Zenith

Chapters

Prologue and Chapter 1: The Monolith
Chapter 2: Places We Don't Want to Go
Chapter 3: The Chamber
Chapter 4: The Obelisk
Chapter 5: The Drowning Pool
Chapter 6: The Ward
Chapter 8: The Visitors
Chapter 7: Breakfast in the Doughnut Shop of Sacred and Profound Knowing
Chapter 9: The Archives
Chapter 10: Dope on the Ropes
Chapter 11: “So, a Dragon, a Weathermare, and a Veterinarian Walk into a Granola Bar…”
Chapter 12: The Inevitable
Chapter 13: Boy on Fire
Chapter 14: Spike the Outlaw

Prologue and Chapter 1: The Monolith

“Zenith”
Written by The Descendant

Dedication: The amazing works of the artist Lysok, specifically his images “Spike’s Quest” and “Griffin’s Lullaby”, inspired this story. Lysok graciously allowed me to write this work, and he has my praise, appreciation, and sincere thanks.

“Zenith”
The First Book: Pillars of the Sun
Prologue

When the glass shattered, many things happened.

When the glass shattered, it sent a spray of shards bouncing across the floor of the hospital room. The pieces tumbled across the smooth floor tiles, finally coming to a rest against the distant wall. There they sat, each piece catching the shafts of light that fell through the windows...

... each piece catching the light that fell across the unmoving alicorn in the bed nearby.

When the glass shattered, the sound resonated around the room and filled the hospital ward. The sound disrupted the silence that had settled there, startling all within out of their contemplations. The sound surprised the nurse who had been wringing out the washcloth. It surprised the orderly, nearly making him drop a tray he had been gathering.

It even surprised the princess who sat nearby.

When the glass shattered, it made a little dragon do something he wouldn’t normally do. When the glass shattered, it made him say a naughty word.

“Buck!”

A moment before, Spike had been carrying the glass. Now his hands were over his mouth, and a look of shame sat on his face as he looked to each of the ponies in turn.

“I-I’m sorry!” he said, waving his arms around frantically. “I-I didn’t mean to say that, or break the cup… I-I just, I mean… it, just…”

Princess Celestia lifted herself off of the nearby couch, sighed a small sigh, and then made her way to where Spike stood. As she approached, his hands went back over his mouth, and his eyes went wide again.

“Oh, Spike,” she said, giving him a small smile, “you are going to have to work here at the hospital to pay that back, I am afraid.”

“Heh,” answered Spike, forcing a laugh. As he did, the dragon drew a paper towel across the myriad tiny shards that had fallen closest to the bed, wiping them away from the one who lay there as though defending her from a swarm of insects.

“Oh, yes, Spike,” answered Comfort, painting a smile across her face. “Now you’ll have to work here for a week, taking care of our patient, you know?” The nurse moved to the broom closet, but as the soft sounds of magic filled the room she instead gathered up the trash bin and brought it to the princess.

“Heh,” Spike answered once more, his voice still rather distant.

Celestia’s magic gathered up the pieces. “Thank you,” the alicorn said, nodding to the earth pony as her magic deposited the shards in the garbage can, removing all evidence of the accident.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” said the orderly. As he spoke, the stallion reached out his hoof and began to close one of the heavy curtains, keeping the sunlight from falling directly onto the face of the figure upon the bed. “If that’s how it works, we owe him some bits, not the other way around! He’s been here for, what is it, going on two weeks? You’re gonna need to fill out employee tax… tax forms…”

The orderly looked down to Spike. Instead of the smile he had expected to find he saw Spike staring back at him with a look of betrayal etched across his face. The dragon’s mouth was slightly opened, and in Spike’s tired eyes there was a look like all of his worldly secrets had been revealed.

“I had heard as such,” sighed Celestia. The graceful alicorn turned towards the sofa, her magnificent mane and tail shining around her as she moved through the shafts of her sun’s radiance.

Her statement hung around the room, and Spike stood there for a long moment, awaiting the questions that he knew now must come. When none were immediately forthcoming he turned his bleary eyes back to his task.

His clawed feet made their way over to the now familiar sink. With an agile twist he hopped up so that he was sitting on the counter. Turning his body even farther, Spike reached over his head and into the tall cabinet.

The bottom shelf was empty, sending a scowl of disappointment across the dragon’s face.

“Darn,” he said, hoping that everyone in the room had heard his more appropriate choice of words. With that he steadied himself on the cabinet door so that he could look inside.

The second shelf still held a few glasses, and the dragon carefully stood on his tiptoes to reach up high and deep within. As he did, his tired body gave a small tremble, and he went stock still, hoping against hope that the other occupants of the room hadn’t noticed.

As he sat on the countertop, he threw them each a quick look. It was obvious that they had seen it. He sighed, grumbled, and then lifted the cold-water tap. He placed one of his fingers beneath the stream of water, waiting until it got cold, but not too cold, before placing the cup beneath. As it filled he breathed a few words into the room.

“We’re runnin’ out of cups, Pacemaker,” he said in a steady tone, trying to hide the tiredness that lingered in his voice.

“You’re using them up faster than the cafeteria can clean them, Spike,” answered the orderly. The dragon didn’t answer. That was an excuse. He didn’t want excuses. He wanted nice, clean cups that he could fill with cold, clear water.

He closed the faucet. Spike carefully placed the cup on the counter, hovering his hands over it for a second before jumping off. Grabbing the glass, he once again began to make his way from the faucet to the bed.

“Spike, dear,” said Comfort as she watched him carefully hold the glass in both hands and make small, certain steps, “why don’t you use the paper cups? You… you can’t break them, and there’s so many in the dispenser.”

“I want her to have a real glass. I want her to have a real glass to drink outta, ya know, when she wakes up,” he answered. Spike had not looked to the nurse, the orderly, or even the princess as he said the words. Instead, he focused intently on making his way across the room, on not letting another glass slip through his hands.

A little rainbow fell near his shadow, marking where the brilliant light of the windows met the water in the glass. It wobbled in rhythm with the gentle toss of the water in the cup, and he smiled when he caught a glance of it out of the corner of his eye.

Paper cups do not make rainbows. He wanted her to have a rainbow.

He reached the edge of the bed, moving even slower now that he could see her there. He looked up to the nightstand. There, next to the crown, sat the pitcher he had already filled, it having survived the journey that the last cup had not.

“Spike?” asked Celestia, her voice rising above the room for the first time since she’d discovered the truth. “Why not simply bring the cup over to the side of the bed empty, and then fill it with the pitcher? Would that not be simpler?”

“Yeah,” he answered. He had already answered this question, answered it a half-dozen times over the last week… the last week and four days, if the truth were told. “Yeah, it would be easier, but then she’d have to wait for me to pour it... when she wakes up. She’s gonna be really, really thirsty when she wakes up, and I don’t want her to wait for me to hafta pour it, ya know?”

He placed the glass on the nightstand, gently tugging it to the side so that it caught the light and cast a rainbow on the wall.

“I-I just want her to have…”

His eyes fell back upon the bed, and for the thousandth time over the last two weeks he went silent as he looked upon her face.

Her head rested upon the soft white pillow, her mane falling gently behind her. Two strands of her hair fell forward across her face, slowly moving in the almost imperceptible breaths of the alicorn.

Spike hopped up on the edge of the bed, and with a gentle touch he placed the loose strands back behind her ear. He looked down to see her body lifting and falling in tiny movements beneath the crisp, clean bed sheets.

There, upon that hospital bed, lay Procer Twilight Sparkle Harmonia, the physical embodiment of the magic of friendship, its living avatar in the world.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn whom arose from among the ponies, long loved by many, her grace given form.

There lay Twilight Sparkle, the hero of Equestria, and the Principal of the Elements of Harmony.

There lay Twilight, the librarian and avid reader who had raised him, and who he sometimes had to snap out of fits of adorable insanity. Twilight, who he knew still sometimes liked to sleep with her Smarty Pants doll.

There lay his Twi.

Twilight lay there, unmoving, just as she had for the longest time. For the longest, longest time. He slid back off the bed. He laid his head in his arms, just staring up to her. Just staring at Twilight as he had for days and days and days…

… just waiting for Twilight to wake up. Just waiting for Twilight.

Comfort looked up to see Princess Celestia motioning to her. The nurse bowed and stepped forward. To her surprise, the princess laid her head close to her ear.

“How long has he been bringing her the glasses of water like this, Comfort?” asked the princess in a whisper. As the alicorn lowered her head, the earth pony stretched up to whisper a reply.

“W-well, since they arrived, actually,” she answered. “Every hour, it seems, he brings her a new glass. He fills the pitcher and then brings over a new glass.”

Celestia sighed.

“It’s… it’s almost a coping mechanism, I think, Highness,” the nurse continued. “He doesn’t… doesn’t know what else to do for her. He’s trying to take care of…”

“She’s gonna wake up soon,” Spike said, his voice just high enough to let everyone in the room know that they’d failed to keep the topic from his ears. “Twilight’s gonna wake up soon. Real soon, and when she does she’s going to be really, really thirsty. I want her to have cold water. You know, for when she wakes up.”

He wanted her to have the water, to make sure she wasn’t thirsty. He wanted her to know that he’d been here, waiting. Her Number One Assistant, waiting, ready to give her the cold water, to brush away the strands of hair that might get in her eyes, to give her a rainbow…

He was just waiting for her to wake up, is all. He was waiting for Twilight.

“She’s gonna wake up…”

Just waiting for his Twi.

An hour passed, and he repeated the cycle once more. Before he could rest his head upon his arms once again his name floated across the room.

“Spike,” said Celestia, “will you come and sit with me?”

Spike looked to the princess of the sun, and then to the princess of harmony. Princess. He still struggled to think of Twilight that way. He wrung his hands together, and ran his hands up and down his arms.

“She is only a few steps away, Spike,” Celestia said. “Please, Spike, please come here and sit with me. It is rather lonely over here.”

It was a fib, of course, but it was a soft one, and it had been spoken just so. It spoke to that part of him that did not like to see others unhappy. The dragon made his way over to the sofa. There he leapt up and seated himself against the snow-white side of the alicorn, sinking into her withers. As he did he suddenly remembered just how ancient, and how powerful, she truly was.

A part of him wondered if Twilight was, or would, ever be like that. He wondered if he honestly could learn about her being so without hyperventilating and falling over in a pool of his own spittle, shaking and twitching as his mind tried to wrap itself around the idea.

Heh, probably not, he admitted to himself.

“Spike,” Celestia asked as she lowered one of her wings over him, “I know that it is hard to think about, but have you given any thought to my request?”

“N-no, I haven’t,” he admitted. He shifted uncomfortably at her side. Rather, truth be told, he was far too comfortable. A lingering tiredness sat behind his eyes, and the warmth of Celestia’s coat. It was kind of like when he would sit next to Twilight. She’d read to him, or they’d look through her telescope, or they’d fly a kite, or even just watch the fire. It was like that. Not as familiar, but similar. It was just… well, just not Twilight.

He felt his eyes begin to droop.

“There are not many creatures who take my requests so lightly,” said Celestia.

At once his eyes shot back open. “I... I, oh, ummm… sorry? I’m just… I’ve been busy. Busy with… stuff. Stuff here. Yeah,” he said, groping towards an answer.

Celestia sighed once more, and then lowered her head closer to his. “Spike,” she began, “of all of my little ponies, and creatures, who went to Pursopolis, there are only two left who have not given me a report of what occurred… and Twilight cannot tell me what happened to her.”

Spike shifted in his seat.

“Spike, please, you are the only one who was with Twilight when… when this occurred,” she continued, drawing her voice down, placing her head closer to his. “If I am to do anything to help her get better, I need to know what you saw. Please, Spike, I… we need to know. Will you not tell me, just as we sit here? You don’t need to write anything, we can just talk. Can you…”

“What I saw?” said Spike, interrupting the sovereign.

There was a momentary pause as the dragon fidgeted, wrapping his arms around his knees as he settled beneath Celestia’s wing.

“Please,” she asked, placing her head upon the sofa. Celestia looked up to see many emotions floating in his eyes. Pain. Fear. Uncertainty. These emotions and many more drifted there, floating in his tired features like little boats adrift in a fog. The other reports had told her much, and she guessed what sat inside of him.

The dragon wrung his hands again, closed his eyes tight, and began to speak.

Chapter 1: The Monolith

Spike had never been a huge fan of Twilight’s teleporting, especially over great distances.

Oh, sure, it was convenient for them and all, but at certain times, especially when she did it unexpectedly, it was more like being mugged than a form of transportation. To him, it felt like being thrown into a spinning bingo wheel full of angry weasels while some ponies sang barbershop music at him.

At least, that’s what he assumed it was like. He didn’t ask Pinkie about her hobbies much.

Unfortunately, he had discovered that he wasn’t always a fan of her flying either.

Twilight. Flying. That was still taking a while to get used to. His new riding position wasn’t as, well, inauspicious as it had been before. He rode much closer to her neck, trying his best to avoid the sweep of her wings. After a few botched attempts at finding a good position had left Her Highness Twilight Flopple wobbling through the air like an inebriated duck, a horrible thought had come over him… the thought that Twilight would ask him to stop riding her.

Whether she thought the better of it, or saw that he was thinking the same thing, she had not asked. That she might still have to ask him hovered above him awkwardly… much like Twilight after the third time she had dropped him.

Oh, he thought that flying with her was cool enough. He liked it when they were just out coasting around and all that. But Twilight, being Twilight, had scientifically determined that the most efficient way to travel was the combination of both.

This turned out to be flashing through the high atmosphere where there was less magica vasto to interfere with her teleportation spell, and then rocketing towards the earth with her wings.

Spike hated that last part. He hated it a whole bunch. To him, it felt like being slathered with salad dressing and then shoved down a laundry chute while fighting an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Or so he thought. Once again, Pinkie’s hobbies were her own, and he had no right to judge.

Actually, he hated the first part too. He hated all of it actually. He especially hated that they had to do it more and more as Twilight’s duties as an alicorn princess only seemed to grow. Twilight. Alicorn. Princess. He wondered if he would ever get used to it.

He wondered if he would ever stop hating it.

Unfortunately, Spike had been reminded of his dislike of this hybrid transportation combo of doomy-dooms all too recently.

“Not a fan, Twi! Not a fan, not a fan, not a fan!” he had cried as they streaked towards the ground, a single spot of lavender and purple dropping through the bright blue sky. He held tight to her neck as they dove down, his feet coming loose from his mount and trailing out behind him.

“Gah!” she choked as the dragon squeezed her neck even harder. “I’m a fan of breathing, though, Spike! Not so tight!”

“I’m sorry, Twi, what?” he somehow managed to shout through his clenched teeth. “I couldn’t hear you over the shrieking wind of perilous peril. Ya know, the one that’s all around us as we plummet toward the ground!”

“We aren’t plummeting!” she called back in an exasperated tone, her words fighting with the whistling wind for his attention. “I’ve explained it before, Spike. It’s called a ‘controlled descent’. I’m making hyper-fine motions with my wings to control pitch and yaw, and the airflow…”

“Fine!” he yelled back, clenching shut not only his teeth but his eyes as well. “Okay! You’re in a ‘controlled croissant’ and I’m plummeting!”

As she smirked at his comment, they passed through some clouds, ones that wrapped around them and clung to them, leaving them looking like they’d been rolled in vats of whipped cream and forced to run through the streets while being pursued by insurance adjusters.

They had joined Pinkie for that one. Good times.

“Actually,” she said, her voice coming alight at the opportunity to discuss scientific properties, “we’re sharing our mass at the moment. Since objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass, we both have the same inertia. Now, if I were to start braking, you would continue forwards at your own rate. However, since you’re clinging to my windpipe, we…”

“Ground, Twi!” he called, clenching the last part of his body that he had the ability to clench. “Ground, ground, ground!”

“What?” Twilight asked. She glanced down. There, filling her vision, the ancient remains of the city of Pursopolis hurriedly rose to meet them. “Oh, sorry!” she said with a sheepish smile. With a small bit of effort, Twilight Sparkle made her wings come open slowly, and with that her newfound powers of flight saw them both safely to the ground.

Oh, for Pursopolis, thy gleaming domes sitting astride the ways and streams.

Twilight’s hooves found the ruined stones of an ancient bridge. A marsh sat below the collapsed span, the former stream seeming to be choked with rushes and weeds.

Oh, for Pursopolis, eternal city of wonders.

“Wow,” Spike said, turning his eyes back and forth as he leapt from his perch upon her back. “What a dump.”

“Spike.”

Oh, for Pursopolis, her streets teeming, her larders full, her citizens shining and mirthful.

Spike and Twilight looked up and down the abandoned streets. Wind howled amid the snapped trusses and crooked frames of buildings that had not been occupied for generations.

“Hey,” Spike said, his voice only half-joking, “you didn’t ask me to come along so that I would clean all this up, did ya?”

Twilight giggled, gave him a playful nuzzle, and then lowered her haunches so that he could scramble back up to his appointed, traditional place.

“Come on,” she said, her eyes looking up and down the deserted ways, “let’s find the others.”

Together, as always, Spike and Twilight trotted along, letting her magic guide them, not letting the wind that howled through the cracked domes and empty alleys bother them as they shared their small jokes...

… not noting the thrum that had begun the second an alicorn’s hooves had touched to Pursopolis’s streets.

Oh, for Pursopolis, lost to time and a tyrant’s touch, afflicted by a bane beyond thought.

“Princess,” said a voice, “thank you so much for joining us.”

Spike looked around, wondering why Celestia and Luna were there. Once again, he looked past Twilight’s ears to see ponies bowing to her. His eyes looked up to see the tiara upon her head, the mark of her power somehow staying in place during their descent.

Twilight. Alicorn. Princess. Right. Dang, how long would it take him to get his head around that?

Not all of the ponies amidst the sea of onlookers were quite so hurried in their efforts to prostrate themselves before their newest sovereign.

“Hey there, Princess Twily!” said a very familiar voice.

“Prince Shiny!” she answered, and with that the two siblings first bowed to one another, and then nuzzled against one another. Spike couldn’t help but cover his mouth to hide his laughter. The crowd may have been bowing, but he remembered these two ennobled ponies as the brother and sister who, once upon a time, had both sat in “time out” for attempting to clean the family chariot with steel wool.

As he hopped off of Twilight, Spike felt somepony nuzzle against his back.

“Hoofbump!” called Shining Armor, and with that Spike’s fist met Shining Armor’s hoof.

“Pow, dude!” called the unicorn.

“Pow, bro!” answered Spike as they lifted away.

The Prince of the Crystal Empire smiled down at him, and as Princess Twilight Sparkle smirked and rolled her eyes, all Spike could do was smile back and be very grateful that there are some things, at least, that do not change.

Pursopolis, named for the prizes won in the great pony competitions of old, the marathons that were run from one end of ancient Equestria to the other. Back before Equestria truly was Equestria. Back when the Crystal Empire held sway here… when those ponies did not see themselves as part of the Equestrian experiment.

“We hope to begin moving in colonists by this time next year,” said the Lord Mayor, the proud pony pointing out the work that had already been accomplished. “The most basic of infrastructure has already been restored, Majesty. The sewers were in remarkably good condition, and running water has been restored to the city center.”

Spike looked up just in time to see Twilight blush. Majesty. If her blush meant anything, it meant that she wasn’t quite seeing herself in that light yet either. As the party continued their tour, Spike saw Twilight looking back to him, sharing his smile. A small motion passed between them, and at once Spike came running to her side.

It was a familiar motion, one of the many that they had become part of their silent vocabulary over their decades together. He pressed his hand to her foreleg, running it up and down, moving some of his social grace into her, giving her some of his confidence.

“My Lord Mayor,” she said, using Spike’s gift of touch, “I wonder if you’ve given any consideration as to how the city will be governed? My… errr, our sister-in-law, Cadenza Amore, your Crystal Princess, has said that she’d like for the crystal ponies to organize a participatory government, in recognition of the semi-autonomous nature of the Crystal Empire within Equestria proper.”

Yes! thought Spike as he spun around and drew his arm across his side in victory. The seven hours of practice paid off, Twi!

“We, of course, are considering all options, Majesty,” said the Lord Mayor. As the tour continued, they spoke more of how the city had been governed before Sombra’s rise. While they did, Spike tried his best to make sense of what Twilight and the Lord Mayor were saying. Spike watched all of the diligent crystal ponies at work, their forms going from earth pony to crystal and back as their attitudes changed or their work was completed. Unicorns, true earth ponies, and a pegasus or two lent a hoof… returning the city to what it had been a thousand years ago.

The talk of politics drew on and on, the terms and policies that they had been practicing in Canterlot the previous day flowing easily from Twilight’s recollection. Spike smiled. Whatever Twilight put her mind to, well, she was going to get it done.

Still, politics were politics. It soon became a droning that taxed the patience of the least mature member of the group, the one who was least suited for such complicated matters.

“Aaaagggghhhhh,” he called in a fit of frustration. “This is sooo boooorrrrinnggg!”

The entirety of the group turned to face him.

“Geez, Shining Armor,” Spike said in a judgmental tone as he placed his hands on his hips. “Impatient, much?”

“C’mon, dude,” the unicorn called as he ran his hoof through Spike’s frills. “Why wonder about stuff that’s going to happen when there’s stuff that needs doing right now? Let’s lend a hoof.”

The expressions of the party changed, understanding the wisdom in the unicorn’s words. Soon the two monarchs, the Lord Mayor and his staff, and the little dragon found themselves working to clear out what appeared to have been a central park, one filled with the twisted remains of great fountains and toppled monuments. A thousand years had passed, and the once-manicured lawns had become filled with now-ancient trees.

Talented unicorn casters carefully lifted the tall oaks, ashes, and sycamores, preserving the roots so that the trees may live and be replanted. At the same time more unicorns re-laid stonework that had toppled centuries ago, returning the paths to their prescribed courses. Strong earth ponies and crystal ponies moved soil, leveling the ground. As the afternoon rolled on, even Twilight and Spike began to feel the effects of the work, a glow of sweat hanging around the princess.

“Majesty?” came a small voice, and Spike looked up to see a crystal pony bowing to Twilight. Bowing. To Twilight. He wondered if he would ever get used to that.

“Yes?” answered Twilight. “What can I do for you… ummm…”

“Hyacinth, Majesty,” answered the crystal pony. “Oh, I… we, that is, just wanted to thank you for coming today. It... it really shows that we are part of Equestria. Thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome!” Twilight said with a giggle. “I’m very glad to help! You’ve been through so much, and your Crystal Princess, Princess Cadence, is of course so very important to me. I can’t imagine what it was like for her, losing you all… having to go through lifetime after lifetime hoping this would be the one where she gets to see you again…”

The faces of the crystal ponies fell into a sea of unhappy recollection.

“When… when Sombra forced us to march away from here in chains, to come to the seat of the Crystal Empire as his slaves, we wondered if we’d ever see our home again,” Hyacinth continued. “None of us expected to see it like this… not a thousand years later. Oh my, a thousand years…”

Twilight nuzzled Spike, asking him to move. She stood from where they had been resting and placed her hoof upon the crystal pony. Spike smiled as her voice lifted over the assembled crystal ponies, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi.

“You have suffered many things,” she said, her soft smile falling around them as she passed through the crowd. Spike watched her go, his arms folded in front of him in happy contemplation of his best friend.

“You have suffered slavery under a tyrant, and you’ve suffered loss and pain. Well, that’s all over. That has ended. All of Equestria lifts you up, and together we’ll rebuild the empire one city at a time. The darkness has passed, and a bright, shining future is out there waiting for all of us. Okay?”

The cheers of the crystal ponies erupted around the nascent park, and as the assembly returned to their work a grinning Twilight Sparkle returned to Spike’s side.

“Phew!” she breathed, lowering her head across his shoulder. “How was that? How’d I do?”

“Heh,” Spike said, patting the side of her head. “Good job! Ya sound like Princess Celestia when ya talk like that, Twi!”

Twilight gave a small chuckle. “She’s been a good teacher, but she has a few thousand years on me…”

Twilight nuzzled him, and Spike returned the gesture. As Twilight’s head lifted from his, a thought went through him, giving him pause. “Hey, Twi?” he began to ask. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They... they’ve lived for a long, long time. Does, does that mean that you…”

“Excuse me, Majesty,” interrupted the Lord Mayor. “I beg forgiveness for the intrusion, but we’ve just finished the restoration of the Cydorenne Fountain, and we’d like to offer the hero of the Crystal Empire the honor of placing the last element and dedicating the fountain.”

“Oh, oh, Twi,” Spike said, hopping up and down in front of her. “Here, lemme fix your mane before ya dedicate it.”

Twilight giggled, and Spike looked up to see the crystal ponies looking at him. “I’m pretty sure that he meant you, Spike!” she said with a wide smile.

“Me?” he asked in a surprised tone, pointing to himself.

“You’re the one with the window in Canterlot, my Number One Assistant,” she said, lowering her haunches so that he could scramble up. It wasn’t as easy as it had been. Twilight was growing into her new form, like Luna had. He tried not to think about whether or not the day may come when he couldn’t get up anymore.

He didn’t have long to ponder the question. Soon Twilight was carrying him forward into the crowd, and the few dozen crystal ponies clopped their hooves on the restored stonework.

Spike’s chest puffed up, and he stood upon his princess proudly, bowing and waving to the assembly. “Thank you, thank you! Glad to be here! Glad that I could help save you all from that scary unicorn guy. No, thank you, it was nothing, really, glad to help out! I tripped halfway down, if we’re being honest…”

Twilight chuckled, and with her magic she placed him high atop the fountain. “Wow! Big fountain!” he said, looking down to the crowd below. “So, ummm, what was it originally dedicated for?”

The Lord Mayor pranced across the dry bed of the pond, and then rose up on his hind legs to whisper into the dragon’s ear. As he did, Spike’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, wow, really?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal nowadays… or at least really, really expensive.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow, smiled, and then called to her little dragon. “Speech!” she called. “Speech!”

“Speech!” repeated the crystal ponies, pounding their hooves to the ground.

“Oh, okay, ummm… okay,” Spike called back from atop the fountain, dancing in place a little as he tried to think of the words. “I was hatched from a cute little green and purple egg. Well, ummm, really, when Twilight hatched me my egg was lavender and purple ‘cause it was under stress from bein’ moved, but most of the time it was green and purple…”

“Shorter speech!” called Shining Armor, eliciting a laugh from the audience.

Spike blushed brightly, grinning in needless embarrassment. He reached down and picked up a decorative bronze spear, the last missing element. Stretching high he began to insert it amid the group of ponies atop the fountain.

“In the name of friendship, and harmony, and cheer, and great stuff like that, I, Spike the Dragon, hereby…”

There was a metallic twang, and one of the figures atop the fountain fell over…

… landing directly on Spike’s tail.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Get it off, get it off, get it off!” he yelped as he danced in place. Twilight immediately bit her lower lip in worry, lifting the figure off of the spade of his tail with her magic. Unfortunately, Spike, in his surprise and hurt, had tossed the decorative spear.

It landed between the hooves of the crystal pony who had been preparing the tap to start the fountain. As she reared back in alarm, she knocked it wide open.

Spike looked at his throbbing tail. As he placed it in his mouth there was a rumble, and at once the fountain roared to life…

… covering him in a thousand years’ worth of brackish, putrid waters.

A disgruntled growl arose from where Spike sat, the white of his eyes shining from beneath his new brown coat. At once the crystal pony went to turn the fountain off, but the long-neglected tap broke off in her hooves.

There was a deeper rumble, and Spike found himself clinging to the head of the collapsed figure, teetering over the side of the fountain.

“Really?” he cried, clutching at the statue.

At once the marble core of the fountain began to fall away, leaving Spike and the figures waving back and forth on the tall, thin, copper piping that carried the polluted waters that still gushed over him. At once Twilight, Shining Armor, and many of the other unicorns present all made a grab for him with their magic. As the spells all cascaded off of one another it sent the dragon, the statues, and the pipe swaying and spinning madly, careening over the heads of the assembled ponies.

“Really?!” he cried once more, the word filled with disbelief.

Soon the ancient copper pipe, unable to withstand the forces that were taxing it any more, snapped off at the base. Spike, the bronze figures, and the remains of the marble seemed to hang in the air for a moment, and then came crashing down. At once the base of the pipe shore off, exposing the frail water main beneath. Clear water erupted forth, gushing around the dragon that sat perched atop the ruins of the fountain, his arms crossed in utter disappointment, his eyes narrow and filled with disgust.

“Really?” he mouthed as the waters rushed around him, overflowing the fountain and pouring through the park, creating dirty, muddy ruts where the ponies had been working.

Twilight’s eyes lifted to him even as she took to her wings, avoiding the waters that streamed from the fountain.

Poor Spike, she thought, watching him sitting there in dejection, my poor little guy.

Nearby, some ponies and their tools were being swept away by the waters or getting lodged in the mud. With one more look to Spike she dove down to help them before all of their work was destroyed.

Spike just sat there, just letting the water cascade around him. “Really?” he said again, watching all of the ponies scatter. He looked down to see the head of the broken figurine, the one that had started the whole mess. The look on the face of the ancient bronze figure was one of startled shock, and as it rolled along in the torrent Spike spoke to it.

“Heh, I know that feel,” he said, watching it roll along. To his surprise the head flipped over the edge of the fountain. With a clang it fell out of the pond and then went rolling down the path, carried along in the muddy waters.

“I’ve got it!” Spike called, splashing through the fountain before pelting off after the dismembered head on his little legs.

“I’ve got it!” he said, following it as it bounced down the sidewalk, out of the park, and out into the streets of Pursopolis beyond.

“I-I’ve got it!” he repeated, now far out of the listening range of any of the ponies in the park. The clang of the head reverberated around the ancient stones of the city, and he followed the bizarre music it made.

“I… I, wow, maybe I don’t have it,” he said, looking up to discover that he had strayed far from the park. Above him the spires and domes of the city lifted from among their ruin. The wind whistled through the city, catching against the ruined structures and adding their tones to a symphony that seemed full of suffering and loss. “Whoa,” said Spike aloud, talking to no creature. “That’s creepy.”

He picked his way forward through the street. In its time, he realized, it must have been beautiful. Around him the roots of the trees had kicked up thousands of tiles. Now, islands of vegetation sprouted from what must have been a wide piazza, a public space filled with beautiful things.

There was a crunch, and he looked down to discover that he had just squashed something flat that had, a millennia ago, probably had been quite expensive. “Really?” he said again. He went to pick it up, to apologize to it somehow, when a metallic clang rang out around him.

He dove for the cover of the shrubs.

After a while the sound rose again, and he recognized it as the brassy note of the bronze head he’d been chasing. Spike carefully lifted himself from the bushes, and then cautiously made his way down the length of the courtyard. As he went he found himself sucking on the spade of his tail. Part of this, he realized, was to end the throbbing that still coursed through it… and another part was for the comfort that it brought.

He turned a corner, and there amidst the clutter and growth of millennia was something that was not supposed to be there.

The head whirled around, spinning in place. Spike took little steps, concentrating on what loomed above him. It was a great metal gate, as tall as any structure in the city… but wrong. It was wrong. He couldn’t think of any other word to describe it.

“Whoa,” he breathed, taking a few steps forward. As he did he knew his suspicion was more and more true. Whatever this was, it did not belong here. It was unlike any other building in the city. It was harsh, monolithic. It did not have the same soft curves of the domes, or the angular spires of the crystalline towers.

No, no… this thing, this gate and the structure behind it, they didn’t belong here. They appeared to have been dropped here, wedged into the street that lead to the courtyard.

It was too clean. It had not aged.

Spike scratched his head. What in the wide, wide world was going on? What was up with this thing?

He looked down to find the head still spinning, just whipping around in place, nearly perfectly silent as it rotated. “Okay, wow, yeah, this is gettin’ creepy,” he said as he reached down to lift it up.

At once the head stopped spinning. It did not slowly end its revolutions, or go rocking across the ancient tiles. No, it stopped in place… the startled, horrified expression on the head staring straight back up into Spike’s face.

“Agh!” cried Spike, falling on his bottom. He stared at it for a moment, and then tried to scamper away.

As he tried to move, something gathered around him. It was deep magic, powerful magic, and it rippled around him and whispered through him.

There was a thrum, another wave of deep magic…

… and the gates bounced on their hinges. As they did a slow moan escaped from within, as though some nameless power were reaching for him.

“Twilight!” Spike called, jumping to his feet. As he did the bronze head began spinning again, whirling around and around in place. “Twilight!” Spike called again, and then he pelted off, calling her name as he ran around the corner and down the ancient courtyard beyond, his voice echoing off the ancient buildings.

The head spun, whirring around and around silently as it sat under the gaze of the gate. There was a thrum, a pulse of deep magic, and then it came to a stop once more.

The eyes of the statue looked up to the gate, locked in their unending, eternal shock. So they stayed as more thrums fell over them, and the monolith held dominion over all that fell in the shadow of its towering reach.

Chapter 2: Places We Don't Want to Go

Chapter 2: Places We Don’t Want to Go

Long ago, a young mare had sat shaking by the side of a well.

Long ago, hands that had promised to keep her safe, had promised to watch over her, drew through her mane.

The young mare sat there, waiting, as the woman opened and closed the books, as the woman said words that the mare did not understand. The filly trembled and shook, the cold waters running down her coat, dripping out of her mane and running the length of her body.

The well was dark and deep, and the room was made of stone. The young mare once more gave a shake, shuddering with the cold, and the woman cooed at her. Taking something in her hands, the woman ran it up and down the pony, her crooked, aged fingers wiping the water from the shaking, trembling body. The towel was warm and dry, and it did much to end the chill that sat in the young mare.

The woman drew the towel along the young mare, but there was no comfort in her touch.

Long ago, a young mare sat in the cold stone room beside the well, and soon the towel had been taken from her.

Long ago, the woman had pointed to the well, and the young mare shook from the fear and the chill.

Comfort did her best not to eavesdrop on Spike and Celestia as they sat upon the couch. The earth pony instead tried to focus on her work. Princess Twilight Sparkle would need a moisturizer compress across her eyes before too long, substituting for the natural tearing that was absent in her current state.

The nurse tried not to listen in on Spike as he recounted what had happened in the faraway city. It was useless though, and Comfort’s eyes and ears kept wandering to where Celestia’s white wing lay across the dragon whelp.

Spike’s voice was tired, and he was fighting not to show it. Comfort sighed as she heard it, and she tread lightly on her hooves, trying not to betray her eavesdropping. Something else caught in the nurse’s ears though, something other than the weariness that sat in the child.

“Spike,” said Celestia, “I know it must be hard for you, but I need to know all that you can tell me.”

Spike blinked. As he did, he fought to hide the tiredness that not only hung in his breath, but which also sat behind his eyes. He blinked some more, and his eyes settled on the dearly familiar form upon the bed.

He just wanted her to wake up. He just wanted to see her eyes.

He felt the warm touch of Celestia’s nuzzle, the heat of her nose being pressed into him, encouraging him to speak. Across the room, the nurse did her best to pretend that she wasn’t listening and Spike continued.

“A-after… after I found my way back to the park,” he explained, “I... I tried my best to c-calmly tell them what I saw…”

“Door! Head! Spin! Magic! Moan! Gate!” the dragon cried, gesticulating wildly as they raced along the remains of the courtyard.

“Yes, Spike,” Twilight said with a concerned groan. “You’ve been going on like that since you came running back to the park! What are you talking… about…”

Twilight skidded to a halt so quickly that Spike bumped into the back of her head. Around them the other ponies came to a stop as well, their hooves slowing as they looked upon the structure that loomed before them.

The ponies stood there in the ancient streets, the wind singing out in mournful tones as it whistled through the remains of the buildings. The ponies stared at the monolith with unease, observing the gated structure that seemed planted there at the vestibule at the end of the courtyard.

It seemed ill. It seemed lopsided and unsteady. Yet, at the same time, there was a power in it. It was a deep power, one that hovered around the gates of the structure with a foreboding aura.

It should not have been there. It was as different from the rest of the buildings nearby as the sun from the moon, and it seemed to be dropped there, inflicted upon the courtyard rather than built as part of it.

Twilight felt Spike’s familiar touch as he wrapped himself around her foreleg, and in their silent language the two gave each other strength. She looked down at him with a reassuring smile, and then she turned to one of the ponies that stood nearby.

“Lord Mayor,” she asked, “w-what is this structure?”

The crystal pony’s mouth hung open, and he slowly shook his head from side to side.

“I… I have no memory of this, Majesty,” said the mayor. His eyes flew around to the other crystal ponies that stood nearby. Twilight watched as each answered his gaze. In each of their eyes sat the same confusion, and worry, that the mayor wore.

“No, Majesty,” he finally answered. “I... I don’t believe that any of us have seen it before. It certainly wasn’t here when we were lead off to become… become slaves…”

Twilight let the words hang there, and she pondered for a moment, letting Spike rub her foreleg in support and to ease the little dragon’s worry. As she did, she lifted the other hoof to her mouth and let out a contemplative hum. Remembrances and questions floated on the breezes that drifted through the ruins, flitting past the princess and her dragon. The moaning structures floated their music over them, adding to the sense of unease that hung there.

“Hmmm,” she said again. After a moment, a look of insight flashed across her face. “Well, logically,” said Twilight as she raised her hoof as she typically did when imparting factual information, “if none of you remember it, then it must have been brought here after you… well, were taken away.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. Spike jumped a little as her “professor mode” fell away and was replaced with a look of surprise and horror.

“Then the only pony who could have placed it here,” she said in a small voice, “was Sombra.”

The assembly went quiet. Each set of eyes turned back to the gates. Nervous noises arose from the crowd, and anxious hooves sounded out across the ancient tiles of the courtyard.

At once there was a deep thrumming, and something unseen seemed to move around the ponies… a deep magic, a terrible one.

The gates moved on their hinges.

A cry of alarm went up from somepony, and the entire assembly took a few steps backwards, their hooves sliding around beneath them or kicking up more of the ancient tiles. Spike felt Twilight’s hooves fall around him, moving him inside the frame of her legs, pressing him closer to her body.

Spike looked up to find her gazing down at him with concern. He nodded to her, hiding his own fear, and her smile showed him that she understood. He kept watching Twilight as she looked to the others, gathering up the fear and desperation that sat in the faces of the ponies, emotions that the name of the tyrant alone could reveal in them.

Spike ran his hand across her leg, and she pulled him in tighter, accepting his offer of comfort. The ponies looked on as their princess began to contemplate all that swirled around this unwelcome discovery.

The gate groaned once more, as though reveling in their fear, and she gathered him even closer.

A short while later, Princess Twilight Sparkle walked back and forth in front of the Lord Mayor, Spike, Shining Armor, and a gathering of the various unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, and crystal ponies. All eyes were on her as she paced back and forth, their heads swinging side to side as the princess scrunched up her face and thought… and thought, and thought.

“Okay,” Twilight said as she came to a halt, “if we’re going to figure out what this thing is, and why Sombra dumped it here, we’re gonna have to think like Sombra.”

The ponies looked to one another in confusion. “Think… think like Sombra, Twily?” asked Shining Armor. “How… wow, how would we…”

“Rawwwrrrroowwww,” came a deep growl from their midst. The ponies looked down to discover Spike with one of his fingers held out upon his head. The little dragon squinted his eyes and began to trundle around before them.

“Crrryyysssstttaaallsss,” Spike grumbled, approximating the rumbling voice of the vanquished unicorn. “Crrrryyyyyysssssstaalllllllls,” he continued, marching back and forth, grins growing on the face of ponies as they watched his startlingly accurate impression. “Stttaaaiiiirrrrrrs, wavvvy eyeshadowwwww, and extra large horn as commmpennnssatttion for…”

“Spike!” interrupted Twilight, glowering down at him.

“… not having wings like an alicorn?” Spike said, some hurt showing in his voice. “What? What’s wrong, Twi?”

Twilight blushed deeply.

“No, Twily, that’s it!” exclaimed Shining Armor.

Spike arched his eyebrow, and Twilight did the same. In an instant a cynical look shot between them, the princess and the dragon sharing some doubt, and then they looked back at the stallion.

“What?” they asked in unison.

“Lord Mayor,” Shining Armor asked as he turned to the crystal pony, “what was Pursopolis’s main purpose… ya know, what was the city known for?”

“W-we were a major trading post along the Inner Gateway, the only major line of trade between the central part of Equestria and the seat of the Crystal Empire and the peoples who lived to the northeast. You’d have to use the Northeastern Road along the sea, otherwise,” the mayor said, pride falling into his voice as he went on. “Actually, we’re hoping to start that all up again! We’ve got sponsors all lined up, and we’re recruiting celebrity endor…”

“Right, okay,” said Shining Armor, cutting off the mayor as he rushed to capture the thought that was running around in his head. “So, we know that Sombra brought all of the crystal ponies back to the seat of the empire, where the palace is. That means that he didn’t have any ponies here to defend this city. He still wanted the money and power that came from having it though, right?”

“Well, yes,” answered the mayor. “We heard rumors that he had some mercenaries… and even a few crystal ponies that were loyal to him, but they were only ever very few in number.”

“Ohhh,” said Twilight, realization growing in her voice. “So, to defend his claim over this city, and protect the wealth he gathered here, he built this thing as compensation—”

Spike crossed his arms and looked up to Twilight with a smirk. She answered it with one of her own as she completed her thought.

“—for not having a large standing army.”

“So,” said Shining Armor as he stepped forward, the tactical part of him coming to the fore, the guardpony captain inside of him coming awake, “whatever is behind that gate, he meant it to keep guard over Pursopolis.”

Twilight turned, a deep seriousness coming over her features. “That means that whatever is behind that gate… is a weapon.”

“Right,” said Spike, stepping up between them, forcing himself into a heroic pose of certainty to match the brother and sister as they stared down the deep magic that hovered around the monolith. “A weapon,” he said, holding his pose. “So… ummm, what does that mean?”

“It can only mean one thing, Spike,” Twilight answered, her face becoming even more deathly serious.

“Right!” Spike answered, trying to contort his face to match her graven solemnity. After a moment his jaw cramped, and as he massaged it he turned to her and said, “So, what is that, Twi?”

“That I get to study it!” she said, bouncing into a happy, jubilant pose that only the idea of intellectual pursuits could bring to the features of the alicorn.

“Ughhh,” moaned Spike, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Right. I’ll find some notebooks and quills.”

Minutes passed. As they loaded Princess Twilight Sparkle with her gear of scholarly exploration, two creatures, perhaps two of the dearest to her in the world, tried to talk her into letting them come along.

“I mean, it could be dangerous,” Shining Armor said as he levitated the parchment and quills into the borrowed saddlebags.

“… and don’t teleport where you can’t see. Don’t try to fly in a narrow space,” Spike said, continuing a litany of warnings as he slipped beneath her to tighten the straps. “And, oh, oh, don’t talk to any strangers…”

“I’ll be okay, you two!” she said with a giggle. “I’m the only one here who is as powerful as Sombra was, so I have to go alone. Besides, whatever is in there was meant to fight an army, so one pony probably won’t even attract any attention. I mean, well, it hasn’t done anything to anypony yet. We don’t want to trigger anything either. Wow, huh, the last thing I need to do is try to clean up if you’re all sent flying off to the Badlands like the changelings.”

“Humph,” snorted Shining Armor, a deep growl developing in his voice. “I wouldn’t mind. I still wanna have a talk with that queen of theirs.”

“Just… just be safe, Twi,” Spike said, running his hand up and down her leg.

“I’ll be safe, Spike,” she said. She lowered her head, and Spike raised himself up on his tiptoes to receive her nuzzle. He found himself leaning into it deeper, running his face to hers for an extra moment, something wanting to communicate itself… a sense of unease wishing to make itself known.

“Step back here with me, bro,” Shining Armor said, lifting Spike onto his back with his magic.

They took a few steps back, and both of the males watched as Twilight looked the arches of the structure up and down. Spike followed her eyes, guessing what she was looking for. “Aha!” lifted Twilight’s voice, and he knew what she had found.

There, near the center of the keystone, was an abscess. “That’s just like the one she found over the door in the magic stairwell,” he said, leaning down and speaking into Shining’s ear. “Ya know, the one that showed off her fear of failing Celestia, of failing the ponies.”

“Hmmm,” said Shining, tilting his head to listen to the dragon while at the same time watching his younger sister.

“Ya know,” Spike continued, pointing to himself with a certain amount of smugness, “the one I saved her from!”

Shining smiled up to the little dragon. He had been about to mention that he remembered Twilight telling him that the door had made a certain prideful dragon reveal his worst fear too, one that made him cry and that only a loving hug and nuzzle could make better. The words died on his lips as a green flash of light lifted around them, and the magica vasto of a potent dark magic lifted from the alicorn.

Spike looked away, lowering his head to interpose Shining Armour’s body between him and the scene, shielding his eyes and clinging to the back of Shining’s neck. He didn’t like seeing Twilight use dark magic. It seemed unnatural. It seemed wrong and bad and, and… it didn’t seem like Twilight.

It just didn’t seem like Twilight.

A great groan ripped out over the courtyard, one that made the dragon grip even harder upon the unicorn stallion. “Spike!” Shining gasped. “Can’t breathe, bro, can’t breathe!”

The gates began to swing open, the black and green of dark magic lifting around them. The shriek of the ancient hinges sounded out once more, a high squeal that caused all gathered in the monolith’s shadow to cover their ears. It echoed through the city streets, and it had force and power behind it. There was a cry of alarm, and to their right, one of the ancient domes of the city came tumbling down, sending dust over the ponies standing in the courtyard.

After a few moments of coughing and wheezing, the ponies looked up to see the gates wide open, a dark expanse standing there before their princess.

Twilight Sparkle shifted back and forth, as though making the saddlebags settle upon her shoulders and withers. A pale purple light suddenly broadcast itself, emitting from her horn.

“Twi?” Spike called. “Be careful, okay?”

She turned back to them, and a smile settled over her face as she lifted her hoof to wave. Spike waved back. He kept waving as she turned around and began to walk forward. He kept waving as her purple light became a ball around her, one that highlighted her body and became smaller and smaller as she stepped forward.

He kept waving until she disappeared, finally consumed in the dark, and then kept waving for a few moments after. Eventually his hand fell against his side, and the little dragon said nothing.

Silence held sway around the group of ponies. Soon they began milling about, making small talk and discussing things of little note. Shining Armor felt Spike move oddly upon his back. He realized that the dragon’s hands were now on his stomach, as though he had a tummy ache. A long sigh escaped from Spike, and Shining Armor could feel the dragon’s eyes upon the distant gate.

“So, Spike,” Shining Armor said, lifting his head so that he could look back at the little drake, “tell me about Flash Sentry! Is it true what the rumors say?”

Shining Armor chuckled to himself, dropping his head as hilarious images of Twilight dancing around with little hearts above her head went through his mind.

“Does Twily really have a thing for him? How serious is it, bro?”

Shining Armor chuckled some more. His little sister... finally having a special somepony! He lifted his head. “I don’t know much about him, never served with him or anything, but he’d better be a great colt, a friggin’ amazing colt, if he wants to try to get past us, right? Ain’t that right? Spike?”

Shining startled in place as he looked at Spike, the stallion jumping so noticeably that the little whelp seemed to lift off of the stallion’s back.

“Spike...” Shining breathed.

Spike pressed the tips of his claws to those of his opposite hand in slow motion, dancing them together as an expression went across his face that Shining Armor could not name but did not like. He did not like it at all.

“ I... I don’t,” Spike stammered, and then quickly looked away. “C-can we talk about something else, please?”

“Spike, buddy?” Shining said, turning his body and dropping his tone, trying to catch Spike’s gaze. “Buddy, what’s wrong? You can talk to...”

No sooner had he begun to speak than a cry of alarm came from the gate…

… and soon Twilight came trotting back out, a large sheepish grin across her face.

The entire assembly looked on in surprise as she giggled, grinned wider with a huge blush, and trotted up to the side of her brother.

“You know,” she said, blushing even brighter and wiping a few cobwebs from her mane with her magic, “I think I’d like for Spike to come along after all. You know, it could be a great learning experience for him! And, yeah… c’mon, Spike!”

Although the others looked dubious, Spike only had to share a single glance between himself and Shining Armor, and then he leapt to Twilight’s back.

Spike kept his mouth shut as the princess looked at them all with a big blush. In a moment they were once more walking towards the monolith.

Shining Armor watched them go, more questions than answers presented to him by his sibling... his siblings, in fact, of a kind.

“Wow,” said Spike, looking up to the arches as Twilight and he passed beneath the gate, noticing how they towered high above them.

His eyes fell down to the ground for a moment, and as they did he gave a yelp and clung tighter to Twilight.

The head of the statue lay there on the ground, the very same one that had led him to discover the gate. The endless look of shock upon its face met him, staring up to him, warning him against some unseen threat.

“You okay?” Twilight asked as she looked over her shoulder. Her light enveloped them, illuminating the inside of the structure.

As it did, he suddenly felt much better.

“Yeah. Heh, just saw an old friend,” he said, gesturing with his thumb. He looked down, and a scowl fell across his face as he lifted some more cobwebs out of her mane.

“So, Twi,” he said, dropping the cobwebs off of her, fighting them as they stuck to his own scales, “an educational experience, huh? Really, why did ya come back for me?”

“Oh, you know, it was just…” she began, her voice trailing off as they made their way deeper into the monolith, her last word fading away before it reached his ears.

“Twi?” he asked, looking down at her suspiciously.

Twilight sighed, and once more repeated the word.

“Snakes,” she whimpered.

“Snakes?” he replied.

“Snakes,” she whined. In an instant she felt the comforting touch of his clawed hands behind her ears, patting her with a reassuring caress.

“It’s okay, Twi, I know ya hate snakes,” he said, stroking her mane. “I’ll take care of ‘em for ya… tough scales and stuff.”

“Thank you, Spike,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “I can always count on my Number One Assistant. Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?”

“That’s what I’m here for, sister!”

Soon they had reached what Spike had guessed was the rear wall of the monolith. The air hung deathly still around them, and no matter how hard he tried, Spike could not see how high overhead the roof of the structure hung.

Twilight let out a low moan, and then levitated him off of her back and placed him on the floor.

“They were just small ones,” she said, dancing on her hooves. “I... I wouldn’t want you to try to scare away big ones… but, but they were snakes!”

Spike smiled up to her. He stretched, smiled again, and then let a small stream of flame escape his lips.

“Careful!” Twilight called, her voice filled with worry. “If they move or look too big or are poisonous or, or…”

“Twi,” he said in a self-assured tone, “it’s no biggie. Worse comes to worse I’ll just blink the inner eyelids and slip the old forked tongue, reptile to reptile and all that stuff. Well, I’m kinda a reptile, sorta.”

“Just be careful!” said the princess, the highly powerful alicorn, as she danced her hooves once again and squealed like a filly. “Gah! I hate snakes!”

Spike chuckled, lit a small flame that lingered upon his lips, and then walked forward into the dark.

In a moment he came back out, smiling at her broadly.

“What?” she said, looking back at him with probing eyes. “Are they gone?”

“You were scared of the snakes, but you must have scared ‘em pretty bad too, Twi,” he said with a smirk. “They are absolutely petrified!”

“What?” she asked flatly, realizing the context of his rather old joke.

He waved her forward, and there in the darkness his flame and her light illuminated two slim vipers, ones that reared up from the floor as perfectly carved statues. In a moment she realized that they were hoofrails, guarding the entrance to a stairwell that sat between them.

“Ugh!” she moaned as she placed her hoof over her eyes.

“Heh, it’s okay, Twi,” he said, stepping towards her. Once more the comforting touch of her little dragon fell across her foreleg. “I won’t tell anypony.”

She removed her hoof from her face and found herself looking down into his emerald eyes. “Thank you, Spike,” she said, smiling over him before pulling him into a hug.

“D-do ya want me to go back,” he asked from within her embrace, “or do you want me to go with ya, Twi?” The inflection and tremble of his voice told her very clearly which of the two he preferred, and so Twilight Sparkle placed her nose to his, and with a gentle nuzzle and a giggle let him know where he belonged.

“Well, I’d like you to come with me, Spike,” she said, once more settling her magic over him. As he found his place upon her back she smiled up to him, fluffed her wings, and then finished her thought. “Who knows how many more statues I’ll need to be protected from, hmmm?”

Spike laughed. Twilight’s steps sounded out through the dark until the light grew brighter upon her horn. As it did, the dark stairwell seemed to push back, hiding whatever secret it possessed jealously. It was deep, foreboding, and black. It was a broad space, one that challenged them with its presence.

A deep thrum arose from it, as though answering their fear. As Spike leaned deeper upon her neck, Twilight gulped silently.

“C-c’mon, Twi,” he said, “you can do it.”

He stroked her mane once more.

“A-and… and whatever is down there, I’m here tah protect ya!” he said, painting more resolve into his voice. “Ya know, whatever kinda stone it’s made out of!”

Twilight’s single laugh exploded around the dark chamber, ending whatever curse had seemed to settle over them. “Well then, mighty protector,” she said sardonically, rolling her eyes, “let’s go!”

“Heh, that was pretty good, huh?” he said, laughing at his joke. “I’ll protect you no matter what kind of stone it’s made of! I gotta write this stuff down!”

With that they passed between the two toothless, immobile vipers. As Twilight’s hooves touched the stairs, she paused only momentarily, feeling the ripples of deep magic growing around her.

Whatever reluctance she may have felt washed away as she listened to the chuckling dragon that sat upon her back, and with yet another roll of her eyes, she and her companion descended into the deep reaches of the stairwell.

Soon, only the fading light of her horn loitered around where they had disappeared down the stairs. Before long, darkness filled the space again, and the sound of the dragon’s chuckling drifted away.

Only the words of Spike’s promise to protect her from whatever may be below, whatever it might be made of, seemed to remain, as though carved upon the very stones of the chamber.

As the light faded away it caught among the carved vipers, illuminating them as it fell away, and Spike’s promise became a hiss that hung around them as they slipped into darkness once more.

Chapter 3: The Chamber

Chapter 3: The Chamber

Twilight’s magic hung tightly around the pair, wrapping them in a ball of light as she picked her way down the stairs.

Down and down they went, making a tight circle as they dove down into the depths beneath the monolith.

Down, down the stairs they went.

Down, down, down…

… and down, and down…

… and down.

“Ugggghhhh!” cried Spike, sprawling himself out across her back, more than a little impatience showing in his voice. “Seriously! What was with Sombra and stairs?!”

Twilight’s giggle echoed around them as they continued to cautiously make their way down the steps. The sound made Spike smile, and it brought him a sense of certainty even as they descended along what could only be further evidence of the defeated unicorn’s affinity for stairwells.

“So, ummm, Twi, why don’t ya just use your fancy gravity spell, the one you used at the palace? That’d be a lot quicker, wouldn’t it?” Spike asked as he leaned forward once again, resting his body against the back of her neck.

“Well,” she said, “pretty much for the same reason I’m not flying down…”

“Oh, ummm, why is that, Twi?”

“Uncontrolled spiral into darkness followed by a confrontation with an unknown, infernal creation, one probably developed and deployed by a vindictive tyrant,” she said in a single breath.

“Oh, yeah!” he said. “That!”

Twilight chuckled, and as she did he leaned against her neck. The whelp looked up past her ears, and his familiar perspective of seeing the world through the frame of Twilight’s mane and horn met him once more.

The radiance of her magic caught the alabaster core of the shaft of the stairwell on his left, her light shining upon it dimly as they made their continual downward spiral.

On his right, the light fell down into what seemed an unending, consuming darkness.

He leaned a little closer to her, letting his face rest across the back of her neck. He hummed a little, and let her familiar feel and scent push away any thoughts that may have slipped into his mind about what may be out there, staring back at them through the darkness.

Spike tried to keep a count of all the steps Twilight was taking, but as her light hoof falls clattered down the steps he struggled to stay awake. As his count reached into the hundreds he found himself simply lying closer to her mane and his thoughts drifting as they slowly spiraled down into the dark. Soon he lost track of the numbers, and he found himself beginning to slumber.

It was a shallow slumber, one that was interrupted over and over when Twilight’s body shifted in unexpected ways. The turn of her head as she peered into the surrounding blackness, a small startle as though she’d thought she had seen something move in the dark, these all woke the dragon, and each in turn added to the unease that hung over them.

He laid his head once more and attempted to find some rest, but the nervous flutter of Twilight’s wings caught his attention.

Twilight. Wings. He wondered if he’d ever get used to the idea. He wondered why he should have to.

At once there was the clatter of hooves, and Twilight stumbled. Spike bolted in place and then wrapped his arms tighter around her neck, clenching his teeth in preparation for a tumble down the stairs.

“Wah!” Twilight squeaked, spinning about. “Gah! Breathe! Neck! Spike!”

“Wha-what?” he answered, opening one eye as he released his firm grip.

“Spike, whew, I think we’re here,” she said as she caught her breath, spinning about in the darkness. Behind them the white core of the stairwell hovered in the darkness like a tall, ascending ghost.

“Where… wow, Twi, where’s here?” Spike asked. He stood upon her back and tried to peer around her head. She moved to give him a view. He moved clockwise, and she in the opposite direction entirely, properly and unintentionally obscuring one another’s view.

The two smirked at one another in the darkness, the whites of their teeth and eyes standing out oddly against the darker shades of their bodies, and then turned as one towards the distance.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then blinked again. As he did a sliver of something caught his eye. He blinked once, twice, and then peered into the distance again.

A thin beam of green light stood out against the horizon, fine tendrils of it lifting into the high places of the chamber before disappearing into the darkness.

The thrum, the very same one that had scared him back in the streets above, lifted around them. Here below, though, it reverberated around them, echoing around within the darkness. Spike felt Twilight’s coat stand up beneath him, and her wings fluffed again.

“We’re… we’re here, huh?” he asked, lowering himself so that only the emerald of his eyes peeked out from behind her mane.

“I… I guess so,” she said. Twilight gulped slightly, and then took a hesitant step forward.

The thrumming arose once more, and as it did Twilight went still. The line of green wavered, as though it was searching for something, and it seemed as though magica vasto was lifting higher on an unseen wind.

Spike could feel the wince go across her face. He gave her a quick scratch behind her ear before leaping off of her. Having found the smooth, cold stones of the chamber’s floor, he placed his hand upon her foreleg, once more lending her the comfort of his touch, and finding it there for himself.

She smiled a worried smile for him, and he returned it. Together they walked forward, their small steps falling across remarkably smooth paving stones, ones bordered by cracks that were filled with the dust of ages.

“Oh, wow,” said Spike, falling a step behind her. Twilight became highlighted in green, the light revealing itself as arising from an abscess before them.

At once the light flickered, grew, and became waves that sent the princess to her knees, shielding her eyes with one foreleg.

Spike scampered up beside her, hiding slightly inside her frame. One more look flew between them, and then they peered down into the abyss.

“W-what is it, Twi?” Spike asked, sliding forward so that his face hung over the edge.

“I don’t know, Spike,” she answered, her voice small and uncertain. “I just don’t know.”

Silence crept over them as they peered down into the abscess in the floor. The two lay there in the dark, trying to make sense of what sat before them.

A swirl of green mist hung around the well. It gathered, dissipated, and then gathered again, seeming to be growing thicker and more tangible even as they looked upon it.

There, from the center of the space, arose an obelisk.

It emerged from the swirls of green, rising out of the abyss of mist like a tower along a forgotten shoreline, a malicious sentinel climbing out of the haze. Its surface shimmered, the onyx so perfectly black that it seemed to draw in the gloom that hovered around it, making the darkness somehow seem lighter as their eyes struggled to remember ever seeing such a shade.

Green lines of dark magic snaked across its surface like veins across diseased skin, filling in unknown words and nameless symbols that pulsed in the darkness.

And all the while, it seemed to grow stronger.

“Huh! Look at that!” called the little dragon, putting his hands on his hips. His voice wavered slightly as another thrum coasted over them, echoing away in the darkness. “Okay!” he said, spinning about in place, pointing with both hands as anxiety showed across his features. “We figured out that it’s a thing. It’s a tall, scary, black obelisk thing. Let’s go! To the stairs! Off we go! Here we go! Here we go, Twi! Let’s… Twi? Twi?”

Spike froze in the middle of his step, his hasty evacuation of the chamber interrupted by the immobility of his best friend.

He looked up to her, and the familiar expression that sat there informed him that they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“No,” he said firmly, crossing his arms in front of himself. “Oh, no, no, no, Twi. Nuh uh!”

“We’re going to study it!” she exclaimed, her wide grin showing Spike that the intellectual part of Twilight was now firmly in command, pushing aside the uncertainty that hovered around her in the darkness.

Spike moaned, his arms falling limp at his side. Twilight’s giggle fell over him as a look of unenthusiastic acceptance settled across his face.

At once there was another thrum, and the obelisk pulsed, sending waves of some unknown magic slipping through the green mists.

Spike found Twilight looking down at him. Somehow, he’d already wrapped himself around her foreleg even as she placed the other across him. They gulped in unison, and then turned their eyes from one another to look upon the obelisk.

The sense of unease that flowed from the black spire only seemed to grow stronger, as though some part of it were awakening after a long slumber, the green vines of magic snaking along its surface as it awoke in its forgotten tomb.

A few minutes later, Twilight was winging her way down into the well of the obelisk, little curls of green swirling past her wings as the magic parted in her wake. Spike looked upon it as he sat in his familiar place on her back once, wondering what type of magic would do so.

He sat back, raised a finger, and opened his mouth to ask her exactly that. As he did a wisp of the magic caught across his tongue. “Gah!” he called, as his eyes went wide and he began wiping his tongue with his fingers. “Blegh! Gak! Ugh!” he exclaimed over and over. “This stuff tastes like that bean burrito we found in the bottom of my bed!”

“You ate that?!” Twilight replied, her voice a mix of concern, incredulity, and disgust. “Spike, I told you to throw it away!”

“I did throw it away!” he answered, smacking his lips. “I think it musta crawled back or somethi… oh, jeez, I just got even more in my mouth! Gah!”

As Spike sat retching upon her back, Twilight turned her head to give him a proper admonition, as a good guardian should. This, however, was interrupted as a strand of the haze drifted across her own open mouth, catching across her taste buds.

“Blegh!” she said as her tongue flopped out of her head and her eyes rolled back. “Ugh! It tastes like I’m in a relay race and somebody just pushed a sweaty orange slice into my mouth that had been used to clean out old, slimy fish tanks!”

“I know, right?!” Spike sputtered, the dragon still furiously trying to wipe the taste from his tongue with his claws. “It’s like somepony dared me to try to whistle the Equestrian national anthem while my mouth is full of old, sticky Popsicle sticks that had fallen to the bottom of a hamster cage!”

The two stopped in the middle of their personal battles with the aftertaste to look at one another, Twilight delicately trying to wipe it against her royal boots, Spike drawing his claws across his tongue madly. Twilight smirked at him as they floated farther down through the swirls of vapor, and he answered with a smile.

“Pinkie and her hobbies!” they answered in unison.

Their few small giggles filled the otherwise silent, lonely space, and for a second it filled Spike with new confidence. Despite the wings, despite the crown and new responsibilities, this was Twilight, and they still had their own jokes that only they knew.

He just wondered how much longer he’d be able to share them.

They landed, and the dust of ages now joined them in the swirl that arose from her hooves. As Spike undid the saddlebags he tried to avoid breathing acrid fumes, and his little hacking coughs seemed to hover around the floor.

Twilight gulped.

“I-it’s okay, Twi,” he said, painting certainty into his voice. “You’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it! A-and like I said, whatever that big rocky obelisk thing is, I’ll protect ya!”

Her giggle once more filled the space, and he felt her hoof draw across his frills in the gentlest of noogies. “Heh, what can I say, Twi!” he said with a giggle of his own. “A promise is a promise! No stone thingy’s gonna sneak up on you while I’m with ya!”

“Well then, mighty Lord Protector,” Twilight said, lifting her hoof from him and letting some subtle sarcasm slip into her voice, “if you’d pick up a scroll and a quill, we’ll get to work!”

The dragon’s claws scampered across the dusty floor, kicking up little whirlwinds as he dove into the saddlebags. Twilight’s hoof came over her mouth, hiding her smile as she watched his feet kick through the air and miscellaneous items come flying out of the bag.

In a moment he had re-emerged, a scroll unfolding in his hands and a quill sitting in his mouth. As he walked to Twilight’s side, Spike took the the quill from his mouth, leaving just the faintest smudge of black ink across the edge of his lips.

Twilight slipped her hoof out of her boot. She lifted her hoof to her mouth, licked the back of it, and then much in the same way her own mother would, she wiped away the inky smear that sat upon his face. He scrunched up as she did, and then smiled as she slipped her foot back into the metal boot. With one last nod the two turned to face the obelisk.

“Alright,” Twilight said as her body gained a determined pose, “let’s study the Well out of this thing!”

“Right!” Spike answered, affecting a dramatic stance of his own, the two looking the very part of a resolute princess of Equestria and her stalwart assistant.

Another thrum rolled around them, catching them in the tangible malice that had draped itself around the obelisk. The dust beneath them rippled, moving as little waves of powder that undulated along as the mist parted and wrapped around itself. The force behind whatever fueled the obelisk shuddered across them with a strong echo, a sound like the roll of distant thunder.

The powerful alicorn and terrifying dragon looked to one another, discovering that they had once again drawn the other into a comforting embrace.

With another gulp, Twilight stood, and then made her way towards the obelisk, Spike following along behind.

They circled it, once, twice, and then a third time. Twilight released contemplative tones as they went, as they disturbed the dust there in the deep, wide well. “Hmmmm,” she’d mouth at intervals as their orbits came closer and closer to the tall spire of black. “Hmmmm,” she repeated, placing her chin in her hoof as she pondered the symbols that sat upon the obelisk…

… and then they went off circling it once again.

Spike sighed aloud, but only from the tedium of walking around and around, scroll and quill held at the ready. Even as the obelisk seemed to pulse with newer strength, he found himself, if not happy, at least calm in the familiarity.

Twilight was being smart, and he was helping her. This was good. He liked this. This is the way things were supposed to be. He was helping Twi, as always.

He didn’t understand why this had needed to change.

As they sat before the obelisk, Spike studied Twilight. Crown, boots, slightly taller every day… wings. Wings. Why? Why did she need to change? All these new responsibilities, these duties… ones that he didn’t know how to help her with, ones that she didn’t… didn’t need him for…

She didn’t need him.

Not long ago, before Princess Celestia had asked Twilight to take on this task of coming to Pursopolis, he had been talking with Fluttershy. Not unexpectedly, the conversation had turned to the adventure Twilight and Spike had gone on, the one in that other reality where all of their friends had looked like naked monkeys.

“Ummm, Spike?” the demure pegasus had asked, running her hoof up and down her other leg. “No... nopony asked you, but... ohh, well, how did turning into a puppy... how did that make you feel? I mean, we don’t see you as a pet, just so you know, I mean.”

“Naw,” he had said, waving a hand through the air, “that was fine. It worked out okay, right?”

“Oh!” Fluttershy had said, a happy smile running across her face. “Oh, I’m so glad!”

Spike’s little white lie had made the pegasus happy, and that was okay. The truth is that he hadn’t really become upset about it until he’d come home, until after everything had quieted down. He had gone upstairs and looked at his little bed, and that’s when he realized what it meant.

The truth? Turning into a dog had been a reprieve! It had been a chance for him and Twilight to have a new adventure. It had been a chance for him to be useful to her once more, to be there to stand by her and comfort her.

It had been nothing less than a shining moment for him, to really be Twilight’s Number One Assistant... even if he had been a dog.

Two nights back from their journey, and back from the Crystal Empire, he had gone to bed alone in the quiet, dark, library.

Twilight had gone off to Canterlot again, or the Empire... he’d lost track. Some royal duty that did not require his presence had called for her, and she’d left far, far too quickly. As such, he did his few chores and then went to bed at his prescribed time.

And so things had gone back to the way they had been before their adventure, after Twilight had become a princess. They’d gone back to the way that her duties were growing and changing... duties that did not require his services.

She didn’t need him.

“Bow wow,” he had said, looking at her bed as he settled into what he now realized, after all of the nights since they’d come to Ponyville, was a doggie basket.

The memory faded, and Spike felt himself clutching the scroll and quill closer to his chest, and his expression dropped. The dragon watched Twilight’s face crease as she pondered the distant spire. He gave another little sigh. He was lucky that she’d even asked him to come on this adventure. Why had things needed to change, anyway? What could a princess do that Twilight couldn’t?

Twi was already awesome.

We were happy before, he thought. She was doing great for the first time, making real friends and just out being super powerful and amazing and stuff. We were happy. Why did, why…

Princess Twilight. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it, to the way things had changed. He wondered if he’d ever, ever stop hating it.

“Hmmmm,” said Twilight, walking forward. “Hmmmm,” she repeated, and then collapsed against the obelisk, sliding down it into a seated posture as a long raspberry escaped her lips. “Nope, I have no clue what this thing is.”

Spike looked to the blank scroll and the drying quill. Oh well, so much for being helpful after all. He shrugged his shoulders, patted Twilight on the head, and then leaned back against the surface of the spire.

“I just don’t know,” she said, her voice catching a little. “I don’t recognize any of the symbols on it, and the letters are a lot older than anything I know. Really, really old! Older than Sombra by a long shot! I can’t even place the style of the obelisk. It’s like it fell from space, or simply jumped out of a fairy tale or something!”

Spike pat her on the back of her head again.

“Heh,” he chuckled, his back sliding against the dusty, dingy surface of the obelisk, his flesh crawling underneath his scales as he imagined the green pulses of magic moving beneath him. “Well, next time we go on a trip, we’ll have to bring some books about big scary stuff, huh?”

The faintest of frowns crossed her face, and she opened her mouth to begin to respond when another thrum cascaded from the surface of the obelisk. It was stronger, much stronger. Twilight bounced in place, her whole rump coming off the smooth stone floor before crashing down again. Spike was thrown off his feet, tumbling across Twilight and landing in her outstretched forelegs.

The dragon looked up to the startled alicorn. “So, we throwin’ in the towel, Twi?” he asked, watching her eyes as they slowly stopped bobbing about. “Should I send a letter to Princess Celestia?”

Spike felt a twinge of disappointment go through her. Yet another sigh escaped her, hanging heavily around the chamber.

“C’mon, Twi, it’s okay,” he said, looking up her from where he still lay. “She doesn’t expect ya to do everything by yourself. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“I suppose so…” she answered, her eyes falling down farther. Spike lifted the familiar scroll and quill, and as Twilight began to speak he copied down the words.

Twilight dictated her letter, and even though he grimaced at the defeated look that fell over her, there was a part of him that was glad. Here was Twilight, sending a letter off to her mentor, and Spike was writing it down, just as he always had.

He was being useful. She needed him.

Soon all that Spike and Twilight had seen and heard here in the dark space was captured on the scroll, and as Spike rolled out of her forelegs he wrapped it tight and sealed it shut.

He drew a deep breath, and soon he released a jet of his flame. The letter flew off into ash, finding its way through the unknown spaces of deep magic as it made its way to Canterlot.

As this flame evaporated, something caught Spike’s eye. He blinked twice, and then released another small wisp of flame. He studied the surface of the spire as the light of his flame flew across it, and his eyes went wide as he did.

He approached the obelisk, hopping up on a small ledge near its base, and raised his hand. Something was caked to the surface, like a scab across a weeping wound, covering something that wished to be revealed. He blinked again, gave a little shake to clear his perceptions, and then raised his hand once again.

There was something beneath, a graven image that his light had cast into relief.

He wiped away a layer of filth, and as it sloughed off a familiar image forced itself into his perceptions.

“Twilight!” he called, startling so badly that he nearly fell off the ledge. “Twilight!”

Twilight had been staring at the smooth stones of the floor, her mind lost in thought. Why is this thing here? she had asked herself. What is it doing? Why does it seem like it is getting stronger?

As she lifted her head these concerns flowed away, replaced with a singular sensation of shock and fear.

Sombra.

Spike’s hands flew back and forth across the engraving, and as they did the features of the tyrant came into stark repose, his malevolent smile settling over them as the green magic filled the spaces around the relief.

“Twilight, w-why is he on it? You said that it was much older than him, right?” the dragon asked, fear evident in his voice.

“I...I just don’t get it!” Twilight called, stomping her hooves into the ground, making clouds of dust rise around her. “It is older than Sombra! A lot older! Like, maybe thousands of years older! But he brought it here, and it has his image on it! Agh! Why? Why, why, why!?”

The alicorn paced back and forth. Spike watched her for a few minutes, and then with a shake he turned his head. He didn’t like seeing her this way, and at the moment there was precious little he could do. His hands continued to trace the surface of the obelisk, revealing more symbols and runes that had been covered by the detritus. As the green magic flowed across the surface it seemed to catch across his hand, making him stop to shake the numbness away, little sparkling fragments of green falling from him as he did.

“Whoa,” he breathed, and then went back to his work.

Twilight’s mind raced, trying to draw some connections. She looked up to where Spike worked his way across the ledge, freeing more of the obelisk.

So, this isn’t dark magic, she thought, washing away wafts of the mist that hung around her with her own lavender aura. It’s personal magic. It has a taste, a feel.

She looked back up to Spike, and a smile crossed her lips. He had described her magic as feeling like his blanket, the very one she had always used to tuck him in his little bed at night. She had then broached the topic of what Rarity’s magic felt like, and as his expression had gone soft he’d said satin sheets. She couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

“Spike?” she asked, turning back to him. “What do you think this magic feels like?”

“Huh,” he said, “I hadn’t thought about it.” He looked down into the green magic that sat upon his hands. He concentrated hard, and then looked back to her with a disgusted smirk.

“Sandpaper.”

Yeah, it was Sombra’s personal magic all right. So, she thought to herself, going back to her pacing, this really isn’t dark magic, it is Sombra’s personal magic… which just so happens to be dark. Jerk. Okay, then, so what does it mean that it’s so much older than him, but that he brought it here, that it has his image on it? We… shoot, we think this is a weapon, right?

Twilight rubbed her chin and gave another contemplative hum.

So, it’s getting stronger. Why? What made Sombra strong? Magic? Power? Fear? Fear. Fear! Sombra ruled through fear! Fear made him strong, it must make this strong, too? But why? Where is it coming from?

Twilight’s mind raced back to the streets above, to the image of the crystal ponies as Sombra’s name had floated over them. They still feared him, even though he was gone. Their fear was growing, and this thing was…

Oh no! she exclaimed in her own mind, realizing that the obelisk was only growing stronger as the fear grew, a inexhaustible fuel source that was driving it on towards whatever its purpose was.

As Twilight continued to pace and ponder, Spike continued to clear away the grime that sat upon the obelisk. He honestly did not know why he was, but it was something to do, something that, he hoped, made him useful.

Spike skidded, his hand falling across something smooth, making him teeter along the ledge. With wide swipes of his hands he revealed a panel, oval in shape. Beneath it sat a concave indentation, ringed with a wavering stream of green magic that outlined a shape.

Spike rubbed his eyes, and some of the magic sitting across his face disappeared as magica vasto. He blinked again. The shape… the image upon the obelisk, the one surrounding the hole… he knew it.

It was the sun. No, it wasn’t just any sun. It was a sun he knew, one that had been part of his life from the moment he was hatched.

It was Celestia’s cutie mark.

“Twi…” he began, but stopped short. The oval panel, the one his hand had skidded across… it was alive.

His eyes flew from the sun, and instead settled upon the elliptical space. It too was ringed by an outline, but he did not know it. Instead he found himself peering within, as though looking deeper into a mirror, one that reflected his own image darkly.

Deep inside of it, something moved. Something was moving through the dark, coming nearer, drawing closer.

“Twi!”

Twilight spun around, and as she did she saw Spike wheeling, teetering on the ledge. His hand rose up, and as it did she saw to where it pointed.

Twilight’s head swam, her mind going blank as she saw the sun there, its center filled with a concave space, and the panel.

In that ovoid space, something grew, something approached.

“Spike, what…” she began, but even before she could complete her thought, the dragon’s eyes went wide. It had been a long while since he’d last received a letter from the Princess of the Sun, and the old sting of it flew through him.

As a jet of green flame erupted from him he seemed to lose his balance, the dragon forgetting his perch as he grabbed for the letter.

“Uh oh!” he called, but soon the familiar feel of Twilight’s magic had steadied him. He leaned back across the ledge, his arms wide.

The scroll fell to Twilight’s hooves, and as Spike’s discovery and her thoughts fought for dominance in her mind she opened the letter.

It was one word, penned as ever in her mentor’s script. It was one word, but hurried, anxious, filled with a distress she’d never seen her teacher use before. It was only one word, one filled with an uncharacteristic urgency, and that alone made her reel back in surprise and alarm.

Flee! it read.

“Twi?” came Spike’s voice. “What does it say?”

Twilight lifted her head, about to call to him to come down to her immediately. Yet, as she did, Twilight’s awareness was wrenched away from her and forced onto something that stole the warmth out of her heart.

Flee!

“Twilight?” Spike asked, watching the color fall out of his best friend. His eyes followed hers as they settled over his shoulder, up to where the oval had been revealed. His eyes took a moment to register what he saw there, to take in what was being presented to him.

When they finally did a horror fell across him, stealing out his words.

Flee!

A vast green eye stared down at him from within the oval space, the pupil wavering upon him in currents of a deep, dark magic. The feeling of sandpaper drew across his scales as another thrum escaped into the dark, and suddenly he could not breathe.

The eye held Spike in its gaze as the thrum refused to dissipate. It became a deep, resonant note that settled around the chamber, one that accompanied Twilight as she screamed his name.

Flee!

Chapter 4: The Obelisk

Chapter 4: The Obelisk

The surface of the rock was cold. That she knew.

It had been covered with a thin sheen of snow before she had found her place upon it, and the feel of it still sat there, keeping her company even after long minutes had passed.

She had wiped it away as best she could with her claws, but the heavy, wet snow of early spring had left much moisture there. The fur of her winter coat struggled to keep her warm, and she clamped her wings down harder against the chill.

Still, she thought, she’d rather be sitting in the cold. She’d rather face the cold, lay upon this rocky crag, than be in those streets. She’d rather be up here in the breezes that drifted through the pass than down there in the city.

That she knew.

Her eyes settled on the lodges of her kind, and as they did she laid down fully upon the rock. Her talons went out in front of her, following the long, smooth surface of the rock, wiping away the few streaks of wetness that remained behind.

She laid her head in her forearms, clacked her beak a few times, and then let her gaze fall upon the city. The lodges and cottages of the different clans sat there, the ornaments upon each reaching high into the night sky, as though the trim of each home and great hall were fighting to escape the thick, wet blanket of old snow that still sat over the city.

Her tail flicked behind her, wiping across the cold stone that lay beneath her. Her wings wrapped around her tighter, and she drew her rear legs beneath her in an effort to hide from the cold. Still, her eyes swam in the sight of the firelight that flickered across the windows of Onttovuori. It was so beautiful from up here… but only from up here.

That she knew.

The griffon hen lifted her head out of her forearms and looked up to the sky beyond. There, over the pass through the mountain, the stars shone in the pristine clarity of the night sky. They shone like pearls thrown across velvet, twinkling far away from where the light of the fires could reach them.

The hen’s feathers tossed on the cold breezes, and she huddled against them. Her eyes remained on the stars, though. Her keen eyes searched them, wondering if there were any secrets in them that they would share with her. She wondered if there were any clues about who she was supposed to be, what she was supposed to do.

There were none. Instead, the winds just carried over the pass as she sat there, buffeting her as they always had. She looked to the gap at the lee of the mountain, and then laid her head across her claws once more. If anything other than wind were to ever come over that pass, she’d be very happy for it. She would be very happy for it indeed.

That she knew.

Flee!

That word, that one plea that sat upon the letter at her hooves, that singular, terrified appeal... it raced to Twilight as she looked upon Spike.

Flee!

The obelisk. It was a weapon, one fueled by fear, one that Sombra had brought here.

Flee!

The word raced through her as an oval space above the dragon came alive, something rising through the darkness of the onyx . As it did, the warmth drained out of Twilight, and what she saw horrified her.

It was an eye… it unfolded as a green eye that cast itself down over her little assistant.

Flee! Flee, flee, flee!

Twilight brayed Spike’s name out into the dark. As Spike looked over his shoulder, she saw him realize that he was being watched, that he was being studied.

Everything else fell away. The baffling discovery of Celestia’s mark, the presence of Sombra’s magic, the meaning behind the older runes… they meant nothing. They became nothing to her as she saw the eye catch upon him, as Spike shrunk down to the thin ledge upon which he had been sitting.

This thing, the obelisk… it was filled with Sombra’s will.

Who better for it to be directed against, she suddenly realized, than the one who had freed his crystal slaves?

“Spike!” she screamed as her wings went wide, repeating her cry over and over as she launched forward through the cords of green mist and into the growing power of the obelisk.

Around her the dust and mist rippled in tune with a new thrum from within the stone, and it lingered over her, catching around her as a single unfathomable tone that hung around the chamber.

In her mind it was nothing. She powered through it without noticing, pushing forward through the cascading waves of malice with ease, the full powers of an Equestrian alicorn coming alive in her body.

She would not allow it to harm Spike. She would not allow it.

She missed her guess, and it was not Spike who was truly in danger.

The eye stared down over Spike, the little dragon skittering along the ledge as he attempted to escape its gaze. Around him the thrumming arose as a single deep, resonant note that filled the chamber.

He struggled to catch his breath, struggled to find his grip as the eye stared down over him from within its onyx window, from beyond the surface of the smooth, black panel.

There was a crackling behind his ears, behind his eyes. Even as he continued to fight for breath, Spike felt something move inside him. Something… speaking…

“H-hello?” he wheezed.

To his amazement, the eye blinked.

“No, Spike, no!” came the most familiar voice to him in the world, rushing in to fill all of the great, vast holes that had opened in his perceptions.

There was a rush of wings, and a haze of purple light wrapped around him, drawing him into her open forelegs.

In a moment she had gathered him up, pulling him into the safety of her body. Twilight set her sight on the rise above, and the faintest glimpse of the white stairwell beyond greeted her.

Flee!

Yet, even as she spun she felt the gaze of the eye shifting, and it fell across her instead. In one tiny, imperceptible moment her hoof fell across the very ledge that she had just pulled Spike from. She had barely brushed it, had barely even touched it…

… but it was enough.

Twilight fell slack, and in her mind she felt something crackling behind her ears, something moving behind her eyes. It reached out for her, calling to her inside her own mind, and the startling force of it dropped her out of the air.

“Wah, Twi!” Spike called, and soon they were spinning through the air, and then tumbling along through the ancient dust.

As the deep, echoing sound drove on around them, Twilight fought to return to her hooves. As soon as her boots had clattered against the stones the green light of the eye was over her, catching across her coat and shining upon the jewels of her crown.

Suddenly, she was not alone inside her own mind.

The doors of her mind flew open, and an unknown traveler simply strode within. It... it was not Sombra, nothing about the intruder suggested that defeated tyrant. No, no it was somepony... something else.

It was something that should not be here in the private sanctuary of her logical, analytical mind. Something drifted words over her that she did not know, but whose meaning settled across her, filled the corners of her consciousness.

Kdo to sedí přede mnou? Jaké je tvé jméno?

Twilight trembled, shook. Her mind was opened, as though some force were sitting among her rational thoughts, as though some stranger had just simply walked into her little home in the library and had begun to flip through her albums, had opened her journals, was rifling through her secrets.

She fell to the floor, trembling, shaking as the intruder settled into her mind like a trespasser simply walking around with her most precious memories, picking up threads of her thoughts and placing them back down just inches from where they had long been set.

Jaké je tvé jméno?

“I’m… I am T-Twilight Sparkle,” she stammered, trying to steady herself as she quaked in fear and pain. In a moment, a comforting set of hands had wrapped itself around her shoulders, and even as she sat quaking she turned her head to find Spike looking at her, fighting to move closer to her. He was limping. Had he been hurt in their fall? All that she knew was that his eyes were wide, wider than she’d ever remembered seeing them.

“Spike,” she whimpered, “there’s… it’s in my mind, I can hear…”

“Me too, Twi,” he said, placing his hand to her forehead, “I c-can hear it too… b-but I don’t understand what it’s…”

They flinched in unison, and the eye seemed to settle across them once more.

Buď pozdravena, Twilight Sparkle. Pověz, poslal-li tě můj pán? Máš Zenith?

“Twi! Twi, I don’t understand!” Spike called, his voice showing as much concern as his arms.

“I... I do,” she said. “I... I can understand, b-but I don’t know what…”

Inside her own mind, Twilight turned to face the intruder, to face the nameless, shapeless figure that walked around in her innermost sanctuary. “W-what, please, what do you mean ‘Zenith’? W-what, who is your master?”

The response crackled across her mind, and she and held Spike closer as the answers sat heavily across her waking thoughts.

Na tom nezáleží. Na ničem ve skutečnosti nezáleží. Ovšem že to vidím sám. Ptám se jen ze slušnosti... avšak vidím. Je mi líto, nemám jinou možnost. Opravdu nemám jinou možnost.

“Please,” she whimpered as tears formed in her eyes. She clutched her little dragon tighter, pulling him closer and closer as the intruder left muddy footprints across her mind, upsetting chairs and making only small insincere motions of putting them back.

Spike shuddered, the same voice and presence walking amid his thoughts, and the dragon fell into her embrace like a child reeling in the sight of a stranger.

Nemáš Zenith. Nejsi ten, kdo si mne přivlastnil, nejsi můj pán a nemáš Zenith...

The light faded, and Twilight could only force herself to breathe as the violation seemed to fade away, as though the intruder had slipped off into the basement of her library home, leaving the phonograph playing, a partially eaten sandwich on the kitchen counter, and Spike standing by her side as they listened to him shuffling along beneath them.

“Twilight, Twi… I don’t like it! Twi, make it stop!” Spike said, pushing his face deeper into her chest as they sat there in the gaze of the distant eye. “What does it want, Twi?! What is it saying? Make it stop!”

“I... I don’t know, Spike. It keeps talking about something… something called ‘Zenith’, and a master…”

At once they were forced down again, and as the note held its deep tone around the pair, the eye caught them in their gaze once more.

This time there were no words. This time it examined her, opened her, forced itself upon her. Deep inside of her Twilight could feel the eye pulling on the very tethers of her soul, testing them, seeking the golden cords that bound her to those she loved most in the world.

She screamed.

“Leave her alone!” called out a child’s voice. “Please, she didn’t do anything to you! L-leave her alone! Please, leave her alone!”

Alicorn…

The word needed no translation, and as Twilight fought to remain on her hooves Spike steadied her, calling her name and brushing his hand through her mane.

Spike tried to help Twilight move away, but instead he slipped on something that sat on the floor. He looked down to the smooth stones to find the letter from Celestia sitting there, covered with the dust. Upon it sat the one word, the single reply that only now was revealed to him.

Flee!

Ten thousand thoughts, none of them good, fell through the little dragon. At once he understood. His eyes lifted to his best friend, lifted to the heaving form of the alicorn fighting to stay steady, and then to the obelisk beyond.

“Twi! Twi, we have to go! We have to go, Twi!” Spike called, pulling on her foreleg.

Twilight slowly stood, her breathing ragged and uneven. “Y-yes, Spike, we h-have to go… we have…”

The sense of violation, of being inhabited, settled across them again. Inside Twilight it dove deeply, and the words that she could not decipher erupted inside of her as a feeling of darkened discernment once more.

Je skutečně alicorn a je věrnou Princezny slunce. Není známá mému pánu…

Twilight fell forward again, nearly toppling across Spike. “Please,” she called out to the force within, “I don’t know what you mean! Y-yes, I’m an alicorn, and Princess Celestia is…”

“Twi, what is it saying?! What does it want?!” Spike called, trying desperately to understand what could possibly be going on, desperately trying to find some little bit of anything he could do or say to help.

“I-I don’t understand,” she whispered, fighting to find some confidence buried within her, as though searching the disheveled remains of her fortitude for some inner strength.

All at once, it was torn away.

Tomuto alicornu je souzeno zemřít.

Twilight froze in place, her expression going ashen as the words that were falling through her mind revealed their intent.

“Twi?” Spike pleaded, holding her hoof, attempting to guide her forward. She neither moved nor spoke. Twilight simply took a few more ragged breaths, and in her expression Spike saw something horrible, something that nearly leveled him.

Her expression betrayed fear… the fear that only powerlessness can bring.

Tento alicorn není znám mému pánu a ten, kdo si mne přivlastnil, vyjádřil svoji vůli jasně. Ubohá… je odsouzena k smrti. Tomuto alcornu je souzeno zemřít...

“No,” Twilight breathed, the word hanging across Spike’s shoulders as a heavy, moist breath of disbelief.

… jsem donucen ji zabít.

“Nooo! No, please! I haven’t done anything to you! There must be some kind of mistake… a, a misunderstanding! Please!” she called. She struggled to move forward, her body shaking on unsteady hooves. Her eyes fell to Spike, and then clenched shut even as he pulled harder on her hoof, trying to guide her away from the spire, away from whatever was inside their minds.

“No, please! It has to be a mistake!” Twilight called again, her voice breaking and falling, leaving her with a single sob.

“Please,” she implored, “please, I haven’t hurt you! There’s no reason why you… why you should have to k-kill me!”

Spike’s world dropped out from under him.

His eyes went wide, and his hearts froze. Twilight’s hoof trembled in his hand, and at once he went to his knees, trying to look into her face.

Her eyes came open, and in them Spike saw every emotion that he’d fought against seeing in her his whole life. In them sat every bad day they’d ever had, every disappointment, every moment she had doubted herself. In her eyes sat every time he’d watched her fail, every time she’d been reprimanded, every time she’d felt small and powerless. All of these sat there, multiplied over and over.

Every time she’d ever been afraid.

“Spike,” she whispered.

Tomuto alicornu je souzeno zemřít.

Her scream filled the chamber. It filled the dark, misty well over which the obelisk and its eye held immutable dominion, and Spike was left holding her boot. Before his very eyes his best friend was swept off into the darkness.

“Twilight!” he yelled, racing forward into the dark. Around him the mist began to condense, to draw against itself until it fell down as a rain of green. It draped across him, and in it he felt sandpaper, sawdust, the fine remains of etched glass.

Souzeno zemřít.

“Twilight!” Spike called, running to her as the intruder wandered around his mind. The saddlebags appeared out of the dark, and he tripped across them, the dragon sprawling out across the dust and grime with a cry of pain. He yelled for Twilight, her screams flying through the dark, and leapt to his feet. New pain erupted through his leg, and he stumbled about even as he chased the horrid sound of her shrieks.

Deep tracks sat beside him, furrows carved in the dust. Twilight’s voice reached out through the dark, and arcs of her purple aura flashed through the darkness, revealing the outline of an alicorn locked in battle with the forces that assailed her.

“Twilight! Twilight!” Spike called, springing forward to grasp her. At once his hands were around her again, and his feet fought for purchase. As they did the pelting rain of magic fell across the stones, across his hands, making his hold on her loosen.

Souzeno zemřít.

The magic that opposed them, it was too much, and in an instant she slipped from his grasp. Her one sharp cry filled the room, and her wings came unfurled from her back in wild, unmatched strokes.

At once there was a clang, a high, sharp note that lifted above the deep thrum that still reverberated around the towering obelisk. Spike looked through the trail of dust and hovering darkness to see Twilight strike upon the surface of the obelisk, centered across the image of Sombra, and beneath the eye.

As her remaining boots beat against the surface they sang out in metallic tones, matching the cadence of the deep thrum. Her breath escaped her as she felt herself being pressed into the surface of the obelisk, the cold expanse thrumming against her back.

Twilight went to breathe, to give her time to engage her intellect. But, no breath came. No air met her, and inside of her panic grew anew… and soon she realized that what little air was still inside of her was being squeezed out.

Her life was being pressed out of her.

Her body begged, pleaded for air. She fought for it, begged for it, but it simply would not come. Desperate flickers of light that erupted from her horn, she could not draw a breath.

Something else moved there, drawing out more than just her air. It settled upon her, and panic swept through Twilight just as she needed her mind the most.

Her eyes flew around, and she caught sight of her ribs showing through her coat, and between them dark furrows of her own withering flesh grew stark against the lavender.

Tears exploded from her, images swept through her mind, and pain settled deep within the alicorn’s body. Cries lingered across her lips, dying there without air to give them voice. Small rivers of pain cascaded across Twilight as her lungs burned and her body screamed around her.

Her world grew dark, and with one last pathetic squeak…

“No! Nooo! Leave her alone! Leave her alooone!”

Claws skittered across the ledge of the obelisk, and above her a wild cry filled the chamber. At once there was the dearly familiar feeling of a boy’s grasp, one that rocketed life back into her.

“Raawwwrrrrrr!” came an animalistic roar. It was small, childish, but there was force in it, a power welling from some place deep inside of her little dragon.

To the utter surprise of both, they once more went toppling to the floor, tumbling across one another and through the dust at the base of the obelisk.

Twilight’s body fought for air, pulled it in with deep gulps, hacking and sputtering. The dust, the grime, her sweat, her tears… these all mixed across her face, covering her in a thick film of grey. Her vast, wondrous, logical mind fought for something solid, something in all of her years as a student, something from all of her experiences that could aid her.

As the eye fell across her once again, she found nothing.

Souzeno zemřít.

There was a little tug, and she gave another cry. Yet, to her surprise, it came not from behind, from the obelisk, but from before her… from where Spike had fallen.

Twilight opened her eyes to find him wrenching off her last foreleg boot. Her eyes focused on him as he tripped past her, towards the eye beyond.

“Spike,” she whispered.

“Stop it!” he cried at the spire, tears streaming down his face, ones that mixed with the green rain that drizzled around them. “Stop it! Leave her alone!”

With a stumble, a limp, and a heave he tossed her boot at the distant eye. It was a frail attempt to help her, to save her, and he cried out as he did. His cry filled the well, climbing high as the boot lurched from his little clawed hands.

He missed by a mile. The green eye wavered, watched as the golden boot sailed past it, and then settled back across the little dragon. After an awkward moment the sound of the boot falling to the ground rang out through the darkness, rattling around like a tin can before sitting still.

“Shoot,” came a little voice, and then the sound of a child falling to his knees.

Twilight heaved, straining for breath as she fell over onto her side. Turning her body she saw a pathetic sight. The thrumming dropped down as the eye simply held its gaze over the figure of a tiny dragon. Moments passed, and even as she watched she almost sensed the eye… changing…

“P-please,” Spike said, holding his hands together, supplicating himself before the eye, wringing his hands and holding them up to whatever power sat inside the obelisk.

“Please stop hurting her, please?” he said, his voice a mix of fear and confusion. “She’s my best friend. Please. Please, she didn’t do anything to you. Please let her go. She’d never hurt anypony… anybody.”

Little droplets of green magic fell around him, catching in the trails of tears that fell down his face. His left hand came out, touching her leg, as though attempting to show the eye that she could be trusted.

“Please?” he implored once more, standing and raising his arms. “Can’t ya just let her go? She’s a good pony, she’s smart and nice and her friends love her so much. S-she’s all I got. Please, please, please let her go. Please?”

The eye seemed to waver for a moment, and then it fell over him once more. Spike tensed, and now he too felt what Twilight had felt, the perfect sense of violation, the inhabiting of his very mind.

Spike felt as though he was in his little bed back in the library. Some stranger was sitting beside him, in the dark, watching him as he pretended to be asleep, as he gripped harder upon his blanket.

At once this cloud lifted, and Spike found himself once more back in the well, begging for Twilight’s life.

Věrný služebník. Pravý věřící. Pravý přítel.

“I don’t understand any of the word-sound-thingies you’re making!” called Spike, bouncing from one clawed foot to the next and back, waving his arms through the air in a perfect, frantic mix of confusion and frustration. He stopped as the voice filled the chamber once more, his arms going across his stomach as the words fell through him.

Je mi to tak líto, maličký, ale nemám nad tím žádnou moc. Je to mé prokletí. Je mi to tak líto... tak moc líto…

“Please,” Spike begged once again, not understanding the meaning of the words, only sensing the barest of context behind them… only sensing the feeling of loss and pain that dwelt over the chamber.

… ale tvé přítelkyni, tomuto alicornu, je souzeno zemřít.

“Oh no,” he breathed, sensing the failure of his attempt. Even as he began to turn, even as his hands went back around Twilight, the dragon wrapping her in his arms, something snapped at his memory.

Inside the dragon the promise came back to life, the one spoken as something akin to a joke. The promise to protect her…

… he had promised to protect her.

“Spike,” she whimpered.

“Twi, we have to…” he began, but overhead a new sound reached them, and the deep note of before was renewed.

A great, deep groan erupted around them, and at once there was the sound of stone scraping against stone.

Tomuto alicornu je souzeno zemřít.

The walls of the well began to collapse, and behind them there was a calamitous sound, the sound of rock crumbling and stones rending. Great, vast tiles of onyx began to fall from the ceiling, shattering around them. Spike threw himself over her face, and dust washed over them.

For long moments it continued. There were swirls of dust and the deafening, thundering booms of stone crashing through the chamber. There were the sounds of earth falling away and something vast moving under some unknown power.

The dust hovered there, but as the sounds receded something joined it there in the depths.

Sunlight. Sunlight streamed into the chamber, coming, it seemed, from a space beyond. Spike blinked, both removing the dust from his eyes and wincing in the shafts of light that dropped through the haze.

Sunlight. Free. They could get free.

“Twilight,” he coughed. “C’mon, Twi, it’s the sun… we can get out!”

Twilight stirred beneath him, and as he uncovered her she too blinked in the rays of the distant sun.

“W-we can get out,” she whispered, her face coming alive with hope. “Spike, we…”

It was a foolish notion, a false hope.

Souzeno zemřít.

There was the sound of the cracking of whips, of lashes being dealt, and at once two tendrils had thrown Spike off of her, crashing him against some of the fallen stones.

Souzeno zemřít.

With that they began to push her away, push her towards the distant light. Not towards the freedom it had promised, but into some new fate. The cords wrapped around her tighter, and the black and green of the coils showed in stark contrast to her lavender coat.

“No, no!” Spike called aloud, and once again he was bounding off after her, grasping for her as she was pushed along, being dragged and tumbled along the dust and rocks.

“W-why are you doing this?!” he screamed, looking back over his shoulder at the obelisk. Even as he tried to grab for her, even as her leg went slipping through his grasp, he berated the distant eye.

“Just leave her alone!” Spike called, his voice breaking as he unsheathed his claws, as he tried to dig into the tendrils that pulled at her.

Twilight’s magic came alive, bursting out around her in a ball of pure, unrestrained power. Spike fell from her. The tendrils wavered… and then were upon her once more.

In an instant, Spike had stood, once more running to Twilight as her cries filled the space. Yet, even as he ran, he felt the eye upon him, gauging him.

He spun around, his teeth bared, his arms stretched out beside him. His cry rose above all other noises, above Twilight’s own yells of fear, pain, and panic.

“I hate you!” the child called, tears erupting from him, the little dragon forcing all of his emotions into his denunciation of the eye. “I hate you! I hate you, hate you, hate you!

I haaattttteeeeee yooouuuuu!”

With a bawl Spike spun around once more, pelting off after Twilight, wrapping his arms around her waist, digging his teeth into the black tendril. The taste of the dark magic sat deep in his mouth as he ripped at it, tore at it…

… as his efforts did nothing.

As the magic pulled her along they tumbled over the torn saddlebags, past the dust-covered letter and its plea for them to have fled. As they went he saw a great earthen ramp before them, a slope that had opened to the light above.

Twilight screamed anew, and Spike’s eyes followed hers. The two tendrils, the embodiments of the magic, had reformed themselves. They had become serpents. They took on the form of vipers, ones that undulated and twisted around her as they carried her along. They had taken the form of the two stone snakes that had met them at the top of the stairs… the very same ones Spike had promised to protect her from.

Twilight’s screams filled the chamber, and a great cloud of dust arose as they were pulled towards the surface and whatever fate awaited her.

Below, the eye upon the obelisk held its gaze on them. It blinked, once, twice… and then began to fade.

Souzeno zemřít.

As it fell away it looked upon the screaming, writhing form of the little alicorn, and her even smaller dragon. It wavered for a moment, and then disappeared into the black recesses of the oval once more.

Souzeno zemřít.

With that, the chamber was quiet and still once more, just as it had been for the long millennia before an alicorn had been lured to her death, before a child had been made to watch.

It took forever. It took long, horrible minutes. It dragged on, and on, and on. As Spike dug, spat, and bit, the vipers pulled them inexorably toward the light. They bounced off of rocks that sent them senseless. They tumbled over each other, falling out of each other’s grasp as their bodies howled in pain around them. They fell over loose stones, the heavy thud driving the air out of them, making lights and colors flash through their minds.

On and on it went until the two were beaten, broken, and the light only drew nearer.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Spike cried over and over, beating at the vipers with his fists, scraping them with his claws, biting them with his sharp teeth. He looked down across her, trying to think of anything he could do, trying to find some way to help Twilight.

She, though, was beyond fear. She was in shock. Her eyes were wide, her pupils falling away into tiny purple points that seemed far, far away. At intervals light would erupt from her, her magic seeming to explode at random, spells seeming to fall out of her mind.

Out of nowhere, one seemed to take hold, and Spike and Twilight tumbled from the grip of the vipers. “Twi!” he called, racing for her. “Twi, we have to telepor…”

Twilight’s forelegs wrapped around him, and her horn came alight. In a moment of clarity the alicorn called upon her magic…

… and it failed her.

“Ah!” she called in one sharp shriek, and once more she went to the ground, rolling around in pain.

“Twi!” he said, wrapping himself to her neck. “Twi!”

In an instant the serpents were upon them again, and Twilight was wrapped deep in harsh coils of the darkest kinds of magic.

All of the strength had gone out of him. He could do no more. He was only a little dragon. All he could do was drape his arms around her, place his hands beneath her head to keep the strike of rocks from reaching her, and call out her name as she called his back weakly, as though through a curtain of darkness.

After terrible minutes they erupted into the light of the day beyond. A stone arch had opened, and as he blinked in the sunlight Spike realized that they were now back above ground, back out in the city of Pursopolis.

They were high above where they had begun. The roof of the monolith stood out behind them. Now rough paving stones beat at them as they were dragged along, but not dragged far.

Spike tried to look over Twilight’s head, to where they were being taken.

His eyes went wide as he saw a long, narrow pool open before them. It was old, as old as the monolith. At its head sat a slab of onyx, one engraved with a silver symbol. It was that symbol, the same one as on the obelisk below, the one that seemed impossible.

It was the sun of Celestia.

Spike’s eyes fell to the pool. The waters looked putrid, filled with algae and the detritus of ages.

They looked dark, shallow, and horrible.

In his mind, Spike suddenly realized why they were going there, why the serpents were dragging her along.

It was a water altar.

It was a drowning pool.

It was a place for the making of beautiful sacrifices, for killing without marks or blood.

They were going to drown her.

They were going to kill Twilight.

Author's Note

Presenting Lysok, whose artwork inspired this entire story, as the author of the "voice" of The Obelisk.

Chapter 5: The Drowning Pool

Chapter 5: The Drowning Pool

Spike could see the book in his mind. It sat there in the theology and mythology section, fifth case from the door, on a bottom shelf that was awkwardly sized, just a touch taller than all of its neighbors.

Its binding was gold and red, and inside were all sort of interesting things to learn about practices and beliefs that were not of Equestria. He had spent an afternoon flipping through the tome, learning about the marvelous ways that lost cultures had practiced their beliefs.

Most had been benign, interesting, even engaging.

Then he had found the illustration, and had read the accompanying text.

In some cultures that made sacrifices, offering up ones that were unblemished with cuts or covered in blood was considered sacred. These ancient races had used a water altar… a simple, elegant way to drown the sacrifice.

He remembered how the illustrator had even taken the time to show a dark form beneath the surface, the implication of what had happened to it horribly clear.

He remembered closing the book, and then going to stand near Twilight, just being close to her for the usual comfort of her presence, to try to forget what he had seen and read.

Now the image was becoming all too real.

The pool, the water altar, reflected their images weakly across its fetid surface.

“No! Nooooo!” he called again, yelling at the serpents as the realization of what was about to happen to Twilight, what they were seeking to do, sank through him. “Stop it!”

To his utter shock, they did.

The two vipers, one of black tendrils of magic and the other of green, drew her to the end of the pool, and then went still. Spike looked up to them, disbelief sitting in his expression. At first he blanched, but soon the emerald of his eyes shone with a newfound fury.

A jet of flame erupted from his lips, reaching out for the snakes.

“I… I said leave her alone!” he cried, stepping forward even as he held Twilight’s head up from the stones. “G-get out of here!”

The snakes regarded him balefully, their tongues whipping out of their mouths and their heads bobbing back and forth. They hissed in unison, sending Spike reeling back, the sound falling through him.

They regarded him once more, and to Spike it seemed as though they were smirking, as though they were regarding him as a curiosity. In a single movement they wound around one another, their two shades merging into a single twist of black and green, and then they disappeared into the waters of the pool.

Spike gulped, and then stepped forward, sliding anxiously towards where the serpents had disappeared. To his surprise the dark, algae-filled waters now circulated with ribbons of black and green.

Even as he stared deep within there was another thrum, and the waters bounced in place.

“That’s not good,” he said aloud, “that ain’t good at all! Twi, we have to go! We have to…”

Spike looked over his shoulder. Instead of finding Twilight fighting to her hooves, preparing to fly away or attempt to again teleport to safety, she simply lay there, breathing heavily.

“Oh, Twi,” he said, gently lifting her head. He looked down over the crumpled form of the alicorn. She was bleeding. Her mane was a wild frenzy of purple, pink, and lavender. Her wings seemed to stretch, shake, and then recoil, feathers hanging out of them at odd angles.

“Oh, Twi,” he repeated, knowing that he must look almost as bad. He brushed away some of the dust, and as Twilight moaned he looked into her eyes again. They were still distant, and he knew that whatever physical hurts had been placed upon her, the magical battle that she’d been fighting had stolen even more out of her.

“Spike,” she whimpered.

“It’s okay, Twi, we’re gonna get out of here. You’re gonna be okay, like I promised,” he said, pulling her into a quick hug. Moving as quickly as his tired, wounded body would allow, he placed her head across his shoulders, and his arms under her forelegs. “Okay, Twi, here we go… let’s, ummmphhh…”

The dragon began to pull, began to tug her away from the edge of the pool and the ribbons of black and green that awaited her there.

He groaned, strained against her weight, and suddenly he remembered just how much larger than him she was. Now he remembered just how much taller she’d become as an alicorn, let alone before.

His knees buckled beneath him, and as he groaned he was reminded of just how wounded he was himself. His leg pulsed with pain, and his ribs burned inside of him. He cursed under his breath, turning his head so that the invective didn’t fall into her ears.

He heaved, strained. While his body called out in pain he began to pant, and as he tried to heave once more some strands of her hair caught in his mouth. “Blegh!” he said, trying to clear them away. As he did, his eyes fell across his progress, measuring how far he’d gotten, how far to safety he’d managed to carry her.

It was about four paces.

Spike collapsed, Twilight’s great mass still weighing heavily in his arms. “Okay, okay, okay,” he repeated anxiously, looking all around himself as he wrung his hands, looking up and down the space beside the pool. He needed a cart. He needed a rug. He, he…

… he needed to be anyone but himself.

He needed to be anything other than a useless little dragon that couldn’t…

Nearby, something splashed through the pool, and he jumped back to his feet in alarm, tugging at her once more. All hope was gone, there was nothing else he could do. Nothing except…

“Heeeeelllp!” he cried aloud, his words filling the space around the pool, echoing off of adjoining courtyards.

“Heeeeeeelllllp!” he called again, louder than before, louder than he could remember calling in all of his young life.

“Somepony help, please! Heeelllp!” he shrieked, his voice becoming hoarse as he held the sound for as long as he could.

The thrum met them again, and his feet slid beneath him. Spike startled and gripped tighter to Twilight.

The thrum arose again… and he and Twilight were pulled backwards towards the pool.

“No, no!” he cried, his feet slipping along the surface of the courtyard. At once he dug in his claws, making them scratch against the paving stones, a loud scraping sound rising from where they left their smooth, deep marks.

“No, nooo!” he called over and over. “Twi, ya gotta try to move! Ya gotta try your magic again!”

Twilight’s legs came up beneath her, but whatever battle she’d been fighting inside her own mind had drained her, had stolen so much out of the alicorn. Her hooves skidded across the stones, joining his claws in their slipping and sliding.

Together they fought, struggled, battled to keep from being drawn towards the pool, towards the shallow altar where the cords sat patiently awaiting her.

“Hellllp! Heeellllpppp!” Spike called anew, his voice lifting into the clear sky of the city. Even as he did flashes of her magic erupted around them again, heavy buffeting blows of it that smacked across his senses.

All too soon his foot caught on something, on the very lip of the pool. He leaned forward, enlisting every force he could muster in the struggle to save Twilight, fighting for each little inch. “Twi! Twi! Ya gotta do something!” he called, screaming into her ear.

At once there was a whine, and the deep magic of her very being came alight in her, fighting through her, her eyes coming open and flashing with a lavender light that…

There was another thrum, a deep one, and the pool bounced behind them. The note of it cascaded over them, and as they both screamed the dome of one of the nearby buildings exploded into shards. They yelled in alarm at the sound of it, at the rain of masonry and plaster crashing to the earth behind them.

Twilight’s magic sputtered. It fell down, down, down, until it was the faintest of purple hazes… and then it was gone.

Spike’s claws dug deep, and the marble surface of the pool shrieked beneath his feet. There came one, two sputters of Twilight’s wings… and then she collapsed across his shoulders.

He felt her head move, felt her sweet breath falling across the side of his face. Suddenly, there were words. There were quiet words that were both wonderful and terrible to hear.

“Spike,” she whispered, her voice beyond tired, beyond the limits of even an alicorn. “Spike, I love you. Goodbye.”

Spike went stock-still. The hopelessness in her voice, the clarity of understanding that… that she was about to die, it swept across him. It filled him, and for an instant he was able to stand there, Twilight’s head across his shoulder, as his most perfect nightmare began to come true.

With that, they were swept into the pool.

Water… water crashed over him. It was putrid, vile, and something moved within. He tried to stand, to swim, to make a motion of any kind, but he was pinned in place. His hands searched through the green slime, through the brackish waters until it settled across what was holding him down.

The familiar feel of Twilight’s coat met his touch, and her mane settled over him.

There was a stream of bubbles, and emerald light shone through the pool. Spike lurched to the surface, his eyes alive with the features of a dragon beyond reason, beyond anything except emotions.

In his hands, Twilight’s head broke the surface. “Breathe, Twi! Breathe!” he roared, and her eyes come open again, and a breath pulled through her.

At once something wrapped around her, pulled her down, and he felt them coiling upon her.

“No, please, no!” he called, feeling her slip from his grip. At once he was under the water again, the water filling his nose, rushing into his mouth. He groped through the water, searching for her, brushing away a few coils that fought his hands.

A moment passed, and then a shock of his flame erupted into the water before being instantly consumed. Yet, it had served its purpose.

They rocketed back up to the surface, and together they coughed and hacked. They fought to keep their heads above the water, fought to breathe. Fought to live.

“Heeellllpppp!” he screamed again, his voice shredding as he tried to lift it higher and higher. His muscles burned, his body became one continuous, living ache that tore at him… but Twilight’s head was above water.

That was all that mattered. She was the only thing that mattered. She was drowning. His world was drowning.

She slipped his grasp again, her one cry of terror diving through him. He groped through the water, pulling at her hair, grasping around before plunging into the fetid pool once more.

“Raaawwwwrrrrrr!” he cried, the little roar spilling out of him as bubbles and then a cry of rage as it met the air. All that was left in him pushed his body to the surface, his legs shaking beneath him, his arms and chest burning with pain.

Twilight did not come with him.

In his surprise, he looked down to find her eyes staring back at him from just beneath the surface, her head held in his claws as the coils of black and green wrapped themselves tighter to her body.

Just like the illustration in the book.

“No! No, no, no!”

Spike dove in once again, and came to the surface with nothing. He opened his mouth, calling with some feral sound to summon some way, any way, to bring strength back into his tiny body… to save her…

“Graaaaaahhhhhh!” came a cry, a fierce one, but it did not arise from him.

There was a spray of water, a rush of motion, and Spike felt something powerful around him. Shining Armor’s massive frame burrowed beneath Spike’s outstretched arms, and at once Twilight exploded to the surface.

“Twily! Twily!” the stallion called, and at once his magic scythed through the air, snapping the coils. As water and algae poured out of both of their manes it splashed across Spike, the dragon blinking in the sunlight, his body shaking around him.

The sound of Twilight’s coughing and wheezing, her shrill cries of alarm, they both horrified him and filled him with the tiniest bit of hope.

Hope that was nearly squandered as Shining Armor, too, felt the lash of the coils. They reached up to claim Twilight once more, and she and her brother both were drawn beneath the waters.

Spike surged forward, but inside a moment the stallion had reared up to the surface again, the form of his sister across his neck. Once again she strained for air, and now the stallion too was breathing heavy.

The coils reached up through the waters, made to grab for their prize once more. There was another scythe of magic, and Shining Armor’s magic draped across the scene, the feel of his magic like a greatcoat across Spike’s scales.

“What in the Well are these things?!” called the stallion, trying to keep them at bay. At once they whipped beneath him, sending the stallion falling into the waters, and once more Twilight seemed about to be pulled beneath.

There was more magic, more motion around him, and Spike suddenly felt many legs pushing by him. Shining Armor roared to the surface, and Spike dodged around, searching through the forest of limbs for Twilight.

“Don’t let her go under!” Spike heard Shining Armor cry, and soon hooves were under Twilight, and myriad auras of light and color fell around the dragon.

“Majesty! Majesty? Can you hear me?” came a voice Spike did not recognize, and a shriek of pain met his ears. It was awful... the awful sound of Twilight’s pain and fear.

There was a burst of color, and deep, dark magic erupted around the ponies. One flew back, landing against the wall on Spike’s left, another bounced off the slab behind him, soaring over his head and crashing against the representation of Celestia’s mark.

“It’s a killing curse! She’s been enchanted!” called another unicorn, and at once more ponies were in the water, pulling on Twilight. Spike fought to grab a hold on her too, fought to find some place amid the great tall legs of the ponies.

At once a shot of pain went through Spike, and one of the ponies came crashing down atop of him, driving him beneath the waters once again. He clawed to the surface, hacking and sputtering the rancid waters once more.

“Get this kid out of here!” called the Lord Mayor, the pony fighting his way back into the fray. As Spike held his head he realized he’d been stepped on. Now, he realized, that in this effort to save Twilight, in this great heaving mass of ponies racing to the aid of their sovereign, he was just in the way.

He was just in the way… he couldn’t help her anymore.

New explosions of magic ripped across the scene, and as Spike fought to regain his senses he saw the tiniest glimpse of Twilight. The familiar shock of pink in her mane stood out amid the foaming waters, whipping cords of black magic, and the bodies of a dozen ponies.

“No, no! I can help! Please, please let me…”

His hands fought for some place upon her, fought to protect her, to keep his promise. But, as he did, something came loose, and once again he felt the tread of pony hooves upon him.

As he yelped in pain, Spike looked down into his clawed hands. There he found her crown, the crown of the Principal of the Elements, of Procer Twilight Sparkle Harmonia. As the water sloshed around him, as powerful spells bounced uselessly along the surface, he drew it slowly closer to himself until it rested against his chest.

“Get the child away! Dammit, don’t let him see her like this!” brayed the Lord Mayor, and at once Spike felt teeth clench around the sensitive spade of his tail.

“No!” he called, both through the shock and the pain. “No, I can help her!”

The mass of ponies didn’t hear him. Instead, commands flew around, each pony calling to somepony else, each one taking and giving orders. “Dispel! Does anypony know how to dispel a curse?!” cried one. “Keep her head up, keep her head up!” called another.

Soon the crowd issued a great collective moan, and their energy seemed to drain. The curse was not fading away, and their collective strength was leaving them.

Above it all arose Twilight’s cries of pain and fear. Each one stung at Spike, burned in his guts, drawing pain from inside of him that he could not even begin to name.

“Let me go, let me go!” he cried, spinning around on his back, clutching at her crown. He looked up to find that it was Shining Armor himself who was dragging him away. The stallion released Spike for an instant, and in one motion Spike leapt to his feet.

“Twilight! Twilight!” he called, limping back to the pool as fast as his wounded body would let him. In a moment, he felt Shining Armor’s magic around him, dragging him away from her again, dragging him away from his Twilight.

Spike dug at the ground with his free hand, his tears falling across the torn earth as great wet splatters. “Lemmee go! Shiny, lemmee go! I have to help Twili…”

The stallion pulled harder, drawing him away from the crowd, away from the frothing waters that sloshed around in the pool. Drawing him farther and farther away from Twilight…

“Bro, stop it! Stop it, Shiny! I can help! I need to help Twi…” he began, but inside a second he felt himself pressed into Shining Armor’s chest, and the big stallion’s forelegs folded across him. “I need to help,” the whelp pleaded. “I p-promised her I’d keep her safe. I promised her…”

“Shhhh, dude, shhhh…” spoke the stallion, drawing his hoof across Spike’s scales. “It’ll be okay, Spike. It’ll be okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. It was awful. Together they sat there, each jumping a little as her fading cries erupted again and again, as the slosh of water drew ice across their souls.

Something wet fell across the dragon, and soon Spike realized that Shining was bleeding too. A hard knock across the edge of the pool had sent blood pouring from his nose and, even as the two stood there, Spike could not help but draw his hands up and down the stallion’s foreleg.

Together the two sat there, comforting one another as they did one of the hardest things in the world… let those who knew better than themselves how to lend Twilight aid do their work.

“Sun and moon, I’ve never seen such a strong enchantment!” called a pony, stopping to cough up some of the putrid waters that had entered her mouth.

“We have to convince the enchantment that she’s dead!” called another.

That word. That word brought Spike back to his senses, speaking to fears that already sat very near and raw in his thoughts. He spun around inside Shining’s embrace, the Element of Magic still held close to him.

Very near Spike a caster, an immensely powerful unicorn, sat heaving for breath. “We have to induce a coma,” she began. Spike watched the unicorn as she stood and returned to the pool. “We have to induce a coma. We have to convince the enchantment that it’s won.”

Spike looked upon her, and a cutie mark of magic erupting from a mortar and pestle showed her to be adept at magical healing.

A word she had said, it fell through him… coma. They were going to put Twilight into a coma.

“No,” he breathed.

“No,” he repeated to himself.

“Majesty!” the pony called out, fighting to get the attention of the alicorn. “Majesty, we must put you into a coma. Can you understand me, Majesty?”

Spike wrestled free of Shining’s forelegs, spinning about in place. He went down onto his knees, still clutching the crown. He peered underneath the legs of the ponies, searching back and forth through the limbs to find Twilight.

“Majesty,” came the voice of the caster, of the powerful unicorn healer. “Majesty, do you understand?”

Spike caught sight of Twilight just as she blinked, as her gaze met that of the unicorn. She was on her back, prone, defenseless... helpless. Her wings flopped around beneath her, sticking out at odd angles. She looked broken, defeated.

She looked so tired. She looked deflated, small... ready to give up. She looked so terribly, terribly tired.

Oh, Twilight.

Twilight nodded to the unicorn with a weak motion, without any power, and inside an instant the caster had begun charging her horn.

Twilight’s eyes flew around, and Spike went closer to the ground, trying to see what she was looking for. As he peered through the legs of all of the ponies that surrounded her, that sloshed back and forth through the pool, he saw her searching for something, searching for somepony.

Her tired, fearful, panicked eyes swept across the assembly once, twice… and then found him.

Their eyes met through the sea of confusion, past the dozen bodies that sat between them, across the great roar of ponies that still fought to keep her above the foul waters.

Tears streamed down both of their faces, and he went closer to the ground to see her more clearly. Twilight’s eyes were withdrawn, distant, filled with pain and tiredness… but firmly on him, firmly on her little dragon.

Her tired eyes were fixed upon her great little guy.

His worried eyes reached back to the pony that meant the most to him in the world.

There, that moment, that instant as the spell charged and all around them seemed to move slower, that they shared. The two friends, the closest in their lives, both bloodied, torn, broken… in that moment they were the only two people in their little, familiar world.

It was a world of the library, of bedtime stories, of shared memories, of breakfast at seven and little jokes that only they knew.

It was a world that was collapsing around them.

It was a world that was shattering.

His hand came up, reaching for her.

Her mouth moved, and “Spike” drifted from her lips.

An arc of silvery light lifted from the caster’s spell, and all were encompassed by it as a high whine fell over the scene.

With that, the little world of Spike and Twilight Sparkle flew into pieces, the shards bouncing along before lying horribly still and quiet.

All opened their eyes to find the wreckage of Princess Twilight Sparkle floating in the brackish waters of the pool, the ruined remains of an alicorn bobbing in the filth.

For an instant, nopony dared to breathe. As one mare lifted Twilight’s head the crowd all gazed over horrific sight of a crushed, ruined Equestrian princess.

“She’s breathing!”

Shining Armor looked on as a dozen ponies or more suddenly all jostled for position, all trying to draw nearer to the princess. At once there was a scream, and as ponies pulled backwards, two great long serpents escaped through their midst, streaming towards the vast open chamber behind them, a long, shallow ramp that seemed to discharge dark magic across the city on an ill wind.

Shining Armor charged his horn, but the serpents flew by without regard or care for the masses. It seemed as though the serpents stopped only momentarily, to gauge the still, unmoving form of Spike. They seemed to smirk at him, to regard him as a curiosity, and then slide across the ground before disappearing in wafts of dark magic.

“They were just the magica visibilis!” came a voice, the same unicorn who had cast the spell. “The enchantment is still on her! We must get her to Canterlot, now!”

“Do we have any unicorns who know how to teleport?!” called the Lord Mayor. Murmurs went through the crowd, and soon the voice of the mayor rose again, calling for fast pegasi and flying carts.

Soon all was a blur of motion. In a moment, her body was lifted into the air, and more hooves reached for her.

Shining Armor demanded to see his sister, and as the cart stood motionless he looked down over her rumpled, dirty form. There was one faint, fast instant to whisper to the princess, to his baby sister whom he had tickled and whose bedroom he had protected from monsters. He kissed her, and then the cart was in the air, already flying away towards Canterlot.

He watched it go, ten thousand thoughts flying around in his head, none of them good.

Shining Armor worked his way back towards the monolith, back towards the hill where the pool sat. Ponies milled about, but slowly the crowd thinned.

“I want guards placed on the gate below and this ramp here,” he said, catching the attention of an officer. “Nopony goes in or out until we know what happened.”

He turned about as the officer went off to begin placing his sentries. Shining Armor then began to engage in crowd control, encouraging ponies to be on their way, when he tripped over something.

Or, someone.

He looked down to discover Spike still sitting where he’d last seen the child. The dragon simply sat there, sat there with his one arm still outstretched towards the pool, the other still clutching the crown to his chest.

“Oh, dude,” Shining said, slowly sitting behind the dragon. “Dude, it’s… it’ll all…”

“Hey, you saved her!” came a voice, a crystal pony trotting up to where the erstwhile brothers sat.

Shining smiled down over Spike, hoping to see the pony’s praise lift the dragon’s spirit.

“It was very, very fortunate you were there,” continued the pony as she trotted past them. “Who knows what would have happened! Thank Celestia for you, Prince Shining Armor!”

Spike’s hand fell to the ground, and Shining Armor’s expression dropped. His eyes fell across the dragon before turning to call to the pony who had passed by.

“Naw, it was… it was Spike…”

She was already gone. The entirety of the crowd was indeed thinning out, too, and as the ponies began to fade away all that the stallion could do was move closer to Spike.

The dragon said nothing. He barely moved. There Spike sat, wavering back and forth, his arms wrapped around the crown, his eyes lifting up to the pool again and again before falling back to the torn, broken earth around them.

Shining Armor wasn’t a complicated stallion. He wasn’t that deep, and intellectually speaking he knew he wasn’t the top shelf model. He had always known what he wanted though, and his single-minded drive had won him many things.

In this moment, what he wanted was to make Spike say something, to do something.

“Dude, bro… c’mere,” he said, pulling the dragon whelp into the space between his body and his forelegs. “Spike… bro?”

The dragon lay there for a great long time, simply breathing, simply trying to come to terms with all that had happened over the last hour.

Trying to come to terms with...

“I couldn’t keep my promise.”

Spike had whispered the words, and the sound of his voice was distant and filled with pain. “I promised to p-protect her. I p-promised and I c-couldn’t…”

“Oh, hey, Spike, it’s okay,” Shining said, the brotherly part of him coming awake, fighting to make sense of something that he did not understand. “She… well, she…”

“I promised! I promised her!” Spike wailed, falling over into the chest of the stallion. A high whine arose from the dragon, one that became a continuous shriek. It was a long, horrible note of grief, of a very real and personal suffering.

He had failed. Twilight had been in pain, in danger, and… and he had failed.

As he sat there, Shining Armor felt himself move from brotherly to fatherly, grasping the little dragon whelp in his forelegs.

“Oh, Spike, shhhhh… shhhhh,” he whispered over and over, trying to soothe the child. He rocked Spike back and forth, slowly swaying with the whelp as the tears grew stronger, as Spike’s cry lifted out from the space beside the pool.

Shining Armor felt tears running down his own face. They were tears for his sister, for his baby sister who had gone through so much, who was now perhaps fighting another battle beyond their ability to help her.

His coat was growing wet with tears, but not his own. Beneath him a child cried aloud in wild, injured tones, pressing the tears into Shining’s chest.

“Twilight! Twilight!” Spike brayed, his voice shredding once more. Spike invoked the name over and over, crying for her, crying her name aloud until pain rippled through his throat.

“Twwwwiiiiilliiiiggghhtt!”

“Shhh,” Shining Armor said, rubbing the boy’s back, tucking him closer into his chest. “Shhhh.”

In Shining Armor’s mind, he remembered patrolling Twilight’s room for monsters, his baby sister peeking out from beneath the bed sheets as he declared the room “clean”. He closed his eyes. As he did he tried to imagine what it would have felt like to watch some of the imaginary demons become real, to watch them drag her off, to try to understand what Spike must have just undergone.

To be unable to save her…

This little one, this brother of a kind, had seen all that Twilight had seen, it seemed. He too had suffered, had been hurt. In the end, Spike’s reward had been to watch strangers carry her broken, deflated body through the streets.

“Shhhhhh, Spike, shhhhh…” Shining said as he sat there, rocking the child.

The unfairness of it sat in Shining Armor’s throat, burning like acid. Spike’s voice arose again, his voice reaching out over the city as high shrieks, the dragon calling for Twilight again and again and again. Shining Armor rocked him some more, shushing him gently, and kept doing so for a great long while.

But, for Spike, there was no comfort. Instead, his tears rolled down him until his face hurt, until he devolved into a coughing, blubbering mess that wailed Twilight’s name over and over and over.

That was how the little dragon stayed for hours. Pressed close to the stallion, Spike’s whimpers fell out across the ancient ruins of the city, catching in courtyards and plazas as the night sky unveiled itself in a blanket of purple.

In time, the light of the distant stars fell across him, finally forcing him to accept his exhaustion, and then fall away into troubled dreams.

Chapter 6: The Ward

Chapter 6: The Ward

She could swim fast.

Little fish need to know how to get away from big fish, from things that would eat them, things that would hurt them.

Little fish always swim the fastest, because they have no other way to deal with those things that vex them.

She was no fish, but she sure could swim fast.

She was quick, and could swim for a great long while, but she was no fish.

Though, if she were being truthful with herself, she was rather little.

She exploded through a school of mackerel, not even bothering to snap at one as they darted away from her, their silvery scales flashing in the shafts of sunlight that fell through the cold northern sea.

The school disappeared behind her as swift, powerful strokes of her tail jetted her forward through the waters, the towering shafts of light catching across the soft green chorus of her hair, fins, tail, flukes, and eyes.

The waters were bracing, and she felt the way that the currents were adjusting to the sudden presence of land.

Her senses fell through the water, and she could taste the way that the sea was changing. She could taste rivers, taste estuaries filled with life, each leaving their different sensations and memories in the sediment that was being washed into the sea.

Right now, all she wished was to go farther north, towards the places that she’d heard her kind sing about. Right now, she just kept swimming, kept pushing herself on towards these new smells, these new tastes that flowed out into the sea.

She could swim fast, maybe even fast enough to find a new world.

A current whipped across her, and it was deep and cold. She gave a little “Eep!” and to her embarrassment a stream of bubbles escaped her lips. She scrunched up her face and then pointed her muzzle towards another shaft of sunlight.

To her delight an outcropping of stone lifted to the surface nearby. She smiled broadly, and instead of slipping to the surface for a quick breath she leapt clear out of the water and upon the rocks.

She fell over onto her back with a contented sigh, giving a little giggle as the warm rays of the sun quickly began to warm her coat.

Her hair fell across her in wet tangles, and her arms fell to her side, opening her up to the touch of the warmth. She giggled again happily, and as she lay there supine upon the rocks her song lifted from her.

Her song drifted along, reaching out across the sea… stunning a seabird from flight.

She gave another “Eep!” as it landed next to her, the bird wobbling around as though enchanted or intoxicated… perhaps both.

Her hand went over her mouth as she watched it recover, hiding her smile. It shook its head, squawked at her, and then lifted back into the air.

Silly birdy, it wasn’t her fault he’d heard her song. It wasn’t her fault that he was a boy.

Boy.

Her smile faded as her head went back down to the rocks, as she turned onto her side, resting her face across her forelegs.

Boys, males… Daddy. She missed Daddy.

Daddy had gone away, and Mommy only cared about Baby.

She lay there in the sun for a great long while.

She lifted her head, ran her hands through the light poufs of her hair, and stared across the sea. In the far distance there was the outline of a shore, the places talked about in the songs of her kind.

She filled her breath, body, and blood with air, and then was in the sea once more, racing towards that horizon with powerful pumps of her tail and flukes…

… racing towards a new world, towards one that must, must, must be better than the one she was leaving behind.

She could swim fast.

Spike’s little feet wobbled through the air, and as he slid out from beneath Celestia’s wing his grunt rose around the hospital room.

The alicorn, the nurse, and the orderly watched as the dragon once more made his way to the cupboard. As he climbed to the space above the sink Celestia saw where his claws had begun leaving deep gashes in the countertop.

Soon the pitcher was filled, and not long after after his hands wrapped tightly around another glass. Water splashed through the sink, filling the cup as the dragon hummed in content.

“Getting really, really, low on glasses, Pacemaker,” the dragon said, weariness showing in his voice.

“You know, Spike,” the orderly said as he followed the dragon towards the bed, “just because you used the glass once doesn’t really make it dirty.”

Comfort’s hoof found the orderly’s shoulder, and her look imparted her meaning.

Together the three of them watched as Spike once more cautiously made his way to the bedside, the glass of water in his claws…

… as he once more brought Twilight a rainbow.

The dragon stopped, placed the glass upon the table, and then rested his head across his arms, looking deep into Twilight’s face as her tiny breaths continued to lift the sheets.

“He came in with her parents, I am told,” Celestia whispered.

“Yes, Majesty. He smuggled himself in her mother’s saddlebag. He was the first visitor to her side. He simply leapt out and went straight to her side,” replied the nurse. “Scared the daylight out of all of us.”

Celestia’s gaze fell over the dragon. The nurse continued as Celestia kept looking over the child whose world was lying quiet and still upon the bed.

“An hour later, he brought her the cold water for the first time. It was two days later that we realized that he hadn’t left at night. It was another full day before we realized he hadn’t had a meal,” Comfort whispered, lowering her head to the ear of the alicorn. “And so it’s gone, your majesty, for the last week and four…”

The nurse looked up to the clock above the bed. She drew a sharp breath, and then continued.

“… for the last week and five days. The poor little guy, he’s lost without her.”

Celestia closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and then stared at him once more.

“Yes, he is,” she whispered. “He is her faithful servant. He is her true friend… her true believer…”

Celestia stared at the floor. She breathed an Invoke under her breath, and then raised herself from the couch. Her noble hooves hit the cold, clean floor of the hospital room, and after a brief flutter of her wings she began to walk towards the dragon.

As she did, her expression went soft, and she begged him wordlessly to forgive her for the insufferable chain of sins that must now follow.

“Spike?” she asked, lowering herself onto her knees. She looked up to him once more, trying to appear small. He seemed not to notice, and simply remained staring into Twilight’s unopened eyes.

“Can you remember nothing else about the artifact?” she asked quietly. “Is there nothing else that you can remember from your encounter with The Pillar of the Sun?”

What she had said… it thudded across him.

The words smacked Spike, sent him reeling. The dragon lifted from the bed and stared at Celestia, spinning about so quickly that he nearly went stumbling over his own feet.

His foe had a name.

The unholy, dismal, evil, thing that had done this to Twilight… it had a name. The object of his hate, the horrible, monstrous, thing that had hurt Twilight… it had a name.

It had a name.

“P-Pillar of the Sun?” he said, his face coming alive. “Princess… what is the Pillar of the Sun?! W-what, why was your cutie mark on it? Please! Please, what…”

“I assure you, Spike, that was not my mark,” she said, her voice falling into a shadow of an emotion he could not name. “Just an imperfect facsimile thereof.”

Spike hopped from one foot to the next, his hands out before him, his face alive with emotion.

“Please, Princess, what is it!?” he called. “What does it want, what does this pillar thingy… what can I do to…”

Her expression was still soft, but at once it became distant, formal. She tried to hold this posture until he lifted his arms, looking like a child wishing to be picked up, to be comforted.

Forgive me, Spike, she thought as his eyes searched through hers.

“Princess, please…” he asked, his voice small, his eyes watering.

“Spike, when did you last eat?”

Her question dropped over him, sending him back into his defensive posture, his head down across his forearms, staring at the forlorn figure upon the bed.

“I had breakfast,” he murmured, the words falling out of him in a huff of heat and moisture across his own arms.

Celestia tilted her head to the left, to the right, and then to the left again. “Today,” she asked, “or yesterday?”

Spike’s sigh lifted around the room, and his secret was revealed. He hadn’t been eating regularly. He’d barely been eating at all.

“Where have you been sleeping? Have you been sleeping?” she asked, floating her voice over him again. “I stopped in to visit with Twilight’s parents, you know.”

The dragon said nothing. He simply continued to breath across his own arms, to sit and stare at the unmoving alicorn upon the bed.

“They said that they had offered to bring you back to their home every night, to let you sleep in Twilight’s bed,” she continued, laying her head next to his. “They assumed that you were staying with Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, yet now I find that you’ve been staying here.”

“You… you shouldn’t stay here all day and all night, Spike,” said Comfort, “we aren’t supposed to let any visitors in this late, especially those who aren’t…”

The nurse stopped herself, halting before saying the word, before saying “family”.

“We, we aren’t supposed to let anyone stay here all night,” Comfort sighed, “especially a child, and alone.”

“I’m not alone,” he said, his voice a low rumble, as though admonishing her, “I’m with Twilight.”

“You know full well what I mean, young colt… errr, whelp.”

Spike didn’t look up to Comfort. Instead, he pushed himself farther into his arms. It was a childish act, hiding from all of the adult faces that were moving the conversation closer to places where he desperately did not want it to go.

“Spike,” Celestia began, “her doctors asked me look in on you. Everypony is very concerned about you. It is not healthy for you to be here, not like this.”

“I wanna be here when she wakes up,” he said, his voice muffling in his arms.

“We know you do, Spike,” Celestia continued, lowering her head closer to his. “We know, I know, what Twilight means to you. But, Spike, when she does wake up, do you think she will want to see you like this? Will it make her happy to see you so tired, so thin? Hungry?”

The dragon laid there silently, his head still in his arms, avoiding their gaze. After a few moments his hand came out, pushing across the bed, sliding across the sheets.

It settled across one of Twilight’s forelegs. Even as she lay beyond sight and sense, the dragon still sought her, still sought the reassurance that came with her closeness.

“Please don’t make me leave,” Spike whimpered. His voice was small, and it was tinged with a sense of helplessness. Celestia could only raise her head to Comfort, to Pacemaker, and gauge their expressions as well.

There were doctors, professionals of all stripes, in this ward who were rightly offended by the presence of the child. It wasn’t sterile. It was favoritism. He wasn’t even her biological family. It was simply against the rules, and it wasn’t very good for Spike either. Not good at all.

Yet, Celestia noted, all had taken a look at him and thereafter none seemed to have had the heart to make him leave…

She frowned. She’d have to do something about that.

She’d have to start the chain of sins.

“Please don’t make me leave,” Spike asked once more, his head buried in his arms, his hand upon Twilight’s foreleg.

“Spike,” Celestia said, placing her head upon the bed once more, pushing her muzzle closer to his face. “Spike, the doctors asked me to command you to leave during the night, to leave during the times when the ward is closed to visitors.”

The dragon began to wipe his face across his arms, the word “no” repeating in his motions over and over and over.

“They made very concise, reasoned arguments as to why I should,” she said, her voice filling with cold, hard authority.

He shook his head harder, shook it almost violently, protesting what he sensed she was about to do. A single whine rose from him, muffled in his arms, the sheets, and the mattress.

“But I shall not.”

The hospital room went silent, Spike’s plaintive call ending in a note of supreme confusion.

The nurse and the orderly looked at one another, bafflement painted across their faces. As they stared back to where their sovereign lay, they witnessed Spike’s head coming slowly out of his arms.

He stood, his hand still outstretched and pressed upon Twilight’s foreleg. As he did his eyes met Celestia’s, and he seemed to be in disbelief about what he had just heard.

“W-what?” he asked in an unsteady voice, his eyes red and glistening, still showing the leading edge of a deluge of tears that now, he dared believe, he may not need to shed.

“Spike, though some may question my decision, I believe that you would fare far worse by being forcibly separated from Twilight than you would if allowed to be near her,” she said, lifting her head off the bed. “It must be your choice.”

Spike looked up, staring at her in disbelief. Celestia’s warm smile opened up, showing him that she had spoken the truth.

For the first time in days, Spike smiled.

His face turned up into a smile, and he ran the back of his arm across his eyes. He smiled brighter. He smiled and smiled and smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you,” he repeated again, wiping his eyes with his other arm, his smile growing wider and his voice louder.

“Thank you so much!” he cried, and then stepped forward. A few flecks of light fell from his arms, the late afternoon sunlight catching in the tears that sat there. He lifted his arms up to her up to her, and then leapt forward to wrap the ageless, supposedly immortal, and apparently divine being in a hug.

He felt something stop him, and he opened his eyes to find her hoof pressed to his chest. He looked up to her with hurt showing in his face, an expression that quickly changed to a sort of questioning puzzlement.

She was smiling, and her expression was soft.

“But,” she said.

Uh oh, he thought as his eyes wavered upon her. There’s always a great, big, but…

He thought about what he had just thought for an instant.

Heh…

“But,” she continued, “you must make me a promise, Spike. You must make me the promise that you will try to leave her side for breakfast tomorrow. You must, must, must try to go out into the city, to have a real breakfast. That is what you must you must promise me, Spike. You must promise me that you will at least try.”

Spike looked up to her, some part of him trying to make the promise. It was so simple. He could just say yes.

Other parts fought back… parts that didn’t want to leave Twilight alone at all. Parts that did not want to lie to the princess.

“You have lived under my protection your whole life,” Celestia continued. “You have dwelt under my protection since the moment Twilight hatched you. Through your years in the nursery, to the house of her parents, to the suite you shared with her at the school, to your own little bed very near hers in Ponyville’s library… in all of those times and through those years you have dwelt under my protection, and I have given it to you freely.”

She tilted her head, looked at him pleadingly, and finished her request.

“Is that not enough to gain one promise from you? Are you not loyal to me, even after all of these years, after all the little times that you, Twilight, and I have shared? After the years that I spent with you in the nursery, the time we spent as you learned your magic? Is that worth one promise from you, that you will at least try to nourish yourself?”

Spike was shocked at where the conversation had gone. He’d never, ever heard Celestia make such mentions of the things that they had shared, upon all of the trust and, well, love, that had come from the time that they had spent together.

His mouth came open, and the whelp blinked. It was true. He’d led a charmed life under her protection. Apart from Twilight, there was no pony… of course he was loyal to…

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah. I’ll go get some breakfast when they’re givin’ Twilight her bath and stuff. Everypony’s in here then and it’s all crowded and…”

The dragon looked up to see her smiling down over him. He smiled back.

“I… I promise,” he said, rocking back and forth between the toes and balls of his feet. “I’ll really, really, really try to go out tomorrow.”

The two stood there smiling at one another, sharing their big tear-stained grins. But, after a few moments, Celestia’s expression dropped, and a look of supreme disappointment fell across her face.

“Wah! Princess!” Spike said, jumping a little, trotting closer to her. “What’s wrong? Wha-what happened?”

“Spike,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, “what happened to that hug you were offering me? Where did it go?”

He blinked again, and a smirk left her lips. The dragon took the last step forward, his arms coming up to her. Comfort and Pacemaker smiled to one another as his arms appeared around the back of the alicorn’s neck, gathering her as close as his little reach would allow.

Celestia’s immensely larger frame fell around his, her head going across his shoulders. Her vast white wings folded around Spike, and for the first time in nearly two weeks the child felt safe, happy, and warm.

Small talk floated around the room for the next hour or so. At dinnertime, a tray of food was produced by another orderly, and the unwritten expectation upon it was that they would witness Spike eat something.

It was mostly vegetables, some macaroni salad, and other hospital food staples, all of it awful. Spike ate though, ate as much as he could stomach. The tapioca pudding went down especially easily.

Even as he ate, two doctors came in, doing their routine check of the patient. They were a stallion and a mare, both unicorns, and both doing a rather poor job of not looking surprised to find the room still inhabited by a certain dragon after regular visitor hours.

He smacked his mouth loudly, the tapioca tasting especially good as he watched them. After a while, he had the pleasure of watching those who had tried to eject him from Twilight’s side slowly walk out of the room.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he muttered under his breath, “you’d better run.”

He then asked, politely, if there was any more tapioca pudding to be had.

Celestia stood to leave, and as Comfort and Pacemaker bowed to her, the princess felt the odd sensation of a tug upon her mane. She looked down to find Spike drawing his foot along the floor, tracing the tiles with his toes.

“Princess?” he said, his face to the floor. “Before ya go, you said something about the, well, thing. Ya know, the one that h-hurt Twilight. You said it was an artifact… yeah, an artifact. You called it ‘The Pillar of the Sun’, right? W-what, what does…”

“How about Joe’s?” the alicorn answered.

Spike’s eyebrow arched, and he was suddenly very confused.

“Yes, how about you try Joe’s Doughnut Shop for breakfast tomorrow?” she said, smiling down over him happily. “You know that he always appreciates you visiting him.”

Spike gulped, and an encounter with the familiar stallion in a train not so long ago flashed through his mind. He wondered if that welcome still applied.

Spike shook his head, forcing himself back into the topic at hand.

“Princess?” he began, jumping up and down in front of her a little bit .“You said it was called The Pillar of…”

Sunlight bathed him, and Spike felt much of the tiredness of the last few days departing. He was upon high ramparts, flags were snapping around him and the sun was washing over him, filling his scales with welcome warmth.

He regained his senses just as Celestia’s lips left the top of his head, as she withdrew her gentle kiss.

“Yes,” she said as she turned to leave. “Eat at Joe’s.”

With that, the alicorn left the room, leaving it to the earth ponies, the dragon, and the one who lay quietly upon the bed.

In the hallway, two royal guardsponies stood watch over the door.

They stood there, keeping their vigil as their sovereign moved in her inexplicable ways in the room beyond. They stood there, observing the comings and goings in the hallway, as guardsponies are often wont to do.

Oddly though, for guardsponies, they did not stand there silently.

The two stallions, both of typical large build and powerful stance, were considered oddities among the elite corp that guarded Luna and Celestia.

It was not that they were both earth ponies, which was common enough among the guards.

It was not that they did not have cutie marks that showed them being adept at war and combat, which was also common enough.

It was not that they had combat experience, and had gained a post among the guard through dedication, heroism, and selflessness… because they had.

No, what separated these two guards from most is that, whilst engaged in their duties, they generally refused to shut up.

“You may not use the letter ‘e’ in conversation for the remainder of the hour,” said the first, Simple Script, setting off another round of their banal little games.

“I had thought you’d assign a hard task,” said the second, Morning Mist, easily falling into the challenge. “Now you must start your banal talking with words that can also work as subordinating conjunctions.”

“How is that your game?” answered Script, moving into his task with equal speed. “Since when have you advocated using conjunctions to begin sentences? Because of such lax practices, our language becomes imperiled.”

“Alas,” answered Morning Mist, “such is our condition in Equ… the land of pon…”

Simple Script smirked, sensing victory.

“Our lady’s domain,” answered Celestia, quickly sensing where the game had been going.

The two guardsponies clicked their boots together in salute, and then fell in behind the sovereign. They walked along slowly, watching the princess as her head began to droop, and as it did they heard her sigh. They watched her peer into each of the ward’s rooms as they passed, her eyes settling sadly on the ponies that laid within.

Many guardsponies found it unbecoming of the earth pony stallions, the way that they seemed to disparage of engaging the stoicism that defined most of the guard.

Those critics had found themselves flustered over the last two weeks, since the arrival of the ambulance carrying Twilight Sparkle. Celestia had done something atypical… she had directly interfered with routine guardspony business.

The moment she heard the first descriptions of what happened she’d had these two lower ranked guardsponies put into her personal guard rotation.

There was much talk about it in the garrison and around the barracks. Many wondered why she’d asked for them, considering how quiet, how introspective she’d become the second she had first laid eyes on Twilight’s unmoving body. Reflection had settled across the alicorn as she’d pressed her lips to Twilight’s forehead, as the tears began to run down her cheeks.

Then again, many theorized, these two stallions were exactly what she needed at this moment. Maybe the Princess of the Sun needed to hear voices, to have someponies near her who simply refused to shut up.

“My lady?” asked Morning Mist as he looked for a clock, hoping that the hour would soon be over. “My lady, you hang your brow. Do your thoughts hold you down?”

“Lest you be dragged down farther, Majesty,” began Simple Script, “is there nothing we can do for you? Even though I had hoped that things would go better for you, my Princess, in that room, did it not? Inasmuch as we can, our lady knows we are happy to help.”

Celestia’s hooves slowed, and soon she stood there, her mane floating. As the sounds of a hospital ward moved around them, rolling carts, medical talk, drawers sliding open, the ancient sovereign slowly turned her head to face them. As she did, the two guardsponies bowed.

They were dutiful, concerned stallions, made of all the firm stuff one expected from those who served in the armor of the two Sister Sovereigns of Equestria. They had done all that becoming a trusted Royal Guard involves.

They just didn’t shut up.

“Thank you, Silent Script,” she said, not bothering to mention his rank. “That means a great deal to me. I feel that I shall have to call upon you both soon enough.”

Their eyes flashed to one another, and then back to her.

“It… it did not go poorly, in the hospital room, to answer your question,” she said, lifting her head to gaze around the ward. “I simply had to do something that I’d rather not have done.”

Her eyes coasted up and down the ward. It was finely appointed, looking very much like a fine hotel. The doctors and nurses here were some of the best in Canterlot, if not Equestria. Yet, for all of the superlatives, she knew this place. She’d watched it evolved from a House of Healing centuries ago… one meant for a single purpose.

“The West Wind Annex for the Treatment and Care of Magically Enchanted and Unresponsive” read the brass letters above the door.

That was its name, at least on the letterhead, and it made her shudder.

Forgive me, Spike, she thought to herself as she looked down the hallway. Behind each door lay one of her children, one of her little ponies, locked inside curses, enchantments, and magical afflictions that had drawn them off to some other place, or locked them inside their own minds.

Celestia drew a long sigh. Twilight was here now, and she knew why, and it made her shudder at the lies she’d just draped across a little boy.

Forgive me, Spike, she said, swallowing hard, but she cannot wake up, not by herself. If she is ever to leave this place…

She re-read the sign, and the nickname that adhered to it flew through Celestia’s mind, the one whispered by nurses and doctors in their private moments…

… its real name, The Ward of the Living Dead.

Her head went low as she left the ward, and her suddenly very silent guards followed her.

A new stack of glasses arrived, some still wet with steam and a few rolling drops of condensation.

Spike helped Pacemaker lift them into the high cabinet over the sink, handling each gently. Spike placed each one deliberately, doing his best to feel them settle as he put them in their place.

He wished the stallion good night.

Comfort brought in the compress, and together the dragon and the nurse began the nightly ritual. Spike looked away as she checked the sheets for any messes, and finding none they went about their new tradition.

Spike held Twilight’s head, lifting it gently, tenderly lifting the hair of her mane out of the way. He held the two moist compresses to Twilight’s eyes, and soon Comfort passed him the gauze. Together they wound it around and around, and then settled Twilight’s head once more upon the pillow.

Twilight’s eyes would be safe the whole night through. The artificial tears dripped down her face, as though mourning her inability to produce her own. The sight of it made Spike very quiet… very quiet indeed.

There were a few more little motions, the nurse finishing her shift and filling out papers, the dragon simply shifting back and forth, keeping his watch. His head rested in his arms, lying next to Twilight.

Spike’s eyes fell to the stand next to the bed. The crown stood there, just where he had placed it that first day, that first horrible day when he had come to her side for the first time. His hands had shook, and some small part of him that had envisioned her leaping back to consciousness as the crown came near had died an agonizing death as she continued to lay there quietly, lifting the crisp sheets with tiny breaths.

His eyes moved slightly, to the tall glass and the cool water within. The last rays of the day fell through the window, and as they did their reflection through the glass faded.

For yet another day, she had not claimed the rainbow he had brought her.

Twilight had not woken up, and now her eyes were bandaged in preparation for yet another night. She could not have witnessed the rainbow he’d carefully provided for her even if there had been one to see.

“Spike?” came Comfort’s voice, interrupting a long, hoarse sigh that lifted from him as he stared over the glass.

“Y-yeah?” he answered, turning his body to look up at her.

Her foreleg was raised, her hoof held before him. Comfort’s mark was alive inside her, and her name hovered there with her invitation. “Heh,” Spike said, and then the whelp stepped forward into her offered hug.

He’d been hugged by Comfort, by Celestia…

… but neither felt like Twilight. The aura of safety, warmth, of familiarity that came with her hugs was absent.

He couldn’t say that it didn’t feel good, though.

“Please,” she said, raising her head and looking down at him, “do try to go out for breakfast tomorrow. You know that I’ll call you first thing if there is any sign that she’s coming out of it. You know that.”

“Yeah,” he said, parting from her. “Yeah, I know you will. Thanks. I’ll try. I really, really will.”

As Comfort turned away she saw him beginning to build his nest, to remove the blankets and cushions from the couch. Her statement ran around in her head, that she would tell him first if there was any change.

It was a lie. She was obligated to tell her immediate family first, the law said so.

But, it had brought him solace to say so. It had brought him comfort.

But a lie it was.

The nurse went to her station and began to check out, conferring with the nurses who would keep watch over the ward as night settled around Canterlot, the last few streaks of light falling through the spires of the city outside.

Back in the room, Spike finished building his little futon, his nest next to her bed. He clicked on the light, and its magic illuminated a small sphere around the two beds as he reached into the drawer of the nightstand.

He pulled out a book, wobbling unsteadily as his feet caught in the blanket. He fought both its weight and also the tiredness that sought even harder to claim him as the darkness and quiet grew around them.

“Precepts of Innovational Magic Theory”, he read, “Chapter Twelve: Foundational Structures of Higher Magical Conversion.”

He looked up to her from his little settee, a weak smile on his face. This was one of her favorite chapters.

He struggled through some of the words, saying them phonetically, explanatorily… even just making them up. Yet, he still tried his hardest, just as he had for the last twelve nights.

No one had told him that he should read to her, and that surprised him. Surely, all of the movies and stories said that he should… didn’t that count for something?

In any case, he read.

He read as best he could, fighting to keep his eyes open, until finally magical substrates revealed themselves as fabrics that could be manipulated in turn with higher practices or something, and he was finally able to close the book’s cover.

He looked up to Twilight. She had not moved. She had not moved, and her eyes sat beyond the white compresses and gauze.

His expression dropped as he slipped the book back into the drawer of the nightstand. He adjusted the glass, the crown, and the few small items that sat nearby. He had read, he had brought her cold water, he had taken care of her little possessions.

It was all he knew to do. It was all he could do.

His eyes fell down to her boots. Though he had been that last one to touch them, he adjusted them once again, finding them another perfect line in which to sit.

He sighed heavily as he looked upon them… as his eyes fell over them.

Two. There were only two.

Two still sat back there, back in that horrible place where he had thrown one at that wicked, terrible thing. The both sat there in the dark with that unhappy, nameless…

No, it had a name. He knew its name now. He had that small power over it.

“Pillar of the Sun,” he breathed, the words falling out of him with a hiss from between his teeth. “The Pillar of the Sun,” he repeated.

“I hate you,” he whispered. “I hate you, hate you... hate you.”

Pain swam across Spike’s claws. He looked at them to discover that he had been balling them so tight that he was hurting himself. He looked at his hands, felt his own fangs sitting exposed upon his face. “I hate you, forever,” he whispered, and then forced the tide of emotions to drain from his body.

He tiptoed across the room, and as he had every night he looked up and down the corridor. Only the night nurse sat at the far desk, and no noises or movement came from the other eleven rooms in the wing. It was dark, save for the one light in Twilight’s room. It remained silent and still as night air crept in from some window beyond, settling up and down the hallways on soft currents.

He tiptoed to the far side of the room, not knowing why.

“Twilight?” he asked.

His head came up, making sure that no one was near. If they knew that he was doing this, they’d think him insane. They’d think he had truly been traumatized, had become unstable.

He’d have no way to deny them. Still, he tried once again.

“Twilight? Twilight, please wake up,” he asked, holding her hoof between his hands. He held her hoof with one hand, stroked it with the other.

“Twilight? Twi, you can wake up now, we’re far away from it,” he said, repeating his refrain. “Twilight?”

She did not move.

“Twilight, Twi, Princess Celestia says it’s called the Pillar of the Sun, and now… now we know that, okay?”

She did not move.

“Twi? Twi, please,” he whimpered.

Spike lowered his head, touched his to hers. He laid his forehead to hers, nuzzled against her.

“Twi, please wake up. Please, Twi.”

Nothing.

“Please… please, Twi…”

The scent of night air drifted around the room, and in the hallway soft music began to lift from the nurse’s station. It was soft, lilting, like music played in places where music was a distraction, not the focus. The music bobbled along, catching around the unhearing ears of the twelve ponies entombed in the Ward of the Living Dead…

… and the little ghost who held his vigil.

Spike ran the back of his arm across his eyes, wiping the water away.

He smoothed the sheets, never releasing her hoof as he did. He teetered a bit, reaching for the light. As it flicked off he slid from her bed, searching for his own little pile of cushions and blankets with one of his feet, dangling it around until the claws caught in soft fabric.

“Good night, Twi,” he breathed, stroking her hoof one last time before placing it back beneath the sheets. “Sleep tight.”

He buried himself in his blankets, lifted his eyes to look at the immobile form upon the bed once again, and then finally settled down, drifting off into the same troubled dreams that had plagued him for two weeks.

In those dreams, Twilight stared back at him from beneath a sheet of water, and he could do nothing.

The ward fell silent, save for the music drifting and bobbing on the night air that drifted over the sleepers from places unseen.

Chapter 8: The Visitors

Chapter 8: The Visitors

The four Mah’Qua sat there, tied together, each one more than a trifle miffed that they’d be late.

Oh, they’d been late before. The cats had been blown off course. They’d been lost in storms, and they’d had cargo-handling problems. Yeah, they’d been late before, and their feline wiles had handled the situations as they’d developed.

This was the first time they’d be late due to pirates, though.

Actually, the more that they thought about it, the more the term “miffed” didn’t really apply. Also, if they were being honest with themselves, being late didn’t quite rank that high on their list of concerns. A more accurate description of what was going through their thoughts at the moment would have been “terrified out of their minds” and “sick with fear that they were about to have their throats slit”.

That the pirates seemed to be mostly ponies, a people who the Mah’Qua, these cats, had tried to take advantage of at times, didn’t help put that fear to rest.

It certainly wasn’t made much better as the one wearing the tattered remains of a uniform came forward, his spurs drawn and something held out in his hoof.

“Hello,” he said. “Would you happen to have the sequel to this?”

The four cats looked at one another, and then back up to the pony. His mane, held in locks, sat covered by his tri-corner hat, the brown fading with some shocks of grey into the yellow of his uniform.

“T-the sequel?” asked one venturesome cat, noting the way that the pony’s spurs jingled as he leafed through the book.

“Yes,” the pony answered, shaking the blue cuffs of the uniform free of the spurs, new tears appearing across them. “The sequel. You see, this author, he was never able to repeat the success he had with this work, and he spent the rest of his career trying to do so, but all that his readers wanted was him to make the sequel to this story. His heart wasn’t in it, though. It was a lesser work.”

The pony coughed a little, one of his braids coming lose, his face scrunching up behind his tiny glasses.

“It’s all quite tragic really, that he never was able to do so, and I was just wondering if you happened to have the sequel here on your ship, perhaps?” he asked, his hooves folding through the book once more.

“What… what was the title?” asked another one of the Mah’Qua, the cats suddenly finding themselves more interested in the request of this one pony than, say, the way their ship was being ransacked around them.

“I’m sorry, what?” answered the pony, lifting his tri-corner hat to put his braid back in place. The long glint of his spurs shone out as he did so, reminding them that the ponies that were now swarming over their ship were not making a social call.

“The title… the title of the sequel?” asked a third cat, the creature twisting and turning his body within his ropes, trying to face the pirate. “What was the title of the sequel?”

“Oh, of course, forgive me,” said the pony. “I’m quite sure that I have no idea. I simply was trying to make some polite conversation.”

The four Mah’Qua blinked in unison.

“Cap’n,” came a new voice, and as the sounds of the pirates began to withdraw a tangerine-coated colt (at least they thought it was a colt) came trotting into the cabin, saluting as he laid a leather binder before the uniformed pony. “We’ve completed our search. Here is a comprehensive list of everything we’re taking off of this ship, itemized and in duplicate. Here you go, sir.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” said the captain, accepting the papers into his hoof. “It took all of this time? And look, look at this line here! Why, you didn’t even indent this line. A poor showing, Vimbert… a poor showing all around.”

“Yessir. Sorry, sir,” said the colt (at least they believed him… her, it, to be a colt). “It won’t happen again, sir.”

The grumbling pony left the cabin, leaving the uniformed one with the cats. They watched as his eyes followed the mumbling, petulant form as it departed the cabin, and then a smirk came over his face.

“Actually, that was probably damn close to our record time,” said the pony, motioning out the door, a certain amount of pride falling from him. “And the forms are all immaculate as well. Can’t let that one get too cocksure, though, now can we?”

The cats blinked in unison once again.

“Now,” he said, laying the papers before the prisoners, the quartet of cats leaning forward, each filled with the famed curiosity of their kind, “here you’ll find a grand list of all we’ve taken, useful for giving to insurance adjusters, corporate lawyers, international police communities, your friends, your pets, your pet’s friends, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.”

The pony coughed again, excused himself, and stood there staring at them blankly.

The cats, once again, blinked in unison. Long moments passed there, the boat bobbing on the calm waters as blinking, staring, and coughing held reign over the very, very, very odd day that was shaping up around them.

“H-hey, now… I must say, I think we’re owed an explanation,” began the most vocal of the Mah’Qua, “You can’t think that we aren’t going to file a protest, or press charges…”

“I understand. This must be horribly confusing for you,” answered the pony, nodding his head, “I hope there’s some comfort for you in realizing that I don’t particularly care. Also, minotaur.”

“M-minotaur?” answered the cat.

“Minotaur,” replied the pony.

“Minotaur?!” replied the bundle of Mah’Qua.

“Minotaur,” answered the minotaur, stepping within the cabin, watching their eyes go wide. “Cap’n, we’ve finished loading, and are ready to be off.”

“Thank you, Vise Grip. Have we already brought the engines up to speed?” the pony asked, settling the book back into its spot on the small, disheveled bookcase.

“Yessir, Cap’n,” replied Vise Grip, the huge creature rolling his muscles around in all sorts of unseemly positions as he tried to fit within the confines of the cabin. “Vimbert kept them at the ready, in case we had to be off in a hurry.”

“Huh, that was a good idea. That was a splendid idea,” spoke the pony, running his hoof through his beard as he pondered the other titles. “Be sure to remind me to give him a hard time about wasting fuel or some such thing when we get back aboard.”

A smirk crossed the minotaur’s face, even that act seeming to send further muscles rippling around his body. “Heh… yessir, Cap’n, sir. He’ll love that, sir.”

“That colt’s going to slit my throat some night, you know,” chuckled the pony.

“Heh,” answered the minotaur, “yessir.”

“Ummm…” spoke the awkwardly placed cat, the one facing the wall. “I… I do hate to interrupt…”

“Oh!” replied the pony, looking up from the bookshelf. “Speaking of which…”

The pony unsheathed his spur once more, the thin stiletto blade clicking into place once again.

“Do excuse me, Vise. I’ll be along shortly.”

The minotaur nodded, committed more obscene acts with his muscles to dislodge himself from the cabin, and then left the pony alone with the cats.

The Mah’Qua slowly shifted their eyes from the departing minotaur to the uniformed officer who slowly advanced upon them. There was the shine of light catching on something metallic, the hiss of something moving through the air at speed. At once there was the unmistakable sound of a spur, that weapon unique to ponies, slicing through something that offered it resistance.

The cats opened their eyes to the realization that all of their throats were remarkably intact.

They looked to one another, and then spilled across the deck of the cabin as the rope that had bound them together split. The cats tumbled across each other, landing in a jumble that completely lacked all of the grace and poise that stereotypically marked their kind.

“I hope that you have enjoyed this act of unjustifiable piracy,” came the voice of the pony, and the Mah’Qua looked up to find him standing in the doorway. “If you have any complaints, please be aware that I don’t particularly care. However, if it makes you feel better, you can address your letter of complaint, criticism, and any spare change you may have to Cap’n…”

The pony coughed, and then coughed some more. He then smacked his lips… and stood there, just looking out over the sea beyond.

“Cap’n?” came one little voice, another of the cats.

“Hmmm?” answered the pony, looking back within the cabin.

“Well… your name? Captain what?” the cat asked, uncertain sounds falling through its voice.

The pony arched one eyebrow, then the other. In a moment a look of enlightenment fell over him, and he gave a chuckle.

“Oh! Oh, of course,” he said smiling back to them. “I don’t have one. I lost it in the war, you see. Also, it is just ‘Cap’n’… no ‘tai’, as it were.”

“Lose that in ‘The War’, too?” asked another one of the cats incredulously.

“No, of course not. That’s ridiculous. What a ridiculous thing to say. You, sir, are ridiculous,” replied the pony, regarding him with contempt. “I had it painted out. Goodbye now.”

With that he raised a foreleg, and at once was lifted into the air.

The cats stood, making their way to the door as they lifted themselves out of their uncomfortable positions. They moved out onto the deck to find the hiss of steam and magic falling around them, and rivulets of water falling across the deck of their little boat.

Above their heads, a trim little airship lifted into the air, a billowing mass of fabric and great long timbers lifting across the bow of their ship.

“Well, talk about eccentric,” said one, placing his paws over his eyes, shielding them from the sun as he watched the craft depart. “I wonder if he’ll ever find that sequel?”

Of the four cats, only the oldest had already begun to move to make any sense of what had just happened. As the airship circled them once, he lifted the inventory to see how badly they had fared.

His mind boggled.

Their ship had been carrying silks, spices, trade goods of all shapes and varieties.

None of it had been touched.

When his old sailor’s wisdom settled in, he realized what had been taken. The cat felt something growing softer in him, something that spoke to pity rather than anger or want of revenge.

He joined his three juniors, and with one last peek at the signature he let the inventory slip from his claws and go sailing out over the waves.

He watched the airship until it disappeared into a bank of heavy clouds, wondering all the while what could be hunting the pony, what Cap’n could possible be fleeing from.

“The Pillar of the Sun?” replied Artificer Call, the older stallion slowly lowering the newspaper to the counter.

Spike leaned forward, awaiting the reply of the historian.

This could be it, this could be the first step towards helping Twilight wake up. This could be the clue that lead him down a path towards presenting the doctors with that one little slice of information that could help… that would let her open her eyes.

“The Pillar… of the Sun,” Call repeated, placing a rather unnecessary space directly in the middle of his words. The pony looked to the floor, drawing Spike’s stare at the same undefined spot amid the tiles.

“The Pillar of the Sun,” the historian said, rubbing his chin, invoking an intellectual hum as he pondered the words.

Spike bounced on the stool, little leaps of anxiety, awaiting the sudden flood of knowledge that the pony was soon to…

“No,” Artificer Call finally said. “I don’t believe that I’ve ever heard of it.”

Spike’s right eye gave a series of spasms, twitching involuntarily, as he stared at the pony. Spike’s eye twitched some more, and Call suddenly got the feeling that if he didn’t say something very soon the dragon might have some kind of episode.

And, as that would be rather upsetting, he pressed the child for some more information.

“Describe the artifact to me, dear boy,” he said, pushing the tiny glasses farther up his nose. “Was it a piece of jewelry? Or was it a weapon, a…”

“It was a pillar!” wailed Spike, jumping to his feet, standing on the stool. “That’s why Princess Celestia called it ‘The Pillar of the Sun’!”

“Well, I can hardly know that!” answered Call, leaning back, away from the exasperated little dragon, only just seeing the tired, exhausted look that hovered in Spike’s eyes, the dark rings that sat beneath. “Artifacts change with time! They are re-forged, broken, enchanted… all sorts of things can happen to them. The Ring of Vida is a spear! Drojhen’s Mask is a series of riddles written on crystals! The Cytic Feather is currently a mountain in Saddle Arabia, and will be until the next…”

Artificer Call stopped short, looking back at the dragon so hard that the Spike spun around on his seat, staring past himself to where he assumed Call’s eyes were falling. Spike’s eyes looked up, down, left and right, and then he spun around to Call once again, startling when he found the pony hovering over him, a look of copious glee painted across his features.

“Dear boy!” announced Call. “I don’t know about the Pillar of the Sun, and it could quite possibly go by another name! Do you know what this means? Can you possibly know what this means?!”

“W-what!? What does it mean!?” asked Spike, dancing upon the stool, waving his arms around frantically.

“It means that I can issue another edition of my book once we figure out what it is! I’ll be able to redo the downstairs lavatory this year!” Call said, his smile going wide.

Spike went stark still, and he stared deep into the older stallion’s eyes.

In the kitchen of the café, Pony “Doughnut” Joe was just finishing up preparing a small lunch for Spike to take back to the hospital when his eyes caught a photograph sitting in his little countertop window.

Allspice stared back at him from within the photo, the mare’s soft eyes reaching for his. Her shoulder was up just that much, as though asking him to follow as she began to turn…

A resounding thud sounded through the café, and Joe was startled out of his pondering. Allspice’s gentle, longing gaze was replaced by the visage of Artificer Call… which wasn’t nearly as enticing in any possible manner.

“Oh, Joe, sorry to bother you,” the older stallion said, peering within the little window that separated the kitchen and the counter, “but is there any chance that I may have a paper bag, or even one of those demure little paper hats that you wear about the shop?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” replied Joe, lifting the hat off of his own head with his magic and passing it to Call. “Any particular reason why?”

“Oh, well… ummm, you see, I think I broke the dragon,” he said.

“Okay, Spike, just breath, buddy,” Joe said moments later, holding the dragon off the floor. As the little paper hat inflated and deflated, Spike slowly regained the use of his senses.

“I… I do apologize, dear boy,” said Call, anxiously dancing his hooves as he stared down at the whelp. “I didn’t mean to imply that my sole concern was monetary gain. I do hope that you recognized that I mean to help you discover what this Pillar of the Sun could possibly be.”

Spike recovered so quickly that the hat fumbled through his arms and ended up sitting on his head.

“R-really?” he asked. “Do… do you mean it?”

“Well, yes, of course I do,” said Call, his gaze wandering around a bit, taken aback by Spike’s sudden revival. “Yes… yes I will. I’ll meet you at the Royal Archives this afternoon at, shall we say…”

Artificer Call had lived a long and varied life. He had seen many wonders, and had experienced many things. As his eyes went wide, he added “received a hug from a dragon whelp” to his list.

“Thank you! Thanks so much!” Spike cried, wrapping his arms around the stallion’s legs.

“Heh heh, whoa there, Spike, take a second to breathe, kiddo!” said Joe, tapping Spike on the back, reminding the boy that he’d been on the floor in a state of shock a moment before. “Lemme get ya another glass of water before…”

Water. Cold water. Rainbows. A little rainbow sitting across the wall of the hospital room.

“Omigosh!” Spike called, jumping in place. “Twilight’s water! I hafta get back to the hospital!”

Spike took off running towards the door, but before he could he made a wide circle back to the two stallions. “I’ll see ya there at like, two o’clock? Okay?” he said to Call, not even slowing down as he went past.

Spike ran towards the door again, but once more a wide arc of a circle brought him back to where the stallions stood. “Thanks, Mr. Call, sir! Thanks for the breakfast, and the lunch, Joe!”

The two began to reply, but Spike’s hurried exit towards the door continued unabated. Soon he reached the door, but without stopping he once more completed a long circle, bringing him back to where Joe and Artificer Call stood watching his exhibition.

Spike finally stopped, grasping each of the stallions in a hug before once again pelting off, this time making it through the doors and into the streets beyond, the little paper hat still clinging to his head and the bagged lunch waving at his side.

“Well, that was certainly interesting,” said Call, retaking his seat. “He certainly is devoted to Princess Twilight Sparkle, isn’t he?”

“That he is,” Joe replied, pouring Call his last complimentary cup of tea. Joe smiled as he did, thinking on Twilight and Spike. What’s a smart cookie without some milk, after all?

Spike went back down the high street of the capital, sheepishly passing fireponies contemplating the ashes of several small, mysterious fires as he did.

He sighed heavily, his eyes only set on the dim outline of the hospital beyond. The city was fully awake now, and ponies went up and down the streets, each one concerned with their own affairs.

Spike noticed none of it, and as his little feet carried him along, he could only focus on the hospital.

“Hey!” called the receptionist. “You have to sign in!”

He pelted past.

“Meh, nevermind,” she said, watching him go.

He never even heard her, he just went right past. He went past more medical carts, more recognizable faces, more familiar faces that called out, questioning how his breakfast had been.

He ignored them all. He simply kept running… kept running back to Twilight. She might be up, she might already be up and she didn’t have any cold water and she didn’t have a rainbow and if he wasn’t there she’d think that he didn’t care about her and, and, and…

He careened past the waiting room, and as he did his thoughts distracted him… and only a small fragment of his mind registered the flash of white that stood out on a pony’s coat as he went past.

As he went along hooffalls, ones that seemed alive with worry, emerged from the waiting room and began to trot down the hallway after him.

He simply kept running. Running past the nurse’s station, running down the hallway…

He turned into Twilight’s room, and skidded to a stop.

Familiar colors met him, and eyes lifted to him as he appeared in the doorway.

“Hiya, Spike!” said Pinkie, staring back at him with a vast, wide smile. “We were wondering where you were and stuff!”

Instantly her warm, blue eyes fell to his emerald ones, and she knew that she’d said the absolutely, perfectly wrong thing. Hurt showed in his eyes, and at once Pinkie blanched.

“I mean, I know that you are usually here, that you’ve been stayin’ with Twilight and stuff and that you haven’t been leaving and so we were glad that you weren’t here… but we don’t mean that we don’t want you here!” she said, drawing a massive breath. Across the bed, Applejack regarded her words with growing concern.

Pinkie continued. “It’s just that we don’t want you to be here, but we don’t mean that in the bad way, what we mean is…”

“What she means, Spike,” Applejack said, reaching her hoof across Twilight’s bed, careful to avoid touching the still unmoving alicorn, “is that we know you’re usually here with her and all, and that we’re glad that ya got out for a spell.”

Slowly, Applejack dropped her hoof, and together the earth ponies walked, and bounced, over to him, nuzzling their faces to his. Their eyes lifted from him, meeting those of another pony, the same one whose hooves had followed him down the hallway.

“Ain’t happy to have to say it, Spike,” Applejack said, dropping his eyes over him once more, “but the princess was right, ya look horrible. Even worse than ya did the last time ah was here, and you were a sight then.”

“Wowie, Spike,” Pinkie added, leaning close to him, “pressing her face close to his, “you’ve got dark rings under the dark rings under your eyes… which also have dark rings!”

Spike wavered on his feet, trying to think of some small reply, some way to answer the ponies. Before he could, he felt the paper hat lift from his head, and the lunch bag slip from his hand. A blue aura surrounded them, lifting to the distant countertop, settling them gently. A white foreleg fell across him, and he knew there was only one pony it could be.

“Oh, Spike,” Rarity said, pulling him a little closer. “You look a fright, darling.”

She pressed him against her chest, and her hoof went through his frills.

“Oh, my poor Spikey-Wikey.”

He looked up to her, saw the concern and worry that sat over her face, and saw it in the faces of Pinkie Pie and Applejack, too.

“But, I… I just had breakfast,” he said laying his head against her foreleg, the words falling out of him as though he were attempting to offer some kind of proof that he was well, that he was okay. “I j-just had breakfast.”

The three ponies stared to one another. They seemed largely unconvinced.

Spike had hardly been the only creature at Twilight’s bedside. He may have been the first to her side when the doctors had brought her to this room, but he was hardly the sole pony to show her concern.

In the first few days he had scarcely had room to move as her family and friends had gathered to her. Cadence, Shining Armor, Mr. Dad and Mrs. Mom (as he had long called Twilight’s parents), Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Dash, Fluttershy, and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had all made appearances.

They came and went in something akin to a pattern, like a symphony. Her parents played the part of a metronome, keeping time as her brother and sister-in-law became the melody, her friends the harmony.

And, over it all, stood a little conductor, waving his baton over the components as they came and went. Spike just stood there throughout the whole thing, keeping his unwavering ear to the music… waiting, hoping for the crescendo.

Over the weeks, the numbers of visitors had thinned, the music growing dim.

He thought about that as small conversation flit over the group, and as he leapt up to the sink once more he found it still low on glasses. He grumbled at Pacemaker under his breath, catching himself as he did. It wasn’t even noon, the orderly hadn’t even gotten to that part of his routine yet.

Spike fumbled the glass in his hand. He had shocked himself when he realized that he already knew all of the routines, that he had deciphered the daily practices of the hospital.

He had shocked himself further as he realized he was now so tired and withdrawn that he was forgetting them.

He looked up from the glass to see Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity looking to him. “Heh,” he said, filling the glass with the cold water that splashed through the sink.

“Heh,” he repeated as he walked slowly towards Twilight’s bed, the nervous laugh sitting starkly against the backdrop of the concerned faces that looked over him.

He set the cup on the nightstand, moving it just slightly so that it painted a small rainbow across the white walls of the room once again.

He turned to rest his head against the bed once again, to assume “the position”, but as he turned to look upon Twilight’s unopened eyes he felt the touch of a hoof to his back. Rarity sat behind him, her hoof still held up to him, and understanding her invitation he slid backwards, resting in the space between her forelegs and against her chest and barrel.

He leaned against her foreleg, and at once he was reminded of sitting with Celestia the day before. It was warm, close, comforting…

… but it wasn’t Twilight. It just wasn’t Twilight.

The conversation bobbled along in predictable waves for an hour. Life in Ponyville, he gleaned from the conversation, was progressing as per the usual script, as though some vast intellects had sat down and planned everything out. Only his few lines were going off in some unknown direction, as though some lesser god had put his hands to writing the story of these last two weeks.

There were fields of apple trees just coming into bloom in the April sun, and he knew that he would miss walking down the long rows as they erupted into their blossoms. The soft feel of the petals beneath his feet as he had walked Apple Bloom home from school one afternoon reached for him, and he could almost smell the flowers around him as Applejack spoke of them.

Pinkie too went around the room, speaking of the fresh spring air sinking through Sugar Cube Corner as lines of cookies, cakes, pies, and treats were removed from the oven. Despite his breakfast still sitting satisfactorily in his stomach, Spike’s belly rumbled at the images that Pinkie presented him.

Rarity spoke, telling him about all of her new orders. Her spring line was a hit, and orders were pouring in from across Equestria. As she spoke he could see the vibrant pastels of her fabrics coming undone as she pulled them from their bolts. In his mind he could hear her humming to herself, watched her make the thousands of tiny decisions that she poured over each of her creations.

“Oh, it’s so dreadfully taxing, I must say,” Rarity sighed. Her face went a little sheepish, as though apologizing. “I certainly am glad for the business, mind you, and for the accolades, but it would all go so much better if I had a little help around the shop…”

Her words were pointed, and they were not lost on Spike. Slowly he stood, and without looking to any of the three he made his way to the bed. Once there, he leaned across his own forearms once again, assuming “the position”, the same one he had lingered in for almost two weeks, staring into Twilight’s unopened eyes, watching the blanket raise and fall on her tiny breaths.

Pinkie opened her mouth, her expression brightening and words forming on her lips. It all fell away as Spike lifted his hand, drawing strands of Twilight’s hair out of her face, settling them back behind her ear once more.

Spike knew what was coming next. It was the same thing that Celestia had done yesterday, and that had been hard enough. It was the same thing that Twilight’s parents had done, that Cadence and Shining Armor had done, that her other friends and the doctors and the staff had all done.

They had all tried to get him to leave her, to trick him into…

Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Spike jumped a little, his startle evident to all in the room. “Trick him”? Where had that come from? He berated himself inside his own head. They weren’t trying to trick him! They were worried about him! These are his friends, they love him, care about him!

Thoughts like those, angry ones, were only getting stronger in his mind as his body grew weaker.

That he knew.

“I… I had breakfast,” he said, repeating his earlier refrain, attempting to stem the incoming tide of very reasonable, largely accurate, and horribly truthful comments that he knew were now coming.

“We’re glad you’re eatin’ proper now, Spike,” Applejack said, nodding to him slowly. “But ya can’t keep goin’ on the way that you’re goin’ on…”

“You gotta get out more Spikey! Your scales are all fading and you’re all deflated like a balloon that’s been sitting on the floor after a party that was like three days ago and nobody’s bothered to pick it up!” Pinkie cried, leaping forward, brushing against him. To his surprise she laid her head on his, and then pulled him back towards her, running her hooves across his scales, watching them flex and bend with startling ease.

It tickled him. Pinkie was tickling him, and even though he began to giggle, he didn’t want to.

“Well now, Spike, that’s all we’ve wanted to hear from you,” Rarity said, putting her hoof over her mouth to hide her smile at the sight. “You’ve been so, well… not yourself. Can you blame us for worrying over you, darling? I… we know that Twilight is so very dear to you, but that’s no reason to allow yourself to waste away.”

“Now, listen to Rarity, Spike,” added Applejack. “There’s plenty o’ sense in what she’s sayin’. There’s no point in you stayin’ here with her all this time.”

Pinkie continued to tickle him, and as the words of the other mares fell over him he felt something shift within, something feral. He felt trapped. Caged. It… it was bad enough when Twilight’s parents, her teachers and peers, admonished him, but her friends? His friends?

They should be the ones to see, the ones who knew!

Before he even knew what he had done, Spike had knocked Pinkie’s hooves away. He spun out of her forelegs, a snarl erupting from him as he scrambled back to his feet.

“Yeah, okay, fine! Ya know what? Maybe if her friends and her family would come around more often I wouldn’t have to stay here with her!” he growled, his eyes flashing, his fists balling.

“Maybe if somepony else showed that they cared about Twilight, I wouldn’t have to be here!” he called, his voice rumbling. “Maybe if she had some friends who cared about her more than themselves, then I could sleep, heh? Maybe? Maybe!?

He spun around once, that unhappy part of him rising up again, the one that had only been growing stronger as his body grew weaker. His teeth ground against themselves, and his face creased. He lifted his eyes to deliver the coup de grace.

“But no, who’s Twilight’s only real friend? Who’s been the one who has always been right beside Twili… Twi…”

His words died on his lips, the angry part of him shuddering to a halt, dropping away like it had been sent careening off a metaphorical cliff.

His hands lifted to his mouth, covering it as the realization of what he had just done thudded across him. He looked to each of the ponies, to the hanging faces of Applejack and Rarity, their eyes cast down to the floor of the hospital room.

He turned slowly, his hands still covering his mouth, to face Pinkie. Her hoof was still held up to him, still holding the position it had been in when she’d been tickling him, her usual buoyant spirit believing that she’d been making him happy.

But now her face was scrunched up, her jaw quivering, and the great blue pools of her eyes were filling with tears.

“Pinkie,” Spike breathed. “Pinkie, I’m sorry.”

He stepped forward, pushed his muzzle against her shoulder, and lifted his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”

Her foreleg fell across him, and he embraced his friend.

He held her for what he felt was the right amount of time, that imperceptible duration of what it took to make amends, and then slowly moved to Applejack.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, lifting the words to her ears. “I’m sorry.”

She too forgave him with her hug, and he pressed himself closer to her, little strands of her blonde mane buffeting in his breath.

Rarity lifted her foreleg, and he fell into the reaches of her white coat easily, his arms coming up beneath her.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, wiping the tears from his face with the back of one of his outstretched arms. “I’m so sorry.”

He began to lift from her, but he felt her tug on him, not yet ready to see him leave. He realized that she wasn’t done forgiving him yet, or perhaps something more. Perhaps she was… yes, she was trying to drag the tiredness out of him.

He wiped his head to her coat.

“Oh, my poor Spikey-Wikey,” she whispered, resting her head atop his.

It had been unfair. He knew it had been unfair, but he’d said the words anyway. He’d yelled at his friends. Worse yet, he’d known it was a lie, just as they had known. Even if Celestia and Luna, her parents, and her family had been in here every hour of every day, he’d still have been here. Even then he would not have left.

They had come. They’d come every week. They’d come when they could. They had lives outside of this hospital. They had families and jobs. That had surprised him when he’d come to Ponyville, that mares as young as these had so many responsibilities. All he’d ever known was the academic world, of fillies Twilight’s age being in school.

Now that he knew of the world outside Canterlot, he had done his best to help Twilight see all of the good things it had offered her… the things that these friends had brought into her life.

It was something that she should still be enjoying. He only wanted to see her happy, to see that wonderful twist of joy in her eyes.

Why had that needed to change? Why couldn’t she just have been able to enjoy that for a little while longer? Why had she needed to change? Why?

Why did she have to become a princess?

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she had all of these new responsibilities. It wasn’t fair that she, a young mare, had all of these new concerns. It wasn’t fair that she got to spend less time with these friends… with him. It was all because she became a princess! If she hadn’t been a princess, she wouldn’t be in that bed, her mind locked away! If she hadn’t become a bucking princess, then he…

… then he could still see her eyes.

It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t bucking fair!

Snap out of it! he yelled at himself, making himself startle in Rarity’s forelegs. Knock it off!

Spike took deep breaths, let himself sit in the comfort of Rarity’s embrace… took her offer to lift some of the pain out of him with her touch.

After a week, five days, fifteen hours, and so many minutes, he finally admitted to himself what was happening. He gulped, his throat bouncing around against Rarity’s chest.

He was losing himself. He was fading. He was becoming less. He was angry, and he felt himself growing irritable. He was becoming hard, aggressive. He was even using swear words. Him! Spike!

Yes, he was losing himself… the good part of him, Twilight’s “great little guy” was fading as the days went by, as he sat here in this tomb, and no amount of cold water and rainbows would excuse that if she awoke to find a hollowed-out effigy at her bedside, a monster instead of her little assistant.

Monster. The word thudded through him, one he’d been fighting since that terrible birthday, a word he’d developed a whole new code of life to deal with.

He was in danger of succumbing to the hands of a monster he’d built over the last two weeks.

Twilight may be the one in the hospital bed, but he was the one who was dying.

He was dying without her.

There was movement around him, and he felt Applejack and Pinkie come closer to their unicorn friend. At once Rarity’s solitary embrace became a group hug, and the dearly familiar scent and feel of all three mares drew close to him.

Not long later, Spike escorted his friends to the train station.

Train station. That term jumped at him as he rode along on Applejack’s back, the strong muscles of the earth pony flexing beneath him. They had to ride the train to get here every time they came, had to buy tickets… they’d had to leave duties behind, make time. He folded his arms across his stomach, the feeling that he’d wronged them once more falling through him.

Noticing his discomfort, Pinkie leapt up, snatching him from Applejack’s back, leaping enthusiastically with him across the short platform of the station.

“Are you really, really, really sure you don’t wanna come back with us, Spikey, even if just for a little bit? Please? Oh, please, oh, please, oh please!” she said, ending with her face pressed to his. “Everypony sure would be glad to see ya again! It’s just not the same without you and Twilight around!”

No. No it wasn’t. That he could agree with. That was why he had made his choice. If there had been any doubt before, he knew now. He knew he had to find out what the Pillar of the Sun was, what this Zenith thing was.

He had to find that information, give it to the doctors. Only then could he be home, with Twilight. Only then could everything be all right.

Applejack rustled his frills, and he gave the two earth ponies their well-deserved hugs as they went inside the station to await the train. They smiled back at him, and then gave a hidden nod to the last of their party.

To his surprise, he felt the soft, velvety touch of Rarity’s magic drift across him. To Spike, Rarity’s magic had always felt so different than Twilight’s. Rarity’s was like being laid across satin sheets, like being allowed to drift upon silk…

… it was wonderful, and spoke to parts of him that did not know how to answer, but it wasn’t Twilight’s. Twilight’s magic was his warm, familiar blanket in his little bed back in the cold, dark, abandoned living quarters of the library.

Rarity’s magic was wonderful, but it wasn’t Twilight’s.

It just wasn’t Twilight’s.

“Spikey-Wikey?” she asked, placing him gently in her forelegs. “I know that Pinkie and Applejack just asked you this, but… but if I were to offer to let you stay with me, in my boutique, would that be satisfactory inducement towards bringing you back to Ponyville, even if just for a two, perhaps three nights?”

He looked up to her, blinking. To… wow, to stay with her?

Spike realized something, and his mind flew back over the last two hours, retracing his steps. As it did a fact revealed itself, and once more he startled at the realization.

In his mind’s eye, he saw her waiting for him at the waiting room, her trotting out after him as he had pelted past. He saw her hugging him, cradling him, laying her head to his. From the moment she’d entered the hospital room, the pony who he felt such tugs on his heart for, who he had crushed over from the second he’d laid eyes upon, had been showering him with affection.

She’d given him hugs, embraces. She’d literally settled him close to her body… her delicate perfumes and beautiful scents had fallen over him.

He hadn’t even noticed. He was so far gone, he realized, that he hadn’t even noticed the way so many of his little dreams had come true.

He hadn’t even noticed.

He was that far gone.

“I’d most certainly love to have you stay with me,” she continued, not noticing the revelation that was filling his eyes. “You could stay in Sweetie’s bedroom, as she’s off… at…”

She felt something touch to her hoof, and she looked down to find that Spike had lifted it, was cupping it with his hands. He smiled up to her, stroking her hoof, the goofy love-struck smile falling over him that she so adored to find there.

“Thank… thank you so much, for the offer,” he said, letting her hoof sit in his hands. “B-but I can’t… I, well, there’s stuff I have to do here. There’s this weird thing called the Pillar of the Sun and the Zenith that I have to look up, to help Twi. I hafta do what I can, ya know? I’ll tell ya the whole story later.”

Her face fell down a shade.

“Thanks, though, Rarity, it means a whole bunch to me,” he said with a sigh. “Well, you know why.”

“You make it most easy, Spike. You are dear to me, you know,” she added, her face brightening. A thought went through Rarity, one that had only flit there before, but one that now called out to her.

“Spike,” she said, her tone shifting. “Twilight once told me that you used to sleep with her, right in her own bed, when you were just a small whelp, a… fingerling, I believe she said?”

“Heh,” Spike laughed, blushing. “Heh, yeah, back when I came to live with her, after I was in the nursery and all. We couldn’t afford a crib. It’s kinda funny, but I’ve… I’ve never been able to sleep real good without her nearby. It’s like, ya know, if I woke up from a nightmare or something, as long as I could hear her breathing, I’d be okay. Heh, is that weird?”

Rarity smiled down over him. “No, Spike,” she said, “I don’t find that weird in the slightest.”

She struggled for a moment, fighting to make her awkward proposition.

“Spike,” she said, painting some resolve into her voice. “If it would encourage you to come away with us, for just a few days, I’d…”

She closed her eyes.

“If it would help you sleep, mind you, and recover from your ordeal, then I’d like to offer to have… to have you…”

She opened her eyes to find him looking at the ground, lost in thought. She could quickly guess where his thoughts were going. His lead lifted, and turned towards the distant cityscape, back to the hospital. She watched as he blinked, and then looked back up to her, the boy realizing that he had zoned out.

“I’m sorry, Rarity,” he said, stroking her hoof once more. “You were sayin’?”

“Nothing, Spike,” she said. “Nothing.”

“Oh,” he answered.

Together they stood there, in the street of Canterlot, as unspoken words drifted around them.

“Well,” she said after a long moment of staring down over the whelp, noting how much… less, she could only think, he seemed to be. “I’ll be off, then. Do… do be well, Spike.”

Spike brightened, and to her surprise he lifted her hoof, and planted a tiny kiss there.

“Until we meet again, milady,” he said, that chivalrous part of him rising up through the fog of his distorted new world.

“Oh, Spike!” she said with a giggle, happy to see evidence that the little dragon still possessed those endearing qualities, that they had not faded away. Her eyes flashed, and within a moment she had lowered her head, planting a soft kiss of her own upon his forehead.

She giggled to herself as she turned away, noting that he now lay upon the station platform, a wellspring of tiny hearts erupting from him, his easy sigh filling the air.

Inside the station, Rarity took her place among her friends…

… and Princess Celestia.

“No luck, huh?” Pinkie asked, a sad look falling across her.

“No,” Rarity answered, bowing to the princess before sitting near one of the windows. She watched Spike disappear back through Canterlot’s streets, the dragon slipping away with a tired wobble in his steps.

“No,” she repeated softly. “He said that he had to research something called the Pillar of the Sun, and some other bit… oh, yes, the Zenith. He wouldn’t come away with me.”

Her voice hovered around the station, and they watched as she drew the back of her hoof across her eyes.

“He wouldn’t come away with me, not even after I offered to let him sleep in Sweetie’s little bed in my shop.”

She wiped her eyes once again, rubbed them, and then went still and quiet.

“I thank you for trying,” Celestia said after a contemplative moment, her voice small. “It was the best you could do, I am sure. Thank you for coming to see Twilight, as you always have.”

“Princess?” Applejack asked. “Well, what are they? The stuff that Spike told Rare about? They… they anythin’ we can help w…”

“No!” answered Celestia, her eyes flashing, the word filling the room, catching not only the three friends, but also all of the ponies within the station in its power and suddenness.

Celestia blanched, recovered, and leaned towards them once more. “No, Applejack, I am sorry, but they are nothing you can help with, I fear. It is kind of you to ask, but they are nothing you can help with, I am afraid.”

“Wowie zowie!” said Pinkie, springing forward. “What are they, what are they, what are they?”

Celestia lifted her head. Her mouth came open, but soon shut again. To the surprise and subtle horror of all in the station, she winced.

Princess Celestia, immensely powerful, supposedly immortal… winced.

When she looked back to the three ponies, she had already affected her usual demeanor, calm and serene. She looked to each, and then carried on.

“Do have a wonderful trip back to Ponyville, and do come to see her… them, as soon as you can,” she said, turning towards the door. The stationmaster opened the door for the princess, and the crowd within the station stood in respect. As the two earth pony guards fell in beside her, the alicorn made her way out into the streets of her capital.

“A hypothetical question,” she said aloud.

At once, the two guardsponies brightened, interrupting their already heated intellectual discourse.

“At what point,” she asked, not turning back to face the two guards, simply continuing her pondering as she nodded and smiled at the bowing ponies they passed, “does withholding information become a lie in and of itself?”

Simple Script and Morning Mist, the two guardsponies who were renowned for their inability to shut up, immediately began to discuss their individual opinions. They argued their points up and down, presented arguments and counter-arguments, points and counterpoints.

And then, just for some further intellectual discourse, they switched positions and argued from the alternate point of view.

Celestia kept her ears open to the conversation as they went, but in truth she had heard it all before. She had formed her own opinion of where that thin, terrible line between truth and lies lay hidden. She had found it for herself over her long millennia…

… and, she knew, she was far, far beyond it where Spike, the Zenith, and the Pillars were concerned.

Not long later, a passenger train wound its way down the mountainside.

Three friends sat within, returning to their homes and lives in Happy Valley below, in and around the village of Ponyville.

Two, both earth ponies, leaned against one another, snoozing as the warm sun fell over them through the windows of the coach.

One, a unicorn, did not sleep. Her eyes simply watched the valley below grow steadily closer, blinking when the light caught her as the train slipped from tunnel to tunnel upon the mountainside.

Rarity pondered her offer, the one that she had been about to make Spike when his eyes had dropped away. She hadn’t meant anything by it, nothing unseemly, but it would have been… difficult to explain…

She meant nothing by it, by what she had almost offered him, and had only wanted to see him recover, to see him fit again. If it would have helped him sleep, and he had refused Sweetie’s bed…

Still, it would have been awkward, and ponies probably would have taken it the wrong way, so, best that it hadn’t happened.

Rarity sighed, banishing the image of cuddling the dragon close to her as they lay upon her large, soft bed from her mind. He was still a child, and ponies would have thought ill of her offer to share her bed. They would have taken it wrong, so… that was that.

She still desperately, desperately, desperately wished to see him get better, though.

She lifted her hoof, pressing the part of it he had kissed to her face.

Heal her, Spike. Bring Twilight back to us, she thought, nuzzling her face to the back of her hoof. Just do be sure not to lose that shining part of yourself as you do.

She lifted her head, and a part of her could not help but feel that, for Spike, things would get far worse before they got better.

As she did the train fell into another tunnel, a deep one that swallowed up the cars, stealing the light and hiding it from her as troubled thoughts kept her company in the silent coach.

Author's Note

Why are the chapters getting longer!?

Vimbert the Unimpressive is the author of Distorted Perspective and Twilight, Revised. His O.C. appears in Zenith with his knowledge and because of reasons.

Chapter 7: Breakfast in the Doughnut Shop of Sacred and Profound Knowing

Chapter 7: “Breakfast in the Doughnut Shop of Sacred and Profound Knowing”

The hospital staff hovered around the nurse’s station, standing there transfixed by the tiny drama that was playing out before them.

Their eyes followed along as a little figure made his way timidly up the corridor… only to go sprinting back down its length, and into the room beyond.

Their heads swung back and forth as the figure again approached, made noises of surprise and alarm… and then sped back down the length of the corridor, sliding into the same room once more.

As morning light fell through the windows, more of the staff of the West Wind Annex for the Treatment and Care of the Magically Enchanted and Unresponsive gathered, the smell of cafeteria breakfasts and new coffee rising around them.

Their heads swung slowly to the left as the figure once more made tentative steps up the hallway, the golden glow of morning falling around them.

“Okay… okay,” Spike said, making tentative steps towards the nurse’s station once again.

“Bet ya he makes it to the water cooler this time,” said Pacemaker.

“That’s a bet,” whispered another orderly.

The dragon came forward, made one, two, three steps farther than last time…

A desk drawer slowly rolled shut in the nurse’s station, the metallic ring sounding out as it settled back into place.

“Gah! What was that?!” Spike called, his feet dancing beneath him, and once more the dragon spun around and pelted back down the hallway to Twilight’s room.

A collective sigh once more lifted from the staff.

“What are you smilin’ about?” Pacemaker asked as the other orderly snickered. “He made it to the cooler.”

“Yeah, but he ran back… again,” said the other, watching his duties double under the weight of their wager.

“So?”

As the two young stallions argued about the terms of their bet, the rest of the staff watched Spike leaning against the doorframe, his hands pressed against it, as though peeking in on the one who lay upon the bed.

Twilight remained there, keeping the same position she’d been in since the night before. Not moving, just breathing shallowly.

Spike sighed heavily, watching her… just being sure that she was still not awake, and then turned to the hallway again.

“Okay… okay,” he breathed, and then set his eyes on the distant doors of the wing, past the assemblage of staff that both waited impatiently for him to leave so they could perform their duties, hoped against hope that he could make himself find some breakfast, or just pondering the spectacle of his inner turmoil.

“Okay,” he said, lifting his foot.

There was a crash, and the dragon nearly molted an entire layer of scales as he leapt into the air. There was a collective moan from the staff as he spun back to the door.

Spike pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing again as a distant pony placed boxes of bandages and poultices upon the upended dolly.

Twilight remained still and quiet.

I… I’m going for some breakfast, Twi, he thought to himself, careful not to be seen, less his fear about being so discovered come to light. I’ll be back really, really soon, I promise. I promise…

I promise.

Another promise, one that had ended with her staring up at him through brackish waters, fell through him. The dragon winced, bit the back of his claws, and spun towards the door again.

Yet another promise, the promise to Celestia that he would try, sat in him. He took another breath and lifted his foot.

“Okay… okay,” he said, closing his eyes. He leaned forward, and took a step, and then another, and another.

And then his body lurched to a stop, unable to move. His eyes were still closed, and he clenched them tighter as visions leapt at him. Visions of Twilight falling out of bed, of her awaking alone and scared, of her surrounded by two long vipers, their tongues flicking as they lowered themselves across her body…

Gentle hoof-falls fell down the hallway.

They came closer, and Spike recognized them. They came closer still, and he could feel the closeness of the pony, could smell her clean, sterile scent.

“Spike,” came Comfort’s gentle voice. The dragon felt a small movement lift from the mare, and his arms waved through the air in front of him. Comfort moved that much more, and his fingers found her outstretched foreleg. His fingers touched to her hoof, and then his arms wrapped around her, gathering her close.

“Follow along with me, Spike,” the nurse said, giving him a small nuzzle. “Here we go.”

The dragon fell in besides her, letting himself be gently lead along the corridor. A few more steps fell from him, and as they went along Spike could suddenly feel the presence of a dozen more ponies.

“Have a good breakfast, Spike,” Pacemaker said as they slowly went past.

“Y-yeah, thanks. Thanks,” Spike replied, still not opening his eyes. The breaths of the staff that stood around the nurse’s station fell around him, and he fought very, very hard to keep from slipping away from Comfort’s guidance, to go pelting back down the hallway, to go running back to Twilight’s side.

Other voices lifted from the nurses, doctors, and orderlies, each one telling him to enjoy his meal, to have a good morning.

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks…” he answered the unseen faces. “Yeah.”

His arms wrapped tighter to Comfort’s foreleg as she guided him to the right, and down the corridor leading out of the West Wind Annex… out of the Ward of the Living Dead.

As they began to make their way down the corridor, Spike felt the staff begin to break up, their sport having ended. Soon they would be going about their duties, seeing to the dozen ponies that awaited them silently in the patient’s rooms.

Soon they would be giving Twilight her bath.

His eyes remained closed, his grip on Comfort strong.

He didn’t like being there in the room when they were bathing Twilight, when they were putting the tubes in her. The bustle of all of the doctors, nurses, orderlies… each one with so little concern in their faces, only a distant professionalism.

Each pony only doing their jobs… simply drawing out her blood for yet more tests, pushing nutrients into her body, drawing out what little waste there was to draw with a distant, practiced forbearance. And then, when all of that was done, they bathed her. They pulled out the tangles in her mane the way that he knew she hated. They wiped down her coat in uneven, non-parallel strokes that would have driven her compulsive nature mad.

All of these strangers seeing her so helpless, all of these strangers hovering over her… touching her… it was too horrible to watch.

It was just awful.

I guess that’s why there aren’t supposed to be visitors this early, he thought, gulping hard. Nopony wants to see…

The vision of strangers pulling her from the pool, of her broken, tattered body being heaved through the streets of Pursopolis, thwacked across his mind, and he gripped even tighter upon the nurse.

As he did he admonished himself for thinking poorly of these healers, of these dedicated ponies who only wanted the best for the patients of the ward. He bit the inside of his lip for comparing them to the crowd who didn’t know…

“Thank Celestia he finally left!” came an unfamiliar voice, the words leaping down the corridor behind them. “Maybe you guys can finally get some work done tod…”

A chorus of shushes erupted from the ward, and Comfort felt him jump. Concern washed over her face as she looked down at Spike. Had he heard?

The dragon slowly lowered his head to her foreleg, and his pace slowed.

Yes, yes he had heard.

Yet, they kept walking forward, kept going down the long corridors of the hospital. As they did the golden shafts of early morning light fell upon them through the windows, sparkling across his scales as they proceeded farther and farther away from the bedside where he’d spent his last week and five days... farther and farther away from Twilight.

“Have a good morning, Spike.”

“Eat up, Spike!”

Real hospital sounds were meeting them now, and as he was lead blindly through other wards the wheels of beds and medical carts lifted around them. The call of patients, the language of medicine, these all arose in competition with voices that wished him well.

“Thanks, okay. Yeah, I’ll… thanks,” he answered, trying to find the speakers, trying to answer without opening his eyes.

There was a rush of motion, and Comfort pulled him to the side. Hooves cantered down hallways, rushed voices calling out unfamiliar terms as what he could only assume was an emergency rushed passed them.

In their wake came alien smells, ones he’d almost forgotten… scents that seemed at odds with the clinical sterility of the hospital.

It was the smell of the outside, of the world beyond. He startled, realizing that they’d come all the way to the door, and for a brief moment he began to unwrap himself from Comfort, to begin to turn back to…

“Spike,” the nurse said, “you promised Princess Celestia that you’d try. You promised me that you would try.”

The little dragon folded his hands across his chest, wavering on his feet.

“D-doesn’t coming this far count?” he asked, his voice leaving him with a tiny whine.

Her silence spoke volumes.

“Ohhhhhh… okay,” Spike replied, exasperation filling his tone. He raised his arms, feeling through the air. She lifted her foreleg to him once more, and his hands slid around it. Together the earth pony mare and the little dragon boy went forward through the reception area. Spike heard the cacophony of fillies and colts crying as earaches and the imminent approach of check-ups drifted over them. He heard mares comforting their children and stallions cursing as they tried to fill out insurance forms.

He heard the dry coughs of ponies dealing with illnesses. He heard the miserable whimpers of ponies in pain. “She’s having the baby!” he heard a stallion call, a mix of delight and fear in his voice. He heard the rumble of a wheelchair, the heavy pants of a mare.

There was a flash of wind, a draw of air… and then he heard birds.

The dragon took a deep breath, and lifted his head. Suddenly there were many noises… city noises. Street noises. Noises one did not hear in the hospital… outside noises.

The little dragon blinked his eyes open, quick flutters protecting his eyes as they tried to make sense of the light. His hands came up, rubbing his face, and the world came back into focus.

For the first time in one week, five days, twelve hours, and a handful of minutes, Spike stood outside of the hospital… outside of the ward, outside of Twilight’s room.

He grabbed his tail.

“Spike,” Comfort said, letting his other hand slide off of her foreleg as it too went to his tail, stroking it in worry as he pulled it before him, “I’m proud of you.”

He didn’t answer the mare. He simply kept staring off into the distance, out over the streets of Canterlot beyond. The battlements of the palace stood in the distance, and banners, flags, and pennants rolled around in gentle breezes, their colors calling out to his senses. Beneath them ponies began their day, making their way up the high street, the warmth of Celestia’s sun falling over them all. He felt the sun, he felt the humidity in the air, and his senses opened up like a flower pushing up through the soil in spring.

The little dragon simply stood there… outside.

Comfort smiled, and then turned to go back.

“Comfort?” he called, still staring out over the city beyond. “I thought that ya, you know, had the mornings off. Didn’t ya have this morning off?”

She stopped at the door, watching his head pan back and forth across the cityscape. Eventually he turned. Even as he stroked his tail in worry, he looked to her, the question still sitting across his face.

“Yes, Spike,” Comfort replied, a sheepish smile growing on her, “I did have the morning off, as I usually do. I don’t start until ten.”

She looked down at the planter nearby, looking over the young flowers that peeked up at her from within.

“I just thought you might need some support, to help you get…”

Her thoughts were interrupted as the sound of dragon’s feet pounded across the courtyard of the hospital.

She looked up to see him running back towards the door, and for one moment she imagined him trying to run back to Twilight’s side, his efforts to keep his promise failing.

Her fear washed away as arms embraced her forelegs, making her teeter in place.

“Thanks, Comfort,” he said, some exhaustion hiding in his voice. “Thanks a bunch.”

The nurse smiled a small smile, and lowered her head across him.

“You are most welcome, Spike,” she said as he released her. Her hooves, now freed, rubbed across the frills on his head. She’d not enjoyed hearing the note of tiredness in his voice. She had hoped that he’d have slept well enough to take care of that, to remove the growing blackness beneath his eyes, to restore some of the color that had come out of him.

But, she hoped, this breakfast would do him much good, as would the spring air. This would revive him. This would restore him.

She told herself that lie yet again. She almost believed it. In truth, she knew, there was only one way the dragon would be restored, and none knew when, or even if, that would be.

“Bye, Comfort,” he said, backing away.

“Have a good breakfast, Spike,” she said. The nurse slid back into the hospital, the air escaping the vacuum of the space between the doors as she did. The sterile, clean smell of the hospital met her once more, and she sighed as the wails and worries of the patients at the reception desk fell across her.

Her head went lower. She simply wished that he would get better, and that he’d be able to find a way to get on with his life. She knew that he had come to realize it soon enough, or somepony would tell him before too long. He was too smart not to realize it.

Eventually, she knew, Spike would realize that very, very few ponies ever left the Ward of the Living Dead on their own hooves.

Back out in the streets, a dragon straightened himself, struck a heroic pose, and then lifted his foot.

It came back down again without having moved forward.

“Okay… okay,” he told himself, striking his heroic pose once more.

It deflated around him.

Spike pinched the bridge of his nose, gave a little grunt, and then looked to the street once more.

Ponies were coming and going, each getting their day started. High-ranking unicorns went by, their heads held aloft. Their self-importance was interrupted by the pelting hooves of young mares and stallions making their way up the hills to the university beyond.

As the bells of the university rang out through the streets, the great carillon at the barracks came alive, and Spike recognized “The Watchpony’s Lament” as the ancient chimes rang out over the capital. The guardsponies would be changing their shifts, and soon weary soldiers would be making their way back to their homes in the city, seeing their children off to school, brushing their faces alongside those of their spouses.

Artisans, crafters, farmers, peddlers, and hucksters… these too joined the steady stream of ponies going up and down the high street. The market would be opening soon, and even as Spike stood there he saw one pole go up, and soon the canopy of a colorful stall lifted over the buildings at the edge of his perception.

It all seemed… it all seemed just a little unfair.

He ran his hand up and down his arm, and then lifted his head to the windows on his right, the wing of the hospital clinging close to the rock face upon which it was perched. “One, two, three,” he counted, looking at each floor, squinting in the reddish, golden light of the dawn that sat over the building. “One, two, three,” he counted again, counting the windows down the hallway of the wing.

There it sat, Twilight’s room, shining in the dawning sun.

It all seemed… it all seemed just a little unfair.

I’ll be back, Twi, he thought, staring up into the window. Ya know I’ll be back. I’m… I’m just getting some breakfast, is all.

He grunted, his fists balled up, his arms went straight at his side, he winced… and he took a step forward.

He took another, and another… and soon the little dragon was walking through Canterlot’s streets.

Spike had grown up in this city. Many of his first memories were of seeing the scenes that now played out before him from within Twilight’s saddlebag, and then from atop her back when he was older and steadier on his lavender perch.

It was a view that had been repeated two weeks earlier. He had smuggled himself into the hospital in Mrs. Mom’s, Twilight’s mother’s, saddlebag. The scenes he had witnessed from within the bag flit in front of him.

Flags had flown at half of their masts. Lavender bows had been wrapped around trees, and each home seemed to have ribbons of Twilight’s colors and mark wrapped around their columns and porches.

The shutters of the Royal Parliament had been closed, throwing the ministers and parliamentarians into darkness. “I’ll not have them opened until Princess Twilight Sparkle recovers!” he imagined Prime Minister Fancypants calling out, a thunderous applause of hooves meeting his declaration.

In all, the world that he had witnessed from within the saddlebag had been one that stood in solidarity with Twilight… with his Twi.

That world was gone.

He stood there, looking at one of the lavender bows sitting in the gutter, pot marked with the little rings of mud that appear after rainstorms. He lifted it out, and then raised his head to the city beyond.

Ribbons drooped on porches, and high overhead the great white expanse of the Royal Parliament building stood with its vast bronze shutters standing open, filling the space with fresh spring breezes… helping the ministers take their naps, he assumed.

It all seemed… it all seemed just a little unfair.

No, it all seemed so unfair. It was so unfair, the way they were all forgetting about Twilight.

Once upon a distant and receding time, he had paraded down this very street, the high street of the capital of Equestria. Rarity had been beside him, and the rest of his dearest Ponyville friends too. All stood in their proper places a few steps behind the newest alicorn sovereign of all Equestria.

Now, he gripped the lavender bow tighter, and these ponies who had cheered their new princess went about their days as though she weren’t laying in the hospital at the end of the block, her soft mane falling across her eyes as strangers poked her, prodded her, touched her… as she didn’t have any cold water to wake up to, as she was so alone, no rainbow to…

Spike stopped when he realized he’d run a half a block back towards the hospital.

He wrapped himself around a lamppost. He stood there panting, fighting to regain control of himself. He took deep breaths, and looked at the ponies around him.

Buck them all for not carin’ about Twi being in the hos…

Spike jumped, placing his hands across his mouth, his eyes going wide. Whoa, where had that those thoughts come from? That was unfair. That was awfully unfair, he told himself. They were just going about their lives, just doing what they always had. They were just doing their best to find their place in the world.

Spike’s world was lying in a hospital bed and, he realized, she didn’t want to wake up to find him a starved husk.

“You need riboflavin!” she announced.

Spike wheeled about, his senses playing horrible tricks on him. No, no… he was okay, it was just a memory, and something she’d said at breakfast back in the library kitchen once. He wasn’t insane.

Not yet, at least, and not in public.

Still, it had brought him some comfort to hear her voice, if even just in his head. As he walked back down the street he imagined her next to him. “You need more minerals than a pony would,” she said, her air of intellectual prominence standing out around her.

Twilight’s head had been filled with all of the facts she’d discerned about his diet after his first heavy molt that morning, and now they played in his mind and sight once again. “Still, that means that there are certain vitamins that are more important for you as well, and riboflavin is one of them! Oh, I’m so excited about this! We’ll find out what pony foods are best for you, and what you can eat that is special, just for you, especially if you’re gonna grow faster and faster. Isn’t this great, Spike?”

“Yeah, yeah, Twi,” he muttered under his breath, bouncing off of a mailbox as he followed his spectral best friend, several bent lamp posts and teetering carts marking his progress as he followed behind.

“So,” said his imaginary Twilight, her eyes shining, “now that we know all of that, what kind of wholesome, nutrient filled breakfast are you gonna make for us?”

He smiled.

“I’m gonna have some doughnuts here at Joe’s,” he said, motioning over his shoulder with his thumb.

His phantom Twilight rolled her eyes, giggled, and then faded away as the high street of Canterlot appeared before him once more. To his right small fires showed where he’d accidentally and unintentionally committed unforgiveable acts of vandalism as he had followed along behind his vision of the mare.

He quickly pressed the lavender bow beneath others that Joe, unsurprisingly, had affixed to his shop, and slipped inside as quickly as possible.

It was a good bet that if you arrived at Joe’s Doughnuts after about eight in the morning that most of the larger stallions (and even, on occasion, some of the more fit looking mares) of each race you saw there were, in fact, Royal Guardsponies.

They too had lives outside of the garrison. Many of them, especially the older ones, wished to be home to see their families off to their days, or were on their way up to the palace to begin their watches.

In the beards, manes, and eyebrows you could catch sight of the white paint of Celestia, or the dark grey of Luna, depending upon whom they were answering to that day… whichever of the Sister Sovereigns their regiments were symbolically serving on the rotation.

This familiar reality came back to Spike as he looked around the interior of Joe’s shop. It was the first time he’d been back since the night of the gala, and it was no surprise that he found the familiarity of the place both happy and a little painful.

The familiar table where he and Twilight would sit as she studied, her hot cocoa steaming, was on his left.

It was that heavy dose of the familiar that he avoided as he walked to the counter, away from the wobbly old table where he and Twilight had shared so many breakfasts.

He saw the single missing tile in the floor, very near the door. He heard the clink of spoons in coffee cups. He saw the portraits of guardsponies and regular army soldiers above the counter, some wrapped in black crepe.

Prominent among them was the portrait of Joe’s baby brother Coffee Bean, wrapped in laurels, the candle burning beneath it…

The shop hadn’t changed. It remained a bittersweet place that smelled of doughnuts, coffee, and hung with the practiced daily movements of years of safe, comfortable routine.

“It’s Spike,” came a voice, quiet at first but then louder. “It’s Spike!”

In an instant he was hoisted up to one of the stools beside the counter, and there was the rush of hooves around him.

The newspapers may have focused on Gossamer Gauze, the caster who had put Twilight into the coma, and squealing fan-fillies may have claimed Shining Armor as Twilight’s savior.

But, when Shining Armor had spoken to his old command, the Royal Guards, it was a certain dragon that had received the praise. Those guardsponies looked down over him now, reaching out their hooves to shake his hands… some calling him a hero.

It made him ill.

“Hey, c’mon now, give the kid some air, will ya?” rose a familiar voice, a deep one of a stallion that he instantly recognized. Spike looked up above the counter, and there stood Pony “Doughnut” Joe.

“Heya, Spike,” he said, readjusting the paper cap upon his head, the flash of the green of his eyes meeting Spike’s in a smile.

“Hey!” answered Spike, a very tired, yet sincere, smile falling over his face as well. “Hey, Joe.”

For the next hour, an interesting cycle held sway over Joe’s doughnut shop. Plates of doughnuts appeared, and Spike was encouraged to eat them, and cold milk too. Somehow, across the years of his absence, Joe had remembered the dragon’s favorites… as though he and Twilight had never stopped coming, as though they were still regulars at the shop.

The customers came one by one, in small groups, and whole tables at a time to see Spike, to talk to him… to ask about Twilight.

Spike swallowed some more of his doughnut, slowly sipped some milk, and did his best to repeat his sad refrain, to explain that she was unchanged. Twilight was still locked somewhere beyond.

He’d suddenly felt poorly, but more doughnuts appeared, and his disposition improved each time.

The faces came and went. Coffee was poured, doughnuts and muffins passed over the counter, and voices fell and lifted around him. The percolators steamed on the counter, the scent of the coffee within driving some more life into him.

More ponies came up to him, wishing him the best. The armor of guardsponies clanged to the floor as they reached for his hands, the briefcases of government officials sat beside them as they told him to stay brave… that they were all thinking of Princess Twilight.

“Yeah,” Spike answered, remembering the lavender bow he’d rescued from the gutter. How much they were thinking of her (or, rather, how little) stung at him as he tried to smile back. “Yeah.”

The morning wound down, and soon there were few souls left in the doughnut shop. Spike sat on the stool, using his hands to help him push his hips left to right, the stool spinning beneath him, the newfound energy from his breakfast releasing itself as he went side to side and back again in a sort of nervous cadence.

Take that, riboflavin.

Spike pushed slightly too far to the right, and he found himself staring down the counter to a pony that he kinda, sorta remembered.

The older stallion jumped a little as he realized that the eyes of the dragon were upon him. The stallion arched an eyebrow from behind his tiny glasses, and then hid behind his newspaper.

Spike arched his own eyebrow, pondering the customer who sat at the last stool at the end of the counter. As he did the stallion peeked out from behind the newspaper again, and the two sat there arching their eyebrows at one another in some sort of baffling and uncomfortable competition.

Eventually the older stallion gave up, raised the newspaper to hide himself once more, and reached out a hoof to tap the teacup on the counter.

As it chimed, Spike suddenly remembered this earth pony. This was that jerk that sat huffing and puffing at the door every time that he and Twilight had gotten to the shop first, before Joe opened. Twilight had never noticed, what with her nose continually buried in a book in those distant, melancholic university days.

Still, even though he’d been little more than a fingerling, Spike had noticed how upset it had made the stallion to be second… how as soon as Joe had opened the door he’d race for the exact same stool in which he now sat, as though he thought Twilight would somehow steal it out from under him. As they had sat at their wobbly table on the entirely opposite side of the café he had heard that same rhythmic tapping of the teacup, and now Joe appeared with the carafe, filling the stallion’s cup once again, as he had for years, apparently.

“There ya go, Call,” said Joe with a little laugh.

“Thank you, Joe,” answered the figure hidden behind the newspaper.

Artificer Call. The name snapped back into Spike’s memory as the sound of the stallion’s voice lifted around the doughnut shop. It was a lofty, academic tone, and Spike suddenly remembered that the stallion had done something scholarly and cultured in the dim and distant past.

And, the dragon remembered, he’d figured out some way to live on the proceeds of it ever since. What a life.

Spike felt eyes on him, and he spun around to find Joe staring at him. Spike opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Joe passed something over the counter.

Spike looked down, and as he did his eyes went wide.

The blue sapphire sat there, sparkling in the morning light. Its perfect hue reflected across the pristine white of the counter, and Spike’s eyes boggled at the sight.

“Joe,” Spike whispered, “that’s… that the gem I paid you on the train. That’s the gem I paid ya when the pets ruined…”

“Yeah,” said the stallion, lifting the dragon’s hand with his magic, pressing the gem there, and then closing it with another waft of his green aura. “Yeah, ya did, and I’ve been tryin’ to find the time to get it back to ya since.”

Spike wrapped his other hand around it, cupping it between them. He looked up to the stallion in disbelief.

“Joe…”

“Take it, Spike,” the stallion said, chuckling a little as he did. “It took me awhile to figure out, but I realized that you were trying to earn some bits, too, or that ya had a reason for takin’ care of those animals.”

“N-no, J-Joe, I… I can’t, I wasn’t being…” began Spike, stuttering as he juggled the sapphire in his claws, trying to pass it back to the stallion.

“Naw, that’s fine,” said Joe, punching Spike in the shoulder jovially… nearly sending the dragon falling from the stool. “We go way back, so don’t think on it too much. Buy that smart cookie somethin’ nice when she wakes up.”

The stallion stopped, and soon a look embarrassment across his own face.

“But, yeah, don’t tell her I called her ‘a smart cookie’. Ya know I always used to rib her about that, when she was just a university filly. I mean I wouldn’t want her to think that I’m bein’ too familiar. I mean I’d like to think that Princess Twilight Sparkle remembers…”

“Hey, Joe,” Spike said, smiling back at him, “it’s cool. I won’t snitch on ya, and I think Twi would be cool with that anyway. We go way back, the three of us, ya know?”

The two smiled, and as they did it was as though Joe noticed the very real, very profound tiredness that sat over Spike. The dragon wavered there, fighting to slide the gem into one of the ductile pockets that sat in his scales, and looked back up to Joe with deep, dark hollows beneath his eyes.

“Whoa, Spike, you look awful,” he said, spinning around to the percolators. Steam lifted from the space beyond the pony, and Spike craned his neck to try to peak over Joe’s shoulders. There was the sound of a mug being filled, the splash of liquid across a ceramic surface, and soon Joe turned back to the counter.

As the unicorn placed the mug before him, Spike looked down at a criss-cross pattern of caramel sitting starkly upon a layer of whipped cream.

“Whoa,” he said, surprise sitting across his features. “Joe, is this fancy coffee or something?”

Joe laughed once, a single loud note that sounded out around the largely empty café, causing the distant figure of Artificer Call to glance out from behind his newspaper.

“Naw,” answered Joe, a little gruff chuckle hidden in his reply. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for getting’ a kid hooked on that stuff! Naw, no, Spike, it’s just some hot chocolate… made it up real special for ya. Give it a try, huh?”

Spike looked down to the mug, up to Joe, and then to the mug again. He took it in his hands, and lifted it to his mouth.

It tasted good. He smiled to Joe, the whipped cream disappearing from around his muzzle with a wide swish of his forked tongue.

“Heh,” the little dragon said. “That’s really good, Joe!”

The stallion grinned wide, watching the dragon whelp lift the mug again.

Inside Spike, the warmth of the chocolate found some place to settle, melting away the walls and barriers that he’d erected over the last few weeks. Inside the little dragon, the glue that he’d use to cobble together his new world, the world of the hospital, of the glasses of cold water, of bringing Twilight the rainbows… that glue melted in the warm, comfortable cocoa that the stallion had offered up in an act of kindness and concern.

Joe jumped, his eyes going wide, as Spike lowered the mug, revealing not only a ring of chocolate around his muzzle, but a cascade of tears silently sliding down the child’s face.

“Spike, oh, wow, hey… what’s wrong, buddy?” said the stallion, trotting down the length of the counter, coming to Spike’s side. The stallion sat upon the floor, eye to eye with the whelp. “Spike, I… heh, I didn’t think that the cocoa was good enough tah make ya’ cry. What’s... what’s wrong, buddy?”

“I’m crying?” whispered Spike, large spheres of tears still rolling down his cheeks. The dragon lifted his arm, wiping it across his face. He stared down at the slick surface in amazement. “I… I am crying. I’m crying.”

“Yeah, Spike, but would ya tell me why?” asked Joe, the pony lifting his hoof to the dragon, a typical pony display of worry and concern. The paternal, fatherly part of Joe that he did not have many occasions to show itself came to the surface, and he leaned closer to the whelp.

“Spike?” he asked, forcing himself into the dragon’s line of sight.

The whelp looked at him, down to the floor, and then back to the old, wobbly table that stood in the corner of the café. Suddenly his younger self sat there, a little dragon fingerling eating a doughnut that was about half of his own size. Twilight sat there too, leaning across her own foreleg, books sitting around her as she watched him eat, a smile across her face.

It must have been the very first day Twilight had brought him here, after she’d brought him to live with her in her suite in the school, after she’d gathered him out of the nursery…

The memory washed across Spike, and he fell forward across Joe’s shoulder, his soft whimper catching in the pony’s ears. Wet streaks appeared across Joe’s back, marking where Spike’s tears rolled down him before catching in the strings of his apron.

Spike’s body, now satiated of its need for nutrients, was seeing to its wants, and what it wanted in that moment was somepony to confide in, one who would listen.

Spike blinked his eyes, driving the water from them, and lifted them to the line of pictures that sat above the counter. There sat the portraits of ponies with which Joe had served in the guard, the black bands showing those who had died at their posts.

There at the end, surrounded by laurels and marked with an eternally flickering candle, sat the picture of Coffee Bean, of Joe’s baby brother… of little Beanie, the stallion now dead and gone for what, five years?

No grave for the young archer, just a mass pit filled with other ponies on a battlefield made sacred by their sacrifice beyond the hills and far away.

Spike grimaced, berated himself in his own mind for his conceits. Twilight was still alive. If he wanted to know what real suffering was, he realized, he had a master patting the back of his head awkwardly as his tears spilled down the pony’s back.

Spike lifted his voice a touch, whispering, and with that Joe became one of the few ponies in Equestria to become fully aware of what had happened in a dark abscess beneath Pursopolis.

“… and it was in our heads, and we knew what it was saying, but we didn’t know the words…”

“It kept asking about something called the Zenith, b-but we didn’t know what it meant….”

“They kept coiling around her, and I bit at them, I swear I did!”

“… and I tried to keep her head up, I tried so hard…”

“… she was so scared. Oh, Joe, she was so scared.”

“…and Princess Celestia called it The Pillar of the Sun, and said it was an artifact, but she didn’t say anything else, and I haven’t really slept for weeks. I keep seeing Twilight staring at me, and she’s so scared, and I keep bringing her cold water, and, and…”

The unicorn tried to comfort him, patting him. Joe sat there, trying to draw some of the pain out of the little dragon. Even as he did, Joe dealt with some of the images Spike had placed before him.

Joe had been a soldier. He had seen his own blood pooling beneath him, and enemies had surrounded him. He could still see their cold black eyes staring down at him as his life dripped away, as his spurs clattered and he dared them to come and kill him.

What this kid had seen was worse. It was a lot worse... terribly worse.

Joe patted him some more.

At the far end of the counter, Artificer Call momentarily looked up from his paper. It took him a second to discern what was happening, and he could hear no words. Still, there was the whimpering of a child in pain, and his hoof went over his mouth at the sight of it.

After a moment, he went back to his paper, the assumption that it did not concern him sitting across his mind as he sipped his tea.

He could hardly have been more wrong.

“Spike,” Joe said, lifting the dragon’s face. “A smart cookie once told me that life is made up of the good and the bad. Right now, buddy, you’re facing the bad, and ya have every right to be upset. You’ve got every right to cry, Spike.”

The unicorn wrapped his magic around a napkin dispenser, and with a gentle tug he brought two or three to the dragon.

“What I want ya to know though, Spike, is that smart cookie made me realize that we make choices, that we are the sum of the choices we make, right?”

Spike lifted the napkins to his face, touching them to his eyes.

“Right now, you gotta make a choice. Are ya gonna keep doing what you’re doing, slowly starving and waiting for her to wake up, or are ya gonna do something more? Are ya gonna do something about it?”

Spike shuttered in place, the implications of what Joe had suggested dropping across him.

“B-but, what can I do? The medical ponies don’t seem to even want me around her, and I told the princess everything I know… but she’s not doing anything about it. I don’t understand why she won’t tell me. Why won’t she tell me anything more, Joe?”

Joe stuttered. His pep talk had been going so well. Celestia… Princess Celestia had just walked away? That didn’t seem right. He blinked, and the unicorn continued his speech.

“I… jeez, I don’t know Spike, all I know is that you’re the only one who saw what Princess Twilight saw, and you’re the one who knows her the best in the whole world, right?”

Spike shrank back down. That… that was right, wasn’t it? He’d been with her since she was four years old, more or less. They had secrets that even Shining Armor didn’t know. He knew choices that she’d made and that her parents didn’t know. There was literally no part of his own life that was a secret from Twilight. They knew each other better than any two creatures in Equestria.

He, he might be able to do something, to realize something that even adept healers couldn’t, see something…

“Joe,” Spike breathed, “where do I even start? What do I do?”

Joe smiled, sensing life coming back into the dragon. He spun the stool upon which Spike was perched around, pointing the dragon towards the only other remaining pony in the café.

“Ya see that stallion at the end of the counter?” asked Joe, a smirk going across his features.

“Ummm, yeah,” answered Spike, seeing the newspaper standing tall, just a hint of a pony behind it. “That’s… ummm, yeah, that’s Art… Artificer…”

“Artificer Call,” answered Joe. “Ya know how that… thing, the pillar thing ya mentioned? Remember how you said that the princess said it was an artifact?” Joe said, giving him a grin.

Spike nodded vigorously.

“Well,” the stallion continued, “long time ago, Call there wrote a book. It was all about artifacts, every one known to ponies. I bet that if you…”

Joe suddenly startled, catching Spike before he fainted away and tumbled off the stool.

A short while later, Spike sat at the counter again, running a glass of cold water between his clawed hands. It rumbled a little, the ice jiggling within, as he watched the rainbows it made falling across the counter. He ran it through his hands again, making it circle in place, watching the ice stay motionless as the glass spun around it.

“I’m gonna make ya up some lunch to take back to the hospital, Spike,” Joe said, turning towards the kitchen. “Go introduce yourself. Call’s a bit cold at first, but he’s my oldest customer, and he’s actually a softy. He’ll help ya out, Spike, go ahead.”

Spike nodded, took another sip of the icy water… and then gave a little leap…

Artificer Call lowered his newspaper as an unusual sound lifted around Joe’s shop. He panned his head back and forth, peering over his glasses.

Unusual, he thought to himself, I had thought that dragon boy had been seated farther away…

He went back to reading his paper, discerning the various issues at stake in the world of competitive bocce and the like. This pondering was interrupted as the sound lifted around the café again… the sound of a leap and a landing…

He dropped his paper to realize that the dragon was now in the seat directly next to him. Call startled in place, juggling the newspaper in his hoof as the emerald eyes of the dragon shone up to him, the tail wagging back and forth beneath the creature as though he were some sort of manic puppy, and an unwholesome ring of chocolate sat around its muzzle.

“Hiya!” Spike said, watching Call’s expression go ashen. “Ummm, ya got a minute?”

Author's Note

Pony "Doughnut" Joe is a canon character, of course, but I "fleshed him out a bit" in my first successful story, A Cup of Joe. Artificer Call made his debut in that same work. Please consider reading it if you have the time.

Chapter 9: The Archives

Chapter 9: The Archives

Spike’s hands went back over his mouth once more, hiding his words.

They weren’t the unhappy curses that had begun finding their way into his speech as he grew more tired and frail, but instead he had caught himself speaking aloud to Twilight… in the middle of the day, when others might hear him.

When they might take it wrong… believe him traumatized, or even insane.

Which would have been an issue, as he was rather traumatized, and he was pretty sure that he was going insane, and the discovery of either would probably lead to him being separated from Twilight.

He leaned out the door, and seeing no ponies nearby he breathed a sigh of relief.

That was a close one, Twi, he thought, continuing the conversation in his own mind. I can’t let anypony catch me talking to you. That would be bad. Real bad. Anywho, I’m off to join Artificer Call at the archive! Wish me luck, Twi!

He stroked the back of her hoof. After a moment, he checked to make sure that the glass was still where he’d placed it, and that everything from the delicate rainbow, to her crown, to her boots were exactly where he’d kept them over the long days.

I’ll be back, Twilight, I promise. Ya know I promise, his thoughts said, looking back to her once again. He slowly backed away from her, keeping her in his sight until he had reached the door.

He made his way out into the hallway, and promptly bumped into Comfort.

Spike startled, his arms waving frantically, causing the pony to startle as well. The two stood there, yelling in surprise at one another until their shock finally abated and blushes drove across their faces.

“Spike?” she asked, recovering her composure as Spike helped her gather up her gauzes and compresses. “What… why were you walking backwards? Why were you so startled?”

“Well, ummm, I… we, I….” he stammered, trying somehow to hide the fact that he’d been talking to Twilight in his thoughts… and then immediately realized that Comfort couldn’t have heard his thoughts anyhow.

Spike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in a sort of restrained self-admonishment. “Can we just forget this happened?” he asked, opening one eye to look up to the pony.

Comfort’s soft giggle fell over him, and her smile followed. “Of course,” she answered. “Are you going out again?”

“Yup!” Spike answered, some small joy showing itself in his voice. He gathered up some of the last rolls of gauze that Comfort had dropped and placed them upon Comfort’s cart. In his mind, he could feel that they were among the last she’d have to bring to the room, that whatever he and Artificer Call would find would be the clue, the context of the enchantment that the doctors were missing.

He could still help Twilight, still save her. He was going to keep his promise.

A short while later the dragon went pelting through the hospital once more, diving deftly past oncoming gurneys and medical carts. Familiar faces turned to watch as he slipped past, all brightening as they saw the new energy that was filling him.

Despite the dark circles beneath his eyes, despite the fading across his scales, despite the slight wobble in his walk, Spike was smiling. He was awake, and moving, and going out of the hospital again.

They could be forgiven for thinking that things were getting better.

“Hey!” the receptionist called, her mane tossing as the dragon slipped past her once more. “You have to sign out whenever you…”

The dragon disappeared through the doors.

“Or, whatever,” she said, waving a dismissive hoof.

Once back out in the streets of Canterlot, Spike followed his earlier route down the high street briefly before turning through the market. The smells and sights of the booths met him, rushing over his senses.

Ponies moved around him, making their way along the thoroughfare, and above him the colored canopies lifted in the azure sky.

To his surprise he found his perceptions wobbling about, each one coming alive and wavering in strength as he looked over the stalls. He found himself rubbing his eyes. He opened them to discover that he had been staring over a cart filled with oven mitts, pondering them intently. Suddenly, he felt a disturbing and unsettling need to purchase one.

“Wow,” he said aloud to nopony in particular, spinning away from the temptation, his eyes on the pillowy seductions as he walked away. “I must be more tired than I thought…”

His solitary contemplations were interrupted as he bounced off of the side of another pony, this one standing at a fishmonger’s stand.

“Oh, uh, I’m sorry,” he said wiping his face with his hands. “Heh, my bad…”

“Oh, that’s alright,” began the mare. “We all… aghhh!”

Her scream jolted Spike back to his feet, and all around them ponies paused to look upon the two. The mare had recoiled, holding her hoof high, pulling her head away from the… thing that had run into her.

Spike understood instantly.

He had lived his life knowing that he was not a pony, but he had always been so easily accepted by all. He was just a “baby” dragon after all, a handsome little whelp. Now… now that he looked haggard, tired, and feral, now that layer of protection had dropped away. Now, this pony, this stranger on the street, had been afraid of him.

She had been afraid of the little monster.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, hanging his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, wrapping his arms around his stomach, and then disappearing into the crowd once more.

“Young… boy? Whelp? Oh, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” came the voice of the mare, but the apology drowned amid the clamor of the market. “Young dragon, please, I’m sorry…”

It barely caught around his ears as he made his way towards the Royal Library.

The afternoon drove on as ponies walked by. Spike waited patiently outside the portico of the main hall of the library, the same place where Twilight, Pinkie, and he had come wearing latex ninja costumes late one night as he shoveled ice cream into his mouth.

Surprisingly, it had been Twilight’s idea, not Pinkie’s. Not such great times.

The archives were expansive, consuming blocks of Canterlot’s educational district. He lifted his nose, and the smell of paper and books filled his nostrils. When he’d been a younger whelp, that smell had meant that he was about to spend the day helping Twilight study, a task that ranged at times from interesting to being so boring and so tedious that he laid among the books wishing for the sweet release of death.

Today, though, that smell meant something vastly different. Today it meant he was keeping his promise… he was saving her.

Not far away, the peal of bells and the sweet tones of the carillon told him that it was two o’clock, and no sooner had he begun to lift his head than Artificer Call appeared nearby.

“Aha! There you are, dear boy! Good show, nice and punctual!” the stallion said, nodding with approval.

“Heh, yeah…” replied Spike. “Twilight would always start freaking out if we ever ran late for anything, so… yeah, I kinda picked it up from her.”

“Very good, very good,” Call said, motioning towards the doorway beyond. “Shall we begin?”

Spike literally leapt with enthusiasm, rushing to the door and pulling it open for the stallion.

“Aha! Let us have at it then!” said Call, making a show of proudly prancing deep within, Spike falling alongside.

The tall ceiling of the main hall of the archive reached above them, and soon Spike found the familiar sounds and scents of the academic world falling over him. Back before Twilight had been sent to Ponyville, before she knew how to make friends, they had spent many days here. Those had been melancholy days, he remembered. She had seemed happy, but it was some sort of a hollow happiness. It was incomplete, like an acorn sitting in the warm sun, but never finding soft soil.

But, at least he had been with her. At least they had been able to be together.

She had found her completeness when she had found friends, when they had gone to Ponyville. That was the happiest he’d ever seen her in his life… friendship had made it all complete.

She’d be happy in Ponyville right now, if she wasn’t a princess, he found himself thinking.It’s not fair that she has these new duties and stuff… that was what got her hurt! It isn’t fair that she’s a princess, she shouldn’t hafta deal with…

Spike shook his head, driving the thought from his mind, wondering where it kept coming from. His steps faltered for a second, but soon he rushed back to Call’s side.

“Artificer Call,” came a stolid voice, and Spike felt a pair of eyes creeping across him. “I received your note earlier. I have prepared a few texts, and a workspace.”

Spike looked up to see a grey mare, a card catalog sitting stoically on her flank as her cutie mark. With her hair drawn up, she appeared every inch a stereotypical librarian, complete with a judgmental stare that fell across him with the subtlety of a heresy inquisition.

“Ah! Reference Desk! How wonderful to see you again, my dear!” said Artificer Call, bowing slightly. “Always a treat to see you!”

The mare arched an eyebrow at them, and then turned towards an older part of the archive far at the end of the main hall.

Spike felt Call nudge him as they began to walk, and the dragon looked up to see a subtle softness across the stallion’s features.

“The poor thing,” Call whispered, craning his neck low so that passing academics would not note his words. “She has a most obvious crush on me, you see.”

“Oh,” said Spike, more than a few shades of doubt falling over him.

Racks of books, tables strewn with scrolls, ponies with their eyes slowly moving across text, these scenes met them as they followed the stoic mare, and before long they began to make a series of turns.

The entire atmosphere of the archives changed, and as they crossed the covered bridge over a rolling stream that connected parts of the library they entered an annex that was much older than the main hall. Though still ornate, it was of hewn stone and timbered ceilings.

Reference Desk pulled upon a glass door, one much younger than the rest of the structure, and ushered them inside.

“As requested, I have laid aside these principal works. Please move the ones you no longer require to the cart,” she said, her voice and tone so even and without emotion that even the cold, grey stones of the walls seemed like mountains of frivolity in comparison.

“If you require any more assistance, please inform any staff member,” she said. At once her gaze shifted to Spike, and her eyes drew the life from him. “Bathrooms,” she said, regarding him distantly, her countenance stealing out his breath, “are located on the first floor.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Call said, his eyes slowly batting as he looked to her. “You’ve been a great help, as always.”

Reference Desk turned to the stallion, arched another eyebrow, and then left the room, her hooves making distinct clip-clop noises along the planks of the wooden floor.

“Sorry that you had to see that, dear boy,” Call said with a small chuckle. “I do wish that she would not flirt with me so openly, but that is the situation that presents itself.”

Call turned to find a wobbling Spike recovering from the ordeal of being informed where one could find the lavatories. The dragon shook his head… and then shook his head again when he saw what was laid before them.

Books, scrolls, illustrated guides, ancient anthologies… the room was filled by these tomes, and Spike’s eyes boggled at the sight of them.

Somewhere… somewhere in those stacks was the answer. In there lay the identity of the Pillar of the Sun, and the key to defeating it… the key to freeing Twilight.

“Aha!” intoned Artificer Call. “I know that look! It is a look of one ready for the grand adventure of learning!”

“Heh,” laughed Spike, realizing that Twilight would have said something similar. He struck a heroic pose, rubbed his hands together, and with an athletic leap prepared to dive into the stack of…

“No leaping. No disrespecting the texts. Do not damage the books,” came the voice of Reference Desk, drifting on a cold breeze from somewhere beyond.

As the color fell out of him, Spike quickly regained his proper footing.

“Very well,” spoke Call, rubbing his hooves together. “Let’s ‘get our learning on’, as the foals say these days. Perhaps it would be best if you began by explaining what the, how did you call it, The Pillar of the Sun, looked like…”

Spike moved to a nearby chalkboard and lifted the chalk. With that, their research began.

For the next seven hours, the two swam through every understanding that the learned scholar had developed in his decades as a researcher. Texts came open that had not been peered upon since the last time Call had been doing his research years and years before, and the studious pony poured over them, deep contemplative hums rising from him as he did.

All of that long afternoon, Spike kept recounting every horrible, wicked detail of the pillar that he could, remembering every inch of the monstrous spire that had done this to Twilight. Recalling each aspect of the thing that had hurt her. He stared into his own drawing of the eye he had sketched on the chalkboard, something awful moving through him as he did. He drew his claws across it, smirking a little as he marred the eye, ripped it apart with…

“No scratching on the chalkboards!”

They worked through those long hours, the little dragon performing every duty as a secretary he’d practiced through the years, everything he’d learned to do as Twilight’s Number One Assistant. In the workspace nearby, Artificer Call moved through book after book, examining the spires, columns, obelisks, and pillars that went by as he flipped through the tomes.

Seven hours later, they emerged with nothing.

Spike stood in the portico of the archive, his tired eyes lifting to the towers of the palace and the city beyond. At once a great vast sigh left him, and the last rays of the sun began to fall through the streets.

Another sigh fell through him, and he lifted his arms to the shafts. The golden glow of the space between night and day met him.

It’s twilight, he thought, and then dropped his arms. There was no comfort in the name, only the pony who shared it could give him that. And, today, yet again, he had failed her.

“Spike,” said Call, standing a few paces behind the dragon, “do not give up so easily. We’ve barely scratched the surface of the materials at our disposal. It is merely a matter of time, my dear boy. It is merely a matter of time.”

Time?! Time?! I can’t let Twilight lay there forever and ever and ever, you old dummy! I can’t...

Spike shuddered, shook, and forced the horrible thoughts from his mind. He fought them back once again, scaring himself a little with how quickly and easily they were coming now.

He heard the stallion stepping forward, Call’s hooves striking the paving stones with a slow tempo.

“You are more than welcome to join me at my favored restaurant for dinner, dear boy,” Call said, concern evident in his voice.

“Naw, I’m good,” Spike said, not turning to face him. “I’m good. Thanks though.”

Spike felt a hoof rest on his shoulder. He finally did look up, and there Call stood with the most uncertain smile that Spike had seen on the stallion.

“You will come around to Joe’s tomorrow morning, won’t you, dear boy?” Call said, his voice small.

Spike smiled and nodded. Artificer Call did the same. With that, the stallion turned out into the street, making towards some place beyond where he could find his dinner.

Spike turned towards the hospital, and his tired feet began to carry him home… or towards what counted as home these days.

“Hey! You have to sign in!” called the receptionist not long after.

The dragon trudged on past, barely even noting her.

“Yeah, fine,” she said. “Whatever.”

Spike made several turns, his head hanging once more. He rubbed the back of his arm across his eyes. He made more turns, still rubbing his eyes, pushing through doors and climbing stairs in what he thought was the same way he’d always come to the West Wind Annex.

As a mare’s screams met him, he realized how wrong he’d been.

Spike lurched out of his tiredness, his eyes flashing. His head spun around as a mare’s calls of pain once more drove around him. The colors of this corridor, he didn’t know them. They were pastels, and cartoon characters, baby animals, and fanciful designs sat across the wainscoting.

As silence fell over the hallway, a stallion burst out of the room on Spike’s left. He trotted across the hallway, not even noting the dragon, and Spike felt that he knew the fellow.

Spike searched through his mind, his eyes falling to the floor, trying to search through his bleary mind for some sort of recognition.

“Please,” breathed the stallion, his head resting against the window, and at once Spike recognized the voice. It was the voice of the stallion that had cried out “She’s having the baby!” as Spike had clung to Comfort that morning.

“Please, Princesses, let it be over soon,” the stallion whispered. A mare’s cries once more filled the hallway, lifting from the room on Spike’s left. Immediately the stallion turned, trotting back within.

Spike leaned forward, peeking into the room. The stallion circled a bed, and as two doctors stood nearby Spike saw him lift a mare’s hoof into his. Another cry ripped out of her, and as ponies shifted around Spike saw the mare’s hoof clench tight to that of her husband, though he could not see her face.

A nurse burst past him, demonstrating how out-of-place he was, and taking the hint, Spike began to walk the length of the birthing ward, trying to figure out how to get back to the West Wind Annex.

As he went he counted on his fingers, counting the hours since Comfort had led him past the stallion and his mare, past the two ponies who now hovered in the most uncertain, most intangible moment in the lives of parents, and who had been there for…

“Thirteen hours,” the dragon said to no one, his fingers falling back to his side, his counting complete. “Thirteen hours. Jeez,” he said, looking back down the corridor, hearing the mare’s cries once more.

His eyes fell to the floor again, and once more he began working his way towards the familiar room beyond.

Once he had read Twilight the next chapter of Precepts of Innovational Magic Theory, and had adjusted her crown, boots, water, and pitcher once more (despite it being obvious that nopony had touched them during his absence), Spike set about building his little nest at the alicorn’s bedside.

As he fluffed the cushions, he looked up to her bandaged eyes, the windows to her luminous soul once more placed behind protective shutters. He sighed, and then leaned forward to her, opened his mouth to tell her…

He startled himself. At once he went pelting to the doorway. No, the hallway was empty, and only the night nurse and her distant radio could be seen. He wiped his head in relief, and returned to Twilight’s bedside.

“Heh,” he whispered to her, leaning across his arm, running his hand up and down her foreleg. “I hafta be more careful, huh Twi? I don’t want anybody catching me talking to you, thinkin’ I’m a nutcase or somethin’, huh?”

Princess Twilight Sparkle continued to lay there, unmoving, unhearing, unspeaking.

“Yeah,” he continued, “you’re right.”

He blinked, and then pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, jeez,” he grumbled. “Oh, jeez.”

After recovering for a moment, he went back to running his hand up and down her foreleg, just staring to where her eyes sat hidden behind the gauze, the compresses protecting her sight.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here to help Comfort to put the bandages on, Twi,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was gone for so long today, but Joe says ‘Hi’, and everypony at the doughnut shop is rooting for you!”

He lifted his hand, making it so that only the tips danced across her coat in a way that he knew would have tickled her… gotten that much more of a response out of her.

She did not respond. She simply laid there, her giggle absent. He sighed and gathered her hoof into his hand, holding it.

“Do ya’ remember Artificer Call? It turns out, he’s actually not that bad…”

While he told her about how Call was helping, he looked up to the clock. In his mind, he noted that, in his new calendar, in his new timekeeping, a new day of this world of the hospital had begun a few hours ago. He had now been at her bedside for two full weeks and six hours, and a spattering of minutes.

As he looked back down to her, he wondered how many more it would be before she awoke.

“I’m gonna do it, Twi. I’m gonna keep my promise. I’m gonna find out what it is, Twi… why it hurt you.”

Silence once more, just the distant sound of the nurse’s radio down the hallway.

“Can… can you wake up, Twi? Can you, please?” he asked, gripping her hoof harder.

“Just, please, try Twilight. Please try to wake up… wake up, Twi.”

Nothing.

“Please?”

Nothing.

Spike wiped the back of his arm across his eyes without dropping her hoof. He stared at her for a few more moments, and then patted her hoof before gently placing her foreleg beneath the sheets.

“Good night, Twi,” he said, casting one last glance over her before slumping back down upon the cushions. “Sleep tight.”

Spike had hoped that, just maybe, he’d be able to pass that night without the troubled dreams that had followed him for those two weeks.

As the screams of a mare lifted through his dreams, Twilight’s screams, it proved a false hope.

“No eating the chalk. No sleeping. No using books as a footstool,” came the cold, austere tones of Reference Desk’s voice, the words shuddering through Spike as the mare’s voice lifted around him from places unseen. Cold dread dripped through him, filling his vision with horrors.

In short, the week was progressing as it had been.

“I’m not eating it!” he answered the unseen librarian, starling to full awareness. “I’m just restin’ on it… with my mouth. Which is weird. Yeah, okay, what am I doin’?”

“You were completing the checklist to see if that particular artifact could be our Pillar of the Sun,” Artificer Call answered, looking up from beyond his stack of books. “And, upon inspection, I realized you had fallen asleep with your head pressed to the chalkboard and the chalk against your face, so I let you sleep, dear boy.”

Spike arched an eyebrow, and then wiped the back of his hand across his face. The chalk showed there, the white dusk stark against the fading purple of his scales.

He sighed, and then looked up to the chalkboard. “Call?” he asked, motioning over the checklist they had spent the day constructing. “Was this one it, was this one the Pillar of the Sun usin’ a different name?”

Artificer Call rubbed the back of his hoof to his forehead, and then peered at Spike from over the top of his glasses. “No, dear boy,” the stallion said with a heavy sigh, “it was not.”

Spike cried aloud, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then beat his head against the chalkboard, little clouds of dust rising around him as he did.

“No screaming. No damaging archive property,” came Reference Desk’s cold, austere voice, ripping more of his resolve, and patience, out of him.

Artificer Call leaned back in his chair, his tightly bound mane sliding back. Once more he found himself looking on the dejected figure of Spike, the dragon seeming to fume as chalk dust arose around him like smoldering fires.

Spike coughed a little, the chalk dust escaping him in a little poof and hanging around him in a small cloud of disappointment and frustration.

This is how things stood in the second week and fourth day after Twilight was attacked by the Pillar of the Sun, after that thing had done that to her. Spike’s mind went back over the last few days, and how they, just like the weeks that had had preceded them, had quickly taken on their own rhythm.

Thus, the days had passed, and Spike’s hope of finding that one piece of information that could wake Twilight seemed to be slipping away.

Artificer Call looked on as Spike continued slowly banging his head against the chalkboard, little swirls of dust arising around him as he did. The historian leaned back in his chair, pondering the child from afar. The stallion lifted his eyes to the chalkboard, watching it bounce with each strike of the dragon’s head.

As his eyes coasted down the long list of artifacts, each one discarded as a candidate to be this Pillar of the Sun that so vexed the whelp, Artificer Call released another contemplative hum, and then a fresh thought fell across his mind.

“My dear boy,” he said, leaning forward, his hooves sitting across one another amid the maps, books, and charts, “I do believe that we need to look at the situation from another perspective.”

Spike paused momentarily, banged his head once more, and then looked back to Call.

“What?” he asked, a single poof of chalk dust escaping his lips as he did.

Call stood up and walked over to where Spike stood, and motioned across the broad sweep of the chalkboard. “My dear boy,” Call intoned, “what have we learned about all of these artifacts, all of the ones that even resembled in the smallest detail any artifact in Equestria that could have been your pillar?”

His pillar. Spike shuddered at the thought. He grumbled, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That there’s nothing known to Equestria that even comes close to looking like it,” he moaned.

“Incorrect, Spike!” laughed Call, the stallion turning away from the blackboard.

“W-what?” Spike asked, surprise going across his face.

“What we have been studying so far are simply those artifacts that have been made here in Equestria, those whose history is rooted in our own,” Artificer Call replied, pushing stacks of papers aside with his hooves, revealing a map of Equestria sitting upon the wall. Spike smiled inwardly, noting how Call had included him, a dragon, in the ‘our own’.

“So, since we’ve found nothing similar to your pillar that was made by the Equestrians, including our dependencies of the Crystal Empire and Saddle Arabia, that can only mean one thing, can’t it, dear boy?”

Spike blinked, and then blinked again.

“That means that,” he began… and then blinked again. His mind opened up, and a river of realization flowed through him.

“That means that it could… it could be from some place other than Equestria? That it could have been brought to Pursopolis?” Spike said, uncertainty hovering in his voice. “Omigosh!” he cried, “Sombra brought it from somewhere else! That’s… that’s why it was so much older than him! He stole it from somepony else! Somepony from beyond Equestria!”

“Perhaps not somepony at all, Spike,” Artificer Call said. At once he lifted his front hooves on the table he’d been clearing, and grasped a brass ring. Pulling on it, the earth pony revealed a new map.

“Perhaps, dear boy, some creature other than a pony was involved,” he said, motioning to all of Equus, of the known world that sat beyond Equestria’s borders. “We have a world of possibility before us... speaking quite literally.”

The chalk dropped out of Spike’s hand, cracking in half, and his tired eyes began to sparkle. He began to emit a low whine, one that erupted in a jubilant, happy cry of joy. Of course! Of course, it was so simple! Why hadn’t they thought of it before? Now, now they simply needed to find out…

“No breaking the supplies! No hollering! No jumping!” crashed Reference Desk’s voice coldly, catching him in mid leap.

Spike slowly settled to the ground, the feeling of the librarian’s eyes upon him from somewhere beyond.

“Yay?” he whispered. Spike fell in behind Artificer Call, the historian draping a haversack he’d let the whelp borrow across him, and the two leaving the room and beginning their new avenue of exploration.

There were many floors to the annex where they had been studying, and the bridge over the stream they had crossed connected it to the rest of the archive at one of the newer, higher floors.

As they descended the stairwell, Spike could feel the building growing harsher. Part of his mind went back to the stairwell he had gone down with Twilight, and he shook his head until it disappeared.

The tower, the annex they had been studying in, it became more like a dungeon than a library, with coarse stones and wrought iron fixtures. Little lights bobbled in yellowed lanterns, and Spike actually felt himself grasping the little haversack Call had given him closer, and lifting his hand and placing it on Call’s foreleg, like he would for Twilight’s comfort when scary things were close by.

He hadn’t taken the time to get to know Call all that well, and he wondered if the stallion had foals of his own. Given his age, grandfoals probably were not out of the question.

The comfort of the touch met him, and Spike was grateful for it…

… but it just didn’t feel like Twilight. It just wasn’t Twilight.

“Oh dear,” came Call’s voice, and Spike let his thoughts drift away as he followed the stallion’s eyes.

Before them sat a large oaken door, and upon it sat a notice. Spike recognized it right away, the familiar red seal draping off the parchment plain as could be. It was an official order… a royal writ.

“Oh dear,” Call repeated.

“Ummm, what… what’s wrong?” Spike asked, jumping a little, trying to see what was written on the note.

“It appears,” Call mouthed, squinting to read the fine details of the writ, “that this section is closed due to an inventory of the items within, and that it can only be opened under the authority of one of the princesses.”

The stallion sighed, and then looked down to Spike sheepishly. “And, unfortunately, my fine fellow, this particular section is devoted to mysteries from beyond our borders… and is exactly what I was hoping we’d be able to explore when we came down here, you see.”

The stallion’s face creased in disappointment.

“So, Spike, unless you know of some way of…”

Artificer Call smirked as the dragon waved his hands through the air, a self-confident expression falling across the whelp.

“Not a problem!” Spike said, digging through the haversack and producing a quill and a scrap of paper. “Watch this!”

Call hovered over the dragon, watching as Spike pressed the paper to the floor, and with quickness and penmanship that made the academic quite happy, Spike wrote a letter:

Dear Princess Celestia,

Hello! It’s me, Spike! I haven’t seen you at the hospital this week because I’ve been out at the archive. I need a little help, if you don’t mind. There’s this one room here that is all locked up and stuff, and it has your writ on it.

The historian who is helping me, Artificer Call, says that what we need is inside the room. Could you please send me back a note or something telling the scary librarian that we can go in?

Thanks a bunch!

Love,
Spike

Call looked on as the dragon stood up, placed one hand on his hip… and then apparently condemned his note to ash in a pool of green flame.

“No open flames!” echoed Reference Desk’s voice, cascading on chilled winds.

After recovering from the mare’s chiding, Spike smirked to Artificer Call. “Watch this!” he said, bouncing his eyebrows. After a few minutes, the stallion began to wonder what in the world was going on. Spike, too, began to wonder what had transpired. It… well, it usually never took the princess this long to respond to one of his messages.

Spike groaned as he sat on the cold stone stairs, his hands coming up to either side of his head. Why had Celestia not sent a message back yet? Spike looked up to find Artificer Call’s eyes going back and forth, and a small forced smile on his face… almost like the stallion believed that he was missing out on a joke.

Spike sunk his head lower into his arms.

I don’t get it, he thought. Why hasn’t the princess written me back yet? This… this is about Twilight, after all.

In his own foggy mind, Spike chased down all of the images he’d taken of the princess inside his head, all of the times he’d seen her and spoken with her since the day he’d arrived at the hospital.

He searched through each remembrance, each time he’d seen the Princess of the Sun. In each time she’d seemed her usual, smiling self. But, but each time, she seemed somehow… lesser, as though she were not entirely there.

And, well, he thought as he rocked forward and back on the hard steps, his arms wrapped around his knees, why didn’t she answer me when I asked her about the Pillar of the Sun? Why wouldn’t she…

Deep inside the dragon, a sudden familiar pinch drew him to his feet and out of his contemplations.

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Call, watching as Spike breathed the note into their presence.

The little dragon chuckled a self-satisfied smile. He’d been working hard to have his burps become less theatrical, to look more refined, like he was an actual Summoner instead of some whelp having a fit of apoplexy each time Celestia sent him a note.

“Straight from the princess!” he said, unrolling the scroll. As he did Call peeked over his shoulder.

“No passing notes!” came Reference Desk’s voice, sending Spike cowering as he began to peer at the letter.

“Amazing! Simply amazing!” continued Call, oddly unaffected by her voice, the stallion still enthralled by Spike’s abilities.

Spike recovered, laughed, and opened the scroll in fullness. His eyes fell across the message:

Dearest Spike,

In all issues regarding the present matter, please make all inquiries in person or to the indicated designates.

Love,
Princess Celestia

Spike’s jaw hung open as Artificer Call continued his praise.

“How unique! Amazing! Astonishing!” the historian exclaimed. “What a truly remarkable way to receive rejection letters!”

There was not a hint of irony in his voice, and Spike pinched the bridge of his nose once more and sighed a long heavy sigh as the Pinto earth pony stared down over him in wonder.

“It… well, it usually goes better than that,” Spike answered with a groan. “What’s the name of the book we need to get started again?”

In a moment, Spike was climbing the stairs, leaving Artificer Call to his lopsided pursuit of Reference Desk with the promise that he’d return with permission to enter the sealed room.

Spike trundled across the bridge joining the turret tower to the main part of the archive. As he did the rush of the stream beneath the walkway stuck in his mind. His feet slowed, and soon he found himself leaning forward across the ornate stone ledge of the bridge.

His eyes fell down across the waters as they rolled beneath the bridge. Every so often a flower, or some greenery, or some such thing would pass beneath hurrying along on the waters. His eyes followed each until it passed out of view, joining other unseen channels in the distance before the waters cascaded out of view.

Spike watched each float by, his head resting across his folded arms.

Why? he asked a branch as it passed by. Why isn’t the princess helping me?

Why? he pondered, inquiring of some cherry blossoms that coasted along in a thick raft. Why won’t Princess Celestia answer any of my questions?

Why? he asked a bag of Mairsy Dotes some thoughtless pony had discarded in the stream. Doesn’t she love Twilight, too?

Spike slipped down the smooth surface of the ledge, and as he walked across the bridge he hung his head, more and more questions running through his head. He re-entered the main hall of the archive, the section that had once been the core of the complex and the bingo hall in a time even earlier than that.

His head was still down, barely noticing anything, merely pondering the princess and her seeming reluctance to come to his aid. He opened and closed the scroll, looking at the words over and over. They lost all context in his eyes, simply becoming mere marks. All that they told him was that Celestia had distanced herself once more… had refused to help him, had refused to help Twilight…

That’s when he bounced off the biggest ball of string in Canterlot.

Chapter 10: Dope on the Ropes

Chapter 10: Dope on the Ropes

“Tape” is a funny word.

When most ponies think of “tape”, they imagine the adhesive variety. Others may think of a measuring tape, or a vinyl tape used in some recording processes.

In the end, all of these meanings come back to the original; namely, long, thin strands of cloth.

“A long time ago, Spike,” Twilight had once told him, “all documents were held together with tape. And those types of documents that the government used were marked with a very special colored tape!”

Red tape.

“Exactly!” she had answered.

Spike looked up from the floor to discover that he’d run into a massive ball of the material, and as he lay there on the floor he realized he’d walked right past it as they had entered earlier that day. He’d walked right past it every day for a week, truth be told.

He had been so enthusiastic about proceeding to find the answer to what could be vexing Twilight that he hadn’t seen the library staff slowly but surely freeing old documents of the tape, building up the giant ball so that they could put the documents into a more permanent form of protection.

“Whoa,” he said, gazing up at it.

Whether the staff was gathering it up as a record attempt, a new tourist attraction to draw ponies to the archive, or just as a lark, there it sat… a giant ball of bureaucratic binding, keeping him from completing his task.

His way was, quite literally, blocked by red tape.

Spike grimaced, rubbing his head as he stood. Gripping the scroll, he scooted around the ball of red tape, carefully avoiding the other patrons who stood there, gazing upon the officious orb with their jaws hanging open.

Spike exited the Royal Archives and turned down one of the myriad alleys as he made his way towards the palace. Even though the core palace complex was only a few hundred yards from the Royal Archives, he avoided the high street.

Spike slipped from alley to alley, deftly scrambling across discarded boxes, racks of milk bottles, and over sleeping cats without waking them. Leaping about like this was something he did not do much, but it was part of him, the same agility he had once used to "capture" an escaping hot air balloon.

The spring air washed over him, and the brown haversack Artificer Call had given him flew out behind the dragon. His claws dug deep into the surfaces, marring them. His tongue came loose, and his inner eyelids blinked. It was a part of himself that he did not show others, at least not often. It was just another thing that only Twi really knew about him… that he only shared with her…

It was an animal part of him, and when he realized it was calling strength from a part of him he did not like he startled himself, his eyes going wide.

His grip slipped, and he went tumbling out of the alley and out across the plaza nearest the palace gate.

“Ow,” he breathed, rubbing his tuckus, not really caring about who may be watching. He sat among the green expanse, watching proper ponies prance up to the main gate. Their papers in hoof, he watched with a small self-satisfied smirk as individuals that were filled with unwarranted amounts of self-importance were kindly, yet forcibly, refused an audience.

“Heh,” he breathed, and with that he made for the kitchen gate.

This was an old trick, one known to Celestia’s dearest students… and their closest companions. “Hey Spike,” said the guardspony who stood watch there, one who spent most of his day watching sacks of flour and bushels of fruits being carried within.

“Hey,” Spike said, fighting to remember the guard’s name. He was halfway up the stairs leading to Celestia’s personal chambers before his tired mind had cleared enough to even allow him to begin to guess.

Spike knew the palace… he had grown up here. If need be he could scamper all over this place unseen, as he had done on any number of occasions when playing hide-and-seek with the Lord Protector of the Nursery, his nurses, Twilight, or even Celestia herself.

Then again, he’d used that same ability to hide from all of the above when he’d been a naughty, naughty little dragon.

“Heh,” he laughed, doubting that he’d ever need to do so again.

Fate laughed back, readying itself.

“Dehisce!” Spike cried, slapping his own forehead, finally remembering the guard’s name as he mounted the last stair.

“A verb,” answered an engaged voice. Spike looked up to see the two earth pony guards, Morning Mist and Simple Script, looking back at him with something approaching eagerness on their faces.

“Yes, it is a verb, an intransitive one at that,” Morning Mist continued, closing one eye and turning his other towards the ceiling. "The meaning is, well… oh, ‘to suddenly spring forth’ or ‘to break open’, to ‘burst forth’ as it were.”

The two guards stared at him with anticipation.

“Did I guess it correctly, young master dragon?” Morning Mist said, aquiver with anticipation.

“Ummm…. Yeah?” Spike answered, his eyes darting between the two.

“Aha! A point for me, then, Script!” announced the guardspony.

“Very well! I concede you one more point, though I hardly know how our new player is going to make up any ground, as we’ve been playing all day,” Simple Script added, nodding towards Spike.

Spike arched an eyebrow at both. “Naw… that’s fine, I guess… maybe?”

“Now, my word,” announced Morning Mist, “is ‘filipendulous’.”

“Adjective,” answered Simple Script without hesitation, “meaning ‘to suspend by a single string’.”

“Drat!” yelled Morning Mist.

They were playing a game. These two guardsponies were playing a word game. Spike’s eye twitched, and he wondered if it was really happening or if he’d finally gone mad. Just as he was about to tell his brown haversack to fly away as a test, a small group of dignitaries went walking up the hallway. As they did he watched as Morning Mist and Simple Script fell back into the practiced, regimented, stances of their kind.

Refined earth pony muscles tensed, and Spike saw the two go into both their formal salute… and saw their quick eyes dance among the passing tour group, looking for dangers. Yes, Spike reminded himself, they really are Royal Guards. They just don’t shut up, is all.

Soon the tour group of dignitaries, ones who seemed oblivious to the presence of the Princess of the Sun just beyond those doors, had disappeared down the hallways. “Come now, little dragon, have a go!” called Silent Script, breaking the silence.

“Actually, ummm, I have something that I need… I kinda need to talk to the princess, so, if I could, please?” he said, wavering a bit on his feet. He fished through the haversack, bringing the scroll out and waving it in front of them as proof that he had reason to be there other than for some phonetic frolics.

“Come now, young whelp,” Morning Mist answered, “give us one!”

Did you just brush me off, you ass?! Spike thought. Drop dead! I’m trying to save…

Spike startled, literally shaking as the realization that more bad words, and more angry thoughts, had gripped him. They were gaining control over him. His hands went over his mouth, and he stared back to the two guards with shame playing across his features.

Okay, Spike, calm down. Keep cool. Twilight can’t wake up to a monster. She can’t wake up to a monster.

“Oh, just one, my fine lad,” Morning Mist continued. “I’ve already exhausted my file partner’s vocabulary, you see!”

“Ha! Not hardly!” laughed Simple Script. “Though, truth be told, you’ve always been highly spoken of, if we might say so… though your name does escape me at the moment. Test your intellect, then? Just one, then we’ll announce you, we promise.”

Spike’s head swam back and forth, still recovering from his unhappy internal outburst. He recognized that they were playing with him, that no dignitary or official would be asked to do this… that they were looking on him as a little kid, or worse, just a creature, not a pony.

But, no, they had complimented him, and they looked down over him with genuine, if distant, smiles, awaiting a word.

“Just one?” the dragon asked from behind his hands.

The duo nodded enthusiastically.

Spike lifted his hands from his mouth, trying to think of a word. He looked at his fingers, his wrists, studying them. They had grown thinner over these last days, and the scales were beginning to pit. He wasn’t eating well, still, as he had eaten no gems at all since before that thing attacked Twilight, and it was starting to show.

Twilight. Hands.

“You’ve got quite the handful there, Spike!” Twilight giggled, her phantom once more walking around in front, a living memory weaving between the guards.

Spike recalled this moment, a tiny little one that seemed banal at the time. He remembered his hands being full of scrolls. Twilight’s voice leapt to him as she continued.

“You’ve got an absolute…”

“Gowpen,” Spike said, finishing Twilight’s sentence, announcing it to the two guards.

He smirked to himself as the tassels upon their helmets tossed, and the two looked at one another in surprise. The two ponies fidgeted and made uncertain sounds.

“Well, ummm, that surely is an interesting one!” Morning Mist said, laughing a small, puzzled laugh.

“I certainly do wonder… is the root ‘gow’ or is it ‘pen’?” mumbled Simple Script.

The two guards shuffled around, made pawing motions at the fine carpet, and mumbled about phonemes and parts of speech. Spike waited, looking at each as the moments flew by. Finally, after a long enough battle, the two ponies looked at one another, sighed, and turned to the little dragon.

“Is it a noun?” asked Morning Mist. “A place for keeping… well, gows?”

“Nope!” answered Spike with a satisfied chirp. “It’s a noun, though!”

“Well then, is it a type of writing pen?” guessed Simple Script, appearing less than enthusiastic about his guess. “One used in a profession?”

“Sorry!” Spike said, a happy laugh escaping him.

“Well, my fine fellow,” asked Mist, “what is it, then?”

Spike held his little clawed hands up to them, remembering the weight of scrolls filling his arms.

“It means ‘two handfuls’!” he said, a cheeky blush coming over his face. Ponies don’t have hands, so how could they have guessed it? In his imagination, he felt Twilight rubbing his head, congratulating him on being clever and for maintaining his vocabulary.

“Well played, boy, well played!” the stallions answered, clopping their hooves against the tiles. “Well played indeed!”

“I suppose we should announce you now!” Script said, beginning to turn towards the door. “Name and title?”

“Spike!” he said. “Summoner to Her Majesty’s Designate Twili…”

Spike’s voice trailed off, leaving the two stallions at a loss. They turned to look at the little whelp, noticing his face falling.

He wasn’t a summoner anymore. Only Royal Designates have summoners, little assistants who breathe messages from the princess. Twilight was a princess now, not a designate. When Twilight had gained her wings, he’d lost one more little thing that made him special.

“Ummm,” Spike said, his mind’s eye falling through his little world. Twilight’s Number One Assistant? Was that a title? His teeth clenched. No… no it wasn’t a title. It was just something she told him, something that made him happy to hear her say. It made him happy because Twilight said it, because it proved him special to her.

“Number One Assistant”, a term only of importance between the two of them, he realized. The words only mattered because Twilight had said them, had showed Spike how important he was to her.

To anypony else, the words were meaningless.

Spike sighed, and then went with the old standby.

“Spike,” he said, some defeat showing in his voice, “the dragon.”

“On what business?” asked Silent Script, sensing the little whelp deflating.

“I’m trying to get a book out of the Royal Library, errrrr, Royal Archive, place… yeah,” he said, the words faltering in his mouth.

“Very well,” answered Script, and at once the great doors of Princess Celestia’s private chambers came open.

As the guardspony went inside, Spike straightened himself, hoping that he somehow looked better than the last time the Princess of the Sun had seen him. He gathered his haversack into his clawed hands, and then listened as the stallion announced him.

Morning Mist tilted his head, studying the boy, and Spike could feel his eyes on him. It seemed as if there was something that needed to be said, but that neither had the power to say it.

There were words, and soon Simple Script appeared back at the door. Spike stepped forward, ready to go speak with one of the few ponies he had known all of his life. That he bounced off of Simple Script was more of a shock to him on a personal level than a physical one… and hurt equally as bad in each way.

“I’m sorry, Spike, but the princess is busy and, well,” the guard said, trying to paint some sympathy into his voice, “she can’t see you now.”

Spike blinked, and then blinked again.

“No. No, wait, did you tell her that this is really important? This is about Princess Twilight Sparkle. I told her, in a letter earlier, that I need help for something about Twilight, ” Spike said. The dragon fought to his feet, and in an instant he found himself fighting to move between the two guards.

In an instant, he was reminded that they were, in point of fact, Royal Guardsponies.

He stopped spinning at the top of the stairs. With a single toss he fell down the first few, finally catching himself as he fought for a breath. He went down on all fours, his head swimming. Whatever the guard had done, it had been decidedly martial in nature.

Spike looked at the guard, shaking slightly. Their faces were cold, implacable. Spike stared at them, shaking and trembling noticeably. A dozen years ago he had gone toddling all over this palace, Twilight following along on her dainty filly hooves. He had been a great explorer, and to many it seemed that he had always found his way to Celestia’s warm, welcoming wings.

Before Twilight had taken full custody of him, when she was too small a filly to bear such a responsibility, it was the Princess of the Sun who had sung him to sleep. He had come to her here in this very room as big, dumb adults had shouted about things. He had fallen asleep against her flank as issues great and small had been brought before the ancient sovereign.

Now, he sat at the top of the stairs, trembling, shaking…

… his body heaving with a rage that he could not name.

Now, now that he really needed her help, now that Twilight needed her help… she had refused to see him?

The guards saw him shaking, and Morning Mist looked down at his own hooves with a guilty look on his face. Mistaking Spike’s trembling for fear, the guardspony softened his expression, and spoke once more.

“Awfully sorry, Spike,” the stallion said. “The training simply kicked in, is all.”

“You… you know that she wouldn’t refuse to see you unless she was truly involved in something of utter importance,” Simple Script added.

Spike pondered that for a bit, and slowly he felt himself getting better. Yes, that had to be it. Spike seated himself on the top stair, content to wait. He lowered his head into his hands, his back to the guards. He settled himself down further…

… and that’s when the mare bounced over him.

“Bonjour, gardes!” the mare called, bounding on great long strides of her long, beautiful legs. “Je suis arrivé! J'espère qu'elle n'a pas attendu longtemps?”

“No, ma’am!” answered Morning Mist, “Her Highness has not been waiting long at all.”

Spike turned, his eyes fixed on the mare.

“Alors commençons tout de suite!” the mare said in a deliberate tone.

“Yes ma’am, right away,” Simple Script answered, opening the door. Spike’s eyes went wide as the mare was ushered within Celestia’s chambers. His eyes fixed themselves past the door, and there, deep within, he caught sight of the radiant mane of the princess.

And, in a flash, the door closed again.

Two rather embarrassed looking Royal Guardponies stared back at him, each looking as though there was something that they desperately did not want to say.

“Wow,” Spike breathed, “she must be really important, huh?”

The two guards looked back up to Spike, and then quickly averted their eyes.

“Oh, oh!” he said, excitedly jogging in place. “Lemme guess! She’s the regional governor of Prance!”

Spike looked up to the stallions, trying to meet their eyes. If the princess had refused to see him, then that mare must be extremely important. Amazingly important!

“Oh, now, wait!” he said, dancing around a little bit more. “I bet she’s a diplomatic liaison! Oh, oh, all sorts of really vital stuff must be going on in there if she…”

Spike stopped suddenly, hovering in place for a moment before facing the guards again, a bright smile going across him. His imagination ran wild, and after a moment he turned to the guards with a knowing smirk.

“So, she’s a spy, huh?” he said, leaning against the banister and checking his claws with a practiced distance. “That’s cool, if you can’t tell me. It’s just really neat to see that…”

“Actually, Spike,” interrupted Morning Mist, snapping Spike back to attention, “Ms. Fleur is part of Princess Celestia’s personal staff.”

Spike blinked.

“Oh, okay, so… she is her Lady in Waiting, or her Chief of Staff?” Spike said, looking to the stallions. “She must be really important if the princess can’t see me right now…”

“She’s… she’s her stylist,” Simple Script said, something catching in his throat.

“I…what?” Spike choked.

“Ms. Fleur is Princess Celestia’s personal mane stylist,” Simple Script continued, coughing slightly as he did.

“What?”

“Well, you know, my fine fellow,” Morning Mist said, leaning in when Simple Script appeared to be growing incommunicative, “Her Majesty’s mane is rather special, as it were.”

There was the sound of something ripping, a tearing sound.

Spike heard the sound, and it startled him. Looking down into his own hands he discovered, much to his surprise, that it wasn’t the last of his frayed nerves that had been torn asunder.

Instead, somehow, he had apparently lifted the scroll from his haversack, the very same scroll that Celestia had sent him not half an hour before. It was the one that had brought him out of the library.

He had torn it in two, not even knowing that he had done so.

He looked down to see Celestia’s seal torn perfectly in two, broken by his hands.

Then, with some small amount of effort, he unclenched his jaw, and let his hands relax so that they weren’t balled up in fists.

“If… if you’ll simply have a seat, I’m certain that the princess will be with you shortly,” Simple Script said. “You know, once she’s finished the rather important… getting her mane styled…”

Both guards shifted uncomfortably. To their relief they saw Spike begin to seat himself at the top of the stairs.

Why? the dragon pondered, once more placing his head in his hands. Why isn’t the princess helping me?

Spike looked down, and there he saw the two halves of the scroll bobbling along, wavering on the stairs. He wondered how it had even gotten into his hands. Was he so tired, so close to his ragged edge, that his body was doing things without him knowing?

He lifted the torn remnants, and looked them over gently.

If the princess doesn’t help me, then I won’t be able to get Call the books he needs. If I can’t do that, then we can’t find out what’s wrong with Twi and stuff. If I can’t figure that out, then I can’t tell the doctors what type of curse… enchantment, spell.... thingy she’s under! And, and if I can’t do that, then Twi will never…

Spike felt the scroll crumpling in his hands. No. No, he refused to let his thoughts stray there. He refused to believe that Twilight would never leave that bed.

“Come now,” Morning Mist said, “let us continue our game! Now, I do believe that Spike won the last round, so he goes again. Come now, young dragon, give us another word!”

“Naw,” Spike said, his thoughts spreading out wide and thin as he studied the torn, crumpled halves of the scroll. “Naw, you go ahead and take my turn. I’ll just… listen along…”

“Oh, very well then,” Morning Mist continued, some concern showing in his voice. “In that case, the word is ‘gargalesis’, and for extra points you can define its adjective form, ‘gargalesthesia’.”

“So it’s a noun then, again?” said Simple Script.

“It is indeed!”

“Well then, let’s work through the roots. Any clues, Spike?” asked the second stallion.

“I’m guessing it doesn’t have much to do with gargling,” Spike sighed, placing the two halves of the scroll in his haversack, not knowing why.

“Tickling,” Script announced. “Gales… wind. Laughter, as in the wind brought forth by tickling. In fact, heavy tickling, as done between a parent and a child. Gar, ‘great’, after all. Therefore, ‘gargalesthesia’ is the sensation brought about by a good firm tickling.”

“Drat!” answered Morning Mist.

Tickling. A good firm tickle. Spike’s mind flew back to the library, the study old live oak that had become his home. His home. His home was wherever Twilight was, and that home had been the best one. He missed it terribly.

Tickling. In his head he heard his own laughter as Twilight pursued him around the library on stormy, sleeting days that rattled the windowpanes and sloshed around the house. She’d catch him, and with a raspberry she’d find his ticklish spots, each one a secret that only they knew, and his laughter would fill their little home.

He’d catch her, too, and her dulcet laughter would fill the library again and again. Her laughter would fall around the fireplace, the photographs, the letters from her family…

… and they’d be happy.

“I suppose you can guess the meaning of ‘knismesis’, then?” Morning Mist said, arching an eyebrow.

“A light tickling,” Simple Script answered, drawing another curse from his file partner.

A light tickle, a gentle touch. Spike’s mind flew back to pressing his hand on Twilight’s leg, dropping the comfort of his presence into her as she had some of her worst days. Being there for her, sharing things with her, being with her in their little home... that’s who he was. That was Twilight’s Number One Assistant.

He closed his eyes, and pictured them there. The smell of the books met him, but it was not a princess who strode across the floor to meet him. It was just Twi… just his Twi.

Okay, yeah, Owliscious, too.

That was what he was being denied. That is what was being stolen from him every moment Twilight lay in that bed.

Why won’t the princess help me?! What’s wrong with her?! Doesn’t she know!? Doesn’t she care?! What’s going on, why won’t anypony...

Spike shuttered, startled, and forced himself to breath. He pushed the anger out, let it fly away.

Twilight can’t wake up to a monster. Twilight can’t wake up to a monster. Twilight can’t wake up to a monster, he repeated, chanting his inner mantra until the anger had flown out of his body, until only the lingering exhaustion remained.

Or, at least he thought he did.

“Psithurism,” Morning Mist said.

“Gah!” Spike cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “Who comes up with these words?”

With that, the guards watched as a rather unhappy looking dragon boy begin to descend the steps.

Halfway down, the dragon stopped. His fingers came up to his chin, and his head sat in one hand as the fingers of the other drummed against his haversack.

Yeah, well, Twilight won’t wanna see a monster, he thought. But, she already kinda knows that I can be a little bit sneaky…

If the princess would not help him, then Spike decided that he would help himself.

With that, he went off to be a naughty little dragon…

… a naughty little dragon indeed.

On the other side of the vast, white doors of her private chambers, past the guards and their game, Princess Celestia sat politely, making small talk with Fleur de Lis, her stylist.

The graceful mares made quite a sight, the unicorn holding the shimmering locks of the princess’s mane aloft, softly pulling out any of the imperfections that dare hide in the flowing currents.

As she did she made small talk. The alicorn listened politely, adding comments of her own in Fancy, though her dialect in that language was slightly older than she may have liked.

Fleur replied enthusiastically, making observations as she practiced her craft.

Though, truth be told, not observant enough, for she missed the sigh that had drifted out of the princess, and the glow of the magic that had, among other things, allowed the sovereign to hear all that had transpired beyond the door.

Ponies went up and down the aisles of the archives, their muzzles buried in their books. Scholars, academics, diplomats, theologians, students, and those with a love of learning in general… these all silently made their way up and down the corridors.

One such pony, Carbon Copy, was doing some rather fascinating research on the ancient heresies involved in the plumbing techniques of Canterlot’s sewer system. His mind raced as he flipped through the papers and books that hovered in his magic.

It can’t be possible, he thought, the facts of the matter unraveling themselves before his eyes. If… if the sewers are laid out just so, then that means that… that…

“Waggghhhhh!” he cried, tumbling to the ground, his papers, books, and train of thought flying out around him.

Carbon Copy groaned. His eyes settled across a thin line of red that stretched out before him. His eyebrow arched, and he looked on as it unwound itself in front of him, the little bows showing where the individual pieces of red tape had been tied together. He panned his head back where the great ball of red tape stood, decreasing imperceptibly as somepony, or something, unwound a line of the clerical cord.

His eyes followed it, seeing that it snaked out towards the doors to the bridge that lead to the annex, the turreted tower that held the other part of the archive.

“Huh,” he said, lifting himself to his hooves. “Imagine that. I wonder what that’s all about.”

He gathered his papers and books, and then set about trying to regain his gathering epiphany about the deep, dark secrets of Canterlot’s sewer system.

Had he been slightly more curious, and had Carbon Copy followed the trail of red tape, he would have discovered something slightly more intriguing that the sacrilege found in Equestrian plumbing.

What he would have discovered was a dragon whelp standing on the ornate banister of the bridge, wrapped in large loops and knots of red tape, and apparently getting ready to jump into the stream.

“Well,” Spike said aloud, “this is it then, I’ve gone nuts.”

He slapped his hands together, rubbed them in anticipation, flexed his knees… and then gripped upon the banister and shook like an army of multi-flavored gelatin ponies practicing to set the world record for dancing the “Manehattan Shake”.

Pinkie and her hobbies, he thought.

Spike sighed, and then sat up. He blinked as he looked down to the cord of red tape that sat wrapped around him. He had read a Coltscout guidebook, and in doing so he had taught himself any number of knots. Half a dozen of them, of varying practicality, sat upon his scales, the red dye of the tape leaving little marks against him.

He lifted his eyes, and looked over his shoulder at the turreted tower to his right. There, below him, sat a window, the one closest to the water. That window, he knew, was the one to the room that Artificer Call said that they needed opened, the one that they needed to get into, to find one book at least and perhaps thousands more.

All that he had to do was swing down there, break in through the window, find the book, break the seal on the door, and then sneak out and pretend that he’d actually gotten permission to have it opened.

“Oh,” he said, leveling his trademark snark against himself, “is that all?”

“Why?”

Spike leapt in place, nearly knocking himself off the banister. Grasping for the cord of tape he pulled himself back to upright, swiveled his head around…

… and found Twilight staring at him.

“Spike,” she said, concern painted in her voice. “Why?”

He stared into her eyes for a second, but they weren’t her eyes. They were a memory of her eyes. Yes, this was just a memory, too. It was a memory of the time she had found him after he had run away, after he had thought her love withdrawn from him.

He closed his eyes, forcing the memory to fade. He felt the cool marble of the banister reaching up to him, and the rush of the stream beneath him calmed his nerves. It would feel good to take a nap, right here, on this spring day as the sounds of Canterlot drifted along and past the bridge where he lay, the tiredness and exhaustion of the last two weeks playing around in his small frame.

Then again, he was already wrapped in red tape. That type of thing just couldn’t be ignored.

Why? he asked his memory as he stood, wobbling a bit. Because I’m tired of not having anybody to boss me around, Twi!

He smirked to himself.

He opened his eyes. The sound of the stream rushing beneath him filled his perception. Spike unfolded his arms, letting them go wide and spread out parallel to the banister of the bridge.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay.”

He focused on the distance.

“Okay,” he said again, taking more deep breaths. “Okay.”

He closed his eyes.

“I’ve gone nuts,” he sighed, and with that he leaned backwards, and fell off the bridge.

There was a rush of air and a sensation of powerlessness went through him, gravity holding sole dominion over the whelp.

There was a gradual deceleration, and a resolute tug, and then something happened that he hadn’t been expecting. There was a feeling of being tossed, and suddenly he felt himself travelling… up?

“Whoa,” Spike breathed as he opened his eyes. He’d somehow snapped backwards into the sky! The red tape, it was elastic! Rather than simply thudding him to a stop, it had pulled him back up into the air.

His eyes went wide, and he plummeted again. Clenching his eyes shut he waited for the inevitable end of this wild ride, his stomach lurching about inside of him.

Huh, he thought, more than a little surprised at how clear his thoughts were as he whipped around at the end of the red tape, I wonder if ponies would like a sport where ya jump off of high things only to get caught at the last second by cords and stuff?

Spike’s stomach sent him signals that they would not.

Well, maybe Pinkie would.

Up, down, up, down, up… down, down. Slow, slower, stop.

Spike opened his eyes to discover that he was hovering just above the stream. He blinked, and then discovered that his nose was just short of that of a large frog seated on a lilypad.

“Ribbit,” it croaked, gauging him coldly.

“Yeah?” Spike said as he dangled there. “Right back at ya, buddy.”

Spike waited for his head to stop swimming and his stomach to stop protesting, and then he took a look at the scene around him.

Well, he thought, there’s the stream, so that’s a thing. A frog is a thing, too.

“Ribbit.”

“That’s neat,” Spike said, turning his body so that he could take in more of his surroundings. “Cool story, tell it again.”

He looked up to the underside of the bridge. It loomed over him, and the thin red line of cloth suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. The great arched surface of the archive stood on his right, and he turned from its shining surface to look for the turreted annex.

"I'm filipendulating," he said, dangling a participle. He chuckled to himself as a ringing grew louder in his ears, blood pooling in his brain. He looked around. There, on his left, embedded on the surface of the turreted tower, stood the window. The one that mattered.

“Well, wish me luck, frog guy,” Spike said as he started to swing, leaning his weight back and forth.

“Ribbit.”

“Why ya gotta be that way, bro?” Spike asked, passing the frog for the first time. The two shared glances as Spike went past slowly, and then faster, and finally he was making great wide arcs across the stream, coming closer and closer to the walls each time.

“Uh oh,” Spike said, watching the clear, alabaster surface of the archive coming closer. His stomach was doing somersaults that made jumping off the bridge seem like nothing. The wind whistled past his ears as he swung higher and higher, his heart thudding as he heard each little ripple through the thin cord of red tape.

“I’m insane,” he told himself, watching the hard, unyielding, whelp-splattering walls of the annex and the archive growing nearer with each swing. “I’m friggin’ crazy.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he called out, arching his back as he spun along. “Yipes!” he cried aloud, grasping at the linen cord. The rough stone exterior of the annex appeared before him, and Spike made one grasp for it, striking out with his claws.

The stones squealed, and Spike went spinning through the air once more, swinging back towards the water!

“Crud! Crud, crud, dang! Dang, shoot, dang, crud!” he cried, letting an elementary-school grade string of profanities escape his lips as he passed the frog and approached the unblemished surface of the archive wall once more.

Just as he approached it he brought his legs in. “I’m nuts,” he said to nopony. “I’m crazy!”

Just as he reached his apex, his scales a fraction of an inch from the carved arches of the archive, he thrust his feet out, pushing off the walls of the archive.

He rocketed down, the speed of his swing greater than before.

“Ribbit,” the frog said, watching the dragon fly past.

Spike could not respond, he already had his claws extended, his mind focusing on the spot where they had failed to gain purchase before. He braced himself, readying for the impact.

The stones drew closer, and with that he crashed into the wall.

“No! No, no, no!” he cried, his claws scrambling over the surface. His feet and hands caught, slipped, caught again, and then failed to grasp the slick stones.

There was a lurch, and Spike blinked.

His teeth. He was holding onto the stones with his teeth. Mighty incisors and canines designed to tear at diamonds and sapphires anchored him to the wall, holding him there by his enamel. Whoa, he thought. Suddenly he was very sorry for ever giving Twilight a hard time about dragging him to the dentist.

Not that he was a fan of the dentist having to use a power sander on his teeth, but still…

Spike extended his feet, and with some effort he latched onto the hard stone surface. His right hand came out, his claws glistening. Pressing them into the stones they found spaces amid the cracks, and though he was a small dragon, the gifts of his kind worked through the faults and fissures of the rocks.

He had made it this far. Now came the hard part.

He reached his left hand behind him, making to cut away the cord of red tape, freeing him from his tether.

To his startled amazement, the second he pulled on it the cord snapped, the loose end fluttering through the air before falling into the stream, draping itself across the frog as it settled into the water.

“Ribbit,” it said, regarding the linen balefully.

“Whoa,” Spike said, realizing how close he had been to tumbling into the water.

He looked down beneath him. The window was about four of his own body lengths below. He grumbled under his breath, and then began his descent.

His claws scraped and skittered across the surface, and twice he nearly fell off, his yelps of surprise echoing along the surface of the stream.

“Ribbit,” the frog said, watching Spike cling to the stones of the wall.

“No comments from the peanut gallery!” Spike answered in a huff, and once more he began to move down the surface.

“I’m nuts,” he repeated to himself, over and over as he slowly descended, making his way inch by inch. “I’m crazy, I’m, like, full-on crazy.”

His feet reached out, and found nothing. He slipped, cried… and landed on the windowsill.

Spike spun about, surprised, and then realized what had happened. Looking around once more, he realized his stroke of luck, and with a self-congratulatory smile he spoke to himself one more.

“Yeah, I’m crazy,” he said, smirking wide. “Crazy like a fox!”

“Ribbit,” said the frog.

“Yeah, I know that doesn’t really work, but I’m havin’ a rough day,” Spike answered, energy leaving him. He rubbed his hands across his eyes, and then looked at the window.

Upon examining it, he rubbed his eyes again.

It was covered in black steel bars. It was thick, with a rippled surface that suggested lead glass. It was secure, stuck fast deep within the frame of the window.

“Shoot,” Spike said, looking it over. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He hadn’t honestly thought that he could get this far. He half expected to have been caught, or to have been washed away to the waterfalls beyond. Instead, here he sat on the ledge of the window, above the stream… stopped just short of his goal.

“Shoot,” he repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose. With a sigh he began to rummage through the haversack, the brown bag having stayed wrapped tight to his side with the red tape.

All that sat within was the torn halves of the scroll and an unopened “fun size” box of Mairsy Dotes.

Wait, where had that come from? His hands came up to his mouth, and he shook in genuine horror. Had, had he stolen it in the market? Was he so withdrawn that he hadn’t even noticed picking it up? Had he forgotten to pay for it?

Had some small part of him, the encroaching monster, willfully stole it?

He picked the box out of the haversack, and beat it against the window.

The stream continued to roll along, the frog staring up with an arched brow.

“I can’t believe I thought that would work,” Spike sighed, putting the breakfast cereal, snack food, and furniture polish combination back in his haversack. He sat there, on the ledge, hovering between the bridge above and the stream below, his eyes going to the imposing surface of the window, the black bars and frosted glass mocking him.

He sighed once more, and put his head in his hands.

Twi, he thought, I’m trying so hard. I’m trying so hard, Twi, but… but I don’t know if I can do this. I mean, all I want to do is…

He sighed and leaned back against the window.

“Wah!” he called, and with that he tumbled backwards into the room beyond the window, the gated surface being unlatched the whole time.

“Ribbit,” said the frog.

The room was dark, and it smelled like every old, musty library Twilight had ever brought him to magnified a thousand times over.

He blinked, rubbed his head, and panned his eyes across the room.

Spike grimaced. His thoughts suddenly turned from every library he had visited to every time he had been made to clean up the library back in Ponyville. It wasn’t dirty per se. It wasn’t dusty or filthy… but it was disorganized, scrolls and books and ledgers laying in piles. He stood up, and immediately he startled, watching a tower of scrolls collapse on his left.

Twilight would freak out, he thought, coasting his eyes around the room. As he did he imagined the frothing, twitching mess his best friend would dissolve into at seeing so many ancient texts disregarded so utterly. She’d go totally bucking...

Spike clamped his hands across his mouth. He was swearing again, if even to himself.

Something moved at the far side of the room, making Spike jump in alarm. He skittered in place before diving into a pile of texts. Looking out from behind his book fort he saw a loose page of a tome tossing in a breeze that fell from the open window.

With a sigh, he reached up and closed it, casting himself into a dingy yellow light. He turned, and picking up the first book on his right he began to walk the room, searching for the door. He thumbed through the book, his eyes catching across a few words. Realizing it was nothing he needed, he set the book down.

When he lifted his hand, he saw that something had attached to it. Squinting, he looked down, and there he saw a thin trail of magic lifting something black to the back of his hand.

When he lifted his hand farther he saw that they were words. Words were lifting off of a piece of paper, some ancient, yellowed parchment, and sticking to his hand.

Magic. This room… it was enchanted. There were magical works here.

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t be here alone,” he said, panning his head around and looking for the door. He looked down to see the words creeping off the paper, wrapping his hand like a grapevine slowly growing up a trellis.

“Gah!” he cried, flicking his hand through the air. To his relief the words scattered back over the page, landing awkwardly and with no relation to where they had begun.

“Okay,” he said, some small panic in his voice, “yeah, I shouldn’t be here by myself!” He scrambled over piles of books, and a small oak case came open as he did.

Two crystal orbs suddenly illuminated within. They began draping the room in red words, prophecies of doom and peril, the letters spilling from their surface in a golden light.

“Didn’t see that! Didn’t see that!” Spike said, covering his eyes as he leapt along. “Nothin’s happening here! La, la, la, la, la!”

The door, the vast wooden door with its steel fixtures, appeared before him as he peeked out from behind his fingers.

The seal sat upon it, the yellow wax sitting deeply in the grooves behind the frame. Spike’s claws extended again, and in an instant they had sunk deep into the soft, yielding beeswax, and the feel of magic wrapped around his hands.

He startled, took a small breath, and then waited to see if the magic would attack him. To his surprise, it did not. “Huh,” he said, feeling the protective magic sink through him and then down into the stones, “not much of a seal, then, I guess.”

The wax came off in one long, rubbery cord. He pulled on it harder and harder, grunting and heaving as it reached the top corners of the door, as it stretched and ran in the grooves as it met the hinges.

“C’mon, c’mon!” he called aloud with a groan.

There was a slick sound, and the wax pulled loose, and with that he tumbled to the ground.

“Ow,” he said, rubbing his head.

Spike looked down to the wax cord, very much like taffy in its elasticity. His head waved back and forth, and there he saw the red tape harness he had made for himself still sitting around him and his haversack.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t look suspicious at all,” he said, slicing at it with his claws. Soon he was free of the tape, and with it and the cord of wax gathered in his claws he went back around the room, looking for a place to hide the evidence of his forced entry.

He looked up to find himself staring at an immense griffon. Oddly, Spike did not startle as he had many times that day, and he found himself oddly comfortably with the painting, as though he suddenly did not feel so alone in the room.

The two orbs dropped more dread and despair around him, and Spike moved quickly.

The griffon drake was huge, noble, regal, and he stared back at Spike from within the confines of a painting that hung above an old sofa, the cushions seeming to be deflated and exhausted as he was.

Deflated? Spike smirked to himself. “Do ya mind if I put these here?” he asked the large griffon. When there was no reply, Spike stuffed the cushions with the evidence of his trespassing, and then turned back towards the door.

The metal lever stood right above him, just too high for him to reach by himself. He gave one jump, but the black handle escaped his grasp. Spike grumbled and looked around. He selected a book that stood on a nearby stand and laid it on the floor. It wasn’t very big, but it did the job.

His hand wrapped around the handle, and he lifted it as slowly and as delicately as he could, lest somepony outside should hear. He moved it by fractions, taking and it seemed to take minutes to lift the metal. He breathed shallowly, fought to keep his muscles from twitching. Spike strained against the lever, desperately trying to keep it as slow and quiet as possible.

The latch thudded into place, a harsh metallic ring sounding out throughout the annex.

“Great,” Spike said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose once again, “really, really great.”

He inched forward, and poked his nose out into the hallway. The scene that he had left more than two hours ago greeted him, the same stairwell he had climbed when the princess had sent him the note. The writ hung on the door, and Spike quickly reached up and tore it away, folding it over and over and placing it in his haversack.

Artificer Call was nowhere to be seen.

Spike turned back into the room, and reached down to pick up the book he had used as a stepladder. He began to walk back to the small table he had lifted it from, one very close to the door, and as he walked he looked the room over for any other evidence that he had forced it open.

Seeing none, he smiled another self-satisfied smirk, and then lifted the book up to where he had taken it.

His eyes passed over it, simply swept across it as he lifted it up, and then they went wide.

He read the title again, and then again.

No way.

It could not be that easy, not for Spike. No, nothing had been that easy, not since that thing had attacked Twilight.

No, it could not be this easy.

It couldn’t be.

“And so, my dear, we travelled along the Amarezon for several days,” Artificer Call said, following along beside Reference Desk as she made her rounds. “You are aware that the Amarezon is one of the longest rivers on Equus, undoubtedly, but did you know that it is also one of the principal routes of transportation in…”

“Yes,” she answered, barely looking up from her work.

“Splendid! Now, when I met the king–“ Call continued, impressing his worldly experiences upon the mare.

“Hey, Call,” said a small voice. “This can’t be the book we need to start lookin’ at artifacts around the world, could it?”

Spike lifted it up, the slightly faded words Artifacts: An Equus Inventory standing out from the navy blue in a flash of gold.

“–of course, now… oh, yes, Spike, it is. Fancy that!”

The mare and the stallion looked down at Spike, and the whelp tried to hide a shudder of dread as the mare’s eye twitched.

“That… that is a reference book!” she said, her even, cold tone coming as close to a hiss as her demeanor would allow. “It should not ever leave its place in the archives, which is…”

Her eye twitched harder.

“That was in a special collections room that was sealed by the princess herself for an inventory!”

Reference Desk stepped forward, and Spike felt ten to twelve years of his life expectancy dropping out of him.

“No… no taking books out of special sections! No… no breaking seals! This, this is a bannable offense! This, this…”

“Now, Reference Desk,” Artificer Call said, trotting forward, “this is all understandable. Why, I watched Spike receive a message from Celestia herself a few hours ago!”

Spike’s eyes flew between the mare and stallion, and he used the book to hide his throat so that they would not see him gulp.

The dance of lies had begun.

“Now, Spike, I’m sure that you can explain, can’t you?” Artificer Call said, the Pinto earth pony gesturing to the whelp with his hoof.

“The… the room,” Spike chirped. “The room. It’s open now. I… I just came out of there.”

The stallion smiled, tossed his mane, and looked back to the mare.

“Come now, Reference Desk, the poor lad. He’s had such a hard time of it,” Call said, straightening himself, leaning close, and generally looking like he was either playing at the mare’s senses or having a stroke. “Obviously, the princess came to his aid, isn’t that so, Spike?”

Spike tried to hide how fast his hearts were beating. “I… I went to the palace,” he said, trying to meet the librarian’s eyes. “I went to see her. I went to see Princess Celestia.”

Reference Desk, who seemingly was unaware of Call’s flirtations, looked down over the whelp, her frigid stare driving icicles through him.

“And you saw her?” the librarian asked.

The recollection of a single glimpse of a mane alive with the morning sun flashed through Spike, and he latched onto it, forcing a lie to come alive with the shadow of the truth.

“I… I saw her, I really did!” he said, giving a single shudder.

Reference Desk stared down over him, weighing him. Seeing the moment at a tipping point, Spike flew into a distraction.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was a reference book! I’ll take it right back down and put it right where I found it! I promise!” he said, clutching the book to his chest.

Reference Desk held her gaze for a moment, and then lifted her head.

“Special collections,” she said, her voice once more distant, absent of even the faintest hint of emotions which they had whiffed of a moment before, “do not leave the special collections rooms.”

She turned from the dragon and the stallion, and began to walk away.

“You are required to sign a waiver before copying any materials,” she said, sliding away, disappearing between the rows of bookshelves.

Spike tried to force himself to stop shaking.

Call took the book down to the newly unsealed room, offering to do so since he believed that Spike’s obvious distress was gastronomical rather than mental.

Rather than heading to the bathroom, the dragon headed in another direction. Spike walked as fast as he could, knowing that running would earn him a reprimand from the librarian lurking in the stacks of books. He made a familiar turn, and there sat the last piece of evidence.

“Ribbit,” said the frog, looking up to Spike.

“You don’t know the half of it, buddy,” the dragon said, lifting the red tape up to himself. He began to coil it around his arms, making it retract back towards the ball that sat beyond. It was cold and wet, and the part that had been sitting above the stream had seemed to fade.

Spike kept coiling.

As he worked his way back towards the ball, his mind raced. He was exhausted, tired, and running on reserves. He was getting angrier and angrier, and he was swearing in his own mind… and aloud. He was… he was lying. The great lesson he had learned from Twilight and Owliscious, he had put that aside, and was lying.

He had lied. He had withheld the truth and manipulated it to his gain.

As he approached the ball, he wondered how it would come back and bite him. He wondered if there would be anything of him left when Twilight woke up.

Twilight must not wake up to a monster, Twilight must not wake up to a monster, he said over and over, repeating his mantra. Twilight must…

“Waaaggghhh!” a pony cried, and Spike snapped out of his contemplation as a stallion tripped across him, his coil falling out of his arms as papers, books, and plumbing schematics flew around them.

Rubbing their heads, the dragon and the stallion looked at one another.

Carbon Copy looked at the coils of red tape sitting across Spike’s lap. Spike looked at Carbon Copy’s papers, “Conspiracy!” sitting across them in big, red letters.

The two looked at one another with mild shock.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell!” they cried in unison, earning a shushing from the more studious occupants of the archive.

Author's Note

I actually own some red tape that came off of Civil War documents that were being unsealed at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

I have now burned through my whole "buffer" of chapters. I must get to writing immediately. God forgive me.

Chapter 11: “So, a Dragon, a Weathermare, and a Veterinarian Walk into a Granola Bar…”

Chapter 11: “So, a Dragon, a Weathermare, and a Veterinarian Walk into a Granola Bar…”

“Oh, hey, Twi!” Spike sang, interrupting his own train of thought. “I just remembered… I bought ya an oven mitt!”

Spike was a good little dragon by most accounts, but even he had heard the siren song of consumerism. How could he avoid it? In the week since he had “opened” the special collections room, he had walked through the market at least four times a day.

The glorious oven mitts had beckoned to him from their market stall. Before he’d even known what he had done, the dragon had bought her one. It was a wonderful oven mitt by all accounts, functional in purpose yet elaborately decorated.

Spike leaned across the bed. He gently lifted her hooves and wrapped them around the mitt so that she held it close to her chest, not unlike how she had held Smarty Pants when she had been a filly.

The alicorn said nothing. Twilight Sparkle did not move, did not toss her head, did not grin or smile. She simply lay there, as she had for three weeks, five hours, and fourteen minutes.

“Oh!” Spike said. “Hey, Twi, check these out!” He dove through his haversack once again, mumbling to himself as he pushed aside the torn scroll and the unfathomable box of Mairsy Dotes. He came out with papers filling his hands, and as they fell across the bed he selected a few to present to the princess.

“Guess what we discovered, Twi!” he said, rummaging through the pile. He paused to rub his eyes and then waited for the starbursts to disappear.

Each day he grew thinner, darker. The visible signs of exhaustion clung to him. The doughnuts, hospital tapioca, and few hours of sleep he got each night seemed to be failing to keep his fatigue in check.

He lifted one of the pictures, a copy of one of the illustrations. What it presented was eerily familiar… horribly familiar…

“Look, Twi,” he said. “It’s another pillar! The thing is though, well, uhhh… it has another name.”

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. The music that drifted down the corridor lingered across the West Wind Annex, enveloping the occupants of the quiet ward. Spike jumped a little, thinking that he’d heard hooves making their way down the hallway. He bit his tongue, quite literally, and looked over his shoulder. He waited like that until he had convinced himself that it had only been his imagination… his tired, warped, fraying imagination.

He looked back to Twilight, feeling safe that he’d not been discovered talking to her. That fear still loomed large, that if he were discovered talking to her, that he’d be taken away… that he’d be separated from Twilight.

Spike looked down to the images that sat on the copies.

“It’s–it’s called ‘The Pillar of the Clouds’, Twi,” he said, lifting the paper up to the motionless alicorn. He held the image there, as though some part of himself were fighting to disregard the fact that she could neither see his proof nor hear his words.

He held it there for another second before the part of him that knew better took over. He ran his hand over the image, and as he did he gave a heavy sigh.

“We don’t know why there are other pillars or anything, but, hey, we’re still looking, ya know?” he said in an apologetic tone. “There’s even one that I read about, no picture though, that has a moon on it, Twi. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t it weird that there would be one that has a moon, like Princess Luna, and one that has a sun that looks like…”

A sudden thud went through him, and Spike shuddered in place. His eyes went wide as he remembered Celestia’s mark hanging there, above that pool. His mind shot back to the drowning pool, back to him screaming for help as some dark, deep magic drew them nearer and nearer. His thoughts raced back to the black place where Celestia’s mark sat etched into the surface of that thing… that thing that had hurt Twilight, that had made her scream in pain.

His teeth ground together, and his fist balled. His hate sat very near the surface, and the image of a green eye, the only thing he hated in this world, floated around him.

He closed his eyes, letting the image dissolve. Spike took a moment to breathe deeply, releasing his anger. He found himself wavering on his feet, his tired body begging him to try and sleep once more.

Spike’s eyes came open, and he looked back up to Twilight.

His mind swam through the pools of exhaustion that hung in his perception. A small plan had hatched there as he had studied the tomes that were brought out of the enchanted special collections room, the one he had “opened” with “permission”.

He had seen something that a boy his age would find hilarious. If Twilight wasn’t awakening to his pleas, perhaps her need to, well, discipline him would bring her around. Maybe, just maybe, a need to chide her little ward for inappropriate behavior would be what woke her.

Spike took the risk. He risked being admonished if it meant having her awake to do so. With a small, self-conscious motion, he pulled some papers he had hidden from Reference Desk and Call out of the haversack.

“Heh, hey, heh, Twi,” he said, hiding a blush and a nervous giggle as he lifted the images up to her. “Check out these fertility totems from all over Equus! I’m glad ya didn’t find one of these down there! That would have been embarrassing, huh?”

Spike lifted the images to where, if her eyes had been open, the alicorn princess could have seen the decidedly phallic talismans.

“I mean, heh, I’d hate to think that you and I would have come across one of these! Right? That would have been embarrassing, right, Twi?”

He awaited her response.

“At least they got the dragon one, I mean, ones, right! Huh, pretty weird stuff, right, Twi? I mean… Twi? Twi?”

Spike let the pictures fall out of his hands. What was he doing? He wiped his hands across his face until they settled across his mouth, cupping each breath as he looked to where Twilight lay.

What was he doing? He was grasping at straws. Had he really just tried to embarrass her into waking up? He had. He had, and it hadn’t worked.

“Oh, Twi,” he sighed.

The dragon opened the haversack once more, preparing to hide the evidence of his foolish, and slightly inappropriate, attempt at waking her. Instead, he found more things in there that he should not have. Aside from the torn letter and the baffling box of Mairsy Dotes, the writ he had snatched off the door lay there as well… and a book.

“Oh, jeez,” he said, running his fingers across the binding. “REF” read the label on the spine. The part of him that had been raised by an adorkable librarian realized that he’d taken a reference book out of the library.

“Oh, jeez,” he repeated. “Reference Desk is gonna freak out.”

Spike let the haversack slip from his grip, and it hit the floor of the hospital room with a thud. He did a perfunctory job of pushing the images of the totems into a pile, and then simply laid his head across her chest.

“So, yeah,” he said, letting his eyes fight through his exhausted haze to focus on her, “Call and I found out that there’s other pillars, and that they’re each called ‘The Pillar of This and That and Stuff’, but they are all ‘The Pillars of the Sun’, which is weird. But, but I don’t know anything else yet, Twi. I don’t have anything to tell the doctors.”

His eyes closed, and he felt himself begin to spin ever so slightly, his head being drawn down a drain.

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I don’t have anything more… I’m sorry…”

He forced his eyes open once more. He settled them across her forelegs, across the oven mitt he had bought her.

“Do… do ya wanna make some cookies, Twi?” he whispered. “We can go down to the kitchen. I’m sure it’s okay. They’d let us use the ovens. I’m, like, pretty sure they would.”

He rested his hand on her foreleg.

“I’m sure they would. Do you wanna make some cookies? I know I can get the stuff we need to make those ones you like, the ones with the nuts.”

The music from the nurse’s radio drifted down the hallway, and the moonlight filtered in through the windows.

“Good night, Twi,” he whimpered as he slowly drew himself off the bed, landing on the little pile of pillows that he treated as his nest. “I miss you.”

Spike awoke to some unusual sounds.

First off, there was giggling. It wasn’t demure or hidden. It wasn’t slight or modest. As he came awake, his body fighting his commands and trying to remain asleep, the giggling turned to chuckles to a hoarse, familiar laughter.

The other thing he heard was somepony saying “Oh my!” The tone was light and filled with a sort of self-conscious restraint. “Oh my!” the voice repeated, and then a slight chuckle lifted through the air on a tiny tone.

They were tones that he recognized. They were tones that he’d come to hold dear.

“Hey, check out the dragon one… ones!”

“Oh my! Oh my, oh… oh my!”

“Hey, Dash,” Spike said, rubbing his eyes. “Hey, Fluttershy.”

The two pegasi looked at him, bright blushes going over their faces. They quickly pushed the pictures back under the haversack and leapt to the little dragon.

Spike laughed a little, and some instinct made him lift his arms up to Fluttershy as she pulled him into a massive hug. Soon the soft, welcoming feel of her coat enveloped him. Spike could have drifted back to sleep there, the pink mane of the mare drifting over him, her sweet scent filling his nostrils.

It felt wonderful to be held this way, this tender way that Fluttershy seemed to do so naturally.

But, it didn’t feel like Twilight…

…it just didn’t feel like Twilight.

If there were any one of Twilight’s friends, their friends, who saw the changes that were coming over him, it would be her. It would be this soft-eyed pegasus, the one who had spent her life caring for others, showing concern.

He lowered his head, trying to hide the obvious signs of his frailty.

“Hey, guys,” he said, closing one eye as Dash gave him a noogie. “Heh, good to see ya!”

He jumped a little at the sound of his own voice. It was withdrawn, distant… weak.

“So, ummm,” he began, forcing strength into his words, “what brings you two up here so early in the morning? Were ya doing something in Canterlot? Did you have, well, any trouble getting in this early?”

The two pegasi looked at one another, and then back to the little dragon that Fluttershy still held in her forelegs. She lowered him to the ground as Dash looked across Twilight.

“Spike, it’s not that early,” Dash said. “The ward’s been open to visitors for, like, an hour already. We just didn’t want to wake you, so we sat with Twilight and then your man-purse...”

“Haversack.”

“Yeah, whatever. Well, that fell over and we… well, nice photos. Anywho, we were thinking…”

Spike’s scream filled the room as a line of Dash’s dialog belatedly fell through him.

“What?! An hour?! Gah!” he cried, racing beneath Fluttershy, making her give an “Eep!” and stare down under her own body at the distraught whelp.

Spike leapt up the counter, fetching a glass from high overhead and a pitcher from below and pulling open the cold-water tap with his foot.

“I overslept, I overslept, I overslept!” he called, bouncing in place as he filled both containers, repeating his refrain as he rushed to the other side of the room. He quickly adjusted the glass and pitcher, letting the sun of a late morning slide through the glass once more.

“I’ve got so much to do!” he called, leaping up to Twilight’s side. He brushed his hand through her mane, putting the wafts of her purple and pink back where they had sat before the air conditioner had blown them loose, looking for any evidence that she had moved, that she was awaking.

His mouth came open, but at the last second he checked himself, not revealing his secret.

I’ll be back, Twi, he thought. Have fun with Dash and Fluttershy. I’ll be back, and I’m sure that we’ll find it all out today. Bye, Twi… I’ll be back, I promise…

Spike spun down from the bed, running beneath Fluttershy again, making another small “Eep!” rise from the mare. “Bye!” he called, waving his hand at them as he scampered towards the door, bringing the haversack across his shoulder. “Good to see you! Say ‘Hi!’ to everyone in Pon–”

Spike stopped short as a blur of cyan erupted around him, and he looked down to discover a hoof pressed against his stomach.

“Hold it!

Spike looked up to find himself staring into Dash’s eyes.

His hands wrapped around and around the strap of the haversack, and inside his tired, wobbling mind Spike suddenly realized that the mares were not just here to see Twilight.

“Spike, well, we… umm, we’re kind of here on a mission, you see,” Fluttershy said, brushing her muzzle against his shoulder.

Spike gripped the strap of the haversack harder.

“Well, we’re here to… to spend the day with you! Isn’t that nice, don’t you think?” she asked, touching her muzzle to his shoulder again.

“Well, yes. No! I mean, well, I have work to do, with this historian guy. We’re… we’re finding stuff out,” he said, turning towards Fluttershy. “We’re finding out ways to… to help Twilight.”

“Oh! Oh, ummm, well, we thought that maybe you’d like to go to the zoo, or to a show, maybe,” Fluttershy said, pushing through some hesitation.

“C’mon, Spike, you look even worse than the last time we were here. You look like Zombie Death warmed over on Nightmare Night after losing a fight with a minotaur,” Dash said, hovering over him. “You need to get out of here. Twilight is gonna be alright by herself–”

How can you promise that?

“–and whatever you’ve got going on can wait. You need some sun, Spike. Really… like, really.”

No! No it can’t wait! It’s been three weeks! I’m... I’m figuring this out!

The soft sensation of a gentle touch went through him again, and he could feel the tender eyes of Fluttershy falling across him from behind.

“Well, ummm, Spike,” she cooed, her voice barely lifting above the sounds of the hospital room around them, “you really, really should take some time to, well, get better.”

Something inside Spike began to move, and he found himself increasingly aware of what was happening. It was a “good cop, bad cop” routine. They were trying to both plead with him and force him into spending the day with them, trying to get him to forget about his research, about working to help Twilight. They were trying to get him to worry about himself.

His fists balled. He didn’t want to worry about himself.

“I was gonna go back to Joe’s,” he breathed. “Get some breakfast… or, brunch, I guess.”

“Oh no! No, no, no, Spike!” Fluttershy cried, her voice going loud as her wings unfolded in worry. “You need something more nutritious than doughnuts in your tummy! No wonder you look so… well, bad.”

Spike felt his teeth grinding together, and he felt something unhappy rising inside his small frame. It was the same part that had arisen last week, the last time Twilight’s friends, his friends, had visited.

He was getting angry.

“We are going to go and get a nice big breakfast and maybe… well, maybe you’ll come? Oh, and then we can have fun in the gardens, or see a show, okay?. Doesn’t that sound nice, Spike?” she said, her voice becoming the soft, concerned tone that defined her.

No, he said, grappling with his anger. No, you are not gonna yell at Fluttershy! You are not, you are not, you are not!

Fluttershy’s hoof came up, and she tenderly stroked Spike’s back.

“Oh! W-we can get ice cream, and then we’ll all just have a lovely afternoon in the park!” she said, draping her kindness around him, showing him that part of herself that had always been her trademark.

It burned at him, grated on his nerves. She… she was trying to drag him away, trying to add another day to the long, unending litany of weeks that Twilight had lay in that bed.

Can’t they see? Don’t they understand?

Her soft muzzle touched his shoulder again, and instead of the cool, gentle affection it had always been, it shot through him like a bee sting, like a slap across sunburnt flesh.

His teeth ground, his body shook.

No! his thoughts screamed. No! Don’t you dare yell at her! Don’t you dare make her cry! Not Fluttershy! You will not yell at Fluttershy! She is only worried about you! That will make you a monster! You will not yell at…

Well, you know, you could fib a little, if that would help, said another part of him, one that leapt at him from nowhere.

Spike’s tired, bloodshot eyes opened, and soon a small smirk went across his features. He turned to look at Fluttershy.

“Well, yeah, sure,” he said, forcing his smile to appear where the smirk had been. “That sounds great!”

“R-really? Oh, oh, that’s just wonderful!” she said, running her face across his before taking to her wings in excitement. “Now, let’s just say goodbye to Twilight and we’ll have a great, great day!”

Yeah, like I wouldn’t have done that anyway. Hey, talk to me like I’m four years old again and see what happens, he thought. Talk to me like I’m a little kid again, or one of those animals that make your cottage smell like a zoo on a hot day…

Spike shuddered, fighting to put away that angry part of himself, that part that was sitting very near the surface.

He looked up to Fluttershy. A happy smile hung over her face, one that showed that she thought she was doing the right thing, that she was simply doing what the kindness that dwelt inside her was telling her she needed to do.

You will not yell at Fluttershy, he thought. Twilight can’t wake up to a monster.

He walked back towards Twilight’s bed. He adjusted her glass, making sure the rainbow shone brightly. He moved her boots and her crown slightly, once more making sure that they were perfectly aligned, and then he looked up to where his best friend lay once more.

It’s okay, Twilight, he thought. I won’t be distracted for long.

A small smirk crept across his face once again, and giving her leg a single stroke, he turned towards the door.

He felt eyes passing over him, and he looked up to find Rainbow Dash staring at him. His smirk faded away as the mare studied him, her face a portrait of doubt, not taking her eyes off of him even as Fluttershy sang on about the wonderful fun that they were going to have.

Spike felt himself go weak, and as the mares put on their saddlebags, he gripped harder upon his haversack. Together they left the room, the dragon casting one last glance towards the alicorn that lay on the bed, the oven mitt in her hooves, as Comfort and Pacemaker arrived.

A lump suddenly developed in his throat, and it sat there resolutely as he listened to Fluttershy’s happy sounds. He heard Dash give a sigh as they made for the streets of Canterlot beyond, the sound falling around the corridors.

Fluttershy had chosen a granola bar, of all places, for the trio to have their brunch.

She went from one tall, clear cylinder to the next, filling his bowl with all sorts of nuts and fruits that she hoped would restore his body and lift his spirit. As the cold milk splashed down across the cheap china, Spike’s mind began tossing unhappy thoughts at him once more.

What makes her think she knows what’s best for me, huh? It’s like I’m one of her animals, and it’s feeding time. It’s a dog bowl. I’m a dog again, eating out of a dang doggie bowl…

Awww, shut up and eat your granola, he answered himself, sitting next to Dash.

Suspiciously thin ponies with opinions about all sorts of issues went up and down the bar behind them, filling their bowls and making social commentary about all sorts of things that Spike had no real interest in.

“Now, isn’t that better?” Fluttershy said, her voice chiming out. “I bet that feels nice after all of those doughnuts.”

“Yeah,” Spike lied. In his own mind, he felt a twang of regret, of disloyalty, that he hadn’t gone to Joe’s that morning.

“Yeah, bet it does,” Dash said, sounding more than a little unconvinced.

Spike looked at Dash’s bowl. It contained about a spoonful of granola and was otherwise occupied by chocolate chips.

“Heh,” he said, looking to her. Her face betrayed one fleeting smile… and then settled back into a sort of distant suspicion.

Spike looked back to his own bowl and went silent. He swam his spoon through the sea of fruits, nuts, and granola… half of which he hated.

Twilight would have known better.

He missed Twilight so much.

The pegasi and the dragon sat there eating, or trying to eat, their granola as the sound of spoons chimed out around them, becoming a chorus that floated through his mind. Spike counted down the long minutes, giving small answers to their blatantly mundane questions. The contents of the bowl became gravel, and he shoveled it into his mouth dutifully, forcing himself not to gag as the squishier ingredients slithered down his throat.

“… and, oh, and you wouldn’t believe how wonderful Ponyville looks!” Fluttershy continued, her voice rising over the chime of myriad spoons clinking in bowls and teacups touching to saucers. “Doesn’t it just look so, well… nice this spring, Dash? It’s nice! You should come see it, Spike!”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed half-heartedly, standing to go and add more chocolate chips to her granola. “It’s something.”

Done! Spike’s thoughts proclaimed. Fluttershy’s amazingly transparent attempt to convince him to come back to Ponyville, to trick him into coming back, had been the last straw. It was time to lie.

“Hey, Shy?” Spike said, turning his eyes up to her, smiling happily. “Are you almost ready for our super-fun amazing day, too?”

“Oh! Oh, well, I’m almost done,” she answered, smiling back at him. “Have you had enough granola, Spike?”

“Yes,” he answered in complete honesty. He’d had enough granola, thank you very much. “I’m just gonna slip off to the little dragon whelp’s room, and then we’ll be ready for all the great stuff I’m sure you have planned!”

“Alright then!” she answered happily.

He backed away, holding his smile, sliding around some overeducated-looking ponies. The second he was out of her view, his smile dropped away with a resounding thud, and he pushed open the door to the stallion’s room.

Fluttershy watched him go, smiling brightly.

“He really is a wonderful little dragon,” she said to nopony. “No wonder Twilight depends on him so much. So loyal, so cute, so dedicated…

…so honest.”

She hadn’t realized that he’d taken his haversack with him.

In the stallion’s room, Spike looked around, making sure he was alone. He peeked down under the stalls and across the urinals, making sure that he was the sole occupant.

Heh, he snickered. You’re in Canterlot… in a granola bar! Every pony here is so stuck up that they don’t even sh…”

“What does that even mean?!” Spike cried. The thoughts that went through his head were becoming angrier, more snarky and mean. They terrified him. Where were these things coming from?

He shook his head. He had grown up in Canterlot. He knew this city. Wonderful ponies lived here, and still do. Twilight’s parents, Mrs. Mom and Mr. Dad, lived here. The Lord Protector of the Nursery. Comfort.

“Why did you think that?!” he said, slapping his own head over and over. “Why are you so angry?!”

He shook his head and then ran to the sinks. Opening the tap he splashed the tepid water across his face, letting it splash to the tiles below. He stepped backwards, rubbing the water out of his eyes.

He blinked them open, and at once jumped in alarm.

“Wah! Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was the only… pony, creature… in…”

Spike stopped his apology, slowing his words until his mind fully understood what he was seeing.

It was a full-length mirror, one standing politely off to the side of the room.

The creature that stood in it staring back at him was thin, gaunt, and dark. It had pitted marks across its scales, and red smudges left behind by a harness made out of red tape still sat upon it a week later.

The eyes seemed hollow, and they sat deep within wells of black that hovered above each of his cheeks, highlighting their angular appearance. Each eye was bloodshot, and when Spike sighed the creature in the mirror seemed to deflate a little, clutching at its haversack.

“Great,” he said, turning away from his own reflection, disgusted with what he found there. “Great.”

Spike wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands, rubbing them until there was a starburst. To his surprise, the sound of the chiming spoons and cups still sat in his head, adding their music to the long, distant whir that his exhaustion had settled through him.

“Great,” he repeated.

Spike looked up to the bathroom window. Fortunately, it seemed to be big enough. He looked to the left and the right, checking to make sure he was alone one last time, and then pulled a basket of warm towels towards the window, little grunts showing his effort as he did.

He carefully climbed up the basket, knocking the pile of towels to the ground as he went. He had to leap a few times, but eventually he found the latch on the window. With one last jump, he knocked it open, and the sounds of the streets of Canterlot began to filter in.

Spike looked back over his shoulder towards the door. He imagined Dash and Fluttershy sitting there, empty bowls of granola in front of them, waiting for him to return. He imagined Dash making some joke about how he “must have fallen in” and could almost hear Fluttershy’s giggles and shushing.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he lied, and then jumped out the window.

He landed in a pile of garbage cans. Unsurprisingly, seeing as it was a granola bar, they were mostly empty except for a few unsolicited opinions.

“Ow,” he said, lifting himself out of the pile, listening as the cans rolled around noisily.

“Took ya long enough,” said a familiar, hoarse voice. “Nice dismount, but your landing sucks.”

Rainbow Dash stood over him, looking down at the dragon without a smirk or any sign of self-congratulations. Instead, all that sat on her face was the same distant skepticism that he’d seen earlier.

She’d known. She’d known he was up to something. He stood before her, painting a defiant look across his face, not knowing what else to do.

“Really?” she said, looking back to him. “This was your plan? You were gonna ditch us? You really just did that… you climbed out the window like you were on a date that had gone bad? C’mon, Spike… really?”

Spike stared back at her, letting his anger grow in him, letting a harsh glare go across his face.

“So,” Dash said, trotting around him, looking down into his incensed eyes, “what were you gonna do next? Just run back to the hospital? To the library? Was that the plan?”

Spike glowered at the mare, meeting her expression. His anger bit at him, demanding action, demanding that he put the mare in her place.

“And you didn’t think that we’d come looking for you? Did you think we wouldn’t be worried or something? I mean, yeah, it woulda been embarrassing to have to shove Shy into the colt’s room, but then what? Did you think about that? How many places would you go, Spike?” Dash put her hoof on his chest, staring directly down into his bloodshot, wrath-filled eyes. “How were you gonna tell us that you ditched us so that you could go back to hurting yourself? What were you gonna say, Spike?”

Spike felt his wrath building, felt it coiling around inside of him as the pegasus tapped her hoof across his chest accusingly. He kept his head up, meeting her glare.

“What were ya gonna tell Shy, Spike?” Dash said, fixing her own glare, deepening it to match his. “Eventually, when we found you again, when she’d gone crying through the streets, looking for you like you knew she would, what were you gonna tell her? Huh? Answer me!”

Anger, fury, and wrath gathered in the dragon. He felt his canines dance across one another. He felt his muscles twitch, and he felt as though he could explode. He kept his eyes locked on Dash’s, defiantly staring up to the pegasus whose hoof still sat against his chest.

“Answer me!” she cried again, her voice echoing across the garbage cans with a metallic ring.

He pounced on her…

… falling into her chest, bawling with tears.

“Oh, jeez,” Dash said, falling backwards as she spun around. She quickly discarded her saddlebags so that she could better support the dragon that was leaning into her. “Oh, jeez.”

Spike wiped his face across Dash’s chest, his tears rolling down her cyan coat in great spheres. His heavy breaths fell across her, pushing heat into her until the scent of her sweat lifted into his nostrils.

“Hey,” Dash said, running her hoof across his frills. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The two sat there, the pegasus and the dragon, amid the garbage bags and old cardboard boxes, and in time the dragon’s tears slowed. His arms remained around her, pulling at her as though he believed that he could absorb some of the marvelous strength and resolve she always wore so easily.

Some part of him tried to decide if it were more like a child gaining nourishment from its mother or a parasite drawing life out of its host. At that moment, Spike would not have been strong enough to deny either.

Dash gave a little sigh of discomfort, and then lowered her forelegs over him. He could sense her awkwardness. Fluttershy would have been better at this, he knew, but Dash had seen how his mind was moving, and now the pegasus did her best to be something she had never really been that good at being… namely, comforting.

“You really are a mess, Spike. You know that, right?” she said, quickly checking the alley for other occupants before returning to the deflated figure of the whelp. “You look like you’ve been through the Well. No, really… you look bad. Like, scary bad, Spike.”

She sighed again, and then forced her hoof under his chin. Lifting his head up, she searched through his eyes.

“So, after all the lessons you’ve seen Twilight learn, after all the times you’ve proven to her that we don’t have to go through hard things alone, you’re still trying to do this all by yourself?” she said, trying to force a softer tone into her trademark gruffness. “Ugh, Spike, you’ve got everypony who cares about you, who loves you, tearing their manes out! Why, Spike? Why do you feel that you have to take care of this all by yourself?”

Spike’s eyes shifted back and forth. Dash moved his chin with her hoof, forcing him to look back at her.

“Spike, jeez. You’re just–”

Please don’t say it, he thought. Please don’t say it. Please don’t…

“–a little kid.”

Shoot.

“Really!” she said, letting him sink his head back into her body. “Spike, c’mon, you know it isn’t right. It isn’t what… this isn’t something that anypony wants you to do. There’re a lot of smart ponies doing their best…”

“No they’re not,” he whimpered. “Nopony is helping her.”

“C’mon, you know that’s not true,” she said.

“It is!” he brayed. “They’re sticking needles in her, and they’re doing tests, and they’re casting spells, but nopony except for the princess has even asked me what I saw! Nopony has even asked me if I’ve found anything new!”

“Hey,” Dash breathed.

“It’s true! The princess isn’t helping me! The doctors hate me! The nurses put up with me, but only Comfort likes me… and, and every time you guys come or Shining and Cadance come you all try to get me to come away!” he cried, more tears rolling down his face, catching amid her coat. “You’re all trying to take me away from her! You’re all trying to take me away from Twilight!”

“That’s not… jeez, Spike,” Dash began. She silenced herself. Good intentions aside, had they come today to do anything different?

Silence hovered around the alley, and the sticky-sweet smell of the garbage lingered around them. It only added to the weight of sensations that were floating through Spike. His exhaustion, his mountain of emotions, the constant hum and chime that was ringing through his ears… these all sat on him, showed themselves in his small, wavering form.

Dash ran her hoof across him again, letting herself think. His heavy breaths caught across her barrel and stomach, and she began to remember little things that she’d seen pass between Spike and Twilight. They were happy little scenes, and some not so happy. Yet, as each went in front of her, she was able to place them all into a single coherent thought.

“She means a whole bunch to you, huh?” Dash said, gently tossing his frills about.

“She’s all I’ve got, Dash,” he breathed.

Dash let the dragon’s words settle around her. There was something familiar in his words, something that spoke to some part of her. It spoke to her mark, her element, and as it did, larger truths settled into the mare.

“Hey, Spike?” she asked. “Do you remember the week I spent with you guys?”

“Ya mean after you lost the bet on the Sisterhooves Social?” he replied, a hint of a smirk in his voice. “The week you spent as my, well, slave?”

“Ugh!” she said, rolling her eyes around. “Yeah, that week.”

“Aww,” he said, just a hint of a chuckle appearing in his voice, “it wasn’t that bad! We had fun!”

“Yeah, we did,” she said, bopping him on the nose. “Is Twilight still the Grand High Tickle Wars Champion of the Library?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “And you, sister, are still in third!”

“It wasn’t any fair!” Dash groaned, her competitive nature bubbling to the surface. “You’ve got fingers! Anywho, I’ve got a rematch coming, right?”

“Heh, it’s a deal,” he said.

“Spike, do you know what I realized during that week?” she asked, painting a tone of responsibility back into her voice.

“No, what did ya realize, Dash?”

The pegasus tossed her head, throwing a lock of hair out of her eyes. She laughed a sheltered laugh, and then said, “I figured out that you’re me, kiddo.”

Spike blinked, and after a moment a grin curled across his face. “Heh!” he laughed. “Twi said that I was the new you, back when Discord had you all messed up. Did you hear about that? Do you think that she was right?”

“Yeah,” Dash answered, “you’re pretty loyal, Spike. Really loyal, actually. And the thing is… well, I get it. I get it. I know what that feels like.”

She began to smile at him, but that soon faded. Immediately, their roles reversed. Now it was the little dragon who stared up to the young mare with concern in his eyes. Now it was Dash whose face betrayed deep worries and doubts.

“Hey, Dash? What’s… what’s wrong?” he asked.

The pegasus tilted her head, and then stared down at him once more. A hearty sigh escaped her lips.

“You know it’s gonna hurt, right?” she asked.

“W-what is?” he asked, jumping slightly.

“Wherever this whole thing you’re doing, the whole ‘I gotta be the one who helps Twilight wake up,’ wherever that takes you… it’s gonna hurt,” she said, rustling her feathery wings. “I’m gonna tell you, Spike, being loyal doesn’t mean that you get away with stuff. In fact, it means that some things come back and bite you even harder. I stood up for Shy so many times when we were fillies, and contrary to what everypony believes, I didn’t always win…”

The sounds of Canterlot’s streets came drifting down the alley, settling around the pair. The garbage bags moved oddly beneath them, making crunching noises and lifting unwholesome smells into the air.

“You’re gonna get hurt…”

“I know.”

The little dragon wiped his head across the cyan coat of the mare, once more trying to pull some of the marvelous strength and certainty that dwelt in her frame and add it to his own. He knew. He knew that having Call help him, that doing the research… it was just a panacea. Even if he discovered every little secret of the pillars, even if he found a way to wake Twilight, it would still fall into the hooves of the doctors.

He knew that there were so many more parts of this. Even if he found it, he was no unicorn mage. Whatever magic was involved… he’d still have to give that to others. It hurt to admit, but Twilight’s fate was not in his hands. No matter how he tried to help her, he would always be just a stepping-stone. Just as Gossamer Gauze had received the praise for saving Twilight, Spike knew that it would be the doctors who woke her who would get their faces on the magazines, who would be applauded at conferences.

“… but I know you’re not gonna give up,” Dash concluded. “Even though you look like a train wreck, even though you‘ve got friends trying to help you, you’re not gonna quit, huh?”

“Nope.”

It would hurt. It hurt already. He remembered the creature that had stared at him in the bathroom mirror. He remembered his angry thoughts. He thought on his crippling exhaustion, his bleary eyes. He was losing himself… and it hurt on every level.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter as long as, in the end, Twilight woke up. As long as he could go back to Ponyville, make her breakfast, get a goodnight hug… none of it mattered as long as he could get that back.

His eyes lifted towards where the palace sat unseen beyond the walls of the adjacent buildings. His thoughts strayed back to a time when he had sat there, in Luna’s apartments, between Twilight’s forelegs, pressed to her chest in the same way that Dash held him now. As a magically sustained life had slowly ended on a daybed in front of them, they had kept their vigil and had talked about the little things. She and her dragon had spoken about life, love, and their little world. He had spoken a little truth, one that came back to him now.

…and you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Twi, he recalled.

“I’m going to keep my promise,” he whispered, letting the words sink into Dash’s coat.

“Yeah, well,” Dash added, “as a responsible mare, I’m going to tell ya that I think you’re crazy, and that nopony wants to see you do this, and that I think that things are only gonna get worse for you before they get better.”

Spike nodded. There was so much going on. There were things that he could not get his head around. Sombra. Pillars. Dark, horrible magic. Ancient secrets that a princess refused to help him with. It all was so big, so scary…

…and he was just a little dragon.

“And I’ll tell ya one more thing,” the pegasus said, drawing him back out of his reflections.

“Yeah?” he said, turning his eyes up to her.

“You’re awesome,” she said, her face bunching up in a smirk.

“Heh,” Spike laughed. “Heh, you’re awesome, too, Dash.”

“Yeah,” she said, drawing her hoof through his frills, “you know it!”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Dash,” Spike said, running his hand up and down her foreleg.

“What’s that? What happened to me?” Dash answered.

“The date,” he said. “I’m sorry some jerk jumped out a bathroom window on ya…”

“Ha!” Dash laughed. “As if! I was the one who made the run for it! Seriously, Spike, this guy was a loser…”

As Dash related her tale, the two sat laughing amid the garbage as the day grew full and Canterlot moved around them.

Despite his best efforts, Spike made Fluttershy cry.

They stood outside the granola bar, her eyes becoming misty as he told her of the way he’d escaped through the bathroom window, how he’d been disingenuous with her.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as he explained what he had done, why he had tried to sneak away from the pair of pegasi.

Great rolling spheres of water fell from her vast, blue eyes as she settled her jaw on his outstretched hands. “No, Spike, no,” she mouthed as he held her there, garnering only the occasional glance from the passing patrons of the granola bar as they came and went. As Dash looked on, Spike explained to Fluttershy why he had to forgo her wonderful offer, why he had to turn away from her offer of a day in the park, why he could not take up her offer of ice cream.

When she began to protest, began to unleash her stare, he fell forward into her chest and begged her to understand.

Despite his best efforts, Spike had made Fluttershy cry.

Despite her hopes, and better judgment, she forgave him.

Spike walked down the main corridor of the Royal Archive, the departing vision of the two pegasi’s saddened eyes hanging in his mind’s eye.

He had walked deep into the archive and across the bridge joining the two sections when he looked up to discover Reference Desk, Artificer Call, and a squad of Royal Inventory Specialists examining a rather familiar looking sofa cushion.

“The writ was gone?” asked one of the officious ponies. “No, that’s not right.”

Spike spun around on one foot, whistled nonchalantly, and began making slow steps back towards the entrance, his eyes wide.

So, yeah… I’m screwed…

His steps became quicker as the sound of what he could only assume was an enchanted beeswax seal sliding out of a deflated cushion bounced down the hallway after him.

Not good. Really, really not good…

He hurried along, and his whistling becoming more rapid, as the silken sounds of what he could only conclude was a harness made of red tape spilled out into the corridor.

Ohhhhh, shoot.

Great wet drops of sweat appeared on his face, his feet moved him along at an alarmed bounce, and his whistling became an erratic grouping of shrill notes as Artificer Call’s voice lifted around the assembly.

“Why, I’m quite certain that there must have been some sort of misunderstanding,” the palomino pony said, an air of certainty in his voice. “Why, there he goes now. Let’s ask him… ahoy-hoy, Spike, lad!”

“Wah!” Spike cried, leaping down the corridor. “Not good, not good, not good, not good...”

“Ribbit,” said the frog on the lily pad, staring up to the panting dragon whelp that pelted across the bridge.

“I know, dude, I know!” Spike said, gesticulating wildly as he stopped for a moment.

“Spike? Whatever is the matter?” Call said, his face appearing at the end of the bridge. Just beside his, the form of Reference Desk appeared as well, seeming to glide along on clouds of frost as her stare fell over him.

“Eep!” the whelp squeaked, taking off once more.

“Hey, kid! Stop!” called one of the bureaucratic ponies. “We need to talk with you!”

The ball of red tape appeared before him as he pelted back into the library proper. Thinking quickly, the whelp dashed by it, and then quickly sidestepped behind the governmental globe. He held his hand over his mouth, stifling every little gasp and muffling each tiny breath across his fingers.

The five ponies went prancing by, their heads locked on the distance, ignoring the officious orb as Spike snuck farther away, pressed against the surface. He crept along the cords of red tape, slowly making his way around. As he went he kept his eyes and ears on the departing figures of the officials, making sure that he went undetected.

Having reached the far side of the ball, he tiptoed away… and straight into the face of an equally distracted Carbon Copy.

“Wah!” cried the little whelp, his arms flailing through the air.

“Gah!” wailed the stallion, his secret papers flying out around him.

“Shhhhhhh!” they motioned to one another, each competing to bring silence back to the room. Their mutual act continued, each leaning forward to shush the other with furrowed brows. Even as their little admonitions continued, the two loudly battling each other in an ironic quest for silence, two more ponies advanced upon them.

Spike and Carbon Copy felt a chill go across them, as though the very dark side of the moon had covered them in its icy folds. A frigid air, one as thick and inescapable as a double-parked glacier, fell over them, chilling them to the very roots of their souls.

The two felt a gaze drop over them, and they slowed their mutual shushing, turning their heads by fractions of inches to discover the cold, resolute, terrifying gaze of a librarian meeting theirs. She held something up to Spike, and it was revealed to be the harness he had made from the red tape, its colors matching the stains that still sat on his scales, betraying his guilt.

“This,” Reference Desk said, her tone invoking horrors beyond thought, “is a bannable offense.”

And then, to their everlasting horror, her eye twitched, revealing the utmost depths of her consuming, burning rage.

“Spike,” Call said, more than a small amount of hurt showing in his voice. “This certainly has to be some sort of misunderstanding. Right… dear boy?”

Spike, and Carbon Copy too, could scarcely be bothered to attempt to hear his words. Instead, the two withered under the frozen, immobilizing glare of the librarian.

“You,” she said in her cool, even voice, “have violated the rules…”

Carbon Copy had no idea what was going on, but as Reference Desk’s words drifted over him, he found himself joining Spike in leaping backwards. Their frames thudded against the giant ball of red tape behind them, pressing themselves against it to escape the torturous onslaught of the librarian’s judgment.

“Yahhhh!” they screamed, their voices filling the library.

Spike pressed harder against the orb of cloth, pushing against it as Carbon Copy did the same, both attempting to push themselves deep within the crimson folds, to escape the cutting, driving glare of the mare.

The calamity reached a crescendo when both suddenly felt themselves lying flat on their backs, staring at the ceiling high overhead.

Unfortunately, the cause of their new positions was revealed as none other than the ball of red tape itself. The mass of the ball had given way under their fevered attempts to escape the librarian’s glare, and as if it too wished to flee her glower, the orb had begun to roll away.

“Uh oh,” Spike said, tilting his head backwards. “That’s not good.”

The Royal Survey Crew had heard the cry of alarm and had come trotting back into the main hall of the library. They arrived just in time to be pounced upon by a massive, tumbling ball of red tape. Their eyes went wide as the sphere began to loom above them, and cries of their own rang out through the library as they went pelting off, the red tape in hot pursuit.

From their vantage point Spike, Carbon Copy, Reference Desk, and Artificer Call all stood and watched as the officious orb, rolling along on tiny imperfections in the surface of the ancient floor, pursued the Royal Survey Crew around and around the archive, seemingly unconcerned for the stacks of books, tables, and ancient manuscripts as it did so.

“Yeah,” Spike repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose, “that’s really not good.”

Wails of library patrons filled the air, their cries of panic being met by those who were shushing them in response. That lasted until those patrons too were caught up in the advancing wave of terror that preceded the approaching globe of crimson bunting.

The heads of the four onlookers panned back and forth as the panicked masses ran from one side of the archive to the other, pursued each time by a ball of red tape.

Spike peeked out from behind his own hand, still actively engaged in pinching the bridge of his nose as it was, to witness the ball rolling back the way it had came. There was the sound of something old, expensive, and well-reviewed being flattened, and an accompanying chorus of treasures of Equestrian literature meeting their undeserved ends.

“Not good,” he whimpered as he closed his eye again.

The calamity continued for a good, solid minute, the Mane Hall of the Royal Canterlot Archive seeing the greatest conflagration of destruction that it had witnessed since the Great Bingo Riots of its earliest days. Spike could only listen as cherished books met their ends, ponies abandoned their theses to scream in unrestrained horror, and a few dedicated bibliophiles attempted to calm the masses with continued shushing.

He winced as the sound of something spontaneously combusting filled the space. As the sprinkler system kicked into action Spike let loose a sigh, listening as the unmistakable sounds of poultry squawking met his ears. For some reason he was unsurprised, no more so than when a marching band of some sort apparently went running across the archive, they too being pursued by the massive globe of governmental twine.

“Great,” he whispered. “Just great.”

Eventually, it ended.

As a few last drips of water fell from the ceiling, the groaning, heaving masses of ponies picked themselves off the floor. They called to one another, cursed in pain, or screamed to the sun and moon about the injustices visited upon them… namely the loss of the page they were on in their books. In the middle of it all sat one last dedicated reader, unaffected by the catastrophe, still shushing the denizens of the archive.

Spike listened as the distinctive hooffalls of Reference Desk passed him by, and as the librarian’s presence wafted over the remains of the room, all went silent, everyone feeling the cold, frosty currents of the emotions that sat over her.

“Torn page, bent spine,” she said, lifting a book. “Three weeks banning from the library.”

Oh no… Spike thought, startling a little.

“Torn page, bent spine, water damage,” she said, lifting another. “Five weeks banning from the library…”

Oh no, please, no…

On and on it went, the librarian walking slowly through the remains of her domain, cataloging the damaging, metering out her justice upon the little whelp as she went.

“Water damage, fire damage,” she said, her chilly tones filling the air, making a visible fog as it met the moisture that lingered within. “Marching band damage, poultry damage… two months banning from the library.”

Twilight, he thought, hiding behind his hand, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Eventually, Reference Desk appeared back amid the group, her presence hanging over them in cascading tones of arctic judgment.

“Lying,” she added. “One month banning from the library…”

It bit you, dummy. It came back and bit you.

Spike managed to make his other arm move. Slowly he managed to drop it towards the haversack that still sat slung across his body. Upon reaching it, he fished through until he found something that sat within.

“This probably isn’t the best time to mention that I took a reference book out of the archive by mistake, huh,” he said, lifting it towards where he assumed the librarian stood, his eyes still closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Three weeks banning,” she added.

There was the unmistakable sound of Artificer Call swatting his forehead. A chicken clucked in the distance.

Spike walked slowly through the streets of Canterlot’s educational district, Artificer Call at his side. The dragon gripped at the strap of the haversack, twisting it over and over.

He managed to lift his head up to face Call once or twice, but each time the distant stare of the stallion did not meet his. Instead, the historian kept his face forward, and his hooves kept a steady cadence on the cobblestones. The sounds of students met them as they crossed a corner of Canterlot University, and the happy, lively voices of the young mares and colts contrasted with the feelings that fell through the little drake.

“C-Call?” he finally managed. “I’m s-sorry. I’m super-sorry that I lied to you. I’m really, really sorry that I caused so much trouble.”

There was a moment of silence. The stallion’s body turned, and Spike shuffled his feet a little as the stallion changed direction. Spike jumped from side to side, trying to figure out why the historian would do so. He saw Call begin to angle down a street, and he lifted his feet to follow.

“I can’t say that I’m not disappointed,” Call answered. Spike came to a stop, twisting the strap on the haversack even harder. “I am disappointed. Upset even, dear boy,” the stallion said, his voice as reserved and unattached as Spike had ever heard it. “You can scarcely know how much harder you’ve just made it for us. You can scarcely know what favors I must now call in…”

Spike stood there, watching Artificer Call go farther and farther up the street.

Twilight…

Spike felt his arms lift, and he wiped his face across the back of each. The tears began to gather across his arms, making the scales slick and shiny. Spike coughed a little, fighting to keep himself in check, a battle that he was losing more and more each day.

Just as he felt himself starting to come undone, just as the tears were about to begin flowing in earnest, he looked up. Call had stopped, and the stallion stood there, staring back down the tidy, tree-lined street to the whelp. With a sigh, the stallion’s face lost its detached gaze and fell back into one that, if not his usual soft expression, was close enough.

“Though,” he said, adjusting his glasses with his hoof, “I do forgive you.”

Spike ran the back of his arm across his face once more, and then ran forward to catch up with the stallion, the haversack trailing out behind him as a small smile erupted across his face.

“Welcome, dear boy, to my humble abode,” Artificer Call stated.

The brick row house had seemed plain enough from the outside, but inside it seemed a treasure trove of artifacts, books, and maps. As Spike looked around he could see his imaginary Twilight running around, giggling happily as though she were a filly on Hearth’s Warming Day. He smiled as he watched her prancing in place as she looked over ancient maps and squealing happily as she examined antique tomes.

He then startled in place and began rubbing his eyes as he realized he was imagining Twilight again.

When he finally opened them, he found himself looking up to a vast painting. His mind quickly flew through some words, ones that Twilight had related to him while reading some art books. Oil paint, portrait, character study… these words all flashed through his tired perceptions.

He looked at the young stallion in the portrait. The landscape behind him suggested some fantastic foreign place. The colt was bestrewn with all sorts of adventuring gear, and a pith helmet stood proudly upon his head. A flash of a smile stood out on his face as he stood leaning forward, one hoof already off the ground, as though impatient to begin a journey.

“Quite the brash young fellow, isn’t he?” Call asked, appearing in the sitting room with two mugs, one of some aromatic coffee, another of hot chocolate.

“Yeah!” Spike said. “He looks like he’s gettin’ ready for some adventures and exploring and stuff. I’d like to do something like that some day. I’d like to go see all this stuff we’ve been reading about.”

“Perhaps some day you will,” Call answered. “Much like our handsome, beguiling, intelligent, engaging friend in the portrait.”

Spike arched an eyebrow, pondering the earth pony.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he said, taking a sip of his cocoa.

“Ha!” answered Artificer Call. “Good eye, lad! Good eye!”

Spike watched him as he gestured to a few piles of items around the room. Here sat maps, compasses, sextants, and even more items of interest to explorers and adventurers.

“The portrait was done by a young mare many, many… many, many years ago, one who smelled of hyacinth and who had the most perfect laugh. Her voice fell down into giggles whenever I ran my hoof across the gentle curves of…”

The stallion startled, blushed, and then looked to Spike. He looked down to discover that the whelp was still regarding him with an arched eyebrow.

“Yes, well,” he said, rubbing the back of his head, “excuse me, dear boy. But, as I was saying, I was part of the Equestrian Geographic Society back in the day. I was an artificer, perhaps unsurprisingly, and I saw a great number of wonders.”

“Wow,” Spike said. “Hey, ummm… what is an artificer, actually?”

“An artificer is somepony with a specific skill set, and mine was for using the tools of exploration,” he answered, lifting his hoof across the room. Spike looked on as more and more treasures revealed themselves. Not merely things of great monetary worth, but treasures of the mind, of knowledge. Artifacts, totems, and gifts all sat before him. Spike let his eyes settle across all of these items, across the grand exhibit of Artificer Call’s prowess as an adventurer, a historian, and explorer.

“Wow!” Spike said, looking up to the stallion. “These are awesome! Did you find them all?”

“Oh, yes, though some were presented to me,” Call answered. “They came to me across all of the long years of my time in the field, before I settled down and wrote all forty-one editions of my books… before I had to leave my profession…”

“Wh-what happened?” Spike asked, staring at Call’s reflection in the mirror. Spike saw the stallion’s ears droop and shoulders slump. There was a sigh, one that hung heavily in the dust that sat around Call’s home.

“Something awful, dear boy. Something dreadful,” Call said, his voice small and distant. He lifted his head, and with a forced grin he revealed the context of his horror.

“I got old.”

Silence sat around the home. Only the synchronized ticking of several antique clocks from various foreign lands met Spike’s ears. After a moment, Spike leapt down from the box of books that he had been standing on and walked over to Call.

He was only a little dragon, a young boy, but there was an ability that he possessed that had always been keenly endorsed by those who knew him best. In that moment, he shared it with Call.

“Call,” he said, wrapping his arms around the stallion’s forelegs in a hug, “I’m sorry that I got into so much trouble today. I’m sorry that I caused a problem. I’m very, very, very, very, very, very glad that you are still helping me. If… if you weren’t, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d… I think I’d go crazy…”

Call chuckled as he patted the whelp on the head. “It is simply an error you made, and you now have to deal with the consequences. Besides, I think that it was best that we left the archive… Reference Desk’s flirting was becoming unprofessional.”

Spike stifled a dubious laugh. As he did he felt Call motioning him back towards the tall, ornate mirror, one that seemed to have come from some faraway place. Spike lifted himself back onto the box of books, and he watched Call’s reflection as the stallion searched through what appeared to be a box of hats from all sorts of exotic locales.

Spike stared into the mirror as Call lowered a fez onto his head. Flipping the cord so that it sat next to Spike’s ear, the stallion asked, “Have you ever worn a fez before, dear boy?”

“Yeah,” Spike said, studying its reflection. “Yeah, but… not one this awesome.”

“Indeed,” Call answered. “This one was once worn by a dear friend, and it means much to me. It is yours to wear whenever you are here working with me on our research.”

“Thank you,” Spike said, smiling back to where Call sat in the mirror’s surface.

“You are most welcome, lad,” Call answered, nodding proudly. “Now, let’s get to work…”

“Princess Sparkle? Can you hear me?”

Spike froze in place.

He had returned to the hospital, once more bypassing the largely ineffective receptionist, and had proceeded to the West Wing Annex. His mind was alive with the events of the day. So many ups and downs, so many different emotions, all of them crammed into the hours that had gone by in a blur. He wondered how he would explain it all to Twilight, and what she would say when she learned...

He stopped and smacked himself in the head for thinking that Twilight would be joining him in a conversation.

It was as he stood there, reminding himself that he really, really, really needed to be careful about being heard talking to her as though she were capable of having a conversation, that he heard somepony doing just that.

“Princess? Twilight Sparkle, Ma’am?”

“Princess, can you hear me? Can you squeeze this ball between your hooves? Can you squeeze it with your magic?”

They were two familiar voices… doctors. Spike pictured them, a mare and a stallion. Even though he stood just a few feet from the door to Twilight’s room, he did not move closer, not wanting to see the doctors poking her, prodding her… touching her…

“No conscious response,” the stallion said.

“Agreed,” said the mare.

Spike’s stomach flipped. His hands went to his mouth, keeping him from making little noises of worry and shock as the doctors went through their diagnostics. There was a flash of light, and the fading crackle of magic drifted out into the hallway.

“There are no magi-cerebral responses,” noted the stallion.

“Indeed,” said the mare. “The princess showed no light sensitivity, either.”

“Sun and moon,” the stallion said, letting the words slide out in a sigh. “If this were a regular coma, we’d be deep into brain damage and nervous system shutdown by this point.”

“Sadly true,” the mare said, the sound of a notebook closing accompanying her voice as it fell into the hallway. “If it were a regular coma, I’d be suggesting to the family that we consider ending medical care.”

“We still might have to.”

“Sun and moon, may it never come to that. Can you imagine what it would mean to Equestria?”

In the hallway, outside the sight of the doctors, a small boy was having an episode. Spike nearly swallowed his fist. Instead, he bit down on his hand, his teeth sinking so far into his scales that they seemed to bend and twist. His whole body shook, trembling with what the female doctor had said so casually.

His left hand supported him, keeping him from collapsing against the wall. His hand quivered and shook, leaving irregular scratches across the surface of a whiteboard. His whole body convulsed around him.

Don’t you dare say that! Don’t you… No! No, Twilight is going to wake up!

“My goodness,” the mare continued. “I shudder to think about it. Not that I could, what with the insufferable heat in here. Why is it so warm?”

“The dragon boy… whelp, thingy, guy… he keeps pushing up the heat,” the stallion answered. “It’s as though he doesn’t seem to realize spring is here.”

Spike regained control of his body, the mentioning of himself bringing a whole different suite of emotions to the fore.

“It is too warm in here. I wish that Comfort would be more forceful with him,” the mare said.

“I wish he would leave,” the stallion added.

“Agreed,” she answered. “Sun! Where are all the cups?”

“The dragon uses them all.”

“What does he do, eat them?” she asked, her tone one of detached criticism.

“No, he lays them out over here, as though he expects her to use them, and then sends them off to be cleaned,” the stallion answered, the sounds suggesting that he was closing a medical bag. “Just take a drink from this cup.”

“Thank you,” she answered. There was a hum of magic, and then the small, delicate sound of the mare taking a drink lifted out of the room.

Spike’s flesh crawled with disgust. They were using Twilight’s glass. Twilight’s. Glass. They had stolen her rainbow.

“Is that an oven mitt?” the stallion asked.

“Did the dragon bring it? That’s not sanitary at all,” the mare answered.

“Neither is the dragon. It’s starting to smell like an aquarium where one keeps lizards or iguanas in here,” he said, his voice a shadow of distant judgment. “I can’t understand why Princess Celestia let him stay. It’s not sanitary. It is favoritism, and it sure isn’t doing the dragon himself any favors. He looks awful. Have you seen him? He looks like he’s dying.”

“I know,” the mare answered, the sound of an oven mitt hitting a garbage can sounding out as she spoke. “He put me off my lunch yesterday.”

“Speaking of which, any plans for dinner tonight?” asked the stallion.

Spike’s lip curled, and his fist balled. His fangs exposed themselves. How dare they have such a casual conversation while Twilight lay there. How dare they… flirt!... in front of her, their princess.

The sound of hooves arose, and Spike fought to regain control of himself.

“Splendid!” the stallion said, his heavier hooffalls leading the way. “Where would you like to go?”

I’ll tell you where you can go, you basta…

The ponies appeared in the hallway, looking at one another, not noticing him.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she said, her voice suddenly light. “Any ideas? How…”

“I know a granola bar,” Spike said. The two doctors startled, and then looked down across the whelp. Their eyes went from startled to distant, simply regarding the boy as though he were an unpleasant obstacle.

Spike smirked to himself, remembering the types of ponies who had frequented the granola bar. “Yup,” he said, the smirk settling farther and farther across his face. “You two would fit right in there.”

The two doctors looked at one another, and then trotted down the hallway, their hooves making the only other sound apart from the radio at the desk.

Spike danced a small victory dance, whirling and twirling as he entered the room… and then he went still.

He looked to Twilight, and as he approached her he found himself with so many things that he wanted to say. He closed his eyes, wanting to find some strength. Instead, all he found was the whir of white noise that filled his ears and the spinning motion of the roller coaster that seemed to be whipping him around in his exhaustion.

When he opened his eyes, he had already leapt up on the bed, taken her hooves in his hands, and rested his head on them.

I’m sorry, Twi, he thought.

He lifted his head and looked around the room. Leaping back down he removed the oven mitt from the garbage. He sighed deeply. There was some paper waste in the bin, but there was a liner. Still, he couldn’t give it back to her now, not now that it had been in the garbage.

I’ll wash it when we get home. Is that okay? he thought, placing the oven mitt in his haversack. I promise I will.

He took one of the glasses out of the cupboard above the sink, the tallest one that the doctor could not have been bothered to check. He walked over to the dresser nearest Twilight, placing it there for her.

There you go, Twi.

His eyes fell across a traitor. He grumbled, and then picked up the glass that the doctor had desecrated by touching it to her lips. He walked to the door, looking up and down the hallway, making sure that he was alone. Seeing that the nurse was sitting at the far end of the hall, he nodded his approval, walked to the window…

… and threw the glass out into the quiet street below, waiting until he heard it shatter into a million pieces.

Wiping his hands together, he congratulated himself on a job well done.

He tried to lift Precepts of Innovational Magic Theory, but, to his surprise, his strength gave out, and his hands refused his commands. He kicked the book open, and when he tried to read, pinpricks of light fell through his vision, and the words blurred on the page.

“So much for that, Twi,” he said, lifting his head back up to her. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’ll read you two chapters tomorrow. Okay?”

He stood there, awaiting her reply, knowing she could not. His head fell across the edge of the bed, and once more he grasped her hoof. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I’m sorry I left today. Nothing good happened. I should have stayed.”

He watched her for a moment.

“Well, I got a new fez,” he said. “That’s good. Fezzes are cool.”

She said nothing.

“The thing is, Twi? I… I kinda got banned from the library,” he said, some small hesitation in his voice. “Yeah, I… I got banned for…”

Spike did some calculations on his fingers.

“…for three point four seven billion years. Yeah.”

Twilight’s shock was absent.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” he said. “Twilight, I’m so sorry. I screwed up so bad, and I’ve got everyone so worried, and now everything is so much harder and I’m scared and I’m tired and I hurt all over and I… I…”

He let his head fall down across her foreleg.

“I miss you, Twi,” he said, the thousands of chimes once more ringing in his ears, his exhaustion shutting his body down as his mind watched it happen. “I miss you so much…”

The dragon did not build his nest that night. Instead, he simply lay there, across the edge of the bed. His body, spirit, and mind were all too frail, worn, and fatigued to even protest the odd position as he tumbled into a fitful sleep, his hand still wrapped around her hoof.

Author's Note

This is the longest chapter to date, but I promise that it is the last one that Spike spends moping in Canterlot. Not the last in Canterlot, just the last he spends moping there.

Chapter 12: The Inevitable

Chapter 12: The Inevitable

They sought the woman.

They sought her across the great, barren deserts. They shielded their eyes as the sands blew around in great, vast storms that reached to the horizon. Their magic lifted into the air, bridling the winds until the sands quieted and the scorching sun alone remained.

The mages pressed on, moving ever towards their goal.

They sought the woman across the fetid swamps. They sought her as alligators eyed them hungrily, as great pythons coiled around trees and insects the size of birds buzzed around them.

The mages led their mounts, the long lizard-like creatures, through the brackish waters, their magic leaping out at times to chastise those things that looked upon them with greedy eyes.

The mages sought the woman. They sought her amid howling canyons where great beasts lay hidden, regarding them from dark crevices where their many eyes flickered as they went past. Their mounts bellowed, fearful of the things unseen, and by night shadows moved in the darkness at the edges of their camps.

The magic of the mages erupted in the forms of wards, great circles of protection whipping into the night as lashes, sending dark things streaming back into the darkness with cries of pain that lingered on the winds.

The mages sought the woman across jagged mountain peaks where the snows blew on and on, chilling them until their magic erupted as blue flames, sustaining their lives.

The mages sought the woman across lands flowing with wild rivers, their magic calming the waters so that they might pass.

The mages sought the woman across great fields of grass and wildflowers, oceans of buckwheat and clover, their magic lifting instruments and carrying their songs wide across the plains.

They sought her, following their lord, his will, and his word. They followed him until they found her.

The mages found her in her keep, inside the tower built into the very face of the volcano, the molten rock streaming down its sides. Their magic alerted the guards, and the vast gates came open before them.

The mages found the woman deep down in places where light seldom shone. Their magic flickered around them, warning them that a power greater than their own was at work. Their magic warned them that the woman was not to be trifled with.

The mages found her not in her vast chambers. They did not find her in her studies or upon her throne.

No, when they found her she was in a humble room hewn from the very roots of the mountain. They found her in a room made of interlaced stone, a place cool and dark.

They found the woman sitting before a pool, slowly drowning a young mare and then drawing her out again.

As the mages bowed to the woman, she slowly pressed the pony back into the waters, small sounds of confusion and fear lifting from the filly as she slipped beneath the waters… hacking, sputtering sounds lifting from the little pony as she came back to the surface.

They supplicated themselves before the woman who cooed at the pathetic little creature as she lifted her from the cold waters. The mages scraped low, bowing deep, and to their eternal damnation they did nothing as the filly looked back to them with pleading eyes, begging them for help.

The mages had sought the woman, and they had found her, and even in the hearts of the most just and kind among them, there was no pity. The hatred, wrath, fear, and racism that sat in their hearts kept them bowing low as their lord presented them…

…and their magic did nothing to aid the child as the woman pressed her below the surface of the frigid waters once more.

“Does the mockingbird make music on the winds?” asked the stallion.

Spike arched an eyebrow.

“I dunno. Maybe?” he said.

The stallion blanched in place. “Well, I is… that is being. It is being that… does the mockingbird make music on the winds, little comrade?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” Spike said, swatting his own forehead, making the tassels on his new fez bounce in place. “Oh, yeah, it’s one of those passphrase thingies. Why didn’t you say so?”

“That would be in defeating the purpose of passphrase, comrade,” the stallion said, looking up and down street. Spike pondered the accent. It seemed to be Stalliongrad, but faked or forced, like the mustache the stallion was wearing.

“You seem, how they say… very not good,” said the stallion. “You look ill, little comrade.”

Spike sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was becoming something of a new posture for him, almost zen-like in its form.

“So, ummm… do you want to give me the books, or should I get Call?” Spike said, running his eyes up and down the figure that stood in the doorway.

More and more of these couriers arrived at Call’s house each day, bringing tidbits of information. Call, true to his word, had been calling in favors. What type of favors, he did not say. In the two weeks and three days that Spike had been coming to Artificer Call’s home, he had discovered much.

He’d also fallen asleep in Call’s big chair only to have awakened to a darkened sky, a fact that had sent him running through Canterlot’s darkened streets in an effort to get back to the hospital.

Now, not even Call could be trusted. Now, Call was trying to get him to sleep, to rest… to stay away from Twilight. Now, the endless sea of wooziness that was sloshing through the dragon made his head rock back and forth, making him feel seasick if he stood still too long. The tones in his head played their pitches seemingly at random, going from steady tones to ringing chimes.

This soundtrack played around him, hovering over his faded scales and the deep black rings that sat beneath his greying eyes. All in all, Spike had the peculiar feeling of losing himself, as though his body were an oversized sweater that he was wearing.

Spike shook his head, driving the sensation of floating queasiness from him.
He couldn’t trust Call? That stole more life out of him, and he implored the historian for forgiveness under his breath. Call was doing everything he could to help, he was calling in these favors.

“Oh,” Spike said, looking back up to the greasy-looking stallion that stood in the doorway, suddenly remembering that he was there. “Do… do you want me to get Artificer Call?”

“That would be perhaps for the best, little dragon boy whelp,” the stallion said, pushing a bundle of papers, along with something heavy, into Spike’s arms. The brown paper that they were wrapped in was stained with an unknown liquid, making the surface go transparent and making it smell like a deli on a hot day.

“Oh, it’s quite alright, Spike,” Artificer Call answered as he trotted down the hallway. “I’ll deal with this… gentlecolt. Why don’t you see what we’ve discovered? I shall join you shortly.”

“Best of luck to you, little comrade boy,” the stallion said, grasping Spike’s hand in his hoof, making the package and its contents wobble around as he vigorously shook the dragon.

“Y-Yeah,” Spike answered before nodding and turning away. As he walked towards the study, Spike wiped his hand across the surfaces of various objects, trying to wipe the sense of greasiness and unease that hung over him from his encounter with this newest courier.

As he settled into the study, Spike listened to the muffled conversation from beyond. There was the sound of bits being passed along, and something joined the restlessness that already sat in his stomach as he thought about what Call was doing.

Spike opened the package, doing his best to avoid the greasy bits, and laid out what he found in the package on the small space left on the desk. There were some books, a scroll, and a stack of letters.

He carefully opened the books one by one, checking their titles and authors. His face creased as he realized that one was a book he’d already searched through.

Artificer Call returned to the study and, perhaps thinking that Spike’s disapproving grimace was a commentary on his methods, answered Spike’s concern.

“I can assure you, dear boy,” he said, placing the bag of bits back in the drawer, “that there is nothing illegal or immoral in my means of procuring these primary resources.”

Spike wavered on his feet, his vision going blurry for a moment as he attempted to recognize what Call was saying. When he was able to piece it together, he turned his eyes up to Call and waited for an explanation.

“It is merely, I suppose… unusual and questionable,” the stallion answered.

As Call trotted through the room, Spike took another item off of the stack of newly delivered treasures. It was a book… or, he thought it was a book, at least. It was unlike any other type of book that he had ever seen before. The binding was two pieces of wood, clamped down and held in place by thin, fine cords of what seemed a golden braid of fine wire. The pages weren’t so much bound to the binding as they were clamped into it. The cover was also wood, and intricately carved.

Like all the works, it seemed ancient, and he opened it slowly and carefully. Inside the cover a fine jade bookmark sat where it had presumably sat for centuries. He gave it a cursory glance. The fine mineral didn’t draw much of his attention. Usually he’d be licking his lips and wondering if he could get away with making a quick snack of the minty treat. But the sight of the mineral brought no rumbles to his stomach. In the same way that he was too tired to sleep, Spike was too hungry to eat.

An unusual type of paper lay across the inside of the cover, and when he pulled it back, familiar eyes met his.

Spike gave a gasp, and he let the book slide back to the table. He shook his head, chasing out some cobwebs, and then stared at the book once more. He slapped his head with both hands before he lifted the book again, opening the cover gently to greet the figure that lay there in the lithograph.

The same massive male griffon that he had seen in the painting in the library, in the special collections room that he had “opened”, stared back at him in a stylized image. Though the technique and style were far different, there was no mistaking the sharp, deep outline of the face and the distant, deep grey eyes.

Spike placed the book back on the coffee table, and his eyes flew across the words beneath the picture… words that he knew for fact not to be the writing of the griffons.

“Whoa,” Spike said, lifting the book. He looked it over as Artificer Call approached. After a moment of thought, Spike decided that it was odd that a griffon would appear in such a work. If he was right, the book seemed to come from the other side of Equus rather than like anything he’d ever seen griffons make.

“Ah!” Call said, sitting next to the dragon. “Neighponese, unless I’m mistaken, lad… either that or something very close to it. Aha! Rice miasma paper, fold it over and take a look at the spectacular effect!”

Spike reached back for the fragile, brown paper that he had lifted before. As it settled back over the title page, something happened. The words, which had only been faintly visible through it, began to change. The words morphed from being written horizontally to vertically… and changed into Equestrian.

“Wow, just… wow,” Spike said, watching the words appear.

“Indeed,” Call said, smiling. “The rice miasma is captured in the paper, so it is easy to enchant. It’s completely harmless, and is used here as a translation spell. Very clever. Well, read it, dear boy.”

Spike looked back at the page…

The Peace of Aarne: The Unification of the Griffons

“Ah,” Call said, pushing his glasses back up his face. "It appears that you have a centuries-old history of the griffons written by a Neighponese historian. At some point somepony, or creature, inserted the miasma paper. Well, do be careful… the communications were not the best back then. If you encounter anything about griffons with their heads in their stomachs or rumors of them eating ponies alive or anything of that nature, recognize it for what it is.”

Spike turned to Call, giving him a knowing nod.

“Total garbage, right?”

“That’s the discerning historian’s assistant!” Call said with a laugh.

As the stallion trotted to the far side of the room, Spike looked back to the title page once more. The words were still in their long, vertical lines, and the ones he had read faded into a purple on the rice paper before disappearing entirely.

“Cool,” Spike said, turning back to the picture of the griffon. The big male seemed very powerful, and his frame seemed to hold all of the better traits of the griffons as a species. There was strength in the drake, and Spike gave the image one last close inspection before moving deeper into the work.

The dragon flipped forward a few pages before stopping to let the rice miasma paper fall across a new page, a similar sheet on the back cover allowing him to do the same.

Flickering bits of the griffon’s history sat there, revealing the best that the ancient Neighponese knew of a foreign race. Spike casually glanced across the tales of some of their clans, across their settling in the high mountain aeries, the rise of their nations… and a unifier.

“Huh,” Spike said, flipping another page.

His tired eyes fell across another image, and as he reached for the rice paper something clicked deep within the corridors of his mind.

Ten thousand memories struck him at once, and his eyes flew back to the page, his emotions racing. He fell to the floor. The chair toppled over and his fez went flying from his head as he gave cries of panic and alarm.

The Pillar of the Sun leapt at him from within the painted page.

The hollow oval where the eye had rested stood there in stark relief. The shimmering onyx stood out in a well of black, erupting forth from where some unknown hand or hoof had painted it centuries before.

“Call!” Spike cried, his arms flying through the air as he tried to both shield himself and lift himself off the floor. “C-Call!”

The stallion spun about, putting aside the works he had been reading. Seeing Spike on the floor, he offered a hoof. Spike, though, just pointed back to the book.

Call’s head swung back to the page. “Oh my,” he mouthed, his eyes settling across the image that lay there. “Well, dear boy, it seems that you’ve made a discovery.”

“Y-yeah,” Spike answered. The stallion helped him to his feet, and as they adjusted the chair, Spike took deep breaths, as though steeling himself, giving him the strength to look at that thing once more.

Spike slowly climbed the chair, making his way back towards the book as though it were something that wished to strike at him, as though he were coming close to something hot enough that could burn even his draconic flesh.

He reached down and picked the fez off the floor, never taking his eyes off the book as he gingerly swept his hands across the braided rug. His hands finally folded around the fez, and as he brought it slowly back to the top of his head, he made cautious steps back towards the page.

The Pillar of the Sun, drawn in a distinctively Neignponese style, remained affixed to the page. It hovered there, floating in the image. His eyes narrowed as he beheld it, and a feeling that normally did not hold sway over the dragon soon found purchase deep within him… a feeling that, in his young life, only this accursed thing had been able to lift from him.

I hate you, he thought. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…

Spike drew a deep breath, and as the emotion floated away he looked up to find Artificer Call staring back at him, any number of emotions floating in his features.

“Well, my lad,” Call said, clearing his voice, “nothing for it but to read on and see what it has to say, I suppose…”

Spike drew another breath, forcing himself to calm. He opened his eyes to find himself staring down over the loathsome image of the Pillar of the Sun. Artificer Call made his way back over to his notebooks while Spike regarded the image with a cold, contemptuous stare. The historian opened this notes to a new section, and then Spike heard the stallion lift his voice.

“Well now, dear boy,” Call said, watching Spike lift the tassels of the fez out of his eyes once more. “Let us get back on track, as it were. Read to me what it says, and I shall add it to our findings.”

Spike settled back onto the tall, thin chair. After making sure his fez was safely back in place, he scowled at the pillar. A low rumble escaped him, making the tassels vibrate on his forehead.

An animalistic instinct, the need to protect, had arisen in him. Like so many other parts of himself that he had once kept in check, the swearing, the anger, the hatred, the lying, it was now sitting close to the surface. It was bubbling there, threatening to boil over and consume him.

Spike growled once more. Forcing caution into his motions, he lifted the rice paper and laid it across the page where the image of the detestable object stood. As he watched the haze of purple returned, and as it formed words his eyes swept across the secrets it revealed.

Aarne’s Talon

The pillar had another name. Spike blinked, rubbed his eyes, and shook his head before looking back to the page.

Aarne’s Talon, the book read, long used to keep the enemies of Kotkankoto at a distance, and was used by him in his quest to unify the griffon clans.

… kept at Aarnenlinna and enshrouded with enchantments…

… a powerful weapon…

… rallied behind Aarne…

Spike’s eyes brightened, and as he read the name again and again, a shadow of hope began to creep into his perception. “Call?” he said. “Who is that? Who is this guy the book keeps talking about?”

“Well, Spike,” Call answered, placing the pencil back down, “do you remember the portrait in the Special Collections Room?”

“Y-yeah,” Spike said, lowering his eyes. Despite the weeks that had passed, his lie remained a sort of open wound, a breach in the trust between them.

“Well, lad,” Call continued, moving past the sore topic , “that griffon is none other than Aarne the Undying, the unifier of the griffons, and their greatest leader.”

Aarne the Undying. Suddenly, Spike’s mind came alive with the possibilities. He must be thousands of years old, like Princes Celestia, Spike thought, his eyes filling with light and energy of a kind he hadn’t felt for weeks.

Aarne the Undying. Suddenly, there was an answer. Hope filled the boy’s frame. All that it would take was a chance to talk with this griffon drake. Certainly, this Aarne, this big, strong griffon drake who looked like the picture of every hero Spike had ever seen drawn, he would help.

Aarne the Undying. Spike lifted his face back to Call. Aarne would help. He’d reveal the secret of the Pillar of the Sun. He’d know how to defeat it. He’d know every little detail that the princess was refusing to share. He’d be able to tell the doctors what to do. It was that simple.

“We… I have to write him a letter right now!” Spike called, rummaging through the papers on the desk, grasping for scraps that he had doodled on and even the greasy wrapping paper from the books… anything so that he could begin his message to his new savior.

“He can do it, Call!” Spike said. “All we have to do is write to Aarne the Undying and we’ll have everything that we need to help Twili–”

“Oh, well, dear boy, I’m sorry,” Call said, dragging Spike out of his euphoria, “but we can’t do that, I’m afraid.”

“B-but, why not?” Spike asked, frozen in place with his quill hovering just above a sheet of paper he had chosen, the one least marked by doodles of hearts with Rarity’s name written in them. “Why can’t I ask Aarne the Undying for help?” the boy pled.

“Well, Spike, my good fellow,” Call said as he cleared his voice, “you can’t because well… he’s dead.”

There was the resolute thud of a dragon’s head hitting the desktop.

Aarne the Undying. What a waste of time.

“Well, there’s nothing for it, lad,” Call said, trotting back over to the desk. “He’s been gone for over a thousand years, it seems. My goodness, what are they teaching you children in the schools these days?”

“Twilight home-schooled me,” Spike said, lifting his head. “Believe me, if she had thought it important for me to know, she would have had me learn it, write an essay about it, and figure the statistical probability of it happening and that kinda thing.”

Artificer Call chuckled and, running his hoof across the boy’s frills, spoke to him softly.

“Do keep in mind, dear boy, that we now know more than we did yesterday,” Call said, making his tones go soft. “Just imagine, Spike, what we will know tomorrow!”

Spike gave a small sigh, and then went back to reading the few pages that concerned the Pillar of the Sun… or Aarne’s Talon. Whatever. The scratch of Call’s pencil arose from the notebooks, marking with each stroke the tiny, almost imperceptible progress that they were making.

Spike felt the tiredness returning. It had seemed a breakthrough. It had seemed so real… so tangible. It had seemed like progress, like he was inches away from helping Twilight wake up. With a few words, that had all disappeared. Aarne, who ever the griffon was, had proven to be a false hope. Instead, all that Spike was left with was “what he would know tomorrow”.

Spike’s eyes closed once more, and his head spun on the waves of nausea that had begun to accompany his exhaustion. Tomorrow? he thought. I don’t think I have much hope in “tomorrows”…

“Oh, for crying out loud, check in already!” called the receptionist.

Spike strolled right past the pony. He had forgotten if he was intentionally ignoring her or if he was simply too consumed by other matters to have even registered her existence in the first place.

He kept walking, making his way back towards the West Wind Annex for the Cure and Treatment of the Magically Enchanted and Unresponsive. His motions were automatic now, and with his haversack pulled up tight against him he made his way forward, not noticing the bustle of the hospital around him.

Making the final few turns, Spike made his way towards Twilight’s room.

“Hey, Twi,” he said, but quickly placed his hands over his mouth. Even through the hazy fog of his fatigue, he still remembered the consequences that he had imagined if he was caught talking to her this way.

He leaned back out the doorway, fearful that some of the ponies that still lingered around the ward might have heard him.

There was some movement in one of the patients’ rooms… more activity than he had remembered seeing in there since he’d come to the hospital, actually, but it mattered little. As soon as he was certain that nopony had heard him, he went back to Twilight’s bedside.

So, Twi, he thought, how much do ya know about the griffons? Turns out, the Pillar of the Sun, that thing that hurt you…

He grimaced as he thought the words, as he thought the unhappy name. As he did he imagined that a scent caught across his nostrils, but he ushered it away.

... it has another name, Twi! It’s called “Aarne’s Talon”, after this big griffon dude who…

The scent wafted across his nostrils once more, and he shook his head, trying to free himself of it.

… used it to defend the griffons against somepony. It turns out, it was given to him, but we don’t know who did it, or what it is doing in Pursopolis or…

The smell met him again, momentarily making him lose track of his mental conversation.

… or what we can do right now. But, but that’s progress, right? I mean, we… we…

The rancid odor leapt at him, and his tired mind made connections, ones that led him to an unfortunate conclusion. His eyes went wide, and as he gave a single hack, he reached forward.

Coughing, Spike lifted Twilight’s mane, and then peeled back the sheets, walking alongside the bed until the single thin sheet and blue blanket fell to the floor in a soiled pile. The smell lifted heavily, no longer smothered under the blankets, but now free to creep around the room in a rank cloud.

He lifted his eyes to the lower parts of her body, and there he saw the source of the stench.

“Oh, Twi,” he said aloud. “Oh, Twi…”

Whatever the source of the dark magic that had enchanted her, and whatever the effects of the magic that Gossamer Gauze had used to put Twilight into the induced coma, Twilight’s body had been locked in its own battle.

Tubes, wires, and magical apparatus linked her physical body to a battery of machines. He had tried his best to ignore them. He had done his best just to concentrate on holding her hoof, on brushing the hair out her face when the air conditioner blew it astray.

Now, one of the intrusions, one of the tangible pieces of proof that they were separated from one another, had failed Twilight.

The catheter tube lay crimped and broken as though it had been forced into place. At some point, even the tiny amounts of waste that Twilight’s body was producing had been enough to force it to come lose, spilling its contents across the crisp, white sheets, and staining them a telltale color.

“Oh, Twi,” he said. “It’s okay, Twi, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. I’ll get you cleaned up. It’s okay, Twilight, you’ll be okay…”

The dragon pulled away the evidence of her disgrace, broken tubes and all, and went to the sink. There he fetched some water, and his hands began to shake.

His hands shook as he tried his best to remove the sheet from beneath her, carefully lifting her mane and rolling her from side to side, apologizing each time. He shook as he wiped the dripping remnants of the catheter from the floor, telling her not to be embarrassed, that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

His body shook as he ran soap and water across her, cleaning her off.

“I’m not mad at you, Twi, you didn’t do anything. It’s okay, really. It’s my turn to take care of you now, that’s all. I’m not mad at you…”

But he was mad. The little dragon was furious.

The whelp was furious at a hospital that would let this happen. He was furious that nopony had been here to help her. He was furious at libraries that had booted him out. He was furious at Special Collections, and cryptic messages, Pillars and frogs, Mairsy Dotes and red tape. He was furious at days upon days upon weeks of not knowing how to help her, of being so weak, of being so useless…

“Spike?” came a tired voice from the doorway. “What in the world is going on?”

Spike turned his head, and there he found Comfort standing in the doorway.

“Oh, nothing really,” he said, turning the washcloth over in his hand, wringing it out so that the drops fell loudly into the basin he had been using.

“You know, I’m just cleaning up my best friend because she pissed all over herself!” he said, adding a hiss to his words. “It’s not like the staff of the ward had any other job today apart from making sure she was taken care of or anything!”

He threw the washcloth at the floor, making it land among the pile of sheets and blankets at the nurse’s hooves.

He drew a towel across Twilight, making parallel strokes of the type that he knew that she preferred. “Ya know, Comfort,” he said, turning back to the shocked mare, “I had hoped that somepony in this ward was taking care of her, that there was one, maybe two ponies in here that I could trust with an alicorn best friend motherly sister princess, but I guess not, huh? I guess that you’ve given up on her now, too, huh? I think that I’m the only creature left in the whole damned world who cares if she’s covered with piss or not!”

Spike leapt down from the bed, flinging the towel in front of him. He strode over to the nurse, his ears filled with not only his own roars but the now constant chiming of his exhaustion.

“I had thought that if any pony in this whole bucking hospital would…”

Spike had been about to lift his finger up to the mare, to jab it at her accusingly, but his tirade broke apart as she simply stepped to the side, exposing the expanse of the hallway to him.

There, in the middle, sat a gurney. Atop it lay a blanket… one covering a still, unmoving form.

Spike went silent as he looked up to it, and then his face flashed back to Comfort.

“You will forgive me, Spike. I am sorry that happened. I truly am,” Comfort said, obviously trying to restrain her own emotions. “I wish that I had known, and I would have taken care of it as soon as possible. But, I was preoccupied today. As you can see, I had another patient whose needs superseded Princess Twilight’s at the moment.”

Spike’s hands crawled up over his face, eventually covering his mouth. “W-what happened?” he asked, his voice shrinking to a shadow of what it had been just a few moments earlier.

Together the whelp and the nurse walked a few steps out into the hallway, moving closer to the gurney.

“Brake Dust came to us when he was just eighteen years old, Spike. He was a firestallion on the Central of Equestria Railroad. One day, as he was shoveling coal into the firebox of a locomotive, an ancient fragment of earth magic that had lodged among the coal seam eons ago was thrown into the fire…”

The mare took a deep breath.

“The engineer was killed instantly, and Brake Dust was thrown into his magically vegetative state,” she said, her voice becoming weak. “That was over two decades ago.”

Spike’s hands remained over his mouth as Comfort looked across the sheet.

“His friends, the employees of the railroad… even his family,” she sighed, “they all stopped coming years ago. I… I was the only one with him when he died today, when… when he finally gave up.”

Spike was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of guilt. He lifted one of his hands towards her, but she had already taken a step down the hallway. She began to turn her eyes towards the different rooms, concern painted in her face as she peered from one door to the next.

“In this room is a filly, not even ten years old, who came to us three years ago,” she said. “When her parents found her, she was lying still next to a silver chalice, a pink liquid dripping out of a gem within.”

She lifted her head towards another room.

“Here is a young stallion who experimented with magic far beyond his abilities. They rescued him from the fires, but the notes on his experiment went up in flames. If… when he wakes up, he’ll have to live with the burns for the rest of his life.”

She walked past Spike slowly, and then lifted her hoof towards the room right next to Twilight’s.

“This mare simply fell out of a portal in the sky right into a fountain at the palace. We don’t know her name or her identity. We might never know.”

She turned back to Spike.

“Each one of them is locked inside their own thoughts and magic, Spike. Each one is perhaps sleeping peacefully, adrift in dreams… or fighting demons or facing cruel fates. All that I can do, Spike, is hope that in some small way I am helping them… that taking care of their bodies is doing them some good.”

She reached forward, placing her eyes squarely in his.

“Princess Twilight is special to you, Spike,” Comfort said, forcing him to look up into her eyes. “You love her, and she is very special to you. We all know that. We can all see that. But, Spike, everypony in this ward is special to me.”

She lifted her hoof.

“I am doing all that I can. I am only one mare, Spike, the only full-time nurse in the ward, but I am doing all that I can for them. They all deserve somepony who still believes in them. I still have that hope, Spike, that I’m doing some good.”

Comfort lifted her face from his, and with a deep breath, she awaited his response.

“I’m, I’m sorry, Comfort. I-I didn’t realize…”

“I shall go and fetch a new set of sheets for Princess Twilight,” she said, turning away from the dragon whelp.

He listened to her go, and soon new hooffalls approached. Two large stallions appeared. They each gave him a curt nod, and then took the gurney containing the still form of Brake Dust away.

“I’m sorry,” Spike mouthed at the retreating shape beneath the blanket. “I’m sorry.”

Spike walked the hallway of the hospital. The mattress had been soiled, and as such they would have to undo all of the wires and tubes and move Twilight to a new gurney bed. They would have to wash her again, and then place all of the needles, tubes, and wires in her once more.

He didn’t want to watch that. He didn’t want to watch any of that. So, he walked.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do!”

The voice was that of a mare, and it startled Spike with its shrillness and worry.

Spike looked up to see that he was once again in the nursery wing, back among the pastel colors and copyrighted cartoon characters. To his surprise, he realized he was outside the very room he had stumbled across when he had returned from the archive the first night he had gone there with Call.

He shrunk back against the wall, and as he did the chiming in his ears decreased enough that he could make out the voices that filtered out of the room. To his surprise he recognized the voices. It was the young couple who have been birthing their child that day he had first walked down the nursery corridor.

Whoa, Spike thought. That was, like, two weeks ago, right? How can they still be here? Usually a foal’s ready to go home after like, what, two days?

“We’ll… we’ll think of something, Rose. It can’t be as bad as it seems, it never is. Something will happen, I know it,” the stallion said.

“Oh, but, Stick, we’re already behind on the mortgage! Now, with these bills, we… we won’t be able…”

“Yes,” the stallion said in a desperate tone, “yes we will. We just have to believe we will. The only thing that matters is that the baby is alright, that the surgery was a success. Do you believe me, Compass Rose? Do you believe me that everything will be alright, Rosy?”

“I… I want to,” the mare said. “I want to, Stick. I love you, and I know that we’ll find a way…”

Spike shrunk back against the wall farther, his concerns suddenly seeming very small indeed. “Wow,” he whispered to himself. “Wow.”

He slowly lowered his hands into the ductile pockets that sat inside his flesh, that baffling part of him that he never really came to understand. He jumped when he found something within.

He pulled at it slowly, afraid of what it might be. Once he had found a sandwich in there that had long expired. It had been a wonder that he hadn’t come down with some odd lunch-based disease. What he pulled out this time though was nothing startling, but instead beautiful.

It was the blue sapphire that Joe had returned to him, and it shone even in the dim fluorescent light of the hospital hallway. It had been in there for weeks, and he’d never noticed. He ran his tongue across his lips and opened his mouth…

…and the sound of a mare gently sobbing lifted from the room behind him.

“Shhh, it will be okay. I promise,” said the stallion, his voice uncertain.

Spike took a deep breath, and then closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at the many reflections of himself that sat in the surface of the gem.

I’m still your great little guy, Twilight, he told himself. I am.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“It means so much to us.”

“Not a problem. Really. It’s all yours.”

“Really, Mister Dragon, sir, you can’t know…”

“Heh! Hey, it’s just Spike.”

“Please, Mister Spike… won’t you hold the baby?”

“Wow, really? I…”

“Please.”

“I’ve never…”

The sapphire slipped into Compass Rose’s purse, and as Walking Stick sat Spike in the chair, she lifted her child into Spike’s arms. The infant gave a little yawn, and as the parents looked on, more than subtle signs of relief sitting in their features, they smiled upon the dragon and their child.

The eyes weren’t even open yet, and a frailty sat in the baby’s frame. It was small, even for a foal only a few weeks old. But, as the tiny breaths escaped it, Spike felt himself calming, letting some of the horribleness of the last weeks drain out of him.

“If you ever need anything… anything, please let us know,” Walking Stick offered.

Spike’s mind, though, was already far away. As he looked down across the child, his mantra went through his mind.

I’m your great little guy, Twilight. I’m your great little guy. You won’t wake up to a monster, I promise. I promise…”

Most of the other staff had left by the time Spike returned to Twilight’s room. Only Comfort stood there, the gauze at the ready for their nightly ritual, preparing to protect Twilight’s sight from the dry hospital air during the night.

The two looked at one another, and proceeded in silence.

Together they tenderly wrapped the artificial tears to her, and Spike watched Comfort finish laying the new blankets, her dexterous earth pony hooves tucking them with a hospital tuck.

In the end, Spike met Comfort’s eyes once more, and he began to speak.

“Comfort, I’m so, so sorry,” he began. “I didn’t realize, I didn’t even stop to think that…”

Before he could even conclude, he felt the nurse wrapping him in a hug. This was not the simple, politically-correct, lawsuit-preventing, one-foreleg side-hug that the nurses were instructed to give. No, this was a full embrace, one that drew the whelp close to her body.

It felt good. It honestly felt good. He had last been held like this weeks ago, back when a weeping Fluttershy had said her goodbyes. He needed a hug like this now. He needed it desperately.

It felt wonderful, but it still lacked something. It still lacked that familiarity.

It didn’t feel like Twilight’s hugs…

…it just didn’t feel like Twilight.

“I forgive you, Spike,” she said after a good long while. “I just hope that you know that we all want what is best for Princess Twilight… and for you. Do try to get some sleep now, alright?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

Comfort smiled at him, and then made her way out into the hall. As she did, the smile fell from her face. She made her way to the desk, noting the absence of the night nurse and her radio.

She signed out, and then her hooves turned and she made her way out of the hospital. As she did her face fell down further, and a realization that she had made when Spike had lost his temper bloomed in her mind.

There was nothing else for it. It was for Spike’s own good.

She had made a promise.

She had a message to send.

Despite the nurse’s implore, Spike did not go to sleep.

He did not even make his little nest, bring Twilight water, or arrange her boots and crown.

Instead, he stood there at her bedside for an hour, two hours, maybe three.

Every once in awhile, he would turn, go out to the hallway, and look diagonally across the way towards the now vacant room where the railway stallion had lost his battle.

“I’m sorry,” Spike would mouth, and then he’d turn back into the room.

The night air of spring bobbled into the room, making the air conditioner fight between heating and cooling the space, causing wisps of Twilight’s hair fly around. He lifted them out of her face, away from the protective gauze, and then went back into the hallway for a moment, staring at the empty room.

“I’m sorry.”

More time passed, flitting by as the dragon leaned across her bed. Finally, as the hour became late, the long story of Spike’s vigil at Twilight’s bedside reached its inevitable end.

“Twilight,” Spike said aloud. “You have to wake up now.”

Silence hung around the pair, only the sounds of the air conditioner meeting them.

“Okay, Twi,” Spike said. “You’ve got to wake up right now.”

His body began to shake, and his hands went up to her shoulders.

“Twi? Twilight? Please, please wake up,” he said, his voice lifting. “Twilight, I’m serious, really.”

He put one of his hands on her face, trying to lift her hidden eyes to his.

“Twi, please, Twi, wake up, please,” he cried, his voice breaking into a whine as he did so. He pled with her more and more, forgetting his need for silence.

As he called for Twilight to come awake, his voice shredding, all that his mind’s eye recognized was a gurney, an unmoving form beneath a blanket, and a few strands of purple mane falling from beneath a white sheet.

Grasping one of her forelegs, the dragon gave a tug, as a child would when trying to make a parent come chase the monsters out from under the bed or back into the closet.

“Twi! Twi, please, you have to wake up!” he cried again, giving the foreleg another pull.

“This isn’t a place for getting better! This isn’t a place for ponies who are going to wake up! Please, Twi, you have to wake up! You have to get out of here!” he yelled, his voice filling the room.

“Twilight! Twilight, this is a place for dying ponies! You can’t stay here! You’ll die! Please, Twi, please!” he called, giving another firm tug. “You can’t die! Please, Twi, please!”

He pulled upon her once more, giving a shriek as his instincts told him to drag her to safety, to get her away from this horrible place. With that, he gave another pull, crying aloud as he did.

Princess Twilight Sparkle teetered, tossed, and fell out of the bed.

She spilled across the body of the dragon, the whelp catching her head and shoulders, giving a shout as he struggled to lift her once again. He struggled just as hard as he had when he had tried to save her from the drowning pool, as he had when he had tried to protect her from the rocks that had bashed against her as the pillar’s magic had dragged her along, the serpents pulling at her.

Every one of the emotions that had sat in him one month ago returned. The fear, the uncertainty, and the pain came alive once more. Twilight was dying again, dying here in this sanitized bedroom as tubes and wires sat stuck in her. Once again he was fighting to keep his promise to her.

“Twilight! Twilight!” he wailed, and as her head sat in his arms, his tears fell over her, catching in her mane. He pressed his face to the top of her head, wrapping his arms around her.

“Twi, you have to wake up now! Please, Twilight, please, please, please! You have to…”

“Spike!”

Spike’s eyes came open, and suddenly silence filled the room once more. The only thing that remained was the dragon, Twilight, and the newcomer who had shouted out his name. As Spike raced back into rational thought, the voice hung in his head, and dread fell through him.

No. Not her.

Spike cast his gaze up to the bed, down to Twilight, and back up to the bed again. As if only just realizing what he had done, Spike’s eyes went wide, and his mouth came open.

No, please, not her. Of all of the mares in Equestria, don’t let it be her.

Spike slowly turned his head towards the door, towards the pony that had shouted his name.

There in the doorway stood Procer Celestia Invictus.

Shoot, he thought, it’s her.

“Spike,” she said, disappointment hanging in her voice, “I can not believe what I am witnessing! What in the world do you think–”

“Why?!”

Celestia’s face went blank for an instant, and the young boy’s plea took precedence over her question. As the dragon held Twilight, his implore once more rang out around the room.

“Why?!” he cried. “Why aren’t you helping her? Why aren’t you helping me?!”

The dragon stared at her for a long moment, and then buried his face in Twilight’s mane once more.

“You’re the only pony in the whole wide world who even asked me what I saw! You are the only one who knows what that horrible thing is that did this to her,” he said in a whimper, his voice catching among the strands of Twilight’s mane. “But, but you’re not helping! You’re just… don’t you love her? Don’t you love me? Why aren’t you helping us?! Please, Princess, please…”

“Oh, Spike,” Celestia whispered as she walked into the room on silent hooves. “Oh, Spike…”

The magic of the Firstborn Alicorn draped itself around the pair, and Spike felt Twilight gently lift out of his arms in the currents of Celestia’s magic. For the second time that long, difficult night, Twilight was lifted back into the bed, this time tenderly, and by her former mentor.

The various bits of medical equipment all found their way back to their prescribed places. The sheets and blanket swathed the sleeper once more, and Twilight once more lay peacefully on the sheets, her face emotionless, her mane bouncing gently on the currents of dry, sterile hospital air.

This left the two standing there, staring at her. The alicorn and the dragon, side by side, gazing over the forlorn figure on the bed.

Celestia turned her head, looking across the ruins of the child. She began to plan her words, to gently chide him for acting so rashly. She let the motherly part of her open up, and as she prepared her understanding side, her mouth came open.

It quickly closed as the dragon dropped to his knees, his hands held to his chest, looking like a parishioner in prayer or a supplicant begging for his life.

“Princess, please,” he mouthed, the words dripping out of him on currents of tiredness. “Please, you have to tell me. I need to know. I need to know anything. I’m so angry. I’m so tired. I’m so scared. I’m goin’ crazy. Please. Please, if I can’t do anything for her I… I don’t know what I’ll do next. Please…”

The boy whimpered a little, and an unhappy sort of croak rattled in his throat.

As Spike continued to kneel, Celestia’s eyes looked him over. Her earlier thought, ruins, came back to her. A month ago, she had defied some very good and logical arguments and had let him stay here at Twilight’s side. In that month she could have sent him back to Ponyville, where the boy could have experienced the spring. She could have sent him to Twilight’s parents, given him the comfort of a familiar place, one where he’d first had something akin to a family to watch over him.

Celestia could have sent him back to the nursery where he’d spent his very first years. Though he’d certainly be the largest and oldest child there, it would have been a homecoming of sorts. The Princess of the Sun could have sent him to be with Cadance and Shining Armor... ponies that he knew and cared for.

She could have taken him under her own wing, recapturing something of those few times when she had been able to hold the child close, when he had fallen asleep huddled against her warm, white coat.

She would have liked that. It would have been good for him.

But she hadn’t. She hadn’t, and now the pitiful, broken figure before her was the end result of her choice. She had been forging a chain of sins. Her action here in this room had assured that it would happen. Each day after her choice, each day that he decreased, a new link had been forged.

Forgive me, Spike, she thought as she slowly lowered herself to her knees.

With that, she began to pull on the chain.

Spike jumped a little as the head of the Daybringer gently fell across his shoulder, the face of the massive alicorn pressing against his. She gave a little sigh, and then rubbed her face against his, calling on him to do the same.

The dragon whelp gave a little nuzzle in reply, his implore for answers still hanging around them.

“Princess, please…”

Celestia’s head remained across his shoulder, and the dragon lifted his hand, placing them around the massive neck the best that he could.

“Please…” he repeated.

“Spike,” Celestia said, slowly nuzzling against him, “I know that you are angry, tired, and feeling very lost right now. I want you to know that Twilight is very dear to me. You are very dear to me.”

The alicorn sighed.

“Spike, I am going to ask you three questions. I need you to answer them as honestly as you can. There is no wrong answer to these questions, as long as you answer them with sincerity. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” the dragon said, his voice squeaking. “Yes, Princess, I understand.”

There was a momentary pause, and Spike felt a little shudder go through the jaw of the princess, a tremor that betrayed a larger shake that ran the length of her large, graceful body.

“Spike,” she asked, “are you loyal to me?”

Spike searched through himself. He recalled all of the times that he and Twilight had answered Celestia’s call. He thought of all the amazing things they had accomplished on Celestia’s behalf.

“Yes, Princess,” he answered, “I’m loyal to you.”

Celestia took another breath. He listened as it filled her, and the feeling of her ever-waving mane dancing across his chest and stomach added a surreal sensation to the waves of nausea that his exhaustion lifted through him.

“Spike,” Celestia whispered, “do you serve me?”

Spike’s eyes fell to the floor. In his mind he remembered dutifully burping up letter after letter, returning them to Twilight as Discord’s enchantment sat over Ponyville.

The very first one had said that it would hurt, that it would burn in his guts, but that he was the only one who Celestia could turn to at that moment… that he was a worthy subject, servant, and friend.

Spike nodded his head. “Yes,” he answered, “I serve you as best I can. It’s not much, but I do what I can, you know?”

A small chuckle filled the room. The feel of her laughter fell through him, tumbling through his body through the contact of her face, jaw, and coat.

The princess nuzzled him once more, and then began to lift her body away from his. In a moment the alicorn had returned to her tall, graceful stance. The stark whiteness of her coat stood in contrast to the darkness gathering around the room, making Spike lift his eyes and follow her like a lost mariner searching out a pinprick of a lighthouse’s beam on a darkened sea.

“Spike,” she said.

The boy’s head wobbled around, anticipating the question. Their eyes met, and he watched as Celestia’s head panned from side to side, searching through his eyes, looking for something. He felt her searching him, perhaps probing to make sure that there was something in the faded husk that still sang of the bright young boy she had watched play with Twilight in the gardens.

“Spike,” she repeated, “this is the most important question. Not just in the matter at hoof, but one of the most important questions anyone can ever ask of another. I only ask that you tell me the truth… that is all I have ever asked of you.”

Spike nodded.

Celestia smiled.

“Spike,” she asked, “do you love me?”

The dragon’s eyes answered her soft, unmoving ones. Images of toddling along palace hallways as tall, white legs fell beside him flitted through his memory. Remembrances of deep, calming magic falling around him as he cried, of his flame consuming his first message, a gentle voice giving him praise… all of these fell through him.

Memories of falling asleep against her as papers rustled, of Twilight, Celestia, and himself sitting together and watching the waters of a stream burble through the garden… these sat on him heavily.

A smile went over his face, sitting in deep contrast to the haggard, worn appearance that had sat over him for the last few weeks.

“Well, yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “You’ve always been there for me, and… and if there was any pony other than Twilight that I’d ever call…”

He stopped himself. There was no need to go that far. No, she had asked a simple question. The dragon smiled again and met the eyes of the alicorn once more.

“Yes, Princess,” he answered, “I love you.”

Celestia reached forward, letting her nose come close to his. The dragon leaned forward, and their noses brushed against one another. The nuzzle, an act common to the Equestrians, that much more than a hug, that much less than a kiss, and today shared between an ancient alicorn and a “baby” dragon.

“Thank you, Spike,” she said. “You can not know how much that means to me.”

The two stood there, smiling at one another, and for the first time in weeks, Spike dared to dream that everything would now be fine. With the great, towering presence of the Princess of the Sun standing before him, smiling upon him, the feel of her nuzzle still sending happy reassurance through his body, he dared to dream that she would now reveal all that he needed to know.

Everything would be fine, now. It had to be. It must be.

And, with that, Celestia turned and began to walk away.

It took Spike’s mind, body, and soul a second to register what was happening. His head shook a little, and his jaw moved up and down of its own accord.

“N-no…”

Spike forced his body to move, forced his mind to do something other than fumble around in shock.

“N-no!” he called, lurching forward.

The boy watched as Celestia slipped out of the doorway, her hooffalls slow and deliberate. His hands went out before him, clawing through the air as though he were drowning, clutching for a bit of driftwood on a storm-tossed sea.

She was leaving. The princess was leaving. She was simply walking away. She was walking away from him, from Twilight, taking all hope with her.

Spike skittered out into the hallway, going down on all fours, once more some animal part of him rising up.

“No, no! No, Princess, please!” he called, leaping forward.

His claws ran themselves through the silky threads of her tail. Gathering them into bunches, he clung to her and wrapped himself deep in the sparkling cords.

“Please, please, Princess, you have to tell me what the pillar is! You have to tell me anything, please! Please!”

He gathered up more of her tail, clinging to it, burying himself in it like a burr in a dog’s coat after a run through a field.

Celestia stopped moving, her last hooffall echoing up and down the empty corridor of the hospital wing. All that remained in the hallway was the whines of the boy, his voice going up and down in shrill tones as he clung to the princess.

“Please, please,” he whimpered between cries. “Please, please, please,” he repeated over and over, imploring her again and again. Eventually, some small movement drew his attention, and he dared to lift his eyes towards the face of the ancient sovereign.

He gasped, dropping her tail.

Celestia looked back to him with a look across her face that he had never seen on any living creature. The only word that his frayed, confused mind would allow him to use to describe it was “melancholy”. Yet, even that word seemed to pale. Her face at that moment seemed to reflect each millennium of her troubles, and the little dragon fell backwards at the sight of it.

Celestia looked at him for a lingering moment, and then her head dropped low.

Wordlessly, the Daybringer began to make her way out of the hospital wing once more, leaving the little boy sitting there in the darkened corridor, his arms outstretched towards her, beseeching her once more. The alicorn moved along slowly, never turning back to face him again as her hooffalls echoed up and down the hallway.

Finally, she left the Ward of the Living Dead, entombing the phantom that had once been a happy child there once more.

Spike sat there, his feet splayed out beneath him, his arms still lifted, as long as he could.

When the tears began, he fell to the floor.

Spike hobbled back towards the room, not so much walking on all fours but crawling. His legs gave out one by one, and, hefting himself back onto his feet, he gave small sobs of utter dejection as he fought his way back into Twilight’s room.

His head spun, his throat burned, and his stomach gnawed in pain and hunger. But none of these physical sensations could be more horrible than the realizations that were sinking through him as he crawled back towards the bed.

Celestia would not help him. The books were not helping him. There was no hope. Hope was dead... burned away.

Twilight would lay here until she died.

He grabbed ahold of the blanket, attempting to lift himself up to see her, to prove to himself that Twilight was still breathing.

The blanket slipped in his hands, and he went to the floor hard, striking his jaw on the linoleum. As the new pain joined the others, he began to roll around, wrapping the blanket to him as sobs and wails began to lift from him.

It was in that wretched state that he lay there, pools of tears forming beneath him.

Celestia made her way back through the city streets, Simple Script and Morning Mist falling in behind their sovereign.

To their surprise, the Princess of the Sun said nothing, and she seemed to wobble every other step. More than once they looked at one another in alarm, but neither said anything. At one point the two lurched forward, trying to catch her as she seemed about to fall to the cobblestones.

“My lady?” Simple Script asked as the two trotted forward.

Celestia lifted herself, taking a few deep breaths before opening her eyes once more and looking back to the guards. The smile that she wore was falsified, as garish and painted as a child’s art project hanging on an icebox.

The guards nodded to their counterparts as they entered the palace. The other Royal Guardponies saw it too. They saw the cloud of unhappiness that was lingering over the sovereign, and they looked to the two earth ponies for answers.

They had none, and they were as surprised as any when Celestia made not for her own apartments, but instead back towards the throne room. Silent Script and Morning Mist stumbled along, trying to regain their proper places, their minds full of concern.

Thestrals stood before the doors of the throne room, and their own eyes went wide as they bowed to the Princess of the Sun, opening the door for her.

The night court was in session, and the few ponies that lingered about the Throne of Fides had been leveling their attention upon the alicorn who sat in her proper place when her moon was in the sky.

“Presenting Princess Celestia,” the Vice Chancellor called in surprise, juggling the parliamentary mace that sat in his hooves, “Princess of the Sun and High Sovereign of the–”

“Sister,” Luna spoke, lifting herself away from the stack of papers. At her word, the other ponies present turned to look at the approaching alicorn, and with that they fell to their knees.

The Vice Chancellor, disappointed that he had been interrupted in one of the few duties that he had and which he enjoyed performing, could only watch as Luna made her way down the steps from the throne, two more thestral guards joining her as she made her way down the carpet.

“Sister?” she asked, probing through the face of her larger sibling. “What ails you? What vexes you?”

Celestia simply stood there, her eyes falling through those of the other alicorn, of her younger sister. In a moment, Luna knew.

“Come, then,” she said, turning towards a secluded balcony nearby. There was a rush of hooves, and the four guards seemed ready to follow.

“Leave us be,” Luna commanded, her voice strong and forceful. As the guards fell away, Luna led on, Celestia falling in beside her, still unspeaking.

Together, the sisters made their way onto the balcony. The deep magic of the Nightbringer closed the doors behind them, draping the curtains so that the prying eyes of the aristocracy, politicians, and guards could not see what was to transpire.

The Sister Sovereigns of Equestria stood there, the chilly air of a spring night wrapping around them. Celestia wavered on her hooves, next to her little sister, lifting her face to the moon and stars overhead, as though searching her sibling’s domain for some answers.

The smaller alicorn seated herself beside her sister. Moments passed before Luna finally spoke. “Sister,” she said, “will you reveal to me what has so upset you?”

Luna turned to Celestia, studying her face as it sat turned up to the night sky. After a moment, a trail of tears began to appear on the face of the older sister, running down her cheeks and leaving shimmering traces along her neck.

Celestia collapsed to the floor of the balcony, her head seated against the chest of her younger sister, making the smaller alicorn gasp before pulling her sibling up into her forelegs. “Luna!” Celestia cried. “Luna!” she repeated, whimpering the word.

“Luna, I have done something awful. I have done something terrible…”

Procer Luna Revenio lay still, listening to her sister’s sniffling, running her hoof through her mane. In the long millennia of their lives, there had been many things that had tested the pair. They had seen war, famine, plague… a litany of terrors had been draped around them.

Yet, if there was one thing she knew, it was what Celestia was capable of. Luna knew what constituted the fine line between good and bad, right and wrong in her sister’s mind. She had been subjected to it herself, and deservedly so in retrospect.

Whatever was reducing her sister to these tears, she knew it was no small matter.

“Tia,” she said, invoking that small, intimate name that few had ever earned the right to speak, “will you tell me? If we are to deal with this, then I must know.”

Celestia whimpered. She forced her head to lift slightly, turning it so that it lay alongside her sister’s chest, still embraced by the only other living being on this side of the Well of Souls who had seen the wonders, and horrors, that she had seen.

As her breath left heavy, warm words across her sister’s coat, Celestia revealed all.

Moments passed as the confession settled across the balcony. At intervals, Luna’s eyes went wide as remembrances of names, places, events, and other ancient secrets fell around her.

When, finally, Spike’s role was revealed, the alicorn sighed deeply. As the whimpering form of Celestia still sat in her forelegs, Luna continued to draw her hoof across her sister’s mane.

“Shhh,” she whispered, making her voice go as soft as possible. “We knew it was only a matter of time, Tia. It was but a matter of time.”

Luna looked up to the night sky, drawing strength from her moon. Already her mind was at work, and she knew what must follow.

“Gold Army Group is here in Canterlot, waiting in reserve,” she began. “Red Army Group has encamped in the Northwestern Reaches. Brown Group shall come at our heed from the East Coast. There is also a division here in Canterlot under General Black Arrow which has yet to be attached to any corp.”

She looked back down to her sister, casting her gaze across the tear-stained monarch who sat in her forelegs.

“That gives us twenty-eight divisions which we can call upon at once, my sister,” she said. “Will that suffice for our needs?”

“It will have to, Luna… it will have to,” Celestia whimpered. “Oh, Sun, Luna! He is going to hate me! He is going to hate me…”

Luna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then turned to face her moon once more.

“Yes,” she answered, still running her hoof through the sparkling, shimmering mane of the mare that lay pressed close to her, “he shall.”

New tears erupted from the Daybringer, for she knew that the simple answer was laden with truth. It had been as easy to see as the very moment millennia ago when the inexorable march towards this day had begun. It was as apparent in her eyes as the tiredness and brokenness that had seated itself in the frame of a little boy whom she loved. It was as clear in her ears as his wails. She pressed herself against Luna that much more, her misery running down her face as her sister stroked her.

It was in that wretched state that she lay there, pools of tears forming beneath her.

So it was that Canterlot saw two figures pass the spring evening in tears, one an ancient alicorn sovereign heaving against the chest of her sister, the other a young child sobbing by the bed of the pony he loved most in the world.

Two days had passed.

Artificer Call had witnessed the deep change that had come over Spike. Whatever it was that had transpired two nights ago had changed the boy, and Call did not like it one little bit.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can get you, dear boy? Some milk? Some cookies, perhaps?” he said, watching the gaunt figure of the child make his way across the room.

“Naw,” Spike answered, the word dripping out of him as he slowly crawled up the tall chair.

Artificer Call scowled a bit, and then turned back to the piles of papers, books, and other primary resources that sat on, over, and around every flat surface in his study.

The dragon had only been responding in single words. His frame was frail, and there seemed to be no life in his eyes.

In short, it was more than just the exhaustion, confusion, and fear that had been there before. Now even the constant approach of couriers had not lifted any new joy through the child.

Something had been stolen out of the child, something important.

“Are you ready to examine the newest arrivals, my lad?” Call asked.

“Yeah,” Spike answered, lowering the fez onto his head.

Call looked at him once more, and then grumbled to himself. Well, this won’t do, he thought. You can’t just let him sit there like that, you old fool. He’s not well! If… if you must call Child Services, then you must, and there’s no excuse if…

Call’s eyes fell across a stack of resources, ones that he had gathered the night before. A flicker of hope went through him. Perhaps these, and the discovery that he had made within, could lift the boy’s spirits.

“Oh, Spike, my fine fellow,” he said, lifting the items into his hoof. “I do have something of a surprise for you!”

“Yeah?” Spike said, slowly lifting his head. The boy barely reacted as Call wiped the desktop free of the items they had been preparing to examine. Four new texts were settled before him, but Spike hardly even reacted, his head simply rising and falling on the chimes and songs that lifted through his perception, rising and falling on the waves of his exhaustion.

“Well, dear boy,” Call said, flipping open a massive text, “we’ve certainly not gotten very far researching this Pillar of the Sun, or Aarne’s Talon, as it were, have we?”

Spike shook his head, acknowledging their lack of progress. The admission sent new waves of nausea through him.

“Well then, my fine lad, we’ve been ignoring something very important, haven’t we?” Call said, a small smile creeping across his face. “We’ve forgotten something…”

Spike slowly lifted his head once more, examining the books, papers, and then the stallion. “Forgot?”

Call flipped open the book, a massive, heavy tome of minotaur construction.

The hero went to claim the Pillar of the Earth, but the Zenith he had not…

The word struck Spike like a slap across the face.

“The… the Zenith?” he asked in weak tone, one that became stronger as he said it.

“Indeed, my dear boy!” Call said with a laugh, happy to have gotten two words out of the child at once for the first time in days. “I came across all of these references to it last night, as a matter of fact. It was in a pile left on the doorstep, of all things…”

Spike had barely heard. Instead, he gathered all four of the items into his claws and leapt off the highchair.

Zenith…

The Zenith…

Zenith…

Spike arrayed the treasures around him. One was the massive, heavy minotaur book, one that told of the journey of one of their large, hairy heroes.

The hero went to claim the Pillar of the Earth, but the Zenith he had not…

The next was a document, an official one that was yellowed with age. It held the seal of a griffon clan.

We demand that you reveal the nature of the Zenith, it began.

Attached to it was a simple note, written in a familiar hoofwriting.

No, it answered.

Zenith…

The Zenith…

Spike’s eyes flew around, drawing these different cords together. As he did a smile began to go across his face.

He lifted another paper from the ground, but to his dismay he found that it was written in their own language, rather than the common speech that all of Equus shared.

“Well, the rice paper, boy, the rice paper!” Call laughed, pointing to the Neighponese book. Spike raced over to it, throwing the cover open.

“Careful now, lad!” Call chided. “That’s quite old!”

Spike ignored him, lifting the rice miasma paper across the griffon document. The purple lettering swirled a bit, as though confused by a language different from the one it had translated for centuries. After a moment, it began to collect, and Spike’s eyes flew across the words.

It was a legal decision, one seemingly unrelated to anything even remotely reflecting on anything they were researching. His eyes coasted across every line, searching out whatever Call had found. He stumbled, tripped across the reference…

… not in the defendant’s possession at the time, and could not have been since before Aarne was presented with The Zenith. As such, we are forced…

Aarne. Aarne the Undying. The Talon of Aarne. Aarne had The Zenith. Aarne had been presented with The Pillar, and The Zenith.

Spike smiled, an almost manic glee going through him. Connections were being made. He spun around, and there on the floor sat the last document.

He ran over to it, Call smiling as the boy showed more life than he had in days, weeks even.

Spike lifted the next document. A small gasp went through him as he realized what it was. It was a declaration of war. The weighty matter of the words that lay there calmed him for a moment, but soon the smile returned to his face as he panned the old scroll for any more revelations.

The tassels on his fez bounced as he found the words.

Whereas you have declared war on Lumina and her kind under the pretense of claiming The Zenith for your own, claiming that her power over it is a threat to you, we must in turn rise to the defense of our ancient ally…

Spike went shock still. He slowly turned towards Call. “L-Lumina?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“The ancient Wapiti name for Princess Celestia,” Call said, reaching down to retrieve one more document. Call congratulated himself for having snapped Spike out of his funk. The boy stood there, his head spinning back and forth, taking in all of the new information that these few documents had presented him.

“And, dear boy, just to top it all off, here’s another bit about Aarne’s Talon that we missed. It’s a trifling thing, but I’d thought that you would like a look at it,” he said, laying it close to the dragon.

Spike looked down, and in his tired, blurry eyes the confessions of a soldier of the Crystal Empire came into view. Spike ran his eyes across it, leaning down to find the truth behind what seemed to be an unfinished remembrance of a war.

Call chuckled happily, knowing that Spike would soon be dancing about, happy to see so much new information lying before him. Call hummed a bit, thinking that, perhaps, with so much progress in one day, he could convince the boy to come out with him for some dinner… even sleep in the chair the whole night through.

A tearing sound shredded the stallion’s thoughts, and he spun about in surprise.

“Spike, did you just… tear a page out of that manuscript?” he said, aghast. “My boy! I’m disappointed…”

A hiss rose around the room, and Call stumbled a bit.

Artificer Call crept to the side of the room, and when he looked at Spike his hoof went over his mouth.

The boy still stood there, the small smile across his face, but not willfully. It seemed frozen there, as though the child’s mind was dealing with too much at once, as though it were unable to do anything other than tremble and shake.

Inside his mind, Spike made connections. As his body began to convulse, a deep, utter realization sank through him.

His eyes went to the minotaur’s book.

They went to the diplomatic demand.

His body slowly turned, and even as he shook and trembled he looked back towards the legal document, still sitting behind the rice paper.

The declaration of some ancient, forgotten war still sat at his feet, just beyond his quivering knees.

“Spike…” Call said, his hoof still over his mouth, the historian watching in horrified wonder as a change went over the child.

Spike’s eyes turned downward, back to the single, lonely page of the soldier’s manuscript that sat in his hands. The ancient paper began to flake away, but the one horrible line of text remained, taunting the dragon.

The truth there bit at him, gnawed on the last parts of Spike that made him who he was.

The smile finally cracked away, falling in pieces to the floor as the shivering, twitching body of the little drake finally revealed a snarl. The white of his canines shone against his faded complexion, and a look of utter disgust and betrayal began to play across his features.

The Zenith…

…claim over…

… presented…

Zenith…

The Zenith…

“Oh my,” Call whispered, backing away a step as the fez upon Spike’s head turned brown before leaping into flames. “Oh dear…”

Spike read the words one more time, and then let the paper fall to the floor.

Before it even hit the fine carpet of Call’s study, a transformation encompassed Spike. His eyes came alight, shining in green, and his arms stood out at his side, as though he were struggling to lift some great weight.

All of the anger, wrath, unhappiness, fear, and worry of the last month erupted through him. All of the unhappy parts of him that he had been struggling with in that time overwhelmed him, and words sprung from him in a cry of utter contempt, marking this all as the fault of one pony.

Only one pony bore the blame for what had happened to Twilight, and his words rose to decry the one who had maligned him.

The good little dragon that Twilight had raised fell away as a monster took his place, throwing his denunciation around the room in a massive, pained roar that rattled the lamps and sent papers tumbling to the floor.

“That… bitch!”

Author's Note

Okay, so here's another chapter that got away from me in terms of length. I'm a man of my word, though! By the end of this chapter, Spike was no longer moping around in Canterlot. Nope! Now Spike (or what's left of him) is is pissed off in Canterlot!

Next chapter is brutal, guys and gals. I mean... whoa, it doesn't go well for anybody.

Chapter 13: Boy on Fire

Chapter 13: Boy on Fire

She had made a mistake.

She had lifted herself off of her rock for just for a few moments, just long enough to walk around the sheltered side of the great stone to stretch her wings and shake the sleep from her legs.

The griffon hen found that the rock had not kept her warmth. She cursed silently as the cold seeped into her despite her down.

Stupid rock, she thought as she fought against the chill. She drew her legs beneath her, shuddering slightly. The snowflakes of a wounded winter fell around her... big, wet flakes catching across her coat. It was spring, but despite what the calendar said winter still held dominion across the pass. It would be a great long while before the snows surrendered themselves to the outcroppings of short, tough grasses and the edelweiss came into bloom.

That she knew.

Her keen eyes stared through the snow squall to Vuori Ontto below. The city sparkled on the mountainside below her, the timber frames of the biggest buildings evident even this high up the side of the stony crag.

As she watched, black figures swept up the sides of the cliff, and even at this distance she could tell who it was. Even at this distance she could tell what griffon drake had arrived in the city, his lieutenants and adherents at his side.

Urho had arrived in Vuori Ontto. She could feel her poor father’s migraine beginning all the way up here.

She apologized to her rock, sorry for calling it stupid. Now that the city was once again to strain under the weight of Urho’s words, there was no place in Kotkankoto that she would rather be than up here, on her chilly rock, in the snow that blew in over the frigid pass through the mountains.

That she knew.

She’d rather be here on this frigid rock than down in the lodge of her father. She’d rather be here amid the great, wet snowflakes than anywhere in the city below. She’d rather sit here in the driving winds than anywhere in her nation… even the capital at Aarnenlinna held no particular attraction that her cold, stupid rock could not provide.

Aarnenlinna. The Fortress of Aarne. Aarne the Undying. Her thoughts kept going back to that name, back to what she knew of the great, almost mythical hero of her kind. Her mind kept going back to Aarne, back to the stories that she had been told since she was a cub, her grandmother settling them around the fire as she and her cousins sat enraptured at the words.

What he must think of us now, she thought. I can’t even begin to imagine.

Truth be told, she could imagine. The griffon hen had a keen imagination. She could imagine what the great unifier of her kind would think about them returning to living in clans. She could imagine that he would have choice words about the infighting, the devolution… the way that they had come to treat all other races as suspect.

She pressed herself closer to her rock. All too soon she would have to go back down into the city. She let her head lie across her forelegs, across her talons, and she begged the rock to be a little warmer, to let her stay just that much longer.

He wouldn’t like it, she thought, blinking the snowflakes from her eyes. He wouldn’t like it one damn bit.

That she knew.

Carbon Copy stood in the antechamber of the throne room, his papers falling through his hooves.

“Oh… oh, sorry about that,” he said, scooping up hooffuls of his research. “It’s just that there’s this amazing fact about the sewers that I’ve discovered, and somepony has to hear about it, and I figured that if anypony should know about it, then it should be the princess.”

Silence greeted him.

“M-may I go in?” he asked.

He lifted his head to find the Lord Chamberlain of the Household still standing in the doorway, a look across his face that firmly denoted his lack of concern for matters concerning sewers, minor historians, and anypony who didn’t seem like they should be on the other side of the throne room’s great, vast doors.

The Sergeant-at-Arms, standing to the right, appeared even less cordial.

“Oh. I see,” Carbon Copy said, withering under the gaze of the two officious ponies. “I’ll just go and… I’ll go wait over there.”

Carbon Copy spun around slowly, and began pacing up and down the carpet. Beyond the tall doors sat the throne room, and as he paced he could hear the sound of the royal court. Hundreds of voices came from inside, murmurs and laughter mingling as Prime Minister Fancypants attempted to be heard above the din, calling different ponies out of the crowd to drop their concerns before the unseen princess within.

The young stallion walked on, his head held low, his papers held awkwardly in his foreleg. Priceless treasures and ancient artifacts lined the walls, and at any other time the young researcher would have found them infinitely interesting.

At any other time, though, he would not have bounced off some other pony.

“Gah! My bad! My bad, I’m sorry!” he said, his hooves clattering as he spun in place, going from the fine carpet to the hard marble and back again. “My bad!”

“Oh, not even an issue, good sir!” answered a familiar voice.

Carbon Copy looked up to see the same face he had last seen in the library weeks ago, that of the older stallion who had stood next to the terrifying librarian. The younger stallion dropped his head, looking to see if the dragon that had caused him to lose his library access due to guilt by association was there. He had a few choice words for the little whelp…

…words that evaporated upon his lips as he looked across the creature.

Carbon Copy reared back and hid at Artificer Call’s side. The two stallions stood there, watching as what had once been Spike went along the fine carpet, making his way with deliberate, pounding strides towards the heavy door, making spears rattle in a display case of ceremonial weapons as he went past.

“You’ll forgive him, I hope,” Call said in a low voice. “The poor lad’s not been himself today.”

A decidedly reptilian sound lifted along the corridor, echoing slightly amid the stained-glass windows, bouncing off the fraudulent histories and landing around the two stallions. Chills slithered down their spines at the sound.

“No foolin’?” Carbon Copy said, emerging from behind the older archivist.

They watched Spike go forward, the rattle in his voice sounding like a croak wrapped inside a growl, escaping him with a seething hiss added for good measure.

Spike went forward, approaching the Lord Chamberlain and the Sergeant-at-Arms as his head hung slightly to the side. He did not look up at them as he advanced, and instead looked downwards and at an angle, as though suggesting that the world was askew, he alone keeping the secret of the proper alignment of reality.

The Lord Chamberlain looked down across him judgmentally, and the Sergeant at his side joined him in renewing their mutual scowl.

Still, Spike did nothing. He did not speak or return their gaze. He did not move except for the roll of his lip moving to expose one fang.

The Lord Chamberlain felt his nerve leaving him. The stallion shifted his weight from side to side, and he shot a nervous glance at the sergeant. The older guardpony looked back at him, not quite knowing what to make of the whelp that stood before them.

“Name and business,” the Lord Chamberlain said, affecting his distant, dignified tone.

“Spike,” the drake replied, a challenging rumble in his tone. “To see Celestia.”

“Princess Celestia is holding court right now–” the stallion began.

“No, really?” Spike offered.

“–so unless you can proffer some real reason for me to permit you to enter,” he continued, ignoring the barb, “then I suggest that you remove yourself before–”

“I want my mommy!”

The four stallions startled, the sergeant’s helmet spinning around on his head as all of their eyes went wide. The wails of a child rang around them, and they looked at Spike as he clutched his haversack like a lost toddler would, seeking comfort in its folds.

“I-I want my mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Please, mister, I-I miss her so much!” Spike cried, his voice rising above even the din of the courtiers’ voices beyond the door. “S-She–she’s in there with the nice stallion who said he could help us k-keep our house, and… and…”

“Oh! Oh, kid, I’m sorry!” the Lord Chamberlain said, his cold, distant demeanor dropping away at once. He nodded to the Sergeant-at-Arms, and together they stepped aside, allowing him passage. “Go right ahead, buddy, go right ahead… I’m sure that she’s in there…”

The sniffling dragon whelp wiped his eyes and slowly walked towards the door.

“Oh, hey,” Spike said, curling his lip into a smirk, “thanks… buddy.”

With a self-satisfied wink, the dragon entered the throne room, leaving a startled and disbelieving pair of court officers to ponder what had just transpired.

For a fleeting moment, the quartet of stallions simply stood there blinking at one another.

“He… he just…” began the Lord Chamberlain. “We just let…”

“As I said,” Artificer Call said, clearing his voice as he watched a scowl creep across the sergeant’s face, “he hasn’t been quite himself today.”

“No foolin’?” Carbon Copy repeated.

The sergeant gave a deep, steaming huff and moved to pursue the little liar. Yet before he had even wheeled around, sounds of general disagreement arose from beyond the door. There was a flurry of motion, and at once a small figure came bouncing out, tumbling along the carpet.

“Well then, my deceptive friend,” the sergeant barked, “somepony didn’t buy the crying act? Serves you right! Now, once you’ve given us an apology, you’ll wait out here like a good little liar until–”

The sound that escaped Spike’s throat at that moment could only be described as draconic. It was unlike any sound that a pony could make, and it made a primal part of them slink in fear, only the sergeant not blanching… even if he went silent.

Power loomed behind the sound, a wild, feral ugly force that not only spilled from his throat but also sat engraved on Spike’s features. They were wrong, all of them, all of the fools. They deserved the force that sat in his throat, behind his eyes...

Hate.

Spike wheeled away from the court officers, the spade of his tail slamming against the sergeant’s spear and making it threaten to topple to the floor. Spike didn’t look back, and instead he marched across the carpet to the opposite wall, past the weapon rack. As he did his head once more fell back into its slight angle, the effect unnerving those who stood nearby, and they lifted and dropped their hooves as they looked at him.

“Well… as I said, the lad’s not been himself today,” Artificer Call whispered.

“No foolin’,” answered Carbon Copy.

An uneasy silence settled over the hallway once again. The eyes of the four stallions sat on Spike, watching as he walked up and down the corridor, but the whelp did not care. He could not care.

Celestia was on the other side of those doors.

Celestia was there, and she would answer his questions.

Celestia would explain herself.

Spike’s lip curled again, exposing his one fang so that its whiteness sat in deep contrast to the faded purple of his scales. His inner eyelids flashed, and a rolling croak hung in his throat as his eyes coasted up and down the stained-glass windows, each one resplendent in their lies.

His eyes flashed to the one where his own figure stood in absurd abstract, grasping for the Crystal Heart. He growled, knowing that it had been useless. His one act of “heroism” was an invention, a falsehood.

It would have worked out better if Sombra had won.

His body turned, gazing towards the newest window… the greatest blasphemy, the greatest fairy tale to be presented to the ponies in their history.

Princess Twilight Sparkle Harmonia hovered over him, the new wings that marked her apotheosis to an alicorn standing out wide as a serene look of happiness sat across her features. Only her closed eyes matched her actual reality, that of a prisoner in the Ward of the Living Dead.

His eyes fell to the two books below Twilight’s stained-glass avatar. Starswirl’s tome sat there, the damned thing grafted to Twilight’s story. Her own spellbook sat there as well. All that he could think of was how he should be in this window, taking her dictation, scribbling away happily in her book.

No. This window shouldn’t exist. This window was a sin.

A growl rattled in his throat as he turned around, unable to look upon it any more. His eyes met those of Artificer Call and Carbon Copy briefly before turning to the wall beyond.

The stand of ceremonial weapons stood there, and he cast his eyes over them once more. Ornate spears, halberds, spurs, and even the torches used in evening processions awaited the next call to parade the princesses through the streets. He focused on something, on some simple, shimmering aspect of the weapons that sat before him, and as he did a thought flashed through his mind.

Spike walked towards the stand.

“Spike?” Artificer Call asked. “Do… do be careful, lad.”

Spike had slipped just out of view of the Lord Chamberlain and the Sergeant-at-Arms. But when they heard Artificer Call’s implore, they threw each other a very, very worried look and then abandoned their prescribed places before the door. They trotted forward, looking to where the dragon had disappeared.

They discovered him just in time to see Spike lowering his arms. In his claws sat one of the items that just a few moments before had sat in the weapons rack, and a twisted smile sat across the dragon’s face.

“Spike, listen to me, lad,” Artificer Call said, stepping closer to the whelp. “I can’t approve of you...”

Spike lifted his prize higher.

“Oh… oh dear,” Call said, blanching. “Oh, Spike. Lad… don’t…”

When the other three stallions realized what was about to happen, their eyes went wide. They backpedalled a few steps, the Lord Chamberlain even losing his balance as he tripped across the edge of the carpet.

A smirk once more rolled across Spike’s face as he held it in his hands, and his eyes narrowed upon this wonderful, simple tool that now sat at his disposal. Opportunities opened up before him, and vindication burned behind his emerald eyes.

Spike chuckled.

He would be heard.

The parliamentary mace banged on the floor of the throne room, reverberating above the sounds of the courtiers and their idle chit-chat.

“Presenting Crab Cakes, the Lord Mayor of Baltimare and its environs,” Prime Minister Fancypants called, his magic hefting the mace once more. “Today, Highness, he speaks to the issue of land acquisition, expansion, and eminent domain, docket number eleven-eighty-seven.”

Princess Celestia nodded to the Lord Mayor, bidding him to rise. She listened carefully as he detailed this, that, and the other thing, paging through the documents in the docket as she followed along in her own copies. Her magic gently slid among the pages, lifting each one with care.

She let her eyes settle on the figure of the mayor below, the smile on her face never wavering as he went through his practiced speech. She nodded at his salient points, weighing each one against the evidence he presented…

…just as she had for the hundreds, if not thousands of times the exact same conversation had floated around this ancient seat of power.

Celestia lifted her head once more, examining the crowd of ponies that made up her court. The fine lords, barons, and baronesses, the officious civil servants, the bemused politicians, the stoic guards... each in their prescribed place, each fulfilling the role that their marks had presented them.

How very, very, very long she had worked to make all this happen. How very, very, very much she had given up to ensure that it would work.

Her eyes settled back upon the Lord Mayor of Baltimare, watching as he made his last few points. She listened intently, acknowledging him with nods and the small smile that often played out across her features… just as she had the tens of thousands of Lord Mayors, petitioners, parliamentarians, and ponies of all kinds who had done the same over the millennia.

Celestia allowed herself a small internal sigh, as she did every decade or so, and lamented the lack of variety and surprise in this world, the world of fine ponies in their beautiful clothes. They came and went in time, like the leaves on the trees, and the world that she had fought so hard to build revealed itself once more in the form of the court and the Lord Mayor who bowed before her, completing his presentation.

“Thank you, Crab Cakes,” she said, in a congratulatory tone, “you certainly make a convincing argument, and I will take your points into consideration.”

As he smiled, bowed, and retreated from her presence, Celestia could see the shadows of innumerable ponies clinging to him, his story being just the latest rendition of a long-told tale. The mace sounded out around the throne room, and the murmur of the crowd shifted as a few attempted to present cards to the heralds.

Celestia watched Fancypants sort through the cards, looking for notable names and important figures that required her attention… just as his many, many, many predecessors had. He nodded his head and yet another figure emerged from the court, the cycle restarting once more.

Inside the ancient alicorn, a small voice whimpered, asking for some relief from the routine. She quickly extinguished it, reminding herself what she had given up, how all of Equus had suffered to make this possible…

…even if, yes, some small change would be nice.

A rotund stallion came forward. His mane was slicked back, and it seemed to be swimming with styling grease, applied liberally to cover up the balding spaces upon his brow. Celestia’s eyes rolled at his embarrassment, if only in her own mind. As though something as banal as baldness would make her disregard the words of…

…her ears twitched, turning slightly to catch a new noise, one coming from deep within the crowd of her court.

Prime Minister Fancypants banged the mace once more, attempting to quiet the growing voices of the crowd.

“Presenting Minister of Parliament Rubber Stamp,” Fancypants began, speaking slightly louder than normal, “elected by the ponies of Manehattan to represent the… Great Flaming Pits of Tartarus!”

Fancypants’ voice went high with shock. His eyes wide as he saw the catalyst of the crowd’s shrieks, as he beheld that which parted them like wheat before a scythe.

“Actually, it’s the tenth electoral district,” Rubber Stamp said, only slowly becoming more aware of the disturbance behind him, “it’s… it’s a nice district, a great place to… to… drag me to the Well of Souls…”

Celestia’s mouth came open in the slightest, her eyes revealing a moment of shock as she registered what was transpiring before her.

A mare’s high scream shot through the court, and at once anypony that had not been aware of what was transpiring was dragged to awareness. They were quickly made to see the great, towering plume of black smoke that lifted from amid the crowd. They were made to smell the stink of burning oils. They were made to watch as ponies fled from the spectacle, dropping fans, monocles, and other trappings of elitism as they scurried to safety like scared foals.

The smoke was black, viscous. It rose to the ceiling in thick tendrils. It drifted out over the assembly in oily rings, lingering on the still air of the throne room. Soot drifted down from the plume lazily, settling like a darkened snow across the ponies gathered behind the columns, the black ashes falling over them as they hid behind the potted plants and pieces of art that lined the throne room.

Only then, only once the multitudes had fled from the specter, only once they had huddled in safety, could Celestia see from what the calamity rose.

A solitary figure appeared in the base of the ashy column, its outline visible through the pall of smoke. Flames consumed it—long cords of a vengeful fire rooted in magic. From within the conflagration of green flames, two emerald eyes fixed her in a gaze, the vision of the holocaust’s lone inhabitant reaching for her across the length of the throne room.

There were hundreds of demons of myth and history, of dark places where her sun had fought to illumine, of ancient history and deeper mysteries that could make such an entry. There were any number of monsters and foes from her own life that would presume to intrude upon her home like this…

…but, as she searched through the eyes that sat in the flames, she knew it was no monster, no demon.

It was a little boy… one in immeasurable pain.

Two Royal Guards streaked in, and as they did a reptilian roar lifted from the figure, the rattle of it catching in its throat. Before they could reach him, something crystalline flashed through the air, catching the emerald sheen of the eyes and the flames.

The fire entombing the figure billowed higher and higher, fueled by the contents of the crystal glass, and the pegasi wheeled away. Their eyes flashed towards the approaching pillar of smoke and flame, to the other guards, Simple Script and Morning Mist, and to the Princess of the Sun herself.

“Guards,” she spoke, her voice calm and even, “it is well. This… this was not unexpected.”

The Royal Guards retreated with a few flaps of their wings, still watching the creature as it approached their princess. Gelatinous globs of thick, clumping oil fell from it as it came forward, leaving pools of green fire in its wake, devastating a carpet that had been the life’s work of a great artisan, burning holes in the fabric and highlighting the figure as it came forward.

The entire assembly went silent, their minds wrapping around her words even as the alicorn lifted herself from her throne. Their eyes darted between the princess and the burning figure who now stood only a few paces apart. The pall of smoke danced across the pillars and columns, dropping ash around the both of them.

Celestia sighed audibly, and then settled her face across the smoldering demon.

“Hello, Spike,” she said.

Two fangs appeared inside the conflagration, revealing more teeth that stood in stark whiteness, curling up into a smile.

Oh, for Pursopolis, thy gleaming domes sitting astride the ways and streams.

A gasp went around the room, catching amid the crackling flames that riddled the carpet.

“Heya, Princess,” the whelp said with a throaty chuckle. “Do ya mind if I smoke?”

Oh, for Pursopolis, eternal city of wonders.

“Spike, please,” Celestia said, her voice calm as she lowered her head slightly, searching for the emerald light of his eyes. “Please, there is no need for this. Please, we–”

“Oh, hey!” the dragon interrupted, his head lifting through the swirls of smoke. “Oh! I’ve always wanted to do this!” He turned towards Fancypants, a streak of emerald light lingering in the blackness of the ash as he fixed the prime minister in a glare. “You gotta announce me, Fancy!”

“Th-there’s already a petitioner on the floor,” Fancypants said, lifting his hoof towards a suddenly very silent Rubber Stamp.

“Hey! Do ya mind if I go before ya?” Spike asked, flashing the minister of parliament a fang-filled smile. “I’ve got this burning need to talk to the princess!”

“Fine!” Rubber stamp said, tripping over his own hooves as he retreated from the demon before him. “That’s fine!”

Oh, for Pursopolis, her streets teeming, her larders full, her citizens shining and mirthful.

“Pr-presenting… oh dear,” Fancypants said.

“Spike,” a voice answered from within that smoke and ash.

“Presenting Spike the… well, I…” Fancypants said, fumbling with the mace.

“Spike the Dragon!” the drake cried, new torrents of flame lifting from him. “Number One Assistant to Princess Twilight Sparkle Harmonia! Bang the freakin’ mace already!”

Spike bowed deep as Prime Minister Fancypants sounded the mace, marking Spike’s petition as the one that now stood before the ancient alicorn. The dragon’s eyes stayed lifted to Celestia, watching her as he painted the farce of supplication, of bowing to her with an unnecessary and sardonic flourish. He chuckled as more drops of the thick oil fell from him, creating new pools of fire on the carpet, burning away great swaths of the ornate rug.

Oh, for Pursopolis, lost to time and a tyrant’s touch, afflicted by a bane beyond thought.

There was motion, and Spike lifted from his bow just in time to see the Royal Guards making their way towards him, approaching him stealthily as he still sat deep in his bow.

At once Spike spun around, and a reptilian growl once more escaped through his fangs, the sound curling in hisses as it slid past the forked end of his slithering tongue. His clawed hand moved quickly, bringing up the crystalline glass once more.

Celestia’s eyes flashed, and in an instant she recognized the container and its contents. It was used to hold the oils that lit the torches that would be carried in processions through the starlit nights of Canterlot. Now, Spike was using the antique for his own purposes, and some part of her faded as she saw him lift it over his body..

The thick, fatty oil spilled from the glass, and sheets of green flame swelled from the boy once again, enveloping him fully and sending more clouds of smoke high into the vaults of the ceiling.

Oh, for Pursopolis, the fallen city. How my heart does ache at the sight of her now! How we weep and beat our hooves upon the ground at the thought that all the glory has come out of her, for she is enthralled to Sombra’s will.

“Spike, please,” she said, bidding the guards to back away. As they did she moved closer to him, moving as close as she could as the ash swirled around her like an unholy snowfall. “Spike, there is no need for such theatrics.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure there is,” he said, the words leaving him in a miserable croak. “I’m pretty sure that you’re gonna listen to me more if I’m on fire. Call it a hunch.”

The lips of the demon warped into a smirk… and then fell down into a scowl.

“You’re gonna listen to me, and then you’re finally gonna tell me everything!” he cried. “You’re gonna tell me why you’ve been lying to me… lying to all of Equestria! Lying to Twilight!”

Spike threw the crystal glass aside as his voice arose in a shriek. The glass toppled along, spilling the last of its contents along the carpet, igniting new little fires as the waxy oil clung to the fabric.

Finally, the glass crashed against one of the pillars, sending more waves of confused panic through the dignified ponies that sheltered there in hiding from the fiery demon.

When the glass shattered, many things happened.

When the glass shattered, it sent a spray of shards bouncing across the fine marble floor of the throne room. The pieces spun a bit before finally coming to a rest against the distant wall. There they sat, each piece catching the shafts of light that fell through the tall stained-glass windows…

…each piece catching the light that fell across the unmoving alicorn who stood silently over him. Tiny rainbows, mimics of one sitting against a wall in a hospital room a few streets away, joined them as they stood upon the smoldering remains of the rug.

When the glass shattered, the sound resonated around the room and filled the ears of all who stood there in confusion and fear. It caught in the ears of the nobles, each fighting to understand what could be going on, why the little dragon could presume to speak with their sovereign so. It caught in the ears of the guardponies, each looking to each other as they tried to determine the best course of action.

It even filled the ears of the princess, fighting for her attention as centuries of hopes and plans sat stark and raw before her mind’s eye.

When the glass shattered, it made a little dragon do something he wouldn’t normally do.

When the glass shattered, it made him curse a pony who he loved.

“Buck you!” Spike cried, turning his body slightly and throwing a finger forward in accusation. “I know it all now! I figured it all out!”

We had entered the city quietly, and under wards of protection. In those streets marched dark things, for Sombra had marked the city as his own. Now, we made our way towards the common wherein the Cyrodenne Fountain sat and bubbled, unseen by crystal ponies, for he had removed all as thralls to the seat of his power.

A space opened up amid the swirls of fire and smoke that sat over Spike, and the haversack appeared out of the ash briefly, whatever material the brown surface was made of protecting the contents. The dragon fished around within, pushing aside the torn royal seal, the writ, the oven mitt, and the inexplicable box of Mairsy Dotes, his gaze never shifting from the alicorn as he fished through it.

It was by no small miracle that he didn’t set all of the contents on fire. He let out a low rumble, a warning to the encircling guards, as his hands found what he had been searching for.

“We got a book! It was a journal, diary, thing of a soldier who fought for the Crystal Empire back when Sombra came to power!”

Spike lifted the page that he had torn out of the soldier’s memoirs, holding it high above him, holding it before her like a prophet of old presenting a text of truths.

“It says that–”

A tendril of flames lashed out, and with that the words of the long-dead soldier were lost to history.

Spike blinked once, realizing his error. He scowled as the ashes drifted through his fingers.

“– it said that the Pillar of the Sun was there already when they tried to get Pursopolis back from Sombra!”

Yet there in the shadows of the streets loomed malice, and we knew at once what it was. Our knees knocked as we rounded the corner, and there before us sat the temple, the new vault within which we knew must rest one of the Pillars.

At once we fell to the stones, and wails escaped us. Our own fears fed it, our own hatred fueled it, and in coming we had only made it that much stronger. Oh, for Pursopolis! Who could free her now? For only one of the Pillars could be here so arrayed…

“The journal said that they knew who it belonged to!”

…for Sombra had gone to Kotkankoto, and Aarne’s Talon alone could be the Pillar entombed within. And, if Aarne could not his own treasure keep, then…

“The soldier knew that Aarne had lost his Pillar, Talon… that thing to Sombra! He knew what it was! He knew what it was for!”

…even Celestia Invictus can not come to us, can not free Pursopolis…

“You knew what it was for! You know what the Pillars are for!”

…for they are the bane of alicorns. Weapons are they, made to steal out their magic, to drown them and make sacrifices of their beauty and grace. Now, without that hope, we fail, and Pursopolis must fade and die, for an alicorn alone could stay Sombra. Knowing this we cast ourselves upon the rocks. We called out curses to the blackened sky and beat our hooves upon the ground. Now no alicorn could come. Oh, Pursopolis! All courage is gone! All hope is dead.

Spike stood there panting, his breath heaving in his chest. The flickers of flame were leaving him slowly, and patches of his purple scales were beginning to appear across his face and body.

He wiped his arm across his face, and then flicked more of the flames to the carpet. There they burned away more swaths of the fabric as his revelations did the same with layers of hidden history.

“You knew. You knew,” he said, lifting his finger to her again. “You knew all along what the Pillar of the Sun was… that it was Aarne’s Talon. That’s what you didn’t wanna tell me in the hospital.”

“Yes,” Celestia breathed.

“You know, you’ve known forever and ever that Sombra had taken it somehow, that Aarne had lost it to him,” Spike said in a hiss. “You knew that Sombra had somehow stolen it from the griffons.”

Celestia blinked slowly, and then replied with a quiet “Yes.”

“And here’s the best part. Ya ready for this? It’s buckin’ gold,” Spike said, a self-satisfied chuckle hanging around his words. More of the flames were leaving him, and the whelp slowly emerged from a fog of fire and smoke. “The best part is… you made somethin’, somethin’ that you thought would help you against the Pillar of the Sun, against all of the Pillars. The Zenith.”

“I did not make the Zenith,” Celestia whispered. “But I suspect that does not matter to your story at large.”

“Buck yeah it does!” Spike shouted. There was movement, and he looked up with a sneer, expecting to see more Royal Guards advancing on him. Instead all that met him were the deeply concerned faces of Artificer Call and Carbon Copy, the older unicorn and younger researcher standing in the distance beyond the rolling waves of heat that rippled across the room.

Spike’s sneer didn’t fade.

“I’ve got another story! This one is the tale of a great big minotaur hero guy and his magic hammer!” Spike said, tapping his haversack, not wanting to reveal the book and make the same mistake as he had with the journal. “It says that he came to you to ask for the Zenith… but that you didn’t have it anymore! You had given it to Aarne! Only the griffons know where it is now, right? Ha! How’d that work out for ya?”

Spike chuckled once again.

“So, long story short… Sombra parked a deathtrap meant to kill you in your own backyard, and you lost the key to turn it off!”

The slightest hints of surprise went across the face of the Firstborn Alicorn, and they were not lost on the dragon that stood there smoldering before her. His flames gave another long, forceful flare, and the boy within them did not lift his eyes from hers.

A complete change washed over Spike, and the little dragon hunched over, his face twisting to reveal his fangs once more.

“So,” he said, his voice trembling with accusation, “you made a new key.”

A flash of recognition went across the face of the ancient alicorn. “Do not say,” Celestia said, her voice low but firm, “what you are about to say.”

“You made a new key,” Spike continued, not heeding her warning, staring back up into her face. “You waited for centuries for just the right moment to come along… just the right pony to come along…”

“Spike,” she pled softly, “do not.”

“You waited and waited until a super-smart, super-magical pony came along–”

“You need to understand…”

“–who you could teach to become an alicorn.”

The entire room went stark silent. There was no motion.

“You tricked Twilight into becoming an alicorn!” he cried, throwing his fist forward until it hovered right before the Princess of the Sun, before the newfound object of his wrath. “You lied to her. You’ve lied to everypony! For! Centuries! You lied to me! You tricked her into becoming an alicorn so that, that–”

His voice rose even higher, shredding and breaking as he leveled the most obscene accusation that any in the room could imagine across the ancient incarnation of the sun itself.

“–you tricked her into becoming an alicorn so that, when the Crystal Empire finally came back, she would die there instead of you!”

There was no movement in the room, and no pony within even seemed to draw a breath. The final flames fell from him, revealing a portrait of a boy lost in fear, wrath, anger, and confusion. His face was twisted in rage, and his emerald eyes harbored ferocity that none had ever seen across him.

Even the guards who were stealthily advancing upon him stopped in their steps, transfixed by the image he presented and the weight of the horrific accusation that sat in his words.

“You grew Twilight like a great big pumpkin! You grew her just to get carved up by that… that thing! It was all a lie! The coronation, the test against Sombra! The ‘I’m so proud of you, my favorite student!’ You… you just gave her wings so that she could find out where it is! You planned it all out so that Twilight would get murdered so you could figure out where it was… you planned for her to die because you lost your key!”

The force that rocketed through the throne room made the chandeliers swing on their stanchions, blew out the candles and lanterns and sent them toppling to the floor, and annihilated the final flickering flames that sat upon the long carpet.

The howling wind that arose in the throne room threw the guardponies to the ground, making them whinny and kick like wild horses, all trace of their Equestrian intellects departing them as they struggled against the torrents of force that flowed from the alicorn.

“I am many things, Spike the Dragon, and I am the first to admit that not all of them are good and kind!” she said, her voice echoing inside itself. Celestia now glowed with her own light, the allegation having called up emotions from deep within the mare, ones that she had fought long and hard over centuries to bridle.

“But the one thing I am not is cruel!” she said, her voice still echoing around the room, the hair of her mane drifting out behind her on currents of wind and enchantments. “You alone, Spike, can imagine the pain in my heart as I watch Twilight lie there in that–”

“Prove it!”

The little voice lifted above the cascading din of air and magic. It reached for her in a plaintive shriek.

“Prove it!” Spike called again.

Celestia looked down to see him clinging to the burned remains of the carpet, his claws digging deep into the fibers, finding purchase there, refusing to back down or give way in front of the mare that now stood before his judgment. She watched as Spike lifted his eyes to her, once more indicting her with his glare.

The winds began to recede, and Celestia of fair face and peaceful countenance once more emerged. Her mane went back to drifting silently on the solar winds that surrounded her, and the fierce light that had enveloped her subdued itself.

“How would you have me prove myself, Spike?” she asked. She watched as he pulled his claws out from the torn carpet. He lifted his face to hers, and as their eyes met she saw that he held a swath of the rug in his hands, folding it over and over..

“T-tell me that you didn’t know,” he said, staring up to her. “Tell me that you didn’t know that the Pillar of the Sun was in the Crystal Empire. Promise me that you didn’t know that Twilight would be in danger. Tell me that you didn’t know that… that thing was there, that it would hurt her.”

Celestia closed her eyes.

The princess of the sun took a deep breath as nearby guardponies struggled to their hooves as quietly as possible, each one anticipating her response. Looks of confusion sat on their normally emotionless faces, and the crowd of ponies that sat behind the pillars leaned forward, joining the guards in their expectation.

“Tell me. Promise me,” Spike said through gritted teeth, once more lifting his face as high as he could, raising himself up on his toes so that he could bring himself as close to her face as possible. “Promise me that you didn’t know.”

He stood there, wavering on his toes, rocking forward and back and folding and wrapping the torn fragment of the rug in his hands over and over until a sigh escaped Celestia’s lips. The eyes of the sovereign came open. She let her gaze drift to the great arches overhead where fine cords of smoke and ash still lingered, and then spoke.

“I can not truthfully tell you those things, Spike.”

The fabric dropped from his hands.

Spike stopped rocking, and whispers flit around the room. He stopped trying to lift himself farther and farther into her face.

He stopped breathing.

The whelp crumpled to the floor. Whatever part of him still believed that Celestia was innocent of these… these sins, fell away and left him standing in the darkness of her admission.

He sat there, on the charred carpet, supported only by his own two weak, outstretched arms. His head wobbled as he swam in her words. Finally, he forced himself to breathe, and to speak.

“You’re horrible…”

“Spike, please,” she said, seating herself before him.

“You’re awful,” he moaned. “You’re… you’re a monster…”

Shocked whispers of indignation went through the crowd.

“You’re a monster,” he said, flopping about on the rug, pulling at it with his claws, ripping at it and shredding it. “You’re a monster.”

“Spike, I beg of you, ask me one more question,” she said, dipping her head low, pushing it as close to him as she dared. “Spike, ask me if I love Twilight. Ask me if I ever wanted any of this to happen.”

Spike’s head wobbled, and he fought to lift himself from the blacked carpet on trembling arms, looking for the entire world more like a newly hatched chick than a young dragon.

Spike stared through her eyes. He looked deep inside them. He forced his will into hers, the last month of pain and fear hovering in his eyes as a child’s features made demands on an ancient face, one that has seen things far beyond his comprehension.

“Do you love her?” Spike asked.

“Yes,” Celestia answered.

Spike paused, gauging the alicorn.

“Did you plan this out so that Twilight would get hurt?” he asked. “Was that your plan? To make Twilight die?”

“No,” she answered.

Spike searched through her features, looked deep into her eyes. He found no duplicity there, but that fact brought him no comfort.

Spike shriveled into a heap, fighting to keep himself steady as he collapsed upon the ruins of the carpet. He stared at the torn, burnt remains as more and more questions flew through his mind. She knew that sending Twilight would get her hurt, possibly killed? She knew that thing was there, in the empire, but she didn’t know where? She knew all about the Pillar of the Sun, about Aarne’s Talon… but she still loved Twilight? She didn’t send her there on purpose?

These questions hovered around him as venturesome ponies began to breathe sighs of relief. Proud hooves began to emerge from behind the pillars, and some small voices were heard.

“I don’t get it,” he said, moving his head slightly, watching as the aristocracy began reclaiming its rightful place. “I-I don’t get… what…”

“Spike,” Celestia said, lifting a hoof towards him. “We all know what you have been through these last weeks, this month, but there is no need to make wild, baseless accusations. I forgive you this trespass, because I know you meant the best by it…”

Spike recoiled, but bit his long, thin tongue before his greatest weapon, his snark, could dig him an even deeper hole. The dragon, though, had not asked for forgiveness… and had certainly not offered it. Celestia had admitted that she knew. She had told him that she could not say that she was blissfully unaware of that thing.

She had known. She knew. She was still at fault. She was still the onewho had delivered Twilight into this fate.

And, damn her eyes, she would do something.

Noble ponies moved forward once again, some even harrumphing and pressing cards towards Fancypants. Spike’s body shook around him, and his eyes narrowed as they dared steal this time from him, as they belittled Twilight by taking these moments away from him.

He turned his eyes up again, and his tired, foggy senses once more centering themselves on Celestia’s words.

“You’re gonna help her,” he said, cutting off the alicorn in the middle of a sentence, ending yet another repeating of fairy tales about how the doctors were doing their best, and how everypony wanted the best for him.

“Naw, what you’re gonna do is get the Kotkankotan… an… annan… an… griffon ambassador in here, and you’re gonna tell him that they need to find The Zenith!” Spike cried.

Celestia sighed again, and in the mass of ponies behind them some chuckles broke out. A dim view of Spike’s diplomatic abilities began to spread among the group as they sensed the end of the drama.

Spike ignored them utterly.

“Spike, I can not make demands upon a foreign nation,” she said, holding her expression steady. “You know better than that.”

“Then… then you’re gonna send the girls! The other Elements of Harmony, Twilight’s friends…” Spike demanded.

“Do you not think that would arouse suspicion? Five of the mightiest heroes of Equestria suddenly appearing in a nation where we have, at best, strained relations? That they should begin inquiring about an ancient artifact, one that is somehow linked to a great and powerful weapon of their kind?” Celestia said. “In fact, I do believe they are already aware. You have been less than stealthy with your gathering of information, Spike, and–”

“I don’t care!”

Snickers arose from the crowd. The little dragon, now shorn of his flaming cloak, was quickly going from being a threat to making a spectacle of himself. They rolled their eyes and pressed forward, each trying to look on the source of all of the excitement.

“I don’t care!” Spike repeated. “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care! You… you need to do something, anything! Send the army! Send the navy!”

“I am fairly certain that would be construed as an act of war, Spike,” Celestia said, shaking her head.

The crowd silenced themselves even as they came forward, the mere mention of the word “war” being enough to silence any other concerns, especially when mentioned here in the very seat of Equestria’s government.

“Send ‘em anyway,” the dragon muttered. “Send the Royal Guards. Send the whole Regular Army. Make the ships go. I don’t care. I don’t care…”

Celestia looked across him once more, watching as the child pulled at the threads of the carpet.

And, once again, she began pulling at the chain of sins that bound them together.

“Spike,” she said as she draped her magic across him, “you don’t mean that.”

He felt himself being drawn nearer to the princess, and soon she had gathered him close to her so that he rested against her tall, white legs. It was a hug, of sorts, the princess pressing him to her closeness as she sat over him.

It was supposed to be comforting, like when Twilight held him. But it didn’t feel like Twilight. It made him twitch, something deep inside him heaving with revulsion at being close to the Daybringer, some deep part of him rejecting her.

It didn't feel like being close to Twilight in the slightest.

Once again he was being coddled. Once again, his deeper, darker thoughts told him, he was being mollified, pacified… once again a pony was soothing him as though he were a little baby foal, one who simply had awoken from a nightmare and who needed to be patted and given his bottle before being put down again.

But the nightmare wasn’t ending.

The nightmare had gone on for a month, and now, at this most desperate moment, now, when he thought that he had forced the issue, that he had laid all stark and bare before the one pony in the world who could answer his questions, the one who could actually do something about the unfairness and injustice of it all… he found himself being coddled again.

A little thought grew in his mind. A shadow of an idea, birthed amid the clutter of four weeks of hovering at Twilight’s bedside, sprouted in the farthest reaches of his perception.

It unwrapped and unwound itself, blossoming across his thoughts. The idea grew and took root, sending tendrils deep through his mind, shooting new determination up into his conscious like budding leaves.

New hope shot through him. It crashed into him like a mighty wave thrown against a breakwater during a storm. Hope. How delicious it was. How the long absence of the taste of hope had left him unsatisfied. Now he drank it in abundance, and berated himself for not realizing the elegant, easy solution sooner.

It was so simple. It was so utterly simple.

“I’ll go.”

His little words drifted around the room, catching in the ears of a few of the aristocratic ponies. He ignored them, caring only for the reaction of the alicorn that hovered over him, stroking his frills.

“I’ll go,” Spike repeated. “I’ll go to Kotkankaka… Kotkankotta. Kot…”

“Kotkankoto,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he continued, pushing himself out of her embrace, “the griffin country, place. I’ll find the Zenith. I’ll… I dunno, but whatever it takes… whatever it takes.”

Celestia pulled him back against her legs… and pulled on the chain once more.

“Spike, that is very brave of you… but I cannot allow it,” she said, wincing inwardly as he startled against her leg.

“B-but, no! I… if you’re not going…” he began, once more trying to pull away from her.

His hope. She was stealing his hope. That cool, refreshing cup was being lifted away from his dry, cracked lips.

“You are dedicated, loyal, and caring, Spike, and I do not doubt that you mean those words in complete sincerity. But it is a fool’s errand, and you are no fool. You know of nothing that it would require, and we have already said why I have no pony to send with you,” she said, gently running her hoof across his frills.

“Then… then I’ll go alone,” he answered, staring at the floor, his arms down to his side.

She pulled on the chain once more, hefting more links around them.

“You would not last long, Spike. You are now truly scaring me, as I can see how utterly serious you are about this,” she said, wafting her magic around them, trying to calm him. “No, Spike, I forbid it. I forbid you from trying to seek the Zenith. Am I understood?”

There was a pause, and the sounds of aristocratic ponies chatting drifted around the throne room.

Spike settled back against her tall, white legs. Her boots were cold, and there was no comfort in the embrace for him. It certainly did not compare to the hugs Twilight had given.

It just didn’t feel like Twilight.

“I’m… forbidden?” he asked.

Celestia gave one last mighty heave on the chain of sins that had bound her for millennia.

“Yes,” she said with a small smile and a laugh, “but please do not think too harshly of me for it, Spike. I simply wish to keep you from pain. Can I not offer you anything? A room here in the palace? You would still be quite close to Twilight. Maybe some gems to eat, to get your strength back? All of these and more are yours, Spike, for the asking. You have dwelt under my protection all of your life, and there is little I will not grant you, if it will help you recover yourself. You know that.”

He listened to the temptations, and the temptress, who offered him such pleasures. He wiped his head across her legs, just above the cold boots, pondering her offer.

“Princess,” he asked in a weak voice, “if I still tried to go, what would that make me?”

“Well, I suppose that going against my law would make you… an outlaw!” she said with a little laugh, nearby barons and duchesses joining in. “And as such, you’d have no gems to eat or nice places to stay. That wouldn’t be very nice, would it?”

“Oh,” he answered.

Celestia ran her hoof across his frills, stroking him, coddling him. Spike turned his face up to hers. He sighed heavily, and his stomach rumbled at the thought of the gems. His heavy, exhausted eyes drifted over the images of the soft, warm beds that were in ample supply in the palace. Temptations… they were temptations.

His mind flashed back to Twilight. The princess was stealing his hope, taking that cup from his parched lips. She was stopping him from keeping his promise.

He grimaced inwardly. The rest was easy.

“Princess?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes, Spike?” she answered sweetly.

“I guess that makes me an outlaw, huh?”

His fangs sank deep into her leg, just above her boot.

The aristocrats looked on, their mouths hanging open in awestruck terror and disbelief.

Their ears filled with the cries of their sovereign, and they watched as she reeled back, shrieking in pain as the whelp dug his teeth into her leg. They witnessed the blood flow across his lips and fly from her punctured limb as she spun about.

They watched as the child went thudding to the floor, once, twice, three times as the alicorn tried to shake him loose. They watched as his grip upon her slipped, leaving a streak of crimson across the torn carpet as he bounced along the rug.

They watched as the two royal guard earth ponies, Silent Script and Morning Mist, leapt upon the boy, pressing him beneath their hooves.

“Steady on! Calm down!” Morning Mist cried.

“Stay down! Stay! Down!” Simple Script spat, pressing himself across the little whelp.

Spike snarled, hissed, but it did him no good. He was pinned now, their front hooves pressing his legs, arms, and even the spade of his tail into the charred remains of the rug

Spike spat, swore, and rattled with unhappy, beastly sounds as he fought them and lifted his eyes to face the distant figure of Celestia.

She sat a few paces away, one foreleg wrapped around the other. The princess stared back at him impassively, her head slowly bobbing up and down, choking back the emotions that were flooding her ageless frame.

The crowd looked upon their princess, the assembly lost in what they had seen and heard. Her mane was frazzled, and the crown upon her head had come loose as she had reeled about in pain and shock. As they watched a single sort of hidden sniffle lifted from the alicorn and found their ears. The sound was met with the roll of a single tear, one that fell down her face and joined the growing puddle of blood that sat beneath her. As it dripped from her face it added a plop to the pat-pat-pat that the drops of crimson made as they trickled into a pool where she sat. It slowly spread across the marble floor, staining the remains of the carpet a distinctive hue.

Celestia swallowed, sighed, and then spoke to the heaving little boy that lay with his frame pressed to the rug he had mutilated with his fire and claws, held down upon it beneath the heavy hooves of her guards.

“Very well then, Spike the Dragon,” she said. “I see that I have put you in this position. I had allowed you this much freedom, the freedom to do what you thought best in regards to Princess Twilight. I see, now, the outcome of my choice.”

She attempted to straighten herself, but the second her wounded leg touched the floor she winced, and she lurched forward, drawing a gasp from the crowd.

The alicorn ignored them, pressing on even as she wrapped her leg in her own magic, stifling the blood.

“If you truly wish to be beyond my shelter, I so grant it,” she said, her voice never wavering. “I hereby remove from you the protections of my crown, my law, and my favor.”

Spike stopped struggling, and his face swam with the realization of what the alicorn truly meant by her words.

“I hereby place you under my judgment, no different than any stranger in my lands, even those who may seek to harm my little ponies. As of this moment you are remanded to the care of the Lord Protector of the Nursery until somepony can be designated as your new custodian…”

New custodian. New caregiver. Not Twilight. Not. Twilight.

“No,” the dragon breathed. “No.”

“Until that time you are to travel under guard–”

“No.”

“–and are only allowed to visit with Princess Twilight Sparkle at the hospital for one hour–”

All of the pain and suffering in the world suddenly floated across the boy’s features. Suddenly everything dark, unhappy, and evil in the world of the child spread across his face, making her blanch in the slightest.

“No,” he whimpered. “No.”

“–for three hours a day, also under guard,” she said, correcting herself. “This is to continue until you can be… evacuated… from Canterlot.”

“No,” Spike hissed, new reserves of vehemence filling the cup of hope that had been poured on the ground, that she had stolen from him. “No… no. Nooo!”

Spike struggled in the hooves of the guards, whipping his tail around, making Silent Script and Morning Mist shift themselves so that more of their bodies pressed against the heaving, hissing frame of the whelp.

He hissed and croaked, the unponylike sounds once more filling the throne room.

“Spike,” Celestia said, “I hope that you know that I am not doing this to hurt you–”

She waited a moment, holding her wounded leg close, as he finished thrashing about in a new fit of disdain.

“–but instead to make amends for… putting you through these last few weeks. It was obviously, very, very hard on you, and drew you to this sorry, unhappy state. As such, I forgive you.”

Spike beat himself against the floor once more, Silent Script and Morning Mist pressing against him and shushing him as the boy foamed and fumed. He did not want her forgiveness. He did not forgive her. “You?!” he cried, lifting his snout from amid the hooves of the guards. “You forgive me?! You forgive me?!” You horrible, old–”

Silent Script’s hooves lowered across Spike’s face, but the boy struggled against them. “I don’t forgive you!” he called. “I don’t–” The guard’s hoof came down on him again. His malice shone in the emerald of his eyes, catching in the vehemence that sat around him as fluidly as the iron taste of her blood on his tongue.

Seeing such, she began to drop the chain.

“In light of your wonderful service to Twilight and myself–” Celestia began..

“I-I don’t serve you! I. Don’t! Serve! You!” Spike called back, heaving under the weight of the two guardponies.

Chapter 14: Spike the Outlaw

Chapter 14: Spike the Outlaw

Fresh water always made her giggle.

She drifted in the current that poured across her from the river beyond with long, slow flicks of her flukes. The water of the river was so much lighter than the dense, dark seawater of the ocean. It played through the long strands of her hair, and the bubbles that had been captured in the water ran across the green and brown of her coat as her head rested gently on a large, smooth stone. They flitted along the undersides of her arms and tickled across the soft white of her chest and the green of her freckles.

Fresh water always made her giggle, and a spate of chuckles arose from her, expending the last of the air in her lungs. She released the rock and spun through the rising cloud of her own bubbles—each of her giggles captured in shining spheres that floated around her.

The morning light caught in the water that cascaded from her hair and ran in rivulets across her shoulders and muzzle when she broke the surface. The air was cool, and the water suddenly seemed that much warmer by comparison. She ran her fingers through her hair, humming all the while as her body adjusted to the fresh water that surrounded her.

Daddy had taught her how to do this.

Her eyes lowered, and suddenly she was filled with a heaviness that the light buoyancy of the fresh water alone could not explain. She found herself staring into her own eyes, regarding herself in the surface of the estuary’s still waters.

Once upon a time, Daddy had brought her to a freshwater lake. The selkie smiled again when she remembered her father’s arms wrapping around her, keeping her safe while they swam through the underwater passages that shimmered with thick layers of blue and white ice.

The passages had led through a glacier, and when they’d emerged from the shimmering tunnels her head had popped up in a lake that stood locked between the glacier and a forest of trees erupting in autumn colors.

It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

She had been excited; she had wanted to breach the waters and flip through the air.

But instead she had felt sick.

Daddy had held her hand. Daddy had taught her to breathe slowly, to let her body change and adapt to the fresh water. She recalled how proud he had been. She remembered him fixing her hair, adjusting the childish braids and ornaments that jingled in the glacial currents.

Daddy had taught her about fresh water. That had been a long time ago, though.

The little selkie stared into her reflection—and then beat at it with her hand, making the surface of the river shimmer and shake.

That was back when she could still talk to boys, before her voice had become poison to them.

That was back before Daddy had gone away…

… and Mommy only cared about Baby now.

She lifted her eyes. The river called to her, making her giggle some more. It tickled her as it ran across her coat.

Fresh water always made her giggle.

Mountains covered in snow sat in the far distance. The bright green of a young spring sat in the budding leaves of the trees that crowded near the banks of the winding blue ribbon.

A new world sat up that corridor. She could taste all of the delights it offered in the fresh water snaked through the estuary. She took a long series of deep breaths, filling her lungs with air over and over until her blood was saturated. Her eyes never left the river, and when her body told her that it was prepared for the journey, the selkie dived beneath the surface of the water without leaving so much as a ripple.

She powered forward into whatever new adventures, new discoveries, and new worlds awaited her. While she swam her smile only grew wider, and a new line of tiny little bubbles caught across her body before rising to the surface, marking her progress up the river.

Fresh water always made her giggle.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Spike said.

Silent Script and Morning Mist looked down at the boy that waddled along between them. His head was down, and a slight blush was going across his features.

“I’ll admit that I’m surprised, Spike,” Morning Mist said. “Why didn’t you go before we left the nursery?”

“I did!” Spike answered, a little snarl present in his tone. “It’s the hot cocoa from Joe’s!”

“Why didn’t you use the bathroom at Joe’s, may I ask?” Silent Script added.

“’Cause I didn’t have to go, then!” Spike answered. There was a snap in his voice, one that had not faded since the two earth pony guards had dragged him out of the throne room three days before. “Beside, I just want to get to Twilight…”

The royal guards looked at one another and rolled their eyes.

“You know better than that, Spike,” Morning Mist said.

“Whatever,” the dragon added, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes went down to the cobblestones and his clawed hands hovered at his side in the balled-up fists that had become his emblem since they had clenched tight in Celestia’s presence.

The trio went through the street, the guards doing their best to avoid drawing attention to the boy who walked between them, the little outlaw who was garnering stares from those ponies who had heard about his exploits. The two guards were strangely silent, their defining chatter lost to the judgmental gazes that the fell over their prisoner.

“Umm,” Spike whispered. The guards looked down to see his fingers dancing together, and a more contrite expression now sat across his face. “Ummm,” he repeated. “Thank you for the cocoa, I guess. It was good. Thanks… yeah…”

Morning Mist and Silent Script looked to one another once again, a small nod and smile passing between them. “You are most welcome, Spike,” Silent Script said. The mood lightened, and as the sounds of a morning in Canterlot drifted around them the two guards tried to engage the dragon in some word games. When that proved fruitless, Morning Mist decided to share a bit of palace scuttlebutt that he thought might lift the dragon’s spirits.

“Spike?” he asked. “Were you aware that the princess has selected a pony to be your guardian until…”

Morning Mist stopped in the middle of his sentence. His eyes fell over the figure of a little boy who was walking along with his knees that much closer together and a look of silent desperation in his eyes. “Oh, dear,” Mist said, throwing another look at Silent Script. “We forgot, didn’t we?”

“Can you hold it until we reach the hospital, Spike?” Silent Script asked, surprised at how a simple prisoner transfer had begun to sound like a family trip.

“Yeah… I guess,” Spike said. The dragon hopped from one foot to the next, and the group pushed forward with a new urgency.

“Stand aside, citizens!” Morning Mist called. “Make way! Excretory emergency!”

They turned down one street and then another in an increasingly desperate attempt to ward off any sudden leaks. The widening whites of Spike’s eyes showed them that such optimism was nothing but a forlorn hope.

“Nope, not gonna make it,” Spike said. His hands fell down into a rather undignified position, and a series of little hops made their way into his steps. “Gotta go. Gotta go right now…”

The guards lifted their heads, panning them around the marketplace. Nearby stood a local establishment. They stopped in mid-trot and focused Spike’s attention on the nearby storefront. “Come along, Spike,” Morning Mist said, gesturing towards what promised to be Spike’s salvation. The boy’s eyes lit up at the promise—and then went even wider in disbelief.

“Uh–uh! No! I’m not going in there! It’s… It’s… girly!” Spike said, raising his hands in protest before returning them to their indelicate placement.

What stood before the two stallions and their rapidly saturating charge was a salon, but one of the remarkable “all-day” types that provided immediate escape from worldly concerns for the exclusively female, and inescapably wealthy, clientele. Here, during their “mental health days” mares could shop, gossip, eat, gossip, receive hooficures, gossip, invest heavily in anything pink, and gossip.

In short, it was the sort of place that would reduce a boy who had once vehemently rejected the idea of attending the Grand Galloping Gala as “too frilly frou-frou” to fits.

“I don’t wanna… uh oh…”

“Well, that tears it. Come along, Spike,” Simple Script said. He grasped Spike by the cusp of the neck, and the dragon was carried into the perfumed depths of the salon looking very much like a kitten being carried along by its mother—complete with uncomfortable mewling.

A bell above the door jangled as the royal guards shouldered their way inside. In most cases that alone would have been enough to garner the attention of all within, but Morning Mist and Silent Script found themselves strangely ignored by the patrons.

“Citizen!” Silent Script said in an authoritative tone. “We have need for the individual in our custody to use your facilities. Are some available?”

“Bathrooms are for paying customers only, Honey,” said the mare behind the counter, not even bothering to look up while she filed her hoof.

Morning Mist and Silent Script gave each other rather unimpressed gazes. “Honey?” Silent Script mouthed. His partner merely shook his head in reply.

“Citizen!” Silent Script said once again, this time with more emphasis. “As a member of the Royal Guard, I must insist that—”

“Royal Guard?” she said, dropping her file. It clattered to her desk, and the faces of all the mares in the room turned in the direction of the two stallions and the dragon. “Royal Guard?” they said over and over, looking at the two masculine figures from behind mud masks, hair dryers, and plates of various chocolate confectioneries.

“Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it, Handsome?” the mare said to Script before turning to Mist. “What about you, Sexy?” she added, leaning across her hooves and batting her eyes at the two guards. “You here on business or pleasure?” A satisfied whistle and sounds of approval lifted in feminine tones from around the room, earning a puffed-up chest from Script and a deep blush from Mist.

“As stated previously, we are in desperate need of your bathroom facilities. Our ward is in distress,” answered a scarlet-hued Mist. He motioned to Spike, the boy’s face screwed up in desperation as he bounced from foot to foot.

“Sorry, Sexy,” the mare replied. Her eyes slowly slid down Mist’s frame until they finally settled across the whelp. “Bathrooms are for paying customers only, and—”

Her file went clattering to the desk again. The sound made the other mares in the room snap out of their shameless staring and notice the boy who stood between the guards.

“That’s him,” a mare’s voice announced. “That’s the dragon that bit Princess Celestia.”

Spike froze. Before he even knew what he had done, he pressed himself against Silent Script’s rear leg, hiding behind it like he did with Twilight’s limbs in his most uncertain moments. Still, even the reassuring bulk of the guardpony didn’t bring the sense of assurance that he sought. It didn’t feel like he was safe. It didn’t feel like Twilight.

It just didn’t feel like Twilight.

“Citizens, you have our assurances that any reports you may have received are greatly exaggerated. Spike the Dragon, though technically now outside Equestrian law, has simply been placed in such a disenfranchised state by Princess Celestia to afford greater options for his immediate care,” Silent Script said. “In short, he is no danger to you or your well-being, and deserves your pity and not your scorn. This is especially true considering that he is a small boy who is in desperate need of the bathroom!”

Script felt Spike’s hand tighten around him, the claws almost digging into his stifle. He brushed the feeling aside while the clientele of the salon focused on him, his file partner, and his little prisoner. Hushed murmurs went through the crowd of mares, and the three males began to feel the overwhelming, crushing force of feminine condemnation threatening to smother them. So thick and palpable was the cloud that sank over them that Morning Mist and Silent Script’s training kicked in, and the guardponies shrank into a closed formation, squeezing Spike between them.

In his current state, squeezing was the last thing that Spike needed. The little dragon whimpered, and his hands went back to their indelicate placement, calling the attention of all in the room back to his distress and discomfort.

A gentle hoof reached down, brushing across his frills. “It’s okay, Sweetie,” said the receptionist in a saccharine tone. “You go ahead and use the potty.”

In his current state, surprise was the other last thing Spike needed. He pelted away as fast as his little legs could carry him—becoming a blur of purple that disappeared through a distant door. “Hey!” Spike called. “I can’t use this bathroom; it’s all frilly!”

“You don’t have much of a choice, young sir!” Script answered brusquely. “Come along now. Do your duty and let’s leave these good mares to their… pursuits.”

A grumble filled the salon, followed soon after by the sound of a door slamming shut. Morning Mist and Silent Script looked at one another with relief on their faces. They sighed in reprieve and turned to face the crowd of mares—a crowd that now had returned to batting their eyelashes and judging the two guardponies on their masculine merits.

“We thank you for your assistance in this matter,” Silent Script said, watching the receptionist lean forward across her hooves and looked him up and down like she was selecting a lobster in a tank at a seafood restaurant.

“Hold on there, Handsome,” she said. “Now, I might have let the dragon use our facilities, but our policy stays the same…”

Having finished his business, Spike washed his claws.

He stood there above the pink sink, using the pink soap that sat in the pink dish, all the while staring into the mirror that reflected a halo of pink and more pink around his grim, deflated visage.

Despite the pink décor that surrounded him, Spike saw red.

“You can use the potty, Sweetie?” Talk to me like I’m a kid again and see what happens. Spike thought. “He deserves your pity?” Oh, come on, gimme a break. He stared into his reflection. He watched his own lip curl to reveal one of the white fangs.

“You ready for this?” Spike asked the reflection.

“Oh yeah,” it answered.

Spike the Outlaw pulled the settee out from beneath a nearby window. He winced when it made scraping sounds across the pink tiles, but a newfound strength filled him. That strength arose from a part of him that he knew he should reject, that would have scared him silly to even guess was a part of himself a month ago.

But that was before Pursopolis.

That was before the Pillar of the Sun.

That was before the drowning pool, before the look in Twilight’s eyes that had hovered in his mind for a month.

That was before artifacts and dead ends. That was before hospitals, glasses of water, and ancient secrets. That was before Aarne the Undying. That was before the Zenith. That was all before he knew the truth. That was all before she—that mare—had made him an outlaw.

And, if he truly was an outlaw, it was time to start acting like it.

He hefted the settee along farther, and he paused when he reached the far end of the bathroom. Shadows flitted across the tiny crack beneath the bathroom door, and he knew that his erstwhile protectors had returned to their posts. Watching him, shepherding him… preventing him from keeping his promise to Twilight. His lip curled once again, and he grabbed the settee that much harder.

When the shadows did not move, Spike gave a grunt and began pulling again. He paid scant attention as the settee bounced off of bathroom stalls, dislodged dollies, clanged against the door to the laundry chute, and sent pastoral scenes in picture frames clanging to the floor.

“Hello, Spike! What’s with all the ruckus?” Morning Mist said. “You didn’t fall in, did you?” he asked with a laugh.

Spike groaned and rolled his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and wobbled in place, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “Naw, I was just tryin’ to jump up on the sink. It’s pretty high,” Spike answered. “Plus, well… you know, it’s all girly.”

“Well, do your best not to make a mess. It was extraordinarily kind of the salon keepers to let you use the bathroom… even if it did involve a purchase on my part…”

Spike’s eyes went wide when he imagined what in Equus the stallion could have purchased in a mare’s salon. He shook the unpleasant images out of his head and then focused on the settee once again. With a muffled groan, he lifted it up so that the tiny legs rested against the wall. He grunted and groaned some more while he lifted the frame of the little couch up higher and higher, leaving tears and mars in the pink paint. The whelp struggled to inch the sofa higher and higher, his claws slipping across the floor and his chest puffing out while he made indelicate sounds.

“Hold on now,” came Silent Script’s voice. “Spike? Are you all right? I thought that you had to go number one. Have you completed ‘draining the main vein,’ as the young colts like to say?”

Spike snarled. “Yeah, I’m done ‘draining’ both of ‘em, actually,” he answered. “I just… well, I just realized that I had to do number two, too. Sorry! I’ll be right out.”

“Well, do hurry along. We’re expected at the hospital, after all,” Silent Script added. There was a moment’s pause, and Spike stood stark still, waiting to be sure that the guards would not interrupt. When all he heard was Morning Mist ask his counterpart “Both?” in a surprised tone, the dragon focused on the settee once more.

The small sofa now sat wedged against the wall, looking lopsided and ill with its little feet dug into the paint. He looked up the expanse of pink fabric, gave a shrug, and then he began to climb.

The cushions came loose under him as he began his ascent. He ignored them—let them fall to the tiled floor of the bathroom, that too being pink—and gouged his claws deep into the springs and steel of the frame. Slowly, the settee began to slip away from the wall. He growled and threw his weight forward, and he barely blinked when the two wooden feet crashed through the drywall, anchoring the sofa in place.

“Spike? What in Equestria was that?”

Spike did not even halt his climb to answer. “I’m-I’m all done doing number two, and, uh, I’m… I’m doing number three!”

“Number three?” Morning Mist asked.

Spike pinched the bridge of his nose again and pushed on. He was too far into this to be stopped now. “I’ll be right out!” he called, trying his best to silence the protesting springs as he fought his way upwards. Overhead, on the wall, sat a duct. The grate sat there, just like it always had.

This had been no error, no sudden, desperate plea of a child for a bathroom—he had planned this. He had surreptitiously ordered the second glass of milk and extra mug of cocoa at Joe’s when Morning Mist and Silent Script had chatted with the other Royal Guardponies. He had fought hard not to show any signs of distress until they’d turned the appropriate corner on their way to the hospital.

He knew this building. He knew that there was a bathroom here that he’d be allowed to use; he was grateful that the guards hadn’t noticed that he knew where it was located in this old building when he had run off.

He’d used it before. This had once been a book depository. Twilight had come here often. Books marked “Discarded” had been wrapped in her magic, and Spike had watched the young unicorn giggle happily while her stockpile of tomes grew and grew.

He knew this city. He knew how to make his way through it with ridiculous ease. He had grown up here. He had hidden himself among the walls of the palace, amid the city streets and vacant rooms of the parliament and among the racks or rusting blades in the armories. The entirety of Canterlot had been his hiding place—the place where he had sheltered himself from his due punishments when he had been a naughty little dragon.

This plan would finally free him of this fetid city—he would be free of this tomb where Twilight was rotting. Soon he would be able to keep his promise to her. Ever since the first minute he had been deposited in the nursery, he had been formulating this plan. This escape.

These last three nights had been inhabited not by sleep, but by the chorus that sang in his mind. The plan had been washing back and forth with a cunning that arose from exhaustion and desperation. Now that plan was coming to fruition.

It was time to escape from another bathroom—something at which he was becoming shockingly proficient. It was time to embrace becoming Spike the Outlaw.

“Spike? Are you done in there?” Script asked once more.

“Yeah,” the dragon mumbled, “I’m done.” His claws extended and found the groove in the paint-covered screws that held the grating of the air duct against the wall. His claws dug deep into each one, and the paint flaked away as the screw went bouncing to the floor below.

“I am so done with this,” he murmured, letting satisfaction drift across his face.

“It matches your eyes,” Silent Script said with a smirk.

“Do be quiet,” Morning Mist answered.

“You wear it quite well,” Script chuckled.

“Spike!” Morning Mist called. “Do hurry it along, lad!”

The two guards stood there outside the door, waiting for the dragon to emerge. Silent Script’s eyes kept flashing to the decidedly feminine object that Mist had purchased—little giggles escaping him at regular intervals.

“Seriously, though,” Script added, “What will you do with it?”

“I suppose that I shall give it to my sister,” Morning Mist said. “I think it suits her.”

The two stood there in silence once more. That is, at least, until Script threw in another jibe.

“And how often do you two share accessories?”

“I should like to point out that the only reason I bought it was so that Spike could use the lavatory,” Mist said, frustration crackling through his voice as he tried to hide the barrette amid his armor. “It is worthwhile to note that I had to be the one to purchase it, because you seem to be short on funds. Again.”

Silent Script went quiet. His eyes fell away, and the stoic stance of a royal guard fell out of his shoulders and frame. A muffled sigh filled the hallway, and a single, strong masculine huff of emotion followed in its wake. Silent Script had swallowed his words, had kept the bitterness in check.

“I’m sorry, Script,” Morning Mist eventually whispered. “I know that you’ve been taking care of her mother and father, financially and physically. That was unfair of me.”

“I went too far,” Script answered. “I’m sorry.”

The two stood there in an uncomfortable silence, the realities of Script’s life hovering around them in an uncomfortable cloud. “Have you considered dating again?” Mist eventually asked. “The mares out there certainly took a shining to you.”

“Yes, but they also terrified me,” Script said, something of his good humor returning to his voice. The two stallions stood there, smiling, for a few moments before Morning Mist asked another question.

“Spike did say that he was going number three, correct?”

“Indeed,” Script answered.

“I can’t recall the last time I went number three,” Mist said, pondering the ceiling tiles.

“Nor can I,” Script replied.

There was another momentary silence, then Mist said, “There is no such thing as number three is there?”

“Certainly not,” Script said, his eyes going a little wider.

“There’s been a fair amount of banging around in there, hasn’t there?” Mist said.

“Indeed,” Script affirmed, his eyes going wider.

“The little so-and-so has been trying to escape the whole time, hasn’t he?” Mist said, turning towards his file partner with alarm.

“Indeed,” Script said—and then kicked in the bathroom door.

The two guardsponies immediately sank back into their practiced roles, their training falling through them. Morning Mist checked the stalls, and Silent Script observed the room at large. In a mere moment any place within the bathroom where the dragon could have been attempting to hide was thrown open.

“The room is clear,” Silent Script said in an authoritative tone, barely even registering any shock as he rifled through the contents of the wastepaper bin, the various and sundry evidence of mares’ personal hygiene regimens sitting before him, “the laundry chute has been used. There’s a piece of clothing stuck to it.”

“A diversion,” Morning Mist answered, deathly seriousness painted. “This sofa is clearly what made the noises, and there are paint chips across it that came from the grating of the air duct.” In one fluid motion the two had lifted the settee so that it rested against the wall, and as Mist held it steady Script leapt upon it, balancing athletically.

“The dust inside has been disturbed to one side,” he said, peering down the length of the vent. “You can see where he gripped the inside of the grate and reattached the screws. He’s crawling due west.”

The two stallions pounded out of the bathroom, leaving it a fine mess. Loud voices of protest fell around the salon, and louder voices of two guardsponies answered them. Their heavy hooves made thunderous crashing noises as they stampeded from room to room, following the vent as it snaked its way through the salon.

The protests of the management of the beauty parlor were quickly silenced as the stallions crashed through the shop. They called to one another, their voices loud and firm while they scoured each room over and over, searching out anyplace the whelp could have fled.

“Damn!” Silent Script cried. “The exhaust vent!” Heavy hooves stormed out of the salon, leaving the stunned clientele wide-eyed. Soon the sounds of their hooves could be heard circling the building before pelting off to the nearest guard post.

In the salon, the shocked voices of the mares slowly faded. Their voices settled back into the gossipy tones of the leisure class, mentions of the little dragon only adding to the litany of personal defamations.

In the bathroom, a single throw pillow had a very different take on the situation. It flopped off the settee, rolled about on the floor, and then lay very still for a moment—listening to hear if any of the mares were approaching.

When no hooves drew near, the throw pillow unzipped itself—revealing itself to be a young purple dragon.

He leaned against the wall, inspecting the damage that he had done—measuring it against the rest of his plan for that glorious day. “Yeah, I just escaped from a Royal Guard detail,” he told the forlorn cover of the throw pillow. “That just happened. I’m just that good.”

Spike gave a self-satisfied smirk and rubbed the back of his claws across the scales of his chest. He blew on them, inspecting them happily. “Spike the Outlaw,” he said with a chuckle. “It looks good on me.”

He leaned back against the wall that much more, supremely confident in all that he was going to do, all that he was about to accomplish…

…and his eyes went wide in alarm as he slipped through the laundry chute door.

Landing in a pile of old bathrobes, towels, and mares’ unmentionables in a dizzy heap had only been a temporary setback for The Outlaw. The series of passages that snaked through the oldest part of Canterlot began not far from the basement of the salon.

Spike weaved through the series of back alleyways, bounced across the tiny channels of water that ran through the streets of the capital, and crawled through ancient spillways and forgotten paths of the oldest part of the city.

“Da dat da dah!” Spike whispered to himself while he went, adding a soundtrack to his exploits. “Dah dah dun!”

He continued whispering the theme to Spike the Outlaw: Escape from Canterlot as he went along, sneakily hiding against doorframes and slinking across narrow alleys. “Duh, duh… dun naw!” he sang and he snuck from market stall to market stall. A curious feeling came over him while he played at his game of master spy or cunning thief…

…at least until he missed a step and went tumbling down a stone stairwell, landing in the middle of the street. Spike gasped. His cover was blown! He stood up, looked around him, expecting the guards that had undoubtedly been following him to be upon him.

Three ponies went up the street, none even noting his presence.

“Dun… dun,” he said, concluding the music. Spike pinched the bridge of his nose. Panning his head around he discovered that, at very least, he had arrived at the street where the first part of his plan would take fruition.

The haversack was exactly where he thought it would be. Call had looped it around the door handle. He ran his hand across it, apologizing for throwing it to the floor when he had gone to accost that mare three days ago. Inside, he discovered a few flakes of ash from the ruined soldier’s journal. They slid across his hand, leaving black trails that stained his claws and arm.

The collection of junk that had accumulated in the haversack was still there. He peered within and found his collection of useless garbage. The torn scroll was still there, as was the ripped seal. The “fun size” box of Mairsy Dotes sat there, baffling him with how he had even managed to get his claws on them. The oven mitt, the one he had bought for Twilight and that the doctor had thrown in the trash, was there too; it sat very close to the minotaur book that held the rice paper miasma sheet.

He looked over it all and scowled. It was just so much junk; it was just souvenirs of a month spent in this horrible city. He thought about simply dumping it all out, and he lifted the haversack off the doorknob with the intent of doing just that. But, when he turned towards the garbage can, something stayed his claws. He arched an eyebrow and then rolled his eyes. Sentimentality aside, he had to move quickly.

Spike opened the haversack wide and began filling it with objects that sat around the room. He opened the old desk and lifted out some maps that had caught his eye when they had done their research. As the lid rolled shut, Spike stuffed the maps into his haversack and ran across the room.

A thousand tools of exploration sat before him, and every one of them became fair game for his roving claws. Spike the Outlaw leapt up high to retrieve a sextant from its place on a bookshelf. He jumped up on a chair to claim an ornate compass that sat in a rosewood box. Nothing that he thought could help him escaped his attention, and each found their place in the haversack as his greedy claws reached for more.

“So, you’re robbing me, then?”

Spike’s hands hovered in the air. He hadn’t heard the stallion enter the room, but now Call’s presence filled the space. Slowly, Spike’s claws dropped back down to his hoard of navigation aides. He stared ahead without looking back to where the sorrowful, resigned voice arose.

“I’m hardly surprised,” Artificer Call continued, “not after the demonstration you put on three days ago. I have to admit… I’m more hurt than surprised. I’m actually quite hurt—very hurt.”

The dragon turned his head slightly; not looking at the older stallion, but listening his words.

Artificer Call sighed. “I suppose that there’s nothing for it. You’ve already made up your mind, I see. You seem to think that you have this all very bloody well planned out. I can see the old adventuring look in your eyes. Is that what you think, dear boy, that you’re simply going to go off and make it all fine and proper by yourself?”

The old clock on the mantle chimed the quarter, and neither stallion nor dragon moved, spoke, or breathed until the final note had finished echoing around them. Artificer Call wiped his hoof across his eyes and sighed once more.

“I don’t know how you managed to give your guards the slip, Spike. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve convinced yourself is out there,” said the stallion. “Have you thought about that, Spike? I’ve been all over this world, Spike, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that it isn’t all rainbows.”

The stallion looked Spike over, and as the clock ticked away on the mantle he saw no signs that the dragon was measuring the weight of his words. Artificer Call sighed again; he let his eyes drift around the room while his words fell in a cloud of subtle exasperation.

“By all rights I should call the guards right now. I should restrain you myself. There’s still some fight left in this old frame, do you know that? Do you know that I’ve faced things out there that I barely survived, Spike? Do you know that I lost respected comrades and dear friends out there? Did you stop to think that whatever reason you’ve given yourself to justify your escape at the palace, for robbing, for going off on this fool’s errand, that whatever virtue you’ve convinced yourself it holds… that it might not be enough to keep you from harm?”

“That’s future Spike’s problem.”

Artificer Call lifted his head. Spike did not move. He simply stood there, his head turned slightly, his eyes falling down over the haversack that sat at his side heavily. The dragon seemed to have said the words automatically, like they were more a personal mantra than a thoughtful statement.

“Yes, well,” answered Artificer Call, “that very well may be, but my current problem is that I have a little criminal in my study robbing me blind so that he can go off on a daft journey for which he is utterly unprepared, has no idea what he means to accomplish, and which could very well cost him his life!”

The stallion stomped his hoof, the most frustrated and anger-filled thing Spike had experienced the stallion do since they had been formally introduced at Joe’s.

“That’s what I should do, I must say. I should call the guards right now. I should tie you to the desk until they come. I should have called child services two weeks ago. I should have... I should have...”

There was a pained sound—the sound of poor choices being called out. The old stallion’s wish to be useful had come into bloom darkly, of his experiences and memories being used to a bad end. It was the sound of his guilt.

Spike heard the sound, and the part of him that was still Twilight’s great little guy made him lift his head. The part of him that was still the real Spike made him turn to face Artificer Call. The stallion’s hoof came up, and he rubbed his eyes as his tiny glasses jumped around on his face.

When he was done his eyes met Spike’s.

“I should have… but I did not, and now I must admit that this sad end, dear boy, is partly my fault,” Call whispered. “I could do those things, but you’ve made it abundantly clear, with your words and with your fangs, that you don’t want to be helped. You don’t want to be saved, healed, or comforted. No, Spike all that you seem to want is to—”

“I just want Twilight to wake up.”

“—be the one to wake Princess Twilight,” Call concluded. He continued quickly, not letting the little whelp discern the distinction between their two statements. “You’ve only gotten worse, and I’m to blame. I gave you the notion that there was a way to wake her. I put the clues in your claws. I gave you that hope, and when it was withdrawn from you, you became… this…”

“No, Call, it’s not like that!” Spike said with a whine. “You’re not the one to blame! It’s all Cele—”

“Shut up,” Call said. “Silence yourself.”

The words stung at Spike. They were the most awful things Call had said to him in their time together, and they made the boy recoil, wrapping his arms around himself.

“So, here we are, then,” Call continued. “I should, I could… but I won’t. I won’t and I can’t. I can’t because I know that you would hate me for it, just as you’ve turned your hate on the princess. I can’t because I’m an old stallion who reveled in knowing you were interested in my research, my stories, and ignored the fact that I was poisoning you with them. I won’t because I know that there is nothing remaining in Equestria for you, not until Princess Twilight awakes. You’ve decided that alone… the journey that you’ve convinced yourself you need to undertake is just the end result of that facetious belief.”

“Call, no,” Spike began.

“But I won’t stop you. I’d offer to go with you, but I’m old… old and stupid and useless,” Call said, heaving. “You’re going off, and I won’t stop you. You can’t even begin to imagine, Spike, the pain you are about to experience, and I’m too weak and old to go with you or to stop you. A child is about to go off into all of the dangers of Equus, and I’m too weak to stop him. Damn me… I did this to you.”

Call turned to the side. The sound of the clock ticking away filled the room once again—joined by the small sighs of a stallion attempting to hide his emotions.

“Damn me,” he whispered.

The clock kept a cadence as small, clawed feet made their way across the wooden floor. The dragon’s feet were muffled in the ornate throw rug, but his intent could not be missed. Artificer Call lifted his head when the boy’s arms slid around his neck, and the worn, tired adventurer lifted his foreleg around the boy.

“It’s okay, Call… it really is,” Spike said. “You’re the only one who helped me out this much, ya know? If it weren’t for you, I’d be even crazier and madder and angrier and stuff. So, yeah—don’t feel bad, okay?”

Spike felt the stallion’s hoof pat him on the back a few times. The boy rested his head against the neck of the stallion, holding him tight. A few deep breaths escaped them, and before long Spike spoke again.

“Call? You… you can call the guards, if that helps—if that makes you feel like you tried to help me. That will be okay, I can deal with that. Just, you know, give me a head start?” the boy said, releasing the old stallion from the hug.

“Very well, Spike. Very well,” Artificer Call answered. “I must ask… where will you go from here? Do you even have a plan? Is there anything I can give you? Some bits? Some food?”

“No,” Spike answered. He smiled to the historian as he slid towards the glass door that led out into Call’s garden. “Naw, I’m stopping in Ponyville first. No, the compass and sextant and the maps and stuff are all… thanks…”

“Don’t be mistaken about those. I haven’t forgiven you for that,” Call barked.

Spike had been reaching for the door handle. His hand shook, and his head went down as shame washed over him.

“You attempted to rob me, and I don’t appreciate that, Spike,” Call said, admonition washing through his tone. “I don’t forgive you that.”

“I’m sorry,” Spike said. “I’m really, really sorry, Call.”

There was a pause. As the two stood there, Spike rested his hand on the door handle. The small garden patch stood out on the turned earth in the historian’s backyard, and the newly planted flowers and vegetables shone in springtime sun. The little outlaw settled his eyes across the small rows, waiting to hear whatever Artificer Call had to say.

“There is one way that you could make it up to me, you know,” Call eventually replied.

“Yeah?” Spike said. “What’s that?”

“You can prepare for me a full report on the races, architecture, customs, and various and sundry historical and cultural items of importance that you come across on your journey,” Call said, a shadow of a chuckle hiding in his words. “And you can let me get a look at this Zenith, once you’ve recovered it.”

“Deal,” Spike answered.

The two stared at one another for a moment longer, and then Call spoke again.

“I really do hope somepony turns you in the second you hop my fence,” Call groaned.

“I’ll get ya that report as soon as I can,” Spike said, a giggle in his voice. He reached for the doorknob. “Thanks for everything, Call. Thanks so much.”

“I’ll make myself some tea, and then call the guards,” Call answered.

“You’re awesome,” Spike said. The back door came open and the smells of spring entered the room, a light breeze rustling the papers of the study. “Goodbye, Call.”

“Goodbye, Spike,” Artificer Call answered.

Without so much as a backwards glance the little dragon slipped out the door, left footprints across the black earth of the garden, and struggled up and across the fence separating Call’s yard from that of his neighbor across the way—an older retired mare whose big dog immediately began barking and who presumably presented Spike the Outlaw with his first challenge on his journey. Artificer Call watched the fence for a great long while, and when the dog finally stopped barking he turned towards his kitchen. Blue flame erupted from the burner of his stove, and he settled the copper kettle there and then selected a blend of teas that he thought best suited the situation. It was, admittedly, a hard blend to arrive at. He wanted something bitter, but something that ended in a hint of mint.

“He could have used the front door,” Call told his mug. He filled it with the hot water and stood watching while the tea leaves leached their essence out of the metal strainer.

Artificer Call was a stallion that had seen many things in his life, and not all of them were good and happy. He had nearly died of typhoid in the slums of Cowcutta. He had survived snowstorms and sandstorms less than week apart when inventorying the remains of a forgotten empire. He had spent a furious hour trying to repair and restore tools of exploration—as his mark and name implied—as a small boat had sunk beneath him out on the unknowable tracts of the ocean.

These had all happened long ago, back when he’d been young. The stories all came back to him, flashing into his memory with the bright light of a younger stallion’s eyes.

He had been strong, powerful… full of the vitriol of an adventurer who was smart enough to know what to do and still stupid enough not to care. He had been young—but nowhere near as young as Spike.

Call stared down into the teacup. While he watched the tiny bubbles pop, the stallion only grew more and more certain that he’d just condemned a small boy to his death. And, as he pondered it, he grew more and more certain that it was the only thing he could have done.

The tea had grown cold. Call threw it out the door into the garden, set the teacup on the counter, and trotted off to the nearest guard post.

In Spike’s mind, this had been brilliant.

In reality, his tummy hurt.

Everything else was going to according to plan. He had escaped the guards in the salon, he had gotten everything that he had thought he would need from Artificer Call’s place, and now he was crawling along inside the narrow passage the separated the hospital from the palace.

Spike the Outlaw smiled as he felt the heft of his haversack at his side. Not only was it full of Call’s navigation aides, but also it was also stuffed full of gems and jewels from the royal treasury.

Well, not the actual royal treasury. More like the official adjunct office to the treasury—kind of like the treasury’s first cousin if he thought about it. Still, it was full of jewels, and if anyone asked he could say that the princess had offered… if anybody ever thought to check. Not that they would. Spike knew this city, knew the palace. He had grown up here, had hidden in all of these cracks and forgotten passages. He knew where treasures were kept in storage that only that mare probably knew about. If no pony was going to use the fine inlaid jewels… hey, finder’s keepers.

“Ow,” he said. His tummy hurt.

He crawled to a stop at a bend. The stonework around him seemed familiar enough, and a small jet of fire left his lips. Yes, he was close to the hospital now. Since everyone knew he was heading there when he escaped, it seemed like a place that he wouldn’t try to go.

He just wished that he hadn’t had to lie to do it. He had lied to Call. He wasn’t making for Ponyville, and having Call tell the guards had been part of the plan all along. He just gave Call permission to do so. It would throw them off, he hoped. He hadn’t wanted to lie to Morning Mist and Silent Script, either. They were nice guys. But, if he was going to save Twilight…

The vision of Twilight in the drowning pool flashed through his mind, and the pain in his stomach disappeared. The guilt washed out of him, and his eyes narrowed. He relit his flame and began crawling once again.

No, he wasn’t headed to Ponyville. There was no going back now, not for an outlaw.

He smirked to himself as he felt the warm, stale air of this hidden spot inside the wall give way to the cool air and slippery condensation. He didn’t know who had designed the walls of Canterlot, but he was glad that whatever pony had approved the plans hadn’t checked too hard. The change to cool air meant he had made the turn, and that now the hospital lay just beyond one more bend.

Yes, he was headed for the hospital. That was where we were headed, so if Call tells them that I was headed for Ponyville, then they’ll think that I’m not headed for the hospital, he thought, smirking at his cleverness.

“That was pretty smart of me, huh?” he asked the skeleton.

The skeleton, being a skeleton, didn’t reply.

It took Spike a moment—not to mention a minor panic attack—to remember exactly what he was seeing. The skeleton of some creature that had taken its chances in the labyrinth of tunnels and passageways stared back at him with a toothy grin.

Spike studied the pile of bones that lay before him, starkly illuminated by the whisper of his flame that spilled across in the stones and cast its green glow over the scene.

He had first discovered the skeleton many years ago, back when he had just been a little whelp who used these tunnels to escape his duly deserved punishments when he had been naughty for the Lord Protector, the nurses, or even Twilight. The first time he had come across the skeleton he had been very, very small, and just encountering it had sent him speeding back to Twilight with tears in his eyes that she had taken for penance.

He had never told anypony of the skeleton, and over time it had changed from some phantom that haunted his nightmares to a source of juvenile fascination. Now, all these years later, Spike looked across the remains of the creature once more.

“Ya know,” he said, “if you had taken off your armor, you probably wouldn’t have gotten caught in here.”

Spike smirked, feeling a slight sense of superiority over whatever creature’s remains sat before him, perhaps entombed here in the walls of Canterlot for centuries, only the young dragon knowing of its lonely grave.

Artificer Call’s warning suddenly washed across the dragon like a tidal surge: You can’t even begin to imagine, Spike, the pain you are about to experience…

The words shook the dragon out of his self-satisfied stupor, and he stared at the skeleton. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” he asked as he drummed his fingers across the luminous stones that lined the abscess that made up the crawlspace. The creature, whatever race it was, had obviously been a warrior. The rusted armor, bent shield, and broken sword all spoke to that fact.

Yet, for some reason, it had died here in these walls. The warrior’s path had led the former owner of the skeleton to this spot—its journey had ended here in this dark, hollow spot in the walls.

“Hey,” Spike asked again, ignoring the futility of his questioning, “was… was it worth it? Did you… ya know, did you get what you wanted out of your quest, journey, trip thing? I kinda need to know.”

Artificer Call’s warning washed through the stifling, close confines of the abscess, and Spike suddenly felt not like the brave outlaw but like the little dragon whelp once more. His small flame slipped away while he awaited the skeleton’s reply, one that did not seem forthcoming. The green light evaportaed, and Spike was left wondering a great number of things…

…like how he was alone…

…in a dark place…

…with a skeleton.

In the market below, Cooking Surface—the stallion that ran the cooking mitt stall where Spike had absent-mindedly purchased one of the said objects for Twilight all of those weeks ago—thought he heard something. Unless he was mistaken, Cooking Surface thought that he heard a child’s scream come through the very stones of the castle walls, muffled of course, and that being followed very soon after by the tiny sound of claws scampering along some long forgotten passageway until they went slipping out of a hole in the eaves of the wall. That seemed to be followed by the sound of a baby dragon falling into the waste bins behind the hospital.

Cooking Surface shrugged his shoulders. Amazing, the tricks one’s ears can play on them, he thought as he pressed a leopard-print cooking mitt into the hooves of a mare, the cellist looking less than convinced at the salespony’s choice of pattern.

Sneaking around the hospital was far easier than it should have been.

In his mind, Spike felt some small disappointment that the place wasn’t crawling with guards and that bells and sirens weren’t going off. Perhaps his gambit with mentioning Ponyville to Call had gone better than he had hoped. He grumbled a little—it was more likely that they hadn’t even put that much effort into finding him yet.

“They probably think I’ll just come back here eventually,” he spat. A moment of thought washed over him, and he pinched the bridge of his nose and gave a little groan. “Ugh! I did come back here!”

Movement outside the grate and the stomp of hooves made him cover his mouth with his hands and stifle his breath. He waited until they had passed, and then he lifted the grate out of the way as stealthily as he could. Despite the resounding “clang” that echoed up and down the service hallway deep beneath the hospital, Spike somehow managed to slip into the dumbwaiter and ride along while it ascended up into the hospital proper. He hid himself in a large tub of ice cream—something he had desperately wanted to do since the day he had arrived at the hospital, truth be told.

The ice cream was headed for the pediatric ward, most likely to be delivered to fillies and colts that had just had their tonsils removed. Wishing them the best, Spike evacuated the dumbwaiter when the orderly had his back turned. Diving amid a convenient pile of discarded cardboard boxes, he emerged looking very much like an innocuous shipping receptacle… despite the mobility that he displayed, something cardboard boxes aren’t especially noted for. It was under the pretense of being an ambulatory box of institutional-sized Mairsy Dotes that Spike the Outlaw made his return to The West Wind Annex for the Magically Impaired and Magically Unresponsive… the Ward of the Living Dead.

He parked his box in the still-vacant room that had once held the mortal remains of Brake Dust. Spike lifted himself out of the box with a sigh, and though he was glad that the room was vacant, the way that the former occupant had left the ward filled him with an old fear. It was a fear that refused to abate even while he peeked out into the hallway. He leaned out a little farther, and when the familiar faces of Pacemaker and Comfort were seen to be absent from the corridor he dropped into his four-legged stance and darted across the hall in two long bounds.

What he found in the room made him ill.

He grabbed at his tail a little as he looked upon the occupant of the bed. The web of tubes and wires still hovered above her, and while he looked at her he felt himself pull on his tail that much more. Eventually he let it fall to the ground before he leapt up to the sink and reached for a glass…

…and at that exact moment he heard one of the dearest voices to him in the world, and the tone that it took shred his heart.

“Oh, but he must be here! He must!” called a feminine voice, and the sound of elegant hooves rushing up the hallway made his eyes go wide in alarm. He spun around in place—juggling the glass that had just grabbed—and then jumped into the only hiding place that was immediately available, that being the cupboard itself. No sooner had he silenced the ringing and chiming glasses than the mare appeared in the doorway, her distinctive perfumes finding their way to him as he hid among the cups.

“Oh, Spikey-Wikey! Spikey-Wikey! You have to be here! You needn’t hide from me! Oh, Spike, dear, it’s me, Rarity!” called the beautiful mare, her voice betraying a deep well of concern and worry.

Spike’s hands came up to his mouth, stifling any sounds he might make while he listened to the little whines and cries of worry that now filled the hospital room. The whimpers that escaped Rarity’s lips made him shudder and shake, and the little dragon did his best to remain motionless and quiet as the familiar hum of the mare’s magic drifted around the room.

“Spikey! Spikey, please do come out! I know you must be here!” he heard her cry, and the sound of the closet being opened and the contents thrown about caught in her ears.

“Twilight…” Rarity said. “Oh, Twilight! If only you could tell me! Oh, Twilight! Poor Twilight! Poor Spike! Spike, I know you must be here! Please, answer me!”

Every one of Rarity’s words ripped at Spike, and even while the sounds of worry and concern floated amid the magic that wafted over the room, he kept trying to fight off the shakes and tremors that threatened to make the cups ring out and reveal his hiding space.

How does she know I’m here!? he screamed in his thoughts—falling backwards against the wall, threatening to send the stacks of glasses flying into shards. How can she possibly know that I’m here!?

The familiar sound of the hooves of two stallions approached. As Rarity called out once again, her magic still swirling around in search of him, the rather tired and put-upon figures of Silent Script and Morning Mist entered the room.

“Spikey-Wikey! Spike, darling, I know that you must be here! Please, Spikey, Princess Celestia said that you were to come home with me! I’m going to be bringing you home with me!”

Spike’s vision receded. He could imagine soft folds of fabric drifting around in the currents of Rarity’s magic. In his mind he could already hear her singing while he made her breakfast and got Sweetie’s lunch ready for the day. And, in that fleeting moment, he dared believe that he could feel her tuck him into the spare cot, feel the warmth of her coat while being wrapped in a good-night hug… or, if he dared even to imagine, the soft brush of her lips on his forehead as she wished him a good evening’s rest.

It made him ill. The whole series of images and sensations made him ill because he realized what it was.

“Miss Rarity, Ma’am,” Silent Script said, his voice betraying a long day, “there’s no reason to believe that Spike was coming back to the hospital. We were on our way here when he ran off.”

“Madam,” Morning Mist added, “the staff have not seen him. Spike is small, but he’s just a child, after all. He’s hardly capable of hiding from every adult in the city.”

Spike’s lip curled into a snarl. I’m doing fine so far, you jerk! It faded when he heard Rarity make an uncertain sound—half a stammer, half a sob.

“Spikey, please… if you’re here, Princess Celestia has made me your guardian! It’s just until Twilight wakes up, I promise! Please, Spike, if you’re here, please… answer me!” Rarity called.

Spike shuddered. This was it, then. This was Princess Celestia’s final gambit. This was the Last Temptation of the Outlaw. This was the last bit of her “benevolence,” her last offer to let him forget all of the awful things he had discovered about that mare and that thing.

Or, at least, that’s what a small part of him believed. Spike wiped his hands across his face as though attempting to cast away his paranoia.

“Please… please, help me look for him,” Rarity said in a defeated tone. Spike could clearly picture the two guards look at each other, an unuttered sigh passing between them before they turned and began to search the room.

Search the room! Spike was thrown back into awareness when the heavy sounds of the stallions’ hooves began to lift around the room… and approach the cupboard where he’d been hiding!

Silent Script opened the cupboard door and peered inside, throwing all within into the light of the morning and under the gaze of the guardpony. Spike, though, had already retreated to the side, squirming his way around a big metal pipe that the cupboard hid in a way that suggested that the hospital had undergone some restorations at some point in its history. Had it been winter, the coarse iron of the antique pipe may have made this very uncomfortable, even if his draconic scales had protected him from the heat.

Now, he dared breathe a sigh of relief as Silent Script closed the cupboard doors—and then very nearly had a heart attack when the stallion opened the ones to the cupboard he had just retreated to. Spike vacated it in the very nick of time, hiding behind the pipe once again.

When the doors closed, Spike barely dared to breathe. He listened to the two stallions speaking in hushed tones, showing some respect for Rarity and her muffled sighs and little whimpers.

“I was so certain… so very certain that he’d want to come and stay with me for a little while…”

Spike’s head bowed, and he began to reach for his tail again… but at that instant Morning Mist opened the cupboard door. The dragon barely had a moment to slide across the pipe once more before the light invaded his hiding space once again.

“I just checked in there,” Silent Script said, his voice sounding very put-upon, not unlike a father awoken in the early morning hours to check beneath his filly’s bed for monsters.

“No harm in double-checking,” answered Morning Mist.

This was intolerable. Spike grimaced as the door closed. He looked across the way and saw something metallic shine in the darkness. He tiptoed across the cups like he was traversing a minefield. His haversack caught across the tops of the stacks, threatening to send them crashing out of the cupboard. He wiped his hands across the metal once, twice, and found the screws.

Faster than it can be said, and with a deliberate pace that surprised no one more than himself, Spike undid the cover of the heating/cooling duct. It made a “ba-dum” sound, and he winced inwardly. The sound filled the hospital room and the door of the cupboard came open behind him.

He pressed his foot against the metal. No sound met his ears. He waited with bated breath, knowing that the sound had alerted the stallions, and Rarity, that something was amiss.

A shadow fell across the opening of the ductwork, and in his heart Spike knew that Silent Script was peering down the grille only a few inches away. Spike closed his eyes, determined to hide the whites and the green glow of his irises… anything to avoid detection.

“Open and shut them again,” Silent Script whispered, hoping to see a dragon-shaped shadow appear inside the grille. On command, Morning Mist did just that. Sensing an opportunity, Spike pressed his foot against the ductwork that much harder. “Ba-dum” went the ductwork, and he held his breath once more as he awaited the reaction of the stallions.

“Again,” said Silent Script.

“Ba-dum,” answered the ductwork.

“Air pressure,” sighed the stallion, turning away from the grille.

“Air pressure,” agreed Morning Mist as he shut the cupboard door for the last time, saving a small whelp from having a heart attack. “Miss Rarity, madam, I have to say that it seems that Spike is not here. The intelligence we received states that he was determined to head to Ponyville. Perhaps it is best that you head there?”

You did tell them, you did report me, didn’t you, Call? Spike thought. Good. I’m glad that you care enough to do that. Sorry to have lied to you like tha—

“My Spikey-Wikey wouldn’t lie.”

Spike winced. He slid forward a little, making it so that he could peer out of the grating. What he found there was a sight that made him want to cry. Rarity sat next to Twilight’s bed, slowly drawing her hoof up and down Twilight’s outstretched foreleg. Slowly, carefully, her hoof went up to Twilight’s mane. The radiant mare drew her hoof across Twilight’s mane tenderly, as though trying to return some shine to the locks that lay scattered across the pillows and blankets in uneven piles.

“He was less than genuine with us today,” Morning Mist mumbled. His words floated around the room and, apart from some more “air pressure” in the ductworks, seemed to fall on deaf ears.

The “air pressure” was, in reality, Spike reaching down out of the grate unobserved. He snatched the barrette that Morning Mist had purchased that morning so that he could use the bathroom in the spa. He spun it around in his hand, before sliding it into his haversack. That’s for calling me a liar, and for saying that I’m just a kid, he thought. He smiled to himself, but it faded quickly. He was a kid, and he had lied… and now he had stolen. Again.

He looked out of the grate, and his hands went back to the haversack, hoping now to find some way to slip it back onto the stallion’s armor. It was an impossibility. It had been a miracle that he hadn’t been caught so far, and now he couldn’t risk trying to put it back on.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, stifling his sigh. Ummm, sorry, Mist. It… it really does match your eyes? I guess?

“My Spikey-Wikey learned long ago how important it is to keep his promises, and he promised me that he would get better. He promised me that he would be well. Yes, he must be coming back to Ponyville… that makes sense. Yes,” Rarity said in a tone that showed that she was trying to convince herself that it was true.

“We’ll give you a moment,” Silent Script said, relief evident in his voice. “We’d be honored to escort you to the railroad station.”

“We’ll tell the staff to give you some peace, if you wish to sit with the princess for a few moments,” added Morning Mist.

“Thank you, sirs,” Rarity said, and with that the stallions left the room.

Spike listened to them go. The sounds of the stallions’ hooves and the clang of their armor eventually faded down the hallway. Left in their wake were the sounds of the hospital—and the sounds of the mare that sat at Twilight’s bedside.

Spike stretched forward a little and rested his head in his hands. He stared out the grate towards where the two most important mares in his life sat together; one hummed a little song and stroked the mane of the other, the other lay there distant and unmoving—still locked away in that place where Spike had been unable to follow.

“Oh, Twilight,” Rarity whimpered, and then the elegant mare began to speak of the spring that had blossomed into fullness in Ponyville. She spoke of the return of the birds and the way that the park had come back to life. Rarity spoke of the little streams swelling with the rains and of flowers coming to life. She spoke of ponies making their way through the parks and staying out later and later in the sun that lingered in the Equestrian sky later and later each day.

And, without ever having left the stifling confines of the grating, Spike suddenly became very homesick.

He took as deep a breath as he dared and let it slide out slowly. He wanted nothing more than to go back to the “before,” back to when it was Twilight and Spike in Ponyville. He wanted everything to be all right again, but that was impossible. That was impossible until Twilight woke up.

“I’d best be heading back to Ponyville, darling, if that is where Spike is headed,” Rarity whispered. “We’ll be up to see you soon. Oh, and Cadance says that a certain stallion among the Crystal Guard may be coming with her next time. Wouldn’t that be something?”

Rarity giggled a little. Spike felt his teeth grating together.

“Yes, I think it might be best that I head back to Ponyville. Spikey-Wikey will be heading there. If he told somepony that he was heading there, then that is where he must be headed,” the elegant mare said with certainty. “Goodbye, darling. I’ll be back to see you soon, the girls and I… and Spike, I promise.”

Her beautiful body lifted away from the bedside, holding Twilight’s hoof in her own for a second before laying it gently back upon the sheets. She made her way towards the door and towards the grating where Spike had been hiding.

Spike could see the emotions that sat on Rarity’s face. His heart leapt out to her when she paused directly beneath him, turning back with a flick of her gorgeous mane to face the alicorn that lay upon the bed. “He will come,” the mare whispered, and then ran the back of her hoof across her face, ripping out Spike’s heart.

“Spikey-Wikey wouldn’t lie.”

Spike’s hand pressed against the grating, and every piece of him wanted desperately to reach down and embrace the mare. As her perfume lingered around him he watched her. She looked at the floor and turned back around, wiped her hoof across her face once more, and then was gone.

Goodbye, Rarity, Spike thought. I’m sorry.

He waited in the grating for a good long while before wiggling his way back down the length of the ductwork and into the cupboard once more. He waited patiently while the early morning wore away into the late. When he was convinced that the coast was clear, he grabbed one of the glasses and toppled down from the cupboard to make an ungraceful landing on the linoleum floor. He ran the tap quietly, holding his hand in the sink so that the cold water would not splash in the basin. While the glass filled he listened to the hallway, and then carefully brought Twilight one final rainbow.

“Hey Twi,” he said, settling beside her, “I think I really messed it up this time. Yeah, I think things are… not good.”

“Yeah, I really kinda messed things up for Future Spike pretty bad,” he said, adjusting the glass one more time. The small rainbow fell across the wall, and it guided his eyes towards where Precepts of Innovational Magic Theory sat, its bookmark still lodged where he had last read to her a week ago. Her boots had been tipped over, and no pitchers could be found. Only her crown remained untouched.

He lowered his head so that it sat across his arms. His words evaporated across his scales as moisture while he made his confession. “I’m lying, I’m stealing, I’m being mean and a big jerky-jerk,” he said. He looked up to her. “And the worst part is, Twi? I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it at all. The only part that I mind is that I broke my promise.”

He stood up and stepped back, distancing himself from her. “I broke my promise to you, Twilight, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that… that you’re going to wake up to a monster.”

He looked down, and to his astonishment he found that Twilight’s crown was in his hands. Had he picked it up when he’d put down the glass? He held it against his chest and took another step back, very much trying to hide the evidence of his thievery from Twilight. He looked at her sheepishly.

“But you’re going to wake up. That’s a promise that I’m going to keep. I dunno what’s out there, Twi—”

Artificer Call’s warning thudded through him one more time. He looked back to his hands to find them already sliding Twilight’s crown into the haversack that bounced at his side. His eyes went wide, and he struggled to finish his admission to Twilight before he lost himself completely.

“—but whatever the Zenith and the Pillar and whatever Princess Celestia is hiding and why Aarne the Undying got all dead and stuff… well, if that’s what I have to do to get you to wake up, then that’s what I’m going to hafta put Future Spike through, huh?”

He stepped back to her bedside. He got up on his tiptoes and reached up to run his fingers through her hair, trying to straighten it as Rarity had—as he had for all of those weeks that he’d stayed here by her side in this tomb.

Home had always been where Twilight was. Be it her parent’s home, her suite at the school, the dearly departed library—even the new castle with his mostly empty room—home had always been where she was. Now, for the first time in his young life, Spike truly felt homeless, and that realization snaked through his thoughts. He was abandoning her… he was abandoning his home, his best friend, and the pony he loved the most in the world.

“Even if I can’t come back, I’ll find a way. I promise,” he said, placing his forehead against hers for a moment. “Equestria needs you. Your friends need you. If I get banished or captured or… or anything, it’s worth it. It’s okay. You’re worth it.”

Spike rested his hand against her face, trying to feel her breathe—to feel the warmth of her body. His hand slid away slowly, catching across her blankets until it grasped her hoof. He lifted it and pressed it against the side of his face, doing his best to see his oldest friend, the very mare that had hatched him, amid the wires and tubes that snaked out of the prostrate form upon the bed.

“You’re worth it.”

The warmth that the hoof offered was a falsehood. There was no comfort there for him. It just didn’t feel like the hugs and nuzzles that had seen him through some of his worst days. It just didn’t feel like she was there.

It just didn’t feel like Twilight.

He gave her hoof a squeeze, and then laid it gently back upon the bed. He backed away towards the door again, folding his hands across his chest while he went. His eyes misted over, and he wiped away two tears while he looked upon the pony that defined his world—perhaps for the last time.

“Goodbye, Twi,” he whispered as loud as he dared. “I love you.”

With that, come what may, Spike left her room, determined not to return until Twilight had been freed from whatever evil that thing had subjected her to had been burned away.

No matter the cost—nothing else mattered.

“Love ya, Twi…”

The hospital receptionist looked down to see an institutional-sized box of Mairsy Dotes disappearing through the main doors. As the box didn’t seem to be bothering anypony, she went back to reading her gossip magazine.

She was just about to read about some recent exploit involving Hoity Toity, an undisclosed location, and a rubber ducky when something caught her eye. Her pen had rolled off the logbook, and when she was able to tear her eyes away from the vicious slander long enough to glance across it the following declaration met her eyes:

Spike the Dragon… I’m out, baby!

The receptionist’s jaw dropped open in shock; the rubber ducky had brought a paternity lawsuit!

Spike’s familiarity with Canterlot was something that he prided himself on, but like most things in his young life, it wasn’t something that he had complete confidence in. He had slid around the streets of Canterlot in his box for about fifteen minutes before finally finding the intersection he had been looking for. More ponies than he would have liked had noticed a surprisingly ambulatory box making its way around Canterlot—but not any of the guards, fortunately—and most simply marked it off to delusions brought on by a long morning of political duties, hallucinations brought on by the vagaries of college life, or a rather unimpressive publicity stunt on the part of Mairsy Dotes.

Most unimpressed of all was one stallion that failed to notice it completely until his heavy cart rumbled across it. The box was squashed flat, and after that it ceased moving entirely—much to the relief to the competitors of Mairsy Dotes, who were greatly concerned that they would now have to begin similar advertising campaigns.

More fortunate was Spike, who an instant before had dropped into the stallionhole cover in the intersection into the storm sewer below.

At least he hoped it was a storm sewer.

He really, really hoped it was a storm sewer.

He also hoped that the thing that had just floated by him was a candy bar.

The sewers of Canterlot were of the standard “immense and creepy” variety, and his remembrances of them were always clouded by the consuming need to take a bath that always followed in the wake of the memories of the few times he’d ventured down into the dark, moist depths. He picked up a stick—not daring to guess what sort of horrible diseases could be lingering across it—and swirled it around in what he hoped, hoped, hoped was a giant wad of white confetti paper.

It wasn’t. He groaned in disgust and then lit it aflame with a jet of his breath. He sighed and nearly pinched the bridge of his nose, but at the last second he remembered where his hands had been and instead began to make his way through the vast, twisting tunnels.

Spike tried to think of the last time he had seen a clock. His eyebrows arched while he pondered what time of day it could possibly be. It was, ugh, 7:30 when we left the nursery… way too early! Then it was breakfast at Joe’s. Bathroom, my super escape, Call’s house, the treasury, skeleton guy. I guess it’s about 9:30? Yeah, that seems right, he thought, watching the bricks come into relief as his torch passed beneath each arch.

Yeah, it has to be just about 9:30, I think, he thought.

And then he stepped on a “candy bar.”

At just about 9:30, Princess Celestia was still standing on the wide balcony that jutted out at one of Canterlot’s lowest levels. She had been there since she had raised the sun that morning, and the misty fields that played out before her eyes seemed hazy and unknowable. The princess leaned against a column, her gaze across the fields that disappeared beyond Canterlot never wavering.

“Madam? Highness?” asked an officer of the guard.

She had not meant to leave him bowing; truth be told her wandering mind had simply forgotten that he was there. She did not turn to face him, but instead spoke in a quiet tone.

“I am sorry, lieutenant,” she whispered. “Please, do give your report.”

The guard lifted himself to his hooves and saluted, a gesture meant to get some blood flowing to his hoof and show respect. “Ma’am, we have a report that Spike may be headed to Ponyville. It is possible, seeing as we… as we’ve been having a surprising amount of difficulty capt… finding him. May I have permission to send a detail to the city?”

Celestia stood there, unmoving, still staring out across the fields that hung heavily with fog. She had been standing there since about 7:30, like she had for the last three mornings.

He is not headed to Ponyville.

“Of course, lieutenant. At once,” she said. “But please, do not dispatch Silent Script or Morning Mist on that detail. I feel that I shall have need of them here before too long.”

“Yes ma’am,” the lieutenant said. He saluted once more and then made his way towards the distant doors. Various government officials parted before him, none seeming to want to disturb their princess while she sat on the wide, dark balcony under feeble lanterns and banners that swayed on the spring breezes.

He is not headed to Ponyville.

At just about 10:15 a.m., Spike was ready to be done with the sewers, thank you very much. He had been forced to backtrack a few times, and more than once he had gone splashing through things he would rather not have gone splashing through.

He went waddling along one corridor, once more admiring the brickwork, when he noticed that the stones themselves were becoming smoother in one direction, almost like they were funneling something in a certain direction.

This being a sewer, he was almost afraid to ask what that something could be. He wandered around in a little circle, staring at the smooth stones and wondering at their purpose. He then realized that, had he been following the smooth stones all along, he would have arrived at this spot a lot earlier.

He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He then screamed and ran around in a circle, flailing his arms as he realized he had touched his face with his “sewer hands.” This of course made him drop his torch into the putrid waters of the sewer, casting him into darkness… which made him run and scream that much more.

That was when he noticed the way that the smooth stones seemed to be glowing, and he suddenly became very quiet and still.

At just about 10:15 a.m., Princess Celestia was ready to be done with staring at misty fields, thank you very much. Her legs had begun to ache, and more than once she had been forced to rub them in a very un-princess like way that she would rather not have had to.

Still, she watched the fields. She listed to the small sounds of her court behind her. They seemed apprehensive, almost like they were absorbing the pensive sort of anticipation that sat around her own frame.

It was much to the relief of all when a university-aged earth pony stallion came galloping into the room, pursued by guardponies who were quickly upon him. They wrestled and tussled upon the carpet, pages of the notebooks flying out in all directions, and the room at large became very upset and bothered.

Princess Celestia was very happy for the distraction.

“Please, Majesty! Princess!” called the stallion, wrapping his forelegs around the column where she stood. “I’ve been trying to talk to your for nearly three weeks! Please, Princess, it’s important! I’ve discovered a conspiracy! Canterlot’s security could be compromised at any time!”

“Please, leave him be,” Celestia said. The guards looked up to their princess with some small hesitation. They stopped tugging on the stallion and let him settle to the cold stones of the balcony floor. They then moved a few steps away, close enough to intervene should his intent prove deceitful.

The stallion panted for a few moments and gathered up the pages of his notes that sat stirring in the wind. Powerful magic came alive around him, and soon he realized that Celestia herself was assisting him in recovering the proof of the heresies that he had discovered.

“T-thank you, Majesty. I’m sorry to barge in like this, but this is big,” he said. “This is really, really big.”

He looked up to see her smiling down at him, and the stallion cleared his throat and caught his breath. He looked away with a small blush on his face, but when he turned back to her he found her staring back out across the fields. Her smile had gone, and somehow the balcony felt a little colder. The stallion opened his notebook, feeling it best to make his point and not interfere any more than he had.

“M-my name is Carbon Copy,” he said with a gulp. “I’m an architectural historian. Princess, I’ve discovered something horrible about Canterlot’s sewer system…”

At 10:30 a.m. on the dot, Spike was still staring at the ceiling when something caught his attention. He had walked right past it at first, yet when he backpedalled it became pretty obvious that it was the kind of of thing he really shouldn’t have missed.

A great well of light stood at the end of the tunnel, and he covered his eyes when he gazed upon it. “Whoa,” he whispered, and before he knew what he was doing he was heading towards it. As he approached the light fresher smells replaced the raw stink of the sewer, and soon he saw from where the light was coming.

Vast iron bars stood at the end of the tunnel, and the effluent of the sewers spilled out through them. In the distance, the great, green valley beyond suddenly opened up before him. Below the waters of the sewers poured out in torrent, disappearing into a mist through which he could not gaze.

“Ugh! Ummpfft!” he moaned, doing his best to squeeze through the bars. His pudgy belly made it harder than he’d like to admit. He carefully pulled the haversack through the bars and then looked down into swirling vortex of the waters.

He lifted his head to the misty fields beyond. Beyond the mouth of this sewer lay the beginnings of his journey—his quest—to free Twilight of the shackles that thing had subjected her mind and body to. Artificer Call’s words once more flitted through his mind, and he took a deep gulp. He held his haversack to his chest and took a series of deep breaths.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He was suddenly reminded of jumping off the bridge between the library—and of a certain frog. Yet, unlike that earlier time, there was no safety cord, and the precipice was unknown. But, if he were to go forward, there was only this way. There was only the unknown before him…

…and Twilight was worth it.

“Okay,” he whimpered, and then stepped out of the culvert and into the swirling waters and vast clouds of mist.

He fell a grand total of about six inches and sank into the “mud” up to about his knees.

“Oh!” he said, chucking himself over. “Oh, okay! Stinky… but okay! Heh, that was easy enough!”

Spike picked himself up, checked to make sure his haversack was okay, and then scrambled up the bank and into the fog-filled fields beyond.

Behind him his muddy footprints disappeared into the tall weeds and rushes, and back at the culvert his landing site quickly filled with water, quickly erasing any evidence of his passing. The little dragon could be excused for thinking his escape from the city easy… but it would prove one of the last “easy” things he would experience for a great long while.

A great long while indeed.

At 10:30 a.m. on the dot, Princess Celestia was still staring at the misty meadows when something caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes, and her ears came up like a low horse, searching for the source of the instinctual alarm that had sunk through her.

Her attention went back to the young stallion, Carbon Copy. He was finishing up the detailed explanation of the vast, horrific conspiracy that he had discovered. She had listened politely, but distantly, while he had gone on and on and on and on and on. Finally, after these fifteen long minutes, he summarized his findings.

“So, to summarize my findings,” he stated. “I can only conclude that, from the time of the Classical Pony Period remodeling, Canterlot’s sewers have, in fact, been designed in such a way that they could allow any number of creatures into the city completely unnoticed.”

Silence reigned across the balcony.

“A-and that’s a bad thing, Princess, you see, Majesty. Ma’am,” he said, once more devolving into a rather scared looking young stallion, one who seemed to realize once again who he was addressing.

Another long moment of silence filled the balcony, and the assembled ponies watched Celestia’s ears twitch. “Indeed, it is quite a disturbing revelation,” she said in a quiet voice. “Tell me something, though, young Master Copy.”

“Ma’am?” Carbon Copy answered.

“Would you say that, with the way the sewers are designed, that they could just as easily be used by some creature attempting to leave Canterlot as enter it?” Celestia asked, never looking back to the historian. Instead she listened while he made uncertain sounds and flipped through his notes. Her eyes never left the fields.

“Well, my princess, I would have to say that… well, yes. Yes, somepony could very well use them to get out of the city, too. The design does seem to imply that,” he answered.

Princess Celestia went very quiet. Far, far below her, Spike the Outlaw toppled out of the sewer culvert and into the mud. She watched the little dragon climb the bank, check his haversack, and then make his way up the bank of the creek. It was 10:32 a.m., a time that lodged itself in her mind.

The alicorn watched him disappear into the fog-filled fields, dark waves appearing behind him where he had parted the grasses and flashes of purple and bright green receding into the far distance until finally disappearing in the woods and stoney crags beyond.

Finally.

Princess Celestia took a deep breath. She released it slowly and then turned to face her court. “I thank Carbon Copy for bringing this to the attention of the court. We must make preparations to prevent any such catastrophe from occurring. We should be very grateful that no enemies of ponykind have used it for such purposes to this point. Raven?”

A unicorn mare stepped forward—the princess’s personal secretary. “Yes, Princess?”

“Raven, please introduce Carbon Copy to the Grand Mason of Canterlot. I am sure that she will find what Copy has discovered quite alarming. Please inform her that she has warrant to accomplish what should have been done long ago and has gone far too long without being addressed.”

“Ma’am, thank you so much! This makes it all so worth it!” Carbon Copy gushed, nearly embracing the alicorn. At the last moment he remembered who she was and instead he fell down into a bow.

“You are most welcome, and you have my thanks, Carbon Copy.”

Celestia watched her secretary and the young stallion bow once more. She waited for them to stand and depart the room. In many ways, she wished that Carbon Copy had embraced her—she could desperately have used a hug at that moment.

She turned her head and stared out across the fields once one, for one last time, and then addressed her court. “Come,” she said, abandoning the long, low stone balcony she had occupied the last three mornings. “Let us return to the palace proper. I feel a need to see my advisors, especially the minister of war and my attorney designate. I also need a nap!”

The courtiers laughed at her suddenly lighter tone as they fell in behind their princess. Celestia, though, did not laugh. Indeed, her head seemed to hang a little lower, and something of the spark had come out of her eyes.

“This morning has tired me greatly, and it feels as though it would never come to an end…

…I had almost thought it would go on forever.”