Princess Twilight Sparkle was horrified. Tears welled in her eyes, slipped down her cheeks, and fell to the paper she was looking over. That was all it was: paper. She knew that wasn’t true though. She knew it was a book, the newest novel in her library, in fact, but she couldn’t focus on it. The letters meant nothing to her. The words they formed failed to register in her mind. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t read.

She felt a comforting claw on her shoulder. Twilight tried to force a smile as she looked to her assistant, Spike, but she knew he was still worried about her. A moment later, her pet Owlicious landed on her other shoulder. Their concern touched her deeply. This was their home too. This catastrophe impacted them just as much as her.

Their library looked like a tornado ran through it. In a way, it had. Books were piled high in different spots around the room, paying no heed to their careful cataloguing system. Food crumbs and juice boxes littered the floor. Somehow, someway, there was a knife sticking out of her globe. All of this because she had let the tornado in with the promise of “just one book.”

Why did she believe them?

The Cutie Mark Crusaders ransacked her library in their quest for inspiration. Scootaloo, the young and flightless pegasus, jumped from shelf to shelf, calling out titles to her friends. Sweetie Belle, the unicorn, pored through historical texts, scribbling down notes about the fashions she found. Apple Bloom, a dependable earth pony like her sister Applejack, flipped through a stack of biographies. Something caught her eye.

“Gals! Gals! Listen to this! This here ag-rye-cool-too, uh, ag-rye-cool-turoo-“

“’Agriculturist?’” Sweetie Belle offered.

“Uh, yeah! That! He figured out a way to grow seedless watermelon! Seedless watermelon! What if we grew seedless apples?”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “How do we do that? Are you an agri-whatever?”

“I...don’t think so...”

“Actually-“

“Girls,” Twilight interrupted. She was the resident princess. If she didn’t take charge, who would? “I think that’s enough for one day. It’s been a pleasure having you,” Spike snorted, which was ignored, “but it’s time you went home.”

Sweetie Belle smiled up at her. “Aw, thanks Twilight, but the sun just went down an hour ago. I have awhile longer before Sis gets worried.”

Twilight’s eye twitched as the other two fillies echoed Sweetie’s sentiments. How much longer could they possibly be?! Spike leaned against her, white as a sheet. “Twilight, what do we do?”

She didn’t know. “Just...just start picking up what you can. We’ll worry about sorting it all out later.”

“Hey!” The shout came from above. “Give that back, bird brain!” Scootaloo was hanging in mid-air, desperately flapping her tiny wings as Owlicious dragged her around the library. Twilight gasped as she recognized the book they were wrestling over. Not that one!

Twilight lit her horn and grabbed hold of Scootaloo. The pegasus jolted to a stop. Even in an alicorn’s grip, she held onto the book for a moment longer before Owlicious ripped it free and flew it up to the second floor. Scootaloo glared accusingly at Twilight at the princess lowered her gently to the ground. “The Cutie Mark Compendium! That’s exactly what we need!”

Apple Bloom pushed the thick, hardcover book she put over her head as a shield during the confusion. “The what now?”

“The Cutie Mark Compendium,” Twilight answered with a sigh. “It's...well, an encyclopedia of cutie marks. Common symbols, what they could mean, lists of some ponies that have had them.”

Sweetie Belle hopped in excitement. “That is what we need! Twilight, can we borrow it?!”

“No!” That was too harsh. Sweetie and Apple Bloom looked crestfallen. Scootaloo just kept staring her down. “I mean, it isn’t really mine. I bought it as a gift for Cadance and Shining Armor. They’re thinking of having a foal.” She raised a hoof to stop Scootaloo from talking. “I want it to be in perfect condition when I give it to them.”

“We’ll take good care of it!”

“I highly doubt that, Sweetie Belle.” A bookshelf collapsed as she spoke. The unicorn looked back up at Twilight with a sheepish smile.

“You were hiding it!” Scootaloo finally burst. “You were hiding it from us! Why did you do that?”

Twilight fought to keep her temper in check. “Look at my library. You three don’t exactly have a reputation for cleanliness. Do I really have to remind you about the noodle incident?”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you just let us see that book first!”

This was getting out of hand. Scootaloo was not going to tell her what to do with her things in her home. Still, Twilight managed a smile. “The book only has some of the more common symbols. You three would have found them already if you were truly meant for them.”

“Then you wouldn't give it to a princess," Scootaloo challenged.

"I'm giving it to a foal," Twilight corrected as she walked around the girls. She met Spike's eyes on her path and gave him a wink. He understood, and made his way behind the Crusaders. "Listen, why don't we compromise? Let me read you a story. It was one of my favorites when I was your age, and I promise you'll learn something valuable from it."

Scootaloo opened her mouth to argue, but stopped when her friends sat down in front of Twilight and looked back at her. The pegasus sighed. "You promise?"

Progress! "Cross my heart." The third crusader sat down, and Twilight looked behind them at the shrinking piles of books on the floor. Spike was tossing them in the air for Owlicious to catch and return to the shelves. She summoned one and cracked it open.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow when she saw the title. "Earth Plow and the Dragon? What?"

"Earth Plow was a simple earth pony living in a far away land. He worked the fields his family owned, but he never truly loved farming. Instead, he felt his destiny was tied to the land itself. Earth Plow always volunteered to pull the farm's harvest to the castle market. His journeys there-"

"Ugh, so what?" Scootaloo groaned. "We've heard this before! Let me guess, he gets some great inspiration and-"

"Shhh!" Sweetie Belle looked back to Twilight with a smile.

"Thank you, Sweetie." Twilight quickly looked behind the girls and saw Spike dashing around the room with a broom and dustpan. This was going faster than she thought.

"A-hem. One day, an evil dragon came to the kingdom. He set fire to the land surrounding the castle, and chased every pony into its walls. The princess came forth to defend her subjects, and was defeated. The cruel serpent wrapped her in his tail and left the ponies with a wicked choice: they had three days to bring all their food to his cave, or he would eat their princess."

Twilight suppressed a smile as the three fillies gasped. This was working! Don't turn around. Please, just don't turn around. Spike and Owlicious continued in their heroic effort to clean quietly behind the distracted crusaders.

"Every pony started to panic. Without their food, they would surely starve. Without their princess, they would surely fall apart. Earth Plow realized the only possible choice they could make was the third option, to get rid of the dragon. No pony would listen to him. After all, their own princess failed to defeat the dragon. What chance did they have?

"Earth Plow refused to give up. He secretly gathered a bushel of wheat and brought it before the dragon. The dragon laughed at the tiny amount that was offered and rushed to devour both it and Earth Plow. In a flash, the brave pony pulled out the pitchfork hidden in the wheat and threw it down the cavernous throat rushing for him. The dragon began to choke as the pitchfork lodged itself inside of him. The princess was released from his tail. Before the ponies could flee, the dragon begged for his life.

"He promised to leave and never return if Earth Plow would remove his tool. To show his desperation, he also promised gold. With the princess trying to keep the dragon's jaws open with her magic, Earth Plow walked into the beast's gullet. He removed the pitchfork, and true to his word, the dragon presented him with an enormous nugget of gold, and immediately left the kingdom.

"The princess ordered the gold melted down and crafted into a suit of armor. Earth Plow became the first captain of her guard, and lived his life leading his soldiers in defense of his home. And that, little ones, is the story of Earth Plow and the Dragon." The three fillies gaped up at her. Now came the hard part...

"Wait a minute," Scootaloo said, "what were we supposed to learn from that? I mean, thanks for telling it, but we came here looking for cutie marks. Not bedtime."

Twilight smiled and opened the door behind her with her horn. "Why don't you sleep on it, Scootaloo? Tell me what you think in the morning."

"No thanks. I think I'll flip through that one book that had that-HEY!" The pegasus threw her head side to side when she turned around. "Where is everything?"

"Where it belongs. And right now, you three belong home. Good night, girls." The crusaders yelped as a purple glow lifted them off the ground and carried them outside. Twilight slammed the door shut before slumping down and holding her face in her hooves. Spike walked over and patted her shoulder. "Oh Spike, do you think they'll forgive me for that?"

"Sure. Eventually." Twilight frowned at him, but he didn't seem to notice. "I can't deal with any more excitement today. I'm going to bed."

Twilight laughed as she looked over her newly spotless library. "I think that was a new record. Why don't you and Owlicious take the day off tomorrow? You two deserve it."

Scootaloo stared blankly at the door in front of her face. Did that really happen? "She just kicked us out, didn't she?"

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Twilight wouldn't do that. Watch." She reached out and knocked on the door. Sweetie put on one of her more charming smiles and waited...waited...waited. Scootaloo watched in disbelief before turning to Apple Bloom, who was not amused.

"Why did you start hollering like that? You upset her!"

"Well, she didn't have to do this!"

"Why not? I want my cutie mark as bad as you, but shoutin' at a princess just doesn't sound right."

Sweetie Belle turned to her friends with a tear in her eye. "She...she just kicked us out, didn't she?"

Scootaloo pointed at the unicorn. "Exactly! She just kicked us out of a library! I know she's a princess, but can she even do that? Isn't it there for us to learn? She even hid the most important book from us! And then she lied! She suckered us! Did you learn anything from that story?"

Apple Bloom scratched her head. "No, but couldn't she have been trying to teach us something else? Like-like a lesson?"

"Yeah, I learned a lesson. When bad things happen to you, you get up and do something about it. So what are we going to do about this?"

"What are you on about now?"

"We've been wronged, Apple Bloom. We have to set it right. How does 'Cutie Mark Crusader Revengers' sound to you?"

"Revengers? You sure that's the right word?"

"Pretty sure. Does it matter? Are you in or out?"

"I...maybe. What do you think, Sweetie Belle?" Sweetie was remarkably quiet, staring at the ground the whole while the other two argued.

"Yeah, Sweetie Belle. What do you think?" If she could get the unicorn on board, Apple Bloom would follow along. It would be 2 against 1. "How long have we been trying to get our Cutie Marks? And we've planned this trip to the library since what, this morning? That long ago? We had an encyclopedia of cutie marks in our hooves, and it was snatched away. Then Twilight wasted our time and tricked us and locked us out. What should we do about it?"

Sweetie looked up at her friends. Her lower lip trembled as she spoke. "We should crush her. We should hear her lamentations as we drive her before us. We should send her back to Canterlot in tears. We should laugh as she curses Celestia for sending her to Ponyville in the first place. We should claim the library as our own and bask in the spoils of war."

Scootaloo froze in terror. "I...I was thinking we could pull one big prank."

"Y-yeah, a prank sounds good to me," Apple Bloom agreed.

Sweetie Belle stood still as a statue. Finally, she slowly nodded. "OK. That sounds easier."