“Finally, after climbing up the mountain…” Twilight said slowly, waving a hoof for dramatic effect, “the ponies reached the cave of the nemean lion. Only he could help them defeat the evil king.”

Twilight had a gift for storytelling and since she had started reading to the girls before they could understand what she was saying that by now, with the girls’ second birthday coming up fast, it had long become ingrained in the daily routine for them to gather on the bed in a big multicolored huddle and listen to her describe whatever new, exciting adventure had happened to strike her fancy that day. Sometimes she told stories from her old life, sometimes she borrowed from childhood favorites like Daring Do, she even threw in a literary classic (with foal-friendly revisions, of course) every once in a while, just to change things up. It had become one of her favorite parts of the day, and, judging from the tantrums thrown on the rare occasions she’d been forced to skip it, a favorite of the girls as well.

“They stepped towards the mouth of the cave.,” Twilight continued, her voice low, “and peered inside.”

All the girls jumped and squealed, as, from behind them, Spike gave a very convincing growl, grinning from ear to ear.

Twilight huffed, rolling her eyes, as her baby brother fell to the floor laughing. Despite his pony appearance, he could still sniff out gemstones like nobody’s business, and even pull off a pretty terrifying roar if he felt like it. So of course he'd decided to put it to good use in plenty of juvenile pranking.

“Spike!” All the girls chorused, squealing and giggling as they clambered off the bed and all over their honorary uncle. Twilight leaned in to give him a friendly nuzzle.

“How’s Ideal Cut doing?” she said, cracking a smile, as Spike scooped up the girls in his forelegs and back-flopped onto the bed.

“Good, good. He was just telling me today how his daughter just applied to graduate school, looking to get a doctorate in applied magic.” He rolled onto his side as the girls bounded excitedly around him on the comforter. “Keeps begging me to come on full time, he says I have the best eye for diamonds around.”

Twilight smirked, chuckling, “Tell him I’ll fight him for you.”

Not that she could probably do it with a clean conscience. Ideal Cut was probably the nicest older gentlestallion you could ever meet, and he treated Spike more like a son than an employee, despite the fact that he could only work mornings, and even then only once or twice a week, thanks to Twilight.

She smiled, slightly guiltily, “...But seriously, you could always take him up on it if you really wanted to.”

Twilight didn’t think either of them had expected this when they had wandered into the local jewelry shop out of curiosity, and struck up a conversation with the owner, but before they knew it Spike had found a craft that he had a real interest in, and a job offer on top of that. Since Ideal Cut was nice enough to let him work part time, it seemed like a win- win for everypony, but Twilight still felt a bit responsible for taking his time away from something he really enjoyed.

Spike grinned at her “No way you’re getting rid of me that easy.” He joked, shoving her in the shoulder ”...It can wait a year or two. Helping you out is my top priority.”

Twilight wondered how she had even made it to that first magic exam without Spike around.

However, there wasn’t much time to ponder that quandary, for story time had gone interrupted for too long, and unrest was beginning to spread through the ranks.

“But wha ‘bout the lioooooonnn?” Rainbow piped up, flopping dramatically to her belly.

“Well...” Twilight began, trying to remember where she left off.

“No.” She was interrupted by Fluttershy, who shook her little head earnestly, curled up in a tiny ball “No lions.”

“You don’t want to hear what happens?” Twilight asked gently, leaning down towards her, brows slightly furrowed. Despite trying her best not to dwell on it, she worried sometimes about the little changes she saw in the girls. Just the other day, Fluttershy had been scared out of her mind when the neighbor’s new dog barked at them through the fence, and she always seemed more frightened than charmed by all the sea life during their occasional visits to the beach. Twilight had to wonder whether she was doing something wrong.

“No lions.” Fluttershy reiterated firmly, eyes shining with the threat of tears as she added a tiny sniffle for emphasis.

“Alright, then.” Twilight conceded, with a small sigh. “What story would you like to hear?”

Fluttershy perked right up, tiny wings fluttering. “Puffy Fluffy!” She chirruped.

“Are you sure thats-”

“PUFFY FLUFFY!”

There was a collective protest from the rest of the girls.

“Hey, hey. Don’t worry.” Twilight interceded “Since Shy gets to pick this story, each of you will have a turn to pick your own favorite story all this week.”

Spike gave her a pleading look. She just shook her head in resignation and shrugged her shoulders at him.

“Puffy Fluffy, “ Twilight began, rather unenthusiastically, “Was the fluffiest pony in all of Equestria. Every day she frolicked through the clovers, and picked out the prettiest flowers. Her best friend, Cloudy Poof, liked picking flowers too. One day, they decided to have a contest to see who could pick the prettiest flower-”

“Please.” Spike mouthed at her, “Anything but Puffy Fluffy. Anything.”

“She had already picked all the flowers in the meadow, so Puffy Fluffy went into sparkling forest to see if there were any flowers in there.”

Twilight scolded Rainbow Dash, who had been smacking her face repeatedly against a pillow.

She had come up with the story of Puffy Fluffy on the spot a few months ago when Shy had demanded “a really really really really nice story”. She had been so foolish. Puffy Fluffy was a monster. Puffy Fluffy was her greatest mistake.

“Then, Puffy Fluffy ran into a flock of breezies. The lead breezie said her name was Buzzy. Buzzy was so happy to have a visitor in their forest that she started to sing a song.”

Twilight paused, and glanced at Fluttershy, who nodded eagerly. Twilight’s shoulders slumped.

“The sparkle forest welcomes you! We hope that you will like it too!”

Fluttershy stopped her, shaking her head, “No!” she pointed a hoof, “Spike too!”

“Oh...I don’t know if I can...” Spike began to scoot off the bed, shaking his head, “I have to...um…”

A stream of magenta magic ensnared itself around his tail and tugged him gently, but firmly back into place. Twilight refused to suffer alone.

“...Sing for you!” Spike finished weakly, settling back down on the bed with a helpless smile.

And so the ballad of Puffy Fluffy continued. It took almost an hour, and at least four brief musical numbers before the cursed story finally ended. Both Spike and Rainbow Dash tried to escape, twice, and by the time story time finally wrapped up the only ones left smiling were Fluttershy, because she had won, and Pinkie Pie, because she never stopped smiling.

“Remind me again why you created that story?” Spike asked pointedly, as they herded the girls into the playroom.

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in.” Twilight stuck her tongue out and threw a stuffed toy at him, before sitting down on the floor and watching the girls raced to grab blocks and toy cars and dinosaurs from the big chest in the corner. As much as the Seaside library had grown on Twilight, sucker for literature that she was, there was just no comparison to the space they had here. It was wonderful. Besides, the library was just a minute’s walk down the street.

“I’ll make up for that atrocity with something more interesting tomorrow.” She yawned, stretching out her forelegs “I was thinking ‘A Hearth's Warming Carol’, maybe. It’s not December anymore, but still…”

Spike sat down next to her, “I hate to break it to you Twi, but you promised the girls you’d let them each pick a story.”

Twilight winced. AJ and Rainbow’s would probably be alright, since they liked adventure stories. Rarity’s pick would probably be a princess story, so a little boring, but not to bad, and Pinkie…

“Not it on reading Hamster Huey!” Twilight said loudly, seconds before Spike did the same.

Spike glowered at Twilight, who smiled smugly. Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie wasn’t quite as bad as Puffy Fluffy , but it was close. Besides, she really didn’t want to have to do the Happy Hamster Hop.

“Pleeease?” She cajoled, making her best Fluttershy eyes.

Spike conceded “Fine...” He chuckled, rolling his eyes. “The things I suffer for you, Twilight.”

She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.

For about twenty minutes, play time went smoothly. Twilight was even able to sneak in some shut eye while Spike kept an eye on things. Then Rainbow Dash hit Rarity in the face with a stuffed poodle and the ensuing chaos ended with Rainbow in time out, four out of five of the girls crying, and Twilight being shaken awake by a rather frazzled looking Spike to lend a hoof with damage control.... Spike was a great peacekeeper most of the time, but when things really got hairy, Twilight had the advantage of telekinesis.

“You should probably head downstairs.” He said to Twilight as they put the last of the toys back in the chest. “I’ll go ahead and get the girls squared away for their nap.”

She glanced at the clock. Spike was right, it was nearly five.

“Just don’t set the house on fire before I get down there!” he called as she trotted down to the first floor.

“No promises!”

Honestly, if anypony could manage to screw up a simple spaghetti and hayballs that badly, it would be her. Over three hundred years and she still couldn’t cook. Smiling and shaking her head, Twilight pulled her mane into a sloppy bun and had just started a pot of water boiling on the stove when the doorbell rang.

Since taking care of the girls was a full time job, neither Twilight nor Spike had time to get out much, but they had worked out a pretty decent solution. With a simple baby-monitoring spell to make sure everything was alright upstairs, they had about a three hour window to make and eat dinner while the girls were down for their evening nap, and it was easy enough to have friends over to join them every once in a while.

Due to Twilight being, well, Twilight, it was friend...singular...but it was progress.

She swung open the door with a spark of her horn, and smiled at Banned Books.

“Hey, how’s it go-”

The greeting was interrupted by the sound of Spike tripping loudly down the stairs, shouting the word ‘cookies’ with the inflection of a curse (both he and Twilight had been trying their best not to add any expletives to the girl’s quickly growing vocabulary) and scrambling after something over the kitchen tiles. With startling speed, a pink blur darted between Twilight’s hooves, gave a little skip, and wrapped a pair of tiny arms around Banned Book’s foreleg.

“Friend!” Pinkie announced happily, releasing her grip in order to bounce up and down a few times. Though she had only just recently mastered it's proper pronunciation, “friend” was far and out Pinkie’s favorite word, and she said it probably thirty times a day, at least. Twilight supposed that, by a slim margin, it was better than “fun!”

Banned Books broke into a grin. “Hey there, Pinkie Ber!“ he said, scooping the bounding filly up. “How’s it going?”

Pinkie giggled brightly.

The nickname was Book’s invention, but Spike had picked it up, and now even Twilight had found herself using it occasionally. This was surprising, considering how little she’d taken to the new names; frequently using abbreviations like “Shy” and “Rainbow” in order to avoid them. Still she had to wonder whether there would ever come a day where “Pinkie”, in her thoughts at least, would be followed by “Berry” instead of “Pie”

“Oh, good!” Spike poked his head out the door, grinning sheepishly. “You caught her.”

“Sure you don’t need any help up there?” Twilight teased, as she handed Pinkie over to him.

He just chuckled and rolled his eyes. Both of them knew well enough that Pinkie was in a class all her own when it came to the fine art of getting into trouble, and could be ungodly slippery when she felt like it...Twilight had been in Spike’s same situation at least a few times herself.

While Spike made his way up the stairs for take two of nap time, Twilight and Banned Books walked over to the kitchen.

“Spaghetti and Hayballs,” Twilight lit her horn and began pulling ingredients from the pantry, smiling wryly. “I figured that something simple would be best, considering what happened last time.”

They shared a chuckle, remembering the expression on Spike’s face after he had left to use the restroom and returned to find the entire kitchen and both ponies inside covered head to hoof in egg yolk.

Spike was the only pony allowed to prepare souffle in their household from then on.

“...Probably a smart choice.” Banned Books snickered, unlatching his saddlebags and pulling out a bottle in his magic. He usually brought drinks whenever the three had dinner. Setting aside one of the ciders for Spike, he popped open the cap on his own, and then tossed the lone bottle of soda over to Twilight.

“For the teetotaler.” he grinned playfully.

Even in her younger years, Twilight never been much of a drinker, and the disinterest had only increased over the years. Besides, even minorly impaired critical thinking was never a good idea when you had magic capable of leveling buildings. She just raised an eyebrow at him, “Do you really want me cooking tipsy?”

Banned Books winced, and tilted his bottle to concede. “...Fair point.”

“Alright!” Spike bounded down the stairs and swung into the kitchen. “You can start the party now, guys.”

Making dinner was the kind of comforting, repetitive, task that always relaxed Twilight. She had no talent for the finer techniques, and no eye for the subtleties, but she could happily chop or knead or peel for hours. It was like sorting books. You got into a rhythm. She and Books were mostly just assistants to Spike anyway when it came to cooking, cutting veggies and measuring ingredients while he handled everything remotely nuanced. All in all it worked out pretty well.

When the group made dinner, the kitchen was always warm and pleasantly filled with idle talk. Twilight still wasn’t the best conversationalist by any means, but it was getting easier to fall into the swing of chatter and joking.

It was nice.

They were just finishing rolling the hayballs when the first roll of thunder rumbled through the windows. Twilight trotted over to the window to see that the sky had been coated by a massive storm cloud, almost black in color, and flashing ominously towards the center. Fat raindrops began to fall down, striking like hooves against the window pane. Twilight frowned and turned away.

“Unscheduled storm.” She walked back to the kitchen. “Looks like a bad one too.”

“From the reactor?” Banned Books craned his head to take a look.

“Probably.”

There were only two downsides to living in Misty Point. The first was that the humidity could get a tad oppressive in the summer, the second was the arcane reactor that sat sixty or so miles down the coast. Arcane power was a fairly recent advancement, pioneered by the Fittes’ Magic Corporation five or so decades back, and relied on extracting magic from the many ancient artifacts scattered across Equus. Hay-bale sized crystals that could turn ponies mad, hulking monoliths that hummed and glowed at night, pools of still water hidden deep inside a cave with odd properties when touched, all remains of a time before even Celestia’s memory, filled with strange and powerful magic. Since most of these prehistoric fragments were volatile, and dangerous to nearby populations left where they were, nearly everypony agreed it was best for them to be unearthed or uprooted or drained and turned into safe, useful energy.

Nearly.

The princesses’ opposition to the practice had been overruled by majority in tribunal.

Outside, the thunder rumbled louder, and Twilight jumped slightly, squeaking. Not unlike the wild rainclouds that would still occasionally roll into Ponyville under the influence of the Everfree’s wild magic, the rogue storms that plagued Misty Point and the nearby countryside seemed be caused by magical residue from the reactor seeping into the atmosphere and clouds. However, while uncontrolled weather from the Everfree would at their worst, cause an unexpected shower, the storms here were much more violent.

“Can’t the city start a petition or something?” Twilight grumbled, glancing with concern out the window.

Banned Books grimaced, flicking his tail “Officially, Fittes denies all connection of the storms to their reactors.” He rolled his eyes. “No surprise. Goddess knows that they’re already under heavy fire for…oh...um. Sorry.”

‘It’s okay.” Twilight nodded awkwardly. Considering that the Fittes’ Corp tragedy in Canterlot played a large role in her fictitious past, most ponies treated it like a very sensitive subject for her.

“It just...it doesn’t feel right. What they’re doing.” She said, wrinkling her brow. She knew that she wasn’t unbiased, that she had the habit of past through rose-tinted glasses, and, especially these past few decades, a strong tendency towards cynicism about the future. That didn’t stop the fact that the things they did in the Arkane reactors gave her the heebie jeebies. Twilight had been around during their development, she had seen entire process in action start to finish. It was ingenious, brilliant in it’s simplicity, completely revolutionary, the sort of science that made you wish you had been clever enough to think of it. She really wanted to like it. She had wanted to like it so badly...but she just hadn’t been able to get past how wrong it felt. The magic in these artifacts was so complex and intricate, and they were just just stripping it down to the magical equivalent of scrap.

Banned Books nodded, frowning “Maybe it's my inner history buff, but the idea of sucking the magic from millennia old relics for power just seems a bit…”

“Like melting down a beautifully crafted gold crown into bullion?” Twilight finished.

“Exactly!...I mean, not quite. They are dangerous...so maybe it’s more like tearing down a historical, but structurally unstable, building?”

“Hmm...” Twilight furrowed her brows trying to think of a more apt comparison.

Their opinions didn’t always align, but when it came to literature, history, and certain political topics, Twilight and Books could chatter and debate endlessly. Given the frankly ridiculous amount of books Twilight had read over the years, covering nearly every subject matter one could think of, she had not met a pony in recent memory who could match her in sheer, crystallized knowledge...but Banned Books came pretty close.

He flicked his tail, frowning. “Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the more volatile books in the Canterlot Archives start to be snatched up for extraction.”

“No, no, I know there's definitely some legislation in place keeping them from seizing any historical documents.” Twilight said firmly.

Damn right there was. She had made sure of it a couple of years earlier.

“For now.” Banned Books said, “But there was definitely some debate among the staff when I was there about the feasibility of making text only copies of the more dangerous books. It would cost to get them all transcripted, but not as much as the magical safeguards do, and then they could sell the originals off.”

Twilight balked “But...they couldn’t!”

Banned Books nodded, slowly, sadly. “For now, they can’t. With the new loremaster, I think it’s only a matter of time.”

She wondered again, why he had left the position in Canterlot. He had never elaborated on his friendship with Discord or the reason he had quit, and Twilight, who was standing on her own unstable backstory of mystery and just-barely-plausible lies, had never asked. She suspected there was some sort of unspoken mutual agreement between the two of them that neither of them would try digging into the other's past. It was sort of relieving, in a way.

Sometimes when you went digging for answers, you didn’t like what you found.

Spike, who had been listening quietly to the conversation, chose this moment to yawn loudly. Since the time before Celestia, dragons had always been a nomadic and solitary species, and though Spike had been raised by ponies, and spent most of his life surrounded by them, he still carried a handful of the traits typical of his kin. Namely: A total and complete disinterest in politics.

Despite having accompanied Twilight through several council meetings, summits, and policy discussions throughout the years, and even having served as a fellow delegate with her on a diplomacy mission to Draconia, he might as well have been staring at a wall the whole time. The rhetoric, the buzzwords, the whole song and dance, it was all greek to Spike.

Twilight stopped herself and blushed slightly. “Sorry, Spike.” she laughed.

“No problem.” Spike grinned. He’d sat through worse during Twilight’s years in the throne.

The conversation drifted off to other subjects, and Twilight took a moment to relax.

She had to stop letting such silly things bother her so much. Oh no! Arkane reactors were annoying! Well, waahh, guess she should have stayed princess then. She chuckled at herself

Besides, Twilight reasoned, she was probably just being paranoid. All of the Arcane reactors were all located in unpopulated areas, so with the unlucky exception of the eighty or so ponies living in Misty Point, the storms always blew themselves out before they could cause any trouble or reach even any moderately sized towns. There was a reason nopony but the meteorologists kicked up a fuss about them.

Spike was just pulling the hayballs out of the oven when the doorbell rang, and all three ponies turned to look at each other questioningly. Spike shrugged. Twilight trotted to go get it, wondering who in the world would be crazy enough to go out in the storm.

She reached the entryway just in time to see Discord already halfway inside, the door having inexplicably swung upwards like a cat flap to receive him. He ducked the rest of the way in, letting the door flap shut behind him, and fixed Twilight with a winning smile.

“Howdy.”

Twilight just stared at the slowly spreading stain on her carpet, courtesy of the seemingly impossible amount of water hemorrhaging out from Discord’s sodden coat, and smiled thinly back.

Ah, yes. Discord. Discord would be crazy enough.

Author's Notes:

Whoof! After several bajillion rewrites, this chapter is finally done!
And about time too!
This chapter started off a little nebulous, and I think it probably shows in this finished product (not to mention in how long it took to work it into something halfway decent) Thankfully, I've got a much clearer idea about this next chapter, so hopefully that, and the fact that I'm super duper excited (!!) about it should mean there will be less of a wait.
Huge thank you to The GECK, for being the absolute best editor. If I had a trophy, I would give it to you

Thank you all so much for reading!
Hugs,
The Pony Librarian