Twilight Sparkle, now the undisputed singular ruling monarch of Equestria, had one quiet place on the palace grounds. It was one that she had carefully cultivated, both the staff, and the environment over the last twenty or so years to be an absolutely pristine fortress of relaxing library vibes. The floors were polished, the books filled the air with the healthy scent of aging pages, and the staff was kind and knowledgeable; more importantly, quiet.
"Princass!" Came the echoing noise of the current irritation.
At the moment, it was nearing the time in which Twilight would have normally had to lower the sun, and raise the mood. It'd been a particualr-
"I know yare in here!"
Twilight turned another page in the treatise she was reading about null states of metaconceptual runic structures. Unfortunately, the words were drifting out of focus for her.
Anyways, it'd been a pa-
"Show yarself!"
ANYWAYS. It had been a particularly boring day for the monarch, boring as in tiresome, and tiresome as in exhausting. She had continued to leave herself notes to absolve the noble houses, or otherwise make them 'go away' at some point for any reason she could conceive of. That did not come to fruition today.
"Aha! There ya are!"
There was always tomorrow though
The crazed stallion wandered into her 'magic' periphery. He was a tall one, clearly magically enhanced to be almost a head taller than she was; walking awkwardly on three elongated legs and dragging gaurd's mare slung underneath the fourth
Oh, and more notably, he was undead. He still had a soul, so an obvious lich. Though how one even got in here is baffling in it of itself, she'd have to talk to the guard captain again. Regardless he seemed in a relatively good condition for a walking corpse.
"I won't stand for your arrogance any longer! The wastes are mine! and now, so will all of Equestria!"
"Uhuh" Twilight tried to focus again on her book. The line about psionic imprints on the structural integrity of a casters intent when expressed through p-
The book took a bolt of magic and flipped over the table in a flurry of ripped pages and cyclic magics that corrupted and melted the pages and it's binding into their core components. The result was her book turning from sludge to dust as it hit the floor.
She should probably do something about that...
She turned to look at the stallion. Not that she needed to, it was really just for him. She leaned on the table, and rested her head on a hoof and lounged as best as she could at his monologue, every villain had one; this lich seemed particularly interested in sharing a bit earlier than necessary... Usually there was a trap first, or something.
"-will never see your precious kingdom again!"
Twilight pulled herself from her internal dialogue "Huh?"
The stallion sputtered, "You will surrender yourself to me! Now!"
Twilight, genuinely confused said, "Why?" With the inflection right in the middle of the word, more of an accusation, but it's not like he cared, he didn't even know proper grammar.
The stallion hefted the pink mare wearing plates from the Dawn armory and grinned that evil villain grin villains grinned when they thought that they won.
Twilight met his sunken eyes, and glanced towards the mare, and tilted a bit to the side to see the ponies and destruction alike in his wake.
Oh... All those books...
Twilight let out a long suffering sigh... "Can we please not do this?"
"Surrender or I'l-!"
"STOP SHOUTING"
Several bookshelves crumbled under the strain, and Twilight, over the ringing, courtesy of her physical enchantments, listened to the sound of windows shattering off in the distance.
"This is a library." She said calmly, once she was certain the undead stallion would actually be able to hear her.
"Uh..." He said intelligently
Twilight reconstituted her book from the ash from the ground, reversing the spell he had used. He must have gotten that unregistered attack spell from a fertilizing spell and worked out how to get around the intrinsic restrictions. Nonetheless, she went back to pretending to read while she continued doing complex thaumilogical equations in her head.
"I will-!" Twilight's eyes snapped to his, "Uh... I mean, I will turn this mare into..." He broke her gaze, "I'll hurt her, if you don't surrender." Trying to look of to the side to avoid the Alicorn's look, while still lighting his horn with the spell form to kill.
"Florescent?"
The mare looked up from her place under his hooves, "Yes Princess?"
"Remind me to give you a promotion later."
Florescent blinked a couple of times in confusion, "Of... Of course, Princess."
Twilight turned back to her book, and spoke once more, "Unfortunately the Palace is closed to civilians and dignitaries for the day, if you'll come back tomorrow while during open ground hours, I'll be happy to discuss... 'the' issue with you."
The stallion finally realized he was being mocked, or at least, he took her mercy as mocking. "Issue! There is no issue! Just the cycle of the strong over the weak. I will take your land from you like you took my land from me, I will cover it in plague after plague and-"
Welp. She tried diplomacy.
Twilight used her telekinesis to produce an air pressure wave to surround his muzzle, since she couldn't just grab his mouth directly, lich and all, so she just used physics; far easier, in her opinion. Regardless, the lich tried to shake their mouth out of her spell right before she enveloped his whole head and forced it to point up at her as she stood into some of her more 'intimidating' spell form.
The mare, now with her horn almost scraping the ceiling and her wings knocking down several of the now liquified book shelves, stared down at the lich impassively and dug into her considerable reserves to being manifesting a spell weave, and secondarily activate an enchantment.
The stallion, now seemingly realizing the position he was in, trapped directly under the gaze of a God fresh out of mercy, promptly and internally began to reevaluate the things that led them to be in this particular position.
Twilight released the spell into the stallion, he fainted as he became alive again.
The rest of the debris around her began rearranging themselves, liquified books and shattered wood fitting back into place along the encoded paths of the spell work she'd laid in advance. In short order the library was back up to snuff.
Several ponies had already gone back to what they were doing.
Twilight lifted the now non-lich stallion in her levitation, and teleported him to the thronestone sections of the dungeons.
Twilight reversed her physical enchantments and sat back down at the reconstituted table, and flipped open the book again. Unfortunately she had no idea where she left off on the page, so she had to start over.
Everypony else wisely chose to leave her be.
