Twilight sits quietly in the center of her library; a pile of books on either side of her. She reads through the last pages of her thirteenth book with a smile across her face. The final pages are flipped to the side and Twilight shuts the book with a satisfied sigh.
"Stephenie Mayre, you've done it again!" She says, placing the book atop the large stack to her right. She reaches to the stack to her left with her magic, which envelopes another book of a different color. She begins to open it, but stops. "Oh, wow..." The cover is very worn and stitching on the inside of the book is clearly in bad shape. Twilight looks to the other books in her 'To be read' pile and notices several others in similar conditions. "Ooo..." She cringes slightly. "These copies look terrible... Spike!" She calls. The small purple and green dragon descends the stairs and stops at her front.
"Yeah?" He replies.
"These copies are in pretty bad shape. They're going to need to be replaced. How much money do we have in savings?"
"I don't know. Let me check." The dragon hurries out of the room. A few moments later, he calls back. "About fifty bits!"
"Darn... Looks like I won't be replacing all of them." she says to herself, eyeing the pile of ruined books in front of her. She contemplates whether she should replace the better of the books and wait for the rest, or if she should just wait until she had money for all of them. "Uhg... Spike, bring the money!"
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Outside Ponyville's book store, Twilight carries home a bundle of books in each side of her saddle bag. She huffs in frustration that she wasn't able to replace all of the books she had wanted to .
"I can't believe he wasn't even willing to do a trade in..." She pouts to herself. "I mean, most of these books weren't even in that bad of a condition! Sure, there were a few stitchings loose here and there, but still!" She has a worn book grasped in her magenta colored aura as she complains; then goes a bit quieter once she notices other ponies beginning to stare at her. "Well, at least I'd gotten a few replaced." She says, pulling a few other books from her saddle bags with her magic. A copy of Thirty Amazing Flight Patterns For Pegasi, A Young Unicorn's Basic Spell book, and a dictionary. "Rainbow would've been at my throat had she known about that!" Twilight giggles to herself, revealing a ruined copy from the Daring Do saga from a midst the bundle of soiled books.
Still, the purple pony can't help but feel disappointed that she was only able to replace three of her twelve books.
"Maybe someone else would be willing to trade in... Or maybe just give me the books..." Twilight continues on her way down the street.
"Hey, Twahlight!" Someone shouts from behind. Twilight immediately recognizes the drawl and spins around to meet her farmer friend, AppleJack.
"Hey, AppleJack. How are you today?" She asks.
"Not too shabby. How 'bout yerself?"
"Not bad, not bad. Just replacing some old books of mine. I've got to keep the library in good condition if I still want customers!" Twilight jokes, getting a chuckle from AppleJack.
"That all sounds nice. Sorry ta run off so quick, but Rainbow lost a bet earlier this week an' has to do mah apple buckin' fer the day!" The southerner nudges her friend and snorts. "The best part is, if she uses her wings at all, she does all mah chores fer tomorrow too!" AppleJack lets out another short laugh before turning to leave. "Any who, ah'll see ya later!"
"Goodbye!" Twilight waves to her departing friend.
Twilight continues her walk back home, still somewhat down about her books.
"It's just a shame that I cou-" Twilight freezes where she stands. Just a few feet in front of her, lays a discarded necklace; a golden band in the shape of an oval, sporting an unequivocally large diamond at the end. As Twilight comes closer, she notices that the thing also bares some strange carvings in the sides that she doesn't recognize.
"Whoa..." Twilight inches closer to the thing. "This looks really expensive..." She says, lifting the necklace off of the ground with her magic. Examining it more closely, she notices that the carvings go about the entire length of the band. "I could replace the last of my books with this!" she says excitedly. Suddenly, another thought dawns upon her. "I... should probably return this, though..." The unicorn says through a sour looking face.
Twilight looks to her left then to her right. Not many other ponies are around. She still holds onto the necklace with her magic.
"If I take it, I can replace my books." She brings it closer. "But returning it would be the right thing to do." She pushes it away. "But I have some important copies that won't last much longer." She brings it closer. "But, that's not something that the princess would approve of." She pushes it away.
Again, the purple pony looks around, no one seems to be looking for anything. Twilight returns her gaze to the necklace.
"My books are important." She decides, slowly placing the jewelry into her left saddlebag.
_
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"Alright. Advanced Spells for Unicorns, First Aid for Pegasi, Cheap Ways to fix Furniture, The Anatomy of the Earth Pony, and Daring Do: A Graphic Novel... That all should add up to about one hundred bits." A friendly looking, gray earth pony stands behind the counter of the books store, smiling as Twilight shuffles through her bags.
"Will this cover it all?" She asks, levitating the necklace in front of the pony's gaze.
"W-ye- Wow! That thing is huge!" The gray pony shouts, snatching the necklace from the air. "This will definitely cover the books! Go ahead a grab five or so more on the way out!" Twilight smiles enormously and runs to the bookshelf opposite from her. She quickly scoops her earliest spotted favorite titles into her saddlebags and bolts out the door.
"Oh my goodness, this is great!" She cheered. "I've got twice as many books as I thought I'd be getting! Oh, I may have to re-shelf the library.... EVEN BETTER!" Twilight gives a little skip and merrily trots back home, wearing a smile all the way.
A few moments later, Twilight bursts through the door of her tree house and merrily calls for her assistant. "Spike!" The purple dragon emerges from the upstairs bedroom and replies.
"Yeah, Twilight?"
"Hold these," she shoves the new books in his face and turns her back to him. "I have some re-shelfing to do!" She concentrates, and soon after, every book on every shelf is enveloped in the magenta glow that is Twilight's magic. The books are pulled from their place and plopped onto the floor in heaping piles all around the library.
"So, why am I holding these if you were just gonna do that?" Spike asks.
"Because these are brand new, and I wanted them to be put on the shelves first!" She grabs the books Spike holds in her magic. "It'll be much faster to get this done, too, now that the shelves are marked." Twilight pauses a moment and sighs. "That day that the school fillies and colts came to check out books was chaos!"
Twilight carefully places the new books in their rightful places on the selves. Then she goes for some of the older books still on the floor when-
RING RING! RING RING!
Twilight whips her head around to face her telephone.
RING RING! RING RING!
Twilight picks the phone up and places it to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Twilight.... I have to say, I'm disappointed in you..."
"What? For what? Who is this?"
"I saw you Twilight.... I thought you were better than that... I thought you were above something so low as petty theft..."
"But I haven't stolen anything."
"You stole my necklace... You picked it up and walked away with it...
A cold chill travels down Twilight's spine.
"I.. Don't know what you're talking about..."
"Lying isn't going to make the problem go away. It'll only make it worse..."
"Even if I did take it, I wouldn't know where it's at!" Twilight insisted.
"That's true... Stamps usually sells new things to ponies outside of Ponyville... After you gave him my necklace, you knew you'd never see it again, didn't you?"
"I didn't take it!" She shouts.
"Well, that's unfortunate... You're lying about it and you have no way of giving it back... I think you'll just have to pay for it.... Click"
Twilight lets the dial tone buzz in her ear for a good minute after the caller had hung up.
"Twilight, who was that?" Spike asks as he descends the stairs. Twilight doesn't answer, still holding the phone to her head with her magic. "Twilight?"