A small clinking noise. A door creaking open. A figure silently walking into the room.

The shadowy figure looks around before motioning to some other figures, all of whom follow it in. Once the door has been closed, they split up, searching through various filing cabinets as quietly as possible.

After almost an hour, an audible sound pierces their ears: paper flopping to the floor. The guilty figure can feel the glares through the darkness, and it bends down to pick them up.

Then it notices something written across the front. Guilty expression slowly turning to a grin, it quietly opens the folder and begins to read.

"We got it," the voice whispers into the dark. All searching immediately stops. "Lots of it's blacked out. But the important stuff's there."

The other figures nod, and one by one, they make their way out of the room just as silently as they had entered.

“All hail Princess Twilight Sparkle, lord of the library!”

The purple alicorn rolls her eyes, a playful smirk on her face as she turns from her book to the open door. “Captain, you don’t have to call me ‘princess’.”

“And you don’t have to call me ‘captain’.” The cobalt blue unicorn standing in the doorway smirks right back as he walks in, looking around. “You know, considering you have a giant crystal castle now, I didn’t think you’d really need to rebuild your old library.”

“Well, Ponyville needs a library, doesn’t it?” Twilight marks her page with a bookmark and shuts the tome, standing up. “So, how can I help you, capt… I mean, Winter?”

The stallion smiles at his actual name being used and lights his horn, levitating a few books out of his saddlebags. “I checked these out before the old library got… well, wrecked. Or Ti-wrecked, as the case may be.” He grins at Twilight’s exasperated look. “Since Golden Oaks just reopened, I figured it’d be a good time to return them. I hope you’re not counting the past few months towards my late fees.”

Twilight takes the books in her magic and glances over them as she speaks. “That wouldn’t be very fair, would it? Don’t worry.” She levitates the books to a small pile in the corner, stacking them up on top of several others. “I’ll have to sort these out later. Ponies have been bringing back books all day, but since I’ve already restocked the library, I don’t actually have a place to put them yet.”

Winter nods. “Sorry to add onto that, then.”

“Oh, it’s fine.” She waves a hoof. “It’s better than you just keeping them, after all. Anything else?”

“In a hurry to get rid of me?” He chuckles. “Actually, I wanted to take a look at some of your more advanced spellbooks.”

The alicorn looks a little surprised at this. “Um… how advanced, exactly?”

“Necromancy.” He says this with a straight face, and for a second, she looks horrified until he grins and shakes his head. “I don’t know, Twilight. Hornheads like myself don’t know what normal unicorns or alicorns find ‘advanced’.”

She makes a face. “You know I don’t like that term.”

“Neither do I, but it’s nicer than ‘magically deficient’ or ‘spell-slow’.” He glances around. “I guess I’m looking more for enchantments than anything. Spells to enhance other spells or objects. And not from one of the books I’ve already checked out in the past.” He notices her open her mouth to ask. “Volume 14 of ‘Enhance, Enlarge, and Enchant’ was the last one.”

Twilight blinks, then nods with a smile. “I think I have that series in the basement, still packed up. Spike should be down there right now, so just go down and tell him what you’re looking for. He’ll help you find them.”

Winter smiles back and nods. “Thanks again, Twilight.”

“Anytime.” She turns and heads back over to her book, set to continue reading, while the stallion makes his way to the basement door.

A baby purple dragon pushes open a wooden door, leading to a small room stuffed almost completely with boxes. “Should be somewhere in here.”

Winter looks around. “I’m a little worried at your lack of specifics.”

“Don’t worry, even the stuff in storage is organized. That’s Twilight for you.” Spike chuckles as he pushes one box to the side. “I think I can remember where the box of spellbooks is...”

The unicorn sits on the floor, waiting patiently as the young dragon searches. Soon, however, the moderate silence broken only by cardboard scraping against the floor begins to get to him, and he tries to start a conversation. “So… why do they call you Spike?”

Spike looks back at him, perplexed. “Uh… cause of these?” He points to the spines on his head and along his back.

“Shouldn’t they call you Spine, then?” Winter shrugs, indicating he didn’t really think this through.

“Well...” The dragon pauses. “Why do they call you Winter Solstice?”

The unicorn thinks. “Uh...”

The first day of his life began the way almost everyone’s first day begins: blinded by light, crying incoherently, and unable to comprehend all the voices around him. Somewhat less commonly, it did not begin in a hospital, but rather in a cozy yet well-kept Canterlot house. As the umbilical cord was cut by the doctor called in for this purpose, the earth pony mare that had just gone through the excruciatingly painful event fought to catch her breath.

Perma Frost was a turquoise colour, with simple brown hair that was shoulder-length on her head and floor-length at her tail. In both cases, it was brushed well and flowed smoothly. Her husband, the black unicorn with short contrasting bright yellow hair, was quickly at her side to make sure she was alright.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Bulwark,” the doctor said calmly as he watched the stallion fret. “She’ll be fine. She just has to recover.”

Feeling a little relieved, Bulwark still did not leave his wife’s side, almost blocking out everything else around him. He was only shaken out of it when, for the first time in a couple long minutes, she spoke. (If one did not count vicious pain-induced screaming and graphic threats directed at her husband, it was much more than just a couple minutes.)

“How… is it…?” Her breath was only barely back under control, but she was finally able to ask the question stuck on her mind.

The doctor smiled, holding what now looked like a bundle of cloth. “He is just fine, Mrs. Frost.” He smiled more at the happy expressions on the faces of the two parents. “Would you like to hold him?”

She obviously did, and very shortly, the bundle had been passed from one set of hooves to another. Cradling the light blue blanket wrapping, Perma looked in to see what - who - she had brought to the world.

A tiny foal, with fur a blue colour that lacked the greenish hue of her own and the very beginnings of a yellow mane to match Bulwark’s, stared back at her with wide hazel eyes. While Perma was recovering from the ordeal, he had realized that if he lifted those pesky eyelids, sight became no problem at all. Similarly, once he had let out enough noise from being spanked by the doctor to prove his lungs worked fine, he realized the sound of his own crying was beginning to hurt his ears (and his throat). So that stopped as well.

And now here he was: a quiet young blue colt, with what looked like a tiny unicorn horn coming off of his forehead, looking up at the mare he had slept inside for a number of months before being forcibly ejected like a soda from a vending machine that had gotten stuck on the way out.

He blinked.

With a noise that sounded like a combination of a coo and a sigh, Perma hugged the baby, which Bulwark tried to get in on without disturbing either of them too much. The little foal didn’t seem to understand why he was suddenly being crowded - well, really, he didn’t seem to understand anything. He only really came into existence less than a year ago, and he hadn’t known anything except quiet darkness until ten or twenty minutes prior at most. Nevertheless, this close contact with the two unfamiliar large ponies had a comforting effect on him, and he stayed calm.

“I’ll leave you to enjoy one another’s company,” the doctor finally said, breaking the silence as he rose, glancing out the window. “Moon’s already up? Huh… that’s the winter solstice for you. Really doesn’t feel as late as it looks.” With a small nod and goodbye that was barely responded to, he left the room and made his way out of the house.

Perma nuzzled her newborn. “The winter solstice, hmm…?”

Bulwark chuckled. “If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting… I like it.”

Winter shrugs. “I dunno. I guess my parents just weren’t very creative. If I was born fifty-two days earlier, they probably would’ve named me Nightmare Night.”

Spike rolls his eyes, turning to go back to searching. “Riiiight...” Next Chapter: Chapter 2: I Grew Up to Be An Unwanted Weed Estimated time remaining: 53 Minutes