrance opened into a former parlor, the small check out counter surrounded with shelves of books: fashion on the east wall, floral on the west, and family beside the door leading into the next room.

Wandering onward, Twilight found room after room, all walled floor to ceiling with shelves, with comfortable chairs and reading tables located roomcenter where they would not impinge on the ability to maximize shelf space.

Through the fascinating gamut of the huge ill kempt labyrinthine mazed nest of pages, quartos, reams, scrolls uncountable, volumes weary and xanthic, little Twilight thought herself in heaven. The range of material was far broader than the foals’ section at the neighborhood branch of the Canterlot Library or the library at her grade school.

Remembering the words of Miss Alexandria the librarian, “if you can reach it, it’s probably okay for you to read it,” she levitated one lavishly illustrated volume down from an Adults Only shelf (behind a curtain, in a small room that had once been a den, mostly populated with sci-fi). Twilight didn’t know what a ‘sutra’ was, but the exercises shown did not look very practical. Despite this, the mare and stallion in the photos looked happy enough as they contorted themselves through endless improbable juxtapositions. What funny ponies! She might have to come back for that one when she had some bits.

Taking a seat in a bright room which had once been a small conservatory (topics: medicine, mechanical devices, & magic; the magic section continuing into the hall and around the periphery of the mezzanine) Twilight began to read in earnest. She spent the day devouring every book that caught her eye; eventually the proprietor realized that she couldn't have arrived with any of his customers, she must be alone.

“Excuse me, miss, are your parents—”

“I’m hungry, please,” she said without looking up.

The kitchen, in addition to hosting some forty linear metres of shelves (cookbooks, culinary history, agriculture), was still functional and Donkey Oaty made use of it.

Politely, the filly thanked him for her melted cheese sandwich. With approval he noted how she pushed the book away before she ate and did not touch a single page again until she had carefully cleaned her hooves. Reassured that his stock was safe, he retreated without questioning her further.

She read deep into the night, and when she fell asleep at her current book he draped a blanket around her shoulders. In the time that followed he produced food whenever asked, but otherwise he let her roam untended.

One day, two soldiers entered Donkey Oaty’s shop. They didn’t look like avid readers, but as far as he recalled he hadn’t sold anything illegal recently. A year ago a volume of Das Unaussprechlichen Kolten had passed through his hooves, but he was sure the collector who acquired it for her shelves was both too discreet to be caught out and above ratting out her source if she did get caught.

The guards offered no explanation for their presence. Suspiciously they swept through all the nooks and crannies of the shop. The only customer in the place, a young filly, was the right colour, but she was clearly no foalnapping victim. She looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at the guards before taking another sip of her tea. When they saw what she was reading, they assumed she must also be too old to be the filly they were searching for. With a bit of a shudder they hurried the rest of their search.

Little Twilight wondered what kind of book the soldiers were looking for. They were sure to find it in a shop like this, but they soon faded from her mind as she poured over the pages before her. These death curses were really too interesting!

And so more days flew past.

From time to time she would move her base of operations to other rooms. A small office (furniture, arts and crafts), the master bedroom (history, philosophy, equilogy), a guest room (drama, literature, foreign works), all had their turn. Even the restroom housed bookshelves (humor, comics).

Days turned into a week.

—

“A whole week?” I gasped, broth dripping from my chin.

“Yep!” Twilight Velvet said, and paused to slurp more of her noodles. “They put checkpoints on every road out of Canterlotand searched door to door. Two different groups of guards looked right at her and figured that the pony they were looking for wouldn’t be sitting there happily reading. That poor old donkey fed her whenever she was hungry and let her read as much as she wanted. He never left his shop that whole time so he never learned that all Canterlot was in an uproar about a missing filly. Finally she decided that she missed Mister Smartypants and left on her own.”

—

Ding! Ding!

The bell on the door jangled and Donkey Oaty snorted awake. He had been sleeping at the front counter of his shop every night for days now. Nopony had entered the shop; after a quick look around he realize that he was alone. The purple filly had left and stacked on the table were an eclectic mix of brightly coloured foals’ books and forbidden tomes of eldritch horror; a note in crayon asked him to put them on layaway until she could save up enough allowance to buy them.

With no clue what a fuss her absence had caused, Little Twilight walked herself home.

—

“You and Nightlight must have been frantic!”

“Funny thing, Tangent. We were worried, of course we were, but we had good reason to believe that wherever she was, she was safe. I can’t go into details. I wish I could.”

“I understand.”

I already had more secrets than I wanted and would not pry into hers.

“Whatever happened with Donkey Oaty?”

“Oh, he’s great, we got to meet him when it was all over. And Twilight became a regular customer, she spent her allowance at his shop for years until she moved out. I’ll bet you anything she’s still got a frequent customer punch-card in her wallet.”

“No bet. She probably does!”

“Of course, the worst part was that spell of hers! We kept hearing her behind us the whole time she was missing and nopony could figure out how to break it. Now that was nerve wracking.”

As she spoke a pair of ponies sat down at the noodle stand. The yellow mare with platinum white mane was unknown to me, but I recognized the amber toned stallion.

Brushing his blue mane out of his eyes, he greeted Twilight Velvet.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Sparkle!”

“Hello, Flash,” she said, “Tangent, this is Flash Sentry and his wife Bambi.”

“Hi!” I said. Flash shook my hoof and Bambi waved.

“Flash,” mom Sparkle continued her introductions, “this is Tangent, my daughter’s colt-friend.”

“Oh, hi,” he said to me, evidently surprised.

“Flash here used to do security detail for Twilight before he was promoted,” Twilight Velvet explained unnecessarily, “she had a crush on him forever, but I don’t think—”

“No, I didn’t!”

“No, he didn’t!”

“No, they didn’t!”

Flash, his wife, and I, all spoke at once.

“Well I’m glad we’ve got that settled. Thank you for lunch, Tangent, I shall continue my shopping.”

I rose to hug her before she left. “Thanks for having lunch with me. Take care, mom.”

Twilight Velvet collected her bags and set forth as I sat back down. I had been so entranced to hear about Little Twilight’s adventure that my noodles were only half gone.

“Awkward much?” Flash asked. “Buy you a beer?”

“Sure, pone, thanks.”

“Hon?” he asked and his wife nodded, yes. “Oji! Three beers, please! And two house special ramen, deluxe for the missus.”

Beverages arrived and we drank in silence.

“Where’re you from?” he asked at last.

“Uh, far away, Flash. I don’t know if I should—”

“Sorry, forget I asked. I’m not cleared for anything confidential outside of my current assignment. Where you staying?”

“Ponyville. At the castle.”

“Nice,” Bambi enthused, “that castle is soooo cool and shiny. The Princess invited Flash and me to stay in the castle for the summer rose festival the other year, right after we were married. She’s so nice! Which suite are you staying in?”

“Twilight’s”

“Oh!”

“And you’re calling Mrs. Sparkle ‘mom’, huh,” Flash said. “The princess is one helluva pony, I’m glad she’s got somepony special in her life.”

“Me too!” said Bambi, leaning closer to Flash. “I don’t want her regretting that she let a stud like this fellow slip through her hooves.”

“As if,” he scoffed. “The princess knows that a lug like me too laid back to keep up with a, ah, high energy mare like her. I hope things are working out.”

“Thanks, pone,” I said as I stood and turned towards the market street where I might find a certain book seller, “I really think they are. It’s been a pleasure to meet you both, thanks for the drink.”

Author's Note

Bonus drop this week; comments welcome.