In an empty library, a pegasus librarian sat behind an information desk and tapped her hoof on the desk. The library was called the Royal Canterlot Public Library. The librarian was called Gale. She tapped her hoof on the desk because she was nearing the end of her shift and any work she started she wouldn’t have time to finish, and it was the late evening shift and there was never much to do during the late evening shift anyway.

In front of her desk was a spiraling metal staircase that went up into the ceiling and down into the floor. To the left of her desk were shelves of books that stretched on a long way. To the right of her desk were more shelves of books that stretched on a similarly long way. Behind her was a wall. The wall had a window. Through the window, Gale heard music and voices and laughing and could see a husky glow from the lamp posts on the street below. There was a festival on in Canterlot that night. In the library, Gale heard nothing but her tap, tap, tapping on the desk top and saw nothing but books on shelves. There was nothing on in the library that night except the lights.

Gale thought that it might have been a kind of tragedy to be a librarian and see so many books not being read. It might have been another kind of tragedy to be a pegasus and sit behind a desk all night long and not be able to go where she pleased when it pleased her. Or the true tragedy taking place in that library might have been centered around the only other pony in the building, the unicorn mare upstairs with the nervous laugh, the same unicorn mare with the nervous laugh who had stayed in the library until closing time the night before, and the night before that, and nearly every night since Gale had begun working there.

Also on the wall behind Gale hung an old clock. The clock had a picture of an orange cat on it. Gale didn’t know why. Maybe time was easier to read when it was being read off of a cat’s face. Or maybe whoever had hung it there however many years ago had once had an orange cat and named it Butterscotch and loved it until it got hit by a carriage and died, and then loved it a long while after that. Long enough to put up a clock with a picture of an orange cat on the wall. And maybe not. The mind wanders when one has nothing to do. Pegasus minds more so than other minds. No pegasus pony should ever be a librarian, the same way no hippopotamus should ever be a masseuse. Gale wondered what that meant for her.

She stopped tapping and turned and looked at the clock. Thirty minutes till closing time.

She stood up and stretched and walked around the desk and up the stairs. Her hooves clanged on the metal stairs. When she reached the top, she was among more bookshelves. The top floor was where they kept the books no one wanted to read but that had to be kept somewhere because any loss of information would have been considered a grievous loss for all of ponykind, even if that information was only waterfowl migratory routes or former county zoning restrictions, and where else could you put them but in the top floor of a library where no one but the librarians and the recluses and the spiders would ever see them?

Gale walked among the shelves towards the back corner. The air was cramped and heavy and dusty and lonely. She sneezed.

Gale found her in the corner, the unicorn mare with the nervous laugh, shoved up against the wall near a window, two desks and one table arranged around her, each covered in stacks of paper and scrolls and books. The unicorn mare glared down at one particular scroll, mouth set in a firm line, quill and paper at the ready nearby, as if it had just insulted her mother one too many times and she had decided that a formal essay was the only proper response.

Gale cleared her throat.

The unicorn mare picked up the paper and the quill and went to work defending her mother’s honor.

“Hey,” Gale said.

The unicorn mare didn’t look up or respond, only scribbled on her paper.

Gale thought she probably should have felt offended, but she had never minded being snubbed. Wasn’t any use in it, she figured. But she watched the unicorn for a moment anyway to tell whether she was being ignored or simply being unnoticed. Gale would have preferred the former.

The unicorn mare had a purple coat and a purple mane. She was young, younger than Gale by a couple years. Probably a student. Her name was Twilight Something-Or-Other, if Gale remembered right. She was cute in a distant sort of way, like a matron in a classical portrait. Attractive, but very far away from the time and place Gale inhabited. Mysterious, but in an ordinary sense, where Gale could solve the mystery if she wanted, but she knew the matron didn’t want her to, and so she didn’t.

Gale watched her, and Twilight worked, absorbed in her scribbles.

“Hey,” Gale said again, louder.

Twilight blinked and looked around and then saw her. She smiled and laughed her nervous laugh, sounding embarrassed and flighty. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t notice you there.”

“The library closes in half an hour,” Gale said.

“Oh, okay. I’ll try to get everything cleaned up by then.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gale said. “Take your time.”

Twilight smiled again and looked at the window and then looked at her books.

Gale turned and walked away. She knew the type. She had met enough of them over the years to get them figured out pretty well. They didn’t mean to be rude. Most of them didn’t even know what rude was. They just couldn’t do almost anything if you watched them do it. But then sometimes when nobody was looking they could do anything at all. And then a lot of times they couldn’t. Most ponies couldn’t do much by themselves.

Gale walked back down the stairs and when she got away from the top floor the air lightened, felt less lonely even though there was one less pony down there. She sat back down at her desk. Behind her, out the window, the music had gotten louder and livelier. It had a beat to it that bounced through the glass and off of every book in the library. Flutes tittered and chirped, violins whined and wept, accordions swelled and howled, guitars strummed and strutted, hooves stomped the ground, and wings rustled and swung. She recognized the melody. Any pegasus from Las Pegasus could recognize that melody. Gale closed her eyes and that way she could smell the sweat and the burn of the alcohol and feel the warm bodies slipping past and around her and the wings brushing under and over and against her own.

She opened her eyes and she was still in the library and she was cold. She listened to the music and thought about her grandmother.

Her grandmother had been an oddity among pegasus ponies in that she had been a fantastic cook. Most pegasus ponies didn’t have the patience for cooking. Gale wondered if she had inherited her own tendency towards patience from her grandmother. But she didn’t know how to cook, so maybe not.

Outside her kitchen, her grandmother was sometimes sympathetic and playful. Inside her kitchen, she was always a ruthless and insensitive tyrant.

As a filly, Gale had been too terrified to step hoof into that kitchen, even for a glass of water. Anytime she tried, her grandmother would be lurking by the stove or the oven or the sink, big and loud and mean, and no matter how quiet Gale tried to be, her grandmother would sense her somehow and spin around and glare down at her and hunch over and yell, What do you want? or What are you doing? and Gale would stutter and stumble and turn around and run away. Gale eventually began to avoid the kitchen and her grandmother altogether.

But after she moved away from Las Pegasus, she wished that she had gone into that kitchen more often. Being yelled at was better than the alternative.

Gale looked at the cat-face clock. It was time to close the library.

She stood up and walked back up the stairs and into the quiet stacks. She went back to the corner and found Twilight much the same as she had been before. Gale envied her work ethic. She also envied that little pink swirl in her mane. She didn’t envy anything else about her. But, then again, they were both alone tonight. At least Twilight was being productive with her seclusion.

“Hey,” Gale said.

Twilight looked up and frowned. “Oh, is it time already?”

“Yup.”

Twilight bit her lip and looked down at all of her books and scrolls and papers.

“You need more time again?” Gale asked.

Twilight let out her strange, nervous laugh.

Gale didn’t know why, and stayed quiet.

Twilight’s laugh strangled in her throat and disappeared. “Um, yes, if you wouldn’t mind,” Twilight said. “I’m so close to finishing. It’ll just be a couple of minutes. I promise I won’t take so long this time.”

“It’s no problem,” Gale said. “Take your time.”

“Thank you! It’ll only be a couple minutes, I promise.”

“Okay.”

Then a loud eruption of laughter and music and burst through the closed window from below. Twilight glanced at the window and narrowed her eyes. She looked annoyed.

“There’s a festival going on tonight,” Gale said.

“I know,” Twilight said. “It’s the Tempest Festival. It’s a pegasus celebration, mostly. It was only in the past decade or so that it started being celebrated by non-pegasus ponies. It originated in Las Pegasus about a century ago as a celebration of the calming of the Borrasca, one of the largest storms in Equestrian history. But it’s best known for the terenge, a traditional pegasus dance that is only performed once a year.”

“You know a lot about it.”

“Oh, uh, not really. I’ve never actually attended before.”

“Will you go tonight?” Gale asked.

“No, no,” Twilight said. “No, I have too much work to do.”

“Oh,” Gale said. “I’ll be there. After I finish closing up the library.”

“Um, well, I’ll hurry up and finish then,” Twilight said, and turned back to her work.

Gale took the hint. She turned around and went back downstairs to her desk.

She sat down and listened to the music. She thought about her grandmother again.

Once, years after she had left, she went back to Las Pegasus and visited her grandmother. She found the kitchen empty. Instead, her grandmother had been sitting in a chair in the corner of her bedroom, wrapped up in blankets. She had looked small and tired. Her grandmother didn’t say much of anything or do much of anything, so Gale went back into the kitchen. She opened all the drawers, swung all the cabinets open and banged them shut, and turned the stove on and off. But her grandmother didn’t yell. Her grandmother didn’t charge in and demand of her, What do you want? or What are you doing? Her grandmother didn’t do anything.

Whatever Gale said to her, however she said it, her grandmother would only ever reply, in a quiet and confused voice, That’s nice, dear. Very good to hear. Gale screamed and cried right in her grandmother’s ears and still all the old pony said was, That’s nice, dear. Very good to hear.

If Gale suggested they go out and do something, anything at all besides sit in that chair in the corner smothered in blankets, her grandmother would say, Too cold. Whatever the temperature and whatever the weather, that was her excuse. Too cold, she said. Too cold. And she drowned herself in blankets and quiet.

That was when Gale started to wish that she had braved the kitchen doorway more often as a filly. The glare and the hunch and the barked demands had been infinitely easier to bear than the That’s nice, dear or the Very good to hear or the Too cold.

It was called wing lock, because the pegasus ponies afflicted with the disease would often lock their wings against their sides and refuse to open them for anything. The muscles in their wings atrophied and the feathers fell away and then they didn’t have wings anymore, only bony, frail stalks that hung off their sides. Eventually, they started to forget things. Ponies names. What they ate for lunch. Where they went to school. Where they lived. Where they were or how they had gotten there. They forgot to bathe themselves and they forgot to eat.

No one had ever found a cure. It wasn’t a disease like a cold. It was a disease of the mind. Or maybe of somewhere even deeper than that. It started when a pony was very young and it started very small. And then it got worse and worse and worse every year. You couldn’t stop wing lock. You could only slow it down.

Gale looked back at the cat-face clock, and the old, once-loved-but-not-anymore cat told her it was time to go check on Twilight again.

Gale stood up and went back up the stairs. This time Twilight was standing. She faced away from Gale, looking out the window. Gale stood behind her and looked out. Outside in the street were lights and music and many ponies, mostly unicorns, and those ponies were dancing. A few groups of three or four, but most of them in pairs. The pairs danced very near each other, often touching, but they didn’t notice each other. They only noticed their partners, and their partners only noticed them. They moved fast and close, and they spun and they stomped and stepped lightly and jumped.

“It’s the tengere,” Gale said.

Twilight jumped a little and looked at her, then looked out the window again. “I only need a little more time,” Twilight said. But she kept looking out the window at the dancers.

“You could find a partner down there, easy,” Gale said. “Everypony is welcome. All you have to do is go down there.”

Twilight let out her nervous laugh again. “I don’t really dance.”

“My grandmother showed me the steps once, when I was very little,” Gale said. One of the only things she could remember doing with her grandmother besides running away from her and later screaming in her ears. “I remember the steps. You need a partner with wings to really do it right. It’s a pegasus dance. Still is. That’s why all those unicorns keep jumping in the air like fish in the slippery bottom of a boat. They don’t have wings.”

“It’s another element of pegasus culture that has been appropriated by unicorns this last decade,” Twilight said. “Princess Celestia says these kinds of appropriations are good for everypony.”

“But if you want to dance the tengere,” Gale said, “you still need a pegasus. Or else you’ll look like a fish in the bottom of a boat.”

Twilight turned back to her and away from the window. “I only need a little more time, if you don’t mind.”

“Would you like to dance?” Gale asked.

Twilight’s eyes widened a little and then she smiled and then she didn’t. “Yeah, but I just couldn’t go down there and try it in front of all those ponies. And I have work to do.”

“Would you like to dance with me?” Gale asked.

“Um.”

“Here,” Gale said, and stepped forward and grabbed Twilight and pushed her up onto her hind legs and Gale stood up onto her own hind legs. They balanced precariously. Twilight blushed and her eyes went wide, and Gale felt her own face go hot. She flared her wings and flapped them lightly to keep them both upright. “That’s why you need a pony with wings,” Gale said.

“Oh,” Twilight said. She still blushed but she didn’t pull away. “Um, what now?”

Gale listened to the music that came in through the window and listened to the beat of the drums and the strut of the guitar and the chirping flutes and then stepped in time with them, and Twilight stepped with her, and they were close together. Gale had lied. She didn’t remember the steps. She only remembered the music. She eased into the rhythm with Twilight and stepped with the drum beats and the strutting guitar, and then the violins whined, fast and long and wide, and Gale spun clumsily around Twilight and nearly threw them both into a bookshelf, but Twilight kept up and looked scared and excited. Them the accordions let loose and wailed, quick, up and down, up and down, and Gale let Twilight loose and swung her about, and she flapped her wings and brought them up and and down and knocked over a desk and papers and scrolls fluttered all around them, and Twilight’s eyes widened and she laughed. They were clumsy and inexperienced and they didn’t know what they were doing, but then it didn’t matter, because they were dancing together, and even if it wasn’t the right rhythm, they were in the same rhythm together. And the drums still beat and the guitars still strummed and the violins still whined and the accordions still wailed, and Twilight still laughed, and the laugh wasn’t nervous. She even laughed as Gale picked her up and then lost her grip and dropped her on the ground, and she laughed on the ground, and Gale fell down too and laughed with her.

They sat on the ground together and laughed and then their laughs dwindled. They looked at each other and breathed hard. Sweat slipped down Gale’s face.

“Ow,” Twilight said, catching her breath.

“Sorry,” Gale said. “I haven’t done this in a long time. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, and stood up and laughed again. “That was a lot of fun. Thanks.”

Outside, the music still played.

“I’m going to the festival after I close the library,” Gale said, standing up. “Do you want to come with me?”

Twilight’s breath caught and she suddenly looked very small and tired and smothered. She looked at the window and then looked at Gale and then looked at her desks and papers and books, now disheveled and strewn about. “I’m sorry. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

“I had to close the library over half an hour ago,” Gale said. “I didn’t do that.”

“I’m…” Twilight frowned. “I’m so sorry. I can’t.”

“I know,” Gale said, and thought about her grandmother again.

“Let me, uh…” Twilight started moving the papers and books around. “Let me at least clean this mess up for you.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Gale said. “I’ll get it. You go ahead.”

“Oh,” Twilight said. She stood and looked at Gale as if she had forgotten something that she hoped Gale could remind her of. Her mouth moved but she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“I’d prefer if I didn’t,” Gale said. “But I guess I probably will anyway, so see you then.”

“Okay,” Twilight said. She stood for a moment longer and then took a couple of her papers and walked away and went down the steps.

Gale stayed and cleaned up the mess. She set all of the papers and scrolls and books back on the desks and table in a way that looked similarly to how it had been before. She should have collected them so they could be reshelved, but she knew Twilight would want all the same ones again the next night, so she left them out.

When she finished, she closed up the rest of the library and thought about Twilight and her grandmother. She figured wing lock could happen to unicorns, too, it was just harder to see. But the symptoms were all the same. You couldn’t stop wing lock. You could only slow it down.

She went outside. Twilight wasn’t there. Gale didn’t know why she had expected her to be, but she was disappointed anyway. She locked the door and walked away. She didn’t walk towards the festival. There wasn’t any use in dancing alone.