Hi there, folks. So this is my first story I'll be posting on this account and I hear that first impressions are everything. With that being said, this is a story idea that I doubt you've read anywhere else, and I think that it's a great and entertaining concept that showcases my main writing style. I really hope you enjoy it and I would love it if you gave me some constructive criticism on anything you believe I could've done better.

New chapters will be posted on Wednesday nights until the end of the story. (There are seven chapters I have written for it.) If you forget the posting time, I will have it at the top of my profile as well.

A little bit of foreknowledge you should keep in mind while reading this story: this is around the end of the first/beginning of the second season of MLP:FiM. That means Twilight is just a unicorn and the Golden Oak Library is still intact. (Sorry if these are spoilers for some of you, but seriously, that was over three and two years ago, respectively.)

With that being said, I'll shut up and let you read my first of hopefully many more stories to come.

-PSG

Fifty Neighs of Gray: Twilight Sparkle

As she woke up on her day off, Twilight stretched out her purple hooves and yawned, her mouth stretching as wide as it would allow to relieve herself of her sleepy feeling. Judging by how the light entered into her room from the window, it was already around ten o'clock, a few hours after when the librarian would normally be up. Glancing over the edge of her bed, she saw Spike still sound asleep in his basket, snoring as loud as usual. Twilight made sure to take care getting out of bed so she would not wake the young dragon, her assistant only stirring once as she traversed the squeaky wooden floor. The purple unicorn finally reached the stairs and made her way down them, taking in the view of her library. It was not very often that she would do so, considering she lived there and the Golden Oak Library was a common sight to her, but every once in awhile, when she thought about it, Twilight would take in a deep breath to smell the wood and books around her and view how beautiful the whole place really was. Everything was clean, things were tidy and put away, and all of the books were in their pla-

Twilight's thoughts were interrupted as squealing came from the direction of the front door, following with a clamorous thud, then ending with the same metallic cry as she had heard before.

The sound was all too familiar to her, but it did not register at first; the suddenness of it had thrown her off of her calm wake-up mode and sprung her into confusion. After she collected her thoughts, she began to walk over to the book return by the front of the library. She figured somepony must have decided to drop off their book, which she always appreciated, especially when they were on time.

Lifting the cover, she peered in and saw the outline of your average-sized book. A violet aura enveloped it and the hardcover began to rise out of the box. The sunlight from the window spread out over the cover of the book and revealed the title, the rest of it being a plain black. Twilight—having a vast knowledge of what books were in her library, how many copies she had of each, and where they all were—was confused by this one, of which she had never laid eyes on before. Naturally, one eyebrow furrowed and the other arched as the librarian's eyes scanned the cover.

"Fifty Neighs of Gray," Twilight whispered as her eyes traced the words of the title. The unicorn raised up her head quickly and swung the door open, hoping she could catch the pony who had dropped off this strange book before they had gone too far; they obviously brought their book back to the wrong library thinking it was the correct place. She scanned the area for the possible pony who had left the book, but to her dismay, there was no one in sight. Then, something moving off to her left caught her gaze. On the horizon, moving before the sun that had risen not long ago, was a silhouette rounding the corner of the street at, what looked to be, a full-on gallop. Before Twilight could call after the mystery pony, they were already gone.

"Well, I'll just hold onto it for them until they realize they dropped it off at the wrong place," she spoke aloud, entering the tree along with the book still in her magical grasp. Shutting the door, she set the hardcover down on the center table of the library and walked to her kitchen, figuring breakfast was in order.

"Fifty Neighs of Gray… That's an odd title for a book. I wonder what it's about," she thought aloud, eyeing the book from the doorway of the kitchen. "Maybe it has something to do with color? But why gray? And what does neighing have to do with any of it?"

Twilight's mind began to fill with questions about this new novel that happened to find its way to her library, but no matter how curious her mind was, her stomach made it apparent that it could wait for now, letting out a groan for food. Turning back around and walking the rest of the way into the kitchen, the librarian scoured the cupboards for something to eat until settling on a simple bowl of cereal. Sure, waffles or pancakes sounded great, but Spike was the one in the house who could cook; besides, it would have been unfair of Twilight to make some for herself and not for him (although, he might not have complained if she did, considering he has known the mare his whole life, which included knowing that she is less than spectacular when it came to cooking…)

After pouring milk onto her bowl of cereal, she sat down at the table and ate. The morning was particularly quiet, which was somewhat odd, but nothing disconcerting. It really just made eating oat cereal alone uncomfortable: all that filled her ears was the sound of her crunching and munching on her food, her mind focusing in on every aspect of the sound due to the lack of any other auditory entertainment. She did not like it. Making an attempt to lessen the awkwardness of her situation, Twilight began humming a tune to herself.

Hearing and knowing that she was consciously making noise to cover up the sound of another just brought the whole thing into perspective for her, helping her realize how silly she was behaving. She shook her head and laughed, wondering if anypony else ever had thoughts like hers.

After she stopped humming, Twilight finished her breakfast and walked with the bowl over to the sink. She set it down and was about to walk away, but stopped and decided to wash the bowl and spoon now; there was no point in leaving it for later, was there?

"But that book…" she said, wanting to figure out the mystery of it (even though she was the one who was creating most of the mystery surrounding the novel.) She shook her head.

"No, I'm being ridiculous. I can wash this bowl," she stated. She grabbed the sponge resting on the edge of the sink and began running warm water. "Of course, if I wash this, I should wash the rest of the dishes, too…" she sighed, turning her attention to the left of the sink where the other dirty dishes sat, all three stacks of them.

"Ugh…" she muttered as she let her head hang, but brought it back up and grabbed the first plate. "Let's just get this over with."

The blankets moved slightly over the wicker basket as the young dragon underneath them began to stir. He rolled over with a groan, attempted to go back to sleep, but ultimately decided that it was about time for him to get up. Throwing the covers off of his head, he grunted as he sat up to see Twilight's empty bed. Glancing over to the window and then to the yellow beams of light entering from it, he would have to say it was around eleven o'clock, give or take ten minutes.

The dragon gave a quick sniff of the air, then sighed. "Whew… good thing she didn't try cooking for herself again." He hopped out of his bed and made his way to the stairs, but stopped when he got to the top of them.

What he saw on the ground floor was a purple mare hunched over something at the center table of the library, every so often letting out either a gasp, nervous laugh, or squeal. The young dragon walked down the stairs as he normally would, keeping an eye on his best friend all the while. He expected her to turn around and say good morning, but she never moved, not even a flinch from when his claw accidentally scraped the bottom step. Thinking this was odd, he walked over to her.

He placed a claw on her shoulder, saying, "Twilight?"

The mare immediately jumped at his touch and voice, pushing whatever she was obsessing over behind her. Her head whipped to him, wide eyes making contact with his equally-surprised ones.

"Spike! What are you doing?!" she shouted at her assistant. "Were you trying to scare me?!"

Spike merely raised an eyebrow at her response. "Uh… no, not really. It's not like I was trying to sneak up on you."

"Well, next time call my name when you're not right beside me." Spike nodded and gave a small chuckle to himself, to which Twilight rolled her eyes.

"So what are you reading there?" he asked. Twilight's whole demeanor changed at that moment.

"What? Read what? Reading? I wasn't reading anything," she spat out, her eyes darting around the whole time, before landing back on a confused Spike.

"But what's that book you have behind you?" he questioned. Just then, a loud pop came from behind Twilight and she stepped aside to reveal nothing behind her, although the young dragon was not fooled.

"Where did you just teleport that book to?" he said flatly, but Twilight sighed in response.

"Look, I was reading a book that was dropped off today by accident, but I can't tell you what it's about," she admitted with her head low, "It's… not appropriate for young dragons. Or anypony as far as I'm concerned."

Spike was quite confused by the whole interaction. "What do you mean 'not appropriate?' I'm old enough! Besides, how bad could it be?"

"Bad enough that I, an adult, find it…" Twilight drifted off as she looked for the correct words to tell Spike. While the book was certainly appalling in its descriptions, it did bring a certain amount of interest to the unicorn. She was brought back from her thoughts by the green eyes of the dragon in front of her. "Um… I find it… not suitable for reading. I plan on finding the pony who left this here and returning it to them so it's not to be found in this library."

"Awww. Okay, fine," Spike sighed, disappointed with the fact that he was still treated like a child (even though he really still was a child.) "I'm going to get some breakfast. Did you already eat?"

Twilight nodded. "Yes, I had a bowl of cereal. I washed my bowl after I was done."

"And apparently you didn't think to wash the others?" Spike said in deadpan. Twilight realized she had been so preoccupied with the thought of the book that when she decided to take a short reading break before doing up the dishes, she had completely forgotten about them in the midst of such a lewd but strangely-enticing novel.

The unicorn merely let out a sheepish chuckle before apologizing, to which the dragon shook his head and began to wash the plates before making his own morning meal.

Now where did I teleport that book to…? Twilight thought to herself, not exactly remembering where she had sent the book during her moment of panic. I mean, I have to finish it now that I started reading it. For science, of course!