It was the soft tickling of soft fur brushing against her, which made Comforting lift her hoof and slap away that pestering fur ball. As her eyes flickered open, the hazy light of dawn shimmered through her windows and outlined the outline of that intruder upon her. Then she felt quite silly. "Morning." She went in to hug that fluffball instead of attack them. "Sleep well?"

Toots hugged in return before pushing to his hooves. "Feeling ready to tackle the day!" He turned and looked back at Comforting with a little grin on his face. "If you'd rather stay in bed a little longer, I'll understand. I have things to do."

Comforting burrowed deep into the covers with a long sigh and pulled her pillow up and around. "I shouldn't just laze about either." She threw her bedding aside and hopped up and didn't bother coming down. Gravity always was optional for her. "I was thinking of adding a third floor to the library."

Toots paused. "One, I have to remind myself that, yes, you could just do that. But two, why? Did you run out of space for books?"

Comforting slinked around him, never once touching the ground. "A third floor would let the students study with more privacy. They would be just for magic. Any book on that floor, also just for magic. I know a few that'd belong there." She counted on her fingers. "First floor, normal books. Second floor is crafts and teamwork. Third floor, magic."

Toots had an ear perked and head tilted to listen to the wondrousness that is Comforting making her plans for her library. "Very ambitious, Comfy." He reached up with one hand to tug along her, bring her down towards the floor just enough so he could easily kiss her forehead. "You always surprise me." He turned and took off again, having delivered his love to the chaos pony. "Don't make your library collapse!"

Comforting settled on the ground finally and patted a hoof on the ground to remind herself she was there, and still solid. She stuck out her tongue mildly. "I won't knock it over, just add one more floor. The two we have are strong enough for at least one more." She rolled her eyes. "The harder part is that I have to dig through a bunch of boring laws, to make sure I'm not breaking them all by making a third story appear casually."

Toots peered through his glasses from over his shoulder back at her. "Oh? Stupid laws and hoofs in their mouths." He smiled with an idea forming. "Why don't you ask a pony who studies those things instead of learning it all yourself? Way less boring and un-chaotic that way, right?"

Comforting grabbed Toots' cheeks in her hands. "You are a genius. That sounds way less boring and soul-numbing! I'll just find a lawyer and put the question to them to figure out. No way that can go wrong." Ways it could go wrong drifted through her head. "Unless I ask the question badly and get a funny answer. Lawyers are very good at answering what you ask, not what you meant." She tapped at her chin, considering the query. "Like little legal genies, those things. Gotta phrase your wish just right."

Toots hoofed Comforting towards the door, partly to encourage her to get out, partly because he was tugging on her in the right direction anyways. "Have fun and remember to keep them sane." He paused. "Oh, uh, did you talk to Amber about this? It is her library, right?"

Comforting blinked dumbly a moment. "Right! Right." She went in, smooched Toots on the forehead, and darted off for the door. "Another reason I keep you around. See you tonight, okay?"

Toots laughed, waving a hoof at her as she raced away and out of sight. "Looking forwards to it." He rubbed his face to clean her lip marks and get himself out and off to work. They both had things to do.

Comforting zipped over the city, watching the little ponies beneath her also busy with their morning activities. Some were relaxing while others looked quite industrious. Comforting spotted a restaurant opening up and saw one chef struggling to carry boxes of things from the back to the front to help their server start the morning off well. The boxes weren't terribly heavy, just very inconvenient. Seeing the stallion struggling with so many of them, Comforting came in and casually snatched a few for herself. "Morning!"

The pony below paused and lifted their hat, looking at the chaotic entity with wide eyes and surprise all over their face. "Uh. Thanks?"

"Of course!" Comforting patted the pony's shoulder with a friendly smile. "Where were you trying to get these? You really should consider asking for a helping hoof when you get to these many boxes, sheesh. No, no, don't worry about it." She gave them a friendly smile before carefully sitting all the boxes in place inside of the building for their chefs to go through.

The stallion rubbed at the back of his neck in response to her remark with a soft chuckle. "The others were all busy. Thanks for the assist." He gave a quick salute and got back to other work that was calling for him. Comforting waved and darted off. "Nice to do the occasional random nice thing for somepony I don't even know. Wonder what else I'll get to see!" She looped in the air with a little giggle at herself and flew off and away, patrolling over the city as best she could on her way to the library.

Fortunately or not, she didn't run into any other ponies buried in boxes, arriving at the front of the library. "Ah, sanctum of learning, castle of books!" She threw her hands in the air. "Lair of a good friend." With a giggle, she pushed open the front doors and headed inside. The sun was barely up but there was already a young earth pony in there looking for something interesting to read, and by the time Comforting left the main lobby area, three more ponies had entered. She darted about until she spotted Amber at the main desk.

"There you are." She came in for a landing beside her. "I had an idea and it involves you. At least, it involves the library, and you are the head librarian of that, so it involves you. What am I rambling about?" She sighed softly, going red. "Okay. Here's the deal. I want to make another floor to the library."

Amber huffed and thumped a hoof on the desk. "Another floor? That's a big deal." She adjusted her glasses. "How long would it even take to build a whole new floor? They got this place up relatively fast, but it wasn't instant."

"About that." Comforting leaned in with a smirk. "I feel pretty sure I can get a third floor up without too much of a problem, and it'd be very very fast." She clapped her hands together with a chuckle. "I'll check with a lawyer first, make sure no rules are being broken, but I wanted to check in with you first. Again, your library and all."

Amber shifted to thinking about things for a moment, considering Comforting's plan. She reached a hoof to tap her chin in thought. "So you're adding a third floor to the library. But I have to ask, why? We're not running out of space right now. We have plenty." She laughed a little. "Or have you gotten more books?"

Comforting wriggled her fingers. "It's not just about books, though, yes, some books. It's about magic!" As she said the last word, she spread her hands out, a rainbow erupting between them. "I think we should have a floor dedicated to magic. All the tribes, one floor for all their magic. We'd move all the magic books we already have there and collect more to put there. All the classes would be there, on the third floor. Separating magic and everyday. What do you think?"

Amber fiddled with her glasses as she contemplated the request for a little while. "I like the idea, I really do. We have been offering more magic." She turned towards those first floor classrooms. "And they are kind of tucked in a corner right now. Having their own space sounds fun and will probably encourage some ponies to start looking at that magic. Yes, yes." She put on a bold expression. "Do it."

Comforting nodded with a merry laugh. "Fantastic! Alright, step one, down." She made a checkmark in the air that faded slowly. "Step two, find a lawyer pony to look adorable as they search through dense legal lore that I don't want to die of boredom looking through."

Amber grunted softly at that remark from Comforting and smacked the chaos entity on the shoulder. "Don't call a lawyer 'adorable', sheesh." She smiled awkwardly at the thought. "Most go for 'professional'. I doubt most want to be thought of as cute as the first thing that comes to mind."

Comforting opened her mouth and paused a moment before speaking again. "Well, some are quite adorable, it's just a thing that's happening, let them enjoy their own cute charm if it doesn't bother them." She crossed her arms. "If they didn't want to be cute, they shouldn't have been born as ponies, silly things. Such charming and beautiful beings of brightest joy and deepest despair."

Amber fanned herself with a hoof. "Stop it! Stop saying all these wonderful things, oh my gosh!" She snorted and rubbed her forehead, trying to fight down the blushing and calm herself down. "Why don't you, um, get on that lawyer looking bit?"

"Righto." But not before she touched her forehead to Amber's. "Be right back!" She zipped right out the nearest window, too excited to bother with a door.

Amber shook her head. "The door was right there." She pointed to the front door, standing unused by the fleeing chaos spirit. "Silly thing." She turned her thoughts away from that to help another pony approaching the front desk.

Comforting pulled out her phone and got to typing. "Ah, Internet." She hadn't realized how much she missed having easy access to that wonderful service until it had returned to her. She found several listings for local attorneys. There was one with an office just a block and a half away! "Close enough."

The office was one floor in a multifloored building. There was a directory of many businesses all living alongside each other in their own rooms. Her destination was on the fourth floor. She zipped up to it and knocked on a window.

The window slid open, revealing a severely-dressed, and also very confused, stallion. "Y-yes? This is not the usual way to our office, ma'am? Not that we don't get our share of flyers." He held up a little business card for Comforting's eyes to take in. "Do you have business with us?"

Comforting scanned the card, quickly confirming she was in the right place. Yep! She hopped in around the stallion. "I have a legal question, and you are a law pony. The question's really simple. We have a two story library, nice place, and I want to add a third story to it. Any legal problems and steps I should be aware of before I go rushing to do that? Things I should do before, during, and after? All the details, please."

The stallion closed his office window to block out the growing noise of the city outside. "I, well, that's quite unusual but not exactly hard. You work for the library just a few blocks from here, correct? The location's important, as the rules do change depending on where it is."

Comforting took a seat in an uncomfortable wooden chair that looked like it'd break under her considerable weight. Fortunately, she could weigh what she felt like weighing. "Yes. Oh! I need to pay you, right?"

"Typically." The stallion chuckled and handed her a hoofful of paperwork. "This is just for insurance, some of that legal nonsense like insurance is sometimes needed to confirm some legal thing or other, somepony likes paperwork so we all get it."

Comforting hiked a brow at a lawyer, of all ponies, bemoaning paperwork. "Got it. I have the app too." She pulled out her phone, ready to make any needed payments.

He drew out his own phone and touched the two together with a happy chime. "Alright, that covers the start. The first thing you have to make sure of is that the third floor matches the general appearance of the existing floors. If they differ wildly, you have to prove it's structurally sound much more thoroughly. You also may get neighbors filing complaints, so I don't really recommend it."

Comforting bobbed her head. "From the outside, it should all look the same, no differences."

"Alright, excellent. With that being the case, you would be free to proceed without worry of outside complaint. Be sure to get insurance information from whatever ponies are performing the actual construction. Adding a floor can cause structural issues and you want to be covered." He nodded along with his words. "Don't want your library to collapse and you're left holding the bag."

Comforting laughed tensely. "Insurance! Yes, of course." She knew she was the construction company. There would be no insurance. "Alright, so, let's just say we get one and they get it done, pow. Any things to consider as they do it?"

"Noise." He pointed to a poster. "You can be noisy in the day, but they have to go home at night. Don't do that, more complaints, more trouble. Speaking of, you need to warn your neighbors before construction begins. Ideally, at least a full week's notice, if not a full moon."

Comforting rolled a hand slowly. "Let's pretend. If the construction company were quiet, really quiet, would you need any notifications?"

The pony arched a brow. "If you can find a construction company that can do it at a volume no higher than we're speaking at right now, then no, no noise warnings would be required." He shook his head slowly. "I doubt you can manage that, ma'am."

Comforting clasped her hands together. "Watch me."

He was stunned by that declaration from the chaos pony before him. "You aren't being serious, right? You cannot be serious." He laughed tensely. "Well, alright. Let's assume past that. If you build it basically silently, no noise notices. If you don't create dust or debris, no notices about that either." He raised a brow. "Do pass on the business card of the construction ponies that can perform such miracles. Still, avoid all of that, and you can just get it done. Once complete, you have to submit it for inspection. If they don't find anything wrong, you're done! Your library would have another floor and you can enjoy it."

Comforting thrust a hand at the stallion, capturing his hoof. "Thank you for your wonderful assistance, pony. You're my little pony-go-go. It has been delightful and amazing chatting with you about this important issue." She giggled a little. "Wow, way easier to ask a lawyer about law."

He was quiet a moment before it clicked. "Oh! I'm glad you came to me, ma'am. Plenty of ponies think they can just look up a few laws and they'll be covered. It's a bit more complicated than it looks."

Author's Note

A chapter about the legal steps involving urban expansion of a library? Why not!

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