In Luce Lunae

New authors note at the bottom.  Long story short, updates incoming!

My dear protege,

While I know you enjoy your studies, there is more to life than just reading books!  Therefore, I have decided to send you to oversee the preparations for my Winter Moon Festival in the town of Ponyville.  Also, there is an even more critical task you must complete.  While you're there, I want you to make some friends.  I've arranged for you to stay in the town library, but don't think I did that so you can lock yourself away.  Good luck, and have fun.

Your mentor and monarch,

Princess Luna

Twilight stared outside the flying carriage and into the distance  Not even the news that she was staying in a library could cheer her up, given she virtually had one of her own in her tower.

'I can't believe she just ignored me like that!' she thought.  She turned her head, looking into the sunset.  'Why didn't she listen to me...  She won't even let me research anything about The Tyrant's return.'

"And making friends?  What a joke...  I don't have time for friends."

"Of course you have time for friends, Twilight!"

Twilight shook herself awake and turned back to Spike.  She didn't realize she had spoken that last part aloud.

"I mean, if you don't have time, make some!"

"Well, I was going to look back into temporal magic... Maybe I really can make more time...but then again, I could just get more studying done!"

Spike sighed, noticing the almost manic gleam in her eye.  "That's not what I meant," he grumbled.

'At least I managed to cheer Twilight up some,'  he thought. Twilight was now in full "crazed study-mare mode" as he liked to call it.  Still, there wasn't much to be done about it and at least she wouldn't be moping for the remainder of the trip.  Spike tuned Twilight out and decided to watch the scenery.

It wasn't long before the pair touched down in Ponyville.  Twilight thanked the pegasi pulling the chariot before turning around to the apparent "library" she was to inhabit for the next two nights.

  "It's a tree...how ironic," she said, managing to keep a completely blank face and flat tone.

"Well, we may as well go inside."  She turned her head around to look at Spike, who was getting sleepy.   The sun had gone down, and it was his bed time, after all.

Spike walked in behind her, and she shut the door behind him.  They both looked around, one with curiosity, the other with sleepiness.   It was decently sized, massive if you considered that it was, for all intents and purposes, a tree.

Everything was made of wood, which was rather predictable. They were surrounded by bookshelves and there were windows spaced out along the inside. There were a few magic lamps to light the room when the sun was down and, all in all, it felt very homely. Stairs ran up one side of the room to where the living areas most likely were.

'Wait, why are there living areas in a library anyway?'  Twilight wondered.   She decided to stow that question for later though, and started walking up the stairs with a very sleepy dragon following her.   Reaching the top of the stairs, she opened a door which revealed a study filled with even more books.  Her inner bookworm, or her entire self as it were, wanted to squeal in happiness, but then again, she probably had most of these books in her tower, or somewhere else in the castle. Thinking about it more, she had probably read them already anyhow.

Pulling herself back into reality, she walked up yet another set of stairs to where a bed and a basket was.   Correctly assuming it to be his, Spike walked over and literally fell into the basket, pulled a blanket over himself, and promptly started snoring.   Twilight decided to let him sleep and looked around the library for something to read.

'After all,' she reasoned with herself. 'It's not like I'm locking myself up and I can "make friends" later.'

Twilight searched for something light to read.   After all, tomorrow night was the Winter Moon Festival, and it would probably last all night.  Even she recognized that she needed sleep for that.   As she browsed, she realized, to her annoyance, that the library was organized completely alphabetically.

"This is ridiculous," she groaned aloud.

Grumbling about how she would have to have a word with the current librarian, she walked over to the section marked "T", she checked for anything that had to do with the Tyrant Sun. Penta-checked to be exact.  Naturally, there was nothing there. She ended up surrendering to her need for sleep, and trotted back up the stairs to her bed.

A/N: Sorry, my life has been chaos for the last week.  Again.  Hopefully I can do a little better with writing speed, but don't expect any daily updates or anything.  Secondly, Chapter One may be edited.  No promises.  Maybe.  Probably.  Don't worry about rereading.  Probably just formatting changes and such.  Also, I apologize for the short chapter.  Hopefully I can crank out the next chapter fairly easily, but after that it might get slow.  I have some ideas on how I'm going to continue short-term, but aside from the next chapter, it is largely unplanned currently.

Oh, and if you didn't notice, I'm going to use this as a chance to poke as much fun at the show as possible.

A/N 2: If I was sorry before, I'm like 20x sorry this time.  Seriously, I wanted to push this story a bit more, but I got sidetracked with my own life, and then even when I had time, I spent it on other things.  I started this story, and I'm obligated to finish it.  And, struck with new inspiration while writing the previous iteration of this message, I have not only 1 other mane 6 figured out, but 3!  But again, sorry everybody/pony.  Expect a new chapter, or maybe 2, at some point tomorrow.