Twilight Sparkle stared up at the newly grown crystal... tree? castle? She wasn't quite sure what to call her new home. The tree-like form of it certainly echoed her prior residence of the Golden Oaks library, but it, this new thing, was a castle as well. The library had been strong and stout, but this was... well, "imposing" was the best word she could come up with.

She didn't mind... not really anyway. The old tree was, in a way, a touchstone, and had been close to her heart as such things often are, but when all was said and done, it was just a place. What really mattered—her friends, her family, Spike and Owlowiscious—they'd all escaped the brunt of Tirek's wrath, and that's what really mattered. The keepsakes she'd lost... well, it was sad, but she'd make new memories and have new things to remember them with eventually. The books could be replaced as well, maybe not exactly, but close enough. That was the entire point of libraries after all: to share knowledge. They were a bulwark against the darkness of ignorance, for nothing shared was ever truly lost. It was one of the few things that ran counter to universal entropy. While energy, matter, and the rest were reduced by time, and lessened the further they spread, knowledge gained and grew instead. It was a lot like friendship in that regard. It wasn't magic, and yet... it was!

Author's Notes:

As noted in the description, I originally wrote this for a writeoff contest in September of 2014. That's nearly two years ago now. Why I never published it, I'm not quite sure. I read it again for the first time in at least a year and realized, while far from my best work, it still captures something I haven't been able to put my finger on anywhere else, and figured it deserved to see some daylight. The cover image is a photo I took myself, of the Seattle skyline, which I routinely fly to/from for work, and inspired the Lyra segment of the story.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!