"Royal Business, royal schmizness..." Spike muttered to himself as he trudged through puddles on the Canterlot roads, the rain that made then having no end in sight: "I don't see why Luna didn't just ask one of the guards or a messenger to do this."
His instruction had been simple: "Go to The ScrollMaker, and collect the scroll he made for Princess Luna." Now that he was doing it, once again stuck out in the storm he wasn't happy about it. Before the idea of 'Royal Business' seemed somewhat exciting, but now it just looked like another errand; a run of the mill task much like all the others Twilight had given him over the years. He was satisfied with the work he did, it wasn't belittling and although it did occasionally hurt him he wasn't about to start complaining. But still, something seemed to be missing from the life of the little dragon; something with more meaning than being a housekeeper or an errand boy. Spike lacked the words and life experience to say what it was, or even accurately describe exactly what this void felt like and that only made him want to close it more; to find out what it was and do something with it.
Pushing those thoughts aside he came to the location of The ScrollMaker's business, an unassuming little shack of a place. It was a rundown, creaking and dilapidated wooden building with broken windows, and the shadows within did little to make it look any less ominous.
Spike walked up to the front step and noticed, scrawled in black ink in craggy, narrow letters across a wooden sign the words “Come In”. He gulped and opened the door to find that the building was completely empty. The wooden floors and walls were stained almost completely black, whether it was mold, fire or something else entirely; there it was, blackened wooden floors and walls.
“Hello?” Spike called nervously: “Is anyone there?”
No response. The place was abandoned, it had to be: no one could work in an empty shop with no materials. It just wasn’t possible. He was about to turn around and go back to Luna, tell her it was empty and the ScrollMaker was nowhere to be found when IT caught his eye: a sliver mirror, obscured by shadows in the far corner of the abandoned shop. Something about it made him curious, so he walked over to it.
It was a simple and rather unassuming mirror, very little in the way of decorations or etchings and even the glass didn’t seem to reflect anything.
Spike scratched his head wondering at what it was doing in the shop, left there to collect dust. Hold, there wasn’t a single fleck of dust anywhere on or near the mirror. In fact aside from the blackened wood this dilapidated shop didn’t have a mark or dust speck anywhere on it. So somepony did use this place, but for what?
“welcome,” Spike jumped at the sound of the voice, a voice that sounded like it had come from the mirror: “Please step through if you business with The ScrollMaker.”
Step through? Step through what? The Mirror? Spike walked over to Mirror, he had jumped a good distance away from it and, cautiously leaned into the glass. As soon as his snout touched the glass of the mirror he felt himself being sucked into it, like a vortex pulling one under the waters of the oceans. Before he could resist the magic of this mirror, this portal Spike found himself falling onto a different wooden floor, in what was almost certainly another part of the world.
The sounds of the storm were gone, the air smelled different. In fact the air smelled faintly of magic...
Spike stood up to see that he wasn’t in the same shop, he was in a candle lit room with three or four tables covered with potions, all of which looked and smelled exactly the same.
Smells good.... without thinking Spike reached out and picked up one of the potions and was about to drink it when somepony yelled: “Don’t drink that!”
Spike jumped in alarm for the second time that day, looking to see the owner of the voice. Sure enough there he was, the strangest looking Colt Spike had ever seen: His face and mane were normal enough, save for the bright, almost sickly green eyes with smaller than small pupils and fangs that protruded from his mouth but that wasn’t even the strangest thing about him. His legs were riddled with holes, holes you see clean through and look at what was behind them and that gave Spike pause.
“Ummmm...” He baffled: “Hi. I’m Spike. are you the ScrollMaker?”
The strange colt blinked at Spike with his one visible eye, the other obscured by his black as night Mane: “Yes,” He said: “Though that’s not the foremost question on your mind, is it Spike?” The colt’s voice was calm and void of hostility, despite his rather direct nature.
“No, I guess not...” Spike began: “You’re not a pony, are you?”
The ScrollMaker chuckled: “No,” He said: “No I am not. I am a changeling.”
Spike nodded, though he had no idea what this meant: “So why all the potions?” He shook the one he was still holding to be specific: “Do you do more aside from make Scrolls.”
“Those are my lunch.”
“So why can’t I have any?” Spike raised half of his brow at the Changeling.
“Because they’re love potions,” Spike put the potion as immediately as he heard those words: “I feed off the auras the potions give off rather than, well... that’s just how I feed.”
Spike shrugged: “Okay, I don’t think I get it, but okay.”
The ScrollMaker nodded: “Now as for your scroll,” He tilted his head sideways and his horn lit up, levitating a scroll over to Spike: “no need to be careful this doesn’t get wet, it’s protected against both water and fire. Though I’m not sure why I had to enchant it against fire...”
Spike sighed: “I’m pretty sure I know why.” and he took the scroll, and started getting used to the fact that he’d be delivering it to Luna Personally: “Oh, by the way: what’s your name?”
The ScrollMaker seemed confused by this question, thus his answer came slowly: “It’s Sigil. Sigil the ScrollMaker. Why?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be coming back here,” Spike said sarcastically: “Besides I’d like to be friends, so I should know your name. I’m Spike by the way.” spike held out a clawed hand to shake one of Sigil’s hooves which Sigil, after some hesitation, shook.
“Friends.”
“Cool!” Spike said enthusiastically: “I’ll be back at some point!” and he jumped through the mirror, Leaving Sigil to wonder at what just happened.
“Why does he want to be my friend? Bah, doesn’t matter. I have work to do.” and he set off to do exactly that.
Though one of them was excited to tell his other friends and the other was hesitant to admit it, both of them were more than happy with what had just transpired: A dragon had made a new friend and a Changeling had made his first in a long time.
