Darkness Is Your Candle

Dear Princess Celestia,

Sorry for such a late letter. I know you told me it’s okay to send you late-night letters like this, but it’s still one of those things I get kind of neurotic about.

I’m writing to you on borrowed parchment lent to me by Davenport. I had no more of my own to use for this letter. Something happened, so please excuse my shaky handwriting.

I’m sure you remember my preference for oil-powered lamps growing up. Despite the safety concerns, I found that lightning bug lamps simply didn’t illuminate an area quite as well as the traditional oil ones. That’s why, even now, I opted for them even after being sent to Ponyville. As expected, the library itself was stocked with empty lamp cases intended for storing fireflies.

Thankfully, I happened to bring my own lamps with me. I brought my personal travel lamp with me. In addition to that, having a friend like Fluttershy, I’ve had to pick up some more creature-friendly habits, considering these new lamps take advantage of innocent lightning bugs for our own use. I wish I had set aside that concern.

It all happened so fast, Princess. I was sitting inside on the second-to-top floor of the library, writing out my findings on the rate of a text’s engagement compared to its enjoyment. I asked two groups of people various questions about their enjoyment of texts they checked out from the library: people who checked out a single book in a series versus people who checked out multiple or every book in a series. I found that the people who only checked out only a single book took longer reading and felt more invested in the story than the people who checked out multiple of a series. By comparison, they were reading significantly faster in anticipation of getting to the next installment, resulting in a lower rate of investment

That doesn’t matter. None of those findings will be published any time soon. They were lost.

When I was graphing out the survey results, I couldn’t find the 6-inch scale I normally use for plotting, so I had to use the architect scale I borrowed from Applejack not too long ago in substitution. It’s incredibly large, taking up a large portion of my desk, length-wise, but it was all I had all I could find at the moment.

I wish I just looked a little more.

Going from point to point, I had to awkwardly reposition the ruler every time I attempted to plot a new value to get them as precise as possible. Once it came time for the line of best fit, I had begun to lose my patience over the inconvenient handling of the large scale. One moment, I was moving my hand down the length of the scale to turn it diagonal, and the next

I don’t really remember. I recall hearing a crash. Something shattering. The lamp. The fire. It started so small.

It spread so fast, Princess. You can’t even fathom just how quickly a small flame from a lamp can spread.

The oil

The oil splattered over the wood below the lamp and quickly spread around. It carried the fire with it.

In just under a minute, almost the entirety of the upper floor was engulfed in flames. I don’t remember when, but at some point, I grabbed Spike and was holding him in my arms as I ran down the stairs. He was still asleep once I made it to the main floor of the tree

Tree

Idiot.

The oil didn’t just splatter on the ground: it went through it. The inside of the library was just the inside of a log, so the oil seeped into the pores and cracks in the floor. The oil carried the fire through the floor.

I was living in a tinderbox.

I watched as the fire slithered down the stairs, covering the floor and encasing the bookshelves along the walls. I stood there as the blaze took every book on the shelves in its hold, the parchment from each binding turning into small embers that floated up to spread the flames even further. I could just barely make out the book titles on their spines through the blaze, recalling how many times I had read each and every one of them, before the text ignited and dissolved into flakes of fire.

Spike was crying now. He cracked me out of my stupor.

I realized now that the bookshelves, along with the rest of the room around me, were completely coated in smoke. I swung around, barely noticing the blurry shape of the door through the smoke. I rushed to the door and reached my hand towards the handle only to realize it was scalding hot. Turning back around, I saw the fire rushing closer towards me. Try as I might, I couldn’t force myself through the pain to get the it open.

I had to force myself through the door.

Backing up as far as I could while accounting for the fire, I ran towards the door as fast as I could. I hadn’t accounted for something else, though. The smoke that quickly filled the room was making me weaker the longer we stayed trapped inside. With my right shoulder turned towards the door and Spike grasped tightly in my arms, I braced myself and

I don’t remember hitting the door, but I remember a new pain when trying to move my arm after I ended up on the ground. Looking up at the door, it was still closed. It didn’t even budge.

I could feel the flames behind us now, quickly crawling towards me and Spike. I was trying to be quick on my feet, so I set Spike down just next to the door to try again. I backed up as far as I could, the only safe space remaining being the threshold just after the door, and

I think I went through that time.

But I was really far from the door.

And when I looked back at the library

I realized then that the fire blew me away. I believe I caused a backdraft when I kicked the door in. Because the oxygen from outside rushed inside once the door

The door

Spike

He’s still inside.

Just where I left him.

Screaming.