What am I?

Calla was somewhat dressed up, her mane and tail tied with flowery bands, and her body wrapped in a spring yellow scarf. Being presentable was part of being a former student of the Princess, and such a title allowed her full access into the vast realm of dusty pages and old parchment. Here, the unicorn searched for the key to her destiny, the reason the black crest on her flank existed. A book she had read as a filly was the catalyst for the appearance of the strange mark, and Calla was determined to find it.

The library was empty, as far as she could tell. Not a sound was to be heard in the huge room, save the clop of her hooves on the ancient stone floor and the swishing of her mane.

Here, she felt at home. A slight regret for not taking up refuge in this calm place washed over her, but she did not doubt her decision to stay in Ponyville. It was always nice to visit her old home, though.

Calla started searching the shelves for her book, pulling out old titles and flipping through the pages.

It was quiet here. Very quiet. This wasn't an accident. Quieting enchantments were cast all over the place, and the only thing that one could hear were the soft footsteps of the other ponies.

And the whispers. There was always the whispers. Many ponies couldn't hear them, but if one listened really, really carefully, they were impossible not to notice.

Intel was hearing them now. He wasn't sure how or why he was here. He didn't remember. In fact, he had forgotten a lot. All he knew was that he was in the library, following some sort of trail, invisible and imdescribable.

Every so often, he would pause, and concentrate on the whispers, trying to find out where he sould go next.

A book fell out of her grasp, settling on the floor with a thud and a cloud of dust. Coughing, Calla waved away the dust and put the book back. It wasn't what she was looking for, anyways.

She settled into a routine. Look at the cover, flip through the pages, replace, repeat. It was rather time consuming, and it got boring, even for the bright, avid reader.

After a while, Calla got the feeling that the book would not be nonfiction. It was a gut instinct, but Calla's gut always told her the right thing to do.

She headed over to the fiction section, feeling a thrill of excitement run through her body like adrenaline. She was just so close... She could feel it in her veins.

Intel felt the Ambient Magic Field twitch. It was funny, really. He had been studying such fields all his life, expressing such fields in mathematical equations. It was truly difficult to explain ambience to one who didn't study theoretical magic. Every time he tried, he saw the other pony's eyes glaze over.

Now he could somehow sense them. He saw them but not through his eyes, he heard them but not through his ears, he felt them yet he touched nothing. He knew the strings of reality tying everything together, and it was equal parts terrifying and wonderful.

In a way, he didn't care how he came to be like this. He just enjoyed it while it was here.

The AMF morphed and warped in front of him, a state of constant flux. Another pony, a mare walked into his vision. He saw her both as a physical pony, and a collection of ambient strings, all tangled together.

He smiled. "Hello there."

Calla was surprised to see another unicorn in the library. She looked up at the blue unicorn, who had a rather strange look on his face.

"Greetings," she said. Usually, ponies in the library were students, former students, scholars, and nobility, and students were just fillies. The rest tended to be proper, and it was as if Calla knew two different languages of Equestrian; Equestrian, and Proper Equestrian. There were other languages, too, like Arabian and Native Griffon, but this was a different matter.

"What brings you to these serene corridors?" she asked. "I am here to find a book, as most ponies are, but that is a trivial matter. I do hope I did not disturb your concentration with my clumsiness."

"Me?"Intel frowned, "I suppose I'm examining the magical energies radiating off the shelves. It is quite curious. The designer of this place drove himself mad trying to build something that would hold so much magic that the laws of space and time themselves were warped. He succeeded, in the end, but it was his last work before he starved himself to death."

He smiled at the mare in front of him, clearly delighting in his exposition. "Don't worry about breaking my concentration. Just treat the books carefully. Some of them are really magical and don't like being mistreated. And when you pack so much in one place." He closed his eyes, as if listening to something. "They become almost sentient."

When he opened them again, there was a twinkle in his eyes. "If you are looking for a book, may I reccommend a neat trick? Close your eyes and and focus until you hear whispering. You won't hear it through your ears, but you will hear them none the less. When you do, ask them about what you are looking for, and then just let your hooves guide you to what you are looking for."

Calla was mystified by the pony's speech. The thought of the magic surrounding this place... It was a beautiful thought.

With a deep breath of concentration, Calla closed her eyes and let her magic flow throughout her body, ready to absorb the magic waves from the books. She stood like that for a while, and soon started to feel silly. Was this stallion trying to prank her?

She was just about to open her eyes when she heard something. A twang against the field of magic inside her. It repeated itself, and suddenly her mind was filled with the beautiful voices of many creatures, their song both intriguing and delighting the unicorn.

She asked her question in a simple, quiet manner. All it took was the slight image that passed through her mind, and the voices were abuzz. One bell-like peal of sound gave her instructions in a language as old as time, and she followed it, right until she could smell the pages of a decade-old book.

When she opened her eyes, the last of the creature's song she heard was one of satisfaction and delight, and Calla felt tears come to her eyes. There, in front of her, was the key to her cutie mark.

"Isn't that fantastic?" Intel smirked, "Told you they're helpful."

He had followed the mare's dazed psuedo sleepwalk, observing the magical field around her gently push her along to her desired destination. He wondered if she experienced time dilation, where the ten minutes it took to wander only lasted a fraction of that time in the wanderer's mind.

"If you don't mind me being curious," he asked, "What exactly are you looking for?"

Calla didn't speak. She just gently pulled the book off the shelf and stared at the cover. After a moment, she put it next to her flank and let it float there.

"Ever since I got my cutie mark," she said excitedly, "I've been searching Equestria for this book. I have been here many times, but I have never had the fortune to discover it... Until today. Thank you, sir. Though I do not even know your name, I owe you many lifetimes."

She bowed her head in a sign of respect.

"My name is Calla Lily," she said, introducing herself. "It is my greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Intelligent Design," was the reply, "Intelligent by name, but not by nature. Call me Intel instead. The pleasure is all mine. Definitively all mine."

Looking at Lily's cutie mark, which was a symbol that he was unfamilar with, he asked, "What happened to you when you received it? After all, it's the right situation that causes it to appear." He grinned as he recalled his own mark, itself mysterious in its own way.

"And usually most colts and fillies when they get their mark scour everything they were doing at the time to work out what it meant. I know I did, though it took ages."

This was the first time he had met a pony who didn't know what her mark meant. It was definitely curious.

Calla grinned.

"I was reading this book," she said, pointing at it excitedly. "I really loved it, but that's all I remember. I don't remember what the book itself is about."

She gazed longingly at it and suddenly felt a wave of strange emotion overcome her.

"Do I want to know?" she whispered to herself, though she was sure the other unicorn could hear. "Do I really want to know what it is, after all these years?"

"Why not?" Intel shrugged, "What good is ignorance? With knowledge, you can choose to use it whatever way you please. If you don't know, then it has that power over you. You can't choose to use it for good."

"And wilful ignorance...well, that's dangerous. Closing your mind to the truth. You can't build a foundation on false ground, else the entire struture would collapse. All evil can be be traced to wilful ignorance."

He motioned to the book. "Go on. Learn, and be better pony because of it."

She slipped the book into her saddlebag and zipped it up.

"I'll do it at home," she said. "Would you like to, before I leave Canterlot, get together sometime? You seem like a very smart stallion, and you helped me find what may as well be my destiny. The least I could offer you is tea or a biscuit. Where and when would you like to meet?"

"I..."

A cold chill ran all over Intel's body.

"...can't, sorry. I am extremely busy, and now is the first free time I've had in ages. Soon, I'll have to put my nose back to the grindstone, and I simply won't have time to out for tea." He smiled sadly. "I apologise."

He looked at the book that Lily had stashed away in her bag. "Do remember to return the book when you are finished with it, though. The library does not take kindly to thieves, and this one does not fine bits." His face turned solemn. "If you steal knowledge from this library, it will take knowledge back by force. And it will not care how precious that knowledge is to you."

Calla laughed.

"Do you take me for a pony who would steal from a library?" she asked incredulously. "I did live in the Ponyville one for a couple months while my house was being built. Of course I'm going to return it, Intel. Thank you for your kindness."

She shuffled her hooves wrote a date on the inside, the date she was scheduled to leave, so she would absolutely remember to return it.

"What are you so busy with, if you please, that you can't even take an hour for tea?"