Spike was shook from his memories as the loud, crunchy resonance of breaking glass reached him.

"Rainbow!" Twilight's voice screeched barely a millisecond after the breaking glass, making Spike jump that much harder. The broom jumped loose from his hands and clattered away under the legs of the kitchen table as he kicked it aside in a sprint.

"Rainbow," Twilight stopped to glance at the broken window, a conflicted expression plastered to her face as she made her way down from the upstairs balcony. "Can you get up?"

The pegasus in question was curled up on the floor of the living room, cringing in a sharp bewildering pain. Her hooves were cradling a newly forming lump on her head, her tail swishing back and forth along the ground like it was attempting to escape the body it was attached to.

"J-just give me a sec." She said, rolling onto her other side, her hooves still pressing against her head. Twilight hovered over her, rubbing a hoof on her back in attempts at comfort.

"Is she alright Twilight?" Spike asked, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked as he peeked over Twilight's shoulder.

"Nah, nah I'm good I'm good." Rainbow blurted out, forcing herself to her hooves. "Just a lump on the head, no biggie."

"Well in that case Rainbow, you mind telling me why in Equestria you just broke ANOTHER window in my house!?" Twilight jumped up from her haunches as the volume of her voice rocketed. Rainbow fell backwards to the floor again, her forelegs catching her this time as she braced against Twilight's anger.

"You can't blame me for this! AJ's the one who screwed up my trick!" She shouted back, one hoof flattening down her mane vigorously.

"Of course." Twilight muttered darkly, running her tongue over the front of her teeth and nodding slightly.

"She seemed half-asleep didn't she?" She asked with a frown, not bothering to watch for Rainbow's expression to change.

"She fell off the ladder like eight times! It'd hard to say she wasn't drunk out of her mind."

Twilight's frown remained on her face as she turned and started out the door.

"I'm gonna go try this one more time, Spike stay here with Rainbow Dash until she can get back on her feet. And don't touch the broken glass." Twilight added emphasis on the last bit with a look over at the dragon who had wisely decided to stay silent. After a few seconds spent waiting for a response, she soundlessly turned back to the door and exited.

Spike frowned and looked from Rainbow, who had been silently scrubbing a hoof over her eyes, to the glass then back at Rainbow. He then heaved deeply in his chest and sighed, kicking the larger chunks of glass into a pile with his feet.

"Hey squirt you heard what Twilight said." Rainbow had opened one squinted eye to address the baby dragon who stared back at her. Spike, in silent response, bent down to pick up a rather jagged piece of glass with edges whitened from fracture.

Rainbow Dash momentarily forgot the sore lump resting on her crown as she watched her youngest friend casually pop a chunk of glass into his mouth like a greasy potato chip. She flinched backward as she watched the dragon bite down on the glass, muted pops and crunches filling the silence of the library.

Spike carried on chewing with a claw on his hip for a few seconds before he made a face and spat the glass out into his free claw.

"It tastes awful really, can't wrap my mind around why its so expensive." He said as he held the moist sand in his claw where it only sparkled to remind Rainbow of its previous form.

"Yeah, remind me never to catch you under a mistletoe." She muttered as Spike walked back to the kitchen, in search of the forgotten broom.

Roughly two hours later found the librarian and her assistant in a makeshift medical tent, the rotten stench of sun-cooked vomit thick in the air as nurses trotted from stretcher to stretcher.

"Please don't tell anypony I threw up in Carrot Top's saddle bag Twilight..." Pinkie begged, her voice giving away the fact she was hiding tears. Twilight busied herself with rubbing a hoof down the mare's back as she took in the damage.

1. AJ had given roughly twelve ponies food poisoning.
   
2. Sugarcube Corner was in serious trouble once the ponies could stand.
   
3. One stallion had an embarassing case of diarrhea. He was currently being comforted by a young mare, possibly his marefriend.

"No really Twilight, she'd be so super mad--" Pinkie paused, her face suddenly contorting to something one might expect to see upon the face of a pony dying in a desert, the eyes squinting up and the mouth opening slightly to let out ragged breath before the inevitable dry-heave.

Spike quickly shoved the garbage pail over his head, watching Pinkie's hooves as they clutched her stomach. After two sudden lurches and the sound of pitiful choking, a splash echoed in the pail held just over the dragon's head. Spike felt the sharp slap of something liquid on the inside on his head spines where the pail was balanced, and grimaced as the odor met his nostrils.

He beared the smell diligently until he heard Pinkie Pie sigh in regretful satisfaction, prompting him to move the pail to the ground next to him. Looking up he was met with a rather sickly imitation of the pony he knew; Pinkie's hair had lost some of its vibrancy and curl, her face taking tinges of light green like the skin of a Granny Smith apple was lying just beneath her fur.

Spike felt pity and a sense of responsibility for the mare all at once, and reached his claws out to rub the mares stomach. His claws met soft, silky fur around naval and a bit below and slowly began to knead.

"Oooh that feels good Spike..." Pinkie trailed off, one of her backlegs that had hung unmoving over the side of the white bedsheets had begun to kick like a dog's to a scratch behind the ears. The approval only served to encourage the dragon who had taken notice of a bit of pudge to Pinkie's stomach, something nopony would have noticed considering Pinkie's baffling feats of athleticism in the past.

Broading the circling of his claws, Spike's claws naturally ventured lower prompting Pinkie's heavy lids to droop further still, her mangled curls sweeping down over her eyes. Twilight gave Spike a quick kick to his knee with a slight flick of her front forehoof as a reaction of her own.

"Ah, Twilight what gi--" He hissed out before Twilight put a hoof to his mouth.

"SsssshhhSO Pinkie Pie, are you sure Applejack was the one who sabotaged the recipe?" She asked, using the back of the hoof she had silenced Spike with to shove him backward and behind her.

Pinkie's eyes opened immediatedly, albiet in a rather hurt squint.

"Wha-? Twilight! I've never messed up a recipe in my life!" She said, holding both hooves to her chest.

"I'm not saying you did Pinkie. As a matter of fact-" Twilight gave Spike another shove to the tent flap leading outside, "Applejack's had quite a few accidents today."

Twilight waved half-heartedly at a rather haggard looking Nurse Redheart as she kicked Spike out the tent.

"Jeez Twilight, ya care to fill me in on the big idea?" He said in a rather agitated tone, one claw rubbing at his knee where the mare had kicked him.

"Um...they had needles here." She turned to walk down the road without so much as a glance back over her shoulder at him.

"Nice try genuis, Shining was the one who cried during his shots." Spike said catching up to her, his mood lifting as he remembered his older brother's infantile fear.

"Yeah well, maybe I just wanted to get out of there," she bounced back quickly, "I mean our friend just poisoned quite a few ponies."

"Yeah, you got a point." Spike nibbled on an end of his claw.

"Are you going to talk to AJ again?" He asked in a voice that held a rather doubting note. Twilight breathed in the afternoon air only to let it out in a tired sigh.

"I'm gonna have to."

A good hour and a half later found Spike silently cursing a rather tame curse (being that he honestly didn't know more than four) as he realized he had forgotten to brush his teeth. He was sprinting down the road from Town Hall, eager to catch Fluttershy and Applejack as they gathered the baby rabbits for Fluttershy's census that day.

For a moment as he passed by the road leading to Sugarcube Corner, he wondered if he would have time to stop by the medical tent to see Pinkie Pie. He decided against it, much too eager to put his plan in action for him to delay it any longer (that and his nerves were making his stomach rather upset by the moment).

"Put em up Winona!!" The dragon's ear spines perked as he heard the unmistakable accent in the distance. He picked up as much speed as his small legs could bolster, and ran for the river near the edge of the Everfree Forest.

***
"Oh my-" Fluttershy cut herself off as she dove for the baby rabbit she had spotted. Said bunny was clearly frightened beyond reason judging by the mad hop that nearly sent it flying into the river. She snatched it by it bottom, its legs kicking madly against her hooves as she fluttered away from the edge of the bridge situated over the body of water.

"Please calm down little one, your mommy would very sad if you fell in the water and caught a cold." She spoke soothingly to the baby as she cradled it close to her chest, where it stared up at her with shiny eyes and twitching nostrils uncomprehending but feeling something akin to its own mother.

"YAH bunny rabbits, gettalong!!" AJ howled as she charged at a stray fluffball that had split from the group. The white cottonball made a pitiful squeak as it tripped over a crack in the ground and went tumbling, where thankfully it lie forgotten as AJ and Winona hounded the rest of the group. It curled itself into a ball, having sprained something in its left front paw, and hoped for the best.

As fate would have it, Spike the Dragon happened along just in time to see the baby rabbit take its tumble and crouched down to keep from frightening it further.

"Hey there, easy-" Spike cooed as he lifted the rabbit delicately by its belly. The rabbit kicked once but then lay relatively motionless aside from its ever twitching nose. Holding the rabbit close to his body, he watched the hatted figure in the distance chasing the writhing cloud of rabbits into what looked to be some sort of pen where Winona bounced around.

"Oh, oh my, please don't run away!" Ms. Fluttershy's voice pulled his eyes away from Applejack and Winona, leading them on a trail to the river bank under old wooden bridge leading into Ponyville.

"Ms. Fluttershy?" He called as he poked his head under the bridge. Underneath he caught sight of Fluttershy crouched low, a hoof held out to a shaking baby rabbit, a second one chewing on a blade of grass next to her hooves.

"Just a minute Spike, we don't wanna scare this little guy anymore than he has to be." She said to the rabbit instead of Spike, her voice alluring and calm. The rabbit sniffed at her hoof after a few moments of indecision, then poked its nose under the grass below the hoof as if checking for some hidden trickery to the otherwise unthreatening proposition.

Spike looked at the rabbit held next to his stomach, who perked an ear and stared back. He shrugged and made his way down the grass path under the bridge. As his toes stepped down onto squishy, moist grass Fluttershy already had the second rabbit laying on her back, nibbling and sniffing at a lock of her long pink mane.

"I'm sorry Spike, but did you see any rabbits--" She paused as she saw the rabbit held in his claws.

"I think it hurt it's paw." He said with an apologetic tone, thinking it better to simply hold the rabbit close than risk dropping it by holding it out for the mare to see.

"Oh, I had a bad feeling since the moment Applejack started chasing them." She pushed the veil of her mane back, marking the first time Spike had seen both of her eyes at the same time. He pretended not to take notice of this simple swipe of her hoof, instead crouching down to set the rabbit down upon the ground where it attempted a hop but fell forward onto its face.

"Did you see how it happened?" She asked, lifting the rabbits neck gently with a hoof.

"Winona tripped it trying to herd it in with the others."

"Oh....I mean its not that Winona's effort isn't appreciated..." She began, her eyes darting about the underside of the bridge overhead, as if she expected to find a way to end her sentence scribbled in a foal's chalk.

"It might have been better if AJ bailed and got some sleep." Spike said for her, trying to put some teeth into his half-hearted smile. Fluttershy let her mane fall back down over one eye as she cleared her throat. Spike watched as her gaze trailed down to the ground and her mouth formed a quiet "yes."

"I-I could help out, you know if you wanted." The dragon felt his courage flee from him though he had practised a variant of that line many a times. He looked away from Fluttershy down into the slowly flowing water, where he spotted a baby dragon trying to force a nonchalant facial expression and failing miserably.

"Well...if you wouldn't mind. I think one or two went back into Ponyville."

Spike grinned widely and turned back to see a reflected smile fleeing behind the long pink mane.

"Want me to carry the hurt one?"

Author's Note

Slow one this time round, but gotta let it flow right?

Anyway like, favorite, comment or flame!

And if you're interested, check my band out on Soundcloud, you'll be glad you did!

http://m.soundcloud.com/palm-village/beneath-the-sand-is-home