Preview #3: the Last Pony Snippet (Patreon)

By which I mean, this is the last of the My Little Pony fanfic options for what I'll focus on going forwards in 2018. Tomorrow and Saturday I'll post non-pony snippets, and Saturday I'll put it up for a vote what my focus will be.

This one was inspired by a comment to the effect of, "What if Twilight Sparkle had a spell that turned people into books?" The story, as I imagine it, would be basically one such enchanted book after another "talking" to the unseen reader, whose needs or curiosity guides the subject.

Thus:

 

Reference
by Kris Overstreet

Chapter One - Starlight Glimmer  (Princess's Post-it Note: Read Me First)

Oh! Hello there! 

So  you're Twilight's student! I was her first, you know- her first  student. But you probably knew that, since my name is the only label on  my cover.

This is the first time you've been allowed into this  section of the library. I know that because... well, this will take a  bit of explaining, so let me begin at the beginning.

I was  Starlight Glimmer. You don't need to know the details of my shameful  early years right now, but I was Twilight Sparkle's first friendship  student. She was with me for my early triumphs and my mistakes- and I  did have an awful lot of mistakes. 

But nothing lasts forever  except alicorn princesses, and maybe not even those, so after a long and  full life I ended up here. Turn my page and I'll explain why.

Thank  you. To explain how I got here and how I work, let's begin with  Haycartes' Method, the spell that allows a unicorn (or alicorn) to enter  a book. (Twilight loved to play little jokes with the spell, claiming  it was a teaching aid... ah, the things I could tell if you were  interested, but you're not.) Anyway, Twilight figured out a way to  invert the spell, so that instead of putting a pony into an existing  book, the pony would become the book. And unlike Haycartes'  Method, in which the pony is still free to move, communicate, and even  leave the book, the new spell more or less freezes the pony as they were  when the spell was cast. 

Yes, you're holding one of those books  now. Everything I knew, every memory I retained, every bit of knowledge I  possessed at the time the spell was cast is between your hooves right  now. And whatever you need to know from it appears on these pages when  you turn them. (The pages are technically infinite, by the way, so don't  count them or

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Oh!  Please don't do that again! I may not be alive, but it's still a bit disorienting!

No,  I'm not dead, but I'm not alive, either. I only have awareness because  the spell links the reader's mind to the book, pulling what you need to  know to the surface. When you close me I'll be as inert and lifeless as a  non-magical book, and if somepony else opens me I won't have any memory  of anything that happened when you were reading me. 

By the way,  that mental link plus my lack of self-will means I can't lie to you in  any way. Which isn't to say that what you read here is true- all ponies  lie to themselves at least a little and believe things that just aren't  so. 

Yes, the spell can be reversed. If you really feel you need  to know, I'll provide the instructions and charts for Haycartes' Method  and for Twilight's Reference. (That's the name I gave her spell when she  made it, but she hates it, so don't use it around her.) But please  don't use it on me. I was very old and very sick when Twilight cast the  spell, and if it's reversed I will be very old again and very sick again  for a very brief period of time... and then everything that's in this  book now, that's in me now, will be gone forever. Twilight said she'd  find a way to restore us, but I think there are some things that just  have to be, and this is one of them.

I'm not surprised that there  are other books on this shelf. Twilight used this spell on two kinds of  person, generally; her very closest friends, and the most dangerous  enemies Equestria has ever had. (Which makes me both in one cover! Ha  ha, I kid... not. Come back when you need to know more about how I  almost totally destroyed the world a couple times.) 

Anyway,  Twilight already had most of a shelf full of these books when my time  came. Read them with caution. Each and every one of them has a  friendship lesson, even the most evil. And all of them have a warning-  even Twilight's closest friends. 

If you're Twilight Sparkle's student, you'll probably do well. 

You're  curious to see some of the other books now, so I guess this is goodbye  for today. Enjoy reading the others, and I'll be here on the reference  shelf when you need me.

Oh- Do NOT remove me or any of the others from this room. Horrible things could happen if we fell into the wrong hooves.

Yes, I'm still here. Satisfied? Now go read one of the others like you want to.